Hi,
BMW wrote:
Sure, go and trash all my posts based on about 2% of them. I like the way you contradict yourself here. You say: "I can point to several threads...", then go on to say "but... 371 or 177 posts...". Either you have a serious misunderstanding of the term "several", you just can't get your facts straight, or you like to exaggerate a lot.
Heh. "I can point to several threads..." referred to the fact that quickly viewing your last few threads results in some being obvious "need to read more" problems. On the other hand, 177 (currently 186... you sure post a lot) is the total number of posts by you; I'm not saying all are surely wrong, but seeing your record, I can say almost 60% would be out-of-the-place, misinformed, and so on..
BMW wrote:
And IMO, banning people that you don't like left right and centre isn't going to fix anything, but in fact fuel the fire for enraged banees coming on and PURPOSEFULLY being an idiot. Making new accounts isn't hard. You need to treat the problem, not the symptoms. The problem is that there are noobs (like me, yes I admit I am a noob sometimes) who start off OS Dev with some programming knowledge but little knowledge on how to research and RTFM for themselves (that was exactly me, and probably still is from time to time, but I'm working on it). How, exactly, to treat this problem is up to the admins/moderators. They have done a good job with the wiki with "Beginner Mistakes" etc, but I believe there must be a better solution. Maybe some sort of questionare upon joining the forums. But as I said earlier, it's not up to me.
I just read some old JamesM post on the difference between newbie and noob -- a newbie is a one who doesn't know much, but he works on his knowledge slowly and steadily. A noob is a one who doesn't know much, and wishes that someone else would help him know more. It's not a "fixed status" -- a noob today can be a newbie tomorrow, but a noob sure as hell is dangerous. No offense to you, but I percieve that you fit in the noob category, and haven't moved along since a long time. That, in my book, means that you need to work a lot.
AJ wrote:
I disagree. I would just prefer to attempt to educate rather than immediately ban. Usually, posts where users obviously fail to RTFM get locked / deleted fairly quickly and users get warned (especially if people use the 'report this post' system). If we continually warn users and they do not take any notice of that, then bans do happen.
D'oh. I am not aware of this procedure, although, frankly, I haven't noticed it in place. Can you probably quote some users from the past quarter (or 6 months) who've been banned, or maybe notified once or twice?
Aj wrote:
Perhaps "serious moderation" includes banning people for posting something in "Auto-Delete" when it belongs in "About this site"?
Not banning. Moving posts. I'm sure you can do that, but you didn't. Isn't that poor moderation?
Or, if I tend to post stuff about "About this site" in "Auto-Delete" too often, and I don't change myself even though you've done this two/three times, yep, ban.
Quite frankly, this site has lost much of it's sheen for me. I tend to prefer most of the old threads (a quick google search, and amazingly, you can find any info about any topic on the boards!), and the IRC channel. The wiki is somewhat nice, but I don't see many people (including me) working seriously on it.
Regards,
Shikhin
P.S. D'oh, I just realized I've been a totally rude arse. I'm sorry to everyone, especially BMW. My views are strictly my own, and can obviously be wrong. If someone prefers so, I can moderate/edit my past posts.