Well in that infamous thread I discovered the R-Darktable fork by Aurelien which was totally unexpected (and an incredibile surprise too). I like opinionated forks (like ART); a couple of hours ago I compiled and run rdt and it was a blast! (*)
(*) Meaning that it was exactly like dt but leaner and faster and newer – except for messing up white balance on old edits, I had to manually set white balance module to as shot to let color calibration do its thing.
The bigger question is were lines crossed. I didn’t see the posts that came later than the ones I contributed. Perhaps people were indeed acting like children. I have not gone looking for standards or code of conduct or whatever for the forum as I personally can’t imagine calling someone a dick (or worse) even if they actually are, or if they sound like one or whatever (just an example again) . Its not in my nature and I also never presume to speak for anyone else and I generally try to make it clear that I am offering my opinion and not much more while trying to be respectful…But if we have strong willed and or aggressive types and there are clear rules and they are broken then as a group we need to decide what is correct course of action. Perhaps this is a moment for reflection and comment not simply if it was right or wrong but how we will respond in the future and if there is perhaps a better way. If you delete a thread then everyone suffers but maybe if we are penalized we will take more care or will standup and not tolerate or participate in such a dialogue. If on the other hand we started to single people out this introduces a whole new potential for problems and people may feel discriminated against or targeted… Personally I don’t want the forum to degrade to the level that you see in the comments most places online where the discussion degrades after 3 or 4 comments into a pissing match that often is not even remotely on topic or relevant to where things started. I think if you have rules and they are broken then enforce them. If the rules are broken or in need of review then lets review them and see where they can be improved. I am not sure how many moderators we currently have but maybe the decision to delete a thread can not be done by a single moderator. There must be consensus majority if that is possible… This might allow for a less biased a fair assessment of the situation… If something offends the moderating “team” then it goes based on the group rules and criteria for posting???
Just my thoughts…worth about 0.1 cents with today’s inflation 
Except for this extremely childish take. We have uses here who are in China.
If you want to go find the dt fork, go for it. If someone else wants to start another thread about it, go for it. Other than a link to the project, there was no useful discussion about it.
It’s not a comparable situation, but in case it’s in anyway useful as a reference for the future — as a newswire editor, there’s a difference between correcting a story and taking it off the wire altogether. The latter is reserved for errors that can’t easily be corrected with an accurate version. The main thing is to be transparent with the reader, which is harder to do if the story has been wiped. I have no experience at moderation, though, so maybe that’s very different.
there was a spiral down to rude personal attacks (and that’s a quite positive description)
A moderator has to decide which audience he has in mind: an audience interested in darktable or an audience interested in mudslinging.
There’re more then enough platforms for the latter, so purging the thread was a good decision.
Unfortunately there’re plenty of those around thinking that foss is about requesting something from others even in a disrespective way instead of accepting that those who does the job decide over their own time an effort …
Well, maybe it was a mistake to start the thread in the first place.
I am sorry that it developed the way it developed.
I knew about some changes and I thought it could be an interesting discussion, but it turned out to be too interesting, too much of the “good”.
Hi,
It’s not strange in itself, it’s the contrast between this general policy (with which I agree) and the specific action taken in this case (with which I disagree) that is strange to me. I just took a (quick) look at some recent controversial threads, and in those cases the action had always been to hide controversial and/or offensive individual replies and possibly lock the thread, not kill it. So what’s the difference here? I think there was useful information in the thread, that now got lost. (Btw it’s a rethorical question, I’m not asking you to justify your actions, you certainly have the right to act as a mod without explanation – I just found this surprising, that’s all)
Moderation is a difficult and strenous task - my take is that in doubt the moderator is always right (as in a rugby referee, not as in a soccer referee). Thanks everyone on the mod team for your work!
Personally in situations like this one, when moderating a support forum I handle it slightly differently, mostly to prevent follow-up discussions like this and also because when in doubt I favor transparency: I usually delete the offending posts (because plainly insulting posts have no place where I moderate) and add a post of my own saying what I did. If I feel like it I add a very brief justification, but generally just factual “I deleted posts because not constructive and not according to forum standards” - period. Depending on who was involved I make a judgement call if I trust the people involved to not continue the bad behaviour (and if there’s even a chance of useful continuation), and depending on that close the topic or not.
When I hit 10 posts removed out of the 20-something new posts, I decided the whole thing wasn’t useful.
I was a bit disappointed to see the thread disappear, but I’m fundamentally good with what you did. Me, I’m a fan of the ‘process’, that is, how things are done, how they’re governed. This forum has a well-defined set of rules and considerations for that, and a governance structure to implement them. @paperdigits, you as a duly-appointed moderator did your job, and that’s what counts. You’re also constructively taking feedback, thanks for that.
It’s not like we won’t take up the relevant conversations again; indeed, seems to be happening. Gee, I love this place… 
I do not think it was a mistake - after all, to me it seemed like your question was meant to provoke a discussion and it is not your fault that some answers were pretty rough in tone - some quite painful to read even as a bystander, to be honest (take that as “surprising but understandable” @paperdigits).
With the rise of vkdt, I was wondering about dt’s future, too - though more in a “Yay! A clean rewrite (roughly) of a software I love” - way.
And through this thread I learned about R&Darktable, which is interesting in itself and definitely worth a look - so there was some positive information I could gather from it.
After all, people seem to be very passionate about (digital) image manipulation, which in itself is a cool thing - and in general I like the discussion culture here
thanks
I don’t think you should be deciding what’s “useful” - a very subjective decision anyway. I think you’re American - what about the 1st Amendment?!
Having said that, I didn’t see what was posted during the UK-overnight. Sounds like it was quite bad. So I think you should have said you deleted it due to highly abusive language or whatever it was. Saying it “spiralled out of control” is vague, and saying “I do not think it’s [dt’s] future should be questioned” is censorship.
Yes, most of the moderation is subjective. That is what makes it difficult. I’ve said it several.different ways, so useful = constructive = civil and the discussion was none of those things.
I am American, that’s why I know that the 1st amendment is about what the American government can and can’t do to it’s citizens, not about what a privately run entity can do to its users. Similarly, the american paradigm of free speech does not exist on other social media platforms either, because they’re not.goverent run. Alluding to “free speech” on private platforms means you have no idea what the American concept of free speech is.
Further, pixls has never been a “free speech” zone and it never will be.
I didn’t say that, please quote me properly instead of twisting my words to fit your argument.
You did! Though there should not be an apostrophe in “it’s”
Then quote it. Not rewrite it. That’s not what I said. I said there shouldn’t be doubt’s about dt’s future. I didn’t say “don’t question it.”
You can’t be pedantic and ignore the subtlety of my speech at the same time.
Since this seems to become a controversy in its own right, perhaps a suggestion. As the famous saying goes “With great power, comes great responsibility”. If a moderator believes it is in the best interest of the forum to execute great power, it may be wise to consult a fellow moderator to share the responsibility.
I would like to point out we often consult each other before taking actions. It is just not visible to you.
Perfect example of this crap as we are trying to discuss it. Be better… You really needed the grammar comment?? What did that contribute and why did you feel compelled to stick it in there??
Thank you. Pixls.us doesn’t need rude comments.