Re: Bug#684128: down the memory hole
Hi Ian. ian_br...@fastmail.net wrote: It seems that Historical Revisionism, of the bad kind, is now in operation at Debian, in that critical commentary about unapplied patches is made to disappear down the memory hole, without leaving so much as a trace on the relevant bug report. If it were thought that the criticism was unfair, or inaccurate, then it could be allowed to remain in place, so that other people might judge its lack of merit for themselves. In the case of bug #684128, post #108, however, the fact that the offending message was promptly vaporized* (as will be this one also), of course suggests that the opposite is true. I'm (again) not really sure what you mean with these paragraphs, but the message Subject: Bug#684128: Info received (When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said...) Message-ID: handler.684128.b684128.136491666013227.acki...@bugs.debian.org References: 20130402083114.6bba69b4.ian_br...@fastmail.net (for reference, that mail is available online at http://lists.debian.org/20130402083114.6bba69b4.ian_br...@fastmail.net) looked a lot like non-sense spam to me and I reported it as such in the BTS. And obviously the one reading that report was of the same opinion. I wouldn't be surprised if others hit the Send a report that this bug log contains spam link after that mail of yours, too. If you want to make comments about bugs that people should actually read, please make sure that your mail is concise and does not tell fairy tales to hide your intent. The BTS is no literature contest. TIA. Regards, Axel -- ,''`. | Axel Beckert a...@debian.org, http://people.debian.org/~abe/ : :' : | Debian Developer, ftp.ch.debian.org Admin `. `' | 1024D: F067 EA27 26B9 C3FC 1486 202E C09E 1D89 9593 0EDE `-| 4096R: 2517 B724 C5F6 CA99 5329 6E61 2FF9 CD59 6126 16B5 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130405161826.gb28...@sym.noone.org
Re: Bug#684128: down the memory hole
Hi Ian, (dropping the bug in CC, as it has nothing to do with it). Le jeudi, 4 avril 2013 12.27:01, ian_br...@fastmail.net a écrit : It seems that Historical Revisionism, of the bad kind, is now in operation at Debian, in that critical commentary about unapplied patches is made to disappear down the memory hole, without leaving so much as a trace on the relevant bug report. If it were thought that the criticism was unfair, or inaccurate, then it could be allowed to remain in place, so that other people might judge its lack of merit for themselves. In the case of bug #684128, post #108, however, the fact that the offending message was promptly vaporized* (as will be this one also), of course suggests that the opposite is true. Are you talking about that mail ? http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.debian.devel.bugs.general/1040315 If that's the case, I'm not surprised that it got flagged as spam and removed from the bug tracking system (as that's what I suppose happened): I needed to read until the end of it to notice that this long mail was vaguely related to the bug at hand: both the subject and the content look like spam to me. That said, I don't find that this mail is unfair criticism, just that it is not sufficiently related to the bugreport (more in shape than in content) to be unambiguously non-spam. Dropping obvious spam from public archives has nothing to do with Hystorical Revisionism or whatever else: don't assume malice here: I think that in this case either the automatic filters or the human triagers have slightly overlooked your mail. So please, next time something puzzles you similarly, ask for clarification in a neutral way instead of publicly accusing Debian of operating Historical Revisionism, which is incredibly rude. Cheers, OdyX signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: Bug#684128: down the memory hole
On Thu, 2013-04-04 at 03:27 -0700, ian_br...@fastmail.net wrote: It seems that Historical Revisionism, of the bad kind, is now in operation at Debian, in that critical commentary about unapplied patches is made to disappear down the memory hole, without leaving so much as a trace on the relevant bug report. [...] Since you took so long to get to the point in that message, it's possible that your message was incorrectly identified as spam. Or this may just be an accident in processing of incoming mail, which has occasionally occurred. Ben. -- Ben Hutchings Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat. - John Lehman, Secretary of the US Navy 1981-1987 signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Bug#684128: down the memory hole
On Thu, 4 Apr 2013 13:09:30 +0200 Didier 'OdyX' Raboud o...@debian.org wrote: If it were thought that the criticism was unfair, or inaccurate, then it could be allowed to remain in place, so that other people might judge its lack of merit for themselves. In the case of bug #684128, post #108, however, the fact that the offending message was promptly vaporized* (as will be this one also), of course suggests that the opposite is true. Are you talking about that mail ? http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.debian.devel.bugs.general/1040315 Yes. Or here: http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2013/04/msg00020.html If that's the case, I'm not surprised that it got flagged as spam and removed from the bug tracking system (as that's what I suppose happened): I needed to read until the end of it to notice that this long mail was vaguely related to the bug at hand: both the subject and the content look like spam to me. That said, I don't find that this mail is unfair criticism, just that it is not sufficiently related to the bugreport (more in shape than in content) to be unambiguously non-spam. When read in the context of that particular bug report, I don't see how it could possibly be any more relevant, since it refers directly to the discussion above. I would be surprised to discover that there are spam filters in operation whose criterion for accepting an email is that it be unambiguously non-spam, since that determination would seem to be well beyond the competence and authority of automatic systems to decide. Instead, they look for the usual evidence of spam: HTML, embedded images, keyword lists, links to spamvertising websites, etc. I fail to see how the message in question would be flagged on those grounds, or how it would differ in that respect from millions of other messages sent to the bugtracking system which are not so categorized. It's certainly the first time any message I've sent to the Debian BTS has been dropped, especially after receiving a confirmation message. Dropping obvious spam from public archives has nothing to do with Hystorical Revisionism or whatever else: don't assume malice here: I think that in this case either the automatic filters or the human triagers have slightly overlooked your mail. I suppose it's possible, but I doubt it, for several reasons: 1 - the fact that it was archived on the debian-boot list, as above, suggests that it was accepted by whatever automatic filters actually looked at it. 2 - as I mentioned in my previous message, I received a confirmation email from the bugtracking system. I very much doubt that those are sent for incoming email which has been determined to be spam. 3 - one would imagine that a spam filter attached to a bug tracking system would be sophisticated enough to know that messages sent to a particular item in their database, from the same email address as the original bug report, are highly unlikely to be spam. 4 - the message in question did, in fact, appear at the bottom of the relevant bug page for a day or two (as post #108), and then mysteriously vanished. It seems unlikely that the automatic spam filters would wait around for as much as 48 hours before examining a message which they had already allowed to be posted, and then retroactively remove it. 5 - you mention human triagers; given the volume of mail that the Debian bugtracking system must receive, I cannot believe that more than a tiny fraction of it is sent to human spam reviewers. Presumably they only examine those messages for which the automatic systems have found enough spam evidence to be suspicious, but not enough to meet the threshold for automatic rejection; the decision must happen automatically in the vast majority of cases. For the reasons mentioned above, I really doubt that the message in question fell into the suspected, but not conclusively proven category. So please, next time something puzzles you similarly, ask for clarification in a neutral way instead of publicly accusing Debian of operating Historical Revisionism, which is incredibly rude. It's only rude if it turns out not to be true. If I'm wrong, I will of course retract my comments. But I don't think that I am. -- Ian Bruce -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130404061709.27f28714.ian_br...@fastmail.net
Re: Bug#684128: down the memory hole
(No need to CC me, I'm subscribed). Le jeudi, 4 avril 2013 15.17:09, ian_br...@fastmail.net a écrit : When read in the context of that particular bug report, I don't see how it could possibly be any more relevant, since it refers directly to the discussion above. I disagree: that mail starts with a chat between Humpty Dumpty and Alice, which both have nothing to do with the bug at hand. There was nothing in the subject or the first paragraphs of the text that indicated how that story was related to the choice of binary or decimal disk storage units. It's certainly the first time any message I've sent to the Debian BTS has been dropped, especially after receiving a confirmation message. It happens routinely for spam messages. Dropping obvious spam from public archives has nothing to do with Hystorical Revisionism or whatever else: don't assume malice here: I think that in this case either the automatic filters or the human triagers have slightly overlooked your mail. I suppose it's possible, but I doubt it, for several reasons: 1 - the fact that it was archived on the debian-boot list, as above, suggests that it was accepted by whatever automatic filters actually looked at it. The effort to drop spam from bugreports and from mail archives are different. And, even if there is an a-priori spam hunt for both, most of the spam hunt happens a-posteriori through the use (by mere mortals) of the Report as spam buttons on the mailing list archives, and the This bugreport contains spam links on the bottom of the bugreports. 5 - you mention human triagers; given the volume of mail that the Debian bugtracking system must receive, I cannot believe that more than a tiny fraction of it is sent to human spam reviewers. See above. Mailing-list archives are cleaned using the process described in http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/ListMaster/ListArchiveSpam . Bugs are (AFAIK) cleaned by ow...@bugs.debian.org, as described on http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting . So please, next time something puzzles you similarly, ask for clarification in a neutral way instead of publicly accusing Debian of operating Historical Revisionism, which is incredibly rude. It's only rude if it turns out not to be true. If I'm wrong, I will of course retract my comments. But I don't think that I am. I disagree: public accusation (especially in such heavy terms) is rude as long as it's unproven. And as far as I'm concerned, you have shown nothing more than wild-guesses and suspicions. That said, maybe I haven't made it clear: I think the spam classification that lead to the removal of that mail from the bugreport was indeed wrong, so I think the message should (if possible) be re-instated in the bugreport page. On the other hand, I also think the message was written very wrongly as it was an attempt to make an already-made point using devil's advocate style. It is also perfectly fine for such a bug (even with a patch) to stay un-answered and/or unhandled for months, given the number of active debian-installer contributors and the status of the Wheezy freeze since then, so I think the mail was over-the-top and unneeded (but not spam). I just can't bear with unfounded accusations thrown blindly around. OdyX -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/201304041545.17391.o...@debian.org
Re: Bug#684128: down the memory hole
Didier 'OdyX' Raboud, le Thu 04 Apr 2013 15:45:17 +0200, a écrit : (No need to CC me, I'm subscribed). Le jeudi, 4 avril 2013 15.17:09, ian_br...@fastmail.net a écrit : When read in the context of that particular bug report, I don't see how it could possibly be any more relevant, since it refers directly to the discussion above. I disagree: that mail starts with a chat between Humpty Dumpty and Alice, which both have nothing to do with the bug at hand. There was nothing in the subject or the first paragraphs of the text that indicated how that story was related to the choice of binary or decimal disk storage units. I do remember this mail, and I remember thinking uh, spamassassin missed killing that spam without reading it all. Only the very end of the mail doesn't look like spam, there's very little probability that a maintainer would have gone that far. Samuel -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130404135138.GU13623@type
Re: Bug#684128: down the memory hole
On Thu, 4 Apr 2013 15:51:38 +0200 Samuel Thibault sthiba...@debian.org wrote: I disagree: that mail starts with a chat between Humpty Dumpty and Alice, which both have nothing to do with the bug at hand. There was nothing in the subject or the first paragraphs of the text that indicated how that story was related to the choice of binary or decimal disk storage units. When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less. The issue at hand is whether somebody, i.e. the hard disk manufacturers, and their Debian apologists, can reasonably use words like kilobyte and megabyte, which have had a well established-meaning for half a century, understood by every single person on the planet with a reason to care, and unilaterally redefine them to mean something different. The hard disk manufacturers have been forced, by repeated lawsuits, to admit in their advertising that they are doing so. The Debian installer does not bother to inform people that it shares this position, and lets them assume that the meaning that every technically-informed person would assume, if not told otherwise, is what is intended. One only finds out otherwise when the installation is complete, and it's too late to do anything about it other than wipe the disks and start all over again. Which is to say, that Humpty-Dumpty's remarks are EXACTLY on point, especially the part about neither more nor less. I do remember this mail, and I remember thinking uh, spamassassin missed killing that spam without reading it all. Only the very end of the mail doesn't look like spam, there's very little probability that a maintainer would have gone that far. The common understanding of spam is that it is the same thing as Unsolicited Commercial Email, that is, it has an AGENDA, it's SELLING something, legitimate or (probably) otherwise. Which part of the message in question did you take to be an advertisement? Did you REALLY imagine that it was shilling for a bank which was unconcerned about seven percent discrepancies in cash transactions? Do you think there is any way that the relevance of posts to a bug report can be determined, without reference to the context in which they appear, *all the preceeding discussion*? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130404080516.387b1d98.ian_br...@fastmail.net
Re: Bug#684128: down the memory hole
On Thu, Apr 04, 2013 at 08:05:16AM -0700, ian_br...@fastmail.net wrote: I disagree: that mail starts with a chat between Humpty Dumpty and Alice, which both have nothing to do with the bug at hand. There was nothing in the subject or the first paragraphs of the text that indicated how that story was related to the choice of binary or decimal disk storage units. [...] that Humpty-Dumpty's remarks are EXACTLY on point, especially the part about neither more nor less. No, not really. I don't think forcing other people to solve riddles is not accpeted behavior and you should have been prepared to such reactions. I do remember this mail, and I remember thinking uh, spamassassin missed killing that spam without reading it all. Only the very end of the mail doesn't look like spam, there's very little probability that a maintainer would have gone that far. The common understanding of spam is that it is the same thing as Unsolicited Commercial Email, that is, it has an AGENDA, it's SELLING something, legitimate or (probably) otherwise. I receive quite a lot of emails that don't have an agenda, sometimes don't have a meaning and sometimes even don't have content. It's a common convention to count them as spam too. -- WBR, wRAR signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Bug#684128: down the memory hole
ian_br...@fastmail.net, le Thu 04 Apr 2013 08:05:16 -0700, a écrit : I do remember this mail, and I remember thinking uh, spamassassin missed killing that spam without reading it all. Only the very end of the mail doesn't look like spam, there's very little probability that a maintainer would have gone that far. The common understanding of spam is that it is the same thing as Unsolicited Commercial Email, that is, it has an AGENDA, it's SELLING something, legitimate or (probably) otherwise. Yes, but we are also more and more seeing unsollicited mail which is not selling anything, but containing random text, taken from litterature, with an attached picture that actually contains the commercial thing. So whatever is not technical in my debian/ folder is quickly flagged as spam in my head. There's just too little time in our volunteer day for being to dive more. Samuel -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130404153120.GW13623@type
Re: Bug#684128: down the memory hole
On 04/04/2013 12:05 PM, ian_br...@fastmail.net wrote: Do you think there is any way that the relevance of posts to a bug report can be determined, without reference to the context in which they appear, *all the preceeding discussion*? So far as I can see, nobody doubts your intentions. But you appear to overestimate the time a spam reviewer commits per message to make that snap judgement spam or nonspam? ... *click* You've been told why your message had the appearance of spam. I concur with the reasons given by others so far. Nobody is arguing this was anything more than a false positive, nor should you waste any further effort trying to justify why it wasn't spam nor why any careful reader would see it as anything but nonspam. Just take care in future that the style of communications you used triggered someone's wetware spam filter with a false positive. Learn and move on. Ben -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/515da033.5080...@debian.org
Re: Bug#684128: down the memory hole
]] Which is to say, that Humpty-Dumpty's remarks are EXACTLY on point, especially the part about neither more nor less. The Debian bug tracking system is not a place for novels, novelettes or short stories. Going on for lots of paragraphs and having your short story be much longer than the factual contents of your mail means it runs a larger risk of being classified as spam. I do remember this mail, and I remember thinking uh, spamassassin missed killing that spam without reading it all. Only the very end of the mail doesn't look like spam, there's very little probability that a maintainer would have gone that far. The common understanding of spam is that it is the same thing as Unsolicited Commercial Email, that is, it has an AGENDA, it's SELLING something, legitimate or (probably) otherwise. Sure, that was the definition in 1995. Today, anything that's off-topic for a given forum is typically called spam. Whether it's about selling something or not. -- Tollef Fog Heen UNIX is user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/m2txnm5jne@rahvafeir.err.no
Re: Bug#684128: down the memory hole
On Thu, Apr 04, 2013 at 08:05:16AM -0700, ian_br...@fastmail.net wrote: hard disk manufacturers, and their Debian apologists And with that, I welcome you to my permanent blacklist. It's one thing to engage people in constructive dialogue. It's another to denigrate them or troll them. Plonk. (apologies to -devel for yet another email on this thread) -- Luca Filipozzi http://www.crowdrise.com/SupportDebian -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130404165042.ga12...@emyr.net
Re: Bug#684128: down the memory hole
I do remember this mail, and I remember thinking uh, spamassassin missed killing that spam without reading it all. Only the very end of the mail doesn't look like spam, there's very little probability that a maintainer would have gone that far. *I* did hit my Esc-L mutt macro on that mail, while reading debian-boot. Which means that I reported it as spam. If 4 more people did the same, then the mail passed the first step of spam reviewand was then marked as possibly spam. Then it is to be reviewed by Debian Developers who manually process, every week, such signalled possible spams. If 3 of them confirm this is spam without nobody tagging it as ham, the mail is removed from the mailing list archives next week. Please note that all this only applies to the mailing list archives, *not* the BTS. And, frankly, if I have to review this mail and decide whether it's spam or not, chance are about 50-50 that I catalog it as spam. This mail is a very good argument to confirm that overcomplicated methods to make your point will just fail. If you have a point to make it, make ti. Once. With facts. You will never convince anyone with a mail like yours. Sorry, but this is only about failure to communicate. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
