Please, don’t ban anonymous account, there are at least couple people who regularly use it. It is rare that anyone would use it for voting, it was the first time I have logged in and noticed so much upvoting and downvoting in a single thread. Sometimes I find a couple of votes in a thread, and I often revert them, but that’s it. Maybe there were previous incidents in the past, but I haven’t noticed them. Of course, things like that relies on goodwill. If someone started abusing it, there would be no choice except to ban it.
By the way, thank you Nancy. You do a job that is often unpleasant, but necessary.
Consider the worse case scenario: That he is the same handle behind the several antisocial accounts he has been associated with.
He’s streaks of valid contributions indicate a degree of sophistication and high function.
The harm he causes, in spite of several attempted interventions in the past that have been unsuccessful, earmarks his malignance.
Most importantly, his persistence in contributing here indicates that he has found a sense of community here.
This issue will not easily be resolved by banning every account he makes, or catching every work around. It will be resolved by helping him resolve the underlying issue: the alleged incompatibility of his style of forum usage with that of the broader community.
Has anyone suggested alternative communities he may prefer, for instance?
Forgotten the sequences so quickly?
“When you surround the enemy
Always allow them an escape route.
They must see that there is
An alternative to death.”
—Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Cloud Hands edition
“Don’t raise the pressure, lower the wall.”
—Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr
Worst case scenario, this is only the beginning. Do not make enemies annoying gnat’s for they can be a million times more annoying than dragons.
(b) can’t be done if someone has changed the password before the script ran… unless the script has access to the e-mail the account was created with so it can do the “password forgotten” thing, now that I think about it… Does anybody know the e-mail of the Username account?
+1 to the anon who used the “username2” account to post the parent comment. IIRC, there was an original “username” account, the use of which of collectively discontinued several months ago because its value to the community was co-opted by abusive anonymous users logging into it. I would hate to see that happen a second time, to “username2”. If it were to happen a second time, that would disincentivize necessary, honest, and respectful use of the anonymous account. If that became the norm, even if there were a “username3″, the perception might become there isn’t a general anonymous account on LessWrong for users. If people stopped trusting the resource completely, that would be sad. Also, it might send the signal to disrespectful anonymous users they can make or use as many anonymous accounts as they want, and the moderators would do little or nothing to stop them. This last point strikes me as unlikely, though, especially if LW mods have the power to block specific IP addresses.
the use of which of collectively discontinued several months ago because its value to the community was co-opted by abusive anonymous users logging into it.
Actually, someone just changed the password. Kind of incredible it lasted the 2-3 years it did without that happening previously.
Thank you.
I could ban that account. Thoughts about whether that would be a good idea?
Please, don’t ban anonymous account, there are at least couple people who regularly use it. It is rare that anyone would use it for voting, it was the first time I have logged in and noticed so much upvoting and downvoting in a single thread. Sometimes I find a couple of votes in a thread, and I often revert them, but that’s it. Maybe there were previous incidents in the past, but I haven’t noticed them. Of course, things like that relies on goodwill. If someone started abusing it, there would be no choice except to ban it.
By the way, thank you Nancy. You do a job that is often unpleasant, but necessary.
Definitely don’t unless strong evidence emerges of an actual serious problem. Having an effectively anon account is valuable.
OK. It won’t be banned.
I don’t know whether it would be possible to make it into a non-voting account, but if so, would that be a good idea?
It would certainly be a good idea. The account has no business of casting votes.
Counterexample: someone uses this account to ask a question and upvotes people who give helpful replies.
I’m concerned you’re underestimating VoiceofRa.
Consider the worse case scenario: That he is the same handle behind the several antisocial accounts he has been associated with.
He’s streaks of valid contributions indicate a degree of sophistication and high function.
The harm he causes, in spite of several attempted interventions in the past that have been unsuccessful, earmarks his malignance.
Most importantly, his persistence in contributing here indicates that he has found a sense of community here.
This issue will not easily be resolved by banning every account he makes, or catching every work around. It will be resolved by helping him resolve the underlying issue: the alleged incompatibility of his style of forum usage with that of the broader community.
Has anyone suggested alternative communities he may prefer, for instance?
Forgotten the sequences so quickly?
Worst case scenario, this is only the beginning. Do not make enemies annoying gnat’s for they can be a million times more annoying than dragons.
Likelier explanation: this is a trolling space too fun for him to abandon.
He isn’t really into trolling. He just reiterates his views and heavily downvotes his opponents.
Troll is one of those words tailor made for tabooing.
And, while we’re at it, to make it impossible to change its password as someone did to the Username account.
Alternatively, make a script for (a) undoing all votes, and (b) resetting the password, and run it every midnight.
(b) can’t be done if someone has changed the password before the script ran… unless the script has access to the e-mail the account was created with so it can do the “password forgotten” thing, now that I think about it… Does anybody know the e-mail of the Username account?
A script can talk directly to the database. It doesn’t need passwords to access an account.
+1 to the anon who used the “username2” account to post the parent comment. IIRC, there was an original “username” account, the use of which of collectively discontinued several months ago because its value to the community was co-opted by abusive anonymous users logging into it. I would hate to see that happen a second time, to “username2”. If it were to happen a second time, that would disincentivize necessary, honest, and respectful use of the anonymous account. If that became the norm, even if there were a “username3″, the perception might become there isn’t a general anonymous account on LessWrong for users. If people stopped trusting the resource completely, that would be sad. Also, it might send the signal to disrespectful anonymous users they can make or use as many anonymous accounts as they want, and the moderators would do little or nothing to stop them. This last point strikes me as unlikely, though, especially if LW mods have the power to block specific IP addresses.
Actually, someone just changed the password. Kind of incredible it lasted the 2-3 years it did without that happening previously.