Please, for the love of God, kill the shoutbox.
Forums shout be neat, tidy, minimal with posts that matter. Shoutbox is the complete opposite of all that and it is placed directly above the main content so to use the forums I have to scroll down.
I second that. If Patrick (I assume you introduced it?) wants it, cool. why not? But what about putting it below the forums? That way it would be there but it wouldn’t interfere with Occq’s (and my) workflow 
Was me indeed. It’s too big. One only sees the shoutbox but not the forums. Could eventually think “only a chat” and leave. Would be besides the point. Having it at the bottom or somehow better designed would be better.
Even though I personally don’t like blog comments and shotboxes either, nowadays having comments everywhere is a must. Makes the project seem more active. And I’d rather see people use Whonix and not some rat out service. A shoutbox is one piece in this equation.
Deactivated for now. Needs more work later.
Even though I personally don't like blog comments and shotboxes either, nowadays having comments everywhere is a must. Makes the project seem more active. And I'd rather see people use Whonix and not some rat out service. A shoutbox is one piece in this equation.If you dislike it yourself, then please do not activate it again :P From my perspective we don't need "Facebook generation" boxes, comments, likes and what not. KISS is the way to go (for my personal taste at least).
I dislike many things.
- Shoutboxes
- subconscious, emotional, uneducated decisions to rather use a rat out service with a professional looking homepage rather than an amateur website with software made by people who really care about the details (This isn’t an attack. I am sure, I am also making lots of bad decisions. I am trying to cope up with reality.)
- media and search engines deciding who rises and who falls
- facebook data mining
- rat out services
- and more…
Since I dislike the rat out services most, I am taking a sacrifice. If a shoutbox and a warm fuzzy feeling of activity helps, so be it. It’s only one piece to keep reader attention. Eventually one or another gets educated about the principles of Free Software, honesty, you name it.
For example, for years I had no facebook account. Then I saw, The Tor Project (tpo) has no facebook fan page. A bad decision in my opinion. Because fans created those pages anyway. And tpo doesn’t even have minimal control there. The admins of that tpo fb facebook fan page are doing things, that harm tpo, such as deleting non-English posts without explanation as if non-English speakers are not welcome. Whatever I think about facebook, I thought I’d rather keep minimal control over the facebook fan page rather than having a similar thing happen. A stubborn total ignore of facebook approach isn’t best here. One has to go with time - at least minimally - or be gone with time.
Even FSF recognized, that a total ignore of facebook won’t work. (They have a share button as well.)
1) Shoutboxes 2) subconscious, emotional, uneducated decisions to rather use a rat out service with a professional looking homepage rather than an amateur website with software made by people who really care about the details (This isn't an attack. I am sure, I am also making lots of bad decisions. I am trying to cope up with reality.) 3) media and search engines deciding who rises and who falls 4) facebook data mining 5) rat out services 6) and more...We seem to have a very good matching dislike-set. Can't wait to be more specific about "6) and more ..." :P
Since I dislike the rat out services most, I am taking a sacrifice. If a shoutbox and a warm fuzzy feeling of activity helps, so be it. It's only one piece to keep reader attention. Eventually one or another gets educated about the principles of Free Software, honesty, you name it.I'm perfectly fine with it as long as I can ignore it easily (preferably below the forums).
For example, for years I had no facebook account. Then I saw, The Tor Project (tpo) has no facebook fan page. A bad decision in my opinion. Because fans created those pages anyway. And tpo doesn't even have minimal control there. The admins of that tpo fb facebook fan page are doing things, that harm tpo, such as deleting non-English posts without explanation as if non-English speakers are not welcome. Whatever I think about facebook, I thought I'd rather keep minimal control over the facebook fan page rather than having a similar thing happen. A stubborn total ignore of facebook approach isn't best here. One has to go with time - at least minimally - or be gone with time.This is a very difficult one. While I think that your argumentation is definitely conclusive, I have a very different way to approach the actual problem(s). That is, I hate FB (for reasons that I think we share) and thus I do not support it, use it, engage in it, you name it ... My opinion is that I - as a person - can provide my _humble_ part to actually shape the future instead of "going with time". For Whonix, I would feel it much better if we would actively promote the use of Diaspora (if we - at all - want to promote a social network). Whonix is a _humble_ contribution to change things, but I mean every _humble_ part counts here. Just "going along with time" is also a statement to somehow support (or at least accept) what's currently there. I think that if you wholeheartedly disagree with the status quo, the majority, popular services, you name it ... you should work against it in whatever way possible. I admit that's a radical way to approach things. Just my (off topic) 0.02$.
I view the philosophy between Patrick’s and Cerberus’s strategies like this…
Say that basically the whole world is hooked on eating crap food, say “chocolate”. Where all they basically eat is crap chocolate and continue to ruin their health. …Analogy for all of the non-freedom based software and services that basically the whole world is hooked on now.
Patrick and Cerberus (and I too) have essentially the same personal views/feelings towards all of this “crap chocolate” that the world is hooked on.
Cerberus’s approach of response is one of say “fundamentalism” of strictly sticking to and being a presence in the world of purity. Everyone is hooked on “crap chocolate”, so he responds by promoting 100% “healthy spinach” all the time.
Patrick’s approach of response is one of “pragmatism” of looking around and seeing that everyone is already hooked on “crap chocolate” and is not likely to switch to eating more “healthy spinach” unless there is a compromise that makes it more bearable for these “chocolate eaters” to make a transition away from their addictions to more healthy alternatives. So essentially Patrick is promoting “chocolate spinach” to the chocolate addicts, because he sees that they aren’t making their consumer decisions based entirely on 100% “healthy spinach” yet and need an attractive platform to transition from the their old unhealthy ways to a new pure way.
Same end goal. Different strategic approaches of “fundamentalism” and “pragmatism”.
I think Patrick’s real world example of the TPO Facebook page demonstrates some of the value in his chosen position well, where the TPO made a fundamentalist decision of not endorsing Facebook and subjecting it’s community to Facebook (“crap chocolate”). But in reality the Tor Project got a Facebook page anyway, because the people were just too addicted to the status quo of eating their “crap chocolate”.
If one can leverage the reality of people’s “unhealthy” addictions to further gain a foothold into their lives and then further influence them to change and become a more “healthy” person and simultaneously build a bigger stronger network of “healthier” people, then the “pragmatic” approach would have greater real world strategic value over and above the “fundamentalist” approach for advancing the philosophical aims of the movement.
Diaspora:
Eventually soon Sean will continue to engage with the Diaspora community. I am all for integrating such buttons and to prioritize them over worse ones, but this isn’t simple. We need to rely on existing web app extensions (mediawiki, wordpress, SMF) for this. I added privacy share buttons on the blog (which advertises those and encourages others, if they add such buttons, then at least the privacy friendly version), but only because there were existing extensions for that. At the moment, I see no such thing for Diaspora. But when they are created, I also like being an early adapter.
BlueBird, this is an interesting analysis.