Hi, total n00b here wanting to share a newcomer's opinion 😀

gerry wrote on 2021-07-14, 08:31:

[...] There is something about the 'culture' of technical forums where some people will try and outdo each other for an imaged ' […]
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There is something about the 'culture' of technical forums where some people will try and outdo each other for an imaged 'top dog' position, it's visible in groups of friends too - vying for who can know the most obscure techy arcana - it can be fun and interesting and it can turn sour and competitive (competing for what though, the stakes are so low!)
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also another thing i like about vogons - it's completely fine to ask the same question multiple times - technical or general, at different times different people ask and answer and different things come out, so its good and ongoing

I think those are two of the best Vogon's qualities, not being competitive and been welcoming.
I am certain I've made question that must have made some members think "again? c'mon!" and I have also gone through hours and hours of thread reading, and I have not seen a single RTFM nor cocky post around here, at all.

And it appears to me there is a implicit and spontaneous attitude of posting positive/propositive answers only.

That speaks of a healthy synergic community.... When new members are easily disrespected they (we) probably tend to leave, then the vocal toxic ones stay so they can mistreat others, and you end up with a forum full of just the morons.

None of this has to do with the forum subject, as others have said any music, art, or whatever forum can become great or awful, I have been at Linux forums that were nice and useful and a couple in particular that are/were as friendly and welcoming as Vogons.

Of course, when you have toxic people in charge a bad environment is almost inevitable... 'been there too.

Edit: And, yeah, there is nothing more idiotic that a help forum where every answer is "we don't like that kind of questions"....

AngryByDefault wrote on 2021-07-15, 00:00:

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I think those are two of the best Vogon's features, not being competitive and been welcoming.

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None of this has to do with the forum subject, as others have said any music, art, or whatever forum can become great or awful, I have been at Linux forums that were nice and useful and a couple in particular that are/were as friendly and welcoming as Vogons.

Not sure the subject matter is so irrelevant. Of course you can have excellent forums on any subject and utterly toxic ones, usually dependent on the founding team, but in my experience the more competitive a field is, the faster things tend to get toxic. Case in point is forums related to competitive casemodding (yeah, that was a thing in the 00's, at least here in NL). Despite being niche, it was pretty cut-throat and that was reflected in a succession nasty, dysfunctional forums. It's telling that they only started to stabilize once the quality of "pre-modded" cases (i.e. ones with attention to aesthetics out of the box, with windows and LEDs galore) rose to the point that casemodding ceased to be a big thing. Once the whole risk/reward thing went, people started to be nice to each other.

Which is why I'm not surprised this place is nice - the great thing about vintage crap is that there is no 'right' way to do anything. For all practical purposes a new system is miles better, and everyone has their own retro goals so there's little to no point in being competitive. It's telling that the friction you sometimes do see crops up around showing off purchases and sharing/stealing of replica designs - both of which only happen when there's scarcity.

But maybe that's my background in socio-economic history tending to (over-)emphasize systems and structures over individuals. Any community is made up of individuals and there are a lot of really good ones here, both in terms of knowledge and behaviour.

Fair point... perhaps I have never been interested in topics so inherently competitive that every forum about them inevitably becomes a battlefield...

Then again, I see a 'parents whatsapp group' fighting over he cake's flavor for the preschool party and wonder what topic can *not* become nasty and competitive then 🤣

But I get your point that some of them may and some of them most likely will.

Personally I always attributed the positive climate on Vogons to the amount of people who have spent enough time on Usenet and forums to know not to feed the troll.😉

Doornkaat wrote on 2021-07-15, 12:36:

Personally I always attributed the positive climate on Vogons to the amount of people who have spent enough time on Usenet and forums to know not to feed the troll.😉

You're saying we're all old and can't be bothered arguing then 😁

Oh, I think Vogons has it's share of arguments. Many people have strong opinions about things they care about (see my post on best video cards for retro operating systems as an example). I think the Vogons community has a way of letting cooler heads prevail which tends to de-escalate conflicts.

I also like that I don't think I've ever seen anyone in recent memory threatened with removal from a thread or the forum.

SteveC wrote on 2021-07-15, 13:10:

Doornkaat wrote on 2021-07-15, 12:36:

Personally I always attributed the positive climate on Vogons to the amount of people who have spent enough time on Usenet and forums to know not to feed the troll.😉

You're saying we're all old and can't be bothered arguing then 😁

Not old; experienced.👌

SteveC wrote on 2021-07-14, 13:18:

Yes Facebook is good for asking something and getting a quick answer. You'll never be able to go back and find that piece if information again though which is why I love "real" forums like this - absolute treasure trove of information.

Same holds for other sites like Reddit. It will never be a replacement for a dedicated forum like Vogons. Not only posts get lost never to be read again, people there also tend to be clueless about any topic requiring in-depth knowledge and can never appreciate quality of information presented.

This is indeed an interesting discussion I usually think too about, cause there're not many old style forums where to talk about specific computer related subject but also generic ones (I don't know, sports, free time, lifestyle, opinions about anything). Until the 2000's I liked how forums didn't have so many people and mostly were similar with very light webpages, more relaxed forum rules and often users didn't need them at all (and this might be another discussion about how in the past internet period, people didn't necessary feel discussions as REAL life discussions but nowdays people would tend to get serious if you use the wrong word or can't explain correctly an opinion).
When social networks brought most of the planet people into internet eveything imho changed. The same tech related forums I used to read and write into are nowdays ads oriented newspapers where internal forums seems like more based on the absurd amount of heavy jscript advertising that basically make even reading a painful experience (like 30-50% of cpu usage doing nothing once the page is loaded while it seems like the forum page is static, auto-refreshing for no reasons etc..).
About some other forums users I'd agree that discussions become often stressed and the old "helpful" logic not only for the new users but also in general, disappeared.
Also about the language as already said above, is not like anyone has english as their first language. I'd like to understand how many different languages some that might underline that, do actually know and can read and write. I really like english language, I even watch original english movies in their original version often without subtitles cause depending on the moment I usually can understand most ones while I might have lost some or many grammar memories, but still some can at least explain theirself in two different languages. I think this is something few don't think about, the number of languages they know instead of expecting others to write or talk their own one without errors. 😉

fosterwj03 wrote on 2021-07-15, 14:50:

Oh, I think Vogons has it's share of arguments. Many people have strong opinions about things they care about (see my post on best video cards for retro operating systems as an example). I think the Vogons community has a way of letting cooler heads prevail which tends to de-escalate conflicts.

I also like that I don't think I've ever seen anyone in recent memory threatened with removal from a thread or the forum.

Nothing wrong with a good argument now and then - I have my share of strongly held opinions too and am not afraid of expressing them, even when they are not widely shared (my very low opinion of Creative Labs, for example) - so long as the argument is about the content and not ad hominem, and people disagreeing strongly can still respectfully interact in other contexts. That seems to work pretty well here.

386SX wrote on 2021-07-15, 16:20:

Also about the language as already said above, is not like anyone has english as their first language. I'd like to understand how many different languages some that might underline that, do actually know and can read and write. I really like english language, I even watch original english movies in their original version often without subtitles cause depending on the moment I usually can understand most ones while I might have lost some or many grammar memories, but still some can at least explain theirself in two different languages. I think this is something few don't think about, the number of languages they know instead of expecting others to write or talk their own one without errors. 😉

An easy way to understand the second-language problem with Americans is to remember just how absurdly huge it is when you leave the upper east-coast. When I lived in Rhineland-Pfalz over a decade ago, I could have visited three countries with different languages over the course of eight hours of driving. Meanwhile, that won't even get you halfway across Texas if you're not speeding.

dionb wrote on 2021-07-15, 16:25:

Nothing wrong with a good argument now and then - I have my share of strongly held opinions too and am not afraid of expressing them, even when they are not widely shared (my very low opinion of Creative Labs, for example) - so long as the argument is about the content and not ad hominem, and people disagreeing strongly can still respectfully interact in other contexts. That seems to work pretty well here.

How dare you insult a company that couldn't figure out how to have bug-free midi for half a decade, who then went on to kill Aureal and their better product.

Good topic ! Think this forum stands out because every member here brings something that can help others even if just asking a simple question, is rare any question goes unanswered even if the answer does not help.
Some forums no one will answer if they do not know but here have seen members take a guess if they are not sure which shows a true compassion to help others that many other forums lack.

Came lurking for the DosBox and game help and stayed for the old hardware thread to help with what little I can, which is not much but happy am to part of such a great bunch of people.

Carrera wrote on 2021-07-14, 12:29:

The trend I noticed these past two years is people poo-pooing forums claiming facebook etc is the place to go.

That would be great if it were true. I bet these are the types of people that have replaced their desktop and laptop PCs with phones and tablets. I say let them have their own retarded ecosystems so I don't have to deal with them.

Vogons feels like home to me and I try not to step on too many toes.

At the end of the day, I am not on a quest to convince anyone of anything and if I make a mistake or an error in judgement I try to own up to it . That being said, agreeing to disagree is, IMHO, an honorable exit to many an argument/difference of opinion .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sH0Qda32IKM

Anonymous Coward wrote on 2021-07-18, 00:53:

Carrera wrote on 2021-07-14, 12:29:

The trend I noticed these past two years is people poo-pooing forums claiming facebook etc is the place to go.

That would be great if it were true. I bet these are the types of people that have replaced their desktop and laptop PCs with phones and tablets. I say let them have their own retarded ecosystems so I don't have to deal with them.

On one local computer forum I've been going to - the website owner himself claimed that this is the case - Facebook has killed forums and there is nothing you can do about it. I don't know how much his personal attitude contributed to it, but the traffic on his forums is less than 10% now than what it used to be. However, some other forums don't seem affected as much (though probably some).

With VOGONS at least it's expected that there would be a correlation between the attraction to retro computing and preference of older forms of web communication, so I don't think Facebook is a particular threat to this community.

I was a paranoid schizophrenic once.

Now I visit Vogons....😉

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-07-18, 06:59:

I was a paranoid schizophrenic once.

Now I visit Vogons....😉

Really? Me, too. I guess that makes four of us?

For the majority perhaps, social media has taken over. But I personally still favor the slower paced forum format, I can search for something and see this forum's posts pop up on the search engine, it's easier to search through posts and get the information you need. Forums also feel more 'archived', content from long ago can be migrated and old posts can still be there where if a social media group is deleted all posts would be gone.

dr_st wrote on 2021-07-18, 06:27:

Anonymous Coward wrote on 2021-07-18, 00:53:

Carrera wrote on 2021-07-14, 12:29:

The trend I noticed these past two years is people poo-pooing forums claiming facebook etc is the place to go.

That would be great if it were true. I bet these are the types of people that have replaced their desktop and laptop PCs with phones and tablets. I say let them have their own retarded ecosystems so I don't have to deal with them.

On one local computer forum I've been going to - the website owner himself claimed that this is the case - Facebook has killed forums and there is nothing you can do about it. I don't know how much his personal attitude contributed to it, but the traffic on his forums is less than 10% now than what it used to be. However, some other forums don't seem affected as much (though probably some).

With VOGONS at least it's expected that there would be a correlation between the attraction to retro computing and preference of older forms of web communication, so I don't think Facebook is a particular threat to this community.

The controversial topics of the outside world are extremely compelling, but people become unhappy if they spend much time in stressful situations. It's increasingly recognised that a big chunk of humanity's online time is stressful time - spent on unhealthy activities: the arguing, the politics, the media, the socials, the constant updates, hyper-commercialisation, etc etc.

So it's cool to acknowledge and value the positive and constructive places like Vogons which buck that trend.

SteveC wrote on 2021-07-15, 13:10:

Doornkaat wrote on 2021-07-15, 12:36:

Personally I always attributed the positive climate on Vogons to the amount of people who have spent enough time on Usenet and forums to know not to feed the troll.😉

You're saying we're all old and can't be bothered arguing then 😁

Well, this is the "General Old Hardware" sub-forum 😉