Will the lounge be removed entirely? The answer is; no, it won't

Forum & Website Forum
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The announcement that I released on Tuesday caused a lot of concern, which I calculated, btw. It’s not that I’m sitting behind my computer as if I were struck by lightning.
As I wrote in my announcement, I am completely aware that the decision doesn’t sit well in the community. Again, this was a reaction I foresaw when I wrote it.

Yesterday, I “missed” a whole part of the day on this forum, when the concerns were flooding in, because I was at work and handling other stuff in my life. So, I wasn’t hiding, and I will come back to the significance of this detail.

The decision

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On the outside, the jokes and music threads look like harmless fun and a thread to unwind. This was the initial vision of those threads, but it gradually became a soapbox for political views or even insulting other members for some users.
Moderating such posts became almost a day-to-day task that consumed a lot of time and energy, as explained by @dalto over here.
And yes, I heard you; Bryan, just put a mod or three on the lounge area and Bob’s your uncle! It will not be fixed that easily.

You might wonder; Why not? Well, we all are all volunteers over here, including the moderators. Nobody likes to be insulted and even feels forced to overturn another moderator’s decision, just because you love a project.
The entire team has responsibilities to fulfil next to this project, and when you are in the midst of such a discussion, and you have to pull out for real-life matters, the person goes to the other one to get their way. Just like I “missed” a chunk of the day on this forum yesterday.

“Get stricter moderation rules and deal with it” Yeah, we could, but what’s the fun in that? The founders, the admins and the moderators are doing this project for the love of it, so why should it feel like work for us then? Moderating, in particular, the jokes and music threads became a burden, and instead of the thread being light and fun, the joke became on us having to deal with that amount of work.
This project is not about what we should do, but what we want to do. What we want to do is put the fun back into maintaining this distro as we advance with it.

What will happen to the lounge area?

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As I wrote in the title, and also in the original announcement, the forum will still have a lounge area and will be renamed “Linux lounge”.
The difference between the current EndeavourOS pub area and the new one is that the Linux lounge will be a place to discuss everything related to Linux, other distros, hardware and software discussion, job board, and an introduction to the forum (The current Hello area).

To be clear, the following threads that will be transferred to the Linux lounge are

  • Wallpaper sharing
  • Desktop sharing
  • Linux and other tech memes
  • The photo share threads
  • The other distro discussions
  • Several app and OS discussions
  • Hardware discussions

So, in short, this forum is going to be a technical help support for EOS in the first place, with an area for casual discussions related to Linux and tech.

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What happened to the 2026 Joke thread?
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I’m happy that pub continues to live on another form. People tend to jump hastily into conclusions when something that’s dear to them disappears and this was no exception. In the end main priority for you guys is the development of EOS, not putting down forest fires that we cause.

Adding mods would not have been long-term solution, because behaviour that has been mostly associated with platforms like Reddit has been creeping around here for some time. Anonymity tends to do that even for those people who would not act so in real life.

And of course I’m especially happy that those threads I consume most got to stay… :grin:

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I knew this change wouldn’t be as bad as some thought, very happy about it, especially that the Linux memes category will be saved (I assume computer/hardware/tech/space memes will also be allowed?)

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Sadly, that’s probably what it should have been all along, technically related, at least that’s the personal guidelines I have used when posting there.
I do regret (for other people) other content not being acceptable, but I understand the purpose.

Edit: As an aside, at least you pretty much beat the bushes and everyone woke up and posted :slight_smile: I saw names I hadn’t seen in quite a while.

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To me, it feels like we are all being punished for the actions of a few and that cancel culture has arrived here. Neither of those sit well with me. On the other hand I used to moderate Linux Forums in it’s heyday, so I understand how difficult moderation can be.

The way we used to deal with moderator burnout was to invite some of the more sensible active members to be mods. That way there was always enough of us to handle the workload and no one felt overburdened.

On that forum, you didn’t contact an individual mod, instead your contact went into a mod queue where a moderator would pick it up and deal with it. You could always see the whole interaction. I don’t know how it is on this forum software.

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No one is being punished. It’s just a change. People tend to not like change. Just go along you’ll see. Change is good!

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Maybe I’m being a bit delicate, but that’s how it felt to me.

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“Punished” may be the wrong word, but we are suffering the consequences because of the actions of a few. While the restructuring of Lounge to Linux Lounge may not be “the sky is falling” action some thought, we are still losing some threads/topics that were fun.

A rather Orwellian comment, IMHO. :thinking: No, the blanket statement of “Change is good” is not good. Blanket statements, in general, are not good. Necessary change is good, however. And @Bryanpwo was put in a terrible situation by a few bad apples, in which necessary change was warranted.

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As my writing teacher told me, never use absolutes. They’ll always get you in trouble. :slight_smile:

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I miss Yahoo chat :face_with_diagonal_mouth:

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Well, I guess you can call eliminating a huge percentage of threads “change”.
I haven’t visited the ‘What are You Listening to’ for awhile but hard for me to imagine it had evolved into “political soapbox”.
So what is to prevent the other topics that “change“ will be preserving from suffering the same fate?
And then what since moderation isn’t an answer?

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Well, it’s hard to believe, and yes you will wonder how it even happened, but it happened :sweat_smile:

If I recall correctly, (because I can’t look as the thread is now deleted, so I have to trust my memory here.. ) someone posted Antifa songs, then someone different posted song in response to this song but against Antifa (I think?) , then the other guy posted another Antifa song… Something like that, kind of crazy, I don’t know what was going on with them but it looked a bit like a song battle.

I think it was midnight when I saw this so maybe I dreamed it, but I don’t think so because why else would this thread be affected :rofl:

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that went w-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-y over my head–didn’t even notice that at all. a covert pro/anti ‘tifa song duel thread inside a thread? :head_shaking_vertically:

kidding aside there is no room for anything but love of music on a music thread. not ideologies for sure. If this is part of the Adult Day CareTM/behind-the-scenes of the Modding Crew(dalto explained very well yesterday), then I’m starting to get a clearer picture of where Bryan & Co. thought their precious time was being siphoned off at.

I still miss the jokes and the music but am hoping for the best.

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Yeah, it seems people always find a way to do stuff…

I will miss posting new Starset song releases, or posting a random song and explaining the lore to it :smiling_face_with_tear:

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Personally, I never cared about the lounge activities. I usually just open the forum for a few seconds and check the latest threads to see if someone has some issue I might know something about. For a while now technical threads were buried by lounge threads.

If I want reddit I go to reddit(I rarely do).

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Humm still no good excuse to delete a whole thread with just jokes! :person_facepalming: If it is to hard/time consuming to moderate a Joke thread them let it be free(unfiltered, uncensored! (minus illigal, porn and stuff).

Create a new section And Maby put an disclaimer like:

This is humor no snowflakes allowed.
? :person_shrugging:

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I understand this is a decision that is very hard to accept, given the responses on the other thread.
This is the direction we’re going in. This forum is first and foremost created for the distro EndeavourOS. So, we’re going back to the original purpose this forum was created for.

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OK…it’s sad turn off events but it’s your Forum.

It’s just sad…:sad_but_relieved_face:

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I recall there was a member of the community posting links to “inappropriate to the forum standards” right wing political podcasts all the time and I used to think to each their own, you can’t agree with everyone, etc., and move on. I wasn’t sure if it was just to be outrageous but whatever…

I eventually stopped looking at that part of the forum even if that made me miss out on learning about some new to me music and me posting my own finds. Maybe that section should have been titled “what MUSIC are you listening to" but that lapse doesn’t much matter any more :sad_but_relieved_face:

Any harassment training I’ve received through work, first thing they teach is think before you share, how sharing content about a "protected class” is actually illegal and could get the company in trouble, etc. I know a Linux forum isn’t exactly the same thing but similar considerations should apply…

Should we have “Harassment Training" annually as part of continued forum membership? :sweat_smile:

Sadly a few malcontents have again shown us "this is why we can’t have nice things”