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NO PRANKS or any other potentially harmful stuff is allowed!


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tidbit
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Autohotkey will now have a strict "no pranks or purposefully annoying or other harmful stuff allowed" policy.

Absolutely none.

 

These may (but not limited to) include:

- fake bsod

- disabling mouse or keyboard

- making files in every folder on the pc

- deleting certain files with the intent to destroy a pc or annoy a user.

- turning up the volume to 100% and playing a loud/obnoxious/rude/annoying sound

- doing anything to destroy a pc or annoy a user on purpose.

 

Why a new zero-tolerance rule?

Not everyone is PC-literate. If their mouse breaks or the pc starts randomly jamming or sending other keys, they might go out and buy a new keyboard. Or even worse, a new monitor or PC all-together! That's making people waste hard-earned money.

That is just 1 example, it applies to any situation where a user might not like what is happening to them.

Also, anti-virus and anti-maleware products do not like AHK because of a lot of stuff users make, like 'pranks'. So AHK gets flagged as being malicious, which affects a LOT of people (usually people trying to bring AHK to work).

 

If you post anything malicious, you'll get a warning and it'll be removed.

Based on the severity of it you might even be banned, if you're a repeat offender or it's bad enough.

 

 

This topic will be open for discussion, unless it gets out of hand. Keep it on-topic and clean, please.


rawr. be very afraid
*poke*
. Populate the AutoHotkey city. Pointless but somewhat fun. .


smorgasboard
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i had a pen drive been given to me for some data, it had some virus that made copies of the files. there was also an icon.. i checked and found it to be of autoit. i instantly tried to join #autoit to get help and ...... they denied access. 

"this is an invite only channel"

 

it was very sad for me to know that.

finally #jNiZm @ahkscript helped me to get rid of it. 

 

i give this post a +1.



tincopper2
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What if you made a pranks section for files that are obviously pranks?



tidbit
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Why would we want to purposefully allow malicious stuff? And then make it all easy to find so anyone can annoy and/or harm people? There are plenty of online communities for that, join one of them instead. We don't need to ruin AHK's reputation on the homepage.


rawr. be very afraid
*poke*
. Populate the AutoHotkey city. Pointless but somewhat fun. .


DyNama
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I may be one of the members who helped trigger this reaction, as i posted a prank to an old thread entitled "Something to annoy people" just 9 days before this policy was adopted. All i can say is mine wasn't malicious, it was pointless but somewhat fun, and told how to restore everything, but i concede some of the other posts on the thread were downright mean. I'd be surprised if very many computer-illiterate people browse a programming forum, but what do i know? Now i've only got one post in this forum. I'll have to come up with some productive things to post. I'm still a newbie AHK programmer so i'll have problems to overcome soon. Thanx AHK!



tank
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I think these rules should apply on the other forum as well


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tidbit
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I may be one of the members who helped trigger this reaction, as i posted a prank to an old thread entitled "Something to annoy people" just 9 days before this policy was adopted. All i can say is mine wasn't malicious, it was pointless but somewhat fun, and told how to restore everything, but i concede some of the other posts on the thread were downright mean. I'd be surprised if very many computer-illiterate people browse a programming forum, but what do i know? Now i've only got one post in this forum. I'll have to come up with some productive things to post. I'm still a newbie AHK programmer so i'll have problems to overcome soon. Thanx AHK!

Actually, yes. Sort of happy.png Topic of question for any mods looking (it's hidden): http://www.autohotke...-people/page-10

I personally have felt this way since forever, which has been the minority point-of-view. Most moderators want it to be a "on a per-post basis" kind of deal. But since most moderators on this forum have moved over to http://ahkscript.org/boards/index.php and don't care about it over here, I made a poll (in the staff-only section) which got no hits other than my own, so I'm now enforcing my own POV since no one else stepped up and wants to do any work about such things.
 
But your post and a couple others made me re-visit this issue grin.png
Btw: your prank was VERY mean. modifying the registry is bad. then hiding icons and force killing all explorers? really harsh.
Pranks are made for VICTIMS. not yourself. Your victim won't be going onto the AHK forum to find the solution to your "prank".  Only you have the solution. Plus his icons won't be visible, so saving and running your fix will be quite hard.
 
 
tank: I fully agree, but most moderators probably won't as stated above. They want a per-post basis, not a zero-tolerance rule.


rawr. be very afraid
*poke*
. Populate the AutoHotkey city. Pointless but somewhat fun. .


tank
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There are certain things that I as a site owner feel are non negotiable. Posting malicious code, prank or not is not to be tolerated. keyloggers and web site parameter injection is another. Its covered in the foundations page already but a post like this actually in the forum is even better. 

If you see any such a thing on ahkscript.org please feel free to point to out to me. I dont mind the backlash

 

 

 
  • Protects the community from SPAM, violent, derogatory, or any other abusive content.

i consider malicious code keyloggers and scripts to manipulate or iterate parameter values abusive content. as such code abuses a user or a web site owner


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DyNama
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Btw: your prank was VERY mean. modifying the registry is bad. then hiding icons and force killing all explorers? really harsh.
Pranks are made for VICTIMS. not yourself. Your victim won't be going onto the AHK forum to find the solution to your "prank".  Only you have the solution. Plus his icons won't be visible, so saving and running your fix will be quite hard.
 

 

I got caught up in The Programmer's Challenge of getting the original prank to work, I never considered the consequences. I had no intention of pulling it on anybody, and have no access to any other computers. I apologize.



girlgamer
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I agree with you on this, tidbit. There are far too many people out there who think screwing with a "friend's" computer is a perfectly ok thing to do. It's not.  The AutoHotkey community still using this board, and the other one as well, should be aware that once a program or script leaves your machine and get's posted ANYWHERE it is no longer in your control. This is the very reason why the posters here should be aware that posting scripts online for others to use comes with a certain responsibility for how it's used. And the very reason why many games and many anti-virus/anti-malware utilities block scripting languages in general. 

 

DyNama: What's done is done and can't be undone. What you need to do to move forward now is to become an advocate for responsible scriptiing and responsible programming in general. And, without being obnoxious about it, letting people know that most scripters (at least the ahk ones) are real people just trying to help out by scripting real solutions for real problems and not just kids screwing around.

 

Scripting is a relatively easy, low cost, way to learn programming principles and so many young people take it up for the power it brings to broaden computer experience and gain greater control over computer devices. That's another reason why so many heavy programmers that work in 4th generation languages think of scripts written in AutoHotkey or AutoIt as "kiddie scripts". In a way they are, but we all know that not everyone can be or wants to be a professional programmer. This is really the problem we face as a scripting community -- how to live down the bad reputation gotten for us by irresponsible people.

 

More on this at a later time, but i think you all get the sense of where i am in regard to prank or malicious scripts. Now i need to get busy writing a script that will reach through the monitor and strangle those who are messing around with our reputation.


The universe is a wondrous place! The faster you create unbreakable code, the faster the universe creates people that can break it. All scripting follows the rule Rule Of Twos -- 1) Good, 2) Fast 3) Cheap -- pick any Two.
I guarantee absolutely nothing about any code I provide except that it works in my machine. ●
MMO Fighter   KeyLooperDemo   Key Spammer   TinyClickRecorder  GGs Password Generator.ahk
For the newest version of AutoHotkey and some killer scripts go here.
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floodindahood
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Girlgamer, what youre emphasizing is reputation rather than intended/unintended harm.
If the goal is better reputation then it would also mean getting rid of the gaming section as more often than not ahk is used for a variety of "illicit" gaming activities that have gotten .ahk banned from a variety of antihacks, giving it a bad reputation.
I think it would be beneficial for all if it would be further clarified what is considered actually harmful and what isnt.

Since if it remains unclear then some people might consider this as a battle for better reputation as well creating the problem of fanatics defending it to death.
Alienating a HUGE part of the community.

Just further extrapolating what is ok and what isnt, would clear that problem.

girlgamer
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@Flood, Why can't it be both? Harm and the intent to do harm generally leads to a bad rep even
when unintended. Given that gaming is, for some people, a major reason for learning to script,
the gaming section fulfills a large portion of the learning/tutorial aspect of AutoHotkey
scripting methodology.

Intent is important. If the intent of using an AutoHotkey script is to gain a significant
advantage over other players then the intent violates one of the major reasons for gaming
at all. Just like wall hacks or any other "advantage" utility when
used in-game. For me, as i've said before, I'm partially disabled and generally can't stay online more
than 15-20 minutes at a single sitting. Autohotkey gives me the ability to extend my play time
significantly through the use of simple automation. All the scripts I write require in-game interaction.
AFK botting is not part of what I do at all. Granted some games ban even for that level of automation
and so i tend to avoid those games specifically because I don't want AutoHotkey detected as some
form of cheat software. Intent and reputation are inextricably tied together. In the end when online
all you really have is your "reputation". That's how you're known.

The universe is a wondrous place! The faster you create unbreakable code, the faster the universe creates people that can break it. All scripting follows the rule Rule Of Twos -- 1) Good, 2) Fast 3) Cheap -- pick any Two.
I guarantee absolutely nothing about any code I provide except that it works in my machine. ●
MMO Fighter   KeyLooperDemo   Key Spammer   TinyClickRecorder  GGs Password Generator.ahk
For the newest version of AutoHotkey and some killer scripts go here.
Rock-on%20kitten.gif


floodindahood
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I'm just giving my 2 cents to maybe make the future of this forum a bit brighter.. rather than an asinine battle to enforce a vague, ever shifting gray line in every mods' and members' head which this very likely will end up as if you add (potentially) reputation harming behavior to what was a relatively clear stance.



tank
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I agree that gaming draws a certain crowd. but i must if i say that hang my head in shame as well for participating so heavily early on with teaching how to manipulate data on web sites. 

 

Those that know, do bear a certain responsibility to filter what we participate in and steer those who would help in potential misdeeds. But as girlgamer said not every one that buys a gun and lears to alter it intends to shoot someone. intent is nearly impossible to anticipate. but it is barely enough to understand what certain means can result in.

 

as i look back i wonder how many people have written spambots after i helped them... I know for certain one script i wrote ended up being used to distribute Virus. at the time it seemed like such an innocent request.

 

 

All that said some things are obvious. Looping a parameter in a URL; disabling something on a users machine; hiding a script from being seen by a user. there are so few legit reasons to do these things that they must be viewed a certain way every time


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tidbit
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Personally I only like 1:1 things for games.

1 key, 1 action. Basically a remap. Sure, it does give you a slight advantage over those who don't have the ability to remap, but I also understand people who do have disabilities (or personal prefs.) would like to play too. They might not be able to use WASD and then press keys like 0 (far away keys) while using the mouse.

 

Once you start doing 1:2+ (1 key, 2+) actions (or bot, or search for pixels or auto fire or rapid fire, etc) thats where I draw the line. Pushing 1 key to do a sequence of keys (lets say 1,2,3,3,1,2 or clickclickclickclickclickclickclick...) is just unfair. perfect delays, no need to pay attention. Just click once and do nothing else. Your skills no longer need skills.

 

 

This topic is more about malicious content though, not game automation/hacks giving AHK a bad reputation. Perhaps this could have a separate topic.


rawr. be very afraid
*poke*
. Populate the AutoHotkey city. Pointless but somewhat fun. .