Thread Subject: Marco Review

Quick: Before TMW deletes it... check out v.good's review of Marco's most recent submission: http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/23968

It says:
"Well I tried a fairly polite comment but it was deleted under the new FEX censorship regime. Instead I'll just be completely blunt.
This program sucks. This author sucks. The FEX sucks. The people imposing chinese communist style censorship suck. The people defending cheaters and spammers suck. The people mucking up the site with contest files suck. The contests themselves suck. Anyone hired by TMW after 2006 sucks.
When Cleve was involved in the site this kind of thing never happened. The FEX was a happy academic place. Like a library. There was reverence for good code. There was scorn for hacks and poor programming. It very closely resembled the kind of academic environment experienced in engineering school. Now TMW has hired some clueless Gen-X people who have brought their twisted sense of fairness along with their technical incompetence to the administration of the FEX.
Congratulations. You've turned a legitimate technical programmer into a rogue spammer and cheat. In the same span of time you've turned a rogue spammer and cheat into a legitimate technical programmer."

I couldn't have said it better myself. Based on the last two sentences, it appears that we are all becoming Marco and he and his ilk are becoming us. That's enough to make a person either take up drinking or simply to drop out of the FEX like I have.

"Duane Hanselman" <masteringmatlab@yahoo.spam.com> wrote in message <gtdl4u$j67$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> Quick: Before TMW deletes it... check out v.good's review of Marco's most recent submission: http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/23968
>

I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit.

Its the only way to be sure.

"Ripley " <no@no.com> wrote in message <gtf82q$qm$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
>
> I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit.
>
> Its the only way to be sure.

I LOVE a good Aliens reference!

"Game over, man! Game Over!!"

K

"Ripley " <no@no.com> wrote in message <gtf82q$qm$1@fred.mathworks.com>...

> I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit.
>
> Its the only way to be sure.

Funny, I just saw that movie yesterday.

"Matt Fig" <spamanon@yahoo.com> wrote in message <gtfa06$7rg$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> "Ripley " <no@no.com> wrote in message <gtf82q$qm$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
>
> > I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit.
> >
> > Its the only way to be sure.
>
> Funny, I just saw that movie yesterday.


Noooooooo! Are saying that Marco is laying eggs?

"Fifo" <btw.fyi@hotmail.com> wrote in message <gtfh32$m0u$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
>
> Noooooooo! Are saying that Marco is laying eggs?

It must be something we haven't seen.

"Fifo" <btw.fyi@hotmail.com> wrote in message <gtfh32$m0u$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
>
> Noooooooo! Are saying that Marco is laying eggs?

Well, reading his code IS just about as painful as having a monster claw its way out of your chest.

"Duane Hanselman" <masteringmatlab@yahoo.spam.com> wrote in message <gtdl4u$j67$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> Quick: Before TMW deletes it... check out v.good's review of Marco's most recent submission: http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/23968

Dito.

Mao Tse has passed and the review is gonne.
Congratulations TMW.

"Hal 9000" <Hal.9000@Discovery.com> wrote in message <gtgnd9$s21$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> "Fifo" <btw.fyi@hotmail.com> wrote in message <gtfh32$m0u$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> >
> > Noooooooo! Are saying that Marco is laying eggs?
>
> Well, reading his code IS just about as painful as having a monster claw its way out of your chest.

lol.

Yeah and current FEX censorship policy is like having a parasitic alien clamped to youir face with a tube down your throat.

I noticed that Marco looks at these newgroup threads and then posts retaliatory ratings on files submiitted by people commenting on his behavior. This rating of Jos is clearly retaliatory:
http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/7465

I'm not going to place a "compensating" rating there because I know Jos will not want that. I do, however, demand that TMW close Marco's account. Anyone else on this site that manifested such behavior would have their account suspended.

Suspend Marco's account, now. Stop covering for bad actors. Apply your policies uniformly or not at all. Get a clue about who this site really belongs to.

"Ripley " <no@no.com> wrote in message

Hello vgood -

I am truly sorry to inform you that because of your ongoing inflammatory comments on MATLAB Central, we have been forced to remove your ability to post to our community areas including Newsreader and File Exchange.

Regretfully,
Helen Chen
MATLAB Central Community Manager

Understood.

Now, here is Marco making that same kind of inflammatory comment, this one is in apparent retaliation for a comment Jos made in the newsgroup:
http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/7465

So, are you going to tolerate this? Its a repeated behaviour. Yet you cover for Marco. You apply your policies non-uniformly. In short, you are not fair.

People don't like obvious bias and yours is going to be pointed out frequently from here on. It is just a little bit too blatant to fly. You disable various user comments but allow Marco to comment completely inappropriately as he pleases. You stand by while he self-downloads his files until he ranks in the top-10. You carefully look the other way.

Nope, that is unacceptable. I reject your admonishment. Shame on you Helen.

V.Good

(Let's me try by dichotomy what is a threshold where sanction kick in.)

Marco won.

Bruno

"Bruno Luong" <b.luong@fogale.findmycountry> wrote in message <gti422$dan$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> (Let's me try by dichotomy what is a threshold where sanction kick in.)
>
> Marco won.
>
> Bruno

Yeah, maybe. I'm going to give TMW a bit more credit than that for now. Unlike Marco, the people at TMW are not sociopaths and are likely subject to shame, introspection, concious reflection. They are NOT bad people but I believe that a few are unaware of Marco's true nature and have been duped by some correspondence from him.

In the past Bruno, I might have offered my apology to you for dragging this muck down the middle of our street. After what has transpired recently I have no such regrets and have nothing to apologize for.

Helen is allowing this to happen because you people or not applying sufficient motivation to Marco or TMW.

The way I see it, you people owe me for one jelly donut, now get on your faces! <G>

"Bruno Luong" <b.luong@fogale.findmycountry> wrote in message <gti422$dan$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> (Let's me try by dichotomy what is a threshold where sanction kick in.)
>
> Marco won.

TMW is censoring this thread as well (the lack of shame is outrageous). Interested readers should follow the messages in

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.soft-sys.matlab/browse_thread/thread/2719f11f795297a3/20bbe3653e8a911d?lnk=gst&q=Marco+Review#20bbe3653e8a911d

that, so far, is out of reach from the Corporation

"Fifo" <btw.fyi@hotmail.com> wrote in message <gti859$8r2$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> "Bruno Luong" <b.luong@fogale.findmycountry> wrote in message <gti422$dan$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> > (Let's me try by dichotomy what is a threshold where sanction kick in.)
> >
> > Marco won.
>
> TMW is censoring this thread as well (the lack of shame is outrageous). Interested readers should follow the messages in
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.soft-sys.matlab/browse_thread/thread/2719f11f795297a3/20bbe3653e8a911d?lnk=gst&q=Marco+Review#20bbe3653e8a911d
>
> that, so far, is out of reach from the Corporation

http://blog.libero.it/PXlab/view.php?reset=1&id=PXlab

wow.

I could care less about vgood or marco. Children in a sandbox. Doesn't affect me.

What has me worried is the Original Poster. What is the world did TMW do to anger Duane Hanselman? I mean, if the guy who literally wrote the book on Matlab has a beef then that seems far more serious than a couple of low-level users having a spitting contest.

Duane has done more to sell Matlab than any single person at TMW.

What happened?

"James " <jmad@nospam.com> wrote:

>What has me worried is the Original Poster. What is the world did TMW do to
>anger Duane Hanselman? I mean, if the guy who literally wrote the book on
>Matlab has a beef then that seems far more serious than a couple of low-level
>users having a spitting contest.

Totally agree.

I wouldn't speak for Duane, but the biggest problem seems to be that TMW has
caught the disease of political correctness. Censorship is no substitute for
actually fixing the problem.

 My feeling is that the FEX should be simplified and made much more
tough-minded. At this stage, I suppose no-one wants to hear another opinion on
what should be done. Here's my suggestions anyway :)

-- make FEX a repository of utility files only. A submission has to be of
*some* practical use in the opinion of a moderator panel. "Educational" and
fragmentary materials can be hived off somewhere else. In the case of m-files,
they are easy to publish because they are not large and are text-only. If the
author feels his program needs exposure but it's not acceptable to FEX, what's
wrong with more ephemeral routes such as this NG? Even NGs get archived.
-- all discussion and comments on FEX submissions is pushed out somewhere else,
eg, this NG
-- all forms of interactive ranking are scrapped: egos being what they are, it
*always* causes entrenched fighting
-- FEX is made 2 tier and not negotiable. A moderator panel selects what is
agreed to be well written code of wide applicability, and puts it into a core
collection. Everything else goes into a general collection, and no discussion
re categorisation will be entered into. After all, the file IS still available.
-- a tag system is maintained to help searching, based on any classification
system which covers most maths and computing topics
-- requests for adding ever-more-specific tags are refused. Users may not add
new tags to the classification scheme except via suggestions to the moderator
panel.

The usual problem is finding moderators. However we already have good people
in the Matlab camp who have put up their hands. Go for it.

Ross

ross <ross@nospam.com> wrote in message <49fd7589$1@news.mel.dft.com.au>...
> "James " <jmad@nospam.com> wrote:
>
> >What has me worried is the Original Poster. What is the world did TMW do to
> >anger Duane Hanselman? I mean, if the guy who literally wrote the book on
> >Matlab has a beef then that seems far more serious than a couple of low-level
> >users having a spitting contest.
>
> Totally agree.
>
> I wouldn't speak for Duane, but the biggest problem seems to be that TMW has
> caught the disease of political correctness. Censorship is no substitute for
> actually fixing the problem.
>
> My feeling is that the FEX should be simplified and made much more
> tough-minded. At this stage, I suppose no-one wants to hear another opinion on
> what should be done. Here's my suggestions anyway :)
>
> -- make FEX a repository of utility files only. A submission has to be of
> *some* practical use in the opinion of a moderator panel. "Educational" and
> fragmentary materials can be hived off somewhere else. In the case of m-files,
> they are easy to publish because they are not large and are text-only. If the
> author feels his program needs exposure but it's not acceptable to FEX, what's
> wrong with more ephemeral routes such as this NG? Even NGs get archived.
> -- all discussion and comments on FEX submissions is pushed out somewhere else,
> eg, this NG
> -- all forms of interactive ranking are scrapped: egos being what they are, it
> *always* causes entrenched fighting
> -- FEX is made 2 tier and not negotiable. A moderator panel selects what is
> agreed to be well written code of wide applicability, and puts it into a core
> collection. Everything else goes into a general collection, and no discussion
> re categorisation will be entered into. After all, the file IS still available.
> -- a tag system is maintained to help searching, based on any classification
> system which covers most maths and computing topics
> -- requests for adding ever-more-specific tags are refused. Users may not add
> new tags to the classification scheme except via suggestions to the moderator
> panel.
>
> The usual problem is finding moderators. However we already have good people
> in the Matlab camp who have put up their hands. Go for it.
>
> Ross

Excellent post. Some workable ideas there.

To me the obvious mod candidates were:

Duane: wrote the book, extremely knowledgable

John: very tough but very fair. enormously capable

Yi: brilliiant but probably not interested

Yair: wow, just wow

Dimitri: good balance across science disciplines, an obvious choice

Us: also very very tough but quite good and likely impartial

I sincerely believe that these guys or authors like them would have preserved the old spirit of the Exchange and its technical integrity. I'm not sure why TMW didn't go this direction and I'm not going to speculate.

vgood, banished vgood

"v. good" <no@nospam.com> wrote in message <gtkgd6$e69$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> ross <ross@nospam.com> wrote in message <49fd7589$1@news.mel.dft.com.au>...
> > "James " <jmad@nospam.com> wrote:
> >
> > >What has me worried is the Original Poster. What is the world did TMW do to
> > >anger Duane Hanselman? I mean, if the guy who literally wrote the book on
> > >Matlab has a beef then that seems far more serious than a couple of low-level
> > >users having a spitting contest.
> >
> > Totally agree.
> >
> > I wouldn't speak for Duane, but the biggest problem seems to be that TMW has
> > caught the disease of political correctness. Censorship is no substitute for
> > actually fixing the problem.
> >
> > My feeling is that the FEX should be simplified and made much more
> > tough-minded. At this stage, I suppose no-one wants to hear another opinion on
> > what should be done. Here's my suggestions anyway :)
> >
> > -- make FEX a repository of utility files only. A submission has to be of
> > *some* practical use in the opinion of a moderator panel. "Educational" and
> > fragmentary materials can be hived off somewhere else. In the case of m-files,
> > they are easy to publish because they are not large and are text-only. If the
> > author feels his program needs exposure but it's not acceptable to FEX, what's
> > wrong with more ephemeral routes such as this NG? Even NGs get archived.
> > -- all discussion and comments on FEX submissions is pushed out somewhere else,
> > eg, this NG
> > -- all forms of interactive ranking are scrapped: egos being what they are, it
> > *always* causes entrenched fighting
> > -- FEX is made 2 tier and not negotiable. A moderator panel selects what is
> > agreed to be well written code of wide applicability, and puts it into a core
> > collection. Everything else goes into a general collection, and no discussion
> > re categorisation will be entered into. After all, the file IS still available.
> > -- a tag system is maintained to help searching, based on any classification
> > system which covers most maths and computing topics
> > -- requests for adding ever-more-specific tags are refused. Users may not add
> > new tags to the classification scheme except via suggestions to the moderator
> > panel.
> >
> > The usual problem is finding moderators. However we already have good people
> > in the Matlab camp who have put up their hands. Go for it.
> >
> > Ross
>
> Excellent post. Some workable ideas there.
>
> To me the obvious mod candidates were:
>
> Duane: wrote the book, extremely knowledgable
>
> John: very tough but very fair. enormously capable
>
> Yi: brilliiant but probably not interested
>
> Yair: wow, just wow
>
> Dimitri: good balance across science disciplines, an obvious choice
>
> Us: also very very tough but quite good and likely impartial
>
> I sincerely believe that these guys or authors like them would have preserved the old spirit of the Exchange and its technical integrity. I'm not sure why TMW didn't go this direction and I'm not going to speculate.
>
> vgood, banished vgood

Yes. We tried for a year or so, to make something work.

At first, we tried to vote tha bad stuff off the island,
but this failed. We decided that it made more sense
anyway to concentrate on the good files. To be honest
I think this should have worked, and that we should
have found a way to make it work. So, we tried FEX
Select.

FEX Select was a way to pull out the very best files
and label them as such. I think the problem we had
was not accurately defining what qualified a file as
Select, and doing so in advance. This should have
been workable.

I also tried an exercise, where I downloaded EVERY
single file in one of the old FEX categories (MATH)
and carefully looked them over. Then I tried picking
out the best of the 300 files or so that I had
downloaded. While this worked, it took me many
hours to do. The idea was if we could assign one
person to be a category moderator for each category.
That person could then identify the best files, those
which would be identified as select. Surely we could
have found qualified individuals to take on this duty.

John