Including ROAd-Block in uBlock is a mistake

[zosoro]

My name is Vali Petcu, i am the current maintainer of the original Romanian adblock block list (called ROLIST) for uBlock/APB. I took over the list a few years ago from the original creator, because he did not have the time to maintain it. The list was removed from uBlock following a series of actions and accusations from the creators of ROAd-Block on uBlock and APB forums. Nobody bothered to contact me, they just believed what these guys were saying and removed it.

Three reasons behind my opinion that including ROAd-Block in uBlock is a mistake:

1. a list of sites that don't have banners, but are sort of "fake news not really". some of them reinterpret the news, some of them advocate anti-vaccinations. the creators of ROAd-block act as gods and decide what is write and what is wrong.

those sites are listed under ! Lista cu site-uri flaguite de verificasursa.ro

and banning articles just because they feel like it. example here: https://github.com/tcptomato/ROad-Block/commit/26024265bf8134f180409d21aef13a83b195454b#diff-54f3e942e626a902676947216ac757d0

2. banning of affiliate systems by default, not just the banners, everything. affiliate links are a money maker for some publishers and bloggers,

3. insisting on blocking just about everything on my blog and other popular romanian blogs, from the logo to the comment voting buttons.

an example can be seen here https://github.com/tcptomato/ROad-Block/commit/8b58abe853669b3913eb89bfbf297d52faf65c92#diff-54f3e942e626a902676947216ac757d0

[tcptomato]

No, it wasn't removed due to our accusations. It was created due to the lack of a Romanian one after yours was removed. https://github.com/uBlockAdmin/uBlock/issues/693

1. The verificasursa topic was addressed here https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/3603, and this is why the light version exists. And other filters are allowed to do it. indystar.com is blocked by "hpHosts’ Ad and tracking servers"

The article wasn't banned on purpose and the mistake was corrected as soon as we were made aware of it. You even link to the fix

2. "affiliate links are a money maker for some publishers and bloggers". So your list is blocking these by mistake?

   realitatea.net##a[href^="http://l.profitshare.ro/"] teotrandafir.com##a[href^="http://profitshare.ro/"] playtech.ro##a[href^="http://profitshare.ro/"]

(LE: profitshare is also blocked in "MVPS HOSTS")

3. The imgur filter was discussed here https://github.com/tcptomato/ROad-Block/issues/14 . And its wildcard form is because you didn't keep your word and continued posting ads on imgur. This being the reason your site is banned there, so your complaint is kind of baseless.

Your logo and commets are blocked ? Then what are these?

@@||zoso.ro/wp-content/themes/zoso4/images/logo.png @@||zoso.ro/wp-content/plugins/comment-rating/images/1_14_up.png @@||zoso.ro/wp-content/plugins/comment-rating/images/1_14_down.png @@||zoso.ro/wp-content/plugins/comment-rating/images/1_14_gray_up.png @@||zoso.ro/wp-content/plugins/comment-rating/images/1_14_graydown.png @@||zoso.ro/wp-content/plugins/classic-smilies/img/icon*.gif

If some non-ad element on your site is broken, fell free to submit an issue and a fix.

[zosoro]

The clever plot on which u started bashing me anonymously everywhere while creating ur list at the same time. A coincidence. This accusation is supported by how u aggressively block each one of my blogger friends.

1. ublock blocks banners, does not do journalism.

2. those were banned for misleading readers. i also block affiliate banners, not the whole service.

3. i had one banner, simple, no animation, and u insisted on harrasing me. sure, no intention, just checking my blog every hour and blocking it. then aggressively block each one of my blogger friends.

plus, u have a fake name (sort of a john smith of germany) and you stole a lot from my list.

[tcptomato]

I know you have the impression that the universe revolves around you, it doesn't. I don't hide behind anonymity, even if you don't believe that. I block advertising and trackers that I find or are reported to me, not everything (example https://github.com/tcptomato/ROad-Block/pull/8, a request to block your friends' site which I rejected). Not exactly my fault you have an active fanbase which reports your every ad.

1. Ublock blocks whatever you tell it to. I gave you an example of a base filter blocking a newspaper.

2. Hiding profitshare links behind URL shorteners is not misleading? And if the person wants to use that link he is free to click on the whitelist buttons.

3. You said that ublock is for blocking banners. Now you complain I blocked banners?

what do you mean with I block your blogger friends? I block ads on their sites? Kind of the point of an adblocker ... And again, thank your fan base.

Yes, I have a fake name. How clever of you to see through it.. And if I stole from you, maybe you shouldn't have blocked your own ads ... And on the topic of stealing, it's nice to have people "finding things on the internet" for you. Like during the anti-adblock on emag . Link here. And I kick puppies. And also voted for PSD.

[zosoro]

I didnt say universe revolves around me, i said while anonymous users were making false claims to get my list kicked out of uBlock, other anonymous users were making another list. And that passport is nice, i can show you one claiming my name is Tomato Bohn. we talked about ur fake name before, a german with no other activity on the romanian interned does an adblock list the same time some people hiding under fake names report my list for false problems all over (damn that "he whitelisted a bank website, kick him off ublock" was clever).

1. i know what ublock blocks. i said it's wrong to ban sites for opinions by default.

2. i know the rhetoric, but i also know few people will do that. but instead of blocking banners, you decided nobody should eat.

3. i said you were extremly fast into blocking my one banner, which shows how biased you are.

yes, you did steal from my list over and over again. and my will to debate this with you ends here. i am waiting for some ublock contributors opinion.

[tcptomato]

You're delusional.

[robotanto]

ITT Zoso tries keeping his list up so he and his friends can continue their dirty link-hiding ad shenanigans.

[OogieBoogieInJSON]

@tcptomato thank you for your work. Let's keep the list as it is. @zosoro please follow the contributor guidelines before submitting any issue. Thank you.

[eduard1337]

@zosoro have a sweet biscuit instead. stop trying to make $$ with your ads.

[ealexandru]

@tcptomato The list is great as it is. If @zosoro doesn't like something, he should contribute to it.

[zajinx]

@zosoro give up on this crappy service if they support this kind of behavior remove yourself from their presence

@robotanto and @eduard1337 2 nonamers with fresh accounts...

p.s. i am not a user of such s...y service and never will be, uBlock more like "I block you"

[Acsigen]

Leave the list untouched, it prevents fake-news and annoing ads to spread.

[ioannedelea]

Why fix something if it ain't broken? I use ROAd and I'm happy with it.

[t3chm4g3]

ROAd ftw!

[vasuba228]

Help me to do phone number verification

On 3 Apr 2018 00:02, "t3chm4g3" notifications@github.com wrote:

ROAd ftw!

— You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.

[elaur]

@zosoro I think you are a mistake here. How you could come here to report a list for something what is meant to do. The list used in uBlock is the light version https://github.com/tcptomato/ROad-Block/blob/master/road-block-filters-light.txt which is blocking just ads and websites what is hosting malware, spyware, adware... . ROad-Block is an open list where everybody can contribute anytime they want. Please grow up.

[arha]

Dear @zosoro, welcome to github and congratulations on your first post!

Please make sure you understand how git actually works, because @tcptomato is not blocking an article on his own discretion, the article was blocked previously, and @tcptomato is whitelisting the website (unblocking the website, removing the block). That is what the red line means, that is also what the comment of the commiter says: "Remove random article".

Unless, of course, you do understand how git and version control works, and you are simply trying to mislead less technical into believing @tcptomato is actually blocking a random website to support your argument. Because he is not blocking the website, quite the opposite, and if you do understand how git works, you are using a shady debate tactic.

Furthermore, the whole argument that they act as "gods" does not stand. Those sites exist in a separate list. The user is not informed about that list, and without manually installing it himself, he will only get the "light" list, which does not block the websites you mention.

I am referring of course, to this commit https://github.com/tcptomato/ROad-Block/commit/26024265bf8134f180409d21aef13a83b195454b#diff-54f3e942e626a902676947216ac757d0

Original comment at my time of posting this!

Edited: Your third argument is also flawed "blocking everything on my website":

a) the revision you posted is old and outdated: August, 2016. https://github.com/tcptomato/ROad-Block/commit/8b58abe853669b3913eb89bfbf297d52faf65c92#diff-54f3e942e626a902676947216ac757d0 The leaderboard line is removed in the current revision, and attention is drawn to this particular comment, "! Poftim si leaderboardul daca asta te face fericit" - which, although seems like a beef between you and the developer, is long gone and removed from the current version. In software version control and bugtracking, we should always use the latest revision.

b) and you were using, again, a shady tactic that I do remember seeing: bypassing adblocking by hosting ads on imgur.

Regarding your second argument, "banning of affiliate systems by default, not just the banners, everything. affiliate links are a money maker for some publishers and bloggers", this is what the list does.

While 1 and 3 are technically flawed and misleading using dirty maneuvers, your second argument boils down to a blogger's income vs the users' comfort. Why would I want to not ban affiliate ad links on an ad blocker? They take me through a few pages (which sometimes do pop-unders), generate extra traffic, slow down page loading times and they sometimes crash/get lost; furthermore, in my experience, the redirecting pages almost always steal focus. They are ads, and bad ones.

I am annoyed when clicking on affiliate links by mistake, and always have to make an active effort to avoid them, due to said behavior; while also trying to select/copy the product (that piqued my interest) without actively triggering the ad. The list makes it easy for me, and its job is to block ads. This is good for the users. People who want to support bloggers through affiliate links can whitelist their favourite blogs themselves.

Again, this is good for the users. One can safely assume those who install an adblocker want ads blocked and less disruptive behavior, your argument basically suggests that they should see some ads and allow some disruptive behaviour, so the authors can monetize their content, even by the users' mistakes.

Regarding your personal attack against a German having no interest in Romania except a fake passport and a personal attack against you, you are probably aware Romania has an ethnic Saxon population, even our current president is one. Germans also use Otto Normalverbraucher or Max Mustermann for John Doe, not Bohm Thomas Walter. The guy was kind enough to show you his passport, do you honestly believe he'd take the time to fake one just to prove an argument? On Github?

[zosoro]

@arha, before being wrong and condescending, click on my profile and look bottom right to see how old this account is. this will prevent further smartass assertions.

yes, i am aware who is the Romanian president. i am also aware that, if i wanted to create a fake persona online, i would go to length to create a fake identification document, for such cases as this one or when facebook asks for my id. again, the coincidence of him and his list appearing at the same time an anonymous PR campaign against me and my list is just too great. he claims he search for and found why the list was not included. seems legit. at the same time? copying a lot from my list? are we kids here, hiding with weak arguments?

lets go into the funny one.

That is what the red line means, that is also what the comment of the commiter says: "Remove random article".

so, he removed the line/article, everything is fine, right? minimum cognitive functions would make a person wonder why was that line (and many others) put there in the first place. basic thinking.

last one: tomato tried to gain support on reddit for his list. there people explained to him banning affiliate networks entirely is a mistake. he had no answer for that. i understand ur point, hiding ads under url shorteners and other similar tactics is wrong. but i have a problem with "i read the article on the blog and made an effort to not click the link, as i dont want to maybe give the writer any money, even if its not coming out of my pocket", which a lot of you use as an excuse for yourselves. this is typical rodditor behavior, which is so strange, as most of them are programmers and other creative professionals and should understand why and how wrong is this. in case you dont, and i suspect you don't, let me spell it out for you: you work as a programmer for a software that people use without paying for it (aka pirating), how long will you still have a job? exactly. here you go, typical rodditor behavior: https://www.facebook.com/zoso.ro/photos/pb.487988691265255.-2207520000.1522724840./1864478066949637/?type=3&theater

[robotanto]

i understand ur point, hiding ads under url shorteners and other similar tactics is wrong

Then why the fuck are you doing it? Stop being a shitstain.

[mapx-]

Could you move your "discussion" back to reddit ?

[arha]

This will be a bit long. Zosoro was the maintainer of the adblock and he was accused of whitelisting his own website, and he reacted negatively when pointed out. This happened several times. What he refers to as "a series of actions and accusations", were basically him being caught red-handed by @gorhill. He proceeded to delete the offending links (below), and has appealed by hiself or has appeared in appeals by others to reinclude his own list.

He is a popular blogger, stating that he has been earning a good living for the past 10 years just blogging. His pain point is that a specific scheme of monetization, affiliate links (profitshare.ro) is now blacklisted, and users are shown the uBlock warning when clicking on his links.

I believe zosoro is the wrong person to argue against this merge, for the reasons below - not only he is directly impacted, but he has attempted to sway this balance in his favor before, when he had the power to do so.

Because of his ad shenanigans, I always had my own block list which I shared in a closed group. My friends improved on it, but RoAD is superior. Umerging RoAD would mean that many, many more affiliate links (and regular ads) will pop up from the Romanian web; merging back his list might eventually balance the ad revenue to his blog, as it once happened.

Since I will describe some of the things he did in the most neutral tone I could find, I will mention here I do not enjoy his content, and it bugs me a bit that he finds ways to monetize his users without their knowledge. I do not wish him to go out of business, but I simply wish to have the option to opt-out of his ads and earn him income (and everybody else who uses similar practices). Ad-blocking is obviously a cat-and-mouse game.

0. I use adblocking to choose who gets paid

This might be unethical. But hosting is ten bucks a month, cheaper if you know how to provision things well; if you need more power than that, than you got yourself enough traffic to get $10 flowing in from some non-ads blocking traffic or through other means.

1. I believe I shouldn't pay for content if I am not informed that I have to pay for it, regardless of how I pay. RoAD enables me to do this.

Do you believe browser mining should run for whatever reason the webmaster provides? Maybe, barely, under your control - if you enjoy the content and can control the load. Maybe, right? Affiliate links are not that bad, but I still go through ads and don't know I'm earning the webmaster money. We block the first, not only because of the damage, but because it's unethical, and because an adblocker allows you to choose who gets income.

Masked affiliate links makes all recurring users pay him, eventually, without their knowledge. They have to opt-out to choose not to see his ads and earn him income. With this RoAD merge, this is inconvenient for him, because they now have to opt in to be monetized, or see a scary warning screen before navigating through his ad. This service allows users to be tracked for 30 days - this will be blocked if you have the RoAD enabled - 30 days from his ads on some major retailers here in Romania, so if you (mis)click a link and shop in the next month, he gets a commission.

He is not explicitly stating that his work is to be paid for, yet he is monetizing every visitor, without their understanding. Some of his scripts are even highlighting random words in his articles or (!) his own comments and creating affiliate links for them.

He is a popular blogger, #3 on t5.ro in blogging, and #180 in Alexa for Romania, navigating around - you are bound to reach his website. In my case, I'm not a particular fan of him, and I want to choose not to support him. However, he still monetizes me, without my consent. I believe this to be wrong: if his content is premium, it should be behind a paywall, and show that - it shouldn't be in the open. My browser, my rules. A moral standpoint is arguable on both sides though: a) if I choose not to pay him, it's not piracy. I might choose to pay him if that would be an option (I won't, but I do pay for content makers I enjoy) - but with the affiliate links scheme, I don't know if I'm earning him income. b) however, it is still fair that he can earn money through my visits. Personally, I chose my position by installing an adblocker, he, however, wants to override it.

2. Any other monetization model than affiliate ads would obviously hurt his business

Going premium on his users, paid-membership only, or non-paid-members having a 3-day delay on articles - would not only decrease the income from casual readers but also decrease the relevance: most of his posts are social commentary and current events; three days old that only paying member get to see? Hard to sell to the non-payers.

3. I use ad blocking to choose whom I pay, this RoAD merge enables this

I used to distribute my own private blacklist, now people can just enable RoAD.

I understand his issue though: before RoAD people had to opt-out, so he could have income from some of the non-supporting visitors, now people have to opt-in, they see the ads with their consent. His website is public - earning on my back without my consent is unwarranted. This is not specifically against him, but some other major romanian websites do it too.

I can only see this as a plea to let his ads through.

I support things I enjoy through Patreon. I do not subscribe to the piracy philosophy. It's arguable that I'm pirating something if I'm adblocking it and refusing to monetize the website owner,

4. He was in several conflicts of interest regarding ad lists he managed, and ruled against improving the ad lists and in his favor

Some time ago, somebody pointed @gorhill to a conflict of interest: zoso, a very popular blogger, who acknowledged having the blog as the main income for the past 10 years, was in control of the most popular ad blocking list used by uBlock, which also happened to whitelist ads on his website. His comment highlighted issues with everything else but his source of income, while also insulting the one who reveled the problem. Instead of, at least acknowledging the issue, and proving that he supports adblocking while also making money from ads, he used a lesser known affiliate URL to get away to whitelisting his website while pretending he fixed the original issue. He was pointed out again, and he lashed again at the user.

after this, @gorhill removed him as the list manager, as zoso says:

The list was removed from uBlock following a series of actions and accusations from the creators of ROAd-Block on uBlock and APB forums. Nobody bothered to contact me, they just believed what these guys were saying and removed it.

However, they weren't a list of accusations, he was caught ruling in his favour - whitelisting himself - in a conflict of interest. People got less adblocking for months, for many sites, so he could do more of his zoso project. Arguably, the quality of uBlock for users of his list went downhill.

The incrimnating links @gorhill ruled as evidence this and this went down from his website (link to archive.org)

The reason why I'm writing this is that his post is framed as a mistake, with arguments which one might take for granted, but it's more like lobbying. To me, it's like a request for an adblocker to not block his ads.

5. And on his own adblock list, this.

playtech.ro##a[href^="http://profitshare.ro/"] teotrandafir.com##a[href^="http://profitshare.ro/"] realitatea.net##a[href^="http://l.profitshare.ro/"]

Taken from his own list, published on your website @ 2018-04-03 13:07:00 GMT+3, duplicated here

[zosoro]

@arha, you wrote 4 times that i was caught whitelisting myself. can you please point out where and how i did that? i mean, other than writing a long response and kissing up to @gorhill.

and yes, i am still waiting for a logical response for the above topic. especially this

so, he removed the line/article, everything is fine, right? minimum cognitive functions would make a person wonder why was that line (and many others) put there in the first place. basic thinking.

[robotanto]

gets evidence asks for evidence

Id ask if you are retarded but we all know the answer to that.

[gorhill]

Locking due to this polite suggestion being disregarded.

[gorhill]

The list stays in uBO by the way, so far there is good argument made to have it removed from the stock filter lists.