Posted: 1/12/2010 2:13 PM
Post subject: Banning users for more than 35 request
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ZeXr0
Joined: 8/27/2006
Posts: 883
Hi, I got banned yesterday because of how I browse this site. As I agree with the fact that we don't want to overload the server, the ban is a little excessive. I usually go to View unread link in the forums, then I open a new tab for each topic I want to read. I can open a lot of link that way, load once, and then read them slowly as I do other things. I completly agree with the fact that opening a lot of tab should be prevent somehow, so that someone don't abuse it. Before, there was a page that told me I could get ban (can't say I didn't see it) but it didn't ban me. Yesterday I got ban, but for 6 hours ?!? Couldn't it be something like 1 minute per new request ? I wouldn't mind having to wait to browse the site, but I'd like to be able to open several tab in one shot. I know I'm not the only one who did that kind of browsing. Could we find another way too prevent abuse without being to agressive with users ?
Posted: 1/12/2010 2:32 PM
Post subject: Here's how it works.
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Bisqwit
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
Unless the settings have been changed since I last touched it, it works like this: If the user has 35 or more accesses within the last minute, a warning is issued in place of the actual page, but the user is not banned. This should wake up the user to slow down their pace. A margin of 10 accesses is still allowed for the same timeframe in case the user was just busy opening some tabs. If the user has 45 or more accesses within the last minute, a 6-hour ban is enacted. If the user accesses the trap link (blockme.cgi) once, a 1-minute ban is enacted immediately. If the user accesses the trap link while a 1-minute ban is active, a 1-hour ban is enacted immediately. If the user accesses the trap link while a 1-hour ban is active, a 36-hour ban is enacted immediately. If the user's agent is a known mass-downloading program and the access concerns autogenerated pages (i.e. not submission files etc), a warning is issued in place of the actual page, but the user is not banned. If the user accesses a referrer-restricted page (some particularly heavy autogenerated pages such as diffs) without being referred by the main site, a warning is issued in place of the actual page, but the user is not banned. Access blocks are stacked, i.e. acquiring a 1-minute ban while a 6-hour ban is active does not shorten the ban to 1 minute, nor does a warning remove the ban. I have originally developed these measures based on the known-good-in-practice model developed at Sensei's Library: http://senseis.xmp.net/?AccessBlocked
Posted: 1/12/2010 3:24 PM
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ZeXr0
Joined: 8/27/2006
Posts: 883
Yes I understand, but isn't the 6 hours ban a little too much, couldn't it be something like 35 request 1 minute ban per request or a general 5 minutes ban ? And if there's more than let's says 500 request, then it could be a 6 hours ban ? I find the 35 request kind of low. Because 35 request != 35 pages requested. I open like 15 tabs, and got banned.
Posted: 1/12/2010 3:27 PM
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Sticky
Joined: 2/26/2007
Posts: 1365
Location: Minnesota
I have to say, a 35 request seems rather high for me. I usually don't open that many tabs at one time, though.
adelikat wrote:
I very much agree with this post.
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Posted: 1/12/2010 3:28 PM
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Nach
Emulator Coder
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Thinking about this, adding award images added a lot more local requests. Maybe that's the story?
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Posted: 1/12/2010 3:32 PM
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ZeXr0
Joined: 8/27/2006
Posts: 883
I don't know, but the limit could be higher if it doesn't cause a problem. Right now all I'm seeing it something that blocks the users and add no real benefits. Is there a great difference between a limit of 35 request and a limit of 150 request. I think that if someone wants to harm the site, it's going to be much more than that no ?
Posted: 1/12/2010 3:34 PM
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Nach
Emulator Coder
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
It's not necessarily about harm, it's about irresponsibility.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Posted: 1/12/2010 3:39 PM
Quote
ZeXr0
Joined: 8/27/2006
Posts: 883
I understand, but I'm not fond (if that's how it's spelled) of blocking a user for something if there's no negative effect. And I find the 6 hours ban very agressive to learn about irresponsibility. And by the way, the block apply to the forums, to the main page, but not to the submission pages.
Posted: 1/12/2010 4:33 PM
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Derakon
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Are there any use cases except for "open all new forum threads in new tabs" that run into this problem? We could simply insert a delimiter on the "new posts" page that says "if you open more than this in one minute, you risk being banned". Ideally such a delimiter would take into account how many requests the user has already made this minute, but that's optional IMO.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 1/13/2010 3:29 PM
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SXL
Joined: 2/7/2005
Posts: 571
Or simply, propose a feature who does the same while respecting the server. Like a picture viewer : on the "new posts" list, a link to a browser, where you can skip to first/previous/next/last topic at the new post's level. Since users who open all usually do so to avoid clicking and waiting for pages to load, when one would be reading a topic, the next one could be loading in some cache on the client ("read ahead" and "cache back" of ACDSee). It should be easy to write a firefox plugin who does all those, actually I thought of doing so but I lack the time.
I never sleep, 'cause sleep is the cousin of death - NAS
Posted: 1/13/2010 3:34 PM
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adelikat
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player (3576)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
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Just to clarify some details on this issue. This is a feature that has been on the site for the longest time. However, when the server was tranferred to us, this feature was broken. So for about 6 months we had no blocking, in which time I guess users got used to having this freedom. A few days ago Nach realized it was broken and hooked it back up. 1) 6 hours isn't that long. Now that you know, quit doing this behavior 2) Coding some new feature instead is out of the question in the forseeable future. We have limited time and a huge list of more important things to do.
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Posted: 1/18/2010 11:36 AM
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duksandfish
Joined: 3/14/2008
Posts: 152
Location: United Kingdom
When I open multiple things in tabs, I usually use the middle click which opens the tab without me seeing it. This caused me to get a 6 hour ban once, because the warning must have come up, but I didn't see it and continued to open up new tabs, though I had opened quite alot of pages (easily 30+)
Polarium
Posted: 1/18/2010 5:16 PM
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Derakon
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
If you count how many tabs you open, you can stop when you get to 25 or so, then come back after a minute or two to open the rest. That should prevent you from getting banned.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 1/18/2010 8:53 PM
Quote
ZeXr0
Joined: 8/27/2006
Posts: 883
Derakon wrote:
If you count how many tabs you open, you can stop when you get to 25 or so, then come back after a minute or two to open the rest. That should prevent you from getting banned.
It takes less than 25 tabs, by 15 you get the warning, and by 18 you are banned. 35 requests is pretty abstract.
Posted: 1/18/2010 9:06 PM
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upthorn
He/Him
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Joined: 3/24/2006
Posts: 1802
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The problem with your request is that you are thinking about your behavior in a vacuum. In reality, the site has many many users besides yourself, and if they all browsed the same way that you do, the server simply would not be able handle it. That is why there is this system in place to discourage that style of browsing. Do it one thing at a time, please, so that the server can handle the level of traffic from a large number of users.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
Posted: 1/18/2010 9:16 PM
Quote
ZeXr0
Joined: 8/27/2006
Posts: 883
upthorn wrote:
The problem with your request is that you are thinking about your behavior in a vacuum. In reality, the site has many many users besides yourself, and if they all browsed the same way that you do, the server simply would not be able handle it. That is why there is this system in place to discourage that style of browsing. Do it one thing at a time, please, so that the server can handle the level of traffic from a large number of users.
Hum that does not make sense. If everyone browsed like this, the number of request would be the same, and the timing for the page opening would be different. If I open 35 tabs in 2 minutes, then 2-3 minutes after me, there would be someone else that does the same. Unless everyone connects and open the tab at the same time as me, the result would be exactly the same ...
Posted: 1/18/2010 9:23 PM
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Nach
Emulator Coder
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
I'm a big user of tabs. I open up ~10 tabs, read them, then open up the next 10 tabs. This way I'm not hogging the "current" amount of connections, leaving others to have to wait online for 10 seconds till they see the site.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Posted: 1/18/2010 10:35 PM
Quote
DarkKobold
Skilled player (1652)
Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 2202
Location: Killjoy
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I find this conversation interesting... Are there really 35 threads with *interesting and relevant* activity on any given day? This forum seems pretty slow compared to some other forums that come to mind.
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Posted: 1/18/2010 10:45 PM
Quote
Derakon
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
I suspect most users that run into this problem simply read every thread on the site, since the forums are in fact slow enough that you can keep up by doing that.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 1/19/2010 4:44 PM
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ZeXr0
Joined: 8/27/2006
Posts: 883
I don't read the forum everyday. And just now, there was near 15-20 interresting thread. Every if I don't post in most of the threads, I read most of them