How to close my Javaranch account?

[Srikanth Raghavan]

May be I just can't figure out where the link is, I went to "My Profile" and I couldn't find any such link. May be I will just leave if there is no "Close account" link.

I have a reason for deciding to go: I think the moderators have become too strict and self centered. They just can't take good criticism or appreciate debates. They remind me of my old school teachers who punish kids or not let them go the bathroom. I have been observing this for a long time and I have had too much of this in the Windows vs other Operating Systems thread.

To one of my arguments in the same thread, the moderator replied this:

If your friend's developers "struggle to find out where things have gone in Linux" then I might humbly suggest that they're undeserving of the moniker.

In any event, at this point I am just so annoyed by this thread that I'm going to close it so I don't have to listen to the nonsense anymore.

And he did close the thread. I don't want to debate any further, and I don't care if the moderator is right or wrong. I'm moving just out to a better community (for me).

-- Srikanth

[David O'Meara]

If you message a staff member, we will close your account.

With respect to that thread:

Firstly it was posted to MD and not General Computing. There is a difference, and MD can't be taken too seriously.

That said, the thread (in my opinion) had little to do conversation and contained too many opinions stated as fact. There was no intelligent discourse and as such it became annoying to those trying to discuss the topic.

EFH was prepared to put up his hand and be the bad guy. I asked him about his choice in the way he ended the conversation, but I do not disagree with closing it.

You would end out looking better if you copped this one on the chin and stood up ready for the next battle, or you can send me a PM and I'll close your account.

Threads get closed. Moderators are human. Life goes on.
[ June 09, 2008: Message edited by: David O'Meara ]

[Paul Clapham]

There is nothing to prevent you from just not posting here any more, if that is what you want. But if you want to complain about the closing of that thread, why not simply complain about it? There's nothing wrong with that either and it's not an unreasonable thing for you to do.

[Arvind Mahendra]

I think the moderators tend to pendulate(why does firefox dictionary refuse to recognize this word man.!!) between being tooo liberal with some topics and being too sensitive with some. I think they are generally great people(with the exception of one or two) and trying to do their best.

I dont think this is something to leave the whole ranch over and I think may be in some way it keeps us focussed on what this site is mainly about and confrontational situations may lead to us not wanting to help one another when we meet in other forums in case we happen to step on each other's toes.

[Joanne Neal]

Originally posted by Arvind Birla:
... tend to pendulate(why does firefox dictionary refuse to recognize this word man.!!) ...

Does any dictionary recognise it ?

[Paul Clapham]

Originally posted by Joanne Neal:
Does any dictionary recognise it ?

Yes, it's in the Oxford English Dictionary. I just checked in their online version.

I wasn't familiar with the word, but the OED has this definition:

2. intr. fig. To fluctuate or oscillate between two opposite conditions, opinions, etc.; to waver, vacillate.

[ June 09, 2008: Message edited by: Paul Clapham ]

[Arvind Mahendra]

There are lots and lots of often used words not detected as accurate by firefox unfortunately. Does your firefox have this problem too? I'm wondering if I got this bundled with FF or I downloaded it as an extension.

[Ulf Dittmer]

That's a core feature of Firefox, not of any extension. I would guess that it uses some kind of dictionary file to determine what is or is not a valid word. If that's the case, one could add to that file to keep the browser from flagging valid words.

[Anupam Sinha]

According to me EFH was wrong in closing the thread. I know that this is a private forum but this also goes against the "Be Nice" thing. Secondly EFH could have chosen to simply ignore the thread rather than delete it. People who are so against MS are also a cause why other OSs don't spread. Rather than proving their point how to get things right they would simply close the discussion.

[Pradeep bhatt]

In my opinion if you want to get the best out of Javaranch avoid posting in MD and Jobs forum. You and moderators will not fight. Most of the time it happens that a new comer comes to JR for technical discussions and then slowly moves to MD and then ...

[paul wheaton]

Originally posted by Anupam Sinha:
According to me EFH was wrong in closing the thread.

And according to me, EFH was right.

I wonder which one of us will get our way?

(ahhhh ... it's good to be king)

Anupam, I would like to suggest that you take the time to consider why I choose to run things the way I do. As you learn this and think about a way to persuade me to change my mind, I suspect that you will learn why things function this way - and then you will most likely drop this.

Of course, if you cannot find the words to persuade me, and you still think I am wrong, you are, of course, always welcome to start your own site and run things the way you see fit.

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

OK, kids. I was going to keep my mouth shut and stay out of this, but if we're going to get into name calling and such, it's not fair for me to let other folks deal with the fallout from something I did. And make no mistake, it was me. Thanks for the backup, guys, but I worked alone on this one.

What I saw in that thread was some good folks wasting their breath talking past each other in one of the oldest Internet flame wars there is (and the most virulent, with the possible exception of "Emacs vs. vi".) It doesn't really matter that people were being civil up to that point. The thread had gone on for three pages already, and no one on either side had learned anything -- because of course, nobody ever learns anything in those discussions. Here's an actual drawing of one of the participants in that thread.

Part of the problem -- just like the problem with Emacs vs. vi -- is that most people in the discussion really only know one side of the story well. They know about X, and X is good enough for them, and once they tried Y, and they didn't really know how to use it, and so now they dislike it. People with enough experience to do really thoughtful comparisons are rare, and the other people in the discussion often don't recognize who those actually knowledgeable people are -- so nobody listens to them.

Some people don't even know one side of the story well -- they just believe what they've been told, even if it's not true, and then they present it as fact. And you can't really argue with them over the Internet, because, well, they don't know you or trust you the way they trust their cousin Hiroshi. They'd rather believe Hiroshi, because he's the one who taught them about computers in the first place.

So I closed it because I didn't want to see folks wasting their breath any longer, and frankly, because I was starting to feel the pull. I find it almost impossible to stay out of those pointless discussions, even though I know it's counterproductive. Kinda like it's impossible not to slow down and look at an accident on the highway.

Now, if y'all really like bashing your head against a brick wall, then there are plenty of forum sites that encourage that kind of behavior. There's Slashdot, for example, and plenty others besides. But as long as I'm working here, by the Trailboss' good graces, the Saloon isn't going to play host to those kinds of discussions. I've closed 'em before, and I'll close 'em agin.

One more thing: right there on the wall as you walk into "Meaningless Drivel", it says in bold type:

Please note that posts that have meaning or are not drivel stand a good chance of getting deleted.

So don't take yourselves so damn seriously!

[Anupam Sinha]

Why Paul you are you always in such a mood. I know it's your site. I just posted what I felt.

The thread could had been simply closed if it was felt it was going nowhere.

"In any event, at this point I am just so annoyed by this thread that I'm going to close it so I don't have to listen to the nonsense anymore"

This sentence makes me feel like that EFH didn't wanted to have this thread around because he didn't like it rather than it was not going anywhere, to which I said he could simply ignore it.

I have seen many closed threads in MD. In them it's generally "This thread is going nowhere and it is being closed". But in this case this was not the case.

Does this comes anywhere close to BEING NICE.

I guess you would not be persuaded with my point. Just trying.

[Ulf Dittmer]

It wasn't a question of someone not liking the thread or the thread going nowhere. If I may interpret Ernest's intentions, he didn't like the thread because it was going nowhere. His words were: The thread had gone on for three pages already, and no one on either side had learned anything. I think that sums it up nicely.

The thread did contain a fair number of counter-factual statements; I think one may validly choose to call such statements nonsense. It's quite possible that not everybody considers that to be nice. This is a big community; people are going to disagree with one another every so often. Your point is noted. And now, as David said: Life goes on. Please.
[ June 11, 2008: Message edited by: Ulf Dittmer ]

[Anupam Sinha]

[UD]: His words were: The thread had gone on for three pages already, and no one on either side had learned anything. I think that sums it up nicely


It sure does. But it would had been great if these words were used on that thread as well.
[ June 11, 2008: Message edited by: Anupam Sinha ]

[fred rosenberger]

personally, i almost closed that thread several times myself. In retrospect, I probably should have. that kind of debate never goes anywhere, and for many participants, has WAY TOO MUCH MEANING. Therefore, by definition, it didn't belong there, and should have been moved to the trash on day 1. EFH was really just picking up the slack where others (like myself) dropped the ball.

[shan Iyer]

Originally posted by fred rosenberger:
personally, i almost closed that thread several times myself. In retrospect, I probably should have. that kind of debate never goes anywhere, and for many participants, has WAY TOO MUCH MEANING. Therefore, by definition, it didn't belong there, and should have been moved to the trash on day 1. EFH was really just picking up the slack where others (like myself) dropped the ball.

Then how come the thread ran into pages if it had too much meaning ? We were certainly not discussing Stephen Hawking's priciples on the Cosmos to categorize it as "TOO MUCH MEANING" . And wasn't anything with that kind of meaning ever discussed on MD before ?
[ June 11, 2008: Message edited by: shan Iyer ]

[Anupam Sinha]

My main point was not why the thread was closed but the fact that it could had been done in a better fashion. I guess this thread is going nowhere. Again I feel in the be nice thing. Let's just try to be nice.

[fred rosenberger]

I'm not going to debate specifics with you. We have a policy that basically says ANY thread in MD can be deleted or closed at any time, for any reason, by any moderator. When the thread got to a point where a mod felt it needed to be closed, it was.

If you want to discuss that policy, that's one thing. But i have nothing further to say about this specific thread.

[Ulf Dittmer]

And to elaborate on what Fred said: It isn't just that any thread in MD can be closed by any moderator, in fact any thread in any forum can be closed or deleted by any moderator who feels like that is the right thing to do. There are guidelines on how to moderate, but there is also a lot of leeway.

So yes, it's amazing that this particular thread wasn't closed way earlier. But we're all volunteers - we're not standing by and waiting for something to apply our moderator powers to. So sometimes a thread runs longer than it should have. In this case, I'm grateful that it did, because I personally was still participating, hoping to make an impact. In retrospect, it should have been obvious that that was futile. So I, for one, am thankful to Ernest that he ended what had run for too long; it kept me from spending more time on this.

And to get back on a more general level: there should not be an expectation of moderator's decisions being explained. Some may be, but some won't - it's up to the moderator to do what he or she thinks is best for the site.

At this point, I'll be presumptuous (some no doubt will think this arrogant) and declare that in my opinion everything that can usefully be said about this subject has been said. This thread won't be closed -so if someone wants to take part, they can-, but I'd ask anyone who feels the urge to do so to read -and think through!- all the above posts first. Thank you.

[paul wheaton]

Ernest,

I think the fact that this thread exists and somebody has their knickers in a twist over a thread in MD, PROVES that that thread should have been closed or deleted.

THEREFORE - Damn good job Ernest! You always make the right call.

<h1>Thank You Ernest!</h1>

Anupam,

Apparently, your idea of nice is different from mine. Oh well. In fact, as I reread your posts in this thread, I find the way you present your opinion to be rather disrespectful of the opinions of others. I think that that, specifically, is not nice. So once again, it would seem that your idea of nice is different from mine.

I rather like my idea of what nice means.

And I rather like Ernest's interpretation of nice.

I find that I don't fancy your idea of nice at all.

I find that damn near everybody here, and certainly all of the staff, appear to have their idea of nice aligned with my idea of nice. So we all get along rather well.

I see that a lot of people have taken a rather large slice of their life to help you understand this. Oh sure, they could have watched a movie. Or a tv show. Or they could have talked to somebody about java. Instead, they were patiently taking their unpaid time to help you understand something that the rest of us seem to easily grasp. And rather than understand, you simply push that we must all change to your way of thinking.

So, allow me to express that I completely understand what you are suggesting. It is a different way of managing things. For a long list of reasons, I choose to not operate that way. It's my site, so I get to do that.

I understand that you don't understand my way of doing things. That's unfortunate. I feel that many important aspects have been explained to you. I suppose there are many things that you might do now, but here are a few that come to mind:

1) re-read this thread and attempt to understand why we do things the way we do. After that you will:

1a) understand and, thus, everybody is happy!

1b) not understand, but decide to go along with our "wackiness" so that everybody can be happy.

1c) not understand and (go to "2")

2) not care. Then choose a path to:

2a) leave and everybody is happy.

2b) hang around and be angry a lot until we ban you.

2c) hang around and be secretly angry and ignore our "wackiness": you'll develop an ulcer but the rest of us will be happy.

There are lots of other places to visit on the mighty internet. I suspect that there are quite a few that are aligned with what you think of as good management. Perhaps you will be happier there. Or ... perhaps ... something will click and you will understand that there are excellent reasons why we do things the way that we do. And maybe something else will click so that the next time you wish to make a suggestion, it will sound like you are being respectful to the people that donate their time to make this place possible instead of sounding like everybody is your personal servant and too stupid to understand the way you want them to shine your shoes.

Oh yes ... there is one more thing you might find worth considering .... do you think it is possible that not only has this issue been discussed before, but it has been discussed a thousand times more than what you see in this one paltry thread? This topic might have an amazingly rich history that has led to a really fantastic way of running things. A way of running things that makes one person out of millions slightly peeved, instead thousands rioting in the streets. A pretty fair trade in my opinion.

----

And now, to all of those people that have taken the time to patiently try to help folks find a smooth path, thank you very, very much. I think your efforts really help. Despite this small bit of evidence to the contrary.

[Anupam Sinha]

It's your site and you decide what you want and it's my mind and I decide what's correct according to me. I still hold by my opinion and you hold onto yours.
[ June 12, 2008: Message edited by: Anupam Sinha ]

[marc weber]

Originally posted by fred rosenberger:
...that kind of debate never goes anywhere, and for many participants, has WAY TOO MUCH MEANING...

It would be nice if it could have meaning. But for some reason, this "debate" is high on emotion and very short on meaning.

Peculiar. But all the more reason to close it.

[Paul Yule]

I didn't even read the MD thread. I just read the fallout of a moderator talking about why he deleted it. To that he talked about being fair and nice and having wholesome butterflies whenever you talk to people on a thread, and then told the community how nice it is to be king. We get to do whatever we want...mmmmmmm feeeeelllzzz good.

So Yes, preach about people talking past each other and then say I'm teh moderator RAWR!! There's about a million sites with forums out there...give or take a million, and the most interesting threads are the ones where people(myself included) must defend their actions for world changing events like deleting threads and moving topics (human behavior at its finest).

Furthermore, it is so important to get the point across that completely contradictory reasons can be given. DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO. After all once it's done you can just say well, I made a mistake...I'm human. I <3 behavioral psychology.
[ June 12, 2008: Message edited by: paul yule ]