Report FDL Site Problems Here |
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| By: Jane Hamsher Wednesday July 6, 2011 10:38 am | |
We’ve been having some problem with bugs in the FDL system, so we appreciate everyone’s patience. The programmers are working to track down the source, so it’s really helpful when people let us know when they encounter them.
You can use the form below to let us know when you’re having site issues. We’re working hard to fix things, and will keep everyone posted on the progress:
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MyFDL is the community site of progressive political blog Firedoglake. Anyone can participate by writing a diary, commenting on others’ diaries, or joining groups to find other people in your area. Content posted to MyFDL is the opinion of the author alone, and should not be attributed to Firedoglake.
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26 Comments
Thank you Mz. Hamsher for all your continued efforts and congrats on the new hire and staff upgrades!
Have not had diary issues or comment issues for a week or more myself, only the incessant spams . . . even one disrupts the bliss of this site.
;-)
Rawhk on, ma’am.
My previous user account, kellycdenver, is totally deleted. No posts, comments, nothing, and that is prior to the server move.
Really a bummer, as aside from fluff, there are some activist videos and posts that I would REALLY like to link to. Like marching with Sirota on Bennet’s office to deliver the PO petition.
Is anyone trying to stop the constant SPAM? It’s driving everyone nuts. Even here in this thread! When will it stop. There have been at least 20 of these same ones just today. It makes the site look awful.
Apparently no one behind the scenes is looking at the comments anymore. Several of us asked about the spam hacks but nothing is said by the owner or mods that anything is being done. The question I have asked more than once is whether our personal data is at risk, especially the passwords? A second question I now have is whether this hacking is part of the upgrade requirement, since no mention is being made?
Will there a place on the MyFDL front page or anywhere else that will be a permanent place to report clicking misadventures?
You shouldn’t have personal data on this site. Spam ads aren’t hacking. For your own safety, your password here shouldn’t be the same as to your email accounts or any other accounts.
This shit can’t be spam, this has to be a directed attack on the site.
I’ve never seen anything this persistent.
N they all have registrations and profiles. How does a bot get around that so many times so easily?
Aren’t there ISP’s that can be banned?
Per Margaret, click on their names, click on their profile, and flag the entity, as well as flagging the comments.
This is gonna get real interesting methinks, as the source(s), culprit(s) are revealed. This is professional level bot work.
So a while back Jane, you posted that the new Community Moderation policy was starting. That’s fine for MyFDL, as one can flag, and doesn’t even need to SAY one’s flagged a comment.
Or Profiles. I flag the spam PROFILE all the time I see one. Like above.
But what about Anson Mitchell or littledom or pieceofcake? They post a lot on main pages and you can’t flag their comments, and can only flag their profiles once.
They’re truly disruptive assholes. And now, they’re aren’t mod modifications to their comments.
So what’s the plan about that?
I’m new here, having visited fro time to time but never signing up or posting. On a positive note I’m a little relieved to find the “quirks” are site issues moving towards resolution and not in my system :)
BearCountry suggested a report an issue button, I looked for one here shortly after registering and was happy to find this thread.
Lastly I didn’t notice spam until this thread but I am just exploring around a bit. I’ve seen similar spam before at Huff Po there it is quickly deleted by volunteer moderators. (One of the only good things about their moderation system)
A possible solution to the spam problem would be a cadre of volunteers tasked not with moderation of comments in general but specifically to preform the janitorial duty of throwing out the advertising junk mail.
Spam or not, I’ve seen more of these posts in the past two days than in the first half of this year.
We’ve addressed it over and over again. Unless you read every diary and comment here, please don’t assume that we haven’t.
The entire diary is about site problems, so clearly we are aware.
The problem with having your password hijacked is that the thief now can get in to the site as you. There is a section in the profile where you can put some personal information. What more can the thief do from here I don’t know, but it can sure help to wreck the site. We certainly are not given any evidence that the problem is being worked.
If the spam were a “professional” attack to disrupt FDL, then it seems that there should be more disruption. The trolls such as pieceofcake are to be expected, and easily ignored.
People who post are supposed to be moderating their own comments. if they aren’t, let me know.
“This shit can’t be spam, this has to be a directed attack on the site.”
That’s nonsense Larue FDL’s registration system is wide open as is its commenting system. There isn’t even a captcha in place for either registration or comments. It’s very very easy to write a bot that will rip through a system as open and unprotected as this. Literally all you have to do is plug in a few parameters to off-the-shelf code and off you go.
Less of the alarmism about “directed attacks” please.
Flag the comments and the commenters.
Bookmark this post as well.
Smedley Butler’s suggestion below @ July 6th, 2011 at 10:36 pm is a good one.
markfromireland
@ Jane Hamsher July 7th, 2011 at 4:45 am
Mostly they do, but there are disruptive members who come with the intention of disrupting. A site that’s growing needs to husband its (scarce) resources but there is a need for moderators. Have you considered approaching some members and asking them if they would donate a few hours each week?
In the mid to long term you really need to put in some sort of validation process for sign-ups and commenting. Options include a captcha, or a simple question to be answered, or a once off verification email both at registration or the first time a new member comments.
But that, as I say is mid to long term fixing the issues that arise from the migration come first.
markfromireland
Thanks.
Sound like FDL needs to give some more people limited additional access to …maybe… hide spam posts in place until an editor can get around to deleting them.
Maybe set all new accounts to have all posts approved by mods for the first 30 days or so.
…or 3 people flag a post and the post gets hid until a moderator gets to it.
The bots must register to post their ads – it is an old problem easily solved with the if you can read this secret word insert it in the space approach requirement for registration – the bots can not handle those weird font secret words.
http://www.google.com/recaptcha
is a free source for bot protection – there are others – and free
Two questions:
1) What do you mean by “people who post are supposed to be moderating their own comments”? I thought we were supposed to be there to participate in discussion of our post?
2) How do you insure the fairness of moderation?
Moderating while participating in discussion would seem to be a problem (I’ve had experience with someone doing that to me as you know). And whether someone has come to disrupt is a matter of opinion. I’ve been told by others that I’ve come solely to disrupt when I had no such intention, and merely disagreed with the majority. If someone protests such an allegation, it only gets worse. All of this argues for an impartial moderator, not a participant.
________________________________
As for bugs, I’ve filed numerous complaints with Bill Egnor and predecessors about the Recent MyFDL Diaries list, some people’s posts start at the top of the list, some start half way or three quarters of the way down. This is a longstanding bug, I’ve been told.
He was asking about front page posts, not MyFDL posts, and who is supposed to respond to community flags.
A lot of your confusion regarding our commenting policy seems to be caused by the fact that you aren’t able to follow what people are saying. I don’t know if it’s because you don’t read closely, or because you do come “solely to disrupt,” but it’s clear what Kelly was talking about:
He’s asking about who responds to a flag. It’s not a judgment call. It’s either there or it isn’t.
No, it wasn’t to me. You said, “People…”, I had no prior referent to know that was about the main pages and not the MyFDL, both of which he had mentioned in Kelly’s prior, so I guess I misread it.
And no, I don’t come “solely to disrupt”.
Ever. That’s true here or on any other blog. I may come to disagree or to criticize, I sometimes do come to point out something that I think merits attention and isn’t getting attention, but I don’t ever come to disrupt.
I can tell you, because she/he/they came to other places before here, pieceofcake comes usually to experiment, actually. They (usually she) are a German group (with some ex-pat Americans) that experiments in peoples’ reactions on blogs to various kinds of postings as an HCI project (apologies if you already know this).
Yes. Please. It took me a while to locate this link. Put it on the front page.
“I can tell you, because she/he/they came to other places before here, pieceofcake comes usually to experiment, actually. They (usually she) are a German group (with some ex-pat Americans) that experiments in peoples’ reactions on blogs to various kinds of postings as an HCI project (apologies if you already know this).”
How do you know this?
“This is gonna get real interesting methinks, as the source(s), culprit(s) are revealed. This is professional level bot work.”
Bwhahaha maybe its Anonymous?
In all fairness nobody has any proof the “bots” are behind any bugs and being a “disrpuptvie asshole” is a pretty subjective “category.” Maybe someone is saying something you don’t like so you claim their just disruptive.
Appreciate that FDL is working on this. Thank you.