Timeline for Anonymity Policy
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
42 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Sep 14, 2022 at 14:41 | comment | added | user142929 | In my opinion/view it should be required to edit a file for the moderators/owners of MathOverflow with the identity, name and surnames, national identity card, adress, an electronic mail and academic titles (degrees,...) for anonymous users that edit posts or comments in MathOverflow since this is a site for professionals (I provided this information it in a rant $\approx$ two years ago when I wrote to the moderators to their official email after they deleted one of my posts). I think that the site is more safe for all with this file that I evoke, as well as for the account control. | |
| Mar 17, 2017 at 10:13 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
replaced http://meta.mathoverflow.net/ with https://meta.mathoverflow.net/
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| Dec 9, 2015 at 17:44 | comment | added | François G. Dorais Mod | @StefanKohl: Things are under control but not because of our change in policy. I would still advise caution with suspicious behavior. | |
| Dec 9, 2015 at 17:38 | comment | added | Stefan Kohl Mod | @FrançoisG.Dorais: Given today's edit to this question and the deletion of a corresponding announcement, are the issues resolved now? | |
| Dec 9, 2015 at 12:35 | history | edited | François G. DoraisMod | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
change in policy
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| Nov 24, 2015 at 7:50 | answer | added | მამუკა ჯიბლაძე | timeline score: -3 | |
| Nov 22, 2015 at 23:03 | comment | added | François G. Dorais Mod | @StefanKohl: Yes. One such early incident involved moderators and we decided not to pursue that course of action at the time. | |
| Nov 22, 2015 at 22:46 | comment | added | Stefan Kohl Mod | @FrançoisG.Dorais: According to what you know, has this user misbehaved to an extent where it may be a case for justice, or rather not so? | |
| Nov 22, 2015 at 22:32 | comment | added | François G. Dorais Mod | @MahdiMajidi-Zolbanin: We're mostly concerned with a resurgence of known troublemakers using elaborate false identity schemes to access the site. One such user has been known to impersonate others on other sites for defamation purposes. The situation seems to be calm now but there are still reasons to be cautious. | |
| Nov 22, 2015 at 22:17 | history | edited | François G. DoraisMod | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
toned down intro; unfeatured
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| Nov 22, 2015 at 19:29 | comment | added | user9072 | @MahdiMajidi-Zolbanin in a comment OP sayss "We don't plan on keeping details hidden forever; we just haven't had time to fully assess the situation." | |
| Nov 22, 2015 at 15:36 | comment | added | Mahdi Majidi-Zolbanin | "In view of recent attacks on MO..." Which attacks? | |
| Nov 20, 2015 at 6:28 | comment | added | Gil Kalai | I support keeping the current policy regarding anonymity. When in comes to content I support the policy of deleting abusive contents/other content and be strict about it even in cases of doubt. When it comes to individuals, I support tolerance to a variety of ways in which people use MO and present themselves and anonymity is fully legitimate. | |
| Nov 20, 2015 at 1:15 | comment | added | Gottfried William | I'm very surprised that anybody tried to attack MO. I have never seen problematic users here like on other sites. (Is this due to swift moderation removing nonsense. If so, good job moderators.) But I login infrequently, perhaps I miss these things when they occur. I suggest it's very difficult to plan for rare events (like in markets). So I don't suggest doing anything more than automating additional defenses. Security always costs something, you can't be insured for free. Costs of security can outweigh benefits in case of quite rare events like this. Unless I am mistaken and this isn't rare. | |
| Nov 19, 2015 at 11:46 | review | Close votes | |||
| Nov 20, 2015 at 0:40 | |||||
| Nov 19, 2015 at 2:29 | answer | added | darij grinberg | timeline score: 25 | |
| Nov 18, 2015 at 11:02 | comment | added | user642796 | I'll somewhat echo @MadScientist and say that I would caution against anything that would require more effort on the moderator team's part in general than thwarting these "attacks". From my own experiences I know that moderating is occasionally much more taxing and time-consuming than it ought to be, and whack-a-mole is fun for only a very short time. But administering a policy against (some? new?) anonymous users may be even more time-consuming and taxing, with questionable efficacy. | |
| Nov 18, 2015 at 2:44 | comment | added | François G. Dorais Mod | @Kaveh We've had to deal with anonymizing tools for a while and our defenses there work pretty well. However, such tools are definitely facilitating the problem. I'm sorry I can't go into details right now. Let's avoid playing the 20 questions game. We don't plan on keeping details hidden forever; we just haven't had time to fully assess the situation. I guess I can say that the attacks are targeted at the human back end of MO rather than the software back end. The end goal doesn't appear to be gaining access to the site. | |
| Nov 18, 2015 at 2:28 | comment | added | Kaveh | @François, I see. So IIUC the issue is that because of the problematic user using anonymity tools (e.g. Tor) the typical blocking of ip ranges doesn't work well. I think it is strange if they haven't dealt with something similar at SO. | |
| Nov 17, 2015 at 23:22 | comment | added | François G. Dorais Mod | @Kaveh The nature of the attacks is very different from the typical problematic users. We've been quite successful at containing effects on the front end of MO, but the attacks are now targeted at the back end of MO. | |
| Nov 17, 2015 at 22:45 | comment | added | user9072 | @MadScientist personally, for the most part I agree this is a reasonable approach. | |
| Nov 17, 2015 at 22:26 | comment | added | user35354 | @quid If users evade a ban by behaving different enough to avoid being recognized and by not causing the same kind of trouble again they were suspended for, I'd say "mission accomplished". There is not really a way to entirely block a user determined on getting access and a lot of time to waste. Focusing on problematic behaviour protects the site and avoids chasing users that you can't always catch anyway. I like to avoid spending more time catching trolls that it takes them to create new accounts. | |
| Nov 17, 2015 at 21:57 | comment | added | Kaveh | Isn't similar problematic users present on other sites like MSE and SO? I don't see why MO would need a different way to deal with problematic users. | |
| Nov 17, 2015 at 13:44 | comment | added | user9072 | @MadScientist there are AFAIK or rather infer than know persistent problems with ban-evasions. A question to consider is thus if one does or does not accept these evasions (or does something in the middle). If one does, what you propose would work. But if one wishes to enforce the ban then the situation is a bit different. An underlying subquestion is likely how are bans handled and what do they actually mean. Due to the real names situation on this site the situation is perhaps somewhat different on this site than elsewhere. | |
| Nov 17, 2015 at 10:53 | answer | added | Stefan KohlMod | timeline score: 13 | |
| Nov 17, 2015 at 8:56 | comment | added | user35354 | Would simply suspending or removing fresh accounts the moment they start to misbehave be an option to deal with this? Manually confirming the real name of users is a lot of work and the process could be exploited. In cases where problem users try to hide their identity I find it easier to simply act on the base of behaviour instead, then I don't actually have to find out if it is the same user. | |
| Nov 17, 2015 at 7:38 | comment | added | JRN | It seems that a real name is defined here as "a link to the professional webpage of the person who is posting." But this does not cover the case of users with no webpages. | |
| Nov 17, 2015 at 7:22 | comment | added | JRN | How do we verify that a user is using his/her real name? (For example, what if the user is a new graduate student and doesn't have a department website or any publications?) (I know that this has been discussed many times before, but perhaps someone could provide links to the discussion.) | |
| Nov 17, 2015 at 6:49 | answer | added | Gerhard Paseman | timeline score: -3 | |
| Nov 17, 2015 at 3:29 | comment | added | François G. Dorais Mod | @JosephO'Rourke I understand the issue but we can't disclose much at the moment. We are, however, very concerned about the general issues presented by the situation and we would appreciate input from the community on how to handle this in a general sense. After all, this is not the first round of attacks MO went through and it is almost surely not the last... What grounding principles should we have in future circumstances? This is not a bad way to ask nearly the same question. | |
| Nov 17, 2015 at 3:00 | answer | added | EJI | timeline score: 71 | |
| Nov 17, 2015 at 2:28 | comment | added | Joseph O'Rourke | It does not seem possible to me to answer the question of what should be our anonymity policy without understanding the nature of the "attacks" and other recent problems, which (for good reason) cannot be discussed. So I am content to trust the moderators to set a policy without much input from the community, which input will necessarily be largely uninformed. | |
| Nov 17, 2015 at 1:59 | comment | added | user9072 | @JosephO'Rourke please see my answer, second paragraph of the relevant section. | |
| Nov 17, 2015 at 1:58 | answer | added | user9072 | timeline score: 24 | |
| Nov 17, 2015 at 1:43 | comment | added | Joseph O'Rourke | @quid: Could you expand your comment? How might the real-names policy be part of the problem? | |
| Nov 17, 2015 at 1:33 | comment | added | François G. Dorais Mod | @quid: Yes, this is (one of the reasons) why this discussion exists! | |
| Nov 17, 2015 at 1:33 | comment | added | user9072 | Did you ever consider that the real-names policy is part of the problem and not of the solution? To me this seems quite clear. | |
| Nov 17, 2015 at 1:13 | history | edited | François G. DoraisMod |
edited tags
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| Nov 17, 2015 at 1:04 | comment | added | Gerhard Paseman | OK. I will contribute some input, and anyone who wishes to help me can find my user page and email me. Note that the input will be based on an outside perspective and will lean as far as can be managed toward keeping things open and tolerating a certain amount of problematic behaviour. Even though it will be better to clamp down, I think the perspective will be a useful reminder. :| | |
| Nov 17, 2015 at 0:58 | comment | added | François G. Dorais Mod | @GerhardPaseman: Yes, we are working with SE folks, but our primary concern is MO itself. We have always had a policy of openness. We decided to leave this post open to discuss the general ideas behind the recent actions. We still want to avoid discussing specific cases and incidents so we don't compromise the identity of users involved. This is why we posted this discussion separately. We seek positive input on the issues involved. | |
| Nov 17, 2015 at 0:54 | comment | added | Gerhard Paseman | As mentioned in a letter to the moderators, it is preferable to have a chat room or perhaps a posting on tea to handle discussions which may be potentially disruptive than to have a locked post with no avenue for discussion. ( Thanks for leaving this one unlocked.) I would like to know if Stackexchange is helping with mollifying the attacks or forming the policy. I am willing to take this to chat. :( | |
| Nov 17, 2015 at 0:39 | history | asked | François G. DoraisMod | CC BY-SA 3.0 |