Mageia forum

loqo wrote:(For now I'm editing and locking your duplicate post to stop people replying to it there. I'll add a link in it pointing to this post until admin can remove it!)

How are you supposed to directly edit or lock a post without moderator rights?

I'm a community helper now (it says in my sig) and have limited super-powers here!


(I've also posted to the web team, asking if we can fix the colour of helper's names. I should be magenta/purple!)

loqo wrote:I'm a community helper now (it says in my sig) and have limited super-powers here!

They didn't even tell me something like that is possible, when i applied as moderator last year ....
Because basically, that's what i wanted to do, fix thread subjects, apply code/quote tags where necessary,
move threads to proper forum sections and stuff like that. So i could have done this during the last 8 months,
but nobody gave me the possibility, even when i asked for it ...
No, i won't think about it any more, to keep my blood pressure at a sane level

But nevertheless, please keep up the good work, the forum definitely needs people like you!

New for me as well, have never really payed attention to it's existence.
But as far as i understand, everybody should be able to apply:

This is an open group, members can apply to join.

at....
memberlist.php?mode=group&g=14

And oh, how stupid, forgot to mention :
Very welcome loqo, and others who also joined the "Helpers Group".

@Isadora> Many thanks!

@Doktor> I can only moderate the "Basic support" and "Advanced support" forums. My super powers are limited for now!

loqo wrote:@Doktor> I can only moderate the "Basic support" and "Advanced support" forums. My super powers are limited for now!

That would be just fine as a start, ~40% of my posts are inside Basic support.

Welcome to the IRMC!

I've been working in this forum for a year now and I know I have some extra permissions, but I still don't know
- where I have those extra permissions
- which permissions I have exactly (although I am sure this will differ for the various places)
- why I have them where I have them but not where I would need them.

Perhaps some time a friendly admin could look it up and answer these three questions, especially the last one.
But for now I join the "keep blood pressure low" group.

wobo wrote:I've been working in this forum for a year now and I know I have some extra permissions, but I still don't know
- where I have those extra permissions
- which permissions I have exactly (although I am sure this will differ for the various places)
- why I have them where I have them but not where I would need them.

Perhaps some time a friendly admin could look it up and answer these three questions, especially the last one.

I'm not an admin (but hopefully qualify for the friendly part!) - but I can answer the first of your questions. If you click on "The team" link at the bottom of the page, you can find out who the moderators are, and which sections they have permissions for

Yes, I remember doing that and kept wondering which were the thoughts of maât when he created the "Founders" group. So, yes, the first point is clear.
Thx for reminding me!

I'm flattered to get so much response but with due respect you all have hijacked my thread and I have gotten no pertinent answers. I would appreciate it if the moderator could move all the irrelevant posts to another thread leaving mine open to receive comment on my problem. Thanks!

Sorry about that, bjorn2in, you are absolutely right.
logo's remark about that helper group just came so unexpected to the most active "helper" (and to me as well).

This topic has been opened at request by bjorn2in.
Since the discussion in the original topic:
Unable to Install Subclipse into Eclipse for Mageia 1
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2091

had been hijacked.

In my opinion there's no need for a special group "mageia helpers", in particular in regard to the description of this group. Aren't we all who answer questions, give hints and try to resolve problems helpers? For me nearly all registered members belong to this group given that they answerd a question and the reply was helpful in any way.

alf wrote:In my opinion there's no need for a special group "mageia helpers", in particular in regard to the description of this group. Aren't we all who answer questions, give hints and try to resolve problems helpers? For me nearly all registered members belong to this group given that they answerd a question and the reply was helpful in any way.

Exactly. This group only gives room for creating a "2-class-helper" impression, those who are in the group and those who are not. Even if everybody who gives help would know about this group, not everybody is inclined to join although he is a well known helper.

May be I'm alone here but to me this makes no sense at all. It would make sense if we had not this understanding of "everybody is a helper". If the creator of this group wants that it would be in contradiction of the project's main understanding about who is what.

BTW: This whole group thing makes sense in the forum only for special groups like "packagers" or "council". But what sense does a group of "Founders" (which means "Mageia Founders") have here? It may be a nice thing to remember who founded the project but it has no purpose in daily life of the forum.

Hopefully, before someone is granted moderator powers, a review of their posting history is made to ensure that they have a record of positive participation.

If it is considered appropriate to grant someone moderator powers, then it makes no sense to me to limit those powers. Moderators should be sensible enough to exercise their powers responsibly. Moderator powers can presumably be easily removed in the unlikely event that they are abused.

This micro-management betrays, perhaps, a distrust of the people who volunteer to help in managing the forum which may, in part, explain the reluctance of some people to get involved.

Jim

This micro-management betrays, perhaps, a distrust of the people who volunteer to help in managing the forum which may, in part, explain the reluctance of some people to get involved.

Yes, exactly and proved in practice already.

As Oliver remarked some time ago, we (at mandrivaUser.de) have experienced a totally sufficient setup for all occasions with
- a group of 3 admins (1 for visible presence and management, 1 for technical purposes where the first admin needs help, 1 for assisting and replacing the first admin in cases of legal administration like contracts with hoster, etc. and 1 allround for adding manpower to the admin group).
- a group of Global Admins who have all permissions except banning users or changes in the software (styles in ACP).
That's all we needed in all those years.
Admins (except the founder) and Global Moderators were nominated by their peers based on their behavior and actions, like we do it in the Mageia teams.

In the German Mageia forum we have one active admin and two Global Moderators where the Global Moderator has all permissions he needs, that's all. Admin and Global Moderators and users are happy AFAICS.

Let me please bring this up again. For one, I took a break from hard work (deciding what to have for lunch) and looked at some unresolved issues. For two, there were some good points made in this thread without causing any decision nor action at all.

Let me take on the issue of the "helpers". I checked the list of "The team" and found some very strange entries:

The list of "helpers" is long. At first glance this is nice. But then looking closer I found out that there are numerous people in this list who registered, wrote 1 or 2 posts (or even none) and nothing more. Still they are in the "helper" group and have the related permissions in the section where helpers need those permissions (aka "Basic support"). Let me take one example: scarper. He has been in this forum since Sept 1st, wrote 3 posts, all of them in the chat section (Wizards Lair). Then there is ag95, registered June 2011, no post at all. But both are in the "helper" group with the related permissions. There are many more of them. Pls note that this is nothing personal, just picking 2 examples to show the point.

If we have a group of helpers with the related permissions these people should be helpers. IMHO the list "The Team" is there to help users find a contact in case of questions, listing people who joined this group to show their commitment and availability to help. Of all those "helpers" who are listed for the "home of helping hands" (aka "Basic support") there are only few who actually showed this commitment although being a "helper" for many months.

OTOH we have real active helpers who have been proving their commitment and skills since this forum was started, writing numerous helping posts in all areas - but they do not have any permissions in those sections where real helpers need them. Prominent examples are doktor5000, dmorgan, etc. (including me, I may say). They are not even able to move a post or merge threads in the area where it is needed.

I therefore suggest the "group leader" (don't know who that is) to check this list for 2 items:
- look at the helper list and remove people from the list who may have had the best intentions when they registered to that group but never came around to live upt to the task. This will be for the benefit of the users of this forum
- give all remaining helpers the related permissions in all sections where helpers are needed, especially "Basic support" and "Cauldron".

Ok, quick status update: I've pruned helpers group, so that it now only contains members active on the forum. I've also made it the default group for all the members.
Now guys, feel free to help by doing support, or educating users, report bad word useage or behavior, and things like that.
Also all of you should take a look at https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Forum_Rules and maybe improve that one, where you thing something important is missing.

Furthermore, i'd like to make you aware of currently 182 unanswered threads: search.php?search_id=unanswered

If you have any questions, just ask them

doktor5000 wrote:Furthermore, i'd like to make you aware of currently 182 unanswered threads: search.php?search_id=unanswered

Just wanted to remind about the fact that the unanswered threads have grown to 199 - first half of the 8 pages of results are from 2012, by the way ...