About the new "guidelines"

Same for my examples as well.

Yes, maybe a bit. But where are the replies by critical members? If you don’t like something, you can speak out. Look at a topic like pay-the-producer. People jump in quite fast when they don’t agree. And for the other “likes” by critical members, they might be inflated as well. We could argue that some clashed with moderation or where “banned” for several weeks and now vote for all critical topics about moderation. Their number is quite small (total people banned over time <5) but is does bring your inflation as well. Especially in a topic where only a few different people respond.

Haha, seriously? On a forum you get moved to “Opposite Views” when you’re not anti-capitalistic and we are doing things like it as well. Come on, you can’t be serious. That forum is a political forum, they probably move your talk about some software form the frontpage as well. We allow all views on politics in off-topic. No matter if it’s left or right. Show me a Linux Forum where they do allow politic discussions as well.

I can’t help you with that. And I think nobody but you can. I go to other forums as well, quite a number of them. I go to the Ethereum Reddit as well now and then. Have had some great discussions. Even while I’m NOT allowed to talk politics and a lot more there.

This quote is one of the many good qualities I’ve noticed about you @Team_2E16 that I really appreciate. You have a keen ability to route out the source of miscommunication in order to clear and weed it out. You will make an excellent farmer on the SAFE network my friend.

Well said!. Ooooo that gave me chills and that’s what I’m talking about! I hope you can feel my awkwardly long hippy hug.

All I’m waiting for now is for @tonda, @janitor and @Al_Kafir to come back and join in.

@whiteoutmashups is still here because he (to paraphrase) ‘quit college and left his home in Hawaii to live in SF–out of a van because this is the most important thing in the entire world, economically, politically, etc etc.’

I’m with you @whiteoutmashups. Who else is with us?

If people feel like I have in the past, they are a little afraid to speak up.

I was in that space after I saw some of the more zealous interventions on the part of the moderators in the past. It took me getting to the point of not caring anymore whether I was welcome here in future to speak up. Others don’t like to rock the boat. Others have only seen the blow-ups that occur (including in the update Forum Guidelines thread) and don’t want to ally themselves with people who seem to be overblowing things, and sometimes are. I was also in that group for quite a while, despite my disagreements with the mod actions.

Think about it this way:
It’s politics. How does politics work? Well, when there are two opposing groups, one pushes their viewpoint further one way, and the other pushes them the other way. I’ve seen a small number of very vocal people here have complete meltdowns after mod actions and come out, guns blazing, ready to burn the place to the ground. Who wants to join that team?

It’s a polarisation. The proposal is an attempt to stop that polarisation once and for all.

I think you missed my point. They have a clear bias, and move opposing views into their own special category. I’m not saying it’s equivalent at all.

What I am saying is that instead of getting my personal political views moved into their own special topic (which is awful! I wouldn’t do that to socialists myself, despite my complete disagreement with their positions), I can’t bring political context into a topic that is not expressly political, period. SAFE has political implications, and sometimes, there are strong points of argument that are relevant to the topic being discussed on a feature, for example. Sometimes, the underpinnings of an economic argument are based in political positions, such as the right to private property. Safecoin is affected by economic laws, and so any discussion of safecoin, with changes to the fundamentals (like one user’s push to get rid of the issuance cap and rely on inflation), inevitably leads to the economic argument, and then people ask you to justify that argument. Some of that argument can rest in political theory. And the difference is rather important, if it has a chance of affecting the outcome of the network itself…

I’m not saying we should be able to go off on lengthy side-chains that drag the topic way off course; I just think that some leniency could be given here, rather than a solid ban on posting political opinions/concepts/ideas outside of ‘off-topic’.

Well, generally I haven’t seen opposition from many of the users here in the past with political stuff, besides when it’s got really contentious or long-winded and way, way off-topic.

Different policies would indeed help me. And the moderators have control over those policies, for the time being.

As do I. Safe is such a radical concept with such far-reaching implications that I think it is vital to have the fundamentals right.

The Linux forums (many of them) seem to be filled with arrogant, impatient people who feel the need to constantly berate new people for not knowing where to find information before they ask a question about it. It’s not a nice environment for newbs at all. I don’t see how a Linux forum is equivalent to this. This isn’t what we should aspire to.

Besides, this community has always, since the beginning, had a complete different flavour to the Linux forums.

• Linux forums are mostly there to provide help on development of the software, or to provide an informational resource for new users, or users dealing with problems.
• This forum started out with a bang, with a focus on tracking the development of this software, but also with people discussing all sorts of ideas and innovations. Exciting stuff. I feel like the magic is being lost (somewhat), because of restrictions.

Of course, some of those Linux forums are great! But Linux isn’t embedded with a crypto-currency, and it isn’t directly targeted at destroying government spying, but rather it is there partly as an alternative product to Windows, which will be mentioned there, without deletion. Safe and political discussion are strongly linked, so it’s inevitable that political issues will come up.
(Note: I use Linux nearly 99% of the time, and have done for over 16 years. I’m at system admin level in terms of expertise and have participated on Linux forums for as long as I’ve been using Linux.)

Well, at least my farm won’t be full of weeds
Thanks

I’ve seen a lot of them as well. I do know what it’s like. I’m 38, I went to quite some forums myself. Some of them are awful. Like you say, ask one question and you get some sort of warning you need to use search etc. Going to a zillion topics about settings for your BIOS. We ask people to use search as well, but when new folks show up with a simple question about transactions without blockchain they get the right links within half an hour most of the time.

I just wanted to point out that SAFE is quite a technical project as well, but opposed to the Linux Forums and other deep tech stuff, we allow quite some more. I don’t think SAFE is political at all. It’s open tech that might have some political implications as well in the future. But I think the people that use it will make the real change. And they use TOR, Facebook and others as well.

Actually they don’t have a front page at all. Its similar to PHPbb forums that present the categories and you have to enter the category to see the topics. Discourse shows the latest topics on the front page which is where the “front-page” issues arise and the need to have some categories not show their topics on the front page.

And the revolution forum really isn’t all that open with their different set of rules.

And following their system of moderation/administration they have found the disruptive element of the internet are now playing havoc on their forum. They are resorting to paid membership after admitting their system of forum admin is resulting in seeing “the community slowly but surely disintegrate over the past w”

I would have loved to see an actual example of a community forum that has been able to integrate open voting on actions to be taken in place of moderation and forum guidelines. Or one where the guidelines are fully community created.

Unfortunately the second example was for a 2nd tier of moderators with post edit/delete privileges akin to phpBB forums where each category is its own mini forum. Discourse does not work that way but more a complete community forum with sections. And we do not have the capability of 2nd tier moderators. The second example still has its moderators and guidelines for the whole forum. And as you say the voting has yet to be agreed to and implemented, its more a proposal.[quote=“Team_2E16, post:132, topic:8253”]
But I certainly think that we could have one for a period of time during a time when people are able to come in to the topic and weigh in, discuss, propose, agree, disagree and attempt to reach consensus on a set of guidelines that are user-driven.
[/quote]

Maybe a way to achieve this is to have a topic that appears on the front page that points to a series of topic where each guideline & new suggestions are discussed. The topic is pinned so that once a person has read it and been alerted the topics in meta exist then it becomes unpinned as is discourse’s way.

And a forum that went part way to this has experience serious problems and was presented to us as a working example. (see up in my post). Unfortunately this does not fill me with confidence as to the effectiveness of going guideline less till people agree.

Basically the new guidelines were the old ones with a lot of waffle removed, and so notifying it had been cleaned up etc, was the right way. Then people could review it and tell us if we got it wrong. But if it was substantially modified then I can see the problem and would have been done differently. Its been more that people assume and/or read the waffle and interpreted it one way while it was applied all this time another way.

I would appeal to anyone who feels that any of the new guidelines are wrong to start a topic discussing this in the meta category. There is no reason why the community, which the moderators also members of, cannot discuss the issues without ego and using language that divides the community into them and us and using extremes to try and sway others. Good old productive discussions like you are having will see progress.

Exactly!. I see the forum and the SAFE network it represents as a wide ocean in the dead of night with all different kinds of characters and creatures. The community for me is that light house. This is what we are trying to build here before dawn. This smaller group of characters includes the devs, mods, regulars and currently active non regulars who are soon to be regulars.

As am I. I usually end up here following a friend.

Notice I was one of 20 likes for the guideline which I stand by. That still does not mean that I don’t agree with others that it would have been better coming from the community.

I don’t and have no desire to. Please stop comparing us to other forums. I couldn’t care less about them. Thank you.

Edit: This is not entirely true. I have joined the Safe Exchange and App Store exchanges since this one. But same group of characters non the less with a less strained atmosphere

“We allow” Do you here how that sound? How about being in a position to say instead ‘We support the communitie’s preference to keep political views off-topic’.

Thank you @neo my man!

To be clear, we are by no means proposing going “guideline less”.

This is our goal and what we are currently working on in PM to post. So stay tuned.

Lol! Been there many a time. Doesn’t matter how much experience you have, buy a new mobo and you’ve got issues! USB not working, but network does. Change the setting. Network on, USB broken! Windows conspiracy!

Yes, I think we do this well, and note the very active lead that moderators and other regular members take on this. It works well.

Yes, this is true.

That’s really what I meant, although I think it has some political implications now. Many people who feel that govt spying is a serious threat see Safe as a major part of the solution. I think at this stage, the economics of the network are my focus. It’s crucial that they be balanced and, at the risk of starting yet another disagreement, I’m not entirely sure they are

Quite a good suggestion. Much appreciated. This would of course solve the problem of clutter also, so people don’t have to forever look at it.

Also: To all, our proposal is not to have a permanent topic on the front page, but rather to put up a ‘foundational’ topic where we can set up a discussion (or series of discussions) to achieve this goal. It would be removed once we had gone through this process.

As @Safety1st pointed out, the current proposal is nothing to with removing all guidelines, but building a new set of guidelines (that may closely resemble the current ones) via the community here. I, speaking for myself, think guidelines are very necessary, unless the community was closed to new members. This forum, like most, is ever-changing and will grow strongly soon (I believe!), and so we do need structure for new members to be able to accustom themselves to. I assume we will also have some enemies, as well. (About 70% of people I mention Safe too, say “that’s really frightening”)

I agree that was a good idea, and I also actually think you guys did a pretty good job. There’s some I disagree with, but the biggest issue is that a couple are too general. I think finding the right balance between waffle and generality is a tricky balancing act.

I appreciate that, and wish to extend my hand in an offer of peace, solidarity and friendship to all moderators. If both sides of an argument are willing to converse on the issues, try to see each others viewpoints, be flexible to some extent, and be respectful, we can make this very special place even more special.

And one more note: It should be heartening for you all to hear that the reason that I feel so passionately about the present and future of this place is that, barring one other forum, it is the only forum on the internet that I have been able to engage with so many like-minded, and yet diverse, people in such stimulating, thought-provoking and in-depth discussions. This place has value, and what I personally am railing against is what I see as the slow and gradual erosion of some aspects of what makes/made this place so unique. For me this is indeed about Safe, but it also about so much more than that. I hope we can move forward in positivity, for the good of all of us here who have the community’s best interests at heart.

Thank you for your reply @Team_2E16

The point of being guideline less was that the “new” guidelines were not really new, just a more streamlined way of saying the existing guidelines without the waffle.

So if we were to discuss the “new” guidelines before implementing them then that predisposes that they are not in place before hand,

My point was that they were getting rid of waffle not really new guidelines.

Anyhow it was just a minor point.

Would it have been better if the de-waffled “new” guidelines was posted as “Proposed cleanup of guidelines”, rather than posted as “The new guidelines”. I saw the “new” guidelines as mostly de-waffled guidelines or cleaned up guidelines.

I will return back to reading and waiting for the

Was not a major concern that everyone was not involved in the formulation of the guidelines (this time or a year ago).

I really like this proposal as well.

I was actually searching for a feature in Discourse that allowed individual users to setup their own front page categories. Couldn’t find it (yet) but didn’t spend a ton of time on it. I for one like political discussion (yeah, I mod post on things that could go off the rails - I even feel a bit upset at myself for doing it, but I agree that the network should be the focus and the other creates a lot of noise for new users and others who are not like me) and would love a sub category under off-topic about political ramifications of the network that I could personally make part of my custom categories home page. If this can be done with Discourse and I’m missing it please let me know. [Edit: I’m aware of the notification and watched category feature. This is part of the way there, but I would like the feeds to show on my home page too.] I’d also like to make sure new users and existing members knew about this (potential) feature so something pinned that explained it might be nice (more clutter I know).

I’ll look more when I have time and if it doesn’t exist I or someone else could suggest it on the discourse forum if they think it would be a good feature…

This is a question to us right? If so, than my concern is not when the guidelines originated. As @anon40790172 pointed out, they were community driven which was great. Since, then the community has grown and will continue to do so. Therefore, the mods rightly figured we were due for an update / revision and to figure out a [quote=“neo, post:151, topic:8253”]
streamlined way of saying the existing guidelines without the waffle.
[/quote]

However, we feel that the mods neglected to include the now larger community in this process this time around. This is what we am to remedy and set as a precedence for future guideline updates if and when necessary.

In addition, we also want to go beyond the guidelines to see what other areas the community can contribute. We want to see how willing the community would be to help spread the burden of moderation without being full blown moderators but only having the moderators there as a back end support. What resources can we give the community to this end is one of my questions? Getting the “lounge” as a regular to me does not seem to cut it. I did not even know I had this “benefit” as a regular until yesterday while looking at other meta posts. Not knocking the lounge completely though as I think it will be the perfect less public place to encourage regulars to go and discuss issues and new ideas concerning the forum.

Again, when I say community, I mean regulars and soon to be regulars, but any new privileges I would prefer to only apply to those who have attained regular status.

Look no criticism is intended at all and I realise that statement is often a prelude to exactly that, but seriously it not meant in any negative way because I understand why you are doing it in a PM first.

Yes but are you not excluding the greater community with discussing from the beginning your

And my point has been that the moderators worked on cleaning up the waffle and then asked the community for their input. And for that reason we wanted to have something to present, just like yourselves want to get your proposal/ideas right before presenting it/them. The post saying that the updated guidelines were there was intended to allow discussions and get the communities input. Unfortunately it quickly was changed into a them-us and the intent for community discussions was lost in bitterness.

Again that post could have been worded better but like yourselves we wanted something that was firstly presentable before asking for discussions with the view to add/delete/change things for the community. Obviously there were some essentials like no swearing/porn/etc to allow the forum to be all inclusive. Also some like PMs to remain private is a legal requirement in some countries like AU. In other words for the sake of inclusiveness (MAIDSAFEs requirement) there were some things that would remain even if the majority of us disagreed.

No, because we are not proposing changes as such. We are proposing to have a conversation about changes, and are only outlining some concerns that we and others have had, so that the community itself may discuss and propose solutions to those issues. (EDIT: But the point of the exercise is actually to allow everyone else to bring up their own views, their vision for this place etc, not to focus on our particular gripes)

So basically our ‘proposal’ extends only so far as to find out how we can be the most inclusive in the discussion itself; we would ideally like to get it on the front page, which may be one of the first points we discuss. It may not be necessary in the event itself. Depends on what everyone else wants to do.

The actual ‘proposals’ for any changes to the guidelines etc will come during and from that discussion; we are not drafting guidelines ourselves to present.

It certainly did in-thread at the time, and became personal quickly too. But I think TBH that has been boiling for a long time; it wasn’t because of the guidelines you proposed per se, that was just another trigger for some who have issues with these kind of things from waaaay back. We have to try to avoid this stuff, and part of our initial post will hopefully include a plea to all to refrain from personally insulting language, accusations, collective notions (Us-vs-Them) if possible, and to remain respectful to all who speak their minds. It should be a completely open airing of views, no judgement of each other, but simply logical and honest argumentation and agreement/disagreement. Ideally . Hopefully we can build/rebuild a sense of respect for each other and bring people a little bit closer together.

Definitely. Also, there are structural limits to what can be done. We would be very grateful for all of the moderators input on that (and anything other aspect, of course) as the discussion takes place.

I love this one .

I trust this to be true and I know you understand why we are PMing and using this example helped me to see your point. You have a beautiful mind @neo and I love how you use logic, reason and evidence to make your points. Before I address your point, allow me to divert to two itching issues for me and this has to do with the bitterness you mentioned.

First off, regarding them-us, if I have cause you are any of the other mods to feel this way I am sorry. This was not my intention. When I say things like [quote=“Safety1st, post:105, topic:8253”]
You are battered and bruised my friend. Please rest and I’ll see you on the battlefield when you’ve recovered
[/quote] it can come across like I feel like I am at war with the mods but I am not.

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Ephesians 6:12

So when I wield my sword and shield it is not against you or any of the mods. We are on the same side fighting together for the same good cause. I see you as part of my team. If I were to attack you I would be essentially attacking myself. So what I’m I trying to achieve you ask in this battle? Well I see us as one body and each part is important and private parts need to stay private (ie PMs). We can all agree on that. Also, bodies often times need to take a shower and eliminate waste.This is what @Team_2E16 was talking about here:

Before he resorted to using those attention grabbing terms that we all hate he said

He had nothing but praise to give

Look at the man and see his good heart and good intentions. Please please try to see him as saying something he did not mean to say even if he did say it in a fit of rage. He is my best friend and it breaks my heart to see him painted this way to the community. Thank you.

Ok, now that I got that off my chest, back to your point @neo. Even if we did not have a legitimate reason for PMing which @Team_2E16 so correctly pointed out it makes no difference. Why? Because as leaders in the community the mods have a higher standard to live up to IMO.

You say that

If this was the true intention of the mods, please let me point out where I think there could have been improvement in the delivery.

Number 1) You say [quote=“neo, post:154, topic:8253”]
Obviously there were some essentials like no swearing/porn/etc to allow the forum to be all inclusive. Also some like PMs to remain private is a legal requirement in some countries like AU. In other words for the sake of inclusiveness (MAIDSAFEs requirement) there were some things that would remain even if the majority of us disagreed.
[/quote]

But this was not obvious to me until reading this. This is good information to know as we begin the discussion. A good way to have approached this would have been 'hey community here is a draft of the guidelines we are working on and we want your input. However, keep in mind that these are the absolutes that can not be changed for the following reasons…

The OP is presented as we did some research and edited the guidelines based on this research which you can check out for yourself and we are doing pretty darn good compared to these other forums so there you have it. This is the primary reason why we can’t

Number 2) Melvin said [quote=“Melvin, post:135, topic:8253”]
They were there to discuss (input is what you want right?) and nobody did that.
[/quote]

Is this true? No input at all? How about Tonda and @Al_Kafir’s input on that original thread? What is the whole purpose of this thread? We are speaking but are you only hearing complaining noise by the same old characters? (fyi - by you I don’t mean just you @Melvin.

I’ve read every post here and may have missed it somehow but I watch Tonda repeat several times that [quote=“Tonda, post:2, topic:8253”]
The Repeat Offenders section being the most troubling.
[/quote]

Yet I have yet to see a mod address this specific concern.

Do you sincerely want to include the community in editing the new guidelines? Then please help us re-post it. Thank you.

I know your intentions are good but I don’t want anything to do with him and I’m not sure what you’re asking from me here. An issue between two persons on this forum isn’t a problem in my opinion and if he needs something from me as a moderator he can always ask me.

He is my best friend and it breaks my heart to see him painted this way to the community.

What are you referring to here?

If I read the above quote without knowing the context or Jabba I would assume he was an awful human being (which he is not) for saying those things about you and the mods. But as you said [quote=“Melvin, post:158, topic:8253”]
An issue between two persons on this forum isn’t a problem in my opinion
[/quote]

I just had to share my feelings about it and make my plea. You are free to believe and do as you please. However, I ask you to reconsider because I’m assuming your intentions was not to paint him as an awful human being because otherwise you would not say [quote=“Melvin, post:158, topic:8253”]
if he needs something from me as a moderator he can always ask me.
[/quote]

I could be wrong but I’m assuming you would cut him off completely if you thought he was an awful human being. I’m also assuming that you would not be asking me this question if you realized the impression your quote had on me and possibly others.

Why did you say [quote=“Melvin, post:135, topic:8253”]
They were there to discuss (input is what you want right?) and nobody did that.
[/quote] when it will be obvious to anyone reading this thread as well as the guideline announcement thread that somebody was giving input? If I read your quote alone, I would have the wrong impression. Do I believe you believe what you said? No! Why? Because I’m assuming you said it out of frustration. We all do this @Melvin. It is part of our human nature.

So please reconsider my plea which is to entertain the idea that Jabba only said those things out of frustration.

WHAAAAAAAAAT

@Tonda was banned???

Ok, someone really has to speak up for this… .>:(. .>:(. .>:(. .>:(. .>:(. .>:(.