On Saturday, 19 October 2019 at 17:17:40 UTC, matheus wrote:
> On Saturday, 19 October 2019 at 12:59:40 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
>> ...
>
> We shouldn't have a rule in this Sub-Group like most of content should be technical and on the subject?
>
> Or at least have different groups for Technical and other things (Like Off-Topic).
>
> Personally I hate drama in technical forums because it's just a waste of time.
>
> Matheus.

Just have an off-topic unmoderated forum, move all the shite over there, drift off topic, flogging a dead horse, or tiptoeing over the lines of decency (Who hoo thats me!) move it over there.

On 20/10/2019 11:52 AM, NaN wrote:
> On Saturday, 19 October 2019 at 17:17:40 UTC, matheus wrote:
>> On Saturday, 19 October 2019 at 12:59:40 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
>>> ...
>>
>> We shouldn't have a rule in this Sub-Group like most of content should be technical and on the subject?
>>
>> Or at least have different groups for Technical and other things (Like Off-Topic).
>>
>> Personally I hate drama in technical forums because it's just a waste of time.
>>
>> Matheus.
> 
> Just have an off-topic unmoderated forum, move all the shite over there, drift off topic, flogging a dead horse, or tiptoeing over the lines of decency (Who hoo thats me!) move it over there.

You can't move it on a NewsGroup.
It will exist partially in both places.

On 19.10.19 14:59, Mike Parker wrote:
> 
> If such posts bother you, then simply ignore them. Don't reply. Even better, don't read any posts by that person at all.

Messages by some posters pretty reliably have contents that are significantly less valuable than the screen space the posts take up in the threaded view. My client is already set up to delete messages written by certain people. Maybe this feature could be added to the web forums.

On Saturday, 19 October 2019 at 12:59:40 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:

> If such posts bother you, then simply ignore them. Don't reply. Even better, don't read any posts by that person at all.

That doesn't really solve the problem. Those posts are off topic. Going back a few years, when we had the announcement about Facebook using D, some joker decided to post a laundry list of problems with D, most of which was false. It was a post that contributed nothing to the discussion and had nothing to do with the announcement. I've never replied to threads here to talk about my son's soccer games or the outcome of a visit to the doctor's office. The worst offenders are likely cutting and pasting from posts they made three years ago, because it's the same tired stuff every time. Any forum with meaningful traffic has rules about off-topic posts.

> And no, it's not going to hurt us in the world at large. We've suffered worse on reddit.

I find that hard to believe. If I was going to build a business around a language and the only official forum had stuff like that on thread after thread, I'd look elsewhere. I've never seen it with another language.

On Saturday, 19 October 2019 at 13:12:38 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
> For the record, I just deleted three posts, from three different users, near the end of the feedback thread that were nothing but mudslinging. I'm not going to crawl back through the rest of the thread to delete more. But henceforth, since I can't lock the thread, any posts that are simply about throwing insults will get the ax.

For what it’s worth this was genuinely noticeable and much welcomed.

On 10/20/2019 2:03 PM, bachmeier wrote:
> I find that hard to believe. If I was going to build a business around a language and the only official forum had stuff like that on thread after thread, I'd look elsewhere. I've never seen it with another language.

I did step in on the Feedback thread and removed about 30 posts of back and forth bickering of no discernible value.

If things like this go off the rails in the future, an email to Mike Parker or myself can let us know that we need to step in.

Mike's advice is still good. Don't reply to people who push your buttons. It never ends well. I have a lot of experience in that direction, all of it negative.

On Monday, 21 October 2019 at 07:16:16 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> Mike's advice is still good. Don't reply to people who push your buttons.

And all the C programmer need to pay more attention when writing their code so they would not get buffer overflows.

Hello,

I also think forum moderation is too relaxed (though I wouldn't have said that 6 years ago).

I do not think it's pacifism that kills forums/newsgroup, but what I would rather call chaos or anarchy, so in other words, the lack of rules and lack of rule enforcement.

The D community gathers very skilled people. It's a thrilling experience to be part of that.

But it's sad to see every now and then threads like "Why D is dead" or "20 things D needs to be great", etc. It's sad because:
1- It's usually negative non-constructive criticism. It's often poorly formulated. It usually raises problems that have already been discussed.
2- It gives the impression that anyone can come up with its desiderata, and dump it on the forum expecting to be taken seriously.
3- Worse than that, it wastes the valuable time of some more experienced good-willed members who take the time to reply to that.

We can get more accurate and serious feedback via polls or some statistics.

Well yes, we are all adults, but there is a great difference between a 25-year old impatient guy who just came out of school and knows nothing about the industry (and it's not his fault, obviously) and a 60-year old dude who has hundreds of thousands of line of code behind him.

To say it bluntly, I find some guys show very little respect to D leadership (or other members) work. And, as we cannot change people (or judge them, in some philosophical sense), the D leadership should strengthen the moderation. It might be counter-intuitive, but to preserve peace, I reckon it's better to have clear rules (even if too much restrictive), at least everyone knows where are the boundaries, than no rules at all (which in fact is always the untold rules of the strongest within a false liberal paradise).

So I think D forums need better tools to do moderation:
- Allow to move threads.
- Kick/ban users.
- Have a visible pinned thread containing all the rules (netiquette etc) so it is obvious what is OK and what is not.
- And a "bad cop" moderator who will have to take on himself the mundane task of enforcing the rules and likely being detested for that (but that's part of the job, you have to be wise, fair and have some sense of irony).

Claude

On 21/10/2019 22:45, welkam via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On Monday, 21 October 2019 at 07:16:16 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>> Mike's advice is still good. Don't reply to people who push your buttons.
>
> And all the C programmer need to pay more attention when writing their code so they would not get buffer overflows.

The best advice is often difficult to do in practice. ;-)

But it's still good advice.



-- 
Mark Rousell

On 10/21/19 5:45 PM, welkam wrote:
> On Monday, 21 October 2019 at 07:16:16 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>> Mike's advice is still good. Don't reply to people who push your buttons.
> 
> And all the C programmer need to pay more attention when writing their code so they would not get buffer overflows.

Nice simile. I agree there's plenty of evidence ever since the Internet has been invented that just giving people advice to not feed the trolls doesn't work.