On Mon, 2022-10-24 at 11:32 -0300, George N. White III wrote: > I suspect one reason for the change was the need to combat SPAM and > DOS attacks.
I noticed comments about spam handling on the mailing lists Patrick linked (the notion that the web forum was better at rejecting it). I have to wonder why. Surely it can't just be captchas? I'd hate having to do those damn things for every post that I did. Mailing lists have been getting better at rejecting spam, over the years. The sign-up processes being a bit better implemented than they used to be. And some moderate all new user's posts, but that could be quite a chore, and doesn't help against determined spammers who post normal interactions for a while, then spam afterwards. (Likewise for malcontents who post abusive mail, rather than marketing claptrap.) But if I had to post to this mailing list through a website, I'd leave immediately. I don't have the time to deal with that inconvenience, nor the slightest interest in doing so. > The NASA forum seems to have discouraged all but the most > serious users That was an old complaint about Linux mailing lists and newsgroups (put on your asbestos fireproof pants before daring to post anything, lest you get flamed alive for saying something dumb). > but the ESA forum has many users whose previous experience is with > IOS or Android and who struggle with basic linux concepts, post > screen captures of text windows, don't provide context, hijack > threads, etc. One of the pains of Windows was (and probably still is), that you couldn't copy and paste text from many of the dialogue boxes (or not copy something from the part of one that you wanted to). > In my view, the educational systems are introducing computing without > any training in effective use of online communications, problem > reporting, and troubleshooting. This creates problems and wasted > energy for online forums that no user interface can overcome. It's been many years since I worked in schools, but I remember similar comments back then. When I got into computing, we had to write our own programs, and we had no OS. Many years later when working at my local school, one of their computing lessons comprised to learning to copy and paste pictures into a word processor file. That was in a high school in the late 1980s. The kids would have been doing more complex computing at home. If you commented on the absurdity of that, a common reply would have been not wanting to scare students away by doing anything more complex. But basic copy and pasting is art class stuff, and primary school age. Computing classes should be about computing (accepting data, doing something with it, hopefully with some decision making rules). If you don't actually get kids involved in programming, to some degree, who's going to be the next generation to create software? Only the self- taught ones at home, who have some appalling programming practices. A few years later I gave a short talk to some teachers on creating webpages. My approach was to teach something about the construct, the purpose, the how and why. Some feedback was that it was too technical. Obviously they just wanted to type something and see it on the screen. No understanding of what they were doing, at all. These days, the same people use wordpress, and the like, filling in templates. I feel that's like getting someone else to do your homework. In the last few years I've got re-involved with some media education teachers, and when wikispaces closed down I suggested they set up a real website. Which they kinda supported, but really didn't have much of an idea (and still don't) about what they wanted to get out of a website and have it do. One meeting was like a staff conference in the Absolutely Fabulous tv show. "It should have pop up menus, and animated video clips... All flashy, and trendy looking." And a bunch of other handwaving. But not a single idea about what information it should contain. You'd end up with some corporate website looking thing, which ticks a box as "having a website," using some stock photos of people apparently doing some work. But, ultimately, is a completely useless website. Ignoring the silliness of creating a pointless website, these were media education teachers, who ought to understand the concept of having a message, and using a medium to disseminate it. An actual purpose. I made them a mock-up of a website which did impart some of the purpose of their organisation. A sample of what you could do, what you ought to do, etc. I got a whinge about it being "retro," but still got zero input from them about *what* they'd actually want on a website, never mind what it looked like. And that's when I sunk the boot in, telling them, "This is like being back at school when I was a student, and some teachers would demand you did some project, complain that you didn't do what they wanted you to do, but had never really told you what they wanted from you in the first place." I enjoyed that. I wished I'd had the nerve to say that when I was in school. Several years of my life were wasted by having to do stupid pointless things at school. I'd love to have said, "I'm not a bloody mind-reader," to some of my teachers. Specialist subjects (e.g. computing) need specialist teachers, and the course needs to have real purpose. Not faking that you've done something. -- NB: All unexpected mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted. I will only get to see the messages that are posted to the list. The following system info data is generated fresh for each post: uname -rsvp Linux 5.19.15-201.fc36.x86_64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Thu Oct 13 18:58:38 UTC 2022 x86_64 _______________________________________________ users mailing list -- users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to users-le...@lists.fedoraproject.org Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/users@lists.fedoraproject.org Do not reply to spam, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure/new_issue
