How talk to him?

Cuppa n' Brew
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Let's imagine that a user of a Linux forum regularly posts questions that have nothing to do with the theme or topic of the forum, until he becomes the main member asking questions. Without offending him, how can I make him understand that he should better ask questions related to the theme of the forum and reduce the number of his questions? I suck at sociology.

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Yup... not easy when not face-to-face

W

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Discourse has a nice feature which allows to avoid, well... some frustrations. Personal user's preferences have 'Users' tab which allow to add names to 'ignore' list in order to filter out messages and posts from listed authors.

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If I'm not an admin/mod; I mostly ignore them or block them. Of course, that won't work for everyone, and new users will see a forum full of junk.

If you (aren't an admin/mod and) really want to pursue it directly with them - I think a good way would be to bring to their attention the FAQ - Ubuntu MATE Community. There are two sections that I think cover what you are talking about:

  • Improve the discussion:

    Help us make this a great place for discussion by always working to improve the discussion in some way, however small. If you are not sure your post adds to the conversation, think over what you want to say and try again later.

  • Keep it tidy:

    Make the effort to put things in the right place, so that we can spend more time discussing and less cleaning up.

If you are confronting someone (and you aren't an admin/moderator) then presumably you're doing it because you are being affected in some way by their actions. Two things:

  1. Think about something you can do that will reduce the impact of their actions on you (e.g. block or ignore).
  2. Explain to the person exactly what they did and how it impacted you; and if possible, think of something they can do that will lessen the impact on you.

Lastly, if you have a genuine concern about the forum 'in general' due to this person's content, why not talk to the moderators?

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I finally gave up and used the Ignore and Muted features.

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I just applied the Muted option, so that I could still access my old responses, but nothing new, originating from a specified user, can come my way. :slight_smile:

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You are quite correct, Stephen, about the ways to help steer things back on track.

But some times ... there just doesn't seem to be much community-oriented logic in the responses to those attempts. :frowning:

Hence why I muted all from an individual.

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