https://community.signalusers.org/t/reminder-please-be-nice/21217 Signal Community Reminder: Please be nice General Discussion ProactiveServices (Adam Piggott) January 12, 2021, 10:20am #1 I have seen a significant uptick of people posting or joining the forums and using belligerent language, making unilateral demands and insulting the process that is open source software. "The fact you haven't done x is stupid". "How can you write a piece of software that doesn't do y?". "It's 2021 and you still can't make a program do z, how pathetic". Not exact words, but accurate sentiments. Please don't do this. Please be nice. The Signal team, as with any open-source team, are not infinite resources to pour down the drain. Every hour they spend on their job working for Signal, every hour they spend after work helping out, every hour a volunteer puts into forum support and bug investigation, is an hour consumed. To receive insults and vitriol in return is corrosive. It is unfair and it is not in the spirit of giving, of making something and offering it for free. You're receiving this for free, this great software which is made by people who literally care about your privacy. They don't know you, and they sure don't know what you talk about on Signal, and yet they put in a lot of effort for this. Not to make wads of cash. Not to sell you to advertisers for your social life to be analysed and abused. The developer for the Mastodon software Fedilab recently revealed he has been burnt out and I've read elsewhere it was because people were screaming hate at him for a principle he upheld - which was that his software would not censor people screaming hate at each other. I'm sure you can appreciate the painful irony here. (Please note that his stepping down seems to be for real, the specific reasons I've gave are speculation). I, for one, chose his software specifically because it did not censor, because whilst a believe a service can censor if it chooses, software must remain neutral. (If you wish to discuss this, perhaps let's do that on another thread). Don't be that person. Don't jump on issues making demands. Don't pile on forum threads that make some users' opinions very clear as it is, and throw your bellicose howling in there too. Don't insult the developers or their priorities, their choices. They are real people who have a finite capacity for work and for abuse. Add a thumbs up to an issue, add a heart to a forum request. Post only if you can materially add to the discussion, the report. Please be nice. 97 Likes Leptopoda January 12, 2021, 10:56am #2 We as old community members should also be reminded to be nice even when other people are not nice. I can talk of myself (and think many other here feel the same) that sometimes when a wave of people hits and behave bad I am angry and I should be nicer to other people. So to us, even when we have people misbehave and maybe even spaming or other stuff we should still try to be serious and nice to each other :) Have a nice day all! 19 Likes Lion1969 January 12, 2021, 12:38pm #3 @Herohtar I'd suggest to pin this topic at the top wherever that's possible (at least for now) 9 Likes Herohtar pinned globally January 12, 2021, 10:38pm #6 Herohtar January 12, 2021, 10:38pm #7 I've tried pinning it globally for a month, we'll see how that goes. 12 Likes Junkii January 13, 2021, 12:51am #8 Thank- you. Great reminder. Community is important. 4 Likes spokanemike1966 (Michael F Cook) January 13, 2021, 2:01am #9 This post was flagged by the community and is temporarily hidden. mhack January 13, 2021, 2:00am #10 (post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged) Meteor0id (Meteor0id) January 13, 2021, 2:06am #11 Taking a risk of offending people is not a means to push your opinion. There is no law against it, but there are community guidelines against it. Pushing the buttons of other people, you full well know that sooner or later you will push a button that triggers something. That's why we don't push each others buttons in the first place. you can always make your point without being rude. 11 Likes m-graf (Graf) January 13, 2021, 4:15am #12 Thank you for encouraging this. If y'all need an engineer who's dabbling in product, message me. I'd love to help however I can. 3 Likes King_Orange (King Orange) January 13, 2021, 5:57am #13 You being offended by my offensive behaviour is offensive. 1 Like CatEars January 13, 2021, 6:11am #14 This is a great example of what not to say. When a community leader says "Please be nice to each other", the appropriate response is not "cyber bullying is not against the law, so it is okay". 5 Likes RomeoGolfBravo (Romeo Golf Bravo) January 13, 2021, 6:19am #15 # spokanemike1966: Not being nice is not against any rule or law. This is the attitude, "Offended by frivolous things" That caused the removals and censoring on the other platforms. Not the fact that someone "Wasn't nice", But the people who get offended and complain about it is how the problem starts. This is not cool, and you have kind of missed the point entirely. As the post says, the people behind the non-profit app are spending time out of their days to help everyone get the best out of the app. Of late, with the influx of users requesting (and demanding!) features akin to WhatsApp and the other monstrosities, it's likely to take its toll. I appreciate what you are saying, to a degree. I also don't think your post should be 'hidden' as it's been reported by the Cancel-Culture-Community. I firmly believe that if you say something, you own that! As you will expect, people are entitled to reply to that to support or rebut. That's called a conversation. So you shouldn't be denied that. That said, the Community Guidelines are what they are. And if we disagree, we can chose not to participate. In summary, the bottom line is being aware of the unkindness towards those trying to help. Berating developers for not having something featured isn't likely to inspire 'will'. Neither is your post. But then you have every right to say what you have said and others have the right to reply to it accordingly. In my opinion, anyway. 3 Likes Rafi993 (Rafi) January 13, 2021, 9:25am #16 Thanks for signal developers for this awesome product that is given for free and other people in the community for being awesome. Being nice to other people in the community might make some ones day little better. 5 Likes ragequitninja (Pieter) January 13, 2021, 9:42am #17 Firstly. Thank you to Signal Devs. I think you're all doing an amazing job and I will be signing up to donate, even if it is a small amount. One thing I want to say to the Signal Dev Team. I bet that 99% of your user base appreciate all the hard work you are doing and want to support you in any way they can, myself included, even if just morally. Please don't let that 1% of intolerant users discourage you from all the great input you have. I am a great supporter of free speech even if something is "offensive" but posters must also realize the difference between "saying something offensive" and "hate speech" Keep up the good work Signal :+1: 6 Likes Froiz (Froiz) January 13, 2021, 9:56am #18 # RomeoGolfBravo: But then you have every right to say what you have said and others have the right to reply to it accordingly. In my opinion, anyway. You might have the right to say what you want, but free speech isn't about interrupting a conversation about football yelling about zebras. Free speech is about tolerance, about a productive and focused conversation -that's why there're guidelines, and why guidelines are there to be tolerated. 3 Likes ProactiveServices (Adam Piggott) January 13, 2021, 9:57am #19 # RomeoGolfBravo: I also don't think your post should be 'hidden' as it's been reported by the Cancel-Culture-Community. I firmly believe that if you say something, you own that! As you will expect, people are entitled to reply to that to support or rebut. That's called a conversation. So you shouldn't be denied that. That said, the Community Guidelines are what they are. And if we disagree, we can chose not to participate. I was one of the flaggers. I am fine with someone disagreeing with me and refuting or rebutting what I've said. I even tolerate them doing so rudely if their points are salient. (A few hours later I usually come back and +1 their post with begrudging flouncing) If their first post on a forum is flaming someone without addressing a single one of their points in a coherent or sensible way, misrepresenting the letter and spirit of the conversation and acting generally in bad-faith, then I will flag that as it's not a conversation, it's just pointless screaming. If they also break the rules then they're definitely getting a flag. Flagging/reporting a post is not cancel culture at all. Flagging a rude, abusive or entirely unconstructive post is doing your bit as a member of the community to weed out bad behaviour and bad actors. I urge everyone to flag anyone posting in bad faith, or breaking the rules. Flag it all and let the pages written by people who detract from the conversation burn. I did not hunt down the user to find all of their other online contributions, here and elsewhere, to report them all. I did not send a message to the moderation team asking the user to be banned. If I did get a modmail saying "hey you want us to remove this asshole?" I'd say "Not on my behalf, I only flagged for the sake of the conversation". Flagging this was not cancel culture: it was my obligation as a community member. I also firmly believe that if you say something, you own it. And if your contribution is an incoherent oratory that is not only batshit but also does not further a conversation whatsoever then "owning it" is accepting your flotsam being removed for being garbage, and learning to interact with something worthwhile next time. It's only a conversation if we discuss with each other, not screech :-) 7 Likes Armada January 13, 2021, 11:36am #21 I really miss the time when people would have wrote this # tools.ietf.org [] RFC 1855 - Netiquette Guidelines 4 Likes shellscape (Andrew) January 13, 2021, 11:42am #22 20 years after its conception, it's relevant https:// liberamanifesto.com/ ProactiveServices (Adam Piggott) January 13, 2021, 11:53am #23 "You may shorten the message and quote only relevant parts, ..." Could we change this to "you will", and codify this into international law? Please? It's been soooo long since I last read this. It's testament to the careful thought put into the document how relevant it still is today. 3 Likes next page - * Home * Categories * FAQ/Guidelines * Terms of Service * Privacy Policy Powered by Discourse, best viewed with JavaScript enabled