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Author Topic: Forum implosion  (Read 10168 times)

Zath

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Forum implosion
« on: April 02, 2023, 01:27:47 pm »
Forum implosion

There is a feeling in the forum of growing annoyance, anger, contempt, whatever between some of the big gun forum staff / members when replying to some recent posts.

"your answer is stupid", "my answer is far better", "why use that code ?", "my c*ck is bigger than your c*ck" etc.

Most users want help with their code and if various replies work or get part way there, it's a great help. No one expects an exact answer to a problem because we all know that's not how programming works even though it's supposed to be logical, especially when interpreting a question from different language users can misty the waters of the requirement.

I politely request that you "big guns" take a step back from this simmering feud and realise what a great forum we have here.
I personally can't stand the stack overflow format, this style of forum is far better. Let's not lose it.

440bx

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Re: Forum implosion
« Reply #1 on: April 02, 2023, 01:42:56 pm »
There is a feeling in the forum of growing annoyance, anger, contempt, whatever between some of the big gun forum staff / members when replying to some recent posts.

"your answer is stupid", "my answer is far better", "why use that code ?", "my c*ck is bigger than your c*ck" etc.
What has given you that impression ?

While I don't post much, I do read most of the daily posts and I have not noticed the behavior you've described in any general way.  What I'm saying is that, while there may be a rare blunt assertion or comment (usually deserved), I don't see those events as being the norm.

The participants' attitude here is nowhere near the bad attitude some stackoverflow participants exhibit.  The great majority of people here are not only helpful but quite patient (often more than I am.)
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wp

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Re: Forum implosion
« Reply #2 on: April 02, 2023, 02:14:05 pm »
I do agree with Zath that there are a few members who tend to respond in an arrogant or even insulting way. But I also agree with 440bx that this is a very small minority.

Fred vS

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Re: Forum implosion
« Reply #3 on: April 02, 2023, 02:26:12 pm »
I do agree with Zath that there are a few members who tend to respond in an arrogant or even insulting way. But I also agree with 440bx that this is a very small minority.
I also agree.
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Martin_fr

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Re: Forum implosion
« Reply #4 on: April 02, 2023, 02:28:28 pm »
This isn't easy to classify.
- First of all it's hard (if not impossible) to measure objectively.
- Then, once someone found something annoying, after each such time it may take less, to trigger annoyance again. ("found annoying"... it may even be something that was annoying, in such understanding that more than half the readers would think it to be annoying)
With that, to a certain point, this is in the nature of a public forum.

If I take a guess, I can think of certain posts to which you may be referring. There are indeed answers  that can be read as "Everyone else is wrong (and lacking IQ), only I am right". Some/Many of them can also be interpreted as "The particular member did misread the question".
And sometimes it is both. I have myself been abso-bloody-lutely sure of gotten a question right, when later I had to realize that I overlooked an actually obvious other interpretation of said question.

Also with regards to that kind of answers, depending on which answers each reader classifies as belonging into that group, it is easy to get the impression that those come to an overwhelming part from a group of not to many authors.
Though it is to be considered that many factors play into that. The way someone interprets (correctly or not) a question, and the way they give their answer may depend a lot on their personal experiences, and their level of English.



Personally I would say that we did not have a recent increase in all of that.

However, I do myself have "suffered" the same perception in that - by reading certain posts of certain members - I have personally thought things like someone is too single minded, or might need to relax a bit.

Overall however, I do not think that this impacts the forum in such ways to require more moderation, which then in turn would also limit the freedom of others. Not to say that such moderation might easily become very subjective by the moderator, and that would certainly be all but an improvement.



Further more, there is and always will be the fact that to any question asked here, people will give answers that are wrong (not meant to be, but by various reasons end up wrong). Answers are free (of charge), but come from just about anyone, and without requiring any qualification of the responder.

And it that light, the line between an answer that simply happens to be wrong (despite best intends) and an answer that has further attributes (the perception of which may be annoying), well that line becomes thinner and thinner.



In the end there are a couple of means available.

- Talk about it here on the forum. As by this thread we do.
- Report to moderation, if you feel a particular post to be way out of line (usually that is when bad language is involved, or when it is an insult toward you). Moderators may act on it or not. Independent of whether action was taken, you also may or may not get feedback.
- Ignore such people (the forum has an ignore list in your user profile / not sure to which extend it works / I had not yet have to test it myself)

However, while it is welcome to have a general chat on this topic, a note to all participant of this thread: Please avoid public shaming of specific cases (Just making sure this thread wont derail).
« Last Edit: April 02, 2023, 02:51:10 pm by Martin_fr »

Fred vS

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Re: Forum implosion
« Reply #5 on: April 02, 2023, 02:34:06 pm »
@Martin: thanks.

To everybody: kindness is not weakness.  O:-)
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lagprogramming

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Re: Forum implosion
« Reply #6 on: April 02, 2023, 02:51:05 pm »
I do agree with Zath that there are a few members who tend to respond in an arrogant or even insulting way. But I also agree with 440bx that this is a very small minority.
I also agree.

Some developers stopped involving in contributing code because of that. Some of them didn't even opened a github account, which means that they won't even report bugs.

Martin_fr

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Re: Forum implosion
« Reply #7 on: April 02, 2023, 03:16:31 pm »
Some developers stopped involving in contributing code because of that. Some of them didn't even opened a github account, which means that they won't even report bugs.

Maybe there were some few cases, which would have ended well in case of much more time spent on moderation. If so, that is unfortunate.

But overall, it is a tricky business. As I said a thin line between over-moderating and under-moderating. I haven't polled in data on it, but I always had the impression that many members on the forum enjoy the slightly more relaxed moderation approach. Of course others don't. But that will always be the case, where ever the line is drawn.

Though IIRC, there had in the past cases when such bad mannerism had been worse, and moderators have at that time spoken to various members. Right now, as I said I hadn't noted a change, and I am not aware (which really just denotes my awareness, and not any factual happenings) of any moderator-member talks in regards to such subjects.

And, while I don't remember each case of those referred to by you, not all of those that I remember were down to the fault (in tone/manner) of a replying member. Some of those cases were in reaction to replies that I found were fine in tone and manner. However, I do recall some of those cases, simply triggered by the quality of answers, such as not every responder understood the question correct, or some answers weren't as helpful as they were intended (because the responder did not test and double check all details, and some were incorrect).

The latter - incorrect answers - aren't fixable. Moderation simple isn't going to spent the time to technically verify the content of each reply.


440bx

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Re: Forum implosion
« Reply #8 on: April 02, 2023, 04:08:16 pm »
I always had the impression that many members on the forum enjoy the slightly more relaxed moderation approach.
I just wanted to say that I personally enjoy the relaxed moderation approach.

The way I see it is, we're mostly adults here and can usually work out any "rough spots" ourselves.  I think moderation is necessary when some participants are having problems smoothing out the rough spots ;)  I think the moderation in this forum is quite good, maybe even exceptionally good.

Of course, that's just my personal feeling therefore it cannot be generalized but, what can be observed is that the great majority of the threads in this forum are cordial and, the moderators only get involved when it is reasonable to suspect that the problem at hand won't be resolved without intervention, which is rare.


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Curt Carpenter

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Re: Forum implosion
« Reply #9 on: April 02, 2023, 04:31:09 pm »
And so, a recently heard joke.

A group of programmers, after years of work, finally completed their large language model AI and gathered to decide the very first question they would put to their system.  After much argument, they finally made their choice, went to the console and typed in  "Is there a God?"

A few seconds later, the answer, clRed in bold 24 point Times New Roman, scrolled across their screen:  "There is now!"

Fred vS

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Re: Forum implosion
« Reply #10 on: April 02, 2023, 04:45:00 pm »
And so, a recently heard joke.

A group of programmers, after years of work, finally completed their large language model AI and gathered to decide the very first question they would put to their system.  After much argument, they finally made their choice, went to the console and typed in  "Is there a God?"

A few seconds later, the answer, clRed in bold 24 point Times New Roman, scrolled across their screen:  "There is now!"

It is him:  ;)
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1641328839144927232
« Last Edit: April 02, 2023, 04:46:51 pm by Fred vS »
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simone

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Re: Forum implosion
« Reply #11 on: April 02, 2023, 04:55:57 pm »
I also noticed offensive tones. We all know who uses them. These repeated behaviors over time demotivated me to be more active in the forum. I'm sorry for this.
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Fred vS

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Re: Forum implosion
« Reply #12 on: April 02, 2023, 05:00:54 pm »
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dsiders

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Re: Forum implosion
« Reply #13 on: April 02, 2023, 06:28:14 pm »
I do agree with Zath that there are a few members who tend to respond in an arrogant or even insulting way. But I also agree with 440bx that this is a very small minority.

I have found that those who post in this toxic manner offer very little in terms of useful or even meaningful content. Add them to your "ignore list". It doesn't make them disappear entirely, but you actively have to to ask to see their direct posts. Then, that's on you.

I know moderators have a difficult task. But this long-term, repeated behavior is allowed to continue unchecked. When it becomes too frequent, I check out from the forums too. I can't imagine that more casual forum readers are willing to endure this stuff. I know my own  posts can be terse, but I don't think they are hateful. There's a big difference.

Report posts that you find objectionable to the moderators. With enough prompting perhaps some corrective action will be taken. If not, the "bad apples" will cause the entire bushel to rot.
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ASBzone

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Re: Forum implosion
« Reply #14 on: April 02, 2023, 09:43:52 pm »
Forum implosion

There is a feeling in the forum of growing annoyance, anger, contempt, whatever between some of the big gun forum staff / members when replying to some recent posts.

I have been in this forum for quite a few years, but in the past 6 or more months, I've been pretty busy and didn't have a chance to hang out here as in the past.  So, when I saw this post, I took a look around to see if I could recognize what you referenced.

Thus far, I have been unable to see any change that would rise to what I would be inclined to see as a "forum implosion".     I could be that I have not read enough of the existing posts of recent months, but from what I see from others in this thread, I don't think that's the answer.

I do like the overall moderation philosophy exercised here.   This community is generally helpful.  There are personalities here, as there are elsewhere, but I find that they are not a extreme or in as great numbers as I have experienced in other places.

My goal in responding is not to simply shutdown your concern/observation, but rather to say that I don't see it -- even taking into account my recent time away.  In fact, given that I have been away, I expected to be able to see it more readily, since it would be more jarring, and I wouldn't have slowly gotten accustomed to a downward trend.

In short, I don't see it, but I think it is helpful to talk about, so as to continue to have an environment that people will be comfortable to engage in.


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