reddit vs discord

kpedersen said:
reduce
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Would it kill you to thank me for promoting The FreeBSD Forums in a manner that's positive?

From page nine here:

1712397417414.png



Why are you so focused on division, separatism, collective and personal put-downs, and other forms of negativity?

Might you reduce such deconstructive behaviours?

Does it occur to you that observed ugliness discourages outsiders from joining The FreeBSD Forums?

From original responses to <https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/@grahamperrin/111688781615034634> for the Finnish magazine article, it became evident that unconstructive derailments drove people away from the forums.
 
Do we have a deal grahamperrin or are you completely determined to continuously post an antisocial number of reddit links around the forums?

As a member on these forums your role is not to create some far reaching unity between all the different social network products. Observe the other users and you will see no-one else is doing that. What you may not notice is that you are frustrating some members that we already have on these forums, myself included.

I am not going to continue this discussion. Just, please do the right thing and tone it down at least. A compromise.
 
grahamperrin said:
From original responses to <https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/@grahamperrin/111688781615034634> for the Finnish magazine article, it became evident that unconstructive derailments drove people away from the forums.
Click to expand...

One of the original responses disappeared automatically (timed out, a feature of the server). My response, before the time-out, with added emphasis:


❝@… I agree with all your observations.

It's clear, to me, that opening poster piizog prepared herself for eyebrow-raising undertones and overtones in her desktop-oriented discussion.

Moderation in The FreeBSD Forums is, I think, an unenviable task. All things considered, the mods do a great job.

Rules and guidelines do exist <https://forums.freebsd.org/forums/forum-rules-and-guidelines-required-reading.49/>. I reckon, rule-breaking is:
I do agree with all your observations, however let's note that <https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/2024-the-year-of-desktop-freebsd.91732/> (2024: The year of desktop FreeBSD?) is atypical.

Re: <https://www.freebsd.org/community/> there are various complements to the forums, with plenty of overlap. <https://mastodon.social/@FreeBSDFoundation> is not yet mentioned; expect various updates to the Community page in the months ahead.

I like your choice of quote,

'If you can do no good, at least do no harm.' — Kurt Vonnegut

HTH, thanks again.❞


From later private conversation, now quoting publicly with the writer's permission:

❝… as well as the general off-topicness of many replies, sort of questioning the right of the thread to even exist. my opinion was and is that the only correct way to act in a forum when you don’t like a discussion is to ignore it, not fill it with noise and unconstructive derailments. i think for example that hacker news’ guidelines are one good example: <https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>❞
 
grahamperrin said:
Screenshots were provided. If Charlie_ was truly interested in Discord, in what's contributed there, he could have contacted Discord for help with gaining access. I begin to believe that he's interested only in repeatedly wasting space with the false impression that a telephone number is required.
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But that's the point: we are here, in the FreeBSD forums. We don't necessarily want to go somewhere else (reddit, discord, wherever) to find answers. We would like for the answers to be provided here. when you provide a link to an external site (which even is paywalled) it can be seen as an interruption of the information flow here. It can be thought of as
a) advertising - the poster is trying to "lure" members of this site to another site,
b) lazyness - the poster is hinting that she/he knows information which may be helpful to the discussion, but only provides "hints", you have to go somewhere else to find the complete information.

That is why some of us here find this type of response not helpful.
 
Well, I am a bit surprised that a senior FreeBSD dev would post a link to the official release schedule on Reddit, and then say "Others will find it and post it on the Forums soon enough". To be fair, considering the size of that link, it does take keeping your eyes really peeled to be able to find that link...

I included a screenshot of what that looks like (
1712416363030.png
), and it looks like this to me:
  • Yep, FreeBSD devs do hang out on Reddit. Even senior ones.
  • Yep, they will post a link to the release schedule there.
BUT...

When I bothered to look on Reddit, the actual link posted there, by a senior dev, directs to the official freebsd.org site.

So: Exactly what do the FreeBSD devs expect to happen? That Forums have a link to the Release Schedule, too? they do:
1712416301656.png
Promote the idea that people should be visiting the official source of info? Yeah, that idea would take priority over going to Reddit, only to discover the links actually point to the official sources anyway? I think that it would be nice if Reddit and Forums were consistent in promoting the idea of checking out official sources... If we do that, that would help a lot.

Yeah, it may help to be more judicious in referring to Reddit (and anywhere else, for that matter). There's a reason we have a Blogs section to corrall stuff that may have some parts relevant to FreeBSD.

What does the Foundation expect to happen? if you want to put a leash on the devs, and tell them to post information in 'official places only', because that creates an image of credibility that people who are NOT fans of Reddit) crave, who's gonna pay the devs to follow the rules and create that image of credibility?

My take on this is: If there's an actual nugget of info that was found on Reddit that seems relevant to a discussion on Forums, it does help to clean it up before mentioning on Forums. I think it's OK if that nugget was found on Reddit or on a blog, but it does need to be quoted properly. If Reddit is street-level stuff, then Forums are the place to process that nugget.

As a gardening analogy, it's probably not a great idea to just pull up a carrot out of the ground and bring it straight to the kitchen without even looking at the carrot. You gotta look at the carrot to make sure it's not partially eaten/rotted, then wash it, then decide if it's going into soup now or later (based on menu for the day), then either store it so that you can find it later, or peel it, then cut it up as per recipe... Yeah, a farm fresh carrot is better and fresher than a pre-packaged one that was trucked in from somewhere far away, but then you gotta present it appropriately. Yeah, locally grown stuff is more effort to consume, compared to pre-packaged stuff. But yeah, not a lot of people would just eat a carrot I just now pulled out of the ground, even if it were a very nice one.

So maybe tone down complaints against individual behavior and think in terms of the big picture here? And offer some constructive suggestions after that thinking happens?

😩
 
astyle said:
consistent
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I do what I can, within wildly varying constraints (quite the opposite of consistency), and I don't wate time arguing with designers' constraints.

Representations of official content can be challenging. The first screenshot here, from October last year, is to demonstrate what can happen in e.g. the Fediverse with any link to an official status report. Thankfully, no-one mistook my joke about size as a serious toot.

The second shot demonstrates much the same problem. The FreeBSD-provided image expands dynamically, but not beyond a certain size. I'm always thoughtful about such things before a share. Where a combination of size + graphics is likely to overwhelm, or likely to distract readers from essential written content, I usually prefer a link to old Reddit (astyle's first screenshot above).

The third shot is of Colin intentionally not linking to an official page. In this case, there's no thumbnail image for Colin's site, and so readers are less likely to overlook the significance of the Open button.

The first and second shots demonstrate significant disadvantages of the standard modernised non-mobile view of Reddit (compared to old Reddit, as it's known):
  • important links such as the FreeBSD Project home page are omitted (other things, more relevant, are in place)
  • anonymous readers do not see important designations such as FreeBSD Primary Release Engineering Team Lead.
Fourth shot: the modernised view of the home page of the subreddit. A disadvantage, compared to old Reddit: what should be a link to the Project home page is dead plain text (circled in red). Advantages are circled in green, notably (top to bottom):
  1. intentional inconsistency with the official FreeBSD Handbook
  2. prominence to the Foundation's answers to What is FreeBSD?
  3. the invitation to donate.
Fifth shot: an expanded view of the old Reddit comment that was pictured by astyle. Note:
  • the writer's official designation
  • the link to the home page of the FreeBSD Project
  • other relevant links.
HTH
 

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astyle said:
… That Forums have a link to the Release Schedule, too? they do:

1712416301656.png
Click to expand...

Gentle hint: the screenshot above is not of The FreeBSD Forums.

Instead, things might appear as pictured in the first two shots below (two of the available styles).

Please note, I do not expect BlueFreeBSD style (second shot) to become consistent with the FreeBSD Project. Neither will I expect the default style (first shot) to become consistent with what's planned for the FreeBSD Project (third shot) :)
 

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I do think it's important to consider the audience when crafting the message. In the street, a loudspeaker is plenty. If you speak in the auditorium, you have to go through the effort of reserving it for a time slot, send out invitations, introduce the topic, and the like. You can't just shout in a crowded office something juicy you heard in the street. In fact, quickly firing off an email that is not well-crafted - that is not exactly welcome behavior in an office.

Actually, even in the street, spreading a message is regulated - excessive/problematic use of loudspeaker will draw attention from police, and resentment from people passing by. Most of the time, people would be pretty strategic about when it's a good idea to use a loudspeaker in the street.

Just sitting in front of a computer or holding your phone can make for a pretty twisted perception of the audience. Unloading into X/Twitter (like Trump does) is not the same as grabbing a mic in front of a huge live audience and realizing that you have the attention of a huge crowd of people.

I think it's pretty easy to see in this metaphoric post what represents Reddit, and what represents Forums... Yeah, the two are gonna have pretty different audiences.

But somehow Discord just doesn't push Forums users' buttons (meaning, evoke an emotional reaction of any kind) as much as Reddit seems to... 😲
 
grahamperrin said:
The Ignore feature of XenForo does an average job of keeping people out of sight, and does nothing to encourage self-moderation.

TrueNAS Community is moving away from XenForo to Discourse, which is far better suited to automatically handling troublesome behaviour without waiting for moderator intervention. I'd love to see The FreeBSD Forums make the same move.
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I don't think many here will care where "TrueNAS Community" are moving to. What exactly is your point?

You seem to be a moderator of the FreeBSD reddit, so obviously you have an agenda - in that you want to push traffic in that direction. You're free to do as you please, but most who frequent the official FreeBSD forums, prefer this format. You have the choice, as do others, so why not just leave well alone instead of creating a lot of unnecessary drama?
 
grahamperrin said:
quoting publicly with the writer's permission:

❝… as well as the general off-topicness of many replies, sort of questioning the right of the thread to even exist. my opinion was and is that the only correct way to act in a forum when you don’t like a discussion is to ignore it, not fill it with noise and unconstructive derailments. i think for example that hacker news’ guidelines are one good example: <https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>❞
Click to expand...

Charlie_ please reacquaint yourself with the Ignore feature of XenForo.

1714373251934.png
 
Thanks,

SirDice said:
Discord links lead to nowhere, even if you login.
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I can't imagine needing to link, from here, to anything more than the previously given link.

I'll continue to refer people to The FreeBSD Forums, using clickable links.

Members of FreeBSD Discord should find no difficulty with the link above.

Invitations to join FreeBSD Discord are:
  • found via the Community page of the FreeBSD Project (links pictured below)
  • more recently, promoted by The FreeBSD Foundation (also pictured below; a shot of a shot of a named page that includes the relevant links).
HTH the various rule-breakers here.
 

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