Will I be the next to be banned from this forum?

Moderation is a difficult job...

Originally Posted by dugan Clicking on their profiles: looks like they were both banned for ignoring mod directions. They'll be back if they want to be.

Yep. I received a warning for being off-topic. Initially that irritated me, but, I got over it. The guys will be back if they want to come back. They can approach the admin team and have a discussion.

Thanks for all these answers, especially to those kind enough to appreciate my contributions here. By the way the most recent one is here.

Please bear in mind when answering that neither a4z nor Darth Vader have the possibility to answer the negative comments about them.

PS Personally, in case I would be banned from a forum I wouldn't walk to Canossa.

Originally Posted by andrew.46 Moderation is a difficult job...

Indeed, but the trouble is, these days, the sweeping New Puritanism which sees non-moderators appoint themselves custodians of what is and isn't permissible. Moderators wielding the axe is perfectly understandable; johnny-come-lately non-moderators, who seem to despise anything and anybody not up to their own high standards, have absolutely no right whatsoever to dictate who stays and who goes. Nor does anyone have any right whatsoever to dismiss someone else's posts because his English is imperfect, and his racial and cultural differences stand out like a sore thumb.

It saddens me to read this, bad news, just bad news.

Originally Posted by khronosschoty I will miss Darth Vader, his humor, and his contributions; but I won't miss his treatment of Alien Bob.

What wrong did Darth Vader to alienBOB?

If you hint to Plasma 5 story, I do not seen him to criticize alienBOB's abilities to package that Plasma 5, but the software itself.

However, I doubt that Darth Vader was ever entitled on Slackware Project to deny the adoption of Plasma 5, then I guess that volkerdi himself thinks that Plasma 5 is not ready yet for Slackware.

Originally Posted by ZhaoLin1457 What wrong did Darth Vader to alienBOB? If you hint to Plasma 5 story, I do not seen him to criticized alienBOB's abilities to package that Plasma 5, but the software itself. However, I doubt that Darth Vader was ever entitled on Slackware to deny the adoption of Plasma 5, then I guess that volkerdi himself thinks that Plasma 5 is not ready yet for Slackware.

I don't know how to articulate what offended me, and, if I had realized this, I would have kept those thoughts to my self. If after I think about it a while, I gain the ability to articulate my thinking / feelings, I will let you know.

While I've had my share of disagreements with both a4z and Darth, the perma ban does come at a surprise, though it could be Jeremy trying to tighten the reigns more and keep civility. I'm no innocent myself, but I do have even my own views and principles on matters that have had to grow and develop over time, and maybe even soften a few views.

Whatever the case may be, Didier, I doubt you will be next unless you royally offend anyone, even a moderator in private chat. I think we can all agree that we should move onward to discussing more trivial things like the next batches of software updates, anything needed for SBo, new dependencies that need tracking, and anything that helps make Slackware more fun and easy to use for the newbies.

This place should be about education and discussion, not about squabbling, so lets bury the hatchet, agree to disgaree, and move on here to better topics.

Maybe us, who stay, should carry on the torch for those who went missing :

- keep an watchful eye on feature creep (it's real)
- be frank and open about issues regarding our Slackware - being either ignorant (so ask) or concerned (so warn)

So we get the best Slackware ever (again and again) in the years to come.

Cheers to our BDFL

(i hope those two come back improved)

Originally Posted by SCerovec Maybe us, who stay, should carry on the torch for those who went missing : - keep an watchful eye on feature creep (it's real) - be frank and open about issues regarding our Slackware - being either ignorant (so ask) or concerned (so warn) So we get the best Slackware ever (again and again) in the years to come. Cheers to our BDFL (i hope those two come back improved)

We should never forget about fallen soldiers, no matter where their from.

I was a bit surprised, yet not surprised. Both a4z and Darth Vader made some useful post some not so useful, never put them in my ignore list, in fact no one is on my ignore list. I found some of the back and forth somewhat amusing. I just leave it a that.

Being a moderator in such a huge forum is a very difficult job and i am sure i would do 100x worse job than them, so i don't want to judge the ban.

Regarding a4z's and Darth's (and others') behavior though, i think that they get a more harsh look than they deserve.

I have mentioned again in the past that there are some users here that despite visiting a forum, don't want to hear any discussion about changes in slack or criticism about slack. We see it all the time. Vocal users saying stuff like "if you want pam install ubuntu" and dismissing any discussion if they don't like the subject. Pam is just an example. It occurs about a lot of subjects.

Let's suppose i want to ask about something controversial. Of course, because i want something to change, i don't have the right to impose my will on Patrick and i will respect the fact he won't do it. But neither do others have the right to tell me to go away and "run something else". Besides the dev team, no one is more entitled to Slackware than anyone else. This dismissing behavior frustrates many people and i can understand if someone reacts badly to it and trolls more than he needs or becomes obnoxious. After some time, Darth got shot down no matter what he wrote, just because he was the one to write it.

Is it right or mature to behave the way they behaved ? Of course not. But i think i can understand them up to a point.

The question of OP is rather rhetoric...Just to remind us those folks...But as I understand they can still go back to the forum. It is up to them now to do what they have to do.

A couple comments:

* This has nothing to do with free speech. I'm a huge proponent of free speech. That said, as a site we've made clear LQ has a focus on being friendly and on-topic.
* It was requested *many* times of both members to stop very specific behavior that ran counter to that.
* Both members can contact me if they're interested in participating at LQ moving forward. Neither have.

It should be noted that this thread has nothing to do with Slackware itself. I'll leave it open for now for discussion; but swearing, personal attacks, etc. will have the same repercussions they do in all other threads.

--jeremy

I rarely, if ever, comment on moderation or bans.

But here goes...

Kudos to our host Jeremy, for doing a great job for our best benefit, by running LQ and upholding it's standards.

Moderation is a tough job.

Good moderation is a heart crushing job.

LQ mod team surpasses both for the better IMHO.

While I'm all for remembering our (misbehaving) palls, I can't but wonder if I wouldn't do the same as LQ mods did. And then thinking how LQ mod team saved me of that discomfort.

If one has to stay true to a goal, there might come a moment where he has to sever even what's grown to the heart or fail the set goal.

Our palls clashed their goals against the goals of LQ, LQ won. It would be worse for us all - if it where the opposite, our palls included.

I hope they can learn to become better from this, and so do we.

Again, bad news, sad day, tough call.

Don't seek the blame, seek ways to improve upon.

P.S.
i never asked anyone to become quieter, please bare this in mind.