on internet forums

Our "pub" where you can post about things completely Off Topic or about non-silent PC issues.

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xen
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 243
Joined: Fri Dec 28, 2007 11:56 am
Location: NH, Netherlands

on internet forums

Post by xen » Sat Dec 03, 2016 1:38 pm

Either I am becoming different or the world just stinks ;-).

I guess there are plenty of good or reasonable English language forums.

Typically however on many forums I run into fights with moderators that think they need to decide how other people should live.

Not here, I have never had an issue here as far as I know.

Forums I avoid the most are Dutch language forums. For some reason the Dutch are the most hostile to good ideas.

There is only one reasonable computer support community in the Netherlands, called Gathering of Tweakers.

It is also the only really good pricewatch site, where they get their money. It's not cheap to be listed at Tweakers.net, hardware companies have to pay per click-through and it is not cheap. They complain, but what can they do. Tweakers has a monopoly.

I often avoid clicking on the links because it is so costly to them.

As Dutch people go, Tweakers (GoT) is a cynical bunch but helpful. You will usually get good advice and information, provided you can stand the culture. It is usually much more common to get into fights with moderators because they assume the role of a regular poster and in that role start harrassing people. A moderator assuming user role thinks he or she has more rights and be more pedantic, petulant, downbearing and insolent than regular posters. After all, if you object they'll just ban you. Power corrupts.

So I would say at least some 50% of my encounters with mods are through their abusing their powers. The other 50% is users wasting your time with senseless answers but you are required to stay polite and indulge them to no end.

That is globally speaking. People in the Linux community especially have this idea that if you ask a question, you are now required to fulfil your obligation to complete a complete troubleshooting process in which they try to solve your problem or rearrange your computer.

Usually people see it as a reason and opportunity to decide the fate of another computer. Or user.

This typically means that if you do it on your own, it costs you 30 minutes max. to find the answer. If you do it with the help of others, you waste several hours as you are trying to stay polite so as not to get banned (also talking about IRC now).

The reason being that Google is not petulant, it will just give you the answer you request of it.

Customer support in general has this wild belief that a request for information is always a request for help.

You ask whether they have ever released a new version (Antec) (for example, just an example, nothing important) and the answer you get is that opening your device would void your warranty.

Or (in the Linux world) you ask if some feature is supported and they tell you not to use it. But they don't tell you whether it is supported or not. If you ask them if they've used it themselves they answer by saying they are not as stupid. But they don't actually have the answer to the question. Linux people in general try to avoid telling you they don't know something or that something doesn't work. Sounds like a company employee right.

In the Netherlands GoT has a near complete monopoly, there is just nothing else. Almost every other forum is "dead in the water". The only remaining forum has moderators or very active users that can't stand if you know more than them.

Jealousy in general is a huge issue for the underdeveloped or those who deal with them...

I probably know more about computers than anyone I personally know save for one friend perhaps. And back in university there were people who have done more, been more. But today my life is pretty much devoid of such people and on the Dutch internet that is accessible to me it is just poverty all around from my PoV.

Basically on this one forum if I ask anything I just get told I'm stupid or that I'm doing something stupid.

I typically stay away from all Dutch people and sources of information, on the internet, these days. It's just not worth it.

Even Dutch wikipedia, if they do not simply clone an English page (why not, you know) their content is usually some 20% of the English language page, and usually the information is just worse as well.

But since Google likes to shove you your language in your face (based on IP, nothing else) you now have to go out of your way to avoid the Dutch Crap. ;-).

I hope I am not offending anyone here less than I intend to ;-) :P. Lol, just kidding.

Another unrelated thing is programs insisting to do spell checking but never being able to compine or even detect two concurrent or alternating languages.

Spell checking for bi-lingual people is a *complete mess*.

But as to forums:
- you can't be on Linux forums if you actually speak your mind or object to the false information being presented to unknowing users.
- you can't be on Dutch forums if you know more than the people trying to answer you and/or object to people consequently pretending that you are the stupid one; that they know more than you do and you should listen to them.

Sometimes just pointing out something is false can get you a lot of hate.

Then you have forums that combine messages and throw away unicode.

All in all there is just barely a place left for me. Well there is enough English places like Tom's Hardware, this site here, perhaps Johnny Guru, OC.net and so on, that are not plagued by moderators with a personal vendetta. The moment I want to talk to Dutch people it is not possible (to talk in the Dutch language).

I got banned by the moderators (of the community, at GoT) while the community manager (of the company) was apologizing to me.

Or maybe I asked for my account to be removed, which is basically the same thing when it comes down to it, whether I leave first or they force me to is pretty much the same in the end. Since their site also contains reviews, among other things, you are subsequently banned from all parts and all venues around their platform. Typically... I wanted to say they generally probably get away with it because they are a monopoly anyway. They probably generally get away with it. Typically on a Dutch-language forum (sometimes for the same product) you get in a fight much sooner than on the English equivalent.

Communities self-regulate but the tighter a community is (and Dutch communities are always small) the sooner a moderator will jump in and start to direct things. Causing the self-regulation to no longer take place and creating what I could call "deep wounds" among people. Authoritarian behaviour is generally detrimental to the overall health of a community.

At GoT I never had an issue with users. It was a moderator that started breaking me down because I didn't agree with him.

What is your opinion of the internet world at large? Has it deteriorated in recent times?

Or have I become picky or demanding?

edh
Posts: 1621
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:49 pm
Location: UK

Re: on internet forums

Post by edh » Sun Dec 04, 2016 5:33 am

Content on the Internet IS getting worse.

I also really hate how politics now seems to be being influenced more and more tribally online. This has been seen in the 'Post-truth politics' election of Donald Trump in the US and the Brexit vote in the UK. A lot of the misinformation is spread online through social networks and news outlets plugging populist messages.

The worst place to see this that I have seen is the BBC Have Your Say (HYS) system for commenting on news articles. It's split so strongly by those of very different view points:
1. Sandal wearing, carbon neutral, ethnically balanced, Corbyn voting, vegans: "Poverty... capitalism... poverty... the rich... poverty... the tories... poverty... stop the war... poverty..."
2. Age 45+, angry, ill-eduated, Farage loving, 1996 Rover 400 driving Daily Mail readers: "I'm not racist but I think we should round them all up and kick them all out because they all look the same and they smell funny. Then we should fill in the channel tunnel."

Something I also really hate is clickbait celebrity stories being passed off as news: "17 celebrities who are older than they look - Number 7 is shocking!"

Also the clickbait which uses edited photos: "Revealed: the worlds biggest aeroplane" - No it isn't it's a badly Photochopped A380 that you've just given about 17 floors! That doesn't exist and all you're going to take me to is a list of planes I am already aware of and another bunch of links to celebrities who are now fat, or celebrities who died young, or the shocking new teeth whitening treatment - Dentists HATE this one simple trick!

xen
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 243
Joined: Fri Dec 28, 2007 11:56 am
Location: NH, Netherlands

Re: on internet forums

Post by xen » Sun Dec 04, 2016 7:32 am

I agree on the clickbait thing.

Have you also noticed how sites like ZDNet have merged into a platform where the articles are now below each other on a scroll-through page.

But the comment sections have also been put there in-line and it is a horrid mess of a system that is practically unusable and they decimated their own community with this move.

But I think more appropriately as far as people go:

From my point of view at least:

- Facebook has never been a replacement for chat.
- Skype is just not a chat program.
- Google+ is not a platform pretty much anyone can use efficiently or for good purpose.
- Instant messenger clients have gone. And there is just nothing left.
- Whatsapp is not chat the way it used to be and you can't use it with anyone.
- Instagram is a nice platform but it is hard to use effectively for communication with anyone.
- Email just doesn't work in keeping the vibe going with anyone.
- Forums everywhere are tormented by politically correct moderators.
- Google filters hugely anything remotely resembling spam on YouTube, making good discussion impossible.
- Something like "Kik" is also not a replacement for a good instant messenger.
- I don't think anyone really uses Google Hangouts.
- Jabber never took off, is "open source complicated" and the "Trillian" that had an existence mostly based on MSN has also left the picture.

- Last time I used Disqus it would delete my previous messages if I entered a new one, keeping only the last.

I mean what is left here. This is a landscape of destruction and poverty.

- Badoo is a horrid mess of a dating site that just tries to earn money by keeping people away from each other and then charging $$$ to have them have a single view of the other, basically.

- Twoo is apparently a new service that follows the same model.

- Tagged/Hi5 I believe has also seen its hayday and OkCupid will ban you after a single complaint from anyone, no appeal, nothing possible.

- Quora is motived by politically correct answers that look good on it, so they will ban and moderate anything they deem bad for their image; no appeal possible, you don't even have to break the rules for it because they don't care about the rules, they will just use the rules for it because there is no independent insight anyway, no judge to check anything, they are in charge.

All of our platforms are run by companies that try to stay politically correct.

Or companies that are trying to sell a product and abuse a community for that; you, the people, are just livestock they need to fill their halls, but if the livestock doesn't behave it doesn't sell the product very well (or doesn't comply with the image).

Basically there is no free speech venue anywhere and not even on the street, as people have become so tensed up you better watch what you say.

Free speech is gone from the internet and communication channels have been closed down.

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