Discussion of possible constitution for new TEA threads

[EEVblog]

Well its kind of beginning to look like people are getting fed of walking on eggshells all the time for fear of upsetting the natives here and people are remaining largely in their own camps and that is a real pity that there is not any more attempts at bridge building going to try to bury the hatchet and entice the founder members back. 

Seriously, what more do you expect me (or others) to do?
I've offered every option I can think of, and have even created a section when one of them asked.
If they don't want to come back, they don't want to come back. It's done.

As always on this forum, if you want those people to come back then you are going to have to do the work by coming back yourself and posting in TEA here and maybe they'll see the activity here and eventually they'll tip toe back? 

[tautech]

I wasn't clear enough.
Can it be done at the forum level?
I think I've not seen any Supporters Lounge activity anywhere.
Maybe new member could have a predefined set of excluded parts where for example TEA is ticked out.

Boards can be excluded from membership levels, but not threads AFAIK. That's how the Supporters section works.

I think reporting can also be limited to membership levels, but it's newbies that have been doing the reporting. Even some of the people who have left are amoung the ones who have reported things.

Under 5 posts newbies ? 
That doesn't seem right that someone with so little engagement here can cry WOLF to moderators and potentially cause mayhem.

Exactly when does a new member obtain the right to report other members actions that may have been here for years and made 100's if not 1000's of posts ?
From the day they join ?

[tggzzz]

Well its kind of beginning to look like people are getting fed of walking on eggshells all the time for fear of upsetting the natives here and people are remaining largely in their own camps and that is a real pity that there is not any more attempts at bridge building going to try to bury the hatchet and entice the founder members back. 

Seriously, what more do you expect me (or others) to do?
I've offered every option I can think of, and have even created a section when one of them asked.
If they don't want to come back, they don't want to come back. It's done.

As always on this forum, if you want those people to come back then you are going to have to do the work by coming back yourself and posting in TEA here and maybe they'll see the activity here and eventually they'll tip toe back? 

At the risk of misinterpreting someone else's opinions (which is too close to being a woke SJW!), I suspect (no more) that any issue might be to do with other participants welcoming people back.

Personally I concur with your attitude "If they don't want to come back, they don't want to come back. It's done."

[tggzzz]

I wasn't clear enough.
Can it be done at the forum level?
I think I've not seen any Supporters Lounge activity anywhere.
Maybe new member could have a predefined set of excluded parts where for example TEA is ticked out.

Boards can be excluded from membership levels, but not threads AFAIK. That's how the Supporters section works.

I think reporting can also be limited to membership levels, but it's newbies that have been doing the reporting. Even some of the people who have left are amoung the ones who have reported things.

Under 5 posts newbies ? 
That doesn't seem right that someone with so little engagement here can cry WOLF to moderators and potentially cause mayhem.

Exactly when does a new member obtain the right to report other members actions that may have been here for years and made 100's if not 1000's of posts ?
From the day they join ?

Reporting isn't the key issue. Acting on "troublemaking non-participant newbie's" reports is the problem.

It will always be difficult for moderators to find the right balance, especially "light touch" moderators. Mistakes (with 20:20 hindsight) will be made all round; life goes on. Time to move on.

[EEVblog]

I wasn't clear enough.
Can it be done at the forum level?
I think I've not seen any Supporters Lounge activity anywhere.
Maybe new member could have a predefined set of excluded parts where for example TEA is ticked out.

Boards can be excluded from membership levels, but not threads AFAIK. That's how the Supporters section works.

I think reporting can also be limited to membership levels, but it's newbies that have been doing the reporting. Even some of the people who have left are amoung the ones who have reported things.

Under 5 posts newbies ? 

Oops, sorry, meant to say NOT newbies.
And as I said, I do believe some of the reporters were high standing TEA members.

[Specmaster]

I wasn't clear enough.
Can it be done at the forum level?
I think I've not seen any Supporters Lounge activity anywhere.
Maybe new member could have a predefined set of excluded parts where for example TEA is ticked out.

Boards can be excluded from membership levels, but not threads AFAIK. That's how the Supporters section works.

I think reporting can also be limited to membership levels, but it's newbies that have been doing the reporting. Even some of the people who have left are amoung the ones who have reported things.

Under 5 posts newbies ? 

Oops, sorry, meant to say NOT newbies.
And as I said, I do believe some of the reporters were high standing TEA members.

I really can't help thinking that some of the reports may have been accidental, am I right in thinking that all it takes to flag something to a moderator is to click on the link in the bottom right of a post and the system sends a copy of the post along with details of who clicked on the link, and thats it, nothing further?

[EEVblog]

I suspect (no more) that any issue might be to do with other participants welcoming people back.

The current participants get no say in who comes back and posts in the thread. Just like those who left and felt like it was their "home" or some such had no say who started to post in there.
Heck, the departed participants could have even had their own appointed moderator to handle such things, but they don't want to take me up on the offer. Oh well.

Personally I concur with your attitude "If they don't want to come back, they don't want to come back. It's done."

It's not really an attitude, it's just an aparent fact. Like I have said countless times, everyone and anyone is welcome back any time if they so choose.

[EEVblog]

I really can't help thinking that some of the reports may have been accidental, am I right in thinking that all it takes to flag something to a moderator is to click on the link in the bottom right of a post and the system sends a copy of the post along with details of who clicked on the link, and thats it, nothing further?

There is a box to fill in details. Usually we get a message of some sort along with it, sometimes a complete tome.

[pcprogrammer]

I really can't help thinking that some of the reports may have been accidental, am I right in thinking that all it takes to flag something to a moderator is to click on the link in the bottom right of a post and the system sends a copy of the post along with details of who clicked on the link, and thats it, nothing further?

Along with the box to fill in some comments on why the report, you have to click a button again to send it in, so don't see it being accidental.

And I know this because I have made reports sometimes, but not on the TEA thread.

[AVGresponding]

Might be premature, but just to open a discussion on what should be included if the move is made from the Test Equipment section to here.

A benefit I see from a move to this separate section is that there can also be multiple threads to discuss problems in the main thread and with that keep the main thread free of to much disturbance. This also is less intrusive on the forum in its whole.

As an example the mentioning of the latest talk about "OrCAD" being off topic, could then be handled with a "take it outside" pup analogy.

What I mean with this is, that when a contributor, visitor or moderator of the main thread feels something should go in a separate thread or that something is so far off topic or in violation with the general rules that they create a separate thread to discuss this, and put a single post in the main thread to invite the parties concerned to join in this new thread. The bouncers way of take it outside please.

A moderator can do the same when alerted by someone that there is a problem. Only as a last resort the moderator can start removing posts that do not belong. They do have final say. This is important to allow it to work.

The same also applies to the separate discussion threads of course, because they too should not get out of hand.

First and foremost it should be the members of the "community" that uphold the rules and keep themselves in check. So don't get angry when someone expresses to be upset by a posting or where the main thread is wondering of to.

It all of course stand and falls with the users will and ability to abide to this "constitution" and not resort to taunting the authorities.

I really couldn't be arsed to read this whole thread, but since you mentioned my post about OrCAD I feel it's worth clarifying exactly what my position is, and why I made that specific point at that specific time.


As a relative newbie (2019) to TEA, but a daily reader/contributor, I found it easy to skip past the posts I wasn't interested in. Sometimes I found the stuff I wasn't interested in quite tedious, if it went on for more than a few posts, however, I never felt the urge to complain, either to Mods/Admin, or directly in the thread, since these things in my experience go in cycles, and at some point things would get interesting for me again, regardless.

I was dismayed at the (what I believed to be) heavy handed Moderation, and also at the (what I believed to be) over-reactions of some members. I was further disheartened to learn that there had been complaints to the Mod team by TEA regulars; I would rather have seen them voice their concerns publicly, and feel we could have self-moderated at that point.

As regards my comments about the OrCAD posts, this was after numerous members had been censored for posting things that were not really entirely off-topic, and that if such posts were not allowed, then neither should the OrCAD ones be, on the same basis. Without the context of the recent controversial Mod actions, I would have just scrolled past them as usual.


Moving forward, I see no reason why the standard "common sense" provisions shouldn't apply to the TEA thread if/when it is moved here. Since assumptions get one in trouble, I will state my opinion of what these should be: no politics, no religion, no weapons, no personal attacks.
I would also welcome the creation of a dedicated Mod team, which should include at least one long term TEA regular contributor, bitseeker himself (if he came back), and one of the EEVBlog regular Mods.

[pcprogrammer]

For as far as I can tell, there have been several attempts made to get the TEA thread back to what it used to be by some of the contributors, but the unwillingness of some drove it to the interference by the moderators.

That Vince reacted irritated to my action of moving the OrCAD topic to a new thread was unfortunate, and I must say, so was your response onto that. All very understandable in light of the recent events, but as several members wrote in the different discussions about all of this, I tried to lead by example. That is also why I did not reply to your reaction in the TEA thread.

Because for me it does not matter where a topic is being discussed and when it makes it easier for others to not have to skip what they don't like, it is little effort to make it happen.

The thread title containing "constitution" is, in hindsight, ill chosen and "rules of conduct" is probably more appropriate. And I feel it would be good to have a guideline as such, set as a sticky to remind people of how to behave to keep the forum a happy place for all.

[AVGresponding]

The thread title containing "constitution" is, in hindsight, ill chosen and "rules of conduct" is probably more appropriate. And I feel it would be good to have a guideline as such, set as a sticky to remind people of how to behave to keep the forum a happy place for all.

I suspect it might have to be made the page header for people to remember, and maybe not even then...   

[pcprogrammer]

Yes, that is true, because people do not bother to read such things

But it is good to have, to be able to point people towards it.

[Specmaster]

<snip>

I really couldn't be arsed to read this whole thread, but since you mentioned my post about OrCAD I feel it's worth clarifying exactly what my position is, and why I made that specific point at that specific time.

As a relative newbie (2019) to TEA, but a daily reader/contributor, I found it easy to skip past the posts I wasn't interested in. Sometimes I found the stuff I wasn't interested in quite tedious, if it went on for more than a few posts, however, I never felt the urge to complain, either to Mods/Admin, or directly in the thread, since these things in my experience go in cycles, and at some point things would get interesting for me again, regardless.

I was dismayed at the (what I believed to be) heavy handed Moderation, and also at the (what I believed to be) over-reactions of some members. I was further disheartened to learn that there had been complaints to the Mod team by TEA regulars; I would rather have seen them voice their concerns publicly, and feel we could have self-moderated at that point.

As regards my comments about the OrCAD posts, this was after numerous members had been censored for posting things that were not really entirely off-topic, and that if such posts were not allowed, then neither should the OrCAD ones be, on the same basis. Without the context of the recent controversial Mod actions, I would have just scrolled past them as usual.

Moving forward, I see no reason why the standard "common sense" provisions shouldn't apply to the TEA thread if/when it is moved here. Since assumptions get one in trouble, I will state my opinion of what these should be: no politics, no religion, no weapons, no personal attacks.
I would also welcome the creation of a dedicated Mod team, which should include at least one long term TEA regular contributor, bitseeker himself (if he came back), and one of the EEVBlog regular Mods.

Anders, you nailed it perfectly, although I admit to posting sometimes OT, it was not difficult to skip on until you do find something of interest. I even had problems finding anything interesting at times, but I kept the peace and respected others when they posted OT, even some of the suspected complainers have if they are honest with themselves sometimes posted OT.

When people felt that the OT posts were straying too much into the political or gun arena, they used to publicly post to that effect, and we would then self police, which just strengthens my feeling that the majority of complainers were not regulars, but relatively new to the thread and therefore not aware of the way we self policed following gentle prods from others. For instance, there were many occasions that there were pages of mainly RF discussions, nothing at all to do with TE, and certainly did not interest me at all, but I acted in an adult manner and moved on to the next post and so on. I was, like you, a regular visitor and would log on many times a day to see what was happening. I have friends on here and on groups.io, and I'm sad to see the amount of gloating happening here over the fact that some of the most prolific contributors are now with groups.io almost exclusively.