Dustbin: Why?

psycho · Guru Joined: 22 Jun 2007 Posts: 534 Location: New Zealand

Hi there. I just received an innocent-looking Gentoo forums link in my email, so clicked on it...and it took me to a pile of offensive racist ranting in the "dustbin". When I attempted to reply (to ask "why is this offensive crap still visible?") I was informed that only moderators can reply to posts in the dustbin...so presumably moderators have already seen this garbage and yet left it visible. Why? Isn't a page with flagrantly racist language and wishing death upon certain developers and so on worthy of instant deletion? What's the value of keeping this crap around for others to read?

I've seen e.g. this thread, but that's not a good explanation for why normal users like myself should still be able to read this stuff. I have a friend who's actually traumatised when she sees the kind of stuff I just read: admittedly I think she's a bit over-sensitive, but when some people feel knocked around by this kind of hateful language, I think you need a good argument for leaving it where they can stumble across it...and the arguments in the linked thread (having it as a reference to be able to show banned posters "look, this is why we banned you!" etc.) are unconvincing to me: why can't moderators have those communications with banned forum users without leaving their offensive posts published for others to see? Surely flagrant hate language and racist trolling should just be deleted immediately or if it's going to be moved to this "dustbin", the dustbin should only be accessible to moderators?

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2021 10:30 pm Post subject:

psycho,

If its still visible, PM me a link or write to forum-mods@g.o so it goes to the entire team.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

Hu · Moderator Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 21635

The post was originally not in the Dustbin, and was moved to Dustbin because that should be visible only to moderators and administrators (Edit: later posts indicate this statement is incorrect; Dustbin is accessible to anyone logged in. This makes most of the rest of this post wrong/irrelevant, but I am leaving it for context.). More specifically:

Dustbin should not be enumerable by unrelated normal users. There should be no way for users to even learn the titles of threads in the Dustbin, nor for users to know how many threads are in the Dustbin, nor to learn who authored any thread in the Dustbin.
Threads in Dustbin should not be accessible to unrelated normal users, even by directly entering the thread ID or post ID. There should be no way for unrelated normal users to obtain the content of any post in the Dustbin.
As Dustbin is meant as an archive, there is also no ability for normal users to write there.

Perhaps the e-mailed link bypasses some of those restrictions. If you send the link, as you received it, like Neddy suggested, someone should be able to investigate further.

As an interim measure, the thread you likely meant has been moved to a different restricted area. When you pass along the link, please also indicate whether you can still get to that thread in its new location.

What user profile settings do you use that might have led to the forum mailing you about this thread? I see no activity from you in the offending thread, so I don't think the forum should have mailed you as a result of any follow-up posts in the thread. Does the forum generally e-mail you about threads, and if so, what are the triggering conditions? I am curious why the forum even sent this alert to you at all, in addition to the oddity that you were able to access a hidden thread.

Are you able to enumerate Dustbin? Are you able to access other posts in it, or just this one?

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067

mike155 · Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2021 11:47 pm Post subject:

I am able to view and read Dustbin when I'm logged in.

Hu · Moderator Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 21635

I see. I don't maintain a non-moderator account, and I don't see where to see the permissions on that forum, so I couldn't check that. Before making my earlier post, I did verify that the Dustbin was inaccessible to anonymous users. I thought (apparently incorrectly) that Dustbin was private enough. I am pleased to report that, according to the audit logs, I am not the one who binned the thread that psycho is reporting, so it looks like I'm not the only one who was thinking that the Dustbin was good enough.

Tony0945 · Posted: Sun Feb 21, 2021 12:27 am Post subject:

Some i can see, others don't exist. it's a real annoyance to get an email that says there is a response to a thread I'm watching, disrupt my e-mil routin to click the link, browser comes up, and i get a message that the post doesn't exist.
Perusing the dustbin in response to this post, I see some that be read and others that don't exist. None of the readable ones are political or pornographic, just commercial spam with links disabled.

psycho · Guru Joined: 22 Jun 2007 Posts: 534 Location: New Zealand

The link now takes me to "The topic or post you requested does not exist", which is good. Maybe I just got unlucky and caught it very soon after it had been posted, while it was en route to somewhere else...given the specifics of the language it used, maybe the binning was automated (scripted in response to keywords) and it was just there briefly until a moderator checked it to delete it, or something like that. Anyway it's gone now, and I don't care what else is still published there in the bin...it was only the (non-existent, apparently) policy of leaving offensive stuff in there that I was questioning.

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Feb 21, 2021 12:17 pm Post subject:

psycho,

The mods have a bin button, that they use several times a day. It does what it says ... moves topics to the bin.

Its an interesting point about should the Dustbin be Mods only?
Most users that have postings the bin are out and out spammers. They are banned too, so they can't log in to read their binned posts anyway.

The fewer more experienced hands that made what a mod considered an error of judgement, are likely to get a PM rather than a ban.

I don't have any strong preference either way. On the strength of one topic, I would leave the status quo.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

Hu · Moderator Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 21635

fedeliallalinea · Posted: Sun Feb 21, 2021 4:52 pm Post subject:

Sorry, it's my fault.
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Questions are guaranteed in life; Answers aren't.

Hu · Moderator Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 21635

Yes, but I would have made the same mistake if you hadn't gotten there first. Now we both know not to do that.

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Feb 21, 2021 7:22 pm Post subject:

/me confesses too.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.