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Re: Forum Rules

Postby Lydiot » Fri Feb 12, 2016 7:23 pm

curt wrote in Fri Feb 12, 2016 2:01 pm:No set of rules will never be perfect, no set of forum admins will ever be perfect, no individual forum participant is perfect. But if we all work to bring out the best in each other, give each other some grace (allowance to make occasional mistakes), we can continue to build a positive community.


Most people will agree with the above. I suppose the question is if you want input from the community you're moderating about how it should be done, or if you prefer to close your eyes and ears to input and just do your own thing. If it's the latter there's always the risk that some of the very things that make your community 'not perfect' that could be improved upon will never be improved upon, not because they can't be, but because you're not willing to have a dialog about it.

But as I said, for some time I've definitely gotten the sense of this whole endeavor consisting of a core group that controls a great deal of everything.... and then the rest of 'the community'.... and that is probably exactly the way you want things to remain. It doesn't feel fantastic though, though I doubt you guys care.
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Re: Forum Rules

Postby Hooray » Fri Feb 12, 2016 8:33 pm

Let's say for the sake of your argument, I don't fundamentally disagree with you - but just imagine for a second that you have been developing a great feature (aircraft, airport, scenery etc) for the past few months/years - would you want end-users to affect your work, or would you rather listen to people who are willing to roll up their sleeves and get involved in your effort ?


FYI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy
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Re: Forum Rules

Postby Lydiot » Fri Feb 12, 2016 9:31 pm

Hooray wrote in Fri Feb 12, 2016 8:33 pm: imagine for a second that you have been developing a great feature (aircraft, airport, scenery etc) for the past few months/years - would you want end-users to affect your work, or would you rather listen to people who are willing to roll up their sleeves and get involved in your effort ?


End users affecting your work and you listening to people are two different things. Apples and oranges. An implied dichotomy that is false.

Sounds like you're arguing something I wasn't talking about, at best.
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Re: Forum Rules

Postby Hooray » Fri Feb 12, 2016 10:03 pm

Again, not disagreeing necessarily - but it all boils down to your signal-to-noise ratio, i.e. people being willing to listen to you, and being willing to let you affect their work, based on what you can have to bring to the table. Not all that unreasonable, it's a simple and effective way of "filtering", i.e. what's "relevant" and what (who) has the greatest the ROI.

I am not saying that what you describe would be "better", I am just saying that it may be harder to actually implement than you realize, and that this may only become apparent once it is your own spare time that you need to allocate to different interests, priorities and contributions in general.

Quite frankly, we don't even have the manpower to process all the reasonable feedback/ideas that experienced contributors are coming up with, or just look at the issue tracker, and the growing backlog of patches/commits - you gotta need to make concessions at some point. Which isn't unlike having to pay your bills each month, so you need to make sure that your priorities match the harsh reality and the constraints it's bringing with it.

Would it be better if all reported bugs were triaged, reviewed and debugged/fixed immediately, sure - is it possible to implement that "easily" - unfortunately not ...

I once said somewhere that you may only appreciate these fine points once you are given some kind of "leadership role" in this community, no matter if that means commit access to sg/fg, fgdata, or admin/moderator privileges on the forum/wiki or some other criticial infrastructure (think issue tracker, build server, mapserver etc) - let's face it: People could hook you up with all sorts of privileges within a few seconds, and all of a sudden you'd be considered a "core developer", "fgdata committer", "wiki admin", "forum moderator" or whatever else - including all the community expectations that come with these privileges.

However, regardless of your "privileges", your own reality (spare time, professional obligations, education, family, other obligations etc) may not have changed much, whereas you would all of a sudden be considered a "key player" by most/many others.

Just look at some of the more seasoned contributors, many of whom, based on looking at the commit logs, are no longer as actively involved in core development matters as they once were, literally having taken a backseat, i.e. delegating things or maintaining infrastructure (think website) or just taking a long hiatus from FG matters - but community expectations still remain high, despite many folks being basically "inactive" these days.

And now imagine you are given the corresponding privileges to help maintain criticial infrastructure, and all sorts of people would suggest: "please get in touch with Lydiot, he's got commit access to help you review your XYZ patch" - all that while having a 40+ hrs week of work ahead of you, and a family of 4, an old dog, 2 cats ... 2 cars to pay for, 1 house ... and you are getting the picture, right ;-)

In summary, the FlightGear community is not even remotely as "closed-circle" as it may admittedly appear to bystanders, for that it is insufficiently organized honestly - i.e. many thing that happen (or don't happen) primarily happen due to inertia, temporary momentum and activity of some few folks.
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Re: Forum Rules

Postby Lydiot » Fri Feb 12, 2016 10:15 pm

I think you're missing my point. My impression of the FG project's personnel makeup is one thing, and my point about forum rules another.
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Re: Forum Rules

Postby hamzaalloush » Sat Feb 13, 2016 3:36 am

curt wrote in Fri Feb 12, 2016 2:01 pm:No set of rules will never be perfect, no set of forum admins will ever be perfect, no individual forum participant is perfect. But if we all work to bring out the best in each other, give each other some grace (allowance to make occasional mistakes), we can continue to build a positive community.


you are right Curt, i might have become abrasive and indeed i should treat others that the same as i wish they did for me, no one is perfect and we should all try to do our best effort and give benefit of the doubt, again i apologize if i sounded harshly critical/sarcastic of some of the rules.
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Re: Forum Rules

Postby Bomber » Sat Feb 13, 2016 2:42 pm

Curts post of desires steers towards the positive.... however the 'rules' steer towards the negative.

Hoorays return to the noise to signal ratio comments and the use of it as a justification for a person value to this community... is a negative comments about a member of this community.... not about his work, or a development direction but directly about a persons posting style and his interpretation of it.

Curt.... you say you want a positive forum, yet on this thread it's now veering towards critising people's posting styles not about discussing the so called rules .

I and others were invited to offer opinions on how to change the culture of this forum...

You had two directions in which to go in...

Change the culture with positive actions, moving forward as a collaborative development forum or impose a series of measures that can be used as justifications for future banning of individuals.

Along with the last rule, the intent has been received loud and clear.

Simon.
"If anyone ever tells you anything about an aeroplane which is so bloody complicated you can't understand it, take it from me - it's all balls" - R J Mitchel
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Re: Forum Rules

Postby curt » Sat Feb 13, 2016 3:43 pm

I'm ok with letting individual forum members decide which frequent posters tend to steer towards the positive, and which frequent posters tend to steer towards the negative. I don't enjoy 'marketing' or 'dis-marketing' myself and others. If this thread has veered away from positive, I think anyone can trace back through the thread and pick out the messages with positive intent versus otherwise. People can see for themselves who is reacting to a basic set of common sense rules and returning to old arguments. Maybe more of the silent majority here on the forum could jump in and contribute to the positive side of these discussion? :-)

Best regards,

Curt.
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Re: Forum Rules

Postby Bomber » Sat Feb 13, 2016 4:14 pm

Yeh but it's very easy to think that a comment akin to .. " curt, I agree with everything you say" as being positive.

And to think that a comment disagreeing with the rules and explaining why as negative.

These new rules will never herald in a change of culture on these forums...

Rule 11 divides this community... it divides it in along the lines of... and I quote hooray on this

Just look at some of the more seasoned contributors, many of whom, based on looking at the commit logs, are no longer as actively involved in core development matters as they once were, literally having taken a backseat,


It's time you accepted new blood, new opinions, new development.... new discussions.

Promote this forum as THE place to discuss FG development and a culture where we're all going forward in the same direction with a clear plan.

Simon
"If anyone ever tells you anything about an aeroplane which is so bloody complicated you can't understand it, take it from me - it's all balls" - R J Mitchel
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Re: Forum Rules

Postby curt » Sat Feb 13, 2016 5:08 pm

The forum rules affirm basic common courtesy and establish a few procedural rules of order so we can be on the same page.

Rule #11 simply states that we would like to keep discussion of core development in one place rather than scattered helter skelter in many forums and areas. We have chosen the developers mailing list for developer discussion. It doesn't mean people can't discuss what they want wherever they wish, just that we are steering core development discussions towards the developers mailing list and that is the place most of our long term developers pay most attention to.

If someone makes a mistake or has a misunderstanding with a basic procedural rule about what gets posted where, or top posts when they should bottom post, or quotes improperly, that's no big deal. That is where the forum admins reserve the rights to move a post, split a topic, or you may receive a gentle nudge or reminder. If anyone is concerned about being sanctioned because they made a mistake or forgot or didn't know a procedural rule, please do not be worried.

If someone breaks a rule pertaining to basic human interaction and courtesy or is bullying or toxic or actively disrupting/harming the project, that will possibly result in some sort of caution or admin action. People that do these things (to the level that we are concerned about) are well aware of their actions and quite deliberate. If anyone is concerned about being sanctioned because they have broken a rule relating to common human decency, then just be nice to each other and you will be fine. Just to be clear: the people who are legitimately worried about being sanctioned for their bad behavior are the ones who already know they are way over on the wrong side of the line and are posting all kinds of defensive arguments, using political debating tactics, and misdirecting the threads to try to protect their harmful words.

This is really simple, basic stuff.
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Re: Forum Rules

Postby Hooray » Sat Feb 13, 2016 7:44 pm

Bomber wrote in Sat Feb 13, 2016 2:42 pm:Hoorays return to the noise to signal ratio comments and the use of it as a justification for a person value to this community... is a negative comments about a member of this community.... not about his work, or a development direction but directly about a persons posting style and his interpretation of it.



Is that supposed to mean that you will let me influence/guide the development of your own FG aircraft/FDMs without me ever having contributed a single line to any of your work ? I didn't think so ...
I am just stating what the general thought process is here - if you know someone who thinks/acts differently, all the better - but most of us cannot afford the time to deal with people just based on statements ("noise") rather than an actual track record (signals).

Obviously, I am not referring to you here -but I think the underlying reasoning process is a reasonable one, and an inevitable one, too.

For example, Thorsten would not be well-advised to listen to FDM related feedback from my side, whereas my Nasal/Canvas related advice may be of interest sometimes.

So people gotta be able to "filter", and prioritize, their interactions.
Please don't send support requests by PM, instead post your questions on the forum so that all users can contribute and benefit
Thanks & all the best,
Hooray
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Re: Forum Rules

Postby Lydiot » Mon Feb 15, 2016 5:46 am

curt wrote in Sat Feb 13, 2016 5:08 pm:The forum rules affirm basic common courtesy and establish a few procedural rules of order so we can be on the same page.


Are there any rules regarding mentioning other forums and pointing towards them? Or does one risk an email with a warning that one might be banned if one does?
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Re: Forum Rules

Postby hamzaalloush » Mon Feb 15, 2016 6:16 am

perhaps it depends on the nature of the forum mentioned, but if you were referring to FGMembers(which is probably not in-topic to this thread),

That question was addressed by Stuart (the mod)

stuart wrote in Sun Feb 14, 2016 10:37 pm:(Mod hat on)

Hi All,

There is no ban on referring to FGMEMBERS on this forum. There's also no ban on linking directly to FGMEMBERS repositories.

Clearly that's subject to people being sensible. sanhozay has got it right - people should be left to get on with what they are doing in peace. Any further comments on this thread will be viewed with this in mind and I may lock this topic.

-Stuart (the mod)


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Re: Forum Rules

Postby Lydiot » Mon Feb 15, 2016 7:13 am

Kind'a curious then that some apparently have received PMs from forum admins threatening with a ban if they don't stop talking and linking to the forum in question.
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Re: Forum Rules

Postby Thorsten » Mon Feb 15, 2016 7:33 am

It has been forum policy in the past, Stuart has clarified that apparently it is no longer now - seems we missed the change.
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