# Have we lost Codinghorror? **URL:** \ **Category:** Site Feedback\ **Created:** [October 25, 2020, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-codinghorror/923884 "2020-10-25T23:02:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2020, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-codinghorror/923884/1 "2020-10-25T23:02:53Z")
**Codinghorror** ’s avatar has reverted to a generic “C” and he’s listed as “inactive”. Have we lost our direct link to Discouse? ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2020, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-codinghorror/923884/2 "2020-10-25T23:46:02Z")
It would appear so: > [@Inability to adds notes to some Flags is a problem](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inability-to-adds-notes-to-some-flags-is-a-problem/922643/40): > > Sorry about that. Consider me gone. > [@Inability to adds notes to some Flags is a problem](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inability-to-adds-notes-to-some-flags-is-a-problem/922643/43): > > Well, I regretfully see now that I am part of the problem. The community here is great, and always has been. Please carry on, and in the words of Bill and Ted, “be excellent to each other!” wave ---
**Author:** ![Kron](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kron/32/12444_2.png) [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2020, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-codinghorror/923884/3 "2020-10-25T23:46:41Z")
> [@Inability to adds notes to some Flags is a problem](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inability-to-adds-notes-to-some-flags-is-a-problem/922643/50): > > I don’t think most of us were being hostile. And if he’s now going to refuse to talk to us at all, in any thread, on any subject: that strikes me as an extreme reaction. > > @codinghorror, I hope you’re still reading, and will reactivate. In disagreeing with you I certainly didn’t intend to dis you. But we need to be able to disagree, and to say so. That’s also an essential part of these boards. Left in the flag issue thread. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2020, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-codinghorror/923884/4 "2020-10-25T23:51:50Z")
To clarify: the ‘sorry about that, consider me gone’ wasn’t in response to a post of mine. At least, I don’t think so; it may have been a response to the thread as a whole, and I was one of multiple people disagreeing with him. ---
**Author:** ![Kron](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kron/32/12444_2.png) [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-codinghorror/923884/5 "2020-10-26T01:03:04Z")
My apologies, I should have clarified that, myself, using your post as I did. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-codinghorror/923884/6 "2020-10-26T01:46:58Z")
Not a problem; just thought I’d remove one possible point of confusion from what seems to me a pretty confused situation. At any rate, I’m confused as to why codinghorror thought it necessary to leave the boards altogether. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-codinghorror/923884/7 "2020-10-26T01:53:39Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > At any rate, I’m confused as to why codinghorror thought it necessary to leave the boards altogether. - We commented that his baby has a large nose, he thought we were calling his baby a Halloween mask with legs. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-codinghorror/923884/8 "2020-10-26T02:04:03Z")
Huh. I was going to tell him that his approach to community seemed like that of a Martian who had read about those strange Earth people but had never met one. But I thought that might be considered insulting. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-codinghorror/923884/9 "2020-10-26T02:46:13Z")
I think @puzzlegal said it best in the other thread. He has been a great resource overall and happened to be wrong in this case. But the thing is, he can be absolutely wrong in terms of our community, and it still doesn’t mean that he’s wrong not to change his platform. I’m in software, and any good developer quickly learns that reacting to every customer need is a good way to destroy your product. Discourse is used by a lot more than the SD, and changing his platform now because one board “needs” it is not the right move. The arrogance of this place can be annoying sometimes. And I don’t blame **codinghorror** for ducking out. Too many people here took advantage of his membership on the board to @ him to bitch and moan every time they didn’t like something. Go to the [Discourse feedback forums](https://meta.discourse.org/) like anyone else if you want to complain. As for the specific issue, have Ed change the text on the current options so people know what to select of they want to leave a comment. If we don’t have an admin to make changes like that, it’s our problem, not **codinghorror’s**. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-codinghorror/923884/10 "2020-10-26T02:53:39Z")
😢 ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-codinghorror/923884/11 "2020-10-26T02:55:35Z")
If I could just make an impartial, non-judgmental observation (really), I think there’s a bit of history here that goes beyond just that one thread. Take a look **[at this thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/may-we-enable-the-ability-to-quote-the-entire-previous-post/918126)** as an example. To save time, you might just scroll down to the concluding paragraph of **[post #9](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/may-we-enable-the-ability-to-quote-the-entire-previous-post/918126/9)** and then @codinghorror’s immediate response in **[post #10](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/may-we-enable-the-ability-to-quote-the-entire-previous-post/918126/10)**. It just gets ever more contentious from there. I offer no further comment nor any kind of judgment. Read the whole thread if you want, and make of it what you will. > [@TroutMan](#): > > And I don’t blame **codinghorror** for ducking out. Too many people here took advantage of his membership on the board to @ him to bitch and moan every time they didn’t like something. Go to the [Discourse feedback forums](https://meta.discourse.org/) like anyone else if you want to complain. Perhaps a valid point. ---
**Author:** ![Kron](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kron/32/12444_2.png) [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-codinghorror/923884/12 "2020-10-26T03:04:18Z")
Thanks, I was trying to remember that exact thread to link to! ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-codinghorror/923884/13 "2020-10-26T03:05:31Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Read the whole thread if you want, and make of it what you will. It looks like the same thing I mentioned in my first post: people saying that we are so unique that all these things that work fine for every other community on Discourse don’t work for us, and therefore Discourse should be changed. It’s still BS. It is OK for us to say that certain functionality would work much better for our board if it was different. We aren’t wrong. But we are wrong when we say that therefore he needs to change his platform, and he is right to suggest that the proper solution is for us to deal with it, or choose different software. And if you think the latter option is best, then again your complaint is with the people here, not **codinghorror**. ---
**Author:** ![Kron](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kron/32/12444_2.png) [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-codinghorror/923884/14 "2020-10-26T03:12:09Z")
Honestly, just a response of “The software just isn’t designed to do that” would probably have mollified many of us, but instead, we got “You are wrong for wanting that, my way is better!” And I say this as somebody that wholly appreciates all the changes from vBulletin, so far. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-codinghorror/923884/15 "2020-10-26T03:12:52Z")
And this most recent issue is really not “the software is wrong”, it’s just “the software doesn’t work as well as it could for this forum, how can we make it work better”. I think it’s really true that different defaults and different rules are better in different contexts. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-codinghorror/923884/16 "2020-10-26T03:24:14Z")
> [@Kron](#): > > Honestly, just a response of “The software just isn’t designed to do that” would probably have mollified many of us, but instead, we got “You are wrong for wanting that, my way is better!” You’re right, he could have responded better. But I’ve been there, so while I don’t excuse him, I do understand it. Some people here (not all) were either directly rude, or indirectly with the implication that he was too stupid to see that we were right. I’d lose my patience too. (And I bet the responses would have been more polite if we’d posted suggestions in the general Discourse forum instead of treating him like our lackey.) ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-codinghorror/923884/17 "2020-10-26T04:17:04Z")
> [@Kron](#): > > Honestly, just a response of “The software just isn’t designed to do that” would probably have mollified many of us Or ‘this is what works well for most boards here, and there’s no sense in changing it because it’s not working well for one specific board.’ That’s a response that would make sense to me. For that matter, so would a response, even a snarky one, explaining that some were misunderstanding codinghorror’s relationship to the board. Or even a statement that he wasn’t going to agree with most posting in the thread, didn’t see any point in discussing it further, and was leaving the thread. But leaving the board as a whole, while simultaneously praising it and claiming he was the one who was the problem? was that sarcasm, maybe? Not clear to me at all. > [@TroutMan](#): > > I bet the responses would have been more polite if we’d posted suggestions in the general Discourse forum That didn’t even occur to me. I don’t feel like I’m posting on, or particularly a member of, Discourse-in-general. I feel like I’m posting on the Straight Dope boards, which are currently hosted on Discourse. It wouldn’t have occured to me to go somewhere other than the Dope boards to discuss a problem with the Dope boards – especially since there are threads on these boards and in fact an entire Site Feedback forum intended to discuss problems with Discourse, and nobody’s come into them to tell us we shouldn’t be doing that and should be discussing them elsewhere instead. If ever since we got here we’ve been doing the equivalent of complaining about moderation outside of ATMB, shouldn’t codinghorror, or somebody, have told us that? ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-codinghorror/923884/18 "2020-10-26T04:28:48Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > It looks like the same thing I mentioned in my first post: people saying that we are so unique that all these things that work fine for every other community on Discourse don’t work for us, and therefore Discourse should be changed. It’s still BS. Wha?? Did you read the thread **Wolfpup** linked to? People said they’d like to have an indicator when they reply to the post immediately previous to theirs, because as it stands now, there’s no arrow or indicator of any kind. See post #19 and #22 in that thread. There was no reason for his first passive-aggressive response. Nobody was being a special snowflake except for him. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-codinghorror/923884/19 "2020-10-26T04:50:29Z")
Yes, I read the whole thing. I suggest you read post 9 again, where **BigT** explained our uniqueness, why all the things **codinghorror** had politely explained earlier were not correct for our forum, and then itemized all the other things that were fine for everyone else but not for us. I too would have suggested looking elsewhere after that. To **thorny\_locust’s** point above, it can be difficult to know what things are configuration choices we’ve made, and what things require changes to the underlying platform. No one should feel bad for requesting changes. But some of the requests went beyond asking into demanding, with a side of “you dumbshit, listen to us smart people.” **Codinghorror** could have done a better job of explaining why he didn’t want to make those changes, but it doesn’t excuse the tone from some people here. And why give him grief for leaving? What was he getting out of it for himself? People should participate here because they enjoy it, not because they have some duty to answer to us. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-codinghorror/923884/20 "2020-10-26T05:12:24Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > And why give him grief for leaving? Because the polite thing for him to do would have been to make a closing post that explained some of the issues/point of view that you, for example, have shared with us, and to say something polite to explain where/how people could offer feedback. We can be a tough bunch to satisfy, and I don’t blame anyone who becomes exasperated at our collective demeanor or demands. But y’know what? That’s life on the internet. Certain jobs require a high tolerance for internet bitching. If you can’t take the heat, at least give people the address of the kitchen where they can keep cooking. (I for one was completely unaware that there was a separate forum for providing Discourse feedback. Were we supposed to magically know that, or did I miss something?) I miss **TubaDiva** so much. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-lost-codinghorror/923884.md?page=2)