[Rd] problem submitting R bug; bug plotting in tiling window manager

Mon Feb 8 18:34:16 CET 2016

Ah, thank you for that explanation. I somehow didn't catch that my
Bugzilla account had been disabled by a human.

"Common pattern is to post ... something copied from a generic bug
report" - that sounds very annoying.

Frederick

On Sun, Feb 07, 2016 at 11:54:11AM +0100, peter dalgaard wrote:
> Unfortunately, the spammers in question appear to be human (of sorts). 
> 
> We're not sure what they're up to, but a common pattern is to post random text, or something copied from a generic bug report (like "able to add 6 item"), later followed by a comment containing a link or a file attachment. 
> 
> Presumably, it is some sort of click-bait scheme, but it could also be a covert channel for contrabande files. At any rate, it is very hard to distinguish by mechanical means. So it is done by eye, with some risk of Type-I error. Thus, the Bugzilla maintainers are pretty vigilant to stamp out spammers, sometimes edging on being ham-fisted (er, -footed?).
> 
> -pd
> 
> 
> > On 07 Feb 2016, at 00:25 , frederik at ofb.net wrote:
> > 
> > No problem.
> > 
> > Another suggestion would be to simply validate user input like most
> > websites, and reject invalid submissions immediately, rather than
> > blocking the user's account. I don't know what kind of spambots you
> > are up against, but unless they are very intelligent I doubt they'll
> > be able to understand a message like "You submitted a bug with no body
> > text, please enter something and try again." There may also be the
> > option of using Captchas.
> > 
> > Not sure how hard it is to get Bugzilla to do these things.
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > 
> > Frederick
> > 
> > P.S. (I now see that all errors on the bug tracker are displayed with
> > a red background)
> > 
> > On Sat, Feb 06, 2016 at 03:00:21AM -0500, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
> >> Thanks for the suggestions.
> >> 
> >> Duncan Murdoch
> >> 
> >> On 05/02/2016 10:07 PM, frederik at ofb.net wrote:
> >>> Hi Duncan Murdoch,
> >>> 
> >>> Thanks for your time. I apologize for not telling you that my email
> >>> address on the bug tracker is slightly different -
> >>> "frederik-rproject at ofb.net" vs "frederik at ofb.net". I was going to
> >>> follow up with this information, but then I thought, he probably knows
> >>> how to find a tagged email address.
> >>> 
> >>> I do hope that you are able to fix the bug tracker. In particular,
> >>> people should be made aware that their account is blocked before being
> >>> invited to submit a bug. The error they get should be less rude - no
> >>> need to make it red - and the email address in the error should be
> >>> filled in. You complained about wasting time having to look for my
> >>> email address - well, I wasted time looking for yours. The error
> >>> message could even hint at what triggered the ban. I don't think that
> >>> you're going to get very far by trying to scare off actual spammers
> >>> with a big red accusation - I imagine they all have pretty thick skin.
> >>> 
> >>> Reading the first line of my bug report was generous of you, but if
> >>> you read the rest, you'll see that, indeed, after checking with the
> >>> knowledgeable i3 guys, it appears to be an R bug. So I would like to
> >>> submit it. What appears at the top of my bug report is a copy of the
> >>> original bug I posted to i3, at the linked URL (are links OK or will I
> >>> get banned again?).
> >>> 
> >>> The reason a bug appeared with the subject "til" is because I noticed
> >>> that when typing into the subject field, some "related bugs" come up.
> >>> However, this "suggestion" process appeared to be stalled when I typed
> >>> "til" (for "tiling" or "tilable"). I tried hitting "enter" and it
> >>> ended up opening a bug with that subject, which I never submitted,
> >>> because I clicked "back" and figured out that *four* characters are
> >>> actually necesary to start getting suggestions. The whole point of
> >>> doing this was to see if another bug had been submitted with the same
> >>> topic, and thereby save you time! I'm not going to try to reproduce
> >>> this error, because you said it will get me banned again, but I think
> >>> somebody should try to fix the site so that people don't get banned
> >>> for any content which is not submitted. Especially people with
> >>> months-old accounts, like me.
> >>> 
> >>> I definitely sympathize with the spam problem, and thank you for your
> >>> hard work. Best wishes,
> >>> 
> >>> Frederick
> >>> 
> >>> On Fri, Feb 05, 2016 at 08:19:40PM -0500, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
> >>>> On 05/02/2016 7:26 PM, frederik at ofb.net wrote:
> >>>>> Dear Dirk Eddelbuettel and Duncan Murdoch,
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> Thank you for your work on the wonderful R project!
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> I recently attempted to submit a bug with your Bugzilla interface:
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> https://bugs.r-project.org/bugzilla/enter_bug.cgi
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> I created an account, typed in all my information, first checking
> >>>>> details with another project. Then I clicked submit, and was taken to
> >>>>> a web page with a big red banner, it said
> >>>>> 
> >>>>>   Spammer
> >>>>>   If you believe your account should be restored, please send email to explaining why.
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> What a hostile thing to say to your users! I tried resubmitting my
> >>>>> bug, but removing any links, and I still get the message - so it looks
> >>>>> like my account has really been blocked. Please do something to warn
> >>>>> your users about this so they can avoid the upset.
> >>>> 
> >>>> Your account isn't blocked now, but it wasn't easy to unblock it: you used a
> >>>> different email address in the submission, not the same one you used in this
> >>>> email.  At least one of the people who can deal with this kind of thing
> >>>> would now demand an apology from you before ever reading your email again.
> >>>> I won't do that, but I have to admit, I don't like the fact that you wasted
> >>>> 10 minutes of my time. I'm Bcc'ing a couple of people who are working on
> >>>> putting together a better interface to the bug reporting system, so they
> >>>> know to deal with this kind of issue as well as all the others.
> >>>> 
> >>>> I'm not hostile, I just sound that way, because I've wasted a lot of time
> >>>> this week on issues like this.
> >>>> 
> >>>> Duncan Murdoch
> >>>> 
> >>>> (Here's my previous email to you, for the benefit of those who are Bcc'd:
> >>>>> You posted a bug report, but it had no content other than "til".  That's
> >>>>> what many abusers of the system have done, so you were blocked.
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> I have read the first line of your bug report, and it says " I'm not
> >>>>> sure if this is a bug with i3 or R ".  If you're not sure if it's a bug
> >>>>> or not, then please post to R-devel.  That's a moderated list so if this
> >>>>> is your first post, it may take a while to appear.
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> This probably seems unreasonable to you, but a lot of abuse is sent to
> >>>>> the bug list, so we block it quite early.  I'll unblock you now, but
> >>>>> please don't post there again unless your discussion on R-devel
> >>>>> indicates this is a problem with R rather than i3.
> >>>> Duncan Murdoch
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> Well, I don't know what it means to "email to explaining why", so I
> >>>>> tried to subscribe to R-devel. However, it's been ten minutes and no
> >>>>> confirmation email. So I tracked down your email addresses from the R
> >>>>> website. I'm still cc'ing r-devel.
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> I hope it is OK to send the bug by email. I really want to get back to
> >>>>> what I was doing, but I don't want to lose the work I put into writing
> >>>>> this bug report, so I'm attaching it to this message.
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> Thank you,
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> Frederick Eaton
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> 
> >>>> 
> >> 
> > 
> > ______________________________________________
> > R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> 
> -- 
> Peter Dalgaard, Professor,
> Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
> Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
> Phone: (+45)38153501
> Office: A 4.23
> Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk  Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com
> 
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