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On Sun, 6 Jan 2019 at 00:00, Dimitris Chloupis via Pharo-users <
[email protected]> wrote:
> Hello people , as you may or may not be aware we have a spammer that posts
> links to sexual content sites. This is of course an unacceptable situation
> so I had to delete all existing invite links.
>
> This means that from now on I will not allow members to create their own
> invite links and I will also not allow more than one link to be active at
> a time so I know which link is compromised.
>
This would be good to manage better. Its unfortunate that there seems no
way to detect which link a spammer joined through.
> The invite link will no longer be public but shared privately only by
> Admins to people who are already active here and it will be shared only
> through personal emails and messages.
>
I don't see how that arrangement will be workable for newcomers that need
help.
One of the benefits of instant messaging is that it lowers the barrier of
entry for people learning Pharo to receive help.
> I have also raised the level of automatic moderation , from now on new
> members wont be able to post in our server unless they have a verified
> email with Discord. Also all messages are automatically scanned by Discord
> from now on for improper behavior.
>
This is good. Live and learn.
>
> I am sorry for this inconvenience but its all part of having a very active
> community, it was just a matter of time till we attracted the attention of
> spammers.
>
> This does not affect our almost 1000 existing members on Discord server so
> if you already a member you have nothing to worry about. This affects only
> new people who like to join.
>
> If you are new and you like to join I will send you an invite link ONLY if
> you are active in this mailing list and after you are ask for one. You can
> use this thread by providing your Discord ID (you get this when you
> register with discord) and I will send you a personal message in Discord
> with an invite link. By active I mean that you have substantial
> participation in this mailing list which means at least 3 posts.
>
This policy seems like an overkill for a first incident. It introduces a
chicken-and-egg problem in attracting new users. Someone trying out Pharo
who is a potential new user and co-developer. They don't yet care enough
or know enough about Pharo to substantially participate in the mail list,
but they a quick chat right now would sort out something souring their view
of Pharo . But if they need to wait to make three posts plus then someone
being available on their timezone to email them an invite, they may just
drop it.
> If you are a member or admin and post the link publicly , its not a
> problem, but please be aware that if the link is compromised then I will
> delete it and create new making new members unable to join with the old
> one. So use the link wisely.
>
New invites are required for the web page and Pharo's built-in help page.
Probably better to have separate invites for each since the former is more
likely to be scraped by spammers.
As an alternative action to wiping all links, disabling new members from
embedding links might effectively deter spammer from posting links and
pictures.
cheers -ben
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