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I am back.(self)

176 points175 points178 points submitted by magnora7[A]

Hey everyone,

The last couple weeks have been a little crazy. My house lost electricity for 3 days in below-freezing weather because of the Texas power generation disaster, which resulted in my water main pipe freezing and bursting. So I have not had running water for over a week now, and also all the stores are completely sold out of bottled water because everyone else is having the same problem.

So in dealing with all of this craziness, I was offline for over a week. This also by chance happened to unfortunately coincide with a cultural attack on saidit, where we have had dozens and dozens of accounts created with the sole intent of destroying the quality of the front page by stirring up lots of emotional nonsense, including arguing against themselves using alts to cause more drama in comments sections, and posting a lot of garbage and upvoting themselves to the front page using dummy accounts. I've gotten good at dealing with these attacks over the years, because they can be very difficult and the people involved are very dedicated, spending literally hours a day on this over a period of weeks or months. Sometimes forming close relationships with admins through PMs with the purpose of influencing them or extracting information from them, which also happened repeatedly with this latest attack. Some of the accounts they used in this recent attack were over 8 months old. This is a high level of persistence that indicates this person is probably being paid, or they are a sociopath, or both.

A few weeks ago, I appointed a content admin (TheAmeliaMay) who I put in to place to help us combat simple spam and ads, and they have been doing a great job of this, it has made my life a lot easier. In my absence though, they decided to step up to help stop this attack which was genuinely happening, but they also may have over-reached at times and also gotten in to public drawn-out arguments which put some people off. But for the record they did a decent job mitigating the attack which probably would've ruined the front page for over a week.

TheAmeliaMay is going to step back and resume their previous role of removing just only ads and spam now that I have returned, or they may quit altogether, they are still deciding. But whichever they decide, I am grateful for all the help they have offered so far.

Lastly, thank you to everyone who has helped by reporting rule-breaking comments and posts, this makes it much easier to spot and act on. Especially during attacks.

But anyway, long story short, I have power back now and life is returning to normal here after the Texas disaster, so I am now resuming my duties as head admin. Cheers.

top 100 commentsshow all 137

cryptEX 23 insightful - 3 fun23 insightful - 2 fun24 insightful - 3 fun 3 years ago

Glad your safe.

magnora7[S] 14 insightful - 4 fun14 insightful - 3 fun15 insightful - 4 fun 3 years ago

Thank you. It was dicey there for a bit. Now we are in the recovery and rebuilding phases

[deleted] 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun 3 years ago

Do you mean Saidit, or Texas? Either way, I hope the recovery brings peace, and the rebuilding brings stability.

magnora7[S] 14 insightful - 4 fun14 insightful - 3 fun15 insightful - 4 fun 3 years ago

Mainly Texas but also saidit somewhat, it's all related. I am feeling good about the future despite all the hardship. "Hard times makes strong men" as they say

JasonCarswell 6 insightful - 3 fun6 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 3 fun 3 years ago

Indeed. I've had a fucked up month too, but at least my back pain is finally getting better and I've been able to think again - just in time to learn about my Dad passing from "COVID". Regardless I'm more determined to resist than ever in bold new ways. There's no hurry to look over my grandiose posts as I'll be referencing them again. Sooner or later I hope you might consider sharing some feedback as they develop.

solder0 9 insightful - 10 fun9 insightful - 9 fun10 insightful - 10 fun 3 years ago

hand cuffs your wrist to a radiator

Well you ain't goin' anywhere no mo! :) Seriously, welcome back magnora7!

magnora7[S] 8 insightful - 5 fun8 insightful - 4 fun9 insightful - 5 fun 3 years ago

Haha, glad to be back :)

Chipit 11 insightful - 4 fun11 insightful - 3 fun12 insightful - 4 fun 3 years ago

Welcome back, man. We missed you. That Amelia lady was a fucking nut. Instead of staying in the background like a good admin should, xe waded hip-deep into site drama. Whoa, that's a big no-no.

Yeah, it's fucking disturbing the lengths the Reddit Hate Brigade will go to disrupt and demoralize the site. But remember, this is their job now. The hard left is awash with cash and they're putting their people everywhere. They're literally paid shills. I saw some on liveleak.com the other day and was shocked. Usually their comment section is a dumpster fire but good for a few insensitive laughs. Then I see what can only be a Reddit Hate Brigader posting talking points straight out of the handbook. You can tell them right away because who else defends SJWs?

bobbobbybob 7 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 2 fun 3 years ago

I know that I didn't help by calling his BS, but yep, tam lost perspective fast. Glad to have him doing spam and bot work, though. Very grateful

magnora7[S] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun 3 years ago

Yeah the drama was kinda bad, but for the record their removals were good choices. They got embroiled in public fights and debates though, that should be walked away from. I had to learn this lesson the hard way, over years, so I'm not surprised Amelia got tripped up by it on their first week. Because their whole goal is to make the admins flip out publicly like that, and they'll do anything to produce that reaction.

Zapped 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun 3 years ago

There was some kind of "war" years ago on the local Craigslist Rants & Raves section. It appeared that there was a group from a specific city posting insults and garbage to other cities' forums and cluttering up discussions. I always wondered why people enjoyed doing this and thought maybe the attack on this site was similar until learning more M7's comments.

HibikiBlack 10 insightful - 3 fun10 insightful - 2 fun11 insightful - 3 fun 3 years ago

Glad to see you are back Magnora. The fight always brings mayhem. I hope you haven't exhausted all your resources yet.

magnora7[S] 9 insightful - 4 fun9 insightful - 3 fun10 insightful - 4 fun 3 years ago

Nope, if anything that was a nice vacation and I'm replenished :)

Thanks for all your wonderful content both on here and on reddit!

Tom_Bombadil 7 insightful - 8 fun7 insightful - 7 fun8 insightful - 8 fun 3 years ago

Some dude briefly made it to the top of the "Hot" section of the site.

I guess he was looking for a job, or something...

[deleted] 4 insightful - 4 fun4 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 4 fun 3 years ago

Was he 6’5 or something? Possibly enjoys Cher? Think I heard about that..

Tom_Bombadil 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun 3 years ago

Was he 6’5 or something?

Could be? I didn't get a good look.

[deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 3 years ago

[removed]

Tom_Bombadil 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 3 years ago

Nope. No good.

Keep looking.

RightousBob 8 insightful - 3 fun8 insightful - 2 fun9 insightful - 3 fun 3 years ago

Welcome back.

magnora7[S] 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun 3 years ago

Thanks

ReeferMadness 7 insightful - 4 fun7 insightful - 3 fun8 insightful - 4 fun 3 years ago

Just out of curiosity does the power situation make sense to you? I find it extremely suspicious that the state can handle the AC load but not heater loads. Do you guys not use gas to heat your homes?

magnora7[S] 19 insightful - 4 fun19 insightful - 3 fun20 insightful - 4 fun 3 years ago

It's because the power stations froze. Power generation was down like 35GW from normal at the peak, because several coal plants froze (their water cooling lines were not insulated), and same happened with a nuclear power plant, and also a lot of wind turbines were not winterized. Literally 1/3 of all texas power generation was offline at the worst of it. Some natural gas lines froze too, apparently. It was really bad. Pipes are not insulated down here because it never is below freezing for longer than a few hours, but it was below freezing for like 5 days straight during this storm, and it really messed up a LOT of water pipes

JasonCarswell 6 insightful - 3 fun6 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 3 fun 3 years ago

I can understand problems with civilian pipes, but it seems irresponsible that all power be so vulnerable. Any chance any of this was more than just an accident?

magnora7[S] 12 insightful - 3 fun12 insightful - 2 fun13 insightful - 3 fun 3 years ago

There's some talk a computer hack may have been involved. But really it's just that the regulations didn't require it. There were recommendations to fix it after a similar thing happened in 1989 and 2011, but the recommendations to winterize were not followed because there were not penalties for not doing so. That seems to be the core issue

[deleted] 4 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 3 fun 3 years ago

In the USSR there was something that happened to a power plant because the parts were made cheaply and without thought for the most extreme of situations. Chernobyl.

Funny how the extremes of corporate capitalism and state communism end up boiling down to similar things: you get fucked up because they want to do it cheaply or easily, and frankly it's mostly good enough.

[deleted] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun 3 years ago

Thanks for this - and welcome back! - as it's not mentioned much by the MSM and in social media, which tends to focus on what happened rather than why it happened (or that Ted was MIA, or fundraising by AOC & Beto, or emergency aid, which are all worth noting, but Texans should discuss the history and potential solutions for this). Or as Jon Stewart used to refer to the MSM as like a reaction to spotting a squirrel, as a segue to anything (https://www.cc.com/video/ggx7it/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-squirrelly-situation). I hope that the discussion of potential penalties/regulations for State fiduciary irresponsibilities will continue, and that Texans will not forget this, as if if were an MSM discussion of a squirrel.

JasonCarswell 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun 3 years ago

Thanks for that perfect clear nutshell to remove my woo.

Akali 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun 3 years ago

From what I've heard, the cooling pipe of multiple electricity power plant froze and they couldn't cool down the powerplant so they had to reduce the production to avoid overheating.

Altought this might be an isolated case so it's to be taken with grains of salt.

Zapped 7 insightful - 3 fun7 insightful - 2 fun8 insightful - 3 fun 3 years ago

Good to see you back and active.

Do you have the time to look at the timing of the attacks, like every 3 months or after a newsworthy event? Have you tried to put together a pattern of when the posts or comments are made, like between the hours of 10am and 2am EST? Do the same accounts interact with each other in the comment sections more often than other accounts? Do some of the accounts that interact but have different "personalities" use the similar language or phrases?

I'm sure you're way ahead of this, but I'm curious to what you find out, when and if you feel its ok to disclose what you find. I would like to reaffirm what you said about not interacting with those accounts. It only feeds them what they are hungry for.

magnora7[S] 18 insightful - 6 fun18 insightful - 5 fun19 insightful - 6 fun 3 years ago

Glad to see you too. The pattern of when they are around seems to be pretty random. I do notice they spend about a few hours on saidit, and then will go away for that day and come back the next day at some random time. I see this over and over, for literally 20-30 days in a row, each day burning through about 5-20 accounts, some months old, depending on how much traction they got that day. There will be a few months of this, then a month or two off. Then back on again. For 3 years now.

I have lots of various patterns to recognize them by, but I don't want to say too much about that or else they'll hide those patterns and then my job will become even more difficult. But I will say they also post garbage spam from many accounts like "Samsung router drivers" links while they do these cultural attacks. And the "Americans" comment bot will suddenly spring to life at the same time as well, sometimes itself making 3 accounts a day, like today. So it's a multi-faceted approach, using many accounts, diluting the quality in many ways simultaneously. I used to think it was just ad bots (which it is sometimes) but I've noticed lately that the volume of ad posts flares up dramatically always at the exact same days as we get cultural attacks too, so I've begun to realize they're related. Someone just wants to turn this site to a trash heap by filling it with various types of garbage and seems to be being paid to do it given their tenacity. And that troll farm probably has a list of 10-20 forums they hit and cycle through, which is why they'll hit this one heavy for a few hours, go away to another site, and then come back the next day.

I mean if you think about it, if reddit can destroy all its competition by paying a couple people $12/hr, why wouldn't they? Or if China can destroy places of free discussion by paying some random college students to poison the well of discussion and never get caught, why wouldn't they? There's lots of groups out there who could be doing this, but whoever it is, it's become pretty clear it's a very purposeful campaign. One with focus, tenacity over literally years, and a lot of developed complex strategies they cycle through like a playbook. This also implies money is involved to me.

As much as I hate it, it seems to be the most reasonable explanation given what I've seen across the last 3 years. And this exact thing is affecting a lot of forums. It's destroying and souring the culture of the internet and everyone can see it, which has non-internet cultural repercussions too. I hope those people feel ashamed about what they're doing, but I'm not sure they're capable of shame. Which is why they're such a great fit for the job of destroying human culture. If he were alive, I wonder what Aaron Swartz would say about this type of cultural attack, because it certainly is the attack style of the new decade.

Basically it seems DDOS attacks to take down websites are old hat, cultural attacks are the new way. If the culture is destroyed, and no one will go there because it's so hostile and alienating, then what use is the forum? This is so much harder to defend against than a DDOS attack. In fact I would say weakness to this style of attack may be the main reason why so many reddit alternatives have failed.

Anyway, it's true that the best strategy is still not to feed the trolls. Just report the comment or post, and PM me if you think you've spotted one. Thanks!

deleted 6 insightful - 3 fun6 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 3 fun 3 years ago

Aaron

Yes! I'm sure many of us would! Do you think that spreading copyrighted media and growing piracy is part of their plan as well? You mentioned it as a poison and I could definitely see it as such a tool.

JasonCarswell 7 insightful - 3 fun7 insightful - 2 fun8 insightful - 3 fun 3 years ago

First you need to consider what "copyright" and "piracy" really mean within their full spectrum dominance. NO ONE ever gets on to MSM without being "acceptable" and conformist. No matter how talented you are you'll never be a star without close Jewish, military, or intelligence connections, usually family. They only promote themselves and their manufactured consumer and authoritarian propaganda content. We are forced to consume their culture yet not allowed to embrace it as our own, nor to make our own independent culture without it being stomped on.

[deleted] 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun 3 years ago

DMCA is a huge attack vector. Also, freer sites attract "illegal" steaming providers/links, for like sports events, which seems to be a hugely contentious issue.

deleted 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun 3 years ago

hugely contentious issue

This right here. It is kinda crazy how these services can continue to exist. Do you think that laws need to be rewritten or that the public is in the wrong and should change? I know that it's kind of a charged question, but I feel that everyone needs to be asking themselves this.

Seahorse 6 insightful - 3 fun6 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 3 fun 3 years ago

This is very interesting.

I wonder who's at the heart of this!

magnora7[S] 7 insightful - 4 fun7 insightful - 3 fun8 insightful - 4 fun 3 years ago

It is interesting, but I think it's going to become increasingly widespread. I believe soon almost every government and major corporation will soon have hired internet shill groups. They call it "native advertising", and it's becoming the norm because of how well it works compared to traditional advertising and propaganda. I know this is something Monsanto has done for at least a decade. It's also known both Democrats and Republicans do this too with ShareBlue and Cambridge Analytica.

Soon it will be every organization, and the internet will be a complete mess because of it. Especially with GPT-3 commenting AI getting so good, it's becoming easier to automate human-like responses on platforms like saidit and reddit. One person can act as 100 low-IQ people simultaneously by using these bots. They can create an intelligent crowd of people that all have the same bias. It's enough to overwhelm a forum, and when it becomes very close to human-like responses it can be hard to administrate because you can't differentiate the bots from the real people, and this is taken advantage of by the attackers.

[deleted] 6 insightful - 3 fun6 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 3 fun 3 years ago

Very interesting. Something that's kept me at Saidit is that I think most of us agree that Big Corp and special interest groups of the 1% (internationally) are actively damaging any small group or business that can impact their market share. Many on Saidit disagree with me about the specific approaches of the 1% to glean everything from the 99%, but there seems to be a general agreement that this is endemic in US political culture (and in India, Brasil, Russia, Turkey, the Philippines, the UK, etc., etc.). You note the other forums that were attacked, and I would argue that some of the attacks can be from some of the small/developing forums, which receive funding from politically motivated donors.

One interesting development with the cultural attacks is how familiar they are with Saidit, and how they tried use our interests against us. This I see in the broader context online, whereby strategies are to divide people by having them argue over misinformation, disinformation, facts, science &c.

On another note, the attackers actively went after /u/TheAmeliaMay, and this person handled it very well (under the circumstances), but one very disturbing issue here is that Amelia did not deserve the personal attacks from the Saidit community, and some of these people were also foolled by the attackers. I know from personal experience that one has to have a thick skin to remain at Saidit. I hope /u/TheAmeliaMay will engage with us again soon, and will know that there are those of us here who are very grateful for Amelia's support and engagement.

magnora7[S] 7 insightful - 4 fun7 insightful - 3 fun8 insightful - 4 fun 3 years ago

One interesting development with the cultural attacks is how familiar they are with Saidit, and how they tried use our interests against us.

For instance, when we set up saidit, within the first week someone had used an automated script to register over 1000 usernames. They already had the API script set up because we're built the same way as reddit. They just pointed the script toward our site and stole a lot of people's usernames from reddit, so they couldn't register the same names on saidit.

These people know what they're doing.

I agree, Amelia handled it well given the circumstances. I think Amelia is taking a break but will probably be back, they just need to take a breather after all the craziness from the attack, which I totally understand! It's upsetting to see some people on saidit fall for the attack tricks, but that's why those tricks are used, because people do still fall for it. That's why education and discussion about these topics is so important. In theory, if we understand how the tricks work completely, the tricks no longer work on us. So all of us have to learn all of the tricks. It's a lot to ask, but the whole global internet culture has to mature in this way for things to move forward, I believe. We have to see the tricks for what they are, and learn not to react emotionally to those intentionally trying to provoke us.

[deleted] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun 3 years ago

Holy Mackerel. I remember Redditors bragging about their scripts for vote, account and post management years ago, when Aaron Swartz was also briefly engaged, and thereafter. But I've not seen these discussions for many years. (As you probably know, everything changed at Reddit during Digg's first major blackout, and their kiddos created Reddit accounts. I can't remember when that was.)

[deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 3 years ago

[removed]

[deleted] 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun 3 years ago

Am I going to have repeating issues from 4-hour-old accounts? What is it with these brand-new users who want to lecture Saiditors. This is indeed an issue.

Regarding Amelia, I think it's obvious this person was trying to help deal with the many problems during a massive attack with fake accounts. Amelia tried to develop fair and equitable processes. In one case, Amelia reversed a ban. It was not Stalinist. During the process, Amelia was attacked by everyone - real and fake - sometimes with very personal insults. Regardless of that, Amelia was nonetheless rather polite to everyone, offered transparency in /s/Saidit and /s/gov, and would only delete or ban statements and people who were in obvious violation of Saidit rules, and as far as I can tell, there wasn't much in the way of deletions and bans because many of us could see all of the crazy posts.

[deleted] 5 insightful - 5 fun5 insightful - 4 fun6 insightful - 5 fun 3 years ago

The pattern of when they are around seems to be pretty random

I live on the east coast... I’ve noticed they hit every morning, between 5-7 am EST and upvote with socks, it (or they) are the first posts of the day everyone sees. They post when SaidIt activity is at its lowest it seems.

For the past week, every morning when I wake and check SaidIt, a fresh thread is there with no comments yet (or just a couple).

But I will say they also post garbage spam from many accounts like "Samsung router drivers" links

& Cher! Can’t 4get about Cher!

zyxzevn 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun 3 years ago

This all gives me new ideas to improve saidit as a forum.

I notice that these posters are mainly focussed on the main subs.

Would it help to have new accounts automatically placed into "quarantine"?
Or accounts that are "suspicious".
The moderators and admin could approve their posts and replies. Or approve them to the sub.
In the case of suspected manipulators, we could even mark them as "sus".
The idea is that they can see themselves. And sus people can see each other as well, that way groups of manipulators (or different accounts), do not know that they are hidden.
The moderators are still able to make them visible in their subs, though.
The system is not meant as censorship, but as a way to make attacks on saidit more difficult and time consuming.

I also noticed that some subs were taken out of /all, while they often have good information.
Many now leak through to /news or /politics
Like: /s/Coronavirus /s/VaccineSkepticism /s/ClimateSkeptics
The censored information is often what needs to be seen and/or discussed.
And the wrong information that is now mainstream is even causing victims and destructive politics.

Examples:

  1. From /r/ClimateSkeptics we can see that some scientists were already warning about weather changes.
    Due to the solar cycles, the solar forcing /solar particle forcing can change the weather and climate completely.
    Snow in Mexico and in Spain were already some warnings.

  2. From /s/CoronaVirus and /s/NoNewNormal we can see that masks and lockdowns do not work. But the major problem is not the virus, it is the PCR tests that give 95% or more false positives. And the totalitarian politics that does not listen to science.

  3. From /s/VaccineSkepticism we see that the mRNA treatment (vaccine?) against the corona virus is based on the same PCR tests, and could be a complete lie. The British Medical Journal shows that the mRNA-treatment at best, only gives 19% improvement.
    In the mean time, the adverse reactions to the treatment cause strong fevers (50%), and many other problems. And could be blamed for many deaths in the elderly-care. International lawyer Feullmich calls this "playing Russian Roulette", which could be punished as homicide.

For me the website is great for discussing these controversial and important topics.
And I would like to see more of these type of discussions being active on the website.

It would also be handy to move posts to the subs that are best suited.
Like move the recent post about vaccine-deaths to /r/VaccineSkepticism
If it is too hard, make it like a crosspost.

Many other ideas to improve the forum:
1. Redesigning the forum with Keywords, where the top-keyword determines where it gets posted.
2. Besides NSFW, we have more flags to signal NSFL, violence, hate, prank, stupidity.
3. And maybe also the opposite: Love, friendship, fun, happy.
4. Posts can be linked with each other via link-replies (replies only contains a linked text) to add related videos/mirrors or discussions.
5. Some more icons to upvote a post or comment, one choice, and each is only plus one point.
The list only has to show the best voted icon(s).
So you have "bulb of insight", "smile of fun","tears of laughter","heart of love","sad face of bad news","kiss of encouragement", "flame of controversial" or "cloud of confusion". With some extra programming a sub can have some special icons (meant as fun).
Here is an example of such icons on NewTube.

I also see that JasonCarswell has some ideas about improving the forum

magnora7[S] 8 insightful - 4 fun8 insightful - 3 fun9 insightful - 4 fun 3 years ago

Would it help to have new accounts automatically placed into "quarantine"?

Or accounts that are "suspicious".

No, because limiting user engagement from the start will inhibit growth of the site. And more importantly, the attackers often use aged accounts. They registered literally thousands of accounts many months ago. That cat is out of the bag, as far as saidit goes. So account age is not a reliable indicator for anything most of the time unfortunately.

In the case of suspected manipulators, we could even mark them as "sus".

Any manipulation marking system like this will be hijacked by the manipulators. They literally have hundreds of accounts. So they will mark people they don't like as 'sus' and the whole system will be immediately broken and maliciously hijacked.

Voat had a similar failure. They had a "protectvoat" group that was to maintain the quality of the site. That group got hijacked by attackers. They then used the power of that group to silence any normal conversation, and silence new users. This is what caused voat to become the mess it was.

I like some of your other ideas, I like that you are thinking about these problems, because they are very tough problems indeed. The voting buttons thing might be cool, but at some point there is too many buttons. I think 4-5 is the max number of buttons. And from a software perspective, adding another button would be a huge huge deal, because the whole database is written around there being exactly 2 voting options. To add a 3rd button to the saidit/reddit code, it would probably be a 100-200 hour project. And I wish that was an exaggeration.

Anyway, keep thinking... I personally think the core problem is that it's too easy to register usernames. A lot of the core issues come down to the fact one person can easily use a bot to make 1000s of accounts, and with a VPN and fake IP addresses, there is basically no way to connect those accounts as being owned by the same person. So there needs to be a way to keep it closer to 1 account per human. Most sites accomplish this now with phone numbers, or connecting through facebook, or something like that. I have thought perhaps we could do it in a way where the person has to write a 5-sentence essay on 1 of 100 topics, like "Why does war exist?" or "What's the purpose of language?" and then we see how intelligent and grammatical their responses are. This would be much harder to automate, but with GPT-3 bots getting good now even that might not be enough. And of course this would all have to be on a new site, because like I said the cat is out of the bag with saidit username registrations

zyxzevn 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun 3 years ago

Thanks for this insight. And already people were fearing that some admins were hijacking reddit.

Connecting via phone-numbers can be hijacked via click-farms. But can block some activists.

Reddit uses DRM to identify browsers, which could be helpful to ID the user at registration.
You can also run a system-analysis (network-test, speed-test, mem-test, screen-size, browser-version) to see if registrations are very similar.

As a fun note, I thought of more controversial questions at the registration:
"Who really started WW1?" "What department was destroyed at the Pentagon at 9/11?"
"How fast flies a swallow?"
"What makes frog change their sex?"
"How bad is sugar for your health?"
"What makes facebook addictive?"
"What states reported voting fraud, and how much?"
"Who pays fact-checkers?"
"Why does laughing gas make a person fall asleep?"
It would be fun to have an extreme long list of questions.
And researching some of the answers would make people realize that there is more going on.
Why not use the questions to help convince attackers to stop?

JasonCarswell 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun 3 years ago

Don't mark the suspected. That's baseline for everyone. The bottom. Start at the top...

Mark the well known to be trusted, starting from the center, with M7. Have the trusted and known mark others. When someone trusted falters, remove their "trust" and all their "trustees". What remains is trust.

Use /s/friends, another vote, an invite only sub with a whitelist, or some new thing.

Too few buttons is dumbing down the world! Meanwhile the techno-corporatocracy is hoarding all the info. We need our own qualitative data. I have a new simple idea that can change it all but it needs coding - a lot of it. But first I'll need to illustrate and maybe animate it to convince anyone. Animated ideas and 2D pixels are easier to refine than complex architectural engineering.

The critical problem with Reddit and SaidIt is that VERY limiting 2-vote database. That's why we need to start fresh, from what I can observe.

At the very minimum, mine needs 25. Preferably 25x9 or better 25x9x9 (more than this and it's no longer simple) and then the same again on the right side for metatags. Add some scrolling and then it's almost infinite. I bet it could be used for many other purposes too. I may have shared too much and spoiled the surprise. It's not a riddle or rocket science, but IMO it's simple and elegant - yet requires a seriously flexible powerful database array behind it along with settings interfaces.

I've been pondering vote improvements since I arrived. I haven't considered the security or signup much beyond my recent friend-2-friend post. (Cloudflare bounced me right after that. First time since months ago when you adjusted it.)

I LOVE your essay idea.

JasonCarswell 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun 3 years ago

Good stuff. Like minds. I updated my "Fairness And Justice" with a little hierarchy table listing the admins > advisors (high trust) > citizenry (regulars) > fray (new & rare) > unruly (banned). I didn't mention it there, but had to d3rr and others that a colour coding system (ie. red yellow green) could easily indicate a user's status. Status gets no special privileges other than recognizing they're not unknown. (All of my ideas would go much better with illustrations.) Just as I look for red names from my /s/friends list, I could also avoid reading the fray. I was also thinking about being able to turn them on and off, and have some new ideas for the block function, but that's another story.

All of this is fascinating. If I were into woo I'd say the Universe is lining up for me. As my foggy ideas about Next-Gen Forums condense to crystallize it's good to be exposed to the problems of today to also imagine defensive strategies of tomorrow.

Why would /s/Coronavirus /s/VaccineSkepticism /s/ClimateSkeptics not be in /s/all?! How did you notice this?

I agree, moving posts would be nice. I think you typoed a couple times with /r/ instead of /s/.

Keywords = metatags. I've been asking for that since I arrived. My MetaVote system would replace the need for votes, metatags, NSFW, etc etc etc. ALL of it could be simplified while also deepened - and sooooo much more. Potentially very flexible and customizable, including icons. Also important but not centrally critical: word clouds.

wendolynne 6 insightful - 3 fun6 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 3 fun 3 years ago

glad you are ok. Did your house get any water damage?

magnora7[S] 8 insightful - 3 fun8 insightful - 2 fun9 insightful - 3 fun 3 years ago

Thanks. A little tiny bit of water damage, but it was mostly in a garage wall so hopefully repairs won't be too bad. I'm just worried about how long it's going to take... it could be weeks, because hundreds of thousands are having the exact same problem. I never before thought about repairman shortages in big cities if everyone has the exact same damage. Hopefully bottled water is more easily available soon too. I had to go borrow water from a friend because the grocery stores had none. I ended up ordering water online! lol

Comatoast 4 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 3 fun 3 years ago

What part of the pipe burst? Depending on where it was, it might be pretty easy to fix yourself. Sharkbites are a godsend.

As far as your garage, I don't know how your garage is laid out (concrete, carpeting, if it just hit the baseboards or it went up the drywall, etc.)

magnora7[S] 6 insightful - 3 fun6 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 3 fun 3 years ago

Yeah I thought about giving it a try, but I have to dig up a section of the pipe I think, as well as cut out a section of sheetrock. The sharkbites might be a good idea, thanks for that.

I had some rugs in the garage and use it as a workshop, the rugs all got all wet. But that was my only real damage thankfully. There's probably some damage inside the wall too, but I might just let it go since it's just a garage exterior wall and the drywall in there is already a mess. Also I think it only leaked for an hour or so before we shut it off, and 98% of the water didn't go in the wall, just sprayed in to the sideyard. So hopefully maybe it'll be not a big deal. Maybe I will start cutting some drywall and see where the copper meets the PVC and just take the PVC off or cut it down to a short undamaged part. Also the PVC pipe coming out of the ground from the buried mains line completely shattered so I'm not sure how far I need to cut back on the PVC pipe and dig down before it's reliable again, or should I dig up the whole pipe back to the mains connection? Seems like I have to decide a quick fix vs a good fix... might have to settle on the quick fix for now because plumbers and parts are in ridiculously high demand. I think if I could get clean ends on my PVC pipes (where it's not fractured) I could do it. I'm just not sure how far I'll have to go in each direction before the pipe isn't brittle and fractured anymore.

Comatoast 6 insightful - 3 fun6 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 3 fun 3 years ago

To be honest, you should probably cut all the way to the main and replace it where you can with PEX. It's more flexible. Invest in an oscillating multitool. When you're putting the copper back, make sure you wrap it in pipe insulation.

As far as the drywall, stud finders will be your saving grace. At least in my experience,it's easiest to cut at the studs, that way you've got a good anchoring point instead of just trying to ugly-putty it back on there and have it fall through with so much as a fart. Once you've got the square back in, you can put drywall mesh over the seam spots and just do a putty/sand cycle until it looks fine. I would definitely check anything that got wet though,especially if you guys didn't have a dehumidifier and fans running down there the whole time. The rugs are probably fine, just pressure wash, then rent a rug doctor and shampoo the shit out of them.

wendolynne 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun 3 years ago

Water pipes and related hardware will be impossible to get. Might have to have someone deliver from Oklahoma or Louisiana.

magnora7[S] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun 3 years ago

Yeah I'm thinking about just ordering on amazon. I had an amazon package delivered 2 days ago. It'd probably be the fastest way to get pipe hardware. The future is weird. I don't have water but I'm ordering water supplies from the other side of the nation

deleted 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun 3 years ago

Regarding the wave the last few weeks, what do you think about a transparent list of banned accounts? I mentioned this in Amelia's post as a suggestion and just wanted to reach out for your opinion on the matter? I realize it might put a tremendous amount of stress on the 'executioner' as Amelia put it, but I believe that it could grant us a net gain. Open to hear other suggestions and why I'm wrong :P

JasonCarswell 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun 3 years ago

I think you're spot on. I just posted this and this reflecting on it.

[deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 3 years ago

Thanks for these posts, which offer advice that I hope will be considered at Saidit, and would likely improve the site.

Tom_Bombadil 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun 3 years ago

Splendid!

killerjavi98 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun 3 years ago

These people attacking Saidit must be sociopaths going to such lengths like this.

magnora7[S] 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun 3 years ago

They really are, it's kind of disturbing. Just had about a dozen more accounts involved today.

[deleted] 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun 3 years ago

Yes!

JasonCarswell 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun 3 years ago

I'm glad you're safe and hope you find some kind of normalcy soon.

SaidOverRed 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun 3 years ago

I did notice the mod swapping, but kept my mouth shut because drama is bad. Glad to see you doing better and that there are users willing to step up a bit. I don't get the attack stuff, but yes being paid makes sense.

Anything the average user can do besides flag spam? We don't have much information on this, although I'm not sure how much should be made public considering how directed the attacks are.

magnora7[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 3 years ago

Anything the average user can do besides flag spam?

If you want to PM me with the username, that'd be very helpful so I can investigate. This avoids creating more drama while still alerting me to the problem. Reports are good but I can sometimes miss them. I won't miss a PM

[deleted] 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun 3 years ago

Magneton is in da house!

Sometimes forming close relationships with admins through PMs with the purpose of influencing them

So this is why you don’t talk as much in PM’s anymore.. My lil heart... it’s ok.. it isn’t personal.. 😢

lmao, welcome back, you’re right, you need to keep users at a professional arm’s-length, especially if their motives feel off. I’m glad you’re doing ok, I can’t imagine what your past week was like.. this shit pissed me off lol:

Tim Boyd said, “The City and County…owes you NOTHING.”

The mayor of the west Texas town of Colorado City resigned after posting a Facebook (Evilbook) post Tuesday in which he refused to help people deal with the snowstorm. Tim Boyd said they were weak for asking for water and electricity.

“No one owes you or your family anything; nor is it the local government’s responsibility to support you during trying times like this!” Tim Boyd wrote, “Sink or swim, it’s your choice! The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING!”

“If you don’t have electricity you step up and come up with a game plan to keep your family warm and safe. If you have no water you deal without and think outside of the box to survive and supply water to your family,” Tim Boyd wrote. “Only the strong will survive and the weak will parish.”

I know he’s right, but tell us how you really feel bruv. Thinking about all those innocent children and babies, their families unexpectedly hit with a snow storm with snow that burns and doesn’t melt properly, and that’s your response to your tax paying people’s?

I’m glad you’re riding everything out, good to have you back!

magnora7[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun 3 years ago

weak will parish.”

Lol it's "perish". Guy goes to church I assume, he should know the difference between perish and parish.

Not surprised though. Kind of ready to move out of Texas tbh, there so much greed and short-sightedness here. It's seriously like 99% of people have no aspirations beyond how much money they want to make this year.

Anyway, glad to be back!

copenseethe 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 3 years ago

snow that burns and doesn’t melt properly

What? Is that a metaphor?

Exconduckducktor 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun 3 years ago

ahhh thought something weird was going on with content. Really appreciate your summaries to help understand what is going on with this site. Im from NZ and we had siiliar attacks over here but to put into word what i have learnt here to explain what is happening to other targets is difficult. If everyone was more aware of the nature of the propaganda war i probaly wouldnt have to bare so many idiots. Thanks magnora for your work and sorry to hear about your circumstances. and on a side note wheres the thread making connections between "the long dark winter" quotes made by biden and trump, wheres my rabbit hole!

magnora7[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun 3 years ago

Glad my summaries are useful, I want to keep people informed about what is happening while avoiding stirring up more drama. Tough line to walk. I agree there needs to be more awareness about the propaganda war and the forms that it takes. People don't realize they're butting up against it almost every day, it's very prolific right now, and very few realize just how bad it is.

bobbobbybob 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun 3 years ago

Glad to hear you are safe, and thank god you are back

magnora7[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 3 years ago

Thanks, cheers

[deleted] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun 3 years ago

no need to quit Amelia, don't worry too much about it

RuckFeddit 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun 3 years ago

Good that you're safe.

magnora7[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun 3 years ago

Thanks, I appreciate it.

asterias 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun 3 years ago

It's a good thing you got safe out of this. If I understand correctly, there still isn't tap water available? The worst has passed, but this can be a problem if it goes on for long. If plumbers aren't able to keep up with the demand for weeks, then a quick solution might be a good idea till a permanent and more professional solution becomes available, especially if leaking water erodes existing structures.

Those cyberattacks weren't that important in the long term. I believe most of the users here are aware of the methods employed by those who are annoyed by the existence of alternatives to reddit. Amelia did get a bit emotional but I think the attackers didn't accomplish much besides amusing us with their silly posts, so they got into all this trouble for nothing.

magnora7[S] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun 3 years ago

Yes there is tap water, but the pipe going from the mains in to my house broke during the freeze. Today I turned the main on and filled some buckets from the broken pipe to flush my toilets. Good times, lol

scrubking 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun 3 years ago

Snow + candle + metal cup = fresh water

[deleted] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun 3 years ago

brutal snow pill

[deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 3 years ago

wtf

magnora7[S] 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun 3 years ago

Snow is gone, so we don't even have that anymore lol

Today I was able to turn on my mains and fill a bucket of water from the broken pipe, so that's good at least

mongre 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun 3 years ago

Welcome back. Sorry you had to deal with that shit.

magnora7[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun 3 years ago

Thanks, it was a pain. But I was able to flush my toilets via water buckets from the broken main today, and also able to buy water at the grocery store today, so things are slowly improving

mongre 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 3 years ago

Yeah I can imagine nobody told you to turn on the kitchen sink a tiny trickle to keep the mains from busting.

spinell 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun 3 years ago

Glad to have magnora back and that he survived the ordeal. And Miss AmeliaMay dont fret, I understand that you felt a bit overwhelmed and cornered. Just take a little paus and then comeback.

CarlDung 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun 3 years ago

Godspeed! I'm glad to hear your doing great.

Entropick 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun 3 years ago

You must be doing something right to have this level of interdiction. You rock man.

magnora7[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun 3 years ago

Haha thanks. You know what they say, if you're getting flak, you're probably over the target