Forum News discussion/feedback thread

What can I say? It doesn't fit above, put it here. Also the location of board rules/info.
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sangi39
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Re: Forum News discussion/feedback thread

Post by sangi39 »

Several users (four so far) have reported PMs from a user called LolitaVek777, containing "XEvil can break ANY Captcha!..." and the like, which is obviously spam. The user has been banned, and I expect more users will make more reports, but just so people are aware, this instance has been dealt with. Just need to keep on top of any other users doing similar things.
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Re: Forum News discussion/feedback thread

Post by eldin raigmore »

You may want to ban any user with the substring *loli* in their screenname. They’re probably trying to rope in pedophiles.
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Re: Forum News discussion/feedback thread

Post by Khemehekis »

eldin raigmore wrote: 27 Jul 2019 07:03 You may want to ban any user with the substring *loli* in their screenname. They’re probably trying to rope in pedophiles.
Unless the screenname is something like LOLingMyHeadOff182.
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Re: Forum News discussion/feedback thread

Post by eldin raigmore »

Khemehekis wrote: 01 Aug 2019 06:56
eldin raigmore wrote: 27 Jul 2019 07:03 You may want to ban any user with the substring *loli* in their screenname. They’re probably trying to rope in pedophiles.
Unless the screenname is something like LOLingMyHeadOff182.
You’re right.
Maybe *lolita* then.
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Re: Forum News discussion/feedback thread

Post by LinguistCat »

eldin raigmore wrote: 01 Aug 2019 13:46
Khemehekis wrote: 01 Aug 2019 06:56
eldin raigmore wrote: 27 Jul 2019 07:03 You may want to ban any user with the substring *loli* in their screenname. They’re probably trying to rope in pedophiles.
Unless the screenname is something like LOLingMyHeadOff182.
You’re right.
Maybe *lolita* then.
Gothic Lolita is also a thing and often gets shortened to Lolita (and has nothing to do with pedophiles/"lolicons"). But I don't know any legitimate reasons lolicon would be used, and for the other strings it could just be a "Lets keep an eye on it" deal.
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Re: Forum News discussion/feedback thread

Post by sangi39 »

LinguistCat wrote: 01 Aug 2019 15:35
eldin raigmore wrote: 01 Aug 2019 13:46
Khemehekis wrote: 01 Aug 2019 06:56
eldin raigmore wrote: 27 Jul 2019 07:03 You may want to ban any user with the substring *loli* in their screenname. They’re probably trying to rope in pedophiles.
Unless the screenname is something like LOLingMyHeadOff182.
You’re right.
Maybe *lolita* then.
Gothic Lolita is also a thing and often gets shortened to Lolita (and has nothing to do with pedophiles/"lolicons"). But I don't know any legitimate reasons lolicon would be used, and for the other strings it could just be a "Lets keep an eye on it" deal.
"Gothic Lolita" also turns up in the name of three albums by the Japanese band Yousei Teikoku.



Upside, as far as I know, such people have never frequented the board in an open fashion, at least as long as I've been around or noticed, so fingers crossed it'll stay that way, but yeah, always something to at least keep an eye out.
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Re: Forum News discussion/feedback thread

Post by Pabappa »

i think that almost all people using the term "Gothic Lolita" are aware of its etymology. As, Im sure, are the owners of a new restaurant near me called simply "Lolita", though I will never go there.
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Re: Forum News discussion/feedback thread

Post by shimobaatar »

Regarding this post:

To start, I want to say that, although I don't know firsthand exactly how difficult running a site like this is, I understand that a lot has to go on "behind the scenes" for us to be able to continue using it. I'm not trying to argue that what has been done was unnecessary or inappropriate, and I don't want to seem like I don't appreciate what the mods have to do to keep the board up and running smoothly.

That being said, I've just done a very cursory search, and it appears as if I've lost the majority of the documentation I had for one of my older projects. I'm not too broken up about it, because I still generally have the ideas in my head, and my tastes and style of conlanging have changed drastically (for the better, I believe) over the past 5 years. Still, I must admit that the nostalgic side of me is a bit disappointed. Of course, I must acknowledge that it was stupid/short-sighted of me to keep most of my documentation in one place, especially a site like this that I have no control over, but I was 16, so I suppose some degree of short-sightedness is to be expected. Regardless of my age at the time, of course, it's still very much on me for not having back-ups.

I could be wrong, naturally, but I assume the hosting issues mentioned by Ossicone required this decision to be made rather quickly in order to get the board back up and running. I'm not sure exactly what happened; if the board was down, it must have happened while I was asleep, but "further downtime" makes it sound like that was the case. Anyway, if this did have to be an on-the-spot decision, then that is, of course, understandable. However, if at all possible going forward, I would appreciate being given a heads-up at least several days in advance if something like this is going to be done again. Again, I understand that that might not be possible, but if it is, it would be nice.

Whether it's scheduled to happen again or not, though, I'm going to try to begin saving/making copies of the rest of my old stuff on here soon. There have also been a number of good resources and pieces of advice posted on here over the years that I'd prefer not to lose.

Two additional questions:

First, I'm not too skilled with or knowledgeable about technology, so this is probably a stupid question, but, quickly looking through the board's subsections, it appears as if all of the old threads are still there, dating back to 2010. However, clicking on any of them from before 5 years ago takes you to a page stating that "The requested topic does not exist". Does the fact that they're all still listed indicate that they're still taking up space in some way, or will it simply take some time for their titles to disappear now that they've been deleted? Again, I'm fairly certain this is a non-issue, but I figured I'd point it out just in case.

Finally, game threads are on the chopping block regardless of their age, and I'd like to ask why. I know they're not the most creatively or intellectually stimulating threads, but I've enjoyed participating in many of them over the years, and I can't say they haven't occasionally provided me with inspiration. They're also relatively easy for anyone to jump into, and, at least in my opinion, they help to keep the board active/alive.
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Re: Forum News discussion/feedback thread

Post by sangi39 »

shimobaatar wrote: 10 Aug 2019 20:11 Regarding this post:

To start, I want to say that, although I don't know firsthand exactly how difficult running a site like this is, I understand that a lot has to go on "behind the scenes" for us to be able to continue using it. I'm not trying to argue that what has been done was unnecessary or inappropriate, and I don't want to seem like I don't appreciate what the mods have to do to keep the board up and running smoothly.

That being said, I've just done a very cursory search, and it appears as if I've lost the majority of the documentation I had for one of my older projects. I'm not too broken up about it, because I still generally have the ideas in my head, and my tastes and style of conlanging have changed drastically (for the better, I believe) over the past 5 years. Still, I must admit that the nostalgic side of me is a bit disappointed. Of course, I must acknowledge that it was stupid/short-sighted of me to keep most of my documentation in one place, especially a site like this that I have no control over, but I was 16, so I suppose some degree of short-sightedness is to be expected. Regardless of my age at the time, of course, it's still very much on me for not having back-ups.
I panicked quite intensely since almost all of my work is saved in a more or less permanent form (can't blame age on that since I just turned 30, I really should know better). Proto-Sirdic was the beginning of my current on the languages of Yantas, and was saved by just two weeks. The start of the actual conworld, however, now resides somewhere on an old hard-drive I need to dig up (although I suspect if that's dead I might be able to find some of it over on the Cartographers' Guild).

I assume the pruning was a decision made in regards to the "[t]his site has been temporarily disabled, please try again later" issue that appeared for a few hours, which would, I think, have left just Aszev and Ossicone with access to the board. That would have meant, if I'm reading this right, that neither Ossicone nor Aszev would have been able to have contacted anyone, mod or otherwise, about the issues, and needed to sort it out quickly in order to get the board working at all.


shimobaatar wrote: 10 Aug 2019 20:11 I could be wrong, naturally, but I assume the hosting issues mentioned by Ossicone required this decision to be made rather quickly in order to get the board back up and running. I'm not sure exactly what happened; if the board was down, it must have happened while I was asleep, but "further downtime" makes it sound like that was the case. Anyway, if this did have to be an on-the-spot decision, then that is, of course, understandable. However, if at all possible going forward, I would appreciate being given a heads-up at least several days in advance if something like this is going to be done again. Again, I understand that that might not be possible, but if it is, it would be nice.

Whether it's scheduled to happen again or not, though, I'm going to try to begin saving/making copies of the rest of my old stuff on here soon. There have also been a number of good resources and pieces of advice posted on here over the years that I'd prefer not to lose.
I definitely agree there. Will the pruning be continuous, i.e. daily, or will it occur less frequently but on set dates (monthly, for example), or will it occur on an as-and-when basis?

I know the ZBB has/had a pruning policy, and by and large it doesn't seem to affect the running of the board much, but IIRC pruning affects threads that haven't been replied to in a set period of time, rather than individual posts (for example, if a thread has been inactive for 6 months is deleted in its entirety, while a post from any point in time, of any age, is retained so long as the last post in the thread is younger than 6 months old).

I suspect, either way, this will depend on what Aszev and Ossicone thinks makes more sense. The fact this hasn't happened at all since 2010 suggests this might be a really recent issue and needs some talking over.



The other two questions are even further beyond my ability to answer, so hopefully someone can get back to you on them [:)]
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Re: Forum News discussion/feedback thread

Post by sangi39 »

On a related note, I've been trying to see if anything was lost of projects I've quite enjoyed reading, e.g. Himmaswa, Naduta, Vrkhazhian, West Saxon, and the like. Some of them appear to be intact (Naduta, for example, by just two weeks as with Proto-Sirdic), while others do seem to be missing some of their older posts, which is a shame, at least to me and I assume to the creators as well.
You can tell the same lie a thousand times,
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That they all still believe in you.
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Re: Forum News discussion/feedback thread

Post by Ossicone »

The pruning was required in order to restore the forums. There was no other way to get it back up to running in a reasonable amount of time.

The reason the old topics are still present is because I did a quick query to remove posts and didn't remove the topic.

The good news is that I did take a database back up before the 'snap' so the data may be recoverable eventually. However, this is also a good reminder that if you want anything saved you should not rely on an internet forum.

Games were targeted as they have lots of posts and little actual content. Games are not forbidden and can be restarted. But they will be likely targets for future pruning.
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Re: Forum News discussion/feedback thread

Post by Khemehekis »

A reminder to everyone that Google Cache is your friend.
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Re: Forum News discussion/feedback thread

Post by masako »

Ossicone wrote: 10 Aug 2019 21:45 Games were targeted as they have lots of posts and little actual content. Games are not forbidden and can be restarted. But they will be likely targets for future pruning.
Not trying to be snide, but can we get a board-official definition of "Game"?
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Re: Forum News discussion/feedback thread

Post by sangi39 »

masako wrote: 11 Aug 2019 01:36
Ossicone wrote: 10 Aug 2019 21:45 Games were targeted as they have lots of posts and little actual content. Games are not forbidden and can be restarted. But they will be likely targets for future pruning.
Not trying to be snide, but can we get a board-official definition of "Game"?
I'd think the "games" label covers the "add a post based off of the previous one" rather than a sort of conversant back and forth (so something like the sound change game thread, or does anyone remember that board game someone was trialing, or was that the ZBB?). Either that or something like the "challenge" threads where someone posts something for people to work out over time and get feedback on.

I'm not sure we have an "official" definition beyond "seems like a game thread".
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Re: Forum News discussion/feedback thread

Post by gach »

Khemehekis wrote: 11 Aug 2019 00:50 A reminder to everyone that Google Cache is your friend.
Or, indeed, a notebook and a pen. That way you won't depend on any computer infrastructure at all, except for communication.
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Re: Forum News discussion/feedback thread

Post by DesEsseintes »

I have a trivial question because I have a rather healthy fascination for post counts.

I joined the board in 2013 and am pretty sure I posted a sizeable chunk of my posts before Aug 2014. I’m therefore surprised that my post count still shows almost five thousand posts, which is where it was at before the cull.

So I guess my question is: will post counts remain unaffected by the cull?
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Re: Forum News discussion/feedback thread

Post by Clio »

Is anyone else having issues with the "Show unread posts" button sending them to posts from 2014, or seeing discrepancies between the reported last post's author and the actual last post in a thread, after the cull? I had the first issue with the Conlangs Q&A thread and the second with the "What kind of conlanger are you?" thread.
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Re: Forum News discussion/feedback thread

Post by shimobaatar »

Thank you, sangi39 and Ossicone, for your responses.


Clio wrote: 12 Aug 2019 04:38 Is anyone else having issues with the "Show unread posts" button sending them to posts from 2014, or seeing discrepancies between the reported last post's author and the actual last post in a thread, after the cull? I had the first issue with the Conlangs Q&A thread and the second with the "What kind of conlanger are you?" thread.
[+1] Since the "purge", when I've gotten e-mails informing me of new posts in the Conlangs Q&A thread, the links in those e-mails always take me to posts from years ago.

The e-mail I got notifying me of this post took me to the right one, which I'm quoting and responding to now, but made it look like it was on page 15, or something, of the thread. However, the same post also shows up on page 38.
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Re: Forum News discussion/feedback thread

Post by eldin raigmore »

What happened to the Sound Changes Game?

I get
The requested topic does not exist.
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Re: Forum News discussion/feedback thread

Post by shimobaatar »

eldin raigmore wrote: 12 Aug 2019 07:43 What happened to the Sound Changes Game?

I get
The requested topic does not exist.
All game threads were deleted, regardless of age. However, for anyone who'd like to keep playing, I made a pair of new threads the other day to hopefully continue the Sound Changes Game and Reverse Sound Changes Game.
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