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2026 Software Questions Thread

DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
edited January 1 in The Styx
Last year’s thread can be found here here. In addition, here is the link to the old Forum Functionality thread.

Comments

  • SehagEvezSehagEvez Shipmate Posts: 2
    If you want to catch up on previous discussions, last year’s thread is linked here, and for reference, you can also check out the old Forum Functionality thread. Both provide useful context and background for anyone following along or looking to revisit earlier points.
  • SehagEvezSehagEvez Shipmate Posts: 2
    edited January 20
    SehagEvez wrote: »
    If you want to catch up on previous discussions, last year’s thread is linked here, and for reference, you can also check out the old (broke spam link) Forum Functionality thread. Both provide useful context and background for anyone following along or looking to revisit earlier points.

    If you want to get up to speed, last year’s thread is linked above, and the old Forum Functionality thread is also a good reference. Both give helpful context and background for anyone catching up or wanting to revisit earlier discussions.

    (ETA broke spam link to casino, DT, Admin)
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    SehagEvez wrote: »
    SehagEvez wrote: »
    If you want to catch up on previous discussions, last year’s thread is linked here, and for reference, you can also check out the old (broke spam link) Forum Functionality thread. Both provide useful context and background for anyone following along or looking to revisit earlier points.

    If you want to get up to speed, last year’s thread is linked above, and the old Forum Functionality thread is also a good reference. Both give helpful context and background for anyone catching up or wanting to revisit earlier discussions.

    (ETA broke spam link to casino, DT, Admin)

    Oh do fuck off spambot.

    Doublethink, Admin
  • Wesley JWesley J Circus Host
    Regarding PMs:

    If someone 'has left this conversation', meaning they've deleted a certain conversation thread from their account, but you want to answer them on the same thread (which you still have), will they get your new message, or will it disappear into the unknown and never arrive with them?

    Thanks for your insight. :)
  • GwaiGwai Epiphanies Host
    My understanding is that one should start a new thread in that case.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Maybe it’s just me? The SoF website has been working very slowly for me on my iPhone (13 and about 18 months old; although an older version, bought unused). In marked contrast to the other websites I access regularly (e.g BBC which is pretty large).

    Just wondered if there was something going on?
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    Me too @Barnabas62. It doesn’t seem to be an issue with other sites.
  • Rufus T FireflyRufus T Firefly Shipmate
    I have also noticed a few times when it has been very slow loading pages recently.
  • NicoleMRNicoleMR Shipmate
    Yes, I just noticed it now.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    @Rufus T Firefly

    Yes. There’s an element of “in and out”.

    @pease

    Seems it’s not just me. Can you investigate please?
  • SandemaniacSandemaniac Shipmate
    It was taking forever to load pages on the phone this morning. Unusual because it's usually very fast - if other things are slow I can read the Ship while they catch up.
  • peasepease Tech Admin
    An unknown entity was scraping the site (downloading everything). This can be quite antisocial - seriously impact responsiveness - depending on the number of requests made per second.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    I still wish the search feature could be more specific. The other day, I wanted to go back to .a thread, so I typed in a keyword from that thread. I ended up with three pages of messages that contained the word before I got to the thread I was looking for. Just to have a button that says something like word in Title of thread only would suffice, in my mind.
  • SipechSipech Shipmate
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    I still wish the search feature could be more specific. The other day, I wanted to go back to .a thread, so I typed in a keyword from that thread. I ended up with three pages of messages that contained the word before I got to the thread I was looking for. Just to have a button that says something like word in Title of thread only would suffice, in my mind.

    Amen!
  • CathscatsCathscats Shipmate
    pease wrote: »
    An unknown entity was scraping the site (downloading everything). This can be quite antisocial - seriously impact responsiveness - depending on the number of requests made per second.
    Is it likely to go on for long? It is still very slow indeed.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    Cathscats wrote: »
    pease wrote: »
    An unknown entity was scraping the site (downloading everything). This can be quite antisocial - seriously impact responsiveness - depending on the number of requests made per second.
    Is it likely to go on for long? It is still very slow indeed.
    I’ve noticed it too, including now.


  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    I’ll leave it to you pease. I appreciate you’ll have security and can understand how your possible hacker can mess up response times.

    FYI what is happening to me specifically is that the selection of a forum or thread shows a pause - the iPhonecresponse line doesn’t move for several aeconds then it does. Also when seeking to post a post there is often a delay before the site responds.

    That seems very consistent with a potential hacker scraping the site.

    Good luck, pease
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    That’s just happened!
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Wondered why the download and upload was acting so strange today
  • peasepease Tech Admin
    Barnabas62 wrote: »
    …That seems very consistent with a potential hacker scraping the site.
    It's far more likely to be the unintended consequence of someone collecting human-generated content for feeding into an AI.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Seems better today.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Still doing it for me :(
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    The scraper seems back for me too. But access has been fine all day up to just a few minutes ago.
  • Rufus T FireflyRufus T Firefly Shipmate
    It's really bad at the moment.
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    pease wrote: »
    Barnabas62 wrote: »
    …That seems very consistent with a potential hacker scraping the site.
    It's far more likely to be the unintended consequence of someone collecting human-generated content for feeding into an AI.
    Where did our privacy and copyright statement go?
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    edited April 17
    Rufus T Firefly wrote: »
    It's really bad at the moment.

    9.08am British Summer Time and service is absolutely normal.

    I suppose “intermittent problem” is to be expected until they feel they’ve scraped enough?
  • peasepease Tech Admin
    edited April 17
    Alan Cresswell wrote: »
    pease wrote: »
    It's far more likely to be the unintended consequence of someone collecting human-generated content for feeding into an AI.
    Where did our privacy and copyright statement go?
    The amount of respect the companies concerned have shown for these concepts is vanishingly small.
  • peasepease Tech Admin
    An update - there appears to be a fairly persistent pattern to the bot traffic, so I've added some traffic-shaping / rate-limiting rules. All being well, this should affect the bots rather more than the human visitors to the forums.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    Thanks @pease
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    Why am I not seeing new post flags for the “UK officially fucks Trans kids over” thread?
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    Don't know, but I have had that for months.
  • SandemaniacSandemaniac Shipmate
    BroJames wrote: »
    Why am I not seeing new post flags for the “UK officially fucks Trans kids over” thread?

    I think this has cropped up elsewhere (the Trump Hell thread?) but it's been happening to me as well so I assume it's happening to everyone.
  • sionisaissionisais Shipmate
    BroJames wrote: »
    Why am I not seeing new post flags for the “UK officially fucks Trans kids over” thread?

    Could the absence of notifications be connected to the identity of the poster rather than the thread? On FB one doesn’t get notifications for some friends posting when one should expect so.
  • peasepease Tech Admin
    edited July 23
    Doublethink wrote: »
    Don't know, but I have had that for months.
    Most likely, ever since a number of posts were moved to a different thread, which reduced the post count on the Trans kids thread. As the Trans kids thread has a fairly low rate of posting, it's taking quite a long time for the number of posts to get back to the point where each of our new post indicators kick back in.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    OK Thanks. That sort of makes sense.
  • ArethosemyfeetArethosemyfeet Shipmate, Heaven Host
    pease wrote: »
    Doublethink wrote: »
    Don't know, but I have had that for months.
    Most likely, ever since a number of posts were moved to a different thread, which reduced the post count on the Trans kids thread. As the Trans kids thread has a fairly low rate of posting, it's taking quite a long time for the number of posts to get back to the point where each of our new post indicators kick back in.

    I'd been assuming that was the case. If we can find the thread that was split off we might get a bound on when the notifications will restart.
  • Stercus TauriStercus Tauri Shipmate
    Bitdefender just posted this: firefox.exe attempted to establish a connection relying on an unmatching security certificate to www.shipoffools.com. We blocked the connection to keep your data safe since the used certificate was issued for a different web address than the targeted one. Is this a real issue, or just another overreaction to something trivial? Having had to deal with a serious hack recently, I am a bit sensitive to these things.
  • peasepease Tech Admin
    Well…

    Technically, the name of the magazine site is shipoffools.com rather than www.shipoffools.com (although this isn't implemented rigorously). It appears that by default, Firefox will automatically remove the www if it isn't in the certificate. However, the message you posted suggests that Bitdefender's default behaviour is stricter (which wouldn't be unexpected).

    Depending, for example, on how disruptive this is to browsing the website, it may be possible to configure this aspect of Bitdefender's behaviour on a per site basis, if you want to go down that route.
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