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 Administrative / General / 11951
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Subject: 
Re: Can we help?
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.admin.general
Date: 
Tue, 2 Nov 2004 16:48:08 GMT
Viewed: 
268 times
  
In lugnet.admin.general, Larry Pieniazek wrote:
   In lugnet.admin.general, Marc Nelson, Jr. wrote:
   In lugnet.admin.general, Larry Pieniazek wrote:
   In lugnet.admin.general, Marc Nelson, Jr. wrote:
   In lugnet.dear-lego, Larry Pieniazek wrote:

  
   Your FUT cancelled (it’s way off topic for .general) and FUT reset to admin.general

The force-FUT power of admins was a really bad idea.

LUGNET is about posting what you want where you want (within reason).

No, I believe that if you review the ToS you will find that it is not at all about “posting what you want when you want”. One of the great virtues of LUGNET, in at least this reader’s view, is the compartmentalization it fosters.

From the Terms of Use:

12. (do not) Stray hopelessly off-topic without moving the discussion to a more appropriate location. (There is a fair amount of leeway here, since it is natural for discussions to drift, and moving a discussion can sometimes be inconvenient or difficult. If in doubt, appeal to common sense.)

It is my view (and that of other admins) that discussion of whether it is appropriate to mock someone is OFF topic for .general. Hopelessly off topic. Do you agree? If not, why not?

It is my view (and that of other admins) that discussion of whether it is appropriate to mock someone is ON topic for the administrative area. Do you agree? If not, why not?

I’ll go further and reiterate that I do not view mocking posters as appropriate, and it is a practice that ought not to be condoned. I would argue it runs afoul of the Anti Baiting rules which are in place, although they are not explicitly spelled out in the ToS.


It seems like the definition of what is on-topic for .general is very elastic. If a post shows up in .general which could conceivably show up in a more specific newsgroup, does that mean it’s off-topic for general? If so, than the last 25 posts to .general are all off-topic.

It looks to me like the only posts that admins wield the force-FUT against are those that offend or annoy the powers that be (color change, criticism of admins, etc.).

I’m not going to debate whether mockery as a rhetorical device is appropriate, but I am curious about the “Anti Baiting rules”.

  
   There is already a mechanism for moving discussions, and it is available to everyone - the FUT. What I object to is the unchecked power of the admins to unilaterally change the location of someone’s post.

I think you need to consider reviewing what powers the admins have and what they cannot do more carefully. The admins do not have the power to move a post and thus do not have the power (much less unchecked power) to “unilaterally change the location of someone’s post”.

Forcing the FUT merely means that the default FUT is already set to a different location that the poster set it to. A followup poster can change it back.

For example, Richie or you or whomever could still have your reply post go to .general... your post would get some scrutiny to be sure, to make sure that it fit the topics allowed in general, and if it didn’t there would be consequences, as with the FUT changed and the change announced, it should be clear to posters that they need to think about it. But you could still do it.

Also it does not move the post that was already made. That post is where it is.


Ah, my mistake. I thought this post was posted to .general as well as FUT to general.

  
   I would have no problem with an admin moving a post with the posters’ consent (which would take care of anything mistakenly posted to the wrong newsgroup).

Technical reasons make that difficult to achieve. I wish there was a way to do it. Forcing the FUT (but not moving the original post) to default to something else, some other location, is the best we have.


Again, my mistake about the ability to move posts. But why not get the poster’s consent before forcing the FUT?

  
   This specific case is especially objectionable because the force-FUT was used to hide the discussion in a dark corner of LUGNET, where it will go unread by everyone who uses the default skip-filter settings.

The default skip filter settings are the way they are after long discussion, because it has been determined that most people do NOT want to read about administrative issues. I am not sure that your characterisation of admin.general as a dark corner is valid, or useful.


If 90% of LUGNET doesn’t read it, then it’s a pretty dark corner. And there’s no way of knowing whether people are intersting in debating the admins’ force-FUT power, since 90% will never know that the debate is happening.

   Richie’s post raises an administrative issue. One could argue that he knew darn well that .general was a poor choice of topic area and set it that way precisely to try to cause a row. But I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and credit his error to an oversight rather than a genuine desire to be difficult.

++Lar

Why not ask him, instead of forcing the FUT unilaterally?

Marc Nelson Jr.



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Can we help?
 
(...) We are in the process of discussing use of .general. It is my opinion that .general should be used for things that no other better group exists for. If a particular topic is blossoming in .general, it may be time for a new group to be created. (...) (20 years ago, 2-Nov-04, to lugnet.admin.general, FTX)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Can we help?
 
(...) It is my view (and that of other admins) that discussion of whether it is appropriate to mock someone is OFF topic for .general. Hopelessly off topic. Do you agree? If not, why not? It is my view (and that of other admins) that discussion of (...) (20 years ago, 2-Nov-04, to lugnet.admin.general, FTX)

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