The future of the Trolleybus Garage
-
@izzion said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
a null-value post
Post throwing ArgumentNullException
-
@acrow said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
Is that not the case?
No idea. I'm not even sure that there are two people on Earth that agree on the meaning of those categories...
-
You mentioned that the Garage will be invite-only and subject to training. Are current Garage members subject to that as well, or are they grandfathered in?
I ask because I don't think that I would meet the definition of "regular member". I mostly lurk and rarely post, though I've been a member here for quite a while.
-
@DogsB said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
@remi said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
I don't want to start naming names because this will turn into personal attacks
I for one am not afraid to name names. The first person I want to call out is @Karla for her abuse of commas. Oxford commas have no place in any kind of discussion.
On a more serious note why not remove upvotes too?
You can take my Oxford comma out of my cold, dead, hands.
-
@Karla said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
my cold, dead, hands.
for baiting other people into making death threats 
-
@The_Quiet_One said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
In short I interpret your announcement as you having the impression the garage is a place where actors are role-playing as trolls, but in my experience it is a little more OOC than that.
Well it's hard to articulate, but actors often say role playing is being in the moment, with real emotions, and real feelings. The hard core method actors say they are "acting" in between scenes and they are really the character on set.
So yes, it is a place where "actors are role playing", but that doesn't necessarily mean it's not real. At the end of the day, mechanics are all software developers(ish) who enjoy being part of a quasi-anonymous online community and sometimes enjoy uncivilized political discussion with other members. And actors are just paid money to entertain us... even those hard core method guys admit to that at some point.
-
@izzion I don't think there's a way to show who downvoted, but if there was then it could make it more interesting in the Garage
-
@apapadimoulis said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
@izzion I don't think there's a way to show who downvoted, but if there was then it could make it more interesting in the Garage
There is, we hacked it to always show as @boomzilla.
The change could probably be adjusted to not apply to new votes in the Garage, should there be a desire to do so.
-
@apapadimoulis said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
@izzion I don't think there's a way to show who downvoted, but if there was then it could make it more interesting in the Garage
NodeBB's default behavior is (as of a year or two ago? not sure how long) to show who downvoted. When that behavior change was implemented upstream, there was a lot of concern here about previously hidden information becoming suddenly public with no opt-in/opt-out, and the consensus was reached to write a customization that "anonymized" downvotes by making them all appear as @boomzilla (except I believe certain staff categories receive the list of real downvoters and see them).
I'm not sure if the customization was written flexibly enough to be able to be disabled for one specific category, or if it's an all or nothing proposition.
-
@Anguirel said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
You mentioned that the Garage will be invite-only and subject to training. Are current Garage members subject to that as well, or are they grandfathered in?
I ask because I don't think that I would meet the definition of "regular member". I mostly lurk and rarely post, though I've been a member here for quite a while.If you're already familiar with what the garage is, which I would presume all mechanics are, then I don't think training is necessary.
But it's really hard to describe the category to newbies (it took months of lurking for me to finally understand), so the training is kind of a "best of" / "worst of", introduction to the megatopics, all that.
-
My 2.56 cents--
The Garage is where I've learned the most about anything non-directly-technical (for direct technical questions, the Coding Help portion has been wonderful). I'd say that most of the "vitriol" is caused by a few specific, very...dedicated...people. Others throw bombs occasionally, but it's mostly play-acting.
My own posts are 90% serious and non-serious trolling is explicitly marked.
I try to only use downvotes as a way of signaling that
- the comment was way beyond the pale
- and that further discussion would be a waste of time or would make me get personally involved.
Basically, I downvote and move on when I'm tempted to actually get personally involved and someone said something egregiously malicious. Not wrong, but flat out malice filled IMO. Losing downvotes is, IMO, a negative because it encourages responding, even when that would be a bad idea (to avoid personal emotional involvement).
I think the thing that causes the issues is getting personally attached to a concept. So that attacks (or even questions or pushback or disagreement) is taken as personal attacks. I've been called evil for stating that I had particular beliefs even though I said that others can disagree and I'm fine with that. Because I "wanted to erase the people" or something like that. The Garage should be a place for uninhibited, rough-and-tumble discussion of just about any topic, trolling or not. Just minus the usual enforced veneer of civility of gen pop. Where someone can say "wait...that doesn't make any kind of sense" about more sensitive topics.
-
@izzion said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
NodeBB's default behavior is (as of a year or two ago? not sure how long) to show who downvoted.
Not exactly:
As you can see, we have votes set to public. And as mentioned, we have a customization that turns all downvoters into me (unless you're an admin and maybe a mod).
-
@boomzilla
You haven't disproven that "All Votes Are Public" isn't the current default
But 5 minutes of Google searching isn't enough for me to prove it is, and I'm too
to chase it further,
-
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
@acrow said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
@dfdub said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
@remi said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
On a more serious note why not remove upvotes too?
I actually just (a few seconds ago) kind of alluded to that possibility in another post in the other meta thread. I'm not really defending the idea, but maybe it's actually worth discussing...
Not sure how much sense it makes in the garage, but the only way I could see the Salon actually working is if all kinds of votes were removed there. Votes encourage you to write something witty for the audience instead of something meaningful and on-topic.
Seconded. Leaving a downvote is kind of like disagreeing without explaining why. Like a hiss from the audience. In a debate, it is problematic. Upvotes are a form of ovation. again, not useful for debate.
Eh.
In the Garage, my interpretation of upvotes on my own posts is generally, "I appreciated that joke." Everyone could make their own post just saying "I appreciated that joke," but that wouldn't add anything to the conversation. So I say leave that button.
The downvote button, on the other hand, I generally interpret as "I disagree with you." Since I already know who in the Garage agrees with me and disagrees with me, that button doesn't add any value.
(Note that my own upvoting behavior does not 100% match with this definition.)
For non-Garage/Salon topics, I think both buttons are important. Consider a post that's borderline Garagey that's posted in General and gets a lot of downvotes and a couple flags for Jeffing. Probably more likely to actually get Jeffed than a borderline post that doesn't have the downvotes, right?
I've never actually downvoted solely because I disagreed. I use it to indicate that I think the post has an extreme lack of good faith.
But I rarely do so, so I should not be the barometer.
-
@dkf said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
@loopback0 said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
@remi said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
Basically the difference between a law and law case -- and crucially the latter relies on a judge (or jury) which isn't the same as the law-maker, so a lot will depend on that as well.
Can we setup a Garage Jury?
A Garage Kangaroo Jury?
I, for one, welcome our kangaroo overlords.
-
@boomzilla said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
@izzion said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
NodeBB's default behavior is (as of a year or two ago? not sure how long) to show who downvoted.
Not exactly:
As you can see, we have votes set to public. And as mentioned, we have a customization that turns all downvoters into me (unless you're an admin and maybe a mod).
Is that configurable per user. I would probably downvote more often if it wasn't anonymous.
You know who you are and you know why.
-
@Benjamin-Hall said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
I'd say that most of the "vitriol" is caused by a few specific, very...dedicated...people.
I think the thing that causes the issues is getting personally attached to a concept. So that attacks (or even questions or pushback or disagreement) is taken as personal attacks. I've been called evil for stating that I had particular beliefs even though I said that others can disagree and I'm fine with that. Because I "wanted to erase the people" or something like that. The Garage should be a place for uninhibited, rough-and-tumble discussion of just about any topic, trolling or not. Just minus the usual enforced veneer of civility of gen pop. Where someone can say "wait...that doesn't make any kind of sense" about more sensitive topics.
This description to me sounds like an atmosphere where it's fine (intentional hyperbole following) to say "yeah, we should gas all the Jews", but it isn't fine to call the person saying that "evil", because he's just expressing his opinion and only the latter is a personal attack.
Which might just be the atmosphere people want.
-
@DogsB said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
Is that configurable per user. I would probably downvote more often if it wasn't anonymous.
Because it wouldn't be funny to downvote over Oxford commas if the vote is anonymous?
-
@topspin said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
@DogsB said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
Is that configurable per user. I would probably downvote more often if it wasn't anonymous.
Because it wouldn't be funny to downvote over Oxford commas if the vote is anonymous?
Or people posting dog pics in the cat topic.
-
@DogsB said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
@topspin said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
@DogsB said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
Is that configurable per user. I would probably downvote more often if it wasn't anonymous.
Because it wouldn't be funny to downvote over Oxford commas if the vote is anonymous?
Or people posting dog pics in the cat topic.
Heresy!
-
@DogsB said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
Is that configurable per user. I would probably downvote more often if it wasn't anonymous.
No, that's for the whole site.
-
@DogsB said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
@topspin said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
@DogsB said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
Is that configurable per user. I would probably downvote more often if it wasn't anonymous.
Because it wouldn't be funny to downvote over Oxford commas if the vote is anonymous?
Or people posting dog pics in the cat topic.
They're just trying to improve the topic.
-
@topspin said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
@Benjamin-Hall said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
I'd say that most of the "vitriol" is caused by a few specific, very...dedicated...people.
I think the thing that causes the issues is getting personally attached to a concept. So that attacks (or even questions or pushback or disagreement) is taken as personal attacks. I've been called evil for stating that I had particular beliefs even though I said that others can disagree and I'm fine with that. Because I "wanted to erase the people" or something like that. The Garage should be a place for uninhibited, rough-and-tumble discussion of just about any topic, trolling or not. Just minus the usual enforced veneer of civility of gen pop. Where someone can say "wait...that doesn't make any kind of sense" about more sensitive topics.
This description to me sounds like an atmosphere where it's fine (intentional hyperbole following) to say "yeah, we should gas all the Jews", but it isn't fine to call the person saying that "evil", because he's just expressing his opinion and only the latter is a personal attack.
Which might just be the atmosphere people want.I think there was miscommunication here. The statement I described was in a dedicated Salon post dedicated (by me, as the OP) to discussing my beliefs on a topic <X> because people had asked about them. And then, once I explained my beliefs, they said that anyone who had those beliefs or anything like them (anything that disagreed with their belief about <X>, in particular) was beyond redemption and wanted to commit genocide against them. I was flat out called a wanna-be murderer for stating acceptance of a belief that's held by a large segment of many societies. Even after carefully stating that this was my personal idea about what's best, but that I didn't want any kind of enforcement and in fact that I would be opposed to any such enforcement action. Basically, the interlocutor acted as if anyone who believed that <X is wrong as a moral matter and people shouldn't X> also wanted to murder anyone who believed <X> as part of their identity. After specifically asking me to explain my beliefs about <X>, knowing that I believed in <not doing X>. That's not grounds for discussion, if the only allowed belief is (being hyperbolic a bit, but only a bit) "yes, you're perfect and everything you say is right". That's veto power given to the most easily offended. Which kills any kind of discussion about anything, because the set of things people can get offended about is unbounded.
You should be able to say "that's an evil idea" without problems. That's not a personal attack at all. All discussions about ideas should (in the Garage) be available. Personal attacks in the garage are just noise-generators. I think it would be best if everyone simply were able to downvote and move on when tempted to make such. Because the back and forth name-calling is just tiresome and provides no entertainment even.
-
@Karla said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
I've never actually downvoted solely because I disagreed.
My objection to downvotes comes when you see patterns that can only be interpreted as downvoting the person, not the posts themselves. Once someone starts doing that, they've broken whatever basic implied compact of good faith there is.
-
I'm a bit concerned with how much @apapadimoulis 's definition of the Garage involves trolling. Or we're using different definitions. If somebody calls somebody or an idea stupid, I generally don't think they're trolling. They are likely using hyperbole, which isn't necessarily trolling. Trolling, being an asshole, being passionate, being angry, thinking somebody is wrong, etc., are not synonyms.
An example of another forum where I would say there is that much, if not more, trolling and trollish playacting is the r/wallstreetbets subreddit.
-
@mikehurley said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
I'm a bit concerned with how much @apapadimoulis 's definition of the Garage involves trolling. Or we're using different definitions. If somebody calls somebody or an idea stupid, I generally don't think they're trolling. They are likely using hyperbole, which isn't necessarily trolling. Trolling, being an asshole, being passionate, being angry, thinking somebody is wrong, etc., are not synonyms.
An example of another forum where I would say there is that much, if not more, trolling and trollish playacting is the r/wallstreetbets subreddit.
Edit: The last sentence should have read "...if not more, trolling and trollish playacting implied in the description of the Garage..."
-
@mikehurley said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
I'm a bit concerned with how much @apapadimoulis 's definition of the Garage involves trolling.
I'd like to signal-boost this.
Sure, there's a fair amount of trolling that goes on in the Garage. That's why it's the Trolleybus Garage. However, my impression is that most of it lies squarely in the "ha, ha, only serious" variety. And that's a Good Thing.
-
@marczellm said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
@acrow said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
Is that not the case?
No idea. I'm not even sure that there are two people on Earth that agree on the meaning of those categories...
I was going to disagree with you. I was going to quote the Wikipedia on Conservatism and Liberalism. Then I read the first paragraph of both articles. I disagreed with both.
Apparently you're right.
-
@GOG said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
@mikehurley said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
I'm a bit concerned with how much @apapadimoulis 's definition of the Garage involves trolling.
I'd like to signal-boost this.
Sure, there's a fair amount of trolling that goes on in the Garage. That's why it's the Trolleybus Garage. However, my impression is that most of it lies squarely in the "ha, ha, only serious" variety. And that's a Good Thing.
I'd like to think that at least some of my posts have value (beyond being superbly witty and trollish) and I have gained new perspective on issues.
I do devolve into fully shit-posting when it is obvious that nothing I write is actually being considered.
-
@acrow :D
-
@apapadimoulis said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
The Trolleybus Garage was an interesting place for me to learn about.
The first impression was that the garage was this terrible, awful, no good, rotten place, and that the Internet would be a better
place without it. While I'm sure many members (especially Trolleybus Mechanics) would violently agree with that assessment, there is a bit more depth than that.Once you get past the nostalgia, the lore of "garaging" flamewars, the politics, etc., it's actually a pretty decent outlet to have fun with politically sensitive or incorrect topics. The garage is a place to lampoon the never-ending stream of insane news, torch strawmen with over-the-top flames, spew opinion like the talking heads on cable news, and otherwise act in ways that might ostracize you amongst coworkers, friends, or family. All, with the normal pendantry and sarcasm we've come to expect on the forums.
It might be important to remember (if you're not already aware) that the Garage was mostly an accident of history that started off as a stopgap measure because much of the community was getting tired of certain members spewing drama outside of the relevant thread, and across the whole forums.
What we have had up to this point is the organic progression of that idea.
I've written up what I've come to learn The Trolleybus Garage so that new members can understand it, and I've codified some of the guidelines nearly everyone have been almost always going by. I've also made two administrative changes: no more downvoting, and membership to the Trolleybus Mechanics group is actually invite-only now, which I thought it was before.
I like that idea, as challenging the forum status quo and/or zeitgeist is frequently a reliable way to collect downvotes. Removing some of the friction from that process may encourage people to do so more often. I myself have gotten pretty tired of exerting effort, as I could probably count on one hand the number of times I've swayed someone's opinion in the seven years I've been here.
Controlled access is probably also a wise decision, although I don't think it's as critical as, say, for the Lounge.
- When members put on the Trolleybus Mechanic, it often acts as a caricature on top of their existing forums persona. How mechanics express themselves in the garage is often a performance art of sorts, not unlike how real internet trolls behave, just not so anonymously. It's only a place for regulars, after all.
I'm not entirely convinced it's all exaggerated. It takes a lot more energy to pretend to be a blowhard with such precision and consistency than just being one naturally. Admittedly, being a blowhard can be fun at times.
-
@acrow said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
@marczellm @apapadimoulis Another question. And, now, this might sound like trolling, but please bear in mind that I'm not from U.S., so this is actually an honest question.
So, "SJW" is a negatively loaded term. But, I've been using it to refer to refer to proponents of the idea of social justice. Continuing to refer to them that way would be in bad taste, obviously. But saying "proponents of social justice" is long-winded. And, since it is part of the politics of the day, the political viewpoint does come up every now and then. Therefore my question is: Is there a non-negatively-loaded shorthand and/or moniker for this movement? Because it's not a political party, and thus does not have an official name, as far as I know.
You could go for "social justice advocates," which doesn't yet carry stigma, and SJWs seem to be more about virtue signaling than actual advocacy, because advocacy implies the intent of getting things done.
-
@topspin said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
In regular threads outside the garage there’s two ways to get a downvote:
You’ve crossed a line, e.g. wrote something that doesn’t belong in this discussion and would at best be moved to the garage.
You disagreed with MasonThat second one is more common than the first.
I'd like to see a rule about no cowardly downvoting, no downvoting without telling why. I would even be okay with the reason why being "Because I have daddy issues" or "because I cannot handle anyone disagreeing with me because of a moral superiority complex" as long as the dissenter is honest about it.
-
@DogsB said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
Oxford commas have no place in any kind of discussion.
That almost got you a downvote!
-
@apapadimoulis said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
If you'd actually like to discuss a topic, then I would love to moderate a discussion to help establish some guidelines. My rough idea is that it's not about debating (i.e. performances for an audience or scoring points), or even trying to persuade someone else.
It would be pretty entertaining if we had actual moderated debates between users, and a separate
thread (like we had for Mafia) for the peanut gallery. The users in the debate can't see the thread until the thread closes, and only they can participate in the discussion/argument/debate.- users/cliques can't "pile on" to a discussion, "gang up" on a user, or otherwise snipe
- users can express their reactions without influencing, derailing, or deflecting the discussion
- rules can be decided per-thread (from "no-holds barred" to "civilized salon")
-
@dkf said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
My objection to downvotes comes when you see patterns that can only be interpreted as downvoting the person, not the posts themselves.
Or when a person starts downvoting everyone else because they're pissed that nobody wants to take their side. Do I even have to mention the user name?
-
@Karla said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
You can take my Oxford comma out of my cold, dead, hands.
-
Does anyone else find it odd that a crisis precipitated by one admin's abuse of power, which could have been (and was!) adequately solved by getting rid of that one admin, has now in multiple cases resulted in the loss of privileges of ordinary users?
-
@Mason_Wheeler I'm assuming you're talking about Ben. I don't think Ben was acting alone, or even representing himself, but rather a group of (mostly former) anonymous users who felt threatened by the opinions expressed by other users.
I think Alex wants to defuse some of the hostility in our community. Ben's actions were a symptom, not the cause.
Filed under: NB4 blue sus
-
@Mason_Wheeler said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
Does anyone else find it odd that a crisis precipitated by one admin's abuse of power, which could have been (and was!) adequately solved by getting rid of that one admin, has now in multiple cases resulted in the loss of privileges of ordinary users?
Other than "There's no more downvoting in the Garage," have any ordinary users actually lost privileges? Because nothing is coming to mind.
-
@GuyWhoKilledBear The big obvious one is that we've lost access to a responsive mod team. Not exactly a "privilege" in the traditional sense, perhaps, but definitely a diminution of the quality of the user experience.
-
@Mason_Wheeler said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
The big obvious one is that we've lost access to a responsive mod team.
The whole Alex as the sole dictactor shebang is only temporary, and I'm sure the others could probably act without Alex's approval if something genuinely urgent cropped up.
-
@Polygeekery said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
I would even be okay with the reason why being ...
I see what you did there.
-
@error said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
@Mason_Wheeler I'm assuming you're talking about Ben. I don't think Ben was acting alone, or even representing himself, but rather a group of (mostly former) anonymous users who felt threatened by the opinions expressed by other users.
I think Alex wants to defuse some of the hostility in our community. Ben's actions were a symptom, not the cause.
Since we’re talking about votes, I want to concur with more than a simple upvote.
Ben’s actions were arbitrary, excessive and uncalled for (see group badge), but not born from a single event. It rather seemed like, for him, it was the straw that broke the camel‘s back.
I’m not sure I agree with how the garage is portrayed here either by @apapadimoulis or its most regular mechanics, and I don’t know if I’m alone with that or if some less active mechanics seeing it differently but not commenting just make it look like there’s a mostly uniform opinion.
But then, maybe that doesn’t matter, as long as the more active mechanics can actually agree to their set of rules.
-
@topspin said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
But then, maybe that doesn’t matter, as long as the more active mechanics can actually agree to their set of rules.
It seems we've got a decent consensus of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"...
-
@topspin said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
I’m not sure I agree with how the garage is portrayed here either by @apapadimoulis or its most regular mechanics
I don't think it's spot on, but it doesn't seem like Alex is trying to fundamentally change the Garage either so it seems like it doesn't matter
-
@loopback0 No more downvotes, and making it invite-only rather than opt-in, don't feel like fundamental changes to you?
-
@Mason_Wheeler said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
@loopback0 No more downvotes, and making it invite-only rather than opt-in, don't feel like fundamental changes to you?
Not particularly, despite my initial whining about the removal of downvotes.
-
@Mason_Wheeler said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
@loopback0 No more downvotes, and making it invite-only rather than opt-in, don't feel like fundamental changes to you?
Is it invite only? My understanding was that people will request Garage access and then be given the test, not that non-Mechanics would deem people worthy and tap them on the shoulder like it's the Illuminati or something.
-
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
@Mason_Wheeler said in The future of the Trolleybus Garage:
@loopback0 No more downvotes, and making it invite-only rather than opt-in, don't feel like fundamental changes to you?
Is it invite only? My understanding was that people will request Garage access and then be given the test, not that non-Mechanics would deem people worthy and tap them on the shoulder like it's the Illuminati or something.
My interpretation was that someone would request access and be manually approved by a dictactor/admin/moderator like the Lounge. How the group is setup (complete with Join Group button) with seems to confirm that.
