Re: Please keep "Off Topic"-section off topic!
 

The problem I see is that the "Off Topic" becomes a sort of penal camp for threads that don't live up to somebody's (arbitrary and subjective) quality standards. The title "Off Topic" isn't just a row of letters... it means something. It means what it says: off topic. And it's described as "Totally unrelated but still worth discussing."

I can't do anything else than repeat:
How can topics about Maemo, Maemo applications, Maemo devices and the only manufacturer of Maemo devices (who happens to have created Maemo and distribiutes it and keeps it alive) can be "totally unrelated"?

I could live with a "Nokia" sub-forum side by side with the "General" forum, although I don't see how it's necessary... I mean, come on: Maemo stuff usually goes into the Maemo-[version-number]-subforum, device-specific stuff goes to the device-subforum, application specific... you get the picture. I don't see a real need for yet another sub-forum. There's probably even too many of them. - Still, it's a lot better than throwing these on-topic threads together with "I love my kitten so much!" threads @ "Off Topic".

It's more than sad... It's kind of bizarre. People who don't like noise shouldn't come to a place with 1,982 concurrent users in the first place. There are quiet invite-only places for such people.

Anything "light-hearted" is what makes me come here. I talk to people here, I don't operate robots. If threads like "n900 is for real men" are not welcome in the N900-subforum (hello??!! anybody listening? N900-subforum, N900-thread? does this ring a bell?), we should seriously consider changing the forum descriptions:

• Maemo 5 / Fremantle
  Boring, miserable and dull stuff about the current release, codenamed Fremantle.
• Nokia N900
  Boring, miserable and dull hardware-specific discussions about the fourth generation of Internet Tablets.
• General
  Anything that's so convincingly boring, miserable and dull that it shouldn't be tied to a specific program, OS or device.
• Off Topic
  You have fun with your Maemo device? Come here.

Re: Please keep "Off Topic"-section off topic!
 

That gets my vote. When can we implement it? :D

Re: Please keep "Off Topic"-section off topic!
 

I'll try to explain my point of view:

I believe a lot of people feel insulted that some of their threads are getting downgraded to "Off-Topic" even though the initial thread had a valid point.

The problem (that I'm facing, I'm not speaking for other mods), is that we have to make decisions regarding the noise-to-signal ratio. I don't believe that a thread such as "N900 is for real men" deserves to be in the N900 sub forum: it doesn't discuss the hardware, it doesn't discuss *anything* specific to the N900. It's just a conglomeration of sexist comments, that don't add *anything* of value *AT ALL* !!!

If anyone believes that "Men DONT care about the SIZE!" "That's what she said!" "And no, she ain't got bigger balls than I do" is anywhere related to Maemo, maybe you should try to reconsider what Maemo means to you. (those are direct quotes from a thread that in the opinion
of benny1967 should be in the N900 forum).

Please don't judge a book by its cover. The same rules for threads. Don't judge its "on-topicness" based solely on the thread name. If there are 3 useful posts, followed by 3 pages worth of discussion about the US Patent Office, I'm utterly sorry, but I'm tempted to just bunk the whole thing out of the window. And this is only one example.

I would like to see threads that only discuss one specific subject and die out once the topic has been taken care of. Having 2 billion "me too" messages doesn't help. Having half a million "nokia sucks" posts doesn't help. Yes, moderators could spend their time splitting off-topic posts from on-topic threads, but quite frankly I'm not going to do that.

If you want threads to remain on topic, then just moderate the thread yourself. If you are unhappy about a moderator's decision, just yell about it, and in most cases it will get canceled, or superseded. But please don't tell us what to do when the only thing you judge upon is the name of the thread.

Re: Please keep "Off Topic"-section off topic!
 

Thank you!

Maybe it really helps to discuss the examples, not abstract concepts. Let's stay with this "true men" thread for a while:

The size of the N900 is what many people criticize when they see the device. Reviews say it's too big. Ahmed360 started a thread with a post that basically says: "To hell with all this talk about 'too big'. It's not, it's fine with me, and if you're a real man you don't mind the size..." (implying, of course, that you maybe are even proud of the buldge in your trousers.)

It's a statement about what he thinks about the device. Just as "The N900 is total crap" or "I love my N900 because it's black".
It should be in "N900".

About your "add *anything* of value *AT ALL* "-comment:
Well, probaby you're right, other than stating that the size of the device is fine for him, he doesn't add anything "of value".
But this is a forum, not a scientific research center. We talk here. It's not required to add anything of value. Posting screenshots of your N900 desktop doesn't add anything of value either. Still I love it when people do it. And because it's about their N900-desktop, it goes int he N900-section. As go discussions about the size of the device.


This is something I just don't understand. I don't see the benefit of moving threads around (or splitting them) only because they derail on page 3. Anyone who follows a thread from the beginning will notice that now everything is said about the original topic and people now start drinking and chatting. So what? No harm done. Many will even join in and enjoy the party.
Still, the first 3 posts were on topic and remain on topic and there's no need for anybody to interfere.

The "I would like to see threads that only discuss one specific subject and die out once the topic has been taken care of"-part scares me, actually.
I better not say anything about it other than I don't want to be part of a community (it wouldn't be a community then, would it?) that's being handled that way.

Re: Please keep "Off Topic"-section off topic!
 

I respectfully disagree, but in order to get things going, I'll let other community members add to this point.

I think this is where is the main misconception. In my mind, this forum is here to help people, to discuss things which will later help other people. This is true for the specifics of the hardware, this is true when referencing what applications allows to do what, and what the limitations are in different areas. I'm fine with all that. Even if bugs were being thoroughly discussed in Maemo 5 (Fremantle), I'd be absolute fine with it (as b.m.o isn't the place for that).

Now, this doesn't mean that the forum as a whole should be a dump. No, making a thread for the sole purpose of implying things about male anatomy isn't anything on-topic. It's downright outrageous anyone could believe that. It's not something that people will find useful later on, it's not something that's noteworthy. It's just someone who had a bit of a laugh, and shared it on a medium. A medium shaped to that effect: Off-Topic subjects.

Posting screenshots add a huge value to a forum. It allows newcomers to see what is possible. It allows people to understand how good, how hackable, how different our platform is. Again, if someone falls in the "share your screenshot" thread from Google, they will have useful information (images) readily available.

Wrong. A forum is supposed to be a repository of information, at least that's how I see it. Again, from a new user perspective, the people who are searching for information, being able to find information quickly and precisely, without having to weed through tons of utterly useless posts is an important thing. If we do not hold ourselves against such a code, a simple code of forum hygiene, we are going to end up with the same issues, bugs, problems, and questions being brought up again, and again, and again.

Excepted that now, people will keep going off-topic, and will keep increasing the noise-to-signal ratio, until at some point, nobody has a single clue about what the thread was about originally. How many people browse the forum by clicking on the small arrow leading to the last post? How many people look at the outcome of a specific thread before looking at the beginning. I'm betting a lot of people do. Why spend time reading through a thread which may turn out being pretty boring, right? This means that the subject of the thread is led by the back of the pack, which is completely unnatural. On the odd occasion you'll have the lone user who responds to the first thread after half the war is over, but those posts are forgotten and washed away by the off-topicness of the whole thing.

It's not being handled that way. Half the stuff is anarchy, because we (the moderators) scared of being too restrictive. Why would you be scared of having a tidy forum? Why is having a forum where posts remain on topic a scary thing?

Re: Please keep "Off Topic"-section off topic!
 

Oh! ... ;)

Maybe it's not a misconception. Maybe it's my opinion.

But you're right, it all depends on what you want this forum to be. Everything else comes naturally then. If you want an office and I want a pub, we'll never agree on the furnishing and the opening hours. :D


Just to be clear, though:
I appreciate how things "of value", as you put it before, are being discussed here. But that's just one aspect for me. Not the only one.

And I see that the actual place to put real information without any noise is the wiki. Users shouldn't have to search a forum for solutions to their problems in an ideal world.


A personal aside, not a valid point in this discussion:

Quote:

Originally Posted by CrashandDie (Post 500709) It's not being handled that way. Half the stuff is anarchy, because we (the moderators) scared of being too restrictive. Why would you be scared of having a tidy forum? Why is having a forum where posts remain on topic a scary thing?

I think the mods are too strict ATM; see this post from a while ago.

Why the idea of a "tidy" forum scares me?
Because for me, tidyness is the opposite of coziness (is this a word in english?). I don't go to tidy pubs to meet my friends. I don't want my living room to be tidy. Let banks and government agencies be tidy, not places where people meet.
Because I'm scared of people in suits with polished shoes and a focussed, narrow mind. There's only a small step from suits to uniforms, from diligent moderators to topic nazis. I'm scared of janitors who become Blockwarts.

This is all very personal and emotional, but you asked why it "scares" me, and fear isn't something objective.

Re: Please keep "Off Topic"-section off topic!
 

Godwin's law!

Re: Please keep "Off Topic"-section off topic!
 

Exactly. A forum is primarily a discussion or meeting area. The discussion may be technical or social and - like most conversations between people - is often both. Online fora are different from their RL cousins in that the conversations are recorded and can be searched through but you must be aware that you are searching through conversations, not solid information. If you want to search through real information, you do so in an organised knowledge-base such as a wiki.

Forums are great for extracting information or ideas from people in (near) real time. This works best if the participants are comfortable 'chatting'.They are not well suited to storage of distilled information for future retrieval.

I hope my attempt at humour implying that OPK spoke in gangster-fashion at the recent Nokia results press conference wasn't the reason why that whole thread was relegated to off-topic.

Re: Please keep "Off Topic"-section off topic!
 

Whee, i'm the poster child for derailing legitimate threads. :p

I have to agree with Benny on the point about a conversation running out of steam on topic and digressing into sidechat. May i suggest that if such a thing is observed to happen in an otherwise "productive" thread, the person who notices it (especially the thread starter) can request that posters "stay on topic"?

I have seen very little of that going on here. I think we're all paralyzed by the apparent liberalness of the place; worried that requesting normal forum etiquette will draw ire. The result is the seemingly passive-aggressive moderation as we (the mods) try to maintain some level of order to the chaos.

Re: Please keep "Off Topic"-section off topic!
 

we all wanted more moderators so we got them.
Now we are in a position where they all seem to pulling in different directions with no consistant guidelines to follow, so we've got a Moderate as you please situation.