A quick reminder: users of this site should review the applicable terms and conditions at http://www.manifold.net/admin/community_terms.shtml if they have not yet done so. For example, this site is not for polling.

What an oblique way of adverting to the fact that you've deleted a thread soliciting questions to be put to Manifold about future plans.

Yet you'd be wrong to imply that soliciting questions is "polling". Polling is asking for an opinion (or a choice). Asking for questions is something else—probably just asking for questions. "What would you like to know?" is quite different from "What do you think should happen?".

Nevertheless clearly you (or another administrator) thought the thread objectionable for some reason, and sadly that's your right. You can ban anything you feel like banning, whether or not it's on the current list of sins. The list can be extended expressly or, perhaps more conveniently, by stretching the English language.

In this case I thought the thread in question was ill advised, and not something I would want to contribute to, and judging by the muted response I think I wasn't alone. Several who did respond thought the enterprise doomed to fail, and I agreed with that too. Did it do any harm, though?

Obviously not to the Manifold community. Could it have reflected poorly on Manifold itself? Assuming for the moment that that could be relevant to whether a thread should be expunged, I don't think it could; but I suppose that must be what you were afraid of. Many users think that Manifold's own lack of public communication is a worse reflection. Again, I don't.

I think Manifold is doing entirely the right thing by staying quiet (in public) until it has something to say (in public).

The prohibition that the deleted thread did come close to violating is this one.

Stay on topic. [...] For example, do not post messages including:

[...]

3. Discussions of Manifold administrative or business policies or procedures or speculation on Manifold decisions. Contact Manifold admins or published Manifold channels directly for any required information.

However, that prohibition is itself obnoxious, reprobate, and not to be taken seriously. These are matters that Manifold users clearly need to discuss with each other, and are "on topic". (Which is not to say that discussing them with private contacts isn't better. It is.)

These are matters that Manifold users clearly need to discuss with each other, and are "on topic".

Admittedly this is academic in many cases, since obviously those under NDA can't do so. But that's a different matter than the forum rules, which apply to the user community at large.

What an oblique way of adverting to the fact that you've deleted a thread soliciting questions to be put to Manifold about future plans.

Reminding a user apparently unaware of the "no polls" policy is a courtesy after the removal of a disallowed thread.

The post starting the removed thread explicitly stated the intent was to conduct a poll of Manifold users, and that the poll was for the purpose of assisting a journalist who wanted to write an article about Manifold directionality.

From: http://www.manifold.net/admin/community_terms.shtml

Do not post polls or petitions or links to same. - This site has a focus on products, not on demographic research or movement organizing.

Additional information:

Discussions of Manifold administrative or business policies or procedures or speculation on Manifold decisions. Contact Manifold admins or published Manifold channels directly for any required information.

This site is for product discussion with a technical focus. As noted in the terms:

The site is here to help people use Manifold products and technologies more effectively. Do not post messages that do not have a technical focus on Manifold products and reasonably related technologies.

and also:

To help people use Manifold products and technologies more effectively most messages will be either a technical question or a technical answer.

This is not a site for business discussions, either as a primary channel or to bypass direct communications. It is a site for productive technical discussion. Manifold provides direct communications channels for business matters, either positive or negative.

Some examples:

1. Customer A is unhappy he is not offered Net 30 credit terms by Manifold or is not offered a discount for buying one unit. This forum is not an appropriate place for a disgruntled customer to vent about lack of credit or discounts.

2. Manifold provides extensive access to journalists. This site is not a replacement for that access, nor is it a site where non-journalists can pose as journalists. Bona fide journalists know how to contact manifold.net directly for any legitimate journalistic purpose and do not hesitate to do so.

3. This forum is not a means of gathering info on forum participants or on the Manifold user base for any purpose - not for spam, not for planning a product line, not for competitive research and not for other purposes.

4. Due to the public nature of this forum it cannot serve as a communications channel for confidential information. Instead, for those users with a significant personal, commercial, government, academic or journalistic interest in confidential information, Manifold has provided extensive, highly detailed briefings and progress reports on futures, work in-progress and other confidential information in dozens of settings this year to hundreds of attendees in North America, Europe and Asia. Practical tips on how to acquire confidential information, such as by attending such meetings, are promptly emailed to anyone who contacts the company requesting information on futures.

The company has expended considerable effort to assure those users who have a special interest in confidential information can get access as reasonably as possible, with briefings held in recent months in San Jose, Santa Clara, San Francisco, Portland, Washington, London, Milan, Frankfurt, Moscow and Hong Kong.

The most recent set of briefings concluded yesterday in Hong Kong, with the attending engineers giving up their weekend for travel home. This was a second HK session added to accommodate overflow interest from the first session in Hong Kong in November. Users expressing an interest in the first HK session (as some forum members did in response to the published invitation) were notified about the second HK session. Manifold.net will routinely try to make room for ordinary users even in specialized invite-only sessions.

Constructive feedback and discussion about product features is welcome as well and highly encouraged.

Anyone who wants to contribute constructive technical commentary on current products and what they would like to see in future products is welcome to do so in this forum. The suggestions tips page at http://www.manifold.net/info/suggestions.shtml provides practical advice on writing constructive suggestions that will help forum participants write useful threads as well.

Raising the bar to constructive technical commentary is intended to improve the signal to noise ratio of this forum and to therefore make it a more useful resource to the user community.

To remind everyone: The site is here to help people use Manifold products and technologies more effectively. Do not post messages that do not have a technical focus on Manifold products and reasonably related technologies.

This forum has a resilient culture, which will survive whatever attempts are made to box it in by outside rules.

Had Manifold codified forum rules in consulation with the community they purport to serve, things might be different. Partly because some of the rules agreed upon would be different, and partly because the fact of consultatation would have brought a different tone. Anyway, Manifold didn't consult, preferring to lead by fiat. Sometimes that just doesn't work.

The statements you make above concerning recent briefings beg the question at the heart of this particular disagreement.

Some users have been able to attend recent briefings in private. Good. Others have a relationship with Manifold that gives them an insight from time to time. That's good too.

But most enthusiast users have no idea what the hold-up is and, without the least bit of malice, are in serious doubt whether the promised new version is still (every month, every quarter) just around the next corner, or has been permanently hijacked.

It's surely understandable if users vent (and share) some of their frustration on the forum. As far as users are concerned, that's obviously one of the things the forum is for. (Just as it will be for cheering the new version when it arrives.) The flow of product information being in Manifold's control, it would sit very ill for Manifold to close off this avenue entirely.

It's a good thing that it hasn't. Threads named "Manifold 9" (with or without a question mark) are left to run their course, despite being outside the newly published forum guidelines. Discretion is applied.

So it's odd to see a well-meaning thread shot down, just because it asked what questions people would like to see put to Manifold about its future plans. We could argue about whether that was a poll; whether it was doesn't depend on what it claimed to be. What matters is how administrative judgement and discretion were exercised in this case. The thread might have proved futile, but it was surely a useful safety valve. If the discussion is not allowed to go on here, it will happen elsewhere (for example, on Cartotalk or in an ESRI forum)—no doubt with less ambient goodwill.

Hear, hear. Though this will probably get me banned, from this frustrated enthusiast sitting in the dark, I have to say that I wholeheartedly agree with tjhb's comments. I have stopped by this forum pretty much every day for a long time now and find myself saddened by its current course.

Along the way we've learnt much, had some laughs, a few tears and have also had the odd clown thrown in, but this was all part and parcel of the spirit and energy of a vibrant and healthy community. Increasingly however, I now find myself reluctant to post in case I fall foul of new guidance.

Though I abore the hot air and white noise of the other vendors sales pitch, I for one wish Manifold.net could find a little middle ground with its loyal customers and enthusiasts.

In any case it seems inapt to delete an innocent thread asking for a list of pestering questions. What are the questions they feared but all contributers did hold back because they didn't expect an answer? After a long time of waiting and silence it's no longer appeasing to hear about big effords in a Hong Kong connection or what next. There's only one way to improve the signal to noise ratio of this forum: deliver 9.

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Three years ago, or was it already before, when Mfd, the company, started its frequent hyperbola over the CUDA, I immediately became very suspect of the destiny of the Mfd GIS, and expressed my worry on this forum. Now I see, I was pretty much correct. CUDA has taken it all and left us humble everyday Mfd GIS users in oblivion, and in even increased, and certainly legitimate, doubts and worries about the future of our beloved application. And then, up to all this frustration, this, what I feel absurd, new forum policy. All in all, this reminds me of novels by Kafka. I still hope the best, and belive on Santa, or more realistically, Ded Moroz. But, I am getting increasingly “full of doubts”.

I have stopped by this forum pretty much every day for a long time now and find myself saddened by its current course

I totally agree with tjhb, and I feel exactly the same danb mentioned.

This is not a site for business discussions, either as a primary channel or to bypass direct communications.

What is meant by this? I see propaganda to other products in this forum since the very first time I start participating, particularly to videos, consulting, etc. I saw topics specifically devoted to get feedback from forum users to features they would like to see explored by others with business interests. I can live with this (the material is in fact very good) but I'm not sure if it's not outside the frame of the announced rules. I see this and feel uncomfortable.

What is meant by this? I see propaganda to other products in this forum since the very first time I start participating, particularly to videos, consulting, etc.

Those were published before the current rules went into effect. The "no advertising" rule is controversial:

A submission created solely to advertise a book, service, software or some other item for sale.

Some feel that is too strong - It will probably be relaxed to allow one-time, short posts announcing new products of direct interest to the Manifold user community, such as a new gisadvisor.com video. The rule in its current form does allow references to other products if they are part of a discussion. For example, someone who is having a specific problem could be pointed to a gisadvisor.com video that provides a solution/tutorial.

What is meant by this?

The cited quote means this forum is for discussions about Manifold products, not about Manifold business policies, such as the discount policy, pricing, advertising, donations or other Manifold business policy topics.

Short pointers to web pages covering a published policy or channel are OK.

Example: a forum participant asks if discounts are available to academic users - a reply points to the Academic Licensing page. That's OK. Example: a forum participant asks for clarification of the meaning of some terms of Academic licensing. That's not OK - that participant should contact Sales directly for clarification.

Example: a forum participant asks how to get discounts - a reply points to the Discounts page. That's OK. Example: a forum participant launches a thread arguing against the published quantity discount levels or asking why they are why they are. That's not OK - that participant should write directly to Sales with any recommendations or questions.

I'll just come out and say it: I stopped participating in this forum shortly after Mr. Fisher made his appearance. As tjhb and danb have pointed out, the tone of Manifold staff in this forum has been growing less pleasant over time, slowly and steadily. It certainly feels as though Manifold Staff responses have become more gruff, often times with an air of intolerance and impatience towards those who commit the transgression of asking basic usage questions. Yes, some of those folks cop an attitude in their original posts and take pot shots at Manifold, but part of being a professional is ignoring the unprofessional behavior of others, and responding politely.

And then there are minor violations of forum rules like the thread referred to here. Certainly there is some subjectivity in how and when the rules are enforced since that is the nature of trying to abide by the "spirit" of the rules as opposed to the "letter" of them, but the enforcement has been tipping towards heavy-handed for some time. When it completely fell to that side I can't say since I'm such an irregular visitor anymore, but it's clear that it has happened. I don't long for the "good ol' days" of the forums since there were issues then, too, but it sure would be nice to let the community just deal with minor issues and only have Staff intervene when serious violations take place.

I'm convinced that Manifold have the perception that there are 4 or 5 users with strong influence on the high quality level of support that the entire community receive. Their silence will be reflected on the overall level of participation. And this is something that we do not want to see.

John, don't blame a person when you face a strategy. Bodes ill? To learn about strategies you might want to participate in a webinar of directions media arriving on schedule on Jan. 12th.

tjhb:

I have stopped by this forum pretty much every day for a long time now and find myself saddened by its current course

I agree with you. When I started using this forum it was the best source of information about manifold.

mechalas:

When it completely fell to that side I can't say since I'm such an irregular visitor anymore, but it's clear that it has happened. I don't long for the "good ol' days" of the forums since there were issues then, too, but it sure would be nice to let the community just deal with minor issues and only have Staff intervene when serious violations take place.

I was a regular user in the past but since those rules have been created/implemented, I've lost part of the trill to be here because... more rules... more restrictive... less "open".

As far as georeference.org future, I see that the more experienced users would probably be less willing to participate due to this new set of rules, which will be reflected on a "low" quality of posts and subsequently less helpful threads for new users.

Personally I feel that the new forum policy is to strict for an official channel of communication that should be more "open".

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I think tjhb makes an excellent point regarding intent. Although the deleted thread was perhaps slightly misguided it only sought to facilitate an update for the user community.

I note the apologist tone of the comments posted by Mike Fisher about briefings that have taken place recently in different parts of the world.While that is to be commended, what about those of us in regions like Australasia where that level of interaction probably can’t be justified due to the comparatively small user base.

It seems to me that Manifold is more than willing to leverage the considerable skill of the many forum participants to improve the product yet that same user community is treated to an autocratic response couched as a courtesy when expressing their enthusiasm for the product.

I don't think anyone is asking for technical or proprietary information to be compromised ahead of the next release but as danb observed - there must be some middle ground.

As a courtesy Manifold might perhaps consider providing an update on Manfold 9.I don’t think it’s unreasonable in the circumstances and such periodic updates would probably go a reasonable way toward addressing the speculation that otherwise occurs.

I note the apologist tone of the comments posted by Mike Fisher about briefings that have taken place recently in different parts of the world.While that is to be commended, what about those of us in regions like Australasia where that level of interaction probably can’t be justified due to the comparatively small user base.

Australia is not exactly adjacent to Hong Kong but surely Hong Kong is closer to Australia than Santa Clara or Frankfurt, and, unlike China, Australian citizens don't need a visa to visit HK. The Australian business community has a big presence in Hong Kong. Bring your credit card on a visit and come home with a little something from Shanghai Tang or Cartier for the wife.

Manifold's expansion into East Asia with offices in Hong Kong will surely benefit Australian users. Servers have a much quicker ping from HK (30 to 70ms) than the 200+ms ping to the US, there is a UK heritage legal system, the local banks have phenomenal regional skills and are happy to transact in AUD instead of USD. In fact, given the 5% interest paid on AUD many banks in the region are especially happy to host AUD transactions. In contrast, ask a US bank to transact transparently in AUD and you get a blank reaction.

As Manifold's HK center develops it will grow beyond project-managing engineering on the mainland and will eventually be able to send personnel to Oz. Given the shift in center of gravity for finance, technology, business and markets from the West to the East, it will almost certainly become a focus, probably even a world focus.

It's not just about China but about a regional and possibly world platform to serve customers throughout the Asia Pacific region (Philippines, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Korea, etc.) or even the world in a more internationally responsive way than is possible from US, European or Indian facilities. As localization happens (coming soon to a release near you) that is clearly where the action is. All that Australian users can leverage to their advantage, as Australians already are doing so well with other East Asian connections.

Tim, I think you are being unintendedly unfair here, which is not at all typical for the exceptionally fair Tim I know. I cannot resist jumping in even at the risk of stepping on a few toes (always a concern for a meek person like me...)

Had Manifold codified forum rules in consulation with the community they purport to serve, things might be different. Partly because some of the rules agreed upon would be different, and partly because the fact of consultatation would have brought a different tone.

The above would be productive if you would follow through with specific examples. For example, you probably don't mean the ban on "unlawful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory..." etc. language or the rules aimed at common courtesy. These are very "stock" terms typical of most product oriented forums.

Apple uses less legalistic but more draconian terms, for example, banning any speculation about future products, but I think the NVIDIA terms used by Manifold are a better fit. Manifold's terms are obviously drawn from the NVIDIA developer forums, which are very productive forums. To use Mike's phrase they have a very good signal to noise ratio (a good phrase to describe the objective of a product-oriented forum). If you don't like some of those terms, fine. Say what you dislike. But please at least consider that the NVIDIA forums have a very successful history with a very much larger constituency (gaming + GPGPU) that is orders of magnitude larger than all of GIS, spans both the wild and crazy gaming community as well as HPC graybeards and that the successful rules they have evolved have solid reasoning behind them that helps keep those forums productive for the benefit of the *product technology* community that uses them.

I understand that some of the reaction I see here comes about because the "wild person" persona of Manifold's youth naturally attracted a less conservative user base than the relatively staid constituencies of legacy GIS companies. It's clear some here are anarchists who don't like any rules and that is certainly part of the fun in a free-wheeling forum that no enterprise would tolerate, not even given certain reasonable limits to bar total anarchy. But the time for anarchy has passed.

When people say they want growth and success that means the big enterprises and governments start to play and then companies naturally move from wild youth to more measured tones. I'll be the first to admit that's why the wild people of a company's youth often get moved out in favor of more temperate administrators, but that's exactly a consequence of *listening* to customers. Companies grow up and they get customers who want a more structured tone. NVIDIA is going through that as well, as they move from the extraordinarily wild and crazy worlds of graphics for gaming and other extreme industry niches not mentionable in a family forum into the sober world of HPC computing, so NVIDIA's terms may be very useful here for those reasons as well.

Back to Tim's post quoted above: I'm surprised you would assume there was no consultation. What makes you think the good faith advice offered in the Suggestions tips page was not true in this case? Why assume there has not been a lot of feedback offered regarding forums? Since when have people been shy about expressing their feelings in thousands upon thousands of emails sent to Manifold?

I have heard a lot of criticism from industry players of this forum that it does not moderate. I have often heard that lack of moderation opens the door to highly unproductive posts, ad hominem attacks instead of product discussions and other sorts of threads that put off many professionals and, especially, enterprise and big government customers. Even in the more free-wheeling purely commercial side there is just no way that many of the most professional people I know in the industry would tolerate the sort of abuse that occasionally appeared in this forum in the past. I've actually had friends from major companies tell me that the Manifold forum had some really scary threads on it that should have been moderated and that they wouldn't think of participating because of that. That had to stop and I personally am happy it has.

I freely admit I cannot resist jumping at participating in an off-topic discussion, mouse and keyboard in hand. So I would fully agree with those folks who feel that strictly product-oriented forums may be efficient but end up being more boring that fully free-wheeling forums where anything goes. I mean, if you can't discuss the best roadway to take for a picturesque traversal of the Alps from Monaco to Munich with perfectly timed spots for meals at restaurants in interesting locations with exceptional local wines, well, what the heck is a GIS forum for, right?

But, alas, if the prime mission is to provide a productive product-technology oriented forum and side dishes are interfering with the main meal, well, if one must choose between the main meal and a side dish it is the main meal that has to come first. I think the published rules do a good job at that. Operating a more free-wheeling forum where anything goes without it decaying into worthless pap or characteristically Internet meaness is an extremely labor-intensive effort. I personally support the effort to instead have a set of reasonable rules that focus on products and technology rather than trying to moderate everything. I mean, after all, it's not like there is something *wrong* with having a product-oriented forum.

The bottom line is that when Manifold starts putting in more order, publishing rules to tamp down ad hominem attacks and other content-free nonsense in response to numerous complaints, that *is* listening to the many people who bothered to write with complaints and suggestions and is *exactly* listening to the community as promised in the published guidelines for voting and influencing the company. Nothing about those rules prevents people from discussing products and technologies in a constructive and useful way.

As for those people who don't think they should apply the suggestions tips that encourage them to express themselves, to vote early and to vote often, well, they have to resign themselves to the notion that if they don't vote their opinion will not be counted.

So it's odd to see a well-meaning thread shot down, just because it asked what questions people would like to see put to Manifold about its future plans.

Mmm... well, whether or not a thread is "well-meaning" is not a test for whether it is appropriate content for this forum or falls within the rules. Somebody could have a perfectly well-meaning thread wanting to earnestly discuss their preferred religion, convinced that doing so would save their fellow forum participants from perdition. Well-meaning or not, that's not in the program. Likewise, this is not a forum by proxy. Anybody that has questions can ask those questions themselves using appropriate channels to get answers if they are really interested in getting information.

In this case I think that when the person who started the thread stated the intention was to conduct a "poll" (literally the word that was used) that they did indeed describe the thread correctly. The above quotation is what a "poll" is, right? Sure, that was well-meaning in the sense that the author probably did not deliberately intend to go against the prohibition on polls, and it was probably not intended to go against the rules of trying to circumvent existing Manifold information channels. But it did so.

Part of what the published rules encourage is a focus on products, not politics. If people don't like a focus on product, well, too bad. This forum doesn't have a section for politics or flames or other non-product stuff. People who want to do that stuff have plenty of other forums to use, as various participants have helpfully pointed out. Part of the magic of Internet is that there is a forum for every taste and purpose out there.

The rules also do not bypass existing communications channels because those are efficient and are a way of providing accurate information to users. Using existing communications channels that are designed to deliver quality information is part of the RTFM culture that Manifold values. Doing so provides authoritative, accurate information and saves people from wasting time by staggering around in the dark when they could snap on a light. It also saves other participants from (figuratively speaking) forever having to fend off people who are running into them because they are staggering around with their eyes closed. The way to deal with that problem is not to have blind people pinging each other, it is to open eyes and use the channels that provide clear vision.

For example, if somebody gets on the forum ranting about not getting a discount for a short quantity purchase, as if the rules on discounts that everyone else follows should not apply to him, well, there are plenty of people who don't want to read that rant and don't want to have to filter through it to get to the product info this forum is supposedly for. Anybody who has failed to RTFM by reading the discounts page should open their eyes and read that page. The information is there for the taking.

Similarly, there are very rich channels for gaining massive, accurate and up-to-date confidential information, including total details on futures. The way to use those channels is not to bypass them by pretending that blindness is a preferred alternative, it is to use those channels. If you don't like those channels, well, that's your choice and you will have to live with your choice. Other people are using them just fine so if you don't like them that's up to you.

There are plenty of official channels for interested parties to ask Manifold whatever they want to ask about futures. However, a public forum is not one of those channels, nor are any of those channels zero effort channels even though they are far easier to access than, say, finding out the details of Intel's next most secret design effort. I trust that everyone knows what I am talking about here is genuine inside information, and not the fluff some companies "disclose" to give inexperienced people the feeling they are insiders without actually getting significant information.

After a long time of waiting and silence it's no longer appeasing to hear about big effords in a Hong Kong connection or what next.

Klaus, that's unfair. Mike was citing existing channels for getting information that should not be bypassed. Those channels provide very rich information, the opposite of silence, to almost anyone who wants it, is willing to make an appropriate effort commensurate with the value of the information and is willing to acknowledge that valuable confidential information is not public information.

Mike's list of presentations show how widespread the geographic reach has been for detailed briefings. It is not easy for any company to provide expert personnel and hours of briefings and dozens of machines into so many places around the world that no person who seriously claims to have a need to know futures will have to spend excessively to attend. Hong Kong just happens to have been the most recent, and to do it twice in one month is a big effort that is highly responsive to customer requests for access to confidential information. If you weren't there or did not attend any of the other sessions held in recent months, please do not disregard the value of the experience for those who did attend.

Manifold takes those sessions seriously even if some forum participants do not. I find it remarkable that some of those most tooting about lack of info are exactly those who have never bothered to inquire or to follow through on invitations. I note that many of the participants in this thread have not bothered to undertake any communications at all with Manifold. Not a single inquiry, suggestion or comment. There is no way the company will divert resources away from customers who have invested into working with advanced material to entertain people who have not made an equivalent effort. That would not be fair to those customers who have made the effort to participate.

People who really need to know confidential information have plenty of ways of getting that info, ranging from taking a moment to touch base with one of their contacts inside Manifold by email to attending highly detailed technical sessions. "Need to know" in this context means something other than idle curiosity, and it also comes with it the duty of participating in a significant way that excludes technically inexpert people as well as those who do not make the same effort other users have made to participate.

There are no secrets about how to form a relationship with Manifold that gets you access to confidential information, including futures. Any person who has ever written asking about futures gets the handy tips form letter on how to do that, with different paths for people who work for organizations that already have pipelines into Manifold, people who are individuals and can't travel but who have smarts and other real involvement on their side, and paths for people who just want to squeeze into an invitational session. All that has appeared in this forum, so it is especially not any secret for anyone who has sufficient RTFM skills to claim participation in an advanced information program.

It's also striking the degree to which some people don't bother using the information resources already available. For example, it's odd that anyone would either criticize a discussion of CUDA or question a commitment to GIS if they have either taken the time to review the published Manifold presentations on those or have understood those presentations. If they don't bother to do that, how can they expect to keep up with other users who have made the effort to understand that baseline, which is certainly a pre-requisite to participate in advanced information sessions?

Both the ability to review those presentations and to understand their short term and long term impact is available to anyone smart enough to be using Manifold, and there is no lack of people in this forum to explain anything not understood, so there's no excuse for ignorance in those areas. I mean, it's not exactly asking someone to master string theory to understand that with the death of Moore's Law the only way forward is parallelism, and it's not exactly asking somebody to become a Microsoft programming team manager to realize that doing parallelism is necessarily a huge commitment. Even for non-technologists, there are plenty of people in this community who would be happy to explain such things to anyone who asks.

That's a very long way around to comment on Tim's and Klause's posts. Getting back to the original thread, although I cannot read it now I remember it in enough detail to know that it basically had three issues: First, it was taking a poll. Second, if what it stated was true it was trying to bypass communications channels established for journalists, possibly on behalf of someone posing as a journalist (not implying any deliberate deception, just perhaps an overly informal assessment of what is a "journalist"). Third, it was bypassing established communications channels for providing confidential information.

I'm surprised no one has commented regarding the journalism thing. Real journalists have no hesitation to contact the company, and the company has always been happy to assist journalists. Part of that is not enabling fake journalists. Real journalists strongly dislike fake journalists, so real journalists genuinely appreciate a company that takes care to work on a professional basis with authentic journalists. Most companies also prefer to work with authentic journalists, because they know that people who are authentic journalists have invested into their status as reporters, they have some ethics, they can generally be trusted in a professional way, and that makes it easier for companies to provide more information and more detailed information in a productive way.

That's very different from self-appointed "journalists" one encounters on the web, who at times have very little investment in professionalism and can be either incompetent or dishonest in a way that does not serve public reporting. That is one reason why Manifold, like every other tech company I know, qualifies journalists to whom it makes disclosures. Authentic journalists have no problem with that because they don't like their access ruined by self-appointed "journalists" who do not share their standards and professionalism.

Here's a plan for participants in this thread:

Tim and Klaus, you can ask your contacts inside Manifold anything you want to know and they will tell you.

antoniocarlos and Askold, please review all the published information so you can learn in your hearts based on your own understanding why parallelism is critical for GIS and why Manifold's commitment to that is the most serious commitment to GIS any company has every made. If you don't understand why that is the case, start launching threads based upon what you have diligently studied and ask for help, explanations and commentary. Keep it technical with good, informed questions and you'll get serious responses that will open technical understanding to you.

For everyone, please do not hesitate to use this forum for a product technology forum. That's enough of a task for everyone to handle and enough of an expectation for a resource. This is not a lifestyle forum, it is just a forum where people can talk through how to best use some very sophisticated tools for a wide range of jobs, from very simple to very complex. If you are looking for other forum content, there are plenty of other forums out there that cater to every taste. If you don't like the rules in this forum, either contribute constructive suggestions for improvements or don't participate if the rules don't evolve to suit your tastes.

If you want access to advanced info there is plenty of room for expert, interested participants but zero room for anyone who has not mastered the basics, that is, a solid mastery of Release 8. Very few have ever done more than scratch the surface of Release 8, so please, no big talk about running until you've mastered walking well with 8. There is also zero support available for people who don't have either the RTFM skills to mine what has already been published or have a problem using established channels to get available information.

For those who feel some other software is better for them today than Release 8, well, for goodness' sake don't hesitate to use the best tool for the job. Manifold is not a cult, it is just a toolset that should be just one more tool in your toolbox to grab when it is right for the job. My own view is that those who enumerate trivialities as alternatives to 8 because they are somehow miffed Manifold is not feeding them fluff about 9 don't really understand 8 and the vast power of what can be done with 8 today. 8 is far beyond the ability of most of us to max it out. But that's certainly not true in all cases and there are certainly many instances where far simpler tools are the right choice for a simple job. It's all about choosing the right tool for you and most people who are doing GIS seriously will use more than one tool.

Add me to the list of the frustrated. I struggle to rationalize some of stances taken by Manifold since spring 2010. I'm increasingly disappointed by the lack of information about Manifold 9. Although I felt the deleted thread was not the right format to put forward my technical wants. needs and questions regarding the future of Manifold (and the whole issue of whether a journalist was involved is totally irrelevant), the deletion itself was quite unexpected and troubling.

I hope that Manifold the company does realize that the goodwill of committed users and participants of this forum is at stake. My biggest concern however is that it doesn't matter.

Dimitri, thanks.

Yes, I knew that I was steering a fine line between fairness and unfairness. There are times when defending a particular corner has its place, and this was one of them. Previous less strident attempts to be heard were met with deafening assurances that Manifold is, nonetheless, doing entirely the right thing by its whole constituency. All too familiar. On the contrary, there have been rational business decisions, and equally rational sacrifices.

I think you and your immediate colleagues have now been using Manifold 9 (in one form or another, alongside version 8, and alongside related products deployed in contexts apart from GIS) for roughly two years. Try as you might, I suspect that your perspective is somewhat shaped by that.

True, there's absolutely nothing wrong with Manifold 8. It's a superior product, exceptionally well supported, and anyone who works with it would hardly want to be without it. Certainly for my part, there are whole avenues in Manifold 8 that remain explored. (I'm working on it.)

Yet I've had a good idea for about the same length of time (two years) of what Manifold 9 can do for me, how it can change my work life, allow me to provide new services, create new products, serve new markets, earn more money, beat back the ESRI demon (not that that matters) and empower people. This is exciting stuff. Many other professional users are in the same position—but to an unwelcome extent we're in a holding pattern. It's a puzzle what to do about that.

Let me get back to the forum question. What's permissible and what is not.

First, I understand that the forum is intended to be different from what it was. The idea is to make it better overall, for more people. Inevitably there are aspects of the old forum that will be missed. That comes with Manifold being a more serious player in wider markets. If the forum loses a number of old hands, so be it. Fair enough.

Secondly, I think you suggest that everyone has had an opportunity to consult on the new rules by which the forum is governed, by making suggestions, just as for product features. I don't think that's a serious suggestion, for two reasons. (1) Regulation of the forum is not a product matter, but a forum matter. In the past, suggestions for change have been made here, in a regulated manner, and this is the natural place for them to be aired and discussed. Those who complain about the forum in private are not, I would have thought, worth listening to on the topic. If they get their way, do they subsequently go on to participate with advice or code for fellow users, or to post their own questions? Have we seen it? (2) There was no particular invitation to submit or comment on proposed rules. That would have been appropriate.

Having said that, there was a gauntlet thrown down recently, in the thread announcing that new forum rules had been introduced. There was a tacit challenge to anyone who could not live with them to put up or shut up. They weren't presented as a proposal, but as a fait accompli, but that doesn't change much, and I knew at the time that I ought either to be objecting, promptly, or acquiescing permanently. I didn't object, and no one else did either. There have still been zero replies to that thread.

There are only two new rules that I personally object to. The rest seem well done.

The first is the rule prohibiting discussion of Manifold business policies and speculation on Manifold decisions. Sure, speculation is a distraction, but there's more to it than that. In the present climate (during the present holding pattern), there's a certain need for this sort of discussion. It may all be futile, badly judged, so much hot air, pissing in the wind—but there's a natural call for it all the same. As soon as version 9 appears the need will be gone (or rather, morphed into the sort of discussion we used to have, ideas for further great features). The politic thing in the meantime is for Manifold to allow this sort of thread to run without interference.

My second objection is to the rule describing the purpose of the forum.

The site is here to help people use Manifold products and technologies more effectively. Do not post messages that do not have a technical focus on Manifold products and reasonably related technologies.

This is subject to a guidance rule lower down.

This board is made available for discussion of Manifold products, services and websites.—Excessive postings advocating or suggesting the use of a competitor's products, services or websites are deemed inappropriate and we reserve the right to edit/delete such posts/threads at our discretion.

I'll put aside the stark utilitarian focus on "technologies" (at the expense of lunch stops on Lake Como). An attempt has been made to broaden the focus, to leave room for users' actual work patterns, and it's clear that some latitude will be allowed. Great. All the same, I think the fundamental focus is too narrow.

To be most useful, the site should not put the common tool before the job at hand, but rather let Manifold users discuss their work and debate the best way of getting it done. If one user suggests (or insists) that ArcEditor or Global Mapper or Illustrator or whatever is the best tool for the job, and why, then that's an opportunity for discussion and progress. The assertion will immediately be open to challenge by other users, and the very worst that can come of it is a communal resolve to have a comparable or better feature added to Manifold. There's really no downside to focussing on the user, the data, the task at hand, rather than putting one tool (even a great one) front and centre.

Last thing. I may be assuming too much (who asked me to speak on anyone's behalf?) but I get the strong impression that what Manifold users want to hear from the company just now is not "no, everything's fine", but "we hear you".

Thank you Dimitri (for setting me straight!) Tim for expressing more clearly what I feel. Back to work.

How soon?

Like others who have spoken up, I have a growing level of frustration and I sure wish it was otherwise.

Tim, thanks for putting finger to keyboard and expressing very well where I'm at too.

Dimitri, you helped GeoReference.org start and certainly gave it a much appreciated 'cowboy' feel. We have a new sheriff now, which is fine, but this little Nevada town needs something to celebrate.

Don't expect, suggest!

David,

Dimitri, you helped GeoReference.org start and certainly gave it a much appreciated 'cowboy' feel. We have a new sheriff now, which is fine, but this little Nevada town needs something to celebrate.

---

Thanks for the kudos. However, I would be the first to agree my style moved us off topic far too often. I really do support the new rules because I personally don't want to drive away contributions from folks who would really expand our community if they weren't concerned by shoot-outs in the streets.

Celebration coming soon. :-)

"Celebration coming soon. :-)"

So there! He answered the "I'm increasingly disappointed by the lack of information about Manifold 9" question. Soon! As for me, that sounds like really good news. I'm the little nobody that is not part of any corporate GIS thing. Just me making maps at a cost that I can afford. As long as Manifold follows the "MS Office for everyone" route instead of the "ESRI GIS for a very few" route (ie. few $$$), then I'm happy with the product and the forum.

Tim, thanks for following up.

This is exciting stuff. Many other professional users are in the same position—but to an unwelcome extent we're in a holding pattern. It's a puzzle what to do about that.

That's very true. It's puzzling for the company as well, since there is the puzzle of how to move onwards keeping one's friends in the loop in very high voltage technology without assisting the host of competitors worldwide who would like to learn from that. Every company that seeks to do something truly new has that problem, and it's not much of a problem if all one seeks to do is trivialities. The company's response has been to undertake as many private briefings as possible in as many settings as possible. That is not a perfect response because it cannot cover everyone. But, in the ruthlessly Darwinian world that characterizes high tech possibilities, it does tend to cover those customers who are paying the most for the fun that everyone collectively ultimately benefits from.

I don't think Manifold is any different from other companies in that. It's not possible to fly personnel around to every individual customer, so at least the company tries to cover those concentrations where there are thousands of employees in a company committed to Manifold and to use those opportunities to bring in when possible those folks who have indicated their greatest interest by contributing directly to Manifold. If you can't cover everyone those two constituencies are not a bad start. It should not shock anyone that if you have a 30,000 person IT company in Shanghai committed to using Manifold and engineering away at custom solutions you will get a command performance no matter how distant your location, but that if you are an individual hobbyist in Topeka you won't. But at least Manifold will try to get that individual hobbyist into a session if that hobbyist shows expertise, commitment and participates by contributing suggestions and otherwise gets involved.

I think part of the issue for all other constituents (casual observers, people who are interested but don't have the inclination, time or skill to contribute) is that people are making a fundamentally flawed assumption, that whatever Manifold is doing is sufficiently insignificant that it can be summarized in public tweets that do no harm or that the way the company works internally can be summarized in neat packets that can be tweeted in status reports. There's no way to educate people on that except by going through the process of how the company works and what, specifically, it is working on. But if those are the keys to why the company is competitive or able to do what thus far has eluded other companies (and I mean truly sophisticated companies like Intel and Microsoft) that's not something the company is going to brief the entire world on in public.

All the time people say "oh, I don't want my vendor working on stupid stuff like rearranging the toolbar buttons. i want progress on real fundamentals" or "Gosh, this latest version of Office is just a reskinned old version..." but when it comes down to what it takes to do fundamentals there is panic if it takes longer than six months. It's like how just about every stock market investor claims to have long term interests, not just short term speculation, but nonethless they are glued to daily moves in stock price. That's human nature and I accept that. But, it is also part of the problem in that significant work is not tweets nor short time work nor can it necessarily be compressed into tweets by way of status reports.

So when someone asks, "Geez, why not a status report? Can't you just provide a quick summary?" the correct response is "No." To which immediately is asked "why not?" and the only correct answer is "Get on an airplane and come to spend a few days to learn."

Onward...

Secondly, I think you suggest that everyone has had an opportunity to consult on the new rules by which the forum is governed, by making suggestions, just as for product features. I don't think that's a serious suggestion, for two reasons. (1) Regulation of the forum is not a product matter, but a forum matter. In the past, suggestions for change have been made here, in a regulated manner, and this is the natural place for them to be aired and discussed. Those who complain about the forum in private are not, I would have thought, worth listening to on the topic. If they get their way, do they subsequently go on to participate with advice or code for fellow users, or to post their own questions? Have we seen it? (2) There was no particular invitation to submit or comment on proposed rules. That would have been appropriate.

Those are fair points to raise, so let me clarify a bit (unfortunately I have a meeting coming up so I must take the risk of not writing in sufficient detail). I didn't mean to suggest that everyone has had an opportunity to consult. I don't think Manifold has ever taken that route, not for product or for business operations. Instead, the company has invited comment and input and then has done its best to construct what it thinks is the right solution based on that input and on the company's own views.

Those who complain about the forum in private are not, I would have thought, worth listening to on the topic.

I strongly disagree with that. All other things being equal, professional people will not participate in a forum if they are put off by the unprofessional nature of that forum, so they are not going to expose their opinions and contributions to what they regard as a fundamentally flawed process. This is also why votes are usually cast in private in elections, so that people can express themselves without being attacked for their votes.

Manifold's culture has always been to distinguish between direct communications to the company and the forum as not being a means of direct communications to the company. If someone does not value seriously enough what they want to say to write directly to the company their opinion counts for zero. That has always been the case. If you don't vote, you do not participate.

Likewise, Manifold has a standing invitation for people to write to the company to express their views. Part of the filtration mechanism to tell whether somebody is really concerned about something or not is whether or not they decided on their own to express themselves. If people really care about something, they write.

Regarding rules:

The first is the rule prohibiting discussion of Manifold business policies and speculation on Manifold decisions.

The experience of other forums is that if you want to have a product-oriented forum there have to be rules to prevent aggrieved personalities from constantly diverting the forum into their business grudges. The classic example is people complaining about not getting discounts, but that's just a useful packet to represent a wide class of talk.

If someone doesn't like how Manifold does business, fine. This is not the forum to air those views, not the least because the company is not going to expend resources to provide people a forum for bad-mouthing the company. In a perfect world one could imagine a forum where every aggrieved individual gets a patient hearing and discussion so that whatever foolishness is erupted gets flushed out with common sense and patient explanations of good faith business practices. That's not how forums work in the real world, not the least because there is limited time to wash out smears, snarky foolishness, misconceptions, clueless socialism posing as a noble defense of the people's rights against evil capitalism and the like. It's true there are many perfectly sensible people who from time to time would like guidance on business matters, but given the toxic effect of a negative handful that exist in every forum, there is no practical way to keep it level and fair for all without putting the focus on product.

Likewise, there has to be a limit to meta-discussions about why a policy or the decision of an administrator or once again the forum gets diverted from the product focus. If people don't like a forum with a product focus, that's OK. There are other forums where folks can talk about whatever they like. If they don't think the administrators here do a fair job of applying the rules, it is certainly true that whenever humans do work there will be human mistakes. But overall the policies have to be applied about the same or the administrators aren't doing their jobs and ultimately the way to impede product-oriented conversation least is to not endlessly question the work of administrators. If people don't more or less agree enough with how the admins make decisions their ultimate option is to not use this forum, it is not to endlessly question the work of the admins.

To be most useful, the site should not put the common tool before the job at hand, but rather let Manifold users discuss their work and debate the best way of getting it done. If one user suggests (or insists) that ArcEditor or Global Mapper or Illustrator or whatever is the best tool for the job, and why, then that's an opportunity for discussion and progress.

I fully agree and there is nothing about that cited rule that prevents the above. The key phrase is "excessive postings." The particular rule is taken word-for-word from NVIDIA's developer forum rules and is there because on rare occassion one encounters a participant who just wants to advocate for a particular non-NVIDIA thing and that's all they do. I suppose the analogy would be in this forum someone who posts all the time "Oh, I never use Manifold because GRASS is so much better. Use GRASS for everything."

I get the strong impression that what Manifold users want to hear from the company just now is not "no, everything's fine", but "we hear you".

Well, the company is not kidding when it is repeatedly stated that this forum is not a communications channel to the company. If anybody ignores that repeated advice and thus expects a "we hear you" to generic postings in this forum that's a mistake on their part.

In contrast, people who write the company as is endlessly recommended and invited do indeed get a "we hear you" acknowledgement, for the most part calibrated to whatever it was they said to the company. Those folks who write seriously and in depth will more often than not get a remarkably personal reply, quite often in depth, and will often find that leads to a path of more and more involvement.

I recently had one of those remarkably personal replies and I will say it did wonders for my confidence.

In my experience the hardest part of the waiting (and sometimes knowing without the saying allowed) is that you can appear to be nothing more than a fanboy to others who perhaps have believed you in the past and gone forward with trust and capital on your recommendation. That's a tough place to be.

Don't expect, suggest!

I had this same experiance. I still can't schedule my future plans but waiting has become a less uncomfortable. Appologies to everyone who counts himself part of the Hong Kong connection. Pure jealousy on my site.

I think that there is a social dimension to this debate than is immediately apparent. Most of us live in a censored corporate world where faceless manager and IT people decide what software we can use and what websites we can look at. Most of us hate that kind of paternalism. The openness of the manifold forum was like a glimpse of freedom. Should it be overcontrolled, I would start to have doubts about the freedom of use of the product. The kind of doubts I get when I see the ESRI license manager tell me that I can't have a license. These messages tell me that I am on permanent technological probation. My support of Manifold is conditional on freedom and tolerance of the discenting views that others put forward. I have a really bad reaction to companies that reads rule books to customers, not that manifold does this but I get it everywhere else from day care centres to tourist resorts these days and I would love to give my business to companieswho are not anal.

Over the years, when the forum has been very quiet and proof of life was needed, I often seeded the forum with open questions like how does Surfer compare with Manifold or does anyone use Manifold for town planning. Sometimes I went off topic. Manifold might be the keystone species in my GIS ecosystem but is not the entire ecosystem and I often want to hear about the other products that people use. Nothing has been deleted but I have at times made myself tired by trying to always draft something that has direct relevance to manifold and would not be censored.

I carry on lobbying for an 'Off Topic' section for this typ of really interesting questions. The discussion has isolated legal issues that a forum managed by manifold can't handle but appart from that I generally still vote for less strict rules.

carry on lobbying for an 'Off Topic' section

Me too.

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Just got to this thread after taking some much needed time off. Lots of good discussion here. Like many, I miss the "cowboy" approach of the old forum. When dmbrubac released the forum to Manifold a few years back, I knew it was only a matter of time before it went "corporate" :-) That happens with many companies - they become the thing they used to mock

On a more serious note, my biggest concern with the forum has been that of "tinkering" with forum discussions. The user-defined blacklist was a great way to eliminate trolls like emilio and others without stripping the forum of the information entered. When a forum Czar takes it upon himself to eliminate some posts and not others, or strip out some text they don't like within a post, I think it compromises the integrity of the forum. A case in point was the post referred to in this thread:

If it is the post I'm thinking of, I know the person who made the request. She is an upstanding member of this forum community. In fact, a number of years ago at the NYS GIS conference, this person came by the Manifold booth and was fascinated with the product. However, she did not have any money to purchase it. In an amazing serendipitous event, she won the free doorprize copy of Manifold (I think Dave or Jim was the one who gave out the prize)! Since that time, she has built a business around Manifold, contributed to this forum, and stands as one of the most vocal Manifold supporters in NYS since I left there 4 years ago. I believe her intent was to get this journalist on board to take a new look at Manifold and get impressed with it. That would seem likely, as she touts the merits of Manifold wherever she goes.

Now, you might say "none of that matters". I think it does. Knowing the history of who is here, and what their "angle" is, is very important. As Dimitri has often said, if you are a prick (my word, not his), people on the forum will be less likely to cut you slack and help you. That means people on the forum operate out of their knowledge of a participant's history. The same courtesy should have been given to this person. Also, I think that whether this was a poll or not is very debateable. In fact, our small "straw poll" of respected users on this thread seem to give the impression that it was not that bad.

But, to get back to my original point about the integrity of the site: if the thread was indeed a poll that would violate forum rules, then the most appropriate thing IMHO is to close the thread and indicate that polls aren't allowed. That way, you maintain the dialog of the thread. Arbitrarily taking out some threads, or removing "some" text in a thread could be considered intellectually dishonest in nature. I'm not saying that the forum moderator is dishonest - I'm saying that when a forum gets to a place where an individual can begin banning people, removing threads they don't like, or cutting out text they don't agree with, then the integrity of the entire forum erodes. It can even attract more trolls who just like to "get a rise" out of the moderator. You don't have to look any further than forums on global warming, science and religion, etc. to see this spiraling effect take place. When people become beligerant, and use foul language, I am more of a fan of disemvoweling them - disemvoweling is a common practice that gets the point across, rather than an arbitrary and capricous approach of deleting text, and thereby compromising the original intent.

BTW, as an aside for "compromising the integrity of the game", there is a reason that OJ Simpson is in the Hall of Fame, and Pete Rose isn't. OJ did something that from a human standpoint is far worse than what Pete did. However, OJ's transgression did not undermine the integrity of the game. While players can go out and cause all kind of hell off the field, once they start gambling on games, that destroys the very fabric of the game itself and then nobody can trust the results of a game. As another sports-aside, the reason I would like to see that Jets' coach (who tripped the player) thrown out of the league is not because he is a bad guy, but because for 75 years in the NFL, nobody running down a kickoff ever worried about being tripped on the sideline by a coach. Now, without a proper punishment, no kickoff or punt return will ever be the same: every guy running down the sideline will have in the back of his head "will I get tripped" - that will cause them to not go "all out". That compromises the integrity of the game.

In a similar way, what kind of trust can participants place in the forum if text is snipped out, or threads are removed - imagine all the people here wondering "what the hell are these people talking about - I never saw the post". Also, if someone posts about a major bug in Manifold, will it be deleted? If the policy is that nothing gets deleted (only disemvoweled), we then have the integrity of knowing that the site has remained pure in its information content. Like the Jets' coach example, I now feel like I have to moderate my own thoughts for fear that it may run afoul of moderation. That changes the way I participate in the forum, and potentially loses the impact I might have. I have often thought about posting in the last couple of months but then though "ahh, never mind - I don't want to take the time to carefully chose my words". So, in that case, if I had something valuable to say, it has been lost on the community forever.

Of course there is the extreme stuff of Nazi sympathizers, accusing forum members of cheating, lying, adultery, what have you - slanderous stuff like that stuff can be dealt with on an individual basis because they are so extreme.

I suggest that the original thread be restored, and if necessary closed for further comment - just to maintain the informational integrity of the site.

I apologize for the long post.

Great post, Art....and, I learned a new word - "disemvowel". In the inimitable words of Ed McMahon, " I did not know that."

Art, you're not doing a particularly good job of applying the terms and conditions of this forum. You're a good guy and very well intentioned, but they do apply to you as well as everyone else, and, for good reason as your post itself argues:

In a similar way, what kind of trust can participants place in the forum if text is snipped out, or threads are removed - imagine all the people here wondering "what the hell are these people talking about - I never saw the post".

You are 100% correct and I agree with you. That's why the terms of this forum, like the terms used in so many productive, product-oriented forums, disallow "Discussions of Manifold administrative or business policies or procedures or speculation on Manifold decisions."

When disallowed content is posted to the forum the admins *will* remove it. It will not be allowed to stand to provide an archive of disallowed content. You may think you know "the extreme stuff of Nazi sympathizers, accusing forum members of cheating, lying, adultery, what have you" what you would remove, but this forum has higher bar than merely avoiding extreme criminality, a set of standards and guidelines that are expressed in the terms at http://www.manifold.net/admin/community_terms.shtml

The admins are tasked with administering those rules, not the rather different set of rules you are implying, and the admins will *not* allow people who disagree with either the rules or the decisions of the admins to try to circumvent either the rules or the admin decisions by trying to get that content in through a back door of having endless (or even brief) meta-discussions about "oh, gosh, that content that said *this* (repeat it a few times to make sure you get it in) should not have been removed because I feel this way or that about it and anyway, didn't Proust say something to the effect of (repeat the disallowed content one more time just to get it in again)?"

If you don't like the admin decisions, that is your perfect right. You are a highly respected person and I don't in any way suggest that a forum using the rules you suggest might not be workable in some circumstances. For example, a forum that removed only the most egregious cases of criminality and let all other obnoxious content stand, allowed people to solicit and receive professionally regulated advice (electrical codes, medical advice, legal or tax and accounting advice, etc.) and so on. Surely in the wide world of Internet there are plenty of forums like that. But I think you'd be very hard pressed to find such a forum resourced by and supporting products from front-line, elite technology companies like NVIDIA, AMD, Adobe, Intel, Apple, Oracle, HP and the like, or attended by the sort of elite techologists who really have something to contribute at the very state of the art in matters like elite DBMS, HPC rendering, CPU architectures, advanced software using those and parallelism and so on. If you look at the highly elite commentary that appears in the NVIDIA or Adobe developer forums you'll notice not only the quality of the commentary but also the rules structure of the forum that supports such quality. That's why the terms Manifold chose weren't just pulled out of a hat but were copied, word for word in most cases, from highly successful and productive product technology forums.

I think also that no matter how well meaning you are in thinking that a set of rules like "Of course there is the extreme stuff of Nazi sympathizers,..." you mention in your post is a feasible approach, in real life all you are saying is that you want to substitute your opinion for the admins. You need far more detailed rules than that if you want to set forth some objectivity to try to corral the total subjectivity of it otherwise being the Rule of Art rather than a rule of law. I don't in any way doubt your good intentions but I do feel you are wishing the problem away. Likewise, a massive amount of inspection and labor would be required to try to judge which post that violates the rules but maybe doesn't violate them too much should be in or out in a fair and objective way. Best to let the rules speak for themselves and apply them as they are. "No polls" means no polls, not even the ones Art thinks are good polls.

Since the rules are what they are and since this forum is at least an attempt to observe those rules evenly for all by the admins, you have two choices if you disagree with the rules or don't like the admin decisions: one is to send in a note communicating your suggestions for altering the rules or how they are applied, as the forum guidlines recommend in several places "Contact Manifold admins.." and also clearly indicated in related text such as..."...please notify a Manifold admin through published contact info and they will take whatever corrective action they deem required. If you do not agree with that corrective action or lack thereof, do not go around the admin's decision. " Or, you can stop participating in the forum if you don't like the rules or the way they are applied. That's really what it boils down to.

However, I think you are way off base and seriously unfair, particularly in any way analogizing to the application of published rules for a product forum to the horrific crimes that were the centerpiece of OJ's trial (which resulted in an acquital on all charges) or the felonies and outright fraud of the Rose case.

There was no disrespect of any kind shown to the initiator of the thread you bring up. The admins removed a thread on disallowed content. No criticism of anyone by name, just a courtesy reminder of the rules in a way that harms no one's reputation. This thread continued because it is a learning experience and a chance to get some education on for those who are getting used to the idea of specific rules and quite fairly want to get some grounding on how they are applied. It should come as no surprise to anyone that Manifold's way is to attempt as best as possible to apply the same rules in the same way to all. If there is a rule that says "no polling," it will be applied to Art and to Art's friends as well as to someone new to the community with no prior posts. That's only fair.

As for

imagine all the people here wondering "what the hell are these people talking about

That's only a factor in this thread because it has been allowed to continue as part of the initial learning experience of establishing new rules. It's an imperfect approach, but so is virtually anything having to do with social changes, establishing order where once there was inappropriate anarchy and so on.

In the future, what you correctly identify as a problem in the above will not be a problem because the rule against dissecting admin decisions is going to get enforced. Likewise, this is a forum that does have admin supervision:

"Oversight may be applied. - Manifold reserves the right to modify or delete any posting, profile, and/or signature for any reason, without prior notification or explanation. "

That's there for good reason, as any productive forum with a wide-ranging constituency soon discovers.

I'm saying that when a forum gets to a place where an individual can begin banning people, removing threads they don't like, or cutting out text they don't agree with, then the integrity of the entire forum erodes.

That's a grossly unfair statement. The admins in this forum apply the rules. They don't remove threads they don't like, they remove threads that violate the rules. They don't cut out text they don't agree with, they cut out text that is disallowed content. I doubt they'll do that much once we all transition to a more professional state (which is part of understanding that good rules and objective enforcement of them help professional communities stay productive), but some of that to date I believe has been a useful teaching experience.

And yes, they will ban people who don't want to play by the rules. I don't have a problem with that, no more than I think that people who can't resist standing up and giving loud political speeches in the middle of a quiet restaurant, destroying the good vibes all the other customers sought, should not be ejected by management. Such action on behalf of a common interest is exactly the hallmark of integrity for a productive establishment.

One more thing about this snipping of text: sometimes in rare exceptions when somebody has something useful to say or something totally off base that is nonetheless said in good intention and could pose a useful educational experience for everyone else, it could well and truly be the right thing to do to try to preserve the useful parts while snipping out the disallowed parts. I wouldn't wish that on any admin, since the impetus here is not on allowing people to jump the rules willy nilly as they like and then have admins chase after them cleaning up, but in some cases I could see how an admin interested in saving at least something might try.

Your post is a good example of that effect: for instance:

"Do not post personal information. - Do not post personal information about any other individual (for example, by way of example and not limitation: addresses, phone numbers, passwords, or any other private information) without the express, prior permission of the individual."

... yet in your haste to attack the admin decisions in this thread you post all sorts of personal information about the person you think was wronged. That's cheating, Art, not the least because it is not your role or your choice to decide to "out" somebody as part of an argumentative strategy you want to take. Such rules *protect* people in a way you say you defend. Mike's comment had no direction toward the individual, yet the details you provide now point an arrow at that individual. I think it would be perfectly fair if the admins deleted the personal information you posted while letting the rest of your post stand. Or, if they choose, they could delete your post in its entirely, which I hope does not happen since I've taken this time to write at length to disagree with it.

now feel like I have to moderate my own thoughts for fear that it may run afoul of moderation.

Art, this is silly. A very smart guy like you knows perfectly well how to understand guidelines such as "To help people use Manifold products and technologies more effectively most messages will be either a technical question or a technical answer. Constructive feedback and discussion about product features is welcome as well and highly encouraged." This is not string theory.

I think what you are really saying is that although you understand the rules perfectly well you may not agree with them and you doubt your ability or intent to stay within them. That's only something you can resolve, but please, don't try to justify any internal mixed feelings you may have about following the rules by saying they're not clear or if they aren't clear you don't know how to write an email to ask! :-)

I think what you are really saying is that although you understand the rules perfectly well you may not agree with them and you doubt your ability or intent to stay within them.

Not at all Dimitri. What I was attempting to do was provide a framework for how the forum might move forward by maintaining historical records of discussions that occur here. And, having been on discussion blogs for over 20 years I have seen what can happen and voiced that concern. I then attempted to provide a happy medium to remedy the situation (which you indicated might work on other blogs but not here - so, obviously it was not all that crazy of a mediation). Why on earth would you suppose that I doubt my ability or intent to stay within the rules?

... yet in your haste to attack the admin decisions

attack? I don't want to run afoul of any rules here, but I suppose if we took a poll on this forum, I would be one of the last people that would be associated with attacking others :-) Also, you seem to think, and imply once again that my purpose was to attack the admin decisions. I think it is fair to say that I have always attempted to maintain integrity, decency, patience, and kindess in my posts. Also, I can't recall ever attacking anyone on this forum other than emilio - history of my participation on this forum shows that I have always treated others with dignity in my posts. To accuse me of otherwise is an insult to the reputation I have always worked hard to maintain in my personal and professional dealings. I attempted to cover that base with Mike as well, indicating that the administrator was not dishonest.

That's cheating, Art, not the least because it is not your role or your choice to decide to "out" somebody as part of an argumentative strategy you want to take

this persons name was never revealed, they remain anonymous - and, I shared this information knowing that the post had been eliminated. Cheating Dimitri is an intentional attempt to deceive. Please do not accuse me of cheating. Thats just plain wrong.

justify any internal mixed feelings you may have about following the rules by saying they're not clear or if they aren't clear you don't know how to write an email to ask! :-)

Once again, I am not trying to justify anything. Only help the situation. I honestly thought I was doing this forum a service in attempting to voice a moderating opinion. I didn't think that what I said would be so offensive to you to think that I had other motives.

now feel like I have to moderate my own thoughts for fear that it may run afoul of moderation.

Art, this is silly. A very smart guy like you knows perfectly well how to understand guidelines such as "To help people use Manifold products and technologies more effectively most messages

No, I think you illustrated my point. The post I made took quite a long time to write - it was my attempt to craft it so as to not offend people - or be accused of attacking forum admin, outing anyone, justifying whether I want to follow rules, or making grossly unfair statements. It was not done in haste, with an attempt to attack forum administration as you implied. Obviously, even with this amount of effort my attempts fell far short of the mark. I guess thats what happens when you try to write a post on your vacation with kids yelling in the background "Daddy, when are you going to get off the computer" :-) In many ways, it validates your point that any and all discussion should focus strictly on the technical discussions about the product.

It appeared to me that this thread was alittle more open than others, looking over the posts. In no way was I intending to

not do (ing) a particularly good job of applying the terms and conditions of this forum. You're a good guy and very well intentioned, but they do apply to you as well as everyone else

Yes, I am well aware that the same rules apply to me as everyone else - I don't think that I have ever communicated any sense of superiority to others on the forum in the past, and I do not intend to do so now. And, I intend to abide by the rules. I don't know why I wouldn't.

This post is obviously not technical in nature. The only reason I am posting here is in response to your accusation that I have attempted to cheat, attack, or not play by the rules. That, I feel needed to be addressed. For this reason, I too hope that the forum admins choose to allow it to stay. Or, perhaps they may choose to delete all three of our posts on this matter.

I will make every effort to ensure that my posts on this forum stick only to a technical nature. And, I can honestly say that I have no hard feelings toward you or the administrators - I of course hoped that there would still be a wild west feel to this forum, but that is much, much less important than having a forum where people are sharing code, techniques for solving problems, or clarifying how the software works. So, given that option, I would choose the technical forum every time. Therefore, I understand Manifold's rationale in why they are being black and white - and it makes good sense to me.

Happy New Year to the forum participants. I think 2011 will have lots of great technical things to discuss, so there will be very little reason to entertain rabbit trails.

The only reason I am posting here is in response to your accusation that I have attempted to cheat, attack, or not play by the rules.

I didn't mean that in the negative way it came across. You're a good guy and everybody knows that, but you know how it goes when reaching for what is intended to be non-boring language. My apologies.

[On behalf of Dimitri - relayed from his blackberry]

Thanks also from the admins - no hard feelings.

I doubt [that admins will remove material] much once we all transition to a more professional state..., but some of that to date I believe has been a useful teaching experience.

Well put (by Dimitri). I've got a lot out of this thread and I'm grateful that it (i.e. everything after Mike's first post) wasn't nuked.

Something quite basic has been made clear here, and I feel a lot more at peace with the world now that it's penetrated my thick skull.

The reason the forum has changed, has had to change, is that Manifold is swimming in quite different currents than when version 6.5, 7, or 8 were released. We know this but we don't all see it every day, because we're using version 8 and everything looks the same as it has looked for a couple of years. But there has been massive shift in the structure of things. This is great news for reasons we all know even if we can't enjoy the result just yet. The corollary is that Manifold now has to behave, and also seem to behave, on the same level as we expect NVIDIA or Adobe to behave. It has to fit the expectations of different audiences and different cultures, losing some of the attitude, sense of humour and spirit, since none of these things translate very well. (Can a makeover of the main Manifold web site far behind?) That's a loss but the upside is much greater and as Dimitri says we'll all get used to it.

If this place becomes a more strictly technical and "professional" forum, the impact of the next version will surely be such that any number of other sites about Manifold are likely to spring up.

I agree - it is good that the discussion has been allowed to continue. People learn by example too. I think alot of the forum regulars have read this thread and understand Manifold's directives for running the forum. Therefore, if those who have been here for awhile lead-by-example, staying technical and reminding others to stay technical it won't be long before the others on the forum operate in a similar way. The forum will then have a much lower signal to noise ratio in a short time.

I think the Scripts section of the forum is a good example of this. It is almost 100% technical - anyone attempting to editorialize gets reminded that this is a thread for Scripts. I know I find myself searching that section more frequently than the other ones.

Brave new world.

The corollary is that Manifold now has to behave, and also seem to behave, on the same level as we expect NVIDIA or Adobe to behave.

I have to admit that this is the first time I've seen anyone suggest that NVIDIA is a shining example of professionalism.

I still lament the shift in focus on the forums, the methods used to enforce it, and the tone being taken with the community in the process. Since the forum is owned by Manifold now, I suppose it is not surprising that we have ended up at this point. Perhaps I should just be grateful that it has taken this long.

mechalas, your posting above crosses the line into flaming. It has been allowed to stand as a learning example of non-constructive commentary.

Do not post content with no relevant value other than to incite a controversial reaction or to dial up heat. This includes topics directed at our competitors and/or our partners' competitors, or any specific persons, companies or other entities. Most often, a "flame" is simply a statement that is taunting and thus arbitrarily inflammatory.

If you do not like the rules, make a constructive suggestion citing how a specific rule you dislike prevents you from participating in forum threads that help people use Manifold products and technologies more effectively.

If you are unhappy with the purpose of this forum or the rules, you are not allowed to express yourself by flaming NVIDIA or Manifold, especially not in an "ad hominem" way.

An "ad hominem" attack is a criticism of a person instead of the person's words. If you find yourself commenting on a person instead of discussing the technical content of what he or she has written, you have probably crossed the line.

That applies to companies too. If you dislike technical specifics about a company's products or technologies and that reasonably relates to helping people use Manifold products and technologies more effectively, then discuss the specific technical aspects that impede effective use. Criticize the technical aspects of what you dislike. Do not criticize the companies or people behind them.

Examples

Not OK: what mechalas wrote about NVIDIA.

OK: "NVIDIA's http://forums.nvidia.com/ forum has non-English CUDA discussion sections for Korea and Taiwan that I cannot understand. I wish they required English so I could read those forum sections to learn more about CUDA."

People who are not willing to follow the rules here and write constructively instead of flaming must find a different forum.

"If you do not like the rules, make a constructive suggestion citing how a specific rule you dislike prevents you from participating in forum threads that help people use Manifold products and technologies more effectively."

In my humble opinion, the recent change in rules, philosophy and tone in moderating this forum is counterproductive and I am afraid that it will prevent me from using Manifold products and technologies more effectively. The free and open exchange of ideas is a valuable part of forum culture. Stifling the free and open exchange of ideas will make this forum less valuable to me and suspect others as well.

These are the rules I like:

"This site serves as a venue through which users can discuss, ask questions, share, and learn from each other."

"Information, opinions and other content posted on this site are solely those of the member posting such content.."

"THIS SITE IS PROVIDED TO YOU "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" WITH NO WARRANTY."

I really prefer to use this forum for technical advice and get answers to questions regarding techniques and principles with manifold. I think the terms and conditions will help focus and streamline the content so it is even more useful. If people want a forum to discuss those topics restricted by the terms and conditions then I say start another unofficial unsupported forum. Lets keep this forum focused and professional. My 2 cents.

I apologize for the NVIDIA remark, which I admit was over the line.

The rest of the post concerning the direction of the forum is, I think, still a valid point and I don't want that feedback to get lost. As you suggest, if I am not in agreement with the current shift in the rules of this forum, then I can not participate, or provide constructive feedback in an attempt to influence its direction. I've done the former over the last couple of years, but since this thread has been allowed to stand, I am happy to do the latter because I think this is an important topic.

I've been a participant in professional forums at both ends of the moderation spectrum: ones where it's basically a free-for-all on posting, and ones where rigid control is imposed over the content. My experience is that some moderation is necessary to ensure a productive forum, but that strict moderation stifles the community and limits its potential. A little bit of thread drift is not a bad thing, nor is the occasional offhand comment or exchange of opinion. While these do cause topics to stray from the stated intent and purpose of the forum, such incidents still make up a small minority of posts, and the exchange of those ideas in the context of the topic at hand can be extremely valuable. Sometimes, truly great ideas emerge when opinions are allowed to flow. Again, I agree that some moderation is necessary to keep these discussions productive and manageable. But if you don't allow it at all, you lose out on the collective potential of your community.

A community is a fluid and formless thing. You can loosely hold a formless object in your hands, but squeeze it tight and it runs through your fingers. Yes, that's a cheesy and not necessarily perfect analogy, but I believe it still works. I understand that because the forums are owned by Manifold there's a concern about content and its association with the company, and of course no company wants to finance a forum that in extreme situations is used as a platform for disparaging them, even indirectly. My response to that is two-fold:

1. A "terms and conditions" and "disclaimer" statement similar to what REJ posts can be very useful.

2. Taking a few lumps now and again, even undeserved, is a small price to pay for an overall richer forum experience.

I would hate to see the Manifold forum become a place that is so narrowly focused on only technical issues that discussion simply vanishes because people are worried they'll run afoul of the terms and conditions. That sounds like a sterile community to me, and one where I am less motivated to participate.

John, now that I have overcome my late-pubertal outrage about a set of rules that is protected by the 1st rule that rules must never be questioned in public I could make my peace with the arrangement.

The forum will be the place for technical solutions and discussion and it would be childish to punish the community with contempt because of the rules. Would be nice to have the Manifold developer team participate with detailed answers and empathy for beginners and non-native speakers who of course can not articulate precisely!

It's clear though that the hard core of the community will need a place for rampant ideas of every kind. Many of those threads have been started by Dimitri or AdamW in the past explicitely asking for polls. I can't see it jet but it's clear that at some point an existent blog or a new place in the internet will become popular for this kind of anarchic creativity. This prospect harmonizes the present debate - handy at Christmas - and straightens future trends.

It has not escaped my notice that in the past Manifold staff, usually Dimitri but occasionally Adam, have participated meaningfully in threads (and sometimes heated ones) that would appear to violate the revised T&C. But perhaps Manifold sees such participation as a problem that needs solving.

Obviously, I disagree with that conclusion (if that was, in fact, the motivation), as well as the notion that we somehow need significantly tighter controls to keep this forum healthy.

I guess my argument boils down to this: people need a reason to participate in a forum. Those reasons typically fall into these categories: 1) I have a need, 2) I am paid to do it, and/or 3) I enjoy it. People who need help are obviously in #1. Manifold staff most likely falls into #2, though they do point out that this is not a substitute for official support (and I agree with that). For the rest of us, the people answering questions and participating in threads, that leaves #3. IMHO the forum is a lot less attractive under the new T&C.

Will the change be enough to curtail activity in the forum? Only time will tell. Will people move elsewhere? Maybe, though I don't think there's a large enough community here to support both the official forum and an external one simultaneously. But I could be wrong.

Mike,

The terms should probably carry a definition of 'flames' in the glossary. It's used in the troll definition.

/just pointing out I made it to the bottom

a definition of 'flames'

Flames are defined in the "no flaming" section.

damn, caught out.