Arch Linux

wdemoss

Member

From: WV - USA

Registered: 2004-01-18

Posts: 222

Re: Forum etiquette, or how to be civil.

more people, more laws, more police, more trouble

i'm not sure who said it (Plato? Sokrates?) but there is a saying:
"The best way to run a civilisation is to teach the people live civilised. Where there are laws, there are bad people and where there are bad people, there is bad atmosphäre and trouble." (german to english translation out of my remembering how this saying goes ... i hope you get the message)

I'm pretty sure of the two it would have been Plato since he had the bad habbit of confusing cause and effect. In the stories involving Socrates, he never actually stated anything to my recollection, he only questioned others arguments to lead them unwittingly to thier own apparent contradictions. But I could be wrong....

If looking for new mods, +1 for Tigger, he seems like a nice chap.
-wd

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Hobbes : Shouldn't we read the instructions?
Calvin : Do I look like a sissy?

phrakture

Arch Overlord

From: behind you

Registered: 2003-10-29

Posts: 7,879

Website

Re: Forum etiquette, or how to be civil.

If looking for new mods, +1 for Tigger, he seems like a nice chap.
-wd

pfft, I say +324234234 for sarah31... we'd end up with a fully locked forum

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http://phraktured.net

skoal

Member

From: Frequent Flyer Underworld

Registered: 2004-03-23

Posts: 612

Website

Re: Forum etiquette, or how to be civil.

1. I agree with Tigger's first post.  He's absolutely 100% correct on the "RTFM" policy.  Although, I find it laughable that a few people's impatience or asocial nature would warrant such a policy, but I agree with his premise.  Let the moderators take care of the exceptions.  If you need a forum wide policy, then I'd say you got problems with your base.

2. For myself, I could give a damn if a question is already answered in the "Wiki" or not.  If I think I can answer it more precisely in that thread, and I have the time to do so, why not?  It's my time I'm spending.  Whether or not, I still get a kick out of posting "Wiki knowledge" anyway.  If nothing else, I accomplish the following:

2.1. I give them the answer and introduce myself in the process.  A "pointless" way of saying "hello".
2.2. A lot of search engines return forum hits before a Wiki page, especially Google it seems.  Therefore, I'm an indirect unpaid marketing agent for Arch, by making redundant Wiki posts.
2.3 Most importantly, I answer the question and don't provide the Wiki link.  I come out smelling like freakin' Einstein baby.

For the rare exception Phrakture points to, I would have just stopped responding.  Silence is a pretty damn good motivator.

I really don't see any uncivil behaviour in these forums though, and don't understand this thread.  On a percentage wise basis, the Arch forums are the most open and productive of all the Linux forums I've traversed.  The "Off Topic" section is raw and unfiltered.  That's the way I like it, just like my beer.  If this "uncivil" thread pertained to any forum other than "Off Topic", I disagree. I just haven't seen it.  If this thread pertains to comments within the "Off Topic" forums, then I really disagree. 

In this "Off Topic" forum, I'm still hoping someone will tell me to "shove it".  I love it baby.  Gotta feed the machine.  I like people "full of piss and vinegar".  It gets the juices going.

iphitus

Forum Fellow

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2004-10-09

Posts: 4,927

Re: Forum etiquette, or how to be civil.

Peace love and compile the kernel!

rasat

Forum Fellow

From: Finland

Registered: 2002-12-27

Posts: 2,296

Website

Re: Forum etiquette, or how to be civil.

It could be less official, as that they don't have to check any posts they normally wouldn't read, but that if they encounter bad ones they know what to do.

The suggestion was not only for language/behavior moderation but over-all. To get the topics in right forums by moving them (or removed), for new users easier to find, the moderator(s) need to scroll through all topics. Earlier you could find many subject headers with either [MVx] or [RVx] but not last few months.

The moderators are now assigned, you can see the user name in the forums. The moderators will moderate all forums but keeping an eye on a particular forum. If you search for "MVx" you can check if the moderators are active.
Note: every Sunday the topics will be moved or deleted.

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Markku

dtw

Forum Fellow

From: UK

Registered: 2004-08-03

Posts: 4,439

Website

Re: Forum etiquette, or how to be civil.

i agree with the bit about more laws more trouble - you can't force people to be civil and if you try you get problems

the old adage of "treat others as you would hope to be treated yourself" is a good one - but loads of linux veterans have forgottten what it was once like to be a newbie.

i don't think anyone on this forum is a "bad egg" as such, but tempers do get frayed. part of the reason I moved away from Vector (Sorry Tigger!) was that i was a moderator there and after a time i felt like i really needed to be able to let off an tell people what i really thought!

i was a complete newbie when i started.  i more than cut my teeth on Vector but I outgrew it and felt confined.  That doesn't mean i don't like Vector anymore, and go back to flame on their boards - it is a hugely newbie friendly place.

Arch is not supposed to be newbie friendly and i felt better here because we didn't get the same posts about the same thing three times a day.  it really was AWFUL at Vector for that!

however, recently the number of posts have been going up and the "old" guard seems to be a bit absent in directing people swiftly to the relevent parts of the wiki.

i think the wiki is very differnet from the manual - the manual tells you what is does - the wiki tells you how to do what you are trying to do - a lot of people on other forums seem to have forgotten the difference.

recently i have felt frustrated by the fact that there is apparently NO one in charge - as i said the old guard have vanished - Judd really is like a God - he created us but is too busy keeping the things we don't have to know about running and can't look after us.  and the moderators?  i know mr green ISN'T one and rasat is.

when i first arrived Arch was a well oiled machine - the forums worked quickly, the wiki was kept up to date.  now, a personal bugbear, we have people posting PKGBUILDS for allsorts of asinine things and before long it will be impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff.

i know the AUR is coming (so is the apocalypse) but we need some sanity round here!

another thing we don't need is people turning up and blatantly flaming the distro - i think we are all to busy for that!

oh, and if you want to see the most unmoderated, flame-ridden and user unfriendly boards in the World check out:

http://www.wesnoth.org/forum

i stopped posting there weeks ago - but, once you spend some time there, you realise how their problems are inevitable due to the way the forum is run we need to avoid that.