Rockbox General > Rockbox General Discussion

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ki:

--- Quote ---From personal experience, you tend to annoy people who search for help by being picky and impatient, and sometimes even rude.
--- End quote ---


--- Quote ---I do find sometimes that the insiders on the project are intolerant. For myself, sometimes I almost can't bear to read the forums.
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--- Quote ---I sometimes wonder "does he really hate modertaing? If so, why is he always on here moderating?" I think Llorean hates moderating and people but he enjoys berating people putting a spotlight on them and there mistakes.
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To be perfectly honest, I agree with all these statements. Although I have never personally had a problem with anyone here, after browsing the forum over the last couple of months, I have often felt that the admin and moderators can be extremely picky, negative, and quite rude on many occasions. I also have the impression that they really doesn't like moderating the forums and seem fed-up with constantly having to berate people.

Having said that, after noticing that there only seems to be one administrator and one moderator (?) I DO understand that it must be quite a task to try to organize everything and keep the forum running smoothly. If that is too much for one person, perhaps there should be more than one?


The point I really want to make is that if the moderators of a forum have an excessively pedantic or negative attitude towards the users, I believe that it has a huge effect on the community as a whole. Hopefully I don't have to point out why a strong, positive community is such an important thing, especially in an open-source project such as this one.
And unfortunately, I have not found the rockbox community to be a particularly positive or welcoming one.


It is not my wish or intention to complain or give negative feedback here. Instead, I hope that the admin, moderators, and any other regular posters here keep these points in mind.

If you ARE going to reprimand people, please give consistent reasons (sometimes a brief reason is given, sometimes none at all). Not only will this help the original poster, but if other people see the reason, then they are less likely to make the same 'mistake'. (Thus it should also create less work for the moderators)
Please make an effort to be polite.
Please try to keep a level of maturity. I have seen cases where moderators have responded quite immaturely and rudely. (For example, on the second page of this thread: http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=15155.15)

While the original poster of this thread (http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=15596.0) was quite ridiculous, it should have given a clue to the moderators that they had clearly upset someone and perhaps might need to rethink the way they handled the situation. Some of the later posts in the thread also raise some relevant points I think.


If you browse around, I think you can find a lot of examples of rude, snappy, sometimes immature comments made by moderators on this forum.
In many cases, the moderators do not seem to contribute anything positive to the conversation at all, and simply seem to express their own frustration or tell the poster off. (Example: http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=15692.0).

Sometimes responses like these may or may not be justified (in the above example, the original posted should probably have appended the post to an apparently existing thread), but I do not think this kind of response is ever appropriate.

The effect of that kind of response is probably going to be that the original poster (whose first post it was) will not return to the forums again. That may or may not concern you, but as an administrator for a community forum, I think it probably should. Another byproduct may be that other people reading the thread may be turned off by the community and rockbox in general.  

If a comment (or any action for that matter) is not going to be constructive, then sometimes refraining from commenting at all might be a better option.



As I said, I am not trying to place any blame here. I am not trying to point-the-finger or flame anyone. I am simply trying to point out the potential detriment to the community, and hope that the moderators and all the people here think more about the community and what they want to achieve or express with their comments.

I think Rockbox is a great project with a lot of potential, and hopefully the community can stay positive and supportive of each other.

Llorean:
I think one key problem is this: In regards to my posts (especially the one linked in the third link) you're assuming a tone that doesn't exist. Read it without intonation, using dictionary definition of the words, and I don't think you'll find anything rude about that one.

In regards to the first one, sure, there was sarcasm in the last sentence, but I don't see how any other part of the comment was rude. I explained the manpower situation.

In regards to the second one, I don't see anything wrong with my comment there at all. Could you explain it to me?

People berate me for my word choice, and for my tone. I'm speaking English. They're written words. There is no tone except that which you imagine for yourself. I can't stop you for becoming angry with me because you've decided I'm trying to sound one way. Or because you think I'm speaking down to you, or being condescending.

I implore you to attempt to read my sentences without tone, as in the vast majority of cases that's how they're written. Word choice is simply a matter of clarity: I use the words that I feel will leave least room for confusion. If you think I'm trying to sound smarter than I am, again, it's not something I can do anything about. I have a manner of typing, and it will continue. A technical sentence is usually less ambiguous than a conversational one, and the purpose of these forums is to convey information, not to chat.

zajacattack:
It's just the problem of the human nature to think that everyone has a bad tone to what they say.

BUT, I do agree that better word choices can PARTIALLY alleviate this problem.

And, I must admit, I think the mods should be consistent. Sometimes reasons are given and sometimes not. It should be the same for all the same circumstances.

baobab68:
It is a shame that this thread is going to be deleted. It should at least be filed away as a reminder, something that mods can go back and read occasionally.

There are two or three mods that I have in mind constantly as I read through what Ki wrote. I don't think it was always about Llorean at all.

Since the project happily takes donations, it needs to be prepared to listen to what its users have to say.

Not everyone is experienced on the internet, and with coding, as everyone else. It's all very well to say "Search!" and "Read the wiki" - but some people just have no concept.

I know where you're coming from sometimes - people who ask for someone to "make" a particular type of WPS, or "make" a ROCKbox version of their favourite game, for example - but I just think the approach is sometimes a bit cruel. The thread that Ki quoted:

http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=15596.0

was clearly coming from a misguided person. The responses were just *mean-spirited*. There is nothing to indicate from the Paypal icon on the main page, what level of support or influence you can expect to get if you donate. He/she might have felt that it was totally kosher to ask for a feature. I'll admit I've not read the IRC logs to see what was said in IRC though.

I guess when it comes down to it, it's an individual's decision as to whether they do or don't participate in the forums. I must admit sometimes that I think I should wean myself off of these particular ones.

Llorean - I'm going to try reading your posts in a monotone from now on, giving you the benefit of the doubt.

I say these things in the same spirit as Ki, and from the same perspective - it's a fantastic project and a fantastic product, however the forums, while being a great resource technically, are not for the faint-hearted.

Llorean:
The definition of donation: "Donation is a gift to a fund or cause" The key word there is gift. You give a gift without expecting anything in return.

I really don't understand why a person would expect anything at all in response to a donation. The word was chosen specifically to imply that you're not getting anything back. In all seriousness, are you suggesting we need to contain a link to a dictionary, or rewrite the dictionary definition visibly on the site, for people who don't actually know what donate means?

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