• forums.debian.net - who's in charge?

    From Felix Lechner@21:1/5 to 93sam@debian.org on Mon Mar 29 16:20:02 2021
    Hi,

    On Mon, Mar 29, 2021 at 6:33 AM Steve McIntyre <93sam@debian.org> wrote:

    If not, maybe we should
    shut it down or remove the DNS records for it rather than pretend it's
    a good/safe place for our users.

    Seems like a reasonably popular service, although I never use it:

    In total there are 243 users online :: 1 registered, 3 hidden and 239 guests (based on users active over the past 5 minutes)
    Most users ever online was 1682 on 2020-10-25 15:07
    Total posts 661763 • Total topics 96852 • Total members 47016

    The aggregate numbers seem to cover 17 years or so, for about one
    hundred posts per day.

    All the posts I saw were technical in nature. What's unsafe about it, please?

    Kind regards
    Felix Lechner

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  • From Steve McIntyre@21:1/5 to Felix Lechner on Mon Mar 29 17:10:01 2021
    On Mon, Mar 29, 2021 at 07:17:30AM -0700, Felix Lechner wrote:
    Hi,

    On Mon, Mar 29, 2021 at 6:33 AM Steve McIntyre <93sam@debian.org> wrote:

    If not, maybe we should
    shut it down or remove the DNS records for it rather than pretend it's
    a good/safe place for our users.

    Seems like a reasonably popular service, although I never use it:

    In total there are 243 users online :: 1 registered, 3 hidden and 239 guests (based on users active over the past 5 minutes)
    Most users ever online was 1682 on 2020-10-25 15:07
    Total posts 661763 • Total topics 96852 • Total members 47016

    The aggregate numbers seem to cover 17 years or so, for about one
    hundred posts per day.

    All the posts I saw were technical in nature. What's unsafe about it, please?

    If we don't have anybody ready and able to respond to abuse complaints
    (for example), then it's not safe. It's better to do something about
    that up-front (ideally by provoking people to step up) than wait for
    bad things to happen.

    --
    Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK. steve@einval.com The two hard things in computing:
    * naming things
    * cache invalidation
    * off-by-one errors -- Stig Sandbeck Mathisen

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  • From Martin Meredith@21:1/5 to All on Mon Mar 29 20:00:01 2021
    Nominally, I was put in charge a while back, as whoever was in charge of it at the time didn’t want to be involved any more, and there was a need for something to be done related to the software/server (I can’t quite remember) - which is where Joerg
    was involved.

    There was a LOT of controversy at the time, as I put in place a team of (volunteer, non DD) moderators and admins - some of the community decided that this was a restriction of their free speech, branded me a nazi, and split off to make their own “
    competitor” forums.

    I didn’t want to be particularly involved after all of that, and made this clear to the team and those involved. I did ask for assistance in various places at the time, but to no avail.

    I’ve voiced my opinion on multiple occasions that it should be taken down, or taken over by someone with the will to work on it, but whilst no ones been willing to step up and take it on, the general consensus was that it would be better to exist than
    to not.

    Last I left the forums, it was being led by a small team of admins and mods who cad proven themselves as competent and capable, and I had left them to manage this on their own, with a request to reach out to me if they needed assistance.

    The forums are a “community” forums, not official “Debian” forums, so it’s hard to lead - those who are toxic within the official community get dealt with via DAM or similar, but minuscule actions on the forums have previously led to “outcry
    (threats of brigading complaints to DAM/DPL about me, for example).

    I honestly don’t think that the forum is worth it, and I think it would be safer if there were more DDs involved, rather than just the community.

    On 29 Mar 2021, at 16:04, Steve McIntyre <93sam@debian.org> wrote:

    On Mon, Mar 29, 2021 at 07:58:33AM -0700, Felix Lechner wrote:
    Hi,

    On Mon, Mar 29, 2021 at 7:34 AM Steve McIntyre <93sam@debian.org> wrote: >>>
    It's better to do something about
    that up-front (ideally by provoking people to step up) than wait for
    bad things to happen.

    I agree with that sentiment, but in light of other efforts to limit
    public discourse—such as shortening the discussion period on a
    controversial GR—it seems poor timing to shut down a public forum.

    Is that you volunteering to be an admin, then...?

    --
    Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK. steve@einval.com
    "I can't ever sleep on planes ... call it irrational if you like, but I'm afraid I'll miss my stop" -- Vivek Das Mohapatra


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  • From Donald Norwood@21:1/5 to Steve McIntyre on Mon Mar 29 19:40:01 2021
    Hi,

    On 3/29/21 11:03 AM, Steve McIntyre wrote:
    On Mon, Mar 29, 2021 at 07:58:33AM -0700, Felix Lechner wrote:
    Hi,

    On Mon, Mar 29, 2021 at 7:34 AM Steve McIntyre <93sam@debian.org> wrote:

    It's better to do something about
    that up-front (ideally by provoking people to step up) than wait for
    bad things to happen.

    I agree with that sentiment, but in light of other efforts to limit
    public discourse—such as shortening the discussion period on a
    controversial GR—it seems poor timing to shut down a public forum.

    Is that you volunteering to be an admin, then...?



    Is there a set of documentation/rules in place for it? I can assist if
    needed under publicity/press. Technically it could be considered media.

    Be well,
    -Donald

    --
    --
    -
    ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀
    ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Donald Norwood
    ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ B7A1 5F45 5B28 7F38 4174
    ⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀ D5E9 E5EC 4AC9 BD62 7B05

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  • From Joerg Jaspert@21:1/5 to Martin Meredith on Mon Mar 29 23:50:02 2021
    On 16087 March 1977, Martin Meredith wrote:

    Nominally, I was put in charge a while back, as whoever was in charge
    of it at the time didn’t want to be involved any more, and there was a
    need for something to be done related to the software/server (I can’t
    quite remember) - which is where Joerg was involved.

    And yup, thats where I was, well still am, in.

    I *do* have admin access on the web part too, but I always said I won't
    use that for normal day-to-day forums stuff, only when required for
    machine maintenance works.

    So yeah, I have access, but I am not really interested in the user
    facing part of it. If someone (a team, possibly with tight connections
    to Debian, so contributor/project member?!) is, I am (and I think Martin
    too) are happy to hand out access on the web.

    --
    bye, Joerg

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  • From Steve McIntyre@21:1/5 to Martin Meredith on Tue Mar 30 21:40:02 2021
    [ Responding to both Mez and Ganneff ]

    On Mon, Mar 29, 2021 at 06:50:00PM +0100, Martin Meredith wrote:

    Nominally, I was put in charge a while back, as whoever was in charge
    of it at the time didn’t want to be involved any more, and there was
    a need for something to be done related to the software/server (I
    can’t quite remember) - which is where Joerg was involved.

    There was a LOT of controversy at the time, as I put in place a team
    of (volunteer, non DD) moderators and admins - some of the community
    decided that this was a restriction of their free speech, branded me
    a nazi, and split off to make their own “competitor” forums.

    How "nice" of them. :-/

    I didn’t want to be particularly involved after all of that, and made
    this clear to the team and those involved. I did ask for assistance
    in various places at the time, but to no avail.

    ACK, that matches my recollection as an outside observer at the
    time. I understand your position, and it's a shame you didn't get more
    help at the time... :-(

    I’ve voiced my opinion on multiple occasions that it should be taken
    down, or taken over by someone with the will to work on it, but
    whilst no ones been willing to step up and take it on, the general
    consensus was that it would be better to exist than to not.

    Hmmm, Considering some of the complaints that we've had, I'm more
    convinced of the opposite now.

    Last I left the forums, it was being led by a small team of admins
    and mods who cad proven themselves as competent and capable, and I
    had left them to manage this on their own, with a request to reach
    out to me if they needed assistance.

    The forums are a “community” forums, not official “Debian” forums, so >it’s hard to lead - those who are toxic within the official community
    get dealt with via DAM or similar, but minuscule actions on the
    forums have previously led to “outcry” (threats of brigading
    complaints to DAM/DPL about me, for example).

    I honestly don’t think that the forum is worth it, and I think it
    would be safer if there were more DDs involved, rather than just the >community.

    Right.

    On Mon, Mar 29, 2021 at 11:20:46PM +0200, Joerg Jaspert wrote:

    I *do* have admin access on the web part too, but I always said I won't use >that for normal day-to-day forums stuff, only when required for machine >maintenance works.

    So yeah, I have access, but I am not really interested in the user facing >part of it. If someone (a team, possibly with tight connections to Debian, so >contributor/project member?!) is, I am (and I think Martin too) are happy to >hand out access on the web.

    So I've been hoping that we might actually get some responses from the
    existing community-based admins to this thread. Are any of them of the
    teams@ email alias there?

    As it stands, we're getting complaints elsewhere in Debian about toxic behaviour and attitudes on the forums. Simply put, bad behaviour there
    is hurting users and giving Debian a bad name. Neither of those are
    acceptable for a service that many of our users believe is part of
    (and run by) Debian.

    If anybody has contact details for the existing admins, please ask
    them to respond to me. If we don't get something sensible going *soon*
    I'll have no choice but to ask DSA to remove the DNS for the service.

    --
    Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK. steve@einval.com "I've only once written 'SQL is my bitch' in a comment. But that code
    is in use on a military site..." -- Simon Booth

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  • From Steve McIntyre@21:1/5 to Donald Norwood on Tue Mar 30 21:20:02 2021
    Hey Donald,

    On Mon, Mar 29, 2021 at 01:32:32PM -0400, Donald Norwood wrote:
    On 3/29/21 11:03 AM, Steve McIntyre wrote:
    On Mon, Mar 29, 2021 at 07:58:33AM -0700, Felix Lechner wrote:
    Hi,

    On Mon, Mar 29, 2021 at 7:34 AM Steve McIntyre <93sam@debian.org> wrote: >>>>
    It's better to do something about
    that up-front (ideally by provoking people to step up) than wait for
    bad things to happen.

    I agree with that sentiment, but in light of other efforts to limit
    public discourse—such as shortening the discussion period on a
    controversial GR—it seems poor timing to shut down a public forum.

    Is that you volunteering to be an admin, then...?

    Is there a set of documentation/rules in place for it? I can assist if
    needed under publicity/press. Technically it could be considered media.

    I think the key piece I'm looking for is people prepared to admin and
    monitor the forums as a safe place for Debian users. Documenting what
    that means shouldn't be too hard - we'd want to see our existing CoC
    applied.

    --
    Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK. steve@einval.com "War does not determine who is right - only who is left."
    -- Bertrand Russell

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  • From Martin Meredith@21:1/5 to All on Tue Mar 30 23:00:02 2021
    If you want to register an account, and let me know what it is i can give you access - though we have had a few glitches recently with people complaining about not being able to read the captcha

    On 30 Mar 2021, at 21:28, Donald Norwood <donald@debian.org> wrote:

    Hi Steve,

    On 3/30/21 3:14 PM, Steve McIntyre wrote:
    Hey Donald,

    I think the key piece I'm looking for is people prepared to admin and
    monitor the forums as a safe place for Debian users. Documenting what
    that means shouldn't be too hard - we'd want to see our existing CoC
    applied.



    I'll step up to help admin/manage the process if the admin teams are
    unable to at this time. Ideally a few other DDs will join the effort,
    but for now we can try to save it with some moderation or in the least a presence.

    Best wishes,
    -Donald
    --
    --
    -
    ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀
    ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Donald Norwood
    ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ B7A1 5F45 5B28 7F38 4174
    ⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀ D5E9 E5EC 4AC9 BD62 7B05


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  • From Donald Norwood@21:1/5 to Steve McIntyre on Tue Mar 30 22:40:01 2021
    Copy: team@forums.debian.net
    Copy: joerg@debian.org (Joerg Jaspert)
    Copy: debian-project@lists.debian.org (debian-project)

    This is an OpenPGP/MIME signed message (RFC 4880 and 3156) --2oabm2NQh11tc3xB4tSVNL0Z8vq5JUV2s
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    Hi Steve,

    On 3/30/21 3:14 PM, Steve McIntyre wrote:
    Hey Donald,

    I think the key piece I'm looking for is people prepared to admin and
    monitor the forums as a safe place for Debian users. Documenting what
    that means shouldn't be too hard - we'd want to see our existing CoC
    applied.



    I'll step up to help admin/manage the process if the admin teams are
    unable to at this time. Ideally a few other DDs will join the effort,
    but for now we can try to save it with some moderation or in the least a presence.

    Best wishes,
    -Donald
    --
    --
    -
    ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀
    ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Donald Norwood
    ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ B7A1 5F45 5B28 7F38 4174
    ⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀ D5E9 E5EC 4AC9 BD62 7B05


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  • From Felix Lechner@21:1/5 to donald@debian.org on Tue Mar 30 23:50:02 2021
    Hi Donald,

    On Tue, Mar 30, 2021 at 1:38 PM Donald Norwood <donald@debian.org> wrote:

    Ideally a few other DDs will join

    I would be happy to assist you in a subordinate capacity, if needed.

    My user name is 'lechner'. I tried three captchas, and there was no TLS.

    Kind regards
    Felix Lechner

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  • From Martin Meredith@21:1/5 to Felix Lechner on Tue Mar 30 23:50:01 2021
    Hi Felix,

    I've also added you to the admin group.
    The technical side of things does need a fair bit of work (the forums need an upgrade, we need to add Let's Encrypt etc).

    On Mar 30 2021, at 10:38 pm, Felix Lechner <felix.lechner@lease-up.com> wrote:
    Hi Donald,

    On Tue, Mar 30, 2021 at 1:38 PM Donald Norwood <donald@debian.org> wrote:

    Ideally a few other DDs will join

    I would be happy to assist you in a subordinate capacity, if needed.
    My user name is 'lechner'. I tried three captchas, and there was no TLS.
    Kind regards
    Felix Lechner



    <div>Hi Felix, </div><br><div>I've also added you to the admin group.</div><br><div>The technical side of things does need a fair bit of work (the forums need an upgrade, we need to add Let's Encrypt etc).</div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote_attribution"
    On Mar 30 2021, at 10:38 pm, Felix Lechner &lt;felix.lechner@lease-up.com&gt; wrote:</div><blockquote><div><div>Hi Donald,</div><br><div>On Tue, Mar 30, 2021 at 1:38 PM Donald Norwood &lt;donald@debian.org&gt; wrote:</div><div>&gt;</div><div>&gt;
    Ideally a few other DDs will join</div><br><div>I would be happy to assist you in a subordinate capacity, if needed.</div><br><div>My user name is 'lechner'. I tried three captchas, and there was no TLS.</div><br><div>Kind regards</div><div>Felix Lechner<
    /div></div></blockquote><img class="mailspring-open" alt="Sent from Mailspring" width="0" height="0" style="border:0; width:0; height:0;" src="https://link.getmailspring.com/open/2A2E576C-6029-4348-BBC2-88343EE974EB@getmailspring.com?me=2a51f285&amp;
    recipient=ZGViaWFuLXByb2plY3RAbGlzdHMuZGViaWFuLm9yZw%3D%3D">

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  • From Steve McIntyre@21:1/5 to Martin Meredith on Wed Mar 31 00:00:01 2021
    On Tue, Mar 30, 2021 at 10:50:40PM +0100, Martin Meredith wrote:
    I've contacted the admins personally - and posted a thread about this in the >"staff" section of the forums, so I hope people will get involved.

    I've also replied to this thread privately (not wanting to expose anyone's >contact details who may or may not want them so) so that the current admins can
    be involved, if they wish.

    Thanks Martin, that's very helpful!

    --
    Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK. steve@einval.com There's no sensation to compare with this
    Suspended animation, A state of bliss

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  • From Donald Norwood@21:1/5 to Martin Meredith on Wed Mar 31 00:30:01 2021
    To: felix.lechner@lease-up.com (Felix Lechner)
    Copy: steve@einval.com (Steve McIntyre)
    Copy: team@forums.debian.net (team@forums.debian.net)
    Copy: joerg@debian.org (Joerg Jaspert)
    Copy: debian-project@lists.debian.org (debian-project)

    This is an OpenPGP/MIME signed message (RFC 4880 and 3156) --ea0RFe7s2otjm5vy3IS5Ajpsg4aw2URjN
    Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
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    Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

    Hi, everyone!

    Ok, I'm in and I see that Felix has been added as well.

    On 3/30/21 5:44 PM, Martin Meredith wrote:

    The technical side of things does need a fair bit of work (the forums need an upgrade, we need to add Let's Encrypt etc).

    We can start a thread in the admin area regarding this stuff so we don't clutter this -list, but yes I do see a few areas that some updates are
    needed like the templates for example.

    Martin, past all of that thank you very much for doing what you could
    there and replying here to us trying to help. Not an easy task and it is certainly not filled with enough thanks.

    On Mar 30 2021, at 10:38 pm, Felix Lechner <felix.lechner@lease-up.com> wrote:
    Hi Donald,

    On Tue, Mar 30, 2021 at 1:38 PM Donald Norwood <donald@debian.org> wrote: >>>
    Ideally a few other DDs will join

    I would be happy to assist you in a subordinate capacity, if needed.
    My user name is 'lechner'. I tried three captchas, and there was no TLS. Awesome. We can buddy up, no need for subordinate anythings except for
    CA's. :)

    Best,
    -Donald


    --
    --
    -
    ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀
    ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Donald Norwood
    ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ B7A1 5F45 5B28 7F38 4174
    ⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀ D5E9 E5EC 4AC9 BD62 7B05


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  • From Roger E@21:1/5 to All on Wed Mar 31 09:20:01 2021
    Hi good people

    I'm a junior member of the admin team at forums.debian.net. I'll just copy/paste my reply to the thread Mez has started in the admin chat
    section of the forums:

    "I read that mailing list thread but don't get the point. The only
    concerns about "safety" I know of concern the fact the forums are http,
    not https.
    I've been a member of the forums since 2006 and Spam Hunter for a year
    or so. IMO the forums have improved over that time and the current admin
    team do an admirable job.
    Banning of members is almost exclusively for spammers, with only 1 or 2
    others this year for bad behaviour and then only temporarily.
    An FAQ section has been introduced which has helped to reduce the
    incidence of "go RTFM" to virtually nil. Try that on the Arch forums
    which are much more elitist than FDN. The participation of DDs to answer
    some of the more difficult technical questions would be welcomed
    although there are some quite knowledgeable regulars and very few
    questions go unanswered.
    The main concern for admins is the lack of maintenance on the servers
    where there have been reports that CAPTCHA doesn't work properly and the
    listed admin contact emails are not contactable. Thanks Mez for what you
    do but the servers' software seems to need more regular attention.

    The forums contain an encyclopaedia of Debian knowledge and answers to
    both common and rare issues, and is obviously way more popular as a
    reference than a simple post count would suggest as there are usually
    hundreds of people reading at any time - currently "In total there are
    200 users online :: 1 registered, 2 hidden and 197 guests (based on
    users active over the past 5 minutes)". To close the forums would be a
    travesty and leave a major vacuum in online knowledge and assistance for
    Debian users.

    To alleviate those occasional complaints about safety, enable https.

    And I would suspect the complaints alluded to on the mailing list may
    have come from someone like bkpsusmitaa who has been a serial menace and
    was just banned for a week for abusing the post report system. You can
    check if the IP they come from was from Barrackpore and Mysore, most
    recently 117.208.152.101 .
    The supposed complaints are likely an attempt to disrupt by someone with
    an axe to grind. I'm very interested to read exactly what those
    complaints are. The admin team have not received any recently to my
    knowledge."

    Respectfully

    Roger E.

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  • From Matthew Hoare@21:1/5 to All on Wed Mar 31 17:30:02 2021
    Hello, I'm one of the forums.debian.net moderators, user name "Head_on_a_Stick".

    Considering some of the complaints that we've had

    Might I inquire as to the nature of these complaints?

    I can be fairly short with Help Vampires but I don't think I've
    violated the CoC.

    --
    Matthew T Hoare, London.

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  • From Paulo Henrique de Lima Santana@21:1/5 to All on Sat Apr 3 04:10:01 2021
    Hi all,

    I'm willing to help on admin tasks.
    My username is "phls".

    Best regards,

    --
    Paulo Henrique de Lima Santana (phls)
    Curitiba - Brasil
    Debian Developer
    Diretor do Instituto para Conservação de Tecnologias Livres
    Site: http://phls.com.br
    GNU/Linux user: 228719 GPG ID: 0443C450

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