Oolite Bulletins

Commander McLane wrote:

Is this visible to everybody? (I'm seeing it, too; but—while being an assassin—I'm not among the master assassins listed by name.)

Whoops, industrial accident. It was applied to all spam assassins by mistake. (Man, phpBB’s interaction design is terrible. There is nothing to indicate what user or group you’re modifying when you actually do it, or in the confirmation prompt.)

Incidentally, the top secret registry of Master Assassins is here.

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shuriRichdide
https://bb.oolite.space/memberlist.php?m ... le&u=19402

suspect profile - lists google s homepage.

Commander McLane wrote:

Ahruman wrote:

There’s also a [Moderator Control Panel] link near the top right of the main page.

Is this visible to everybody? (I'm seeing it, too; but—while being an assassin—I'm not among the master assassins listed by name.)

I noticed this early yesterday, but upon checking I found it was only all the Assassins involved. As the Assassins are a small group (of whom there is nearly always one active on the board) I assumed this was a deliberate move to ensure a rapid first-post approval process.
I actually came across a spammer yesterday who had made a spammy first post. Had this post been genuine, I would have approved it within a minute or two of the post being made which would no doubt please the poster. However as this was clearly spammy (a long, illiterate endorsement for a brand of headphones), I chose to report it so that a master assassin could both remove the post and the 'new member'. By doing it this way one person would complete the whole task which ensures that everything that needs to be done is done, thus avoiding problems of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.

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sevriagnger
https://bb.oolite.space/memberlist.php?m ... le&u=19407

multiple hits on SFS and some funny google results.

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ArishaDoxi
https://bb.oolite.space/memberlist.php?m ... le&u=19408

again lots of suspect forum memberships via google and a load of hits on SFS.

Welcome back among the ranks El Viejo. As you can see, you are needed.

Also, while I'm at it, wish to apologise for my somewhat intermittent reporting lately. RL is rather (very) busy, and will stay that way for the next couple of months.

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xjkskakzck
https://bb.oolite.space/memberlist.php?m ... le&u=19410

link-pimp plus spammy first post to delete (would you like me to 'disapprove' these anyway?)

Smivs wrote:

link-pimp plus spammy first post to delete (would you like me to 'disapprove' these anyway?)

It clears them out, certainly - although when a bot gets deleted, its posts and pending posts go too. I wouldn't bother ticking the box to inform them, though!

OK. I'll do that then, and mention this on the report post. As you said it does get rid of them quickish. I noticed GoogleFeedfetcher was crawling the board while it was there so unfortunately this one might have 'worked' anyway. Ho-hum.

Hmm, thinking (there's a first ).

Have been looking at my new powers on the board.
If it is decided that things are to stay this way, I'm happy to use them for deleting offending first posts and for approving first post/topics, but I do feel that some clear guidelines are in order. Something on the lines of: As a mere Spam Assassin you may do the following only with your new found powers:

Gimi wrote:

...I do feel that some clear guidelines are in order. Something on the lines of: As a mere Spam Assassin you may do the following only with your new found powers:

I've been applying restraint and common sense so far, but some firm guidlines would be useful nonetheless.

Bah. PhpBB strikes again.

“Mere spam assassins” are not intended to have access to the moderator control panel. Master assassins should simply delete accounts with the “delete posts” option, or approve non-spammy messages as appropriate.

Ahruman wrote:

Bah. PhpBB strikes again.
“Mere spam assassins” are not intended to have access to the moderator control panel. Master assassins should simply delete accounts with the “delete posts” option, or approve non-spammy messages as appropriate.

As I suspected. Back to normal where I can do much less damage.

Well, I guess that clears that up.

Firstly let me be clear that I love this board and this community and my only concern is that the best interests of the board and it's members are served. I am not looking for, nor want, anything out of this for myself.
Having now had a few hours to digest the 'events' of the last couple of days here on the 'Reporting Spam' thread, I have some thoughts and concerns that I feel obliged to share.
The situation began with Ahruman accidently giving moderator access to all the Spam Assassins when he intended to give this power only to the Master Assassins. The Spam Assassins are a group of eleven established and respected board members, given the title for services rendered. Of the eleven, only four (Myself, Gimi, Commander McLane and Thargoid) are regular visitors to the board these days. Most of the others have been absent for some time, with a couple (Fatleaf and Maegil) being only rare visitors now due to their RL situations.
For this reason, it seems that only myself, Commander McLane and Gimi noticed that we had been granted moderator powers. None of us used the powers we then had, and our only comments related to checking the situation and looking for guidance.
During all this several things became clear to me. Firstly, something I already understood really, is that the role of Spam Assassin is basically just an Honour. It is an Honour which is much appreciated but it is just that, an Honour and no more.
The (to quote Gimi) mere Spam Assassins, or Taggers as we should more accurately be called essentially serve little or no useful function, other than to wave a blunt stick at the spammers. We spend often quite a lot of time (several hours a week in my case) watching for spammers, researching them as best we can, then tagging them on the Reporting Spam thread. I say 'as best we can' because we are not given access to all the information necessary to do a thorough job, specifically email and IP adresses that we could check on Stop Forum Spam. The result of this is that, despite our best efforts, some spammers probably get through. And even worse a genuine new member is occassionally tagged as a spammer which to my mind is not acceptable.
Furthermore, I can't believe that the Master Assassins will delete an account purely on the say-so of a Tagger. I am sure the Masters will also carry out all the same checks the Taggers do, and then further checks that they are able to do and we are not. This redundancy ultimately makes the role of the Taggers a bit pointless. There is the arguement that the more eyes looking, the better and of course there is some truth in that, but the benefit is at best marginal.
With only two active Master Assassins (DaddyHoggy being on a long-term sabbatical), there are inevitable delays between a spammer signing up and any meaningful action being taken. Some of these delays are quite lengthy.
During the few hours I had moderator access, I detected two spammers who were attempting to post spam on the forum. One was extolling the virtues of a brand of headphones and the other was 'selling' Louis Vuitton handbags. I could have deleted both of these but chose not to act until the situation regarding our access was clarified. This seemed the responsible thing to do. Instead I posted both on the Reporting Spam thread with a note that they had spammy posts waiting for approval.
The second post had several links within it to the spammer's website. This kind of spam is insidious. The way it works is that the search engines (Google etc) have 'spiders' which crawl the web looking for links. In simple terms the more links to a site that these spiders find, the higher that site goes up the search results. So if one of these spammy posts is sitting on the BB server waiting for approval when the spider visits, those links will be noted and the spammer's website will marginally improve its ranking on the search engine.
Google's spider was crawling the board while this post was awaiting approval and was therefore most likely scanned. In other words, on this occassion the spammer won. He might now be dead and gone from the board, but he got what he wanted. I sincerely regret my restraint now - I should have deleted it when I had the chance.
My point is this must be happening frequently. It has no adverse impact on the board or the members, but as someone who hates spam with a passion, it irks me that our board can and frequently is used and exploited in this way.
It struck me therefore that Ahruman's 'mistake' was actually serendipidous. It showed that an easy and safe way to reduce this problem was available. A way that did not involve re-catagorising or promoting any board member, but simply required offering the active Taggers first-post approval powers. The more 'approvers', the more chance one would be on the board at any given time and therefore the more chance that the spammers could be neutred before they win their little moral victories. Both myself and Gimi made it clear that we would be happy to take on this extra responsibility.
Sadly there was no recognition or appreciation shown for our offer and it seems this oportunity was either not recognised or was deemed an undesirable option for some reason, as the access powers have now been withdrawn.
I have to say this has disappointed and disheartened me somewhat. I have seen a situation where I could actually do something useful come and go, and in a way that has left me feeling very jaded.
My hope is that some of the points I have raised may lead to an improvement in the way spam is handled on the board, and if so, I will be content with that, and am happy to help where I can.