The VideoLAN Forums

Hi,

I have a strange behaviour when i'm trying to connect to the forum from py home PC (Win XP, last firefox).
Effectively I can see the forum, read message, but when i'm trying to connect with my account i get an error message: No route found for "GET /ucp.php"
I have tried with IE XP and even not possible to connect to the forum (tool old probably).

So i'm using my pro PC (W7) last firefox and no problem???

Any idea of what happens on my home PC?

Thanks
Rmanal

I know, I know choose me! (Raises hand)
They have a retarded IP-banning system that allegedly looks at "other behaviors" too, like user agent strings (explains why maybe XP+IE not working), etc.
They banned my entire ISP's range and I have to access the site via TOR. I recommend you do the same. Download TBB (TOR Browser Bundle). You'll get a hit 'n miss, just keep changing your TOR circuit for the site (You may have to select a new identity if you're not logged in already).
It's all because of spamming (which is ludicrous, I've just proven how easily their system is circumvented and JB Kempf admitted they still get >100 spams per day)

Anyway, don't expect much help from them. They were nothing but rude and dismissive to me on Twitter (that was before I managed to gain forum access). They were pretty much dismissive of my complaints regarding this as well as a relatively serious bug. They have a general attitude of "it's not our problem" and "if you don't like the heat GTFO the kitchen" (basically don't bitch, you're using free software) which is sad because VLC Player is a great project. I think maybe they've jaded over time and they probably have lives, other things, etc that they didn't have when they started this project. I don't take it personally and neither should you (when you don't get a response from them).

The anti-spam system is bad and affects everyone, including developers. But shaming developers is not going to get you anywhere.

VideoLAN is not Google; it does not have the means to provide its own automated anti-spam system. And it also does not have the mean to manually remove all the spam which would come without anti-spam system.

So there are only two options:

1. keep the annoying and unfair system as it is,
2. remove the web fora completely, and make the bug tracker only accessible to developers and trusted community participants.

Now which do you think is best, hmm?

And I know the error messages could be clearer, but apparently that's not so easy to fix.

I'm sorry if my previous post came across as offensive, I'm just at the end of my rope here because VLC is a vital component for an upliftment project I'm working on and I feel like I'm hitting my head against a brick wall with the team...

But shaming developers is not going to get you anywhere.

Netiher does shaming users. I have screencaps of *all* the conversations I've have with your organisation and, generally speaking, Videolan have a holier-than-thou attitude towards their userbase. Sorry, I'm just upset because I feel as though there's little communication going on here.
There's a bug in the RC Interface module, that I know because...

THIS FAILS: yet
THIS WORKS: ...That can only be a bug. I've spent the last ~6 weeks trying to draw attention to that and when I finally get through, the only thing the Videolan seemed to care about was my admittedly heated remarks regarding the ip-blocking policy. Nobody even acknowledged the *real* problem. I would have been happy with a simple "Look, we have more important bugs than an obscure feature nobody uses." I would have said, "Okay, I get it, this is a big project, I'll have a look on git and see if my very limited knowledge of C/C-alike languages can help me figure out more or less what's wrong" and I'd have shared anything I came up with, obviously.

VideoLAN is not Google

Thank God for that! Google treats users as if they cannot turn on a PC by themselves and their help docs are the biggest mess ever.

So there are only two options:

I'm afraid I disagree. There are a *minimum* of 4.
1. Your first suggestion = Going nowhere slowly
2. Your second suggestion = Well, yeah, that's obviously worse.
3. Remove the blocking system *only* for the login page. Allow logged-in users not to be banned because their IP changed while they were logged in. It happened to me (I can provide screencaps). Let the session-cookie override the blacklist (I don't know if the cookie-thing would be hard to implement).
4. Make use of the suggestions I made in the other thread and perhaps take me up on that offer I made before my charitable nature completely expires. I offered to login once a day at least and help filter spam. I'm sure if someone like me, who has a limit of 5GB peak time (07:00 - 01:00) bandwidth per month and 15GB off-peak(01:00 - 07:00) is willing to offer, you could put together a human team of a few others like me. If you had just 5 other people whose sole function that was, you'd have spam filtered every 4 hours. This forum is not very active these days from what I see.

By the way, thank you very much for replying in that other thread. I've posted an additional question as I'm not sure where I went wrong since I'm using the properties according to the spec I read.

3. No. That is not compatible with the current system.
4. No. You are way underestimating the amount and persistence of spammers. We have tried manual filtering. WE WILL NOT GO BACK THERE.

You are way underestimating the amount and persistence of spammers. We have tried manual filtering. WE WILL NOT GO BACK THERE.

Woah, okay, getting the impression here that perhaps what I thought was confrontational behavior from Videolan team could also be a consequence of spammers. I guess they really drove you guys to drink. And here I thought y'all just didn't understand PR properly. Well, I'm sorry for anything I said that seemed provocative, I've only been looking at it from my perspective. I still think this is a problem. As I write this, so I've come up with a solution:

Start a VLC StackExchange! They definitely don't get spam, everything works, we can use OpenID and it'll really take pressure off the forums because StackExchange sites are about Q&A and very little fluff. (I know there is a Unix/Linux and SuperUser StackExchange, but you need a VLC-focused one). Then the forums could exist more as a social place. At least people with problems would have a channel of communication and would stop bothering you guys about login/registration problems.. How about it???

So thank you for your answers, even if your discussion was out of the purpose of my post
So if I understand well there is no mitigation to this issue with XP?

So thank you for your answers, even if your discussion was out of the purpose of my post
So if I understand well there is no mitigation to this issue with XP?

OMG! Like seriously! That's too ironic, when there's a thread regarding spam/blacklisting IPs and a spambot posts in it. This has to be the funniest thing I've seen this-- ... Ahem, well in a while. Human beings as a whole keep me entertained so, despite being clinically depressed, I'm constantly laughing. Thanks, spammer dude/bot/thing, but I'm still gonna have to report you, nothing personal.

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