Spammers.

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Northern
Artist -

I refuse to bend
One thing you might be seeing in the “first/last” is that often when two of us are working on the same thread cleaning up spam, one starts at the front, the other starts at the back, so that we don’t work on the same comments at the same time.
 
This makes logical sense. It would make a lot more logical sense, however, if not only the very first message was deleted along with the 6 or so from the ending. The second, third, etc until the last 6 or so were left in tact until the mass message hiding later.
 
there were a lot of instances where I’d only get one or two posts deleted then abandon the cleanup to go work on stopping the spammer again.
 
Ah, There we go. That’s a proper explanation. Thank you. That’s all I asked.
 
I think people have the impression that we have some set of tools in the background that allow us to do this with computers, but for the most part we are humans clicking buttons. And because the push to get Philomena out the door was focused on user experience rather than moderation tools, the moderation tools are significantly less ‘fully featured’ in some way than the end user presentation.
So a lot of this, like ‘you start in the front I’ll start in the back’ approaches we use are just workarounds to get the work done as quickly as possible, with hopefully as few mistakes as possible.
As you’ve seen in other threads, we obviously missed some of the posts the spammer made, so hopefully someone will report them if they see them.
 
Absolutely. You’ve more than satisfied my concerns on this issue. Thank you for your responses. They’ve helped clarify the inner processes. Though one other thing I’ve heard from another mod has me confused. Apparently you do have access to console commands to hide posts? That somewhat conflicts with the idea that you have to hide everything manually.
 
Other people saw that a thread was getting posted to, and they went to the ‘Forum Activity’ link that takes them to the last (most recent) post.
 
Wouldn’t that primarily lead to way, way more reports of spam in the middle being deleted? I did a lot of flipping back and forth through the pages and nothing at all in the middle was deleted until things were hidden. Then again, in instances such as this, you probably just took a look in the thread and got to work from the front and back, eh? That makes plenty sense.
 
I don’t think the spammer had anything to do with pro-censorship or anti-censorship.
 
I absolutely believe they were attempting to create chaos in the argument in question, and since it pretty much only targeted threads where the administration staff were being asked questions that were left unanswered, I genuinely think there’s a pretty solid case to be made that the spam was, itself, an attempt to get such discussions shut down.
 
this has all gotten crazy enough that maybe someone actually thinks that’s a good idea.
 
And what a shame that is. Dishonest tactics are wrong, no matter who employs them.
 
Now that I’m back, I’m trying to be more transparent about what is happening behind the scenes, as much as I can with the limited time I have on this site.
 
I meant it would do me no good to dishonestly hide the vitriol this brought out in me. I wouldn’t try to hide what I did or am doing, but thank you again for the affirmation. That transparency is important.
Background Pony #FA9E
@Northern  
The console commands here refer to direct database access, which is always a last resort because it is clunky, risky, and leaves little to no traces. But it can be more efficient for unusual stuff like deleting lots of post with the exact same message.
Derpy Whooves
Preenhub - We all know what you were up to this evening~
Artist -
My Little Pony - 1992 Edition
Artistic Detective - For awesome dedication to sleuthing out and maintaining artist tags and links
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Not a Llama - Happy April Fools Day!

Looking For My Doctor
Apparently you do have access to console commands to hide posts?
 
I do not. Only admin do, and it usually takes us a day or two to coordinate requests for those kinds of programmatic deletions. Too often there are unanticipated results so there’s only a handful of people who even have access to the console.
 
Wouldn’t that primarily lead to way, way more reports of spam in the middle being deleted?
 
In the later batches, I wasn’t here, but most of this particular spammer’s attacks that I witnessed lasted only 1 or 2 minutes, with one spam a second on average. In the end of their first batch of attacks, they weren’t even waiting for us to ban them, they just pounded the site for a couple of minutes, then went away to flip IPs before we even banned them.
 
So there wasn’t a lot of “in the middle time” for people to happen into the middle of something, because either people got a notification of the first post the spammer made, or followed the link to the ‘latest activity’ on the front page.
 
To catch it in the middle, someone would have had to have happened on the update as the spammer was actively spamming.
 
since it pretty much only targeted threads where the administration staff were being asked questions that were left unanswered, I genuinely think there’s a pretty solid case to be made that the spam was, itself, an attempt to get such discussions shut down.
 
You keep saying this, but we are STILL answering questions in the Rule #0 thread. Princess Luna was answering questions in there just a couple hours ago.
 
I think it’s more plausible the spammer just grabbed whatever thread was currently active and went with that.
 
If I may ask, why do you think we are leaving questions unanswered? I feel like I’ve been doing nothing but answering questions this week, and Princess Luna is still answering questions in there - can you describe why you think we aren’t answering questions?
 
@Background Pony #FA9E  
Or completely breaks shit, like the latest takedown I did before I took a break - now all those images’ thumbnails are fucked. If the artist does ask for them to be restored we might have to go to a backup or just reprocess all of the images 9__9 Basically, directly sticking your fingers into the Production database is always something that has to be done extremely carefully.
Northern
Artist -

I refuse to bend
@Derpy Whooves  
Because every single time I hit on a point that would, using the words I was given from the admins or mods (or friends!) confirm that this rule change as written would result in censorship, the admin answering my question has left. I put my latest massive case in the pinned thread, explaining the exact importance and significance and exactly what would happen if the rules as written were followed exactly as written without bias, as well as bringing all of my questions from my own threads there through links to all of the questions I asked about the inconsistent application and actual wording concerns that explain how the rules are currently trampling the concepts of parody, satired and jest and have still not received answers to any of them, even in Luna’s responses to me, even though them and I were the ones that initially discussed one of the topics in question.
Derpy Whooves
Preenhub - We all know what you were up to this evening~
Artist -
My Little Pony - 1992 Edition
Artistic Detective - For awesome dedication to sleuthing out and maintaining artist tags and links
Economist -
Not a Llama - Happy April Fools Day!

Looking For My Doctor
@Northern  
Give me a link to it. I know from my own attempts to keep up with those threads I only answer about one out of every 10 to 20 questions, it’s impossible to answer all of them in the hour or two some of us have to spend here in a typical day.
 
So give me a link to it. I’ll respond in the thread where you posted it.
Derpy Whooves
Preenhub - We all know what you were up to this evening~
Artist -
My Little Pony - 1992 Edition
Artistic Detective - For awesome dedication to sleuthing out and maintaining artist tags and links
Economist -
Not a Llama - Happy April Fools Day!

Looking For My Doctor
@Northern  
Oh. Ok, you’re replying to Princess Luna’s list of images they deleted in the last 2 days, and you disagree with the deletions. You aren’t asking questions, you just are just arguing against the deletions.
 
So why did you accusing them of leaving? They replied to you and continued to answer questions in that thread for almost 2 hours.
 
I’m going to go help others. This is all just starting to feel like intentional trolling.
Northern
Artist -

I refuse to bend
@Derpy Whooves  
I linked you to the original post because it has links to a multitude of posts with questions about how the rules are written and the application thereof, the answers I’ve been given are woefully inadequate and don’t cover even the basic questions about what would happen if the rules were applied as written without bias. My arguments in the other threads all contain unanswered points about how parody is being trampled by the current rules as written (and specifically the clarifications of those rules given in the Rule 0 feedback thread as well) and how if the rules were applied evenly a whole lot more would be banned than is, and also a question I asked regarding transparency in the decision making process for removing images and why one of the modteam believe that the internal review processes are inherently more fair than having blanket rules that apply in all cases.
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