Problems with the TOS

[zajacattack]

I really think that the TOS needs some heavy modifications. Many times on these forums I see people who need help, and all they get is yelling at from the mods for breaking the dumbest rules. This completely defeats the purpose of Rockbox. Rockbox should be free, open-source, and open to all. How can Rockbox be open to all when people are yelled at when all they want is help and/or to help? I think this drives many people away and ends up hurting more than helping.

[Llorean]

Have you taken a moment to perhaps ask WHY we have the rules that we do?

Is there any single particular rule you think is dumb?

Or did you just want us to get rid of all the rules?

[zajacattack]

OK, even though you, Llorean, like to be very sarcastic, I will answer you anyways.

Yes, I understand the need for rules. However, I do not understand why the mods must continually get mad when one might accidentally use internet slang (e.g. "thx"). Does that really matter so much as to deserve a scolding? Is it really taking away from the purpose? No, actually, the mods getting mad about that takes away more. Forum means "an assembly for the discussion of public matters" (Webster's New World Dictionary). How can we discuss when we are constantly hounded by the mods?

Also, I see many people ask a simple question if they want to help or have a theory about something. However, instead of gracefully explaining the answer or being open to it, the developers simply get angry because the person may be considered a newb and does not have as much experience as that developer.

All I'm saying is, the mods need to lighten up a little. If Rockbox is open to all, internet slang, incorrect grammar, and maybe some simpler (i.e. "newbie") questions need to be tolerated more rather than being shunned down upon by the mods.

[Llorean]

"Thx" "u" etc are not acceptable for several reasons. We have blind users, and users to which English is not a native language. Many of them do not know if "thx" is a real English word that means something they don't know, or what. So we require that people use real English because honestly, you're typing. You can read over what you typed before you hit enter. They can't read your mind to know what the word means, but YOU can read what you typed before hitting enter and making sure it's a real word. So yes, it's important, because as you said, we try to be accessible to everyone, and to us that means "Everyone" rather than "Just the people who speak English and understand internet shorthand." As well, we can't simply say "Only 5% of your post or less can be shorthand", because the idea is to make it readable, and it's much easier to say "Don't do it at all" so the rule is not at all unclear than to say "Make sure a human being can guess what you mean" and have people saying "Well I can guess what that means" when a mod decides it is unclear enough. So, to be enforcable at all, it needs to be objective, and objectivity is possible because it is strictly prohibited.

Developers don't get angry "because someone is a newb." In fact, I'd challenge you to find me a post where a developer got angry at someone for simply being new, rather than for, for example, not reading the manual and/or searching before asking. There's a difference between "Being new", and "Willingly refusing to read documentation." Continually answering questions that are answered in the manual will just mean the forums are flooded with questions that keep search results from being useful. Telling people the first time they ask "You need to read the manual first" sends them to a place full of information, and insure that the next question they like is more likely to actually be something new (and thus, when answered, likely to be a record of useful information when someone else searches for that topic) rather than a flood of information that is already in the manual.

Basically, the idea behind the existing rules is to make the forums MORE useful, by ensuring as best as possible that the content in it is accessible, and not redundant.

Besides, as a user they AGREE to read the manual when registering for the forums. Is it really unreasonable to expect them to do so, when they told us they would?

[Febs]

All I'm saying is, the mods need to lighten up a little. If Rockbox is open to all, internet slang, incorrect grammar, and maybe some simpler (i.e. "newbie") questions need to be tolerated more rather than being shunned down upon by the mods.

I'm generally open to constructive suggestions, and I believe as a general propositions that we could be more tolerant of new users, but you will never, ever convince me that there is any legitimate reason that we should allow internet slang.  

[Llorean]

I'll agree with that. More tolerance for new users is fine, but that doesn't mean "don't enforce the rules on first offenses" so much as "be friendly when enforcing the rules to let them know they're welcome here, but they're expected to behave."

[zajacattack]

OK, so why then, if you claim to be accessible to all,why are some who don't know English and maybe use some incorrent slang beacause it's all they know yelled at for violating the TOS when they are simply trying to get help when they don't know English well. In fact, why not set up different forums in other languages for more accessibility?

Yes, and there's a difference between "willingly" not reading and "not understanding" what the manual and/or previous posts say. Many times, people post to because they want to help, and all they are told is read the manual and read the previous posts, even though they already have, do not understand, and are asking a question so they can better understand. You want an example? Fine. Please refer back to the Sansa e200R development thread, and you will see that many people, myself included, offered some theories and questions to try and keep the movement going. Instead of answering the questions so we could better understand or explaining nicely why the theories were wrong/what they needed to prove them, we were instead hounded because "we didn't read the manual" and "we didn't read the previous posts", even though many of us had and simply did not fully understand. To bring knowledge, one must be polite (which many of the mods are not) and willingly to answer questions to help one understand.

Ultimately, many of the mods make the forums a less helpful place to be. How can one expect Rockbox to grow when help is being shut down? Admit it, Llorean, you and others cannot stand it when an outsider wants to help or has a breakthrough. You want to stay in your little circle of developers and keep Rockbox a big secret. This is why you always hound about the rules, you shoot those down who offer ideas and ask questions so they can help, and it's why Rockbox progress is slow.

[Chronon]

I think it would help if you refrained from making claims about what someone else's motives might be.  Obviously you have some gripes about how things are handled around here.  But we should keep discussion focused on the structure of the rules and not on personal conflicts.

EDIT:
I'll try to address some of the points that you made.  First, it's not practical to try to maintain support in every language that a user might speak natively.  There's no guarantee that someone with the information being sought will speak the necessary language in each case.  I think that it makes more sense to communicate in a well defined manner to more easily allow translation of that information into a given person's desired language.  This, in principle, gives the largest pool of expertise to draw from.

[Febs]

OK, so why then, if you claim to be accessible to all,why are some who don't know English and maybe use some incorrent slang beacause it's all they know yelled at for violating the TOS when they are simply trying to get help when they don't know English well. In fact, why not set up different forums in other languages for more accessibility?

I think that if you look carefully, you will find that we are very tolerant of non-English speakers who make an effort to use proper English.  What we do not tolerate, and never will as long as I have anything to say about the matter, is native English speakers who deliberately butcher the language.  

[cool_walking_]

I'm afraid to type anything that will be just be straight away be refuted/obsoleted by any of the 15 (!) people watching this thread, but I'd just like to throw my 2 cents in as a regular user who agrees with everything so far said by Llorean, Febs, and Chronon.

[zajacattack]

I think that if you look carefully, you will find that we are very tolerant of non-English speakers who make an effort to use proper English.  What we do not tolerate, and never will as long as I have anything to say about the matter, is native English speakers who deliberately butcher the language.  

I would say, that is really very frustrating on many users parts. Many users don't have time to write out a perfectly spelled right, grammatically correct post. This is removing user friendliness. And, since when is Rockbox so formal. This is a place to ask for help and suggest ideas. Why is it SO NECESSARY that everyone be perfect in their English. This is probably one of the few forums I know of that enforces correct English so heavily, and it ends up drawing away users.

[pixelma]

This thread title is a perfect example as to why the rules are there and make sense...

I'm not a native English speaker and did not know this abbreviation and so was forced to look it up in wikipedia and/or read the post to understand it in the context (and by the way, it could have to do with "toslink" which you could also have problems with on a rockboxed H100).

In my opinion these forum needs the rules to stay readable and accessible to all and that can only be achieved by enforcing the rules. I can't remember reading about someone who was yelled at, as you say, just for accidentally breaking the rules - I just remember few occasions when a simple "read the rules" reply turned into a bit lengthy and tougher discussion about the rules where I thought that these could have been avoidable by also stating the reason for the rules in short words or just ignoring - but that became more seldom recently.

P.S. I don't think that setting up different language forums will make it easier, it will probably just get messier and the possibility that you could get different information here and "there" scares me. I really have no words about your last paragraph, zajacattack.

[zajacattack]

Also, Llorean, via what you said about the New Ports board. Did you ever consider that many of the greatest advances throughout history were made by people with little if no experience in what they were dealing? By closing the board to all but the "experienced" users, you have removed the possibility that an average user could easily make that one breakthrough needed.

Another thing: refer to this post, http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=14034, in which an honest person asked for help. Now, it did not belong on the Rockbox forums; however, instead of being politely told where he could get help or where he could post it, he was told "Please respect our guidelines." How does that help him? IT DOESN'T! NOT ONE BIT!

[scorche]

Many users don't have time to write out a perfectly spelled right, grammatically correct post.

Then why should they expect us to have the time to write out a detailed explanation of what is wrong and how they can fix it?

This is removing user friendliness.

Most forums, it is very hard to even understand what the user is trying to say.  This is not "user friendly" at all.

Why is it SO NECESSARY that everyone be perfect in their English.

This was explained quite well a few posts up...  We don't ask that you use perfect English.  Only that you do not use words like "thx, u, 4" in place of real words. 

By closing the board to all but the "experienced" users, you have removed the possibility that an average user could easily make that one breakthrough needed.

We do not close the board to all but "experienced" users.  However, useless suggestions are just that...useless.  When people throw out random ideas that would be impossible to change anything, it does not help...it clutters.

[Febs]

I think that if you look carefully, you will find that we are very tolerant of non-English speakers who make an effort to use proper English.  What we do not tolerate, and never will as long as I have anything to say about the matter, is native English speakers who deliberately butcher the language.  

I would say, that is really very frustrating on many users parts. Many users don't have time to write out a perfectly spelled right, grammatically correct post. This is removing user friendliness. And, since when is Rockbox so formal. This is a place to ask for help and suggest ideas. Why is it SO NECESSARY that everyone be perfect in their English. This is probably one of the few forums I know of that enforces correct English so heavily, and it ends up drawing away users.

We do not ask for perfection in people's posts.  We ask that people make an effort to use proper grammar, spelling and punctuation.   If users "don't have the time" to make an effort to right in an intelligible manner, then they are shifting the burden of being understood from themselves to the reader, and I do not see any legitimate reason for allowing people to do this.  

Perhaps we are one of the stricter forums that enforces English, but I could give you countless examples of real world situations where internet slang is absolutely unacceptable.