Journal Journal: Details of new "max posts per 24-hour period" feature 4
A few days ago (7/12/2002) there were some new checks added to the slashcode CVS. Here are the comments from the code:
comments.pl:
# New check (July 2002): there is a max number of posts per 24-hour
# period, either based on IPID for anonymous users, or on UID for
# logged-in users. Logged-in users get a max number of posts that
# is related to their karma. The comments_perday_bykarma var
# controls it (that var is turned into a hashref in MySQL.pm when
# the vars table is read in, whose keys we loop over to find the
# appropriate level).defaults.sql:
'comments_perday_bykarma', '-1=2|25=25|99999=50', 'Number of comments allowed to be posted per day, by karma score.'
'comments_perday_anon', '10', 'Number of comments allowed to be posted per day, by any one IPID, anonymously.'
So what does this mean?
K >= 25: you get 50 posts per 24 hrs
-1 <= K <= 24: you get 25 posts per 24 hrs
K < -1: you get 2 posts per 24 hrs
anonymous: you get 10 posts per 24 hrs per IP address
So, for the majority of non-troll users this shouldn't have much of an effect. I'm sure the troll accounts will have to adapt, and I'm pretty sure that's why this was implemented.
BTW, if you're not familiar with the IPID business: stored with every post is a hashed value of the IP and (class C) subnet from which the post was received. These are integrated into the admin user interface, and through the beauty of databases, the administrators can cross reference user IDs with IP/subnet addresses. So, if you use multiple personalities but access the site from the same IP address or subnet, your actions are rather clear from the standpoint of investigating abuse. You can read more about this issue (and some possible privacy issues) here and here.