That’s a different setting though.
3 is probably a fair value for it - but it has no effect in a botspam situation where the new user automatically posts the same garbage 7 or 8 times before anyone gets to flag any of the user’s posts.
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Maybe there is a “please revise” flag or something similar that a moderator could use, where the post isn’t hidden immediately, but OP has some time to revise or else the post will be removed.
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How disingenuous. The part you quote is not rude IMO. The full quote, however, is IMO very rude:
“This is crap, Purism is crap, the product is a scam, you all go to hell, my phone does not charge”.
The question that must be asked is why you selected only a part of the quote – and arguably the only part that isn’t rude – to ask “how is that rude”. For clarity, I’ve bolded the part that seems rude and find it unfathomable that the portion you’ve selected is the only portion that isn’t rude.
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I agree.
It is, I suppose, possible to have interpreted those as five separate quotes.
However my interpretation of that part of the OP’s post as a whole was that the OP was illustrating and contrasting two ways of asking the same question (about charging a phone) - the constructive, sensible, focused, polite way that is likely to elicit helpful responses … and the rude, running off at the mouth, unfactual way.
However I think we are getting away from the OP’s point, which was about the vibe, rather than exact quotes and how they should be interpreted - because the text quoted does not to my knowledge actually occur in this forum.
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Full quote (assuming @irvinewade is referring to the correct citation):
Breakdown:
- This is crap → This is worst crap = 133%
- Purism is crap → Not applicable, since Purism is never explicitly mentioned.
- The product is a scam → Its a scam = 40%
- You all go to hell → Not applicable, since hell is never explicitly mentioned.
- My phone does not charge → Not applicable, since the quote is claiming to be about a laptop with no explicit manufacturer and/or model name.
See also:
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Having read through all and made my (oxford defines) opinions known, the sum, as of today, appears to be that it’s all about CONTROL. Some people criticize others for being too selective as to what they quoted. It’s too much or not enough or selected parts were quoted to distort the context.
‘No one can be like everyone wants them to be all of the time’…
To get everyone to post the same way (they) want the rest to post, can’t be done by the rest because not everyone is like ‘you’; the colloquial ‘you’ not you that is.
Too, not everyone can offer content that everyone agrees with. I may not agree with someone, but I can still Like their comment.
Aiming for the head of the nail.
then I just remember I am in a forum.
My Solution: 1, 2,3, 4, 5 or all
-
If we don’t like what someone says in a OP, or Response, or Reply, then we can move on. Done.
-
If we don’t like someone because of their posts, We may Block or Mute them/their posts. Done.
How to Block or Mute
- Click on your Profile image to bring up a context menu.
- In the menu click to open Profile (bottom of vertical menu.)
- click to open Preferences
- in preferences, click to open User
- Choose to Block or Mute from the options.
-
If we think a OP, or Response, or Reply breaches Puri’s definitions of How To Behave Around Purism’s House 101 or spot Spam, then as Purisms’ Forum’s forum-house FAQ states, we may flag it… on same page as Behave link above.
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If you are flagging a post by a respondent that you don’t agree with, explain why - without underlying insults, then don’t flag it - just move on.
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If we feel the Discourse/Forum has a issue, or we have a idea, share we should share it with the community.
The above are just my opinions that help to form my answer to your questions. I suspect you by now that you kicked the hornet’s nest 
~S
DISCLAIMER:
By having reading this you have agreed that I am not responsible for not following my own advice, and that you agreed to never point out any of my failings.
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Can’t speak for the laptop owners, but a lot of L5 owners such as myself are still mad at how Purism handled that whole debacle. And I’m not just talking about the crowdfunding backers, who often get dismissed because “you knew you were taking a risk”. I’m including preorder customers such as myself who were promised a functional phone within a couple of months. Which was obviously unrealistically optimistic, as is often the case with crowdfund projects, but even so: we’re 8 years later and still don’t have what would be considered a minimum viable product. What we have is a wonky proof of concept. And a very expensive one at that.
And if it was just a matter of Purism trying their best, but ultimately failing, that would be acceptable if they had communicated about that openly. But Purism has engaged in behaviour throughout the whole project, that can not be described as anything but unethical. E.g.:
- Repeatedly postponing the promised shipping deadline, missing it, and not communicating about it until weeks later.
- Hiding behind the pandemic to explain the delays, for a product that was supposed to ship in January 2019.
- And while the pandemic did exacerbate the pre-existing shipping delays, that still doesn’t explain the state of the software upon release. They had dev boards long before that, the software development would have been unaffected.
- Claiming they finally started “shipping”, while not mentioning that their definition of “shipping” was delivering a handful to their internal staff, to augment their dev boards with final units in the correct form-factor.
- Moving preorder customers back in line, and giving new customers who ordered years later preferential treatment, by starting up a second manufacturing facility in the USA, from where they sold a more expensive version (understandable; higher labour costs). The explanation given was that for some reason the parts, which are manufactured in Asia, were available to the US plant but not the Asian one due to supply line issues.
- Trying to upsell preorder customers who got bumped back in line to this more expensive product. Essentially saying “we decided to move you back in the queue, and if you want us to move you up again, you need to pay us more than what you already paid us”.
- Breaking the contract they had with preorder customers by denying them refunds. The original refund policy stated that a preorder customer would get an immediate refund if at any time prior to shipping they changed their mind. This was updated so that you could only get a refund once your phone was ready to ship. And applied that retroactively to customers who ordered under the old refund policy.
- Finally deliver a phone-shaped object with an abysmal battery life, and applications that run slow, despite prior claims that having a lower specced processor would not matter due to the the applications running on bare metal rather than a stripped down Java VM layer, as is the case on Android.
- Asking their customers to donate in order to fund software development for a product that was supposed to ship in a production-ready state years ago.
- Unresponsive support. Until you call them out openly, at which point they suddenly become very eager to help.
- Making the “user-replaceable” battery a proprietary form-factor, not available anywhere else, and refusing to sell replacement batteries outside the US unless the customer also orders a device along with it.
And I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot of stuff that happened over the years, as my memory ain’t the best and I haven’t kept notes or anything.
So here we are today, 6 years after we were promised a functional phone. With a device that technically could be described as a “mobile phone”:
- It can make calls. Not sure if they ever fixed that bug where the phone would take too long to wake up from sleep to answer an incoming call, but you can always call back.
- It can send and receive messages. Not sure it can handle MMS, that might’ve been fixed by now; initially I don’t think it could.
- It has a browser. Technically; it’s unusably slow, but it has a browser.
- It even has GPS navigation. Again, so slow it’s unusable in practice.
- It has a camera that’s slow and low-res, low quality.
- etc…
The pattern here is: “technically” the feature is present; it’s unusable in practice, but since it’s “technically” present we can list it as a feature.
And now it’s gotten real quiet on the L5 front lately, no news, no updates, nothing. Apparently the people still working on the project are a skeleton crew at best. Yet, no mention of that on the website. The device is still being sold as if it’s an actual functional product that people can use. They still sell the “made in USA” version for a whopping $2k, presenting it as a premium product. Can’t imagine anyone being happy with a barely functional device that won’t last a day on a single charge after paying $2k for it. So is it any surprise that people come to these forums to vent?
That’s not our responsibility. It’s Purism’s fault for never addressing their mistakes, let alone fix them. If Purism doesn’t want people criticising them in their own forums (or outside, e.g. on Reddit, should they start suppressing such criticism), then they shouldn’t do business in such a way as to invite said criticism. It’s not up to us to compensate for their failures to behave in an ethical manner.
About the only positive I can say about them is that at least they allow this criticism on their own forums, and don’t try to censor it by deleting posts.
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Fault and responsibility-to-resolve are not the same thing.
There’s a saying (that I am applying in respect of “bad blood in the forums”): Who owns the problem?
Answer: We do. Not Purism.
It’s a community forum and most Purism staff either don’t visit the forum at all or visit it sparingly because it is often not helpful or constructive to do so. (So the venting becomes a vicious circle.)
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For me, the disappointments about purism have piled up, which has led me to the assumption that displaying it in the forum will not make the situation worse.
It’s such a shame that we won’t get a working/usable phone in the end (i wanted it so badly).
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all the way to
Some folk won’t want to agree, or critical for fear of retribution in one form or another. I’m not one of them.
My L5 should perform as advertised - it’s not.
The one saving grace for Purism is the volunteer support we get in the forums. The people at Purism Forums really know their stuff.
Unfortunately, we’re here because L5s don’t come close to measuring up to the hype in the ads.
Caveat emptor
~s
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NOTE: If the L5 was to act like a real cell, there wouldn’t be a problem in the Forums.
~s
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Missing the point. This topic is about the forum not the phone.
We can’t fix the phone but we can fix the forum.
(Well, no doubt, some participants have the expertise to fix bugs in the Librem 5. Patches welcome, as they say.)
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OPINIONS: Nothing more nothing less.
You’re missing the point.
POINT:
If the L5 worked, there wouldn’t be any posts complaining about other people’s posts. The L5 IS part of the topic. The L5 (and other hardware) are the reasons for the “Bad blood”.
If anyone doesn’t like to read what someone has said, move on. If they don’t like some of the people here, Mute or Block them.
That in itself would even make Pollyanna happy to read here.
If anything needs fixing, it’s other people’s inability to tolerate others.
Remember that ‘‘viral’’ saying that floated around a few years ago where others tried to change the masses with something like “Learn to be tolerant of others.” The saying fits and has merits.
A complaint can’t be “bad blood”.
~s
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True that, Sharon. As long as people understand the difference between constructive complaints and just being downright nasty, complaints are valuable because they provide the feedback Purism needs to improve their products. On the other hand, nasty comments are not constructive and create a toxic atmosphere, which has been rightly called out here as “bad blood.”
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Only if they are officially acknowledged, otherwise they are sent to /dev/null.
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Who will be the judge of that? I mean, you, I and Jane Doe have different opinions as to what people may say or not say. Someone has to be in charge and that will soon be AI. I don’t know how Irvine will feel about being replaced by a energy guzzler like AI. 
Another opinion IMO. Are you ready to define “constructive” and “toxic”? Maybe, it would be faster, cheaper and amicable if we leave that poop up to the Moderator’s that make the decision.
When you don’t like a post, or anyone else doesn’t like it, they can Flag it, and from my experience, will hide the post from everyone except the author and any Mods notify the author that they have 10 minutes to edit the post or it’s gone.
The 10 minute notice assume the author is always online 24/7.
I can understand people getting, as Trump put it, “very really upset” and hammer out their frustrations on the cause of the issue.
Some people will back up the source of the problem with loads of over-the-top platitudes for the company. The other end of the posting spectrum.
In the end, there can be no toxic, nasty posts. If anyone doesn’t like what a person has to say, or
temperature of post, then one may Flag and hide the posts or responses.
One may also block (hide) someone and their posts/replies.
Supporting your view, I too have seen some nasty posts - but I understand why.
Too, for most company’s that have a forum, it keeps a riled-up customer home rather than the customer blasting through any number of Review, competitor, and/or similar product or service sites leaving negative posts listing the faults, the service and support they didn’t get at the home of the product or service they complain about.
So you see, there are lot of ways to censor a post you feel is “nasty”. But you already know that.
~s
My replies are just my opinions - nothing more nothing less. I may not agree with you, but I value your input.
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Indeed. Good questions with no perfect answers.
I would say though that, first and foremost, it should be judged by the person making the post.
- Whatever the post says, would the poster want the same being said of themselves? If the answer is “no” then just don’t make the post.
- Apply the 24 hour rule i.e. if you are hot under the collar about something then whatever the post says don’t post but instead save the text in your preferred text editor, wait 24 hours, then review the text to see whether it is still what you want to post.
One of the traditional attributes of something that is “constructive” is that ultimately it presents a solution, not just a problem or, at least, spells out the desired outcome (potentially as distinct from how that outcome should be achieved).
I think we all know what is a good problem report - thoroughly investigated first, with specific and accurate details as to what the customer did, what the customer’s environment is, what the expected outcome was, what the actual outcome was - versus vague venting.
So it can come down to … not what you may say, but how you say it.
Yes, you can mute a topic and you can mute a user - but that isn’t the answer to toxicity, at least as far as the OP is concerned - because after all you can “mute the whole forum” simply by not visiting and that seems to apply in respect of this topic (“hit and run” OP).
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I believe it is mostly common sense but goes like that:
- Constructive - focus on being specific, offer actionable suggestions, and keep the tone respectful and aimed at improvement.
- Toxic - avoid personal attacks, vague criticism, and overly harsh language that doesn’t help the other party understand how to improve.
Everyone has their moments. I got triggered by the text linked in the first post (“Worst laptop Ive ever had”) of this thread. However, delaying that initial reaction makes difference. Editing your own comment to make it constryuctive helps too.
The linked post in the first comment is toxic because -
- It uses harsh language an swear words - it communicates anger and animosity
- Lacks constructive criticism - it goes into generalisations, there are no actionable suggestions for improvement, it simply insults wihtout looking for solution. Clearly the message was there to hurt as a result of internal anger and frustrations.
- Personal attacks - the text attacks personally the team at the company. It wasn’t designed to give feedback but to degrade the organisation.
- No room for dialogue - there is no room for improvement or even dialogue suggested in the post
Overall, toxic degrades the motivation for cooperation and improvement between people in a group or community. Constructive however, enchances the cooperation and motivation.
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Everyone is still permitted to ride their own definition of “toxicity”.
There is no answer to what you, or others define what “toxicity” is here.
I have read the posts where people were ignored. I doubt you or @dnesto would sit back and be ignored for over 2 years. I’m not talking about MY two years BTW.
“refund” and “ghosted” is used together in *1,660 times posts here.
Naw. I’ve read too posts every where that people need to remain calm, do nothing, and wait - maybe they’ll get a answer - but I haven’t seen any positive responses to those poor victims.
The tools are here for anyone to report, or hide posts, and users.
If whomever doesn’t like people’s spelling, or negativity, ignore it, or block/mute them - move on. They’ll be wasting their time telling others how a post should be.
Anger and venting in a post isn’t something that just pops in to someone’s mind. Most complaints, Pollyanna-style or not, happen because someone has a problem with a Puri product. Negativity is something that simmers too long that turns into a full boil boil. Just as a post with praises for Puri are earned, so are any negativity earned. And I understand that the person is human, and earned the right to feel they have take to another level because they have followed the pollyanna approach many times on their issue to no avail. Should they just go away and forget it.
IMO, you both are suggesting that even though people are ghosted along with their money, they should wuss their complaint. Would anyone rather that they take their anger to your Office of the Attorney General and file a complaint there.
In the end, again, the mods may control content and interpret what is and isn’t “toxic” or too ‘negative’. And, we can all mute/block or simply move by at the first sign of anything one feels is out of their bounds.
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