h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Peta, I do have to comment here. He/she/they/it/ have/has done bad things- namely, vandalizing two open-password accounts and spamming the heck out of some other places with them. I'm itching to take Nice Weird Overlords- erm, New World Order on a fun tour of h2g2, but there are a few more weak points in the h2g2 system that would be exposed, and until things quiet down, I'd get a tad worred.
Look at where we are. This used to be the page of the h2g2Links service, now unneccesary since you can now post URLS, but not nWo's to take anyway. One more which I can't think of at the moment has also been taken out, and a few spots have been spammed- from h2g2Links.

But now if Not Wiped Out quiets down, I'll give him/her/it/whatever a tour immediately!

--SmartGamer

Yeah, I'm definitely throwing my lot in with SmartGamer... or, if you'll give me permission, Peta, I can go grab the BFG's and come back and run this / these people off... I too suspect a non - newbie, but like SG, will not name names. I'm sure the BFG's would be /MORE/ than happy to assist, though

ok. explanation time. the nWo have not spammed any conversation. it has used h2g2links for conversation once, in this thread.

open-password accounts are a bad idea. the fact that someone else is spamming using them and the fact that they could be easily vandalised is proof enough. for things like a noticeboard, the best way to run it is for notices to be sent to the person who runs it for them to check over, then place on the noticeboard.

i'm surprised that peta was the first to guess that i wasn't a newbie. i've been here a while, and, i hate to say it, but the worst party involved in this is smartgamer. do u know what it's like to be picked on and called names in school, smartgamer? it isn't very nice name calling, and if that is how u react to things, with hate and being mean, then u aren;t one of the nice people.

out of everything that i have read in this forum and others about me, i have only read one really nice thing - and that was when peta offered me a cup of .

at least the PTB are nice. too bad it doesn't seem to be rubbing of on other members of the community.

nWo

I'm working on the wiped accounts problem. More news tomorrow. See you all then.

nWo -- I personally am glad to see you conversing on a more civilized scale. I still suggest you change your Personal Space, though... frankly, I don't intend to join you, whatever you are, and I don't think you should go around 'punishing' people who don't join you... everything on h2g2 is entirely voluntary, and that includes membership in any kind of group. People who don't wish to join you should not be threatened with disease and pestilence, or whatever it was you were threatening people with -- I wasn't paying much attention at the time.

If you are now going to behave and converse in a civilized manner, then I welcome you and hope you have a good time here on h2g2 -- just make sure that it isn't at other people's expense.

Can I just point out that the nWo userpage states that they have come here as a poison, to damage, harm and destroy. You have also threatened to make one researcher's time here hell.

If you open an account here with that purpose, then you cannot expect the community to like it. We have had problems in the past with people deliberately setting out to cause trouble, and as such, are understandably not amused when it appears to be happening again. You had no right to take over this space, or the noticeboard.

I had guessed that you were not a newbie. You were too proficient in whet you did, and how you did it. That only makes it worse. You must know how this site works, and what it is all about. Yet you chose to attack it. Why?

And now that you have stated your position in a reasonable way, I aplogise.

You weren't behind the 47 posts containing nothing but from h2g2Links at the pub? That's part of what's getting us here.

I agree that open-pass is generally a mistake; at best, all open password accounts should be premoderated. But blatant vandalism isn't the way to show it.

I agree that name calling wasn't nice. However, it was based upon my (apparently) flawed view of your goal. Your apparent goal was to destroy h2g2. My goal was to stop that in any way possible. Your (apparent) method was by destroying pages and making people fear you. My parry to this thrust was to portray you as a comedian, the precice opposite of what you seemed to be aiming at.

You see where I'm coming from now?

Peta wasn't the first to guess. Someone else commented on it in the private ACE forum- guess that you aren't new. Now we're trying to figure out who you are.

I do know precisely what it's like to be mocked. My parents dragged me into homeschooling because of it. Look again- it was merely a defense, as I said before. You got a standard response to your actions:

Denial.

You (apparently) tried to cause fear, according to everyone on this board. The best way to stop such an attack is to blatantly deny what you want- our fear. Therefore, we replied with the opposite- mirth, at the expense of our attacker.

This is basic first-year psychology in action.

And again, I apologise.

--DumbLamer

My situation is analogus to the following:

You am working at a convinience store. Suddenly, the door bursts open. A man in a ski mask, holding a gun, screaming "I'm gonna destroy everything!" bursts into the room, and he continues to destroy a few key points in the room. You reply with a barrage of insults- at which point he sits down and takes of his ski mask. He's someone you've met. He replies, saying that he wanted to make a point- you shouldn't have left the door unlocked- and you had no excuse to make fun of him. Since you're a clerk in customer service, you did your job badly, according to him.

This is PRECICELY what you have just done- you as the gunman. I see no difference.

I do apologise, however, I do not truly believe I was wrong. I have sympathy- I know my remarks hurt; however, I'd do it again in a second.

--SmartGamer

...and besides, with enough down my gullet, a lot of the nWo posts actually /are/ pretty funny... Unfortunately, I don't have that much down my gullet yet...

smartgamer - u mentioned in convo on noticeboard ps that we went on to open acounts, spammed using them, vandalized them and changed their passwords, however, i think u'll find:

username: Noticeboard
password: noticeboard

username: h2g2links
password: letmein

i haven't changed a thing. change the pages now if u like. there isn't anything stopping u.

nWo

well, let's think thios over.
someone comes in with a homepage that looks like a terrorist organizastion. They act like a terrorist organization (ie threatening to destroy any who won't join their cause)
now they say they are not a terrorist organization.
In the States we have a saying:
"if it looks like a duck
and it quacks like a duck,
it probably is a duck"

Don't change the user details for Noticeboard anyone, please - thank you

(This is aka - Original creator of the h2g2 links page....)

Wow - 3 days away from dial up in the switch to Broadband and we get this.. The fact that the URL trial was a success is no reason for this to happen to the page, and as for the Noticeboard, You, nWo, have even less reasoning to have done what you done to that page, too. (I don't know if you did the same you did here, because I've just got back online today, and Titania has updated the page, as have I )

Many thanks to Shagbark, though, who alerted me on my homepage's messageboard.

Nevermind, I was meaning to replace the page anyway a few weeks ago, with the news of the Trial possibly being a success

I am, nWo, actually intrigued, one might say just a *tad* confuzzled as to what your poison, damage and harmful destruction is.

I hope titania continues to run the Noticeboard, if she has time, to update the page herself, using the conversation forums, or maybe ask other trustworthy researchers to volutarily keep up the page when they can, too. Also, I Hope you either give up your patheticised by the size of the h2g2 community versus your minute size "project", and become a normal researcher, or pack up and leave. We would gladly welcome you to put all hostility behind you and become a friendly h2g2 researcher, but we will not stand for the Bin-Ladens of the Internet here. I think I speak for everybody at h2g2 on that note;

I'll put it simply, in case you need it in order to comprehend it:

Be hostile, and go, OR
Be friendly, and stay

I think I've made my point.


The page has now been changed, along with the password, too.

aka

Interesting. It must have been a server error since I couldn't get in earlier.

The spam, then, wasn't yours- it was someone else, still, abusing the account.

Does anyone else believe, along with me, that we need to mark all open-pass accounts for premoderation?

Would people still be able to use preview?

You see - one of the reasons I made the Noticeboard open to use for everyone was that those skilled in the use of tables were free to make their ads pretty nifty, with background colours and pictures if they wanted...

...and, at the same time, I hoped that those not so skilled would learn something out of curiousity while trying to put up an ad, maybe by copying some tags... I know I've learnt some new tags when editing the Noticeboard!

Yeah, but if it's premodded, all postings are prehidden before Mods get to them, not after they flunk them. All that will happen is that the page will be hidden for five minutes after someone writes an ad.

Overall, open password accounts should be that way, to reduce abuse. It won't save you from a wiped page, but you can't spam a board with a premodded account very easily.

--SmartGamer

I think I'd prefer to have some parts of the page locked, and some open - like in Excel, where you can choose which fields that should be open for adjustment... don't know if that's possible, though...

Sadly, I don't think it's possible.

I think it'd be more feasible to just run all the stupid people off...

I'd like that except it would make my job as ACE too easy.

I need to use smilies more. They brighten up a thread fast!

Oh well... maybe I've just been online too long...