(2017-11-20, 02:05 AM)Ben Cousins Wrote: [ -> ] (2017-11-20, 12:33 AM)snakeoilos Wrote: [ -> ]2. People who have been denied support should be given a chance of repreive. e.g. if the user removed the credits and was denied support.
I'm led to believe this is the case.
This is fine, although the denied support badge should also be linked to the SEP. I suspect many people don't even know why they're being labelled, because there is no direct link to the SEP from the forums. What this team is doing is they are labelling members guilty of:
Hacking (includes "leaks")
Pornography
Illegal file distribution or piracy
Illegal use of electronic assets, including but not limited to violation of theme licensing (e.g. removing author name from footer)
Any other forms of illegal activity
Racist or hateful content
Discussions that encourage, promote or demonstrate methods of producing, consuming, using, cultivating, buying, selling, distributing or supplying drugs that could reasonably be considered illegal
and subsequently removing the badge. Well this forum is what it is now, a forum where every 2nd post is from a troll, and the only people interested in contributing are hackers or people who are otherwise engaged in unethical behaviour.
@snakeoilos response, This is exactly the problem. He's new here and as you can see he has a slanted view of the denied tag. Not only is he biased towards those with the tag but what about if he asked for help and I replied to assist but my tag made him disregard my help? And that's happened to me a few times. I'd reply to someone with a question about MyBB and they would PM me asking why I have the tag. That puts me into an awkward and embarassing situation. I shouldn't have to explain why I have a scarlet letter on my account. A reason I stayed away from MyBB community for years.
Quote:3. Personally I don't want to use a piece of software that's tied to or associated with illegal stuff.
MyBB can't prevent who uses their software and there are already plenty of questionable sites that use MyBB. So are you going to change software now that you know this?
(2017-11-20, 05:56 PM)labrocca Wrote: [ -> ]MyBB can't prevent who uses their software and there are already plenty of questionable sites that use MyBB.
That's my biggest problem with any sort of "projected morality" by this software group. Why is it necessary to try to champion ethical issues? We are not politicians, lawyers, judges, or law enforcement officers. We are just people that love developing software so much that no one even has to pay us to do it.
We just do it for free.
And we give it away for free, so after that our obligation is complete. I don't feel anyone involved in this software should have concern with what is done and in what application this software is applied.
However, there has to be some sort of decency and I will agree that NSFW links need to be dealt with as this is a family-friendly place. The rest? I say leave it off this community forum and it isn't a problem to anyone. As long as admins can follow that guideline, I'd say they should receive support just like anybody else.
(2017-11-20, 05:56 PM)labrocca Wrote: [ -> ]@snakeoilos response, This is exactly the problem. He's new here and as you can see he has a slanted view of the denied tag. Not only is he biased towards those with the tag but what about if he asked for help and I replied to assist but my tag made him disregard my help? And that's happened to me a few times. I'd reply to someone with a question about MyBB and they would PM me asking why I have the tag. That puts me into an awkward and embarassing situation. I shouldn't have to explain why I have a scarlet letter on my account. A reason I stayed away from MyBB community for years.
This to me really is an edge case, and I doubt will happen a lot. As a newbie I find the idea improbable that a person can both be 'helpful to others' and yet be 'denied support' for extended periods. But hey, let's wait and see if I end up in your situation. I'm no saint myself, chances are high I will end up being ostracised. Would I be 'embarrassed' or fee 'awkard'? I don't think so.
(2017-11-20, 05:56 PM)labrocca Wrote: [ -> ]MyBB can't prevent who uses their software and there are already plenty of questionable sites that use MyBB. So are you going to change software now that you know this?
Perhaps I should have said it clearer - personally I will not use MyBB if it openly or covertly endorses illegal activities. That's my intent when I said 'tied to or associated with'.
(2017-11-20, 10:12 PM)Wildcard Wrote: [ -> ]That's my biggest problem with any sort of "projected morality" by this software group. Why is it necessary to try to champion ethical issues? We are not politicians, lawyers, judges, or law enforcement officers. We are just people that love developing software so much that no one even has to pay us to do it.
We just do it for free.
And we give it away for free, so after that our obligation is complete. I don't feel anyone involved in this software should have concern with what is done and in what application this software is applied.
However, there has to be some sort of decency and I will agree that NSFW links need to be dealt with as this is a family-friendly place. The rest? I say leave it off this community forum and it isn't a problem to anyone. As long as admins can follow that guideline, I'd say they should receive support just like anybody else.
This is a 'Guns don't kill people, people kill people' line of defense. I do see your point of view, and do agree it's a noble ideal. Just not convinced this will work in the world we live in. I have already made my case that being apolitical and non-judgemental in today's world is not a good idea, but this is just IMO.
Anyway, back to this topic. Let's say if MyBB decides today they will stop using the 'denied support' tag to brand people, or tweak the rules to improve clarity.
How effective will this change be? Is MyBB going to be instantly better with this change? Will developers be enticed or encouraged to join (or continue) MyBB development because of this?
If the answer is yes, then go for it.
Personally I'm a bit sad that Ashley1 has stopped sharing his wonderful w3-responsive theme. And his forum has disappeared too. Not entirely sure what is happening, but at the end of the day, if the developers are happy and can focus on doing what they are doing, then all is good.
Quote:personally I will not use MyBB if it openly or covertly endorses illegal activities.
Forum software just exists. They don't endorse the sites using them.
Quote:How effective will this change be? Is MyBB going to be instantly better with this change? Will developers be enticed or encouraged to join (or continue) MyBB development because of this?
Yes, there would be more involvement here by a variety of people. I know this for a fact.
Quote: As a newbie I find the idea improbable that a person can both be 'helpful to others' and yet be 'denied support' for extended periods. But hey, let's wait and see if I end up in your situation.
Very unlikely you're aware of my long standing support of MyBB up till the policy was enacted. It wasn't insignificant.
(2017-11-21, 09:03 PM)labrocca Wrote: [ -> ]Forum software just exists. They don't endorse the sites using them.
Agreed, and so MyBB has a right to show their disendorsement towards these sites - via the 'Denied Support' tag.
(2017-11-21, 09:03 PM)labrocca Wrote: [ -> ]Yes, there would be more involvement here by a variety of people. I know this for a fact.
The solution is simple then - Get these variety of people involved in MyBB development now, build up momemtum and credit, then push the MyBB to abolish this policy.
Quote:Very unlikely you're aware of my long standing support of MyBB up till the policy was enacted. It wasn't insignificant.
In the course of open source history. Quite a number of projects are forked because the developers don't disagree on philosophical issues (I know this for a fact although I can't think of any examples right now
). MyBB is open source, folks who don't like the direction of the current MyBB leadership can fork the code and do what they think is right. This new group can erect their own code of ethics (or in this case no ethical responsibility).
Quote:Agreed, and so MyBB has a right to show their disendorsement towards these sites
Yup, they can do it. They have done it. And no one denies their right to do so.
Quote:The solution is simple then - Get these variety of people involved in MyBB development now, build up momemtum and credit, then push the MyBB to abolish this policy.
It's unfortunate you're so new and unaware of a lot of MyBB history. Please note my 2006 registration date and nearly 10,000 posts. Most of which were before the policy change. Not sure you're aware that I own the largest MyBB forum too. Lastly, I assisted with the purchase of the MyBB.com domain in both financing and negotiating. And that's just for starters. Normally I don't have to mention my own personal contributions to the project but felt it necessary to give you some additional context about where I'm coming from. I think you see my own "denied support" tag and assume a few things.
Quote:In the course of open source history. Quite a number of projects are forked because the developers don't disagree on philosophical issues
I considered a fork at one point and have support by plenty of people to do so but I'm not sure I have the time and personally until MyBB breaks the upgrade change (possibly 2.0) I don't think it's worth doing. A fork makes more sense when a previous version is broken but still requires support for legacy sites. I have no interest in just making my own version of MyBB for the sake of a philosphical difference. I have no enemies here, just people that disagree with me.
(2017-11-22, 01:10 AM)labrocca Wrote: [ -> ]It's unfortunate you're so new and unaware of a lot of MyBB history. Please note my 2006 registration date and nearly 10,000 posts. Most of which were before the policy change. Not sure you're aware that I own the largest MyBB forum too. Lastly, I assisted with the purchase of the MyBB.com domain in both financing and negotiating. And that's just for starters. Normally I don't have to mention my own personal contributions to the project but felt it necessary to give you some additional context about where I'm coming from. I think you see my own "denied support" tag and assume a few things.
FWIW I don't think less of you because you have that tag, so I didn't assume anything. Having said that - I'm not convinced removing (or even changing) this 'support denied' policy will work.
Remove this policy and everybody will be move involved for a fact? Noob or not, don't see this happening.
(2017-11-22, 01:10 AM)labrocca Wrote: [ -> ]I considered a fork at one point and have support by plenty of people to do so but I'm not sure I have the time and personally until MyBB breaks the upgrade change (possibly 2.0) I don't think it's worth doing. A fork makes more sense when a previous version is broken but still requires support for legacy sites. I have no interest in just making my own version of MyBB for the sake of a philosphical difference. I have no enemies here, just people that disagree with me.
A fork can happen when it comes to philosophical differences too (e.g. libav/ffmpeg). Makes sense here if a group disagree with what the current leadership is doing/heading, fork the code and show them how to do it better.
As a noob I don't have a side - the team with the best developers/designers win.
I don't know if my comments will carry much weight these days as I've been pretty much dead since March, but still. I've skimmed through the thread to get the gist so may have missed some bits or will be repeating stuff, but just to clarify some of the reasons why some of this was implemented how it was (not saying it's still the best way just the history).
First off, I don't think we're discussing the backlink at the moment are we - as far as I'm aware most people feel that part at least is fair, as it's only a link and is the reason several people, myself included, know this software even exists.
I think part of the issue with the content of certain sites was that by helping to essentially maintain the site, it could be seen as implicitly supporting the site. Would it feel right for us to, say, let users create support threads for their white supremacist or homo-/trans-phobic forum? I sadly don't doubt sites like this would exist, but would we want to offer support for them here? I'm not sure people would be happy with that. Other forums' content may not be quite as extreme, but the same concept applies. So surely we need some sort of restriction, but where do we draw the line. As has been said already, we already have enough people who genuinely believe we control every MyBB installation, and yes I know there's no basis to take action against us, it's still a ballache and people still believe it.
The second issue was that if people viewed things like porn or hacking websites inadvertently at school, at work, at home, especially if a minor, they could get in trouble for it. I feel we have at least some responsibility in what we have users linking to in support threads, or across the site for that matter.
I have planned for a while to have a section when creating support threads to supply a link, and mark as NSFW/adult/dubious morality/whatever, similar to how Twitter let you explicitly mark your media as being potentially sensitive in nature, so at least people know and can make their own choice (the link wouldn't be displayed until you clicked "yes, I want to see this"). Maybe this would be a workable middle ground.
Regarding the denied support notice (hereinafter referred to as the BadgeOfShame™ (I'm joking)), it wasn't ever intended to outcast anybody. Originally (and in default MySupport) it only shows up in actual support forums (wherever MySupport is enabled). If you are denied support, you're blocked from creating new threads, but as well as people cross-posting in other people's threads (which is why it still showed even though they couldn't create new threads), people kept posting in other forums to circumvent that, so the plugin was modified here specifically to show the notice everywhere. In the newer version, it's been changed to just be the icon, so it's a lot more subtle at least.
I'm at work so can't spend all day writing more of a reply but that's my initial thoughts on the matter.
Quote: Would it feel right for us to, say, let users create support threads for their white supremacist or homo-/trans-phobic forum?
Politically I don't agree with such sites but yes, they should get support.
Here is an idea, require the WWW to be filled out but have it visible only to support staff. Disallow linking to any sites which you deem unacceptable. That's just good SEO to not link to bad sites anyways.
Also, support is support, and if someone brings up a bug that's real then it effects all MyBB users. It's good search content which might help the next guy.
Quote:The second issue was that if people viewed things like porn or hacking websites inadvertently at school, at work, at home, especially if a minor, they could get in trouble for it.
Add NSFW tags.
[nsfw]http://site[/nsfw]
Quote:I have planned for a while to have a section when creating support threads to supply a link, and mark as NSFW/adult/dubious morality/whatever, similar to how Twitter let you explicitly mark your media as being potentially sensitive in nature, so at least people know and can make their own choice (the link wouldn't be displayed until you clicked "yes, I want to see this"). Maybe this would be a workable middle ground.
Just as I said.