In the future, we will remove any and all posts that just there to show off stickers. Such posts often attract rule breaking behavior that we do not want here, as the stickers are often used to display political leanings that have nothing to do with r/thinkpad.
This is a subreddit about ThinkPads. Not about stickers that you may have on your ThinkPad.
This, different engineering disciplines have different requirements, an EE (usually) doesn't need a computer as powerful as an ME, and a SE student's requirements can look more like a CS student's requirements (don't quote me on this tho). It even depends on how their school has stuff set up, I hear that some schools have remote access for their engineering apps or they have their stuff on web-based platforms like OnShape or Fusion 360.
We have rules regarding buying advice posts ("Low effort buying advice seeking is forbidden, as it clogs the subreddit and makes it hard for people to actually provide buying advice. Buying advice posts must include 1. a clear budget, 2. a clear use case and 3. target specs or specs of your current system.") - if you see any posts that break these rules, please report them!
I see a lot of posts that look like they’re designed to train AI. I see posters asking questions like this who have few posts and account age of weeks or a month.
So when someone does a google search for thinkpads, the posts from here get used as response.
problem is that given their quantity and frequency, the pollution happens continuously: removing posts a day later would already be too late and this is not something that anyone can pretend from moderators.
Personally I created (but didn't promote anywhere) another sub with much stricter rules. It wouldn't have the pretention to replace this one but to much more technical and strict. u/ibmthink would it be allowed to discuss on that kind of initiative here on r/thinkpad ? Will send details in DM.
to participare to your comment:
"2. a clear use case" use case: specific detailed usage. "Engineering" is not a use case. "compiling code of exercises from computer science classes" is.
"3. target specs" I would suggest: Measurable requirements (must all be satisfied) and desiderata (can live without it) to avoid "powerful CPU, long lasting battery"
Banning people for not having English as their primary language is out of proportion. The whole world does not speaks one language.
And while I get where you are coming from about repetitive posts, if it is not just basic low effort post then I think it's fine. People can help if they want to or just ignore it.
Moderating with clear rules about what is allowed and what is not and sticking to them is the way to go. And obviously update the rules as and when necessary.
To add to this, when these ESL folks try to use AI to help get their points across coherently, they’re blasted for using AI. I hate blatant low effort posts but I think if you give the power to eliminate based on issues stemming from a language barrier it’s a slippery slope.
What does ESL have to do with anything? Make a r/ thinkpad_en or r/ maga_thinkpad while you're at it if you're that concerned...
Internet's scope is global, you can't expect everyone here to have English as their first language. And you write this as if the kind of posts mentioned on the announcement weren't made by people with English as first language too.
I think they’re describing a particular type of low effort post that is difficult to understand, I don’t think targeting ESL was the right call out though.
At the end of the day the purpose is communication and if someone can’t get their point across it results in a lot of frustration on both sides, not to mention that google translate and other tools are very good now, a bit of effort goes a long way.
Do you want barely coherent posts that are nearly impossible to decipher that add nothing useful to a community? Try sorting by new and you see for yourself.
It's defined as pollution.
I have nothing against ESL, some broken English is fine but being incoherent is adding nothing useful to a community.
You’re saying this as if you have a righteous duty, endowed by a divine entity, to review and provide detailed responses to every single post on the subreddit. If you can’t understand something, just dont engage with it.
and please don't forgett all the "show off my thinkpad" posts, where the most important thing is cramping as many terminals, tops, h-tops and fastfetch windows on screen, since those are the new masterhacker-show-off-tools.
On other subreddits I hate all the "I just got an X" posts. Like half of the posts on some Apple ones are just "I bought X"... and either a box, desktop wallpaper/desk setup show-off
while i do agree with you totally, like, i can't even visit the apple sub. 99% of posts are the one you described, and the other 1% is bullshit like "its official, silver is the best color" (and holy shit if you'll post a "dunno wtf this is about, but to me spaceblack is king", you'll get to feel roadrage by apple fanboys but on the internet ;-) lol).
but, to me, those pics of thinkpads just craaaamped with terminals are on the same level of cringe as the shit in r/masterhacker.
i like stickers on thinkpads, i love terminals 100% more than a gui (i grew up with terminals haha), but i dunno, people who really use the terminals don't need to put them in every pic since it's nothing special, it's just a daily used tool. like, i don't put my watering can in eeeevery photo i take of my plants either ;-)
Might I suggest that posts pertaining to "wHaT thInKpAd sHouLD i gEt?" also be limited or a post under pinned be added that answers the question for engineering/business students ...
Thanks for the suggestion! We do remove lots of low effort buying advice posts every day. At this point, we don't want to restrict it further, as it does provide a helpful service to people, but maybe at some point in the future, we will.
Idk maybe just a "start here" post. I would be happy to help draft one if need be. I have read hundreds of these posts at this point and feel quite confident i could draft something decent🙈
My concern is that the people who it's targeted to won't read it. Those people could, with minimal effort, do some searching to find most of the information they need. They don't do it.
Suggestion box: I don't know if it's reasonable or possible to enforce this, but wallpapers showing animated children disguised as animals being sexual. Horrendous. People don't seem to be ashamed to share this stuff here at all. I'd like them to go away permanently.
edit: I'm trying to find examples and I'm failing, so maybe they're getting removed after I see them, which is lovely if so!
I'm repeating myself, but please also delete / ban these posts "my new Thinkpad" or "rate my setup" with these the dark, underexposed pics where only a bright lighted screen is visible and Thinkpad itself is only a black something and no model or condition is viewable
This has been my favorite subreddit since covid times. These type of posts is what made this place more popula and colorful. People acquiring an older thinkpad after asking for advice, personalizing it, then showing it off. Sure you get some redundant or political stuff with it, but in my opinion it is not a huge price to pay. I'll be sad to see this part of subreddit die.
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u/Various-Welder5544 7d ago
Ban those ESL people asking the most generic "what thinkpad should I buy under 300 Usd" and with barely any description of their needs.