Tavern on the Meta

user202362

12:15 AM

why does twitter send me an email about a new notification everyday to my test account when there is really no notification at all?

Sonic Wizard

3

Q: Add cookie blocks to the IP-based spam-blocking system

Note: Not a duplicate of Please don't use a spam filter based on IP address. That proposes that we stop blocking IPs; this one suggests implementing an additional feature while keeping the existing IP blocking system. Over at Charcoal, we've detected at least a few persistent spammers and trolls...

cv-pls meta.stackexchange.com/questions/308729/…

Sonic Wizard

12:43 AM

delv-pls 20k+ meta.stackexchange.com/questions/308729/…

@JourneymanGeek What do you think of my cookie blocking proposal?

user315433

Tired of typing Channels/Teams. Let's just call them "cheams".

user315433

Are cheams really private in the sense that CMs have no access either?

Sonic Wizard

I was asking myself the same question

user315433

Like, can Shog see what's at the link you posted?

Jon Ericson

@SFTP We don't have access unless we happen to belong to a team.

Sonic Wizard

12:53 AM

Exactly, I realized that and asked someone on Charcoal to link to a metasmoke page instead

Catija

Shog's on the Team, though...

Sonic Wizard

@SFTP So he can.

user315433

But then who will do support when something breaks / appears to be broken?

Sonic Wizard

Channels/Teams/"Cheams" admins?

user315433

Admins are from some external org, what can they do about SO software...

Sonic Wizard

12:55 AM

Fortunately, the charging one has been solved now that we've all standardized on mini-USB. Or is it micro-USB? Shit.

Catija

"Channels" isn't a thing... it's just Teams.

Sonic Wizard

I know that

user202362

Obviously if you have paid for the support, who you have paid would allocated someone to provide the support. You need to contact vendor for said support.

user315433

> Channels are an architectural concept that are primarily inward-facing, but serve as the foundation to allow things like Stack Overflow For Teams to exist. meta.stackoverflow.com/q/364145

user202362

for any open source or free software, usually there isn't any dedicated support

user315433

12:57 AM

There is babasupport and it's very dedicated.

user202362

I haven't see many dedicated trolls, they usually works on their own pace

Sonic Wizard

e.g. errorsolutions.tech

user202362

I mean, don't get me wrong, there is support for open source and free ware, just usually all bugs reports are public lodged and support will be provided based on the priority as determined by the provider.

user202362

Unless it's beta, which sometimes you don't have to pay, for you are the guinea pig. In which the case lab assistance will keep a close eye on the guinea pigs and provide immediate assistance when necessary.

SmokeDetector

1:33 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive answer detected: How can androids suffer from a virus that spreads by contact by Guy Name on worldbuilding.SE

Sonic Wizard

@SmokeDetector Self-vandalism

SmokeDetector

1:45 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Manually reported answer: Unterschied zwischen »zu etwas bereit sein« und »für etwas bereit sein« by Lehmann on german.SE

Sonic Wizard

@SFTP They have some time remaining to get their naming right

Journeyman Geek

@SFTP cheem is singapore slang for complicated ;p

user315433

Teams also sounds too slacky.

Journeyman Geek

@Catija Internally its still channels, and people in the company still seem to confuse them.

@SFTP MS's slack clone is called Teams IIRC ;p

Sonic Wizard

3 mins ago, by Sonic Wizard

@SFTP They have some time remaining to get their naming right

@JourneymanGeek How about Teams i-IRC

user315433

1:53 AM

@SonicWizard echo in the Tavern

Sonic Wizard

@SFTP Echo in the...Cavern

user315433

An idea for next 1st april: echo in all chatrooms, reposting increasingly distorted messages at some intervals.

user315433

What could go wrong?

Journeyman Geek

That would be actually disruptive ;p

Catija

please no.

user315433

1:56 AM

Except for Duck's messages. Duck's quacks don't echo, right?

Sonic Wizard

@SFTP Yeah, what could go wrong?

HTTPS

I.. start to think it's better to move spam/troll detection discussion to a specific cheams, considering other than we have normal trolls (who doesn't read anything and just want to troll), there are smart trolls (who even read Smokey code to evade)

user315433

boolean logic sucks because you have a 50/50 chance to completely fuck everything up those are some pretty high odds

Tweeted by rossipedia on April 2, 2018 at 7:25 PM

user315433

@HTTPS Or conversely, wants the posts to be immediately reported.

user315433

If Smokey didn't exist, the turkey business wouldn't last long, it'd just be boring.

Shog9

2:02 AM

@HTTPS eh... For every persistent troll who spends hours carefully working around all this crap, there are many, many spammers who don't really care to invest the time.

HTTPS

Okay, that's relieving to hear from CM

Shog9

I mean, look at stuff like the profile spammers from last year. Somewhere approaching 100K accounts, each registered and populated with keywords, with requests hitting from a dizzying array of IPs owned by large hosting companies.

The problem there isn't that we had some extensively crafted web of checks to prevent it and they methodically worked around them...

the problem is we didn't really think about that form of abuse and so they marched an army right through the open door.

Sonic Wizard

1 hour ago, by Sonic Wizard

delv-pls 20k+ https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/308729/unable-to-do-slide-out-animation‌-when-user-mouse-over-the-button-in-css-or-jqure

user315433

Unrelated FR: network-wide warning shown when someone puts emoji in a post.

Catija

Speaking of profiles... they still haven't disabled video embedding on profiles.

user315433

2:08 AM

Emojis are anti-SE in every way. They are also the devil.

Catija

I edit them out whenever I see them... even just keyboard ones...

HTTPS

Side-related FR: show a dialog with checkbox to confirm if the emoji is necessary, otherwise replaced all emojis with 🖾 automatically

Sonic Wizard

@HTTPS People will just click past that message.

user315433

Checkboxes are also the devil.

user315433

0

A: Python User-Defined Data Type

well according to the teachings of my senpai. i believe that we could finally understand the true meaning of life and the life of a computer programmer. my senpai also teaches me the truth about sex and where babies come from. this leads me to believe that user-defined data type is important for ...

user315433

2:13 AM

NAA or R/A?

HTTPS

@SFTP conclusion: user-defined data is important for procreation.

Catija

WTF

user315433

There is no WTF flag though.

Catija

NAA

Or get someone from the Japanese SO to deal with it.

user315433

OK

HTTPS

2:15 AM

@Catija OK

Catija

:D

Shog9

of the ~20 accounts used to post spam on Stack Overflow today, either none of their owners tried it twice or none allowed a persistent cookie to remain uncleared between attempts.

starting to suspect that "incognito mode" may not be that big of a hurdle

Sonic Wizard

@Shog9 Are we already doing the thing I proposed in my question to track the effectiveness?

Shog9

not exactly

but... We do throw a few cookies around

Catija

What flavor?

Sonic Wizard

2:20 AM

Do we give the mandatory "this site uses cookies" prompt to EU visitors @Shog9 ?

Shog9

Beats me

Sonic Wizard

@Shog9 Do we need to?

Shog9

Not a lawyer

I'd guess if we had to, then we would be

Sonic Wizard

Maybe check with the legal team if it's required?

Shog9

kinda missing the point here right now...

There are, as you can determine pretty easily using nothing but your own browser, cookies that are set prior to login and persist past login

so, cookies whose value remains fixed across - potentially - multiple accounts

Catija

2:23 AM

@SonicWizard If you were really curious if it's in use, you could always just check and see if it's there... shouldn't be too difficult if you can use a proxy with an EU IP, right?

Sonic Wizard

@Catija Yeah, let me try

Shog9

(this is not really much of a trick, it's kinda just how cookies work by default)

Sonic Wizard

(Don't get any prompt from a Dutch IP)

Catija

Were you already logged in?

Sonic Wizard

No, used a private window

HTTPS

2:24 AM

Does Google show the EU cookie prompt?

Sonic Wizard

@HTTPS "Een privacyherinnering van Google"

Shog9

19

A: Are cookie warnings still required under the EU cookie law?

As a European (Dutch) and a web builder: Yes, this is still required (if you have tracking/3rd party cookies). But now the cookie storm is over, and the dust has settled, most sites only show a small banner "we use cookies" and stick to that. Unless you're in the big league, there's not much to ...

user315433

Are cookie warnings still required under the EU cookie law? by Double Clicked on webmasters.stackexchange.com

user315433

SO does have physical presence in EU...

user315433

SO uses a bunch of things, including Facebook Beacon - type things via Quantcast iirc

Shog9

2:26 AM

tooons of questions about all this on Webmasters

Sonic Wizard

@SFTP London office?

Catija

London's not going to be in the EU much longer.

Bit less than a year, I guess?

user315433

But it is now. And there are employees in France and Germany, even if not a full-blown office.

Sonic Wizard

IIRC in the Netherlands as well

Catija

... but the answers there imply that most cookies are exempt... does SE use third party tracking cookies?

HTTPS

2:30 AM

I always read it as "Facebook Bacon"...

Sonic Wizard

Don't believe so

@HTTPS In certain accents they're pronounced the same

user315433

In my accent, English has maybe 2 vowels.

Shog9

wait, in which accent does English have more or less than 2 vowels?

Catija

Apparently not yours...

Shog9

is this one of those weird things where you count "sh" as a vowel?

...anyway, back to the thing that brought this up: bad news is, there's no gigantic pile of spam from a single browser that's hopping around a bunch of IPs but not clearing cookies.

I did find this one German browser used to create like 9 accounts, but they didn't do anything with them

Catija

2:36 AM

Maybe they want to age them for a bit. :)

Do unused accounts get better with age?

user315433

They get hijacked with age.

Shog9

and a bunch of Danish users who are all apparently just sharing one browser

mostly disappointing

Catija

... that's weird... how does that even work?

... assuming it's not the same person.

user315433

It's a small country, one computer is enough for everyone.

Catija

But... you should at least have separate user accounts... and that would make it a different "browser" right? Or no?

user315433

2:42 AM

This stuff where users log in to their browser? IDK how that works...

user315433

A suggested edit formats the code and adds "Please Help me ! Thanks in advance" at the end. Nice.

Catija

No... I mean user accounts on the computer... to keep their documents private.

user315433

Ah, that should keep cookies and stuff totally separate.

Catija

@SFTP Oh, hey... I've been looking for good ways to edit stuff on SO so that I can earn some rep there... glad to know that's acceptable.

user315433

@Catija You can start by fixing these 9000 posts... :)

Catija

2:45 AM

Oooh, excavator? :D

user315433

> plz help me fix copy constructor and "=" operator they are not printing a copy of List l. im not sure how u code the copy constructor and "=" operator idk if ...

Catija

I only need a few of them.

Shog9

85

Q: If you're on a classified network, how are you reading this?

This morning, my esteemed colleague kcpike posted this tweet in one of our internal chatrooms: I think it's an interesting question, because it covers a scenario we tend to forget about: folks who are researching problems that they might not have directly in front of them. We've run into f...

discussion

HTTPS

@SFTP it's over 9000!

Shog9

that... may or may not answer anything

Catija

2:46 AM

@Shog9 Um... they use the unclass machine sitting next to their classified one.

user315433

kcpike is now an esteemed Director of Brand Marketing at GitHub.

Shog9

3:01 AM

@Catija that's one way

there are others

Catija

The other ways are... less recommended.

Shog9

including "walk out through security and use the shared terminal"

Catija

But you should still have userlogins on the shared terminal...

HTTPS

for browsing SE? user login?

Catija

No... system user logins.

user315433

3:15 AM

> +1 tanks for the pedagogical answer.

Catija

Was the question about the Army?

Mobile artillery?

user315433

3:35 AM

This is my first post so please bare with me - 7 hits, i.e. 14 points from suggested edits.

Journeyman Geek

@Shog9 heh, that's a real issue here

Catija

Lots of people are encouraging nudism on SO...

Journeyman Geek

Most of the government agencies have taken their systems off the wider internet

@Catija whut?

Catija

bare -> naked.

user315433

With "bear" it's 26, still entirely disposable.

Catija

3:36 AM

grammarly.com/blog/bear-with-me

user315433

Without the "first post", "please bare with me" has 1755 hits

user315433

After a while, people will think it's correct because they saw it on Stack Overflow.

user315433

After reading Making downvotes more useful I was surprised to see who posted that...

user315433

The part "cap rep loss from any post at −2" is too complicated, I'd rather simply drop -2.

user315433

Meaning, no rep subtracted for downvotes. But my proposal to do that didn't go over well.

user315433

3:45 AM

... Can't find it, must have been Community-deleted as a negatively scored post by a deleted user.

Sonic Wizard

Such posts are no longer deleted on meta sites as of 2016.

user315433

Per site metas? Does that include Meta.SE (which is a main site)?

Sonic Wizard

I believe so; my old account here was deleted before that change

The post talking about that change also talked of a tool for mods to see deleted posts by a deleted user

@Shog9 If you could please use that tool on my old account (user215114) and give me links to automatically deleted posts deleted because they had negative scores

Shog9

You sure you want that?

Sonic Wizard

@Shog9 Is there a problem with it, based on the way you're phrasing your question?

Shog9

3:54 AM

Beats me

Sonic Wizard

@Shog9 Yes, I do.

Shog9

Just making sure... Sometimes our memories are better than what generated them.

Sonic Wizard

I think you would do it because the behavior was changed in 2016 to no longer delete those posts.

user315433

Someone else had a similar idea once...

user315433

And what I'm getting at is that we could alter how post scores are displayed without breaking anything, @Mari-LouA. Spam still disappears with 6 flags, but appears to have a score of 0 right up until deletion; lousy questions drop off the homepage at -4, but still appear to have a score of 0. Heck, we could even do this only for the authors of the posts themselves, and get rid of the distraction (and often counter-productive feelings of rage at seeing their work rejected) while still warning other readers that they may wish to look elsewhere... IOW, attack the perception, not the system. — Shog9 ♦ Oct 21 '16 at 18:02

Shog9

3:56 AM

Anyway, im afk - but if you shoot a request to /contact one of us can probably set you up.

Sonic Wizard

@SFTP Primary candidates in elections with negative scores are shown as having a score of 0. Voting on them will show it either changing to 1 or -1. If you have enough rep to see vote counts, clicking on the vote score will show the real score.

Catija

Not the nominations... the actual primary voting.

Nomination posts go negative just fine.

user315433

Anyway - yes, there is some precedent.

Sonic Wizard

@Shog9 This is simple to do: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/308703/…

Shog9

Needed: search bar that runs toward your cursor

user315433

4:02 AM

pls don't ping Shog with links to my posts, he has that "nuk" bookmarklet

user315433

Which offers an even easier solution than editing the Help Center.

Sonic Wizard

@SFTP Just to be clear here, are you being real?

Shog9

@SFTP altering perceptions seems less exciting than altering (other people's) behavior

user315433

I don't type "pls" if I'm being serious.

Sonic Wizard

@SFTP OK.

Shog9

4:04 AM

I have that post open in a tab anyway, along with three other help center requests

...only a couple hundred tabs to go

Catija

... y'all need some help.

Sonic Wizard

@Shog9 Have you considered disallowing URLs in titles of posts for new users?

Shog9

Why?

Sonic Wizard

@Shog9 metasmoke.erwaysoftware.com/reason/30

Shog9

To... Make spam harder to detect?

Sonic Wizard

4:08 AM

@Shog9 Much of that spam appears to be posted by spambots

Catija

Links in titles is one ding... if they need 3 to get autoflagged, seems bad to cut off one of them.

user315433

"disallow" => "silently nuke" would be nice, but no functionality for that.

Shog9

95% success rate seems like a good boat to not rock

Catija

... or two or whatever it is.

user315433

But yes, we don't need pop-up messages telling spammers what they need to obfuscate.

Sonic Wizard

4:10 AM

@SFTP "Sorry, post titles can't contain that content."

Shog9

Could do a warning... "This looks like spam. If you would perhaps like it to not be deleted, write a real title"

Catija

Oh, like the one on M&TV for ID questions.

Shog9

Yeah, like that ultra-successful warning

Catija

See... you know it works.

Sonic Wizard

Also, there was an old spate of spam where they were using Hangul characters, but they modified the warning to make it look like it was triggered because of the first 10 characters

user315433

4:11 AM

I'd rather let them learn by experience.

user315433

It's not like they would know what a real title is.

Catija

Words.

Words is a real title.

Shog9

I prefer the messages that quote the entire body of the post as "this content is not allowed"

Sonic Wizard

"Sorry, posts can't contain that content."

Shog9

Whichever

Sonic Wizard

4:12 AM

I think we've done that before

Shog9

I definitely have

Because I've had to explain it on meta

user315433

But I don't know what problem we are talking about: spam or clueless users?

user315433

Spam with URL is being handled just fine.

Shog9

And clueless users with url in title are rare

So... This suggests apathy as a strategy

I concur

user315433

Oblique strategies are the best strategies.

user315433

4:16 AM

my first 45 days on @StackOverflow in spanish, very proud of myself

Tweeted by IngAlfredoPaz on April 4, 2018 at 2:55 AM

user315433

Does he look proud?

user315433

Looks more like the thousand-yard stare to me.

user315433

Which, after 45 days on Stack Overflow, is totally understandable.

Catija

How To Train Your Dragon: "You just gestured to all of me!" 1

►

@SFTP Bah... just wait until he hits 282 days on IPS.

Journeyman Geek

heh, perception is meh. ;p

SmokeDetector

4:33 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Blacklisted username: In a Quantum Turing Machine, how is the decision to move along the memory tape made? by Anonymous Teacher on quantumcomputing.SE

HTTPS

@SFTP a mod wrote "Thanks in advance"? Is this a late April Fools? Sarcasm?

I think I'll go with 'sarcasm', but the OP forgot to add a footnote for it

user315433

@HTTPS The post is dripping with sarcasm, not only that part.

user315433

Which is another thing I didn't really expect from minitech.

HTTPS

yeah, seeing the diamond surprised me...

@Catija your comment is obsolete since the OP has been nuked...

Catija

Yeah, I know.

user315433

4:39 AM

Self-deleted.

user315433

A troll after all.

user315433

@PremKumar- Since I have given a correct answer to your question,please award me a bounty worth +50 reputation within 4 days from today — user1767 4 mins ago

user315433

Keeping my VLQ flag there.

HTTPS

I think I've seen this exact comment on another site, perhaps also on Anime.SE

user315433

The question has two comments by user1766, also deleted.

user315433

4:41 AM

Probably not a coincidence.

user315433

Anyway, what are the chances of QC becoming a site for crackpots by the end of 2019?

Catija

Um... What is this:

"Trivial answer converted to comment"?

HTTPS

@Catija I don't see it... it seems you have a mod power on there?

Catija

No, try clicking on the first link.

user315433

If you post an answer with a link to a post on the same site, and add few or none words to it, this is what happens.

user315433

4:48 AM

The answer does not get posted at all, a comment is created instead.

HTTPS

the URL slug contains #autocomment1256... hmm, TIL

Catija

... Yeah, that's... not really great...

HTTPS

and now they are gone ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Catija

Flag deleted.

user315433

Well, they wanted to show a temporary message to the user, explaining what happened.

user315433

4:50 AM

And decided that appending a hash parameter to the URL would be a good enough solution for that.

user315433

Of course, if the URL then gets embedded somewhere... that hash parameter still has the effect, which now is out of place.

user315433

An edge case.

user315433

Good, I get the impression that a supply of helpful flags (hence higher flag quota) on QC will come in handy sooner rather than later.

Sonic Wizard

5:07 AM

@SFTP I have 100 flags/day on SU because I flagged NAAs from the homepage

user202362

I mean ... why are the people so certain that most of the spammers on SO/SE are conducting their work manually?

Sonic Wizard

I referred to "spambots" in a previous message

user315433

They probably use some scripts.

user315433

But if a script stops working, someone is going to check and tweak it.

user202362

I was researching a PR person who claims to be able to effectively promoting websites, turns out, you can buy very sophisticated spamming tools for less than $200

user315433

5:09 AM

We've seen this before, with customer support phone numbers that flooded SO and Meta like no other spam wave ever did.

user315433

They evaded newly added checks pretty well.

Catija

You know you're really fowl minded when you read "checks" as "chicks".

user202362

this dog can evade newly added chicks pretty well too:

user202362

user315433

Some regexes that Charcoal room discussed recently may be to blame.

Sonic Wizard

6:34 AM

@ShadowWizard chaos-emerald-pls meta.stackexchange.com/questions/308709/…

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at end of answer: Maximum characters in Multiple lines of text Column by user75140 on sharepoint.SE

Shadow Wizard

@TelKitty yup one can buy anything these days, including Facebook Likes to their posts, YouTube views (millions of them) for their videos, etc. All done using bots.

I believe that about 80%, probably more, of the overall YouTube views for example are fake, done by bots as result of people buying views. Same with Likes in facebook, and most likely any social media.

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