Forums turn into complicated communities
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I'm real pissed of since more and more IT software/hardware product forums are more oriented to badges, statuses, active people and friends than to simple ask and reply.
Two my current examples - oracle forums and informatica forums.
There is significantly easier to find on both who is new who is on trend who is active, but if you want to find your post or forum or reply or anything related to your problem/question you must tear this mess to find magic button. I'm sick of this knowing that several years back it was simpler.I just want to know is anybody replied to my question, I don't want friends or read news from popular people.
I know anybody can say "This is about building community" it is most effective and cheap way to hold customer and to not ruin company budget by pumping support guys" (I can go to support guys directy of course :-)).
But is it relay necessary to overkill primary purpose of product forums by additional fireworks?
I have impression that all of them try to be facebook. Personally not using fb maybe there s problem ? But who of you can really participate in several communities, I mean commitment no just click likes ?
This drives directly to schizophrenia !Why stackoverflow can by friendly and question driven why both infa and oracle forums not ?
P.S. I think stackoverflow is on that way too. You can hate me.
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@laki said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
Why stackoverflow can by friendly
If you think stackoverflow is friendly, I suspect you may be
But seriously, yeah, a lot of these IT sites are heading towards gamification. Probably because people like games so the site owners think, "Hey, let's make the site a game to drive up membership and activity and page views". And then the original purpose is lost.
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@Fox said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
@laki said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
Why stackoverflow can by friendly
If you think stackoverflow is friendly, I suspect you may be
In fact it's far from it but comparing to other 2, i can say with pure heart that stackoverflow is more Q/A driven than oracle or infa.
In other words "I can fin something there quicker"
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@Fox said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
If you think stackoverflow is friendly, I suspect you may be
In their defense, Stack Overflow Passive Aggression™ can be quite entertaining to read.
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@Groaner True.
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My GPS software (waze) wants me to add my friends to it. That doesn't even make sense.
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@groo apparently this is a big thing for apps in East Asia. They grow to encompass a billion features. For example, Line is a chat app that has built-in games, a facebook-like social wall, a payment method of some sort, an online storefront for digital stuff, and who knows what else.
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That's far away from chat app :-)
Ok let they to put this but please allow me to disable, even google allows to disable chat (this is bad example :-))
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@laki So basically, you want instant access to the forum members' time and expertise, but don't want to even pretend to be their friend, not even in the watered down online variety.
What's that person's award for helping you out? Certainly not money. Since you're planning to disappear once you get what you want, it's not like they can expect to ever get anything back out of you (not even a funny comment or an ego-boosting "like"). You're basically relying on people's natural tendency to help total strangers. And that's pretty far down on the totem poll of human motivations, dude.
There's a good reason traditional forums are disappearing. They are terrible.
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Sincerely you missed the point, it is about unnecessary stuff that kills usability, not about people. It starts not from "i want reply from someone" it starts from "where the hell is my subject".
- awards are good,
- encouraging people to help is good,
But digging out things that should be primary function of IT software forum is wrong way.
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@laki Your argument would be stronger if you posted some screenshots, so we know what we are talking about.
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@cartman82 said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
screenshots
Or links. We can then make the screenshots, print them out, and take photographs of them on a wooden table ourselves.
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@dkf said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
and them on a wooden table
Do what to them on a wooden table?
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@dkf said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
@cartman82 said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
screenshots
Or links. We can then make the screenshots, print them out, and them on a wooden table ourselves.
That's a great to do!
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@Maciejasjmj said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
@dkf said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
and them on a wooden table
Do what to them on a wooden table?
Coffee was still trying to get through to synapses, apparently. Though taking pictures can definitely still be
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@dkf said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
pictures
yeah ... store them in that folder ...
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@bb36e said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
@groo apparently this is a big thing for apps in East Asia. They grow to encompass a billion features. For example, Line is a chat app that has built-in games, a facebook-like social wall, a payment method of some sort, an online storefront for digital stuff, and who knows what else.
It all begins from the theory that "people keep using something because their friends are also using it" caught attention...
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@laki said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
Sincerely you missed the point, it is about unnecessary stuff that kills usability, not about people. It starts not from "i want reply from someone" it starts from "where the hell is my subject".
- awards are good,
- encouraging people to help is good,
But digging out things that should be primary function of IT software forum is wrong way.
Btw, the BBS I goes to lacks these thing, and people still keep answering question there.
If people going to a forum are good people, they'll know that when today you're weak and you got help from the forum, when you become strong one day, you should come back and help other people.
This is the only way to keep positive atmosphere of forum from dying.
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@Luhmann said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
@dkf said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
pictures
yeah ... store them in that folder ...
Do you have folder named "joystick driver" on your harddisk?
(This neta comes from old joke in another forum)
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@laki said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
oracle forums
Holy crap, I just looked at https://community.oracle.com/welcome for the first time. Now I need a few beers for lunch and I blame you.
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@laki said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
oracle forums
When you're done with them, you can browse our own Oracle forums instead.
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@laki said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
Why stackoverflow can by friendly and question driven
wait... so IS FRIENDLY?!
when did this change?!
it's been a terrible resource for me ever since...... well ever since Jeff Atwood took control of the product really.....
everyone palying the reputation game meaning that the simple questions are answered almost immediately, nuanced answers trying to get eh qquestion asker to realize that they are asking the wrong question are downvoted or removed as nonconstructive and a deluge of "just do this" answers are presented instead.
and it's even worse when asking more esoteric questions, particularly ones that have no clear answer. if you're lucky the question never gets answered, if your unlucky someone with an epeen from here to the moon that managed to get enough epeen points to gain moderator powers removes your question and sends you a sternly worded thinly veiled threat to cut it out with the non epeen stroking questions. and if you bring this users behavior to the admins of the site as an abuse of power sort of thing YOU GET BANNED! presumably your ban is for daring to complain about an autopromoted moderator's abuse of power they were unprepared to wield and thus weild it with an iron fist, and the admins for rasins unknown to us normal plebians back that sort of behavior up.
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@accalia Large sites shouldn't need moderators, they could remove things after a number of flags.
I love the moderation used in slashdot. No fixed moderators, and unless you browse at -1, you won't see any abuse.
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@accalia said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
it's been a terrible resource for me ever since...... well ever since Jeff Atwood took control of the product really.....
It got a bit better once they parted ways. There's still some retardedness about, but mostly not. The major problems are in the very large tag areas such as
c#
andjava
, where people are just saying any old stupid thing, but there's plenty of more specialist parts that are doing just fine.
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@bb36e Facebook also has literally all of those features now.
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@accalia said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
it's been a terrible resource for me ever since...... well ever since Jeff Atwood took control of the product really.....
He founded it, then they kicked him out. It went his way even after he left.
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@Magus said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
He founded it,
yep. he did
@Magus said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
then they kicked him out.
good. now if they can just kick the culture he engendered to the curb.
@Magus said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
It went his way even after he left.
yeah... it's amazing what a powerful reality distortion field can do.... worse than a nuke it is.
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As a member of a Pool Team and Model Aircraft club these things happen anyway.
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@accalia It's actually interesting to me that his way of doing things is exactly the same as mob-rule.
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@Magus said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
@accalia It's actually interesting to me that his way of doing things is exactly the same as mob-rule.
he would describe it differently, but yes, it is exactly that.
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@accalia said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
it's been a terrible resource for me ever since...... well ever since Jeff Atwood took control of the product really.....
Atwood founded SO, then left after a few years to start Discourse. These days, he has nothing to do with SO policy, AFAIK.
Remember "those good old days"? Those were during Atwood reign.
Of course, the real reason those days are gone isn't some anti or pro Atwood policy shift. It's the sheer volume of traffic. Millions and millions of lazy, poorly worded questions flooding into the site 24/7. The small commune atmosphere from the early days had to go.
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@asdf said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
I just looked at
Should have known better than to do that!
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@accalia StackOverflow is a perfect example of everything wrong with gamification.
So is Wikipedia, but the internetpointzzz on Wikipedia is "number of edits" and that's not very visible.
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@cartman82 said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
Of course, the real reason those days are gone isn't some anti or pro Atwood policy shift. It's the sheer volume of traffic. Millions and millions of lazy, poorly worded questions flooding into the site 24/7. The small commune atmosphere from the early days had to go.
Even from DAY ONE they limited their membership to the kind of assholes who think OpenID is a really good idea. And let me make it clear: if you think OpenID is a good idea, you are a jackass.
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@blakeyrat said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
And let me make it clear: if you think OpenID is a good idea, you are a jackass.
That's a strange line in the sand to draw, even for you.
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@cartman82 If someone came up to you and said, "to log in to this website, you have to first go to an entirely DIFFERENT website and log into it, then copy a URL (not a username) from that website into this website, then when you hit login you see that DIFFERENT website and not this website" the only correct response is to punch them in the face.
Someone telling you that method is better than just using a username and password, you should curb-stomp them.
Yet that's exactly what OpenID is. At least when StackOverflow required it.
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@blakeyrat said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
@cartman82 If someone came up to you and said, "to log in to this website, you have to first go to an entirely DIFFERENT website and log into it, then copy a URL (not a username) from that website into this website, then when you hit login you see that DIFFERENT website and not this website" the only correct response is to punch them in the face.
If someone tells you "to log into this website, you have to first go to an entirely DIFFERENT website and log into it, then create an email account there, then copy the email (not a username) from that website into this website" the only correct response is to tell them whatever. Because violence is never the answer.
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@cartman82 said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
Because violence is never the answer.
No, I'm sorry.
Is it the one and only correct answer to, "hey, let's force our website's users to use OpenID to log in!"
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@cartman82 said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
Remember "those good old days"?
No.
@cartman82 said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
Of course, the real reason those days are gone isn't some anti or pro Atwood policy shift. It's the sheer volume of traffic. Millions and millions of lazy, poorly worded questions flooding into the site 24/7. The small commune atmosphere from the early days had to go.
What we're saying is that @wood, now, acts exactly the same as the mass-will of SO. He always acts in such a way that his decisions are impossible to tell apart from decisions made by the tyranny of the majority.
It's kind of incredible, really.
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@blakeyrat said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
@cartman82 If someone came up to you and said, "to log in to this website, you have to first go to an entirely DIFFERENT website and log into it, then copy a URL (not a username) from that website into this website, then when you hit login you see that DIFFERENT website and not this website" the only correct response is to punch them in the face.
Someone telling you that method is better than just using a username and password, you should curb-stomp them.
Yet that's exactly what OpenID is. At least when StackOverflow required it.
Are you describing what OpenID does (did?) literally to end users or how it works under the covers? If you're describing how it works literally, that's crap. If you're describing the backend (to the end user) mechanism, I don't see the problem. It sounds like other federated login type things I've seen.
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@blakeyrat said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
Someone telling you that method is better than just using a username and password, you should curb-stomp them.
Yet another username and password for me to manage? Fuck you.
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@another_sam What killed the concept of OpenID is the same that killed jabber as an IM protocol. No big corporation is interested in a protocol that they can't control to their benefit, so they push their own thing, and the network effect takes care of the rest.
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@groo said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
What killed the concept of OpenID is the same that killed jabber as an IM protocol.
The fact that its usability was utter confusing trash was certainly a contributing factor.
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@another_sam said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
@blakeyrat said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
Someone telling you that method is better than just using a username and password, you should curb-stomp them.
Yet another username and password for me to manage? Fuck you.
Get a password manager. If you get a good one, you can even stop using memorable passwords and just have them randomly generated for you. Some will even let you set reminders to change your passwords! Then you only need to remember your device logins, and your password manager login.
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@blakeyrat said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
The fact that its usability was utter confusing trash was certainly a contributing factor.
It works the same way as "Log in with Facebook" and "Log in with Google", except that everybody already has a Facebook and Google account.
Everybody except me.
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@accalia said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
nuanced answers trying to get eh qquestion asker to realize that they are asking the wrong question are downvoted or removed as nonconstructive and a deluge of "just do this" answers are presented instead.
And good bloody riddance! There's nothing worse than asking a simple question, and instead receiving a ten-page tirade on why what I'm doing is wrong, why my whole project is wrong, and why I should just scrap it and start over using the principles of a random StackOverflow answerer.
Sometimes it's true that things could be improved,and it helps. Most of the time, there are either good reasons why things are the way they are and the asker simply didn't expect to have to defend his architecture when asking a simple "how do I 2+2" question, or the proposed solution are outlandishly expensive in terms of effort (no, I'm not rewriting a ten-years-old legacy project to use fucking jQuery, you do it if you feel so strongly about it, otherwise you're not helping at all).
Remember that question about cheaply migrating users off Linux, where the most upvoted answer was "use Linux"? In real life, that guy would probably miss out on any company party invitations in the best case. In SO world, he's instead having his hands kissed for solving problems the asker doesn't have.
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Is there a slow echo in here? You're starting to sound like me with the password manager thing.
@abarker said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
Get a password manager.
I recommend KeepAss.
@abarker said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
Then you only need to remember your device logins, and your password manager login.
I recommend Diceware for generating strong passphrases, suitable for credential stores like a password manager.
But there are at least
twothree real points you're missing:- If you think you're the only A. Barker in the world you're nuts. Having to choose a globally unique username for a service that's available to all 7 billion people on the planet (more or less) is retarded. That's how I ended up with @another_sam here instead of @sam, my Ingress name is SamSam and my World of Tanks name is SamSamSamSamSam (please don't stalk me). I couldn't get a Waze name of the same form because I hit the username length limit before finding one that wasn't used, and I have the same problem on many other services. I don't even know if there are 7 billion unique usernames under the Waze username limit.
- Even with a password manager, single sign on is way more convenient than mulitple passwords.
- If I don't ever hand over my password to a service, that service can never compromise my password.
I'm sure there's more, but the short story is that decentralised authentication is awesome.
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@another_sam said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
It works the same way as "Log in with Facebook" and "Log in with Google",
It does now after like 57,372 improvements to the original broken-ass busted version.
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@blakeyrat said in Forums turn into complicated communities:
It does now after like 57,372 improvements to the original broken-ass busted version.
That's kinda how pioneering works.
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@another_sam Oh right the open source philosophy, serve your customers something REALLY FUCKING SHITTY because FUCK YOUR USERS also because maybe in 5 years it won't be quite as shitty.