Slashdot

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.

This journal entry is to list some slashdot features that are either very poorly documented or not documented at all.

• comments.pl - This will show you recently created discussions. Check the "(Referrer)" link to see what each discussion is associated with -- article or journal entry.
  
  
• comments.pl?op=user_created_index - This presents a list of user created discussions -- they are not associated with articles or journal entries, and the "referrer" or "story link" is an arbitrary link. You can create your own from this page as well.
  
  
• comments.pl?op=creator_index - This shows you discussions that you have created. This is the same as comments.pl?op=personal_index, I think.
  
  
• topics.pl?op=toptopics - This used to be a really neat feature that would articles for the last 4 days or so, arranged by topic. It appears to have changed so that now there's just a "Yesterday's Articles" and "Previous Articles" link for each topic. This is not nearly as good as the old page.
  
  
• You can see who your friends, foes, fans, and freaks are by using the tilde URL as follows: if your username is 'foo', then http://slashdot.org/~foo/fans will show you a list of users that consider you a friend, and http://slashdot.org/~foo/fiends will show those that consider you a foe. Here are examples for CmdrTaco: friends, foes, fans, and freaks. If you are not familiar with the tilde URL, you can also use it to show a user's information as well as their journal: http://slashdot.org/~CmdrTaco and http://slashdot.org/~CmdrTaco/journal.
  
  
• The slashcode-general mailing list archives are an interesting read for questions about slashcode and related stuff.
  
  
• A recent change has been "karma obfuscation" where your karma is listed only qualitatively, you do not see a number. You can read the somewhat obscure announcement in CmdrTaco's journal entry, and the resultant discussion is here. The default mappings for the karma labels appear to be as follows. Of course this may change.
   
  • -10 = Terrible
    
  • -1 = Bad
    
  • 0 = Neutral
    
  • 12 = Positive
    
  • 25 = Good
    
  • 99999 = Excellent
    
  
  
  
• Here are the default Lameness Filters for the subject of a submitted comment. The format is:

  'regex','flags','ratio','min_match','min_length','error_msg'

  
  min_match is the minimum number of times the regex must match to flag lameness. This can alternately be specified as a ratio, i.e. set min_match = ratio*total_length. min_length specifies how many characters the subject must have to apply this test. error_msg is the text that is displayed.

  
  '^(?:\\s+)','gi',0.0000,7,0,'Lots of space in the subject ... lots of space in the head.'
  '(?:\\b(?:[^a-zA-Z0-9])+\\b)','gi',0.0000,10,10,'Junk character post.'
  '\\w{80}','',0.0000,0,0,'that\'s an awful long string of letters there!'
  '[^a-z]','g',0.9000,0,2,'PLEASE DON\'T USE SO MANY CAPS. USING CAPS IS LIKE YELLING!'
  '^(?:)$','gi',0.0000,0,0,'Cat got your tongue? You mean you have nothing to say?'
  '[^a-zA-Z0-9]','gi',0.6000,0,10,'Ascii Art. How creative. Not here though.'
  '^(?:.)$','gi',0.0000,0,0,'One character. Hmmm. Gee, might this be a troll?'
  '^(.)\\1{5,}$','gi',0.0000,0,0,'Junk character post.'
  
  

  And similarly for the body of the comment:

  
  '^(?:\\s+)','gi',0.0000,40,0,'Lots of space in the comment ... lots of space in the head.'
  '(?:(?:\\W){5,})','gi',0.0000,5,25,'Junk character post.'
  '(?:\\b(?:[^a-zA-Z0-9])+\\b)','gi',0.0000,10,10,'Junk character post.'
  '^(?:.)$','gi',0.0000,0,0,'One character. Hmmm. Gee, might this be a troll?'
  '[\\\\\\,\\.\\-\\_\\*\\|\\}\\{\\]\\[\\@\\&\\%\\$\\s\\)\\(\\?\\!\\^\\=\\+\\~\\`\\\"\\\']','gi',0.6000,0,10,'Ascii art. How creative. Not here though.'
  '[^a-zA-Z0-9]','gi',0.6000,0,10,'Ascii Art. How creative. Not here though.'
  '[^a-z]','g',0.5000,0,2,'PLEASE DON\'T USE SO MANY CAPS. USING CAPS IS LIKE YELLING!'
  '^(?:)$','gi',0.0000,0,0,'Cat got your tongue? You mean you have nothing to say?'
  '\\w{80}','',0.0000,0,0,'that\'s an awful long string of letters there!'
  

  Note that there will be unintended spaces inserted in the above, which is unavoidable. There are additional checks as well. There must be at least 7 words per line, and the minimum average line width must be at least 40. Again, remember that these are the default stock slashcode values, the actual slashdot.org ones may differ. Thought someone might be curious, though.
  
  

That's about all I can think of for the moment. If I've forgotten anything, or you have more to include, then submit a comment to this entry.

Brian