1. Lea`Brooks

    Lea`Brooks Contributor Contributor

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    The struggle is real

    Discussion in 'The Lounge' started by Lea`Brooks, Dec 28, 2016.

    As a new moderator to subreddit, I would just like to give a shout-out to @Wreybies, @KaTrian, @T.Trian, @Mckk, @minstrel and all the other staff I'm forgetting for all the hard work they put into this forum to make it run smoothly. It's hard work and y'all never (well, rarely ;)) complain.

    Thanks so much for all that you do!!!
     
    Last edited: Dec 28, 2016
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  2. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    Welcome to the fray, O young modling. Take a deep breath and remember that there is no way to make everyone happy all of the time. If you only piss off some of the people some of the time, you're doing much better than most. :whistle: :-D

    [​IMG]
     
  3. Lea`Brooks

    Lea`Brooks Contributor Contributor

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    Man, I already got a case of sock-puppeting.. And he's got like ten accounts... It's brutal. lol
     
  4. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    And the forecast today is cloudy, with a strong chance of ban hammer

    I co admin a facebook photography group and we are banning about two morons a day at the moment (out of about a 14k membership). How hard is it to just follow the 'king rules :supermad:
     
  5. Mumble Bee

    Mumble Bee Keep writing. Contributor

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    Sock puppeting?
    Is that where you like a girl, but you're too shy to say anything, so you draw her face on a sock and....

    Oh, wait, you mean multiple accounts...
    I knew that.
     
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  6. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    I have to be honest: stuff like sock-puppetting is pretty easy to me. Yeah, it's a PITA to catch, but once caught, it's like fuck those puppets. Harder, for me, is 1) keeping the venue on track, and 2) interpersonal squabbles.

    This forum had a bit of a melt-down in 2013 because of a few things, not least of which is the sprawl of other social media venues that spread their forms of engagement to different venues, like this one. This is what I mean about keeping the venue on track. It's not easy to keep a place like this from becoming a suburb of Facebook with its corresponding comment-section wars. There's a balance between letting people talk about what they want and keeping the venue on its intended course. in 2013, the derail of politics was bad here. It was in every area of the forum.

    Hello Kitty has no mouth, discuss.

    *four posts later*

    Fucking 3rd Wave &^%$* we need gun control &^%$&* gay is OBVIOUSLY a choice, you stupid *$^*%&$.....

    :bigconfused:

    It was not easy to get things back on track and I wasn't making any friends and a lot of people who thought I was their friend because they thought I had similar politics to them discovered that I don't a flying flip about anyone's politics. I only care about the Venue and the Venue is Writing. And there are still people who refuse to believe that that's the religion I follow when I'm here. *shrug* What's a little gay, Puerto Rican, ex-military, gun owner to do? ;)
     
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  7. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    I think that might be just you ... ;)
     
  8. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    I think every worthwhile forum has its moment of crisis - if they survive they come out stronger ( The canal boat forum I used to mod on didn't survive its second melt down as the owner was so sick of all the bollocks he decided to just turn it off)
     
  9. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    I agree. It's a cycle of wax and wane with a moment of lunacy between one and the next.
     
  10. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    Welcome to the club. Info regarding secret handshake will be forthcoming.
     
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  11. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    Speaking of the club....

    You know how in the real world, there are those moments in life when suddenly everyone mentions having a brother or a husband who's an attorney in order to try to intimidate you into siding with them, doing what they want, etc..?

    90% of the people you will send warnings to will inform you that they do (or have) moderate somewhere else, and that you suck as a mod compare to their demigod manner of running things, you couldn't be worse if you maliciously tried, blah, blah, blah....

    Mods who actually mod in other places are rarely ever a problem because they know what it's like to have to deal with people, all the people, unfiltered for quality or ability to interact with other humans.
     
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  12. Lea`Brooks

    Lea`Brooks Contributor Contributor

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    Well, it's easier for you! You can just ban the IP address and move on. Unfortunately for me, I can only ban the username. So if the sockpuppet decides to make five new accounts (which this guy did), I have to ban all five accounts and delete all the nonsense he posted before he can make a new one that I have to watch out for. He ended up creating four new accounts that matched my screen name nearly identically and started posting things that I would never say to make me look bad. -_- I banned eight of his usernames yesterday.

    Fortunately, I was about to figure out a script that forced all new posts to be filtered through me so I could stop him from spamming so hard. It was rough goin' for a while there.

    ETA: Also, before I created this script, I wasn't notified of new posts, because we don't have a handy "What's New" button. I had to search each post for new stuff. :cry: It was very unfun. I'm sorry if I ever made your job difficult. lol
     
    Last edited: Dec 29, 2016
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  13. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    Nope. I have to do it the same way you do it. o_O Our software does allow for IP bans, but those are really problematic because they can block innocent accounts and changing one's IP is so easy these days. I mean, just take your laptop to a Starbucks instead of your house, and voilá. I've had people come back and back and back. :bigfrown:
     
  14. Lea`Brooks

    Lea`Brooks Contributor Contributor

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    Oh damn. lol I didn't know that. Okay, I take back everything I said. :p
     
  15. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    To be fair banning the IP doesnt work that well any more - for one thing mobile IPs are dynamic (that is they change from time to time) and for another you get people in big companies with shared IP addresses - not to mention anonymisers like hide my ass

    ETA wrey posted at the same time as me

    All you can do with idiots like that is play whack a mole until they get bored which can take years (vis that king arthur guy)
     
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  16. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    on the 'match your screen name thing' its not a bad idea to have a user named 'admin' to deal with the really troublesome arseholes so they don't know which mod is kicking them in the nuts (also watch out for sad bastards setting up accounts called 'admin' or 'moderator' to cause trouble with
     
  17. Lea`Brooks

    Lea`Brooks Contributor Contributor

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    Interesting.. Never thought of that. However, there is a script I can use that would automatically remove any posts made by someone with a similar screen name. So I'm good on that front. But that's a really genius idea for the future. lol
     
  18. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    That is one thing I do like about Xenforoâ„¢. My member badge is ostentatious as fuck (embarrassingly so), but it's not easy to fake being in charge. ;)
     
  19. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    On some forums you can make a user invisble without actually banning them - that way they go on posting their weak shite but no one can see their posts except them (and the mods unfortunately). That sometimes works better than a ban as they don't realise its been done and thus don't rush off to set up yet another sock puppet

    Of course that may be a xen foro thing so it might not be available in a subreddit
     
  20. Mumble Bee

    Mumble Bee Keep writing. Contributor

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    Isn't that like fighting sock puppeting with sock puppeting?
     
  21. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    Yeah, that's just a matter of setting up a user group where new posts remain hidden and then shunting the member to that user group. Xenforoâ„¢ is all about user groups. It's just a big complicated layer-cake of user groups. :)
     
  22. Lea`Brooks

    Lea`Brooks Contributor Contributor

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    Yeah, there's a script for that on reddit. It's called a Shadow Ban. Unfortunately, I don't know how to set one up. lol I know absolutely zero about the scripts, so I was literally banning this guy, deleting his posts, keeping an eye out for his new screen name, and researching how to write a script all at the same time. If he comes back, I'll shadow ban him then. But for now, he seems to have given up.
     
  23. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    This is true - then you get the ones who threaten legal action (what I tended to refer to as le gull sauce a la barry boys) because " you is interfering with my right to freedom of speech [and optionally the 1st amendment if they are american] and that, and my mate who is a lawyer says I can like sue you if you don't stop deleting my posts" also potentially adding "you is discriminating against me because I is black/gay/fat/ disabled/a muslin (sic) etc "

    I've never known any of these le gul sauce threats to amount to anything although i did once receive a 'solicitors letter' which was clearly written by someone in the first year of law school.

    ETA : My favourite was the guy who was going to complain the press complaints commission if we didn't reinstate his posts immediately ... pillock
     
  24. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    I had a lot of fun with a sockpuppeteer one evening on a forum I modded. I banned all his accounts, and I don't know if it's the same on Xenforo (this was vBulletin) but when he tried to log in he got a message saying 'Tenderiser banned you. Reason: Sockpuppet' or whatever.

    So then he created a new account. On the front page of the forum it showed you the newest member, and I knew it was him because the username followed the pattern of his others. I banned it before he could post.

    Then he created a new one, username TenderiserSucks or something equally damning.

    It went on all night (I had insomnia at the time and nothing better to do). The other mods and I were laughing because he had to go through all the rigmarole of making a new account with a new email address and all details filled in, then all I had to do was two clicks and it was toast.

    I like to think he's still angry about it.
     
  25. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    My fellow Americans misquoting, misusing, incorrectly citing the 1st Amendment is the reason I try to keep up with my Brit slang. Camouflage.
     
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