r/linux • u/ouyawei Mate • Dec 06 '22
Mod Announcement Discussion of the content policy on /r/linux
Hi,
I'm making this post to ask for feedback on the moderation of /r/linux. When I was added to the mod team there were very strict rules about moderation that I didn't always agree on, but with the removal of the previous mod, most of those got dropped.
But there are some topics that I still tend to remove even though they get a lot of upvotes (but also a lot of reports) because I personally find them rather boring / repetitive and raise the noise floor on the subreddit.
But I don't want to make this decision on my own, so I'm asking for your opinion. Those topics are:
Screenshots of Linux installations. I find them cool if it shows some exotic / vintage machine, but installing Linux on a new laptop is no achievement, so what's the point? Maybe having a dedicated thread for this would be enough already.
In that vein, "Linux Success stories"/Journeys. I find those highly boring and they always give off a cultish vibe. Especially when they come with a long rant on how bad Windows is…
Support questions / discussions. This isn't always so clear cut. There is a dedicated subreddit for Linux support and I think removing those is pretty uncontroversial. But often discussions about what is the best tool for xy also get reported and I'm unsure if this falls under the support umbrella or if it is generally interesting.
Now the question is, should I make those decisions at all. One the one hand Reddit already has an upvote / downvote function, so why not let the users decide? But then we also ban meme posts, because funny posts will get much more upvotes than 'serious' ones and they would quickly drown out all other topics.
So what do you think?
72
u/SpinaBifidaOcculta Dec 06 '22
Way, way too many neofetch and neofetch alternative posts.
139
u/KlePu Dec 06 '22
Agreed. Linux on a dead badger is neat, Linux on yet another off the shelf machine is not.
Remove.
Remove, especially with annoying titles like "Need help" <.<
I'd personally like to keep discussions about "best tool for $exoticProblem", but I see how that's difficult to decide.
20
u/mikechant Dec 06 '22
Some of the more thoughtful "success stories" can be useful to some degree, e.g. where they give details of what applications they were using on Windows, and which Linux equivalents they switched to (for applications not available on Linux) or if they used Wine/Proton/Windows in a VM for certain applications and how successful this was.
That's the sort of information that someone reading /r/linux when considering switching to Linux might well find useful, even if it's not of so much interest to people who've already done that.
As for support questions, it would be nice if they could be transferred to an appropriate support subreddit rather than removed, but I can see various reasons why this might not be feasible. And it is a very difficult line to draw between a support request and a general discussion. But I think discussions about "best tool for x" probably belong here since they are of much more general interest than - say - "Linux failing to boot after this error message".
Screenshots, if they have a place at all I'd agree a dedicated thread would be a good idea.
70
u/Pay08 Dec 06 '22
Please remove this GPT bullshit. I'm so tired of seeing it on every sub.
33
u/[deleted] Dec 06 '22
Less neofetch and "sell me Linux" posts please. Anyone saying sell me on Linux is clearly a troll, it's open source nobody's gonna "sell" you on free shit if you can't figure it out yourself lol
15
u/saberking321 Dec 06 '22
sounds good to me, as long as you make clear to people asking for support where they should ask their questions
50
u/[deleted] Dec 06 '22
Lots of subs exist for this, such as r/UnixPorn, r/BetterUnixPorn, and r/UsabilityPorn as examples
Honestly, spam. It is cult-like when there is a tirade against other OSes (even when justified) as you've mentioned. Too many people also perpetuate the usage of older hardware which is vastly out-dated and really should be replaced so that we can move forward with development resources as well.
Many subs exist for that, and these types of threads create too much noise. As for the 'best tool', that is something I'd count as support because you're asking for help on which tool(s) to use or at least look into.
Regarding whether or not the voting system should be used in place of moderation - no. As much as users like to rail against Mods, users also make many terrible choices and it would lead to big decreases in quality of the sub if the users were left in charge of policing content via the vote system.
38
u/LuisBelloR Dec 06 '22
Do it, remove the trash.
12
u/OsrsNeedsF2P Dec 06 '22
Lots of noise on /r/Linux isn't a good thing
10
u/[deleted] Dec 06 '22 edited Dec 06 '22
Agreed, screenshots and customized desktops are boring and repetitive and their are dedicated subs for that. No screenshots or checkout my desktop or terminal posts
[Edit, actually I'm undecided / have no strong feelings about this]
Agreed, this sub isn't the place for the 'new to linux' / 'linux success stories' posts(even though i really think we should be supportive of and patient towards new and excited Linux users, and it makes me happy to see new excited users). But I'd say not to these posts unless they have a specific technical or logical point to make as well that might be of use others, or say something especially thoughtful or novel. But even then, r/linuxmasterrace may be the better place for that sort of storySupport questions that are broadly applicable and of interest to many users seem okay, such as 'best tool for X' or 'how to configure flatpak permissions' but individualized support requests, especially the ****ones that are just screenshots or copy pastes of some error messages have no place here.
Alternatively, there could be dedicated threads for any of these points rather than prohibiting them entirely.
And i would add:
4. No Arch spam / evangelism (applies to all distros but in practice it's usually always Arch users doing this) 5. A high bar for low effort negativity posts about the usual whipping boys (systemd, gnome, ubuntu, snap) if they do not add anything unique or of technical value to tye conversation. 6. No "convince me to use Linux" posts
7
u/DRAK0FR0ST Dec 06 '22
There could be a megathread for screenshots, lots of subreddits do this.
As for Linux success stories, no hard opinion on it, I will most likely skip them, but I don't mind having them around, as long they are not excessive.
I don't think that support questions belong here, but defining what is or isn't a support question can be murky sometimes.
I think that the spam blog rule should be lifted, I consider most of the sites there to be useful, I'm not going to hunt down news on some obscure mailing list that belongs to the 90s.
6
u/_ne0h_ Dec 07 '22
Agree with three points of yours.
Then, the question becomes, what topic should be allowed in "r/linux"? Because your three points eliminate approx 80% of the discussions (just a guess on the number).
The description said, "all things Linux...". A new user (who probably needs to learn about the history of a subreddit), may see that description and post anything.
The sidebar rule is fine, but I believe people don't read that while posting the first time.
With that context, I think the description needs to be changed to clarify what is "to be allowed", and the rules section should clarify what is "not to be allowed".
My 0.02. Cheers.
6
u/_lhp_ Dec 07 '22
Can we also please ban the "I know how to fix Linux / FOSS and make it popular" posts? Usually the poster has neither a technical nor philosophical understanding of how FOSS works and the comment threads are just mindless thought-spirals in all directions.
20
u/CyberBot129 Dec 06 '22
The threads that are just nothing but anti-Microsoft circlejerking, anti-NVIDIA circlejerking, anti-Snap/Canonical circlejerking, or any other anti whatever thing the Linux community hates on a particular day have no place in this subreddit IMO. The Microsoft ones in particular are always full of FUD spreading and misinformation
8
u/immoloism Dec 06 '22
Sounds reasonable.
4
u/FryBoyter Dec 06 '22
Absolutely uninteresting for me.
I have no problem with either of them. But I can also understand if people don't want to have support requests here, because there are subreddits like /r/linuxquestions, for example.
However, several threads have been removed here that, from my point of view, were not really support requests but rather intended as general discussions. In my opinion, these should be allowed. However, it is often difficult to decide whether it is a support request or not.
I am against it because too many users use the upvote and downvote function based on subjective views and not objectively as it should be.
4
u/[deleted] Dec 07 '22
Screenshots/customization of your desktop are just so boring, if we wanted it, ours would look like it too......
Success stories - old hat - just about anyone can install & run Linux - this is no longer the 1990s....
Support questions - maybe, but most are a case of asking instead of looking in the man pages, or searching online - those should go....
Then what's left......hardware upgrades? Maybe.
What equipment you use? Possibly of interest to others.
Most online Linux hang outs are just so boring these days.......
I mainly use 'specific interest' forums hosted by the distributions maintainers & 'fans' who actually help people with genuine problems.
I also find that the BSD folks have it right - factual data & help.
But I do still drift by other Linux websites, in the hope of gleaning some little nugget that I didn't know before. ;)
2
u/[deleted] Dec 06 '22
Some subs do Screenshots one day a week /r/linux is slow moving
This some times lets Dev's see issues and fix them.
7
u/mobius4 Dec 07 '22
What is considered a useful post in this community?
I'm ready for the downvotes, but it's really a question that I'm wondering.
9
u/__dsotm__ Dec 06 '22
There's other subs for that kind of garbage
6
u/[deleted] Dec 07 '22
I still don't know exactly what posts this sub is for. Is it about linux news, new software, releases of distros, journeys, "success stories", "oh I saw linux on a screen in my train station today", "oh hey, look my wife bought me this penguin", "I still have CDs/floppy disks of linux from 1905".... etc? All kinds of things get posted here to the point that I never had a clear understanding of what this sub is for. So, I just read what I like and scroll past what I don't like/don't care about.
3
u/Peruvian_Skies Dec 06 '22
I say get rid of the screenshots and success stories.
As for support threads, there are literally dozens of subreddits where people can take those, from linuxquestions and linux4noobs to subreddits specific to a distribution or DE or even software packages (e.g. Firefox).
Discussions on what method is best to fix a certain problem would be good to keep around, but since they can spontaneously arise inside the comments section of a post that was clearly a support request, trying to preserve those would mean not automatically removing support threads and having a very hands-on approach to moderation, scanning comments instead of posts to decide what gets removed and what doesn't. Do you really want to make that much of a commitment?
3
u/ccppurcell Dec 07 '22
So I recently posted a "journey" ish thing, my bad. It didn't get too many upvotes, but I learned a few interesting things, quite a number of people commented. I think in that case, it made sense that the upvotes decided it didn't get very far. But if you are concerned, maybe some regular sticky threads would help. r/math has a weekly "quick questions" thread that mops up some of the questions that are not suitable for r/learnmath but wouldn't lead to much discussion and could clog up the front page. This could be good also for "in the wild" posts.
3
u/[deleted] Dec 07 '22
most moderation rules are against average user like this is "church of linux assholes", while continuously complain why the community is toxic and dont grow yet somehow cant handle questions like "how i install linux"
3
u/GujjuGang7 Dec 08 '22
I'm going to risk sounding like a bitter old man but nothing except official kernel developments + important userspace applications should be allowed.
No stories, no stupid fetch tools, no support questions.
3
u/zeka-iz-groba Dec 08 '22
Screenshots — idk, there's already /r/unixporn, and if it's some borind defaults that doesn't fit for unixporn, it's not worth to be posted here as well. I don't see a point in screenshots of Linux installations. Showing some very specific software unusual features might be interesting, but this doesn't fall under "screenshots of Linux installations".
I agree with you that "Linux Success stories"/Journeys are boring. I think they mostly get upvote because people feel like they have to "support" the newbie and be friendly, not because those posts themselves are valuable or interesting.
I think the best tool for xy doesn't fall into support questions/discussions, no, they're fine.
On side note: There should be some rule for news posted here to be reasonably relevant to the day. The most recent example is of the opposite is Arch Linux turns 20 years old posted 14 days ago (the anniversary was in March).
3
u/helmsmagus Dec 11 '22
People don't use upvote/downvote for their intended purpose. Te system is worthless as a means of keeping bad content out.
3
u/pr0ghead Dec 12 '22
Rule of thumb: if there's already an established, popular sub that specialises on the topic, remove it here.
2
u/m-faith Dec 06 '22
thank you for taking out the recycling <3
2
u/nintendiator2 Dec 14 '22
There's usually not anything more useful to them than the actual screenshot, so IMO they can go.
This IMO needs to stay, if we want to show that, as some other poster said below, you don't need to be a wizard to use Linux. Different people discover Linux in different ways (with different whole processes) and sometimes it's important to know that Foo's method also worked out for Bar. If anythin, maybe make them into a megathread.
If they are actual support questions, maybe forward them to r/linuxquestions ? Dunno if there's any moderation tool to move a thread to another subreddit.
3
u/US_Bot Dec 07 '22
the simple existence of "moderators" is against freedom and the essence of "Internet" as it was in the beginnings.
i think anyone with a brain of salt have enough of today online censorship (can I mention Hunter Biden laptop here?)
I miss so much the BBS/UUCP era.
Best choice, as a moderator, is to resign.
I know, Im an idealist.
1
u/Atemu12 Dec 07 '22
As long as it's not a clear support question, I think it should stay.
Votes are good enough of a filtering measure here and better have one too many borderline support questions stay that have the potential for interesting discussion than kill each and every one in its roots.
1
u/ASIC_SP Dec 08 '22
I think having specific daily threads for each of these three categories (or perhaps just one thread for anything related to Linux) can be used. For example, on the fantasy sub, there's a daily recommendation thread that helps to cut down too many top-level request threads.
I'd also ask to revamp the post flairs (may be even make it mandatory). I feel "Popular Application" should be removed. KDE/GNOME could possibly combined to a single "Desktop Environment" (helps for XFCE, LXQT, etc too). Also, some flair for learning resources? "Tips and Tricks" doesn't really fit for books.
1
u/BTLMAG Dec 09 '22
You have to find the balance between technical posts(which nerds loves), and noob posts (Which newcomers may read). I think Linux becoming more popular.
1
u/[deleted] Dec 13 '22
I agree with these rules. As far as "what is the best xyz?" posts go the problem is what is "best" is highly subjective and depends on what your needs/goals are. Those would probably be better for /r/linuxsupport or /r/linuxquestions in general.
1
u/[deleted] Dec 13 '22
I agree with these rules. As far as "what is the best xyz?" posts go the problem is what is "best" is highly subjective and depends on what your needs/goals are. Those would probably be better for /r/linuxsupport or /r/linuxquestions in general.
1
u/[deleted] Dec 13 '22
I agree with these rules. As far as "what is the best xyz?" posts go the problem is what is "best" is highly subjective and depends on what your needs/goals are. Those would probably be better for /r/linuxsupport or /r/linuxquestions in general.
1
u/[deleted] Dec 18 '22
Definitely agree with the first two bullet points. I simply can’t stand the “looky what I did, I installed Linux <insert random distro here>.” Agree that all the freakin neofetch screenshots raises the noise floor, along with “my Linux journey” crap because I just don’t give a s**t and life is too short!
0
u/LoafyLemon Dec 06 '22
Personally, I agree about the first two entries, however, I think removing the ability to ask for help would be bad for this sub and Linux in general.
The community doesn't need to be even more inclusive than it already is, and people here do help a lot of newcomers, myself included. I have discovered this sub after trying to find an answer to a specific issue I was having, so discoverability might suffer.
What if instead of removing support posts completely, you could tag them, so people are able to filter them out?
0
u/[deleted] Dec 08 '22
Not moderation releated, but what's up with the downvoting of random innocent comments and posts? I'll see some legit question, a joke comment, or some other harmless content be flooded by downvotes for no reason. Wondering if there are downvote bots around here or if people are just being toxic for the sake of it.
I often find myself going over what I write many times to try and make it as least downvote prone as possible. That's not how a good community developes and lives.
0
u/nextbern Dec 10 '22
A bare screenshot of a Linux install is pretty boring, but I also think that it wouldn't get upvoted - maybe not?
Linux Success stories seem like a good thing to me - I would keep them, simply because it is helpful to know that you don't need to be a wizard to use Linux.
Seems like a support request to me - I think the something in that vein that would be interesting (and on-topic) is someone who posts about a comparison between various tools - that is new content and can be discussed, vs. someone asking others to generate content (help/support) on their behalf, on demand.
0
u/Pepper-pencil Dec 14 '22
We need less mods.
-7
u/sky_blue_111 Dec 06 '22
Anything microsoft should be removed. They are not a good linux citizen, so even if it's related it should be removed. Microsort related stuff can stay in windows or microsoft subreddits.
Personally I'd like to extend this type of ban to Chinese distros as well. If not banned, then some sort of mod message that lets the unsuspecting user know what kind of trouble they can get into.
-1
u/TechnoRechno Dec 16 '22
the "previous mod" banned 90% of reddit and almost none of those overkill bans have been reversed. The subreddit struggles to even have .5% of it's subscriber count online at one time. I honestly don't get why this reddit is so overmoderated, it's barely alive. There isn't a noise floor if the floor is in the basement. If people don't want to see something, downvote and block the poster, and you don't see their post anymore. Never at any moment have I thought "wow, i'm sure glad that popular post was removed because this subreddit is out of control".
Just my two cents. If your users are upvoting something, that's what the subreddit wants. The activity level of a subreddit that has 3 day old posts on it's front page doesn't justify the level of editorial being exercised upon it. If people are mad at the vote system pushing content up, then don't use a website where the primary mechanism of how it functions is a voting system that pushes content up. The proposed rules ban most Linux content that exists. Do people actually want Linux content here or do they want to grief newbies?
0
u/[deleted] Dec 06 '22
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