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This is really at the borderline of what we would have blocked. Please try to ensure that your postings are on-topic and have a bit more substance. Thanks!

Rick,

I only recently started using dzone, could you please explain why this is not worthy dzone?

Mrinal

How about some meat behind the sensationalist title? You have two twitter sentences, and a lot of exclamation marks. This is about it. How about some well-thought arguments about why is this bad, what can be done instead and what the competition (Apple, Adobe, Sun) are doing?

Kirill,

Sensationalist title ?.. umm its called News.
Is there a policy here on dzone (please point me to it) that says you cannot submit News that can trigger a healthy discussion? if so then I'm sorry and would make sure not to do that in future. There are some 10 people discussing the move on the post right now, what's bad about that ? ... this news may affect the decisions we RIA developers make in the future... so i'm not sure what i did wrong. The exclamation marks (3 to be exact) were my reaction to the news.

As for the meat, well I have several posts on my blog that discuss different aspects of various RIA technologies, so I don't discuss the whole dynamics RIA space in every post that I write and just take things as they happen.

Mrinal

I tried looking for a posting policy for dzone, could someone please point me to it

Rick's original concern was ... "Please try to ensure that your postings are on-topic and have a bit more substance"...

1. On-topic - I tagged the post under .net, flash-flex, microsoft and RIA .. how is this post not on topic ?

2. Who are you to decide what has substance? Isn't that what the voting is for?

Mrinal

Hi Mrinal, I simply made a friendly suggestion because I felt your posting had good intentions but lacked something in the substance department. I'm betting we both share an interest in seeing the best links here on DZone, and it's part of my job to be sure that's what we get. We block over a hundred per day without making friendly suggestions, and countless more users are simply banned (or the avalance of spam would be totally unmanageable.)

I'm confident your posting was not intended as spam, so I didn't choose to block it. I hope this helps explain.

Cheers,
Rick

PS - We do not have a big, long table of rules and policies. You can trust, however, that if one of the mods here gives you a suggestion, it is probably useful to keep it in mind.

Rick,

Thank you for replying,

The first sentence in your comment "This is really at the borderline of what we would have blocked" did not make me feel very comfortable and makes DZone feel like a Edited/Controlled environment, rather than a democratic one that i am used to everywhere on the web. I'm sure you have good intentions and want to maintain the quality of the content but I feel blocking should be done for spam or if an article is off topic .... my post was totally relevant News and of interest to RIA developers .. if it wasn't then so many people (all well respected RIA developers) would not have wasted their time discussing it in the comments of my post on my blog.

If the content does not seem "of substance" to you or any other moderator .. that is just one person's opinion and you should vote it down like anyone else.

Mrinal

The idea of pure democracy is a beautiful one, Mrinal, but this is not a pure democracy. DZone's team routinely prunes links that we consider to be noise, spam, or otherwise unattractive to our audience. The laser focus of DZone is what our audience appreciates, and we spend significant effort to maintain it.

Your opinion is duly noted, but we will continue to operate as we always have.

Rick

PS - You should note that I didn't even vote your posting down. I merely made a suggestion to give you guidance from a moderator's perspective. I think you may be making more of this than is warranted.

There are only three people discussing (including the author) and other three who voted it down. There is nothing inherently right or wrong. It's just below the level of what most would expect from a developer-oriented aggregator. You can submit anything you want, and there is no policy as far as i can tell. The simple unwritten rule is - if you don't like it, you vote it down. For now, all votes (except yours) have been down.

I don't mind being voted down, thats good feedback, what i am questioning is this statement made by Rick in the first comment .. "This is really at the borderline of what we would have blocked." .. what did I do to deserve being almost blocked? If the content is not good just vote it down .. isn't that what the voting is for?

When I said 10 people I was talking about the 10 people (all RIA developers) who commented on my blog underneath the post.

If I violated some rule, I would like to see the policy that states the rules.

Rick,

I only recently started using dzone, could you please explain why this is not worthy dzone?

Mrinal

Hi Mrinal, all though I personally completely agree with you on your concerns about Silverlight and Windows Update, I think you still should listen to Rick. Your blog has virtually no content at all and is basically just to sentences. This probably works great on Twitter, but on an RSS aggregator having so little content on a "blog item" won't get you many friends ;)
If it had at least a full paragraph, preferably with some "in-depth content" I'd probably give you the up since I completely share your concern, though with the current completely lack of substance I am sorry to admit that even I cannot give you the up thumb here...! :(

Thanks for the feedback polterguy :) .. I will keep that in mind for future posts.

This post was written as an instant reaction to something i saw on twitter, and I am totally ok if people dont like it being concise and express that by voting the post down or in comments as you did ... but why threaten me with this .. "This is really at the borderline of what we would have blocked" ?

If this is an optional update, then how exactly are Microsoft 'stuffing it down your throat?'

Article marked down for sensationalism without substance.

ra17770,

The article was written as a News item, the moment i found out about it .. I could not confirm anything at the point, and I just expressed my reaction to the News and wrote an article to see what others feel about it ... several people have expressed their feelings/opinions in the comments of the article, yours is a valid argument too.

It was not a well thought out article with some kind of a master plan to create sensation, it was just an instant reaction .. I have several other articles on my blog that study various RIA technologies in detail.

The resentment i expressed above was not for the article being voted down but for Rick's comment ... "This is really at the borderline of what we would have blocked. Please try to ensure that your postings are on-topic and have a bit more substance."

I cannot understand why this article was considered for being blocked out .... I don see any rule that I broke and as for the reasons Rick stated ...

1. On-Topic - I tagged the post under .net, flash-flex, microsoft and RIA and I believe this post is related to all these topics
2. Substance - well I firmly believe that a moderator should not be judging substance, dzone has a very nice voting mechanism to judge that, if a moderator thinks the content lacks substance, he can vote it down like everyone else .. instead of threatening to block it.

Mrinal

Why is it a big deal even if it's in Windows Update? What made you think Microsoft wouldn't do something like this? They're trying to overcome a huge barrier to entry in the RIA market. Like it or not, it's a smart business move. I don't necessarily agree with their tactics but their business strategy people are pretty smart.

To your point about substance I appreciate that you're posting your thought and soliciting feedback, however, it's a bit shorter than most articles that want to be a discussion starter -- to me, it reads a little like flame-bait. That being said, I look forward to some of your other posts.

Yeah, I guess everyone saw it coming and ya its a good business tactic .. but it doesn't seem fair to me and hence my reaction .. fair play would be to let content drive adoption.. lets think about the small players for a minute, take Curl for example, they have a fairly good technology and their biggest problem just like Microsoft is plugin adoption .. is this move fair to them?

Also, pretty much every web company is getting into the business of making browser plugins ... Adobe, Microsoft, Sun, Apple, Google, Yahoo .. I'm sure there are many more to come .. so the thought that concerns me is ... should all these plugins grow organically or should these companies be allowed to use their existing installations on the desktop to boost adoption ... to me the second choice is some what disconcerting and I was looking at gathering everyone else's opinion in my post.

Thank you for the feedback on the length of the post, i will keep that in mind in the future.

When is what is fair a good thing to consider for a business? Ethical is one thing but fair is something completely different...

I've got to give you credit...you've got a big set of balls coming here, posting something for the first time, then arguing with the moderators (including the site founder) when they are giving you feedback as to what is appropriate and what is not.

As to the content of your post....Silverlight as an optional download doesnt threaten anyone. Have you also been complaining about the .NET runtime being made available via Windows Update?

Lets just leave my balls out of this .. if someone tries to control what I have to say I speak louder ... what Rick said .. "This is really at the borderline of what we would have blocked" ... was way more controlling than a suggestion and I had no clue he's this site's founder .. all I'm saying is let people say what they have to say as long as the content is relevant to the topic .. in my opinion a moderator should not be judging if the content has substance .. the site has a voting mechanism for every body to judge that.

Mrinal, I really appreciate your passion and tenacity. There's nothing wrong with sticking to your guns. Nonetheless, you have an idealized democratic view that doesn't reflect the reality that the web is a nasty and harsh place where good judgment must sometimes be mixed in with the pure co-called "wisdom of the crowd." In truth, most crowd are mobs, not wise.

We do, in fact, have moderators here on DZone. They provide an important service that helps make DZone more attractive for all of us. I hope you'll understand.

Rick

Rick,

"In truth, most crowd are mobs, not wise" ....... Yeah, tell me about it, I'm in the middle of realizing just that :D

As for the way of moderating lets just say we have a difference of opinion and leave it at that. Regarding my post I appreciate everyone's feedback, I dont necessarily agree with you all but I've duly noted everything that was said and will try to improve.

Mrinal

Oh ... and thanks to the 3 people who did see my point :D

this was so useless, i had to login to vote it down...

Last thing we need is another Slashdot here on DZone..