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

[MarkMLl]

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.

Martin, do you have an easy way of searching for JPEG attachments e.g. as in https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,67724.msg522542.html#msg522542 https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,67724.msg522547.html#msg522547 https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,67776.msg522518.html#msg522518

We've had a number of low-profile users doing this sort of thing without adequate explanation, and I feel that it's a warning sign.

MarkMLl

[dbannon]

Joanna, I see two things you are unhappy about. Maybe, if I describe them, in my words, it will help us focus on the real issues ?

If you don't like it, please advise me and I will remove the content from the post, OK ?

Social Content

It depends upon your definition of socialize.

Most people here, I believe, think the forum is intended to be about FPC, Lazarus, Pascal and so on.  On the other hand, this is some chatter about related and sometimes, even un-related matters. And, again, IMHO, most people think thats OK at the current level. But if the "out of scope" content starts to dilute the Pascal content, yet again IMHO, people would be unhappy.

Now, you would like to introduce more social content. OK, thats a change, if you want to change something, you need to take people with you, computer programming people are logical and probably more flexible than most. They would listen to reasoned, logical arguments. But remember, their reason to be here is Pascal, any proposal you put up must relate, some how to Pascal.

My guess is that if the overall opinion of active members was a Social Board, the admins and moderators might cooperate, some might decide its time they move on too !

It should NOT be my responsibility to offer a place to socialize.

Sorry but you are wrong there. You are, I suspect, the only person who wants to see a significent change, you want change, you must lead the campaign to deliver that change.

Trolls
Is a totally different matter. If you or anyone else here is being bullied, then its a collective problem and most here would agree it should not happen.

But you must admit, you seem to be far better than anyone else at spotting a troll. And, sometimes, not everyone agrees with your assessment. I suggest you might, sometimes, "call wolf" just a bit too easily. Please allow me to suggest that next time, you be just a bit subtle initially ?  Perhaps saying "those words make me uncomfortable" and you see if anyone else chimes in. Again, its leadership,  being in front but not so far in front that you are out of touch !

Most certainly, ask for help if you need it !

And finally...

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.

Wrong, wrong and wrong. I'm not a FPC dev either, far from it. My recent very minor and well presented suggestion was dismissed out of hand. But I am part of this community, I have had a lot of help from the community (on pascal issues) and I like to think I have helped a few other people (again, on Pascal issues).

You choice is to -

• stick to Pascal issues, take help when its offered, develop your skills, apply them and perhaps help others.
• Try and change the nature of the forum, if you really think you must. But take people with you, put up a proposal, appeal to peoples self interests.

If you decide on the latter, I suggest you look through this thread to see the process that happened to establish a (language specific) Board, its not impossible.

  https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,54829.0.html  - may be a model ?  Would be nice if content did not appear in (compliant) search engines, interested people could opt in, the rest don't need to worry about dilution of pascal content.

Davo

[MarkMLl]

I’m not buying the nonsense that it’s entirely bored people with nothing better to do.

Neither am I, but I don't believe it's corporations causing the problem.

MarkMLl

[Martin_fr]

Martin, do you have an easy way of searching for JPEG attachments e.g. as in https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,67724.msg522542.html#msg522542 https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,67724.msg522547.html#msg522547

No we don't. (only by name and size, and only for admins - more of a disk-space monitoring tool)

I recall one image I saw, that I wanted to act on, but then couldn't find it.

The images you linked are ok. Well the one post was "semi ok" and I decided to remove it, to avoid precedence. I.e. His comment, did explain the image as part of expressing his view on the previous post "very funny, like the image".

The other link are images that explains what he wants to implement. IMHO covered (unless I overlooked some detail?).

[MarkMLl]

The other link are images that explains what he wants to implement. IMHO covered (unless I overlooked some detail?).

I read it that they were things he'd claimed to have implemented, which he was presenting as part of his bona fides. Or it might be that an inexperienced coder believed that he could simply pick up a tool and produce top-quality results: irrespective of a total lack of practice and aptitude. This is hardly the first time I've seen this sort of thing, from one of a group of users who also seemed interested in causing disruption.

Now it /might/ be that the disruption is being caused because of frustration with "The Pascal Way"... but in that case I'd expect just a bit more inclination to /listen/ when other people are trying to explain things.

I am, of course, completely ignoring any consideration of whether FPC/Lazarus is the best- or even a suitable- tool for programming something with an e.g. Android "look and feel". But in any event, causing disruption to the user community is not the way to get things done.

MarkMLl

[Handoko]

He was a cocky young man from a non-English speaking country, who learned Java and C++. Those screenshots show his crossword program. He thought his capability to write a crossword program will make him an expert in string manipulation. He has very low knowledge in Pascal. In his other post, he asked how can he use Lazarus' TForm to load its components from RC file, which I believe he wanted to port his crossword to Lazarus.

[Martin_fr]

The other link are images that explains what he wants to implement. IMHO covered (unless I overlooked some detail?).

I read it that they were things he'd claimed to have implemented,

On the link: "try to produce something like this:", so he is aiming for...

which he was presenting as part of his bona fides. Or it might be that an inexperienced coder believed that he could simply pick up a tool and produce top-quality results: irrespective of a total lack of practice and aptitude. This is hardly the first time I've seen this sort of thing, from one of a group of users who also seemed interested in causing disruption.

I recall there was some discussion on making a crossword-search, and having intersections of words.

I haven't checked if the post with those images is on the best thread for it. I didn't see a report (hopefully did not miss one), and I don't read each and every thread. (nor do the other moderators).

[Joanna]

Congrats mark you have discovered exactly the types of accounts I was referring to earlier. Very strange accounts. Is it possible to have some kind of malware imbedded in attachments he posted? I didn’t want to click on it but it looked offtopic. Another one of his posts said he wanted to avoid “stupid complications “

Handoko I know other people like paweld who don’t know English and they don’t post stupid trollish nonsense. So I don’t think it’s a language barrier.

Dbannon

Sorry but you are wrong there. You are, I suspect, the only person who wants to see a significent change, you want change, you must lead the campaign to deliver that change.

I don’t want change, I want fpc community to be restored to how it was when I found it. What does it take to have a real-time talk about pascal in a group? People using other languages don’t have this problem. They aren’t abandoned by the developers and experts.

But you must admit, you seem to be far better than anyone else at spotting a troll. And, sometimes, not everyone agrees with your assessment. I suggest you might, sometimes, "call wolf" just a bit too easily.

I often become suspicious of people who technically aren’t trolling.

The history of who I’m suspicious of is documented as well as what became of their account. Put it this way.. nobody I have found suspicious has ever proven me wrong by becoming an upstanding forum member and developing applications using fpc.

It seems like people who aren’t really interested in using fpc make accounts here and post shallow comments to try to build rapport. Then there are the fake requests for help in which they frustrate people on purpose like that guy who was trolling the castle game engine developers.

It’s insidious how people up to no good pretend to be new people interested in using fpc so that we will be afraid to scare them away as they go about their mischief. This is why I have proposed filtering out people who refuse to learn at least newbie level pascal. A higher barrier to entry could even make using fpc more attractive.

We might even have to consider the possibility that no new people with good intentions are coming. I hope this isn’t the case but it’s certainly possible.

[MarkMLl]

Congrats mark you have discovered exactly the types of accounts I was referring to earlier. Very strange accounts. Is it possible to have some kind of malware imbedded in attachments he posted? I didn’t want to click on it but it looked offtopic. Another one of his posts said he wanted to avoid “stupid complications “

I was wondering: steganography. Extremely difficult to prove unless you know exactly what you're looking for.

MarkMLl

[Joanna]

Maybe it was some sort of ai powered bot posting. I read some of his other posts and they seemed like jibberish.

[Handoko]

No. Do some research, don't just guess. If you found his website, you will know he is in his twentieth, who managed to write some programs and becomes cocky. An exact copy of me when I was a teen. 

His lack of English skill contributes that jibberish.

I know Joanna's intention is good. But you just blame everything to bots and corporations without really done some research. That's not good. I am not here to defend him, please do some research before saying anything. If you really do it, you will find his nationality, programs he wrote and his programming skill set, even his photo.

[Joanna]

No. Do some research, don't just guess. If you found his website, you will know he is in his twentieth, who managed to write some programs and becomes cocky. An exact copy of me when I was a teen. 

His lack of English skill contributes that jibberish.

I know Joanna's intention is good. But you just blame everything to bots and corporations without really done some research. That's not good. I am not here to defend him, please do some research before saying anything. If you really do it, you will find his nationality, programs he wrote and his programming skill set, even his photo.

How did you get his website? Do you have link?
Also even if someone with that name has a website, it doesn’t guarantee that it is same person anyone can say that a website is theirs for whatever reason. Suppose the website really is him, that doesn’t prove that he is here with good intentions. Social media influencers often have websites to try to build a legit persona.

[Handoko]

I was thinking it is good if here we could have someone to do the police job, the 'extra muscle' to help moderators. I wanted to nominate you for the role. But it seems you're not capable for it, you can't even use internet to find information of someone.

The worst is, you always think negatively. When I said he is not bot, you responded that maybe not the same person.

Suppose the website really is him, that doesn’t prove that he is here with good intentions.

I never said he is good or bad.

Do you have link?

Sure I have. But I think it is useless because you will say that's not him.

[MarkMLl]

I know Joanna's intention is good. But you just blame everything to bots and corporations without really done some research. That's not good. I am not here to defend him, please do some research before saying anything. If you really do it, you will find his nationality, programs he wrote and his programming skill set, even his photo.

How did you get his website? Do you have link?
Also even if someone with that name has a website, it doesn’t guarantee that it is same person anyone can say that a website is theirs for whatever reason. Suppose the website really is him, that doesn’t prove that he is here with good intentions. Social media influencers often have websites to try to build a legit persona.

Joanna, in fairness you've repeatedly told us things like "you don't use Wikipedia because it's full of trolls and misinformation" and you appear to have a similar attitude to search engines.

There's a very big difference between doing a bit of research (and being cautious about the veracity of the results) and refusing to use any source of enlightenment (and sitting there in isolated intellectual darkness).

MarkMLl

[MarkMLl]

On the link: "try to produce something like this:", so he is aiming for...

That's not how it came across. It came across strongly as "try to use FPC/Lazarus to produce something like this".

I can't back that up by searching the forum for earlier postings since Advanced Search appears to be doing something a little strange ATM, at least for me... has there /really/ been no forum message with "compiler" in it since 2012?

Slightly later: he doesn't like the way Pascal handles pointers and types, so demands

I prefer simple arithmetic, than tremendous useless type manipulations.

Hence I propose include my option in new version of compiler.

I don't care what his native language is, and I don't care how much or how little experience he has. That level of arrogance can do little but antagonise anybody who reads it- even somebody like myself who has reservations about Pascal's design and evolution.

MarkMLl