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I'm not sure why BD139 left outside of what they posted here.
Ultimately, BD139 and a handful of others left TEA (and the entire forum) because over "over-moderation" of that thread based on users reports. They didn't like posts being moderated in a thread I guess they considered their own little community space.
They were offered their own private space with their own appointed moderator, and still they didn't take up the offer though, they went and formed their own TEA forum.
Some returned, some didn't.QuoteI would actually be more interested in the root cause of technically contributing members being banned.
Usually it's because they refuse to stop doing something when given multiple warning.
Sometimes it's because of a personal interaction and attack of a moderator. You won't see any of that stuff.
I've had threats against me and my family. The forum has been attacked with scripts, had CP post on it, had the server shut down for false claims, etc. Some people just get really nasty when you try and tell them please don't continue to do something.QuoteSearching their history, they often appear to get caught up in one of these off-topic weaponized mod discussions. I suspect they post something that was bad enough for them to be permanently banned, and their post removed. Rare I see anything happen to the people who start these threads.
Why should the OP get pubished for starting a thread that then turns sour because of other users? "Incitement"? "Trolling"? The forum would die of over-moderation in short order.
Remember how BM139 and other top contributors left because of over-moderation?QuoteIf you create a thread similar TEA where anything goes, no one would be banned from posting their opinion, mods would not intervene unless there was illegal activity, I would support it.
You are in the minority. We have had polls on doing this multiple times over the years and the comunity response is always a majority, don't allow it.
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Being a small community "of blokes in a pub/restaurant", there has been no need for moderation - but that wouldn't scale. Just as companies have to change significantly above, say, 10 and 150 employees, so do other social groups.
I was the top poster in a small Australian canyoning group back when it was on Yahoo Groups. Completely unmoderated, no problem because it was only maybe 50-100 active people.
Then someone started a Facebook group under the same name when Yahoo groups was dying and it became huge, over 8k members.
Then the moderation and the bannings started, and several other groups spun up by people who were banned making it more "open". But even they eventually started to ban people too.
Even I as a founding member of the community was banned when I posted something innocent and dared question why it was deleted (because I hadn't posted in a few years and didn't know there was a rule not to question a moderator. That actually resulted in the head founder of the Facebook group (and a friend of mine no less) stepping down from the role, it just became too toxic.
So yes, things get harder at scale.
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Quote
I would actually be more interested in the root cause of technically contributing members being banned.
Usually it's because they refuse to stop doing something when given multiple warning.
Sometimes it's because of a personal interaction and attack of a moderator. You won't see any of that stuff.
I've had threats against me and my family. The forum has been attacked with scripts, had CP post on it, had the server shut down for false claims, etc. Some people just get really nasty when you try and tell them please don't continue to do something.
Seems like childish behavior. I thought you had turned over evidence at one point to an offenders local police. Maybe for the CP.Why should the OP get pubished for starting a thread that then turns sour because of other users? "Incitement"? "Trolling"? The forum would die of over-moderation in short order.
Remember how BM139 and other top contributors left because of over-moderation?...
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/why-is-hillary-clinton-above-the-law/
I'm sure the above thread was highly technical and started with only good intentions.QuoteIf you create a thread similar TEA where anything goes, no one would be banned from posting their opinion, mods would not intervene unless there was illegal activity, I would support it.
You are in the minority. We have had polls on doing this multiple times over the years and the comunity response is always a majority, don't allow it.
If my choices were to allow such non-topic threads to exist throughout the forum or in a designated area, I would choose a designated are. If I were asked if I would want such an area, and I thought that meant you were going to promote even more off-topic posts than already occur, then no way I would want it. A poll can be heavily biased by what is asked and how it is presented. Even then I may just not respond to the poll, adding more bias. Getting an accurate poll is difficult. -
Being a small community "of blokes in a pub/restaurant", there has been no need for moderation - but that wouldn't scale. Just as companies have to change significantly above, say, 10 and 150 employees, so do other social groups.
I was the top poster in a small Australian canyoning group back when it was on Yahoo Groups. Completely unmoderated, no problem because it was only maybe 50-100 active people.
Then someone started a Facebook group under the same name when Yahoo groups was dying and it became huge, over 8k members.
Then the moderation and the bannings started, and several other groups spun up by people who were banned making it more "open". But even they eventually started to ban people too.
Even I as a founding member of the community was banned when I posted something innocent and dared question why it was deleted (because I hadn't posted in a few years and didn't know there was a rule not to question a moderator. That actually resulted in the head founder of the Facebook group (and a friend of mine no less) stepping down from the role, it just became too toxic.
So yes, things get harder at scale.
Being on farcebook is never going to help.
Doubly so, now that Zukerberg has kissed the hand and stopped fact checking. Basing fact checking on the goodwill unpaid amateur members is guaranteed to lead to shadowy corporate/commercial/state interests overwhelming them. This forum can escape that fate because its denizens are nominally less credulous than "the man on the Clapham omnibus", and being small it is politically "lost in the noise".
Yes, politics can't always be avoided in a discussion of science and technology - because politicians always have and always will want to assert their dominance over science and technology. The cautionary tales from the past are infamous. -
...QuoteIf you create a thread similar TEA where anything goes, no one would be banned from posting their opinion, mods would not intervene unless there was illegal activity, I would support it.
You are in the minority. We have had polls on doing this multiple times over the years and the comunity response is always a majority, don't allow it.
A poll can be heavily biased by what is asked and how it is presented. Even then I may just not respond to the poll, adding more bias. Getting an accurate poll is difficult.
I ignore and avoid "click this button" polls for those reasons.
The community response referred to allowed subtle arguments and counterpoints. Hence the conclusion mentioned is valid. -
Seems like childish behavior. I thought you had turned over evidence at one point to an offenders local police. Maybe for the CP.
I did.QuoteI'm sure the above thread was highly technical and started with only good intentions.
I am not going to be drawn into a debate on a 9 year old thread. That OP has been banned BTW.
But I will say there are a ton of threads on here that I don't see, in fact, the vast majority of them. And if no one reports them, then moderators are never alerted.If my choices were to allow such non-topic threads to exist throughout the forum or in a designated area, I would choose a designated are. If I were asked if I would want such an area, and I thought that meant you were going to promote even more off-topic posts than already occur, then no way I would want it. A poll can be heavily biased by what is asked and how it is presented. Even then I may just not respond to the poll, adding more bias. Getting an accurate poll is difficult.
Yes, but it's been asked multiple times now and it's quite clear, the majority do not want a free-for-all section. That is also my experience my exerience with may forums, it ultimately kills them. -
Seems like childish behavior. I thought you had turned over evidence at one point to an offenders local police. Maybe for the CP.
I did.QuoteI'm sure the above thread was highly technical and started with only good intentions.
I am not going to be drawn into a debate on a 9 year old thread. That OP has been banned BTW.
But I will say there are a ton of threads on here that I don't see, in fact, the vast majority of them. And if no one reports them, then moderators are never alerted.
No debate. When you posted:Why should the OP get pubished for starting a thread that then turns sour because of other users? "Incitement"? "Trolling"? The forum would die of over-moderation in short order.
I suspect you are stuck on the TF thread and OP refers to the starter of that thread. My comments are much broader. The specific case was just what was recently linked in this thread as an example. IMO, banning the OP in that case would be justified but it sounds like you disagree.If my choices were to allow such non-topic threads to exist throughout the forum or in a designated area, I would choose a designated are. If I were asked if I would want such an area, and I thought that meant you were going to promote even more off-topic posts than already occur, then no way I would want it. A poll can be heavily biased by what is asked and how it is presented. Even then I may just not respond to the poll, adding more bias. Getting an accurate poll is difficult.
Yes, but it's been asked multiple times now and it's quite clear, the majority do not want a free-for-all section. That is also my experience my exerience with may forums, it ultimately kills them.
We have a free-for-all, sometimes, depending on your views, section now. It's the entire forum. Again, I tolerate it and it sounds like others don't see it as a problem. So carry on. -
I suspect you are stuck on the TF thread and OP refers to the starter of that thread. My comments are much broader. The specific case was just what was recently linked in this thread as an example. IMO, banning the OP in that case would be justified but it sounds like you disagree.
We don't ban people for just starting an off-topic thread, that would be stupid.
Do it enough times after you are told to stop and then yeah, we'll eventually ban you for being a nuisance, but otherwise, nope.
If it's a new thread and is completely off topic and political and it's had no or little replies, then it might just get deleted, but usually just it's just locked if it's had a lot of replies since a moderator gets to it.
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What happened in the Tea thread, did buying get too intense or something?
Something, something, something, a moderator deleted a post, all hell broke loose, something, something, something, were offered their own section and moderator but they declined, then a handful of regular people left and started their own TEA forum which only lasted a few months, some returned I think, and I think they are now on Discord.
Not "something something something", but some members weaponised the report button, as has been discussed. The initial moderator response was clumsy, and antagonised a number of members (including myself) rather than defusing the situation. Several posts were deleted, resulting in further antagonism. By the time the offer of a separate section was made, a number of major contributors had already left, and it was left to the few people such as myself with feet in both camps to try and negotiate, unfortunately to no avail.
teanonymous is still going strong; some threads there are invisible to non-members, so activity may appear less than actual. There is pretty much zero requirement for moderation of the rules (which are the same as the groups.io one, which is abandoned in favour of the Forumotion one), because such discussions happen (quite frequently) on the Discord channel instead, and often get very heated, resulting in people going off to calm down for a few days.
An important distinction you have missed is that there is no off-topic in the TEA thread there, because all topics are allowed (barring the aforementioned contentious ones), including the non-electronics but nevertheless interesting stuff that contributed to the TEApocalypse.
Being a small community "of blokes in a pub/restaurant", there has been no need for moderation - but that wouldn't scale. Just as companies have to change significantly above, say, 10 and 150 employees, so do other social groups.
I must get back to the discord group; it sounds ... entertaining. Maybe having a clear partition is beneficial.
If you'd seen some of the blowups on the Discord, you might change your mind on that...
Minor correction to my previous post; the teanonymous forum is on phpBB, not Forumotion, my bad. -
The idea that BD is a "cult figure" is laughable
If you had met BD, as some of us have, you would know he dislikes cults and fanbois. Hell, you don't even have to have met him, you just have to have read what he has posted; he has said as much earlier today!
I believe you. I was merely making a point how differently things like this come across depending on what you see. I probably missed the circles where he was a good contributor and a Generally Nice Guy. Thus, I remember him from complaining and personal attacks. Which is very sad I think, but really, he is the only one responsible for what he looks like to the outside world, how he represents himself.For obvious reasons he hasn't contributed much recently.
These reasons are not obvious at all. Obvious means something that is easy to understand and agree over. I truly have no idea why he would have stopped contributing, really. -
He certainly holds the distinction of having created the most posts per day here, whatever that's worth.
Which is interesting, because I don't remember seeing that many posts from him. I follow approx half of the subforums. I guess he posted actively only on a small subset of the forum, and specifically made a lot of replies in single threads. Now taking a quick glance at his posting history, the large post count is explained by mostly one-liners.Lower signal to noise = loss of interest.
Sure. Just that I'm not seeing any loss in SNR on this forum which made me wonder why could that be. But I'm also not seeing much of bd139. Put 1+1 together: Maybe the SNR really worsened within the sub-community where bd139 was active. And that's inherent to subsets: the smaller you go, the more variation there is going to be.
One of the reasons I like this forum is that so many sections of it are active and lively. That has an averaging effect. One section goes down, another one goes up. But if you are only interested e.g. in ham radio (or any other example like that), then the circles are going to be smaller, and effects of any other single peer larger. In that light, I also understand the comment of weaponized moderation better. On the "Microcontrollers" forum it doesn't matter because there are ~50-100 more or less active participants in those discussions. Make that a club of 10 (who all feel like friends to you) and the effect of one turning against you is much bigger, I guess. -
What happened in the Tea thread, did buying get too intense or something?
Something, something, something, a moderator deleted a post, all hell broke loose, something, something, something, were offered their own section and moderator but they declined, then a handful of regular people left and started their own TEA forum which only lasted a few months, some returned I think, and I think they are now on Discord.
Not "something something something", but some members weaponised the report button, as has been discussed. The initial moderator response was clumsy, and antagonised a number of members (including myself) rather than defusing the situation. Several posts were deleted, resulting in further antagonism. By the time the offer of a separate section was made, a number of major contributors had already left, and it was left to the few people such as myself with feet in both camps to try and negotiate, unfortunately to no avail.
teanonymous is still going strong; some threads there are invisible to non-members, so activity may appear less than actual. There is pretty much zero requirement for moderation of the rules (which are the same as the groups.io one, which is abandoned in favour of the Forumotion one), because such discussions happen (quite frequently) on the Discord channel instead, and often get very heated, resulting in people going off to calm down for a few days.
An important distinction you have missed is that there is no off-topic in the TEA thread there, because all topics are allowed (barring the aforementioned contentious ones), including the non-electronics but nevertheless interesting stuff that contributed to the TEApocalypse.
Being a small community "of blokes in a pub/restaurant", there has been no need for moderation - but that wouldn't scale. Just as companies have to change significantly above, say, 10 and 150 employees, so do other social groups.
I must get back to the discord group; it sounds ... entertaining. Maybe having a clear partition is beneficial.
If you'd seen some of the blowups on the Discord, you might change your mind on that...
Quite possibly; sounds like usenet
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That's merely your perception. The trouble is, there's no objective data, because it's subjective.Compared to 5 years ago we have now is endless tolerated troll threads and sick and disgusting behaviour by a lot of your forum members.
That isn't true. The forum has always had threads like that. You appear to have amnesia.
If you don't fix it, everyone leaves and you're left footing the bill with a corpus of assholes in an echo chamber.
When I say assholes, this is interchangeable with fascists in this particular thread.
I see "Be excellent to each other" as the tagline of the forum. I do not see people behaving that way.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/brexit-what-it-means-for-small-manufacturers/
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/covid-19-virus/
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/science-must-be-abolished-according-to-uct-students-as-it-is-racist/
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/ee-reverse-engineers-ahmed_s-clock/
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/why-is-hillary-clinton-above-the-law/
You are missing the point.
Yes, the forum has always had wingnut and extremist threads - but they used to be sufficiently infrequent and self-contained that they could easily be ignored. That's no longer true; they are more frequent and difficult to ignore. Starting about a year ago I have chosen to do something I find unpleasant: use the ineffective "ignore member" and "ignore thread" mechanism. That's an indication of deteriorata.
The frequent use of TLAs, phrases and concepts that are directly derived from political agenda doesn't help. Yes, they are not overtly political, but neither were phrases like "national comrade" and "living room". I've recently been introduced to a concept popularized by an anecdote shared by Michael B. Tager on Twitter in July 2020. The concept is beginning to feel apt, something I deeply regret [1]. For the avoidance of doubt, despite the admiration for Musk's actions I don't think that specific noun used is relevant. But the definition following "(Internet slang) A space in which..." really should give pause for thought.
[1] For a little background and discussion, see https://web.archive.org/web/20221221103518/https://god.dailydot.com/bartender-kicks-out-tweets/
I've noticed it goes in phases. Every the newest great thing happens in the news, it leaks over here and we get more off-topic threads: the Afghan war, Brexit, COVID, Donald Trump, Musk etc. I've also noticed they occasionally leaks into your posts, which seems strange, given you don't want to see such content here. -
I've noticed it goes in phases. Every the newest great thing happens in the news, it leaks over here and we get more off-topic threads: the Afghan war, Brexit, COVID, Donald Trump, Musk etc. I've also noticed they occasionally leaks into your posts, which seems strange, given you don't want to see such content here.
Yes, that's what I notice to. Major things happens and people naturally want to talk about it in a place they hang out every day. Like you'd talk about it at the water cooler at work.
I think we tried some sort of chat room plugin once where people could chat "live", but it didn't last long, can't remember why. -
That's merely your perception. The trouble is, there's no objective data, because it's subjective.Compared to 5 years ago we have now is endless tolerated troll threads and sick and disgusting behaviour by a lot of your forum members.
That isn't true. The forum has always had threads like that. You appear to have amnesia.
If you don't fix it, everyone leaves and you're left footing the bill with a corpus of assholes in an echo chamber.
When I say assholes, this is interchangeable with fascists in this particular thread.
I see "Be excellent to each other" as the tagline of the forum. I do not see people behaving that way.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/brexit-what-it-means-for-small-manufacturers/
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/covid-19-virus/
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/science-must-be-abolished-according-to-uct-students-as-it-is-racist/
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/ee-reverse-engineers-ahmed_s-clock/
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/why-is-hillary-clinton-above-the-law/
You are missing the point.
Yes, the forum has always had wingnut and extremist threads - but they used to be sufficiently infrequent and self-contained that they could easily be ignored. That's no longer true; they are more frequent and difficult to ignore. Starting about a year ago I have chosen to do something I find unpleasant: use the ineffective "ignore member" and "ignore thread" mechanism. That's an indication of deteriorata.
The frequent use of TLAs, phrases and concepts that are directly derived from political agenda doesn't help. Yes, they are not overtly political, but neither were phrases like "national comrade" and "living room". I've recently been introduced to a concept popularized by an anecdote shared by Michael B. Tager on Twitter in July 2020. The concept is beginning to feel apt, something I deeply regret [1]. For the avoidance of doubt, despite the admiration for Musk's actions I don't think that specific noun used is relevant. But the definition following "(Internet slang) A space in which..." really should give pause for thought.
[1] For a little background and discussion, see https://web.archive.org/web/20221221103518/https://god.dailydot.com/bartender-kicks-out-tweets/
It is not merely my perception. Contrariwise it is your "mere perspective" that is in error - and there's no evidence otherwise because that is subjective.QuoteI've noticed it goes in phases. Every the newest great thing happens in the news, it leaks over here and we get more off-topic threads: the Afghan war, Brexit, COVID, Donald Trump, Musk etc. I've also noticed they occasionally leaks into your posts, which seems strange, given you don't want to see such content here.
Due to the decreasing SNR I have (regrettably) started using the forum's relatively poor filter mechanisms to increase the visible SNR. The filter mechanisms often fail, unfortunately.
And that is objective. -
Quite possibly; sounds like usenet
Every few years out of curiosity I go back and check out the usenet forum I used to be a top poster in, and it's still the same half a dozen people bitching at each other 30 years later
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I've noticed it goes in phases. Every the newest great thing happens in the news, it leaks over here and we get more off-topic threads: the Afghan war, Brexit, COVID, Donald Trump, Musk etc. I've also noticed they occasionally leaks into your posts, which seems strange, given you don't want to see such content here.
Yes, that's what I notice to. Major things happens and people naturally want to talk about it in a place they hang out every day. Like you'd talk about it at the water cooler at work.
That's inevitable, especially where politics and technology intersect.
Classic current example is Madam President (according to his scientifically illiterate EO!) removing scientists and departments that have crossed her in the past, and neutering tech bros with the threat of breaking up their companies.
It is impossible to discuss such critical technical consequences without discussing the politics. Which should be ignored? The science/technology, or the politics?QuoteI think we tried some sort of chat room plugin once where people could chat "live", but it didn't last long, can't remember why.
Difficult to scale to being worldwide. -
Quite possibly; sounds like usenet
Every few years out of curiosity I go back and check out the usenet forum I used to be a top poster in, and it's still the same half a dozen people bitching at each other 30 years later
It has been like that for a while. Arguably it started with eternal september, another example of what happens with too much uncontrolled growth.
Nonetheless, there are still some extremely high quality contributors, and some of the technical discussions used to make this forum look like a kindergarten.
The poster child for that is Win Hill, together with several of the people he mentions in TAoE3. Win Hill even posted a link on s.e.d. to the PDF copy of TAoE3. It is still there
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Usually it's because they refuse to stop doing something when given multiple warning.
Internet and people are weird that way. Just to add another example to show what crap you may have to deal with as a maintainer / owner of a website: in the early 2000's I was involved in a website to lookup phone numbers for companies. The basic registration was free without any obligations and if people didn't like the registration, we removed it. Just like the good old yellow pages (for the youngsters reading along: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_pages ). Some people just got furious that we dared to list their company. Including one who actually send us death threads. You provide something to them for free and they want to kill you for it.
Sometimes it's because of a personal interaction and attack of a moderator. You won't see any of that stuff.
I've had threats against me and my family. The forum has been attacked with scripts, had CP post on it, had the server shut down for false claims, etc. Some people just get really nasty when you try and tell them please don't continue to do something.
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Internet and people are weird that way. Just to add another example to show what crap you may have to deal with as a maintainer / owner of a website: in the early 2000's I was involved in a website to lookup phone numbers for companies. The basic registration was free without any obligations and if people didn't like the registration, we removed it. Just like the good old yellow pages (for the youngsters reading along: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_pages ). Some people just got furious that we dared to list their company. Including one who actually send us death threads. You provide something to them for free and they want to kill you for it.
Sounds innocent, but there might have been some side you did not hear. For example here such services were trendy also in the early 2000's, and one of them was sending fake invoices (made to look like to be payments for something already agreed upon) to companies in large scales and surprisingly many companies accidentally paid. Police refused to investigate saying this is all legal and OK, until a few years later the guy ended up murdering and dismembering one of his partners in crime.
Many others did not go as far to send faked invoices, but were very aggressive in their marketing otherwise. It was typical to see your company appear in the index and then get called back in a threating tone that now you need to pay or else we will remove you from our super popular index.
So I fully understand the reaction of some people against businesses like that - even if yours was ran responsibly. -
I get that but we where in this business (and left) long before those schemes caught on.
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I suspect you are stuck on the TF thread and OP refers to the starter of that thread. My comments are much broader. The specific case was just what was recently linked in this thread as an example. IMO, banning the OP in that case would be justified but it sounds like you disagree.
We don't ban people for just starting an off-topic thread, that would be stupid.
Do it enough times after you are told to stop and then yeah, we'll eventually ban you for being a nuisance, but otherwise, nope.
If it's a new thread and is completely off topic and political and it's had no or little replies, then it might just get deleted, but usually just it's just locked if it's had a lot of replies since a moderator gets to it.
It is good to know everyone gets at least one free pass to create their own off-topic, toxic thread. A few past members tested the waters to see what constitutes enough times and it seems to be very generous.
Currently there are 5297 Guests, 270 Users. I typically use guest to see what is going with a quick slide to the bottom of the page to read recent posts. If that is filled with off-topic posts, I may not even notice that one golden nugget and I tend to stay away as I find nothing of interest. -
About SNR:
I went through 37 latest posts (attached) and only ONE ("Re: YouTube's new anti-adblocker measures") is political off-topic. Remaining 36 are all on-topic for this forum, and not only that, quite evenly spread across different fields: computing, repair, test equipment, analog/power electronic design. The "Re: How can we compete with China?" has potential of being political off-topic, but the messages I clicked are not - they discuss on-topic questions like sourcing of components.
Thus, my conclusion is that the current SNR of the forum is 36/37 = 97.3%. It is impossible that it was significantly better in the past, because it is close to 100% at the moment.
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Thus, my conclusion is that the current SNR of the forum is 36/37 = 97.3%. It is impossible that it was significantly better in the past, because it is close to 100% at the moment.
I'd concur, I rarely read or respond to a truly off-topic post and if anyone mentions our president I'm gone. Sometimes there are technical but not solely electronic things like aviation or cars, but even the heated discussions typically are about a completely on-topic issue, such as the recent debate over what constitutes an arc-flash.
Looking at my own last 20 posts, 11 are purely electronics, 6 are aviation related and 3 are discussion about the EEVBlog forum itself. Two of the non-electronic threads involved were started by EEVBlog so I'm presuming they're permissible topics. I'm just not seeing a problem. -
That's not too surprising. Once a toxic thread kicks off, the number of post increase dramatically. These threads seem very popular here.
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I'm suggesting that your sample size is insignificant for this site. You would also want to trend the data over the years. A lot of work but may be insightful.
Side note, I was running a search today for a past member that was banned. 2011 time frame. Lots of member on member (MOM) attacks. Business as usual.