Re: multi topic threads... opt in/out (SPLIT OFF)

[Joanna from IRC]

The problem is that fpc community doesn’t really have a good place to socialize. So it happens in forum threads instead of a more appropriate place. I have been trying to provide a place to socialize for a number of years but I’m not getting the help I need with it from the people who should be helping. 

I’m relieved to see that at least some people have acknowledged the presence of trolls and weird accounts in this forum. But nobody should take my word for it . Do your own research and check what accounts are being created, what they post and how soon they go dormant. It’s not a secret that these are fake accounts owned by “people who have never posted any compilable code”. This doesn’t preclude the fact that trolls can copy and paste someone else’s code they found somewhere as a pretext for one of their “I need help” trolling technique.

Mark brought up an interesting point. Wouldn’t it be great of the person who creates a thread could have more control over it? I guess this would make the job of forum operators easier of people could police their own threads.

[440bx]

The problem is that fpc community doesn’t really have a good place to socialize. So it happens in forum threads instead of a more appropriate place.

Careful, those two sentences give the impression you're engaging in behavior you condemn in others.  Personally, unlike you, I find the forums a very good place to socialize. The "more appropriate place" you allude to seems to be a tacit reference to a chat environment you support.

I have been trying to provide a place to socialize for a number of years but I’m not getting the help I need with it from the people who should be helping. 

Yes, you have been trying and, it looks like there are very few participants in this forum who are interested in the socialization alternative you offer. 

I’m relieved to see that at least some people have acknowledged the presence of trolls and weird accounts in this forum.

Fortunately the forum moderators do a really good job at dealing with trolls, spam and other nuisances.

But nobody should take my word for it . Do your own research and check what accounts are being created, what they post and how soon they go dormant. It’s not a secret that these are fake accounts owned by “people who have never posted any compilable code”. This doesn’t preclude the fact that trolls can copy and paste someone else’s code they found somewhere as a pretext for one of their I need help trolling technique.

if the account is dormant, it is not harming the forum users interactions which, IMO, makes it a, low priority and few relevant consequences, problem.

IOW and succinctly, don't make a mountain out of a molehill.

[Joanna from IRC]

It depends upon your definition of socialize. Threads in forum are “supposed to be on topic” socializing has conversation that can end up anywhere it doesn’t stay on topic. I don’t think a thread titled “I’m bored and want to chat would be too popular although I haven’t tried it.

It should NOT be my responsibility to offer a place to socialize. The people in charge of the project should be doing this. I was only trying to help because I care about the project. I’m not interested in dragging you kicking and screaming into a “chat environment “ so don’t flatter yourself. I took on the responsibility because nobody else wanted to confront a destructive troll,

I no longer care if people want to use pascal or not. I used to care I tried to talk people into using fpc. What a waste of time that was. Everyone outside this forum with few exceptions hates pascal so far as I know, and that’s how it is. Nothing I can do about it.

Also most people are unaware of my existence. I’m not an fpc developer so I have no clout. That is a reason why my requests for help are ignored.

if the account is dormant, it is not harming the forum users interactions which, IMO, makes it a, low priority

Ready to go Dormant accounts are good for making spam or forum slides later.

[Zvoni]

It depends upon your definition of socialize. Threads in forum are “supposed to be on topic” socializing has conversation that can end up anywhere it doesn’t stay on topic. I don’t think a thread titled “I’m bored and want to chat would be too popular although I haven’t tried it.

I would actually agree with this.
I'm used to other forums having a (Sub-) Forum "ChitChat" or similar, where you can discuss whatever you like (still respecting netiquette!),
from presedential elections in the US to your last Fart in bed, and how it chased your dog out of your bed

Any post in such a forum doesn't add to your post-counter, though, nor can you get a rating for a post (which we don't have here)

[Martin_fr]

Ready to go Dormant accounts are good for making spam or forum slides later.

If and when they do, we deal with it.

There are a lot of people who use their accounts read only. Maybe bookmark something or do things that need an account, but don't post. There are a few valid reasons for people to do that.

[Joanna from IRC]

Zvoni Speaking from experience, having a chat channel that is open to people who aren’t genuine fpc enthusiasts would lead to a moderation nightmare with professional influencers/trolls wrecking havoc.. If there is a way to limit it just to fpc programmers it could be fun.

[Joanna from IRC]

Ready to go Dormant accounts are good for making spam or forum slides later.

If and when they do, we deal with it.

There are a lot of people who use their accounts read only. Maybe bookmark something or do things that need an account, but don't post. There are a few valid reasons for people to do that.

I never thought about the bookmarks feature. So you are able to see that zero post accounts made bookmarks?

Another thing I’ve noticed dormant accounts being used for is trying to disrupt conversations. I remember the time that 440bx alpine and I were engaged in a lively discussion about oop and suddenly an old account with very few posts showed up and told us to shut up. It was kind of creepy but we ignored it. 

[Martin_fr]

Admin / Moderation note:

Ok, the "Chat/IRC" topic is sneaking in.

For those new to the topic: Due to the controversy on how to handle it, it was decided that it will not be discussed on this Forum.

Please continue this thread on non IRC/Chat topics only. Thanks.

[Zvoni]

Zvoni Speaking from experience, having a chat channel that is open to people who aren’t genuine fpc enthusiasts would lead to a moderation nightmare with professional influencers/trolls wrecking havoc.. If there is a way to limit it just to fpc programmers it could be fun.

Speaking back from experience (on those other forums): In those "ChitChat"-Forums there is practically no moderation except violations of netiquette/Forum-Rules.
It helps that those forums have an "ignore"-function, so posts of "ignored" members just get skipped (Just a "placeholder" in the thread).

OTOH, exactly in such a (Sub-) Forum you often chat with people with "other" backgrounds, or in your words: "who aren’t genuine fpc enthusiasts"
which can give you very nice insights to the why's, where's and whence's

[Zvoni]

Admin / Moderation note:

Ok, the "Chat/IRC" topic is sneaking in.

For those new to the topic: Due to the controversy on how to handle it, it was decided that it will not be discussed on this Forum.

Please continue this thread on non IRC/Chat topics only. Thanks.

OK, got you

[MarkMLl]

Zvoni Speaking from experience, having a chat channel that is open to people who aren’t genuine fpc enthusiasts would lead to a moderation nightmare with professional influencers/trolls wrecking havoc.. If there is a way to limit it just to fpc programmers it could be fun.

OTOH, you've said yourself that there's nowhere for people to just /chat/. I consider that to be the first problem...

The second one is that some of us- and since I stuck up for you earlier in the thread I think it's fair to highlight you as an offender- are likely to veer wildly off course and try to start discussing social justice or corporate exploitation in a thread which started off as being purely (or at least mostly) technical.

The third is that when that happens there's no way for participants who are only interested in the original technical discussion to disengage.

I for one have come this >< close to washing my hands of the community due to a combination of your wibble (sorry) and Thaddy's aggressive brushoffs when he has not given the point being discussed even minimal thought (again, sorry).

MarkMLl

[Martin_fr]

I never thought about the bookmarks feature. So you are able to see that zero post accounts made bookmarks?

Another thing I’ve noticed dormant accounts being used for is trying to disrupt conversations. I remember the time that 440bx alpine and I were engaged in a lively discussion about oop and suddenly an old account with very few posts showed up and told us to shut up. It was kind of creepy but we ignored it. I

No, I don't see if they do bookmarks. But I recall one or two people talking to me in the past (not on Admin business) why they had taken years and years before their first post.

- "disrupt" may ("can sometimes") be subjective. Sometimes, such a comment may be helpful to some.
- "disrupt" may also be accidental. There may be cases that indent to disrupt. It would have to be judged when it happens. And also compare that to equal disruption that comes from well established accounts. [1]

A lot of times topics are misunderstood, or misread, and then seemingly off topic replies are given.


Best example was the recent forum slow. Obviously the amount of account accessing the forum can have an impact, but talking about the amount of topics isn't far from commenting on the popularity (which still by implication, can be reason for the slowness...). So where to draw the line? 

This forum is not restricted to be a straight "Question -> Answer" forum only (like maybe stack-overflow). Many topics are open discussions. And that has always been part of this forum.
And even the straight technical question, often allows for ideas on alternative approaches. Sometimes welcomed, sometimes not.

[1] I am not going back in time now, there likely are cases, and there may be some that got overlooked. Unless there is a case going on (actively / now), then there is no work to be done.

[Joanna from IRC]

Zvoni I’m kind of curious about the Where and when of these places.

I think that places  on internet used to be far less toxic. Now if you have a gathering place of any significance you will have some strange visitors talking about the most unpleasant topics quite energetically. Any controversial topic you can imagine will be brought up as well as promotions of drug use and crime. There is a proliferation of chat bots everywhere so it’s quite affordable to be disruptive these days.

Sorry mark I do remember your railroad switching thread.

I have nothing against the idea of “people just chatting “ however I prefer a certain quality of chat and I believe that people who already have a common interest are more interesting to talk to than obnoxious bots hyping up The latest political topics.

[MarkMLl]

I think that places  on internet used to be far less toxic. Now if you have a gathering place of any significance you will have some strange visitors talking about the most unpleasant topics quite energetically. Any controversial topic you can imagine will be brought up as well as promotions of drug use and crime. There is a proliferation of chat bots everywhere so it’s quite affordable to be disruptive these days.

I can't speak of recent experience, since I've been keeping my head down for the last few years for legal reasons. However I spent 25+ years on CIX, which is a (fairly low-cost) commercial conferencing system.

Salient points there are that a "conf" is almost literally owned by the person who started it, plus anybody else he's chosen to add as a moderator ("mod"). That includes the obvious capabilities of deleting postings and if necessary entire threads, plus the ability to blacklist a user so that he is quite simply no longer able to participate. And since it is a service that has to be paid for, that can be enforced.

It was at one time very heavily used (early/mid-90s) by journalists, politicians, high-end techies and... various others. There are confs given over entirely to banter, some of it pretty tough: the bikers come to mind although they are obviously far nicer guys than they like to let on. It was also very common for a conf to have one or more topics given over entirely to off-topic stuff: people brought together by an interest in one field might have common interest in something O/T which not everybody wanted to see (cix:bikers/gay comes to mind).

A user can also resign from a thread, topic or conf if he feels it's getting outside his comfort zone. I'm also aware of a couple of people who stopped subscribing since they found they were no longer as able to cope with assertive banter as they had been.

The bottom line was always that mods had control, and that control could be enforced because users could be identified by CIX's owners due to only having a limited number of credit cards and bank accounts. I would suggest that part of the problem that we, as a community, have is that people assume that since there are no obvious commercial  ("Real World") constraints they can do as they please: and that is a malaise which has for many years afflicted the Internet as a whole and which will only be eradicated when corporations have taken full control.

And it goes without saying that I am by no means convinced that that would be a good thing.

MarkMLl

[Joanna from IRC]

I would suggest that part of the problem that we, as a community, have is that people assume that since there are no obvious commercial  ("Real World") constraints they can do as they please: and that is a malaise which has for many years afflicted the Internet as a whole and which will only be eradicated when corporations have taken full control.
And it goes without saying that I am by no means convinced that that would be a good thing.

There is a good possibility that corporations are responsible for herding people onto paid platforms by making non paid platforms unpleasant or unavailable. Someone has to be funding all the bots and trolls.

I’m not buying the nonsense that it’s entirely bored people with nothing better to do. This is why I’m so adamant that we should support non subscription platforms before the choice of what to use is gone forever.