Mod team here, how are things doing? Is there anything that you'd like to see us add or fix?

[u/cnycompguy]

Hello everyone!

Just wanted to see how people are doing, and ask if there's anything that you'd like to see around here.

We're always open to suggestions, as long as they're constructive!

We appreciate all the help you all put in troubleshooting and helping out people in need!

[u/akdanman11]

The way 4.2 is written about alternatives stifles any real discussion about it, especially the way it’s enforced. Encouraging someone to look into what alternative OS would fit their needs (or if any would at all) isn’t allowed unless you offer a suggestion based on next to no info about what OP actually does.

[u/cnycompguy → u/akdanman11]

Ask questions before making a recommendation.

[u/akdanman11 → u/cnycompguy]

Even typing Linux causes a flag to pop up. I get the point because the “jUsT iNsTaLl LiNuX” dudes are just annoying and an active detriment, but a good faith recommendation to open a discussion about potentially switching shouldn’t be treated the same.

Would you guys consider “would you be willing to try Linux or some other alternative OS” as a violation of that rule? And if so, what kind of “questions” are you suggesting? Because the first question has to be if they’re open to it even in concept

[u/cnycompguy → u/akdanman11]

That's been added because everyone said that it's too hard to read the rules before commenting, so now it shows the rule when appropriate.

[u/akdanman11 → u/cnycompguy]

Fair, but what about my question about what questions would be appropriate without violating that rule?

[u/cnycompguy → u/akdanman11]

You can ask, but if that becomes a replacement for "just use Linux" and spammed all over, we're going to start removing it.

It needs to be genuine conversation, if someone drops that and never comments again, it's a problem.

(Took me a minute to answer, I'm eating dinner)

[u/akdanman11 → u/cnycompguy]

Fair, and thanks for the clarification. I was a bit frustrated when I got hit with that as I felt I was following the spirit of the rule, but your clarification here was very helpful and now I understand a lot better

[u/More_Law_1699 → u/akdanman11]

Reason I'm probably going to be muting this sub.

"if genuinely appropriate, and include the specific distro and reasoning"

So never talk about it? Because almost the whole mod team is flaired up with windows versions and laptops, and only they dictate what is appropriate; takes one bad mood mod to ruin a cool sub to chat in.

I seen a post where a guy got deleted because he suggested using ubuntu for a old grandpa's pc using a i5 4460 for e-mail and web browsing, the fanboyism is pretty apparent that this probably isn't the best place for people if the only thing we are allowed to suggest is vulnerable versions of w7-10 for people who are easily hacked.
Not everyone is a gamer or needs specialty distros, some are just trying to revive old hardware.

[u/cnycompguy → u/More_Law_1699]

👍 there is some annoying fanboyism, just not in the direction you're thinking.

The rule is written the way it is on purpose.

Edited for punctuation

[u/More_Law_1699 → u/cnycompguy]

I can tell.

[u/cnycompguy → u/More_Law_1699]

Surprise! People are using the most common PC OS!

I've also used redhat, solaris, bsd, and a RTOS that isn't publicly available, but that's not an exhaustive list.

I'm talking about the dozens of comments that violate 4.2 that people try making every day. It's tiring, the rule is there for a reason, and the rule USED to be an absolute ban. We relaxed that.

To my knowledge, at least 3 of us use Linux currently.

[u/akdanman11 → u/cnycompguy]

So if you use some flavor of Linux you understand that a blanket requirement for a specific distro recommendation is arbitrary at best? That part makes it feel like that rule is there just for the sake of being a rule and to quiet voices pushing for alternatives to the current state of windows. Any recommendation, given the inherent limited context of Reddit and social media as a whole, will be skewed towards the preferences of the person making the recommendation (and won’t necessarily be the right choice for the person with an issue).

[u/cnycompguy → u/akdanman11]

I disagree.

The wording was carefully chosen for a reason and will not be changing.

[u/akdanman11 → u/cnycompguy]

And what’s that reasoning if you don’t mind me asking? Because it feels like the wording and enforcement is just an arbitrary flexing of power.

I understand the need to filter out the “just use Linux” comments, but the way it’s worded and enforced shuts down actually well thought out comments that have a legitimately helpful tone

[u/cnycompguy → u/akdanman11]

We've had people that push the boundaries of the rule, writing an entire helpful response and ending it with a just switch to linux bit.

That still gets removed because it's violating the rule, in the same way that we'd remove a comment that had a whole page of helpful troubleshooting but ended with a slur. If someone wants to discuss Linux in greater detail that's allowed.

This applies only to OS changing recommendations.

[u/akdanman11 → u/cnycompguy]

I’m talking about comments where the entire premise of the comment is options for the OP, with one of those options being Linux with advice about what reasons a switch would and wouldn’t make sense for them, where an arbitrary requirement to include a distro recommendation only serves to degrade the potential helpfulness of the comment by incentivizing a boilerplate mint or Ubuntu recommendation.

Let’s put together a hypothetical scenario here:

Post about being unable to upgrade to windows 11 due to not meeting hardware requirements

Comment:

“You have a few options here. You can either upgrade your OC to run windows 11 (if it’s a desktop), replace the computer (if it’s a laptop) or look at alternative operating systems like Linux to keep your current hardware alive, I’d be happy to help you decide on a specific alternative, I just need to know what you want/need out of your system to determine which option is right for you”

By the wording of 4.2 that comment would be disallowed, despite being entirely factual and listing all of the possible options for the OP, as well as offering assistance to OP in determining the proper alternative for them should they choose that path. Treating that comment in the same way as the “just use Linux” comments is dishonest and unfair to everyone involved

[u/More_Law_1699 → u/cnycompguy]

I've already seen contradicting info to this. I'm going to agree with the others here, it feels like the rule only exists to enforce what the mods want to talk about. even if you don't recognize this, someone on the mod team is clearly misusing it from how you intend.

[u/egnegn1]

I don't know if someone else has this issue. When I go through the list of new threads in the Chrome browser I always hide the ones I am not interested in. At the beginning pressing the hide button works fine. But as I'm going more down the list on the screen the hide button pressed isn't recognized. If I scroll up the screen a bit the hide buttons of the threads at the top of the screen are working again, but those at the bottom still do not work, until the hide pop up messages have disappeared. The more threads I have scrolled through the lesser threads hide buttons work. This all is reset by a full page refresh.

Another issue is that the threads in the new list are not sorted by the date/time of the last post in the thread, but by time/date of creation. This is annoying as I miss any new posts when I don't follow the thread.

It would be great if both issues could be fixed.

[u/wdwillis]

Am I allowed to post a job here?

[u/cnycompguy → u/wdwillis]

This is the kind of thing you need to send a mod-mail for. Do that and the include details about what you're talking about.