God, I can’t even remember who the OP was. It was a great set of ideas, a great set of images, and a great set of java scripts. What happened to it? Why was it disappeared? What was wrong with users freely and willfully chosing to download his/her scripts?
His entirely optional, end-user specific idea for a Greasemonkey thingy seemed really cool. Why did you delete the thread?
Yeah, that was me. I don’t know what happened. I didn’t get a PM or anything about it. I spent a considerable amount of time on that thread…
For once, I honestly think the people running this board have no idea what they are doing. Sad, really.
Either that, or they just violated their own “Don’t Be A Jerk” rule.
Man, I’m not usually this rude. But I do expect them to uphold some rules of human decency, and to have some technical knowledge. There is absolutely no rule they can lean on to claim what they did was right. If I were more cynical, I’d assume they knew this, and that is why they tried to get rid of the evidence, rather than just lock the thread with a note addressing what they were discussing.
Whatever happened to transparent administration?
It might have come under the rule about advertising.
Yeah, I thought it was a really cool idea too. Would have helped immensely in the Mafia games.
This thread title is how I found out it happened. I assume I’m going to get a PM about it. Rather, I hope.
The advertising rule only works if the person was selling a product or directing people to a website. This was doing neither, as anyone with any breadth of intelligence would know if they read it.
And, anyways, they did it without even notifying the OP!!! WTF!!!
The script idea was awesome. Then just vanished. It looked like you spent hours typing that, and making the images, plus heaps of time on the actual script. Then gone without a word.
I got a PM from an administrator about it. That’s about it.
Man, I’m being really mean today. I’m changing meds, if that can be an excuse.
I’m the guy who usually waits until he’s cooled down to post, and I didn’t this time.
I’m sure that someone thought it was advertising, and nuked it without realizing what it really was. I mean, I’m the guy who says that people aren’t inherently mean, and usually have what they consider to be a good reason for doing stuff.
Come on, SDMB staff. Don’t let me down.
We’re not being mean. We’re discussing this situation right now because we don’t permit this kind of thing without advance permission. You just can’t throw stuff up like that without clearing it first.
This is how we’ve always done business and it’s how we do business for most anything out of the ordinary you might want to do. Mostly we approve. He didn’t give us a chance to do that so now we’re dealing with it.
If (as it sounds) there’s been a misunderstanding here – i.e., you suggested a technical innovation for the SDMB, which an admin has thought was just a form of advertisement – I hope this can be clarified.
Of course, not all technical improvements are possible, or even practical, but at least we Dopers should be able to discuss them.
Merged both the threads on this topic together.
Again, to repeat: It’s being discussed. If the OP had come to us first like you’re supposed to this maybe wouldn’t be an issue.
I think everybody misunderstood everything.
A greasemonkey script is something people download on their own to augment their own experience of a website. I wasn’t trying to modify the forum or suggest improvements.
Like I said when I responded to the admin’s PM, it’s exactly the same as if I made a thread saying you can change the default font in your browser to make SDMB easier to read. It was deleted, though, as if I were broadcasting a pirate radio signal with instructions for how to dismantle the forum. Hack the planet!!
There is no rule saying that he had to do this! So why be so rude for not following an unwritten rule?
Twice I considered asking one of the mods for their thoughts about the script before I continued working on the script, and both times I thought, “Nah, why the hell should they care?”
“we don’t permit this kind of thing without advance permission”
I don’t know what “this kind of thing” is. There’s a rule in place about user-generated optional userscripts?
I’m reminded of the first time I brought a palm pilot into middle school and the teachers all debated which rule they could use to forbid me from using it, rather than figuring out what it was and if it posed a threat to anybody.
This has all been very disillusioning.
Yes, I just read through the registration agreement and all of the FAQs, and I don’t see anything about having to ask administrators for permission before posting scripts that will change your browser experience. Maybe that’s one of those unwritten rules that everyone is just supposed to know about, but wierdaaron is a relative newbie. And anyway, I didn’t know about this rule either, and I’ve been around since 2000.
Before sniping at people that they could have avoided this if only they had bothered to follow the rules, you might want to actually write down the rules. I’m just saying.
From the registration agreement.
I’m presuming it had something to do with this.
Big T, you should be more civil about this. Shouting is not useful and is abusive. This is not the Pit. I’m not shouting at you and I’m not being rude, you too should likewise be courteous.
And there is this:
Straight Dope Message Board Registration Agreement
Throwing scripts up that we don’t know about and have not approved in advance is potentially abuse of the site; we don’t know about it, we don’t know what’s in it. This is a moderated board and we require that you ask permission for everything out of the ordinary and that includes strange scripts from people we don’t know. It’s not an excessive request and has been in place as long as we’ve been here.