MikroTik

I want to contact an admin/moderator and I have no option to send messages to an admin/moderator and none of the dozen I checked has any alternative contact details.
How do I contact them?

I have send a attention signal and let's hope someone gets back to you.

Please do.
Report this post and I'll read your message.

Edit: Done.

From the Forum FAQ, How can I report posts to a moderator?

You should see a button for reporting posts next to the post you wish to report. Clicking this will walk you through the steps necessary to report the post.

If you have a support issue, help.mikrotik.com has link to create a ticket

I also have some feedback for mods, so I'll borrow this thread. Recently there's this new wave of "smart" spammers (one example, 2nd and 3rd posts have spam links). They mostly post on-topic stuff taken from either old posts here or from MikroTik section on Reddit, so at first sight there's nothing wrong with those posts. Other strategy is posting nonsense responses in various threads. They use related keywords, so again at first sight it doesn't look like obvious spam, only when you try to understand it, it makes no sense whatsoever (in different way than some legitimate posts that also sometimes don't make much sense ). They let these posts sit for few days, then they come back to edit them and add spam links. Sometimes as unrelated words put in long original text, other times with tiny font, links hidden behind single characters, using "invisible" white font, etc. The most annoying is that since those posts look legitimate, people waste time by responding to them.

So far at least some of them make one mistake that I won't describe here for strategic reasons, so it's quite easy to recognize them. I reported several such posts after they added spam links (I could probably do it right away, even if there's no spam yet), but it seems that the reports were perhaps misunderstood and spam links in those posts overlooked by mods. I can't say it with absolute certainty, but I'm almost sure that I repeatedly come over posts I already reported and they still exist and can be reported again (I'm not sure how exactly this forum work, I guess that mods can "unreport" what they see as false report).

Hi Guys,

The moderators do our best to control the spammers, and Mikrotik have put measures in place to reduce spam but at the end of the day the spammers always find new ways to get around the automated systems.

If you have recommendations, feel free to post them here.

Some examples:
1) permalock account with (weak password) and (less than 5/10 posts) and (not online from 2/3 years)
2) Force users to change password, from weak to secure.
3) Use a secure recaptcha and email verification when someone want regster.
4) Compare user database with databases of stolen account/password and lock users until the passwords is not changed.
5) If offline from some months (6/7 or more), force email verification again and re-enter username and password.

You cannot do any of these things with PHPBB software. It all relies on manual work by moderators. We already have the newest Recaptcha here

@normins
Sorry, are just examples.

Sometimes I felt like asking to become a moderator, to lend a hand or to intervene urgently, because unfortunately sometimes it takes a day
before certain posts are fixed, censored some sensiive data or deleted,
because in those moments there is no moderator for hours.

Thanks, and have a nice day.

Wish granted.

P.S: With great power comes great responsibility

ahhhhh........
at moments I have a heart attack...

I give you my word of honor that I will not abuse it.

Thanks for the trust

I can't block reading postings of my "foes" now that person is administrator. That persons postings are now visible to me and before they where not.

I hope that it can changed or it will spoil my presence here.

Update: that person went from administrator to moderator recently. Still the mow moderater it not hidden when on the 'foe' list.

It's sad, that on a technical forum you have enemies. I hope rextended will take his new responsibility very seriously and nobody will have reason to "foe" him

Oh boy, someone turned GREEN !

Congratulations !

It's sad, that on a technical forum you have enemies. I hope rextended will take his new responsibility very seriously and nobody will have reason to "foe" him

Surely you missed the hidden joke in there ?

Some examples:
1) permalock account with (weak password) and (less than 5/10 posts) and (not online from 2/3 years)
2) Force users to change password, from weak to secure.
3) Use a secure recaptcha and email verification when someone want regster.
4) Compare user database with databases of stolen account/password and lock users until the passwords is not changed.
5) If offline from some months (6/7 or more), force email verification again and re-enter username and password.

You cannot do any of these things with PHPBB software. It all relies on manual work by moderators. We already have the newest Recaptcha here

Having been a moderator for several years on a US based forum (Brighthand.com) also using PHPBB...
What CAN be done, and it's not unlike using an IP-blocklist in a firewall:
Look at the IP address of a spammer.
Once multiple spammers start using a certain subnet (and there are lists where you can check for that IP address, right ? ), add netmask and widen the net as needed.

You'd be surprised how many filth you can block that way.

It's sad, that on a technical forum you have enemies. I hope rextended will take his new responsibility very seriously and nobody will have reason to "foe" him

Surely you missed the hidden joke in there ?

(ehm, sorry I'm Italian, really, where is?)

It's sad, that on a technical forum you have enemies. I hope rextended will take his new responsibility very seriously and nobody will have reason to "foe" him

Then spending a lot of time over here you get across people who just give me the shivers by how they behave. I don't expect any change from that earlier displayed behavior what made me decide to hit the foe button.

@msatter
I don't promise you anything, but at least give me a chance...

Congrats on turning green.

I give you my word of honor that I will not abuse it.

That's one reason why I'm not asking to be moderator, I'd be afraid that I'd get carried away and cleanse half of forum.

Anyway, it's not as much about winning against spam, that's impossible, there will always be spam. Look e.g. at member list (memberlist.php?mode=&sk=c&sd=d), pretty much everyone with zero posts and filled in website link is spammer, but it's no big deal.

What I hate about these copy & paste posts is that they look real, because they in fact are real, someone genuinely asked those questions and was interested in answers... only it happened months or years ago and it was somewhere else. These reposters don't want answers, they just use it as cover. Annoyingly, by doing that, they take time from people who are here trying to help others and answer them. Unfortunately, I don't know solution for that.

One idea would be some external flagging script (if nothing like that exists as extension) that would periodically check database for changed posts (added or edited) and look for urls used by spammers. It shouldn't be difficult. They can obfuscate links, but they need to keep target urls (they can play with them too, but they need to keep at least base domain). One problem is that it would only stop them after they added spam links, but copy & paste posts would still exist for some time before it happens. At least they couldn't continue adding more under same account. Also, they could move to using some address shorteners. Personally, I'd happily ban them too, because I don't see any value in them, but I understand that it may be extreme. The fact that there's unlimited supply of new domains doesn't help either.

Or some automated checking if post is from somewhere else, it's possible in theory. Take some uniquely looking sentence from it, ask Google to find it. It can be done manually and it works. But automating it would probably be difficult and easy to get around, they could just shuffle posted text a bit.

Once I became a mod at Brighthand, I was surprised that was exactly the thing always playing in the back of my mind.
Don't ban because you can.

As normis very correctly stated: With great power comes great responsibility.

You're showing a LOT more power being able to do something yet NOT doing it.

@sob
Or something like after 2 days the post is not editable...

@holvoetn / @Sob
The fact that you can moderate, does not mean that you are obliged to do so, but it implies more subtle things, for example:
if you write an answer you have to make sure that your personal opinion is clear, and not confused as if it came from MikroTik,
or because you are a moderator your reply has more value than others or is "the truth".
Hope I explain what I mean.

The first thing I did as a moderator, it's not a moderator thing ... I emptied my user "foe" list, where @msatter (for information and example) never was anyway.

Everybody is entitled to making mistakes. We're human.
The key is to learn from them.

Heck, I make 10 mistakes a day, at least. But usually I clean up my own mess ...

You are so modest Holvoetn, its closer to 100!!
I am positively Green with Envy. I am super glad, anybody but Sob! ;-PP
Do you mean I could have had msatter on mute all this time, DANG whatsamatter with me!

I think rextended needs my translation services....... like this!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkAK9QRe4ds

What I want to know is who sent the bong to Normis and the high quality ganja???

Somehow I quoted the wrong article so I have edited with the correct one. Hopefully the response makes more sense in the proper context.

@sob
Or something like after 2 days the post is not editable...

That may be a good thing, at least for members with few posts. But there would be a need for exceptions (i.e. a moderator marking editable). An example where being able to edit at a later date would be needed: The reference articles that have examples, and these may need to be edited with updated information.

At least there needs to be a mechanism to allow a post to be edited after two days.

Spam is a hard problem to solve, it is a cat/mouse game. If the cat gets smarter, the surviving mice do too.

Nice and right considerations...
Like the topic is moderated directly from the author of OP?...
Can update eveitime OP for fix scripts, guides, hints, etc.
And delete not related posts (and later confirmed the deletion from moderators)
like if the topic is talking about changelog, and someone start to talk about netinstall problems?...

Recently there's this new wave of "smart" spammers ...

Excellent observation. I noticed something off too in certain posts and wondered what the end-game was. It is always about the link.

I went by user list and reported over twenty of obvious ones. Unfortunately, it looks like they already fixed their mistake, because I also found two new ones by accident, and they are no longer obvious.

Thanks Sob, I'm cleaning now.

Oh no, the troll became a moderator. This is bad man.
I hope you punish yourself for all your bad posts over the years @rextended.
And let's hope that you do a better job at responding & cleaning the reported posts.

Oh no, the troll became a moderator.

I actually didn't know the moderators weren't Mikrotik. I hope they don't have access to any PII.

Oh no, the troll became a moderator. This is bad man.
I hope you punish yourself for all your bad posts over the years @rextended.
And let's hope that you do a better job at responding & cleaning the reported posts.

You just dont like being held accountable, sour grapes. I have 100% confidence in rextended's work.
If anyone needs to engage in self-punishment I can send you a whip!

He knows he wasn't that innocent, chillax. Whip yourself, anav.

I actually didn't know the moderators weren't Mikrotik. I hope they don't have access to any PII.

They can not have 24h/24 someone from MikroTik staff on Latvia always Online

Actually is like 16 moderators are from MikroTik staff and 16 not.
The list is already available on "who is online":
memberlist.php?g=8&mode=group&sk=c&sd=a#memberlist

Moderator is not an Administrators (but obviously Administrators can also act as Moderator)

He knows he wasn't that innocent [...]

Yes, is true

Yes, like Rextended said, moderators are mostly volunteers. You can see by "rank: mikrotik support". Only Those are MikroTik staff.
Also, moderators can only approve posts, they have no other rights. They can't see user details or delete users.

Can they flag pictures of MT staff that are way out of date?