In the forum of Qubes OS, I would understand “Admin” as a person administering the OS or software installed. At least this is my personal impression.
Apart from that, would gaming on Qubes OS fit into such category? Or discussing how to promote Qubes among your peers? I’m sure there are many other things which are not security/privacy-related which are important for Qubes users.
I like this description, except the word “domains” may be misleading here, since it has a special meaning in the Qubes world:
All discussions not directly related to Qubes OS but everything having at least some relation to it (privacy, freedom, system administration, security, Qubes alternatives, research, hardware, trust, gaming on Qubes, …).
It fits well with my suggested name “All around Qubes”.
I see.
These would belong in the General Discussion instead. Not on this off-topic category. It’s important that the description and title convey this message.
Apart from that, would gaming on Qubes OS fit into such category? Or
discussing how to promote Qubes among your peers? I’m sure there are
many other things which are not security/privacy-related which are
important for Qubes users.
My 2 cents…
Gaming: GPU-passthrough and connecting game controllers would be
“General support”, but everything else I can think of would fit:
How to promote Qubes is very much Qubes-specific and should therefore
happen in “General discussion”
added these to the list. We may have to shorten it to 5 examples in the end.
I also like @ludovic’s. But I would say Qubes alternatives could go to the General Discussion instead as most likely the thread will be a comparison between the two.
I also agree with the criticism. Maybe like this:
All discussions not directly related to Qubes OS but tangential (privacy, freedom, system administration, security, research, …).
To be fair, my original question in the linked thread was about the fingerprint in Qubes disposableVMs, so I think it belongs to the general discussion of Qubes. Later posts from other people shifted the discussion towards fingerprints in general, which belongs to the new 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.
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?
This is hard … maybe a positive way to describe it would be “keep it technical”… “how do I …” not “why do I …”
Or maybe “I know it when I see it”?
For controversial cases get several established community members/mods to vote on it?
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…
Another thing that will have to be thought about is how we should handle off-topic posts made outside of this category:
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):
“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. 
With the new category, members that opt into the new category can keep
going while everyone else does get swamped with “off-topic” posts.