Discussing the usage of the TEA thread

[sokoloff]

With as many posts as that thread gets, it was always going to live in the top 10 on the first page of Test Equipment, sticky or not-sticky.

[Specmaster]

That is true, it was often the first thread beneath the stickies, there are stickies that only have 9 and 10 pages therefore it was a conscious decision to turn a popular thread into a sticky thread, and I'm confident that if examined closely that fact alone is a massive factor in the increase of complaints that prompted the moderators into taking some sort of action. I have personally been on the thready for 6 years, and it was often the very first one, after the stickies, and I've not seen anything like this before in that time.

So like it or not, its pretty clear that decision, for whatever reason it was made, had the effect of shooting oneself in the foot, and a lot of the blame for the current mess has to be shouldered by the admin team.

[pcprogrammer]

Why is it so hard to except the blame within the group. I see this on so many levels in live. It is always someone else's fault when things go wrong. Never one's own.

Just keep on blaming the newbies and the moderators. It is not their fault, it is the fault of the group itself. Own up to it.

I did my part, and owned up to posting off topic.

To me it has nothing to do with it being sticky on the number one spot, even though it might have contracted more attention that way. The moderators have expressed here that they don't react like this based on newbie reports unless the mentioned post is really bad. For what I understand from it, they acted mainly on requests from members that were active in the group. But this is something only the moderators can confirm.

[Specmaster]

Why is it so hard to except the blame within the group. I see this on so many levels in live. It is always someone else's fault when things go wrong. Never one's own.

Just keep on blaming the newbies and the moderators. It is not their fault, it is the fault of the group itself. Own up to it.

I did my part, and owned up to posting off topic.

To me it has nothing to do with it being sticky on the number one spot, even though it might have contracted more attention that way. The moderators have expressed here that they don't react like this based on newbie reports unless the mentioned post is really bad. For what I understand from it, they acted mainly on requests from members that were active in the group. But this is something only the moderators can confirm.

I don't understand why it is that you all are fixated on newbies and accusing us of blaming them, where did I mention newbies??

What I said is this extract "a lot of the complaints were coming from people who might well have been making their first trip to the thread and not liked the OT and raised it to the admin team?"

That means what it says "first visit or visits", I've been here over 6 years and there are hundreds of threads that I have not visited but am I a newbie, of course not. I have never visited those threads because maybe I couldn't be bothered to click my through them, maybe I just didn't have the spare time, or they didn't appeal to me? But I have visited many of the stickies, and I suspect most people have.

Yes I've posted OT items as well, never said I hadn't and have done so since I have been in that thread because it was specifically set up for that to happen, the clue is in the thread title, it's not that hard to read and understand what it means is it?  Hell, one of my OT comments was deleted even though I was just asking a fellow member if he and his family were OK after they had just been involved in a road accident, FFS.

So now, can all of those people who are trying to make this incident into something it is not, please stop doing so.

What is true is that we are acting no different now to what we did before we were made into a sticky, which was a recent event, so all of you Sherlock Holmes out there can deduce from that what you like, but it is a fact that I have not seen anything like this recent event in all my time on this forum, let alone in this thread.

I might well be putting 2 and 2 together and making 22 instead of 4, but in the distinct lack of any other evidence, it is the most logical explanation.

Hopefully you will also notice that I have not pointed fingers at any one person, I referred to the admin team only because its logical, because only members of that team have the authority to do what has been done.

Dave is trying very hard to mend fences and as long as folk keep twisting things, it just makes his job even harder to do.

[Squarewave]

One of the mods did say, some pages back, that reports had also come in from regular posters to TEA.

[Specmaster]

One of the mods did say, some pages back, that reports had also come in from regular posters to TEA.

Again, never denied that might be the case, fact is that you cannot please all the people all the time, there will also be some level of complaints and from what I understand, that there has always been certain members complaining even before the other events took place. Nothing new in that, every thread on this forum will have regular posters who report certain things to the admin team.

At the end of the day, how hard is it to scroll past the post that is OT, there are many posts that I don't like, and I have to scroll past them. But like any good engineer, I have an open mind and I would be a lier if I were to say that I have not found some of the OT posts both interesting and very informative, and they have enriched my life as a result. Life would be extremely dull and boring if everybody was the same, I, for one, welcome the diversity and no 2 days are alike, learning something new on a daily basis by keeping an open mind and showing tolerance of others.

Another thing I can say is that when I come across posts that I personally don't like, I respect the other person's views, I don't, and I never have knowingly clicked that tab "report to moderator". What I have done from time to time, along with many others is to post a message that maybe enough is enough, let's move on and get back on topic, peer pressure will 99 time out of a 100 work.

[Squarewave]

One of the mods did say, some pages back, that reports had also come in from regular posters to TEA.

Again, never denied that might be the case, fact is that you cannot please all the people all the time, there will also be some level of complaints and from what I understand, that there has always been certain members complaining even before the other events took place. Nothing new in that, every thread on this forum will have regular posters who report certain things to the admin team.

At the end of the day, how hard is it to scroll past the post that is OT, there are many posts that I don't like, and I have to scroll past them. But like any good engineer, I have an open mind and I would be a lier if I were to say that I have not found some of the OT posts both interesting and very informative, and they have enriched my life as a result. Life would be extremely dull and boring if everybody was the same, I, for one, welcome the diversity and no 2 days are alike, learning something new on a daily basis by keeping an open mind and showing tolerance of others.

Another thing I can say is that when I come across posts that I personally don't like, I respect the other person's views, I don't, and I never have knowingly clicked that tab "report to moderator". What I have done from time to time, along with many others is to post a message that maybe enough is enough, let's move on and get back on topic, peer pressure will 99 time out of a 100 work.

I don't disagree, most forums, most threads will have the occasional off topic post, but it was apparent that off topic went into pages and pages and that's what the mods and others didn't want/like/had issue with. The people who left for Groups.IO did so because that's what they want to do, which is fine as they can carry on as they did in the new place I suppose. There are a core of people who think that their posts were not off topic, but the first few posts or pages of TEA on this forum, doesn't really indicate that it was for TE and everything else ,where other forums would have a 'general' chat area for, for the daily facebook updates of life.

At the end of the day it'll always be a shame to some what happened, but it looks like it was brewing for a while. At the end of the day, it's a forum, there's no point in being combative with the mods/admin, it's their forum after all, we do have to tow the line to some extent and there are other places for those who want something a little different I suppose.

[pcprogrammer]

My point was that it is the fault of the group itself that it got out of hand. Not a single person, but the group.

And what I have seen here is that the finger is constantly pointing to others and not the group.

And read back through this thread and you will see that several of the more active members of the TEA thread say that the signal to noise ratio got way worse lately. And that is what triggered several of them to ask for a solution.

Not me. Like I wrote earlier, I was involved in some off topic posting, but left when it was clear it was not appreciated. And when the ones involved the most, had dialed down, there would not have been a problem.

[Specmaster]

I've said my piece, I'm not going to keep going over it time and time again, it's counterproductive, but I'll leave you with this thought, yes there might well be some very active members who are part of the few that raised it with the admin team. That is nothing new, it happens in all groups, as I said before, this point needs to be understood, so those people have always voiced their dismay about the thread before the recent changes. Think about it....

I said before that Dave is doing his level best to mend things and all this is doing is making his efforts harder than it needs to be, so lets bury this and lets see just how thing develop.

[mnementh]

As per the other TEA forum, it seems that at least one person is pissed off that people where trying to explain to me what was happening in the TEA thread and I "didn't listen" or ignored the whole thing.
This is not true. I literally had no idea any discussion was taking place in TEA because I don't read nor frequent the TEA thread. First thing i heard about any of this was when I was allerted to this thread here that was already a dozen pages deep. I posted a few minutes after eventually seeing this thread.

When big shit like this is going down on the forum, do me and everyone a favour and don't assume that I know what's going on. My daily use on the forum is limited to a few threads I'm interested in and the occasional browse of new ones. TEA is not one of them.

I get the same moderator report email alerts as the other mods, but the others are so quick to respond that I rarely get a chance to see what went down, so I just assume it was taken care of and everyone went back their merry way.

Except we did tell you. Directly to your face and to the moderators. If you weren't aware, it isn't for lack of us trying to open a dialogue; you and the mods rather took a "blaming the plaintiff" attitude when I tried to very respectfully raise a grievance; as opposed to actually listening and giving us a seat at the table:

I've been working hard for weeks here to generate on-topic stuff, and deliberately avoided all the talk of prepping, gun-nuttery and the collapse of civilization... I make one response to the topic folks are on about at the moment, deliberately talking only about one tiny, harmless aspect of it... and I get spanked.

Pro Forum Tip: Responding like this is just perpetuating the off-topicness.

This is the biggest and most active thread on the forum, we can't have it ruined by drifting off-topic in the same way many other small threads are left alone to let to go because we know those threads will just naturally die out anyway.

With all due respect, this is the biggest thread on the forum because up til now it has been generally tolerant and inclusive of all the varied interests of the regular contributors. We who frequent this space have done very well, work hard even, to self-regulate.

But we have also taken for granted the general "water-cooler talk" relaxed nature of this space.

If that general permissiveness is taken way to make the space tidier, it will also be much less interesting. There will simply be much less activity, and much less content of any sort. I've seen it happen in more places than I can count.

But this is of course your bailiwick... and we will do our best to comply.

Thanks again for providing this space,

mnem
*slips sadly back inside his cave*

It did not "just blow up all of a sudden with no warning"; I tried to bring you and gnif up to speed very clearly and politely the first time you moved the goalposts from "no discussion on 3rd rail subjects" to "no more OT".

When somebody opens a post directly to a mod with:

"I'm going to choose my words very carefully here, because nothing less than the heart & soul of the TE Anonymous Thread itself, a community space many of us have invested a lot of time (our most precious resource) in, lies in the balance..."

...and then goes on to very clearly explain their POV, THAT should be a huge red flag that something is not right with how management is doing things:

...As for what counts as on-topic and off-topic here, I'll remind everyone that the title of the thread is "Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread", and not "Test Equipment Discussion Only". As far as I'm concerned, anything people discuss here that helps them deal with the financial, physical, and emotional distress this addiction causes is fine, with the common sense exceptions of subjects known or likely to cause highly polarised and/or emotional conflicts, such as politics, religion, and the like.

If we want to make it TE only, then technically components, prototyping, pinball machines, and A/V electronics are all off topic. I have a simple method for dealing with "off topic"/posts I'm not interested in; I skim past them.

I believe this thread to be self-policing for the most part, my personal opinion is that Mod intervention isn't really necessary here except on the rare occasions when heads butting together goes past the few posts it should take to either solve differences or agree to not talk about them.

Hear, hear! 

mnem

I'll direct your attention to the line above regarding OT posts...

Forum rules trump thread rules

See forum rule #5

I've had a chance to sleep on this... and I'm going to choose my words very carefully here, because nothing less than the heart & soul of the TE Anonymous Thread itself, a community space many of us have invested a lot of time (our most precious resource) in, lies in the balance.

This... this completely misses the point I was making. Which is no surprise, because as with most of the misunderstandings which happen in here, it was taken completely out of context, which in this case is vital to its intent. That context being in response to AVGresponding's definitive post above.

The point I was making is pretty simple: There is no line about OT posts, because this thread has been an OT thread since its inception.

As AVGresponding so succinctly states, this thread has always been about Test Equipment Addiction and how we manage our addiction, and its effect on our lives, our finances (especially that ) and our families and even our work.

It started out as a joke... a parody of a 12 Steps program... which resonated so clearly with a large portion of your viewership that it soon took on a life of its own; spawning its own language, numerous subculture memes, and even a informal swap/trade back-channel of parts gifting and pro-bono brokerage to help folks get gear from "them as have" to "them as needs".

But at the heart of all of it has been the core principle of this space being TE Anonymous; I invite anybody here to go back and read the first dozen pages. You'll have to read that far before you see the first post showing the insides of a piece of TE; and that was presented as parodic TE Addict pr0n.

In fact, it isn't until page 20 that somebody posts what we now consider to be the mainstay of the thread: a quick "Don't turn it on, take it apart" photo gallery of the insides of a piece of TE. Page 35 is the first discussion of any kind of "How-To" subject (removing scratches from plastic), and in fact, the "TE Technical Talk" that is the other mainstay of this thread was considered OT until we started discussing the Jim Williams pulser with bd139's arrival on the scene somewhere around page 80.

This is an electronics forum, so try to stay on-topic. We understand that threads drift off-topic, but try not to start deliberately and grossly off-topic stuff.

megahaul of nicest vintage gear. is it permissible to post pinball and audio stuff ? @gnif ?

Acceptable, but taking this off topic to non-electronic related things is not permissible. This is an electronics forum and this topic is under "Test Equipment", so please keep it related even it it's tenuous.

There is some flexibility but this thread had gone too far off topic.

Again... that is the problem, isn't it? Despite some users demands that this thread be only about TE... it was founded and for most of its life has been about TE Addiction. We all deal with it in different ways... we come in here to talk about how eBay sucks right now, or how shippers destroyed something, or even how we deal with not being able to get new gear to tinker on.

Saskia restores vintage Pinball machines as a diversion, several members are amateur shutterbugs and car technology fanatics, Cubdriver has his cats, Cerebus and bd139 talk programming and even grumpy old med brings his carpentry in here because it holds up his TE acquisitions.

My point being... it is the huge diversity of interests displayed here that make it not only the largest in terms of post count, but also by far the most read thread on eevBlog.

this topic is under "Test Equipment"...

Yeah.... why exactly is that...? I mean, as the history of the thread itself shows, while it includes TE, the core of  the topic right at the top of the page is community-based support. Nobody asked for it to be stickied to the top of the TE section; we haven't had any problem staying at the top of any list on the forum since about page 30. 

I'm going to suggest something here that probably won't be popular... but maybe the problem isn't the content, which is still mostly about the same TE Addiction and related activities it has always been... but maybe where it has been placed on the forum.

Maybe instead of hogtying this thread with OT restrictions that are explicitly contrary to the origins of the thread, we need to move it to the "Everything Else" section where, as you say, OT stuff belongs and let the thread sink or swim of its own accord. I'm pretty sure it does not matter where you put it... the interest will continue, and it will still have one of the most popular viewerships on the platform.

If you continue to try and hammer this thread until it fits into a nice tidy 2U square so it fits neatly in with the rest of your rackmount TE, you will kill it, sure as night and day. Yes, you will have a nice tidy forum again, but like most of the existing oodles of strictly TE threads it will be about as generally interesting as watching a mantle clock, and for the same reasons.

At least if the thread is in the "Everything Else" section, it will have a fighting chance to stand on its own two legs.

mnem
Please don't turn this space into Vintage Radio Forums...

To which your response was essentially (and please forgive the crude paraphrasing; no offense is intended, but this is how it looks from over here):

"It's just you making all this fuss. This is OT, and this is how we're going to deal with it from now on." :

@mnementh - You are completely missing the point, the posts that were being made were so far off topic they didn't warrant even existing on this forum.

Despite some users demands that this thread be only about TE... it was founded and for most of its life has been about TE Addiction. We all deal with it in different ways... we come in here to talk about how eBay sucks right now, or how shippers destroyed something, or even how we deal with not being able to get new gear to tinker on.

Saskia restores vintage Pinball machines as a diversion, several members are amateur shutterbugs and car technology fanatics, Cubdriver has his cats, Cerebus and bd139 talk programming and even grumpy old med brings his carpentry in here because it holds up his TE acquisitions.

Every single thing you mentioned above here is related to electronics in some fashion, either trying to procure it, how it's used, etc...

The off topic posts that have been removed thus far are related to: painting, a fridge conversion into a four stroke engine, speed limits and regulations, firearms....

You tell me how the above topics are related in any way to electronics (perhaps the engine WAS an electronic device) or the general topic of this forum, let alone this thread. I never stated that this is a "TE Only" thread, but rather that it needs to stay on topic with regards to this forum and the community that use it while staying within the bounds of the forum rules that apply to all threads and topics regardless.

We have allowed this thread to be mostly self governed, and for the most part it has remained on topic. The fact that the regular users of this thread are starting to post moderator reports because they are sick of how far off topic it has gone tells us that we need to step in and pull things back to a sane place.

While you may feel that moderation on a thread like this to keep things within some sane bounds might drive people away, letting it fill up with off topic posts and go unchecked will just as quickly drive people away as they get sick of getting notified to posts that are not what they signed up for.

Other forums have a "General Lounge Thread" for this kind of general off topic discussion where anything goes, at this time we do not. I know first hand as a moderator on some of the largest community forums around how hard it is to moderate the "Lounge Thread" and I personally am glad that this forum does not have one as the workload for the moderators is very high to maintain it (not that I am against having it, nor is it my place to make this decision).

At the end of the day, this is an Electronics forum, posts must at the very minimum meet the requirement of being Electronics related, which includes all the topics you mention when they are in relation to electronics.

Yeah, and before you suggested we should take this subject matter to the "Everything else" section, but the thread kept rolling. Yet now that I suggest we should move the thread to the "Everything Else" section, oh no, that's not right.

You don't know this, but I've worn the mod hat myself more than a few times, and in venues that make this place look like a quilting bee. Moderation requires involvement with the community and the people you are moderating... you actually need to get to know the people you're working with. Then you know how things are relevant.

This kind of over-moderation will kill this thread, and it will be a management decision, not due to the content. This is not just my opinion; there are a number of other folks who object to this kind of heavy-handed management without any feedback mechanism. That is precisely why you're now seeing this push-back in the open forum.

I can see the tumbleweeds amassing behind the saloon, and you'll soon have the nice quiet forum you used to have. And the days when you see hundreds of viewers on a thread will also be gone, because the "interesting" will be gone too. Sure, there will be something in this space, but it won't be the Test Equipment Anonymous Group Therapy Thread anymore.

I do hope for Dave's sake that I'm wrong... but nearly 3 decades life experience as a netizen say otherwise. That's all I can offer.

Nope, gnif is right.
There have been a spate of reports recently and we had to step in. As I said, every time I do randomly look at this thread it seems on-topic, actually obsessively so, which is why I don't have the time to frequent it.
I'll be up-front here, you see it the way you do because that's the way you want the thread/forum to be. IIRC all the reports recently have been about your threads, and I have received several PM's thanking us for stepping in, and how that you are the instigator here when it comes to the thread drifting OT and it's starting to ruin their enjoyment of it. So please stop posting OT posts.
This forum has been successful for 13 years because we see seem to have the balance just about right. Is it too much to ask to keep the biggest thread on the forum on-topic?
I know it's a "catch-all" for test gear stuff, and seems to have it's own community, but all it takes is one or a few people to ruin it if they post off-topic stuff every day.
I actually advertise and link to this thread in videos as a place where the test equipment obsessed. I don't want people to come here expecting test equipment talk and get guns, videos, and other random chat.

And I went on to elaborate what I feel is crucial here; a short recap of the actual content of the founding pages of the thread, (I deliberately took the time to reread the first 50 pages) just in case I was wrong all these many years about the core thrust of the thread; can anybody else here passing judgement on the TEAnonymous thread say they've even read those first dozen pages recently enough to remember when?

I actually advertise and link to this thread in videos as a place where the test equipment obsessed. I don't want people to come here expecting test equipment talk and get guns, videos, and other random chat.

This thread isn't something I'd actively recommend to someone untll I knew they had the right personality/weltanschauung.
I had no idea you mentioned it outside these hallowed walls.

At 5000 something pages, it's a phenomenally impressive thread!
I basically use it as a boast about how the EEVBlog forum is THE place to be if you are into test equipment.

I think, this thread has transformed in something more than just the biggest thread in the EEVBlog forum. It is a kind of community with inhabitants from all over the world. They meet here regularly, discussing mostly TE stuff and sometimes other topics but from my point of view they are always coming back to TE. Another reason for why I'm looking at this thread as a community is, that the TEA members are helping each other if they can, e.g. sending spare parts, helping organizing things in other countries as locals etc.

Yes, there are differences and yes, I totally agree to exclude certain topics such as guns, religion, politics, health things (Covid for example). They have clearly the potential to damage this community and I'd really prefer to see this not going to happen. There are enough dysfunctional things going on all around the world and this place is something like a comfort zone, showing me, that there are other people outside which are sharing similar interests of mine.

Occasionly OT stuff such as weird videos, little personal stories etc. which aren't directly TE related are for me something like colour dots and sometimes a source of inspiration. But they should not take too long or drift too far way.

TL;DR
Thank you for being such tolerant mods and also thank you for being tough when it's necessary.
I for myself do really appreciate the balance you and your co-moderators have found.
My (our) part is to endure the things that run counter to my (our) views and to ask now and then to stay on topic.

This is the nutshell. When I first came to eevBlog, I was just forum-diving looking for some advice on selecting a new scope, and looking for a good home for some of my unused TE. Then I found the TEA thread, and spent some time reading and lurking... I really wasn't looking for a new timesink at the time; I'd just pulled the plug on /. and Furkbook and had absolutely zero interest in (anti)social media at all.

But after a while this space grew on me, and I eventually stop resisting the urge to participate; the freeform "nerds at play" nature of the thread at that time was fun, and there was very little ego in the space at all. Pretty much anything was welcome, and as long as it related even tangentially to collecting equipment we didn't even really care that it was specifically TEST equipment, either; it was the addiction that was the common bond.

Oh, and cats. Then the dog counterinsurgence... For some reason we spent an inordinate amount of time discussing furry family of all kin.

We were a weird bunch, and while I did occasionally look around at the other content on the forum, it was pretty obvious that those spaces were very technically oriented, and tended to be very narrow in focus, and not at all tolerant of even moderate attempts at humor. Usually a joke would be dissected for technical accuracy rather than laughed at... 

So I started staying mostly in here... this was the addiction thread, and it was tolerant of the humor, and sharing of other interests, and in general, anything that involved any form of tools or engineering was welcome; as was the occasional role-playing play, and we even had some poor attempts at song-writing. And Vogon Poetry. 

So yeah... I guess the fact we were still a small proportion of the server resources let us fly under the RADAR for a long time... but eventually the popularity of the thread made it impossible to ignore. And now here we are.

mnem
*mostly harmless*

But WAIT!!! There's MORE! Now how much would you pay?!?

I tried again the 2nd time you and the mods decided it was time to clamp down on the OT nature of the OT Thread; the response did not suggest that any of you had spent any time at all getting to know this community in the meantime; in fact exactly the opposite:

What are you talking about? My post was about a mod to a bench meter, and all the other discussion has been about visiting a hamfest... all very much on-topic. 
mnem
*SMH*

I think he's refereing to BD139's post above with the embedded video that has no relevance.
It's one thing to reply with a short fun quip, it's another to embed a video as clog up the page.

The phrase "I think" is relevant. I'm too am completely unsure what gnif is referring to[1].

While a detailed explantion would be counterproductive, it would help to indicate in general what prompted the mod's comment, e.g. "discussing clothes" or "OT videos" or....

[1] special case: I dislike vids so much my browser doesn't display the static image unless I examine the DOM - which does happen but is rare

Surely it cannot be the short video in BD's post that brought gnif back into the thread to moderate, or as Dave suggested that it was clogging the page up? I understood that all that is stored on the page is the short URL, the video is still on YouTube's site. The same as when we use photo hosting sites in order to post hi-res pictures without taking up vast amounts of Dave's storage space 

So I can only conclude it was all the chatter about hamfests and what kit to pack to prepare for the ever-changing weather, which while not technically on topic, it is closely related seeing as that is where many of us actually acquire much of our test equipment from as fixer uppers. Or could it be that we have a whistle-blower in our midst who is attempting to mould the thread into their perceived view of what it should be like, despite the topic being discussed is clearly being participated in and enjoyed by many other members.  So with that in mind, if moderators really feel the need to keep stepping in and moderating, it would most helpful to everyone if they were to take a few extra seconds and explain their actions a little more.

As one of the members who have been on this thread almost from its birth, I'm really struggling just to see why it is that the moderators have even been involved in this thread as we have, IMO, self policed it very effectively and as such, it does not seem to be deterring new members joining at all and the number of daily posts is on the up all the time which is surely just what advertisers (sponsors) want to see as it maximizes their exposure to members.

But that's the thing... it most definitely is on topic, technically AND implicitly. This is not a TE thread... the eevBlog forum is literally made of various TE threads; just oodles of them. The emphasis here is on the Anonymous part, and the addiction to TE.

The entire discussion at hand was about braving inclement weather to go to various hamfests in the UK, and bd139's little clip was expressly about showing the kind of foul weather they're talking aboot. How can anything be more on-topic than that?

mnem
 

I can get "not watching the day-to-day"... but when a user is engaged in a direct, face-to-face discussion with you, I think it's reasonable to expect you to have read what they've said. As owner, especially where moderation of a thread has become "an issue", I think "not being aware" of the post above which quotes you is... well... just plain a weak excuse too.

The bottom line is that all interaction on the subject up to this point between myself and "management"  had been to either put blame on me personally, or to reinforce the idea that "OT is unacceptable; we will not tolerate it any longer."

In the OT thread.

Pro Tip: Moderating in a community setting follows different rules. You moderate for hateful speech, if you must for "the usual 3rd rail subjects" and for personal attacks and deliberate trolling (as opposed to tongue-in-cheek trolling for effect).

Moderation is about "moderation in all things". In a community setting (which we tried repeatedly to explain to you that the TEAnonymous thread was) moderation for OT is by definition over-moderation.

Moderation in a community setting also requires that whomever wears the mantle be at least topically involved in said community... at least to a "Officer Friendly" level that one knows the difference between kids playing in a sandbox and armed assailants wreaking havoc.

I recommended that we be moved to the OT section because of that. So we could continue to self-police using peer pressure as we'd done for years. That recommendation also fell on deaf ears.

Based on all of this, is it any surprise that, having already tried to explain repeatedly, and being blamed personally for all or most of the noise, I called BS on the latest round of over-moderation?

This is the final warning

All posts MUST be electronics related in some form, stop posting junk here that is non related.
Anyone that continues to ignore this will be given a 7 day timeout from posting!

mnem
 

edit by gnif: 7 day timeout issued for this post.... you were warned.

I did not "ignore the warning", nor did I "antagonize" as was stated in the warning I was given on my dashboard informing me of my temporary ban... I deliberately "took one for the team" because knew I'd already said all I could say on the subject, and it was necessary for others to step up so you could see it wasn't just me that felt your moderation actions were strangling our community.

Of course I knew what would happen. I just chose my time to go in a manner which drew attention to the fundamental schism between management and the community.

Yes, I posted numerous angry comments in off-channels threads... most of them laying the blame directly at Dave's feet. I did try to keep from being aggro, and I definitely was not nearly as outright offensive as some of the stuff I read over here... but it was very hard not to be angry.

I still believe that most of the motivation was to tidy up around here; whether that was to improve YT/Google metrics (as would be obvious to anybody who's actually paid attention to the status-quo of the current industry that online content production has become) or whether it really was just manipulation by a few selfish egos is irrelevant.


The fact is that what happened here is the online equivalent of cops opening fire on a playground full parents and their kids; allegedly because of "reports of civil unrest". And then paving it over to make a nice tidy parking lot. 

The time for giving us a place at the table was when we tried to open a dialog. Or at least before opening fire on the crowd.

It's really hard to take any of these discussions in earnest when that hot stinky parking lot is still slapping us right in the face, and the Neverending Taco Truck is in some impound yard, pining for its playmates.

Yes, the SNR in the TEAnonymous thread was low. That is what it was created for: to be the place for "nerds at play" to blow off steam with other like-minded folk. Deliberately, so that noise did not spill over into the other very technically-oriented threads.

I didn't come there expressly to work as many do on eevBlog, so I considered it reasonable that the price of admission was also posting some valuable tech-related content, which I had already doubled down on the last time we had management in our hair complaining aboot the SNR.

After that, I really tried to improve my own personal SNR with a lot of hard work which went completely ignored, and all some people can think about is one post a day (which I even skipped sometimes) aboot a table that was a major project for me, and which sharing with my friends was already a long-standing "point of business" in that community space.

For me, this was never about arguing with the management, or the random bickering that always happens in a online community... I came to the TEAnonymous thread to play with other people who were not freaking morons. ...to play. As one would expect of any playground.

So yeah... when the TEAnonymous playground on eevBlog went away, I went looking for a new playground. Just like we all did when we were kids, and our favorite playground was paved over in the name of "progress".

I get that a lot of this happened because we were "just ignored and left to our own devices"... until we got too big to be ignored.

But pinning an OT thread to the top of a highly technical sub-forum... and then going thermonuclear on it for being OT instead of just moving it to the OT forum space where it clearly belonged to anybody who'd bothered to read the first dozen pages...

That is a massive charlie-foxtrot that belongs laid at management's feet.

I guess the only thing left to say is... in the grand scheme of things, a few weirdos hanging out in a OT thread on a niche server in the wilds of the internet and posting stoopit shit back and forth is hardly any good reason to start this colossal shitstorm.

Why couldn't you just let us have this one thing? Who the eff was ever hurt by it being OT, when all y'alls had the entire rest of eevBlog to be ON-TOPIC in?

Oh right... the fact we were the most popular thread on the forum by miles... and people tuned into the Nerds at Play reality TV show by the hundreds sometimes; I've seen it with my own eyes.

Maybe that should tell you something about the real value of OT.

Cheers,

mnem
*toddles off to find that impound yard*

[tggzzz]

The fact some members have moved elsewhere is unfortunate - but I fail to see how a poll before the upheaval would have signalled anything.

Really ?
Properly done it would have plainly signaled the moderators were properly serious about doing something and those that have gone to greener pastures would have been able to signal their thoughts although as it happens the outcome may not have changed, at least they would've felt consulted and a poll taken then would have be properly representative.

"Properly done" is the key problem, of course.

What would have been the "right" action if, to pluck figures from thin air, 85% of voters wanted more moderation, but 85% of major contributors to the thread wanted less moderation?

[tggzzz]

A gentle reminder to a full-quoter is sometimes good. They may have never thought about it before. And as always, leding by example is the best way on the forum.

When I had an SMF forum I got so tired of the nested quotes I used the feature below. Fixed that mess real good ...

Post Settings

This page of the administration center contains some settings regarding the posting of messages on your forum.
Enable/Disable Settings

    Remove nested quotes when posting - This will only show the quote of the post in question, not any quoted posts from that post

Ooh, I didn't know that existed. I can really see the value in that. But on the other hand there is alos value in responsible use of nested quoting, and I'd personally likely find it annoying if I didn't have that option any more.

If you were to remove nested quoting, this forum becomes no more than a pale version of stackexchange. I'd leave in an instant.

Glad to see you are against removing nested quoting.

[gnif]

You guys do know that one of the reporters that drew my attention to this thread was one of the most angry and vocal about being moderated after I acted on one of these reports? One of your loudest voices standing up against the moderation they reported and as such expected a moderator to step in about, and also one of your most active posters? And the reports were directly because of political content by another very active, angry and loud member of your group.

Stop acting like we had to get to know the people/forum/thread first, you guys who do know the people/forum/thread started this, it was your active members that made me take note and step in... Did I handle it poorly, sure, I will admit to that, but stop trying to blame everyone and accept responsibility for your own actions and the idea that you also were not in the right here.

I still believe that most of the motivation was to tidy up around here; whether that was to improve YT/Google metrics (as would be obvious to anybody who's actually paid attention to the status-quo of the current industry that online content production has become) or whether it really was just manipulation by a few selfish egos is irrelevant.

Believe what you want, you clearly know more then we do about the internals of things here....

[Specmaster]

A gentle reminder to a full-quoter is sometimes good. They may have never thought about it before. And as always, leding by example is the best way on the forum.

When I had an SMF forum I got so tired of the nested quotes I used the feature below. Fixed that mess real good ...

Post Settings

This page of the administration center contains some settings regarding the posting of messages on your forum.
Enable/Disable Settings

    Remove nested quotes when posting - This will only show the quote of the post in question, not any quoted posts from that post

Ooh, I didn't know that existed. I can really see the value in that. But on the other hand there is alos value in responsible use of nested quoting, and I'd personally likely find it annoying if I didn't have that option any more.

If you were to remove nested quoting, this forum becomes no more than a pale version of stackexchange. I'd leave in an instant.

Glad to see you are against removing nested quoting.

Surely, removing nested quoting will only add more confusion as some readers will struggle to understand the context of the points being raised and then more unrest would be the end result?

[tggzzz]

Yeah. But don't you find it strange that a forum member gets welcomed to whatever thread? As long as you follow the forum rules that should be taken for granted, shouldn't it?

Why? I considered a nice "Welcome" as being polite from the regulars to potentially new TEA members.

There is a difference between a "nice welcome" and feeling welcome. It is about interaction.

I don't understand the distinction you are trying to make.

To me, when a new person wanders into a room with an existing group of friends, it is good manners to stop and welcome them, and encourage them. Saying "welcome" is part of the interaction with a new person.

Only on some off topic and basically forbidden I had some, but only with a few that were interested in the same off topic, and to some extend that is understandable, but the core group was not so open. But again, that is my personal experience and might well be because of me being me.

The core group was open and welcomed new contributors, so I think it (whatever is might have been) may well be because of you being you.

It is only to be expected that most new contributors didn't stay around, due to the sheer volume of posts which was somewhat intimidating even to core members. That's demonstrated my the number of times a core member was away for a few days, and "complained" about how many pages they had to read to catch up. (Note the quotations marks, which are vital in this context)

[PA0PBZ]

24-08-2022 - Retired as a Moderator, I am now only rendering server admin services for Dave

Drop the drama gnif, I agree that you failed but that could have happened to anyone.

[gnif]

24-08-2022 - Retired as a Moderator, I am now only rendering server admin services for Dave

Drop the drama gnif, I agree that you failed but that could have happened to anyone.

Huh? This in in my footer because people contact me directly for support/moderation at times as they see my Admin status, a role which I require to perform my function here for Dave of admin and management. Their requests will go unanswered if they do so in the future.

Edit: This said, I am tired of this and wasted enough of my efforts in trying to help people to see the truth of things and my actions. I thank those that were understanding and can forgive, and I thank those that have been supportive though this. The stress of this thread and the outcome of my actions have weighed heavy on myself and I must step away from all of this to clear my head and move on. As such I am un-following this thread and will no longer be discussing this. My feelings, decisions and position has been made clear and I see no reason to remain.

Dave, I apologise for the fact that the communication for this issue was not in it's own email thread which would have been easier to notice as something that urgently required attention. It's as much my fault here too.

[tggzzz]

My point was that it is the fault of the group itself that it got out of hand. Not a single person, but the group.

"Got out of hand" is a loaded pejorative statement. Many, but not all, of the core contributors think it did not get out of hand.

There was also, over time, a significant element of self-moderation in the core group, something an occasional visitor would neither have seen nor understood.

And what I have seen here is that the finger is constantly pointing to others and not the group.

You also have a finger and it is constantly pointing to other people.

It also appears that you feel you were in some way made to feel unwelcome in the thread. I will leave others to draw inferences and conclusions.

[tggzzz]

Surely, removing nested quoting will only add more confusion as some readers will struggle to understand the context of the points being raised and then more unrest would be the end result?

No it wouldn't

I rest my case.

[PA0PBZ]

Huh? This in in my footer because people contact me directly for support/moderation at times as they see my Admin status, a role which I require to perform my function here for Dave of admin and management. Their requests will go unanswered if they do so in the future.

Alright, maybe I misjudged it and I'm willing to admit that, sorry!

[thm_w]

Surely, removing nested quoting will only add more confusion as some readers will struggle to understand the context of the points being raised and then more unrest would be the end result?

You can click on the hyperlink in the quote which brings you to the post being quoted, the full context is never lost, just takes a tiny bit of effort to view.
If the forum were more advanced you could probably have auto-collapsing context, and let it be a user setting.

[Ed.Kloonk]

24-08-2022 - Retired as a Moderator, I am now only rendering server admin services for Dave

Drop the drama gnif, I agree that you failed but that could have happened to anyone.

Huh? This in in my footer because people contact me directly for support/moderation at times as they see my Admin status, a role which I require to perform my function here for Dave of admin and management. Their requests will go unanswered if they do so in the future.

Edit: This said, I am tired of this and wasted enough of my efforts in trying to help people to see the truth of things and my actions. I thank those that were understanding and can forgive, and I thank those that have been supportive though this. The stress of this thread and the outcome of my actions have weighed heavy on myself and I must step away from all of this to clear my head and move on. As such I am un-following this thread and will no longer be discussing this. My feelings, decisions and position has been made clear and I see no reason to remain.

Dave, I apologise for the fact that the communication for this issue was not in it's own email thread which would have been easier to notice as something that urgently required attention. It's as much my fault here too.

No. You can admit fault if you like, but everyone in thread complaining has worked for someone like Dave in their lifetime and they know that just sending emails doesn't work. Nobody bothered to metaphorically accost Dave in the hallway. Nobody.

A room filled with complainers and apparently not one of them understands the concept of the squeaky wheel.

- like and subscribe for more rants. 

[Specmaster]

Huh? This in in my footer because people contact me directly for support/moderation at times as they see my Admin status, a role which I require to perform my function here for Dave of admin and management. Their requests will go unanswered if they do so in the future.

Alright, maybe I misjudged it and I'm willing to admit that, sorry!

Yep, we all have to remember that at the end of the day gnif is just anyone of us, human, and there is not a human alive who has never made mistakes although the world is full of people who claim they are the exception. I acknowledge that I have made plenty in my time, and we learn from those mistakes and gnif has been big enough to admit he has made mistakes so let him live in peace, I respect him, and he has earned that much after the public roasting he received, lets wish him well in his new capacity.

[tggzzz]

Surely, removing nested quoting will only add more confusion as some readers will struggle to understand the context of the points being raised and then more unrest would be the end result?

You can click on the hyperlink in the quote which brings you to the post being quoted, the full context is never lost, just takes a tiny bit of effort to view.
If the forum were more advanced you could probably have auto-collapsing context, and let it be a user setting.

Only in simple twatter like posts.

Many replies to complex interesting posts have multiple points that are best interleaved with the original.

If you want non-nested quoting, go to stackexchange or edaboard. There's a good chance you will see what I mean, and come back.

And if pigs had wings they could fly.

(See, even responses to boring trivial posts benefit from interleaving, to associate one point with the other).

[EEVblog]

As per the other TEA forum, it seems that at least one person is pissed off that people where trying to explain to me what was happening in the TEA thread and I "didn't listen" or ignored the whole thing.
This is not true. I literally had no idea any discussion was taking place in TEA because I don't read nor frequent the TEA thread. First thing i heard about any of this was when I was allerted to this thread here that was already a dozen pages deep. I posted a few minutes after eventually seeing this thread.

When big shit like this is going down on the forum, do me and everyone a favour and don't assume that I know what's going on. My daily use on the forum is limited to a few threads I'm interested in and the occasional browse of new ones. TEA is not one of them.

I get the same moderator report email alerts as the other mods, but the others are so quick to respond that I rarely get a chance to see what went down, so I just assume it was taken care of and everyone went back their merry way.

Except we did tell you. Directly to your face and to the moderators. If you weren't aware, it isn't for lack of us trying to open a dialogue

Sorry, but that's not the case. You thought you were, and that's no fault of you or anyone else. As I said before, this thing was going on for at least 4 days before I found out about it. Why? Because I don't read the TEA thread.
And no one, not a single user alerted me to what was happening (subject to the gnif email I missed as I metioned before).
No messages like "hey, stuff is getting wild in the TEA thread, you should really do something".

For the last time, I literally not had idea any of this was happening.

Sorry, that's on me because I missed an email message gnif sent me 5 days ago. I can't go back in time and fix that, it's done.