I've recently noticed there's a guy on here with a serious hard-on for fervently removing certain tags from any post he comes across. He seems to have an interest in only three tags, and doesn't remotely respond or engage in any kind of conversing.

I've sent albert a message about this guy, he bans him, then he just goes right ahead and makes another account. I can't keep messaging an admin over and over when he shows up again - and I kind-of-sort-of have a feeling it might be a bot. Maybe for trolling, maybe for other diabolical purposes. All I know is, it's bloody annoying.

And from what I've read on the forums, this isn't exactly a new thing. Is there any long-term solution that's also practical that can be implemented to prevent this kind of bullshit? Like...a new user needs to be around for at least a week or something before they can make edits? Or account verification? Or hell, maybe even something like captcha? Most web proxies, and even TOR, don't display captcha properly, so that could be one way to prevent IP ban dodging.

All I have to do is reset my router to get a new IP, so anything IP-based is generally ineffective against anyone who knows the basics of networking and doesn't have a static IP.

Really the only way I know of is to use those methods that affect a wide swath of users such as account restrictions. Pretty unfortunate.

OOZ662 said:

Really the only way I know of is to use those methods that affect a wide swath of users such as account restrictions. Pretty unfortunate.

There could be another way. It's a long-shot something fierce, but you can theoretically deny accounts registered through certain email hosts - kind of like how NeoGaf requires you to use a college-bound email and nothing else. Obviously we can't do THAT, but most major email hosts nowadays (yahoo, microsoft, gmail) require activation codes be sent to your phone. Sooo...you simply block new registrations from hosts that don't have that code confirm.

The way I figure, honest users who sign up on here without any intent to make trouble will just use their go-to email accounts while trolls and troublemakers will immediately cook up a new free email from...I don't know, mail.com or something. Now of course, it's not guarantee - they could always have a second, or third, or fourth account somewhere. They could borrow or bamboozle somebody's else email. They could even use multiple phones. But in those instances, they'll eventually burn through all of their sockpuppets.

Again, it's just speculation. I'd like to hear.....see....what the admins would say.

There's been a lot of uploaders who refuse to change their habits and even people maliciously uploading content, which I think counts as vandalism. And there's been problems with wiki and pools getting vandalized repeatedly as well.

Permabanning more often would not be unfair, if the user can be shown to be egregious in their violations. This is especially true of long=term users who suddenly post stuff that doesn't belong. There's no reason a person who's been on for a year or more should suddenly post 1-10 photos of off-topic things and/or go around doing bullshit.

Maybe a zero tolerance policy against blatant troll uploading, edits and such is a good idea. As for the long term problem of repeat trolls, the only absolute answer is vigilance IMO. I do support account locks for people who are under certain minimums so they cannot be able to use edit and upload functions until they've been on for a month or more.

MikeTheV said:

The way I figure, honest users who sign up on here without any intent to make trouble will just use their go-to email accounts while trolls and troublemakers will immediately cook up a new free email from...I don't know, mail.com or something. Now of course, it's not guarantee - they could always have a second, or third, or fourth account somewhere. They could borrow or bamboozle somebody's else email. They could even use multiple phones. But in those instances, they'll eventually burn through all of their sockpuppets.

You need to enter a unique phone number to create a gmail account? I thought you could create them without entering a phone number.

Toks said:

You need to enter a unique phone number to create a gmail account? I thought you could create them without entering a phone number.

That's right.

Huh, I guess they changed it back. I recall a while, while ago when I made one it asked for my cell number and wouldn't budge without it.

Why not extend the week long block from commenting that new accounts have to include tag editting and uploading as well?

It would seriously slow down any vandalism and even if they had a stockpile of alt accounts it would still make them burn through them faster than they'd be unlocking from the intial week long waiting period.

Hoobajoob said:

Why not extend the week long block from commenting that new accounts have to include tag editting and uploading as well?

It would seriously slow down any vandalism and even if they had a stockpile of alt accounts it would still make them burn through them faster than they'd be unlocking from the intial week long waiting period.

Because one of the most common reasons why someone makes an account at all is probably wanting to correct a tag.
And if you sign up, and are then told you can't do that for a whole week, you'll probably not become a regular tagger.

S1eth said:

Because one of the most common reasons why someone makes an account at all is probably wanting to correct a tag.
And if you sign up, and are then told you can't do that for a whole week, you'll probably not become a regular tagger.

If someone decides they don't want to edit tags again over having to wait a week they probably weren't going to become a regular tagger anyway.

Adding tags is one thing, but removing tags is something brand new users rarely do, unless it's character_request or similar. Often if someone creates an account and immediately starts removing tags it's a vandal.

Account verification might be the easiest solution.

If a lot of the moderators are willing to check and approve the accounts that are made each day, then sure.

Kikimaru said:

Account verification might be the easiest solution.

You mean personal verification? As in, mods and admins check each new account and personally approve them? That's no guarantee honestly. They can just IP evade and make up a new inconspicuous username. As for IP verification, again, they can just switch up their IP's.

Honestly....the BEST thing they can do is probably a combination of all of the above. A captcha for registration to filter out bots, web proxies or TOR accounts. Case-to-case verification to make sure they aren't using a banned IP or a similar username to an already banned user. And maybe a short "trial period" where their permissions are locked - like say, they can only edit up to 5 posts per day.

Of course, none of it is a guarantee. The trolls in question could be extremely determined to be as inconsequentially annoying as possible.

Honestly. I don't even get it. Removing the same tags over and over, day in and day out. Where does that get fun?

If we're talking restrictions, I think disallowing tag removal for the first week is enough. Week of wait should cool their head, and even if they register a couple accounts beforehand, sockpuppeteers generally lose interest around 4th banned account from what I've seen. By disallowing proxy registration, you're effectively banning entire countries where Вanbooru's blocked by the govs. Don't do that.

Also, is the issue that big, actually? Lone lunatic is powerless against a community where anyone can get them banned within hours, just alert anyone of mod staff.

Type-kun said:

If we're talking restrictions, I think disallowing tag removal for the first week is enough. Week of wait should cool their head, and even if they register a couple accounts beforehand, sockpuppeteers generally lose interest around 4th banned account from what I've seen. By disallowing proxy registration, you're effectively banning entire countries where Вanbooru's blocked by the govs. Don't do that.

Also, is the issue that big, actually? Lone lunatic is powerless against a community where anyone can get them banned within hours, just alert anyone of mod staff.

Nope, not big. But very, very annoying. Removing a single tag also hampers a search parameter, and as a result an image that somebody might be looking for doesn't show up when they search that tag.

Please don't require a mainstream email or phone number for a Danbooru account. Not everyone likes all their online identities easily connected.

It seems to me vandalism here is fairly rare and usually gets taken care of pretty quickly. I'm not saying there shouldn't be any effort to reduce it further, just that it's not worth methods with significant collateral damage.

In terms of restricting new accounts, you already have to wait a week before you can comment or upload. Extending that to tagging and/or translating would discourage some potential contributors to the site. When I first started using the site, I lurked for a while without an account, and only made one when I wanted to translate something. It was originally going to be a temporary/disposable account. If I had been told at that point that I wasn't allowed to add notes for a week, I might have stopped caring and not gotten as involved with the site as I now have. Again, I don't think it's worth it since the problem isn't very serious.

Preventing new accounts from removing tags sounds reasonable, though. Removing tags is rarely necessary and probably makes up a large amount of the vandalism, so restricting that would be a good cost/benefit compromise. Restricting changing the source and rating might also be okay, if those are commonly vandalized.

☆♪ said:

Preventing new accounts from removing tags sounds reasonable, though. Removing tags is rarely necessary and probably makes up a large amount of the vandalism, so restricting that would be a good cost/benefit compromise. Restricting changing the source and rating might also be okay, if those are commonly vandalized.

Toks made a commit (it's not live yet) preventing new accounts from removing any tags except tagme and *_request, which is good enough to stop sockpuppets from vandalizing things.

Also, if vandalism keeps being a problem, there's always a harsher way - for example, making a list of 'protected' tags which can be removed only by users that are either gold+ or uploaded 20+ approved images. This is much harder to implement, though, and is not necessary at that point.

Mike, you're talking about the no_socks edit war you've been having on a few pictures? People (or a person) keep changing those because they're *not* examples of the no_socks tag. For example, post #2196573 is wearing open-toe high heels. The tag is generally reserved for closed-toe, closed-heel shoes that are primarily worn with socks.

Another one, post #2187394. sandals and no_socks should never really be concurrently used tags, as sandals aren't meant to be worn with socks in the first place. Maybe the reason people keep reverting the changes you and NWF Renim make is because they're actually wrong, and you're clogging up the tag with irrelevant images.

Finally, the tag and wiki vandal himself finally comes to speak like a reasonable human being.

Haru-Haruko said:

Maybe the reason people keep reverting the changes you and NWF Renim make is because they're actually wrong, and you're clogging up the tag with irrelevant images.

I'd believe you more if when you say "people" you didn't just mean you, and you alone, with your tons of sockpuppet accounts you keep making.

Also quite nice of you when you started making all those "fuckrenim" accounts in response to me banning you after you had already been banned by the admin himself for your actions, and so you started making other accounts to continue the exact same things you were banned for.

I've of the opinion, given your behavior, that the best thing you could do for this website is to leave and never come back. Make your home at another site, as we do not need people like you around.

NWF_Renim said:

Finally, the tag and wiki vandal himself finally comes to speak like a reasonable human being.

I'd believe you more if when you say "people" you didn't just mean you, and you alone, with your tons of sockpuppet accounts you keep making.

Also quite nice of you when you started making all those "fuckrenim" accounts in response to me banning you after you had already been banned by the admin himself for your actions, and so you started making other accounts to continue the exact same things you were banned for.

What? I doubt you'd believe me, but I literally just created an account to respond to this topic, I've never made a Danbooru account before. The jump to accusation is incredibly unnecessary.