Ask the mods anything

@TheAnonShy  
We can, but only if we’re provided with a link to it by one of the participants. For instance, some users may have had PM conversations with mods where other mods have also contributed, which is possible because the first mod has shared the link.
 
We can’t just guess the link or something, and it’s not enumerable (look at the URL, it’s long and complex). Even if we could, we don’t care or want to.
 
Moderating the site is sort of like being a nurse; there’s a brief period at the start when the thought of seeing people’s privates might be vaguely titillating in a theoretical sense, but that sort of thing doesn’t last long when it’s up against the daily reality of urine, blood, and vomit.
 
Now that I think about it, moderating the site is exactly like being a nurse, only people die slightly less often.

@byte[]  
Then the user should give to you the link of the message in order to see it, right?

@TheAnonShy  
Yes.

Given how dynamic IPs work, how exactly does one make sure that someone who’s moonbanned stays moonbanned if they use a dynamic IP and their IP thus changes regularly?

@Jarkes  
We can’t. One of our biggest pains in the ass has been titanimal, who has forced us to manually add over 250 bans to the system to keep him away.

@byte[]  
Sometimes, it is a labor of love. Other times it feels just like being in labor.

@Arcaire  
@byte[]
 
(I sent my last message in the exact moment that Arcaire answered me, thanks both).
 
Is nice to read that, one of the things that most I like of this site is the responsible security that exists.
 
Now other question: is it possible to delete the history of bans of a user? That’s something that personally I would like, I feel ashamed for one ban that I had (it was only a few minutes, something really silly what happened anyway).

@TheAnonShy  
We don’t delete ban history because we use it when weighing up whether or not to ban you longer for repetitive stupidity.
 
Edit: Also w/r/t security, I work in infosec as a day job, and byte[] has a pretty strong handle on it too. We’re the sysadmins so we force it on everyone else. :^)

@Arcaire
 
Then from what I’ve seen, both of you does a great job maintaining the security here!
 
I can understand anyway why you can’t delete the ban history (then I guess I have to deal with it until I change my account, what a shame).
 
These are my questions for now, thanks all for answering them faster than what I thought. I’ll return in other moment when I have again a bunch of questions in my mind.

@byte[]
 
Or that Trixie-obsessed BP?

Question: is calling someone a shill with no evidence against the rules? If it is, which rule do I report it under?

@byte[]  
I’ve read the Titanimal Cringe Thread and saw just how much stupid shit Titanimal has done.
 
Also, there’s Kein and the academy record: a Flash Sentry hater with 475, if not more dupe accounts that were moonbanned.

@TheAnonShy  
In byte[]’s screenshot of a user page in mod view, ban history is in a separate page.

@dynamicv
 
Gee, I wonder what this could be referring to…

Will you be my boyfriends?

@dynamicv  
Depends on context. And rule #0 most likely.
 
@Jarkes  
If this is something between you two, please just report it instead of dragging it into this thread.
 
@SquiggyBomb  

@Joey  
Every guy is my boyfriend!
 
Some of them just aren’t aware of it yet.

@Joey  
Thanks, I only asked because it seems rule 0 doesn’t always get enforced when the subject of attack is IDW staff or someone who enjoys the comics.

Did you buy my mixtape?

Since we’re just talking amongst friends here, and letting everyone see the levers behind the curtains, if I was going to share with the world one and only one secret that I’ve learned volunteering for the site, it is this:
 
Everything you do as staff here is constantly being monitored and reviewed, and a lot of what we do as staff depends on being able to get consensus for the proposed action from the rest of staff before taking the action.
 
Generally speaking, when someone from staff shows up in a thread as staff, or sends you a PM, or bans you, it was the result of a report, which someone on staff volunteered to handle, which starts with identifying if a rule was broken and proposing a response, followed by a discussion with a bunch of other people on staff about whether the rule applies and whether the the response is appropriate, followed by a vote, or revisions, and more votes, and finally consensus on what to do about the report.
 
Maybe we end up doing what was proposed. Sometimes we do something either harsher or less harsh depending on histories. Sometimes we just close the report because we can’t reach consensus or the vote is that no rules were broken.
 
Those discussions may take a couple minutes, or they can go on for hours or even days. Sometimes we even create new forum threads to discuss the options and to track the votes for or against each proposed solution for that single report.
 
And when a consensus is reached, either the person who volunteered to handle the report goes into the thread and does what the staff voted to do, or we split up the pieces of it to spread the load.
 
So, you might get response in the thread from one person, while someone else is handling the ban, and another person is closing the report, while a fourth person is documenting what happened for any future reviews that might happen.
 
Not everything goes through a vote, for sure. But even something as simple as “Is this image Rule #3 or not?” usually results in some sort of discussion before a “Delete it” or “It’s fine” consensus is reached.
 
The behavior of the staff here really is a team effort: it takes all of us to do it once. And whenever you see someone publicly acting as staff on the site, they have at least three pairs of eyes looking over their shoulder while they do it.

@TheAnonShy
 
I dressed up as Trixie for TSP. Did such a good job he made me his “personal” assistant. :trixie:
 
Seriously, though, I asked at the right time.
 
@SquiggyBomb  
Already have one, but we can share you.

@Princess♥Cadance  
[bq=”Princess♥Cadance”] @NounVerb

@NounVerb  

 
The front-end of the site and personal downloaders are the most common use of the API I’m aware of. The API doesn’t get much love beyond that, really. We had a mobile app or two but they’re unmaintained now.
 

 
WEBM support, literature, bulk-action tools, and plenty more. Mostly we work on streamlining internal processes and generally improving site efficiency. They’ve been mentioned before but with a site of this size we’re perpetually yak shaving.
 

 
Given how much the time of the devs/sysadmins is basically a rarity now, it generally starts with a report. We’ll try to reproduce it, then work with our logs to discern exactly what part of the site is breaking. The patch gets made, pushed to GitHub (if it’s a complex fix the code gets branch instead of being pushed direct to mainline), reviewed, then deployed to a testing environment. If the bug is resolved there, it’s pushed to production (here).