Archive upload process changes

sector666 said:

It might be a bit late now but I'd put that in the email you send so more people know it.

It's in the one that goes out now, just wasn't in the original quoted above.

To wit, this now also appears in the email:

**New: If you want to shortcut the process a bit, jut email me when you upload instead of waiting for me to send the verification email. Tell me what you've uploaded and given no other issues I'll merge it at the earliest opportunity.

Others can respond to your request for the library to screen all the books to be sure the plot ends to your liking, if you get my drift. This is an archive and if you upload crap, crap ends up in the archive. The only discriminating rules disallowing some things are outlined in the README.INCOMING file and are legality-based.

Just noticed this thread by chance! Yet I'm glad I read about the new system.
Thanks for putting up with your patience to manage the archive, Mr. Halderman!

There are some folks who upload frequently enough that I "know" them and won't go through all this every time (think rslxxxxx.zips in combos)

Whoops. I probably exaggerated a bit... :-) Another good reason to state again what I just wrote above!

Xaser said:

I wonder if any folks would be willing to consider the idea of developing some sort of upload frontend for DW /idgames that's tied to forum accounts (similar to how t/nc does it) which folks can use as an alternative.

Hmmm. I'm willing. I'll look into it.
What the hell is t/nc ?

t/nc = "The /newstuff Chronicles"

The review center is tied to the forum account.

Gez said:

t/nc = "The /newstuff Chronicles"

The review center is tied to the forum account.

D'oh, I knew that! I swear!

We have just enacted an important change to the archive upload process. Starting today, after uploads are verified, email addresses will be stripped from your text file(s) before your files are published on the archive.

This is because starting in 2015 and continuing as late as today, people who uploaded files to the archive have been harassed by someone registering them to hundreds of newsletters from a website allowing you to sign up an email address with no confirmation whatsoever. Even if that problem were fixed, there is no telling what other poorly-designed website of that kind could be used instead. As such, we have been forced to begin removing email addresses from text files to prevent this from happening again.

The upload process remains the same as before—only now your email address will no longer be shown to the public whether or not your upload is verified.

The Green Herring said:

We have just enacted an important change to the archive upload process. Starting today, after uploads are verified, email addresses will be stripped from your text file(s) before your files are published on the archive.

[snip]

The upload process remains the same as before—only now your email address will no longer be shown to the public whether or not your upload is verified.

THANK YOU. This should've been done long ago.

So I wasn't the only person with Christian propaganda filling their inbox at a rate of one mail every four minutes? Good change.

Don't worry, I very soon put a stop to that shit. Filtered, blocked, unsubscribed as soon as I caught it.

I wonder what their next trick is gonna be.

The Green Herring said:

We have just enacted an important change to the archive upload process. Starting today, after uploads are verified, email addresses will be stripped from your text file(s) before your files are published on the archive.

This is because starting in 2015 and continuing as late as today, people who uploaded files to the archive have been harassed by someone registering them to hundreds of newsletters from a website allowing you to sign up an email address with no confirmation whatsoever. Even if that problem were fixed, there is no telling what other poorly-designed website of that kind could be used instead. As such, we have been forced to begin removing email addresses from text files to prevent this from happening again.

The upload process remains the same as before—only now your email address will no longer be shown to the public whether or not your upload is verified.

Does this only apply to the free .txt or the one inside the zip as well? What about addresses that are obfuscated? My concerns are two-fold:
A. If an author wants people to contact them, this will become difficult.
B. It has helped enormously with historical research in some cases where ancient email addresses from 1994 ended up still being valid (long-term university employee, for example).

The Green Herring said:

This is because starting in 2015 and continuing as late as today, people who uploaded files to the archive have been harassed by someone registering them to hundreds of newsletters from a website allowing you to sign up an email address with no confirmation whatsoever. Even if that problem were fixed, there is no telling what other poorly-designed website of that kind could be used instead. As such, we have been forced to begin removing email addresses from text files to prevent this from happening again.

Sad but I guess this is inevitable. Probably the right thing to be doing in 2016.

Jayextee said:

So I wasn't the only person with Christian propaganda filling their inbox at a rate of one mail every four minutes?

The same thing happened to me too. Since my freemail box has a limited size, it got filled entirely so that no more messages could be received. I've found out about it some weeks later, as I rarely check that email anyway. No other time I've ever had to mark as spam and delete nearly 500 identical messages from my email.

Quasar said:

Does this only apply to the free .txt or the one inside the zip as well? What about addresses that are obfuscated? My concerns are two-fold:
A. If an author wants people to contact them, this will become difficult.
B. It has helped enormously with historical research in some cases where ancient email addresses from 1994 ended up still being valid (long-term university employee, for example).

At the moment, this goes for both the external and internal text files of future uploads. This is because we have to eliminate any means by which email addresses can be scraped from future idgames uploads, so they cannot be used to spam anybody who tries to upload to the archive.

While I understand the historical benefits of keeping email addresses, removing them is unfortunately necessary in a world where publishing an email address in public means you can get spammed, either by dedicated spam services, or by newsletter sites that, in 2016, still do not give any sort of confirmation prompt when registering.

Christian propaganda here too. Does anyone know how to get rid of it?
---------------
Damn, never thought idgames/ will be the cause of all this; thanks Green Herring.
EDIT:
If I post my email as "name at site dot com" -- will that get stripped too?

bzzrak said:

Christian propaganda here too. Does anyone know how to get rid of it?

I used a filter feature to block mails from their domains. That was on my Hushmail account which is now gone, but if your mail host has something similar, just set up something to block any addresses from those domains.

bzzrak said:

If I post my email as "name at site dot com" -- will that get stripped too?

I presume whoever is signing people up for these mailing lists is doing so manually, because of some ill-conceived, misdirected vendetta against Doomworld or whatever -- there aren't so many uploads that a human couldn't get most of the addresses without any kind of automation. So even obfuscated email addresses should probably get scrubbed.

All that said, I'd like if there were some way to opt out of stripping email from text files - I've got enough secondary email addresses and experience setting up filters that I'm not bothered by someone trying to sign me up for some unwanted newsletters, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Dunno why all the beating around the bush when we know exactly who is doing it.

plums said:

I'd like if there were some way to opt out of stripping email from text files

Yes please.

P.S. I'm a Christian, honestly!

ETTiNGRiNDER said:

I used a filter feature to block mails from their domains. That was on my Hushmail account which is now gone, but if your mail host has something similar, just set up something to block any addresses from those domains.

Thanks, found some sort of "blacklist" in my settings.
All mail seems to be coming from "crosswalk at crosswalkmail dot com", so I guess you're my savior. Thanks.

That explains the influx of african women wanting me to build churches with them and the odd vaping newsletter I have been getting at least.

As of today, when responding to the verification request, you may now ask to keep your email address(es) in your text file if you wish to do so.

In addition, the verification prompt itself has been updated to add an explanation of this whole change to the process, including today's update to that change:

**New: Once your uploads are verified, we will strip your email address(es)
from your text file(s) before putting your files on the archive. We have had to
resort to this due to the relentless, consistent spamming of idgames uploaders'
email addresses by a third party. If you wish to opt in and leave your email
address(es) in the text file, let us know in your response and the email
address(es) will be kept.

Thanks TGH. It's sad that this has to be done at all but I think this is the best compromise.

Quasar said:

Dunno why all the beating around the bush when we know exactly who is doing it.

TBH I don't know exactly who's doing it, I could hazard a few guesses certainly but I guess I'm not up to date on my Doomworld drama, and there's no lack of Doom-community miscreants.

edit for below: thanks, but to be clear, I don't actually care too much who it is. I just didn't realize there was a single particular Doomworld supervillain.

plums said:

TBH I don't know exactly who's doing it, I could hazard a few guesses certainly but I guess I'm not up to date on my Doomworld drama, and there's no lack of Doom-community miscreants.

Search the forums for Carlos. I'm pretty sure that's what he's talking about.

Hi,Mr.Ty Halderman,which EMAIL providers are supported?I have my email at ABV.BG and if ths is not supported i will try to send you info by myself about my map pack

CaptainManiac said:

Hi,Mr.Ty Halderman,which EMAIL providers are supported?I have my email at ABV.BG and if ths is not supported i will try to send you info by myself about my map pack

Unfortunately, Ty Halderman is quite unlikely to answer your question now. :(

Ty, remember that hard work nevery brings fatigue, it brings satisfaction.

AbhinandAnilDoomguy said:

Ty, remember that hard work nevery brings fatigue, it brings satisfaction.

I sorry to say this, but Ty passed away.

Passed away? How?

https://www.doomworld.com/vb/doomworld-news/74184-idgames-maintainer-ty-halderman-passes-away-at-69/

I feel sorry for him.