Farewell, Level1Techs

Level1Techs INBOX.deb
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Not sure what this line was getting at then:

Moving on…

Not fixating at all.

If it’s who I think it was, I blocked them eons ago and didn’t have to deal with their shenanigans, but yes, I was also glad to see them go because they contributed absolutely nothing to any aspect of the website. Again though, this is tangential to the question I was raising.

If that happened, it shouldn’t have and I’m not opposed to that at all.

Not sure what point you’re trying to make here. I do enjoy off-topic discussion and obviously engage in it. But the primary purpose of my membership on this forum is going to be the topic of the forum, and not the off-topic. Any off-topic conversation I engage in is tangential and going to occur inside the context the original topic of the forum. If the off-topic starts to encroach on the on-topic, then spin off (which is apparently what happened).

For instance, I don’t go to a firearms forum and expect to have a discussion about abortion. If I can, great, but if it creates too much conflict and fractures the firearms community, it makes total sense to ban it.

The point I’m making is that this:

is a completely separate issue from this:

One of these issues is a fundamental disagreement about the purpose of the forum, the other is a realistic question about the efficacy of the moderation efforts of the forum. For the prior the purpose of the forum is quite clear - to foster a community that can discuss technology. The purpose of the off-topic seems obvious as well - to assist in the fostering part. Insofar as the offtopic section accomplishes that, it’s great. But when it drives a wedge into that, well, it’s actively detrimental to the actual purpose of the forum - discuss technology.

I don’t understand how this answers my question. It seems like if anything, the off-topic section drove you away, along with whatever positive contributions you were making, which is what I was getting at with my original post.

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You’re not a nobody to me.

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Why does this feel like a raid?

This has actually inspired a lot of positive discussion, thanks Chris.

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Because it’s a raid.

Granted it’s all people who have regularly used this forum at one point or another so I wouldn’t dismiss it.

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We aren’t dismissing it. Some good points were raised, which should be taken into consideration, but words spoken as you’re storming out the door tend to lose their charm.

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Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition!

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well i can confirm members like to make violent threats in dm’s.
shitter of it is, they would have to come out the house to do it first :smiley: … nope not doing that… no way!.. nope… no… noway!!!.. mum!.. :smiley:

i mean really!!!. :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

if your NOT standing in front of some one, DONT MAKE THREATS OF VIOLENCE!.
(psst actually illegal in the west to make threats of violence online, AOC misused the law the other week, but they are REAL laws ).
but that asside…
it makes you look weak, insecure and irrational.

give it a rest its boring. (and illegal)

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This forum is what it says on the tin: Level 1 Techs, a helpdesk.

For some reason, computer forums attract weird characters. Those weird characters clash from time to time, cry about it.
But those weird people are the pillar that not just holds their own, but pushes for more!

Lighting up the place makes the shadow dwellers leave. Big surprise!

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So I have been in this community for about a decade now.

Three names and three different forum servers later.

This is the same issue the forum has had for a while, stop letting problems fester for years!

Don’t let individuals dictate your rules and moderation back to you because you are scared of hurting their feelings. Or you know let the community solve issues like the used to. It was more wild west for problems sort themselves tbh.

This forum was not just a help desk until recently when most of your constant userbase left. You can get that at LTT, /g/, or Phoronix but with a more active community

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If this is something you’d like addressed from mod staff, feel free to DM moderators and we can take care of it.

Yeah, I consider this my biggest failure as mod.

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I am not even trying to get into a pissing match. But the second annual irl meetup/jamboree/convention is happening with many of old site members. Or looking how active discussion threads are. There is actual discussion rather than helpdesk. 3D printing and crypto threads are a great examples. Or the amount of actual code/it talk

People actually doing things is what I am talking about.

Cypher punks code

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lol no mate

:smiley: im good, they have enough shit on there plate without me getting em banned.

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FYI, we can’t see DMs unless they’re flagged.

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not heard that phrase in 20+ years… i thought all the cypher punks were gone.
passed away with Y2k … :wink:

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As a newer member without the history I am sad to hear of the issues, and sad of the loss of experienced people here to help others AND enjoy themselves.

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Don’t believe everything you read, but people grow. Often the nostalgia of our own memory puts a positive spin on things. But feedback for improvement is always nice.

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First, and foremost, we’re not in this for the money. I’m in it for the community. I think that’s been clear from day one. It’s really no great monetary loss. Collection/generation of useful and accessible knowledge is most important, and perhaps a bigger loss if it is a braintrust that has departed. Level1 is about getting from Level0 to Level1, the hardest level. It takes effort.

It sounds like you’ve done that if money is important to you and you’ve quadrupled your salary. I’m glad we could help.

Did a little digging. (Mods don’t have access to PMs, btw).

The TL:DR; of the marten/admindev drama was that admindev made a bait thread about linux being too woke around July 2020. Somehow that got turned into an argument about masking during the pandemic, and then marten made a threat. The threat post was immediately flagged and deleted by the automod (there is some discussion in this thread as well). Shortly afterward, marten PM’d admindev and apologized, and admindev accepted the apology.

Outside of the initial flags in the thread, there were no other attempts at notifying a mod that I can find.

The additional messages are strictly between the two users. So if something has gone wrong there, and it was not flagged and it was brought to my attention, then I have failed and am solely responsible for the ‘shit tier moderation.’

It’s too bad too because I actually agree with a fair bit of the rest of your sentiment. But this seeming fundamental misrepresentation plus the other messages from you in the lounge thread around your exit give me a sort of off-kilter taste about it.

The mod team has actually changed a fair bit over the years. A few have been there the whole time, sure, but more are newer. And a few of them had the balls to step up and say I want to be on the mod team because I don’t think XYZ was handled well and I said ok. Not everyone is going to man up and actually try to help identify and work on fixable things, in those situations, though.

On the other hand, it shouldn’t be the mod team’s job to remind us all to be nice to one another. And the vast vast majority of the time it isn’t something they have to worry about. I had been rather happy the two of you had apologized to one another way back then. It seemed to me you had been excellent to eachother (eventually, with some prodding).

Guess not. But that’s fine.

I, for one, think we could all use more technical quasi-shitposts, but only as long as we’re excellent to each other. That is all I have ever asked – to strive to be excellent to eachother.

If anyone has any feedback about generating or encouraging more useful user-generated content, I’m all ears. And if you’ve posted about your personal projects with lots of pictures: I see you, and I love what you are doing. And I added more storage to the forum and upped the file size limits some time ago for you. I can gather experience through your experiences and see what you are working on and what you are thinking and I love it.

Going from Level0 to Level1 is the hardest. But I’m still committed to helping anyone that wants to take the leap.

Sometimes that is going to involve discourse and disagreement, but that doesn’t mean that it must split into petty tribes where the uniting force is little more than an echo chamber uniting against ‘wrongthink.’ Level1Techs should never be a clique imho.

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So as a person who didnt go from level 0 to 1 with the aid of the forum (which is fine tis not to down talk the forum in anyway)… As a person who was self made made it through engineering etc. The only thing I can say that has gotten me a bit bothered was during the period of COVID. I think tensions and emotions are high and people dont generally care at that point and only see themselves understandably so. I think thats almost a natural survival response.

HOWEVER

Something I have noticed. During covid theres also what seems to be a dangerous kind of automation through us getting through it. We sometimes stop looking and investigating and self learning and seek out min effort max return level distractions that distract us just enough to get passed the day to day ordeal. Some of us (I would say myself included for sure here) have sacrificed a lot during this time and some of us have sacrificed people. So I think that all plays into it. Im certainly quite guilty of a few things myself (lets not talk about discord LOL). I myself have been guilty of negative feelings about this place and others but one thing we should learn to do is not necessarily let them consume us. Turn on the light so to speak.

Overall something I would love to see more on the forum is not just helpdesk (a good provision of resources) but the hack interest. The hey im gonna go make this check this out. Or im going to build my own network this way and why. I love these threads and even made one of my own. Id like to see more. I love the garage more than I love the lounge I have to say. Sometimes I miss the iconoclasty of the old TS days. Relive a small bit if nostalgia but I think those times on the internet are gone as a whole so its not like I can point a finger or anything at this. That was also an era of hacktivism which is gone.

One way I could think of doing this more is a bit controversial. We seem to attract (and other forums do too) a certain kind of strange folk that are a bit well overly tin foil hat. While there is nothing wrong with this the attitude can be very discouraging for people to show their projects that include say closed source software or maybe something more mainstream. I think there are a lot of people on the forum that are quite experienced in other ecosystems besides linux for example but the attitude towards anything not open source from some of these folk I describe can really derail and mess up a thread and its discussion. Even post moderation clean up people tend to leave a previously messed up thread alone to not add to the possible firework show.

Now unfortunately I dont see a good way to figure this out. Its such a fine and quite squigly line. Theres nothing wrong with sharing perspectives or even being tin foil or full google or I love amazon AWS whatever it maybe but the points where ive seen it descend to are often completely unnecessary and maybe some moderation help where we say “its okay to disagree and be civil” might need a bit stricter enforcement regardless if its an old user, an experienced grey beard or a noob or new user etc. Its something I started advocating for after the massive political uprising and crap this year. It tied into me realizing you can be right or wrong but if that person isnt really changing your life by say posting something you disagree with you dont need to treat it as all out war. Which has happened with tin-foil types. I had a few in my thread and adubs and a few other really helped clean that up. Especially when it comes to misinformation. I think a lot of us come from a slightly trolly engaging background where we dont think much of something outrageous because our initial knee jerk reaction is its a troll but there are some true off the charts type folk that we should be careful with how much they do.

At the end of the day a community is only as bad as its worse subset of members and its overall value is about how good and committed its user base is. I think userbases are dynamic and come and go but some careful scrutiny on stuff that is trully out there might be due sometimes.

I cant tell you how many times ive deal with the 5G jokes from friends and then seen a true believer of them argue me here much to my amusement and sometimes frustration. That is just one example though

Something sarge and I have been working on in private is something in the realm of what I was discussing above. A maker project of sorts. I love this stuff and wish to see more of it so I myself am engaging in it. Ive been dealing with some losses on the personal life end of things so progress has been slowed but still. I think having something to keep our minds busy is important right now more than ever.

I love the thread gnuuser made about HAM radio and radio in general. This is my field of expertise. Its my domain where Im totally comfortable and a whimsical master (but still know so little as I figure out more and more). Id like to see threads that dont always fall in the line of IT… show up on the forum too and get more attention. Im not sure how to but I know a good subset of this forum are engineers and technicians which can be and are very different people from the IT systems admins etc (not a bad thing).

Not really sure I have more thoughts than that. I think I havent focused enough on the forum especially now as I struggle with somethings but its a great place to come and a great way to be distracted (learning something new)

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Off topic/point scoring/apologies in advance, question:

Do we have a helpdesk/needhelp/help tag, not sure OTOH, but I think we do and I think they’re not used enough, it might be interesting/helpful to more regulars on the forum?

This would allow for forum use analogous to e.g. how one uses #foo (user help) #foo-dev (actual on point code discussion) project channels on IRC on freenode. Depending on how much energy you have at the moment you could stumble into more interesting topics skipping over helpdesk tagged posts, or you could look at them in case any desperate soul is crying out and just needs a bit of basic “how do I setup? what do i need? will a work with b help?” to repeated questions… [off to catchup on rest of thread, seems like lots of strong words are being thrown around].

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we have helpdesk tag, but unfortunately tags are not used that much. Mods and afaik TL3 users (Regulars) can add tags to threads if users forgot to add them.

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