You're correct that these are two entirely different issues. I haven't made a final decision yet and I'm still very interested in feedback on both, but based on the feedback so far I'm leaning toward not closing General and toward creating the dedicated group.

--jeremy

What would the responsibilities of this volunteer group be? As far as I can see it as I can see it, what you describe, anyone can do now. Nothing stops any member of the fora from reporting inappropriate posts, or using the canned response. I hate to suggest encouraging their use by all members as it may lead to abuse, but perhaps making more aware of the features and addressing abuse if necessary? I'm not sure it's the better of evils, but a thought.

As far as the canned response goes would it be possible to simply add it to the template used by the forum when one makes a new thread? Perhaps where the "Message: You should include as much detail as possible in your message, etc." box is at the side, or immediately above the text box?

General has always been a problem. I think that we arrived at the optimum solution for General when you stopped letting General posts add to a member's post count. Thus members don't get credit for posting their lists of favorite movies, etc. I think that the moderators have done a good job of keeping fanatical rants toned down in General even though there has been a surge of such rants during the American election. Linuxquestions General is positively civilized compared to most political comment news sites.

When we answer a question we have to pitch the level of our answer to the technical knowledge level of the person asking the question. If our answer is worded too simply the questioner may think we are patronizing him. If our answer assumes too high a technical level of knowledge we get a response of, "huh?" or maybe their response to the answer shows that they do not have a clue as to what we are talking about. In dealing with people who speak English poorly we often guess that their technical knowledge is as poor as their English and we come across as patronizing. So one thing to do when dealing with people who speak English poorly is to try to judge their knowledge of English and technical knowledge level as two different things.


Being a Linuxquestions volunteer is not a job. We don't have quotas (I see you Wells Fargo). We don't have to put in overtime until every customer in the line is served. So when a senior member gets tired of working on questions, quit for the day. That way you don't get into the mood to be rude with difficult posters.

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Steve Stites

I agree. Please, please, please, PLEASE do not institute moderator censoring in General of religious or political opinions; that would necessarily involve site-endorsed ideology, and would make LQ much less friendly, imho.

My feedback: Keep leaning that way.

Me too

It is not censoring religious or political opinions but excluding discussions of that type. It is not a site-endorsed ideology which is to fear, but ideology in short.

There are enough places where you can make ideologies, political opinions and religious convictions concur with each other. None of these, as far as I see or know, has ever succeeded in balancing the extremes or even those that were presented in a moderate way. Domination of one ... thing ... by another is what makes people unfriendly.

Do not censor, but keep these topics out of LQ.

I am in favor of only censoring General for civility.

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Steve Stites

3 members found this post helpful.

Although I disagree with the religious and political views of some posters on here, it is their right to express those views. However, I do take an exception to proselytising, and also the expression of religious/political views where they have nothing to do with the subject in hand.

So, keeping religious and political views out of the technical fora and restricting them to General, along with a ban on proselytising, would be my vote. And that includes signatures. Some people put their technical details in their signature, so my initial decision to turn off signatures in order to stop a particular poster's religious views flashing in my face much of the time ended up with my reduced ability to offer support. So now I have signatures turned on and have to put up with religious views on a technical forum. I shouldn't be forced to make that choice.

As for newbies, I feel that the very few posters who take an excessively dismissive approach to silly/lazy questions should be asked informally by the moderators to go easier on the posters in question. There is always a way to express one's opinions in a friendlier way without losing the emphasis of those opinions.

1 members found this post helpful.

That is an art and not everybody is an artist. Here is another choice to take for Jeremy, I am afraid.

The motivations for the group are explained in post #54.

Something along these lines is available to mods now, but we have no plans to roll it out further.

--jeremy

I have clarified in this thread that the behavior you note above is not permitted here at LQ.

We have no plans to limit .sigs in that way at this time. If there is sufficient interest in being able to disable .sigs on a per-member basis we can look into whether that is feasible or not in the future.

--jeremy

Agreed with keeping signatures, however I agree also that content deemed inappropriate for a thread also applies to a signature.

I feel there should be no loopholes or double standards.

2 members found this post helpful.

I would not consider it in any way a loophole or double standard; .sigs have specific rules applied to them, they are just not the same rules that apply to threads in technical fora.

--jeremy

I beg to differ. It is a loophole by means of which a poster can introduce religious or political content into a technical environment where neither is pertinent. It's like banning religious symbols in school and then saying that there are exceptions for crucifix earrings or religious headscarves - it defeats the purpose.

For example, let's say that new members of LQ are very often greeted by a member who has religious content in their signature. Is this a good idea? Perhaps the new member will worry that the LQ has religious affiliations, or merely that being of a different religion or none at all that they simply won't fit in. Perhaps the signature contains political views which are at very at odds with the new poster's beliefs. The new poster might shy away from what they consider could be a politically-biased forum.

We have to show that all are welcome, and allowing people to express political or religious views in their signatures on the technical threads works against that aim.

In my opinion of course.

Agreed. I can think of one member with such a signature, and some threads in a technical forum to which (s)he has replied the thread degraded into religion and insults.

I think it's very clear that .sigs are member created and in no way indicative of any affiliation on the part of LQ. As mentioned they can be disabled at any time, and do not show at all if you are not logged in. I'd be willing to listen to feedback on whether they should be enabled or disabled by default for new members but we have no plans to censor specific topics at this time.

--jeremy