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Punish Bad Users With Drupal Misery

If you're sick of banning or deleting troublemakers on your Drupal website, you might want to check out Misery, the module designed to give trolls a taste of their own medicine. Creating a random length delay for a user, redirecting them to a random page, presenting them with a 404 error, and crashing their browser if they're using IE6 are just a few of the things you can make users endure with Misery. I'm still waiting patiently for a Punch In the Nose module, but this is a good start.

418 comments

  1. And here I thought... by cruff · · Score: 4, Funny

    When I read the title I thought it was about being forced to use Drupal at all.

    1. Re:And here I thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      After reading the features of the new module I thought it came pre-installed already...

    2. Re:And here I thought... by jc42 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      When I read the title I thought it was about being forced to use Drupal at all.

      Yeah, me too. A couple of years ago, some clients wanted a drupal-based web site, and I thought it looked interesting, so I, uh, "volunteered" to learn to use it. I bought a couple of textbooks, and found online teaching sites. A month later, I'd produced nothing useful. I'd asked a good number of "How do you ...?" questions on the forum, and the people there were very nice -- but they never actually answered my questions. All sorts of things I tried didn't do at all what I expected, and often I couldn't figure out just what they did instead. Finally, the client was getting tired of saying "We need something soon", so I spent a week building their site by hand, mostly by writing a bunch of perl CGI programs that generated the site from their data. They liked it, started asking for more features, and they're still clients (though the site mostly runs itself now).

      Since then, I've had occasion to advise others looking at drupal to "Don't bother." Or sometimes "You'll be sorry." And I've read a lot of similar comments from others, so I guess it hasn't gotten much better.

      Drupal does have some good PR, though, and they're pretty good at impressing non-techie managers. And they might have some good stuff, if you can figure out how to make it do what you want it to do. I can't tell whether it's good or not, because I seem to be too dumb to understand how to make it work.

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
    3. Re:And here I thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Back in my day, we just redirected them to goatse when they tried to submit a comment.

    4. Re:And here I thought... by AJH16 · · Score: 1

      It does take a different way of thinking but is nice once you have it working. I do some consulting work with it and it is one of the better platforms I've found to work on, but only after really learning the ins and outs of it.

      --
      AJ Henderson
    5. Re:And here I thought... by elfprince13 · · Score: 2

      You're not alone. I'm the webmaster for several 501(c)3's, including one that I helped found, and everyone clamors for Drupal. I looked at the documentation on 4 or 5 occasions and said "No thanks, I'll roll my own much more quickly"

    6. Re:And here I thought... by operator_error · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Drupal is first and foremost a professional publisher's platform with no compromises or apology. Drupal upgrades between versions are something I'll choose not even to discuss; because the pros know what to do already. Developer's are supposed to learn how to handle the professional tools for the job; it can take years for the pros to do this, and often does.

      There's advantages and disadvantages to everything, so why not embrace the advantages while trying to work past any (initial?) disadvantages?

      One advantage Drupal offers as opposed to rolling your own is the security of a lot of eyeballs against common SQL injection attacks, which seems ultimately responsible for taking down HBGary and the probably the Sony PSN network too. Hey, the White House uses Drupal publicly, and internally to replace famously-inept emails systems, along with NASA, the congress, the Economist.com...

      Also from the owners' point of view, the Drupal framework is going to be easier to support than your system if you're not around, (and you can sell that as a feature, now).

    7. Re:And here I thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Same here. I used to be Drupal-exclusive developer, but besides it being a very convoluted platform to develop for, there was zero hope of training any end-user to manage their own content. When I discovered WordPress, I thought to myself "I can get the same results in less than half the time - and most of that time is spent researching the APIs.

      So now I focus on WordPress for most things, and CakePHP or Lithium for projects where WordPress simply won't do (albeit that is a list of uses that is shrinking rapidly). Better, I can train anyone on WordPress in 10 minutes. Strike that, I can train anyone's GRANDMA on WordPress in 10 minutes.

      These days, I would only build a client's project on Drupal if I really, really hated them.

    8. Re:And here I thought... by mangu · · Score: 2

      Your points are very relevant about the roll your own vs. use a framework debate, but Drupal is not the only framework available.

      What I would like to see is a comparison between Drupal, Rails, and Django. The problem is finding a way to compare those three without falling immediately into a flame war.

    9. Re:And here I thought... by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

      Drupal, Rails, and Django

      Drupal vs. Django makes sense but I think Rails is too generic to really make much of a comparison with... it's not as put together a thing as the other two systems, Rails is more something you'd build something like Drupal atop of.

      Drupal and Django are higher level abstractions than Rails.

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    10. Re:And here I thought... by thePowerOfGrayskull · · Score: 2

      If it takes years for a professional to learn how to effectively use any piece of software, that's a sign that the software is very poorly designed indeed.

    11. Re:And here I thought... by lymond01 · · Score: 1

      Yes indeed. CMSes in general are non-trivial for administrators, and hopefully easy for content updaters. We've used Plone, Drupal, Wordpress -- they aren't "install and go" applications by any means, and that goes double for a highly available environment. For Plone I highly recommend the Bootcamps they put on. Just trying to read the online documentation available will just get you into the forums asking smart questions and getting smarter answers which you can't understand.

    12. Re:And here I thought... by micheas · · Score: 1

      Drupal has many more modules than rails or django, making it the most like to find an almost out of the box solution that is quick to get working.

      Django is a lot more limited in what will host it, but seems to be the fastest for developing completely new applications.

      Rails is somewhere in the middle of Drupal an Django.

    13. Re:And here I thought... by cwgmpls · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You think Drupal has gotten to over 7 million installs based on good PR? I've been building Drupal sites for over four years. I remember the first time I tried it, I had a site up and running from scratch in a couple hours. I'm not sure what you bought the textbooks for. The facts speak for themselves: over 7 million installs, and one person who can't "understand how to make it work".

    14. Re:And here I thought... by cwgmpls · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You won't find a framework comparison between Drupal, Rails and Django, because Drupal is not a framework. Drupal is a CMS. Rails and Django are frameworks. You can used Rails and Django to build a CMS if you want to. You can't use Drupal to build a CMS, because it already is one. You'll find plenty of comparisons between Rails and Django if you Google them -- they are both frameworks. You'll also find plenty of comparisons between Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress, and Plone -- they are all CMSs. You won't find a framework comparison between Drupal, Rails and Django.

    15. Re:And here I thought... by macinnisrr · · Score: 2

      What's so hard about Drupal? It was the first CMS I ever used (before that I had built sites with Kompozer, iWeb, and Dreamweaver, and before that, I used old fashioned HTML in the 90s), and I found it not only easy to use, but that being able to use modules for ecommerce, flash, mp3s, rotating banners, etc. made the whole site WAY more appealing to users at a level of complexity I could never do on my own (I tried hacking together bits of java, flash, etc. in the past). Not only that, but once it's set up, like all CMS systems, I can administer from the web, from anywhere, and it just works. I didn't even buy a book, just read tutorials and did google searches on the things I couldn't figure out on my own (admittedly not very much). I had considered myself very much an amateur before using Drupal, and I'm certainly no programmer, but now I use it to administer three of my own sites and two that I was hired to create for people I know. Drupal is great for its flexibility and easy interface, but I would agree that it's a bit overkill for 90% of the sites people create, where all they need is a simple information site with some pictures. If that's the case, use wordpress. P.S. Although I recommend Wordpress for simple sites, when I first used it after having done a couple sites in Drupal, I was utterly baffled at the differences, and I'm sure it works both ways.

    16. Re:And here I thought... by mattack2 · · Score: 2

      Drupal upgrades between versions are something I'll choose not even to discuss; because the pros know what to do already.

      Why don't you discuss it?

      I would expect a "professional publisher's platform" to be able to handle upgrades between versions seamlessly, or very close to that (possibly tool-assisted migration path).

      I would expect a hack someone threw together and grew into a monster to be a pain in the !@$# to upgrade between versions, if it were even possible without major rewrites.

    17. Re:And here I thought... by operator_error · · Score: 2

      How long does it take to learn to develop SAP or Oracle business applications, for example? How much does such a job pay? Maybe 'relatively complex' environments have something going for them after all? I mean these things are in-place with their own markets for developers to engage in. (And books exist, while open-source code is actually a.v.a.i.l.a.b.l.e, and legal!) If one expects everything to be sugar-coated as simple as an iPhone GUI, one might expect to earn less per day as well. The converse is true as well. Supply and demand always applies, like it's a natural law or something.

    18. Re:And here I thought... by BitterOak · · Score: 2

      It does take a different way of thinking but is nice once you have it working. I do some consulting work with it and it is one of the better platforms I've found to work on, but only after really learning the ins and outs of it.

      It's not easy to learn those ins and outs, though. I went through several books before I found one I could learn out of (Pro Drupal Development, 2nd Ed. was the one I finally learned something from, but even it wasn't as complete as I really needed.)

      --
      If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
    19. Re:And here I thought... by NMerriam · · Score: 1

      I've built and worked on several Drupal sites, and it is definitely a love/hate relationship. It is a system built by programmers, for programmers, with some site building stuff tacked on. It has gotten better over the years, but it still feels a lot like a college programming project that grew too big. There's lots of theoretical greatness to it, while it seems to have been built by people who never actually built a real web site before. Basic things like adding images, or trying to change layouts has historically been a huge PITA. But every site gets a slogan and primary/secondary menus. WTF?

      --
      Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
    20. Re:And here I thought... by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

      Drupal is not a framework. It is a CMS.
      Here is a fast comparison.
      Druapl is a CMS.
      Drupal is written in PHP.
      Django is a framework.
      Django is written in Python.
      Rails. is a framework.
      Rails is written in Ruby.

      Drupal has a huge number of modules and themes available. You can create a pretty advanced website just from adding modules. If you need to allow multi level security, shopping carts, discussion forums, and so on Drupal may be the tool you need.
      Django and Rails are more for programmers to develop web applications than to create websites.
      Frankly for a lot of people WordPress is going to be good enough.
      The downside to both Django and Rails is going to be support. A lot of cheap hosts do not have ruby or python installed while everybody has PHP+MySQL. I have seen lots of good work done in Django and Rails but I have used them myself but My company runs it's website on Drupal and while there is a learning curve it does work and work well.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    21. Re:And here I thought... by lennier · · Score: 1

      How long does it take to learn to develop SAP or Oracle business applications, for example? How much does such a job pay? Maybe 'relatively complex' environments have something going for them after all?

      If that something going for them is purely developer lock-in due to complexity and steep learning curve, then that's not a very compelling argument if you're wanting to find a good tool rather than a secret handshake.

      I suppose it's possible that a complex tool is also a good tool, but complexity is not in general, in itself, good. Some of the most powerful ideas in the history of knowledge have been the simplest, and the simpler a tool, generally the less likely it is to cause unexpected failures.

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
    22. Re:And here I thought... by LordLucless · · Score: 1

      A CMS is not on the same scale as SAP. Not even remotely close. By multiple orders of magnitude. CMS is really a very simple problem domain.

      --
      Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
    23. Re:And here I thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It _is_ really hard to get started with Drupal because you have to learn how to use all the pieces together effectively. Once you do that, you'll find that it's a powerful and flexible tool that's unmatched among CMSs. I did some Rails work before learning Drupal. Rails is a fantastic framework, but there aren't any mature CMSs built on top of Rails, so projects need to be built from scratch each time, and all that code needs to be maintained.

      I've been programming in various languages for almost twenty years now, and even with all my experience, I did struggle with Drupal at first. But I consider the effort well worth it. Instead of advising others against Drupal, it might be better to educate them on the strengths and weaknesses of the Drupal approach, to see if it fits their needs.

      My simple advice: Don't use it for time-critical projects before you familiarize yourself with it. Learning Drupal is an investment in your future.

    24. Re:And here I thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mod parent up, please. This bit of clarity needs constant re-emphasis, CMSs != Frameworks. Thank you, cwg.

    25. Re:And here I thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Did you really just compare Drupal to SAP?

    26. Re:And here I thought... by muphin · · Score: 1

      Drupal is LAYG (Learn As You Go) as its so dynamic and versatile and can be manipulated in so many ways, especially with the new version (7).
      Theres no point learning everything about the system as most of the knowledge will go unused, its better to setup the framework and then add the features you need by learning how to add them to the API.
      With enough detail, help in the forums are unbelievable.

      --
      It's not a typo if you understood the meaning!
    27. Re:And here I thought... by kaizokuace · · Score: 1

      too dumb to understand how to make it work.

      or not dumb enough!

      --
      Balderdash!
    28. Re:And here I thought... by yelvington · · Score: 0

      "No thanks, I'll roll my own much more quickly"

      ... ensuring your continued employment. You're part of the problem, not the solution.

    29. Re:And here I thought... by elfprince13 · · Score: 1

      I'm on the board of directors of one, and working for half price for the other. *eyeroll*

    30. Re:And here I thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I like Drupal in some ways -- it has some very high end features, that would take a LOT of time to produce in other ways. Unlike the complainers above, I DO think some time with Drupal pays off.

      BUT, let's not kid ourselves. Drupal it's definitely NOT pro in its overall design. The whole idea is to do everything through a web GUI, which undermines standard professional practices like version control, code sharing, peer review, using a decent editing tool, deployment, etc.

    31. Re:And here I thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "I can't tell whether it's good or not, because I seem to be too dumb to understand how to make it work."

      You sound bad at what you do.

    32. Re:And here I thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "You think Drupal has gotten to over 7 million installs based on good PR?"

      A lot of shitty systems have become popular with good PR.
      Drupal could easily be shitty.

    33. Re:And here I thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oracle and SAP ARE examples of badly designed buisness applications, there is a reason why there are a large number of alternatives, most of which you don't hear about because they just work.

    34. Re:And here I thought... by vegiVamp · · Score: 1

      Guess which of the two Drupal is.

      --
      What a depressingly stupid machine.
    35. Re:And here I thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > so I guess it hasn't gotten much better.

      Today's Tip: when you find yourself about to write "gotten", stop for a moment and think of a verb that is more suitable.

      e.g. "gotten better" -> "improved"

      Not only is it quicker and simpler, but people won't think you're lazy.

    36. Re:And here I thought... by Phopojijo · · Score: 1

      It's fine enough to roll your own if it's your own website and you're decent at security... but if you're contracting someone out you need to think "what if I need to contract someone ELSE out at some point" or "what if I piss him off".

      Always plan for contingencies if it's a big contingency.

    37. Re:And here I thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > How long does it take to learn to develop SAP or Oracle business applications, for example?

      You're not making a good case for Drupal being well-designed here....

    38. Re:And here I thought... by mcvos · · Score: 1

      Drupal has many more modules than rails or django, making it the most like to find an almost out of the box solution that is quick to get working.

      More than rails? I'm not sure how many "gems" there are for rails, but it's a lot. Enough to occasionally make it hard to find the one you need. Same thing with Grails (which I have somewhat more experience with). There are tons of plugins that are very easy to use. And when you can't find a suitable plugin, you can just drop a Java lib into your project and use that.

    39. Re:And here I thought... by WWWWolf · · Score: 1

      I would expect a "professional publisher's platform" to be able to handle upgrades between versions seamlessly, or very close to that (possibly tool-assisted migration path).

      What that meant was that you need to actually make some preparations before you migrate the site to the next major version. And these preparations can be pretty extensive. Especially if you're depending on the functionality that doesn't come out of the box (since a lot of Drupal functionality comes from non-core modules). Software that isn't massively customised or extended (e.g. Bugzilla) tends to fare better over upgrades.

      I've not used Drupal much, but - hint hint - this is the same situation as every other damn package that depends on external modules has. I've actually yet to see a "professional" anything that you can just stick in and go, because "professional" software sort of assumes that the user knows what they're doing and are making actual plans so that the end users won't end up suffering in the unlikely scenario where the said professional somehow fucks up.

      The bottom line is this: it's your site, you've decided to make some tweaks that lead out of the Boring Defaults zone, and the software can no longer guarantee that the upgrade is entirely smooth. It can, and should, facilitate it as far as it's possible. But ultimately, it's you who needs to say "Sorry, boss, we really need the Tweakulator module and it's not compatible with Mega-CMS 2.0 - but it's coming. We'll need to delay the migration until it works. Because if we did it now, we'd not have the same functionality and people would complain."

    40. Re:And here I thought... by elfprince13 · · Score: 1

      Seems like a situation where a small code base would be much more desirable than some flipping huge monstrosity that could be hiding nasty surprises anywhere.

    41. Re:And here I thought... by operator_error · · Score: 1

      Since you asked, I'll be pleased to elaborate.

      The Drupal Devs do not care about providing any kind of backward compatibility, like you might expect from a one-click installer. The reason is because no one has any interest in supporting old open-source cruft; all resources go towards the new, latest tech.

      This does not mean your data fails to upgrade! The procedure in a nutshell is to temporarily switch of all extraneous modules (contrib repos), then upgrade the content between versions, then add next-gen modules.

      Of course many of those modules being used do not have next-gen versions, so you might need to upgrade that code yourself; hopefully contributing back to drupal.org. Or find a replacement functional solution and implement that, or wait for the module devs to provide these upgrades for you, or ditch the functionality altogether. The stakeholders must question whether resources merit such an upgrade, and when. No matter what, skilled labor or patience and determination are required to see and upgrade a drupal website well. Bottom line it is the contributed modules used that determine the complexity of the upgrade.

    42. Re:And here I thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You think Windows has gotten to over 700 million installs based on good PR? I've been installing Windows sites for over fourteen years. I remember the first time I tried it, I had a site up and running from scratch in a couple hours. I'm not sure what you bought the textbooks for. The facts speak for themselves: over 700 million installs, and one person who can't "understand how to make it work".

    43. Re:And here I thought... by blakieto · · Score: 1

      Actually, technically, Drupal IS a framework that happens to come with a CMS built in that framework. The Drupal API is huge, fairly well organized, modular and capable of creating practically anything. Comparisons with Drupal are difficult because it is not JUST a framework but is ALSO a content management system. I've heard the term content management framework used in an effort for clarity.

    44. Re:And here I thought... by mattack2 · · Score: 1

      The Drupal Devs do not care about providing any kind of backward compatibility

      Then I would disagree with your statement that it's a "professional" platform.

      (BTW, I do not work in web publishing, but I would say the same of any developer tool.)

    45. Re:And here I thought... by mattack2 · · Score: 1

      I've not used Drupal much, but - hint hint - this is the same situation as every other damn package that depends on external modules has. I've actually yet to see a "professional" anything that you can just stick in and go, because "professional" software sort of assumes that the user knows what they're doing and are making actual plans so that the end users won't end up suffering in the unlikely scenario where the said professional somehow fucks up.

      Well, in terms of operating systems, backwards compatibility(*) is taken very seriously, and third party apps working on one version and not on the next version is a bad problem to have, even when it is the third party app not following the rules.

      (*) or documented incompatibilities, e.g. removing emulators or things like Classic.. which IMHO I didn't like the removal of.

    46. Re:And here I thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Everything is a CMS, you just think you write web apps.

    47. Re:And here I thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Obvious troll. I made a Drupal site in a few days, and I'm not even a techie.

    48. Re:And here I thought... by NNKK · · Score: 1

      You've proven the point. The tools you mentioned are poorly designed pieces of overpriced shit. The jobs pay well because non-technical management decides on the technology based on what slimy salesmen and bribed outside consultants tell them, then goes looking for people qualified to deal with it, and finds them in extremely short supply, because everyone else had the brains to avoid it like the plague.

    49. Re:And here I thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agreed. I think us developers have a habit of declaring own own perceptions of what is "good" to everything we see and when we come across something that is completely different we judge it as bad because it is different and don't take the time to learn what might be good about it.

      It's really not that you can't understand it's that you can't be bothered.

    50. Re:And here I thought... by mjwalshe · · Score: 1

      testify brother testify.

    51. Re:And here I thought... by mjwalshe · · Score: 1

      >>professional publisher's platform

      For a very low value of professional.

    52. Re:And here I thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is just wrong. If Drupal isn't a framework, why can I build whatever I want I want in it? Why did I have to learn Drupal's hook based architecture, file-naming conventions, function naming conventions, templating system, and all of the other things that are part of every other framework?

      Unlike the smart ass commenters here, I actually contribute open source software. And I choose to write my code in the Drupal framework.

    53. Re:And here I thought... by wwphx · · Score: 1

      I have to ask the obvious: is Joomla equally disliked, and for the same or different reasons?

      --
      When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
    54. Re:And here I thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm glad someone got this in here. I'm stunned that someone who can write well-enough in perl would have any kind of difficulty reading php. .. After all it is a thread about anti-trolling software. Haha.

  2. their/they're by mosb1000 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    "Their" denotes ownership, "They're" is short for they are.

    1. Re:their/they're by smelch · · Score: 5, Funny

      Really? Thank you so fucking much. Nobody knew that at all. It certainly couldn't have just been a slip, it had to come from ignorance. I'm so excited that I can come to this free internet to learn about grammar from such excellent minds as yours.

      --
      If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
    2. Re:their/they're by tonytraductor · · Score: 2

      You beat me too it.

    3. Re:their/they're by mosb1000 · · Score: 0, Troll

      Glad I could help.

    4. Re:their/they're by sunking2 · · Score: 1

      Not to mention redundant. The first their tells us who the subject is. There is no reason to reference them again with another they.

      "crashing their browser if using IE6" is sufficient.

    5. Re:their/they're by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Jesus Smelch, calm down.

      I guess this may be news to you but there actually *are* a lot of people posting on the Internet who have terrible grammar and spelling.

    6. Re:their/they're by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      HHHHHHGGGRRGHGRRRRR! think work make brane not happy feel! must put keyboard words on screen fastlyer! stop brane not happy feel! FASTLYER KEYBOARD WORDS ELSE NO WIN! word sound same so word be same ok. must not waist time on think work else not get done befour next guy!

    7. Re:their/they're by gstoddart · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Really? Thank you so fucking much. Nobody knew that at all. It certainly couldn't have just been a slip, it had to come from ignorance.

      Except, in theory we have these people called editors whose job it is to actually, you know, edit the submissions for some semblance of grammatical and spelling goodness.

      In theory, these people even get paid for this task, which is intended to actually cause them to do it instead of blindly clicking.

      But, hey, snark all you want ... why should Slashdot be any different from the mainstream media, where spelling and identifying which homonym to use is also going by the way side.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    8. Re:their/they're by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      -1 redundant, or -1 troll? Moderators, you decide!

    9. Re:their/they're by smelch · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I'm not saying they shouldn't correct it, but explaining it to an editor is the kind of thing a butthole would do. Do you honestly think they didn't already know the difference? You said it yourself, they get paid for this. They know the most basic grammar. It's irritating watching all these posts about one typo, acting as if they're telling something the editor didn't know. But if your little lesson in 3rd grade grammar makes you feel like you're contributing go ahead. Be honest, if you were typing and somebody was reading over your shoulder and told you "Oh, by the way, knew with a 'k' is the past tense of know with a 'k' (as opposed to N-O, the opposite of yes) but you typed 'new' as in not old" wouldn't you think that guy was a total ass? I certainly would. The difference between "its" and "it's" is more reasonable to explain since people are legitimately confused by it.

      --
      If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
    10. Re:their/they're by Slur · · Score: 1

      Slash should totally highlight troublesome words in the editor view. The worst ones on the web are:

      Loose / lose
      There / their / they're
      Definately (sic)
      Its / it's
      Lead / led

      I've seen lots of 'loose' used for 'lose' especially. The iOS (helpfully) corrects 'its' to 'it's' every time, leading to more of these errors. I have no idea why people think 'lead' is the past tense of -uh- 'lead' nor why 'definately' is such a common mistake, but generally most people are pretty bad spellers, not to mention we have varying degrees of dylsexia.

      --
      -- thinkyhead software and media
    11. Re:their/they're by Slur · · Score: 1

      And how could I forget 'to' / 'too'?

      --
      -- thinkyhead software and media
    12. Re:their/they're by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      I'm not saying they shouldn't correct it, but explaining it to an editor is the kind of thing a butthole would do. Do you honestly think they didn't already know the difference?

      Didn't know ... didn't fix it ... didn't care ... same difference. The net effect is that the editor didn't edit, and one of the countless pedants on Slashdot pointed out that it was wrong.

      Your account ID is high enough that you might not actually realize that pedantry and being a grammar-nazi is a sport around here. Pointing out something that only a butthole would ... well, yeah.

      If you're going to get worked up every time it happens, you might die of stress-induced factors by the end of the week. You can pretty much count on it, every day, in most stories. It's been like that for a long time, and you pissing and moaning about it won't actually help.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    13. Re:their/they're by smelch · · Score: 1

      Maybe you didn't realize you were dealing with a butthole-nazi. And I don't need to solve all of Slashdots problems over night. If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.

      --
      If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
    14. Re:their/they're by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 2

      You should of ;-) included then/than.

      --
      No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
    15. Re:their/they're by smelch · · Score: 1

      Alright alright, I apologize for my knee-jerk, anti-butthole reaction. Sometimes you focus so much on finding buttholes, that you don't notice the one in the mirror.

      --
      If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
    16. Re:their/they're by TheLink · · Score: 1

      Except, in theory we have these people called editors whose job it is to actually, you know, edit the submissions for some semblance of grammatical and spelling goodness.

      Or the editors get paid extra to troll the users? ;)

      After all more comments makes their stats look better and maybe generates more ad impressions.

      --
    17. Re:their/they're by Joce640k · · Score: 1

      This isn't a 'posting', it's a headline.

      It's on a major web site and it's supposed to have gone through an editor and/or screening process before we get to read it.

      --
      No sig today...
    18. Re:their/they're by gstoddart · · Score: 2

      If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.

      I think you've found your new sig. ;-)

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    19. Re:their/they're by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      Or the editors get paid extra to troll the users? ;)

      After all more comments makes their stats look better and maybe generates more ad impressions.

      While that completely violates Hanlon's Razor ... I like your ideas, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter. ;-)

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    20. Re:their/they're by geekoid · · Score: 2

      You call that a sentence?

      Who is glad? who are you helping? are you helping yourself?

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    21. Re:their/they're by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Crashing their browser if it's IE6" is less weird.

    22. Re:their/they're by mosb1000 · · Score: 1

      No worries, it happens to the best of us.

    23. Re:their/they're by element-o.p. · · Score: 1

      Don't forget Rouge / Rogue

      --
      MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
    24. Re:their/they're by meerling · · Score: 1

      Most people seem to be using spelling and grammar checking programs which are notorious at getting certain things wrong. Other than that, only grammar nazis give a rodents donkey about a their/they're mix up on an internet forum like slashdot.

      If you want to complain about my lack of capitalization of nazis, go right ahead, it's intentional. They are definitely not a proper noun in my opinion.

    25. Re:their/they're by Belial6 · · Score: 1

      That one got me for the longest time. I actually put myself on a self imposed ban from even using that word for a while. That is why I say that it is a bad idea to complain to much about spelling and grammar. We all make mistakes, and on the odd occasion that I have decided to have a spelling/grammer debate with the Nazi of the day, it always ends with them making spelling and grammer mistakes. If enough words are written, even the best spellers and grammer...ers(?) will make mistakes.

    26. Re:their/they're by Belial6 · · Score: 1

      Hanlon's Razor is self referencing.

    27. Re:their/they're by similar_name · · Score: 2

      I have no idea why people think 'lead' is the past tense of -uh- 'lead'

      Probably because 'read' is the past tense of 'read'.

    28. Re:their/they're by similar_name · · Score: 2

      I'll except it :)

    29. Re:their/they're by causality · · Score: 1

      Alright alright, I apologize for my knee-jerk, anti-butthole reaction. Sometimes you focus so much on finding buttholes, that you don't notice the one in the mirror.

      The willingness to admit that definitely qualifies you as "not a butthole". There is no uncertainty about that. I wish that kind of honesty were more common.

      It reminds me of that saying, "an error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it".

      To answer your previous post... the use of the English language and its grammar comes quite naturally to me. The correct use of words like "they're" and "their" and "there" is effortless and automatic. It requires no conscious thought; the correct word just seems to fit. I would have to deliberately go out of my way to use them incorrectly. Someone looking over my shoulder as I write would see that I touch-type -- since I am looking at the screen the entire time, I correct any typos and such on-the-fly. It's not so much that I am trying to look for them; it's more like they stand out as something that immediately doesn't look right to me. They get my attention on their own.

      Now, do I do that perfectly without ever making a mistake? No, I'm a human being. For just that reason I'd give it a beginning-to-end proofreading prior to submitting it to an audience of many thousands. I would do that to account for the fact that I'm not perfect. I'd bother to account for that because I believe that something worth doing is worth doing well, not to mention that being involved, giving a damn, and doing a good job provides a certain satisfaction that can be difficult to find elsewhere.

      I'm not claiming special status here, only that people have strengths and weaknesses and this is one of my strengths. The point I am making is that if I seriously struggled with things like this, and had no intention of doing whatever it took to change that, then I would have no business taking a job as an editor. I would consider myself incompetent and unqualified. That's alright because everyone can't be skilled at every task, but the skills I do and don't have definitely determine the tasks I consider myself competent to handle.

      If I were the editor, I would consider myself personally responsible for a discussion where the first few dozen posts are off-topic references to my poor editing that thousands of users must now sift through to get to the topic at hand. What I wouldn't do is expect someone to pay me for work that is unprofessional and mediocre. I think the vast number of comments about it are because it's such a regular event. It's not the occasional error that slips through the cracks, which would be understandable.

      --
      It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
    30. Re:their/they're by maxwell+demon · · Score: 2

      You call that a sentence?

      Who is glad? who are you helping? are you helping yourself?

      No, it is some person named "Glad I" who could help.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    31. Re:their/they're by blair1q · · Score: 1

      In theory.

      In reality, I have seen them edit my submissions, in particular to un-hyperlink some things for which the hyperlinking is redundant. And capitalization. They seem to deal in that.

      Not so much for grammar, though, and there's some sentence structure I rushed and wish I had to do over again. I think they may leave those in just to...fuck with us...hmm...

    32. Re:their/they're by blair1q · · Score: 1

      HAHAHAHHAHAHAAAAAA!

      Seriously?

      On my browser (right now it's FF 3.x on RH 5.x) the edit box doesn't even bound the text. I have to guess what words are under the right edge of it, or compose in another window and paste into the box. Honestly, on this browser/OS combo, /. behaves like incredible crap.

      Asking the thing to have more features to screw up? Might as well ask it to crash on cue.

    33. Re:their/they're by lgw · · Score: 1

      it's supposed to have gone through an editor and/or screening process before we get to read it

      You must be new here.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    34. Re:their/they're by lgw · · Score: 1

      On my browser (right now it's FF 3.x on RH 5.x) the edit box doesn't even bound the text. I have to guess what words are under the right edge of it, or compose in another window and paste into the box. Honestly, on this browser/OS combo, /. behaves like incredible crap.

      And yet it works beautifully on IE for Windows. This from the folks who refused to fix the page-widening bug for months because it only affected IE, and who cares about those losers. I have to chuckle at the irony every time I read the modern complaints.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    35. Re:their/they're by mangu · · Score: 1

      You call that a sentence?

      Who is glad? who are you helping? are you helping yourself?

      No, it is some person named "Glad I" who could help.

      I'm pretty sure Glad I is dead by now, otherwise he would be known simply as "Glad". The reason they call him Glad I is to differentiate him from his successor, Glad II.

    36. Re:their/they're by CCarrot · · Score: 1

      Just 'insure' you get it right next time...;-)

      --
      "I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
    37. Re:their/they're by thePowerOfGrayskull · · Score: 1

      -1 Muphry

    38. Re:their/they're by CCarrot · · Score: 1

      Slash should totally highlight troublesome words in the editor view.

      Check out The Oatmeal

      Here's a whole series devoted to grammar.

      Always informative and amusing.

      --
      "I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
    39. Re:their/they're by networkBoy · · Score: 1

      affect/effect

      --
      whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
    40. Re:their/they're by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No flame, but grammer/grammar

    41. Re:their/they're by maxwell+demon · · Score: 1

      You call that a sentence?

      Who is glad? who are you helping? are you helping yourself?

      No, it is some person named "Glad I" who could help.

      I'm pretty sure Glad I is dead by now, otherwise he would be known simply as "Glad". The reason they call him Glad I is to differentiate him from his successor, Glad II.

      Glad I isn't dead. He just abdicated.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    42. Re:their/they're by Genda · · Score: 1

      Yes, good old Glad... he invented cold pressing for olive oil you know... That's why they called him "Glad, the Impeller!!!"

    43. Re:their/they're by mangu · · Score: 1

      Glad I isn't dead. He just abdicated.

      I see. He abdicated to marry a divorced woman and became a duke.

    44. Re:their/they're by The+End+Of+Days · · Score: 1

      You've been around here long enough to stop whining about it by now. Seriously.

    45. Re:their/they're by smellotron · · Score: 1

      Don't forget Rouge / Rogue

      That one got me for the longest time.

      That's easy to remember: Rouge is a color, and Rogue is the class that gets snake attacks while flanking.

    46. Re:their/they're by gnapster · · Score: 1
    47. Re:their/they're by Belial6 · · Score: 1

      Exactly my point.

  3. Alternatively by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    If Misery isn't enough for you, you can try the module "Crime Against Humanity". It forces the trolls to admin a site that runs Drupal.

    1. Re:Alternatively by greg1104 · · Score: 2

      Another easy way to randomly delay users, show them the wrong data, and return 404 errors under load is to build your site with one of those trendy Rails frameworks. Make sure to use MySQL with MyISAM "for speed" if you want even more inexplicable service outages.

      A third implementation would be to redirect the trolls over to the version of the site hosted in "the cloud".

    2. Re:Alternatively by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No-one in their right mind uses MySQL anyway.

  4. For the sake of satisfying my curiosity... by _0xd0ad · · Score: 1

    What code are they using to crash IE6?

    1. Re:For the sake of satisfying my curiosity... by recoiledsnake · · Score: 5, Funny

      HTML code

      --
      This space for rent.
    2. Re:For the sake of satisfying my curiosity... by RagManX · · Score: 2

      Almost any modern HTML + CSS page? :)

    3. Re:For the sake of satisfying my curiosity... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      may be this http://www.crashie.com/

    4. Re:For the sake of satisfying my curiosity... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In some versions of IE. I think <8 writing <crash> triggers an exception code that made it out to production.

    5. Re:For the sake of satisfying my curiosity... by _0xd0ad · · Score: 1

      URL blocked by policy.

      Well, I can't say that's surprising...

    6. Re:For the sake of satisfying my curiosity... by Richard+Dick+Head · · Score: 1

      case 'crash_ie6':
      drupal_add_js('for (x in document.write) {
      document.write(x); }', 'inline');
      break;

    7. Re:For the sake of satisfying my curiosity... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      for (x in document.write) { document.write(x);}

    8. Re:For the sake of satisfying my curiosity... by _0xd0ad · · Score: 2

      Well... I successfully crashed IE7 with this:

      function f(){document.body.innerHTML+="<div style='height:1px;width:1px;position:absolute;'></div>";window.setInterval("f();",1);}window.setInterval("f();",1);

      (Well - it hasn't crashed, yet, but it's not responding, pegging the CPU and slowly ballooning in memory. I'm pretty sure it'll crash eventually.)

    9. Re:For the sake of satisfying my curiosity... by kikito · · Score: 1

      White space.

    10. Re:For the sake of satisfying my curiosity... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm intrigued about pegging a CPU, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

    11. Re:For the sake of satisfying my curiosity... by nomel · · Score: 1

      Maybe it's something similar to this code that crashes firefox
      https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=148963

      Bug report I posted about it in 2004.
      https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=239840

      Funny thing is, it used to just hang back it 2004, now it's a hard crash with firefox 4.

    12. Re:For the sake of satisfying my curiosity... by nomel · · Score: 1

      Never mind! Only crashes Firefox 4.0. I'm a dummy.

    13. Re:For the sake of satisfying my curiosity... by ais523 · · Score: 2

      When I was at school, I crashed what IIRC was IE4 (on, I think, windows 95) by creating a frameset that referred to itself. It didn't just take down IE, but also the Start menu (which on a computer where control-alt-delete was restricted by policy, made it rather interesting to log out afterwards). For bonus points, it popped up a "this program is using a lot of memory, do you want to exit it?" dialog box, but both the "Yes" and "No" buttons had no effect.

      --
      (1)DOCOMEFROM!2~.2'~#1WHILE:1<-"'?.1$.2'~'"':1/.1$.2'~#0"$#65535'"$"'"'&.1$.2'~'#0$#65535'"$#0'~#32767$#1"
    14. Re:For the sake of satisfying my curiosity... by _0xd0ad · · Score: 1

      I'm in FF4 and that page doesn't crash me. I just get a black screen and "Done Hanging" in white.

    15. Re:For the sake of satisfying my curiosity... by _0xd0ad · · Score: 1

      I checked and it seems to lock up Firefox 4.0 pretty well too. Can't seem to lock up Opera's interface, though... even when it consumes a full core I can still click the back/home/close buttons.

      I tweaked it a little and added a random delay. For even more fun, you could make it something like a 1% chance on any onScroll or onClick event...

      function f(){document.body.innerHTML+="<div style='height:1px;width:1px;position:absolute;'></div>";window.setInterval("f();",1);}for(var i=0,t=Math.random()*5000+5000;i<5000;i++)setTimeout('window.setInterval("f();",1);',t);

    16. Re:For the sake of satisfying my curiosity... by amicusNYCL · · Score: 1

      *clap clap*

      Rarely do I literally bust out laughing. Well done.

      --
      "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
    17. Re:For the sake of satisfying my curiosity... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      <style>*{position:relative}</style><table><input></table>

    18. Re:For the sake of satisfying my curiosity... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I imagine it's that little trick where you blow up a page or image to some huge size, and IE6 crashes trying to create the window.

    19. Re:For the sake of satisfying my curiosity... by thePowerOfGrayskull · · Score: 1

      One of the few times in recent memory I've actually laughed aloud at a comment here.

    20. Re:For the sake of satisfying my curiosity... by Ardaen · · Score: 1

      There are so many well known bugs that can crash IE6 that Wikipedia even lists a few examples: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_6#Criticism

      There is a reason so many people hate and criticize it. It's very very easy to despise.

    21. Re:For the sake of satisfying my curiosity... by GeorgeS · · Score: 1

      BRAVO! ....
      I just blew Mug root beer all over my shiny new LED Acer 20" wide LCD monitor :)

      --
      "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than have to have a frontal lobotomy."
    22. Re:For the sake of satisfying my curiosity... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Specifically, the p tag.

    23. Re:For the sake of satisfying my curiosity... by Sinthet · · Score: 1

      You sir, are a genuis.

    24. Re:For the sake of satisfying my curiosity... by akayani · · Score: 1

      As long as you don't use any CSS or JavaScript there is nothing wrong with IE. Just stick to tables if you need to do anything trick. ;)

    25. Re:For the sake of satisfying my curiosity... by ctrimm · · Score: 1

      Valid HTML code.

      FTFY

  5. Of course, you know... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This won't just be used on "bad" users, but anybody who upsets a given mod with power but no responsibility.

    It's really not too bad an issue, so you get banned one site, it's not important, move on with your live, letting other people define you is as unhealthy as succumbing to total narcissism. But still, it's wrong.

    Knowing when to move on, not because you are bad, but because you can't change others, because you don't deserve mistreatment is important though.

    1. Re:Of course, you know... by causality · · Score: 1

      It's really not too bad an issue, so you get banned one site, it's not important, move on with your live, letting other people define you is as unhealthy as succumbing to total narcissism. But still, it's wrong.

      Letting yourself get defined by narcissists (and sociopaths) is The American Way. It's a staple of public schooling, higher education, and the corporate ladder.

      What are you, some kind of un-American pinko commie?

      --
      It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
    2. Re:Of course, you know... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, I'm a British Royalist out to reconquer everything in the name of Charles vi Brittania!

      He really has a good platform.

    3. Re:Of course, you know... by UncleTogie · · Score: 1

      No, I'm a British Royalist out to reconquer everything in the name of Charles vi Brittania!

      He really has a good platform.

      You oughta meet Lord British. He's good on a number of platforms.

      --
      Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
  6. If you believe any of this is a good idea... by JerryLindenburg · · Score: 0

    then you have no business running a website. Period. Just leave it to the professionals. Why on earth would anyone even think to do these things? Your users, good or bad, are an asset. Fucking with them intentionally makes you, the site owner as bad as your worst, most annoying contributors.

    --
    You may now gaze upon my greatness.
    1. Re:If you believe any of this is a good idea... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

      Users are an asset(unless your site is purely a hobby for your amusement); but, in sites that feature any sort of user interaction, some assets have a net negative value.

      If a user is bad enough to drive others away, getting rid of them is the strategy that maximizes the size of your userbase. Once you factor in the fact that users vary in level of quality, terminating the undesirables starts to look even more attractive.

      For websites that are of the simple 1 user interacting with some interface/body of data/whatever, sure, it doesn't make sense to drive off anybody who isn't actively destructive. If community dynamics come into it, though, you will quickly run into the fact that some people will bleed a community dry and then tubgirl its shriveled husk. If you want a userbase, you don't want them.

    2. Re:If you believe any of this is a good idea... by countertrolling · · Score: 1

      Personally, I believe that heckling the hecklers is the better way to go. It actually adds to the show and can draw a good crowd. Verbal abuse should be taught as a martial art in the schools.

      --
      For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
    3. Re:If you believe any of this is a good idea... by softWare3ngineer · · Score: 1

      If a user is bad enough to drive others away, getting rid of them is the strategy that maximizes the size of your userbase.

      Then just ban them. There is no reason to get vindictive.

    4. Re:If you believe any of this is a good idea... by royallthefourth · · Score: 1

      Sure there's a reason; it's called being an insufferable manchild. Plenty of Slashdot users should have firsthand experience with that one...

    5. Re:If you believe any of this is a good idea... by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      That and I doubt that it will curve their behavior, they will just figure your site is just crappy. It reminds me a of the old SysOp fuction on the old BBS Software ( WWIV) that allowed you to disconnect a user and make it look like line noise. It was good in the aspect that you could kick them off without them being personally offended, but it made it look like your line wasn't high quality and often will not go back to your site.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    6. Re:If you believe any of this is a good idea... by _0xd0ad · · Score: 1

      But if you ban them they just clear cookies, change their IP, and register a new account.

    7. Re:If you believe any of this is a good idea... by gregrah · · Score: 1

      What if my goal in running a website is personal satisfaction rather than profit? I believe that using such a tool to screw around with an unwanted visitor could be deeply satisfying.

      Or at some startup company that is trying to make a profit, but where the atmosphere is more fun and exciting than professional (and the pay is probably commensurate), this could be a way to let your admin blow off a little steam.

      Just because it would never fly at your company doesn't mean that there are no situations where this plugin is acceptable to use. At the end of the day it's the owner's website, and they can do whatever pleases them.

    8. Re:If you believe any of this is a good idea... by mlts · · Score: 2

      What may be better is to use the cave module, or Beehive's "worm mode".

      If you ban a severe troll, they will run around creating new sock puppet accounts. However, if you turn on code that allows them to post, with nobody else ever seeing it, they will happily run around flaming people left and right... then get their hackles up because they see nobody responding. Finally, the troll puts up a "bah, you guys suck" notice and leaves for good.

      Really dedicated trolls can get around bans [1]. The trick is to make them waste so much time spinning their wheels with their existing user, where it is easily watched, and on an extreme case, law enforcement can be notified.

      [1]: Of course, one can have manual user registration approved by an admin, but it is hard to tell a troll hiding behind a VPN address from someone genuine who is new to the board.

    9. Re:If you believe any of this is a good idea... by AaxelB · · Score: 1

      It was good in the aspect that you could kick them off without them being personally offended, but it made it look like your line wasn't high quality and often will not go back to your site.

      Isn't that even better? That way trolls will just leave without trying to get back at you or other asshattery, and the good users won't see any disruption, so you probably wouldn't gain much of a reputation as an unreliable site. Is there a downside I'm missing?

    10. Re:If you believe any of this is a good idea... by meerling · · Score: 1

      If you don't ban them, but instead start F-N with them, they will "...just clear cookies, change their IP, and register a new account..." and then start a vendetta to get back at the F-N bastard that had the audacity to do something that underhanded and cowardly.

      It's the board equivalent of upping a verbal pissing match into a knife fight. Only the really stupid do that.

    11. Re:If you believe any of this is a good idea... by Skater · · Score: 1

      Could I use it on spammers?

    12. Re:If you believe any of this is a good idea... by _0xd0ad · · Score: 1

      If you don't ban them, but instead start F-N with them, they will "...just clear cookies, change their IP, and register a new account..."

      Assuming they can figure out that the site isn't just broken.

      and then start a vendetta to get back at the F-N bastard that had the audacity to do something that underhanded and cowardly.

      Good luck with that. So they get flagged again.

      It's the board equivalent of upping a verbal pissing match into a knife fight.

      Actually, attempting to circumvent or break the board's security mechanisms could result in legal actions being taken, which would be more like upping it into lobbing a live hand grenade in their direction if they do decide to escalate the matter.

    13. Re:If you believe any of this is a good idea... by mlts · · Score: 1

      Hermes (old Mac BBS program) had that as well. There was one annoying user whom we ended up kicking off multiple times via this method.

      Said user whined at a local gathering about how bad $BBS was and how often he got kicked off for line noise. It made him look bad about his complaints, because nobody else had one single issue.

      Even more funny was the fact that if he had a MNP3 or MNP5 modem (coupled with the fact the BBS had HST modems at the time that worked with anything), it would be VERY suspicious that he would be kicked off by line noise, had he had any type of clue. Mainly because both of those protocols dropped corrupted frames in hardware, so line noise would just mean no traffic, rather than stuff garbled.

    14. Re:If you believe any of this is a good idea... by Belial6 · · Score: 1

      If your admin would blow off a little steam by intentionally screwing with users, you should fire them immediately before you get in too deep with them. Today, they may feel that the internet troll is the one who deserves the sabotage. After their next review, it might be the company that they feel needs to be put in their place.

    15. Re:If you believe any of this is a good idea... by Lumpy · · Score: 1

      "If you don't ban them, but instead start F-N with them, they will "...just clear cookies, change their IP, and register a new account..." and then start a vendetta to get back at the F-N bastard that had the audacity to do something that underhanded and cowardly."

      People told me that about screwing with "crackers" trying to ssh or telnet into my servers. I wrote a "screw with them" honeypot back in 1999 that insulted the hell out of them after wasting a lot of their time. I then added a firewall drop rule for their ip address after they logged off or dropped off. It was great looking through the logs of what the script kiddies tried to do.

      Today I run one of the fun current honeypots at home just for entertainment. I love how you can modify them and watch as the same idiot tries to download the bait files over and over but they always tend to have a error and abort the download....

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    16. Re:If you believe any of this is a good idea... by Lumpy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      One of my car hacking websites has this... It's called the troll bin. All the users that get marked as troll can post all they want but nobody but themselves or another troll see it. If you get a rep level above 20 (20 people liked your post) it appears visible to you and you can go and browse the troll bin for reading fun.

      I have wasted many hours laughing at how the trolls get all pissed that nobody is responding, then another troll responds, and they troll each other. Every once in a while they figure it out and leave, but some are still there after 4 years.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    17. Re:If you believe any of this is a good idea... by blair1q · · Score: 1

      I invite the public into my place of business. If some of those people become unruly and disturb others in a way I consider wrong, I have the right to ask them to leave, convince them to leave, tell them to leave, or, if they refuse to leave of their own free will, force them to leave. No force is necessary on the Internet, as in order to "be there" they have to continuously enter the door to collect data to present to themselves on their client machines. But I can use any means to convince them to leave. Personally I'd stop short of damaging their equipment, but feeding them content that fills their page cache, clogs their link history, and bloats the allocated memory of their browser, causing it to thrash in swap? They allow for that by running their browser. Heck, I can name a few facebook games that do it as a matter of course. And if my content happens to interact with known bugs in their browser to stop them from browsing, so be it.

      But before it gets to that point, fucking with their minds would be only a fitting response to their behavior.

      In short, if you want me to remain a solicitous proprietor and gracious host, you know what not to do.

    18. Re:If you believe any of this is a good idea... by Lumpy · · Score: 1

      At one point BBS programs like that started to be able to use CallerID. I had a set of nice US Robotics modems that did callerID and automated callback that allowed me to blacklist users by simply issuing a pickup/hangup as soon as their number appeared on the CID stream.

      I loved the callback function... call and log in, ask for admin functions and it drops your call, then calls back to a predetermined phone number for admin access. Significantly reduced hacking at the expense of having to do all admin work at home.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    19. Re:If you believe any of this is a good idea... by blair1q · · Score: 1

      It's far less effort to check the "misery this miserable fuck" box than it is for them to do all the things to become a miserable fuck in a different mask.

      It doesn't matter if it's the same troll or a totally different person trolling. They all look alike after awhile anyway, and dealing with them is pretty much a fixed cost.

      So either they'll eventually tire of being fucked with and flicked away, or they'll not, which is more expense to them than it is to me.

    20. Re:If you believe any of this is a good idea... by makomk · · Score: 1

      Of course, the Internet being what it is and website owners being what they are, this tends to end up getting used as a way of silencing posters that are entirely reasonable but write facts or arguments that the site owner would rather not see. For example, comments pointing out the ethical problems with the site owner secretly taking money for front-page articles on a post by said site owner about that (Fark did this, and other things). Or comments that mention another popular competing site that the owner is worried about using their clientele to (Fark again did this repeatedly, as apparently did Groklaw).

      Oh, and obviously some of your regular commenters might choose to go elsewhere if they knew this was happening - so use this feature to help stop them finding out too! Pretty much every abuse of it tends to involve this tactic.

      About the only site I know of that's used this trick and does not appear to abuse it spectacuarly is Reddit, and even then I might just not have heard because they've made it so that I can't see the posts of anyone who's talked about the abuse.

    21. Re:If you believe any of this is a good idea... by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Even if one is a master in heckling the hecklers, there are more hecklers than there is time.

    22. Re:If you believe any of this is a good idea... by The13thSin · · Score: 1

      ^ This is awesome... must have for my next web project.

      --
      "This should be fun, and by fun, I mean a wholly depressing insight into the cognitive ability of some grown adults."
    23. Re:If you believe any of this is a good idea... by Hatta · · Score: 1

      Not every website is a business.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    24. Re:If you believe any of this is a good idea... by thePowerOfGrayskull · · Score: 1

      Two sides to that - if the resident troll is driving people away, he's bad for the web site and the community.

      On the other hand, trolls have a way of getting people engaged and keeping them way -- both those reading, and those participating in the conversation. It's a bit of a balancing act.

      Asshole. (See what I did there?)

  7. Trolls by parlancex · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I always thought the most effective way to combat trolls would be to silently flag their account, allowing them to post and continue viewing the forums as normal, but everything they do is completely invisible. The system could also generate fake replies to their replies and threads, also completely invisible.

    1. Re:Trolls by _0xd0ad · · Score: 5, Informative

      So that would be...

      If you want to give your trolls the silent treatment try the Cave module.

    2. Re:Trolls by decipher_saint · · Score: 1

      Trolls usually equip themselves with multiple accounts, I think they'd figure that little goodie out rather quickly

      --
      crazy dynamite monkey
    3. Re:Trolls by parlancex · · Score: 2

      They might, but not as fast as they would if the accounts were simply banned. There's probably also a good number of trolls who only bother to create a new account when their current account is banned.

    4. Re:Trolls by FriendlyPrimate · · Score: 5, Funny

      Interesting. Why do you feel that the most effective way to combat trolls would be to silently flag their account, allowing them to post and continue viewing the forums as normal, but everything they do is completely invisible. The system could also generate fake replies to their replies and threads, also completely invisible?

    5. Re:Trolls by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Slashdot editors: Please fix your Drupal icon. A white square background? Really?

    6. Re:Trolls by parlancex · · Score: 3, Interesting

      And actually now that I think about it, you might as well just put all the troll flagged accounts into the same bubble, so they could see each other's posts, but they would all be invisible to everyone else. That would be much more difficult to detect.

    7. Re:Trolls by parlancex · · Score: 1

      Slashdot users: Please don't reply to an unrelated post to get your reply positioned higher on the page.

    8. Re:Trolls by operagost · · Score: 2

      Come, come, elucidate your thoughts.

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    9. Re:Trolls by decipher_saint · · Score: 1, Redundant

      That would be way more hilarious heh!

      "Trollspace": where Trolls troll Trolls

      --
      crazy dynamite monkey
    10. Re:Trolls by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      It can be done by IP.

    11. Re:Trolls by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 1

      That would be way more hilarious heh!
      "Trollspace": where Trolls troll Trolls

      They already have that. It's called USENET.

      --
      No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
    12. Re:Trolls by Animats · · Score: 5, Interesting

      you might as well just put all the troll flagged accounts into the same bubble, so they could see each other's posts, but they would all be invisible to everyone else.

      That was seriously considered for an early MMORPG. Annoying players would be dumped into a dungeon level full of NPCs and other annoying players, where they could flame war and player kill as long as they wanted, without bothering anybody else. It wasn't done due to resource constraints, but it remains a good idea.

    13. Re:Trolls by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Faggot: Eat faggot dicks.

    14. Re:Trolls by pspahn · · Score: 1

      I feel like there should be a post above this, but I can just barely detect a faint vapor.

      Shame, too, as I was hoping to read some good trollese.

      --
      Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
    15. Re:Trolls by Dachannien · · Score: 1

      vBulletin has had this option for years (not including the fake replies, of course), called "Tachy Goes to Coventry".

    16. Re:Trolls by parlancex · · Score: 1

      The main difference is that I would want the trolls to still see all the legitimate posts as well (or in your case, players) so it is difficult or impossible to tell you've even been flagged. Once trolls know they've been taken out they tend to find another way back on, so the best way to fight them is to make it hard for them to tell they've been silently banned at all.

    17. Re:Trolls by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Interesting. Why do you feel that come, come, elucidate your thoughts?

    18. Re:Trolls by BigDogCH · · Score: 1

      What happens when the troll version of the site has more traffic, viewers, comments, and ad generating revenue than the non troll version? Which one is the true site then? Do the trolls then rule?

    19. Re:Trolls by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 1

      Aka: Fark ShadowBan.

      Only problem is sometimes you don't get a reason for it and some times mods can be rather temperamental.

    20. Re:Trolls by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I like this idea. Now all you need is a module name - like "TrollWorld" or "Troll La Troll". Use the Latin text generator, a spambot text generator, or give the real admin a text box to custom type replies into. You'll need reply settings like "normal", "polite", "angry", and of course, "troll". I wanna see that, have the drupal system automagically troll the troll.

    21. Re:Trolls by Megane · · Score: 1

      I think what you have then is kuro5hin.org.

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
    22. Re:Trolls by Amouth · · Score: 1

      last i checked 4chan didn't penalize trolls so this really shouldn't be an issue

      --
      '...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
    23. Re:Trolls by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Sounds like EVE.

    24. Re:Trolls by hrieke · · Score: 1

      The Corn Field in Second Life perhaps?

      --
      III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIIIV IIVIIIIIIVIII...
    25. Re:Trolls by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Interesting. Why do you feel that the most effective way to combat trolls would be to silently flag their account, allowing them to post and continue viewing the forums as normal, but everything they do is completely invisible. The system could also generate fake replies to their replies and threads, also completely invisible?

      Is it sad that I actually wonder how many people on slashdot would recognize psychoanalyze in emacs?

    26. Re:Trolls by Jonner · · Score: 1

      I always thought the most effective way to combat trolls would be to silently flag their account, allowing them to post and continue viewing the forums as normal, but everything they do is completely invisible. The system could also generate fake replies to their replies and threads, also completely invisible.

      That sounds like what Cave does.

    27. Re:Trolls by element-o.p. · · Score: 1

      What good does that do? Unless your troll is coming from a business or other site that has a static IP, you only end up banning the next hapless schmuck that got assigned the IP address the troll was using when he pissed you off, and the troll has reconnected on another IP address and is still happily trolling away on your site.

      Granted, the "next hapless schmuck" may not even visit your web site, but if you ban enough IP addresses -- and/or your site is popular enough -- you will eventually end up temporarily banning innocent bystanders.

      --
      MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
    28. Re:Trolls by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And actually now that I think about it, you might as well just put all the troll flagged accounts into the same bubble, so they could see each other's posts, but they would all be invisible to everyone else. That would be much more difficult to detect.

      Yeah, it's called Slashdot Comments

    29. Re:Trolls by blair1q · · Score: 4, Funny

      No, it's a total success. We called it World of Warcraft.

    30. Re:Trolls by Altus · · Score: 1

      where everybody looses

      --

      "In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson

    31. Re:Trolls by Belial6 · · Score: 1

      That would be a win-win. There is nothing wrong with a bunch of people with shared interest getting together to explore those interests. If Trolling is their interest, then what's the problem with them doing it in their own space?

    32. Re:Trolls by element-o.p. · · Score: 1

      Eliza, is that you?

      --
      MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
    33. Re:Trolls by Belial6 · · Score: 1

      I must be slow today because it took three posts deep, and an Anonymous coward for me to get the joke. Which made it that much funnier when it did.

    34. Re:Trolls by Metabolife · · Score: 1

      Auto-reply from the same fake user: "dumbass" to every first post per thread. They'll be pissed that they can't offend the bot upon future troll attempts.

    35. Re:Trolls by RoloDMonkey · · Score: 1

      That would be the Cave module: http://drupal.org/project/cave

      --
      Long live the Speaker Bracelet
      Rolo D. Monkey
    36. Re:Trolls by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Genius!

    37. Re:Trolls by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 1

      Tell me about your mother :D

    38. Re:Trolls by naroom · · Score: 1

      you might as well just put all the troll flagged accounts into the same bubble, so they could see each other's posts, but they would all be invisible to everyone else.

      This was actually done in a MUD called DragonRealms. They have a two-server setup: one allows players to attack each other more or less freely, the other is regulated with in-game punishments (NPC police will come get you). All the hostile, aggressive folks moved to the unregulated server. What's interesting is, over time, the unregulated server became increasingly peaceful. At first everyone just died all the time, but eventually coalitions and groups formed, and player-driven order took shape. Gives you a certain hope for humanity - even trolls grow up. Granted, this was a pay-to-play MUD, and so it may not generalize well, but an inspiring example nonetheless.

    39. Re:Trolls by DaveGod · · Score: 1

      A troll with half an interest is often using multiple accounts, maybe some in support, some attacking himself, an easy way to take control of a thread.

      He'd notice right away.

    40. Re:Trolls by Tynin · · Score: 2

      One of the places I worked at provided shared web hosting. It was pretty normal for a single server to have ~300 accounts on them, and generally the servers would purr along without any issues. Customers who were constantly eating up more than their share of resources would get silently migrated over to what we called the swamp servers. That way all the customers who were resource hogs but to cheap to go with a VPS/dedicated server/colo solution could use as much resources as they wanted with other abusive users. This was ~12 years ago.

    41. Re:Trolls by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, but it missed a few sub-sections of sub-humans - so we had to invent EVE to compliment it.

    42. Re:Trolls by Threni · · Score: 1

      ...their ability to chose the correct word?

    43. Re:Trolls by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1
      Stop calling me Eliza.

      Signed

      Dr Watson.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    44. Re:Trolls by Burning1 · · Score: 1

      I had a troll on a guestbook I managed a while ago. I ended up handling them by editing all their posts to say something ridiculous and stupid, and by deleting any comment someone else made in response to the troll.

    45. Re:Trolls by Kitsune+Inari · · Score: 1

      Except for the fake replies, that already exists too. I'm afraid it doesn't do the "trollnet" part mentioned around here, though.

    46. Re:Trolls by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      Yep...specifically the Goons.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    47. Re:Trolls by Quirkz · · Score: 1
      Huh. I always just got emailed nastygrams, told my code was using up too much processor, and given 30 days to find a new host. I think I would have preferred just getting shifted to a server with more resource contention rather than having the contract terminated, or at least having the choice.

      customers who were resource hogs but to cheap to go with a VPS/dedicated server/colo solution

      On the other hand, this wasn't exactly me. I was developing a site, didn't have that much activity, but also didn't have any real concept of how much of the total server resources I was consuming. The host was more interested in kicking me out than helping me understand.

    48. Re:Trolls by X0563511 · · Score: 1

      Nah, usenet is just for trojan distribution, porn, and gucci spam these days.

      The trolls have all collected at 4chan.

      --
      For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
    49. Re:Trolls by makubesu · · Score: 1

      This prompts the question: has this already happened to me in "real life"?

    50. Re:Trolls by Inda · · Score: 1

      We used to do that. We called the forum section "Fuckwit Central". Us admins let off stream in there - trolling the trolls - and the trolls seemed at home for a while. Some would promise everything then beg and it was laughable. Then we got hacked. Twice. It wasn't so funny then. Damn phpBB...

      Dupe accounts weren't so hard to spot. Always the same ISP, same browser, same password, no profile, default settings for everything.

      --
      This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
    51. Re:Trolls by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      Except there's a line between trolls, and people who's opinions you don't want to hear even if they're truthful and/or factual. And things like this give mods who aren't impartial, or can step above trolling themselves a way to inflict harm on the user base. I know more than one site that's done this to people simply because 'dissenting opinions from the echo chamber aren't allowed'.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    52. Re:Trolls by Isaac+Remuant · · Score: 1

      Why does this suddenly sound biblical? Wait... is this... Hell?

      Oh God! I promise I'll be good! ;)

      --
      "Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world. " - Asimov.
    53. Re:Trolls by BigDogCH · · Score: 1

      So are they no longer trolls then, just regular users? You then probably need to send the most trollish trolls into the uber-troll maximum-security bubble.....or else they will offend the regular trolls!

    54. Re:Trolls by Belial6 · · Score: 1

      It's like punching people. At a party you are a problem. In a boxing match you are not. If you punch more often and harder in a boxing match, you just a better boxer. So, no they are no longer trolls.

    55. Re:Trolls by russotto · · Score: 1

      That was seriously considered for an early MMORPG. Annoying players would be dumped into a dungeon level full of NPCs and other annoying players, where they could flame war and player kill as long as they wanted, without bothering anybody else. It wasn't done due to resource constraints, but it remains a good idea.

      Best part about it is that, like the proverbial mud-wrestling pig, the trolls would like it.

    56. Re:Trolls by stretch0611 · · Score: 1

      On a serious note, this could work... But only make them invisible to normal users. (i.e. let trolls see other trolls' comments.) This way, one troll can reply a different troll's comment and normal users get to see a good board.

      In addition, put spam in the same category as trolls.

      If all this works well, your normal users will have a good experience and your trolls will end up being frustrated.

      --
      Looking for a job?
      Want your resume written professionally?
      DON'T USE TUNAREZ!!!
    57. Re:Trolls by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Except there's a line between trolls, and people who's opinions you don't want to hear even if they're truthful and/or factual. And things like this give mods who aren't impartial, or can step above trolling themselves a way to inflict harm on the user base. I know more than one site that's done this to people simply because 'dissenting opinions from the echo chamber aren't allowed'.

      You only have to look at some of the posts that are modded as trolls on slashdot to see the problem (i.e. fuckwit moderators who think a troll is someone whose opinion they disagree with).

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  8. Re:their by Robmonster · · Score: 0, Troll

    their

    their

    their

    their

    Seriously, it's they're. That just looks sloppy.

    Give trolls a taste of they are misery...?

    'their' is correct in this case, as in a taste of the medicine owned by the trolls.

    --
    I have no sig yet I must scream.
  9. About that delay by Tinctorius · · Score: 1

    By serving 40% of your malicious users with a delay, you actually spend more resources (mostly memory) on trolls. Sure, in 60% of the cases, you spend nearly nothing, but it sure opens possibilities for DDoS attacks: open accounts, troll a lot, get miserable and simply troll harder.

    1. Re:About that delay by blair1q · · Score: 1

      Requests aren't that big. And trolls aren't that numerous. A few K in the webserver here and there? peanuts. Totally worth it.

      And unless they have real DDoS tools, all they do by coming from more directions is make their outline visible in the fog of the internet.

      I know how to aim center-mass.

  10. Bad idea. by CountBrass · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Bad idea.
    All it will do is generate hundreds of bug reports.
    And. It doesn't really address the problem. If 'Misery' can auto-magically detect trolling why not just auto-ban or auto-suspend and give an explanation?
    That assumes of course that 'Misery' can detect trolling reliably -which I doubt- so realistically it's going to annoy 'normal' users, ie the ones your web site presumably wants to keep, who will just think your web site is badly written and buggy.
    In short: it's a stupid idea and a stupid plugin.

    --
    Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
    1. Re:Bad idea. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The reason this plugin exists is simple.

      If the troll knows that their content isn't being made public (banning, probation, etc...), then they'll just create a new account.

      By only showing their posts to themselves, they're oblivious and therefore contained in their own little world.

      This is about containing a contamination.

    2. Re:Bad idea. by rograndom · · Score: 1

      If 'Misery' can auto-magically detect trolling why not just auto-ban or auto-suspend and give an explanation?

      The user will know that the account is dead and just create another one. If you can string them along for a while and they think that the site is broken maybe they'll just leave instead.

    3. Re:Bad idea. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bad idea. All it will do is generate hundreds of bug reports

      Do trolls take the time to submit bug reports?

    4. Re:Bad idea. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All it will do is generate hundreds of bug reports.

      I wonder why you are still not marked +5 funny. Trolls filling (hundred of) bug reports...

    5. Re:Bad idea. by nedlohs · · Score: 1

      Yeah because forum trolls often file bugs. And in fact most forums even have a place to file a bug report.

      And why would it be doing detection. Instead of clicking "ban" you click "misery". Now said troll will be slowed down in their trolling for a little while instead of instantly creating a new user and continuing at full speed.

      It's not an approach I think will be too useful, but it's not a completely stupid idea.

    6. Re:Bad idea. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I love retarded posts like yours. First, you don't RTFA, so you make up what you think this plugin does. Then, you rail against your strawman and call it stupid.

      • This won't generate hundreds of bug reports for reasons given by nedlohs
      • Misery can't auto-magically detect trolling. You made that up. If it could do that with a reasonable degree of success, then it would already be pretty intelligent.
      • Since Misery isn't detecting trolling, it's up to the admins to make sure they aren't flagging non-abusive users.

      In short: your post is stupid, you are stupid and your mother was a baboon.

      Or have I been trolled? Fun either way.

    7. Re:Bad idea. by Slur · · Score: 1

      Adding a fake bug report form... Good idea!

      --
      -- thinkyhead software and media
    8. Re:Bad idea. by Jonner · · Score: 1

      Bad idea.
      All it will do is generate hundreds of bug reports.
      And. It doesn't really address the problem. If 'Misery' can auto-magically detect trolling why not just auto-ban or auto-suspend and give an explanation?
      That assumes of course that 'Misery' can detect trolling reliably -which I doubt- so realistically it's going to annoy 'normal' users, ie the ones your web site presumably wants to keep, who will just think your web site is badly written and buggy.
      In short: it's a stupid idea and a stupid plugin.

      It's not intended to automagically detect anything.

      Currently you can force users (via permissions/roles, editing their user account, or using Troll IP blacklists) to endure the following misery:

      If trolls don't realize they're being punished, maybe they can be ignored longer since they won't try to circumvent the punishment.

    9. Re:Bad idea. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Whoosh.

    10. Re:Bad idea. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      well if we're already putting them in a bubble, why not send this complaints to the bubble as well. And then make the system that's generating the fake replies make a reply to their bug complaint. No extra work for anybody and the people who aren't actually using your website the way it's supposed to be used, won't be using it at all or grieffing paying customers.

    11. Re:Bad idea. by zieroh · · Score: 1

      In short: it's a stupid idea and a stupid plugin.

      I'm not defending this particular plugin (or even Drupal) as I know next to nothing about either. I do know something about moderating an online community, though. I've learned many things in the process, such as the ability to recognize someone who has never spent any serious amount of time dealing with problem users on a large scale.

      --
      People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
    12. Re:Bad idea. by lennier · · Score: 1

      Adding a fake bug report form... Good idea!

      It's at the bottom of the Cancel Account menu, under DISUSED LAVATORY, next to the sticky read-only thread that says "Beware of the Leopard".

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
    13. Re:Bad idea. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do trolls file bug reports?

    14. Re:Bad idea. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agreed, deliberately crashing someone's browser is criminal activity.

    15. Re:Bad idea. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the fact that you say this means you never had to deal with trolls before.

      I used to run a fairly large site (100,000 users a month) and find that banning trolls is useless. They'll just create a new account. And when they troll, it's very subtle. You can only tell they're trolling if you look at their posting history and notice all of their posts are trolling. It's very time consuming. I've had trolls come back to flood bomb the site with posts. The worse are the spammers who spam trying to make money. Even with a captcha, they would still spam. Generally, you only have a couple trolls, but these trolls generate the majority of bad posts.

      The easier method is to annoy them. I crashed their browser (IE6 only, was when IE6 was still popular), caused weird stuff to show up on their monitor, and also silently banned them. The silent ban works the best. They can post, but no one will ever see it. It also has the benefit of no one seeing their "OH GOD, your site is broken" threads and posts.

      Normal users are never affected. I'm surprised you even mentioned this. I'm not sure how you code things, but adding a simple database check to see if a person is banned is all you need.

    16. Re:Bad idea. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The troll's aim in life is to annoy other users, not necessarily the maintainers of the software. it's up to the site admin to choose who is targeted by the plugin, so why would those trolls that ARE targeted be so inclined to submit bug reports also. They don't want to draw attention to themselves.

      The small percentile of trolls that actually WOULD submit reports of errors to a site's admin - they can be told to clear off, or simply be ignored.

      FTA:

      Currently you can force users (via permissions/roles, editing their user account, or using Troll IP blacklists) to endure the following misery...

      So - say if you selectively used IP blacklists over time, combined with permission-based identification - the trolls will ...
      a) not know it is due to them being marked as a troll
      b) even if they do create a new account, they'll have the same issues
      c) eventually give up with your site, as they think it's full of crap users anyway (while everyone else benefits from one less troll!)

    17. Re:Bad idea. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dude. Don't read the article or anything. It'd make you look like an idiot if you did. Just post your thoughts instead. Get modded "insightful" by others who didn't bother to read the article. Oh shit, that's right. This is /. I'm such a dumbass.

    18. Re:Bad idea. by vegiVamp · · Score: 1

      Where does it say that the module *detects* trolling? It is an alternative for banning; that is, *you* flag an account as 'troll' and it then gets fucked over by the module.

      --
      What a depressingly stupid machine.
    19. Re:Bad idea. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pretty sure it works more like a ban list, where troublesome users would have to be added manually (unless you set something up to do it automatically, in which case you would be retarded)

  11. Wow, does slashdot use this? by eagee · · Score: 1, Funny

    I wonder who I pissed off! :-)

    1. Re:Wow, does slashdot use this? by orgelspieler · · Score: 1

      That's what I was thinking. Maybe the new interface with random screen jumps and clicks redirecting me to the parent post instead of the link I am clicking on is Taco's way of punishing me for crimes unknown. Maybe a good apology is in order.

      I'm sorry, baby! Please take me back. I promise I won't do it again.

    2. Re:Wow, does slashdot use this? by eagee · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry too! Please don't leave me on the comment page for 40 seconds before you'll let me see a preview! I'll be good from now on! x)

  12. Waiting for by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm still waiting patiently for a Punch In the Nose module, but this is a good start.

    Personally, I'm waiting for the module that shuts your computer off, drops a dictionary on your desk, and refuses to let you power the computer back on until you've learned the difference between their and its heterographs.

    1. Re:Waiting for by Slur · · Score: 1

      homonyms actually

      --
      -- thinkyhead software and media
  13. Re:their by LocalH · · Score: 1

    No, "crashing their browser if their using IE6".

    --
    FC Closer
  14. Re:their by nedlohs · · Score: 0

    Congrats on the new dumbest ever post to slashdot. Doubt it'll last long, so enjoy it while it lasts.

  15. wrong. by CountBrass · · Score: 1

    "browser if their using IE6" in the original post is incorrect. It should be 'they are'.

    --
    Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
    1. Re:wrong. by sorak · · Score: 1

      "browser if their using IE6" in the original post is incorrect. It should be 'they are'.

      It should be firefox!

    2. Re:wrong. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uh... it is

  16. Re:their by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He was talking about this: "if their using IE6".

  17. LART by qubex · · Score: 1

    Behold, we have a Luser Attitude Re-adjustment Tool.

    --
    "Place me in the company of those who seek Truth, but deliver me from those who believe to have found it."
    1. Re:LART by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      Are used by or against people who go to LARP? (Live Action Role Playing)

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  18. I have a better name for this bullshit... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    escalate

    1. Re:I have a better name for this bullshit... by blair1q · · Score: 1

      On the web, everyone is a CEO.

  19. Re:their by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    gp was referring to

    "if their using IE6"

  20. Re:their by adonoman · · Score: 1

    I think AC was refering to this bit:

    if their using IE6

  21. Re:their by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "and crashing their browser if their using IE6"

    Derp.

  22. Re:their by LocalH · · Score: 0

    If that's the dumbest post ever to Slashdot, then your mother is a slutty whore.

    --
    FC Closer
  23. Crashing IE6, eh? by lluBdeR · · Score: 5, Funny

    Is there a way I can enable this, like, sitewide by default, punished user or not?

    1. Re:Crashing IE6, eh? by Amouth · · Score: 2

      yes just put

      <script>for(x in document.write){document.write(x);}</script>

      at the start of the page - have fun

      --
      '...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
    2. Re:Crashing IE6, eh? by Abstrackt · · Score: 2

      Is there a way I can enable this, like, sitewide by default, punished user or not?

      Easy. Put the following snippet in all your pages: <script>for(x in document.write){document.write(x);}</script>

      --
      They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
  24. Re:their by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Seriously, it isn't.

    Remember that these three pronouns use the apostrophe thus:

    it's (=it is)
    its (belonging to it)

    they're (=they are)
    their (belonging to them)

    you're (=you are)
    your (belonging to you)

    In each case, the apostrophe's signifying a contraction trumps its signifying possession.

    Also remember "there" denotes a location apart from "here."

  25. Re:their by LocalH · · Score: 1

    So "if their using IE6" is correct in what dialect of English? Brain-dead retarded?

    --
    FC Closer
  26. Drupal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Aren't there modules like this for pretty much any big software package out there? I know I've installed stuff like this in vBulletin, phpBB and I made one for SMF.

    1. Re:Drupal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I know there is a "Miserable User" plugin for vBulletin... I've installed it on one of my forums.... it's been around at least a few years now.

  27. Obviously a module that's .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    designed for Admins who are as childish as the trolls.

  28. A bit uncomfortable... by Aphrika · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...with the IE6 crashing thing. Granted, it's turned off by default which is a good thing. Looking through the other options, they all affect the way the troublemaker interacts with the site, so essentially are all within the realms of the site owners responsibility.

    Crashing a browser is actively and knowingly interfering with the users local software and could have unknown consequences, moreso if it manages to take their entire machine out.

    Other than that, it's a nice and interesting way of messing with your online nemeses.

    1. Re:A bit uncomfortable... by h4rr4r · · Score: 2

      It won't take out the machine. It just makes IE6 close. Personally this should be run on every webserver by default.

    2. Re:A bit uncomfortable... by Lectoid · · Score: 1

      Or redirect to Firefox, Chrome, or a newer IE.

      --
      Is it just me, or do you hate it when people say "Is it just me..."?
    3. Re:A bit uncomfortable... by blair1q · · Score: 1

      Knowingly allowing a user to download something they should know will crash their browser, after they knowingly violated my TOS?

      Hardly give it a second thought.

    4. Re:A bit uncomfortable... by Solandri · · Score: 1

      Crashing a browser is actively and knowingly interfering with the users local software and could have unknown consequences, moreso if it manages to take their entire machine out.

      Great! So all we have to do is program Firefox to crash and lock up the machine if it runs across a website that doeesn't support Firefox. Then it would be unethical for websites not to support Firefox, right?

  29. DailyKos by mr100percent · · Score: 3, Informative

    DailyKos has a better way to deal with Trolls. Enough downvotes and the system makes all their posts invisible to the rest of the users. The troll still sees them so he/she wouldn't know they're essentially locked out (at least not right away).

    1. Re:DailyKos by geek · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Which is exactly why DKoS is a bastion of group think and goose-stepping morons. For people so into "Free Speech" and "The First Amendment" you would think those morons would welcome, you know, free speech. Instead the collective socialist mentality at that cesspool beats down and oppresses opposing opinions every chance it gets. God forbid someone actually disagree with the mob mentality. At least on Slashdot.......... wait nevermind.

    2. Re:DailyKos by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 1

      It has to be better than what HuffingtonPost.com does. Basically, a rigidly very left group of admins screen posts that don't meet their accepted political opinions. I'm liberal, but I'm not liberal *enough* to even post there anymore. They do leave conservative posts up strangely. It's like they want to present their own view of what "liberal" is.

      --
      I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
    3. Re:DailyKos by operagost · · Score: 1

      On DailyKos, wouldn't a "troll" post be anything informative or insightful?

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    4. Re:DailyKos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      DailyKos gets trolled because it is filled with idiots..

    5. Re:DailyKos by geek · · Score: 0

      I had a very very conservative friend (I'm more libertarian) and he ran an oddly popular gaming blog but insisted on tossing his conservatism onto it (his blog, he can do what he likes) but he would go ape shit over liberals posting. He would censor stuff he didn't like but other things he would oddly leave very prominent on the page. I asked why and he said "Because I want everyone to know how dumb they are."

      You see this from time to time at sites like michellemalkin.com when she posts the crazy emails she gets from people, stuff like death threats, racial slurs etc. It does your side some good to allow others to see how crazy the other side is. It fails however when you're just picking and choosing what info to leave up Pravda style.

    6. Re:DailyKos by ashidosan · · Score: 1

      Instead the collective socialist mentality at that cesspool beats down and oppresses opposing opinions every chance it gets.

      Welcome to the Internet.

    7. Re:DailyKos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Free speech, even by the first amendment, IS limited. Too many people think freedom from being punished by government for speaking out against the government, translates in to being able to say anything you want at all freely. Which is not the case. That's why there are examples such as the classic, "you cannot run into a theater and start yelling fire." It is punishable.

    8. Re:DailyKos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's perfectly valid to be in favor of free speech, but not want to hear everything everybody has to say. I think that piece of shit preacher from Florida is perfectly within his rights to do whatever he wants to a book he owns, but I won't watch him do it.

      If I called you an asshole, and you walked away, I could hardly claim you don't care about free speech since you're not listening to me any more. You've just decided you have better things to do with your time.

      You can claim that somebody is not interested in challenging his own ideas if he ignores everything to the contrary (think birthers); but that's a separate issue. Denying somebody the right to speak in your house is not a First Amendment issue or a free speech issue: he can still speak, but he's not guaranteed an audience.

    9. Re:DailyKos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Breaking news, 99% of the Internet is circle-jerking, film at 11.

    10. Re:DailyKos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "For people so into "Free Speech" and "The First Amendment" you would think those morons would welcome, you know, free speech. Instead the collective socialist mentality at that cesspool beats down and oppresses opposing opinions every chance it gets."

      DKos is a privately-owned site, so its owners can do whatever the fsck they want with the comments they're getting. It's their private property.

      And nobody limits your freedom of speech - get a blog and publish your right wing bullshit on it by yourself there.

    11. Re:DailyKos by aoeu · · Score: 1

      Trolls complain about vanishing comments all the time at DKos. Until a couple of months ago they could see replies but no more.

      --
      All your database are belong to U.S.
    12. Re:DailyKos by sydneyfong · · Score: 1

      [Ouch. I've already moderated, but couldn't replying...]

      I don't know what this DKoS is, but "Free Speech" does not necessarily mean an obligation for anybody to publish such speech. If anyone wants to exercise the right to freedom of speech, (s)he can set up a blog which nobody reads. Yes, that misses the point of making any speech, but nobody has a right to force other people to hear them out, nor the right to force publishers to publish their opinions.

      You probably remember the days where the slashdot moderation system was being called "censorship" because not everybody gets +5 Insightful.

      The "mob mentality" and xenophobia, I believe, is another matter (and I don't like it at all). It's part human nature, and part culture, which seemingly isn't relevant to how much a group believes in "free speech".

      --
      Don't quote me on this.
    13. Re:DailyKos by StevenMaurer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You had me going right up to the end of your sentence.

      "Goose stepping" ?!? DailyKos may not be your cup of tea, but they are pretty solidly in the middle of what is considered the "left" in the U.S., and would be considered "centrist" or even "center right" in Europe. The fact that you are making an obvious allusion of them to the NAZI Brownshirts, over them excercising a tiny amount of editorial control of what remains on their site, shows far more about you than it does about them.

      Also, for your eidification, "Free Speech" means "freedom from government repression for expressing your opinion", not "freedom to deface other people's property with messages that they consider offensive". I also know, courtesy of FOX, that there have been offensive leftist things posted on that website by various anonymous flamers, which they have promptly removed.

      The only "moron" here is the person who posted a Godwin troll while complaining about some website's anti-troll policy.

      No wait - scratch that. The morons who upvoted you as "Insightful" are more to blame. At least you can type.

    14. Re:DailyKos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is a big difference in free speech and letting some moron troll away. I was a Mensa member, but there was a single troll in the email listserv that loved to troll it up. They decided to shut down the entire system instead of dealing with a single user. It's somewhat ironic because I was probably the biggest complainer about the troll. I then quit paying dues as the only thing worth it was the listserv. I joined in the hopes of having meaningful discussion with other intellectuals... and when the troll went on vacation it was great! But having to listen to his drivel and the responses (nobody ignored him! that was the first problem!) was too much and degraded the experience tremendously.

      There is a difference between limiting free speech and banning someone that actively distracts and trolls (or even that can't add to the conversation).

      Captcha: Patrols

    15. Re:DailyKos by devent · · Score: 1

      What a BS. Free speech have nothing to do to be able to speak only to annoy other people. It's the same if you invite someone inside your house and that person only annoys you. After a few times you kick the person out of your house. Are you now against free speech?

      Your rights always are limited if you overstep other people rights.

      --
      http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
    16. Re:DailyKos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're the moron that Godwined the thread, jackass.

      The goose-step is a form of marching. I refuse to let one corrupt leader (Adolf Hitler) of a political party (NAZI), ruin a perfectly good imperial march.

      Also, those that say NAZI when they really mean Schutzstaffel do human history a great disservice. Though, I've never asked a Brit if they blame the Revolutionary War on the Federalist Republicans.

      Anyway, saying NAZI when you mean SS is dumb. Just FYI, one was a political organization, the other committed genocide and other atrocities against human beings.

      Class dismissed, Godwinning newb.

    17. Re:DailyKos by cusco · · Score: 1

      It's been my observation that most people who are deeply into politics are also deeply hypocritical, and more so the farther from the center of the discussion you get. Look at all the "pro-family" conservatives and radical preachers who get caught with hookers (male and female), the anti-drug screamers like Limbaugh who actually turn out to be junkies, etc.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    18. Re:DailyKos by jc42 · · Score: 2

      You do not get to pound your fist about free speech and then deny it on your own website.

      Yes, I do. For the same reason that, if you come to my house and start putting up political signs all over the lawn and walls, I'll remove them. If you persist, I may file charges.

      Web sites aren't free (in the $ sense). It costs me money to run a web site, and part of the cost is disk space. If you and your buddies descend on my web site and start filling up my disks with garbage (as defined by me, of course), I'm going to remove it. I can't afford the unbounded disk space that all the political nutcases in the world would happily fill.

      Actually, I'm involved with running a number of web sites for organizations, some of them political. I've discussed how open the site should be with all of them. I tend to err on the "open" side, but in every case so far, they've all been quite concerned with the potential problems with unlimited "free speech", i.e., permanent support for the disk space for whatever nonsense any troll may want to post on their site. Even the "liberal" groups are worried about this, and often push some fairly strict controls on what can be posted. I do encourage openness as the default, but I also give them the tools they need to limit the damage of trolls and vandals.

      Oh, and I should add "and marketers". It turns out that one of the main problems running online forums is being discovered by a marketer. When this happens, you often find your disk(s) completely filled with gigabytes of advertising. The tools that the marketers have for this can be impressive. Overnight, you can find that every message in your forum has hundreds or thousands of replies, each one an "I agree" statement and a link to a commercial web site.

      So, until we all have an infinite amount of free disk space available on our servers, we have little choice but to limit what can be posted to our sites. And yes, we can support "free speech" while doing this without being hypocrites. Free speech doesn't include the right to mob a site and bury it under piles of garbage (as defined by the site's owners).

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
    19. Re:DailyKos by blair1q · · Score: 1

      Sigh.

      There's a vast intergalactic space between "free speech" and harassment.

    20. Re:DailyKos by Phrogman · · Score: 0

      ...DailyKos may not be your cup of tea, but they are pretty solidly in the middle of what is considered the "left" in the U.S., and would be considered "centrist" or even "center right" in Europe.

      I think most Americans are unaware or tend to forget, that what is considered Socialist or Left-Wing in the US is usually considered somewhat Right-Wing in the rest of the world. The US seems to be, generally speaking, and extremely conservative country, far right wing in its politics and attitude, and I think this only serves to distort their views on politics in other countries.

      I live in Canada. Our politics are slowly Finlandizing to be like those of the US - our Conservative Party under Stephen Harper is far more right-wing and authoritarian than I can recall any Canadian political party ever being, and Harper seems to worship at the feet of the Republicans IMHO. Our Liberal party - normally defined as centre of the road - is in fact leaning heavily to the right. Our current NDP party - National Democratic party - normally considered slightly left wing, is pretty centrist at the moment. To citizens in the US these would likely all seem like they are "Communist" or something I am sure.

      I generally find the politics in the US to be extremely frightening :P

      --
      "The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
    21. Re:DailyKos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just mentioning Godwin around here anymore should be considered a troll. Any intelligent person sees the foolishness in it and handily dismisses it as a troll.

    22. Re:DailyKos by sorak · · Score: 1

      http://www.dailykos.com/ . It is a liberal blog. I don't know much more than that. (I have never read it. I've only seen the founder on talk shows).

    23. Re:DailyKos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...DailyKos may not be your cup of tea, but they are pretty solidly in the middle of what is considered the "left" in the U.S., and would be considered "centrist" or even "center right" in Europe.

      I think most Americans are unaware or tend to forget, that what is considered Socialist or Left-Wing in the US is usually considered somewhat Right-Wing in the rest of the world. The US seems to be, generally speaking, and extremely conservative country, far right wing in its politics and attitude, and I think this only serves to distort their views on politics in other countries.

      I live in Canada. Our politics are slowly Finlandizing to be like those of the US - our Conservative Party under Stephen Harper is far more right-wing and authoritarian than I can recall any Canadian political party ever being, and Harper seems to worship at the feet of the Republicans IMHO. Our Liberal party - normally defined as centre of the road - is in fact leaning heavily to the right. Our current NDP party - National Democratic party - normally considered slightly left wing, is pretty centrist at the moment. To citizens in the US these would likely all seem like they are "Communist" or something I am sure.

      I generally find the politics in the US to be extremely frightening :P

      Yeah, those Canadian "Human Rights Commissions" that autocratically stifle free speech are run by your Conservatives, eh?

    24. Re:DailyKos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Our current NDP party - National Democratic party...

      Off-topic, but just a note: it's "New Democratic Party".

    25. Re:DailyKos by makomk · · Score: 2

      Except there's more to the idea of free speech than the first amendment or the law: the idea of free speech is that good ideas are supposed to drive out bad ones, and that doesn't work if factual, well-argued comments are deleted for having an inconvenient viewpoint. Deleting trolls and flames is no problem, but as someone else pointed out it's often not the troll comments that get deleted - they may disrupt the discussion, but if anything the opposition helps strengthen the other commenters' belief.

      The other problem is that a lot of site owners want to have their cake and eat it. Sure, they have the right to control what goes on their site fairly arbitrarily, but if they're deleting comments that make them look bad, or point out flaws or issues with their arguments, or even worse point out important information they've omitted for political reasons, I want to know about it so that I don't get the false impression that an honest, open discussion is happening and can look elsewhere for information.

      Oddly enough, few site owners want to do this: one of the recurring patterns I've seen is comments referencing questionable comment deletions being themselves deleted, so that other users continue to have the false impression it's an actual discussion and that no-one thinks there's anything wrong. Probably because once you know a website's reached this level of dishonesty, where they're systematically hiding relevant information and arguments from you and deleting comments to achieve this, why bother going there anymore? It's just not worth it - by the time you've gone to the effort of triple-checking everything they say, you're better off moving to another site...

    26. Re:DailyKos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > I think most Americans are unaware or tend to forget
      Or aware and don't care. The context that matters to them is american.

      n.b. not a US citizen.

    27. Re:DailyKos by brkello · · Score: 1

      I was going to go off on you...but then got to your last sentence. Well played.

      --
      Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
    28. Re:DailyKos by greenreaper · · Score: 1

      I did just this in Javascript for my Drupal-based news site - the primary objective being to discourage argument threads that nobody wanted to continue except the two people involved.

      The system fades out posts that are poorly rated, and folds them if they get below about 55% opacity. The parent post's opacity factors into that of children. It also uses the user's global rating from past comments as an initial vote. The levels are set so that comments by "good" users take three "poor" votes to fold, while new accounts require two and regular trolls only require one.

    29. Re:DailyKos by brkello · · Score: 1

      I don't think you are aware of what free speech is. Free speech is that the government does not interfere with your right to say whatever you want to. So I can be a huge advocate for free speech because I don't want a government that controls what people can say. But I can moderate my forum because it is owned by me and I am not the government.

      --
      Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
    30. Re:DailyKos by greenreaper · · Score: 1

      I've found the key is not to make it too easy to remove someone's opinion in a single instance - and, I guess, to cultivate an audience willing to listen to dissenting views and vote reasonably upon the merits of the argument. The first is a matter of choosing appropriate moderation points for your site; the second is trickier.

    31. Re:DailyKos by H0p313ss · · Score: 1

      Breaking news, 99% of the Internet is circle-jerking, film at 11.

      Note to self; log out at 10:55 and finish that book.

      --
      XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
    32. Re:DailyKos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'll vigorously defend your right to spew forth such nonsense on slashdot.
      However, I won't listen to you.

      Free speech = a right to speak, not a right to be heard.
      I'll defend your rights to speak. I'll defend my rights to listen to whomever I bloody well want even more strongly.

    33. Re:DailyKos by NMerriam · · Score: 1

      You do not get to pound your fist about free speech and then deny it on your own website.

      Why not?

      I'm all in favor of free speech, and the KKK should be able to march down main street just as frequently as the Shriners do. The government shouldn't be in the business of telling us what is acceptable to march for. But if you start spouting racist stuff on my web page or in my living room, I'm going to kick your ass out.

      --
      Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
    34. Re:DailyKos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, but he's still right. If you suppress what someone else has to say, in such a way that others are prevented from hearing it, you can't really claim to be a supporter of free speech. I might not want to listen to what a person has to say but I still don't want someone else deciding on my behalf that I shouldn't hear it. It should be my decision and nobody else's. That applies to News Editors, the government, moderators, website operators etc.

    35. Re:DailyKos by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 1

      Goose stepping is 18th century. You Godwin'd the post by linking goose step marching to Naziism, not the parent.
       
      Further, Godwin's Law is a thought terminating argument and about as valid in political debate as "God works in mysterious ways" is in theological discussions. I should be amazed that more people around here don't realise that, but then I remember that /. isn't the same place I used to lurk at years ago.

      --
      Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
    36. Re:DailyKos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, I do. For the same reason that, if you come to my house and start putting up political signs all over the lawn and walls, I'll remove them. If you persist, I may file charges.

      Except that for this analogy to work, you have to assume that you've expressly invited everyone in the world to come post political signs all over your lawn and walls, and saying that everyone is free to do so, and only removing the ones you don't like. It's your right to do that, but don't imagine for a moment that it doesn't make you a hypocrite, or that anyone is wrong to call you out on it.

    37. Re:DailyKos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I assume everyone has seen a disemvoweled comment at this point, there is a module for that too.

    38. Re:DailyKos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Goose stepping" ?!? DailyKos may not be your cup of tea, but they are pretty solidly in the middle of what is considered the "left" in the U.S., and would be considered "centrist" or even "center right" in Europe. The fact that you are making an obvious allusion of them to the NAZI Brownshirts, over them excercising a tiny amount of editorial control of what remains on their site, shows far more about you than it does about them.

      I suspect the grandparent was referring to the community's tendency to groupthink (like any other community) and how the community reacts negatively to anyone who disagrees with the current trend, no matter how valid their point (like most other political communities). However, Daily Kos does have an influential Neo-Nazi contingent which continuously posts anti-Jewish propaganda and has enough influence to get most of the site's Jewish users banned for disagreeing with them, along with anyone who shows enough knowledge of Middle East history to stand up for the Jews in articles where Israel is concerned. The Neo-Nazis themselves are only banned, and only for P.R. reasons, when they explicitly post swastikas and Hitler references; they can say the same stuff about Jews that Hitler did, and express support for terrorist organizations founded on the sole purpose of exterminating the Jews as a race, and the community will moderate them up while troll-rating anyone who is offended. Rumours among the banned are that the Daily Kos Neo-Nazis are protected by site co-founder Meteor Blades and that he may have actively recruited them at Berkeley. Kos himself doesn't seem to know enough to be involved or to see what's going on.

    39. Re:DailyKos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You are clearly a troll. But there are also clearly people who think like you, so:

      The Muslims who rioted over the Koran are worse than the preacher. I never claimed otherwise. I think he had every right to burn his book, whereas I don't think the Muslims had a right to kill people.

      But I still think he's a piece of shit.

    40. Re:DailyKos by jc42 · · Score: 1

      Nah; I'd remove all of them. I don't put up political signs on my lawn, because they're really no better than bumper stickers. You can't say anything meaningful with them without making the font too small for people driving by to read. I tend not to make political comments unless the medium makes it possible to express complete thoughts without being shouted down.

      (Actually, during one election, when both the major candidates for a local office were equally unacceptable, I did put up one of those "Don't vote. It just encourages them." signs. But that was a very special case. ;-)

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
    41. Re:DailyKos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, clearly the OP was referring to the 1700's Prussian army under Frederick the Great.

    42. Re:DailyKos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right wing folks get flagged.... mmmk

    43. Re:DailyKos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You do not get to pound your fist about free speech and then deny it on your own website. I'm perfectly aware of what free speech is and how the first amendment works. But being a political pundit(s) who continuously bitch about free speech and then denying it on your own forums is hypocritical in the extreme. You can not be for free speech in one place and opposed to it everywhere else. Not when your goal is to enter the realm of political thought and ideas. This goes for all sides of the debate. If you are censoring thought, you invalidate your claim to be part of the debate.

      Just because X is hypocritical doesn't mean "you don't get to" do X. That semantic nitpick aside, I agree that a selective commitment to free speech is no commitment at all. Then again, there gets to be a point (whether it's "truthers", birthers, or whomever) where it just gets obnoxious, and what originally may have been political speech is reduced to trolling. Free speech does not include disrupting others' ability to engage in free speech (which includes derailing threads with inane shit about squibs, Arabic middle names, or hosts files).

      Anyway, I fail to see anything at all in your post even slightly resembling a troll.

      (Posting anon to preserve mods.)

    44. Re:DailyKos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oops, looks like I upmodded the wrong post, thanks in part to Slashdot's fabulously broken UI.

      If I do leave Slashdot, it will be more for the egregious coding than the troll posts.

    45. Re:DailyKos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nah; I'd remove all of them. I don't put up political signs on my lawn

      I don't mean your real lawn, you schmuck. You were making an analogy where your lawn represents a political website.

    46. Re:DailyKos by jc42 · · Score: 1
      ;-)

      I'd give you a "funny" mod if it weren't for the silly limitation about modding in discussions where you've posted something. So I guess I'll just have to post this reply instead.

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
  30. Harming your users by SirGarlon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Harming your users doesn't seem to me a good idea at all. Adding more bad behavior to the Internet is unlikely to improve anyone's situation. And crashing their browsers? That crosses an ethical line, in my opinion. What's next, infecting them with malware out of spite?

    --
    [Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
    1. Re:Harming your users by Ephemeriis · · Score: 1

      Well, obviously something like this can be abused...

      But if you look at the actual module you'll see that it is intended to combat trolls.

      Not automated spambots... Not the well-behaved members of your community... But trolls. The folks who intentionally post garbage just to get a reaction.

      Sure, banning trolls is the typical response. But it's also rather obvious when you've been banned, and somebody who is determined to troll your boards can simply create a new account. This module will hopefully dissuade the troll from spending much time on your board, while not making it obvious that you're trying to get rid of them.

      Also, if you take a look at the module itself, you'll see that by default it will not crash IE6. That's simply an option that can be enabled if you're feeling particularly malicious.

      --
      "Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
    2. Re:Harming your users by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 1

      Harming your users doesn't seem to me a good idea at all. Adding more bad behavior to the Internet is unlikely to improve anyone's situation.

      Can't say I agree. The more energy one has to use to be a turd, the less inclined they'll be to do it after a certain amount of time.

      And crashing their browsers? That crosses an ethical line, in my opinion. What's next, infecting them with malware out of spite?

      Normally I'd agree, but it shouldn't be possible to do that with any browser.

      --

      "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

    3. Re:Harming your users by rickb928 · · Score: 1

      The worst users are those that keep signing up under new names and continuing the harrassment, or those that exploit your 'anonymous' features and just keep it up. Rather than play whack-a-mole and inactivating their accounts to watch them come back like a cockroach, 'misery' gives them pain for their bad behavior.

      Of course they will figure out what's on, and either leave or re-register, but the stupid and slow might think you're an ID10T admin, and give up on your stupid broken website. Which is also a good outcome.

      As a longtime /.'r, I've seen plenty of griefers come and go. Ignoring them so far has worked, but some day we'll get one or more that just won't quit. Fortunately the volume here is so big that a few don't make for a substantial impact.

      And a misery module for /. won't work. It would be indistinguishable from a site upgrade.

      --
      deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
    4. Re:Harming your users by metrometro · · Score: 1

      Also, if you take a look at the module itself you'll see that by default it will not crash IE6. That's simply an option that can be enabled if you're feeling particularly malicious.

      You'll see if you look at this smallpox-infected blanket, that it is not flung into that village by default. It's merely an option for which I bear no moral responsibility at all.

    5. Re:Harming your users by blair1q · · Score: 1

      Users who cause harm are not my users any more. If they choose to continue to come to my site, they get what they get.

    6. Re:Harming your users by mortonda · · Score: 1

      And a misery module for /. won't work. It would be indistinguishable from a site upgrade.

      ROFL +5 insightful

      best comment award!

    7. Re:Harming your users by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 1

      The best solution I ever saw involved increasing post delays coupled with randomly (every X posts) replacing the submitted text with a quote of the day (my favorite QOTD list used like this was the Bushisms list).
      The visibility thing doesn't work because true trolls keep "clean" accounts which they use to monitor the forums they troll.

      I've also seen sites that used trollbots and a thread categorization system that would fork any thread where the subject changed (so trolling would never have the desired effect) and start feeding the trolls troll food with cross-links to other troll threads. Seemed effective in those situations, but I'm not sure it would work everywhere.

    8. Re:Harming your users by Captain+Centropyge · · Score: 1

      Crashing their browser is nothing like malware. It discourages them from coming to your site, without inflicting permanent damage. No big deal. It doesn't prevent them from viewing other pages. If the webmaster/admin/mod doesn't want those users on their site, that's their perogative.

      --
      Bite my shiny metal ass!
    9. Re:Harming your users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Infecting trolls with malware is a great idea! Thanks for the idea.

    10. Re:Harming your users by froggymana · · Score: 1

      . And crashing their browsers? That crosses an ethical line, in my opinion. What's next, infecting them with malware out of spite?

      And running outdated browsers when it costs nothing to upgrade them to a modern browser? That crosses an ethical line, in my opinion. What's next, forcing them to use dial-up out of spite?

      --
      "To prevent this day from getting any worse, I'll just read ERROR as GOOD THING" 1GJU8xLuDKDxEs4KLf8fAGyptoDsqvEsBT
    11. Re:Harming your users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Trolls aren't users.

    12. Re:Harming your users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If they're running IE6, you probably couldn't install enough malware to make a noticeable difference with the plethora that's already plaguing the poor thing by default.

    13. Re:Harming your users by SirGarlon · · Score: 1

      Also, if you take a look at the module itself, you'll see that by default it will not crash IE6. That's simply an option that can be enabled if you're feeling particularly malicious.

      If you indulge your malicious feelings, you're a contemptible sys admin.

      --
      [Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
    14. Re:Harming your users by Kentari · · Score: 1

      It would make more sense if IE6 is the smallpox infected blanket in the analogy... Like: this gate can automatically destroy smallpox infected blankets which malicious people try to carry into your village, but it is not enabled by default.

    15. Re:Harming your users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What's next, infecting them with malware out of spite?

      How about shooting them in the head?

    16. Re:Harming your users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I see no problem in that.

      Regards,
      Sony

  31. Re:their by Cinder6 · · Score: 1

    I would assume AC is complaining about "if their using IE6".

    --
    If you can't convince them, convict them.
  32. Funny, but not useful by iONiUM · · Score: 1

    This is pretty funny in theory, but in practice, as others have noted, it's not really very professional or a good idea..

    Better off just banning them, using CAPTCHA, etc.

  33. Awesome. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Deliberately degrade your own services. Sounds like a great plan.

    1. Re:Awesome. by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 1

      Deliberately degrade your own services. Sounds like a great plan.

      See the recent Slashdot re-design for an example.

      --
      No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
  34. Re:their by nedlohs · · Score: 1

    She is, do you have a point?

  35. Punish the Troll-Feeders? by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 1

    The primary problem with trolls is that they get fed. Other users MUST feed trolls - They're powerless to resist. You can scream DON'T FEED THE TROLLS at the top of your lungs yet time after time after time yet they'll still be fed, everywhere, all the time. If you could somehow figure out how to address the other users who feed the trolls, the trolls would eventually starve and die off. Of course, getting rid of spam would be easier than this, as it goes against human nature, but if it could be solved the troll problem would go away...

    1. Re:Punish the Troll-Feeders? by ae1294 · · Score: 1

      The primary problem with trolls is that they get fed. Other users MUST feed trolls - They're powerless to resist. You can scream DON'T FEED THE TROLLS at the top of your lungs yet time after time after time yet they'll still be fed, everywhere, all the time. If you could somehow figure out how to address the other users who feed the trolls, the trolls would eventually starve and die off. Of course, getting rid of spam would be easier than this, as it goes against human nature, but if it could be solved the troll problem would go away...

      I know what ya mean my nigger...

    2. Re:Punish the Troll-Feeders? by gknoy · · Score: 1

      Trolls that get fed are only a problem if their behavior overloads your site's resources, or if their actions drive away legitemate customers/users. This is meant to solve the latter. If only trolls see trolling, then it doesn't matter if they feed each other in a neverending festival of trolling.

    3. Re:Punish the Troll-Feeders? by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 1

      Maybe the solution is not to censor the trolls, but to hide any responses.... after a while, people might get the point, and trolls would see that nobody was responding to them, even though their comments were left alone.

    4. Re:Punish the Troll-Feeders? by ae1294 · · Score: 1

      Maybe the solution is not to censor the trolls, but to hide any responses.... after a while, people might get the point, and trolls would see that nobody was responding to them, even though their comments were left alone.

      Very interesting, so when feeding trolls is made illegal we win?

      I liked Hitler's idea better.

  36. Re:their by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 1

    So "if their using IE6" is correct in what dialect of English? Brain-dead retarded?

    It is if they're using IE6.

    --
    No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
  37. The Pam Jones Module by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 1

    silently flag their account, allowing them to post and continue viewing the forums as normal, but everything they do is completely invisible.

    That's the Graklaw Pan Jones Module...

    http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/groklaw-accused-of-censorship/7826

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    1. Re:The Pam Jones Module by sconeu · · Score: 1

      That's the Graklaw Pan Jones Module...

      Congratulations!! Two misspellings of proper names in the same sentence!!!

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    2. Re:The Pam Jones Module by makomk · · Score: 1

      For bonus points, they used it on every comment mentioning they used this technique, as well as deleting every comment mentioning their deleting of comments and banning of users, so you couldn't tell that they'd done it and couldn't make an informed decision about whether they should trust the site. Everyone seems to do that, though *sigh*.

    3. Re:The Pam Jones Module by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Made your fucking day, eh? Spelling Nazi?

    4. Re:The Pam Jones Module by lennier · · Score: 1

      Spelling Nazi?

      N-A-T-S-I. Wait, that's not right, is it. Do I get do-overs? Okay. N-A-U-G-H-T-S-Y... um.

      *bzzt*

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
    5. Re:The Pam Jones Module by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's the Graklaw Pan Jones Module...

      Congratulations!! Two misspellings of proper names in the same sentence!!!

      Why don't you write about in in your blag?

    6. Re:The Pam Jones Module by sconeu · · Score: 1

      I would, but I'm not Randall Munroe.

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  38. Suddenly it makes sense! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've been trolling reddit a lot recently. They've clearly added a similar feature.

  39. Re:their by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 1

    I think AC was refering to this bit:

    if their using IE6

    Heh. One of the features could be to randomly search and replace 'their' for "they're" and cause a 404 to come up when they try to reply to those posts.

    --

    "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

  40. slashpal by rarel · · Score: 1

    I want to see a module that would let us know how much money /. gets anytime it publishes one of these Drupal articles, can you do that?

    1. Re:slashpal by ScentCone · · Score: 1

      I want to see a module that would let us know how much money /. gets anytime it publishes one of these Drupal articles, can you do that?

      This information should be easy enough to come by. The huge business service corporations that, because of the billions of dollars that trade hands as they set up CMS platforms for dog clubs, fanboi clubs, and utterly unread blogs for obscure non-profit organizations, make up the cartel we refer to as "Big Drupal" - those companies are mostly publicly traded, and their advertising expenses should be detailed in their shareholder reports. When you're dealing with a huge thing like Drupal, with millions of users and tons of revenue involved, it's no mystery.

      Oh, wait. That's total BS because your entire premise is, too. People talk about it because it's powerful and appears to actually solve a lot of problems for people who actually have a clue about complexity. Don't worry, you can keep on using Blogger from Google.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
  41. Re:their by colinRTM · · Score: 4, Funny

    Irregardless, your gay and I could care less.

  42. Misery doesn't "auto-magically detect" anything. by apparently · · Score: 1
    What gave you the impression that it did?

    If 'Misery' can auto-magically detect trolling why not just auto-ban or auto-suspend and give an explanation? That assumes of course that 'Misery' can detect trolling reliably -which I doubt- so realistically it's going to annoy 'normal' users, ie the ones your web site presumably wants to keep, who will just think your web site is badly written and buggy. In short: it's a stupid idea and a stupid plugin.

    I agree: stupid assumptions lead to a stupid premise which results in one coming to stupid conclusions.

    TL;DR: RTFA

  43. Re:their by clang_jangle · · Score: 1

    I keep expecting we'll get rid of all that just because most people hate it. I predict eventually it's all be something like "itz" and "thayr". Definition is generally definable from context.

    I am no way endorsing this, BTW. I happen to like English as it is very much, but it does have a history of relatively rapid change. With the confluence of so many people learning ESL and the younger generation being less tolerant of complicated grammar, usage, and spelling than us older folks, I think a lot of those rules will be simplified in the next decade or two.

    --
    Caveat Utilitor
  44. Re:their by clang_jangle · · Score: 1

    us older folks

    ah, poop.

    --
    Caveat Utilitor
  45. Spoken by someone who's never read the site by apparently · · Score: 1

    Anyone who's ever read Dailykos, even briefly, would have noticed much disagreement among the users. From the split between Hillary and Obama supporters in 2008, toward opinions regarding things like the Health Care bill, the site is far from any sort of "group think." The premise of the site is "electing more and better Democrats", all conversations start from that premise but hardly arrive at a consensus of opinion. But it's true, the site doesn't allow debate on things like repealing Social Security; it's antithetical to the premise. I'm sorry that such a simple concept is confusing to you.

  46. Re:their by dgatwood · · Score: 1

    I vote that we just abolish the contraction form of both words. If everyone just started writing out "they are" and "it is", then the contraction would go away and there wouldn't be as much confusion.

    And if we wanted to completely eliminate the confusion, we could always change the word "there" to "thar". We could start one "talk like a pirate day", and then just keep doing it.

    --

    Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  47. Free Speech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    doesn't mean that people are group thinkers or goose-stepping morons because they don't want to read everything a troll posts to a message board. It never has meant that and hopefully never will mean that.

  48. Re:their by TheWanderingHermit · · Score: 1

    Guess you made your point. It's fixed now.

    And this thread will look silly to anyone reading it with the correct veresion in place.

  49. If they really wanted to punish their users... by RailGunner · · Score: 1

    They could just make their website as impossible to navigate and use as Slashdot has made theirs.

  50. Developer doesn't understand chance. by webbiedave · · Score: 2

    From Misery documentation:

    # Delay: Create a random-length delay, giving the appearance of a slow connection. (by default this happens 40% of the time)
    # White screen: Present the user with a white-screen. (by default this happens 10% of the time)

    These events do not occur x% of the time but, rather, have an x% chance of occurring.

    $random_number = rand(0, 100);
    if ($chance >= $random_number) {
    return TRUE;
    }

    1. Re:Developer doesn't understand chance. by blair1q · · Score: 1

      Poster doesn't understand etiology.

      Developer probably understands random() fine.

      It's the doco who does not understand how to describe it. Or uses common idiom and expects J. Random Reader to just get what he means.

    2. Re:Developer doesn't understand chance. by _0xd0ad · · Score: 1

      The point is that for code like this:

      if (random() < .4) option1();
      else if (random() < .1) option2();
      else if (random() < .1) option3();

      Then option1 will occur 40% of the time, but option2 and option3 are not going to occur 10% of the time. They will occur 6% of the time* and and 5.4% of the time**, respectively.

      * (1 - 0.4) x 0.1 = 0.06
      ** (1 - 0.4 - 0.06) x 0.1 = 0.054

    3. Re:Developer doesn't understand chance. by webbiedave · · Score: 1

      Replier doesn't know how to RTFA. Developer and poster of documentation are the same person.

    4. Re:Developer doesn't understand chance. by blair1q · · Score: 1

      No, I fully expected that they were. But in my experience, unless the person is an exemplary engineer, the documentation will not describe the code even if the coder wrote the documentation.

      It's getting harder and harder to find people who understand why their own stuff works the way it does, even when it meets the requirements.

  51. It's called keeping a forum "on-topic" by apparently · · Score: 1
    You're oversimplifying and being ridiculous. If a group is trying to collaborate together to achieve a common goal, it would be ridiculous to allow discussions that are outside of that goal.

    Time is limited. If a group is trying to develop a consensus of opinion or discuss the nuances within an issue, it would be self-defeating to waste time having conversations that are off-topic. Just as an anti-abortion blog isn't going to discuss the merits of making Plan B prescriptions available to women, a blog that is devoted to electing Democrats isn't going to waste it's time discussing another party's platform: that discussion has already been had by the very definition of people already deciding that they want to be part of a group dedicated to electing Democrats. Why would they waste their time discussing an issue that they've already reached a conclusion on? By your logic, at the next townhall I go to, I should raise my hand and ask my rep "So, are we sure we've thought this revolt against King George through? Belonging to the British empire, does have it's merits...

    1. Re:It's called keeping a forum "on-topic" by makomk · · Score: 1

      If a group is trying to collaborate together to achieve a common goal, it would be ridiculous to allow discussions that are outside of that goal.

      All too often the comments that get deleted fall entirely within the goal, though. In particular, comments about how the original post or the blog isn't achieving its goal are the most quickly deleted on a lot sites.

      I don't really follow DKos, so my "favourite" left-wing example is a feminist blog called Shakesville whose main claim to fame was not completely failing at trans*-related issues. They spectacularly failed at this, specifically by posting a glowing eulogy for a women without even mentioning her most lasting contribution to feminism: that trans women are to this day unable to get access to domestic violence shelters or rape clinics when they need them and are generally treated like subhumans by feminists. This went against everything they claimed to stand for. Some of the trans* regulars pointed out what was wrong with this, so the comment thread was closed and comments were deleted, which went even more against the principles they claimed to stand for; you're meant to listen to oppressed groups such as trans* people when they tell you you're crapping on them rather than treating them like trolls, and Shakesville often criticises other people that don't.

      What's more, take a look at Genderbitch's deleted comment (which wasn't the first to get deleted, hence her attitude). It's a perfectly clear, well-argued call-out of what precisely is wrong with both the original post and the post it's a reply to, and why they utterly fail to live up to Shakesville's proclaimed standards - though if you don't have at least a passing familiarity with feminism you may have to take my word for this. However, if you read the comments in response without reading the original comment (posted as "recursiveparadox") they're in reply to, you'd get the impression it was just a random troll comment; the choice of what to delete helps portray the site owner in a more positive light than she deserves.

      Anyone who didn't somehow find this comment through another route - like I did - would be left under the false impression that Shakesville did actually uphold the standards it proclaimed. This is no accident. I've seen the same thing happen on other feminist sites, and I've no doubt it happens elsewhere too.

  52. Eliza! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Eliza? I've been wondering how long till you got on slashdot!

  53. easiest way to make drupal users miserable: by cthlptlk · · Score: 1

    ...give them admin privileges.

  54. I am very disappoint. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I came to this discussion thread looking for a HatfulOfHollow reference. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

  55. Re:their by spun · · Score: 1

    In each case, the apostrophe's signifying a contraction trumps its signifying possession.

    Not exactly. We do not use the apostrophe for its, their and your for the same reason we do not write hi's and her's.We use an apostrophe-s to change a non-possessive to a possessive. Its, their, your, his, and hers are already possessives, without the need for an apostrophe.

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
  56. So that's why by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think Microsoft has been using this for awhile on windowsupdate.com. every time i do a fresh install and go there with IE6, i sit through 3-12 crashes while loading the page. normally i just give up and let auto-update do the work.

  57. Re:their by lgw · · Score: 1

    No post can even be in the running for "dumbest post ever on Slashdot" without at least an ascii-art goatse and GNAA sponsership. Sheesh.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  58. Re:their by Lehk228 · · Score: 1

    There have been english simplification movements in the past, this is why the Red Sox spell their name with an 'x'

    --
    Snowden and Manning are heroes.
  59. Yikes by Slutticus · · Score: 1

    And THAT ladies and gentlemen, is why sites like Kos need to implement things like this. "socialists" and "goose-stepping" in the same post. Wow! Who wants to read this kind of drivel? I'm just waiting for the slashdot system to kick in. Come on mods...

  60. Re:their by thePowerOfGrayskull · · Score: 1

    Crap. Where's the duc[tk] tape? My brain just exploded.

  61. Re:their by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think your misunderestimating how much you do care.

  62. Re:varying degrees by TaoPhoenix · · Score: 1

    Great post, but then you missed it on dylsexia.

    --
    My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
  63. What's a "troll"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Oh, I see... they mean "Somebody who says things we don't agree with", or "Somebody who is winning an argument with us", or "Somebody who can actually think and question things, and that scares me..."

    Seriously. We now have the ability to talk about anything in the world, with thousands of other people, anonymously, so that we can say what we really feel. But idiots who use the word "troll" are doing everything they can to prevent free speech- because they themselves are too stupid to be able to actually debate important issues. You see it all the time - somebody goes on a forum and dares to mention the fact that European countries (i.e. white countries) are being invaded by millions of third worlders, who are clearly going to turn those countries into the same as their own countries - i.e. third world countries, and you are labelled a 'troll', and the Leftwing idiots think they have achieved something...

  64. Re:ignorant editors by Coren22 · · Score: 1

    Just like you...stagnant is your middle name.

    --
    APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  65. Latest release seems promising by witherstaff · · Score: 1

    I have done a few drupal sites, nothing overly complex. I did come into it later so didn't touch the early releases. I recently needed a CMS and used 7.x. I was pleasantly surprised at the ease of use. As it's an easy site and I haven't had to look at any programming I can't speak for under the hood, but for this easy one I'm impressed.

  66. It *was* done by aepervius · · Score: 1

    Earlier than that it was done in MUD (Multi User Dungeon ; command line itnerface RPG for you youngling). We had a special prison room, where you could not recall, you could not suicide, you could not die, you could not use any channel or send any tell. Once there your perso was in effect in Lymbo without anyway to go out but the good grace of the admin. usually reserved for AFK macro'er (you would call them botter nowadays) and abuser or repetitive breaking of rules. Naturally there was the IP perma ban ...Usually not used unless one was relatively sure the Ip of the user was always the same.

    --
    C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
    visit randi.org
  67. IE6? Crashing? by zill · · Score: 1

    crashing their browser if they're using IE6

    For the longest time I thought this was a built-in feature of IE6.

  68. Sounds a lot like Slashdot's thresholds by istartedi · · Score: 1

    I haven't used it for a wihle so forgive me if it's gone; but Slashdot has historicly given you the ability to ignore posts below a certain rating. Yahoo forums do this now too.

    I've always thought it would be interesting to have more than one dimension to the ratings. Let's say you have a preference for "Funny Troll" posts. Instead of Funny+, Troll-, the equation would be something like (Funny AND Troll) ? (Funny-Troll) : (Funny+Troll);

    It could be really flexible if you gave users the ability to enter a small snippet of code, which would be eval'd. Surely there is some Perl regex line-noise that would let you enter a simple equation and not something dangerous.

    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
  69. Drupal's learning curve by Crouty · · Score: 1

    A month later, I'd produced nothing useful.

    I, even as a hardcore Drupal fan for many years, can perfectly understand what you mean and confirm that dubness is not necessarily involved if you failed to achieve your goals with Drupal. To Drupal's defense I would like to mention three points:

    1. A learning curve is the price for a powerful, flexible system. If power and flexibility are not among your top priorities, Drupal may not be for you.
    2. Drupal's learning curve has been reduced quite a lot, especially in the last two major releases (6 and 7).
    3. Very detailed requirements are a nightmare to implement in any framework
    --
    On se Internetz nobody noes your German.
    1. Re:Drupal's learning curve by jc42 · · Score: 1

      Very detailed requirements are a nightmare to implement in any framework

      Maybe; that's probably why I've done most of my web programming in perl, python or C (or PHP when I have to ;-). Of course, those are languages, not "frameworks" (which seems to be a euphemism for totally different things when implemented by different teams of framework developers ;-).

      One of the problems I've come across repeatedly is that, when I present my first rough drafts of something on the Web, the clients rarely have any material criticisms. Their criticisms are mostly on the order of "That border is slightly too wide/narrow; can you make it a bit narrower/wider?" or "Can you make that red border not quite so bright?" With most "sophisticated" Web development packages, whatever they're called, the answer is usually "No; the package you wanted me to use doesn't seem to have any (documentsed) way to control such fine details." With an actual programming language, I can say "That's easy; it'll just take a bit of testing to see how to persuade all the common browsers to show it the way you want."

      (Fine color changes are a universal problem, since they depend partly on the hardware of the client's screen.)

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
    2. Re:Drupal's learning curve by mcvos · · Score: 1

      One of the problems I've come across repeatedly is that, when I present my first rough drafts of something on the Web, the clients rarely have any material criticisms. Their criticisms are mostly on the order of "That border is slightly too wide/narrow; can you make it a bit narrower/wider?" or "Can you make that red border not quite so bright?" With most "sophisticated" Web development packages, whatever they're called, the answer is usually "No; the package you wanted me to use doesn't seem to have any (documentsed) way to control such fine details." With an actual programming language, I can say "That's easy; it'll just take a bit of testing to see how to persuade all the common browsers to show it the way you want."

      Are you saying that stuff like Drupal won't even let you use your own CSS? That's pretty awful. What you're saying has nothing whatsoever to do with the server-side programming language, it's about CSS. It's like using a system that won't let you change your own html. It's fun for amateurs without technical knowledge or strict requirements, but useless for a professional site.

    3. Re:Drupal's learning curve by jc42 · · Score: 1

      Are you saying that stuff like Drupal won't even let you use your own CSS? That's pretty awful.

      It's more like, if you want to write your own CSS (or HTML), you're fighting what the package wants to send to the client, It can be very difficult and time consuming to debug the interactions and get it working the way you want. Then, when you try making a small change to one part of a page, "unrelated" parts of other pages change in unpredictable ways. For small stuff like borders, you eventually give up and just let it do things the way it wants, and tell the clients that you can't control that stuff. I suspect that Drupal is no better or worse at this than the various "framework" packages. But I don't know, since in my month-long experiment with Drupal, I never even got close to making anything work the way I wanted.

      I think the problem is, as others have suggested, that it simply takes years to learn to really use Drupal well. The various replies seem to say that it's good for total novices who don't want to learn the details. If you just want to build something quickly, it comes with a lot of pre-built modules that will do a lot of web stuff "out of the box". But if you want to do anything slightly differently that how those modules do it, you'll be tearing your hair out and muttering "WTF???" a lot.

      Still, I think the main problem is really the documentation. If you read the discussion I seem to have triggered, you can see that at least some of the more experienced users seem to enjoy mocking the incompetence of a n00b like me. This tells me that the state of the documentation is probably not an accident. A common part of human psychology is "It took me a long time to reach my level of expertise, and you'd damn well better spend as much time as I did learning it". As some of them have clearly stated, it'll take me years to learn to use Drupal effectively. They clearly consider this a feature, not a bug.

      I'd conclude that it's not an appropriate tool for something that I can do in a week, especially since I now have a package that I can tweak in minutes. In fact, I have on several occasions typed in changes while listening to a client talk over the phone, said "Try it again now", and grinned at their astonishment that the change they wanted was done and worked. (Part of the reason I can do this is that my coding style is about 50% comments, which I view as messages to my future self when I'm revisiting something that I wrote in the distant past. ;-)

      CSS is a special problem. That "C" stands for "Cascading", referring to the ways that multiple CSS files can be used to control parts of the formatting. But if these multiple CSS files come from different sources, the results can often be unpredictable and difficult to debug. It's common to add a style on some detail, test it, and find that nothing changes at all. Or something unrelated changes in a different tag or on a different page. Or the change works in some browsers but not others. This is because your change overlaps with some other CSS off in another file, browsers implement the interactions differently, etc.. With a package like Drupal or the various "frameworks", there are zillions of little chunks of CSS scattered around, and you never know which are going to be used. Making a change to the CSS on one page of your setup can invoke part of a package whose CSS overlaps with what you did on another page, changing that other page's appearance. Getting these interactions straight can be a real nightmare. If your clients are like I've described, and pay attention to the cosmetic details, debugging even small changes can take exorbitant amounts of time.

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
    4. Re:Drupal's learning curve by jc42 · · Score: 1

      The "learning curve" metaphor is perhaps not the best for this sort of thing. Such curves are normally drawn with time as the horizontal axis, and amount learned is the vertical. People usually use "steep learning curve" to mean "difficult to learn". But the graph would show that a "steep" curve means that you learn a lot in a short time. A "reduced" learning curve would presumably mean that you learn less in the same time.

      Or maybe I'm just the odd one. People seem to agree that Drupal has a long, gently sloping learning curve. That is, it takes a very long time to learn just a little. While this may make some people comfortable, I find it just frustrating. I wasted a month of "learning", and I learned very little (as indicated by my failure to produce what the clients wanted).

      I'd personally prefer a very steep learning curve. That is, I'd prefer documentation that teaches me a lot in a very short time. A couple of decades ago, I learned C and was producing useful code in a few days. This is presumably an extremely steep learning curve, and I've seen people describe it (disparagingly) with just that metaphor. Similarly, I learned perl well enough to produce significantly useful programs in about a week of half-time study, presumably another very steep learning curve.

      Am I interpreting the metaphor correctly? If so, I suppose I'm the odd one, who prefers things that involve learning a lot very quickly.

      ;-)

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
  70. Not exactly new, news, nor interesting by DocJohn · · Score: 1

    So I'm sorry, someone basically took the Miserable Users hack for vBulletin originally released in 2004 and -- 7 years later -- ported it to Drupal??

    http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=59727&page=8

    Astounding. Neither original, nor news, nor particularly interesting.

    There are many powerful, easy-to-use and easy-to-develop for open source CMS systems available; Drupal is not one of them.

    --
    Psych Central
    http://psychcentral.com/

  71. Re:their by clang_jangle · · Score: 1

    Yes, it's also why we don't speak King James' English anymore. :)

    --
    Caveat Utilitor
  72. sounds like a fairly round-about / passive by Corse32 · · Score: 1

    Aggressive way to punish these people, making their experience miserable(er) surely won't do much to fix their attitude or directly make them feel unwelcome... Then again, I guess website developers aren't here to police the web for everyone else...

  73. Had a former boss ask me to do to that to an old by MillerHighLife21 · · Score: 1

    system that some people would not stop using when the new system went live. He wanted to make it such a pain to use the old one that they would just start using the new one. The more you used it, the worse it gain.

    --
    "Don't teach a man to fish, feed yourself. He's a grown man. Fishing's not that hard." - Ron Swanson
  74. Pointless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why replicate core Drupal?

  75. Re:And here I thought... Oh Yes! Wordpress by NSN+A392-99-964-5927 · · Score: 1

    You're not alone. I'm the webmaster for several 501(c)3's, including one that I helped found, and everyone clamors for Drupal. I looked at the documentation on 4 or 5 occasions and said "No thanks, I'll roll my own much more quickly"

    Drupal is crappy and so is WordPress, it is being constantly hacked the problem is chmod. If you think it is going to go away think again PHP safe on is a must, geo location is also important, if you do not understand the basics you have no business.

    --
    All cows eat grass!
  76. Be careful with crashing browsers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This could be unlawful in some jurisdictions where it would be considered tortuous interference with the right to use one's own property.

  77. Swimming in the Piranha Pool by Jastiv · · Score: 1

    I've often commented that the Drupal community is a piranha pool. Many Drupal developers come off as arrogant, and do little to help newbies, instead nibbling away at their desire to learn Drupal. This whole idea of Misery seems to be conceived by the ideals of the Drupal community. Instead of just being straight out and banning someone, they are going to make their websites a real pain to use. I get the bad feeling some of them won't just be using it on trolls, but ordinary users as well.

  78. Check your configuration, it's really not hard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "If you're sick of banning or deleting troublemakers on your Drupal website..." You've got your configuration messed up, read the beginner docs.

    Bob Snodgrass

  79. dvd movies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0