We could get along if you weren’t such an asshole
by schwim on Apr.10, 2009, under Miscellaneous
A recent posting on a forum that I used to frequent got me thinking. In it, a user that had been “done wrong” decided to dedicate his life to making sure that everyone on the intarweb knew that the mods and admins of the forum that had perpetrated these wrongs had been taken to task and exposed for the weenies that they are. So he created his own competing forum that was going to shine where the other forum failed.
The last time I had checked it, the thread had fallen short of it’s comedic potential but the seed had nevertheless been planted. I got to contemplating the urge in people to split from an existing group or community only to create another group or community. So there. Neener, Neener. The only difference is that you have no user base and you’re going to spend your time on your forum talking to yourself.
This doesn’t just happen in social communities. Open source software is world renown(and ridiculed) for this. Don’t like the way Francisco Burzi handles the development of PHP-Nuke? Well, just fork the development. Ok, except hundreds of people did just that separately of each other. The 10 or so that didn’t fail immediately all continued on while acting as if the others didn’t exist. Some of the refusal to work together between the development teams were for reasons as small as simple coding methods. All agreed that they could work together if the other team would change their development method. Sometimes they would get together just long enough to have a fantastic falling out that ended in a reforking of the already forked project.
But wait there’s more examples to be had than just the soap opera style explosions of egos between small-change coders. Let’s look at linux in general. Have a look at the popularity page on Distrowatch.com. It lists 300 flavors of linux on this page and tracks their popularity from day to day so you can see if your favorite brand of linux is more popular than it was yesterday. Only if it’s in the top 300 distros though. If your distro comes in at 301, you’re out of luck.
The top 300 operating systems. Think about the scope of that. Windows offers you three distributions and if you go with a Mac, you can follow Henry Ford’s line of thinking, who said “Any customer can have a car painted any colour he wants so long as it is black.” Linux has so many that this particular fan site restricts it’s tracking to 300 distributions. In spite of this, the linux zealots wonder why the operating system can’t be taken seriously by Joe Sixpack. You can claim that there’s legitimate reasons for separate distributions and I would agree. If, however you argue that there is a legitimate reason for hundreds of wrappers for the same linux, I would ask you if you had lost your bong while wandering through the blog. This openness is the greatest asset linux has. The extent in which it is used is it’s greatest Achille’s heel. God forbid we simply offer an application package for a particular flavor of *nx. We should most definitely offer our own flavor so we can tailor it to people that collect bottle caps. They deserve their own distribution of linux.
The very same mindset that makes people care what place their distro is in on the popularity page at Distrowatch.com is the one that causes people to fork scripts for no real reason and create competing forums when plenty already exist. There’s an inflated sense of ego that people don’t know how to handle. They’re incensed that something they hold important was deemed less important by others. It never crosses their mind to simply move on to one of the millions of other forums out there, collaberate on a script in spite of minor differences or in the case of linux distros, just use one of the hundreds of freaking flavors at your disposal.
You’re all doing it wrong.
Unless your intention is to muddy the waters more than it already is, in which case you’re a griefer and you’re actually doing it right.
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Maybe they can start their own “Top 500″ site… | E-Dribble
May 24th, 2009 on 11:35 pm[...] of the regulars know my stance on what I consider is the crippling addiction of open source software to fork. The nerds just can’t seem to help [...]
April 11th, 2009 on 9:33 am
Hey schwim – nice article. I think you hit the nail on the head.
I like choice in Linux, but, personally, I figure a dozen or so distros (plus their spins) ought to do it – ranging from Windows wannabes to source-only-compile-it-yourself. I mean, it’s not like Linux doesn’t give you config options anyway. Of course, if anyone should choose to disagree, then they’re obviously an asshole.
Regarding “the user”: said individual is probably still basking in his 15 minutes of fame, but I’m not sure he grasps just how little people care about him (as opposed to having an event to talk about) or how quickly they’ll forget. Actually, the people who care most are the people who banned him. In the end, it’s just a darn forum – and with that in mind, I’m taking a break from it, until a couple of other egos settle down.
I might even try having a life for a while.
April 11th, 2009 on 10:14 am
Hey now, there’s no need to go overboard here.
I don’t know the guy in question as I left before his arrival, but if I had to guess, his inflated sense of importance in this matter is in direct proportion to his inflated sense of importance concerning the situation. The world over needs to know the wrong perpetrated here and he’s made it his duty to satiate our need.
Everyone has an ego, myself included, but mine is bruised enough from visits with Realityville to understand that my abrupt departure from the same forum was as much my fault as anyone else.
I used my free time to become addicted to a MMORPG, break said addiction and then work on some of my FOSS scripts that have been in dev suspension for over a year. I don’t suggest the first to you as a viable way to pass the time, but if you ever do find yourself wanting to kill time, there are a lot of forums that foster a sense of community. Just start visiting one of the millions out there until you find one you like. Piece of cake.
April 11th, 2009 on 4:26 pm
And, after all, they’re just Forums. In this case, the Forum is supposed to be about linux, and a particular flavor of linux at that. It’s supposed to be there to give the devs a break from answering the ‘how do I configure my Nvidia graphics card for the 100,000th. time. In other words, it’s users helping users…about linux. Now then, after some helpful advice, there’s likely going to be a bit of socializing and that’s where the fun begins. People enjoy chatting with other people and any Forum gives them the chance. The problem is that the topics drift far away from linux and into muddy waters. When some guy who’s “in charge” puts a halt to a disruptive topic or one that is insensitive to the feelings of at least some of the members, well then the Administrators become nazis to the user. How dare they stifle HIS right of free speach?
So, that’s the fun of administering. Putting in loads of time, gratis, trying to be Solomon without succeeding and, ultimately getting negative feedback. I should mention too that there are many who ask for features that you can’t provide or it takes a long time to get them. Sadly, when they are finally available, you find all the other members who want it put back the way it was. All part of the fun, I suppose, but it does get old. And so do I.
So, today I’m following your example and taking a break. It’s Spring, time to get outside and find out what needs work this year, make plans for projects, see if the old outboard will fire up once more and if the fishing’s getting any better. After all, it’s just a Forum and it’s supposed to be about linux.
April 11th, 2009 on 8:07 pm
I eventually conceded that the particular forum was not a community forum but a support forum as you stated and any attempts to behave otherwise on it was akin to pissing up a rope. Both parties walked away unhappy with the results.
It’s a tough gig, Bob and it’s very rarely appreciated. I think that moderating a forum should have a term much like politics, otherwise you are apt to get burnt out, which usually leads to less warm-fuzzy moments and more reprimands.
Take some time off. Maybe while you’re relaxing, we can partner together to start our own forum for those that have spent too much time on forums.
It will be a support forum, of course, so none of that idle chatter that the whippersnappers seem to like so much.
April 19th, 2009 on 5:24 am
Does kind of make you wonder what all the fuss is about, doesn’t it? .
April 19th, 2009 on 10:21 am
Damnit, Dan, you’re late to the party again. We’re done poking fun at this particular egotist and have moved on to poking fun at egotists that are unable to form thoughts that require more than 140 characters.
How can I perpetuate a hostile takeover of the interworld if my support crew is late to arrive?
We gotta work on your response time, man.