As you know Brahn, the originator of ClarionHub passed away some time back.
Rebecca, his widow has been extremely helpful in helping myself and other moderators to gain more access to the infrastructure of the hub, with the end game of the hub continuing in the hands of the community.
Today I was able to gain access to the docker container and ubuntu bubble that ClarionHub resides in.
As a first step I wanted to update the software the hub uses (Discourse) to the latest version. It hadn’t been updated since Brahn passed away. I hit a couple of snags whilst trying to do this, which caused the hub to be down for a few hours. For that, I apologise.
After a lot of reading online, I discovered a couple of plugins to discourse that Brahn was using that are not supported, or have been integrated into later versions of the discourse software. After removing them from a yaml file, I was able to update discourse to 3.0
There are a few other issues we are looking to resolve, and in time we will take over the day to day maintenance and financials of the hub.
If there are issues with this new version, then of course, please let us know in a reply.
Discourse tries to operate without supervision by using various rules.
When posts get flagged by a number of users they are automatically rolled-up by Discourse. Instead a Link is shown. The post can still be viewed by clicking the link. Your posts are still viewable.
The flagged posts show on the Moderator page for action. The Moderator can unflag it to show, leave it rolled-up, or delete it. All mods are unpaid volunteers, so there is no rush to act on these .
As you noted pressing Flag opens a pop-up that requires picking 1 of 4 choices:
Off Topic
Inappropriate
Spam
Something Else … Requires a description
#1 is the most common.
#4 is usually a request for a moderator to do things like Split a Topic that has drifted, or fix a post defect.
Your posts were all flagged for being Off Topic. The Topic was “Code Signing Comodo Alternatives”. Your last flagged post (quoted below) about problems with law is not at all related to that topic. The others are similar.
I see that go on all the time, I really do wonder about the law, I just seen one of our politicians had someone talking to him and that person is now being prosecuted for assault. I thought how come, no physical contact took place, well it turns out talking to anyone who is in fear of harm which can include innuendo, can be prosecuted for assault, ranging from common to grievous. Its a different world in law.
This is a tech forum. Assume all posts are public to the whole world. If you feel there is information in there that will hurt your visa application, then don’t post it at all.
As an aside, free speech in the US applies to govt, not to companies or communities. It is not a blanket right to “post whatever you like wherever you like” (even in the US). Rather it exists so you cannot be jailed for critisizing the govt. And even then there are exceptions.
This is not a free-speech forum. It is a tech forum. Stay on topic and you should be well inside the cultural norms for all countries, regardless of culture.
The reason this site exists is to be Google searchable, and linkable to all users logged in or not.
I considered that because it is off topic in the thread it is in. Its a thread about a clarionlive.com presentation.
If the thread sparked a related security topic, then you could easily start a new thread on that. Discussing ways of detecting data tampering, and what to do if tampering is detected, would be a useful topic, just not in that thread.
I get that you care deeply about security Richard. But devolving each thread into security is not helpful to people getting answers on non-security threads. Do please try and stay on-topic, and if you want to start a new thread please do so.
Fair point. Can this account @richclacode and @anon54430101 be deleted. I think in light of whats going, its time to call it quits, I value my privacy too much.
Could you clarify what you mean by “what’s going [on]”?
Is ClarionHub’s desire to keep threads on topic and about tech topics disconcerting?
Or is your concern related to the intent to have tech content searchable by Google (much as one would search StackOverflow via Google)
Or something else?
I ask because Im not sure the moderators are sure about the nature and scope of your concerns. Your concerns might also reflect the concerns of others who might not wish to speak up, so you might be helping others as well if you wish to answer.
