rules and guidelines for new forum - first draft
Hi Friends, As it turned out, only me and a couple of other people were interested in drafting the rules and guidelines for the new forum. So we can get more eyes on it, and possibly more professional opinions about it, I'd like to ask the community to have a look at it.
I have no background in writing such documents, so it's purely a layperson's whack at it. I feel quite confident about the contents, based on my years of experience in Inkscape forums. But the format of the document, and possibly some of the language might need some technical advice.
So any an all comments and suggestions about the format or language are very welcome.
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/vectors/content/blob/master/articles/Forum%20Rul...
(I've left it locked to editing, so everyone sees the same doc, for this first review. Then I'll unlock it afterwards.)
Thank you very much, brynn
PS - I'm also posting about this in the forums.
Feedback:
* There are admins, because django itself has admins. But they are the website's admins, not specific to the forum. (so inherited admins)
* Regular members information, complaints, and etiquette should appear before moderator team information. Because more people will be regular and this is the info they will need first.
* The forum etiquette is similar to the "Ask Smart Questions" pages for the chat.
* There isn't anything about posting attachments, or videos, either moderating them (i.e. family friendly only) or if there would be limitations to posting content such as file formats (svg, png?, pdf?), amount of space quota (currently 10MB for normal users) or if certain forums will be moderated for different kinds of images/videos.
* Should animated gifs be encouraged for people explaining a problem? They can be really useful on the developer side.
Best Regards, Martin Owens
On Wed, 2019-03-13 at 23:07 -0600, brynn wrote:
Hi Friends, As it turned out, only me and a couple of other people were interested in drafting the rules and guidelines for the new forum. So we can get more eyes on it, and possibly more professional opinions about it, I'd like to ask the community to have a look at it.
I have no background in writing such documents, so it'spurely a layperson's whack at it. I feel quite confident about the contents, based on my years of experience in Inkscape forums. But the format of the document, and possibly some of the language might need some technical advice.
So any an all comments and suggestions about the format orlanguage are very welcome.
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/vectors/content/blob/master/articles/Forum%20Rul...
(I've left it locked to editing, so everyone sees the samedoc, for this first review. Then I'll unlock it afterwards.)
Thank you very much, brynn
PS - I'm also posting about this in the forums.
Inkscape-devel mailing list Inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-devel
- Regular members information, complaints, and etiquette should appear
before moderator team information. Because more people will be regular and this is the info they will need first.
The Regular Membeers, Complaints and Etiquette sections is all that will appear in the forum. The rules about moderators won't be interesting to most people. But wherever this ends up, as a whole document, will be linked from the forum. But I don't mind switching it around - no problem.
But I still don't know where this document should be stored. Does anyone know, or is it up to me? Should there be a forum moderators team, and then this document could be the Charter?
- The forum etiquette is similar to the "Ask Smart Questions" pages
for the chat.
Oh, I see that has changed slightly since the last time I looked at it. Note that in the Community menu > Community Chat goes directly to the RocketChat rooms, and the Ask Smart Questions doc is not available. You can only see it by clicking Chat on IRC in the menu.
Anyway, are you suggesting to use it in the forum, or modify it for the forum?
- There isn't anything about posting attachments, or videos, either
moderating them (i.e. family friendly only) or if there would be limitations to posting content such as file formats (svg, png?, pdf?), amount of space quota (currently 10MB for normal users) or if certain forums will be moderated for different kinds of images/videos.
That's all covered in the CoC, and comes under Regular Member behavior. I could make a section for it, but it would be similar to the Regular Members and Complaints sections, simply referring to the CoC.
Or another option would be to put the entire text of the CoC within this document (instead of a link)?
Certain forums will not be moderated differently. Not unless you're suggesting we should have a "NSFW" section? Do you think there should be limitations on formats?
The quota is among several things that keep slipping my mind to ask about or bring up. It likely will need to be expanded for the forum. Sometimes people want to upload a 20 to 25 mb SVG file. And the people who do most of the answering of questions will need much more, as well. Maybe I should make an issue in GL for this discussion?
- Should animated gifs be encouraged for people explaining a problem?
They can be really useful on the developer side.
Oh geez! I already feel overwhelmed trying to get people to even post a screenshot of their problem much less share the SVG file! If there were some animated GIF program which non-tech-savvy users could use, I might suggest it. But so far, I haven't been able to find one. ShareX has been recommended a few times, but all I can do is open it. I can't figure out how to use it!
If there's a simple-to-use program, we could add it to the Etiquette section. Or maybe you want to add it to the GL Inbox bug form? That would seem like a more appropriate place for it, since few problems posted in forums ever become a bug report.
But this does give me the idea, that maybe we need to add one more etiquette point, about posting screenshots and SVG file.
Thanks for your comments, Martin!
brynn
-----Original Message----- From: doctormo@...400... Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2019 7:51 AM To: brynn ; Inkscape User Community Cc: Inkscape-Devel Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] rules and guidelines for new forum - first draft
Feedback:
* There are admins, because django itself has admins. But they are the website's admins, not specific to the forum. (so inherited admins)
* Regular members information, complaints, and etiquette should appear before moderator team information. Because more people will be regular and this is the info they will need first.
* The forum etiquette is similar to the "Ask Smart Questions" pages for the chat.
* There isn't anything about posting attachments, or videos, either moderating them (i.e. family friendly only) or if there would be limitations to posting content such as file formats (svg, png?, pdf?), amount of space quota (currently 10MB for normal users) or if certain forums will be moderated for different kinds of images/videos.
* Should animated gifs be encouraged for people explaining a problem? They can be really useful on the developer side.
Best Regards, Martin Owens
On Wed, 2019-03-13 at 23:07 -0600, brynn wrote:
Hi Friends, As it turned out, only me and a couple of other people were interested in drafting the rules and guidelines for the new forum. So we can get more eyes on it, and possibly more professional opinions about it, I'd like to ask the community to have a look at it.
I have no background in writing such documents, so it'spurely a layperson's whack at it. I feel quite confident about the contents, based on my years of experience in Inkscape forums. But the format of the document, and possibly some of the language might need some technical advice.
So any an all comments and suggestions about the format orlanguage are very welcome.
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/vectors/content/blob/master/articles/Forum%20Rul...
(I've left it locked to editing, so everyone sees the samedoc, for this first review. Then I'll unlock it afterwards.)
Thank you very much, brynn
PS - I'm also posting about this in the forums.
Inkscape-devel mailing list Inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-devel
Thanks Brynn,
Anyway, are you suggesting to use it in the forum, or modify it for the forum?
No, just read over it again and see if we can harmonise them; making sure there's no glaring omissions.
Certain forums will not be moderated differently. Not unless you're suggesting we should have a "NSFW" section? Do you think there should be limitations on formats?
No NSFW section, we don't have any age checking or viewer limiters. Formats are up to the forum, I'm guessing no limits.
The quota is among several things that keep slipping my mind to ask about or bring up. It likely will need to be expanded for the forum. Sometimes people want to upload a 20 to 25 mb SVG file. And the people who do most of the answering of questions will need much more, as well. Maybe I should make an issue in GL for this discussion?
All that's needed is for a reasonable quota to exist, be set to a group and then add the users to that group so they get to have that quota.
For example moderators are easy. 200MB for them. Prolific answerers are a bit harder because they're not a group, but doable. Say 100MB? they can always delete their large files later if them want to.
Say 20MB for regular users for now?
Best Regards, Martin Owens
No, just read over it again and see if we can harmonise them; making
sure there's no glaring omissions.
Oh ok. They essentially contain the same info, just organized differently.
Re quotas. Could it work so that a particular number of messages posted, earns a certain quota? We'd have to have some trial and error to find the right numbers. But that really makes sense, that the people answering the most questions are probably posting the most screenshots.
Prolific answerers are
a bit harder because they're not a group, but doable.
20 mb sounds good for regular members. The vast majority could probably get by with whatever it was before. But it's the prolific answerers that I was worried about. I think I'd rather see the regular member quota back to what it was before (9 or 10 mb?) if that would help make room for the answerers.
Oh, or instead of certain number of messages, could their be other groups? Inkscape Community has a group called "mentors" which are the prolific answerers. Just a thought.
I think we want to avoid people having to delete older images to make room for newer ones. Because a lot of people find answers to their problems by searching the forum. But if the image is missing from a message which otherwise answers their question, they'll have to post a message anyway.
Should we start thinking about some alternative place where people can upload images? If they can't attach them, then at least they can insert or embed them (I'm not sure the proper word, but we talked about it on GL, and I think you had agreed to it, as long as it wasn't inline insertions, although I haven't seen it yet).
Just out of curiosity. If the project has its own server, why can't it be unlimited? Since we have the first 2 message moderation system, no attachments are seen until they're approved by a moderator. So the quota isn't needed to prevent spam. Would there be any way to remove the quota for forum uploads only?
Thanks, brynn
-----Original Message----- From: doctormo@...400... Sent: Sunday, March 17, 2019 8:16 AM To: brynn ; Inkscape User Community Cc: Inkscape-Devel Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] rules and guidelines for new forum - first draft
Thanks Brynn,
Anyway, are you suggesting to use it in the forum, or modify it for the forum?
No, just read over it again and see if we can harmonise them; making sure there's no glaring omissions.
Certain forums will not be moderated differently. Not unless you're suggesting we should have a "NSFW" section? Do you think there should be limitations on formats?
No NSFW section, we don't have any age checking or viewer limiters. Formats are up to the forum, I'm guessing no limits.
The quota is among several things that keep slipping my mind to ask about or bring up. It likely will need to be expanded for the forum. Sometimes people want to upload a 20 to 25 mb SVG file. And the people who do most of the answering of questions will need much more, as well. Maybe I should make an issue in GL for this discussion?
All that's needed is for a reasonable quota to exist, be set to a group and then add the users to that group so they get to have that quota.
For example moderators are easy. 200MB for them. Prolific answerers are a bit harder because they're not a group, but doable. Say 100MB? they can always delete their large files later if them want to.
Say 20MB for regular users for now?
Best Regards, Martin Owens
Hi Brynn,
The quota is useful in terms of just protecting the server from overload. We could raise it now that the server has a lot more disk space. We currently have 50GB free, and we could probably clean the disk to reclaim some of that too.
Say if someone who posted twice, got through the queue and then created a script to upload 100TB of tiny svg files.... the server would fall over and we'd have quite a job removing all the files. (this is almost certain not to happen of course)
We'll just top the quota at something reasonable for people who post a lot. A mentor's team sounds like a great addition.
Best Regards, Martin Owens
On Sun, 2019-03-17 at 11:11 -0600, brynn wrote:
No, just read over it again and see if we can harmonise them; making
sure there's no glaring omissions.
Oh ok. They essentially contain the same info, just organized differently.
Re quotas. Could it work so that a particular number of messages posted, earns a certain quota? We'd have to have some trial and error to find the right numbers. But that really makes sense, that the people answering the most questions are probably posting the most screenshots.
Prolific answerers are
a bit harder because they're not a group, but doable.
20 mb sounds good for regular members. The vast majority could probably get by with whatever it was before. But it's the prolific answerers that I was worried about. I think I'd rather see the regular member quota back to what it was before (9 or 10 mb?) if that would help make room for the answerers.
Oh, or instead of certain number of messages, could their be other groups? Inkscape Community has a group called "mentors" which are the prolific answerers. Just a thought.
I think we want to avoid people having to delete older images to make room for newer ones. Because a lot of people find answers to their problems by searching the forum. But if the image is missing from a message which otherwise answers their question, they'll have to post a message anyway.
Should we start thinking about some alternative place where people can upload images? If they can't attach them, then at least they can insert or embed them (I'm not sure the proper word, but we talked about it on GL, and I think you had agreed to it, as long as it wasn't inline insertions, although I haven't seen it yet).
Just out of curiosity. If the project has its own server, why can't it be unlimited? Since we have the first 2 message moderation system, no attachments are seen until they're approved by a moderator. So the quota isn't needed to prevent spam. Would there be any way to remove the quota for forum uploads only?
Thanks, brynn
-----Original Message----- From: doctormo@...400... Sent: Sunday, March 17, 2019 8:16 AM To: brynn ; Inkscape User Community Cc: Inkscape-Devel Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] rules and guidelines for new forum - first draft
Thanks Brynn,
Anyway, are you suggesting to use it in the forum, or modify it for the forum?
No, just read over it again and see if we can harmonise them; making sure there's no glaring omissions.
Certain forums will not be moderated differently. Not unless you're suggesting we should have a "NSFW" section? Do you think there should be limitations on formats?
No NSFW section, we don't have any age checking or viewer limiters. Formats are up to the forum, I'm guessing no limits.
The quota is among several things that keep slipping my mind to ask about or bring up. It likely will need to be expanded for the forum. Sometimes people want to upload a 20 to 25 mb SVG file. And the people who do most of the answering of questions will need much more, as well. Maybe I should make an issue in GL for this discussion?
All that's needed is for a reasonable quota to exist, be set to a group and then add the users to that group so they get to have that quota.
For example moderators are easy. 200MB for them. Prolific answerers are a bit harder because they're not a group, but doable. Say 100MB? they can always delete their large files later if them want to.
Say 20MB for regular users for now?
Best Regards, Martin Owens
On Wed, Mar 13, 2019 at 11:07:14PM -0600, brynn wrote:
Hi Friends, As it turned out, only me and a couple of other people were interested in drafting the rules and guidelines for the new forum. So we can get more eyes on it, and possibly more professional opinions about it, I'd like to ask the community to have a look at it.
Yay! It's awesome seeing this task has come along so well.
I have no background in writing such documents, so it's purely alayperson's whack at it. I feel quite confident about the contents, based on my years of experience in Inkscape forums. But the format of the document, and possibly some of the language might need some technical advice.
So any an all comments and suggestions about the format or languageare very welcome.
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/vectors/content/blob/master/articles/Forum%20Rul...
(I've left it locked to editing, so everyone sees the same doc, forthis first review. Then I'll unlock it afterwards.)
"Prerequisites for being a moderator"
* Age requirements * Time availability
It also mentions requiring previous experience as a forum moderator (on an external forum I suppose?) I take it you expect there's going to be plenty enough people with past experience?
"Moderator Duties and Responsibilities"
#3: On mailing lists, I've found the phrase "Let's all keep discussions civil" to work well and have the desired effect, and would suggest including that phrasing here too.
In addition to Inactive Moderators, can you add some guidance on what steps to do if a moderator is not behaving acceptably? I'm imagining this might either be a unanimous vote of the other moderators, or perhaps if that won't work, some kind of escalation to a higher authority, or something. I'm imagining this will be exceedingly rare, but having a process spelled out might help it be even more rare. ;-)
"Complaints"
I think some text may be worth adding here regarding, "What if I feel a moderator is treating me unfairly?" Escalating to the CoC is appropriate for major issues, but for minor complaints about a moderator it may be better if there is some guidance on how to address it within the forum moderation team.
The Forum Etiquette section is great, and I wonder if it should be at the top of the document, since that's probably what you want *everyone* to read. Unless your plan is to have this officially live here, but cut and paste it into appropriate areas of the forum.
Thanks for working on this, it reads very easy and as a lot of common sense. It'll make a great foundation to build on.
Bryce
Thank you very much, brynn
PS - I'm also posting about this in the forums.
Inkscape-devel mailing list Inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-devel
"Prerequisites for being a moderator"
* Age requirements * Time availability It also mentions requiring previous experience as a forum moderator (on an external forum I suppose?) I take it you expect there's going to be plenty enough people with past experience?
Well, there always has been enough people with past experience. We're kind of in a new world, with the old forum members not wanting to participate. It would be so very time intensive to teach someone who has never moderated before. But it might become necessary. It's a bridge we'll have to cross if we come to it.
I'm not sure how we could fact check an age requirement for moderators. I see the requirement for experience as a much stronger indication of maturity than age. But if there's some legal reason for it, we could mention age. No problem mentioning the time. It's mostly as much time as the volunteer has to offer, but I can come up with an estimate.
"Moderator Duties and Responsibilities"
#3: On mailing lists, I've found the phrase "Let's all keep discussions civil" to work well and have the desired effect, and would suggest including that phrasing here too. In addition to Inactive Moderators, can you add some guidance on what steps to do if a moderator is not behaving acceptably? I'm imagining this might either be a unanimous vote of the other moderators, or perhaps if that won't work, some kind of escalation to a higher authority, or something. I'm imagining this will be exceedingly rare, but having a process spelled out might help it be even more rare. ;-)
Yes, "civil" sounds good. I'll put it in.
Well, the CoC is specific about a complaint about a moderator. ("If you believe you have been unfairly penalized by a moderator, you may contact Inkscape's board. Decisions of the board are final.")
Are you talking about other moderators taking some kind of action (well, demoting that moderator, I guess)? Or maybe just a mutual mentoring of each other? I envision moderators collaborating as much as possible - we even have a board only for moderators. I would hope the collaboration would keep us mostly all on the same page.
It's so hard to think in terms of the worst case scenario, when as a whole, that has been very rare. I agree that it's good to have it covered. I just find it hard to write about it, when so many potential situations have never happened. And they have so many potential solutions.
"Complaints"
I think some text may be worth adding here regarding, "What if I feel a moderator is treating me unfairly?" Escalating to the CoC is appropriate for major issues, but for minor complaints about a moderator it may be better if there is some guidance on how to address it within the forum moderation team. The Forum Etiquette section is great, and I wonder if it should be at the top of the document, since that's probably what you want *everyone* to read. Unless your plan is to have this officially live here, but cut and paste it into appropriate areas of the forum.
Hhmm.... Is this the same question as just above? Oh I see, you just want it written into the complaint section too?
Yes, Martin wants the Etiquette section switched around too. Will do!
Hhmm, would it work to copy/paste the relevant parts of the CoC into the Regular Members section and Complain section? I'm not sure. But I can think of a couple of clarifications I can add anyway.
It'll make a great foundation to build on.
Aaww, and here I thought it was almost finished. Or do you mean build on over the years?
As I said in my reply to Martin, I don't know where it's supposed to live. I think it would work well to have a Forum Moderators team (on the website Teams page) and this document would be the Charter. On the other hand, as a governing document (as it were), perhaps SFC should hold it?
Thanks for your input, Bryce!
brynn
-----Original Message----- From: Bryce Harrington Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2019 9:47 PM To: brynn Cc: Inkscape User Community ; Inkscape-Devel Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] rules and guidelines for new forum - first draft
On Wed, Mar 13, 2019 at 11:07:14PM -0600, brynn wrote:
Hi Friends, As it turned out, only me and a couple of other people were interested in drafting the rules and guidelines for the new forum. So we can get more eyes on it, and possibly more professional opinions about it, I'd like to ask the community to have a look at it.
Yay! It's awesome seeing this task has come along so well.
I have no background in writing such documents, so it's purely alayperson's whack at it. I feel quite confident about the contents, based on my years of experience in Inkscape forums. But the format of the document, and possibly some of the language might need some technical advice.
So any an all comments and suggestions about the format or languageare very welcome.
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/vectors/content/blob/master/articles/Forum%20Rul...
(I've left it locked to editing, so everyone sees the same doc, forthis first review. Then I'll unlock it afterwards.)
"Prerequisites for being a moderator"
* Age requirements * Time availability
It also mentions requiring previous experience as a forum moderator (on an external forum I suppose?) I take it you expect there's going to be plenty enough people with past experience?
"Moderator Duties and Responsibilities"
#3: On mailing lists, I've found the phrase "Let's all keep discussions civil" to work well and have the desired effect, and would suggest including that phrasing here too.
In addition to Inactive Moderators, can you add some guidance on what steps to do if a moderator is not behaving acceptably? I'm imagining this might either be a unanimous vote of the other moderators, or perhaps if that won't work, some kind of escalation to a higher authority, or something. I'm imagining this will be exceedingly rare, but having a process spelled out might help it be even more rare. ;-)
"Complaints"
I think some text may be worth adding here regarding, "What if I feel a moderator is treating me unfairly?" Escalating to the CoC is appropriate for major issues, but for minor complaints about a moderator it may be better if there is some guidance on how to address it within the forum moderation team.
The Forum Etiquette section is great, and I wonder if it should be at the top of the document, since that's probably what you want *everyone* to read. Unless your plan is to have this officially live here, but cut and paste it into appropriate areas of the forum.
Thanks for working on this, it reads very easy and as a lot of common sense. It'll make a great foundation to build on.
Bryce
Thank you very much, brynn
PS - I'm also posting about this in the forums.
Inkscape-devel mailing list Inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-devel
On Sun, Mar 17, 2019 at 07:50:40AM -0600, brynn wrote:
Well, the CoC is specific about a complaint about a moderator. ("If you believe you have been unfairly penalized by a moderator, you may contact Inkscape's board. Decisions of the board are final.")
Are you talking about other moderators taking some kind of action (well, demoting that moderator, I guess)? Or maybe just a mutual mentoring of each other? I envision moderators collaborating as much as possible - we even have a board only for moderators. I would hope the collaboration would keep us mostly all on the same page.
Yes, that's exactly what I'm thinking. Yes, board escalation is a valid path if things get really sticky, but my hope is that will be extraordinarily rare, and that the moderators themselves have the ability to take care of most problems themselves.
It's so hard to think in terms of the worst case scenario, when as a whole, that has been very rare. I agree that it's good to have it covered. I just find it hard to write about it, when so many potential situations have never happened. And they have so many potential solutions.
Yeah, I can see that. And honestly it's not like the guidelines can't be adapted as we go and things come up. We can course correct.
It'll make a great foundation to build on.
Aaww, and here I thought it was almost finished. Or do you mean build on over the years?
Exactly. :-) Living document and such.
As I said in my reply to Martin, I don't know where it's supposed to live. I think it would work well to have a Forum Moderators team (on the website Teams page) and this document would be the Charter. On the other hand, as a governing document (as it were), perhaps SFC should hold it?
Yeah just in the team section of the website sounds like the proper place for it.
Bryce
participants (3)
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Bryce Harrington -
brynn