OSNews

Despite all the trolls, as you put it, it has been thoroughly enjoyable arguing.. debating, the merits of our preferred operating systems and associated software.

Overall this site, to me, is a great resource and one of the first three sites I visit daily.

Happy birthday.

You forgot to mention Thom Herbal, sucking up as moderator

"Thom Herbal"? Is this related to the fact that Thom is from the Netherlands where herb is allowed?

Back to topic. These "Get the facts" FUD ads from MICROS~1 on OSNews have been pissing me off.

I read your first three posts and I have to say, your wording leaves allot to be desired.

Sure, you feel like the man is beating on you, but guess what? I get voted up/down for derogatory and/or off topic comments all the time but you don't hear me bitching about it.

Just because you can act like an ass, doesn't mean you should! ;-)

I just voted you up, no heartfeelings "brodah"
I might be acting like an ass, but what to do here then?

1. They claim to be a OS "NEWS" site. Hell, even /. and digg sometimes have an old "news", what to say about here? But that's fine, they grab from real news site.

2. Abusive moderation. So better close user's moderation and leave it to half-assed thom to do that. Do not claim that the users moderate the comments, and thom, you vote -500, and you know what? you don't worth 500, maybe (1/500).

3. /. + Digg -> 500xOSNEWS. The things that we have here and they don't, well, it's not worth anyway.

So, OSNEWS was once a great site. Now it's just a grey-lemon half-assed moderation news site. Move along, can vote me down, curse, whatever

Make my day!

Holwerda? Herbal? What's the difference? They both start with an 'H', and have an 'e', 'r', 'l', and an 'a'. And hey, 'b' looks a lot like 'd'. And who needs w's and o's anyway? ;-)

Trolls like yourself...

I agree! Most of the time the so called "news" is copy-paste from other news sites (slashdot many times), ruled by advertisers.

Sorry, about that!

Off-topic, but I don't really see why this comment was modded down...

Perhaps the maintainers should revise their editorial policy, their goals and such. Do they want to keep on being seen as mini-Slashdot or do they want to be something better?

If the latter, they should exercise more care in choosing their stories. In particular, they should resist the impulse to pick up every other piece of sensationalism they see. I know it makes the hen-house happy (ie. members) but it cheapens the experience.

There are plenty of stories to pick from, and yet they pick a strange mix that is neither here nor there. The comparison to Digg must've hurt, yet it's strangely accurate, because there's no apparent sense of purpose, just some vague guidelines for picking stories.

But I wouldn't call OSNews, a news site

Uh... I can't believe I have to explain thi, but that's what news is, dude. CNN and FOX and ABC don't MAKE news, they report it. That what OSNews does.

news are produced by real journalists doing research and investigative reporting

No, that is precisely not what news is, or rather, should be. News is not "produced"... it is reported.

Nice cherry-picking of my words to dodge the real issue that was being raised.

You are a blog, not a news organization. A news organization sends people daily into the field, conducts interviews, and checks mulitple sources when reporting a story. A news organization conducts thorough and serious testing of products. Look at anandtech if you need a reference on how a review should be done.

Look, I like it here, that's why I visit. But you should own up to what "OSNews" actually is and does.

Don't be ridiculous, no one is dodging the issue. I just think your expectations are a little unrealistic. It is *not* a pre-requisite of news that it must be deep-cover investigative journalism to be news reporting. If that's what you want, go for it, there are plenty of sites that do just that. I am looking at the webpage of my local CBS news... I guess it's a blog, none of the stories appear to be something where the journalist affected the story. BBC too... a blog.

We report news. If you want to call us a blog, go ahead... it's semantics. Call us whatever you want.

You can't wish for the return of Be, the Amiga or Next when you blow out the candles, though.

Watch out the forthcoming return of CherryOS. CherryOS 2, the revenge of Eben Moglen.

Yeah Digg, less free and more advertising.

I don't like any recent development of OSNews, but it's last not least my favorite newssite for such news since 98/99 :o)

Congratulations!

First of all congratulations! OSNews is one of the best news sites for OS and software related topics, especially if you are interested in free software.

However, I do think that OSNews isn't as good as it used to be. This is not the fault of the comment system or OSNews site, but of the OSNews users. The problem is that some people can't follow the moderation guidlines.

They vote things down because they don't agree with the contents, not because it is offensive or off topic but because they disagree as the guidlines suggests.

The start of this thread is a good example of this. It contained no offensive language and saying the comment was off topic was a bit of a stretch. Still it currently is rated -4.

So please, if you come across comments that you don't agree with, don't vote them down. Instead tell us why you don't agree. Who knows, sometimes you might even convince the other person and others that he is wrong. Just voting it down makes the voting system useless for selecting comments worth to read.

>Just voting it down makes the voting system useless for selecting comments worth to read.

Sometimes votes are better than words

The community ?

I don't think there is a single community at OSn - several IMO .

IMO the topics are broad enough to attract several types of folk .

If there was one community then we'd all participate equally in the different topics posted .

Those commenting on programming languages won't neccessarilty be interested at all in the latest OSX beta build - for example .

IMO the different groups are good & bad - good mix but also sometimes mindless flamewars .

There's two communities, but if it was a Venn diagram, it would overlap in the middle, as plenty of Windows users think they know about Macs, but don't; and the Mac users do know about Windows, but won't shutup about it :3 There's your flamewars right there!

Nintendo 64 released
"Dolly the sheep" cloned
Deep Blue beats Gary Kasparov
MS buy $150m share in Apple
WorldCom merges with MCI (now part of Verizon)
The term "Weblog" is invented
Toyota Prius first sold

Thank you wikipedia.

"I don't want to be with this people!!!!"

Neither do I - but I still like what is left when you ignore the crap - comments or item .

& I don't like generalisation - with "pathetic users" , you just mean the ones that enoy you .

Hmmm. I just gave you a +1 on that comment earlier in the thread that you are likely upset about. Not because I thought it was a great comment. But because I don't think it deserved to be modded down so. Sure, OSNews is a news amalgamation site. But that and the comments are fine with me.

I used to be critical of the mod system. And I guess I still am. But one really good thing about it is that it gives me a really good way to practice diplomacy while getting good feedback on how I'm doing.

If you'd like to try it, do this:

Make up your mind ahead of time that you are going to say what you mean and not just say stuff that you know will get modded up. Write it out and read it back. Soften some words where they need to be softened. Remove the charged words and replace them with accurate words that don't have emotional connotations. Make sure to acknowledge agreement on points on which you *do* happen to agree. Don't just gloss over any common ground.

At the same time, make your argument regarding the points on which you do *not* agree. Don't overstate it. Don't understate it. Avoid name calling. Show respect to others, even if you don't happen to think they deserve it; it helps your credibility.

Use emoticons. A smiley or a winky in the appropriate place, or a little joke included in your post can make all the difference in how people perceive it.

But for now, sit down, play some nice music, have a cup of tea or cocoa, and relax. And *don't* let the mod system or anything else here upset you. If it does, you are taking things *way* too seriously for your own good. You're supposed to enjoy your time here.

Edited 2007-08-27 02:07

But one really good thing about it is that it gives me a really good way to practice diplomacy while getting good feedback on how I'm doing.

That is something I also really enjoy about OSNews also. I write very little prose for a living, and I know my skill in expressing myself is less than I would like.

But this site is alive with opportunities to practice a little on topics that can incite strong emotions in one direction if I'm careless and in the other if I accurately capture a popular view. And the feedback system here helps me assess how I've done.

Why tell us ?
Just don't let the door hit you on the way out....

at mods:

Congrats on 10 years so far.

Is there a way to tell how long I have been here under this username, which I used before registration was needed ?

Urm, if you wanted to leave, you could at any time. Having to post about it and try and go out in a bang (more like a whimper) is about the most pathetic thing I can think of. OSNews is a great site with a good community. There are arguments and trolling, but that's mainly a clash of personalities. We're not talking unchecked raving idiocy like YouTube or Digg here.

Yeah, but it's really the Year of Desktop Linux this time!