5 ms·

It should be trivial for them to scan their access logs for referrers, and then send a mailshot out to each domains webmaster address. To me, that seems like t

It should be trivial for them to scan their access logs for referrers, and then send a mailshot out to each domains webmaster address. To me, that seems like the polite thing to do.

ergo98 16y ago
They are already going way above and beyond by extending their deadline to the end of January. They have the capacity to be much ruder about it. Hotlinking like this has been a well known web evil for well over a decade. That people still do it and just hope for the best is indicative of extraordinary laziness and selfishness.
- mike-cardwell 16y ago
  You're attributing malice to something which could be attributed to ignorance. A common error. They could just break all those sites without giving them personalised warnings, yes. And they would also be completely entitled to yes. But for the small amount of effort needed, why not try to minimise the damage.
  - ergo98 16y ago
    Malice? As quaint as that saying is, malice plays no part in this discussion. I'm attributing laziness, which is quite removed from malice. People using jquery should be evolved enough to know what CDNs are, and the dangers of hotlinking (which is as simple as "jQuery decided to reorganize their site, and now a thousand sites are broken").
    - mike-cardwell 16y ago
      I guarantee that some people are using the wrong URLs because they received bad advice, or copied from code they shouldn't have, or were simply told by somebody that they could link to the version on jquery.com, so did. These people don't need punishing, they need educating. I find the whole "fuck em, it's their fault" attitude to be very childish.
      - ergo98 16y ago
        "I guarantee that some people are using the wrong URLs because they received bad advice, or copied from code they shouldn't have, or were simply told by somebody that they could link to the version on jquery.com, so did." Is that not precisely what I said? Laziness. I feel like I'm debating with a tired Hallmark card. Yes, high road and all that. We get it. Just as you misplaced the malice quote (you were a little too eager to play that one), now you're on about punishment: Who said anything about punishment? Saying "Don't hotlink, but we're giving you 30 days grace" is not remotely "punishment". That you portray it as such is, honestly, outrageous.
        mike-cardwell 16y ago
        "Is that not precisely what I said? Laziness." No. You can't both understand the word "laziness" and attribute that to the explanations I provided. "I feel like I'm debating with a tired Hallmark card. Yes, high road and all that. We get it." I feel like I'm debating with somebody who is very intolerant. "Just as you misplaced the malice quote (you were a little too eager to play that one)" I did not misplace it, and I stand by the statement, and exactly how I used and formatted it. "now you're on about punishment: Who said anything about punishment? Saying "Don't hotlink, but we're giving you 30 days grace" is not remotely "punishment". That you portray it as such is, honestly, outrageous." You're easily angered aren't you. As I said, it would be trivial to contact them directly and tell them about the problem, and not doing so when it would be so easy giving the reason that they should have known better in the first place is a clear kind of punishment yes. I'm not continuing this discussion with you. I have more fun things to do with my New Years Eve than debate with an angry troll.
        ergo98 16y ago
        Pretend to take the high road. Misrepresent what I've said in reply after reply (now you're onto the "don't get angry!" screed which is one of my favorites). Pull the "I'm done!" card just as you've declared me a troll. I see that you've mastered this technique, and your black belt awaits. I'm not done because I've debated with this ridiculous tactic enough to see it for what it is. Copy-pasting code that you don't understand is pretty much the definition of laziness. And just to be clear, it's "trivial" for jQuery to do this, in your mind, because you're not the one having to do it. Probably thousands of tiny sites that are doing this (I doubt it's any big numbers sites), each requiring you to go through the whois process to find a webmaster. Not as trivial as you proclaim.
    - bzbarsky 16y ago
      > People using jquery should be evolved enough to know what > CDNs are There are lots and lots of monkeys using jquery. Cargo-cultist monkeys, at that. At least that's my impression from the browser bugs I've seen filed with snippets of jquery code. I wouldn't extrapolate knowledge of CDNs, or much of anything other than jquery basics, from use of jquery.
- cabalamat 16y ago
  > Hotlinking like this has been a well known web evil for well over a decade. Except where the site expressly permits it.
mootothemax 16y ago
It should be trivial for them to ... send a mailshot out to each ... webmaster address Well indeed, but even if you ignore the time taken to do WHOIS lookups and presume that they'll go to the right person (e.g. blogs hosted on Wordpress.com) you're still ignoring the serious amount of computing power that it takes to send a significant number of emails.
- mike-cardwell 16y ago
  I was suggesting webmaster@domain for each of the domains. Not 100% full proof, but no method is. I'm assuming we're talking about thousands of emails here, not millions.
  - mootothemax 16y ago
    I'm assuming we're talking about thousands of emails here, not millions. When was the last time you tried sending thousands of emails? It's a surprisingly non-trivial task to send more than a few hundred emails - and that's ignoring setting off spam filters and getting IP addresses blacklisted. Speaking honestly, I like your idea, but it's my opinion that if it were that simple then the jQuery guys would do it. Since it isn't that simple, they're not.
    - mike-cardwell 16y ago
      You're saying this to the wrong person. I run mail systems for a living. IMO, it is a trivial task to send tens of thousands of emails. It should take about a minute to craft a one liner to pull the relevant domains out of the access logs. It should then take maybe half an hour or less to write a batch script to queue up the emails. Then sit back and watch them go... What else is there?
      - mootothemax 16y ago
        You're saying this to the wrong person. I run mail systems for a living. IMO, it is a trivial task to send tens of thousands of emails. What hardware are you running that supports sending out tens of thousands of emails, handling the inevitable DNS errors, timeouts, bounces (yes yes, I've read about the RFC ;)) and that manages all of this in a reasonable amount of time? Genuine question, I'm curious.

It should be trivial for them to scan their access logs for referrers, and then send a mailshot out to each domains webmaster address. To me, that seems like the polite thing to do.

ergo98 16y ago

They are already going way above and beyond by extending their deadline to the end of January. They have the capacity to be much ruder about it. Hotlinking like this has been a well known web evil for well over a decade. That people still do it and just hope for the best is indicative of extraordinary laziness and selfishness.

mike-cardwell 16y ago
You're attributing malice to something which could be attributed to ignorance. A common error. They could just break all those sites without giving them personalised warnings, yes. And they would also be completely entitled to yes. But for the small amount of effort needed, why not try to minimise the damage.
- ergo98 16y ago
  Malice? As quaint as that saying is, malice plays no part in this discussion. I'm attributing laziness, which is quite removed from malice. People using jquery should be evolved enough to know what CDNs are, and the dangers of hotlinking (which is as simple as "jQuery decided to reorganize their site, and now a thousand sites are broken").
  - mike-cardwell 16y ago
    I guarantee that some people are using the wrong URLs because they received bad advice, or copied from code they shouldn't have, or were simply told by somebody that they could link to the version on jquery.com, so did. These people don't need punishing, they need educating. I find the whole "fuck em, it's their fault" attitude to be very childish.
    - ergo98 16y ago
      "I guarantee that some people are using the wrong URLs because they received bad advice, or copied from code they shouldn't have, or were simply told by somebody that they could link to the version on jquery.com, so did." Is that not precisely what I said? Laziness. I feel like I'm debating with a tired Hallmark card. Yes, high road and all that. We get it. Just as you misplaced the malice quote (you were a little too eager to play that one), now you're on about punishment: Who said anything about punishment? Saying "Don't hotlink, but we're giving you 30 days grace" is not remotely "punishment". That you portray it as such is, honestly, outrageous.
      - mike-cardwell 16y ago
        "Is that not precisely what I said? Laziness." No. You can't both understand the word "laziness" and attribute that to the explanations I provided. "I feel like I'm debating with a tired Hallmark card. Yes, high road and all that. We get it." I feel like I'm debating with somebody who is very intolerant. "Just as you misplaced the malice quote (you were a little too eager to play that one)" I did not misplace it, and I stand by the statement, and exactly how I used and formatted it. "now you're on about punishment: Who said anything about punishment? Saying "Don't hotlink, but we're giving you 30 days grace" is not remotely "punishment". That you portray it as such is, honestly, outrageous." You're easily angered aren't you. As I said, it would be trivial to contact them directly and tell them about the problem, and not doing so when it would be so easy giving the reason that they should have known better in the first place is a clear kind of punishment yes. I'm not continuing this discussion with you. I have more fun things to do with my New Years Eve than debate with an angry troll.
        ergo98 16y ago
        Pretend to take the high road. Misrepresent what I've said in reply after reply (now you're onto the "don't get angry!" screed which is one of my favorites). Pull the "I'm done!" card just as you've declared me a troll. I see that you've mastered this technique, and your black belt awaits. I'm not done because I've debated with this ridiculous tactic enough to see it for what it is. Copy-pasting code that you don't understand is pretty much the definition of laziness. And just to be clear, it's "trivial" for jQuery to do this, in your mind, because you're not the one having to do it. Probably thousands of tiny sites that are doing this (I doubt it's any big numbers sites), each requiring you to go through the whois process to find a webmaster. Not as trivial as you proclaim.
  - bzbarsky 16y ago
    > People using jquery should be evolved enough to know what > CDNs are There are lots and lots of monkeys using jquery. Cargo-cultist monkeys, at that. At least that's my impression from the browser bugs I've seen filed with snippets of jquery code. I wouldn't extrapolate knowledge of CDNs, or much of anything other than jquery basics, from use of jquery.
cabalamat 16y ago
> Hotlinking like this has been a well known web evil for well over a decade. Except where the site expressly permits it.

mootothemax 16y ago

It should be trivial for them to ... send a mailshot out to each ... webmaster address Well indeed, but even if you ignore the time taken to do WHOIS lookups and presume that they'll go to the right person (e.g. blogs hosted on Wordpress.com) you're still ignoring the serious amount of computing power that it takes to send a significant number of emails.

mike-cardwell 16y ago
I was suggesting webmaster@domain for each of the domains. Not 100% full proof, but no method is. I'm assuming we're talking about thousands of emails here, not millions.
- mootothemax 16y ago
  I'm assuming we're talking about thousands of emails here, not millions. When was the last time you tried sending thousands of emails? It's a surprisingly non-trivial task to send more than a few hundred emails - and that's ignoring setting off spam filters and getting IP addresses blacklisted. Speaking honestly, I like your idea, but it's my opinion that if it were that simple then the jQuery guys would do it. Since it isn't that simple, they're not.
  - mike-cardwell 16y ago
    You're saying this to the wrong person. I run mail systems for a living. IMO, it is a trivial task to send tens of thousands of emails. It should take about a minute to craft a one liner to pull the relevant domains out of the access logs. It should then take maybe half an hour or less to write a batch script to queue up the emails. Then sit back and watch them go... What else is there?
    - mootothemax 16y ago
      You're saying this to the wrong person. I run mail systems for a living. IMO, it is a trivial task to send tens of thousands of emails. What hardware are you running that supports sending out tens of thousands of emails, handling the inevitable DNS errors, timeouts, bounces (yes yes, I've read about the RFC ;)) and that manages all of this in a reasonable amount of time? Genuine question, I'm curious.