cplusplus.com Wishlist Thread, March 2014

[Catfish666]

Fredbill wrote:

I do not see in any way how this would benefit the community.

Sort of agree.
IP bans are pretty archaic, I think. There's also the issue of dynamic IP's: not only are bans rendered ineffective, but they could also possibly affect innocent users (at least until their IP was renewed).

Fredbill wrote:

We're doing fine with dealing with trolls.

Sort of not agree.
Ideally we shouldn't need to deal with trolls; realistically speaking trolls should be booted much faster than they are currently. That's my personal opinion, anyway.

Does anybody know exactly how many reports does it take for someone to be autobanned?
Then again I'm not 100% this actually happens and is not just twicker showing up in time.

[TheIdeasMan]

BHX Specter wrote:

Problem is that it would have to be extremely limited moderator powers as it is impossible to split your emotions from the job.

Catfish666 wrote:

And power corrupts, it is said. Or at the very least it can bring out the worse in a person. For example I'd become even more insufferable if I had a banhammer to swing.

I am sure there are people out there that are mature, fair minded, objective, non-emotive & reasonable enough to do this role. Other sites have them, I am sure we can find a few in our community who would fit the bill. Some that spring to mind might include: (in no particular order and not to limited to) Duoas, Albatross, Disch, andywestken, kbw, MiiNiPaa, Cubbi, ne555, Zhuge, AbstractAnon, cire, Zereo, Gray (Grey?) Wolf, plus others. Plus Catfish666, if he decided he could be a model of equanimity !!

EDIT: Crikey, I forgot JLBorges, and naraku9333 !! Sorry guys, a major oversight, although the list wasn't meant to be a complete one.

These are just my suggestions - others may have different ideas as to who might be suitable.

The big thing with this whole idea is that there has to be policy with associated rules. The same goes for the reputation & useful or not useful post counts - it works on other sites because there are rules.

Of course, there would have to be some sort of expectation of commitment to this role, so people know what they are letting themselves in for. Someone might visit this site every day, but may not want to be expected to being a moderator every day. And they would have to want to do it, some might fit perfectly, but are busy enough with the rest of their life as it is.

IMO, there should be rules about how moderators act: they will become the "face" of this site, and their behaviour is a model for how others should act.

If this idea is going to get up, could we have nominations and a vote as to who we would want as moderators? Then twicker could invite whoever he pleases to be a moderator.

In terms of banning users, maybe we could have this sort of proposed policy:

1. If a moderator sees that users are unhappy, because a user is being annoying, and once there is consensus among the moderators, she/he could issue a warning for them to improve or there will be consequences.

2. If the behaviour is still not good, the moderator could temporarily suspend that account, while a vote (open to all members) is held to determine whether that user should be banned. There should be votes for and against. The bad user should always have the right of reply via PM to the all the moderators and twicker of course.

3. If the bad user seems to be contrite enough, they might be given a reprieve, however if they misbehave again, they could be banned immediately.

4. If there are sufficient votes against the bad user, then they could be banned. Everything of course would be subject to twicker's approval.

Again, these are just my ideas - there is probably potential for them to be altered or reorganised.

I hope that I am not coming across as pushing this too hard, it's just that I have had some run ins with trolls / annoying users - Jackson Marie comes to mind. I am sure others have had run ins too.

Fredbill wrote:

We're doing fine with dealing with trolls.

I don't agree.

Catfish666 wrote:

Ideally we shouldn't need to deal with trolls; realistically speaking trolls should be booted much faster than they are currently. That's my personal opinion, anyway.

My opinion too.

And who was that user who actually confessed to being a serial troll here for a long time (2 years was it?)

[Mats]

The weight lifters at a gym idea is great. Forums I've been on that have this definitely do benefit.

[Catfish666]

@ TIM: I think your proposed policy (despite the good intentions) would only lead to red tape.

So I would suggest something simpler (while, hypocritically, still not being in favor of a moderator team):
1) Moderators can act at their discretion.
2) Moderators can move/delete posts and threads, issue warnings but not ban.
3) Everything moderators do will be publicly visible on their profile.
(it would have to be all their actions, not say, their last 5 actions)

In a nutshell, I think the actual banning should be left to twicker.

I also think that not being able to ban wouldn't be such a great hindrance as it may first appear.

I think of banning as a passive, fire-and-forget kind of measure, which tries to solve the wrong problem: the troll.
Active moderation tries to solve the correct problem: the troll's content on the forum.

[James Parsons]

I think we should have an interactive C/C++ compiler online. Sort of like the Go Playground

[BHX]

I don't know, there are C/C++ compilers online already so it seems easier to direct to them rather than implement one for the site.

[Catfish666]

Perhaps twicker should consider embedding Coliru just like the rival site cppreference.com does.
I feel that doing this would be very useful here in the forum (more so than in the Reference).

I've seen lots of people who post their code in code tags, and immediately after a link to ideone or Coliru, just to run the code.

[ResidentBiscuit]

Ace text editor.
http://ace.c9.io/

[naraku9333]

We DO NOT need moderators. this is a small community with rather few issues with spam and trolls, both of which I feel the community can handle. In the rare occasions that more action is required admin and Twicker have been enough.

My only suggestions for changes to the site are 1) complete BBCode tag support and 2) a way to see who reports a post (maybe a tool tip?) but I'm not sure if this is a good idea, in fact I was previously against it but with the recent increase in reports I feel there should be some accountability.

[BHX]

naraku9333 wrote:

a way to see who reports a post (maybe a tool tip?) but I'm not sure if this is a good idea, in fact I was previously against it but with the recent increase in reports I feel there should be some accountability.

I would have agreed in the past, but I've had time to think about a few things. Whether a person is reported for a legit reason or just being trolled, if it shows who is reporting, then it runs the risk of that person retaliating by spamming reports against the person who reported. In the end I think Twicker is the only person that needs to know who is reporting and why in order to avoid childish retaliation. I can think of several times where people were reported and immediately accused another member of reporting them and a few other cases where the accused mysteriously got reported shortly after.

[ResidentBiscuit]

And Markdown support! Holy crap I would love that.

[LB]

Anything that uses underscores instead of slashes for italics is an enemy of me. What's wrong with the current formatting tags, besides being dated?

[Catfish666]

L B wrote:

What's wrong with the current formatting tags, besides being dated?

There's a bit of clumsiness in them, I think.

Right now, either you properly select the text then move the mouse and click on the right icon (otherwise "d'oh!"), or you diligently type at least eight seven extra characters to get what you want.

Typing `std::vector` to achieve the same effect as [tt]std::vector[/tt] would be nice, I think. Hands would stay where they belong when writing text (on the keyboard) and less text needs to be written.

[BHX]

I agree `std::vector` would be simpler. Though, we did have a new user a while back ask how to post code and output side-by-side and showed an example so maybe times are changing.

Thinking back, the tags are a good judge on if the person is truly interested in using the site or not. Those interested usually correct their first post and add the tags needed, if they are only seeking an answer they usually ignore any post until it is the answer. Well maybe "good" is too strong because I think ne555 and JLBorges both do ">" at the start of quotes instead of the tags, but they do use code tags.

[MiiNiPaa]

BHX Specter wrote:

we did have a new user a while back ask how to post code and output side-by-side

And that neat trick isn't mentioned anywhere. As some others like how to put quote author.

[BHX]

And that neat trick isn't mentioned anywhere. As some others like how to put quote author.

http://www.cplusplus.com/articles/z13hAqkS/

[MiiNiPaa]

Now we need an article "How to find How to use tags article"

I tried to find it assuming I do not know it existed. It should be pinned up in the beginner section or link to it added near formatting tags. We cannot have senior member post it to each new user, can we?

[BHX]

We cannot have senior member post it to each new user, can we?

Well I have no life and could do that.

It should be pinned up in the beginner section or link to it added near formatting tags.

I suppose you are right. Brought it up to twicker and we will have to leave it in his hands.

[LB]

Can we have a revision history for the first post of topics only? At least we could see what the first post was originally when people blank the first post.