chatterbot has no XML version

[choroba]

PerlMonks pages can be retrieved in XML with just appending displaytype=xml to the URL query. It works even for users, e.g. me in XML.

For our beloved brother chatterbot, though, this isn't the case. The XML version returns nothing, which breaks the XML parser in pc-cb-g. Why is that?

[marto]

Perhaps because the account is currently locked?"

[hippo]

Seems likely. Another (normal user) locked account I tried also returns no XML.

[jdporter]

Correct. I have just converted that account back to a normal account. Now its xml works.

[cavac]

This post is mostly for information about the accidental account lock, not about the XML view of the homenode.

Just a note here: The most likely reason the chatterbot account was locked was that the Monastery did *exactly* what we would expect under those circumstances. Let me explain:

chatterbot is Level 1: Initiate with no posts. It shouldn't have the ability to have a homenode image (yet it does) and has other limitations. According to jdporter/erzuuli, low/no XP can trigger autolocking under certain circumstances like putting in external URLs. This limits the ability to use the homenode feature for link farming etc, a measure i fully approve.

I just totally forgot that these and similar measures are in place. When i was updating my pagecamel framework (webserver, workers, etc) on the XPD server, i ran into a couple of bugs with the custom "Register" function. So i tried to register chatterbot as XPD user, which includes the step of temporarily putting an ID string into your homenode to verify that it is really your PerlMonks account. The homenode updated, triggered the autolocking feature and the rest is history.

Exactly what of this update triggered the autolock is still not clear to me.

If you have something similar happen to you, best way to solve it is to contact gods to get the account unlocked.

This doesn't really affect user who want to play around with XPD, since the minimums for registration i impose should be way above XP and writeup criterium for the "this is a new spam account" autolocking trigger.

[jdporter]

Exactly what of this update triggered the autolock is still not clear to me

There really isn't anything more to it than that. When a user saves their profile, if it contains a URL and they have low XP, the account gets locked.

[LanX]

> Why is that?

My guess, most locked accounts are spammers.

Locking disabled showing their profile including their spam.

But (IIRC) the xml view used to be a backdoor to read this info even after locking.

I think I mentioned it to the gods and at some time they simply disabled xml for locked accounts.

[choroba]

Makes sense, but a <locked/> would be more user friendly. I expect a valid XML to return...

[LanX]

Well, you are a pmdev ;)