TrollBack for May 2004

Journal TrollBack's Journal: TrollBack for May 2004 14

Journal by TrollBack on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @06:02AM

Better late than never, assmasters.

If TrollBack seems a little late to you, please understand that the best things in life take time. When was the last time you saw Quickies? Exactly.

Please remember that the TrollBack team welcomes guest editors and content. Send us an email if you're interested in helping.

As the Greatest Generation finally gets a Memorial in Washington D.C., we here at TrollBack find ourselves mourning the passing of fallen comrades. Cmdr Stalin has passed a new subnet banning decree, signalling the end of such greats as SCO$699FeeTroll. Slashdot trolls will rise from the ashes of fascism to circumvent their subnet bans and post again.

(Ban)-ana Monkeys

The IP ban code has been given a new set of very sharp teeth, causing many everyday Slashdot users to get IP banned. Most of these people will just quietly leave, but a small fraction are figuring out that they can still post journal entries on the subject. Here's a small sampler:

illuminata: 'I can't post because of too many negative moderations that were done by some people who don't like what I have to say.'
October_30th: 'This must be the longest ban I've ever been subjected to. A week or so short of a month already.'
Mirko: 'So, here's the deal : I will deactivate the Slashdot ad blocker (do you really sell stuff to Swiss people, anyway ?!) until I can post again.'
To follow this up, we have a priceless response in which the Swiss guy's grammar is mocked. Yes, Slashdot mocked someone else's use of English - a foreign national, to boot. We just can't make this stuff up: 'We will get back to you when we are done "Thinking of it."'
YAJoe: 'According to Slashdot, my IP address has had several bad posts and therefore I cannot post again. To them, I am a bad egg.'
monstroyer: 'Slashdot took a page from the entertainment industry and banned this account because I have too much karma and paid a subscriber bonus. Now that's service!'
pluvius: 'I just noticed that I'm no longer able to post anonymously because of "excessive bad posting on my subnet or IP."'
Cyrax: 'im reading a article decide to post a comment and boom i get this crap "Due to excessive bad posting..."'
Bajanman: 'Well, it looks like I'm blocked for good here at slashdot.org.'
sulli: 'I posted two cheap flames. Maybe three. I knew slashdot was getting strict, but damn.'
Benna: 'It was a perfectly reasoned opinion and certainly not a troll. I thought slashdot stood for free speech but apperently not.'

These are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg: you can find more diaries on the topic.

If you're an unaffiliated, non-trolling Slashbot who got banned for posting something truthful about Microsoft, the DMCA, or any other Kool-Aid laden topic at Slashdot, take a moment to share your story in the comments of this diary. For those who are wondering how the new IP ban code works, it's just a simple change to an old system. Basically if you get moderated down by any moderator, they put a posting ban on the entire class C network you posted from, and if it happens more than once, the ban can last for months. Many people who are angry at 'the jerk on my network who got me banned' are unaware that the 'jerk' is probably them. Look in your history: do you have a single post at -1? That's probably why you can't post.

Some of you may be thinking "you mean I can ban an entire dorm of nerds, or my company, or an entire cable modem block, just by posting goatse links a few times?". The answer, in short, is yes. Troublemakers have been handed a new form of troublemaking: just visit a network with a lot of Slashdot users, go on an anonymous posting spree, and you can get them shipped off to Gauntanamo for months. If you're intending to use a proxy to get its subnet banned, please be aware that they don't proxy scan you if you post logged in, so use a fresh account.

In other news, we can finally tell (sometimes) when editors are moderating a story. Moderators can now moderate posts down from -1 to -1 (-1 + -1 = -1, Slashdot math, etc). This allows the editors to put IP bans on users posting at -1. Here's coverage, and here's a race condition in Slashcode.

Robbie the Slashbot

After careful consideration, we here at Trollback have decided on a new Mascot: Robbie the Slashbot, pictured upper right. Robbie won out because despite his total lack of a brain, he's managed to get his right arm in the air for a healthy Sig Heil. Robbie knows that BSD isn't dying, Linux is the best operating system and Osama bin Laden was probably a freedom fighter. Welcome, Robbie! Here at Slashdot, you're among friends. Lots of them.

The List

(0,5,20) ObviousGuy | Why doesn't Unix die? (4,14,36) bonch | I'll come right out and say it (-1,8,32) ObviousGuy | CS has very little to do with math (3,10,22) ObviousGuy | International relations (2,7,30) ObviousGuy | Well, yes.. (2,6,7) ObviousGuy | Well, yes.. (4,23,58) Ckwop | A few suggestions (3,6,14) ObviousGuy | Microsoft does what it does best (5,6,51) ObviousGuy | Reinventing X? (4,10,19) Debian Troll's Best | Article puts it all in perspective (5,5,8) Anonymous Coward | As an insider for Microsoft (3,6,7) Debian Troll's Best | Re:Turing was also... (5,19,136) palndron | How is this different? (1,10,44) tacobot | Before anyone spouts off at the mouth (3,9,40) Power Everywhere | 10-15 years? (5,13,20) Hanna's Goblin Toys | SO cool. (-1,8,27) Exmet Paff Daxx | Fantastic (5,19,58) Power Everywhere | Let me tell you how it differs. (2,25,351) Vokbain | Your civil rights called... (5,27,70) Noose For A Neck | I never understood the Bittorrent thing... (4,10,53) Noose For A Neck | Already in use (-1,6,10) Noose For A Neck | Anybody have a bittorrent link? (4,5,13) Noose For A Neck | Good to see them in headlines again (-1,11,23) dnoyeb | Hype (0,6,26) USAPatriot | Beat The Chinese (-1,6,12) Debian Troll's Best | FUD not a serious threat to Linux at this stage (0,11,47) A. Pizmo Clam | Ho Hum (-1,6,40) Exmet Paff Daxx | That's nice. (4,72,334) Anonymous Coward | Fuck you America (-1,6,18) Anonymous Coward | You GOTTA read this: WARNING!!! (1,5,8) Anonymous Coward | iPod and UFS (1,8,31) Tuvai | How Lovely

Honourable Mentions

Last measure is used educationally in a story on hijacking web browsers.
Tarantolato slips a link to an extreme fundamentalist website into his submission about Inferno OS, generating a good deal of offtopic/offended churn in the comments.
In a story on embedding ascii art in ICMP, the inevitable happens.

Veni, Vedi, Wiki

Let's take a stroll down amnesia lane. In June of 2003, Hemos & CmdrTaco settled down with a few mixed drinks and a keyboard to discuss Slashdot on IRC. When a Slashdot reader asked what they thought of the Wiki concept, they had this to say:

<Questions> erigol asks: Have you considered setting up a slashdot Wiki, since Wiki's are, like, the rage, and stuff. <CmdrTaco> Wiki is silly. Not scalalble. <hemos> Wiki's make me want to guage my eyes out. <hemos> gouge, even. <CmdrTaco> They're fun for small groups. <hemos> No, I like the idea. <CmdrTaco> Slashdot is for millions. <hemos> And yeah, for smaller groups is great. <hemos> But we spent the 3 years scaling up to this level of users <CmdrTaco> Thats the thing that people don't understand

Strangely, just 6 months later, a site called Wikipedia blew by Slashdot so fast that it nearly knocked them off the Internet, utilizing only unscaleable Wiki technology. As Slashdot continues to decline, Wikipedia now has nearly doubled Slashdot's Alexa traffic ranking. Strangely in only a few years, a site not for millions blew millions past a site for millions. Pretty confusing, even to a Slashbot. Trollback has not yet learned how this amazing event took place, but we encourage you to write CmdrTaco to find out.

That's it for this month! See you in two weeks, sanity permitting.

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