This account is differently-abled?

August 30, 2007 1:47 PM

Hey, I see we now have a "This account is disabled" flag to slap on banned users' profiles. Any other additions along these lines?
posted by yhbc to MetaFilter-related at 1:47 PM (103 comments total)

I could answer this, but I'd have to ban you.
posted by mathowie at 1:48 PM on August 30, 2007 [5 favorites]

Example. That's nice.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 1:50 PM on August 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

Any chance we could kiss reklaw's "wall of fame" goodbye?
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 1:51 PM on August 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

Eh, historical relic. It's not hurting anybody, is it?
posted by cortex at 1:53 PM on August 30, 2007

COBRA!'s profile
This account is awesome.
posted by COBRA! at 1:56 PM on August 30, 2007

I have a question about banned users since we're on the topic. Can they turn up under other usernames? Or are there IPs banned? How does that work?
posted by sneakin at 1:57 PM on August 30, 2007

*their IPs.
posted by sneakin at 1:58 PM on August 30, 2007

I think it's pay-to-play. Get banned and cough up another Lincoln. Not sure if there's every been a true perma-ban though.
posted by slogger at 2:01 PM on August 30, 2007

Askin' about other additions along these lines. That's a bannin'.
posted by ND¢ at 2:01 PM on August 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

I don't think they usually do IP bans.
posted by puke & cry at 2:04 PM on August 30, 2007

I see. Well at a charter school in my hometown, students who are on timeouts due to bad behavior are required to wear oversized bright yellow shirts (the school's uniform shirt is navy) and are not fully allowed back into the school community (or their regular shirts) until they make a public apology, like at lunch or an assembly, and the school unanimously decides to let them back into the fold. I think something similarly alienating and dictatorial is in order here, for banned users who want in again.
posted by sneakin at 2:05 PM on August 30, 2007

We don't IP ban, and it wouldn't work anyway for anyone who was determined. Beyond that, (I get the impression that) Matt glances at every new account when the paypal comes in—sometimes it's obvious that it's a returnee, and if they were a complete mess of a user that might be an ixnay situation. In general, someone who has been banned but comes back in good faith isn't going to get a brick wall, though.
posted by cortex at 2:06 PM on August 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

I spent ten minutes the other day trying to figure out what my MeFi password was, since I last used it over 3 year ago. Password changing is a pony I'd love to see. I know it has been discussed before and an answer given [which I don't remember] but I still yearn for my little pony.
posted by sciurus at 2:06 PM on August 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

I think something similarly alienating and dictatorial is in order here, for banned users who want in again.

Not being a disruptive asshole is pretty much all we ask, really.
posted by cortex at 2:07 PM on August 30, 2007

And sciurus, password stuff is in the works. Not sure when, but it's coming.
posted by cortex at 2:08 PM on August 30, 2007

This account is past due.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:11 PM on August 30, 2007

Also, I just noticed the big glowy "your preferences have been changed" box, which is nice.
posted by puke & cry at 2:14 PM on August 30, 2007

How about a banned: XX, XX, XXXX field? As in

Joined: XX, XX, XXXX
Banned: XX, XX, XXXX
posted by micayetoca at 2:17 PM on August 30, 2007 [5 favorites]

but I'd have to ban you

Ha, ha, funny site owner.

I was actually thinking of a note to put on deceased (or more accurately, known to be deceaseed) users' profiles.
posted by yhbc at 2:20 PM on August 30, 2007 [2 favorites]

Maybe we could suspend people from seeing the page. Like "Oops, your IP is banned from looking at this page because you are a dick". That is much harsher punishment than just being banned.
posted by parmanparman at 2:21 PM on August 30, 2007

He could answer that, but he'd have to kill you.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 2:21 PM on August 30, 2007 [4 favorites]

I was actually thinking of a note to put on deceased (or more accurately, known to be deceaseed) users' profiles.

Mortality Status: Pending
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:22 PM on August 30, 2007 [4 favorites]

Okay, I walked right into that.
posted by yhbc at 2:23 PM on August 30, 2007

Maybe we could suspend people from seeing the page. Like "Oops, your IP is banned from looking at this page because you are a dick". That is much harsher punishment than just being banned.

Again, IP bans don't work—wily readers can spoof IPs, so as a deterrent it's ineffective; and worse, false positives punish people for being on, e.g., the same major ISP subnet with dynamic IPs.

Taunting a banned user seems like a pretty bad idea anyway. Best thing for someone banned to do is cool off and walk away; we don't need to goad them into screaming email bullshit or whatever.
posted by cortex at 2:24 PM on August 30, 2007

Has anyone else planned out their post-banning strategy? I assume that mine will take place in a MeTa thread, so as soon as it does I am going to sign up for another account called ND¢II and go to that thread and say "You call that a bannin'? My grandmother bans harder than that." or something to that effect. I'll keep doing this until they ban my IP address and then I'll go over to a friend's house and do it from there. This will continue until my house is foreclosed upon because I have spent my life savings in five dollar increments trying to prove some kind of point. That will show 'em.
posted by ND¢ at 2:26 PM on August 30, 2007 [15 favorites]

TPS, thanks for the link at the top. With no good relationshipfilter train wrecks, I now have something good to read until my work day is done. Maybe tomorrow too! Whee
posted by spec80 at 2:37 PM on August 30, 2007

Oh, wow. reklaw quoted me on his wall of fame. I feel like I was going through my old textbooks and just discovered a note from a girl I had a crush on in 7th grade algebra class stuck between two pages I never opened because I skipped that homework assignment in favor of playing a video game which I can barely remember and, by now, has had at least three sequels currently playable only on obsolete (and difficult to find) hardware. Oh, and that girl died on prom night when her asshole boyfriend flipped his jeep driving drunk.

I'm sorry, reklaw. I never knew.
posted by Eideteker at 2:38 PM on August 30, 2007 [13 favorites]

For the record, my suggestion was in jest. I favor taunting banned and active users equally.
posted by sneakin at 2:44 PM on August 30, 2007

Funny thing about that reklaw spoiler. . .
posted by absalom at 2:48 PM on August 30, 2007

cortex speaks the truth. Effective IP banning is nearly impossible; my ISP's dynamic IPs lease for 24 hours. Most of the time you end up with the same IP, but depending on location in the city, your IP could change every day.

Not to mention people like myself who read the site both from work and home.

Spoofing, has a higher learning curve, but once you know how to do it, it isn't hard.
posted by quin at 2:48 PM on August 30, 2007

How about a banned: XX, XX, XXXX field? As in

Joined: XX, XX, XXXX
Banned: XX, XX, XXXX

We also need a Meta penned epitaph...

ParisParamus was so full of shit,
post-ban MeFi suffer'd not a whit.
posted by eyeballkid at 2:49 PM on August 30, 2007 [2 favorites]

Joined: XX, XX, XXXX
Banned: XX, XX, XXXX
posted by micayetoca at 5:17 PM on August 30

nah. it's a one-to-many thing, and matt's never been very good at that:

Quonsar

Joined: May 13, 2000
Banned: March 18, 2001
Banned: November 27, 2001
Banned: February 19, 2002
Banned: July 7, 2002
Banned: January 6, 2003
Banned: June 7, 2003
Banned: April 3, 2004
Banned: Error Occurred While Processing Request
Result set exceeded available memory.

Resources:

* Enable Robust Exception Information to provide greater detail about the source of errors. In the Administrator, click Debugging & Logging > Debug Output Settings, and select the Robust Exception Information option.
* Check the ColdFusion documentation to verify that you are using the correct syntax.
* Search the Knowledge Base to find a solution to your problem.

Browser Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070725 Firefox/2.0.0.6
Remote Address 53.76.147.88
Referrer http://www.metafilter.com/user/986
Date/Time 30-Aug-07 5:55 PM
posted by quonsar at 2:58 PM on August 30, 2007 [14 favorites]

How about a banned: XX, XX, XXXX field? As in

Only if it's a link to the metatalk thread where they went down in flames.
posted by Gary at 3:02 PM on August 30, 2007 [4 favorites]

Funny thing about that reklaw spoiler. . .

Yeah, turned out it was true.
posted by puke & cry at 3:07 PM on August 30, 2007

OMG SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 3:13 PM on August 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

C'mon, guys, it's not "disabled," it's "differently-abled."
posted by klangklangston at 3:15 PM on August 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

Like "differently-able" to post on Fark.
posted by klangklangston at 3:16 PM on August 30, 2007

I DON'T READ TITLES.
posted by klangklangston at 3:18 PM on August 30, 2007 [4 favorites]

I remember the days when bannination actually took.

(And my husband actually did walk uphill both ways to school in the snow. )
posted by konolia at 3:22 PM on August 30, 2007

ParisParamus was so full of shit,

He also wrote this. I like to think of him as a performance artist.
posted by quin at 3:23 PM on August 30, 2007

Who was it that got redirected to Plastic? That was funny as hell.
posted by soundofsuburbia at 3:24 PM on August 30, 2007

I got redirected to plastic once. :( It was sad. It was because I was at work at Kinko's and apparently someone was douchey on the public computers. So maybe there used to be ip bans?
posted by sugarfish at 3:33 PM on August 30, 2007

In my former incarnation of bunnyfire, I am sad to say.

Just so you know, Matt, it just wasn't the same.
posted by konolia at 3:36 PM on August 30, 2007

sugarfish: Oh no! That wasn't funny at all. Now I feel bad.
posted by soundofsuburbia at 4:07 PM on August 30, 2007

Last I heard I thought reklaw was on a timeout. Banned eh? Stunning. A stunning development, and yet not really.

Is this where I ask that the "other services" list include Facebook and Picasa?
posted by The Deej at 4:44 PM on August 30, 2007

heh - I Got a Favorite For Being Dumb on my boobie post. he didn't last long.

(actually I thought that was prettty funny)
posted by vronsky at 4:53 PM on August 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

Ah, I liked that guy.
posted by puke & cry at 4:59 PM on August 30, 2007

Thanks for bringing this up, commish. I saw this yesterday and thought I'd just missed the thread from months ago announcing it. I was starting to question how long it had taken me to finally see it. When I couldn't find a MeTa thread about it, I started to consider that maybe I was just finally going insane.

So I'm glad to hear that you, too, just found it and that it is a fairly recent development. And I for one like it! No more searching through MeTa threads to determine if someone got bored or just finally crossed that line.
posted by mosessis at 5:01 PM on August 30, 2007

I was actually thinking of a note to put on deceased (or more accurately, known to be deceaseed) users' profiles.

I do lock accounts from deceased members. Here's Leslie Harpold's page. Jessamyn and I were talking about this on the last podcast (it was part of a two hour rambling session I cut out). I think four prominent members have died to date.
posted by mathowie at 5:13 PM on August 30, 2007

posrted by ND¢II at 5:36 RM

pwned!
posted by evilcolonel at 5:13 PM on August 30, 2007

Disabled Pony request: Maybe a page with all the bannanated users and a short description of their crimes?
posted by Avenger at 5:16 PM on August 30, 2007

I liked that flashing Preferences Saved box so much, I spent about five minutes re-changing my font preference. I justified it to myself under the banner of "usability".

In the end, I just went back to Verdana.
posted by djgh at 5:18 PM on August 30, 2007

Avenger: That would make us the Something Awful forums. I'm not sure that's a good thing.
posted by dismas at 5:21 PM on August 30, 2007

We wouldn't want to be too SA would we.

posted by EndsOfInvention [PERMABANNED by cortex] at 5:34 PM on August 30
posted by EndsOfInvention at 5:39 PM on August 30, 2007

Wait, You Got A Favorite... got banned? That's sad. It was funny.
posted by kyleg at 5:40 PM on August 30, 2007

I do lock accounts from deceased members. Here's Leslie Harpold's page. Jessamyn and I were talking about this on the last podcast (it was part of a two hour rambling session I cut out). I think four prominent members have died to date.

What about stating why the account is disabled? Not going into extreme detail, but just, "user banned," "user deceased," etc.
posted by jmd82 at 5:49 PM on August 30, 2007

You Get a Favorite For Being Dumb's profile

Name: Spitey McSpiteful

See?! My AskMe is right on target!
posted by The Deej at 5:49 PM on August 30, 2007

What about stating why the account is disabled?

In all but four cases, they're banned because they're banned. I dodn't remember if short term banned people get that same mesage, possibly not. We're long-term working on some notifications that can be put on user pages [like "won the contest" "admin" or I don't know what] and that would include indicators like deceased, but not quite yet. We did add little indicators to Music posts that made the podcast, go look it's sort of nifty.

The other thing that had changed from an admin-facing perspective is that timed timeouts [i.e. a week off or a day off] now automatically get reinstated so none of us have to remember to unban people. This is really a pretty minor thing but makes the whole situation a lot more fair and normal-working and makes the difference between a week off and a ban seem much clearer.

There will be no description of crimes or whatever. The whole point is to make it low key without making people seem "disappeared"
posted by jessamyn at 6:10 PM on August 30, 2007

I'd like a five minute time out, please.
posted by Item at 6:19 PM on August 30, 2007

mathowie writes "I do lock accounts from deceased members. Here's Leslie Harpold's page. Jessamyn and I were talking about this on the last podcast (it was part of a two hour rambling session I cut out). I think four prominent members have died to date."

I started a wiki page tracking these when it came up a couple weeks ago.
posted by Mitheral at 6:28 PM on August 30, 2007

Also does this mean we can't bequeath our accounts in our wills?
posted by Mitheral at 6:31 PM on August 30, 2007

Jessamyn and I were talking about this on the last podcast (it was part of a two hour rambling session I cut out).

Y'all smoke the weed for the show, dontcha?
posted by five fresh fish at 6:39 PM on August 30, 2007

Also does this mean we can't bequeath our accounts in our wills?

Yes, but only to our enemies.

Quin!!!!!! Please contact my lawyer with your mailing address.
posted by The Deej at 6:39 PM on August 30, 2007

hey Mitheral, wasn't there a member who was killed in Iraq? Or was in Iraq and passed away after he returned. I believe his username had something to do with log rolling, but I can't find it.
posted by niles at 6:41 PM on August 30, 2007

ah, never mind. I just found the "show all Mefi-Related posts foor all of time" page, and this is the thread I remembered. Logboy was injured, but AFAIK is still alive and kicking.
posted by niles at 6:44 PM on August 30, 2007

Y'all smoke the weed for the show, dontcha?

No. Trust me, you would know.

[intro song fades out]

mathowie: hello
me: AHAHAHHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I make a terrible pot smoker. I just drink a lot of coffee instead.
posted by jessamyn at 6:49 PM on August 30, 2007

It's a sad thing is to look at the domains/sites of those who have died on that list, and see them filled with pop up ads and link farms.
posted by voidcontext at 7:04 PM on August 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

Huh. I'm quoted on reklaw's page in the "opinions are divided" section as saying "I think reklaw is my new favourite poster."

I can't figure out if he didn't get that I was being sarcastic, or if he got it, and quoted me sarcastically, and I'm just not getting that he was being sarcastic.
posted by Bugbread at 7:06 PM on August 30, 2007

"I do lock accounts from deceased members. Here's Leslie Harpold's page. Jessamyn and I were talking about this on the last podcast (it was part of a two hour rambling session I cut out). I think four prominent members have died to date."

I guess your idea of "prominent members" is different from mine, since I wouldn't consider someone with one post and ten comments "prominent". She may have been a well-known internet personality, but a prominent member of Metafilter, not so much.

Note: I am not in any way meaning to disparage Ms. Harpold's memory.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 7:16 PM on August 30, 2007

In all but four cases, they're banned because they're banned. I dodn't remember if short term banned people get that same mesage, possibly not.

Then my old account indicates I was banned when I actually wasn't.
posted by Dave Faris at 7:59 PM on August 30, 2007

Then my old account indicates I was banned when I actually wasn't.

Funny you should mention that... any account that was in "banned" status before we made this switch -- and this includes people who just said "please ban me until such a time as I would like to be unbanned" -- were set to permaban status. We can fix this by hand, and I just fixed yours, but there are probably less than five users affected this way.
posted by jessamyn at 8:03 PM on August 30, 2007

Leslie Harpold, to quote another well-known-in-some-circles web person, was "famous among dozens," perhaps thousands, for her witty writing and for her web design, thus I think the designation "prominent" is fitting, although she was not as active here on MeFi as some who are currently thought of as "prominent."
posted by Lynsey at 8:03 PM on August 30, 2007

Pet peeve alert...

Could we please stop using the word "spoofing" to refer to using a proxy? There is no actual spoofing going on when you use a proxy, they are standard legit TCP connections. Some other machine is just proxying your traffic for you and so you appear to be from somewhere else to the server. But that's not spoofing.

In networking, spoofing has a specific meaning of actually pretending to be someone else, without actually involving or having the cooperation of that someone else, as in the case of a proxy. It is much harder (close to impossible) to actually spoof a TCP connection due to the three-way handshake sequence. To pull this off requires being able to guess the other end's TCP stack's ISN (initial sequence number) which unless they are using Windows 95 or ten year old IRIX is based on a 32 bit random number. And even if by some stroke of luck the other end has a poorly implemented ISN algorithm AND you are lucky enough to guess the right ISN, you still can only spoof in one direction -- transmit. The replies of the remote host go to the IP address that you were pretending to be, which you do not receive.

Now of course spoofing a connectionless protocol like UDP is trivial because there is no three-way handshake. But that will do you zero good for loading a website.
posted by Rhomboid at 8:14 PM on August 30, 2007 [4 favorites]

There are way too many instances of the word actually in that comment.
posted by Rhomboid at 8:15 PM on August 30, 2007

Omigod! Leslie Harpold died? I loved her postcard fictions! Stopped reading them a few years back because I had to prune my daily internet. Now I'm sad....
posted by anotherpanacea at 8:21 PM on August 30, 2007

Has anyone else planned out their post-banning strategy?

I reckon I'll give that "Outside" place a shot and see what happens from there.

reklaw's last comments on MeTa are comedy gold, btw; I don't think he saw it coming, or considered that he may actually get the boot for it.
Still, kids need limits. *Waves to reklaw's sockpuppet*
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:31 PM on August 30, 2007

I wish nobody else had to die.
posted by Divine_Wino at 8:54 PM on August 30, 2007

I just died in your arms tonight.

(must have been some kind of fish)
posted by dirigibleman at 9:21 PM on August 30, 2007

What does it mean if we see our own name on the list of dead MeFites?
posted by blue_beetle at 10:39 PM on August 30, 2007

The Deej : Please contact my lawyer with your mailing address.

Done! Check your mailbox in the next couple of days. I sent it express, it will be carved into a block of grey modeling clay. I added some 'cyberpunk' fittings like wires and a clock to make it look cool.

If there is a wrapper that says 'Semtex', you can ignore that because it's just my secretary's maiden name.

That's it... Yeah.
posted by quin at 10:40 PM on August 30, 2007

I guess your idea of "prominent members" is different from mine, since I wouldn't consider someone with one post and ten comments "prominent".

Perhaps we should say "prominently deceased".

There is no actual spoofing going on when you use a proxy, they are standard legit TCP connections.

I hear you, babe, but for the less-technical intent of describing "IP-shenanigans for the sole purpose of evading an IP ban", spoofing is a pretty reasonable lay term.

I, for one, wish non-banjists would stop throwing around "frailing" all willy-nilly.

Okay, so that's never actually happened ever. But it could! And I'd just frown a little and maybe make a comment kind of like yours if it did, actually. But I wouldn't expect it to change a goddam thing! Is my point. I think.
posted by cortex at 10:52 PM on August 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

How about "this account is hilarious", "this account is a pain in my ass" and "this account is"?
posted by davejay at 11:07 PM on August 30, 2007

for the less-technical intent of describing "IP-shenanigans for the sole purpose of evading an IP ban", spoofing is a pretty reasonable lay term.

Argh, but if you're talking about using a proxy, why not just say "using a proxy"? Why confuse matters by calling it something that is totally different and unrelated? Why is "using a proxy" any less lay-friendly than "spoofing IPs"?
posted by Rhomboid at 11:38 PM on August 30, 2007

I love it when you talk technical, Rhomboid.
posted by Cranberry at 11:48 PM on August 30, 2007

How do I apply for a "deceased, but not quite yet" indicator, as described here?
posted by B(oYo)BIES at 1:03 AM on August 31, 2007

This article may be too technical for a general audience.
posted by Joeforking at 4:00 AM on August 31, 2007

reklaw was banned for a harry potter spoiler? are you fucking kidding me?
posted by Saucy Intruder at 5:36 AM on August 31, 2007

reklaw was banned for a harry potter spoiler? are you fucking kidding me?

reklaw was banned for an ongoing series of similar shenanigans that culminated in the Harry Potter spoiler to the front page of MetaFilter a day or two before the book release, yes.
posted by jessamyn at 6:03 AM on August 31, 2007

What does it mean if we see our own name on the list of dead MeFites?

Then you're Bruce Willis. Congratulations, I guess.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 6:09 AM on August 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

IP bans don't work — [...] false positives punish people for being on, e.g., the same major ISP subnet with dynamic IPs.

This happened once, didn't it, with P_G's flatmate being mistakenly identified as a P_G sockpuppet?
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 6:11 AM on August 31, 2007

Yeah, only I think it was P_G's neighbor.
posted by jessamyn at 6:22 AM on August 31, 2007

I was actually thinking of a note to put on deceased (or more accurately, known to be deceaseed) users'

For a moment, I had the mental image of a post-it stuck to a corpse's forehead.
posted by FunkyHelix at 6:34 AM on August 31, 2007

Right, yeah.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 7:42 AM on August 31, 2007

Why confuse matters by calling it something that is totally different and unrelated? Why is "using a proxy" any less lay-friendly than "spoofing IPs"?

Because people who have no idea what either a proxy or actual spoofing are and have only a tenuous fuzzy grasp on the idea of "an IP" know very well in casual language what "spoofing" is.

I'm not saying it's a perfect vocab solution or that I don't dig the annoyance at the collision, but there it is. Your grandma would know a spoof when she heard about it.
posted by cortex at 8:05 AM on August 31, 2007 [2 favorites]

*misses P_G*
posted by eddydamascene at 8:23 AM on August 31, 2007

This account is: .
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 8:28 AM on August 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

reklaw was banned for a harry potter spoiler? are you fucking kidding me?

He posted a Harry Potter spoiler a couple of days before the book came out and then insisted in MeTa that anyone who objects was a baby and that we shouldn't mind spoilers, being adults and blah blah 4chan bullshit blah blah.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:39 AM on August 31, 2007

I have proof that it wasn't reklaw that posted the spoiler, but rather Hotmail broke into his account to post it.
posted by drezdn at 9:03 AM on August 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

Vronsky
"I Got a Favorite For Being Dumb on my boobie post."

While I like boobs a lot, it almost disabled bookish!
posted by phoque at 9:26 AM on August 31, 2007

When I am president of the universe, I will ban all bitching and moaning about spoilers.
posted by Saucy Intruder at 9:40 AM on August 31, 2007

Spoiler alert: you are impeached by people who actually enjoy books and movies.
posted by Gary at 10:54 AM on August 31, 2007 [2 favorites]

Spoiler alert: Use or freeze by 7/31/07.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:56 AM on August 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

From the alicila death announcement thread:

I just realized something -- since she has a Creative Commons license on her audio files, we could create a perpetual archive of her work available online under the same terms, in case her domain or hosting lapses.
posted by mathowie at 12:38 PM on August 25 [+] [!]

The domain has lapsed. Did you get around to building the archive?
posted by Dataphage at 12:27 PM on August 31, 2007