Jens Kubieziel wrote:

Maybe we could start by sending a reminder to the mailing list what is on-topic here plus the announcement that we plan to moderate the list in case of ongoing off-topic talk. If after some periods (one week, two weeks?) nothing changes we send an announcement that tor-talk will be moderated from now on and change the settings.

That sounds like an ideal solution. This would let people know what is on-topic and give them a chance to take more off-topic discussions elsewhere. cc'ing atagar to get his thoughts. ~Griffin

Damian Johnson wrote:

Hi Griffin. Iirc Moritz mentioned that we might soon be ready to roll out tor-users@ (with moderators) as a replacement for tor-talk@. I'm more curious about a replacement than trying to clean up tor-talk@ - imho it's a lost cause.

That said, don't let me stand in the way if you want to take this on.

I can appreciate that approach, but changing lists alone doesn't solve the core problem. People who want to be distracting will just sign up for the new list and be distracting there. But people who were interested in being on tor-talk for the on-topic discussions may not sign up for a new list. My personal opinion is that we could save a lot of work by sending a reminder about on-topic discussions, kicking off a few people if they don't listen, then moderating posts for a couple of weeks if it's still not abating. ~Griffin

Damian Johnson wrote:

Gotcha. By all means don't let me get in the way of progress. Either approach works. I think everyone's in agreement that this will likely require list moderation, the question is just if we moderate tor-talk@ or make a new moderated list.

I suspect this would go more smoothly with a new list because the act of subscribing is opt-ing into the moderation rather than taking away posting rights of a once-open list. But either way this is a minor detail, and a decision for the boots on the ground doing the moderation. :)

Well, I'm happy to be added to the moderation squad when some kind of moderation switch happens. Do you want to be the one to send an on-topic reminder to the tor-talk list? ~Griffin

Damian Johnson wrote:

Great, glad to hear it! If you'd care to lead this effort I'm sure Moritz wouldn't mind. If not then hopefully he'll speak up to comment on when this ball will get rolling.

I don't have any large opinions about how moderation should be handled (though whitelisting sounds like a reasonable solution), so I probably shouldn't be leading this effort.

I don't. I see an on-topic reminder quickly spiraling into a headache of its own. My view is that we should just nuke the list once the moderators are ready but if this is an area you want to spend time then feel free.

I sent a reminder email out. We'll see if things simmer down. Probably not, but hey it's worth a shot. best, Griffin

IDK, on my end it looks a lot better. Maybe it's just the placebo effect ;-) On Tue, Jun 21, 2016 at 11:48 AM, Damian Johnson < atagar@torproject.org [atagar@torproject.org] > wrote:

I sent a reminder email out. We'll see if things simmer down. Probably not, but hey it's worth a shot.

My inbox this morning seems to be telling me folks didn't listen. Oh well, thanks for trying! :P _______________________________________________ tor-project mailing list tor-project@lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-project

Damian Johnson wrote:

...

IDK, on my end it looks a lot better. Maybe it's just the placebo effect ;-)

Honestly might just be me shaking my head at seeing a subject saying "Is Rape the same as Copyright?". You're quite possibly right that we could get a lot of mileage by removing the most disruptive individuals, though personally I still think just outright moderation will work better.

That troll actually sent me a mea culpa email, which was pretty funny.

We all recognize the list is broken but never take any action. Trouble is that this is a timesink none of us are eager to have on our plate. If anyone wants to lead the charge in cleaning up our most visible and important list just say the word! More than happy to pull what levers I can to get ya what you need.

If given list management access, I'd eject a few notable off-topic members (juan.g71@gmail.com, afalex169@gmail.com, cecilia.tanaka@gmail.com, tor_talk@arcor.de) some recent off-topic members (dungeonmaster@sigaint.org, skywalker543@sigaint.org, thomas.hluchnik@netcologne.de), and off-topic announcement-only members (ja.talk@yandex.com, jacobappelbaum.net@yandex.com). When I was still an admin on the 2600 FB group, we took a similar approach and were able to move from the list being a total trashfire to being a decent discussion board. But I have no problem using the banhammer. ~Griffin

* Damian Johnson schrieb am 2016-06-21 um 20:13 Uhr:

Sounds good. Jens, any objection to giving Griffin tor-talk@ list admin access?

Go, Griffin. :-) -- Jens Kubieziel http://www.kubieziel.de Fortschritt ist nur möglich, wenn man intelligent gegen die Regeln verstößt. Boleslaw Barlog

After Juan threatened to re-join the list, they were all added to the banned users list.

I'm going to miss Juan. Maybe he has a blog. On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 5:39 AM, Griffin Boyce <griffin@cryptolab.net> wrote:

Jens Kubieziel wrote:

...

* Damian Johnson schrieb:

...

Sounds good. Jens, any objection to giving Griffin tor-talk@ list admin access?

Go, Griffin. :-)

The previously-named subscribers have been removed. After Juan threatened to re-join the list, they were all added to the banned users list. I also sent them all an email to let them know.

---- To whom it may concern,

You have been removed from the tor-talk mailing list for persistent off-topic posts and I encourage you to spend your time elsewhere. Do not re-subscribe to the list.

best of luck, Griffin

_______________________________________________ tor-project mailing list tor-project@lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-project

Also, in the interest of transparency, the first few posts from brand-new users is being held for moderation. Too many people are joining the list just to troll. :P

Ahh, so that's what happened. I was just puzzling over that. Thanks for the head's up. :)

On 06/21/2016 12:56 AM, Griffin Boyce wrote:

I can appreciate that approach, but changing lists alone doesn't solve the core problem. People who want to be distracting will just sign up for the new list and be distracting there.

No. The new list will have moderation, and will kick/moderate people who show bad behaviour. It's much easier to introduce a new list than to enforce rules on a place where there were no clear rules before. Of course it would be nice to keep all the subscribers, but I think we can convince many of them to subscribe to the new list, and fade out the old. There has been previous mail about this but almost nobody was interested. We're still looking for moderators for the new list! -- Moritz Bartl https://www.torservers.net/

* Damian Johnson schrieb am 2016-06-21 um 17:06 Uhr:

...

There has been previous mail about this but almost nobody was interested. We're still looking for moderators for the new list!

Iirc Gunner expressed interest so you now have yourself, Griffin, and him. Is three enough to move forward? Yesterday a tor-talk@ member

I expressed interest in the past and am willing to help here. -- Jens Kubieziel http://www.kubieziel.de I just found out that the brain is like a computer. If that's true, then there really aren't any stupid people. Just people running Windows.