Forum moderation

55 réponses [Dernière contribution]
akirashinigami

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I am a translator!

Hors ligne
A rejoint: 02/25/2010

We've got people defending the development of proprietary software and comparing software freedom to tyranny. This is unacceptable. Trisquel is an FSF-endorsed distribution; there is no place for the expression of these viewpoints on our forums.

These people need to go. Are there procedures in place to remove them? Who has that authority? If no one does, I volunteer. Something needs to be done.

lloydsmart

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A rejoint: 12/22/2012

Yes, god forbid someone expresses an opinion that differs from yours!

Alij
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A rejoint: 05/07/2012

This is a Dictatorship all of them must be erradicated if not at least out of here.

Tom
Tom
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A rejoint: 12/17/2013

Hi, is this thread because of my thread? If so while I strongly disagree with dudeski I don't think he should be prevented from posting because of his viewpoint. I don't know him well enough to argue if he's done anything wrong but it seems to me he hasn't done any wrong doings.

onpon4
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A rejoint: 05/30/2012

I don't think censorship is the right policy here, and I don't think this forum has a duty to shield us from viewpoints that are not our own. Exchange of ideas is good, not bad.

quiliro@congresolibre.org
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 10/28/2010

El 17/12/13 19:50, name at domain escribió:
> I don't think censorship is the right policy here, and I don't think
> this forum has a duty to shield us from viewpoints that are not our
> own. Exchange of ideas is good, not bad.

I agree. I think that politely asking people not to promote non-free
software on this list and insist politely is the best way. Censorship is
the way no-free software limits users. We don't do that. ;-)

--
Saludos libres,

Quiliro Ordóñez
Presidente (en co-gobierno con los socios)
Asociación de Software Libre del Ecuador - ASLE
Teléfono: 6008579

Recuerda que todas tus comunicaciones están siendo vigiladas. Lo que puedes hacer para restar su eficacia es eliminar el software privativo de tus computadores, evitar el software como servicio, almacenar tus datos en tus propios equipos y encriptar todas tus comunicaciones.

Toda la información contenida en este mensaje es libre de uso y distribución con o sin modificaciones y todo correo que reciba implica que el remitente acepta que tendrá las mismas libertades sin importar cualquier clausula de confidencialidad o restricción anterior o posterior.

jxself
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 09/13/2010

As a reminder, Trisquel does have community guidelines: http://trisquel.info/en/wiki/trisquel-community-guidelines

In particular I'd like to point out #5 in the Guiding Principles. People that repeatedly disregard the Community Guidelines, especially after having this pointed out to them multiple times, should be candidates for banning.

IMO, this is not censorship - No one's free speech rights are impacted because they can say whatever they want elsewhere. Free speech doesn't mean people get to say what they want on someone else's website.

roboq6
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 05/03/2013

>5.Non-free software is never a solution so please do not rationalize, justify, or minimize the consequences of proposing non-free software as a solution.

VERITAS SE IPSA DEFENDIT (Truth defends itself)

ssdclickofdeath
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 05/18/2013

I made this issue several days ago because of other annoying users which should be banned (vPro).

http://trisquel.info/en/issues/10727

Anandawardhana
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 09/18/2012

Censorship cannot pave the way to freedom.

(1) I think users/comments/propaganda that advocate non-free/proprietary software and related stuff should be seen as an opportunity to further expand and explain the values of freedom. We come across these ideas AFK too. And I don't think we have ready-made answers to each and every comment. It is a living process. So my suggestion is let them be. Those who advocate freedom can (and should) find ways to answer these claims in a democratic manner.

Forum members can politely engage in a debate and critique these views. IMHO giving the power of banning people to certain users can create further unnecessary problems.

(2) If someone violates the Code of Conduct, we already know what to do. Code of conduct includes:

*Discrimination: Don't discriminate against people based on race, gender, sex, sexual orientation, religion, disability, age, class, intelligence, or any analogous grounds.

**Language: Express yourself without hard language (e.g. cursing). Social norms differ from place to place. Hard language could deter people from visiting our site, or from getting involved in our community.

***Personal attacks: We don't tolerate personal attacks here. We encourage discussion. Disagree with others and challenge their ideas. Don't feed the trolls. Please report any flaming/flame-baiting to a moderator using the contact page.

from https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/trisquel-community-guidelines

jxself
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 09/13/2010

"Censorship cannot pave the way to freedom."

Banning users that do not follow the rules is not censorship. No one's free speech rights are impacted because they can say whatever they want elsewhere. Free speech doesn't mean people get to say what they want on someone else's website.

"I think users/comments/propaganda that advocate non-free/proprietary software and related stuff should be seen as an opportunity to further expand and explain the values of freedom."

You're probably right but at the same time they shouldn't be using our own forums and mailing lists to work against our own goals.

"If someone violates the Code of Conduct, we already know what to do."

And that is? You don't really say. Clearly, banning must be appropriate in at least some cases that warrant it. The trick is finding the right line.

quantumgravity
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A rejoint: 04/22/2013

"Banning users that do not follow the rules is not censorship. No one's free speech rights are impacted because they can say whatever they want elsewhere."

If everyone has the same opinion like you, they can't state their opinion anywhere except of their homes.
No matter how you argue: the community guidelines impose cencorship, one of the most freedom denying threats to digital society ever.
It's a public forum, not a private one.

But heaven help us if there is some non-free blob in a 99.99% free system.
I know your "moral values"....

roboq6
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 05/03/2013

+1

Couldn't say it better myself.

jxself
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 09/13/2010

Expecting communities to stay on topic and follow the rules is hardly too much. Calling it "censorship" is just an attempt to make it sound more dramatic, nothing more.

GNUser
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 07/17/2013

Interesting, you talk like that simply because you take everything that comes out of the FSF/RMS mouths as holy law, and want to impose that on others too. You don't want anyone to question things, to say "should it be this way?".
You remind me of 1984, the movie made in 1954 which is in public domain (go watch it, it's in the internet archive). No one was free to express any question about the system in place. So, yeah... I wouldn't call it censorship because it is something FAR WORSE.

jxself
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 09/13/2010

"you take everything that comes out of the FSF/RMS mouths as holy law"

Hardly. No personal attacks please. Please don't take my agreement to mean I don't think about the issues and come to the same conclusions. So agreeing with the FSF makes sense in those cases.

onpon4
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 05/30/2012

Lots of open source supporters think of free software as being religious and RMS as being like a messiah or something, but what's really funny is that they say this, then they go around and just agree with whatever Torvalds says. Meanwhile, in the free software movement, we have a lot of people that disagree with RMS' political views, such as anarchist capitalists, and he has a lot of views that are easy to disagree with. I, personally, am annoyed any time I hear RMS talking about "global heating", which is a term that distorts the reality of the science of climate change, and I completely disagree with his insistence on restricting derivative works of his statements of opinion. I also think he gets angry way too easily sometimes, though that's probably just a result of stress from going from place to place so much (he's only human, after all).

We agree with RMS about certain things, and disagree with him about other things. No one views him as a saint or messiah. "Saint IGNUcious" and the "Church of Emacs" is a joke. If anyone is religious, it's the Torvalds fans who assert such ridiculous things as GNU being irrelevant.

lembas
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 05/13/2010

>"global heating", which is a term that distorts the reality of the science of climate change
The IPCC disagrees with you, see e.g. http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/uploads/WGI_AR5_SPM_brochure.pdf (9 MB)

ssdclickofdeath
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 05/18/2013

What about users like me, who either have or had some questions about free software? Would that be forbidden, too? I think some of this type of discussion is necessary.

For mailing list users who can't see HTML links:
http://trisquel.info/en/forum/ot-why-program-being-nonfree-reason-enough-avoid-it
https://trisquel.info/en/forum/common-arguments-nonfree-software

jxself
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 09/13/2010

ssdclickofdeath's forum question said:

"Many people think of a program being free a plus, but don't mind using proprietary software. Why should proprietary software be avoided?"

Your question strikes me as more of not knowing about free software and wanting to learn more. Do you really see that as going against the community guidelines? They are are at https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/trisquel-community-guidelines if it helps. On the other hand, "You should install Adbobe Flash. This is exactly how you go do it: Step 1...." would clearly go against #5. People already have ways to get help with proprietary software. They don't need that here. We should help move them toward freedom, not with running proprietary things.

t3g
t3g
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 05/15/2011

No wonder this site is under the NSA watch list for "evangelism"

jxself
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 09/13/2010

No, not evangelism. Free software is not a religious movement. You realize that https://stallman.org/saint.html is for humor only right?

GNUser
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 07/17/2013

And you should realize that "evangelism" is a word that is used many times as "spreading an idea", and not merely a religious idea. Basically it comes from the fact that religious people are always ready to talk about their faith.
And yes, we are probably flagged by the NSA. I have already discussed it here in the forum, there is at least a possibility. I am not saying "WE ARE" I am saying "WE PROBABLY ARE".

lembas
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 05/13/2010

Free software forums are notorious troll magnets. All kinds of trolls can be found ranging from paid pro-proprietary software shills to rabid BSD "freedom fighters".

Ethics are difficult and people tend to get angry when confronted with moral issues.

I'm all for discussing the themes around free software but I don't think we have to tolerate every affront and personal attack.

david

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I am a translator!

Hors ligne
A rejoint: 08/02/2008

As probably the closest to a 'moderator' in this forum, my personal stance around these issues is to try and interfere as little as possible, since this community is really excellent at dealing with controversial themes and constructive discussion.

When situations start to get serious, or just delve into personal attacks, I first try to contact the person individually to ask for a change of attitude, and if that doesn't work as expected, more public measures are attempted (probably the strongest one is right now about to be tested, as today marks the finish of the first two-week account blocking period for a certain user, as you might have read about).

It's very important to accept criticism and different points of view, and it's very important to avoid risking open participation recurring to excessive moderation, the line for censorship lies in different places to each one's eyes.

On the other hand, this is not just any software forum, so it's reasonable to expect a sensible effort to be made to explain, particularly to those not that much in-the-know, the importance of our principles (and yes, that includes the frequently controversial naming and 'I-have-to-feed-my-children' topics) ;-)

GNUser
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 07/17/2013

What... the... HELL???
Who the hell you think you are akirashinigami?? You want to come here and start censoring other people, just because you don't like what they write? Lol, nice way to kill a fanbase/community/whatever you want to call us.

As someone who has suffered censorship here in this forum in the past (read https://trisquel.info/en/forum/trisque-might-have-been-compromised#comment-41407), I cannot agree with this.
If someone comes here and posts "this is how you install this proprietary software" you might object... But if someone comes here and says "I think proprietary software is good because of X" or "I dislike the way we manage free software because of Y" or even "Trisquel and the FSF are evil because of Z" you just have to accept their opinion and explain your own views and try to make sense of everything that is said so that everyone can actually learn something from the debate! You cannot just go and delete the thread or ban the user!! If you do so, you will stop having the large group of people you usually have here, and will only have a couple of guys who are probably too afraid to speak their own mind! For example, we had a debate here a few days ago about Debian (if it was free or non-free, since their main rep only gives free software, but the other reps have non.free stuff, bla bla bla). If you could just come here and delete the comments from the people who defended Debian, you would have those people:

a) leaving the forum, and moving to another where they would tell everyone "DON'T GO TO TRISQUEL, THEY ARE EVIL AND MEAN TO US";

b) launch a DDoS against Trisquel.info or even a deface (trust me, I have seen that happen, and it's really bad);

Or imagine if it was I who had that power, I would just delete any link that had "pirated" stuff in it, because I am against "piracy". Basically, I would be SOPA and PIPA, and that is exactly what you are trying to be! You want to be Big Brother here on the forum.... That is disgusting! -.-
Just shut the fuck up and learn to accept that other people have different opinions. You can't go around deleting threads and banning people. You will only make this project and this community LOSE!
Of course, given that I defend free speech, I should allow you to have your opinion, that we need you as our "holy savior". Well, have it for yourself, you have already posted it here, people rejected it, now shut the fuck up. This is my free speech, just as yours. And yes I cursed because of how stupid your idea was.

As a former victim of censorship, I vote against such a thing.

akirashinigami

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I am a translator!

Hors ligne
A rejoint: 02/25/2010

GNUser, I understand your concern about censorship, but that is not at all what I am trying to accomplish. Certainly, everyone is entitled to their opinion and has a right to express it. However, Trisquel is an FSF-endorsed free software project. As a community, we have specific interests that we are trying to further, and goals that we are trying to achieve. There is no reason that we should allow people to use our forums to actively work against our goals.

I am also deeply concerned about the lack of civility in discourse here, as you yourself have just illustrated.

Reading your response, I get the impression that you think I am trying to make an unjust power grab, so that I can unilaterally ban anyone with whom I disagree. That was not in any way my intent, and if that is how my original post came across, I apologize. However, I do believe that we need a clearly defined process (ideally a democratic one) to remove people who repeatedly violate our community guidelines. After all, what good are community guidelines if they are not enforceable?

GNUser
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 07/17/2013

You talk as if you truly want to do the right thing, so let me explain to you how you can do so. Don't. Just don't do it. It's very pretty to come here and say "I want to do what is the best for the community and I want a democratic process", but in the end, once you have the power to ban people and delete threads, you will end up abusing it. That's always what happens, we seek power to do the right thing and when we have it it corrupts us. Just look at the NSA. They wanted to protect us from terrorism. They ended up spying on all of us, in secret, and even using those means to spy persons who were close to them. Just because they could. So... I was able to put aside the fact that I had been censored once and keep being a part of this community. But if you start doing that bullshit, I won't be here anymore. Probably some people here will be happy to see me leave.
You say that there are people encouraging the use of proprietary software. Mind providing links of recent threads that had the purpose of suggesting and encouraging proprietary software? Because the only thing I see is people debating what is free software and what is not, what we should use and not, etc.

By the way being "FSF endorsed" doesn't make it special. So stop trolling about it. You are not the first who come up with that.

akirashinigami

I am a member!

I am a translator!

Hors ligne
A rejoint: 02/25/2010

While I never claimed to be the first to come up with it, being FSF-endorsed is actually pretty special. Only a handful of distributions have this distinction, and with it comes certain obligations.

To be fair, I never claimed that anyone was encouraging the use of proprietary software. However, there have been some users lately who have been defending the development of proprietary software. For a few examples, see below:
http://trisquel.info/en/forum/proprietary-software-result-psychological-problems#comment-47002

http://trisquel.info/en/forum/proprietary-software-result-psychological-problems#comment-47102

http://trisquel.info/en/forum/concern-about-gnulinux-becoming-more-proprietary#comment-47010

quantumgravity
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 04/22/2013

If your goal is to make a website which mechanically repeats everything the fsf is telling, then go on with your cencorship debate.

If your goal is freedom in the digital society, then please sit down and think for a minute about how ironic your behaviour is. You're achieving the opposite of your goal with cencorship.

That's like what's going on in my country.
"We don't ever want a tyrannic government again which takes away the human rights and the freedom of speech, so let's make every radical party SHUT THEIR MOUTHES FOR EVER!!"

I can't believe people don't see their own ridiculous contradictions.

ssdclickofdeath
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 05/18/2013

Users who want to promote proprietary software can go to the many other proprietary software forums and promote it there.

GNUser
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 07/17/2013

Sure... so for you to go and suggest free software to someone should be a crime too, right?
Listen guys... speaking up our mind, trying to give others what we believe are the best principles, is no something that is wrong. Debate will always bring a more clear idea and path in everyone's mind. by allowing that debate we strengthen our faith in free software. And we bring others into it. By denying that debate, we lose our reasoning, we lose other people, and we lose the right to go to other forums and promote what we believe is best, free software.
Censoring and banning and deleting... NO WAY!

roboq6
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 05/03/2013

>There is no reason that we should allow people to use our forums to actively work against our goals.

I see ONLY ONE way to "work against our goals" via forum:

akirashinigami: FLOSS is the best!

Non-FLOSS_Agitator: FLOSS sucks, because volunteers are incompetent to make any good software.

akirashinigami: You convinced me. FLOSS is crap.

BonusBrain
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 11/04/2013

I manage one of the most popular freeware sites on the web. With our amount of traffic we get around 50,000 attempts to spam daily and a pro-rata amount of trolls, fan boys and other unwanted types in the comments sections and forum. Our volunteer moderators are under constant fire and every day I wonder why they keep logging in to endure more of the same.

The bottom line is "someone" has to accept the role of site admin, set the rules and enforce them. There will always be grey areas and users will argue black and blue to promote their own points around them. That said, it is not censorship or anything else to decide what material is allowed on your own website and/or how it should be stated. Inviting debate about it only serves to fan the flames.

IMO the best policy is immediate deletion and a ban for totally unwanted material and a PM advisory for borderline stuff followed by a ban if this is ignored.

Just having these topics on view detracts from the main purpose of having a support forum. Folks can always Faceblog or Tweet about stuff they can't post here and enjoy every second of doing so.

andrew
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 04/19/2012

My thoughts on forum moderation:

1. I personally prefer minimal moderation, but occasionally some is
required (see below for more on this)...

2. Excessive and off-topic posting can "drown out" other posts which is
essentially a form of censorship itself. Occasionally there are some
users that constantly repost the same things. I think 'vPro' presented
this very well. I think after a warning a suspension or ban would be
appropriate.

3. I think we can agree to disagree on some things. However, personal
attacks etc. are unwelcome.

4. I think non-Trisquel discussions should go in the "Troll Hole", since
there is currently no other forum for such discussions. For example, the
ethics of free software is more political than technical, so maybe
that's the best forum for it. This forum is supposed to be about
Trisquel with a focus on supporting users. In other words, I'm not
suggesting that threads should necessarily be deleted, but perhaps moved
or locked if they are off-topic.

5. Moderation is obviously needed to combat spam, I don't think anyone
doubts this.

6. Regarding proprietary software, if a user posts a link or recommends
other users to give up their freedom, I hope that other users will reply
with the usual warnings - I think that's enough to help users who read
the post. However, if the sole purpose of a thread is to promote
proprietary software, I think it should be deleted. If a user
excessively recommends proprietary software, I think they should be
warned and then suspended.

Deleting threads that recommend proprietary software I guess can be seen
as a "freedom of speech vs. software freedom" issue, but I agree with
jxself that there are other places users can discuss proprietary
software so the free speech issue isn't so bad. We should defend
software freedom instead.

Andrew.

grimlok
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 04/16/2013

Wow, what a heated discussion. I just wanted to put some pennies in the pot if you all don't mind.

I think the reason that the Trisquel forums are having these issues is because a lot of folks, like myself, have decided to come on board Trisquel because we are looking for a more freedom-respecting way of computing.

Because Trisquel is a derivative of Ubuntu, it is a no-brainer for most people who are looking to enter into using free software over proprietary as an OS. Ubuntu lends itself to being one of the easiest distributions to set up, and from my experience Trisquel benefits greatly from that.

Because of this you will surely get many folks from all walks of software life into the fold. This means a lot of differing views of what freedom in software means. It is a debate that HAS to be made on here I feel. I understand that some people are just plain trolls, but people questioning the intent of Richard Stallman, or the fsf, or free software and the GNU in general, should be allowed to question it so as to understand the view point.

grimlok
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 04/16/2013

Maybe a way to help this, is to have a new area for such debate.

trisq

I am a member!

Hors ligne
A rejoint: 09/03/2013

I second grimlok's "new area" idea.

At the edges of any debate, there are things to consider, things to ponder. It's uncomfortable there for everyone. However the struggle to express ideas clarifies them.

Even though I see RMS's points, and agree with them, I have benefited from reading all the posts.

Maybe an area called "On Free Software" or something like that?

ADFENO
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 12/31/2012

david said:
"When situations start to get serious, or just delve into personal attacks, I first try to contact the person individually to ask for a change of attitude, and if that doesn't work as expected, more public measures are attempted (probably the strongest one is right now about to be tested, as today marks the finish of the first two-week account blocking period for a certain user, as you might have read about).
It's very important to accept criticism and different points of view, and it's very important to avoid risking open participation recurring to excessive moderation, the line for censorship lies in different places to each one's eyes.
On the other hand, this is not just any software forum, so it's reasonable to expect a sensible effort to be made to explain, particularly to those not that much in-the-know, the importance of our principles (and yes, that includes the frequently controversial naming and 'I-have-to-feed-my-children' topics) ;-)"

I think this is the right approach for these cases.

Perhaps the same tactic can be used to deal with the cases where one disrespects the guidelines.

I think that this tactic is more useful than banning a user straight away. We are all humans, and we can naturally make mistakes at various situations, like when reading a post/comment. Simply banning someone after reading his post/comment just because it's probably against the guidelines is very cruel.

We must also consider the fact that some users (like me, specially) have a native language different from the North American English or from the European English (and any other English variants) and, despite speaking it relatively well, we can make mistakes sometimes.

We can also make adaptations of this tactic, like three notices (which may or may not give a time limit for the user to justify or to correct himself), each one followed by a temporary deactivation of his account, and after this, if the user makes another mistake, another notice (with or without a time limit) and a ban.

Also, I think that it's best not to have just one moderator, but 3 or 5, which is useful because there is a possibility to get into a consensus before doing anything. Also, if these moderators are worried about attacks of any kind, it's useful to mask them as part of another group (like the administrators, members, users, but not as moderators).

Another option would be to have a page listing the notices to the user, along with the quantity of notices and account deactivations received. Each notice could have a footnote indicating how many moderators agree or disagree with such notice, there's no need for the to write comments here because, theoretically, the comments have already been made. The footnote could be like this:

“3 moderators agree with this notice, 2 don't”.

I think that the notice should not be sent to the user if a single moderator doesn't vote, this assures that all moderators must vote, and on top of that, that they'll be responsible for the vote.

The notification must reach the user somehow, that said, if the moderators don't want to be exposed by sending e-mails directly to the user, it's a good idea to place the notice in the user's profile page on this forum, and when doing so, it's a good idea not to have a footnote like “Last edited by ADFENO”.

Learning is like a group of mountains, some mountains can be hard to get on top and easy to get down and vice-versa. Sometimes we can even fall from it, and so we'll either have to start again or pass through it too fast and forget about everything we learned.

grimlok said:
"Because of this you will surely get many folks from all walks of software life into the fold. This means a lot of differing views of what freedom in software means. It is a debate that HAS to be made on here I feel. I understand that some people are just plain trolls, but people questioning the intent of Richard Stallman, or the fsf, or free software and the GNU in general, should be allowed to question it so as to understand the view point."

grimlok said:
"Maybe a way to help this, is to have a new area for such debate."

I agree.

andrew said:
"4. I think non-Trisquel discussions should go in the "Troll Hole", since there is currently no other forum for such discussions. For example, the ethics of free software is more political than technical, so maybe that's the best forum for it. This forum is supposed to be about Trisquel with a focus on supporting users. In other words, I'm not suggesting that threads should necessarily be deleted, but perhaps moved or locked if they are off-topic."

I think that the Troll Hole isn't the right place for such questions because, by doing this, we'll eventually do something which tells the involved users something like this: “Even if this question has been made by a new user, we consider it as troll intent”.

Best regards, ADFENO.
Have a nice day.

bmw2qs
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 12/20/2013

I'm a newcomer and I have no idea what threads are you talking about. But if the Trisqel community can't hold its viewpoint at home, on its own territory without bullying and censorship (you can call that moderation) than what chance does it stand outside with paid tech editors, advertising budgets and government bribery (they call it lobby)?

I never ever had anything as big as fedora forum and nothing even close to linux questions. But I have noticed that letting people free can help on the long term. Sure, bot spam doesn't help anybody. Probably it would even help you drop to the tenth page in search engines. But otherwise let people express themselves. An Ignore function is a far better choice than a moderator that can delete posts and ban users.

I have read through the comments so far. And from what I have noticed unpopular views (I wouldn't go that far to call them all trolling) multiply like Hydra's heads with so called moderation.

Guidelines? They are nice to have for nice people that do bother to read them. Enforcing guidelines is a very unfair process. And I know for sure that thread hijacking is never enforced as with quite a lot of abuse. I'm from Europe, most forums I visit are mostly american. Maybe it has something to do with the cultural differences. Because a sincere «fuck off» would most certainly bring a delete, maybe even a temporary ban, while a 10k post member hunting around a new user and calling that person all sort of names like «troll» or just pointing out obvious things that scream «idiot» without writing the word «idiot», now that guy can even make points with the community.

Of course, I'm just a newcomer and I don't delude myself I can have a contribution to the final outcome. But I can add my contribution and troll you with my opinions.

roboq6
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 05/03/2013

How about personal filters for users?

If somebody feel buthurt, then somebody else criticize
RMS/FLOSS/Mother_Teresa, in that case s/he needs to add the person in personal "ignore list". IMHO, this is excellent alternative for forum moderation.

quantumgravity
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 04/22/2013

I checked the community guidlines and was not able to find any part which forbids to speak against opinions of the fsf.

"The Trisquel project is part of the Free Software Movement. We support the movement's philosophy. "

Actually, people who call for banning people are much more violating the "movements philosophy".

Because of this thread, I won't endorse trisquel any longer; instead, I will warn people of the big problems the community has.
No one should join a forum in which people think that
"there is no place for the expression of these viewpoints on our forums.

These people need to go. " -"akirashinigami".

I am a strong supporter of free software and the ethics behind it; nevertheless I reached this conclusion.
Maybe this gets some members to think of the problems penetrating the community. If someone with my background steps away from trisquel this means that trisquel frightens people who already value freedom, hence I think it's very unlikely that trisquel has to power to activily gain many new members for the movement.
I don't think there will be success for the project if you go on like this.
Just my opinion.

By the way: for a freedom-loving project the hirarchy of trisquel is very badly chosen. I think an unreachable dictator who never participates in the discussions of the community and makes every dicision by himself is a bad concept. But it fits to the new developments of this thread.

GNUser
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 07/17/2013

(I really hate to be the one saying this...)

Wow, man... calm down. I understand how you feel (you know damn well I do) but you must consider the move you are making, it might not be the best one. you see, the FORUM has a lot of problems, yes, and I am talking about political/social problems, not technical ones. The distribution on the other hand, has some technical problems (I have mentioned a few already in other threads) but it has pretty much the correct political/social priorities. So, while you are correct on not bringing people here, you can still point the distribution (maybe offering advice for them to stay away from the forums and offering your own help for solving problems).
I only say this because, even if I prefer Debian right now over Trisquel (and even the social contract, which I believe is pro-freedom), it's true they are kept out of FSF list because of some petty political arguments. Not because of the distro itself. So, I think we should be careful to not fall into the same mistake.
Of course, I know it sounds silly for me to try to make you calm down and stay here, but, if you really want to make a difference, you have to stay. And maybe you will consider that if I am the one encouraging you to do so... maybe there is a reason for that :P
But of course, it's up to you :) I will try to fight back against several people who try to turn this forum into a dictatorship. I guess I could take some help from a person like you ;)

quantumgravity
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 04/22/2013

It's not that I'm planning to leave, maybe I expressed it wrong!
There are some intelligent people in here and though there are problems I like (some of) the discussions and I hope things will somehow develop in the right direction (away from cencorship and "evangelism").

But I imagine how a friend of mine (he just started with free software and gnu systems) would come here and start a thread like "Hey everyone, I like opensource and I even bought a raspberry pi to have a free dropbox alternative I can control myself; my father is a software developer and I often argue with him"
and then he would get answers like: "don't use this term, don't use that term; you bought the wrong device. Tell your immoral father to quit his job;" this really frightens me. So I don't think I can recommend the trisquel community anymore to him.
But it's true that there is no reason to mix up the distro and the community.

And if you're telling me that I'm overreacting maybe I should think about it :D

GNUser
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 07/17/2013

"And if you're telling me that I'm overreacting maybe I should think about it :D"
Takes one to know the other :P

In the hope we can make this forum a better place, I have decided to change the way I interact here a little bit... no more arguing. I state my views, opinions, information, links, suggestions, whatever I have to state, ONCE. I won't get into arguments with other users who clearly are not making reasonable questions, just trying to pick up a fight. I might add some important info that I left out initially when asked for, but other than that, I will try to stick with one comment per thread, maybe it will bring us better results. I will hardly change the way I express myself however, because I don't tolerate censorship. If I need to say something is good the correct word is "good". If I need to say something is broken the correct word is "broken". If I need to say someone screwed the entire fucking world in a single decision the correct expression is "screwed up the entire fucking nation".

trisq

I am a member!

Hors ligne
A rejoint: 09/03/2013

Re: Debian and "petty political arguments", please note the video mentioned in this thread: https://trisquel.info/en/forum/rms-2001-talked-about-1999-nsa-backdoor-ms-server-software

It shows how Stallman feels about Linux vs. GNU and why he feels that way. Maybe watching that video will provide background that illustrates why freedom is so important an issue and how the slightest deviation from it affects Stallman so strongly.

GNUser
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 07/17/2013

http://media.libreplanet.org/u/libby/m/stefano-zacchiroli/

If you watch this video, you will notice that Debian has always tried to maintain a healthy environment on their development strategy, has freedom as a main priority and have been trying to get the FSF endorsement for years. They have made a lot of changes to the system, and are willing to discuss some others with the FSF. If the FSF will just keep repeating the same lines over and over, without trying to "open" a little bit to accept Debian's own ideas, of course there will never be any possible endorsment (even though the Debian team endorses the FSF work, not the other way around).
I understand that RMS and FSF feel strongly about these matters, they have been in the fight for 30 years now, but honestly they can't really keep rejecting Debian and not exepect people to complain about it. It is a petty political argument because it is not based on any "strong sustainable dangerous threat on free software".

ZykoticK9
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 04/07/2011

i've just come from using debian to trisquel - because I wanted to support a faif-distro. all i want for x-mas/grav-mas is a debian-stable fork with non-free and contrib removed, and s/linux/linux-libre/ until debian removes contrib/non-free (which i doubt will ever happen) there is no hope of fsf endorsing them.

[edit] and how is this trisquel related?

GNUser
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 07/17/2013

I started with Ubuntu 10.04, later moved to Mint 13, after that Trisquel 6 and now use Debian 7. On my way I also used some other distros in specific ocasions (Tails and Puppy).

Debian:

-removing non-free/contrib: no need to remove something that is not there to start with! If you already used Debian, you know when you install Debian, it only provides you the main (free) rep. You cannot remove the other reps, you would have to add them in the first place! Also, as you can see in the link I posted above, those are not part of Debian project.
-linux-libre: The Debian kernel has NO blobs (you can confirm this in the FSF website if you wish). So, no problem using either their kernel or linux-libre kernel. Also, Debian gives you the possibility to use HURD, which is another FAIF kernel. So, no problem with the kernel.

Excuse, what is the point of FSF being against Debian again? -.^ maybe (as you can see in the link above) it is actually related to the fact that some of the people who develop Debian are employes at places that work with proprietary software.... Just a thought that popped into my head. Maybe the problem is not Debian itself, maybe the FSF is just unfriends with the people behind the project.

Sim
Sim
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 09/29/2013

An explanation for why Debian isn't endorsed by the FSF can be found here

https://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.en.html

tct
tct

I am a member!

Hors ligne
A rejoint: 10/23/2011

În 2013-12-22 22:40, name at domain a scris:
> Also, as you can see in the link I posted above, those are not part
> of Debian project.

Those repos are hosted at debian.org and official documentation at
debian.org recommends adding those repos and using proprietary software,
even when free software is avaiable (see Atheros firmware)

"Firmware is required, which can be provided by installing the
firmware-atheros package"

and only after, "Open firmware for this driver is also available." (also
notice "open")

"Installation: Add a "non-free" component to /etc/apt/sources.list, for
example: http://http.debian.net/debian/ wheezy main contrib non-free"

That's why Debian is not a free distribution, it's a corrupt
distribution like most of the GNU+Linux distributions out there. And
just like corrupt politicians, they pretend to be ethical and they make
efforts to improve their public image to get rid of the critics, without
solving the real problem: their corruption. They just improve the
presentation, but the substance is still the same. In Romanian this is
called "formă fără fond".

--
Tiberiu C. Turbureanu
Președinte, Fundația Ceata
Telefon: +40-761-810-100
GPG: 8B51 53CB 354E 3049 FAE9 3260 F033 8452 4154 1967

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