Harsh, no. I think rude is a better word.
I see you didn’t read this thread. One, maybe two people were fretting, everyone else was defending your company. It got a little discombobulated, yes, but we were all of the same spirit and on your side. You also called out the wrong dude (light-heartedly, certainly, but it adds to what I said previously).
Your words would carry more weight if they were better prepared.
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I’m a bit distressed now, are we at war or something? Should we put paperbags over our heads?
The thread topic is about asking for a refund. At the time of this writing, the post has been open for 8 days and has 103 posts. Of that, the past 3 days and ~50 posts have nothing to do with getting a refund.
@Richard comes in and suggests that the thread stay on topic, which is fair given ~50% of the content being off-topic, and it being fully off-topic for the past several days straight (which constitutes ~40% of the thread’s current lifetime), and then gets told he shouldn’t do that.
Yes, people were commenting about the ideals of FOSS (I don’t really see anyone actually directly defending Purism - just freedom in general), but the fact of the matter is, it’s off-topic. Richard is doing his job, and doing it correctly.
The only one he calls out is the guy who does support using Windows/having the freedom to use whatever you want, even if it is proprietary, so I think the call-out is relevant, not that it matters. (And for what it’s worth, @2disbetter, I appreciate your reasoning and thoughtful discourse, even if I disagree with your conclusions).
TL;DR - this thread is off-topic, and Richard did his job correctly. Just because people are defending FOSS doesn’t mean this is the correct thread for it.
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Fair enough, and that is his job. He’s just doing his job. What’s not being recognized though is that (with the exception of a few) the Purism forums have accomplished what I think hasn’t since the mid 90’s BBSs and LJ…a community of like minded individuals who genuinely enjoy each others company 
Therefore I propose a new forum category called “Hey, let’s all ride bikes!” that anyone can move a conversation to whenever anyone senses the conversation has become off topic but is still very interesting.
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Hi everyone,
I have created a new topic where we can discuss the problem of moving off-topic posts to new threads. Let’s continue the discussion here:
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I make no apologies for hurt feelings, I guess it’s inevitable with these topics. Free speech sometimes requires thicker skin… I could be proven wrong or convinced that I’m wrong. But you’ll never know if you keep quiet out of fear of offending someone or whatever.
To those pointing out the thread being off topic - the “topic” is already solved, is it not? Just add an [off topic] tag or whatever and be done with it.
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I didnt say he was wrong for trying to get this back on topic. I didn’t question his motives. I, in fact, never said “he shouldn’t do that.” All I did was point out a couple mistakes he made and suggested he read the entire post, because it seemed he hadn’t.
I said he should read what’s written. It seems you need to re-read what’s written.
“Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.” – Karl Hess
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By the way (and still here), I see it clearly now that creating this particular thread (title):
- Can I ask for a refund? (written by @marque on 20 October 2019 at 06:19 PM EDT),
was just another coincidence in time after Phoronix published his article:
- An Interview With Zlatan Todoric, Open-Source Developer & Former Purism CTO (written by Michael Larabel on 20 October 2019 at 08:25 AM EDT).
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Interesting… and the user who created the thread seems to have been almost completely inactive until creating this one thread. No likes given or received, no other topics created, no posts anywhere, and only 26 minutes of read time in over a year.
I could see the thread creation and the interview falling on the same day as a coincidence, but there does seem to be more to it.
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It smelled like a smear from the very beginning.
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Gee, don’t be paranoid. The guy wanted a refund, got it and now he spends his days with fun things instead of reading up on a phone he will never get. What’s so suspicious about that?
And even the same day isn’t suspicious at all. It’s even logical. Perhaps he was grinding his teeth about the VAT-stuff, but he read the article and that was the last drop, and he decided to call it quits.
What is there to gain for you by raising some weird conspiracy theories? Next thing people will be suspected of spying for Apple and Google 
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Those are your feelings, not mine. I’m not a paranoid individual. But paranoid individuals champion the article linked here and use it as a valid talking point. If the article wasn’t so clearly laced with agenda and hurt feelings, I could take it seriously.
I have been on the internet long enough, and have been involved with technology long enough to smell foul play. Very rarely in the industry is coincidence really coincidence, especially with 1 post accounts, etc.
Take everything with a grain of salt of course.
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