Ban/Discourage posting neofetch output in Update announcements

I saw a lot people post their neofetch info as a reply to the latest update announcement. I get that it’s good to know what hardware they use, in order to see if the update will cause problems, but it makes the posts very clunky and big - especially for “all things working fine”-posts.

How about integrating a tutorial on how to collapse paragraphs of text in @discobot? And how to format code, because plaintext neofetch is messed up on mobile devices…

Like this

Here is my fancy neofetch output, neatly hidden

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Hallo! Um herauszufinden, was ich kann, schreibe @discobot Hilfe anzeigen.

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People could follow the
@discobot start tutorial or go with the
@discobot start advanced tutorial in their Greetings message, so they get how the forum works. We can’t ban nor edit each post where people do not format text, post pictures instead of text output from inxi - neofetch - screenfetch etc
The automation of this is not that easy, if even possible. I know @codesardine is working on something cool right now, to implement, but it will take some time. For now we can only rely on how people respond in the forum, and how much time each of us has to go trough all the comments …

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In general - I believe uploading images should be extremely restricted - they cause confusion and distractions.

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Not just mobile devices… formatting fixed width characters as variable width by not using code formatting markdown also mangles the output badly.

I also like to have the option of seeing the neofetch / screenfetch output, so that I know if someone who is having problems happens to have the same (decrepit) hardware as me, so perhaps I won’t repeat their mistake! :wink:

And yes, screenshots of plaintext should get a warning shot across the bow… or nine lashes!

Exactly.
Every thread with terminal output posted as images is now even more worthless than before on the old/archived forum. Searching didn’t find the errors (or whatever) when images still worked and now there isn’t even any info left…

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Cool! Looking forward to that :slight_smile:

I don’t want to clutter up announcement posts with “Please don’t do this/that” reminder answers though… A PM seems a bit intrusive :see_no_evil:

They typically do by both staff and nonstaff alike.

A flag is the way to handle it. Then the moderator will write a friendly suggestion to hide the output or to avoid uninformative posts.

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We should also discourage “thank you for this amazing update” posts that even I write because they make it harder to find the posts where people are asking for assistance. Maybe at the end of the update posts, add “please limit replies to this update notification to technical assistance only. Thanks!”

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:point_up_2: This! @philm

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Agree. People should only post if they have issues with a particular update (and of course if they managed to fix it and how they did so). There are other threads/topics to appreciate the work of the manjaro team (Or just donate instead😃).

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It’s a bit like telling pop concert audiance just sit quietly and wait for the end of the song with their applause.

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But speaking up and saying something is better than doing nothing, isn’t it?

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The best solution for me even if it sounds hard seems to be to flag users for empty posts and let the moderators deal with the flags. After having got some flags the users will either switch to a different distro (kough EOS kough :wink: ) or adapt to the rules and use the vote function if they want to say “no issues” and the like button or even an emoji on the announcement to express their gratitude.

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What about encouraging people to post pictures with outside links? Like imgur. I used YouTube videos I created to illustrate issues I was having for a few post on the old forum.

Links to picture hosting services are definitely better than uploads to the forum.

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Amen to that. Could of probably save more than a few headaches.

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I’m 100% all for enforcing the limitation to reply to announcement threads (at least for Stable update announcements, because Testing and Unstable may even have direct support/resolution of issues in the thread, but for Stable this is not possible, too much people replying there), allowing replies only for issues or constructive comments about the update. The clutter is real and I got used to read every reply, but it is getting annoying to read all the ‘no issue here’ / ‘thanks!’ replies or people troubleshooting issues directly in the thread instead of simply posting a message to report an issue with a link to a separate dedicated thread for the issue.

I understand people like to say thank you, or report that there is no problem, but this could be enforced to make sure people show their situation with ‘likes’, ‘emotes’, and ‘votes’, leaving the replies for issues or useful comment about the update.

That would really clear these threads because it is too messy usually and not everyone can read all replies all the time.

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The way that Eugen put it:

was more what I was thinking. A proper formal warning, so that the moderators all know when they review the individual in questions profile when thinking about waving ban hammer, time-out corner or moderated post restrictions. Plus it makes sure it’s taken seriously, rather than letting the unruly horde deal with it in a inconsistent manner! :stuck_out_tongue:

I think we’re seeing some Manjaro forum withdraw over-posting - which I know I am also afflicted with, as I usually only vote unless I have issues. Although this time I did have an issue, although it was not strictly related to the update itself, but the update not being seen, for apparently reason since mirror I was using was up to date. Anyone, enough noise from me, sounds like the issue is under hand :wink: