This board has become friendlier

[Mæstro]

As is good practise, I am replying in a new thread instead of making an off-topic aside, for I predict this will be more than an aside.

This thread reminds me of how much more friendly the forum has been the past few years. Friendly and yet the devs have remained highly productive, if not more so. Interesting contrast to some of the ways some folks responded in the old days.

I have noticed the same, and I have felt it especially within the last year or so. Since a bad influence removed itself from my life just under a year ago, I have made the conscious effort to learn tolerance, and in the process, I could discard much of the paranoia, hypersensitivity and defensiveness which used to define many of my social interactions, as well as many wrong ideas about normative conduct. My post about being nice online celebrates my healing process and hopes to pass on some of these lessons. I think something like this could be said about the board as a whole. We are healing. Once the bad influences have left, the rest of us can carry on and behave much more naturally and decently than before.

[andyprough]

Since a bad influence removed itself from my life just under a year ago, I have made the conscious effort to learn tolerance, and in the process, I could discard much of the paranoia, hypersensitivity and defensiveness which used to define many of my social interactions, as well as many wrong ideas about normative conduct.

That's an interesting point, once a bad influence leaves an area it can be healed of the negativity and chaos that followed in their wake.

I was thinking of one specific person who left this forum a few years ago. I actually liked and respected him quite a lot, but I think that others knew him much better than I did and probably had grown very tired of his behavior. I somehow avoided becoming the focus of his ire; he probably had too many targets and not enough time to hand out insults to all of them. Like you say, it wasn't just one person leaving, it has been a real change overall in the tone of the interactions here. Very enjoyable now, and clearly focused on productivity and accomplishing goals for the browser.

Seems like a nice topic for the holiday season. Good cheer and loving thy neighbor and all that.

[fatboy]

Just want to chime in since I feel the same way. The forum has become much "nicer" and more engaging than before.

[Mæstro]

Technical communities have always had to cope with geeks in the pejorative sense. It has only become worse once such fine specimens of mankind as Gates, Zuckerberg and Musk showed everybody that one can live like that while enjoying great social prestige and influence, letting (the ability to command) technical skill substitute for personality. Ultimately, Pale Moon won the battle for its soul, and I believe this is a good omen for its future. There is no need to identify any of the countless examples of open source software which were poisoned to death by the community’s or developer’s toxicity. Speaking with my artist friend showed me that it extends beyond the world of software altogether, into artistic and popular culture communities. Happily, the world is big enough for all of us to find our own places in it.

[frostknight]

I was thinking of one specific person who left this forum a few years ago. I actually liked and respected him quite a lot, but I think that others knew him much better than I did and probably had grown very tired of his behavior. I somehow avoided becoming the focus of his ire; he probably had too many targets and not enough time to hand out insults to all of them.

The person you speak of, I escaped his ire mostly, but I do admit it is better he left, since he had some toxicity.

I do hope he recovers as a person and becomes a better person.
Living in toxicity is not fun

, I know this well since in my past I was rarely ever happy in my 20s. Anywho, hopefully less people will have to deal with becoming like that in the future.

[vannilla]

I guess it is time for me to be problematic on purpose.

[Moonchild]

I guess it is time for me to be problematic on purpose.

[RoestVrijStaal]

Forums are mostly about user interaction.

So the proverb "Reap What You Sow" illustrates exactly what's going on here

[billmcct]

Forums are mostly about user interaction.

So the proverb "Reap What You Sow" illustrates exactly what's going on here

+1

[frostknight]

Forums are mostly about user interaction.

So the proverb "Reap What You Sow" illustrates exactly what's going on here

Absolutely...

[UCyborg]

This thread gives me Harry Potter vibes. He who must not be named. Bad Lord Voldemort!

You think Pale Moon would be less behind times with more Tobins in developers' ranks?

[andyprough]

You think Pale Moon would be less behind times with more Tobins in developers' ranks?

The dude rage quit. And MC's postmortem recap on Tobin's actual accomplishments did not give the impression that he was responsible for any significant advances. And Pale Moon has seen many significant advances since he left, and is on the cusp of another major new release. Your question answers itself.

[Mæstro]

This thread gives me Harry Potter vibes. He who must not be named. Bad Lord Voldemort!

None of us want to turn this thread into a Tobin hate thread; it would go against the spirit of being nice. Several users here look on Tobin, years removed, more as a developer with technical skill than anything else. Because I was often his vitriol’s target back then, and I have suffered since at the hands of other caustic people kept around for their technical skill (including an inveterate Putinist at one point) in unrelated contexts, I cannot think of him in this light myself. For us, it is rather time and distance from him and goodwill towards men which bring peace. We would be lying if we did not admit this distance has permitted this board’s mood to recover. Just as staff cannot ignore users, users cannot ignore staff.

You think Pale Moon would be less behind times with more Tobins in developers' ranks?

I should rather say we are not behind the times, but sometimes, ‘progress’ progresses too fast. A gentler pace is not a bad thing.

[UCyborg]

Just seems any time there is an advance, there is another wave of new things that aren't implemented yet. And then you read on MDN: Baseline: widely available. Then you come across another useful feature and...it won't work on Pale Moon.

When it seemed Custom Elements would solve all compat problems, here I am grumbling about NextCloud being broken and Jenkins looking like crap. Then the random crashes or hangs...about 32-bit version, first launch today and it crashes the first 5 min, then another launch and now it's been open for 7 hours.

Never mind that it's hogging the CPU again and eating electricity, but who cares, the entire planet is going to shit anyway.

[andyprough]

Never mind that it's hogging the CPU again and eating electricity, but who cares, the entire planet is going to shit anyway.

I'm old enough to remember when there was a global concern about reducing carbon emissions. But now, we as a society have become enlightened enough to realize that grandma needs AI in her solitaire game and toddlers need their own personalized AI nanny companions. So I guess it's "burn baby burn" again. Good times.

[Mæstro]

Just seems any time there is an advance, there is another wave of new things that aren't implemented yet.

How familiar…

A slow sort of country! Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!

Give me the Dodo’s caucus race any day.

[UCyborg]

Sure, I'd be fine with not having to update a web browser in a year or even longer. Of course, I'd never touch NextCloud or Jenkins if it wasn't for the workplace. Who in their right mind would spend 8-16 in an office doing something they have no interest in if it wasn't for existential reasons?

Never mind that it's hogging the CPU again and eating electricity, but who cares, the entire planet is going to shit anyway.

I'm old enough to remember when there was a global concern about reducing carbon emissions. But now, we as a society have become enlightened enough to realize that grandma needs AI in her solitaire game and toddlers need their own personalized AI nanny companions. So I guess it's "burn baby burn" again. Good times.

A clown world.

On the bright side, I was on a laptop with low power consumption and it didn't seem it was a permanent CPU hog.

None of us want to turn this thread into a Tobin hate thread; it would go against the spirit of being nice.

I agree. I distance myself from the drama, but have picked up he was the last guy suitable for public relations.

[Moonchild]

I've been thinking about whether I should weigh in here or not about Tobin specifically, and decided initially to not do so, but it seems people have relatively short memories these days so let's be fair here:
Tobin has helped a lot when it came to build system shenanigans and I absolutely have always appreciated and will always appreciate the work he did put into Pale Moon. His SeaMonkey background allowed him to make things easier in UXP (and in fact calling it "UXP" was his idea so his influence will live on that way if nothing else). So on one hand, he's been a very valuable contributor to the project.
On the other hand, his personal nature prevented him from being a "good shepherd" for the community resulting in many, many instances of friction, which in turn drove other potential programming volunteers away (and harmed adoption by the public). I tried to compensate for that as best I could, but the constant fights necessary to come to common sense compromise was just not always successful. After his disastrous decision to try and kill the project, which did result in an official report to the FBI/IC3 by the way, it took time for everyone to recover and thankfully, with Tobin no longer part of the project, more highly-motivated people have helped out putting a lot of progress into the platform and browser.

However, let's not paint Tobin's presence in the past here in a more rosy light than it deserves: His manipulation of (and eventual departure from) the project was absolutely visceral in terms of harm caused. I personally managed to mitigate some of it but we have proverbial scars to this day. His knowledge also didn't go nearly as deep as some people think, especially in terms of the innards of Gecko/Goanna. Bluster and projection was part of how he does/did things, though, and I cannot fault him for being who he is, but that never should have risen to the level of destruction there has been. What he did was unforgivable, and should never be forgotten. At the same time, there's no point in aiming for retribution or vengeance -- those are almost always hollow and pointless responses. And I'm happy to see that in the time since, the community has focused on becoming (much) more cooperative, and focusing on improving what we have in a user-focused way.

[frostknight]

His knowledge also didn't go nearly as deep as some people think, especially in terms of the innards of Gecko/Goanna. Bluster and projection was part of how he does/did things, though, and I cannot fault him for being who he is, but that never should have risen to the level of destruction there has been. What he did was unforgivable, and should never be forgotten

Out of curiosity, when you say what he did was unforgivable, you are speaking of trying to hijack your server to take control of it?

I thought his intentions were to take control of the project from you, not kill the project altogether.

Shows me how much I know I guess.

But yeah, he was toxic, but besides the Hyperbola discrimination stuff, where he discriminated against them, I mostly was just cautious around him.

In any case, as said before, hope he is healing from his negativity. Its not fun to be that way, I know this myself... from personal experience... still have some left in me though.

[Moonchild]

Off-topic:

Out of curiosity, when you say what he did was unforgivable, you are speaking of trying to hijack your server to take control of it?

No, that was just the apex of it. And FTR he didn't "try to hijack the server"; there was no attempt to hijack even though he clearly exceeded his authorization, and it was purely destructive/for leverage, AFAIK.
I'd prefer to leave all that in the past though. It's been 3.5 years and we've moved on for the better, so leave it at that.