Chris: No more Anonymous Posting!
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Mike , I respect your opinion on this. But I wonder if your attitude to this is that we are already defeated. Something that would be incredible is a Flame free Discussion Board. That would be an astounding feature, and far better than animated smileys. ( although they too are cool ) Isn't it possible that is this codeproject community with all the independant minds here that we can come up with some scheme plan or system to minimise flaming. Regardz Colin Davies too flame mail I am e-mal foot
You'd have to stop anonymous posting. I suppose you could give each user a unique id that they'd log in with, which would change if the email address was changed, thus you'd have to enter a valid email address to get your id and be able to post. Might encourage people to think before they speak. It wouldn't stop the serious flamers though - they'd just set up a temporary account on hotmail for the duration of the flame :(
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Chris, Take a look at this slander crap that's going on in the following article: http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/slickskins.asp Look at all that garbage posting berating this guy. It certainly would make me think twice about posting anything. Most of those wouldn't have the gall to say things like that if they had to sign it with their name. Please put a stop to this. How old are we anyway?!?!
As was mentioned previously ... even if you stop the use of anonymous, flamers will just create an alias and continue. It only takes a few to piss off many, and there is really no way to stop it unless you make code project a private site, which is not feasible. However, here is one solution. Allow registered/valid users to mark postings that may be inappropriate and if enough users mark it for removal then it will get removed. I guess it would work sort of like a voting system. More details would need to be worked out, but it may solve some issues. Its sort of like drivers who drive slow in the passing lane and do not move over; If you try and signal them to move over, most just drive slower to piss you off. Do you stop driving completely, or just try and ignore them (and swear to yourself as you pass them in another lane).
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You'd have to stop anonymous posting. I suppose you could give each user a unique id that they'd log in with, which would change if the email address was changed, thus you'd have to enter a valid email address to get your id and be able to post. Might encourage people to think before they speak. It wouldn't stop the serious flamers though - they'd just set up a temporary account on hotmail for the duration of the flame :(
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I've had a Hotmail account for 3 1/2 years, I use everyday so you couldn't prevent freemail addresses being restricted - it would'nt be fair:( Norm
That was partially my point. Anyway, you could have one of those infinite mailboxes (anything@yourname.yourisp.com) and not download mail from flamer@yourname.yourisp.com, so blocking domains would be way too complicated.
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As was mentioned previously ... even if you stop the use of anonymous, flamers will just create an alias and continue. It only takes a few to piss off many, and there is really no way to stop it unless you make code project a private site, which is not feasible. However, here is one solution. Allow registered/valid users to mark postings that may be inappropriate and if enough users mark it for removal then it will get removed. I guess it would work sort of like a voting system. More details would need to be worked out, but it may solve some issues. Its sort of like drivers who drive slow in the passing lane and do not move over; If you try and signal them to move over, most just drive slower to piss you off. Do you stop driving completely, or just try and ignore them (and swear to yourself as you pass them in another lane).
Ah yes, I was going to suggest something similar with authors moderating the comments on the article.
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Chris, Take a look at this slander crap that's going on in the following article: http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/slickskins.asp Look at all that garbage posting berating this guy. It certainly would make me think twice about posting anything. Most of those wouldn't have the gall to say things like that if they had to sign it with their name. Please put a stop to this. How old are we anyway?!?!
Yeah - I've been watching the article and thread. There is no way I can stop anonymous postings becuase people can always create bogus accounts. If an inflammatory post is made anonymously then who is going to take it seriously? I'm certainly not going to give credibility to abuse given by someone too scared to stand up to their own words. If you get a hundred anonymous flames and 5 registered users supporting a person then I know who I will believe. Even so, this is all good stuff. It's nice to hear what people have to say. It's entertaining and I never want anyone to feel that they can't voice what they feel. One thing I did try and do is make anonymous postings a little more dull than "real" postings. Maybe I should make them dull grey on a light grey background, in really tiny font. ;) cheers, Chris Maunder
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Mike , I respect your opinion on this. But I wonder if your attitude to this is that we are already defeated. Something that would be incredible is a Flame free Discussion Board. That would be an astounding feature, and far better than animated smileys. ( although they too are cool ) Isn't it possible that is this codeproject community with all the independant minds here that we can come up with some scheme plan or system to minimise flaming. Regardz Colin Davies too flame mail I am e-mal foot
You mean a moderated forum? Maybe unmoderated discussions on CodeProject, and a moderated lounge. This would keep the board free of off-topic and offensive posts, and spam, but still allow lively discussions. cheers, Chris Maunder
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Yeah - I've been watching the article and thread. There is no way I can stop anonymous postings becuase people can always create bogus accounts. If an inflammatory post is made anonymously then who is going to take it seriously? I'm certainly not going to give credibility to abuse given by someone too scared to stand up to their own words. If you get a hundred anonymous flames and 5 registered users supporting a person then I know who I will believe. Even so, this is all good stuff. It's nice to hear what people have to say. It's entertaining and I never want anyone to feel that they can't voice what they feel. One thing I did try and do is make anonymous postings a little more dull than "real" postings. Maybe I should make them dull grey on a light grey background, in really tiny font. ;) cheers, Chris Maunder
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Chris, how about making a note of the IP Adddess of people who flame and the next time they try and a flame to a thread, look up their IP address in the list of 'Banned' IP addresses, then prevent them form posting.
Comparing IP addresses isn't an exact science, since many people don't have fixed IP addresses. cheers, Chris Maunder
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Hey - cool. Is MadDog-hacker taken ? Seriously, the stuff we get from anonymous posters is often pathetic and I'm a firm believer that if you're not willing to put your name to it, you shouldn't say it. Christian The content of this post is not necessarily the opinion of my yadda yadda yadda. To understand recursion, we must first understand recursion.
it's also tough to have a conversation (so to speak) when multiple Anonymous posters get involved... -c
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Yeah - I've been watching the article and thread. There is no way I can stop anonymous postings becuase people can always create bogus accounts. If an inflammatory post is made anonymously then who is going to take it seriously? I'm certainly not going to give credibility to abuse given by someone too scared to stand up to their own words. If you get a hundred anonymous flames and 5 registered users supporting a person then I know who I will believe. Even so, this is all good stuff. It's nice to hear what people have to say. It's entertaining and I never want anyone to feel that they can't voice what they feel. One thing I did try and do is make anonymous postings a little more dull than "real" postings. Maybe I should make them dull grey on a light grey background, in really tiny font. ;) cheers, Chris Maunder
any way you can do an "ignore anonymous" option? on slashdot, i keep my threshold high enough so that i never have to see any anonymous postings. b.w.t. if any of you think the anonymous people are out of control here, take a look a slashdot (with a low threshold set, of course). -c
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Chris, Take a look at this slander crap that's going on in the following article: http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/slickskins.asp Look at all that garbage posting berating this guy. It certainly would make me think twice about posting anything. Most of those wouldn't have the gall to say things like that if they had to sign it with their name. Please put a stop to this. How old are we anyway?!?!
Wow, I love all the discussion. I'm glad people have an opinion on this whatever it is. Here's my list of points to make/possibilities: 1) You are certainly correct about people setting up temporary accounts for flaming. However, in my opinion, stopping Anonymous posters would cut the posts in half or maybe much, much, more. Often times some other lamers read a flame and jump in. I seriously doubt that the majority of people would go through the bother of setting up the account just to jump in which would likely seriously limit the "conversation" bringing it to an end all that much faster. 2) I think an author should have the right to remove comments or be able to at least request it. I usually go through the majority of the postings under any article to see what people think of the code and what possible bug fixes people have found that hasn't yet been incorporated by the author. I would prefer to not have to waste my time wading through a flame war. 3) Track the number of comments by a user. This is done on Quake3World's website and gives more priviledges to people that post more. I like that. 4) Tieing in with 3, allow users to rate responses. If enough "Remove this post" type requests are made, then remove the user's account. This means that sure, a user can recreate a new account, but they start back at the bottom as a "newbie" or some such nonsense. 5) I realize you can't block by IP since a large number of people still deal with dial up connections and even those with permanent connections like DSL or cable get assigned new IP addresses at bootup. Typically within a company's LAN this would be ok since probably DHCP just gives back the same IP each time but for everyone else this isn't practical. However, blocking by email address is a possibility. Sure, there's tons of freemail accounts, but then it's still a punishment and the user has to go through the trouble of setting up an account and starting over. Plus, if they are serious about use of the site, they lose access to it through their primary email address which would be a major pain. Just some thoughts. Thanks! Matt Philmon mphilmon@pobox.com
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any way you can do an "ignore anonymous" option? on slashdot, i keep my threshold high enough so that i never have to see any anonymous postings. b.w.t. if any of you think the anonymous people are out of control here, take a look a slashdot (with a low threshold set, of course). -c
That's a GREAT idea. Chris, could there be a user setting to not even SHOW anonymous postings?! I'd love that. That would really help (IMHO). Matt Philmon:) :) ;) :)
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Comparing IP addresses isn't an exact science, since many people don't have fixed IP addresses. cheers, Chris Maunder
Also, keep in mind that die hard flamers will consider prevention schemes to be a challenge. The more schemes you put in place, the harder it will be to flame, and the more "pride" they'll get from doing it.
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Wow, I love all the discussion. I'm glad people have an opinion on this whatever it is. Here's my list of points to make/possibilities: 1) You are certainly correct about people setting up temporary accounts for flaming. However, in my opinion, stopping Anonymous posters would cut the posts in half or maybe much, much, more. Often times some other lamers read a flame and jump in. I seriously doubt that the majority of people would go through the bother of setting up the account just to jump in which would likely seriously limit the "conversation" bringing it to an end all that much faster. 2) I think an author should have the right to remove comments or be able to at least request it. I usually go through the majority of the postings under any article to see what people think of the code and what possible bug fixes people have found that hasn't yet been incorporated by the author. I would prefer to not have to waste my time wading through a flame war. 3) Track the number of comments by a user. This is done on Quake3World's website and gives more priviledges to people that post more. I like that. 4) Tieing in with 3, allow users to rate responses. If enough "Remove this post" type requests are made, then remove the user's account. This means that sure, a user can recreate a new account, but they start back at the bottom as a "newbie" or some such nonsense. 5) I realize you can't block by IP since a large number of people still deal with dial up connections and even those with permanent connections like DSL or cable get assigned new IP addresses at bootup. Typically within a company's LAN this would be ok since probably DHCP just gives back the same IP each time but for everyone else this isn't practical. However, blocking by email address is a possibility. Sure, there's tons of freemail accounts, but then it's still a punishment and the user has to go through the trouble of setting up an account and starting over. Plus, if they are serious about use of the site, they lose access to it through their primary email address which would be a major pain. Just some thoughts. Thanks! Matt Philmon mphilmon@pobox.com
Here's a rough outline of how slashdot does it: 1. if you don't sign-in or don't have an account, you aren't just "anonymous" you are an "anonymous coward". :) 2. every few weeks, you are given a chance to moderate. you moderate by picking a message and ranking it on a list of 10 or so levels ("insightful", "off topic", "flamebait", "interesting", etc). you generally get 4 moderation points at a time. 3. if you moderate a topic, you can't post in that topic - thus you can't moderate your own posts. 4. as a result of moderation, every post has a ranking, from -1 to 5. when you browse, you determine the lowest ranking of posts you wish to see. i always browse at "1" 5. anonymous cowards post at -1, though their posts can be moderated up. because i browse at "1", i never see anonymous postings. 6. when you browse a topic that has been recently created, you see the full text of all posts. as the number of posts goes up, only high ranked posts are shown in full, lower ranked posts are shown as links (as all posts are on codeproject). this way, when you browse a topic with hundreds of postings, you see the full text of the highest ranked posts immediately. -c
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You mean a moderated forum? Maybe unmoderated discussions on CodeProject, and a moderated lounge. This would keep the board free of off-topic and offensive posts, and spam, but still allow lively discussions. cheers, Chris Maunder
I don't think it is worth doing anything to prevent flamers. Most of us are regulars here anyway, and if a 'newbie' starts a flame war against one of us we should all just ignore them. It's like the 'ignore the bully and he will go away' - it does work, and it still allows us the freedom to make anonymous posts (all of us need to do it at some point). Keep the system how it is. Don't let the lamers win - as it has been said in this thread, it wont stop them anyway. Cheers, The original 'Anonymous' User
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I don't think it is worth doing anything to prevent flamers. Most of us are regulars here anyway, and if a 'newbie' starts a flame war against one of us we should all just ignore them. It's like the 'ignore the bully and he will go away' - it does work, and it still allows us the freedom to make anonymous posts (all of us need to do it at some point). Keep the system how it is. Don't let the lamers win - as it has been said in this thread, it wont stop them anyway. Cheers, The original 'Anonymous' User
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Chris, how about making a note of the IP Adddess of people who flame and the next time they try and a flame to a thread, look up their IP address in the list of 'Banned' IP addresses, then prevent them form posting.
Banning IP's wont acomplish anything other than banning legitimate users: When I connect to the internet I am assigned a random IP by my ISP. Banning that IP would mean nothing, all i'd have to do is reconnect. You could banne the root of the IP (i.e. XXX.XXX.XXX) but then any other users connecting through my ISP would also be banned. It is a system that online games use a lot, and more then once i have been banned just for using my ISP :mad:.
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Here's a rough outline of how slashdot does it: 1. if you don't sign-in or don't have an account, you aren't just "anonymous" you are an "anonymous coward". :) 2. every few weeks, you are given a chance to moderate. you moderate by picking a message and ranking it on a list of 10 or so levels ("insightful", "off topic", "flamebait", "interesting", etc). you generally get 4 moderation points at a time. 3. if you moderate a topic, you can't post in that topic - thus you can't moderate your own posts. 4. as a result of moderation, every post has a ranking, from -1 to 5. when you browse, you determine the lowest ranking of posts you wish to see. i always browse at "1" 5. anonymous cowards post at -1, though their posts can be moderated up. because i browse at "1", i never see anonymous postings. 6. when you browse a topic that has been recently created, you see the full text of all posts. as the number of posts goes up, only high ranked posts are shown in full, lower ranked posts are shown as links (as all posts are on codeproject). this way, when you browse a topic with hundreds of postings, you see the full text of the highest ranked posts immediately. -c
That works for Slashdot because they're moderating hundreds of comments on any given topic. I don't believe this will work on a message board where the topic changes so frequently and the number of responses is limited. As a side note, I find Slashdots moderation system somewhat amusing. If you post a comment that is in sync with the hivemind, it gets moderated up. If you post a comment that, say, criticises Linux, it gets moderated down.