[opensuse] Re: The Post that got Carlos ER Banded !!
Looks like this somehow ended up in my mbox, but was
intended for the list... so, as one who has been
wrongfully banned from groups, thought I'd pass
it on.
FWIW, note that many of the participants are in different
countries and may have been brought up with very different
views about expectations about 'correct' behavior. Really
doesn't seem very tolerant for an international list to
exact such penalties in such subjective & arbitrary cases.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [opensuse] The Post that got Carlos ER Banded !!
Date: Sat, 26 Dec 2015 16:11:26 +0100
References: <20151225230454.GA14689@www.mrbrklyn.com> <20151225230613.GB14689@www.mrbrklyn.com> <20151225231732.GW3618@workbook.ipv6.hrusecky.net> <567DD022.1000904@my.liu.edu>
On 25 December 2015 at 23:24, Ruben Safir <> wrote:
On 12/25/2015 06:17 PM, Michal Hrusecky wrote:
What about not attacking people, behaving like an adult and not lying and if you really want, than pickup the right mail? Constant spreading of FUD across various mailing lists was one of the reasons for Carlos ban.
Michael, I was never spreading FUD. In the worst case, that's a matter of opinion, thus I was banned for expressing my opinions. Like now, I can not defend myself from what I feel are public attacks by Richard and others. Perhaps someone can repost this to the mail list.
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2015-11/msg00439.html
in your sick mind you think that was worthy of a ban.
Your nuts.
Honestly.
A ban is supposed to correct behaviour. Well, as I have never understood what I did wrong, I can not correct my behaviour. And three months is excesive.
Honestly, conducting yourself in accordance with our guiding principles ( https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Guiding_principles ) would be a lot productive. Please calm down, review the link, and lets discuss anything which needs to be discussed in a respectful, adult, way, please?
The guiding principles only apply to Members. Not to other users or contributors. Because members have accepted them voluntarily. Imposing the code on others is an imposition.
As both I and now Michal have explained, there was not one post or incident that triggered Carlos' ban
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2015-11/msg00439.html was the final straw after a long string of issues on the -project, -factory, and -translation mailinglists
I apologized for that single post. The rest are false accusations.
I'll try to tackle this chronologically, but as this was a long drawn out affair I apologise in advance with anything I get muddled
I think the first incident of relevance to this topic is the fact that Carlos was banned from forums.opensuse.org for repeatedly instigating & participating in unproductive discussions and arguments, including arguments with the admin staff of the forums. I do not have links to share on that as I was not personally a witness, but one of our admins posted about it here (in a thread which I will refer to more later): http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2015-10/msg00806.html
About the web forum. Many people liked me (they have a method to quantify that). I posted something like 20000 posts, although the counter there says now something like 16. Only the web staff, and perhaps a few others, thought differently. About arguing with moderators: due to my mode of access (nntp) I can not distinguish who is a moderator, and even less, when he is acting as moderator, and not as another user. After the forum ban, I decided that it was impossible to interact with the forum without angering the staff somehow (impossible to me), and I decided not to come back, and return to more tolerant waters. That I thought.
--
One major incident (that included a number of examples which contributed to the ban) was the situation with translations
This story is long and complicated, so for the sake of clarity and in the hope of putting this topic to bed I will do my best to summarise it here
With the increased focused on Tumbleweed, and the fundamental changes to how Leap was being put together, it was clear that the previous tools, processes, and methods of our translation teams were no longer up to the job
Or, to put it another way, Tumbleweed and Leap wasn't being translated at all. Carlos actually did a very good job of raising this concern some weeks before - http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2015-09/msg00777.html
Some years ago, there was an effort by a number of contributors to implement 'Weblate' as a translation tool for openSUSE. It had some support from some translators, and significant support from developers across the project (as it was better aligned with the tooling and processes they were using, eg. git - therefore making it easier for them to contribute also). However there was vocal objection to it from some of our existing translators, including Carlos
Rather from the majority of the translators. Have a look at this post, from another person, it explains very well the issues: http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-project/2015-10/msg00057.html ie, it was not me attacking fellow contributors, as you say in my ban order. It was other contributors attacking translators, and that is fine. We are lesser contributors. We "don't do it"-
With both Tumbleweed and Leap translations paralysed by a lack of translations, a number of contributors took it upon themselves to implement Weblate and, as a proof of concept, went ahead and relocated some of the files requiring translation to Weblate
The non translation of TW is intentional. Many translators consider it impossible to do, no matter what technical means are provided. Translators typically prefer to translate only the stable releases, not the betas. The problem with Leap is lack of resources on some key positions. Not a translator problem/issue. And many of those files moved to weblate are still untranslated for Leap. Have a look at the Spanish release notes - and there are about half a dozen translators, so don't point at me. ...
openSUSE is a Project that exists only because of its volunteer contributions. Having individuals criticising and attempting to block contributions needlessly is a toxic behaviour which dramatically impedes the productivity of our project. So in this case, I still feel Carlos was greatly in the wrong. I was also dreadfully concerned by his prevalent 'us vs them' attitude, which I posted about http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-translation/2015-10/msg00131.html http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-translation/2015-10/msg00082.html http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-translation/2015-10/msg00051.html
It is your doing. You can see it in this thread, too.
The whole sordid mess somewhat died down when people actually started using Weblate to translate parts of Leap, but Carlos' mindset and behaviour with that topic is important to keep in mind if you want to understand the Board's collective decision making process.
That's a matter of opinion. I see it as a some developers and staff destroying the work of translators. As proven. Leap is not translated. Is this open? You are shutting up by force those that dissent with you! You have proven it here.
--
A separate long, ongoing issue with Carlos on the factory mailinglist was what is now being described as the production of 'noise'. opensuse-factory is by definition and design a 'working' mailinglist, intended to productive discussions relevant to the development of the openSUSE distributions. Noise (off topic posts or posts with little or no content) ends up being junk which every developer has to sift through in order to conduct their regular contributions to openSUSE. Carlos has a well deserved reputation for being a huge source of such noise. He would regularly post short responses like "Yup" "I agree" and such - the kind of thing which might have a place in an opensuse-chat mailinglist or perhaps even this opensuse@ support list, but in a list where we're meant to be discussing the development of our distributions, it was quite an annoyance. Also, even the more substantial posts he did provide, often conveyed a very strong 'I'm not a developer but you should do what I say' attitude..the kind of 'us vs them' attitude which raised it's ugly head during the translation issue.
Factory list being a list for developers only list is a recent idea from you. And you have enforced it. Henne had to change the official definition very recently, a week or two ago. For decades factory mail list has the place where _users_ testing the Beta version talked. People asking such questions on the standard mail lists were told always to go away. This is a fact, which you can verify yourself. I posted one mail per issue because that's what the forum staff enforced. I thought that it would be a good idea on the mail list, too. It was never intended as any kind of agression, but as a method to make things easier for all. It is more difficult for me. A "me too" post is standard response in mail lists. It shows that more people see the issue, that it is not a single occurrence.
In small doses, none of these issues would be worth mentioning, but you have to consider that Carlos's prolific posting rate (one of the reasons he clearly is so popular here) meant that he was single handedly responsible for a huge percentage of the -factory mailinglist traffic. An avowed non-developer, producing 10%+ of all the traffic on the 800+ subscriber openSUSE development mailinglist is, no matter how well meaning, a nuisance, especially when most of those posts are easily classified as 'noise' and not helpful to the development of the openSUSE distributions.
That's your opinion. The factory mail list has always been subject to that traffic, from many people, during beta phases.
For example, Carlos regularly would post off topic, bug-report like posts, such as http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2015-10/msg00019.html http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2015-10/msg00028.html http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2015-10/msg00045.html http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2015-10/msg00047.html http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2015-10/msg00049.html http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2015-10/msg00062.html http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2015-10/msg00063.html http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2015-10/msg00454.html http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2015-10/msg00679.html
See explanation above.
And I'm sure there are more examples, I just don't want to spend hours writing this mail.
On multiple occasions Carlos was informed to file bugs in bugzilla, where bugs are meant to be reported. http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2015-10/msg00019.html http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2015-10/msg00045.html but the bug-like reports continued.
As told to you often, this is done to ease jobs on bugzilla. First comment on issues, then report in bugzilla if it is a real issue. Or next, you will complain of noise in bugzila.
In the end, the patience of other contributors started to fray, as clearly visible in this post from Martin - http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2015-10/msg00688.html
Carlos responded in what, sadly, a typically argumentative way, incorrectly declaring the purpose of the factory mailinglist (it is, and will likely always be, the projects main development list) - http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2015-10/msg00693.html
False. This is true only now, because you have forced it this way.
At this point, Andrew Wafaa from the openSUSE Board provided Carlos with a final warning, summarising the concerns we had regarding his behaviour - http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2015-10/msg00709.html
He responded in an argumentative manner.. http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2015-10/msg00723.html
Because it was all false. Can I not defend myself?
The thread bounced around a bit while people less aware of Carlos' behaviour asked questions. This led to Jim's explanation from the Forum admins team - http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2015-10/msg00806.html and Andrew from the Board - http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2015-10/msg00745.html
Web issues do not apply here.
It also included posts much like this one from me (just a lot shorter) citing more examples of behaviour which the Board considered - http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2015-10/msg00776.html http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2015-10/msg00781.html
Proven false.
I also tried again to reason with Carlos and better explain the scope and scale of the Boards concerns - http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2015-10/msg00877.html
And despite a bit of back and forth discussion even after that point, the end result was that everyone moved on, and Carlos continued posting, and for a while everything actually seemed to be going well. For the time immediately after the Boards final warning, I would personally categorise Carlos' posts, manner, attitude, all being dramatically improved, as if he had taken on board the feedback from the Board. There was one or two posts which I felt might have walked 'upto the line' of what is acceptable, but the line wasn't crossed, and so I was quite pleased and hopeful.
And then Carlos posted http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2015-11/msg00439.html which
For this one I apologized. That's the only posts where I was out of line. A single post. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 13.1 x86_64 "Bottle" at Telcontar)
I do feel it is inappropriate forwarding the mail to the list, to circumvent the ban. Linda Walsh schreef op 26-12-2015 22:03:
Looks like this somehow ended up in my mbox, but was intended for the list... so, as one who has been wrongfully banned from groups, thought I'd pass it on.
FWIW, note that many of the participants are in different countries and may have been brought up with very different views about expectations about 'correct' behavior. Really doesn't seem very tolerant for an international list to exact such penalties in such subjective & arbitrary cases.
Forum admins team - http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2015-10/msg00806.html and
But I do feel forum admins are full of sh!t to be honest.
to be a productive contributor
when a user becomes problematic
second-guessing those who have stepped up to manage the community and ensure the standards of the community are being followed
We take banning users very seriously
:P
after very long and careful deliberation
You know there has never been a forum team or any other person banning some other person who did not do it after "long and careful deliberation". Once I had a row with a friend and it was a heated argument on the phone. I had known and been good friends with the guy for at least 16 years. After our fight on the phone, he wrote me an email about 3 hours later saying that he had "thought about it long and hard". Any person who mentions that he has thought about it long and hard is full of shit. This guy banned me from his life because he had become rather chagrined that I had pointed some things out to him, that he thought himself to be an awesome guy and I won the argument (on the phone) in saying that "I'm sorry, in this case, you aren't (or haven't been). You're wrong. What you did was not great". Unwilling to admit or acknowledge that I had a point when I made a problem of his behaviour, I had screamed at him (as he was raising his voice) that he should quit it and finally admit it when some other person is right (about you, him). In the end he gave in and admitted to that thing, but it chagrined him so much that the moment I became happy, he quickly hung up the phone, and then 3 hours later sent me that email. To which I've been incapable of responding. But that aside. And "long and careful" is NEVER true. Maybe it's been long, but then it wasn't careful, or it's been careful, but then it wasn't long. Forum moderators are usually extremely strict in enforcing incomprihensible rules of conduct that do not really serve to improve the forum atmosphere, but serve to either achieve some other goal or simply to win an argument against a non-moderator. Many people are bad losers and a person in power will usually resort to that power while or when or upon losing an argument. Loses the argument? Sends you to your room. Power corrupts they say and it is true. It is true on every occasion. Because people losing arguments who are in power will always use that power to win the argument, /AFTER ALL/. You beat someone with the stick, you've won the argument. Usually it is a combination of both: - first the forum team member acts in the capacity of a regular user - you post something that offends that forum team member, his ego so to speak - you get into an argument - the forum team member now assumes the role of moderator and warns you - you say he is full of sh1t and he bans you ;-). So on this occasion (an experience of mine elsewhere) we see the pattern of first the team member answering a question according to a certain assumed forum goal (such as that answers given must comply to a certain mindset) Then you post something that doesn't agree with the mindset The forum team member argues with you. Loses the argument. Assumes the role of moderator. Warns you. You go up in arms. Bans you. It has happened. It was on the WordPress forums. Regarding me. And why did that conflict arise there? Because even though they are volunteers, there is a lot of money in the WordPress product. Perhaps irrelevant here, but it serves to indicate that there is always a goal that you are frustrating. Linux distributions often have an image they want to maintain. In the case of WordPress, since a lot of people make a living using it, the image was more important than in any Linux distro you will come across, except perhaps Ubuntu. You, as a forum member, are expected to behave in accordance with the product image. You are expected not to spread information that the product maintainers do not agree with. You are expected not to promote choices that the product maintainers do not agree with. The product is meant, according to them, to stay concise and congruent, clear and easy to understand. Deviating thought, or deviating choice, is therefore often not welcomed. Because such deviating thought also means divergence instead of convergence, and in order to provide a consistent, clear, good image, they are invested in convergence, not divergence. There is also another statement or saying that relates to this: it is "keeping the dirty laundry inside". When you have an image to maintain, you don't want people to know about the bad stuff. -------------------------------------------------------- Ubuntu has an image. Kubuntu has an image. OpenSuSE surely also has an image. Linux distributions flaunt that "Using a computer has never been easier." Eh, really? If you do any form of advertizing based on false projections, or non-truths, you will become invested in protecting an image like commercial organisations do protect their images. It is nothing new. -------------------------------------------------------- But it is problematic. -------------------------------------------------------- Forums necessarily maintain an image. -------------------------------------------------------- This is not inherent in their format, but in their intended purpose. This purpose was revealed in this statement:
Our audience in the forums tends to run more towards end-users, so we tend to enforce a community standard that's less like the rough-and-tumble of development mailing lists and more like a user-to-user support forum.
Notice the word "enforce". It means you can't let people do as they please because you have a specific goal in mind and you are just USING your users as puppets in achieving that goal. It is like managing children. This is what parents do, so moderating might be called parenting. It can also be called Patronizing. Yes. Or "Condescending". Yes. So when any person starts to act naturally, this naturally conflicts with unnatural behaviours that are being enforced. Yes. It is always unnatural behaviours that are being enforced, because natural behaviours do not /NEED/ to be /ENFORCED/. So the forum team wants to enforce unnatural behaviour, and it gives rise to conflict. There is nothing spectacular, new, or hard to understand here. What is, of course, peculiar, is that the unnatural behaviour is considered decent, and the natural behaviour is considered threatening. Because, it is threatening to a goal that involves lying about who you are which is the goal of maintaining an external image. So when I hear a forum team speak these words, I know they are trying to enforce people's behaviour to answer to a goal they have, which does not agree with the goal of the users themselves. They are also twisting the truth to make their judgements seem to agree with what is natural. They will say you are problematic and not behaving well, when really you are being problematic to their goals and not behaving according to their wishes. These goals are unnatural. So naturally, whenever you are just being yourself, you get into conflict with the (forum) team. Then they will create the sentiment of your moral deficiency to further their political goals. This is an attribution of /moral flaw/ when really there is /political disagreement/. Disagreement (on topics) turns into moral failing (because there was not really freedom of thought). It usually starts with a disagreement on something factual or content-wise. The moderators then enforce a certain model of thought. The person stands up for himself and does this using anger. This anger is considered indecent behaviour and reason for more warnings. Eventually this pattern turns into a ban. Because you have been a bad citizen and you talked back against your parents. You disagreed with your parents so now they are locking you in your room. Eventually it is always because /you were of a different mind/ than they were. Eventually we can always consider this /deviating thought/. And eventually, any form of police is thought police. Which is why Orwell wrote 1984, to ridicule it, exaggerate it. Put it to its extreme. But in general:
to be a productive contributor when a user becomes problematic second-guessing those who have stepped up to manage the community and ensure the standards of the community are being followed
These statements are not sincere. These are mis-attributions. They are attributions of moral flaw when in fact they speak of political conflict. Let me translate:
to be a productive contributor ....becomes:
to be a contributor who agrees with how we want the forum to look to outsiders
when a user becomes problematic ....becomes:
when our attempts to control a user gives rise to so much rebellion that any form of attempting to control the user immediately results in issues
and
second-guessing those who have stepped up to manage the community and ensure the standards of the community are being followed
becomes
being in disagreement with those who for whatever personal reasons and interests have chosen to become members of the police force in managing users and ensuring a certain product and product image can be brought to market and protected.
See, usually the truth is not spoken. I hope that what I have said today is 80% truth. At least that. Regards, X. ps. "content-light" and so on are not transgressions. They are only transgressions if the forum is used for a certain purpose, or is intended to contribute to a certain purpose. They are transgressions on the purpose, but not transgressions on human behaviour, decency, or morality, or conduct. One such external criterium might be the way e.g. goolge indexes this mailing list. "IMAGE". An image you want to protect. It's all about image. And all about success of a product. In a market that is apparently not allowed to know everything about the product. We call this "image management". And that is what everything comes down to. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 12/26/2015 06:04 PM, Xen wrote:
But I do feel forum admins are full of sh!t to be honest.
They are worse than that in this case. Ruben -- So many immigrant groups have swept through our town that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998 http://www.mrbrklyn.com DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002 http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software http://www2.mrbrklyn.com/resources - Unpublished Archive http://www.coinhangout.com - coins! http://www.brooklyn-living.com Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and and extermination camps, but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 12/26/2015 06:04 PM, Xen wrote:
Unwilling to admit or acknowledge that I had a point when I made a problem of his behaviour, I had screamed at him (as he was raising his voice) that he should quit it and finally admit it when some other person is right (about you, him). In the end he gave in and admitted to that thing, but it chagrined him so much that the moment I became happy, he quickly hung up the phone, and then 3 hours later sent me that email.
I think there is more of a problem than this. I think there is a generational problem here. This is a generation of SHEEP and Conformity, and they can't handle even the most gentle of conflict. Carlos is not the kind of person who would raise his voice at anyone. But any disagreement now is met with furious hostility. This is the generation of Reality TV and global tracking and spyware. They just votes Carlos off the Island .... and they see NOTHING wrong with it. They are a bunch of self righteous scum. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptDz5BwAgXQ -- So many immigrant groups have swept through our town that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998 http://www.mrbrklyn.com DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002 http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software http://www2.mrbrklyn.com/resources - Unpublished Archive http://www.coinhangout.com - coins! http://www.brooklyn-living.com Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and and extermination camps, but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Ruben Safir schreef op 27-12-2015 0:17:
On 12/26/2015 06:04 PM, Xen wrote:
I think there is more of a problem than this. I think there is a generational problem here. This is a generation of SHEEP and Conformity, and they can't handle even the most gentle of conflict.
Carlos is not the kind of person who would raise his voice at anyone. But any disagreement now is met with furious hostility. This is the generation of Reality TV and global tracking and spyware. They just votes Carlos off the Island .... and they see NOTHING wrong with it.
I think it is true that we are currently living in a world where scarcely any person can resolve his own conflicts. People are generally not allowed to HAVE their own conflicts. And in general figures of authority step in very quickly to assume leadership, or dominance, or to take credit for solving a conflict. But figures of authority cannot actually solve conflicts. Most people instantly "run to the police". "Mommy, David is being mean". This is nurtured from an early age. "Well now David, don't be mean". Resolving conflict requires expressiveness, and it requires aggression. But since aggression is being "neutered" most people do not know how to express what they feel, or making it clear to another that what is being done is not right. Aggression is a great problem solver. It is also a strengthener of personal authority. This principle is being rejected as being "taking the matter into your own hands". It is seen as a wrong thing to do, to take the matter in your own hands (or the law). It is this repression of aggression that is a real or perhaps the real problem in our world. Love is equally repressed. But Ruben, please, get a grip of yourself. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 12/26/2015 06:36 PM, Xen wrote:
This principle is being rejected as being "taking the matter into your own hands". It is seen as a wrong thing to do, to take the matter in your own hands (or the law).
It is this repression of aggression that is a real or perhaps the real problem in our world.
Love is equally repressed.
The entire concept of individuality is being stripped from the Millenniums. This is not the future I worked so hard for, for my children. This is just a sad example of a larger picture. Beware, Watson Loves You... ask Bob Dylan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwh1INne97Q -- So many immigrant groups have swept through our town that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998 http://www.mrbrklyn.com DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002 http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software http://www2.mrbrklyn.com/resources - Unpublished Archive http://www.coinhangout.com - coins! http://www.brooklyn-living.com Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and and extermination camps, but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Love is equally repressed.
But Ruben, please, get a grip of yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7qQ6_RV4VQ -- So many immigrant groups have swept through our town that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998 http://www.mrbrklyn.com DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002 http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software http://www2.mrbrklyn.com/resources - Unpublished Archive http://www.coinhangout.com - coins! http://www.brooklyn-living.com Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and and extermination camps, but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 12/26/2015 06:04 PM, Xen wrote:
I do feel it is inappropriate forwarding the mail to the list, to circumvent the ban.
tough, I feel it wrong that is controlled by facists.
Linda Walsh schreef op 26-12-2015 22:03:
Looks like this somehow ended up in my mbox, but was intended for the list... so, as one who has been wrongfully banned from groups, thought I'd pass it on.
FWIW, note that many of the participants are in different countries and may have been brought up with very different views about expectations about 'correct' behavior. Really doesn't seem very tolerant for an international list to exact such penalties in such subjective & arbitrary cases.
Forum admins team - http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2015-10/msg00806.html and
But I do feel forum admins are full of sh!t to be honest.
to be a productive contributor
when a user becomes problematic
second-guessing those who have stepped up to manage the community and ensure the standards of the community are being followed
We take banning users very seriously
:P
after very long and careful deliberation
You know there has never been a forum team or any other person banning some other person who did not do it after "long and careful deliberation".
Once I had a row with a friend and it was a heated argument on the phone. I had known and been good friends with the guy for at least 16 years. After our fight on the phone, he wrote me an email about 3 hours later saying that he had "thought about it long and hard".
Any person who mentions that he has thought about it long and hard is full of shit.
This guy banned me from his life because he had become rather chagrined that I had pointed some things out to him, that he thought himself to be an awesome guy and I won the argument (on the phone) in saying that "I'm sorry, in this case, you aren't (or haven't been). You're wrong. What you did was not great".
Unwilling to admit or acknowledge that I had a point when I made a problem of his behaviour, I had screamed at him (as he was raising his voice) that he should quit it and finally admit it when some other person is right (about you, him). In the end he gave in and admitted to that thing, but it chagrined him so much that the moment I became happy, he quickly hung up the phone, and then 3 hours later sent me that email.
To which I've been incapable of responding. But that aside.
And "long and careful" is NEVER true. Maybe it's been long, but then it wasn't careful, or it's been careful, but then it wasn't long.
Forum moderators are usually extremely strict in enforcing incomprihensible rules of conduct that do not really serve to improve the forum atmosphere, but serve to either achieve some other goal or simply to win an argument against a non-moderator.
Many people are bad losers and a person in power will usually resort to that power while or when or upon losing an argument. Loses the argument? Sends you to your room.
Power corrupts they say and it is true.
It is true on every occasion.
Because people losing arguments who are in power will always use that power to win the argument, /AFTER ALL/.
You beat someone with the stick, you've won the argument.
Usually it is a combination of both:
- first the forum team member acts in the capacity of a regular user - you post something that offends that forum team member, his ego so to speak - you get into an argument - the forum team member now assumes the role of moderator and warns you - you say he is full of sh1t and he bans you ;-).
So on this occasion (an experience of mine elsewhere) we see the pattern of first the team member answering a question according to a certain assumed forum goal (such as that answers given must comply to a certain mindset) Then you post something that doesn't agree with the mindset The forum team member argues with you. Loses the argument. Assumes the role of moderator. Warns you. You go up in arms. Bans you.
It has happened. It was on the WordPress forums. Regarding me.
And why did that conflict arise there? Because even though they are volunteers, there is a lot of money in the WordPress product. Perhaps irrelevant here, but it serves to indicate that there is always a goal that you are frustrating.
Linux distributions often have an image they want to maintain. In the case of WordPress, since a lot of people make a living using it, the image was more important than in any Linux distro you will come across, except perhaps Ubuntu.
You, as a forum member, are expected to behave in accordance with the product image.
You are expected not to spread information that the product maintainers do not agree with.
You are expected not to promote choices that the product maintainers do not agree with.
The product is meant, according to them, to stay concise and congruent, clear and easy to understand. Deviating thought, or deviating choice, is therefore often not welcomed.
Because such deviating thought also means divergence instead of convergence, and in order to provide a consistent, clear, good image, they are invested in convergence, not divergence.
There is also another statement or saying that relates to this: it is "keeping the dirty laundry inside".
When you have an image to maintain, you don't want people to know about the bad stuff.
-------------------------------------------------------- Ubuntu has an image. Kubuntu has an image.
OpenSuSE surely also has an image.
Linux distributions flaunt that "Using a computer has never been easier." Eh, really?
If you do any form of advertizing based on false projections, or non-truths, you will become invested in protecting an image like commercial organisations do protect their images.
It is nothing new.
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But it is problematic.
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Forums necessarily maintain an image.
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This is not inherent in their format, but in their intended purpose. This purpose was revealed in this statement:
Our audience in the forums tends to run more towards end-users, so we tend to enforce a community standard that's less like the rough-and-tumble of development mailing lists and more like a user-to-user support forum.
Notice the word "enforce". It means you can't let people do as they please because you have a specific goal in mind and you are just USING your users as puppets in achieving that goal.
It is like managing children. This is what parents do, so moderating might be called parenting.
It can also be called Patronizing.
Yes.
Or "Condescending". Yes.
So when any person starts to act naturally, this naturally conflicts with unnatural behaviours that are being enforced. Yes.
It is always unnatural behaviours that are being enforced, because natural behaviours do not /NEED/ to be /ENFORCED/.
So the forum team wants to enforce unnatural behaviour, and it gives rise to conflict.
There is nothing spectacular, new, or hard to understand here.
What is, of course, peculiar, is that the unnatural behaviour is considered decent, and the natural behaviour is considered threatening.
Because,
it is threatening to a goal that involves lying about who you are which is the goal of maintaining an external image.
So when I hear a forum team speak these words, I know they are trying to enforce people's behaviour to answer to a goal they have, which does not agree with the goal of the users themselves.
They are also twisting the truth to make their judgements seem to agree with what is natural.
They will say you are problematic and not behaving well, when really you are being problematic to their goals and not behaving according to their wishes.
These goals are unnatural.
So naturally, whenever you are just being yourself, you get into conflict with the (forum) team.
Then they will create the sentiment of your moral deficiency to further their political goals.
This is an attribution of /moral flaw/ when really there is /political disagreement/.
Disagreement (on topics) turns into moral failing (because there was not really freedom of thought).
It usually starts with a disagreement on something factual or content-wise.
The moderators then enforce a certain model of thought.
The person stands up for himself and does this using anger.
This anger is considered indecent behaviour and reason for more warnings.
Eventually this pattern turns into a ban.
Because you have been a bad citizen and you talked back against your parents.
You disagreed with your parents so now they are locking you in your room.
Eventually it is always because /you were of a different mind/ than they were.
Eventually we can always consider this /deviating thought/.
And eventually, any form of police is thought police.
Which is why Orwell wrote 1984, to ridicule it, exaggerate it. Put it to its extreme.
But in general:
to be a productive contributor when a user becomes problematic second-guessing those who have stepped up to manage the community and ensure the standards of the community are being followed
These statements are not sincere.
These are mis-attributions.
They are attributions of moral flaw when in fact they speak of political conflict.
Let me translate:
to be a productive contributor ....becomes:
to be a contributor who agrees with how we want the forum to look to outsiders
when a user becomes problematic ....becomes:
when our attempts to control a user gives rise to so much rebellion that any form of attempting to control the user immediately results in issues
and
second-guessing those who have stepped up to manage the community and ensure the standards of the community are being followed
becomes
being in disagreement with those who for whatever personal reasons and interests have chosen to become members of the police force in managing users and ensuring a certain product and product image can be brought to market and protected.
See, usually the truth is not spoken.
I hope that what I have said today is 80% truth. At least that.
Regards, X.
ps. "content-light" and so on are not transgressions. They are only transgressions if the forum is used for a certain purpose, or is intended to contribute to a certain purpose. They are transgressions on the purpose, but not transgressions on human behaviour, decency, or morality, or conduct.
One such external criterium might be the way e.g. goolge indexes this mailing list.
"IMAGE". An image you want to protect. It's all about image. And all about success of a product. In a market that is apparently not allowed to know everything about the product.
We call this "image management". And that is what everything comes down to.
-- So many immigrant groups have swept through our town that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998 http://www.mrbrklyn.com DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002 http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software http://www2.mrbrklyn.com/resources - Unpublished Archive http://www.coinhangout.com - coins! http://www.brooklyn-living.com Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and and extermination camps, but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 12/26/2015 03:04 PM, Xen wrote: In a long and slightly rambling post full of nuggets of truth such as this:
- first the forum team member acts in the capacity of a regular user - you post something that offends that forum team member, his ego so to speak - you get into an argument - the forum team member now assumes the role of moderator and warns you - you say he is full of sh1t and he bans you ;-).
This does seem to be the way things go, all too often. Here on this list it has been less obvious than in many other lists, but it has happened here often enough over the years. It used to be just Henne would blockade topics, rather than people, but I do remember "HE of a Million Subscriptions" being banned (along with every customer of his ISP) some years ago. I was recently turffed from the OpenBSD list after a private message to Theo De Raadt about there being no necessity to be such an ass to an occasional question from a newbie. (Anyone who dealt wit Theo knows he's been asked to leave every job he's ever held until he found one he couldn't be kicked out of). Sadly, I'm starting to see the same behavior here. -- After all is said and done, more is said than done. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
participants (4)
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John Andersen -
Linda Walsh -
Ruben Safir -
Xen