pehache
2022-05-31 13:19:42 UTC
Following a previous discussion on that I just want to remind the
(approximate) recent history.
A few months ago (in 2021, maybe 2020, I don't remember exactly) Olivier
Miakinen (O.M.) wrote a cancel bot named "miakibot" to clean up the fr.*
hierarchy from spam etc, as many cancels were done manually before that.
At the begining all was OK, nobody was complaining, and most people were
even praising it. There was an old FAQ on fr.* about legit cancels and
the bot was essentially cancelling according to this FAQ.
At the same time a usenaut, whose latest incarnation is known as "Néo
L'élu", who was posting tons of articles, always with the same kind of
subject (about religion, atheism...), with crossposts and no follow-up.
The guy was indeed a pain in the ass, but most of time he was not
violating any formal rule of fr.* that could justify the cancellation of
his posts.
To try limiting the amount of messages from Néo we thought about
updating the FAQ to forbid crossposts without fu2 between fr.* and
another hierarchy (as a matter of fact Néo was crossposting on
francom.*). We took this opportunity to completely rewrite the FAQ, as
we felt it was outdated. There are has been a discussion on that last
automn on the group fr.usenet.abuse.d, and we reached a consensus on a
new FAQ.
However, soon after that O.M. decided to cancel ALL posts from Néo, even
the ones that were not violating the rules described in the FAQ. The
reason he gave was that Néo was flooding fr.* anyway. This is a kind of
indivual UDP, and several people expressed that such an extreme decision
should not be taken by a single person, and that a *consensus* should be
obtained on fr.usenet.abuse.d.
O.M. then opened a discussion about that, and about some other
individual UDPs applied to some other spammers/flooders. He obtained
large majorities for almost everything, except for Néo. There was just a
small majority (12 out of 22) in favour of the UDP on Néo.
One can endlessly argue about "what is a consensus". A common and
pragmatic definition is "a large majority". Still one can argue about
"how large ?", but what is sure is that a 12 out of 22 is NOT a large
majority, and hence is NOT a consensus.
By the meantime the miakibot was still cancelling ALL articles from Néo,
and O.M. didn't want to change anything. After a while, however, and
because of many protests, he stopped cancelling Néo.
But in march 2022 he resumed cancelling Néo. Just, instead of cancelling
all articles, he allowed him to post on a few selected groups
(fr.sci.zetetique and the groups related to the Apple Mac), and without
any crosspost. All other articles were cancelled. And again it was his
own decision, taken without any consensus.
Somehow acknowleging the problem, O.M. used a different "From" for the
cancel articles on Néo: "miakibot2 <***@miakinen.net>" instead of
"miakibot <***@miakinen.net>".
Soon after he started to cancel the answers to cancelled articles. This
would be reasonnable if all the cancels were legit in the first place,
which is not the case. Moreover no consensus has been obtained for
cancelling the answers to cancelled articles. The "From" for these
cancel articles is "miakibot3 <***@miakinen.net>"
So at the moment we have :
- miakibot: legit cancel articles, supported by the FAQ on legit cancels
or by a consensus
- miakibot2: abusive cancel articles, not supported by the FAQ or by a
consensus
- miakibot3: abusive cancel articles, not supported by the FAQ or by a
consensus
At least, cancel articles from miakibot2 and miakibot3 should not be
honored.
Cancel articles from miakibot are legit at the moment, but one can
wonder if O.M. can be trusted on the long term. At first he looks opened
to discussions, but he is actually always deciding on his own, without
bothering about a consensus, and he is convinced that his point of view
is always the right one (if you do not agree with him, then you're just
a troll). Also it is worth mentioning a massive abusive cancellation
last year, when he *retroactively* cancelled thousands of articles of a
single usenaut. Later on, he admitted that he did that because he had
been upset by this usenaut. Giving the atomic bomb to someone who is
emotionnaly not that stable is maybe not a good idea...
Note: there is currently no more "miakibot2" cancel article, but the
reason is just that "Néo" has disappeared from fr.* (his Eternal
September account has apparently been suppressed because of violations
of conditions of service"). He may come back, or O.M. may decide one day
or another to put a UDP on someone else... So blocking miakibot2 (and
miakibot3) is still appropriate.
Note 2: all of this also raises some questions about the alphanet.ch
server. Not only O.M. uses this server to send the abusive cancel
articles, but the Alphanet newsmaster is indeed fully supporting him.
(approximate) recent history.
A few months ago (in 2021, maybe 2020, I don't remember exactly) Olivier
Miakinen (O.M.) wrote a cancel bot named "miakibot" to clean up the fr.*
hierarchy from spam etc, as many cancels were done manually before that.
At the begining all was OK, nobody was complaining, and most people were
even praising it. There was an old FAQ on fr.* about legit cancels and
the bot was essentially cancelling according to this FAQ.
At the same time a usenaut, whose latest incarnation is known as "Néo
L'élu", who was posting tons of articles, always with the same kind of
subject (about religion, atheism...), with crossposts and no follow-up.
The guy was indeed a pain in the ass, but most of time he was not
violating any formal rule of fr.* that could justify the cancellation of
his posts.
To try limiting the amount of messages from Néo we thought about
updating the FAQ to forbid crossposts without fu2 between fr.* and
another hierarchy (as a matter of fact Néo was crossposting on
francom.*). We took this opportunity to completely rewrite the FAQ, as
we felt it was outdated. There are has been a discussion on that last
automn on the group fr.usenet.abuse.d, and we reached a consensus on a
new FAQ.
However, soon after that O.M. decided to cancel ALL posts from Néo, even
the ones that were not violating the rules described in the FAQ. The
reason he gave was that Néo was flooding fr.* anyway. This is a kind of
indivual UDP, and several people expressed that such an extreme decision
should not be taken by a single person, and that a *consensus* should be
obtained on fr.usenet.abuse.d.
O.M. then opened a discussion about that, and about some other
individual UDPs applied to some other spammers/flooders. He obtained
large majorities for almost everything, except for Néo. There was just a
small majority (12 out of 22) in favour of the UDP on Néo.
One can endlessly argue about "what is a consensus". A common and
pragmatic definition is "a large majority". Still one can argue about
"how large ?", but what is sure is that a 12 out of 22 is NOT a large
majority, and hence is NOT a consensus.
By the meantime the miakibot was still cancelling ALL articles from Néo,
and O.M. didn't want to change anything. After a while, however, and
because of many protests, he stopped cancelling Néo.
But in march 2022 he resumed cancelling Néo. Just, instead of cancelling
all articles, he allowed him to post on a few selected groups
(fr.sci.zetetique and the groups related to the Apple Mac), and without
any crosspost. All other articles were cancelled. And again it was his
own decision, taken without any consensus.
Somehow acknowleging the problem, O.M. used a different "From" for the
cancel articles on Néo: "miakibot2 <***@miakinen.net>" instead of
"miakibot <***@miakinen.net>".
Soon after he started to cancel the answers to cancelled articles. This
would be reasonnable if all the cancels were legit in the first place,
which is not the case. Moreover no consensus has been obtained for
cancelling the answers to cancelled articles. The "From" for these
cancel articles is "miakibot3 <***@miakinen.net>"
So at the moment we have :
- miakibot: legit cancel articles, supported by the FAQ on legit cancels
or by a consensus
- miakibot2: abusive cancel articles, not supported by the FAQ or by a
consensus
- miakibot3: abusive cancel articles, not supported by the FAQ or by a
consensus
At least, cancel articles from miakibot2 and miakibot3 should not be
honored.
Cancel articles from miakibot are legit at the moment, but one can
wonder if O.M. can be trusted on the long term. At first he looks opened
to discussions, but he is actually always deciding on his own, without
bothering about a consensus, and he is convinced that his point of view
is always the right one (if you do not agree with him, then you're just
a troll). Also it is worth mentioning a massive abusive cancellation
last year, when he *retroactively* cancelled thousands of articles of a
single usenaut. Later on, he admitted that he did that because he had
been upset by this usenaut. Giving the atomic bomb to someone who is
emotionnaly not that stable is maybe not a good idea...
Note: there is currently no more "miakibot2" cancel article, but the
reason is just that "Néo" has disappeared from fr.* (his Eternal
September account has apparently been suppressed because of violations
of conditions of service"). He may come back, or O.M. may decide one day
or another to put a UDP on someone else... So blocking miakibot2 (and
miakibot3) is still appropriate.
Note 2: all of this also raises some questions about the alphanet.ch
server. Not only O.M. uses this server to send the abusive cancel
articles, but the Alphanet newsmaster is indeed fully supporting him.