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Fidonet Rules (2014)

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Re: Fidonet Rules (2014)

#31

Post by WaitWaitWha »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #9
lmm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, I'd say a self-evidently subjective policy like this one has a better chance of being enforced fairly than a legalistic code that usually ends up being twisted by whoever's in power to go after their political opponents.

I see this with my CTO coaching clients, I see quite a lot of values and policy documents. Often they have very long value documents no one reads or knows. Better have 5 bullet points everyone knows by heart.

This is probably the biggest downfall of policies - long, drawn out prattle about irrelevant topics with weasel words and irrelevant niceties. Distilling them into standards and procedures becomes a nightmare and constant fight.

Re: Fidonet Rules (2014)

#32

Post by AnimalMuppet »

bloomingeek wrote: post #5

We do understand humans are involved,right? This is the only chance for success. You can only forgive if you can manage the hurt. You won't be annoyed if you've already made up your mind not to be. (excepting children and loud noises, of course.)

The problem is with your second paragraph is that these days, being annoyed can be used as a weapon. So we're back at "humans are involved".

But I think, even more fundamental than people being annoying and being annoyed, some people are acting in bad faith. Some people are there, essentially, as agents - of a nation, or a political party, or a viewpoint. They are there to declaim, not to have a conversation. This is incredibly destructive to communities.

For a small community, I could see a moderator having the ability to ban users from the site, but also the ability to ban users from a thread. "On this topic, you're not acting in good faith, so you're done for this thread." It wouldn't scale to HN, of course - dang is busy enough as it is. (Of course, this presumes the moderator is acting in good faith. But if they aren't, the site turns into an echo chamber for the position the moderator supports, and the reasonable people go somewhere else.)

Re: Fidonet Rules (2014)

#33

Post by FridayNightTV »

boxed wrote: post #28

The "don't be easily annoyed" rule is increasingly needed. An acquaintance was recently attacked for saying "hey guys" on a Discord. Then when he pointed out the madness of it, he got banned.

> The "don't be easily annoyed" rule is increasingly needed.

Interestingly....

I recall a post on here where a bloke got very indignant about the innocent use of the term 'Chinaman'; something this Englishman (sharing an office with two Frenchmen, an Irishman and a Dane) found rather odd, especially considering the complainant was not Chinese themselves.

I think this was my introduction to the idea of the 'modern' internet user being far too easily offended (on somebody else's behalf to boot!), coupled with a modern desire to engage in culture wars and internet virtue signalling. This has certainly not lead to rational and healthy discourse.

Re: Fidonet Rules (2014)

#34

Post by Marazan »

boxed wrote: post #28

The "don't be easily annoyed" rule is increasingly needed. An acquaintance was recently attacked for saying "hey guys" on a Discord. Then when he pointed out the madness of it, he got banned.

So what you're saying is that he didn't take being corrected well and was easily annoyed.

Literally costs him nothing to adopt the culture of the Discord he wants to participate in yet still he was so easily annoyed he got banned.

Re: Fidonet Rules (2014)

#35

Post by myth_drannon »

dang wrote: post #2

Related. Others? Fidonet in 2023 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36097617 - May 2023 (8 comments) The History of Usenet and FidoNet - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23678687 - June 2020 (32 comments) History of Fidonet (1993) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21669570 - Nov 2019 (75 comments) Ask HN: Remember FidoNet? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12216932 - Aug 2016 (3 comments) Edit: this…

The big dummy's guide to Fidonet(1992) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37531198

Re: Fidonet Rules (2014)

#36

Post by hdidvdksj »

kimi wrote: post #14

The reason why I posted this, was that I find it kind-of interesting for the "culture wars" that plague public discourse - especially in the US, but with a global fall-out - where a number of topics are mis-used as either political maces (don't annoy others) or/and to claim a victim status (don't be easily annoyed), therefore making them radioactive for everybody else who does not want to engage in the game.

[dead]

Re: Fidonet Rules (2014)

#37

Post by giamma »

kimi wrote: post #26
giamma wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

80 bytes was the limit in Italy. At that time in Italy we did not have free local phone calls, every call would be billed based on its duration. Now imagine being a Fidonet sysop who on a volunteer basis was running a computer at home 24/7, often having a second phone line dedicated to the computer (at the time even more expensive) to make sure that your users would not clog your home landline making you unreachable…

2:331/113

2:333/300.15 (or 2:333/329.15)

Re: Fidonet Rules (2014)

#39

Post by mongol »

bawolff wrote: post #25

I always feel simplistic rules like these or like wikipedia's "don't be a dick" work well for small communities but never scale. The ambiguity is really code for "follow implicit unstated behavioral community norms". When a community is small enough and everyone knows each other, a consensus can develop over what is appropriate behaviour. Yes people will push boundries, and there will be disagreements over what is go…

But does the situation improve with a longer code of conduct though? I doubt it. What matters when the community gets larger is efforts of moderation.

Re: Fidonet Rules (2014)

#40

Post by sedatk »

WaitWaitWha wrote: post #30
sedatk wrote: post #3

Eh, it’s easy to put elegant and abstract rules in place, but it’s another beast to scale that rule consistently over all users of your platform. The ambiguity is just a cop out.

Your statement begs the question, what rules would you put forth for online communities in the same succinct way that also scaled?

You can’t have succint and unambiguous at the same time. You need to be as specific and elaborate as possible to avoid ambiguity.
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