Use it but for the love of god take some precautions or you'll end up like me [1], being raided by the Police for clicking an innocent looking link that was sent to you by PM
I love that this cautionary tale about not opening random links from people you don't know, ends with you opening up some random docx that just materialised out of the blue on one of your USB sticks.
Remember in the U.S. if you find yourself in these circumstances, do not talk to the police. Demand you be represented by your lawyer, and verbally invoke your right to remain silent, then do not speak at all.
Police will lie to you. Anything you say cannot be used to help you in court, it can only be used against you. Also, you can right now go find a local criminal defense attorney, go have a chat with them on what to do in this kind of situation.
Seeing things like this makes me feel good about using a VPN on my phone and computers. I don't do it for vague "privacy" reasons, I do it to avoid getting doxxed and to just generally not have my actual IP address sitting in server logs.
I'll concur, based on the experience of colleagues that both running HN and participating don't mix well.
People running or moderating a site have a responsibility to be impartial. And no matter how impartial they actually are, they'll be accused of every conceivable bias. It makes it frustrating to participate when every comment becomes fodder for each side thinking you're shilling for the other side.
I feel sympathy (not exactly the perfect word, but close) for dang in many situations, but the obvious care he has for the community coupled with a practical inability to really engage on equal footing must be frustrating (unless via a second handle, which we’d never know about).
Well he still does post links and comment on articles from time to time (both as 'dang and 'gruseom, and I think a lot of users don’t make the connection). I think he just isn’t a super active commenter (and the things he likes to comment on don’t show up so often). Obviously he can’t really weigh in and pick sides with some random flame war in the comments.
Hmm I don’t totally agree. I get it probably mitigates risk , but it removes to much of the human element and sense of purpose.
I admined game servers and built a couple communities. I made long lasting friends I wouldn’t of met otherwise.
Playing with others gave me a sense of purpose to protect others. Banning cheaters to protect the community from grief felt good and fulfilling. We had some tooling to detect abnormal stats of users to help remove biases. Due to the game mechanics some scenarios were instant red flags.
IMO you should have a protocol in place for bans, and make sure to follow it to remove emotions. Admins should definitely keep each other in check when admin powers are used. Admins should continue listening to community concerns about a particular admin too.
Don’t let someone become an admin for self motivated reasons. Ensure they respect and identify with the community. Great admins often come from being apart of the community first.
Wow, I couldn't possibly disagree more with this. I have operated a small chat community of old friends and acquaintances for five years and I hang out and chat all the time, and it has become the most valuable community in my life, and blows regular social media completely out of the water.
Has it been completely without drama? No, but it costs a non-trivial amount of time and money to operate, and my only motivation is that we can be masters of our destiny and know we aren't being spied on
So no, I'm sorry, but my personal experience says that this article is completely incorrect on all counts
Maybe Rachel shouldn't participate and operate, but we're doing fine in my community
I think the author is talking more about running a public community with mostly strangers. I also run my own IRC server, but I would hardly call it an IRC network because it's just me and a few close friends. The author is clearly talking about something on a different scale and purpose than a privately owned and operated server.
> if your company has somehow managed to turn its IRC system (or let's face it, any other chat backend) into the kind of shit-flinging jungle that the world at large can become at times, you have much much bigger problems.
That might be good principle, but kinda difficult to execute on a volunteer basis. How do you attract volunteers to run a service that they themselves don't use?
Yeah, I ran an ewtoo based telnet chat server in my early 20s, and I agree with the sentiment, though the advantage with my server was that I was pre-defined as having godlike powers and it was basically "choose to come to my server, or go to one of hundreds of others" - so I had to manage my behaviour or nobody would come to my server. Kind of like a private home.
What I would say is "don't try to build a community that you expect to be long lasting in somebody's private home", but there's nothing wrong with going to somebody private party and even going back for another party if you liked the last one.
As someone who ran servers on a few large IRC networks (Dalnet, Undernet and Espernet) as a teenager, I wholeheartedly agree. The temptation to abuse even this trivial amount of power turns rational adults into monsters. It also makes you a target for all the “undesirable elements” on the server (think DDoS, swatting, etc) if you try to do anything about it.
While I get the logic behind this, the problem is there's no real motivation to run and maintain a server without the intention of also being part of its community.
[1] https://blog.haschek.at/2015-that-not-so-awesome-time-the-po...