What can we do with the thread "license-m​anager-err​or-9"?

The thread why-do-i-receive-license-manager-error-9 is not useful anymore. The huge page reacts extremely slow and many users add meaningless answers like "license manager 9", "username" or "I like".

The topic is important according to the traffic of this thread. In my opinion this thread is not usable anymore. But how can this be improved?

Answer 1

[DGM]

I know that the prevailing recommendation is to let TMW police their own disaster threads, but I'll still delete anything new that's been copy-pasted from within the same thread. This exact same copy-paste spamming seems to happen in a number of high-viewcount threads regardless of topic. If it's indistinguishable from bot activity, I will treat it as bot activity.

The pointless "i downloaded wrong" sorts of answers remind me of an old excuse generator I used to have on my Mac back in the 90's.

[Jan]

Thanks for your answer. I was more and more confused about the strange contributions in this thread. Assuming dull bots is a plausible explanation. In times of GPT-3 I had the ingenuous hope, that bots are at least as smart as ELIZA.

If this is really noise made by bots, why does this thread attract them, while the rest of the forum isn't affected in the same degree? Can this be used to construct a bot repellent.

[DGM]

Even though that's my working assumption, I honestly don't know why it would be bots; however, I don't know why it would be rational human behavior either. The typical actors are single-use accounts that do not respond to any request for elaboration. If it were bot grooming, why are the bots never reused? It it just simply garbage generation for some petty motive? If it's humans encumbered by a language barrier, then how are they not aware that asking a non-question like "matlab" is ineffective communication in any language? If they were earnestly seeking assistance, why do they never respond? Is it some sort of cultural thing that is so foreign to me that I can't understand its purpose? Despite my decision to discard garbage, it's still a mystery to me why the garbage exists.

It seems to be mature threads with high viewcounts that attracts them. These installation help threads may simply be a target because they are very much both. I'm sure it's more complicated than that, but that's probably part of why they're so bad.

[Jan]

Your working assumption is as plausible as bewildering. I will run the standard checks, if these activities are an attack or communication attempt of extra-terrestrial life forms.

[DGM]

Aliens? Now that's a possibility that I haven't considered... :D

Besides, I told them to contact me directly, so I don't know why they'd be spamming the forum.

Answer 2

[Jestzer]

In my personal opinion, it’d be better off as a documentation page than a MATLAB Answers page.

Answer 3

[Walter Roberson]

Mathworks is actively working on figuring out the best way to clean up those kinds of threads. They need to build some tools first, especially ones having to do with reputation.

I was talking to them about this earlier this week.

[Jestzer]

But then they’ll be doing constant clean up until dev does something about reducing the number of error 9s, right? Unless they make tools that limit comments or something related. But at that point, why bother having it here at all?

[Jan]

@Walter Roberson: Thanks for your answer.

I'm not aware of other threads which are such useless on one hand, but such frequently called on the other hand. The actual useful answers are good and if a Matlab installation is still stubborn, contacting the MathWorks support directly is a fair way.

I'd hesitate to delete all contributions there, if they reduce the quality of the thread, because it would tell the authors, that they have posted junk. But an important thread full of junk is not useful for the readers. But if the admins decide to clean this thread up radically, this would be an advantage for the community.

Reputation? This sounds like an automatic mechanism to prefer some answers. I'd prefer a manual cleaning for such exceptional threads. If MathWorks have to implement some tools at first, I will wait a year or two.

[Walter Roberson]

@Jan

In the Questions that have lots of answers, some of the comments express thanks for something posted before. Mathworks proposes to clean out most of those, but put in a vote for each thing that was being thanked about. To do that efficiently, there need to be better tools for staff to activate a vote on behalf of a user.

[Jan]

@Walter Roberson: Thanks again for the explanations. Such tools are some levels away from my expectations, when I've asked this question. My first thought about "votes behalf of users" was, that this might be an XY-problem. Let's wait and see, how this improves the "-9" thread.

Answer 4

[Jan]

That thread contains serveral useful advices. If they do not help already, contacting the support directly is the best choice.

So I'd remove all contributions, which do not help readers. It seems like these message provoke users to attach more useless information, until the complete thread drowns in noise.

I would not ask, if that thread concerns a typical discussion about eval(), frustration or wishes for future Matlab versions. Such topics are not "urgent". But newcomers, who stuck during the installation need fast and clear help. How disappoiting, if they search help in the forum and get lost on that strange thread also.

[Jestzer]

I agree. What’s worse is that users of Firefox are sent to the very end of the page on every MATLAB Answers link, so chances are, they’ll have scroll all the way to the top (which is hundreds of comments) to see the helpful information.

[Image Analyst]

@Jestzer Same here. And the Mathworks developers know about it because I've been bugging them for years about the "Firefox scrolling bug" problem. The only workaround now is you have to go to the very top and click on the link beside the original poster's name to get you to the correct place. That seems to always work, while clicking on the latest activity link from the main list of all questions will not put you at the right place if you're using Firefox.

Like Walter said there are discussions going around some moderators and MATLAB Central Mathworkers about how to do this and who should do it. It's not an easy job, not just because there are so many garbage posts ("Me too", "Send me the code", same question, etc.) in so many discussion threads, but also because it can come down to a judgment call as to whether to cull a post or let it remain. And you're right. Once cleaned up, bad posts will continue to be posted. It's like shoveling your driveway while it's still snowing.

[Jan]

@Image Analyst: A least the repeated copy or screen shots of the error message without any additional information could be deleted directly. Together with answers like "I am a student" or "MATLAB Staff" this would remove about 30 or 40 messages without loosing any information.

I've removed some completely meaningless message as "I like" in the past. But I'd prefer to let the admins do this for 40 contributions.

In other threads some editors use flags to get at least the confirmation of a 2nd editor, that deleting a message is useful. This might solve the problem in this thread also without the need to invent new tools (mentioned by Walter). But, sigh, setting 40 flags would be a lot of noise also...

Answer 5

[Jan]

From a discussion in the comments on the concerned page:

Jestzer on 28 Feb 2023 at 23:32

This is already in the answer. Why did you make another answer with the same content?

DGM on 1 Mar 2023 at 0:52

Whether it's some sort of bizarre human behavior or bots with no plausible purpose, it's fairly common to see fresh single-use accounts posting random copy-pasted chunks of text or code from within the same thread. Every now and then you'll find one that dumps multiple copypasted answers before going dormant. It's typically not formatted, but this one is.

I normally would delete things that follow this pattern, but upon recommendation, I'm leaving these official installation threads alone.

You're free to assume that they're human, but as a general rule, accounts posting unembellished copypasta won't reply if you ask questions. Alternatively, you could flag it as a trivial duplication of existing content (use a permalink to the original) and let someone else decide how it should be dealt with. Just something to keep in mind as you browse. You seem like someone inclined to be helpful.

Jestzer on 1 Mar 2023 at 21:34

Why would somebody make a bot to perform this action, though? Human or not, the whole thing confuses me. I'm pretty sure if I went through and responded to the echo-chamber of, "Why am I getting this error?" almost nobody would actually respond back, which makes sense, since they completely missed the accepted answer.

I'll keep the flagging in mind, though. Thanks for that tip.

DGM on 1 Mar 2023 at 22:32

It's a mystery I've not witnessed on any other forum -- both the simple copy-pasting and the broader "please give me information which I already have but won't read" behavior.

I don't know why anyone would make bots that do this. Sometimes you'll see bots grooming each other in order to gain privileges, but that's not the case with single-use accounts. It's worth noting that other than the installation threads, the worst places I've found for copypasta are certain machine learning threads.

On the other hand, I don't know why a human with a sincere need for information or a desire to help would go through the hassle of opening a new account only to copy-paste a random chunk of text and then disappear forever. Part of me wonders if certain courses require students to participate in the forum as part of a project. That sounds like a stretch, but this would certainly be an obvious outcome of such a requirement.

Either way, it's tantamount to any other kind of spam. If it's indistinguishable from bot activity, that's how I'll treat it.

[DGM]

... I guess that's one way to move it :/

[Jan]

@DGM: I hope this is okay for you.

[DGM]

I don't have a problem with any of it. I think I was just secretly hoping that there was a better way of moving between threads that I didn't know about.

The wording of the "direct link" option in the move dialog (incorrectly) appears to suggest that it allows the user to move answers to specific questions. That is to say "this question" means "the current question" and not "the specified question". That had me so confused and disappointed that I was kind of hoping I was wrong.

[Rik]

I believe they are working on that option becoming available, which is why the dialog box is worded like that. Apparently everything is a lot more complicated to implement than you would expect.

[DGM]

I thought I had read something suggesting that it was considered, but I couldn't remember where. I can imagine that it would be a mess, especially the prospect of moving things to a new question.

That would have at least as much utility, considering how many threads are actually composed of multiple substantial threads branching from questions-as-answers. I have a few messes I created myself by answering old things I find. I've created at least one new question before as a way to post answers, but I don't like losing the original or reposting it verbatim under my name.

As much as I'm eager for more abilities to help organize things, there are a lot of tangled threads that I think will always be unfixable, and there are threads full of samey questions-as-answers that don't warrant the creation of countless new questions.