I love where discussion is going. Lot’s of good tech talk, knowledge, and advice.
(Altruist consideration)
SB, how many instances were there of trolling via TOR? You could be blocking a segment of people who come here for information but aren’t signed up as members - (I lurked for a while before I signed up [not using TOR]). Perhaps it be worthwhile to parse the good from the bad (TOR) general traffic just not to shut people out.
(Business consideration)
Another way to look at it: Yes there is problematic traffic. But, you have ad space, which are click/site traffic dependent (that’s an assumption). How much headache/work hours are you saving for the loss of potential click/traffic revenue?! Therefore, you may want to analyze you overall traffic to find that out.
My experience of trolls from running forums in the past is that they can get around whatever blocks you make. Too much free time on their hands.
If you block one VPN they just use another. Or they post from Starbucks or whatever. They get entertainment from the idea that they are ‘pissing you off’ and making you take futile steps to block them.
Best to just ban & ignore. Don’t give them the satisfaction of knowing they are annoying you and eventually they will go away.
Pretty much all other forums I am using do not allow new user registration or forum use from tor networks. It is the new way of dealing with adverse elements.
Countless instances of trolling, and literally 100% of them use Tor. (Or maybe it’s 100% of “him”. )
This is indeed a valid concern. I’ll try to dig through the logs a bit more. But at least based on anecdotal evidence, I suspect it will be an extremely minor change. I’ve often noticed that the first time a user comes around BLF and registers, they usually don’t use Tor. Then, as they start trolling and/or receive warnings from me, they switch to Tor.
Thanks, you bring up an extremely important point here. I still think that eliminating Tor would be like eliminating the low-hanging fruit. But whatever is decided, the more fundamental issue is what you mentioned here. Some BLF members are still engaging the trolls far too much, which is why they keep coming back. If you just leave them yelling like the crazy fools they are in their own little echo chamber, they'll leave us in peace and go cause trouble elsewhere. Hence these points that I repeat ad nauseam in public and in PMs:
Whatever makes life easier for sb is my choice. While it is true blocking the use of Tor won’t halt all spam or trolling, if it makes it easier for sb to keep BLF clean then that is what he should do. It can be quite a challenge to keep a forum like BLF clean and easy to use for all us normal flashaholics and keep out the riffraff.
I don’t like to have an anonimity method blocked, even if I don’t use it. Also, it’s very likely to be ineffective as others have pointed out. So please do it only if you’re really annoyed.
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