Stimulating Prosocial Behavior

[refracta]

Just for the record...if anyone wants to stimulate my behavior I prefer a nice dinner first and a fine smoke afterwards....

...a new way to measure, wonder at, and of course pronounce...

I am waiting for one of those popularity/vote/rank thingys to show up on the board...just what we need....

[julian67]

Just for the record...if anyone wants to stimulate my behavior I prefer a nice dinner first and a fine smoke afterwards....

...a new way to measure, wonder at, and of course pronounce...

I am waiting for one of those popularity/vote/rank thingys to show up on the board...just what we need....

On a board I was a member of several years ago one very self satisfied person made a new thread "who on the board don't you like, and why?". I managed to make the first reply and explained to her that she was the person I liked least, one reason being posting crap like that, and other reasons as well, some of which I helpfully itemised......turns out this made her absolutely furious. Who'd have thought it?

[mdevour]

Greetings Joel,

@mdevour I think it is amazing that you took the time to respond as you did. It must have taken well over an hour.

Maybe 45 minutes, interspersed with other activities.

Given the tone of your reaction, I have to ask if you actually read my entire message? Or are you only responding to my opening remarks?

I think the community here recognized the need for more indepth assistance to beginners and was motivated to create the "Beginners Questions" forum. Oswaldkelso and absentminded are to be commended for their excellent how-to's We also have a "How To" forum that has been around for a long time. The existence of these forums indicates that for the most part the OP's assumptions are flawed.

I also acknowledge the existence of these resources in my post, and site their continued development as a virtue.

How exactly would you define the OP's thesis, such that you can say it is flawed?

My attempt: He seems to think too many posts are unanswered, that this represents a symptom of a systemic problem, and attributes this to both structural aspects of the forum software and to a somehow inadequate attitude among the members, perhaps exemplified by RickH's Real Debian User thread. He proposes two forum software changes that he believes would address these issues.

Would you say it differently?

Beginners helping beginners as is prevalent on the Ubuntu forum is a dangerous practice. I follow the Ubuntu forum frequently and am amazed at the amount of bad information given out there.

A viewpoint that I credit in my post.

The mantra on this forum is "Self Help" Refracta said it best when he said (paraphrase)"asking a question here should be the last resort, after you have done your own research." There are so many times I read a question and in an instant can find thousands of google hits that adddress the issue. People learn more, learn qucker, learn in more depth, when they research for themselves than they do having the answers spoon-fed to them.

Having such a mantra is a fine thing. It is our choices of behavior when that expectation is not being met which determines the quality of experience for the people who we are alleged to be "helping" and to what extent we serve or harm the project as a whole.

This forum is populated by volunteers. We all have other lives besides reading this forum. Most of us are willing to share our knowledge with anyone at any level of expertise. But we are not here all the time and when we are we don't always have experience with the problem at hand.

Agreed on all points.

However, being volunteers does not absolve us of an obligation to behave well and give our best.

I am offended, as many of our collegues will be, that the OP has taken such a sarcastic and condenscending atitude while he generalizes and puts us all into neat little pidgeon holes.

I can think of several instances within the last couple of weeks where people seeking help have been offended by the attitude or behavior of members of this forum and they and a few onlookers have expressed their dissatisfaction with this.

Predictably, no matter how carefully or sincerely these criticisms have been expressed, the almost universal response has been to dismiss such outbursts as the result of the critics' character flaws and pigeonhole them as whiners, leaches, or other undeserving types. Absent in almost all of this is even the briefest consideration that such reactions from people might be justified, or that we could do anything differently to achieve better results.

Again I say "almost," because there have been one or two instances of people considering these criticisms in a constructive way and reflecting on their own behavior.

So the OP's is yet another response to a perceived attitude around here.

In my post I do respond to his suggestions, and quite fairly, I believe. I also anticipate what has begun to seem an inevitable, reflexive response of some people on this board to the slightest hint of criticism.

Yes, the vast majority of the time our members behave well and give generous and good help which is usually willingly accepted and appreciated. The difficulty is in the marginal cases where the simple fact that we are not asked to be polite all the time, at least in dealing with people we don't know well, enables destructive behaviors that detract from the good things we accomplish.

To be helpful. If we can agree on even this as a minimal objective for our community as a whole, we can individually measure our own specific actions against that standard. Then, perhaps, saying things about the people we're trying to help that are likely to insult them can be recognized as "not helping" and thus not useful, desirable, or wise.

But that is my concern, whereas scraze is addressing what he sees as a too-high incidence of unanswered questions in the forum. In either case, it seems easier to deny that there's a problem than address and possibly solve it.

Mike D.

[julian67]

ooh look a pronouncement!

[nadir]

Perhaps those righteous members who routinely dredge this subject up from the muddy depths can please do us all a favour and let it settle back into the murky recesses of their minds where it rightfully belongs? As an aside, how do such fine and kindly people so often and so easily form such low opinions of their peers? Would that be a conundrum?

wow, what a language... i had to say that.

[nadir]

someone else is also thinking of the Widow Douglas, trying to "sivilize", when the subject comes up again?

1815+ , 1900+ , 1950+, is the time up again?
seems so...gimme a shelter.

[refracta]

I could expect the public to act how I want them to act and when they didn't I could run around proclaiming that THEY have a problem.

I think I would be delusional (and more than a little scary) if I could make myself believe that though....scary...

[Bulkley]

The nature of all this typing in a box as a form of communication is fraught with opportunities for misunderstanding. One can comfortably say things face-to-face that don't work in print. Smart retorts can work when the recipient can see your smile but can backfire when he/she can't and only assumes that you are being rude. The little smilies help, but are insufficient. Most of us are not polished authors; we are simply folks who try. Most of the time we succeed but not always. Frequently, we succeed brilliantly; sometimes the rough edges show through.

[jheaton5]

@mdevour you are certainly entitled to your opinion, which is not mine. I stand by my original statement.

[refracta]

I can think of several instances within the last couple of weeks where people seeking help have been offended by the attitude or behavior of members of this forum and they and a few onlookers have expressed their dissatisfaction with this.

Yes, I get the feeling you specifically PM these people and ask something totally neutral regarding the situation like....

On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being rude and 10 being overly obnoxious) how would you rate refractas behavior?

[mdevour]

Yes, I get the feeling you specifically PM these people and ask something totally neutral regarding the situation like....

On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being rude and 10 being overly obnoxious) how would you rate refractas behavior?

Oh no's! You've revealed my nefarious plotz!

You mentioned in a recent post that you're being a little "nicer." I've noticed. Though you're doubtless not doing it to please me, thanks.

Mike D.

[Pick2]

While I don't agree with the OP , siding more with the follow up posters ...
What I DO think would help matters is if "We Regulars" tried to keep most of our humorous comments in Offtopic , and possibly Forum stuff & feedback
It is not easy , I'm trying it myself , but a more serious attitude in the small "Help" section we maintain would alleviate most of what the OP is ranting about.

just my 4 cents worth ( 4 cents is minimum for an elitist Debianite )

[julian67]

While I don't agree with the OP , siding more with the follow up posters ...
What I DO think would help matters is if "We Regulars" tried to keep most of our humorous comments in Offtopic , and possibly Forum stuff & feedback
It is not easy , I'm trying it myself , but a more serious attitude in the small "Help" section we maintain would alleviate most of what the OP is ranting about.

just my 4 cents worth ( 4 cents is minimum for an elitist Debianite )

Can you please remove that final sentence, it's hardly genteel.

I think the long term solution to all this might be for those people who feel that they exist in an elevated state of piety (and find the rest of us to be coarse, wearisome and inadequate) to form an alternative forum, perhaps the Debian Forums for the Sensitive, the Gracious and the Good. Alternatively they could quit preaching the same old same old sermon and instead get to work answering those zero reply posts that they blame everyone else for not answering. Gosh! Another conundrum! Suddenly a sense of deja vu comes over me, and not for the first time.

[jheaton5]

They could be the 'Good' and we could be the 'Bad' and the 'Ugly'

[refracta]

well....I'm too pretty to be ugly so I will just have to be the bad...

I was going to say that jheaton would be the ugly and I would be the bad but since I am being nice I won't say that. oops...

[refracta]

Maybe they could split the forum and have a nice area and a mean area.......that would be interesting......

[jheaton5]

well....I'm too pretty to be ugly so I will just have to be the bad...

I was going to say that jheaton would be the ugly and I would be the bad but since I am being nice I won't say that. oops...

Well, what can I say? My Avitar is proof that you are correct.

[llivv]

'

[saulgoode]

I would submit my own proposal for "stimulating prosocial behavior" on these forums. Unlike the position presented in this thread's original post, my observation has been that the vast majority of issues raised in these forums are promptly addressed with suggestions and discussions which quickly result in resolution of the matter. While the OP suggests that it is the unanswered posts which fall by the wayside, I would contend that it is the promptly resolved threads which are most often unrecognized as they quickly fall out of the domain of "recent posts".

There are exceptions to this, and indeed some questions do receive little attention, though I would disagree with the reasoning provided for this being so. My observance is that issues which are most unlikely to receive attention or attain resolution fall into one of the following categories:

• Involve proprietary applications or modules
  Involve Free Software applications or modules which strive to implement proprietary protocols or formats
  Involve specialized circumstances for which particular knowledge is not generally available

Addressing the last of these first, while unfortunate that not every field of interest is fully and expertly represented by the membership of this forum, it also should not be construed as "anti-social" for a member to lack expertise in a particular area. As to whether it is more helpful to express ignorance on a subject, or to say nothing in hopes that others with more familiarity should come along, I can only judge the matter a personal opinion and thus not to be considered "anti-social" in either instance. (For what it's worth, I consider these forums to behave quite admirably in responding to this category of issues.)

The first two categories, which both involve non-Free elements of software or hardware, to my mind constitute the vast majority of unresolved issues on these forums (as well as those of most distros). They may properly be considered a special case of the last category -- with the special condition that it is by design that the knowledge of the forum membership (and the public at large) is limited and unavailable -- but they also inhere an overarching element of their own "stimulating anti-social behavior" such that even those members of the forum who are knowledgeable of the issue should be vindicated for not wishing to promote the anti-social efforts of these self-proclaimed high priests of the information cargo cult. There is a reason these proprietary components have issues which the Free Software community doesn't completely resolve: the companies behind them want you to rely upon them to provide the answers.

Admittedly, not everyone in the Free Software community (and certainly not those who consider themselves members of the Open Source community) fully accepts the "proprietary is anti-social" argument as presented in the GNU Manifesto a quarter-century ago; but the fact is that most of those most technically qualified to resolve issues with GNU/Linux DO ascribe to this viewpoint. GNU/Linux was created, and continues to be developed, by those who want to provide an alternative to such proprietary software, and it should not be in the least surprising that those most intimately familiar with the design and operation of a Free operating system are not especially motivated to assist in improving the functionality of non-Free components on that system.

It should be expected that the Debian Project, given its foundation in the Free Software movement and its community-based governance structure, even more so than any other GNU/Linux distro, has a majority of contributors who have a basal concern for the "pro-social" aspects of the Free Software philosophy. And it should not be surprising that such contributors are disinclined to investigate proprietary solutions, or to suborn the anti-social behavior inherent to such proprietary endeavors.

So based upon my observances and the above characterization of the problem, I propose that in order to "stimulate prosocial behavior" within these forums, there be a separate subforum created in which should reside all postings addressing issues with anti-social, proprietary software (NVidia, Skype, Adobe Flash player, etc) and with otherwise free software implementations of anti-social, proprietary protocols and formats (NDISwrapper, WINE, Samba, etc). While this will in no way increase the likelihood of these particular issues being addressed, it should help to establish the message that the reason they are not being addressed is owing to the anti-social behavior of those who have created the proprietary incumbrances.

I submit my proposition under no prejudice either for or against those who would or would not respond to posts of others. I generally reluct to comment on the posting behavior of others and should not be so presumptuous as to wish to direct the administration of these forums. I mainly offer my proposal as a contrast to the proposals offered in the original post and to share my view as to the potential causes of any perceived deficiencies in the help provided in these forums.

[refracta]

I was just about to say the exact same thing