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

There's merit in having the very technical, support-type threads gathered together in one place. There is also merit in having the criticism, praise, and review threads--the experiences--gathered together in one place. I think the problem is that some of the mods (me included), when doing the endless sorting that goes on (because most people who own an N900 just post in N900), feel like those two places of gathering should be distinct. There's a pretty clear division between review-type threads and technical discussion, or there could be, if we asked people to think in those terms.

I don't believe this differentiation has made an appearance in the Brainstorm on Talk reorganization. Should it?

In addition to the present categories of
Maemo 5/ Fremantle (OS/platform)
and
N900 (hardware devices)
there would be a
N900 reviews (criticism, praise, and experiences)

Edit: Solution added to the brainstorm entry.

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

Fair enough, and I didn't name names. ;)

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

This doesn't really matter; this thread has become a "how mods should treat off topic" discussion, but actually my intent was to keep "Off topic" free of Maemo-related content. Helping users to not put their threads in "Off topic" in the first place is just as good. I'm not saying that the world is a bad place because of forum moderators.

Really? It contains some useful input to be considered for the future of bugzilla. That's why I listed this thread in the first place:
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...6&postcount=16
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...5&postcount=26
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...7&postcount=34
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...1&postcount=45
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...6&postcount=48


I have read each post in each thread I listed.

And again, the title of the section I want to keep free of Maemo-threads is "Off Topic", not "Useless" or "Has been discussed before". What's in "Off topic" can be very useful, and what's in "N900" may well be useless.

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

You posted your answer before I wrote

Let me just repeat: I want a Maemo-free "Off Topic" section as a result of this discussion. I chose the thread title intentionally (I could have written "Please don't move threads to off topic" or thelike) because I have no way of knowing what makes these Maemo-threads appear in "Off Topic".
Read it as a call to the community and the people who use this forum, including moderators, but not specifically directed at moderators. I didn't mean to offend you.

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

Here, let me quote the post where I already responded to that:

A post like lcuk's with no background provided and, which, seemingly attempts to paint the people working on Bugzilla in a negatively light tends to be taken seriously by a large portion of the Talk community. Thus making the Bugsquad's job more difficult as Talk users contributing over there will already be biased against them and more likely to react badly to any perceived slightly.

There's nothing wrong with poking fun, but do so in a manner which doesn't make other people's lives more difficult (whether that was the intended effect or not).

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

I still think that's an overreaction, but we all have our individual opinions.

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

THis is absolutely, and categorically, untrue. Did you even bother to read it?

What's the point of having moderators if they come out with opinionated rubbish in this manner?

While I respect a lot of what you may have said before, I'm afraid this particular opinion has rendered the whole thing to be a broken pencil.

If we want to restart the conversation in that thread, GA, we can go ahead. I thought we'd achieved, in fact, a certain consensus which went *completely against* what your original comment re talk was. Please try to stay objective and not rehash tired ideas when in that thread at least they were proven to be inaccurate.

Sad. Me.

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

I've been here a long time and I've seen how Talk generally reacts to this stuff. The only thing that thread demonstrated was that Talk isn't categorically useless (not anything I've ever claimed), nothing demonstrated that its reactions don't tend towards the irrational.

To get back on to benny's topic, there are in fact problems with the structure and off topic seems to be a catch all just in case, because you just don't want to get into trouble posting elsewhere.

REgardless, even a simple comment such as yours drags up all kinds of angst. I come here for chat, both serious and fun (and there's a place in the same thread for both, for heaven's sake), and I use the wiki for facts.

Being tired of the angst, I think I'm thinking about the point of bothering to come at all.

I've been here a long time too, not as long as yourself, perhaps, but I've been an observer of human nature for a long time as well.

Sometimes, just sometimes, you get gems in the garbage. If someone who has been here as long as you can't figure what it's going to be from the start (witness that thread) perhaps you should consider that moderating based on personal or subjective opinion of worth is not what it's cracked up to be? And no, before we go there, I'm not suggesting that's what you *do*, but I am suggesting that if you had, that thread would have probably been thrown out (or the equivalent thereof)

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

Ok, I'll bite. I started a thread about the Maemo.org logo in 'Off-topic' because I considered it was frivolous, and experience here has taught me that frivolous is unwelcome.

I considered briefly starting the thread in this forum, but rejected the idea. I am unsure whether Reggie's wizzy magic is in place to direct all threads here to the mailing list, but when I thought about a thread discussing my idea of knitting garments with the maemo.org logo on arriving on the mailing list... well, it was enough to make me decide against it. Indeed, almost enough to prevent me posting it at all.

To follow through on the 'Office v pub' analogy, I have never heard the staff of an office referred to as a 'community', though the regulars at a pub might well be. And I spend enough of my day being Serious at work (in and out of offices) to feel that if t.m.o. were to become 'all work and no play', I'd probably want to come here a lot less. (No cheering, please!)

When I first came here, there were fun threads all over the place. Now even Off Topic is stuffed up with serious thread (like the Nokia stock market threads, for example). Does taking FOSS seriously mean we also have to be boring about it?