Does the NI Forum Community Culture need a change?
Comments
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I fully agree with Kymeia. Nothing in life is just "black or white". The ancient Chinese symbol of Yin-Yang is the perfect example. On every evil, there is always a pinch of good inside, and on every good, there is always a pinch of evil. The simplistic, cold logic of black and white has always been a source of destruction.
However, this is not a matter that we can solve here. These questions, and these two different ways of looking at life, are a millennia-old issue that some of humanity's greatest minds have dealt with. In ancient times there were rival schools of philosophy and the main ones were the school that expressed the Platonic way of thinking and the school that expressed the Aristotelian way of thinking.
However, for better or for worse our forum is not the place for further analysis, so let's get back to our discussion. :-)
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Here is the first part of my thoughts about the recent events and all the things that we discus here. Today i will focus on the matter of abuse. Tomorrow (probably) i will continue with the rewards, leader board and some suggested solutions.
The main purpose of those thoughts is rather to encourage a deeper level of thinking. After that, solutions will come easily.
Abuse:
How can we define abuse? and who is setting the rules? The "conservative" American? the "cold blood" German? the "hothead" Italian? the "peaceful" Tibetan?
Each one has its own culture, for example what offenses a white American republican is simple a friendly talk for a Greek.
Inappropriate language:
What is inappropriate language?
I will speak by example here: Is the language used by Frank Zappa, Jim Morrison, Sid Vicious, Dead Kennedys, Rage Against the Machine, Cypress Hill, or Charles Bukowski and many more worldwide known writers, "inappropriate"?
We are not all fans of modern "Globalization", in fact, we welcome diversity. I love the definition of life as it was heard from the mouth of our beloved Dr. Spock: "infinite diversity in infinite combinations". This is what i support, together with the freedom of speech which we inherited both from the ancient Athenian Republic and the Renaissance period (among others), as well as from the youth struggles of the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.
After all those milestones of human evolution, to return to older, more conservative ways of thinking and more conservative practices, for the sake of some formal "civility", is a regression for Humanity.
Behavior:
I have seen in the rules this, about forum behavior:
"Don’t post anything that a reasonable person would consider offensive"
This is very hazy and vague and completely subjective. Who defines what is a "reasonable person"? Was it Salvador Dali, Nelson Mandela or Bob Marley "reasonable persons"? Not according to the common logic. None of them was the definition of a "reasonable person" yet they offered to humanity much more than millions of others.
Psychologists have said that, people who are easily offended usually have unhealed emotional or psychological issues related to past experiences. They perceive that their honor, personal or ideological beliefs, or public image are being threatened and they have the mental habit of taking things too personally and may struggle to consider things from someone else’s point of view. To be frank, all of these reasons can really be summed up in one word: Insecurity.
Satire vs. Sarcasm:
Sometimes i express my self in the form of satire. However, some people may conceive this as sarcasm or rudeness. But satire is an important part of life and there where i come from, it is an almost every day speech. From Aristophanes to Aldous Huxley, satire has become a form of art. We can not just simply ban it, though i recognize that there is a fine line between satire and sarcasm.
Rules:
Of course we must have some rules about behavior, this is absolutely essential. No one can doubt that. But in my opinion, it is best to keep them on an "absolutely necessary" base.
So, how about instead of making rules over rules, we all to learn to be less offended by how the others speak (unless they directly insulting us) and more tolerate to the ways of the other person?
That is all for now, again, i wish you all a great and peaceful day! 🙏
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Regarding language/possible offence etc we need to remember that these forums are accessible by people of all ages, so you could have 10 year old users accessing them for help. There's no requirement to be an "adult", and that should absolutely be taken into account when setting acceptable use and content policies.
-- Mike
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The forum provider evolves, just like any other software, as it does we can implement new things, so the forum will always evolve too to hopefully be better no matter how good it might currently be compared to XYZ. We also have to take into account whatever might be happening and sometimes question current implementations, like the Flag abuse issue, I've been questioning it since I noticed it was being abused, and now that Matt is back something will be done about it aswell as simple trying new things and see how they work.
So this argument of other forums being worse is not at all a hindrance to the evolution of this one, no point in discussing that too much.
That all sounds great (very well written too) and I don't want to sound insensitive but... I am not sure how diving deep in philosophy, psychology or semantics will make us all reach some sort of agreement about anything or lead to improvement of the forum. The type of person who usually gets into problems with others doesn't seem to be the type to think too deeply about... anything.
Rules have a purpose in this sort of context, it's something we can point to when things get out of line and we have to take action. The fewer the rules the more subjective they are, or we could just have 1 rule "Be a good person" or something. There is no perfect way to write rules or enforce them. At the end of the day moderation is up to the judgment and common sense of Admins and Mods, weirdly like a Judge/Juri situation... there's always room for interpretation and disagreement.
If someone has tangible suggestions on how to better write the rules fire away, but just questioning the whole system is not very productive in practical terms. Subjective things are always hard, take this quote of yours for example:
Unfortunately for humanity, the Christian church that dominated everywhere a few centuries later adopted the Aristotelian way and even corroded it to a considerable extent.
I would never in a million years say something like that because I know from experience that it can spark a religious argument with quoting back and forth that always ends badly, just as discussing politics or sports teams...
Personally, I am not sensitive to it or care, as I land somewhere between agnostic or an atheist but someone very religious could be triggered. So, in practical terms, I wouldn't mind a rule forbidding both religious and political discussions. It takes away a bit of our freedom but avoids problems.
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I am not sure how diving deep in philosophy, psychology or semantics will make us all reach some sort of agreement about anything or lead to improvement of the forum. The type of person who usually gets into problems with others doesn't seem to be the type to think too deeply about... anything.
All very true, however i did that because as far as i can see, members who participate in this thread can express nicely themselves, they do have an educated opinion (and it doesn't matter if i don't agree on some points) and they seem intelligent and open, so i believed that they are very capable to understand what i wrote. In my experience, a deeper understanding, always provide solutions, while a superficial approach, always provide problems.
I would never in a million years say something like that because I know from experience that it can spark a religious argument with quoting back and forth that always ends badly, just as discussing politics or sports teams...
I took a lot of precautions, by checking again and again my text to made sure that it has not have "grey areas" or any kind of accusations (just like in the "Christianity case" i chose my words very carefully to not offend someone, and made sure that what i wrote is an established history and not some random opinion). Yet, you are correct, an uneducated fanatic could misunderstood it. But I'm sure that non of our dear members here is a fanatic.
+1 for the "I wouldn't mind a rule forbidding both religious and political discussions", they have no place here. But in my comment it was just an example and not a conversation. Surely i will avoid any similar references, either way, i rarely use them. :-)
The fewer the rules the more subjective they are
That, depends on the clarity of the written material. Surely, not everyone will understand or, not everyone might have the good will to understand, but in any case, the forum and it's people (admins, mods, members) will be well covered.
There is no perfect way to write rules or enforce them...+...if someone has tangible suggestions on how to better write the rules fire away
That, is the hardest part of all and, unfortunately, no matter how good the rules are, or how perfectly they are written, there will always be people that they will dislike them. It is not possible to make everyone happy so, the point here is to focus on the majority. However this majority can not be random. It has to be depended on something, for example, on the members who actually have a customer account too. When i will post my suggestions, probably tomorrow, i might have something to say about this.
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What we all "understand" when we read any post is largely based on our own experience, through filters we have developed over year or decades, and through our own bias's and sensitivities. And EVERY member has a different set of bias's and sensitivities which drive their sense of right and wrong and this wiring drives our reaction to what others say and do.
Every forum is a giant sandbox that attracts all sorts. Some come to listen quietly with the intention of learning from others. Some come for the entertainment value of watching others squabble. But some also come out of a desire to help others. and so on....
But I respectfully suggest that saying to anyone, "you don't understand" is simply inviting an indignant reaction which is of course understandable. It is exactly what I try no to do.
I am just here to add my voice to the discourse. Some posts resonate more with me than others and that holds true for us all. But I state here in public that I will always make an effort to avoid saying things that come across as judgmental. I may fail sometimes because I allowed myself to be triggered by the words of another that crossed a boundary for me. But I am only human like everyone else.
There is nothing wrong with difference of opinion, and we should all embrace that. But it is how we choose to react when we disagree that matters, and this is especially hard to do when we feel attacked by others or feel the urge to defend someone else.
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I am actually pretty disappointed in the thread that @Vagus started being closed, which was a good collective for people's frustrations on the latest software to be central. This thread highlights some of the problems already and I have not even read the first 8 pages, who CBF to do that.
I've already suggested so many things over the years, I am tired of throwing suggestions into black holes.
I just don't post much anymore. Little interest left these days.
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I agree on the above. Komplete Kontrol 3 Feedback was a very important thread. It should be revisit by the admins, delete anything that is not crucial to the discussion (irrelevant comments, whining, drama etc) and bring it back. Is just an 1 hour job to do that.
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this was kind of hilarious. "nothing in life is black or white, except this example of philosophies i bring up in the very next paragraph, which totally is, and it's the fault of a clearly identifiable group that we're stuck with the wrong one!!"
between all the pseudo-intellectual bluster, all I'm getting from this post is "I personally, forums poster Sunborn, should be allowed to be callous and not be sanctioned for it"
if we already had a downvote button, i'd have used it on these two posts 👎
how's that for cold blood german
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Here is the second part of my thoughts about the things we discuss here:
Rewards:
Someone wrote this about it: "do it in a way that is more random so it doesn't breed competition and all the undesirable side effects that come with it?"
Competition is the father of invention and the brother of evolution. Without competition human race would might be still living in caves. Competition is not antagonism. There is a fine line between them.
Competition is constructive (like with the athletes in the Olympics) while antagonism is destructive (like what is custom among modern multinational companies, for example).
Random choice is like a lottery. It is not fair. I do not like unfair things. Every one must rewarded according to his actions.
Leader Board:
Consider this, about the people in the leader board (plus few more, who are extremely helpful, while rarely be seen on the leader board): We are doing most of a moderator's work, but unpaid.
Did you see the section "Unanswered questions"? Usually you see, around 20 questions there. Without us answering all those questions, you will see 200 there. People ask, and they deserve an answer, no matter if this answer is not always complete.
Another thing about the people in the leader board is that we are not "random" or by accident there. We may do mistakes as human beings, but we do offer a lot. All of us, plus others who are not making it to "top-10" (just to name a few, Kubrak, colB, Mercury, Vagus, Christos Adamos are great examples, really helpful and knowledgeable people). If you check all of our profiles, you will see how we get here. I, for example, have 100 insightful, 250 accepted answers and 500 likes and there are less than 20 people in the forum who achieved that (and 1/3 of them are moderators or admins). This means something. People are appreciate our answers.
I spend about 5-6 hours a day here (except of when I'm traveling or taking care of my farm). Before this leader board story, i spended about 4. Rewards is a motivation of course for those 1-2 extra hours but it is not much of a difference i think. I was almost the same helpful before the rewards too. But it is not just about the rewards. I also read and learn a lot of things here. So i prefer to spend those extra hours here, rather than on silly Facebook or elsewhere. I do it because i can. I don't have children and i work independently from home, and only whenever i need some extra money. I am lucky enough and been grateful to the Universe because 24 hours a day, i do the things i like.
Another thing that you should consider. The people who created and are responsible for the forum did that reward-game obviously because they want much more participation from the members, and there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is a very common tactic worldwide. If it annoys you for some reason, don't look at it. It is healthy, it raises our knowledge and it is fun too.
Suggestions by me:
Moderation: I estimate, based on my experience on other forums, Facebook groups etc. that, a forum of this size requires about 48 moderators, 4 for each main category, working 6 hours per day each, chosen from all continents in order to complete a full 24 hour forum watch.
Membership: I suggest 2 levels of membership. Each one with different rights, obligations and rewards. Member e-mails should be checked and compared with the actual customers e-mails. Those who have a customer account with the same e-mail will be included in Level A. Those who does not have a customer account will be included in Level B. It is unlikely that spammers, abusers and people who came and make 2 complaining posts and then disappear, to be real customers.
Deleting your own post: I do not agree with this, because simply there is an "Edit" option if you need to change or correct something. I have seen elsewhere a big abuse of the "delete" option. Cases of threads full of information, full of constructive conversations, lost forever because the original poster decided that he want to delete it. I suggest a "golden ratio" rule instead. Threads without comments, or few unimportant comments can be deleted, but everything else not. The member can use a "delete" option, but it should be a moderator's decision to approve or not this request.
Suggestions by others:
Report: I fully agree and support the evolution of a multi-choice "report" option and the abolition of the "abuse" flag, unless if it always monitored by a moderator.
Reactions: "Remove the ability to see who reacts to your comment". I do not agree on this. Knowing who is supporting you leads to a warmer environment, a mutual understanding and, why not, even friendship.
Votes: "Add a vote down, vote up, off topic reaction". I support the last 2 option only. The first option can potentially lead to a misuse.
Rules:
Two rules that might improve forum wellness:
1- For every one who create an account here, the e-mail confirmation should lead to the rules page, where there will be a message similar to this:
"Reading and acceptance of the rules is mandatory to participate in the forum"
At the end, after the member reads it, there should be a checkbox "I understand and agree" which the member must click to enter the forum. In this way, no one can claim that "he didn't know".
2- Irony and general hostility should be clearly included on the abuse/report cases. Because some people may use fine and non-offensive words, but the "spirit" of their comment to be very hostile (such as the above comment).
Personally i have no problem with the so called "rude" language. Though i come from a traditional family and received a high education, I grew up with hippies, freaks, punks, ravers and "street" philosophers, where nobody cared about how you speak but about what you are saying! What is important to me is the essence of speech and not the formalities. Irony can trigger me, same as people who, without knowing me, try to degrade me, based on their own standards. I can tolerate an active and known member until one point, but i can not tolerate a random newcomer with 1 comment, without a name or even a profile picture who is coming and insult me, because probably he is a cheeky teenager or, because his family did not teach him to respect the elders.
Conclusion:
Of course i am not perfect. Neither any of you are. We are all humans, each with his/her own virtues and flaws. So, let's tolerate our differences and respect each other for what each of us is and not for what he "should" be, and lets build a great community here!
Good day to all of you. 🙏
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Consider this, about the people in the leader board (plus few more, who are extremely helpful, while rarely be seen on the leader board): We are doing most of a moderator's work, but unpaid.
Answering questions and helping users is not moderation, and suggesting we're doing most of a moderator's work is kinda disrespectful to moderators. Moderation is making sure the forums are running properly, keeping discussions relevant, dealing with antagonism and self-important users etc. You can moderate a forum without having the in depth knowledge of the products required to answer all the questions. Obviously that's not the case on these forums as the mods know what they're doing (added so I don't get banned 😂)
-- Mike
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You are wrong on this.
Please lets keep this thread constructive and focused on finding solutions and ideas for the common benefit of us all. If i also start to tag answers and criticize everything that i don't agree or i don't like here, i could make 15 more posts, but as you see, so far i tagged no one, even if i got personally attacked in a very rude way, 2 comments above. This permanent tactic of constant confrontation has begun to tire... Thank you.
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Obviously that's not the case on these forums as the mods know what they're doing
You forgot to quote this part
-- Mike
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Rules:
Two rules that might improve forum wellness:
1- For every one who create an account here, the e-mail confirmation should lead to the rules page, where there will be a message similar to this:
"Reading and acceptance of the rules is mandatory to participate in the forum"
At the end, after the member reads it, there should be a checkbox "I understand and agree" which the member must click to enter the forum. In this way, no one can claim that "he didn't know".
+1 for this very good suggestion.
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Consider this, about the people in the leader board (plus few more, who are extremely helpful, while rarely be seen on the leader board): We are doing most of a moderator's work, but unpaid.
Just because you do "moderators work" as you put it or feel you are somehow elevated above common folks because you invest your time here does not mean you are any more important or deserving of anything.
I have done "moderators work" as you put it willingly here for 12+ years like many others without any leaderboard to tell me how good a job I do, I feel it was far more engaging on the old forums and feel this leaderboard is a complete mistake, one reason I just don't post here much anymore. I have also received spam/abuse marks and never once complained it was unfair, it was likely perfectly fair because hell, we all say $h!t sometimes.
@Sunborn before drawing out that victim card that you have again been attacked/ganged up on for "no reason", here is something I will highlight that I feel draws such attention to your way of posting as I feel you yourself are attacking collectively many other users maybe without even being aware (tho you articulate words well enough that I feel your words are very carefully selected), this not being isolated just an example on this page alone...
You said here which an actual moderator @D-One instantly highlighted as inappropriate for (any) forum topic (or in any usual conversation):
Unfortunately for humanity, the Christian church that dominated everywhere a few centuries later adopted the Aristotelian way and even corroded it to a considerable extent. This choice haunts us to this day and was partly one of the reasons that led to the Middle Ages. The simplistic, cold logic of black and white.
Now, not offensive or anything (at least to me), just completely not needed in any topic. Hey, great, you know a bit about some history likely because you are religious yourself. But then you double down on this here:
I took a lot of precautions, by checking again and again my text to made sure that it has not have "grey areas" or any kind of accusations (just like in the "Christianity case" i chose my words very carefully to not offend someone, and made sure that what i wrote is an established history and not some random opinion). Yet, you are correct, an uneducated fanatic could misunderstood it. But I'm sure that non of our dear members here is a fanatic.
Basically, you suggest if someone like me who has no clue what you have posted or what it even has to do with the topic as I am not a follower of this kind of topic and does not understand then I am therefore an "Uneducated Fanatic".
That seems like a pretty condescending/passive aggressive comment to me and if you received a strike for that, I would see that as more than fair. Maybe some people dislike being called uneducated or a Fanatic for not being at "your level" or being dictated to on how they should react to certain things. You cannot simply say things like "I carefully selected my words so as not to offend" when someone suggests it could be offensive, that is like saying "no offense, but you are an idiot....". Can't dictate what others may react to.
No issue from me for rewards for engagement and helping out BUT it should have never been "gamified" since you highlight above how much time you invest but this does NOT entitle someone to anything, not to any prize, not to any guaranteed ladder position, not to any elevated sense of higher importance. Just because someone sinks in the hours does not instantly mean they are better than someone that maybe can only post a few things a day, maybe that person offers more friendly and applicable input or is genuinely there to help, not just win points. It is one of the reasons I have disengaged a lot from the forum, I dislike this leaderboard approach as I feel it cheapens the genuine community.
So just trying to highlight that you are seemingly wrong about people "ganging up" on you for no reason or only disliking posts to affect your ladder position from what I read, it could quite simply be what you post sometimes, I mean if you are here all day every day posting in many threads with these kinds of opinions, I am sure it will rub a few the wrong way.
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