It seems it is very unclear and totally arbitrary what threads are kept opened, and what thread is closed. Having proper category description could be a good start and stop confusion. A good example here in the Virtualization category:
(Replace this first paragraph with a brief description of your new category. This guidance will appear in the category selection area, so try to keep it below 200 characters.)
Use the following paragraphs for a longer description, or to establish category guidelines or rules:
Why should people use this category? What is it for?
How exactly is this different than the other categories we already have?
What should topics in this category generally contain?
Do we need this category? Can we merge with another category, or subcategory?
It is still a placeholder with no info at all.
And then in this category I see this thread that gets immediately closed
When I can see plenty of other similar, about a Win10 VM (which I think should NOT be closed, this is what this category is for in my opinion):
You get the idea. There are threads about other OS in the VIRTUALIZATION category, what a surprise.
So please make it clear what is allowed and what is not in all the forum categories, because from my point of view it seem to depend on wether or not the moderator seeing the thread first had a good day or not. I don’t see logic in this specific decision made in this example above.
There’s no point. Nobody gives a rat’s tail end about the forum categories.
Everyone simply dumps their threads in whatever category they see fit, even if the problem at hand doesn’t even remotely have anything to do with the topic of the forum category.
Every day when I log on, I have to move about 10 to 20 new threads to their respective proper categories. (And that includes this thread here, because it should have gone under #site-feedback:forum instead of just under #site-feedback. )
@omano brings up a valid question. I know it’s like walking on eggshells and comes off as “confrontational” to challenge a moderator’s decision, but let’s remember we’re all here for each other with a common goal. Users, newbies, experts, moderators, all of us.
Why was the thread immediately closed? It’s under “Virtualization” and it is neighbored by other posts involving Windows 10, virtualization, and getting ideal performance from the GPU. Yet the other posts are filled with activity and were not closed.
This can inadvertently make a user tentative to start new topics or ask questions. In the large scheme of things, that won’t help the community as a whole.
Just for the record, one does not have to be a moderator in order to move a thread to a different forum category. TL3 and TL4 members can do that too ─ and the idea of giving them that ability is of course also that they’d actually use it, but unfortunately, even among the moderators there are only a few who actually care about parking threads into the right categories.
I saw that, and as a moderator myself, I do not necessarily agree with the moderator who closed that thread, but unfortunately the moderator in question has a propensity for doing exactly that sort of thing.
This situation would need discussion, but then said discussion needs to be conducted among the moderators themselves and be kept off of the public sections of the forum. And I think I may have already broken that condition now by bringing it up here.
I get @omano point, there’s no consistency at all over which threads get closed and which don’t. I know its a large forum and all moderators give up their time for free to maintain the form and it can be a thankless task. Some guidelines/consistency would really help
Yes, but only on the condition that people were to actually read those guidelines. Seriously, most people simply don’t, and they also don’t even use the search function of the forum, even though the life-and-death super-duper-high-priority issue they’re going to be posting about has already been posted and solved 10’000 times.
The core of the problem isn’t so much any ambiguity on account of the forum categories and their descriptions, even though there definitely is room for improvement in that area, but the selfishness and impatience of the people who join up here specifically for help with an issue ─ and that’s all that 95% of them are joining up for, because they’re not interested in the community, they’re not interested in keeping up with the news about updates and configuration changes, and they’re not interested in helping out other members.
I’ve been a moderator myself on a site with 3million plus members, I know what a thankless task it is. I will never call a moderator because I know just how annoying it is seeing a question posted when literally the very previous post was there answer.
There’s no magic wand and every moderator sees things differently but the fact moderators are discussing "the situation " is definitely a good thing
The thread is not about this specific decision or specific moderator, this thread I took as example was the most recent example for the situation I wanted to discuss.
Was just my feedback about the forum categories that’s all.
Manjaro forum is - as far as I am informed - a forum for helping each other with Manjaro related issues and to a degree Linux in general.
While topics on the general approach to create e.g. virtual machines are OK - detailed question specifically on how to install windows or redhat or … and get the foreign operating system working inside a VM on Manjaro using very advanced features like GPU passthrough on virtmanager is more suited for a forum of the operating system or the vm-engine in question than to Manjaro.
There is a kind of questions which have the distinct smell of help-vampirism - does that term exist - and I will admit I am kind’of allergic to such types of question. Question that clearly indicates the asking party has not done any - what-so-ever - research on the topic at hand - if you think I am over-reacting in such case - please feel free to pm me - let’s have a chat - present your logic - let’s take it from there.
Why is there topics on the matter filled with activity?
Maybe because moderators are different and none of us are patrolling the forum to find something to moderate.
An early closure of new topic is most likely due to the immediate impression and the moderator who spots it.
I’d be willing to put some effort into expanding / pruning / editing / helping out with this, not sure where to start tho. Just pick somewhere and start messaging random moderators does not seem like a effective approach.
)
Users, newbies, experts, moderators, all of us.
In the large scheme of things, that won’t help the community as a whole.
