38 replies to this topic

[Matthew Winn]

I've said this before but registration doesn't stop this kind of thing.  People who want to do this just use multiple accounts or register via a proxy server.  And if you're suggesting comp reg so you can IP ban trolls then that causes its own problems with AOL users.

The idea is that you don't use the IP address to ban posters but to report them to their ISP. The ISP has logs of who is using each IP address at a given time so it's trivial to match the address to an account. ISPs take that sort of thing seriously, and it usually results in an immediate termination of service.

It's true that people can use an anonymizing proxy to post without revealing who their ISP is, but then you block the proxy's address. There's no legitimate reason for using an anonymizing proxy for accessing this site so that's not a problem.

I've worked as an administrator. Admins like an easy life and complaints interfere with that. In addition, many admins remember the days when everyone on the Internet behaved responsibly, so they tend to come down like a ton of bricks on anyone under their jurisdiction who misbehaves. (In particular, they detest cocky little brats who think that posting from home means they can get away with the sort of conduct that would get them beaten to a pulp if they tried it in real life, and most admins will stop at nothing to put these people in their place.)

Active mods and disabling the embedded image function (at least when there aren't any mods) might work.

Perhaps it might be possible to prevent embedded images for unregistered users.

Incidentally, posting dummy messages in other threads to knock the offending one off the screen doesn't work. I'm sure many people use the "view new posts" link to see all threads that have new messages, and everyone who does will not only have seen the offending one but will also have had the additional irritation of wading through dozens of pointless extra posts.

What we need is moderators who can take rapid action at any time.

[Matthew Winn]

Matthew can you trace AOL users as well?  Do they have an individual IP address?

Everyone has an individual IP address. Everything connected to the Internet has an IP address.

The way it works with AOL and similar ISPs is that addresses are often given out dynamically, so each time you connect you get an available address selected from a pool. Also, if you're using a proxy server the IP address that shows up in WOS's log files will be the address of that server rather than the user's address.

However, the ISP keeps logs of who has been allocated each address each time, and the proxy server logs all activity, so if someone contacts the ISP and says "Someone posted this picture on our machine by connecting from your server [IP address] on (say) 2007-02-20 at 23:30:28 UTC" then the ISP can check their server logs and trace it back to find out which user was responsible. Then, having wasted quite a bit of time checking the logs, the ISP can whack the user with the ban stick.

(I don't know if you saw it or not but it wasn't any old porn.)

I saw it. I can't get the image out of my mind. It was worse than the goatse one. (If you don't know what that is, you're lucky. If you do, I can sympathise. Wikipedia has an entry on it. (The Wikipedia page is safe for work, though some of the links from the page are not safe for work.))

btw have you put yourself forward as a mod?  I just thought that as you know so much about the system WOS could take you on straight away (even as a temp measure if you don't want to do it permanently) because it can't carry on like this.  If we don't get a mod on here soon we're going to end up with no site at all.

Yes, I did put myself forward. I agree that we need some sort of moderation quickly. Whether it would be enough to disallow guest posting outside office hours I don't know, but I certainly never want to see an image like that again.

[Blue]

Actually your right about IP banning. It won't work without upsetting too many other people.

So I guess then its moderators that are needed just to keep things in check.

From what I've seen, Skylight would make an excellent guardian.

[Lynette]

Please don't close the board at night....

[Matthew Winn]

I see.  I've never understood the reason for dynamic IP addresses.  If everyone can have a phone number why can't everyone have a static IP address?

There aren't enough IP addresses. The idea behind dynamic addresses is that not all customers of an ISP will be connected to the Internet at the same time, so by allocating numbers as they're needed the ISP can support more customers than it has IP addresses to give them.

Thankfully I haven't seen the other pic and I don't intend to.  Last night's made me feel sick.

Have you ever eaten something so disgusting that you wished you were able to take out your tongue and scrub it clean? After last night I wish I could do that to my brain.

As for overnight moderation, although few people would be available to moderate in the small hours of the morning there'd also be few people to take offence. It really just needs a small number of moderators at various times in the evening (up to shortly after midnight, say) and first thing in the morning. Trolls soon get bored if they're getting nowhere: why waste time here when there are easier targets elsewhere?

[hiphopmama]

I obviously missed what was going on last night, but can someone please explain to me how someone can download porn onto this website, call me naive but whenever i"ve logged on then all i see is threads & nothing more...obviously it was horrific or there wouldn"t be so much fuss about it (for the right reasons) Help me out someone & explain please