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

Sat Feb 27 07:26:30 CET 2016

That was an amusing bug.

I wish I had time to help more directly with this project, which has
been very helpful to me.

Frederick

On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 08:04:40PM +0100, peter dalgaard wrote:
> In case you still care, see 
> 
> https://bugs.r-project.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=16726
> 
> which even our very human spam detector hasn't decided to label as spam (yet).
> 
> -pd
> 
> > On 08 Feb 2016, at 18:34 , frederik at ofb.net wrote:
> > 
> > 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
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> 
> -- 
> 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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