The recent spammer campaigns have developed into a real problem.
As far as I can see this Q&A ticker was created in a way the inner tdf / libreoffice circle liked it. It helped to make the much better former free libreofficeforum.org die. Seems free software friends can also be fond of being a bit more equal. But there is responsibility, too!
You cannot just declare an askbot site driven “meritocratic” and leave it at that.
Maybe they haven’t noticed because they don’t visit?
@robleyd “Maybe they haven’t noticed because they don’t visit?”
Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? They did not provide a help system to the community, they just threw a help system at the community. At the beginning of LibO project the only way to get good help was to subscribe to the AOO community forums (and it is still the best bet, but I’m digressing) so they created a couple of mailing lists and this platform (you know, marketing), but they never really cared about providing real help.
@RGB-es: not answering OP’s question, but just addressing your last message.
Let’s see the TDF members that are in the first three pages of Users:
@Regina; @cloph; me; @erAck; @Sweetshark; @vmiklos; @mmohrhard; @caolan (I only list those I immediately recognize by nick). No, we do really care providing real help.
@mikekaganski I know, and appreciate, the fact that some project members really want to provide help, but I do not see the project as a whole caring that much. Sorry if I wasn’t clear enough, I’m not a native English speaker and sometimes my thoughts and my words do not match. The spam attack is just the last on a series of problems this site have, all of them already (and unsuccessfully) commented in the past.
This is de-facto a DOS attack. A spambot can increase its frequency. Even if the routers and servers aren’t driven into DOS, the community is, as those contributors trying to maintain at least the little use the askbot may have for LibO / free software are busy with deleting spam instead of answering questions.
It’s time to create a real forum on LibreOffice again or to find a place of refuge, under the forum.openoffice.org site e.g. which is also open for LibO users. That site is well structured and the frequency of questions by AOO users is slowly going down.
If your are happy with high quality but unofficial LibO support, then the AOO community forum already provide that. If you need something more “formal”… good luck. Years ago when LibO started and the future of the community forums were uncertain (at least, less certain) I tried to start a conversation on LibO’s mailing lists about a “collaboration” (any kind) between the two project and the only thing I got back then was some serious trolling.
SageMath’s Askbot admins have developed a StopForumSpam solution. I am contacting the admins. Ideally it should be made into a robust feature and upstreamed.
Update: I have now received the solution, which is a bash script that downloads SFS IPs and creates firewall rules with ipset command. Sophie is CC’d in the email. The infra team will look at the solution.