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2 minutes ago, DevTech said:

You appear to have reading comprehension problems. I am not discussing general politics. In fact "general politics" is retro politics.

 

The tech world affected the election directly and profoundly in ways that your limited view of traditional politics could not.

 

The forum for general discussion should stay where it is as a venting outlet for members.

 

In this thread alone there is much confusion being exhibited between "Neowin Forums" and Neowin's editorial and news content. How tech is impacting our world in many ways including politics is so obvious as one of the vital components of the entire spectrum of Neowin content that this debate would puzzle any questioning and engaged mind.

The recent article is such a minor thing when it comes to tech that your point doesn't really apply here. The article was written in the interest of getting views since the news staff is well aware that there are a lot of members (yourself included) who cannot resist talking about politics whenever possible. 

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2 hours ago, DevTech said:

I am not discussing general politics. In fact "general politics" is retro politics.

 

The tech world affected the election directly and profoundly in ways that your limited view of traditional politics could not.

 

The forum for general discussion should stay where it is as a venting outlet for members.

 

In this thread alone there is much confusion being exhibited between "Neowin Forums" and Neowin's editorial and news content. How tech is impacting our world in many ways including politics is so obvious as one of the vital components of the entire spectrum of Neowin content that this debate would puzzle any questioning and engaged mind.

 

 

You weren't talking about simply reporting how tech affects politics, but Neowin writers using their position to attempt to influence readers. That's what we're mainly disagreeing with. Not simply reporting stories about tech as a factor in the world, but using said stories as a platform for pushing ones own views. We get enough of that in the mainstream media - we shouldn't have the put up with it here.

 

It's not inappropriate for members to air their views in the comments (though it can get tiresome). It is inappropriate for political agendas to be on display in the articles themselves - reporters should endeavor to be neutral (though naturally true 100% impartiality isn't possible - we're all human).

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32 minutes ago, DConnell said:

A tech site should not be attempting to influence people's political views, any more than politicians should attempt to give recommendations on technology. Everyone has different strengths and areas of expertise, and just because a person or group is a leader in one field, it doesn't follow that their views should be given addtional weight in other unrelated areas. (No offense meant to @Steven P. or anyone else involved with Neowin. While I'm the go-to guy for tech in my family, I certainly am not an authority about politics. My opinion is mine, and should not be given more value than anyone else's.)

You assume some mythological barrier between the tech world and politics which is a fantasy in your mind and many other minds that has no relation to current reality.

 

The fact that you want your fantasy to be pandered to does not mean it makes sense to do that. A tech-induced fantasy escape from reality is more suitable for a gaming site although even most gaming sites have a sense of social responsibly. It is certainly a valid marketing concept to create a site that allows viewers to be completely divorced from reality as a form of entertainment and Fox News has demonstrated it is possible to be financially successful doing that although that's probably a poor example since they seem to create an alternate universe that is even more anxious and stressful than the real one.

 

In any case calling for more political content is not the same thing as "attempting to influence people's political views" -  Clearly you did not understand my point on "complicity" - the tech world is already influencing politics to a huge degree and discussing subjects like that is pure tech and we need more of it. You can easily discuss how Facebook was manipulated into influencing people's political opinions without attempting to "influence anyone's politics" although there is an obvious Heisenberg thing there.

 

Your other fantasy request that politicians should not influence technology simply does not correspond to reality. The recent change to Net Neutrality will have a huge impact on tech and needs to be reported on and discussed and that is politics that needs attention in tech communities like Neowin.

 

 

 

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^ Hate to ask but the last time Net Neutrality was brought into the spotlight was when there was a former Bush in office, correct?

 

7 hours ago, Steven P. said:

I think that's isolated, I have seen tech related questions get answered within minutes,. or at least within the day/short amount of time.

 

You stopping asking your questions has actually contributed to the decrease of activity, with fewer active topics and replies, of course it's going to get worse, so why contribute to that?

 

The OPs statement isn't all that intelligent to me, and even lacks actual examples yet here we are at the end of page two of replies.

Steve don't forget there are also members here who take the elitist approach when answering questions making the one asking said question feel stupid, then there are the ones who ask questions but feel that there not actually wrong or that everyone is giving them the wrong answers.

 

But this waiting hours or even days for a reply... maybe they don't know the answer to your specific question(s) or you weren't specific enough?

 

 

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3 minutes ago, DevTech said:

You assume some mythological barrier between the tech world and politics which is a fantasy in your mind and many other minds that has no relation to current reality.

 

The fact that you want your fantasy to be pandered to does not mean it makes sense to do that. A tech-induced fantasy escape from reality is more suitable for a gaming site although even most gaming sites have a sense of social responsibly. It is certainly a valid marketing concept to create a site that allows viewers to be completely divorced from reality as a form of entertainment and Fox News has demonstrated it is possible to be financially successful doing that although that's probably a poor example since they seem to create an alternate universe that is even more anxious and stressful than the real one.

 

In any case calling for more political content is not the same thing as "attempting to influence people's political views" -  Clearly you did not understand my point on "complicity" - the tech world is already influencing politics to a huge degree and discussing subjects like that is pure tech and we need more of it. You can easily discuss how Facebook was manipulated into influencing people's political opinions without attempting to "influence anyone's politics" although there is an obvious Heisenberg thing there.

 

Your other fantasy request that politicians should not influence technology simply does not correspond to reality. The recent change to Net Neutrality will have a huge impact on tech and needs to be reported on and discussed and that is politics that needs attention in tech communities like Neowin.

 

 

 

Try debating what I actually say. It works wonders in a discussion. A little less condescension is also conducive to a productive discussion.

 

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10 minutes ago, DConnell said:

You weren't talking about simply reporting how tech affects politics, but Neowin writers using their position to attempt to influence readers. That's what we're mainly disagreeing with. Not simply reporting stories about tech as a factor in the world, but using said stories as a platform for pushing ones own views. We get enough of that in the mainstream media - we shouldn't have the put up with it here.

 

It's not inappropriate for members to air their views in the comments (though it can get tiresome). It is inappropriate for political agendas to be on display in the articles themselves - reporters should endeavor to be neutral (though naturally true 100% impartiality isn't possible - we're all human).

I have clearly stated that tech has an overwhelming effect on politics in 2017 and Neowin should be in the forefront of covering that issue.

 

Absolutely nowhere in that, have I suggested that Neowin cover "general politics" any more than I would want Neowin to cover "Hollywood Celebrities" so I think that you and I are in agreement on that issue, actually.

 

The example that people object to of Neowin covering the deletion of Donald Trumps's Twitter account is 100% completely appropriate material for Neowin to cover and does not attempt to influences a readers "general political thought"

 

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13 minutes ago, DConnell said:

You weren't talking about simply reporting how tech affects politics, but Neowin writers using their position to attempt to influence readers. That's what we're mainly disagreeing with. Not simply reporting stories about tech as a factor in the world, but using said stories as a platform for pushing ones own views. We get enough of that in the mainstream media - we shouldn't have the put up with it here.

 

It's not inappropriate for members to air their views in the comments (though it can get tiresome). It is inappropriate for political agendas to be on display in the articles themselves - reporters should endeavor to be neutral (though naturally true 100% impartiality isn't possible - we're all human).

I personally haven't seen much of this "pushing ones own views unto the reader" as you put it, if they are I simply ignore it as it's my eyes doing the reading.

 

What I see is that if people see that Donald Trumps name is tied to an article it's clearly a political one, which in the case of the twitter thing, yes the actually act was politically motivated but the article itself is not.  What about all the article's that included Obama or Bush for the last 16 years? (and yes there were quite a few)

 

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2 minutes ago, DevTech said:

I have clearly stated that tech has an overwhelming effect on politics in 2017 and Neowin should be in the forefront of covering that issue.

 

Absolutely nowhere in that, have I suggested that Neowin cover "general politics" any more than I would want Neowin to cover "Hollywood Celebrities" so I think that you and I are in agreement on that issue, actually.

 

The example that people object to of Neowin covering the deletion of Donald Trumps's Twitter account is 100% completely appropriate material for Neowin to cover and does not attempt to influences a readers "general political thought"

 

But there should be a difference between reporting said issues and injecting ones own political views into the articles. To their credit, for the most part Neowin's writers avoid the latter, and that's something that I do not want to see change. Politics should only be on the front page when relevant to a tech story such as the Trump Twitter articles.

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1 minute ago, Matthew S. said:

I personally haven't seen much of this "pushing ones own views unto the reader" as you put it, if they are I simply ignore it as it's my eyes doing the reading.

 

What I see is that if people see that Donald Trumps name is tied to an article it's clearly a political one, which in the case of the twitter thing, yes the actually act was politically motivated but the article itself is not.  What about all the article's that included Obama or Bush for the last 16 years? (and yes there were quite a few)

 

You went off the deep end there. There is no other way to report the deletion of Donald Trumps's Twitter account than by using his name.

 

I agree with you that there is ZERO evidence Neowin is "pushing views onto the reader"

 

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7 minutes ago, DConnell said:

But there should be a difference between reporting said issues and injecting ones own political views into the articles. To their credit, for the most part Neowin's writers avoid the latter, and that's something that I do not want to see change. Politics should only be on the front page when relevant to a tech story such as the Trump Twitter articles.

I agree that articles should be free of attempts to influence political views within a "reasonable" criteria of what that means. (since it is inappropriate for a tech site to ignore basic scientific principles and fundamental denial of science has entered politics to an unusual degree and is mainly the tool of one particular political group which creates unavoidable bias in any tech site)

 

Where we might yet disagree, is the placement of the dividing line.  I apologize to everyone in this thread that I was obviously unclear when I called for more politics. I thought it was obvious that being a highly tech oriented individual that I was communicating "more coverage of tech impact on politics" and NOT general coverage of general politics.

 

Thank you DConnell for your patience. An example would be exploring how Twitter gives a "free pass" to certain individuals to break the rules on posting content which would result in Donald Trump's account in being banned in a similar manner to other celebrities that went too far. He has gone way farther than they did, yet his account remains unblocked. Should posting rules be vastly different for a handful of individuals? Does that make Twitter into a Kingdom that confers "royalty status" and therefore directly manipulates political thought? These are tech political issues that don't discuss politics but many people would consider otherwise. Exploring this affects how we view tech. It might influence how an I.T. person manages a corporate social network in terms of what kind of rules to put in place.

 

We live in a connected society that is grappling with serious issues that will affect the direction of tech for years to come and the direction of tech will in turn influence the direction of our shared culture.

 

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It is rather comical at how the politic-scape (is that a thing) has changed in such a short time. Just over a year ago we posted this https://www.neowin.net/news/obama-to-russia-china-lets-not-hack-each-other-because-the-us-will-win it has over 11,000 views and just 20 comments all of which (imo) are not even partisan (We have 250 news articles where the word Obama is mentioned, but not necessarily in the title).

 

How times have changed in such a short term eh?

 

BTW I am not American, I am British and I live in The Netherlands, one thing you may know about me is that I didn't support Brexit, but as an ex-pat of 25 years I wasn't allowed to vote on it (despite still being a UK passpart holder) go figure!

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Drop me a line when you get to your next spot. There are a few authors and members that keep me visiting here, one of my favored authors has moved on so the list is getting shorter. But you're right OP, the technical blogs are not pure tech anymore. Its more a conversation of someones opinion of why a company was motivated to do something the author doesn't agree with, not from a technical prospective but from a political point of view.  The politics in this place is so visceral at times, it singes the eyebrows to read it. And its disturbing. 

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Various posters in this one thread have essentially defined "politics" as:

 

1. Politics is front page news articles that attempt to change your mind on some political issue- This "growing problem" which is "getting worse" appears to be 100% delusional.

 

2. Politics is "cooties" that infects Neowin from some sort of ethereal leakage from an easily ignored section of Neowin Forums where people vent in semi-polite ways.

 

3. Politics is any "Fan Boy" motivated postings to support a favorite product or company.

 

 

Some postings in this thread seem to confuse/conflate all 3 at the same time!

 

This has made a lot of discussion hard to follow and I apologize if I didn't reply to anyone where I thought a cross-purpose dialog might be starting.

 

It's been interesting and the emotional engagement in some posts rather surprising given how easy it is to ignore articles that don't interest you. With that in mind, I hypothesize that it is easier to visualize something you don't like when the real problem is missing something you don't know is missing. The endless drivel of new product announcements has perhaps made other minor irritations stand out more than they should when there is a shortage of really enjoyable in-depth articles that are the real food for the mind.

 

Maybe all the complainers could attempt to author in-depth articles in some new sub-forum which everyone could collaborate on with ideas and suggestions until they are publication-worthy?

 

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Oh geez, here we go!

 

Firstly, yes it is a growing problem on Neowin. Neowin is nowhere near as big as it once was. They can no longer afford to lose out on readers/members. The staff used to agree that political discussion had no benefit on Neowin, because a lot of the time it wasn't and still isn't very civil when members discuss it here. It's one of the reasons it was kept in the one subforum. You also at one point were required to read some information to obtain a password to gain access to the section.

 

Secondly, it is leaking. Steven mentioned the filters for guests earlier on in the thread, and then somebody pointed they aren't quite as effective anymore since it has spread into the RWN and even the front page.

 

Thirdly, what? Where did you get that idea? I'm pretty sure Neowin frowns upon using the term "fan boy".

 

I respect that you have completely different views/opinions, but I'm sadden by some of your word choice. It weakens your arguments a bit once you start calling members you disagree with "complainers". 

 

The solution to the problem isn't even a hard one to fix. All Neowin needs to do is create a filter to remove articles involving political themes. They surprisingly did it for Neowin Deals, so it really shouldn't be hard for them to do with these types of articles. The appropriate tags are already in place, which makes it even easier. 

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21 hours ago, Steven P. said:

Even guests can block sponsored content, the link to instructions is in each of those articles. Judging the whole site by its (user generated) forum content is stupid plus political sections are blocked from guest view (so we don't encourage signups just for that). Open to all feedback, but not stupidity.

I think that he is talking about the article on how Trump's Twitter account was disabled and so forth. It would be handy to have a filter in place so that readers who don't want to read articles that are IT related but also contain political topics. That's my 2 cents.

 

Also, this place was way more active before the big upgrade that lasted for at least 2+ weeks, but that a different story.

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10 hours ago, Matthew S. said:

 

Steve don't forget there are also members here who take the elitist approach when answering questions making the one asking said question feel stupid, then there are the ones who ask questions but feel that there not actually wrong or that everyone is giving them the wrong answers.

 

 

 

Pretty much exactly the reason I stopped asking for tech help, I respect MVC class members as much as any member who is willing  to take the time to help, and listen to advice they have to offer, but the little side remarks do make me feel like I'm unintelligent sometimes. I now ask for help in the member lounge, and avoid creating topics about it wherever possible.

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1 minute ago, The Evil Overlord said:

Pretty much exactly the reason I stopped asking for tech help, I respect MVC class members as much as any member who is willing  to take the time to help, and listen to advice they have to offer, but the little side remarks do make me feel like I'm unintelligent sometimes. I now ask for help in the member lounge, and avoid creating topics about it wherever possible.

tbh mate, i dont think that situation is unique to here. 

Tech forums and the attitude of tech enthusiasts have changed, its not the small partisan groups anymore, I find myself biting my tongue more and more when some post snide remarks and make others feel unintelligent as you put it :)  I see the same in a professional capacity, maybe its with things going mainstream, or the change in a lot of attitudes in general, i dont honestly know.

 

Or maybe im becoming less tolerant as i get older, thats also possible :) this year ive added users to the ignore list on a good few occasions, in the 14 or so years here, this is a first!

 

I know whenever someone asks for help with something here, I try my best to help and advise, to the best of my ability and experience of 20yrs in the industry, if its relevant :) 

 

in regards to the political content, way i see it is, in general the media is the same, more and more talking content is political, for good or bad, people are talking and interested in it. I see Neowin is reflecting the change in its content, this i have no major issue with :) Neowins still one of 3 pages i frequent daily, ofc our Unofficial Members Lounge and our vow to keep it politics free and full of sillyness saved me from leaving :) 

 

Besids re: Tech help, you know you can ask me advice anytime buddy. 

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This is just my opinion, and not the view of the staff as a whole, but removing the political forums will not resolve the issue of member activity. Unfortunately giving politics a space on the site was the beginning of the problem IMO and the damage happened years ago when those members left. Removing the political forums now will only hurt the site more with further members leaving. Even those members who claim to dislike the political forums are gluttonous for punishment and can't help themselves but post there. I'd wager that some of the same people asking for a political filter on FPN wouldn't even use it, and we'd still see them complain about the presence of the articles or comments in the FPN from them; just as we do with Domestic Politics despite the forum filter. I'd love for the tech sub-forums to be repopulated but removing politic content won't achieve that. And really, we shouldn't want to remove political content because it's so important and is very relative to technology today. We have just grown to hate it in our online space because people can't discuss the topic like civil adults. More on that later.

 

I used to think that forums were a dying platform, but with ResetEra only forming 35 days ago and watching it grow steadily, I was obviously wrong. Even they have political topics and I don't see any issues so far. We have all of the same sub-forums as Reset (albeit in a different layout) and nobody really wants to take advantage of them here at Neowin. Our members gravitate towards politics and expect someone else to post content in non-politics. How do you even begin to tackle that?

 

As for the trolling, either in political topics or elsewhere, we say time and time again to report it and very few actually bother to. Most of the time when we do get a report, we actually find far more wrong in the topic than is reported and we have to clean up pages of content. We see people enjoying the trolling and they do it in groups, taking matters into their own hands. Even then, the people on the receiving end won't alert us to the problem and the cycle repeats.

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13 hours ago, DevTech said:

You went off the deep end there. There is no other way to report the deletion of Donald Trumps's Twitter account than by using his name.

Do you understand how meaningless that Trump/Twitter story is even if you're actively crusading? For example, what insight or change has that last article brought the world from either a tech or political point of view? While I don't know Neowin's current demographics, some of us are not from the US or live there, so we're not kept awake at night because Trump farted on Twitter.

 

This political crap is everywhere online and it is all just noise.

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5 minutes ago, Andrew said:

Ahhh I think I might stay away from them because I don't want to get caught up in that mess.

2 minutes ago, Luc2k said:

Do you understand how meaningless that Trump/Twitter story is even if you're actively crusading? For example, what insight or change has that last article brought the world from either a tech or political point of view? While I don't know Neowin's current demographics, some of us are not from the US or live there, so we're not kept awake at night because Trump farted on Twitter.

 

This political crap is everywhere online and all it is just noise.

Yeah, I'm from Australia and knowing about Trump's Twitter account being disabled didn't mean a thing, I did find it funny but that's it. Even if I did live in the US I prob wouldn't give a ###### about that.

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2 hours ago, Mando said:

tbh mate, i dont think that situation is unique to here. 

Tech forums and the attitude of tech enthusiasts have changed, its not the small partisan groups anymore, I find myself biting my tongue more and more when some post snide remarks and make others feel unintelligent as you put it :)  I see the same in a professional capacity, maybe its with things going mainstream, or the change in a lot of attitudes in general, i dont honestly know.

 

Or maybe im becoming less tolerant as i get older, thats also possible :) this year ive added users to the ignore list on a good few occasions, in the 14 or so years here, this is a first!

 

I know whenever someone asks for help with something here, I try my best to help and advise, to the best of my ability and experience of 20yrs in the industry, if its relevant :) 

 

in regards to the political content, way i see it is, in general the media is the same, more and more talking content is political, for good or bad, people are talking and interested in it. I see Neowin is reflecting the change in its content, this i have no major issue with :) Neowins still one of 3 pages i frequent daily, ofc our Unofficial Members Lounge and our vow to keep it politics free and full of sillyness saved me from leaving :) 

 

Besids re: Tech help, you know you can ask me advice anytime buddy. 

That's partly why when I try to answer help topics, I'll keep it simple, I don't go full on and say 'check the cat6 rj45 is......' blah blah blah, when it's simpler just to say is the ethernet cable connected? And so on. Also why I ask out loud in the lounge, only those who I have built up a degree of trust hang out there, (like you, and a couple of others who have also posted here) 

 

There is an underlying issue on this site with hostility and some members are just toxic, not to mention how freely one particular troll roams the apple threads.

 

To be honest I'm starting to miss the days when neowin's mod staff were a little more liberal with handing out warnings and points. That would soon get people to follow site rules, or simply incur enough points to get banned, and the problem takes care of itself.

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