Forum etiquette
 

Am I the only one who thinks personally insulting (Calling him an idiot, commenting about his father, etc) a user for liking the Iphone (Or any other device) over the n900 is wrong?
Anyone who thinks the n900 is less than perfect is referred to as a troll, has their opinions dismissed, and gets bashed.
I do a google news search on the n900 every day to see what's up, and yet I don't feel the urge to personally insult people who don't like the device.
I mean if I were a mod I would at least delete those offensive posts and warn the users who wrote them..
But the moderators aren't the problem, we are..
I understand it's irritating, but who cares if someone came to bash the n900? If you disagree let it sink..
What I'm trying to say is- Can't we all just.. Get along?

Re: Forum etiquette
 

I am a bit split opinions in this case.

I do understand your concern about people being bashed or harassed. But most of the time I criticised a functionality or any given part of the N900 I tried to do it by explaining rationally why I think this or that could be improved by pursuing a certain solution to the problem itself and I never faced any harassment whatsoever by follow ups of the community.

I did not see posts that where really offensive when people had the right arguments WHY the iphone performs better in this or that category.

the only time I saw people bashed is when they've started threads with "why the n900 is a piece of crap compared to device xy" or similar and pursued the same kind of attitude throughout their posts. call me ignorant but as my Granny always says: "We reap what we sow!"

This is a community about Maemo and Maemo supporters, so if you have complaints and problems, explain yourself kindly and you will see people will help you out.

All I want to say is I don't go into iPhone Community forums writing why I think the iPhone is a piece of crap, because

1. Useless waste of time, it will just raise the blood pressure of a lot of iPhone users.
2. I don't care about the iPhone, so why should I try to offend people who like it?! just not worth the time...
3. Absolutely no one will benefit from such a post.

Re: Forum etiquette
 

step over to the dark side 'late'.. step over..

Re: Forum etiquette
 

Do you not see that it's going both ways? Why should it be okay for posters to insult anyone who does like the product in question?

I agree with you in principle, but please recognize that some of the people you are defending have burst in here with little regard for forum etiquette themselves, exhibiting rude disregard for the processes and policies in place here and general civility. And they have no interest in letting poison threads die-- indeed, their goal is to keep them inflamed.

Constructive criticism of the products, as many of us have stated numerous times, is welcome.

But a small number of complainants post with flame-baiting terms of provocation, and it should be no surprise when people invested in this community return fire in defense of their turf.

There are two sides to a flame war, and my experiences have shown that easily 90% of the problem resides in the first post.

Re: Forum etiquette
 

Pretty standard behaviour for any geek discussion forum, especially for the ones concentrating on single platform.

I like the the solution that Arstechnica's forum uses. They have a "Battlefront" sub-forum where fanbois can fight their wars, and that kind of stuff is then firmly moderated out from rest of the forum. Keeps the noise at acceptable level on other parts of the forum and allows geeks to act according to their natural urges.

Re: Forum etiquette
 

Actually, Rauha, there IS a subforum for that, called Competitors.

The problem, I think, stems from the fact that other subforums get polluted with topics that should have been started here in the first place. Furthermore, as has been pointed out by numerous individuals, it isn't the content being discussed, but the matter in which that content is discussed.

As the saying goes, "fight fire with fire", and as such flamers will be flamed.

That being said, I think the reason any of these types of threads begin in the first place is because people spend a lot of money only to be disappointed by what they thought they were investing in, and as such went on a ranting rampage to the wrong community about those disappointments.. They thoguht they were getting a smartphone, a PDA, and/or an IPhone killer. The problem is that from the very beginning (again, this has been mentioned before as well) the N900 was never marketed as a smartphone, a PDA, or an "IPhone Killer". Any source that could be cited in any of those regards was unofficial, and as such void.

IMHO, I didn't spend as much as I did on the N900 for its functionality. I spent the money on its potential, which is what I believe most satisfied users of the N900 have done.

Re: Forum etiquette
 

Why would you be insulted when some idiot tells you your phone is ****?
Whatever, let it be..
Why do you need to stoop to that guy's level?
But what's worse than that is the atmosphere that's created around here.. Everyone's a troll, everyone's an idiot.

Whatever, I just wanted to know if it bothers anyone.. I'm not worried, I wouldn't fuss over anything anyone writes over a keyboard on a forum on the internet, whether it's directed at me, the device I adore, its operating system, its community, the company that made it, or anything else.. Strangely it seems to bother most of you enough to waste so much effort on come backs and retorts..
It's just a phone.
A damn good one at that, sure, it's got its flaws, but I hardly care. ;)

Re: Forum etiquette
 

My point was more along the lines that, in any forum like this, it is hopeless dream that there won't be lot of less than stellar quality discussion about which platform is best.

Lets then leave Competitors as a forum where that kind of discussion is allowed. Then concentrate on stopping that content from spreading to other parts of the forum.

Re: Forum etiquette
 

I never said anyone should be insulted by what a troll says about a device.

The point is when they insult the community (which, true, should not be such a big deal after all) but moreso when they dig in and disrupt. If I have not made it clear that the latter is the core problem then I am at a loss of what to say to make it any plainer.

Community members have every right to defend the integrity of the community. Troublemakers have no right whatsoever to disrupt, especially for the sole sake of sociopathic ego-boosting. Period.

EDIT: late666, FYI, I choose my words very carefully in a dialog like this. The goal is to avoid pointless axle-wrapping. Since avoiding misunderstandings helps everyone in a conversation, it benefits us all to carefully consider how a sentence is worded. ;)

Re: Forum etiquette
 

Hard to do when posts are being submitted in the wrong forum to begin with. Simply moving them to the correct forum doesn't help either because the fire at that point has already been started.

As far as "stopping the content from spreading", I truely believe that is these threads and similar that help to propogate the spread of the originally undesired types of thread:

1. I hate N900 thread gets started
2. I hate people who write "I hate N900" threads get started
3. I hate people who write "I hate people who write 'I hate N900'" thread gets started
4. so on
5. so forth
6. ....

Re: Forum etiquette
 

I completely agree.
I wouldn't stand for someone coming here with the intent of disrupting and annoying..
Thing is.. Some of them just seem genuinely unhappy with their n900, or the n900 in general.. Some of them don't even express themselves that bad..
Ahh, never mind, I think we're on the same page here, I agree that flame boys should not be given the right to bother us.. We just don't agree on what a flame boy is (Grr, did I just merge fan boy and flame troll or is this an actual term? Well you know what I mean..)..

You know, it's just that I look down on all those apple fan boys.. And then I see the same thing happening from our side.. Disappointing..

Re: Forum etiquette
 

I am making every effort to distinguish between the two cases, which is why I specifically use phrases like constructive criticism as a preferred mode and flaming/disruption as ill-received.

We might actually agree more on what a "flame boy" is except that I get the feeling you've missed some important comments on this subject. Also, your original post here seems to start off defending one individual (who really wasn't that bad if we are thinking of the same one) but then you start generalizing.

But still: even though in a perfect world we would think that provocative words fail to stick, the reality is that they do. The guy I'm referring to made the mistake of using charged words and generalizing to an extreme, which will never be met well in a community. To his credit, however, he did acknowledge his errors-- as opposed to the outright trolls/flamers who I think are very obvious.

Re: Forum etiquette
 

I can assure you that developers, long time maemo members, myself, and even 2009 newcomers have expressed negative opinions about the N900. The difference is presentation. How you present your opinion. If you say X product sucks on X product's forum you are going get the same result.

Re: Forum etiquette
 

Yeah, you're right.. But I did see this on many other occasions on the forum..
But maybe I'm reading too much into this..
I just don't want to see this community reduced to a bunch of 14 y/o apple flaming fanboys with an n900 for an iphone.

Re: Forum etiquette
 

My only comment is this. There is a thread on here that has many, many pages and was started by someone who preferred the iPhone after having an N900. It's not worth me digging in a pinpointing people or anything - but after reading about halfway through all the pages, I then just skipped to the end and read the last few.

I came quickly to the conclusion that the Pro-N900 people made (as a whole, or just the bad ones left a strong enough impression) more of a complete *ss of themselves than the Anti-N900 crowd did. It was damn near shameful.

This is just my opinion... but I have read in a few different cases (not just that thread), where someone said something negative about the N900 and were frustrated - who then got attacked by someone else for being a Fanboy. I just hope this level of response hasn't become the "norm" around here.

I think people miss the fact that when someone spends $600 on a phone, and it fails to do something they want... they get frustrated. Frustrated people tend to use very heated words when describing why they are frustrated. People should not take this personally and instead try to help said person get through it.. or simply wave them on their way to their next $600 phone, which will have problems, and they can go be frustrated at that community over it.

(But: to address some of what Texrat said... People that really dislike the N900/8**/Nokia... should just leave. There is absolutely nothing constructive about popping your head into every thread to mention how much Nokia/Maemo/Linux/This Forum/That Device sucks. That's just a pest.)

Re: Forum etiquette
 

I agree with a single caveat: I think those posts are fairly easy to identify over those with a pure bashing agenda. I have let numerous posts fitting the above description go, by considering the full context, but I have a huge problem with fire ant nest building.

Re: Forum etiquette
 

Everything would be better solved with a system like in Engadget... more than 3 dislikes and BAM! someones opinion is not shown... Could even be something like likes x dislikes to determine if the post should be shown.

This is useful in cases of Off-Topic. I guarantee you that in development specific sub-forums this "dislike" function will barely be used :)

Re: Forum etiquette
 

Yeah the problem with that is HangLoose is all you need is 3 jerks that don't like your phone to go through and "dislike" everyone that posts a Pro for your device.

People do tend to suck, unfortunately. I don't know how engadget works, but something like what you said could maybe work if like: A) You required X amount of "thanked" posts before you get a "dislike" vote... B) You get a very limited number of "dislikes" per period.. C) some other limiting factor that someone comes up with.

Re: Forum etiquette
 

The problem is we have at least that many who vote down on more of a personal vendetta basis than anything helpful or meaningful to the community. The threshold needs to be higher.... I just don't know how high.

Re: Forum etiquette
 

Dear users.

please quit your crying.

respectfully, phreck.

Re: Forum etiquette
 

Indeed...

Another possibility could be a "reviews" sub-section. This way everyone that thinks in writing a review, or the ones that are actually interested on reading them, could go straight there. I am just waiting for the next Maemo device to come out and the flood of "reviews" coming again. :D

Active topics listing could also use a modification of which sections to be shown. At least in my "modified" active topics the "reviewers" forum sub-section would be left out. ;) Just like in the search, where you can point what/where one wants to get information from.

What it actually nerves me is that this forum is also used by developers trying to get some useful information and the noise becomes so huge that starts to be problematic.

Re: Forum etiquette
 

If I read your post correctly.. I think the majority of it is currently being addressed in This Brainstorm as the different sections and searches aren't so much "Forum etiquette" as it is Forum Structure or Layout/Design.

Re: Forum etiquette
 

Excellent idea i must say

Re: Forum etiquette
 

Yes you understood what I tried to speak with my horrible english :P

It is very hard to have/force etiquette when dealing with savages/trolls, no matter how much manners one has trolls can drive one crazy very fast.

Good to know that modifications to the forum itself are already in the works.

Re: Forum etiquette
 

How is that respectful?
Seriously, how old are you? Can't be over 20. We just want a mature community where this:
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...&postcount=126

Doesn't happen. Don't you?

I think this post shows what I mean best

http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=394695&postcount=4