What is the purpose of these these forums? Who is welcome?

[only_human]

As plans and actions drift an occasional review is useful,
I'm proposing discussion leading to forum guidance and etiquette.

As fivemack notes here:

Originally Posted by fivemack

it's a forum attached to a particular computational project, around which have accreted a number of discussions of other computational projects, around some of which one or two mathematicians drop in from time to time.

Some heartfelt and profound discussion has been occurring in these forums lately on this issue.

The clearest direction to these forums is focused too strictly on the GIMPS project: Information & Answers > New To GIMPS? Start Here!

New to GIMPS? Start here!
Welcome to the mersenneforum.org, the official forums for the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) project.

This forum is for anyone participating in the GIMPS project regardless of team affiliation. It is moderated by volunteer users. Users can read and search this forum without registering. Users who want to post to it must register first, apart from on the Public Forum Ask Questions Here! where no registration is required. Questions about this forum (including any problems) can be directed to the moderator(s) via email, or to Xyzzy, the forum Manager.

The purpose of this thread is to give new users, or people that are just curious, some information about the project, a little bit of information about the background of the project, information on how to get started with GIMPS, pointers to where you can find help, links to other GIMPS sites, and some other more or less useful pieces of information. For those of you that are only interested in how to get started, jump directly to the How to get started with GIMPS post.

Contents
What is GIMPS?
The 41st Mersenne Prime!
The 40th Mersenne Prime!
What is Distributed Computing?
A little bit of history
A tiny bit of theory
Some words about the Work and the Client
Monetary Award!!!
The type of work you can do
How to get started with GIMPS
How to set up a Team
Ethics in choice of DC project
Why donate your computer cycles to GIMPS?
A handful of GIMPS Links
More on Distributed Computing
How to Sneakernet the client
Why participate in the GIMPS project
What now?
A list of online references to M40

I prefer workplace decorum (not calling people on the carpet in front of coworkers) and I have a dislike of schoolyard bullying. Even so, I have placed this thread in the Soap Box and I recognize that that allows latitude in expressing feelings and some flaming.

[garo]

What it says on the tin. RDS has been banned permanently.

[Brian-E]

Originally Posted by garo

What it says on the tin.

Always a bit lazy and slap-dash, I tend to glance at the picture on the tin and ignore the small print. So it may well already say this on the tin, or the tin may in fact contradict it, but here's my suggestion:

Keep etiquette rules to a minimum. Everyone is welcome, and that means that all sorts of behaviour should be tolerated, recognising that each individual has different ideas about how to interact. Intervene only when someone's behaviour is actually disrupting the ability of others to feel welcome and/or engage in the interaction - for example, if someone is showing intolerance of another participant, or if he/she is posting so much off-topic stuff that the conversation is being disrupted.

Pretty obvious, really. For what it's worth, broadly speaking I don't think I've ever seen any of the supermods here acting, when in function, in any way other than the promotion of the above ideal. So this forum, with its management and moderators, is basically sound and, where required, self-correcting.

Oh, one last throw-away remark: I think only_human would make a great supermod if the already strong team ever needs further strengthening.

[Dubslow]

Originally Posted by garo

RDS has been banned permanently.

I must say I don't particularly agree on this decision, though I admit I may have missed much of the conversation about it.



Edit: To be clear I do think a ban was in order, but not a permanent ban. xilman is right IMO.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by Dubslow

I must say I don't particularly agree on this decision, though I admit I may have missed much of the conversation about it.

It's harsher than I would have imposed. I was getting ready to slap him down for 1-4 weeks. His gloating over bullying another member out of the forum was beyond the pale, IMAO, and needed the application of discipline.

Whether you like Bob's style or not, he can bring some positives to the forum.


Paul

[only_human]

Originally Posted by Brian-E

Always a bit lazy and slap-dash, I tend to glance at the picture on the tin and ignore the small print. So it may well already say this on the tin, or the tin may in fact contradict it, but here's my suggestion:

Keep etiquette rules to a minimum. Everyone is welcome, and that means that all sorts of behaviour should be tolerated, recognising that each individual has different ideas about how to interact. Intervene only when someone's behaviour is actually disrupting the ability of others to feel welcome and/or engage in the interaction - for example, if someone is showing intolerance of another participant, or if he/she is posting so much off-topic stuff that the conversation is being disrupted.

One thing the tin doesn't mention is that many people here (including volunteer moderators) speak additional languages. I admire the clarity of some older papers even in different languages. It is fun to follow the mathematics, spot a cognate here and there and know exactly what is being discussed. Many, many times I have seen people here be helpful to others who have English language difficulties.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by only_human

One thing the tin doesn't mention is that many people here (including volunteer moderators) speak additional languages. I admire the clarity of some older papers even in different languages. It is fun to follow the mathematics, spot a cognate here and there and know exactly what is being discussed. Many, many times I have seen people here be helpful to others who have English language difficulties.

Sometimes it seems to me that it's a pity that access to the Hoff forum is by invite only. A discussion is going on over there which started with the innocent sounding question 'How does one say "buh-bye" in British?' and has already developed into a consideration of Indo-European roots and comparisons between German and Hindi.

[KyleAskine]

The forums are certainly a friendlier place with RDS gone, but I don't know if they are better off. He has incredible knowledge, and when he was giving technical answers, I really appreciated his input.

It's too bad that his posts tended to drift into personal attacks, and he had a hard time (to say the least) seeing other peoples' point of view.

[LaurV]

I would really miss Mr Silverman. As I repeatedly said, I like his "go back to the books" attitude. I may not always like the language, or the fact that he jumped too soon, before understanding what the other guy had said. But I respect him for his knowledge and his occasional very good technical inputs.

[Xyzzy]

FWIW:

ASSUMING Mister Silverman still wishes to post to this forum AND IF someone is willing to post his message for him on his behalf, taking full responsibility for the contents of his message, we doubt any of the supermods would object to that.

[Fusion_power]

Assuming someone wants to take a shower while wearing a raincoat, that might work.

DarJones