I propose "GOOD INTENTIONS/Repository of Proposals about Ideal Forum" forum

[Guennadiy VANIN]

I propose to create a forum that would serve as repository of ALL ideas about (ideal?) forum, in order to avoid loosing any of them.
I am convinced that it will permit to save a lot of time and misunderstandings by all enthusiasts/foreigners by preventing to propose very frequently what already has been before (though, of course, would not prevent completely)
I propose to make such forum for non-moderators only. This would assure idealistic and theoretical nature of this initiative by preventing anybody to go to any direct implementations

[Cindy Glass]

But we are not in the "forum creating" business. JavaRanch does not exist to try to create the perfect forum.
There IS such a place at InfoPop. That is the proper place for such recommendations and conversations.
We just use the tools that we have to try to provide a place for Java folks to talk about JAVA.

[Thomas Paul]

I'm not sure what you are saying. We need a new forum so we don't lose information? Why? what's wrong with the other forums? And why should only non-moderators be permitted to post?

[Ashok Mash]

I think all he wants is a 'FAQ'!

[Cindy Glass]

Originally posted by Ashok Krishnan:
I think all he wants is a 'FAQ'!

OH! I didn't read it that way. < sigh > We actually have several of those. What kind of FAQ would this be?
You know Guennadiy - I am a JavaRanch user also. That is my main reason for being here. Why should I be left out just because I use the forum more that most folks do

[Marilyn de Queiroz]

Originally posted by Guennadiy VANIN:
I propose to create a forum that would serve as repository of ALL ideas about (ideal?) forum, in order to avoid loosing any of them.

Do you mean suggested improvements to the Saloon? I think that is the function of this "Javaranch" forum. <pre>This forum is intended for questions and comments about this web site, www.javaranch.com</pre> (This includes saloon.javaranch.com). I have to admit, though, that those suggestions for improvement are mixed with other comments/posts.

I am convinced that it will permit to save a lot of time and misunderstandings by all enthusiasts/foreigners by preventing to propose very frequently what already has been before (though, of course, would not prevent completely)

It seems to me that most people do not read very much before presenting suggestions.

I propose to make such forum for non-moderators only. This would assure idealistic and theoretical nature of this initiative by preventing anybody to go to any direct implementations

Aside from the difficulty/impossibility of excluding moderators/sheriffs from any forum, I wonder about the wisdom of such a move.

Also, all moderators/sheriffs (with the exception of Paul Wheaton) were non-moderators before they were moderators, and all sheriffs were moderators before they were sheriffs.

Every moderator/sheriff became what they are because they unselfishly and voluntarily donated a great deal of time and effort to making Javaranch the very best place on the internet to discuss Java. All of the moderators are volunteers who came to Javaranch, appreciated the community here and wanted to contribute to its upkeep and improvement. No moderator/sheriff gets paid to moderate/administrate as may be the case on some other sites.

[Jim Yingst]

It doesn't sound to me like Guennadii is talking about an FAQ at all.
If (very hypothetically) we were to create a forum where moderators could not post, why would we then have any interest in paying any attention to it? I'm not going to read a forum where I'm not welcome. And if the moderators don't read it, there's no chance that any of the suggested improvements will ever be implemented.
Also, calling a forum "Good Intentions" is hardly going to make it easy for other people to understand what the forum is for, and to find that forum if they have a post that should go there. Perhaps something like "Suggested Forum Improvements" would be better.
But wait - we already have a forum like that. As Marilyn notes, the "JavaRanch" forum sounds like the closest thing to what Guennadii is talking about. We won't delete posts from this forum (the JavaRanch topic within the Big Moose Saloon) except in extreme cases - e.g. offensive language or linking to web sites which promote copyright violation, for example. I know that this has not always been the case here, and some past posts were deleted for other reasons. Let's not repeat past arguments about that - but we've decided that this forum must by its nature be open to posts from any javaranch user. That doesn't mean we'll necessarily act on every post here - or even respond, in some cases - but the posts will still be preserved. And discussed if people find them worthwhile.
Note that off-topic posts will be closed and moved to the appropriate forum, as usual.
[ January 23, 2003: Message edited by: Jim Yingst ]

[Thomas Paul]

Jim, I'm not aware of any posts that were deleted. Some threads were closed but that was the limit.

[Jim Yingst]

Sorry Tom; guess I misremembered or misunderstood. Anyway, on to the future...

[Ashok Mash]

Originally posted by Guennadiy VANIN:
I am convinced that it will permit to save a lot of time and misunderstandings by all enthusiasts/foreigners by [QI]preventing to propose very frequently what already has been before[/QI] (though, of course, would not prevent completely)
..

that part- thats when I thought he is talking about FAQs! That was wild guess!!
Ashok.
PS: I think he is using some language translation tools (Google? Babelfish?)

[Guennadiy VANIN]

Originally posted by Cindy Glass:
What kind of FAQ would this be?

I would like to see the "rules" (for ex., the time period of postings to compete for giveaways) that, I dunno why is known but persistently not fixed/written.
Also some general FAQ would have been comfortable to have "at hand" or stick over all JR pages. But it was already proposed and being done. THEN what I would like to see is the progress page. It is democratic, gives the feeling that you may join and you shared all secrets of your loveable creature.
JR has such FAQ, but when I read it (after searching for it) I have the strong impression that it mislead me more than helps. For ex.,

From
JR FAQ, on cookies
Cookies
This bulletin board uses cookies to store the following information: the last time you logged in, your login identification, and your preferred "topic view." These cookies are stored on your browser. Cookies are not used to track your movement or perform any function other than to enhance your use of the message board. If your browser does not support cookies, or you have not enabled cookies on your browser, many of these time-saving features will not work properly and you will not be able to post new messages.

"What is 'preferred topic view'? How may I use it?Isn't it should be enforced by the warning of the password saved in plain text in cookie on client side?" amongst other questions just about this one paragraph.
But this FAQ is rather about UBB site and not about Javaranch.
There are other, rather misleading, paragraphs, that are better to be deleted/edited: about censored words (are they used?), ratings, buddy list.

[Marilyn de Queiroz]

I would like to see the "rules" (for ex., the time period of postings to compete for giveaways) that, I dunno why is known but persistently not fixed/written.

Book Giveaway Information Page

"What is 'preferred topic view'? How may I use it?

At the top of each forum page under the "Post New Topic" button and the links to my_profile | register | search | faq | forum_home is a choice -- Show topiec from last 5 days, Show topics from last year, Show all topics, etc --

Isn't it should be enforced by the warning of the password saved in plain text in cookie on client side?" amongst other questions just about this one paragraph.

As far as I know all cookies are saved in plain text on the client side.

But this FAQ is rather about UBB site and not about Javaranch.

This FAQ was also written by infoPop and came with the UBB forum software.

There are other, rather misleading, paragraphs, that are better to be deleted/edited: about censored words (are they used?), ratings, buddy list.

At this point in time, these items are inactivated.

Some individual forums have FAQ's, but so far nobody has had time to create an FAQ for the whole ranch. Notice that even most of the forums do not yet have FAQs, only a couple of them have an FAQ.

[Marilyn de Queiroz]

Perhaps the site map would help people find more answers to their questions about the ranch.

[Guennadiy VANIN]

Originally posted by Thomas Paul:
Jim, I'm not aware of any posts that were deleted. Some threads were closed but that was the limit.

Her is the Private message sent to me by Thomas Paul in 23 of January, 2003
"Please don't post the same message in multiple threads."

All my 4-5 posts , namely with the following text of post: "www.uksociety.org",
promptly disappeared. They were in different and appropriate for discussions contexts
Isn't it about deleting all without leaving a single one?
Where is the written rule that prohibits post more than once the same, "phrase" in different contexts?
Where is the rule that, therefore, all posts are to be deleted? without leaving a single exception exception
If you still are not aware I may repeat (already more than tenth time): my posts are continuously hijacked, distorted, deleted by moderators and I am treated like a jerk that invent things.
My personality, and not my subjects, are attacked, my name is distorted, without even reasons, and it is "moderated" in the sense of organization/support and not moderating by moderators.
This lasts already more than a year.
I pretend to know exact notion what who are moderators and what moderators are for? For being meaningless, making buddies here?
[ January 28, 2003: Message edited by: Guennadiy VANIN ]

[Guennadiy VANIN]

Originally posted by Marilyn de Queiroz:
I would like to see the "rules" (for ex., the time period of postings to compete for giveaways) that, I dunno why is known but persistently not fixed/written.

Book Giveaway Information Page

That page informs about closing on Friday while closing happens on Thursday

Originally posted by Marilyn de Queiroz:
As far as I know all cookies are saved in plain text on the client side.

This is not correct. Just observe the functioning of any buy-on-line site.
Even if it had been so, it could have been easily partly remedied by setting Expiration Time of cookies. I wrote it long time ago. The inconveniencies are huge in comparison with the half-minute work.
Instead I was foolied in dozens of posts (hours of writing) that this site is passing to Jive, then everything is OK/no problem with UBB, my threads were closed or transferred, then finally in another thread I had read that Jive is in the dead already waters for months.
There is a lot of time for misleading and mockering posts, making others fools, pursuing them to distort, delete, truncate others' inoccuous posts!

Originally posted by Marilyn de Queiroz:

Some individual forums have FAQ's, but so far nobody has had time to create an FAQ for the whole ranch. Notice that even most of the forums do not yet have FAQs, only a couple of them have an FAQ.

Anybody asked? I have not seen. I am more than sure there are lot of volunteers and time amongst 50000 members.
The problem is that this site is more oriented for moderators being meaningless (i.e. in MD) than opened.
I had time and desire BEFORE, but not now, not for this site where I was treated like annoying fly and/or idiot to be ousted.
I was told that I am the only case. Nope, I know others that wanted to help and had gone.
Then I was misinformed (or informed in a distorted way) who and what can do in Javaranch
[ January 28, 2003: Message edited by: Guennadiy VANIN ]

[Thomas Paul]

G., cross posting the same thing in multiple threads where it has nothing to do with the topic of the thread is rude. This is normal internet manners and has been part of the net for 10 years. Your post was nothing more than a link with no further comment that was cross posted to multiple threads. If it had anything to do with any of the threads where you posted it I would have left one. You said, "They were in different and appropriate for discussions contexts." Can you explain how it was appropriate in the word association thread, for example? All you needed to do was repost your URL in a thread whre it was on topic or start a new thread.
The ranch does not have a list of things that you shouldn't do because we assume that people will behave themselves and act responsibly.
[ January 28, 2003: Message edited by: Thomas Paul ]

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Guennadiy VANIN:
That page informs about closing on Friday while closing happens on Thursday

You are mistaken. The book promotions are closed on Friday. The authors only participate on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday therefore the promotion is closed and the drawing made first thing on Friday.

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Guennadiy VANIN:
This is not correct. Just observe the functioning of any buy-on-line site.
Even if it had been so, it could have been easily partly remedied by setting Expiration Time of cookies. I wrote it long time ago. The inconveniencies are huge in comparison with the half-minute work.
Instead I was foolied in dozens of posts (hours of writing) that this site is passing to Jive, then everything is OK/no problem with UBB, my threads were closed or transferred, then finally in another thread I had read that Jive is in the dead already waters for months.
There is a lot of time for misleading and mockering posts, making others fools, pursuing them to distort, delete, truncate others' inoccuous posts!

UBB is the most commonly used forum software on the internet. It behaves as it behaves. If you have complaints about it then you should contact infopop. Or you can refuse to participate in forums that use infopop software as a form of protest.
Setting an expiration time on the infopop cookie would remove the most useful function of the cookie which is to allow you to get back in the forum without logging in each time. For people who don't share a PC this is a major convenience. For people who do share a PC they should be in the habit of deleting their cookies before they leave that PC anyway.
I am not sure exactly what Jive has to do with any of this. It was our intent to move to Jive but we have problems with it and it doesn't provide all the features that we get from UBB. At the moment we have cancelled plans to switch to Jive although that may chnage again in the future.

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Guennadiy VANIN:
Anybody asked? I have not seen. I am more than sure there are lot of volunteers and time amongst 50000 members. The problem is that this site is more oriented for moderators being meaningless (i.e. in MD) than opened.
I had time and desire BEFORE, but not now, not for this site where I was treated like annoying fly and/or idiot to be ousted.
I was told that I am the only case. Nope, I know others that wanted to help and had gone.
Then I was misinformed (or informed in a distorted way) who and what can do in Javaranch

The moderators of JavaRanch do what they can. Our main goal is to keep JavaRanch running and to try to answer questions. Most of us do not have time to spend working on a FAQ. And I have to admit that I don't see a real need for one. What questions do you think need to be answered in a FAQ?
In what way were you misinformed about what you can do in JavaRanch?

[paul wheaton]

Guennadiy VANIN,
JavaRanch is maintained by about 40 volunteers. I think the key that makes JavaRanch great is the forum moderation that these good and decent people volunteer to do. Each person was given special priveledges to moderate a forum because they demonstrated generosity and decency in helping others.
I suppose that if I paid them, I could expect some level of perfection: the ability to read my mind, to read the minds of others, to predict the future, etc.
As is, I'm just grateful that they take the time to chip in, help out and make the best of what they have to work with. Sometimes, I would like them to do things a little differently. When that happens, I feel it is my job to ask nicely and perhaps try to persuade them to my way of thinking on something. After all, they are volunteers.
Over the years, millions of people have come to JavaRanch. An overwhelming majority have found this to be a pleasant experience. Once in a while, somebody would suggest some alternatives or try to persuade us to do things differently. But most folks seem to like the community just the way it is.
I have not read everything you have posted on JavaRanch, but here is what I have read:

• I have seen you ask a question and I have seen JavaRanch staff and other members of JavaRanch try to help you. Your response has often been mean, hurtful and wrongly accusing these people of things that I did not see. I have even seen you make racists statements against people and in the same breath, wrongly accuse them of making racist statements.
  
• I have seen people spending enormous amounts of time trying to smooth things over with you. They would apologize and try to mend fences, but you mercilessly attack over and over.
  
• I have seen people that I thought had infinite patience and generosity become discouraged when faced with you.
  

In the last three months, about 15% of my time at JavaRanch has been devoted to dealing with you. I think for some of the JavaRanch volunteers that number might be as high as 40%. This is time that was given to dealing with you that could have been spent helping other people who would have been grateful for the help.
In the beginning, these people attempted all forms of gentle persuasion to help guide you to the answers you seek. But these poor folks can only take so much abuse.
For a long time we felt like we must be bad people to bring such hateful and mean comments from a person. We tried to work out ways to smooth things over, but it seems that our best efforts have failed.
Personally, I hate you. I want you to get off my site and never come back. I have asked my friends to be nice to you, so they do me a favor and are nice to you only to have you be mean to them. Now I think I may have lost a friend or two in trying to make things smooth with a putz like you.
The thing that really pisses me off is that you make demands on how people (volunteers) must behave on this site when I would never do that. It is as if you outrank me. Or, it is as if you are paying me millions of dollars to be your servant.
So here is where we stand. The JavaRanch staff gets along great with each other and we seem to get along with the millions of people who come through here, except you. It seems that you don't like us and it is a big mystery to me why you keep coming back here when you seem to hate us so much.
Normally, I would take this sort of commentary into e-mail, but you seem to not care for e-mail so much. You would rather abuse the volunteers publicly. Plus, there are a lot of people that have been begging me to boot you off of JavaRanch and I have not maintained a list of all those e-mails, so this public message should let them know that their humble request is in process.
I would like to propose the following. You go away and we will stay here. Any future issues you have with JavaRanch are issues with me. Not with anyone else here.
I know you don't care for Americans, and so as an American I feel the need to share a saying we have here: "Don't let the screen door slap your butt on the way out."

[Marilyn de Queiroz]

That page informs about closing on Friday while closing happens on Thursday

The posts for the giveaway include posts from Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday (until the time of the drawing).

MdQ> As far as I know all cookies are saved in plain text on the client side.
GV> This is not correct. Just observe the functioning of any buy-on-line site.

When I go to Amazon after a long time, I still see "Hello, MARILYN DE QUEIROZ. We have recommendations for you." This is because I did not delete my cookie, and they have not expired my cookie.

Also setting the expiration time of UBB cookies is much more than a half-minute of work.

Regarding Jive. Things change. We were going to move to Jive to solve some problems we've seen with UBB. But we've had some problems with the move, so it has been postponed indefinitely. We may still move, we may not. Nobody knows the future. This is not fooling anyone. This is a dynamic (as opposed to static) process.

[Cindy Glass]

Well I certainly do NOT hate you, but I sure am fed up with trying to deal with you.
I gotta agree with Paul on this one.
[ January 28, 2003: Message edited by: Cindy Glass ]

[Jim Yingst]

Thanks, Paul. There's a point where the total amount of time spent trying to make one user happy just gets to be too much; I think we passed it some time ago.

[Paul Stevens]

[Mark Herschberg]

I have to concur with Paul. If you don't like the way we play, don't play with us.
--Mark

[Johannes de Jong]

I agree with Paul. If you don't like our company please leave.

[Thomas Paul]

I agree with Paul's post and I believe that G's leaving would be best for JavaRanch.

[Matthew Phillips]

Thank you, Paul.

[Tony Alicea]

Thanks Paul!
You said it right!
[JOKE]
If it had been me saying goodbye to.. whatever his name is, you would have booted me out of JavaRanch for saying obscenities! Ha ha!
[/JOKE]
[ January 29, 2003: Message edited by: Tony Alicea ]

[Mani Ram]

We be nice to them, if they be nice to us - Sm�agol (Gollum?)

[Paul Stevens]

Originally posted by R Manivannan:
We be nice to them, if they be nice to us - Sm�agol (Gollum?)

[Jason Menard]

Originally posted by Paul Wheaton:
JavaRanch is maintained by about 40 volunteers. I think the key that makes JavaRanch great is the forum moderation that these good and decent people volunteer to do. Each person was given special priveledges to moderate a forum because they demonstrated generosity and decency in helping others.

You guys (moderators) probably don't hear it enough, but let me extend my thanks to all of you for the time and effort you all put into making this such a great site. You guys and gals are doing an outstanding job and it is much appreciated!
[ January 28, 2003: Message edited by: Jason Menard ]

[Mapraputa Is]

Guennadiy, to be frank, after all you said in this thread, I cannot understand why American people have been trying to be nice to you for THE WHOLE YEAR -- you did not deserve it at all.
There are some minimal requirements for people to be able to communicate -- some basic level of intelligence and some level of respect to other. You failed both. It will be the best solution if you leave this site and we never see you here again.

[Pauline McNamara]

Paul said it. Time to spend energy where it is appreciated.

[paul wheaton]

Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:
to be frank, ...

And I'll be Suzy.
Wow, that was over a year ago. I remember that people were screaming for your head back then and for all of this time I was thinking that that you would eventually get into the friendly spirit. An awful lot of second chances.
[ January 28, 2003: Message edited by: Paul Wheaton ]

[Jessica Sant]

I totally agree with Paul. Hopefully JavaRanch can return to being a "friendly place" again.

[Mike Curwen]

As a Canadian, I'll add my own two cents, and another saying from up here: "Don't let the door hit yah, where the Good Lord split 'ya"

(ok, that might be American, but I'm stealing it)

Guennadiy, it's time for *everyone* to move on.

[Michael Matola]

Pauline McNamara:
Paul said it. Time to spend energy where it is appreciated.
Nicely put!

[David O'Meara]

Thanks Paul.

[John Lee]

Thanks Paul!