I already contacted Viliam_Bur with this suspicion a few months ago, and I doubt I’m the first. I’m assuming Viliam either doesn’t feel he has sufficient evidence to act, doesn’t feel that any action is warranted, or is too busy to follow up on this at the moment.
Yvain’s comment below is a new piece of (fairly conclusive) evidence. Maybe that will impact the situation if Viliam felt he had insufficient evidence previously, so it might be worth drawing his attention to this thread.
One of the problems with moderation is that cooperation with LW admins is very slow. As in: extremely slow. Which means: even more slow than you imagine after reading this. Certainly much slower than I imagined when volunteering for this role.
Using my own moderator powers, all I have is a “Ban user” button which can ban a user. (And a corresponding “Unban user” button.) That is the whole moderator user interface as far as I know. If I am wrong, please educate me.
So, my options as this moment are: (a) ban Azathoth123 because I feel sufficiently convinced that he is a reincarnation of Eugine Nier, or (b) send an e-mail asking for more evidence, and wait literally forever, or (c) ignore the whole thing. From the outside, options “b” and “c” seem indistinguishable, and… well, how much happy would you be if I started using the option “a” as a general strategy?
What would really help me at this moment:
Someone with knowledge of Python and SQL, willing to cooperate with me for a few weeks (an hour or two every week). The task would be: reading and analyzing a few already written scripts to understand how exactly the data are stored in database (hint: it is a horrible “database implemented in a database” antipattern); and then writing a few scripts to generate reports from the database, based on a pseudocode I would provide. I could then use the reports to make decisions.
I realize I should have written this much sooner. Uhm, better now than never, I guess. (I thought I would learn some Python and do this myself, but I never put it as the highest priority, and outside view says it’s unlikely to happen in a reasonable time.) So if you know Python and SQL, and are willing to do some free work for LW, please contact me.
(Note: The person writing these scripts will not get access to any private data. I will check the scripts before running them, and the intermediate reports will be anonymized.)
I tried a negative karma award so he couldn’t downvote and was told “Karma awards must be greater than zero.” I don’t know where a “Ban user” button is.
As a moderator, when you look at someone else’s comment, there should be an additional option between “Permalink” and “Get notifications” buttons. (Parent, Reply, Permalink, Ban, Notifications.) If you click it, it will change to “Unban”.
Fair enough. Just wanted to let you know that although my comment might have sounded judgmental it genuinely wasn’t intended that way. From my perspective, all three reasons for inaction I listed are perfectly legitimate and not deserving of criticism. I’m still not sure whether any concrete action is necessary, although at this point I am virtually certain that it is a Eugine sock puppet.
No problem. I would have retracted because of the significant downside if you happened to be wrong. Though it’s still possible, I’m not really worried about it anymore given Yvain’s comment.
Heh. Wouldn’t know about Argentina, but newspapers in SimNation are all over it.
In all seriousness though, my claim is a) supported by arguments; b) somewhat relevant to the community; c) not an accusation tantamount to calumny (having a sock is neither illegal nor morally outrageous). The cases aren’t even remotely comparable. Also, there are at least a few people who might be interested in knowing this, if true, and few people who would be interested in covering up the whole business. If not true, then at the very most the “two” of them might “find a valuable conversation partner” in “each other”. (Scare-quoted because I highly doubt that is the case.)
I would retract and contact the moderator regarding your suspicion. See http://lesswrong.com/lw/kza/meta_new_lw_moderator_viliam_bur/
I already contacted Viliam_Bur with this suspicion a few months ago, and I doubt I’m the first. I’m assuming Viliam either doesn’t feel he has sufficient evidence to act, doesn’t feel that any action is warranted, or is too busy to follow up on this at the moment.
Yvain’s comment below is a new piece of (fairly conclusive) evidence. Maybe that will impact the situation if Viliam felt he had insufficient evidence previously, so it might be worth drawing his attention to this thread.
One of the problems with moderation is that cooperation with LW admins is very slow. As in: extremely slow. Which means: even more slow than you imagine after reading this. Certainly much slower than I imagined when volunteering for this role.
Using my own moderator powers, all I have is a “Ban user” button which can ban a user. (And a corresponding “Unban user” button.) That is the whole moderator user interface as far as I know. If I am wrong, please educate me.
So, my options as this moment are: (a) ban Azathoth123 because I feel sufficiently convinced that he is a reincarnation of Eugine Nier, or (b) send an e-mail asking for more evidence, and wait literally forever, or (c) ignore the whole thing. From the outside, options “b” and “c” seem indistinguishable, and… well, how much happy would you be if I started using the option “a” as a general strategy?
What would really help me at this moment:
Someone with knowledge of Python and SQL, willing to cooperate with me for a few weeks (an hour or two every week). The task would be: reading and analyzing a few already written scripts to understand how exactly the data are stored in database (hint: it is a horrible “database implemented in a database” antipattern); and then writing a few scripts to generate reports from the database, based on a pseudocode I would provide. I could then use the reports to make decisions.
I realize I should have written this much sooner. Uhm, better now than never, I guess. (I thought I would learn some Python and do this myself, but I never put it as the highest priority, and outside view says it’s unlikely to happen in a reasonable time.) So if you know Python and SQL, and are willing to do some free work for LW, please contact me.
(Note: The person writing these scripts will not get access to any private data. I will check the scripts before running them, and the intermediate reports will be anonymized.)
I tried a negative karma award so he couldn’t downvote and was told “Karma awards must be greater than zero.” I don’t know where a “Ban user” button is.
As a moderator, when you look at someone else’s comment, there should be an additional option between “Permalink” and “Get notifications” buttons. (Parent, Reply, Permalink, Ban, Notifications.) If you click it, it will change to “Unban”.
Found the correct control. For mods, the link is:
http://lesswrong.com/r/lesswrong/about/banned/
http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/about/banned/
And Azathoth123 is out. It’s not very good, but it’s the best I can do—I encourage everyone to help Viliam make the software support better.
That only bans the comment, not the user!
http://lesswrong.com/r/lesswrong/about/banned/
http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/about/banned/
(These links only work for logged-in moderators.)
Fair enough. Just wanted to let you know that although my comment might have sounded judgmental it genuinely wasn’t intended that way. From my perspective, all three reasons for inaction I listed are perfectly legitimate and not deserving of criticism. I’m still not sure whether any concrete action is necessary, although at this point I am virtually certain that it is a Eugine sock puppet.
I should have asked for help sooner. I should have updated sooner that the help will be necessary.
At this moment, I already have a few volunteers, and… uhm, I guess I will publicly ask for help again if the situation is not solved until 1.1.2015.
Alright, I was looking for a way to report posts or contact moderators and couldn’t find any, thanks for the link.
But why retract?
No problem. I would have retracted because of the significant downside if you happened to be wrong. Though it’s still possible, I’m not really worried about it anymore given Yvain’s comment.
PSA: Dahlen may be wanted in Argentina for absconding with 43 llamas. I have nothing against Dahlen, but you should guard your ungulates!
EDIT Retracted for publizing unconfirmed rumors
PSA: Dahlen may be wanted in Argentina for absconding with 43 llamas. I have nothing against him, but don’t trust him with your ungulates!EDIT:(comment retracted for possibly starting baseless rumors)Heh. Wouldn’t know about Argentina, but newspapers in SimNation are all over it.
In all seriousness though, my claim is a) supported by arguments; b) somewhat relevant to the community; c) not an accusation tantamount to calumny (having a sock is neither illegal nor morally outrageous). The cases aren’t even remotely comparable. Also, there are at least a few people who might be interested in knowing this, if true, and few people who would be interested in covering up the whole business. If not true, then at the very most the “two” of them might “find a valuable conversation partner” in “each other”. (Scare-quoted because I highly doubt that is the case.)