Modlog questions

[DaveF]

2 stupid questions that have not been discussed or I am using the wrong search terms in DuckDuckGo

1) When you go to https://bitcointalk.org/modlog.php how far back is the bottom of the page? Is it a certain amount to time or a certain amount of entries?
And can you go back more?

2) Is there anyway to get a timestamp on when an action happened? Or is it just a rolling log?

Thanks,
Dave

[malevolent]

1) When you go to https://bitcointalk.org/modlog.php how far back is the bottom of the page? Is it a certain amount to time or a certain amount of entries?
And can you go back more?
2) Is there anyway to get a timestamp on when an action happened? Or is it just a rolling log?

IIRC, it goes back 7 days, regardless of the amount of entries, i.e. entries older than 7 days are removed. Mods don't have access to anymore info.

[PrimeNumber7]

I believe the timestamps are intentionally omitted in order to make it difficult to conclude which moderator took action against a particular user. This is supposed to prevent mods from getting harassed.

If you monitor /modlog.php periodically, you can conclude a new action that was not previously on the modlog happened between when you last accessed the modlog and the current time.

[Upgrade00]

IIRC, it goes back 7 days, regardless of the amount of entries, i.e. entries older than 7 days are removed. Mods don't have access to anymore info.

Could it be that some changes have been made to it recently? The only information I could find on the timeframe from the admin is this reply from 2012, and it says that the modlog shows the deletions from the last 14 days;

Here's a basic log of the last 14 days of deletions:
https://bitcointalk.org/modlog.php

I believe the timestamps are intentionally omitted in order to make it difficult to conclude which moderator took action against a particular user. This is supposed to prevent mods from getting harassed.

Not sure if that's the reason as it would still be quite a job to find the mod from the timestamp, but the admins have surely showed an interest to hide the identity of the mods taking actions.

[LoyceV]

And can you go back more?

I have (almost daily) backups starting January 3th, 2019. See loyce.club/other/modlog/ (no auto-update on this link).
If you want to run a local search through all files, get https://loyce.club/other/modlog/modlog.tar.bz2.

2) Is there anyway to get a timestamp on when an action happened? Or is it just a rolling log?

You can get a more accurate date (Amsterdam time) from my archived files. I used to keep hourly snapshots, but it got too big.

For older data, try archive.is.

Here's a basic log of the last 14 days of deletions:
https://bitcointalk.org/modlog.php

Theymos is wrong Or more likely it was changed to 7 days later. I searched for a Nuked user in my archives, and it shows up for 7 days.

[DaveF]

I believe the timestamps are intentionally omitted in order to make it difficult to conclude which moderator took action against a particular user. This is supposed to prevent mods from getting harassed.

If you monitor /modlog.php periodically, you can conclude a new action that was not previously on the modlog happened between when you last accessed the modlog and the current time.

I was looking to see when a user registered vs. when another one got banned.
I think that it's the same person just creating an alt, but seeing that the 2nd was created after the 1st was banned would have been a bit more proof in my mind.
Since the 2nd was also banned it's kind of moot now, but I think seeing times would probably be a useful thing. It might cause some people to try to harass certain mods more. But, the kind of person who would harass mods probably does not care about proof of who deleted their posts anyway.

-Dave

[LoyceV]

I was looking to see when a user registered vs. when another one got banned.
I think that it's the same person just creating an alt, but seeing that the 2nd was created after the 1st was banned would have been a bit more proof in my mind.

In that case: BPIP shows a much more accurate time of the ban. Post in [BPIP] Bitcointalk Public Information Project [Back in Action] to ask how frequent it's scraped

[PrimeNumber7]

I believe the timestamps are intentionally omitted in order to make it difficult to conclude which moderator took action against a particular user. This is supposed to prevent mods from getting harassed.

Not sure if that's the reason as it would still be quite a job to find the mod from the timestamp, but the admins have surely showed an interest to hide the identity of the mods taking actions.

If you look at what time an action was taken, you can look at what time each mod was last active, and you should have a good idea as to which mod took an action.

I believe the timestamps are intentionally omitted in order to make it difficult to conclude which moderator took action against a particular user. This is supposed to prevent mods from getting harassed.

If you monitor /modlog.php periodically, you can conclude a new action that was not previously on the modlog happened between when you last accessed the modlog and the current time.

I was looking to see when a user registered vs. when another one got banned.
I think that it's the same person just creating an alt, but seeing that the 2nd was created after the 1st was banned would have been a bit more proof in my mind.
Since the 2nd was also banned it's kind of moot now, but I think seeing times would probably be a useful thing. It might cause some people to try to harass certain mods more. But, the kind of person who would harass mods probably does not care about proof of who deleted their posts anyway.

-Dave

If you trust the operators of BPIP, you can check the banned account's profile on BPIP. You can also periodically scrape the modlog, and keep track of when each action appears on the modlog.

If you are wanting to check if someone was banned and subsequently created a new account, chances are the timeline would be something along the lines of:
*account is banned
*person accessed account to see the account is banned
*person abandons account and never accesses account again
*person creates a new account

So if the account was created after an account was last active, there is a good chance it was created after the other account was banned. Unless the person is monitoring his account(s) externally, it is very unlikely he will realize the account is banned unless he accessed bitcointalk while logged into the account.