One year with Puppy Linux (by Mark South)

[raffy]

I added this post about a difference in style between Mark South and the bigger forum community:

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 527#125527

[PaulBx1]

Dougal, "carless" means he's got a truck, just like every other inhabitant of Montana.

Albini once mentioned something about how the only thing to do there as a teenager is to go to the slaughterhouse and watch cattle being killed...

We Wyomingites and Montanans say these things so people won't move here. Oops, let the cat out of the bag. Guess I'll have to go out and kill something...

[alienjeff]

Although the posts-per-hour rate has dropped well below that of the initial deluge, there's a curious hole in this debate. Did anyone else notice or will this hole get covered over and (again) only the symptom get treated?

Up until Tuesday, June 26, the people that claim their posts have mysteriously disappeared are few: Mark South, Gn2, klhrevolutionist and myself. If I left anyone out, I apologize. Now all four of us could be pejoratively classified as wingnuts for our own individual modus operandi. But on the 26th, one of the forum's more respected members publically joined our plight.

In addressing GuestToo,

But we all know who is the fly in this ointment. Indeed, if you examine my inbox, for which I grant permission should it be required, you will find an admission of deletion of one of my posts, barely an apology, from the guy who is and always has been creating mayhem around here. Sometimes, John's laudable loyalty results in us all being shot in the foot.

Forum moderators vehemently deny having the access level necessary to delete posts. The wingnuts disagree. Then Sage not only contests the moderators denial but offers evidence of his claim.

Someone is lying and I don't think it's Sage.

If there is, in fact, a rogue moderator deleting posts and other moderators are aware of such actions, then they are complicit in the act and should not be trusted.

A wise man recently summed it up much better than I ever could: "Policy and firmness does not exclude good manners and communication between dissenting parties."

Now does anyone care to come clean on this matter?

full referenced post

-aj

[bugman]

Dougal, "carless" means he's got a truck, just like every other inhabitant of Montana.

Actually, in my case, 'carless' means I walk everywhere.

I really should get a bicycle some day...

[bugman]

Albini once mentioned something about how the only thing to do there as a teenager is to go to the slaughterhouse and watch cattle being killed...

My wife (a Brit) would call that 'putting up side'. Missoula has been a college town (and not a rodeo college, either) for a hundred years or so.

Vegetarian is not too surprising: in remote rural areas there's a chance of finding some of them tree-hugging, nature-loving, immoral, vegetarian, drug-using, PuppyLinux endorsing, hippies.

Except I live in town. Think 'The Last Picture Show' and add snow. Everything between Miles City and Dickinson has that same dying look...

Reggae also makes some sense: see above comment... nothing wrong with it as long as you don't take after the politics (a tad misoginistic) or the teeth (no horror film can compete with an LP with Junior Delgado on the cover...).

Heh heh heh...we need a special dental disaster emoticon for Jamaicans and Brits! But seriously, this region likes both kinds of music--country and western.

Or do you ride a horse, thus being considered the old-fashioned cowboy-type and respected?

Horse?

Horse?

Horse?

rotflmfao

[bugman]

If the moderators were as bad as portrayed, wouldn't they be deleting my off-topic posts above?

Actually, part of the Puppy charm is the casual nature of both forum and site(s). If you want to find information easily and efficiently, why not stick with Windows?

Oh, wait, horrible memories of the M$ "help" site returning, never mind...

[GuestToo]

personally, i prefer casual to rigidly regimented and controlled ... i would not make a good private in the army ... i see nothing really wrong with a little casual off topic conversation, if it is not carried to extremes ... but each of us has different ideas and opinions and attitudes

in any case, i have no moderator powers in this section of the forum at all

i only have moderator powers in the Additional Software section, and those powers are very limited

for example, as a moderator, i can not delete any posts ... i can not even delete my own posts

i think i can edit posts, including the title of the post

i think i can move entire threads, but i don't think i can not move individual posts

i think i can split a thread and move some posts to a new thread ... i'm not sure, i have never tried to do that

most forums have a hidden section ... on this forum, moderators are expected to move threads which are spam to the hidden section (if you leave spam in a section of the forum that is not hidden, the spammers have won, because what they want is for search engine like Googlebot to index their links on your forum, to make it more likely that thier web sites will be found by a Google search)

i suppose that other moderators might have powers that i do not have, but i suspect all moderators have the same limited powers

it might be possible to split a thread, creating a new thread, and moving some posts from the old thread to the new thread, then moving the new thread to the hidden spam section ... the "deleted" posts will be visible to the other moderators, of course

personally, i agree with PaulBx1 ... John Murga owns and pays for this forum, and has permission to administrate this forum in any way he chooses, including deleting any posts he chooses ... i think he also has the right to administer his own forum in any way he chooses ... i think it would be responsible management to administer the forum in a fair manner ... in any case, i have not seen much evidence that John has not been for the most part, a fair and balanced administrator

this is pretty much the extent of my knowledge concerning this issue ... i'm sorry, but i don't know any more about it

continuing the off topic topic, i've been to Glacier Park in Montana ... http://www.nps.gov/archive/glac/webcams/ghcam.htm

i remember bringing back furniture and appliances from Great Falls in my VW bus for a friend ... i remember the customs in Sweetgrass were closed, so we just drove on through ... he said he would get in touch with them the next day, i assume he did, other wise i would have been involved with smuggling hot furniture over the border ... he was a judge, so i guess it was all right

[Dougal]

i remember bringing back furniture and appliances from Great Falls in my VW bus for a friend ... i remember the customs in Sweetgrass were closed, so we just drove on through ... he said he would get in touch with them the next day, i assume he did, other wise i would have been involved with smuggling hot furniture over the border ... he was a judge, so i guess it was all right

HA! You are exposing yourself here as being from that poor-imitation-of-the-US (as people who think the US is good say -- I don't know what goes through their minds...) up north!

Slowly, the GuestToo mistery unfolds...

[kirk]

To continue the steam of consciousness....

i remember bringing back furniture and appliances from Great Falls in my VW bus for a friend ...

I used to drive a VW bus, many years. Wonder how many other puppy users have?

[Flash]

As one of two administrators of this forum (John Murga being the other,) I have only one or two "powers" that moderators don't have. I can delete posts and members. I only delete posts that are obviously duplicates. I have never deleted a post in anger. In fact, I think I'm too lenient. I only remove members who have spammed the forum.

As I see it, part of my job is to not interfere with those forum members who want a forum that is welcoming, friendly, respectful and helpful to all.

When I was made an administrator I decided to use the force to see to it that subject lines are relevant to the content of their respective posts. People who are searching the forum shouldn't have to read every thread just to see what it is about. I cannot abide the word "help" in a subject line. If you're posting a question, it is assumed that you want or need help. Put something useful in the subject line instead, like a condensed version of your question. I usually correct any obvious spelling or grammar errors I notice in the body of a message, but I've never removed or changed anything in the body of the message just because I didn't agree with it, only to make the meaning clear.

I also freely admit to moving posts to forums that I thought were more appropriate. They can easily be moved back if anyone objects.

There have been a few forum members who for whatever reason seemed unwilling to agree that the forum should be a warm fuzzy place. I don't like dealing with them but I wouldn't be much of an administrator if I didn't. Several promising newcomers to the forum have apparently been put off by rudeness, and never came back. That is why I feel that I may have been too lenient.

[jonyo]

Beauty about reaping what you sow is that it applies to all The main reaping that I'm seeing is HUGE exposure to pup & nuttin to worry about..A wonderful reap

Always gonna be bad apples about.. or even pup's just not right for all for whatever reason..whatayagonadoo..

Big deal..1 dude has a neg pup experience & writes about it in some rag & then yada yada yada. It doesn't matter what is said..they're talkin..is the key & as others have said wonderful exposure.

Henry Ford said something ~ "there's no such thing as bad, or bad news..It's an opportunity in disguise". Mostly comes down to how ya look at things, half full, half empty; other folks it's all doom & gloom..yada yada.

Then there are mod themes, which may be valid, but there can also be agendas, which may be valid ...whatever. Don't think to many care much about this mod bugaboo hoopala, though no doubt it's vital to some. I think this rogue mod theme agenda (whatever it is) is imploding as it usually does, cz it seems more an agenda than anythin else & most folks are tiring of a broken record theme.

Then I see ~ 18 members at the other puppy forum thus far & ~ 6.500 mostly happy & positive ones here..hmmmm

Yup..ya reap what ya sow no doubt & somebody's got it wrong here.

Murga and his rogue moderator now reap what they've sown.

You really have a very particular way of being constructive Jeff.

[jonyo]

Good stuff
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 833#124833

If there is, in fact, a rogue moderator deleting posts and other moderators are aware of such actions, then they are complicit in the act and should not be trusted.

A wise man recently summed it up much better than I ever could: "Policy and firmness does not exclude good manners and communication between dissenting parties."

[k4bbob]

Sorry about being so late in my response to South's article on DistroWatch. I am not sure why it was published, but, Distrowatch got a good bit of attention and clicks based on it. It was kind of like a high school situation when some kid yells, "Fight!". Everybody comes running.

If Mr South felt slighted because he wasn't wanted by those who run a forum, he had the right to leave, and act like an adult in the process. We have all done things equally distastefull, and lived to regret it. You always have something to lose.

It is interesting that Mr. South has appeared on the Absolute Linux board responding to helpless wannabe hacks like me. Is he trying to be seen as some sort of expert on the smaller distributions? Maybe he has found a way to feel important.

Whatever. I still like Puppy on my laptop booted from a USB stick, and I still like Absolute on my old box in the basement.

Thanks, Mr Murga, for all you do for Puppy.

[Rhino]

I have always enjoyed Puppy and the community. I have found the forum full of information and I have used that as a tool to learn a lot about linux. I tend to read a lot more here than I post. When I read the article at DWW it felt like a gutshot, since I really do enjoy Puppy. I felt as though the forum and IRC issues have given Puppy the distro an undeserved black eye. I really enjoy using Puppy and I have always found the forums a rich source of information.

Reading the comments from Digg really are bothersome since most of the detractors probably have not even put a Puppy CD in their computer and are just posting to pass the time. I was glad to see some positive Puppy supporters.

I hope that all of this is settled soon and we can turn our efforts back to making Puppy as good as possible, but maybe this is part of that process.

Either way, any publicity is good publicity and hopefully some folks will look at the tiny d/l size and try it out. Who knows, maybe we will score a couple more good developers and/or contributors with all of the attention. In hindsight, we really should have coordinated the release of 2.17 with the DWW article to get the biggest splash

Rhino

[PaulBx1]

I also freely admit to moving posts to forums that I thought were more appropriate. They can easily be moved back if anyone objects.

Moving threads occasionally has to be done, but you know, it just occurred to me that I've never seen a "redirection" thread, or whatever that is called. On our forum, if I move a thread to another board, a small post is left behind saying "Moved: old thread name" and inside it is a link to the new location of the thread and a bit about why it was moved. That is very helpful for those who were posting on the thread - they can easily find it again. It's just good manners, too, I think.

Maybe this moving without any redirection threads is one of the things behind the accusations of threads being deleted. They are not deleted, they are just lost somewhere.

If phpBB has this feature (and I think it has), then maybe it ought to be turned on in this forum.

When I was made an administrator I decided to use the force to see to it that subject lines are relevant to the content of their respective posts. People who are searching the forum shouldn't have to read every thread just to see what it is about. I cannot abide the word "help" in a subject line.

To me this seems an aesthetic judgement, and therefore not something that should be imposed. Anyway lots of posts are not asking for help. And changing spelling and grammar errors? I don't think that is right. Why? Because you are putting words in other people's mouths. You are having them say something they never said. Just think of it, you would never do something like that to people in a face-to-face contact. It would be considered quite rude. Just because the forum software gives that power, doesn't mean it should be used.

The one exception I can think of, in editing subject lines, is the simple addition of the Puppy revision number, which is very useful for readers and does not really change the character of the subject line.

I am quite sensitive to this because I used to write letters to the editors of newspapers supporting the right to bear arms (among other things). Such letters were almost always edited. I first thought they had to trim down my letter to make it fit, but as I learned to make my letters concise they still kept editing them. And the editing was always clumsy, making me sound like an idiot. I finally realized the edited letters were actually longer than the ones I had sent; thus the whole point of editing them was to make a supporter of the right to bear arms sound stupid. That discovery, among others, is what made me realize the mainstream media is little more than a propaganda organ.

Sorry for the long story. Anyway that is why I'm perhaps hypersensitive to the editing of posts of others.

[jonyo]

I second. I've had subject lines changed which didn't bother me (& original posts moved I think) but could see how that might be problematic for some. I've seen examples of folks getting quite hot about these things elsewhere. I've also seen folks who know what they're talking about usin intentional spelling errors for whatever reason.
Best bet imo , for the most part, is to leave stuff alone. If a thread or post is moved, a note could be left to indicate so.
..or my 2c at least..

Also wonder why one cannot delete one's own post?

To me this seems an aesthetic judgement, and therefore not something that should be imposed. Anyway lots of posts are not asking for help. And changing spelling and grammar errors? I don't think that is right. Why? Because you are putting words in other people's mouths. You are having them say something they never said. Just think of it, you would never do something like that to people in a face-to-face contact. It would be considered quite rude. Just because the forum software gives that power, doesn't mean it should be used.

The one exception I can think of, in editing subject lines, is the simple addition of the Puppy revision number, which is very useful for readers and does not really change the character of the subject line.