cjcox wrote:
> (courtesy of the pirate translator)
LOL!!!
–
palladium
RichardET wrote:
> living in the USA one’s whole life as I have,
> tends to weaken one’s critical thinking capacity, thus it is quite
> refreshing to read comments which are completely irreverent towards
> cherished USA institutions and corporations.
i grew up in the Memphis area and lived maybe places in the central
time zone…and, have lived mostly outside of the USA since '88, and
continuously outside since '94 (still visit and remain a citizen) and
just want to confirm your notion that where you have been and where
you sit absolutely has an affect on how you think, and what you think
about the cherished ideals of your youth…
Arrr
–
palladium
Of course these threads are per se not a problem. But I do understand the issue. If you have a multinational site you may swiftly incurr into rude discussions that in the end would only reflect the respective “local filter on information of the governing cast” (where this sentence is applicable on ALL States without exclusion of any kind, not even of the most worshipped “democracies”). At the end it boils down to a question of governability of the site.
The issue is that if you block these threads, this is IMHO O.K. if you have T.O.Rs requiring it. What is problematic is the selective censorship or even worse the entire elimination of a thread (while one can be absolutely O.K. with the blocking of a thread that runs out of direction).
There was a proposal from Knurpht to post in the “about forum section” and today I did reflect on this. There are several reasons why a current user of this forum would not want to do it. I give a try:
a) the general chit-chat has a substantially higher visibility. It is therefore improbable that a user will do proposals of this kind “if he does not agree on the way rules are applied”.
b) there cannot be a discussion about a subjective decision. There can only be a debate, and that cannot be in the sense of a successful communication, right?
c) the mention about the “critical aspect” of the deletion of a thread is by itself (and wants to be) an input to the forum board. The participative power of the normal user is IMHO not such that he would loose time on trying to change the rules and regulations.
So most users if they do try to change something give at least inputs (like the former comment) in the hope that, if the ability of reading of the adminstrators is strong enough to find, discuss and take action on a content of a thread, then they will also take note of the issue without a written request à la “Kafka”.
@Richard: Irreverent is one thing, agressive and potentially loaden of ideology is another point. It is unfortunate that we cannot find out, if, would the thread have been moderated more soft or at least differtly handled, this might have induced a change of tone from the participants.
In all cases the physical elimination does not leave us and anybody else in the future any possibility to learn for the next time. New flame, new actors, new suppression —close the circle and begin again.
P.S. apropos Pirates: anybody having good contacts to pikatchu “Keira” to arrange for an appointment with me? Don’t be egoists, pirates never are right?
http://http://www.mtv.com/shared/promoimages/movies/p/pirates_of_the_caribbean3/set_visit/281x211.jpg
On Fri, 05 Mar 2010 08:36:01 +0000, stakanov wrote:
> Since this is soapbox I thought that this is well a “strong opinion
> about mostly anything”
Yes, as long as it’s within the T&C.
As a hosted discussion board, the hosts have the authority (and some
would even say the obligation) to maintain a community standard.
That’s where staff comes in.
When members don’t abide by the T&C they agreed to upon entry, then the
staff takes actions to ensure the T&C are being followed. The membership
may or may not agree with them (one thing is for certain, there will
always be some who agree and some who don’t - there’s NO pleasing
everyone).
If you have a beef with staff actions taken, send a PM to a member of
staff asking about why the action was taken. Speaking for myself (and I
believe the rest of the staff would agree, but I won’t speak for them),
I’m happy to explain why I took an action on a thread; as Knurpht said,
there’s staff discussion before an action is taken (a notable exception
is posts that are clearly spam).
I make mistakes sometimes, and if I’ve misread something and acted on it
based on that misreading, I’m happy to make things right (though the
chances of this happening are IMHO small because the staff discusses
before action is taken).
In this case, the decision to remove the thread was IMHO appropriate
because the discussion started getting into politics, with discussion of
specific political ideologies and (as I recall) politicians. That
clearly crosses the line even for soapbox.
In my mind, the T&C boil down to this:
- No politics or religion.
- No personal attacks (or as I occasionally put it, “keep it about the
technology, not the people”) - No spam
- Stay legal - and be aware that what you say might be legal where you
are but not where others in our audience are (so for example, discussion
of DeCSS or WEP cracking would be disallowed even if it’s legal where you
are) - To borrow the openSUSE motto, “Have a lot of fun” (in other words, if
you’re angry and you’re posting, think about what you’re saying before
hitting ‘post’ lest your anger come through by getting personal, for
example).
Jim
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Nobody said anything different, we were referring to my recent contribution in this thread (with a critique that seems to me at least) politically correct.
In this case, the decision to remove the thread was IMHO appropriate
Having read the thread (which would have been normally impossible - and that was the point of the critique - because of deletion) I totally agree.
- Stay legal - and be aware that what you say might be legal where you
are but not where others in our audience are (so for example, discussion
of DeCSS or WEP cracking would be disallowed even if it’s legal where you
are)
You see: this is another rubber paragraph. I love this because it shows the limit of so called “international political correct thinking and acting”. So…is this so? Then if it IS so you should suppress at least 50 % of the soapbox entries because of free opinion. Surprise, the forum is read in a large Asian country (where this (free opinion) is sometimes “de facto” illegal). I recall also Goggle was compliant to local laws…but faced some doubt recently, did they? :sarcastic:
Now, suppress also all articles on encryption. The use of GnuGPG and of LUKS are illegal in some countries (that have access to Internet) and what about strong encryption…even worse. And no contribution on tor-server please?
Or maybe did you refer only to ONE country as referral point, the one where the servers apparently are hosted (south forge syndrome)? Don’t forget that in a lot of other countries, parts of the software used and discussed here…is simply illegal like all the rest. So why not explicitly stating what is the issue and to who’s law to abide (I love explicit reasoning, implicit reasoning instead is cause of continuous long term problems).
Just to make sure we understand my headache with “rubber” related things. 
http://www.imprintitems.com/sitewide/images/prod/0_sports_skateboard_-surfboard-snowboard-rd157-rubber-_duck_sm.jpg
PS: this is not intended to do a free ride on the difficulty to run a forum like this. But to give a different view about what you seem to perceive as “clear T.O.R.s” and about the consequences of the current practice. It is a invitation to be more explicit, that’s all. And it is a strong opinion, therefore posted here. As usual the Italian language with 2000 years of historical background gives us a bright enlightenment on what could be the “codex of good pirates”: "patti chiari - amicizia lunga" (clear rules, long friendship). And since this seems to be an appropriate moment to say this: thank you for your day by day work on this forum.
On last thought on the ‘rubberish’ part: neither people nor rules can be static. I agree they have to be as clear as possible, for a lot of reasons (continuity is just one of them), but like people they need a bit more. I’d like to bring to mind the phenomenon of ‘crime passsionel’ in France, where a judge has the possibility to discuss the facts with other judges and come to a ‘crime passionel’ judgement, which means the ‘normal’ laws don’t apply anymore.
IMHO your post puts a nice end to this thread, thanks to all for your contributions.
stakanov wrote:
> You see: this is another rubber paragraph. I love this because it shows
> the limit of so called “international political correct thinking and
> acting”. So…is this so? Then if it IS so you should suppress at
> least 50 % of the soapbox entries because of free opinion. Surprise, the
> forum is read in a large Asian country (where this (free opinion) is
> sometimes “de facto” illegal). I recall also Goggle was compliant to
> local laws…but faced some doubt recently, did they? :sarcastic:
> Now, suppress also all articles on encryption. The use of GnuGPG and of
> LUKS are illegal in some countries (that have access to Internet) and
> what about strong encryption…even worse. And no contribution on
> tor-server please?
>
> Or maybe did you refer only to ONE country as referral point,
interesting discussion on the “rubber paragraph”!
and, yes it is obvious this forum was founded in a particular
environment (of free speech, say) yet is served to areas with very
different laws…
and no, i have no idea how to resolve that…
just like five year olds here say words that the forum’s potty-mouth
filter will censor, but i can type ‘filth’ at will in a multitude of
different languages–does that make sense?? and no, i don’t how to
resolve that one either!
i too have pondered just whose ‘law’ should rule the World Wide Web .
… . and have decided if we (as in humanity) have not yet figured out
how to live together without killing each other in reality, we are not
likely to yet be ready to respect or embrace each others ‘laws’
virtually…
so, i guess we all ought to revert to strongly encrypted messages so
we can do/say what we want, wherever we are, in complete safety from
those who would restrain our freedoms!
Anarchy for all, and to all a good night. 
–
palladium
On Sat, 06 Mar 2010 07:36:01 +0000, stakanov wrote:
> You see: this is another rubber paragraph. I love this because it shows
> the limit of so called “international political correct thinking and
> acting”. So…is this so?
This is a fair point and a fair question, and not one I have an answer
for off the top of my head; perhaps it is more to do with being legal
where the discussion is hosted; I’ll have to ask around.
Jim
–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Jim Henderson wrote:
> perhaps it is more to do with being legal
> where the discussion is hosted; I’ll have to ask around.
heh! (Tar-Baby alert!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_baby)
remember that line “That depend on what the definition of ‘is’ is.” ??
and, in this case the question “Where is the discussion hosted?” is
the first opportunity to encounter the tar.
of course the discussion is hosted in cyberspace! so, the Unified
Cyberspace Laws, as approved by the United Nations and ratified by all
terrestrial governments must be followed!!
–
palladium
Well, they(the UN)actually proposed something like this, but they are not even get it through with ICANN as it seams. Currently several important member states are not interested in a working UN…so do not expect anything. It boils down to a question of extraterritoriality. Legally,as far as I know, they are currently only obliged to respect the law of the countries the servers are based in. Where apparently there exists a certain “rubber” also there. Faced with the threat to loose even more projects because of where they are based, Southforge substantially applied a “rubber evaluation” leaving it to the projects to decide if they are accessible by certain states or not (kind of “user knows best”).
@palladium: and then it would be “ratified by all terrestrial member states”. 
stakanov wrote:
> @palladium: and then it would be “ratified by all terrestrial member
> states”.
no, i wrote what i intended to write as i wanted to include even
those governments which are not a UN member state…since the
non-members also have internet nodes… and as if getting all of the
member states to agree is not enough of a problem, i wanted to make it
REALLY impossible to have a Unified Cyberspace Law…
–
palladium