Charcoal HQ

Where smoke is detected, diamonds are made, and we break things by developing on production. This room is for Charcoal, a volunteer organization focused on detecting and eliminating spam and rude/abusive posts on all SE sites. 275k true positives and counting. For more information, see https://charcoal-se.org/about. Handy links: https://metasmoke.erwaysoftware.com; https://github.com/Charcoal-SE
3s ago – SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector: 4m ago, 1046145 posts (47%)Cow: 20m ago, 17104 posts (0%)Jeff Schaller: 55m ago, 17770 posts (0%)VLAZ: 2h ago, 7073 posts (0%)Andrew T.: 3h ago, 983 posts (0%)Makyen: 6h ago, 56118 posts (2%)Dragonrage: 9h ago, 3347 posts (0%)Vickel: 14h ago, 2905 posts (0%)tripleee: 4d ago, 70661 posts (3%)Mithical: 12d ago, 14503 posts (0%)Elements In Space: 14d ago, 72 posts (0%)CaffeineAddiction: 54d ago, 1119 posts (0%)greg-449: 79d ago, 13 posts (0%)Rory Alsop: 106d ago, 222 posts (0%)motosubatsu: 383d ago, 26 posts (0%)Johannes Kuhn: 459d ago, 186 posts (0%)Videonauth: 1434d ago, 1089 posts (0%)Bob: no postsMarvin: no posts
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Starred posts

1 2 3 4 5 95
Oct 29 6:46 PM
The base number of flags everyone can cast has been returned to the previous default values. In the case of another spam wave, this can be temporarily changed again while SE investigates potential changes to help deal with these sorts of scenarios.
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Jun 11, 2022 2:34 AM
@Makyen LINKS: SmokeDetector (GH/wiki/intro/commands) | Metasmoke (GH/API/search/domains/SE➞MS) | Userscripts (GH) | BMs | Blaze (GH) | Who to ping | Team
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Fri 6:10 PM
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Oct 25 2:27 PM
SE has temporarily upped the base number of flags everyone can cast network-wide to 100, as a response to the network-wide spam wave we're receiving. If you have the flag posts privilege, you should have 100 available to cast by default now. In addition, the maximum number of flags you can have as a result of helpful flag count + reputation is now 1000, up from 100.
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Oct 30 5:01 PM
Simple HTML tags will now be replaced with a space when deobfuscating numbers:
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Oct 29 5:09 PM
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A: This site needs immediate help

KyleMitNow that the wave of spam seems to have settled back down, we wanted to come back and provide an update. Generally speaking, we don't like to disclose in too much detail about attack mitigation techniques, because there's an ever evolving arms race between attackers with increasingly sophisticate...

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Oct 25 8:19 AM
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Q: This site needs immediate help

The Empty String PhotographerThe whole first page, and likely many more, is 100% spam. Can we have moderator/community manager intervention?

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Oct 24 6:19 PM
Dear spammers, please post some spam on sites other than webapps, so I can try and debug FDSC. Thanks in advancement!
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Oct 15 5:30 PM
I finally received a response from Github about the time they turned off SmokeDetector's repo, but they required me to sign in as SmokeDetector and follow up on their ticket before they would divulge any details about the incident. I have done so now; the response might end up in Undo's inbox because he is the one who is the primary holder of Smokey's Github identity
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Oct 13 1:59 PM
@Fastnlight ✓ You are a blacklist manager privileged user.
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Oct 9 10:31 AM
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Q: What can be done about the support phone number spam wave?

tripleeeThe fake support number spammers have turned their eye to https://salesforce.stackexchange.com/ and the site is being hammered with multiple spam posts per hour since several days back. What is this and what can be done about it?

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Oct 15 5:36 PM
Guess we need to make a typoo to summon Undo
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Oct 16 10:07 PM
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Sep 26 9:34 PM
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Oct 25 4:56 PM
I've set up an SD instance in this room. It won't talk to MS or anything, though.
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Sep 24 4:05 PM
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Oct 4 12:22 PM
@Vickel ✓ You are a blacklist manager privileged user.
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Oct 18 11:01 AM
@JeffSchaller This URL would evoke mixed feelings in gamers. In online games "gg" stands for "good game" and usually if you're addressed with "gg" it means "you have lost/been defeated". So...the URL reads like hospitals where you go to die.
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Aug 27 5:17 PM
Congrats to @Spevacus and rene on their appointment to MSE mods!
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Oct 4 5:32 AM
@Anerdw Look, I'm down with any criticism of Discussions. But I'm griping about an even more fundamental problem with the sites in general. I'm an old school internet forum goer. And the old adage of "lurk moar" is in general very applicable to most sites, apps, communities, etc. However, it's as if SE have taken steps to prevent this from working. You cannot learn the system by observing it. Because SE have made a lot of what's happening opaque.
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Oct 3 9:34 AM
@Cow ✓ You are a blacklist manager privileged user.
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Sep 27 5:29 PM
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Oct 29 2:30 PM
Sep 3 3:51 PM
@ThomasWard Metric for impact on society: How many people you could piss off but choose not to
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Sep 4 7:45 AM
Oh, it's back!
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Sep 27 5:25 PM
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Sep 8 5:38 PM
Bookmarklets page created (more added; MOVED): (charcoal-se.org; GitHub)
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Oct 25 12:25 PM
> i wanted to post this site
Oct 14 8:24 PM
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Oct 5 3:07 PM
Apr 29 at 0:47, by Makyen
Blacklisting and watching guidance update: A) Don't add as number if repetitive or incrementing/decrementing. B) Number blacklisting OK with 2 TP, no FP, and no occurrences on SE. See the link for more details.
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Oct 13 5:59 PM
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Sep 11 5:20 AM
I thought I was pretty good with regex until Makyen showed up
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Sep 17 9:44 AM
@Cow English can be weird. It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though.
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Aug 19 7:45 PM
I was sad to see that you've elected to hang up your SE hat. I hope you know that, while we haven't exactly interacted a whole lot, in the times we have, your insight has always left a lasting positive impression. This project, despite the bump in the road with the Strike, has endured the test of time. I hope it's been communicated to you, and the other founders/admins, how important it is to the network.
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Sep 5 1:19 PM
@SmokeDetector I'm sorry... Chat with a PDF? This AI stuff is getting out of hand.
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Aug 31 3:25 PM
Metasmoke's expired SSL certificate should be fixed later today. If you're willing, most browser will allow you to continue to the site, accepting the expired certificate. Doing so may require going through the "advanced" options displayed when you attempt to visit the site.
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Oct 7 12:01 PM
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Sep 15 4:25 PM
@micsthepick A bit late response, but for just executing commands, I normally run SD with python3 ./nocrash.py no_se_activity_scan no_deletion_watcher no_edit_watcher no_chat_ws_activity_timeout --loglevel=debug
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Aug 19 9:16 PM
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Aug 19 7:48 PM
I never really "hung up" my hat, so to speak... it more just fell off as I leaned further and further back. I didn't feel it necessary to leave with fanfare, but SE isn't a company I want to donate my time to. It does make me very happy to see Charcoal still doing so well, though :)
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Aug 9 5:57 PM
Please let a moderator know when you think there's a site where red flags are handled significantly more slowly than usual. We can escalate this to a CM. Thank you.
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Cow
Sep 7 5:11 PM
looks like the inscriptions on the one ring from Lord of The Rings :D
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Aug 15 10:20 PM
The SE API is currently experiencing an outage. Smokey will be less functional than desired until that's fixed. When it's back (currently being worked on), the Smokey instances will need to be sorted out.
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Aug 25 7:07 PM
@ThomasWard These DNS issues should now be resolved.
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Sep 5 7:24 AM
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Q: Github briefly closed the SmokeDetector repo - facts and background

tripleeeOn Tuesday September 3rd, 2024, around 15:05 UTC, Github sent out email notifications to SmokeDetector and all users who had a fork of the repository, notifying us that it had been disabled because of an unspecified Terms of Service violation. We quickly filled in the appeal form (I did personall...

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Aug 25 6:36 AM
There is currently an unknown issue with Metasmoke DNS - you will need to edit your hosts file and add 135.148.96.213 metasmoke.erwaysoftware.com m.erwaysoftware.com to your hosts file temporarily. These DNS issues should now be resolved.
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Aug 23 6:48 AM
Interest check: Who would be interested in joining a chat workshop covering setting up a SD instance for testing? If you'd be interested, a ping to me (or reply to this message) would be appreciated so I can get an idea if this is feasible (I'd be running it)
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Sep 12 9:45 PM
@Vickel we've been going straight to blacklist for the fake phone number ones
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