Forum quality

Chris Gransden kindly modified Sargasso RSS Reader to include an Exclude function, which has protected me from the postings which have caused this sad situation.

Of course, I have been seeing responses, but was hoping that these would dwindle to nothing as people realised how futile it was replying.

Sadly, many otherwise intelligent, even gifted, people did not recognise how pointless this was.

It is very sad that otherwise highly valued contributors are leaving the group.

The maxim “Don’t feed the troll!” has been ignored here with dire consequences.

I’m not normally one to comment. Prefer to sit on the sidelines and observe. However, when I see something wrong, I have to speak up!
I am aware of a number of people whom are long term regular contributors to this site. Their opinions I may not always agree with, but I value their wisdom and insight. They are all walking away from here and I feel they will be a great loss. There have been others that have left before.

Jan 23, 2013 11:33pm
Avatar
DavidS (1854)
2612 posts
I finely took the time to look at the bounties that are listed.
REGARDING BOUNTY: UPDATE AND DEBUG USB STACK
I have played with USB a good bit, and am already working on a bare metal USB stack for the RPi. The problem is I could not accept it entirely as I do not have an IYONIX PC, nor do Ihave any of the veious USB Cards for the RISC PC. Put Simply the only RISC OS hardware that I have that does have USB is the RPi, and BBxM. So I would like to accept the bounty as far as can be tested on the RPi, with resect to these issues that deal with the direct aaccess to the HW, and to accept everything that is related only to the more general USB STACK (though no to particular devices added on the USB chain beyond the standard devices), and further I would like to add suport for generic Bluetooth (should work ith 99% of Bluetooth adaptors)and standard USB audio devices.
So is it possible to accept half the bounty under the above limitations? Currently unemployed so have tons of time.
Further more I have difculty with CVS on RISC OS, so may need someone to do any submissions if this request is accepted.

Feb 2, 2013 5:15pm
Avatar
Steve Revill (20)
1362 posts
We’re shipping a BeagleBoard xM development system out to David so he can at least test his work on that and the Raspberry Pi. As for the other native RISC OS platforms, I think it might be useful to have a shortlist of willing volunteers to do alpha/beta testing for David. If you’ve got some coding skills/USB knowledge, even better – because you’ll be able to put a bit more information into any bug reports.
I’m not sure how David feels, but maybe we could create a wiki page (or pages) for this work while it’s on-going? At the very least, we could put the list of volunteer testers on there: name, email address (obfuscated if you wish), relevant skills (if any), platform(s) to test.

I hope that was returned to Rool.

Sep 14, 2013 12:22pm
Avatar
DavidS (1854)
2612 posts
And do not ask me about USB, I will not speak of this EVIL technology.

Sorry, but I have to call this out. He has taken on a bounty he cannot hope to achieve, been given hardware at the expense of Rool and not provided anything in return. Instead of allowing a competent person from taking on the bounty, this has set back progress. Why is he still being entertained?

My background. I first encountered RISC OS at uni. Shared halls with Tim Armes (Straylight) and admired his A410. Once working,finally saved enough to buy a RiscPC 600 in Jan 95. Still use it today for some stuff. Been following things on here since the Raspberry Pi came out. Work as an engineer in a manufacturing plant and have introduced a couple of RPis running RiscOS for a couple of tasks and currently working on another one. At work I was recently given an award for 25 years service, I chose an Armbok. (Thank-you Andrew R for your patience with HR department!)

I do not wish to see this enterprise and platform suffer.

Will you please take your own advice? Though I definitely agree with you here. That is something that many here try to do, unfortunately.

Are you for real?
There’s only one conclusion possible after that bit of utter crap: you really are a troll.

I’ve had it with your incessant drivel. Have fun destroying this community. I’m out of here.

@ROOL,
Next time, put the right person in their place. You seem to have completely lost the plot.

@ROOL – Please deal with this. As Frank said:

Next time, put the right person in their place. You seem to have completely lost the plot.

’ve been a member and reader of this forum since it started, though only occasionally contributing with a question or two. I read it everyday without fail, but over recent times, for whatever reason, something here has changed. I used to find coming here relaxing and enjoyable, finding out the latest on my favourite operating system (RISC-OS), reading technical queries being answered, ROOL and supplier announcements and all their amazing work done without hardly any resources, new software announcements, too much to list. What I’m trying to say is that I’m now getting a really negative “vibe” and hope that this isn’t a precursor to where the community as a whole is heading. I’ve contributed/supported and being a part of the RISC-OS community, in the small ways in which I could, and have noticed that the positivity encountered and chats I had were all started here by this forum.

Some may view this as an overreaction on my part, but

DavidS will you please just leave. You’re using this site as a personal blog and behaving like a troll. You’ve contributed nothing tangible but constantly bleet on about your wonderful programming abilities. Finding out about the panda board USB debacle was the last straw for me. Didn’t you promise to limit yourself to one post a week? Or something ridiculous in similar terms. If it continues you can add me to the ever growing list of people that will leave this site.
You’re not wanted here and I’m sure I’m not just speaking for myself.

You’re not wanted here and I’m sure I’m not just speaking for myself.

You certainly aren’t just speaking for yourself. As I just wrote elsewhere on this forum:

Hey, all, let’s calm that down a bit. Some of what David’s saying seems on the mark to me, some is an opinion and there’s no harm in expressing that and, yeah, there may be some historical facts we might disagree with but there’s NEVER EVER any need to resort to what look like personal attacks.

I can agree with the last clause (there’s NEVER EVER any need to resort to what look like personal attacks) but I have to stick my oar in on the general situation.

DavidS is a problem for this forum. Good contributors (I don’t know whether I’m one or not, but I’m very sure about some others) are leaving because of his alleged contributions. If you want to take that as an attack, so be it.

That’s all I have to say on the subject. Goodbye.

Luckily for me I do not see the majority of DavidS posts, since I normally use the current version of Sargasso and thus can exclude any posts in this case by DavidS, I did have someone else excluded but now see their posts again.

Its really sad this business is making valuable members of the forum to leave, hopefully it will not people off RISC OS and support it in some other way.

Sadly I doubt DavidS with stick to his pledge, he has made other pledges and they lasted about 3 days.

He is entitled to his views but these forums are not I think the right place for them. he should set up a personal blog instead.

Up till now these forums have not been moderated, except for getting rid of spam accounts, I would rather they were not moderated, but maybe it needs it for a set period of time to see how things go.

DavidS, I don’t think it’s necessary to take such an extreme step as deleting your account forever.

I’d suggest these things as remedies (note: the action is not only on DavidS!):

DavidS, I’d suggest reducing the number and size of your postings here. As some have suggested, consider having a blog.

The rest of us (me included): ignore any controversial bits of DavidS’s ongoing postings. Just let it go.

There was an old lady who lived down the street from us, years ago. She described people as “rubbing along together”. It’s a phrase that has stuck in my mind since. Some friction between people is inevitable; we all have a duty to keep it under control.

Pulling this – oh, the irony! – back onto its original topic, it seems that there are some specific requests arising for the forum.

It seems from the discussion here that I’m not the only one who doesn’t ever use “Recent posts” – I didn’t really think it was a thing for most other people, but seems that it is. So, you might want to exclude certain forums from this – gotcha. A search facility that better targets specific subsections would apparently be good too.

I have pinned https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/2/topics/16871 – please follow up there, thanks. We can discuss features and see what the kind of priority / desire is for them, and if I ever have any spare time – 2020 and 2021 have been, frankly, utterly horrendous years, see below for more – I’ll do something on that. Our entire web site software stack is open source and in SVN with all our customisations; patches are welcome.

There has been talk about rearranging the top-level forum topics, too. It’s been a long time since they were visited and some people have said it’s confusing. There has been the suggestion to follow a c.s.a.* hierarchy. Let’s discuss that at https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/2/topics/16872.

My intention is for positive contributions that are actionable and can lead to meaningful change that benefits all.

Meanwhile, as a reminder, if a thread seems to be forking into more than one stream of different discussion, you don’t need ROOL to intervene. Just start a new thread under whatever topic you feel is more appropriate, follow up there and post a link in the original thread that politely requests people to do the same.

Now, onto the difficult interpersonal skills issue.

[…] I don’t think it’s necessary to take such an extreme step as deleting your account forever.

I agree – but put yourselves in their shoes. Imagine that you’re on a forum where lots and lots of people are pitching in to tell you everything that’s wrong with you. It doesn’t matter if those people are right or wrong; how would you feel being ganged up on like that?

Of course, some may feel righteous to do so. There is certainly a debate to be had about whether it’s bad for someone to start lots of threads under a particular forum topic – being “too vocal”. In the above case – unfortunately now unavoidably singling out a specific community member – we have someone who has posted an awful lot to Aldershot, but not much to other forums (and of a few random threads I picked there, they seemed to be pretty much on topic). Yeah, for sure things got heated here. But they got heated elsewhere prior. So, are we going to drop to the level of “but they started it”?

If you don’t like a forum topic, ignore it. See https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/2/topics/16871 if you feel that it’s too difficult to do so within the forum software’s current limitations. “Aldershot” was specifically created for off-topic, rambling, opinionated stuff. It’s the Monty Python topic; deliberate nonsense. I mean, just look at the topic’s name! If you’re not reading Aldershot for that, what exactly were you hoping to get from the topic? Perhaps another topic would suit better? This brings us back to https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/2/topics/16872.

Anyway… Yes, over the last year or two, the tone here has changed. I wonder why?

The last 18-24 months have seen a global pandemic. People have been isolated, often locked down and unable to leave their homes. Without the usual social contact outside the internet, all that remains for many is online discourse. Because they might be lacking the in-person contacts upon which they would normally rely – whether recognised consciously or unconsciously – things are likely to be rather more chatty, rather more rambling and rather more off-topic than normal. Without the usual in-person RISC OS shows, too, it can be difficult for people to efficiently exchange ideas and get things “out of their system”.

There’s also a lot more background stress, and that’s causing some people to overreact or act out. This can include slipping up, getting angry and maybe making posts where you get personal with someone who’s annoyed you. That’s human. It happens. The correct response IMHO isn’t to wield a ban hammer over the individual who got personal, or the individual that annoyed them, unless there’s a systematic abuse of some sort going on. Otherwise, we want to try and be tolerant, understanding, and, well, a community that doesn’t fall prey to infighting in difficult times.

Where’s the empathy or humanity otherwise?

@Andrew Hodgkinson, a heartfelt yet rational appeal to us all. Given the limits of ROOL’s resources and our own sanity, I reckon we can at least manage: “If you don’t like a forum topic, ignore it”.

@Andrew Hodgkinson, a heartfelt yet rational appeal to us all. Given the limits of ROOL’s resources and our own sanity, I reckon we can at least manage: “If you don’t like a forum topic, ignore it”.

Cool – but – https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/2/topics/16871 please. Ideally, we need to be specific. Ignore from where? Don’t show in any UI views at all? No UI views, but allow in search? Allow in the web but exclude from RSS? etc. etc.

(EDIT) LOL! Read your response as a feature request, can’t get my head out of that mode of thinking ha. But anyway – actually it is sort of a request, and definitely something that would seem to make life easier for people.

Carried over from here

On reflection. Could a light-touch moderation have prevented the situation and outcome from occurring, and others like it? And I agree it doesn’t reflect well.

At least ROOL has provided some direction, forum topics and features .

Could a light-touch moderation have prevented the situation and outcome from occurring, and others like it? And I agree it doesn’t reflect well.

It does leave a bad taste.

Aside from the recent furore, which might be over, the more endemic forum noise issue is in the main just a few frequent posters chattering amongst themselves.

ROOL is a just few volunteers using their own time to further the cause. Consider the effort the maintainer might have to put in the clean up the forum just because of a small number of selfish individuals.

It’s not right and it’s not fair.

While I agree that on-topic is good for forum quality, a small amount of “chatter” is what makes the place feel friendly and welcoming, I think. So let’s not become so draconian as to stop those who like to put in a bit of banter doing so. As long as it’s in moderation.

I’m as guilty as (almost) anyone of “a bit of chatter,” and while I’d accept a total ban on off-topic chatter, I’d be sad, and think it was an over-reaction. But “As long as it’s in moderation” is critical – to the point of being potentially make-or-break, I think.

I’m as guilty as (almost) anyone of “a bit of chatter,” and while I’d accept a total ban on off-topic chatter, I’d be sad,

Totally agree that a technical-only forum would be a sad place, never asked for that. Personally I just asked if some categories, may be treated differently, like no chatter and stay on topic. While there should definitely be categories where chatting is allowed and encouraged.

One of the many good things that Andrew Hodgkinson pointed out, these last few years have been heavy on many people around the world, in particular here in the UK engraved by other situations for quite a few. So, IMHO, it is important that a forum also preserves the human side (if that is the correct English term for it) where people can enjoy chatting about the past, the present and the future or whatever they like.

My personal proposals is to have certain categories more “focused” and others more “relaxed”, hope this makes sense.

Totally agree that a technical-only forum would be a sad place, never asked for that. Personally I just asked if some categories, may be treated differently, like no chatter and stay on topic. While there should definitely be categories where chatting is allowed and encouraged.

Aldershot for chat, relaxed, and restraint in the nine RISC OS forums, focused. The catch is the current recent posts, most but not all do not want Aldershot in recent posts. How about this, two recent posts links and RSS feeds, one with only the RISC OS forums and the other the present version with everything in it for Aldershot users.

In the forum front page put Aldershot and Test in a separate box with a space between it and the main box. In the space, immediately below the nine main forums box, put the RISC OS only recent posts link. The current all recent posts link stays where is is at the bottom underneath the Aldershot and Tests box.

Would that help? (If it is possible that is.)

Would that help? (If it is possible that is.)

It works for me. Thanks!

@Rick, I am sorry to read you’ve decided to leave. <-snipped important stuff→. Please reconsider.

@Rick, Please reconsider; it’s good that you are around here. :)

Aldershot for chat, relaxed, and restraint in the nine RISC OS forums, focused […]

Yep – cool; moved to https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/2/topics/16871?page=2#posts-128195.

Please remember when anyone suggests that we just ignore obvious trolling, that many of us here resemble this xkcd and while we can let one or two things go, a concerted barrage of wrongness cannot be left to stand.

Apart from that, everything posted here appears in search engines, and do you want this site to have all the credibility of anti-vax Facebook group?

Apart from that, everything posted here appears in search engines, and do you want this site to continue to have all the credibility of anti-vax Facebook group?

There. Fixed that for you.

Please remember when anyone suggests that we just ignore obvious trolling, that many of us here resemble this xkcd and while we can let one or two things go, a concerted barrage of wrongness cannot be left to stand.

OK, but…

Actually counter-arguing is only a 50% contradiction.

Could there be a mechanism where people could simply respond with a standard message, content yet to be worked out, on the thread stating that the posting is blatantly incorrect, and leave the reputation of the objector(s) to carry the weight for posterity.

If a number of these follow an incorrectly argued posting, they will be immediately visible to future generations.

Rather than repeat a counter argument each time, giving credence to the thread as a genuine discussion, a reference or references to the counter-argument can be included.

Thus the dissident poster will not be given the credibility of a direct argued response in a supposed dialogue, but refutation will be available for future readers without clogging the forums.

It may be useful if someone – perhaps the very highly respected spam sentinel (thanks, Dave!) – could mark the original post as being possibly less than worthy if, say, 3, of these counterpost messages were noted. This would be automatic, though requiring human intervention to implement.

Of course this requires extra work, is capable of subtle abuse etcetera – but such a system could be better than the present situation!

We could even devise a further three-strikes-and-you’re-out system for persistent offenders, though that could be reserved as a final sanction and could start-off being a time-limited suspension of posting rights!

What I am suggesting leaves the judgement to a group of 3 credible objectors to the veracity of the posting content, and dictates simple criteria which could lead to sanctions!

But, still, don’t feed the troll! That’s the important principle!

Following on from Druck’s post

How it felt!

It cannot be acceptable to enable behaviour that disrupts others by saying, ignore it and doing nothing, causing good people to leave the forum.

There’s plenty of evidence here that many people went the extra mile to help and support the individual who ended up sadly leaving.

Fingers crossed, “Safeguarding the past, present and future of RISC OS for everyone”.