Personally, the many forum topics created by @linuxuser1 feel too flashy/clickbaity for me, every time I come back to the forum. For the record, @linuxuser1 , I have no criticism about the content (because I did not read it) but the topic titles seem too gauchy for me/as if they were generated by an LLM. This isn’t meant to be a call-out and I apologize if it feels like it is. Just asking for opinions.
What are the others’ opinions on such topics? Should they somehow be renamed? Or just have e.g. the emojis removed from them? Or am I just completely out of touch and it’s a me issue? Examples:
You have @trust_level_3, so you can simply rename topic titles if necessary. If I was not already busy doing something significant in the background, I would consider guide consolidation and deduplication work and/or collaborating with @andersonarc on a more robust solution using Reliant instead. There are no shortcuts to resolving architectural issues.
Yeah, I know. I did not want to go on a renaming rampage, though, especially as I simply do not know whether this is a shared sentiment or an “old man yells at cloud” moment.
I don’t see an issue with it - I see why one may have an issue with it, so simply my personal opinion. I think we should let him. Not the end of the world.
I however think we should convince him to build a bloody website where he collects his guides, as well as a github repo for his scripts, bcs the guides will be drowned out in the forum, and even if you click on his username you dont immediately see an overview with all the guides.
They can be found using the search function though, and the titles he uses are somewhat SEO friendly, so they will show up on google if you google (his latest) for examples qubes dnscrypt-proxy..
Long story short, as this thread is about the titles, I just wanted to add my personal opinion: I don’t really mind, but I can see how it may bug some people.
If he doesnt want to use his own website / github, can’t we provide a space for him to do that here somehow? The guides are of very high quality and we’d be wise to promote users publishing these things. Discord (this forum is discord no? I have no idea) doesn’t have a way to let him create a wiki of sorts no? Like one central space for all the guides and stuff. This way we don’t need one new thread per post, but we could have one thread “linuxuser’s fancy guides” or so where he can post / update the thread if there is a new guide.
This way everyone wins I think.
what do you guys think?
PS: @linuxuser1 don’t you dare stop writing amazing guides
This could be problematic only if you’re browsing the forum on your phone. Guides quickly “eat up” off-topic posts or discussions that have already been covered. It’s good when a guide is easy to find, especially for a beginner who doesn’t yet know the exact search terms. This also helps forum guides rank higher in search results; otherwise, users go to github, where there are practically no guides. The emoji idea is interesting - you see a lock, bomb, or shield icon and it immediately sparks interest. Otherwise, beginners ignore guides because dry, short titles aren’t clear to them.
Just my opinion. Most importantly - don’t ban guide creators on the forum. This user contributes their energy and time to the qubes community.
That’s definitely the right thing to do. Headlines that grab attention don’t work in technical discussion forums; they’d make me suspect I’m just scrolling through Twitter.
I don’t like them so much. I tend not to use the term “hate”. But, if it’s architectural and it is possible, it shouldn’t be a moderation subject. Moderators should discuss that upstream.
Or they should CoC-it: “You have to blend in!”
The bigger problem I have with such topics is that almost always they are bloody faulty, sketchy or even misleading, while claiming the opposite.
Somehow, by default it goes hand by hand one with another.
As a first step, perhaps just post a comment or send a DM that says something like, “Hey, great guide. Would you be open to considering a tweak to the title? In my experience, most Qubes folks respond better to less flashy titles. What would you think about something like <alternative_title>?”
When I wrote that, I thought too that this needed some kind of agreement between users, not just renaming titles. That is not the first time “flashy titles” have appeared, but the issue here is the systematic use. Anyway, it’s already stated in the Discussion guidelines that we should be concise.
If I violated the forum rules with these titles, and if it’s so annoying, then just rename them however you’d like. I won’t be offended. I already can’t edit the titles in some of my old created guides (there’s no pencil button). I don’t want hate from forum users.
Don’t worry. This is is not about hate. It’s just that we are not used to this kind of titles. It is not a hard rule so that’s why we’re discussing it. Now if you don’t mind about your titles, I think we can move on.
I must admit: sometimes this forum looks like a basket full of crabs. As soon as one starts to stick out trying to reach the top edge of the basket (both with the bad and the good intention), the others pull him/her down.
Personally i do not like them, and rarely read the associated
content. They represent everything I dislike about the Forum. I dont
pick out a particular user, but a particular attitude.
I’ve read this thread and agree with @adw - a request to rename should be
enough, and the user affected should learn. But if they do not rename,
then others should rename for them.
