Yes
And we don’t need to encourage any more rants than we already have to deal with.
They mostly end up being moderated.
And guess what, we got enough on trying to do positive things like help folk. So NO is my answer to the OP
On Fri, 19 Nov 2010 02:00:02 +0000, Rikishi42 wrote:
> (really, genuinly) Sorry to say it, but that sounds like a managment’s
> point of view. I don’t believe they deserve a place in an open source
> project. They almost suggest the commnity should serve the team, rather
> than the other way round.
It’s a topic that comes up. oldcpu’s view is different than mine; while
I have questioned the existence of the soapbox forum specifically myself,
neither is in any danger of going away anytime soon.
You’re right, community is about more than just support. That’s why
those forums exist. But we do ask that people keep the discussions civil
and follow the rules that have been set down, because just as there is
the opportunity in those areas to build a community, there is the
opportunity to destroy the community.
Jim
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C
On Fri, 19 Nov 2010 00:06:01 +0000, consused wrote:
> gropiuskalle;2254513 Wrote:
>> It’s up to the mods and admins to set up rules, period. This does not
>> touch “freedom of speech” at all…
>> …Frankly, chit chat and soapbox are one reason why I have very mixed
>> feelings towards forums.opensuse.org. I do visit six or eight forums
>> regularly, and f.os.org has by far the worst ratio of useful posts to
>> trash…
> Did you just tag onto the last post in front of you, without addressing
> the question pertaining to a quote of @hendersj, but why would you? I
> would prefer that you didn’t tag onto my post with your rant about this
> forum, thank you.
Chill out, consused, it’s a conversation…
Jim
–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C
This “freedom of speech”-discussion is quite funny and most likely displaced.
Of course, I don’t know american legislation and IANAL, but I wouldn’t be surprised if things are quite similar as in germany.
-
If you log into a forum, you are a guest and your hosts are the people running that forum.
-
In german legislation, this “virtual” way of being a guest is handled similarily to being a guest at somebody’s house, where the host has a certain amount of additional rights (in german “Hausrecht”) and by that is allowed to -for example- tell you, that you have to leave or even that you are no longer allowed to enter this “house” again (in german “Hausverbot”).
In a nutshell, if I enter your house, complain loudly about the furniture, enter the living room and start pissing on your best sofa, would you allow me to do this as part of my right of “freedom of speech/expression” or would you rather throw me out?
Funny… an active non-technical thread about whether or not to keep non-technical forums?
@consused: as hendersj wrote, it’s a conversation, there’s no need to attack me. My comment was not meant as a rant against this forum. If you feel the need to discuss this, please pm me.
As I said, one way of dealing with rants is to simply close / remove them. Trolls do not like that and (after a while) will move on, at least that’s what my experience as a mod says. There’s no need to accept rants and trollish behaviour as natural and even giving it extra space. Given the cautious ways of moderation here, I am sure the mods and admins here won’t morph into forum cops all of a sudden.
Akoellhs example of “Hausrecht” (“sanctity of the home”) should be considered a bit more, because it shows how simple things actually are. We are guests here.
I rather assumed that to be the case anyway, and would be disappointed to see the thread digress into an appraisal of the staff or the quality of the forum. However, an additional forum is bound to affect the staff, and it is on that basis alone that I make the following point.
Combining the roles of moderating, administering the facility, and maintaining a very high post count must create difficulties. Community discussion sub-fora tend to require more “moderating” than technical support fora, and possibly require a different type of “moderating”. For an analogy, compare the roles of the football/soccer referee, mainly concerned with enforcing rules, versus the rugby union referee who also enforces (more complex) rules as well as having a bigger role in directing the play. In the case of rugby union, the referee’s decision is always respected, rarely disputed, and dissent isn’t tolerated, so the players get on with the game. The analogy ends there, because in our forum a staff member has dual role as referee/player.
I can’t envisage a situation where I would support a “Rant” forum, and believe it would fall into disrepute, ending up as either a padded cell or waste disposal for posts/threads going nowhere. I also see some benefit in confining Soapbox and Chit-Chat to matters concerning the openSUSE project. That would still allow for linux and OSS matters, other distros, hardware, competition, trends and directions etc., but not threads about “giving up smoking” and TV programmes, by way of example. 
It’s not relevant here, and often gets confused with “freedom of information”.
You are a “member” of the forum, subject to house rules, rather like any membership of a real-world club. Members of clubs usually have more rights than “guests” if they are allowed in.
I strongly recommend you never open your house/castle to the general public, you would be in for a shock. I haven’t, but have visited some that have. 
On Fri, 19 Nov 2010 17:36:01 +0000, consused wrote:
> hendersj;2254730 Wrote:
>>
>> That’s fine, but the operators of any online forum have a
>> responsibility
>> to set and enforce rules and a standard of behaviour.
> I rather assumed that to be the case anyway, and would be disappointed
> to see the thread digress into an appraisal of the staff or the quality
> of the forum. However, an additional forum is bound to affect the staff,
> and it is on that basis alone that I make the following point.
>
> Combining the roles of moderating, administering the facility, and
> maintaining a very high post count must create difficulties. Community
> discussion sub-fora tend to require more “moderating” than technical
> support fora, and possibly require a different type of “moderating”. For
> an analogy, compare the roles of the football/soccer referee, mainly
> concerned with enforcing rules, versus the rugby union referee who also
> enforces (more complex) rules as well as having a bigger role in
> directing the play. In the case of rugby union, the referee’s decision
> is always respected, rarely disputed, and dissent isn’t tolerated, so
> the players get on with the game. The analogy ends there, because in our
> forum a staff member has dual role as referee/player.
>
> I can’t envisage a situation where I would support a “Rant” forum, and
> believe it would fall into disrepute, ending up as either a padded cell
> or waste disposal for posts/threads going nowhere. I also see some
> benefit in confining Soapbox and Chit-Chat to matters concerning the
> openSUSE project. That would still allow for linux and OSS matters,
> other distros, hardware, competition, trends and directions etc., but
> not threads about “giving up smoking” and TV programmes, by way of
> example. 
Very well stated and this reflects my feeling quite well.
You may notice that some of staff don’t work to maintain a really high
post count, either - I’m one of those staff members. It’s not because I
don’t have Linux expertise (I’d actually been asked to be a Linux
trainer at one point), but because I focus more on keeping things running
smoothly, and my time is a limited resource.
Was a time years ago when I would be posting > 600 messages a week on
Novell’s CompuServe forums (that should date me). I still watch a few
groups and provide some technical assistance there (Studio is one), and I
keep an eye on forums where there don’t seem to be a lot of answers (more
questions than answers is bad for a community) - but we don’t have many
that are like that (Studio really is the only one that immediately comes
to mind, in fact).
Rants certainly will (and do) take place. I don’t expect that’ll change,
because there are people involved in the community, and who has never
felt the need to rant? Heck, I do as well from time to time.
Jim
–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C
As you might understand, US 1st amendment is only valid for US citizens, and US 1st amendment has no jurisdiction in Europe, BUT, freedom of speech is granted by ‘The Universal Declaration of the Human Rights’, which has jurisdiction in either US and Europe, and in the most civilized places of this world. That was the point, not the US specific stuff.
But I also must warn you that this topic was opened connected to a previous incident on this thread[1].
[1] - No more SUSE
Read above, I think you missed the point about the Freedom of Speech. Forum rules are not the issue (as the topic wasn’t about religion and everything else on the forum rules, it was about not liking openSUSE), but shutting down a forum section because people say not so pleasant things about openSUSE is another. You might not understand this, but in Europe people are actually valued for having their own opinion, and we don’t shut them down because they think differently from us.
The original post that triggered this post was not about those topics, that’s going out of context.
It’s better that they see negative criticism being deconstructed and whatch how ‘pathetic’ some of them is against valid reasons, than just hide things. Our users don’t need to be shielded from bollocks and gossip, they need to be educated in the open source way.
You are wrong, and maybe that kind of sentences should be taken to the Board. Unlike your ego power trip, openSUSE is a community, and there is a Marketing Team, a Strategy Team, and either you like it or not, you MUST comply with the guidelines of the Project. This is not your private playground.
I think you missed a couple of good talks about openSUSE future in the openSUSE Conference in October and how Novell is commited into helping enlarging the user base of openSUSE. This is not done by following blindly one or another ego power trip. This is done as a community, and not only by a couple.
This is actually an interesting thing to discuss, but this is not the right place.
Maybe people should look to the next Strategy Statement from Jos and Thomas Thym (and strategy team) and see if such procedures actually fit. I would also point you to one of the greatest problems in FOSS which is basically something we call ‘contributor burnout’, and you are moving all the pieces so that eventually it’s easier for people to achieve such burnouts, in fact your post could pretty much seen as a pre-burnout fase.
Flamewars happen and will happen always, either in forums, mailing lists, etc. It’s up to us to be superior then them.
Good for you… people who come with the single aim of disrupting the forums stability instead of doing it on a ‘category’ that somehow seems fit for it, they will do it in the threads that are important. You need to have an escape steam valve for people, if you remove it… things will only get worst.
And specially before you write things in a prepotent way, you should mainly consider that openSUSE is not the only the Forums, and that there are superior powers within and guidelines to the project, for which the forums should comply. Like I said, you wrote as if this is your playground… wake up… IT’S NOT!.
Oh please, don’t be so… arrogant, will you? Do you actually think that Europeans are the only ones who understand and value the idea of free speech? Really, this is very much out of place here.
Your idea of deconstructing trollish behaviour sounds very nice in theory, but that hardly happens. Just avoiding these discussions by closing them has nothing to do with the loss of free speech, censorship or “hiding”. The point is to create a forum that is effective, and the goal of this forum is to help people with technical problems. It’s not part of a campaign to show how cool us SuSE-users are in discussing rants.
Edit:
Good for you… people who come with the single aim of disrupting the forums stability instead of doing it on a ‘category’ that somehow seems fit for it, they will do it in the threads that are important. You need to have an escape steam valve for people, if you remove it… things will only get worst.[/QUOTE]
As I already wrote, my experience as a mod is that trolls move when they can not find a platform to spread they rants. In “my” forum we shut those threads down immediately, in case the troll does not adapt, he is banned. Therefore our forum (the most popular SuSE-forum in Germany) has a very good ratio of trollposts to helpful posts.
And by the way, you should actually sign the Guiding Principles of openSUSE before stating such barbarities.
Look at you own user page: https://users.opensuse.org/show/gropiuskalle (feel also free to look at mine).
https://users.opensuse.org/show/gropiuskalle
From the openSUSE Conference 2010 >> Nelson Marques (nmarques/ketheriel).
Unlike of comments and positions made out of thin air… I do have enough stuff to back up my position, and I don’t need to please no one to make my point or to be a cool guy, I need to speak only for what I believe that is benefic for the community! And in that field I don’t need to please no one, in fact I’m known for being ‘polemical’.
And by the way, you should actually sign the Guiding Principles of openSUSE before stating such barbarities.
Whaaa—?
Okay, one of us needs to put his head in a bucket full of ice I think.
As you understand, openSUSE is an international community, there are specific ways to deal with specific issues, and international communities is a fine example of that. That’s one of the fields of expertise I have (Marketing Management).
But since you seem to take the offensive on me… As for the theory not working… you will find a powerfull example that it works on the Fedora Community, that being said, there is no other need of providing more examples. By the way, it’s spelled SUSE and not SuSE, that’s a clear trademark violation, as a SUSE user, you should understand that, it’s a bad example. But then again, I’m not only a openSUSE user… I am also a openSUSE Member and an openSUSE Contributor, though I don’t like to advertise it.
As a personal reply only directed to you… I would point the following:
- You should sign the Guiding Principles before engaging the role of openSUSE Paladin. You can check those on the page bellow:
-
You should also be more open to what people say to you. I am a spectator on this Forum, but I am also a openSUSE Member, which means I actually contribute for openSUSE… and I do this in the area where I have my expertise, Marketing Management, and I even do it as packager and other small stuff. So there is actually a great possibility that within 11.4 you will be using some of my packages
-
I for sure know a bit more about openSUSE’s Strategy, as during the openSUSE Conference I was in a small collaborative event with Thomas Thym and Jos fixing a couple of stuff here and there. And it’s not by silencing people that we will manage to achieve what Novell expects from us, and this is the priority. People who use openSUSE are using a system that benefits from much code improved by Novell (specially at low level) which is a part of the SUSE Linux product, and we as a community should proudly help the sponsor that allows us to have a free operating system that is just awesome.
I don’t think this is a matter of Europe, or Africa, or Asia, or North America …
What annoys ME as a Linux fan, and sometimes also as a moderator, is users who in their frustration against Linux, deliberately insult those who spend countless hours packaging, testing, and supporting the package. And when we as moderators censor the insults we are accused of shutting down openSUSE criticism. … THAT is why IMHO soap box and chit-chat should be on thin ice, and possibly removed, because such frustrated users can not restrain themselves in their insulting pontification.
Many times when a user says openSUSE can not work in function (1) , (2) , (3) they are wrong, and what is really true is THEY the user can not get openSUSE to work in function (1), (2) or (3) (and if they had asked for help they would have had guidance to get it working). Many times the user rants about how distro-x works better for function (1), (2) or (3), when in fact Linux being Linux, openSUSE can do the same, but it does it differently (and a little request for help would have sorted the difference). Many times the users not only say openSUSE can not work in function (1) , (2) , (3) but they then deliberately INSULT the developers (who are upstream and NOT openSUSE) as if openSUSE should control the control the developers, and they deliberately insult the SuSE-GmbH packagers and they deliberately insult those of us on the forum as if the forum is responsible for all aspects of openSUSE. Now it may be function (1), (2) and (3) should be made easier in Linux, and in some case in openSUSE, for users to implement, but insulting people who develop/package/support openSUSE is simply not allowed on our forum when making that point.
These insults in term beget insults from those who are annoyed by being insulted. Its a lose lose scenario. And some might say that lose lose rant scenario is encouraged by us having a “soap box” area.
Let us be clear. Crystal clear. Our mandate is NOT to provide a forum of free speech so frustrated users can insult people. That is against our rules, and as moderators many of us are tired of having a forum area such as SOAPBOX that has abuse in this.
THAT is the ISSUE. It is NOT an issue of discouraging criticism of openSUSE.
NO!! Its an issue that we do NOT allow insults. That HAS to be perfectly clear. Insults are NOT allowed.
You mean I need to take a look into whatever platform Fedora offers to get your point? Gee, talk about “positions made out of thin air”.
Very true, and it is your duty to sue me for that. Go ahead.
I am very glad you are far from advertising it. Indeed you are a good example of humble behaviour indeed. Nice picture btw, and oh so humble.
Hmmm, let’s see… “5148 of 12978 users support the Guiding Principles.” You have a lot of work ahead.
I don’t really get your point. In what way was I not open to an argument? You (or anyone else) have your ideas, I respect them, I have my own. You obviously do not respect them, though.
Believe me, I so totally worship you for your contributions, but you don’t even respect mine. So why should it be of any interest within this thread how much you contribute? It does not matter at all.
Most people haven’t understood that this thread is actually linked to this one: No more SUSE
I believe the author of the thread (since on the thread provided he also mentioned it) has a point, and I interacted on this thread taking as basis the previous one, which seemed to be what the author was based this thread on. So when I spoke about freedom of speech, was about the thread above.
Now… what have I learned from the first thread (No more SUSE)… I learned that user actually installed KDE 4.5.3 and failed to mention it. The reports about the sound issue are already bug reported, and yes seems to be a KDE issue.
For me if someone takes 10 minutes of their time to write on ‘our’ forum, even if it’s bad stuff that we don’t like, he gets attention, and if he spended his time writting that, that’s because at least he might be concerned. There’s other stuff we can take from his post, though most of it is out of our reach because it’s close proprietary software. I can at least take this points:
- Repository upgrade is not friendly for users (zypper dup);
- Users might not know how to handle repository priorities (this is very important for successful distribution upgrades);
- Our users like ‘bleeding edge’ as they are using unreleased features on openSUSE;
- We might need to implement more extensive testing and QA (it’s being worked on);
- Some of our users are short fused when it comes to failure;
- One click install’s (our users slack and most times forget to check requirements like configuring properly the reports);
- We need to educate our users on procedures that lead to this situations.
That’s at least a couple of things I can take from this post: No more SUSE
The freedom of speech is about that post, not about religion, politics or anything else. By signing to this forum the rules are clear.
Going a bit technical on this… openSUSE as any other package of software is taken as a service marketing wise and not as a product for several specific charactristis. As a service, there is a strong point on ‘marketing mix’ about ‘loyalty’ and ‘education’. We have as a part of our task the obligation of educating our users… In showing them how we operate, most times we fail on that.
Now my view about the forums… is simply this… We are a community, as such, we also have the opportunity to share personal experiences and such, this is not new… this is actually a part of documentation about the openSUSE Planet, where it says that’s the place where people can find a bit more personal stuff about our developers, their life and technology, mainly… what’s happening on openSUSE… Why should a forum be different?
Ok, it’s complicated to deal… but look… I keep coming here for one single reason… because I have full trust on the people who run the forums… as I have full trust on people behind openSUSE (else I wouldn’t use it)… It’s been a long ride since SuSE Linux 5.2 around 12/13 years ago…
On the openSUSE Conference, it was awesome because it’s social side was outstanding… If we kill the social side of our community, or if we enforce far too greater ‘censorship’ when it comes to people speaking clearly… we will fail as a community… You have a tool at your hand that is outstanding for building loyalty from our users… please, think a bit on that.
Users with legit problems get help… users willing to learn… get help… users who come for debauchery, gossip and all the rest… usually don’t get help. But it’s also a thing that we must change in the future… we need to be have a pedagogic attitude regarding ‘the open source way’.
They are not aware of what ‘upstream’ means. They haven’t even readed the License which is very clear about warranty. I don’t work for SUSE, I’m a normal user which has some know-how to help here and there. I don’t care if they insult me… because for every insult I get, probably there’s like 5 other happy users giving me motivation to keep on the good work.
I shouldn’t probably say this, but I did worked giving end-user 1st line support for Logitech and Plextor, and I know end-users reactions very well… And though I had training to sort many things out, end users only expect one thing in most of the cases: a miracle… which many times doesn’t happen. And another thing which is very important, they will NEVER tell you what they really did, because in most times, they don’t even know it ;).
But nevertheless, user feedback, positive or negative is always welcome and we can work with it, even based on trolls. Marketing Management isn’t a science, it has pieces of several sciences, like Psychology, Anthropology, Management, Finance, Marketing, etc. Though I’m not a Psychologist, I could trace a pretty accurate profile of most users blabering around… which is awesome, as they will never notice, but there’s actually people looking into them and profiling them so that we can provide a stronger message and work out the flaws we identify.
You take away the soap box, and they will move on to other part of the forum… then you remove the other part… and we grow thin on options… And keep in mind, by removing it from the forum, you will be indirectly sending them a message (at least to pure trolls): You win (the trolls). How can we benefit from it?
Dude, insults are not socially accepted, and we expect normal social skills… on the other hand, not everyone is english native speaker, and I was already a couple of times victimized from it… A simple demonstration… the word ‘retard’:
In Portuguese, ‘retard’ has 6 adjective forms and 1 noun form. It’s not offensive as it can be:
- Someone who arrives late at a meeting;
- Someone who is a slow worker;
- Someone who has a psychological disturbance (20% of Europeans have psychological perturbations, being one of the most common the depressions);
There are countless examples for it… I noticed on this forum that for English speakers it has a very negative connotation… I’ve learned from it… So we for sure need to have a bit more of attention when judging and enforcing policies. I could’ve been owned by something which on my day-to-day life is pretty normal (the usage of the word ‘retard’).
Considering the post I mentioned before, which I believe to have triggered this one, I didn’t felt insulted at all, as most developers wouldn’t. The fact that the user has neglected valuable information like being testing KDE 4.5.3 (which the sound part is a known bug being worked on) is interesting… But nevertheless, we need that kind of feedback.
By the way, I do have a very ‘vertical’ speech, so please don’t feel offended by anything I type, I usually tend to very vertical and straigt because there’s always a goal in every sentence I write.
About insults… that fits in non-social acceptable behavior and on the Guiding Principals and so on… so it’s more than covered, and I only can say that I trully agree with you.
Now my opinion: We should actually as a community have a more social side. You will see most likely that in the future to happen on the standard openSUSE message. I’m totally against removing soap and stuff because those some might troll it, others actually have a more decent use for it… aren’t we placing too much importance around trolls that we are stripping legit users from a cool resource they could use to keep up a more social side within openSUSE ? I would rather have to deal with trolls with an iron fist, than hurting legit users through removing a resource they might use.
On Fri, 19 Nov 2010 21:06:02 +0000, ketheriel wrote:
> As you might understand, US 1st amendment is only valid for US citizens,
> and US 1st amendment has no jurisdiction in Europe, BUT, freedom of
> speech is granted by ‘The Universal Declaration of the Human Rights’,
> which has jurisdiction in either US and Europe, and in the most
> civilized places of this world. That was the point, not the US specific
> stuff.
Sure, we’re an international community. That still doesn’t remove the
responsibility from the forum owners/operators to set and enforce a
standard of conduct.
My posting had the caveat that “Free Speech (in the US)” has to do with
government censorship. I think you’ll find that the UDHR also pertains
to government censorship and not the right of a host (be it physical or
virtual) to say what is and isn’t acceptable in their venue.
Jim
–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C
On Fri, 19 Nov 2010 21:36:03 +0000, ketheriel wrote:
> Unlike of comments and positions made out of thin air… I do have
> enough stuff to back up my position, and I don’t need to please no one
> to make my point or to be a cool guy, I need to speak only for what I
> believe that is benefic for the community!
I think you will find that staff here also has sufficient backing for
their point of view.
These forums are operated for the benefit of the community, but make no
mistake that the rules exist for a reason, and they will be followed.
We can disagree on things without being unfriendly.
Jim
–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C