Moderation reports

[EEVblog]

That's it, I'm deleting posts now. This thread is for posting about moderation issues only.

[MK14]

User micksmelanie, { https://www.eevblog.com/forum/profile/?u=683336 }
Seems to be a SPAMMING account, and a huge number of their posts, are just (hidden) attempts at regularly dropping links to items on (I assume, their own) Ali-express etc, accounts/pages.
Huge number of examples possible, but I will only show a few here.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/question-recharge-cicle-battery-in-smartphone/msg3119084/#msg3119084

This one even has the name (DOOGEE Joanna Store) of their (I assume), shop on, in the photograph:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/question-remove-battery-smartphone/msg3114956/#msg3114956

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/help-choose-opinion-smartphone/msg3113544/#msg3113544

N.B. Don't be fooled. They have added TEXT, to make it look like they have created genuine threads, and then typically they ignore all replies and/or give silly/strange responses.

They also create these kinds of threads, which are to make their forum ID look more genuine, for later adverts, or some other nefarious reason ?
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/question-scratches-crt-tv/msg3128796/?topicseen#msg3128796

Post to EXACTLY the same aliexpress shop again.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/help-choose-opinion-smartphone/msg3114394/#msg3114394

[EEVblog]

User micksmelanie, { https://www.eevblog.com/forum/profile/?u=683336 }
Seems to be a SPAMMING account, and a huge number of their posts, are just (hidden) attempts at regularly dropping links to items on (I assume, their own) Ali-express etc, accounts/pages.

Yep, huge number of question posts and no interaction. Completely sus. Banned.

[tggzzz]

I'd like to report a certain long standing forum member creating an alias account just to annoy me in PM.

Immediately before reading this, I responded to a post from that user. The post was directly relevant to the OP's question, accurate and helpful. My response started "Just so. The only point I will amplify is that..."
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/jobs/electrical-engineering-student-looking-for-ways-to-improve-resume-247510/msg3156356/#msg3156356

While I have no comment about PMs, the "...just to annoy me..." appears incorrect. I reserve the right to change that observation!

[EEVblog]

winniethepooh_icu is clearly an existing current (or banned) user though.

[MK14]

While I have no comment about PMs, the "...just to annoy me..." appears incorrect.

If you don't mind me, giving an alternative version.

There is at least one post of 'his?', which seems to be a personal attack against Dave himself.
So, it does seem to be a 'throw away'/burner type of account.

But I could be wrong.

Also, the attacking post (and/or rather rude), seems weird, if the user has only recently joined the forum and got a small post count.

I.e. A real new user, is unlikely to attack Dave.

[Brumby]

.... unless they've been simmering for a while from the outside looking in and decided to register so they could air their displeasure.

[MK14]

.... unless they've been simmering for a while from the outside looking in and decided to register so they could air their displeasure.

You could be right.

This one, seems to be attacking:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/first-4-layer-pcb-traces-on-each-layer-a-good-idea/msg3156204/#msg3156204

This one is either attacking or joking, I'm not sure.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/dave-through-the-years/msg3145502/#msg3145502

Limited information, so I accept, the evidence in this post, is rather weak.

[tggzzz]

While I have no comment about PMs, the "...just to annoy me..." appears incorrect.

If you don't mind me, giving an alternative version.

There is at least one post of 'his?', which seems to be a personal attack against Dave himself.
So, it does seem to be a 'throw away'/burner type of account.

But I could be wrong.

Also, the attacking post (and/or rather rude), seems weird, if the user has only recently joined the forum and got a small post count.

I.e. A real new user, is unlikely to attack Dave.

Agreed. Judging by the adjacent timestamps, it appears that my addition "I reserve the right to change that observation!" might have passed your post in the æther.

It may well be that a (ab)user has chosen to be subtle, i.e. a good public persona, but a poor private one. I can't think why they would bother; certainly I could never bother to be that "subtle".

General observations are that nastiness begets nastiness, and the mods have far more info than we do. Hence I'm very content that they keep a tight lid on abusive behaviour.

[Weston]

Interesting situation. It's almost as if one user getting away with worse behavior than anyone else on the forum leads to worst behavior from others.

Hopefully the mods should be able to resolve the situation from the logs. But presumably the offender is using Tor or a proxy. I think there are databases that allow you to default block most Tor exit nodes?

[rsjsouza]

Once I was sent an unwarranted PM from a user and he decided it was a good idea to demand I took down a post of mine. I brought this to the mods and they mentioned having no access to PMs. I wonder if they could access if they tried or perhaps they took the very sane route and deliberately decided to be better off without knowing.

[EEVblog]

Once I was sent an unwarranted PM from a user and he decided it was a good idea to demand I took down a post of mine. I brought this to the mods and they mentioned having no access to PMs. I wonder if they could access if they tried or perhaps they took the very sane route and deliberately decided to be better off without knowing.

We do not have access to PM's or passwords. Everything else, yes.
Although I don't believe messages are actually encrypted in the database, it's just that the SMF software has no ability for admins to read them. So I guess in theory it's possible to read PM's if you search the database manually and extract the text.

[Brumby]

What Dave said - and you would need to have some understanding of the database architecture to do it.  Also, there would be no formatting as such, so that could be an extra challenge.

In short, while able to be done, it can be a right pain - and those of us (that are worth anything) who have that sort of access, hold such privilege to a high standard and would not travel down that path easily.  The people I see running things at EEVblog are ones I see as being of this calibre.

Passwords are a different kettle of fish.  They are set up to make sniffing them out pretty much impossible.

[EEVblog]

What Dave said - and you would need to have some understanding of the database architecture to do it.  Also, there would be no formatting as such, so that could be an extra challenge.
In short, while able to be done, it can be a right pain - and those of us (that are worth anything) who have that sort of access, hold such privilege to a high standard and would not travel down that path easily.  The people I see running things at EEVblog are ones I see as being of this calibre.

I don't even have access to the database. Well, technically I do, but it requires some command line access thing that gnif uses, as the easier to use cpanel server doesn't handle the forum database, it's on a different server.

[Brumby]

So there's two reasons why people shouldn't be concerned about the privacy of their PMs...

 (a) It's not the right thing to do
 (b) It's too freaking involved

[PlainName]

So there's two reasons why people shouldn't be concerned about the privacy of their PMs...

I'm not concerned that the admins might be able to access PMs, and I personally trust Dave, but if I were concerned I'd be seriously gullible to accept at face value someone who I might worry about having access saying they don't.

 (b) It's too freaking involved

Pro tip: use a computer for complicated stuff.

[Monkeh]

Pro tip: use a computer for complicated stuff.

One has to learn to use the computer, and if Dave hasn't found the motivation in the last 10 years, he's not going to over some random person's private messages.

[Brumby]

Pro tip: use a computer for complicated stuff.

That's easy to say - but there's a learning curve.

One has to learn to use the computer, and if Dave hasn't found the motivation in the last 10 years, he's not going to over some random person's private messages.

Exactly.

[PlainName]

there's a learning curve.

I am fairly sure Dave has figured how to Google by now

[Brumby]

That's just a means to get the knowledge, but there are a few other steps required - such as knowing what knowledge you need, learning it, understanding it and then applying it to the problem at hand.  You then have to understand the database - but I daresay the design document won't be available, so that makes it challenging - and build a program that will pull everything together in a straightforward presentation of the data.

... and this is not taking into consideration ANY of the abnormal conditions that a GOOD piece of software will cope with.

I just can't see Dave jumping into that abyss any time soon.

I get the feeling you've never written any mission critical software.

[PlainName]

Edit: forget it. Clearly, something turns upside down crossing the equator.

[MK14]

Edit: forget it. Clearly, something turns upside down crossing the equator.

If someones got superuser/root/admin privileges. Then you need to trust them, which I do (here).

You are not forced to put secret, highly personal, critical information through the forums PM system. If you are worried, you could either never use the PM system, only send unimportant information, or PM an email account reference (doesn't have to be your main/real one), and use that to communicate with the other parties.

[EEVblog]

That's just a means to get the knowledge, but there are a few other steps required - such as knowing what knowledge you need, learning it, understanding it and then applying it to the problem at hand.  You then have to understand the database - but I daresay the design document won't be available, so that makes it challenging - and build a program that will pull everything together in a straightforward presentation of the data.
... and this is not taking into consideration ANY of the abnormal conditions that a GOOD piece of software will cope with.
I just can't see Dave jumping into that abyss any time soon.

I can't imagine any possible scenario that would be so important that I'd spend any time learning how to read PM's from the database.
So don't even both asking me to try.
Even if I got a police request or court order for some reason, I'd probably just hand over the raw database and say "here, you do the work to find it".

[Brumby]

That sounds like the Dave I (sorta) know.

[Cerebus]

That sounds like the Dave I (sorta) know.

Yeah, it's not like we're short of actual video evidence of him trying to install software and get to grips with it.