à titre d'information, au sujet de Sam, et comme ça tombe très bien (le mail est tout chaud), jugez par vous-mêmes:
On Sunday 04 March 2007 12:49, Sam Hocevar wrote: > On Sat, Mar 03, 2007, Russ Allbery wrote: > > You seem to be a frequent contributor to a site associated with GNAA, > > which is a trolling organization that has had past run-ins with Wikipedia > > and other volunteer projects. Could you clarify, first, whether that's > > actually true or whether it's just a case of mistaken identity? > > I don't know what site you are talking about. If you are talking > about lastmeasure.com, I have never touched it and I don't even have any > idea who hosts it or how it is managed. > > It is true however that I set up an SVN repository for that piece of > free software. As far as I remember I only did the initial import, which > hardly qualifies as "frequent contributor". I also forked it to create > "softmeasure", a version of lastmeasure that had pictures of carebears > and other plush animals instead of the other Internet memes. However > juvenile that piece of software may be, I will not accept criticism > about it until Debian stops distributing software that encourages > stoning women and children, cursing homosexuals or enslaving daughters. > > On second thought, maybe the "site associated with GNAA" you are > referring to is Slashdot. I feel bad for contributing to Slashdot, but > you may notice that I posted three comments in 2006 and only one so far > in 2007, so I'm pretty clean here as well. > > > If it is true, could you comment on the degree of your involvement with > > GNAA? In other words, do you just find this one site, not related to > > their other activities, interesting and have ignored the other things > > they're doing? Do you think they're unfairly maligned? Did you not even > > know who they were? > > I have not ignored the other things they're doing. > > I have approached the GNAA at a time when I was doing computer vision > research about CAPTCHAs. I knew they had scripts, bots and open proxies > to ruin Slashdot or other blog engines and I wanted to collect CAPTCHA > samples, which they gave to me. For the record, I cracked most of these > CAPTCHAs but never distributed my decoder (I set up a proof of concept > web service but it had flood control and was never abused). > > I also approached professional spammers and other "black hat" hackers > for the same reason and I do not think there is anything wrong with > that. It is fascinating how they work and use their skills and there is > much to learn from what they do (including in terms of protection or > retaliation, of course). > > I stayed on the GNAA IRC channel when they became "interested" in > Wikipedia, so as to keep an eye on their actions, and I think I managed > pretty well to dissuade them from ruining Wikipedia. I have not taken > part in any of their destructive actions or hate propaganda floods, > which I find quite questionable (and are illegal where I live anyway). > > > More broadly, could you give your feelings on the impact of trolling, > > attempts to shock and offend people, and similar forms of humor on > > volunteer projects with a huge variety of participants? Do you think > > that such humor would be appropriate on, say, Debian mailing lists or IRC > > channels? > > Short answer: it's bad and no, it would not be appropriate. > > However I am well aware of the state of self-denial Debian is in. We > are so terribly convinced that we are the best and/or that we are doing > it in the best way that we are not accepting criticism. Please look at > http://www.gnaa.us/pr.phtml?troll=gnaa-sarge and tell me there's not > some truth in every sentence. Again, I am not advocating such offensive > material, it's just that when I read it the first time I thought "wow, > they pretty much got the point, we should try to suck less in this and > that areas" instead of dismissing it as "trolling", and the project as a > whole could help with more self-criticism. > > Regards,
