4 ms·

Gotta admire that (probably German) admin dude's perseverance though

arm32 22d ago
He's definitely got a few extra wrinkles on the forehead now.
underlipton 22d ago
Believe it or not, Djiboutian. The tenacity of the Djiboutian is little-known, generally, but highly regarded amongst those who do.
- kjkj313 22d ago
  But Djibouti don't need explaining.
teaearlgraycold 22d ago
I’m confused why he wasn’t scripting the deletion process.
- lukan 22d ago
  Because he did not wanted to delete genuine messages? Though it says the wiki has been largely not active, but it seems he wanted to restore it's functionality (he also started requiring a password for making edits now). https://www.prowiki.org/dse/wiki.cgi?StartSeite https://www.prowiki.org/dse/wiki.cgi?StartSeite
  - econ 22d ago
    I can see why the bots liked it. Is this the future of webdesign?
    - Nition 21d ago
      This is the marrow of web design, in the same way that Thoreau went to seek the marrow of life. "I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion."
  - noduerme 21d ago
    It's kind of funny that he was working through the posts alphabetically, and they figured that out
    - lukan 21d ago
      Or scary. If you extrapolate a bit.
  - kazinator 21d ago
    If you've had to delete 10 posts by the same user, which you suspect is an AI agent, it's safe to say that deleting all posts ever made by that user is a good shortcut.
    - sfn42 20d ago
      There are a lot of people in this world who just don't think that way. I know someone involved with a research project, they had a spreadsheet(not excel but similar) with something like 250 columns and tens of thousands of rows, and they tasked an assistant with replacing all the empty cells with 0 for some reason. This was supposed to take 2 weeks of manual work, I took a look at it, googled how to do it automatically, finished the whole thing in a few minutes. But both this assistant and the PhD they reported to were ready to spend 2 weeks doing it manually.
    - Geezus_42 20d ago
      But useless if they are constantly rotating usernames.
- yellowapple 21d ago
  Or at some point going nuclear and halting article creation entirely unless it's by existing accounts that have proven themselves to be human.
econ 22d ago
Not really, if you allow anon posting/editing or have a simple registration form and a login that takes GET you may get hundreds of spam posts per day.( @dang how much is it on hn?) I ont time forged a hilarious solution. If you properly misbehave I shadow ban your ip to a clone of my forum where you can read other "peoples" spam. This in it self wasn't all that funny, perhaps a little bit. The funny part was how popular the hidden forum was. They had their viagra threads where they replied with their viagra spam then they read the entire thread of Viagra spam posts and clicked all the links to research their market. The next thread was porn, one with wares, other drugs, hyip etc. I was looking at it grow and thought, this is hilarious, I'm going to prison. To solve the problem I raised unregistered users to admin level. I even made a topic to announce it. Someone said "lol" then my topic was deleted. Whole new experience. It increased traffic dramatically. Before they only had to post every other day, now they had to do it multiple times per day. A porn guy and a viagra guy would take turns deleting the others posting and reposting their own until they realized they couldn't win and came to a silent agreement to leave both posts up. Until the next guy deleted both ofc I would much rather host a swarm of bots. They might even listen to the wishes of the website owner? Or perhaps, if you announce giving them admin privileges they too delete the announcement? I wonder which would generate the longer prison sentence.
- Loughla 21d ago
  >[...] and thought, this is hilarious, I'm going to prison. I've only had one moment like this related to a site I was a moderator for back in the 00's. It's genuinely one of the most fascinating feelings, and the one experience I can attribute most of my bad choices as an adult to. Just laughing as the white hot panic starts to grow and the adrenaline just dumps into your brain. Legitimately, I spent years chasing that feeling again through various means (drugs, hobbies, skydiving, etc.)
  - DiggyJohnson 21d ago
    Could you describe anything about they experience?
    - 21d ago
rurban 19d ago
Helmut is from Graz, Austria, as myself. Definitely not German

arm32 22d ago

He's definitely got a few extra wrinkles on the forehead now.

Believe it or not, Djiboutian. The tenacity of the Djiboutian is little-known, generally, but highly regarded amongst those who do.

kjkj313 22d ago
But Djibouti don't need explaining.

teaearlgraycold 22d ago

I’m confused why he wasn’t scripting the deletion process.

lukan 22d ago
Because he did not wanted to delete genuine messages? Though it says the wiki has been largely not active, but it seems he wanted to restore it's functionality (he also started requiring a password for making edits now). https://www.prowiki.org/dse/wiki.cgi?StartSeite https://www.prowiki.org/dse/wiki.cgi?StartSeite
- econ 22d ago
  I can see why the bots liked it. Is this the future of webdesign?
  - Nition 21d ago
    This is the marrow of web design, in the same way that Thoreau went to seek the marrow of life. "I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion."
- noduerme 21d ago
  It's kind of funny that he was working through the posts alphabetically, and they figured that out
  - lukan 21d ago
    Or scary. If you extrapolate a bit.
- kazinator 21d ago
  If you've had to delete 10 posts by the same user, which you suspect is an AI agent, it's safe to say that deleting all posts ever made by that user is a good shortcut.
  - sfn42 20d ago
    There are a lot of people in this world who just don't think that way. I know someone involved with a research project, they had a spreadsheet(not excel but similar) with something like 250 columns and tens of thousands of rows, and they tasked an assistant with replacing all the empty cells with 0 for some reason. This was supposed to take 2 weeks of manual work, I took a look at it, googled how to do it automatically, finished the whole thing in a few minutes. But both this assistant and the PhD they reported to were ready to spend 2 weeks doing it manually.
  - Geezus_42 20d ago
    But useless if they are constantly rotating usernames.
yellowapple 21d ago
Or at some point going nuclear and halting article creation entirely unless it's by existing accounts that have proven themselves to be human.

econ 22d ago

Not really, if you allow anon posting/editing or have a simple registration form and a login that takes GET you may get hundreds of spam posts per day.( @dang how much is it on hn?) I ont time forged a hilarious solution. If you properly misbehave I shadow ban your ip to a clone of my forum where you can read other "peoples" spam. This in it self wasn't all that funny, perhaps a little bit. The funny part was how popular the hidden forum was. They had their viagra threads where they replied with their viagra spam then they read the entire thread of Viagra spam posts and clicked all the links to research their market. The next thread was porn, one with wares, other drugs, hyip etc. I was looking at it grow and thought, this is hilarious, I'm going to prison. To solve the problem I raised unregistered users to admin level. I even made a topic to announce it. Someone said "lol" then my topic was deleted. Whole new experience. It increased traffic dramatically. Before they only had to post every other day, now they had to do it multiple times per day. A porn guy and a viagra guy would take turns deleting the others posting and reposting their own until they realized they couldn't win and came to a silent agreement to leave both posts up. Until the next guy deleted both ofc I would much rather host a swarm of bots. They might even listen to the wishes of the website owner? Or perhaps, if you announce giving them admin privileges they too delete the announcement? I wonder which would generate the longer prison sentence.

Loughla 21d ago
>[...] and thought, this is hilarious, I'm going to prison. I've only had one moment like this related to a site I was a moderator for back in the 00's. It's genuinely one of the most fascinating feelings, and the one experience I can attribute most of my bad choices as an adult to. Just laughing as the white hot panic starts to grow and the adrenaline just dumps into your brain. Legitimately, I spent years chasing that feeling again through various means (drugs, hobbies, skydiving, etc.)
- DiggyJohnson 21d ago
  Could you describe anything about they experience?
  - 21d ago

rurban 19d ago

Helmut is from Graz, Austria, as myself. Definitely not German