Please use this thread for (and only for) alerting admins to moderation issues and for raising complaints arising from particular decisions. We remind participants that TSZ is a benign dictatorship, the property of Dr. Elizabeth Liddle. All decisions regarding policy and implementation are hers alone.
dazz,
Not true (that SSL can’t have anything to do with fifth’s issue). Most websites will redirect you to https if you try to access them using regular http. Try it with http://www.google.com. You’ll see that you end up at https://www.google.com.
Assuming the site supports SSL. This site doesn’t, so no need for a certificate.
keiths:
dazz:
The question is whether fifth’s ISP decided to block access to sites that aren’t secure. The two experiments I suggested should help in figuring that out.
As I said, and say again, you are mistaken.
There are many ways to anonymize yourself when posting and information attached to IPs remains confidential except when legal issues arise
Alan,
Bullshit. You invaded ALurker and Patrick’s privacy by snooping through their IP addresses. It wasn’t because of a legal issue, and not even because of a potential rule violation.
Do you know, it was actually an accident. I was very struck by the similarities in style of speech and content between the two members, so I wanted to compare comments from them side-by-side. The way to search comments by a particular member is to put the log-in email of the member in the search box on the comments page as, especially these days the IP address will vary when people are commenting by smartphone when on the move.
For admins, the email and IP address appear next to each other as part of the comment information and, while intendeing to see all ALurker’s comments in one place, I accidentally copy-pasted an IP address into the search window. How coincidental was that! And how coincidental that it produced a considerable amount of overlap!
The question for me is why they did it now. Keep in mind this is a very small ISP with few members.
I suspect that possibly it’s because they felt they had reason to when they did not before.
peace
keiths:
fifth:
Did you try entering “myshopify.com” in the address bar? If so, what happened?
Alan,
Yeah, right. It was just an accident, and you just now got around to mentioning it, more than a year after the fact.
The “considerable overlap” was a single IP address belonging to a hotel. Oops.
Readers can get the sordid details here.
keiths, Well, I didn’t expect keiths to accept it. Just as I found it difficult to accept that Alurker happened to spend time at a hotel (not a realty business, then?) sending a slew of comments to TSZ from the same IP address as Patrick had used many times. But I accepted Patrick’s explanation of a complete coincidence.
No reason I should expect keiths to do likewise. 😘
fifth,
try checking to make sure that the ‘/wp’ is still tagged onto the end of TSZ address. Sometimes, for whatever reason (sure it is a conspiracy against me), that gets dropped from the address line on my computer I add that back onto the address the issue goes away.
Far more exciting to believe, any or all, of the various conspiracies you’ve alluded too but I imagine it will turn out to be something quite mundane.
I work for a large corporation, no telling what sort of filters they have for blocking forbidden sites
First, you accused someone of lying not making a mistake. If was Alan in that case my original statement was correct, therefore my refusal would be to accept a lie.
If it was in my case , I have amended my statement to reflect the knowledge you provided while apologizing profusely, while noting mistakes are not equal to lies.
It is accurate to say Alan is a admin who moderates, per your quote and despite your complaining has not changed his status . Which spin do you refer?
The only person so far engaged in weaseling words ,in my opinion , is you. It is completely the prerogative of a website to name admins as those who moderate among other duties or have people who only moderate. I understand you need to grasp at any straw, so go ahead, people do not understand your exquisite rhetorical prowess and become flummoxed at your geometric logic.
Right phoodoo, whatever you say.Alan bad, phoodoo smart.
Alan still remains an admin who moderates.
Alan:
ALurker commented:
I checked the address:
Alan:
The IP address was registered to a company that manages hotels in Seattle, doofus.
There were only 44 comments from ALurker using that IP address, and only 86 from Patrick, as you yourself stated:
You invaded their privacy because you were pissed at ALurker for criticizing you, and you were hoping to prove that he and Patrick were the same person. It had nothing to do with any “legal issues” or even any potential rule violations. You further abused your privileges by suspending both ALurker and Patrick despite not being permitted to do so by the rules.
For the moment, at least. 🙂
How so? The only information I gave out was the shared use of an IP address. I didn’t publish the IP.
Because I was intrigued at the amazing similarities and the birth of ALurker fully formed on the internet
Well, I can’t prove it. I asked Patrick and he assured me it was a coincidence. I accepted it.
Who suggested there was a “legal” issue? I just thought (and I recall keiths agreeing hypotheically) that it would have been rather disingenuous.
I think I pointed out that Lizzie is dictator here and, in her absence, her admins have full plenipotentiary powers. And I was misled by the amazing similarities. I accept what Patrick stated, apologised and moved on. He is not restricted from posting here and neither is ALurker.
Is it your view that you can’t invade somebody’s privacy unless you publish what you find?
Well, public IPs are… you know, public. 😄
walto,
Not yet made the connection between pointing out the similarities of two pseudonymous internet entities and an invasion of privacy. I know nothing at all of ALurker and only what Patrick has chosen to share publicly.
Alan Fox,
Ok. I don’t know enough about any of this stuff to talk intelligently about it. If you found out no more about Alurker than I might have with the same level of interest, I guess there’s no basis for complaint.
All that intrigued me was the uncanny similarity to Patrick.
But if I, a non-admin, had the same level of curiosity–could I have discovered what you did?
walto,
You could have noticed the similarity of word usage, style and content but not whether comments were made via the same IP address.
Why, then, was that not an invasion of privacy?
why is it?
Alan,
You were pissed because ALurker had been criticizing you. So you reached the cockamamie conclusion that he/she and Patrick were the same person (which wouldn’t have been against the rules, even if it were true). You then suspended both of them, despite the fact that the rules don’t grant you that power.
It’s a pattern with you. It’s no coincidence that you banned me for thirty days — a power that the rules don’t grant you — because I was criticizing the moderators. By your own account.
You’re a little boy who can’t take criticism, trying to fit into a role that calls out for a grownup.
I did indeed think ALurker was a sockpuppet of Patrick but I accepted his denial and apologised. My excuse is that the similarities were uncanny.
You used your admin privileges to snoop around in a manner that a casual member could not. Maybe it’s like having a telescope to peer into your neighbor’s windows? But again, I really don’t know what I’m talking about here–maybe such investigations are part of the work.
Anyhow, I’ll shut up about this. I’m starting to sound like you on philosophy thread.
walto, to Alan:
Exactly. And he did it not because of a suspected rule violation, but simply because he was pissed about being criticized.
😛
Alan,
Don’t try to whitewash it. You didn’t accept ALurker’s denial, and you suspended both ALurker and Patrick. You only apologized after Lizzie got involved.
walto,
I knew there was something niggling you. I’ve studiously avoided interacting with you lately.
ETA on “philosophical” subjects.
keiths,
Not whitewashing. Just explaining why I thought ALurker was Patrick’s sockpuppet. I accepted his denial, apologised and moved on. In fact, this might just as well be my last comment.
*moves on*
I’m on vacation. So TSZ works just fine with no issues at all in either my laptop or tablet. Once I return home I won’t be able to tell you what happened because I will no longer be able access this site. At that point I might know why I lost that privilege but I won’t be able to share it with you
It’s pretty simple. I am on borrowed time here. Someone has made it so I won’t be able to post here soon regardless of what I want to do.
It’s really sad that it will end this way.
I was very much in favor of the sites stated goals and it did show some promise for a time.
Like I said earlier I will miss interacting with some of you and do wish to thank everyone who took the time to share their perspective with me.
peace
fifth,
That’s why I suggested you use a free VPN service. That should enable you to access TSZ from home even if your ISP is blocking it.
Alan,
You were whitewashing:
You left out all the sleazy stuff you did before Lizzie showed up, including censoring two people and invading their privacy.
keiths:
Alan:
You were the person who said this to fifth:
Your ALurker screwup shows that that’s false.
keiths:
Alan:
…says the guy who recently reaffirmed this:
walto has your number:
No, it is still a lie. It was a lie all along, and is still to this day, its curious that you find this hard to comprehend.
Alan is a moderator, and also does some admin work (you know like snooping around finding people’s IP address). There are also other people who are moderators here. We all know who they are. They are referred to moderators here regularly. Whenever someone talks about Mung as a moderator or Jock or Neil as a moderator, do you see Alan going around correcting them, saying, ‘Oh, no, no, they are not moderators, they are admins who moderate”? Is that the case Newton?
If that is not the case, then indeed, it is a lie to NOW, after Alan quits, comes back, and then uses the excuse that well he only quit part of the job, and that part of the job was the same as this part of the job, but now I will call it this job, and well, there never was that job, its called this, because, because..because BULLSHIT!
That’s what bullshit is Newton. That is what a lie is. Identify it. Learn it. Avoid it.
Lies, lies, and damned lies.
keiths,
Alan claims it is not a significant change to the site to allow the moderators (him) to ban people.
That’s an insignificant change to him.
Alan is an admin who also does some moderator work.
It might not be visible to you, but Alan’s admin work is very visible to me. And it is a lot more than mere moderation.
That is so totally irrelevant to the discussion, that it simply displays a complete lack of any nuance of understanding. Who ever said he doesn’t do any administration work here?
Alan came back from quitting to say that he never quit as a moderator, because there are no moderators, there are admins who moderate. Are you a moderator Neil? Alan says you aren’t.
Or are you an admin, who does no admin duty? Was Mung an admin or a moderator? You can’t see the farcical nature of such an obfuscation?
If Mung was an admin, and not a moderator, then he should have just fired everyone, and Alan’s problem would all be solved. Because apparently Alan doesn’t have the faintest idea how to quit.
Now you know how everyone else feels reading one of your comments.
Still no support from Jock for his claim that Patrick’s Chris Crocker image was misogynistic.
So far, so good: I am keeping to the self-discipline of only correcting keiths when he repeats an error.
Silly boy. I never claimed that the image was misogynistic.
I have already explained why Patrick’s use of it was misogynistic, homophobic, and transphobic, and furthermore why I have no interest in getting into the entirely predictable argument with the amazingly tone-deaf keiths on the merits of that explanation.
Still enjoying the fact that keiths was brave enough to correct Patrick’s error about the history of the meme here at TSZ, but not at AtBC, where he made it.
Jock:
You haven’t explained it. You asserted it and made excuses for not explaining it:
Jock:
That’s because you can’t support your accusation against Patrick. You could have done the honorable thing by retracting it, but instead you’re pulling an Alan by refusing to either support or withdraw it.
Moderators,
I submitted an OP four days ago. Why hasn’t it been published?
This site is pretty sad now. Is the name “Nutsville” available?
Looks like someone beat us to it. 🙂
http://nutsville.com/
Haha. Too bad.
There are two active threads here at present. Both the height of ridiculousness.* I mean, really. I guess it’s all done here. And I don’t think it is actually plausible to blame the moderators. They aren’t writing this nonsense. Cuckoos want attention and this is a place they can (or could) get it. It used to provide other things too, but it doesn’t anymore, I guess. Anyhow, as the current writers probably don’t just want to amuse each other/themselves, my guess is that they’ll be gone too, shortly. For example, J-Mac seems to be out looking for greener (i.e., saner) pastures. Why give sermons that will be heard only by other crackpots?
*Sadly, “ridiculousness” is also taken.
So things are pretty normal.
🤢