New "general admin, security & privacy" category?

I think strategic ambiguity with the forum’s name and description is the best way forward–at least during its launch period. This would give mod(s) flexibility in deciding what is relevant and what is just too far off topic, or maybe relevant but abusive (e.g. shilling an infosec product).

With time and experience a more substantial title and description could be applied, but at the start when things are still fuzzy and hazy I think it’s best that @Sven be given more leeway for personal judgment and not be too tied down by concrete descriptions, especially since he seems to be an established, thoughtful, and trusted member of the community. At the same time this doesn’t mean we should be ultra-ambiguous to the point where the description looks just like that of an off-topic forum.

It’s like that court ruling on porn:

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [“hard-core pornography”], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it , and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.

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In general I agree, but for my comfort I would like nevertheless to discuss the rough outlines the community wants to agree upon.

For example I would be inclined to shut down anything that would fall under politics or activism of any sort. Qubes OS users are bound to have strong opinions there that most likely spread the entire spectrum. Nothing good can come from allowing this kind of discussion even if it is somehow related to Qubes OS use. I have watched with horror what those discussions have done to other communities and do not want any of that to happen here.

Can we all agree on that?

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This is hard … maybe a positive way to describe it would be “keep it technical”… “how do I …” not “why do I …”

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Or maybe “I know it when I see it”?

For controversial cases get several established community members/mods to vote on it?

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Very much agree – just let’s please make sure people using the email interface only get to that trust level (I recall you had to manually promote @unman to that level? … if so then something is severely broken)

Unfortunately for mailinglist users that’ll have to be manual. See this post and its links. So we’ll have to keep an eye out for active email users.

Too much overhead and probably the only people who’d vote are the ones who are already in the discussion, I feel…

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Another thing that will have to be thought about is how we should handle off-topic posts made outside of this category:

  • should we close it and say that’s not the place?
  • should we mention that there is an off-topic section but only for regular forum users?
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We can say something like this: “Topics not directly related to Qubes can only be discussed by users who made significant contributions on the forums”.

I hope as a mod one would have two options:

  • in case of a thread starting out in the wrong category … move it to the correct one and notify the OP (can this be done?)

  • in case of a reply that branches into another category … make a stub in the correct category and post a pointer to it (I’ve seen @deeplow do this already)

Actually, that gives me an idea (not sure it’s a good one):

  • only members can/see post in that category
  • we probably don’t want to advertise this category too much

“This post/thread is off-topic on the Qubes forum and should be continued at another venue or the members only lounge”

Then the “related but not specific” category becomes a “members only lounge”, which means you have to earn the trust (level 2) to participate.

“members only” aka “backstage” ?

We may have to shorten it to 5 examples in the end

I added a lot more general examples to that list for the discussion
here. Agree on picking 5 or less of them at the end.

Later posts from other people shifted the discussion towards fingerprints in general, which belongs to the new category.

…which makes it a perfect example. :slight_smile:

With the new category, members that opt into the new category can keep
going while everyone else does get swamped with “off-topic” posts.

Yes, this is possible. However, users posting may not have trust level 2 so they won’t be able to continue it, if I move it there.

I feel compelled not to hint at the existence of this category and let them find it once they’ve been using the forum. This will avoid people trying to game the system just to get access to that (not sure how many would be interested in this, though). And of course they can always come across this discussion or be hinted at by another user.

You pretty much summed my thoughts. Since not everybody can talk there, we’re better off not advertising it too much on the public section.

But the above canned response sounds appropriate enough. :+1:. Actually, on default discourse installations a “lounge” category for members already exists.

Since you’re the one carrying the “burden” ultimately, I think it’ll up to you what kinds of discussions you can take as a moderator.

Really looking forward to this. I want to avoid having to shut down discussions (like this one https://forum.qubes-os.org/t/1vyrain-should-i-install-core-boot-or-skulls/2636/1), which may be of interest to some here…

I think this is the key point. Again, I see a lot of fear here of off-topic discussions and a lot of willingness to force the discussion to be “correct”. I don’t think it is a good way of managing the community. It shows the lack of trust to your community.

I see a good example with @amosbatto who positively contributed to a relevant discussion despite being a newcomer and could not even post all necessary proofs due to forums’ restrictions. Now, you want to restrict the users even more. This seems to be heading to less diverse discussions and smaller community. (I would like to note, again, that the topic was about hardware running Qubes, so useful to the community).

And this is another good example why those restrictions may not be warranted.

I would like to say that, despite the new category is not directly related to Qubes, it may still may be important to most/many Qubes OS users. What are the actual reasons to create all those restrictions and complications in the first place? Could we, for the sake of test, open such category for everyone for a month?

I do not understand you position. You were the one bringing up the idea of having these less qubes-centric discussions in separate (more closed) category.

I’ll borrow a quote from @ludovic:

The whole point of this category is for giving a space to those discussions. The reasons for keeping the forum on-topic have been addressed before and I’d urge us not not go back to that discussion point.

Indeed, I suggested a closed category and I still think it’s a good idea. But I did not suggest to close it even from users on this forum. I suggest to open it for all registered users for one month as a test. Anyway, I think that trust level 2 is a too strong barrier.

I can see one major and very important argument against this–manpower.

Deeplow is the only active mod I’ve seen here, and Sven will help out with the Tangents subcategory (my temporary name for it). That makes two volunteers with many other things to do in their lives.

Opening up such a category without increasing the threshold for entry would mean opening up the floodgates. For example, if the Tangents subcategory suddenly became popular, which is not out of the question, then there’d be droves of people from across the web who might not have interest in Qubes clogging up the moderation queue, and that opens the forum up to a lot of abuse and issues. Getting new mods aboard is troublesome; getting new mods aboard in short order is worse IMO–best to have trusted people modding.

On the other hand that might, as a side effect, drive up interest in and adoption of Qubes, which might be a positive development to some, but I think the risks outweigh the potential benefits.

I’m in favor of having a forum for topics tangential to Qubes, but I’m not in favor of unrestricted access since that might lead to disastrous results for the overall forum–those who participate must have, in a non-trivial way, demonstrated an interest in Qubes and positive contribution to discussions, otherwise why be here in the Qubes forum? Why not go to one of the myriad other forums?

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How do we subscribe by email?
Have I missed that?

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