Moderated?

It's all quite amusing. I've hardly touched a post since the new batch of moderators was installed and I could focus more on anti-spam work behind the scenes. I do correct the occasional post, but only if it happens to catch my eye and I have a minute to do it. The minute that original posters sometimes don't bother to spend .. So thank your moderators, old and new. It's why this forum still works, and that's all they aim to achieve. "It is not personal".
 
DutchDaemon said:
It's all quite amusing. I've hardly touched a post since the new batch of moderators was installed and I could focus more on anti-spam work behind the scenes. I do correct the occasional post, but only if it happens to catch my eye and I have a minute to do it. The minute that original posters sometimes don't bother to spend .. So thank your moderators, old and new. It's why this forum still works, and that's all they aim to achieve. "It is not personal".

Ok. You and the others convinced me. I won't be annoyed anymore and withdraw my prior statement your honor! :r
 
I'll be honest, Sometimes, I find the post editing ever so slightly annoying, but I just try to make sure my posts are as correct as possible, so that he can't find a reason to edit them. ;) Try to look at it like a game of chess.
 
zspider said:
I just try to make sure my posts are as correct as possible, so that he can't find a reason to edit them. ;)
That's the whole idea ;)

I don't mind the occasional typo or badly worded sentence. I try to leave as much of the original as possible (including really bad grammar) while trying to make it more readable.

I'll mark things in bold when you already have had a few posts (and I had to edit each and every one of them) and still can't do it properly. And by 'not doing it properly' I mean several typos in each sentence, no capitalisation, no punctuation and a writing style that would make my old English teacher turn in his grave.
 
Yes, edits are always supposed to be informative and instructive, which is why they usually contain a comment and a link to further information. Avoiding moderator edits is not a bad mindset ;)
 
I am amused: IT people complaining about having to use proper grammar. I hope those "rules" do not apply to their programming :e
 
Overmoderation is precisely the reason why I'm not a regular user of this forum. I highly regard the community here and would like to be a part of it, but I just don't feel OK in such police state.
 
Furthermore, I disagree that such moderation increases forum quality. Kwalitee - yes, but that's it. Forum quality is what is being said, not how. And policies here turn people away, reducing breadth of knowledge and opinions. You know why don't you see more voices like mine here? Because people left to never return. I'm not deeply rooted in the FreeBSD world, but on several occasions, in several different places I've seen people starting to complain about how tightly controlled is this place and there were always other people who would join to agree.
So I'd say that this is a quality forum, but not because of the moderation but in spite of it.
 
Slurp said:
And policies here turn people away, reducing breadth of knowledge and opinions. You know why don't you see more voices like mine here?

What voice? There's some high quality voice here.

Because people left to never return.

Prove it.

And, get off your high horse.
 
Slurp said:
Forum quality is what is being said, not how.
The problem is that there's a strong correlation between a deliberatly sloppy writing style and general ignorance. People who doesn't care about their form of expression usually don't think much about the content either.
 
If there is a police state where being asked to mind your writing style, to use proper forum tags, to stay on topic, and where discussions are moved to more appropriate areas of the forum, is the worst that can happen, there are probably hundreds of forum members who'd move to that kind of police state from the one they're living in right now.

Please, drop the exaggerated don't tread on me tune. The forums are moderated on style, not censored on content (though we like to keep FreeBSD the topic, if you don't mind).
 
Moderation also relieves the several edits and misunderstandings by those who don't understand what was posted or correcting others grammar by other posters. It's a bit of the "broken windows" theory, too, whether intentional or not. It helps keep the riff-raff out and doesn't let this place degenerate to what most forums are (I would say a collection of Windows users but I don't want that to get moderated out :) ).
 
bbzz said:
What voice? There's some high quality voice here.
I meant voices saying that level of moderation here is too high. Only myself and the OP said this, though there was a couple of others who admitted that it can be painful.

bbzz said:
Prove it.
Quick search: https://duckduckgo.com/?q="freebsd+forums"+moderation shows the 2nd and 3rd results commenting on that. I remember seeing such discussions on Phoronix and PC-BSD forums, but didn't bother to search for them explicitly.

jalla said:
The problem is that there's a strong correlation between a deliberatly sloppy writing style and general ignorance. People who doesn't care about their form of expression usually don't think much about the content either.
Deliberately? Maybe. Does it change anything?

DutchDaemon said:
The forums are moderated on style, not censored on content (though we like to keep FreeBSD the topic, if you don't mind).
Not true. Forum rules 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10 and 11 are censorship ones. There's further censorship not backed by the rules, I noticed 1 case of it (talk about illegal stuff), you mentioned another (non-FreeBSD, though I haven't seen such talk being removed), I would be surprised if there were no other ones. Personally, I like *some* of the censorship rules, but I'm yet to see any of these exercised. Though I guess the fact that spam is just being removed effectively is probably the reason why I don't see it.

DutchDaemon said:
If there is a police state where being asked to mind your writing style, to use proper forum tags, to stay on topic, and where discussions are moved to more appropriate areas of the forum, is the worst that can happen, there are probably hundreds of forum members who'd move to that kind of police state from the one they're living in right now.
There's more to it...for example I've seen a topic closed with a moderator effectively saying "everything has been said, let's close it before it derails". And the actions you mentioned are sometimes questionable...I don't have any specific example to link at hand, but I've seen more than once that some discussion fit it's place OK, but has been moved because a moderator knew better.
DutchDaemon said:
Please, drop the exaggerated don't tread on me tune.
You expressed my feelings better than myself. Being here I feel that somebody may tread on me at any moment, quite possibly for no reason I'd consider good.
 
@Slurp - Your comments are way off base and add nothing to the forums. Even your DuckDuckGo reference had nothing to do with censorship and only someone complaining that the format of his post was changed while the rest had nothing to do with this forum. Your reference to the forum rules complain about rules involving "censorship" when they are only about keeping posts on topic (in the first case as an example). In another you complain Dutch closed a thread because it had its run and I'm sure most of us would applaud that to prevent it degrading to a constant barrage of back and forth over many years.

These forums are to FreeBSD users as a source of information, learning and technical exchanges and keeping things on that track are far more important than this. You sound like you are looking for some vengeance for your post being edited or you just need to find something else better to do.

I've been a moderator on a technical forum elsewhere and I would have no issue if someone, including Dutch, closed this thread right now.
 
Slurp said:
I meant voices saying that level of moderation here is too high. Only myself and the OP said this, though there was a couple of others who admitted that it can be painful.


Quick search: https://duckduckgo.com/?q="freebsd+forums"+moderation shows the 2nd and 3rd results commenting on that. I remember seeing such discussions on Phoronix and PC-BSD forums, but didn't bother to search for them explicitly.

The second result you point to is the FreeBSD forums FAQ which explains forum rules, etiquette, and moderation of posts.

The third result you refer to is a Linux forum. Any reason to think they might be biased against any and all things FreeBSD? Phoronix is also associated with Linux reviews, benchmarking and gaming. No bias there either?

As far as the PC-BSD forums, which targets desktop users, in addition to any complaints about moderation you may or may not find, you'll also find it advocated by users there that you should "assume the user is stupid and does *not* know what they are doing." FreeBSD is geared more toward servers and an air of professionalism is therefore expected from posters here, which includes proper formatting and knowing how to spell.
 
Like most of you I appreciate the high standards and all the work the moderators do to maintain those standards. But, part of me agrees with the complaints brought up in this thread. The vast majority of the times when you, @DutchDaemon, edit threads, the edits are clearly for the better, but there are times when I find them excessive and condescending. It's sometimes hard to measure tone in the forums, but I sense an air of superiority when, for new users, you highlight in bold all corrections of freebsd to FreeBSD and then say something like, "it's FreeBSD thank you very much" in the footnotes.

I'm glad we are at least having this conversation. The last time I commented on a thread about moderation the whole thread was deleted and I had a private message from you @DuctchDaemon saying that threads about moderation would not be tolerated.
 
jrm said:
It's sometimes hard to measure tone in the forums, but I sense an air of superiority when, for new users, you highlight in bold all corrections of freebsd to FreeBSD and then say something like, "it's FreeBSD thank you very much" in the footnotes.

The stickied post that all newcomers are supposed to read, clearly outlines the correct spelling and capitalization of FreeBSD. Even if it sounds petty to some, I fully agree with upholding these standards. Letting in lax terminology is a slippery slope, and can lead to the sort of "which is better?? fbsd or linux????" type questions that are painful to look at.
 
Even if it sounds petty to some, I fully agree with upholding these standards. Letting in lax terminology is a slippery slope, and can lead to the sort of "which is better??
Along those lines, there are plenty of forums where you aren't allowed to criticize or question moderators or their actions at all and criticizing Microsoft will get you banned (dslreports.com). Doing so gets your posts immediately deleted and will get all your posts reviewed before posting or get you banned. webmasterworld.com does not allow any curse words no matter how mild ("hell" will get your post deleted).

You are allowed to knock competitor products on Microsoft forums but knocking Microsoft gets you banned on some boards. Microsoft even closes replies if things get out of hand. Similar Microsoft-centric boards get you ridiculed and badgered beyond belief. (reddit and codingforums.com)

So things here are pretty clean, well thought out, polite and responsible. This is a nice place to visit.
 
jrm said:
I'm glad we are at least having this conversation. The last time I commented on a thread about moderation the whole thread was deleted and I had a private message from you @DuctchDaemon saying that threads about moderation would not be tolerated.

I am also very glad of this, I was afraid to be warned but I'm glad my comments were tolerated. It's good to have these meta discussions every now and then, especially when the people who comment refrain from becoming (too) personal in their comments / attacks.
 
caesius said:
The stickied post that all newcomers are supposed to read, clearly outlines the correct spelling and capitalization of FreeBSD. Even if it sounds petty to some, I fully agree with upholding these standards.

A plus one from me for upholding these standards as well. I assume it's quite challenging to find that middle ground where you are cracking down on intentional sloppiness and following #2 from the Rules of the Road. On this point I came off a little harsher than I intended. When I thought about it a little longer, I put myself in @DutchDaemon's position and I would likely have a lot of trouble maintaining my sanity, let alone cheerfulness, if I had to correct the number of errors he does.

While I'm very glad we don't have conversations like this often, it's easier to swallow when posts are edited or deleted when you better understand the motivations. Questioning authority and the status quo is one of the reasons I was open to trying FreeBSD in the first place.
 
Slurp said:
Not true. Forum rules 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10 and 11 are censorship ones. There's further censorship not backed by the rules, I noticed 1 case of it (talk about illegal stuff), you mentioned another (non-FreeBSD, though I haven't seen such talk being removed), I would be surprised if there were no other ones. Personally, I like *some* of the censorship rules, but I'm yet to see any of these exercised. Though I guess the fact that spam is just being removed effectively is probably the reason why I don't see it.

The rules you mention are basically normal etiquette in any normal conversation. I am quite sure that swearing, insulting coworkers and taking part in illegal activities are not condoned in your work place, school, social club or other place of gathering. The same applies here. You can say what you want, just say it nicely.

I have never left a forum because it was too tightly controlled, but have seen several which I would not bother reading because of the loose control.
 
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