Related
Erm, almost all of the topics on the first few pages have been asked and answered already very recently.
Maybe if when you clicked 'New thread' a dialog asking "Would you like to search the forums for the answer first?" popped up, people would actually search and add to existing threads. Maybe
Or if there was a rating system where users could click 'this has been asked and answered before'
I totally agree, I found this forum like many other XDA noobs as it is the most active community discussing the X1. however even I instantly recognised that this is not the place for "how do I do this?" questions. The Xperia has definately introduced a whole new generation of users (including myself) to PDAs and indeed to Windows mobile which in turn creates a wave of previously mentioned questions. All this stuff which can be learned by reading the manual, googling, or even calling customer support should not be asked in a developer forum and is only slowing down the progress of the people in the scene which really matter. I would be very happy to abide by rules such as junior members not allowed to create new threads, or even (as mentioned) a MASSIVE notice when creating a new thread that doesnt let you post until you have run a search. Anyone used OZGrid forums for Excel/Office programming help? thats exactly what they do there, and if you post a stupid question thats already been answered - two week ban. I am very happy to abide by these rules for a more productive community - my 2p
why do i have to read your complaints? are your complaints new? Do a search, im sure youll see some complaints like yours.
rough... so rough...
Some of us still ask questions that are specific to the device, and I believe that still having one repository for XPeria related stuff isn't a bad thing, even if it's repetitive.
If we could update the Wiki it would probably be better (ahem - I couldn't create a page for some reason?)
billybobjones said:
why do i have to read your complaints? are your complaints new? Do a search, im sure youll see some complaints like yours.
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lol hats off to you
billybobjones said:
why do i have to read your complaints? are your complaints new? Do a search, im sure youll see some complaints like yours.
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What are you talking about? There are no other threads about this in this forum. I always search - why else would it annoy me that others don't. I suppose you didn't when you made that comment.
Edit: It also annoys me when people fill up the forums with useless comments. Happens all over the net, but serves no purpose. And, BillyBobJones, you chose to read my complaint, when you clicked on the very descriptive, unique, thread title. Seems you haven't made any valid poitns at all then. Were you just looking to complain? Are you bored, or do you just enjoy it? Shu.
perhaps sometimes searches may not bring out exact solutions? folks lets be a little nicer ya?
and you chose to read repetitive threads. Whats your point? I bet theres many on this whole site. in fact, i bet i can find comments like yours where people are instructed to use the search..
http://www.google.com/cse?cx=000825...=use+the+search&cof=FORID:0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
i dont see how this thread is helping anyone.
Date: Monday May 24th, 2010
Time: From 9:00 am to 4:00 pm (EST)
Questions? pm me.
Thanks and hope to see you then.
This thread will remain closed until the specified time.
First of all, I wanted to welcome all of you and thank you for taking the time to put all the remaining issues to rest. As with anything on this site, please be courteous to others, don't flame, don't curse, and try to make your comments as meaningful as possible (in other words, don't troll )
This is a floor for discussion and debate, so whoever feels like speaking up, please do so. I believe that the first order of business is the fixxxer issue. Cbarlan (aka Papa_Smurf) already put me up to speed on that issue but I would like to have some more input from you all.
The only thing i will add to this is im tired of being accused and followed around here because im new, same goes for other newbies as well. This smixxxer guy is obviously a banned member and keeps signing up to stir up trouble. I know i accused neb of being him and i talked to a few members who told me it was not, so for that i humbly apologize. I firmly believe once someone is banned from here, they should stay banned. Id just like to see people start getting along more. In my mind fixxxer is talked about than the hero itself, he's not here anymore and the subject needs to end already.
Thats all id like to add to this as i have to go.
For me, personally, most of what I had issue with has been resolved, both through a bit more leniency from the mods (thanks you guys!), and the creation of the off-topic thread for us to blow off steam in.
Re: fixxer/nebs situation, I am prolly too biased on this to give much of an objective opinion. That being said, if nebs and fixxer are both willing to cool the vitriol a bit, I see no reason to keep the bans up. Others may feel differently, but that is where I stand.
Ban his IP. /End Game
EDIT:
I'll edit this by saying I know the IP thing is useless. Not much you can do other than watch out for the trolls.
Kcarpenter said:
Ban his IP. /End Game
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which his? smixxer?
I think it's just unfortunate there are such easy ways to get around a ban.
FYI and FWIW- I have not created any identities on this site other than this one and phenicks.
I am done with fixxxer even though he is obviously still here. I hope he can begin to grow up a little and stop fueling "the fire".
Without the ability to reliably ban someone from simply making a new login ID I would like to suggest the following as food for thought:
To help cut down on banned members coming right back to start more crap:
-2 to 4 week period before new members can post AND/OR
-2 to 4 week post (not read) restriction to general/q&a sections for new members
To help cut down on redundant and misplaced threads by noobs:
-20/30 post minimum before new members can make a new thread
To help clarify who is actually a senior member:
-500 posts to earn senior member status
(It can be confusing for a noob who to direct questions to, also I have seen as high as 32 posts/day counts.. senior member in 3-4 days?)
-neb
PS.
Thank you for the off topic lounge, that one is a home-run
And thank you to Egz and Ryan and other mods for your involvement lately. I for one am delighted to see the member side of you guys rather than just the moderator side.
nebenezer said:
I think it's just unfortunate there are such easy ways to get around a ban.
FYI and FWIW- I have not created any identities on this site other than this one and phenicks.
I am done with fixxxer even though he is obviously still here. I hope he can begin to grow up a little and stop fueling "the fire".
Without the ability to reliably ban someone from simply making a new login ID I would like to suggest the following as food for thought:
To help cut down on banned members coming right back to start more crap:
-2 to 4 week period before new members can post AND/OR
-2 to 4 week post (not read) restriction to general/q&a sections for new members
To help cut down on redundant and misplaced threads by noobs:
-20/30 post minimum before new members can make a new thread
To help clarify who is actually a senior member:
-500 posts to earn senior member status
(It can be confusing for a noob who to direct questions to, also I have seen as high as 32 posts/day counts.. senior member in 3-4 days?)
-neb
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Neb buddy, are you refering to me?
I agree completely here. On several forums I have been on in the past there is a minimum reply number to current posts before you can start a new thread. This would stop the "Im new and don't wanna read" and also would prevent people from being banned and being able to go start a new account and have just as much going as they did before.
Kcarpenter said:
Neb buddy, are you refering to me?
I agree completely here. On several forums I have been on in the past there is a minimum reply number to current posts before you can start a new thread. This would stop the "Im new and don't wanna read" and also would prevent people from being banned and being able to go start a new account and have just as much going as they did before.
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^WORST-OFFENDER-EVER
Hahaha, J/K of course
Also, I think its great that this place is such a fantastic resource and I think it's great that many of the senior members have the patience to answer questions that come in the form of brand new threads in the wrong sections.
I'd like to see people (senior members) get more comfortable with prefacing their responses to these threads with "This should have gone <here>". I am not suggesting we don't answer these questions, I would just like to see some diligence guiding new people to post in the appropriate section. Lots of these kinds of threads get answered and it's not until half way down the page until someone acknowledges the thread was posted is in the wrong section. Not that its a heinous offense or anything but I think most would agree new threads in the wrong sections are inconvenient and happen A LOT.
tejasrichard said:
For me, personally, most of what I had issue with has been resolved, both through a bit more leniency from the mods (thanks you guys!), and the creation of the off-topic thread for us to blow off steam in.
Re: fixxer/nebs situation, I am prolly too biased on this to give much of an objective opinion. That being said, if nebs and fixxer are both willing to cool the vitriol a bit, I see no reason to keep the bans up. Others may feel differently, but that is where I stand.
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I believe the creation of the off subject lounge and leniency of the mods have made a huge difference. With that being said I believe that being respectful by both mods and users will greatly help. Yeah I know things get out of hand at times and that the mods get tired of hearing a million reports on this section. But commingle in here with an iron fist and then trying to sweep it under the rug hoping it will go away will never work. Getting to the root of the issue is a lot more effective and trying to resolve the problem out weighs bannings. I've said this in the past banning is almost a joke. Anyone can make a sock puppet account and keep causing problems. So what doea is solve.
To the users who r act like natzis...the mods will decide if a subject goes into a different section. Either contribute to the thread or shut up. I'm so tired of someone ask a question or post a thread and watch the wave of senior members (a select few all the time) say this should go to this section. Is it that hard to answer the question or post a link to the answer (this goes for the whole use the search button also). Sometimes when u search for an answer there r so many results and it shows all result including from first day forum started and some of those are way out of date and a noob isn't as experienced enough to sort through what newer and what's older.
nebenezer said:
I think it's just unfortunate there are such easy ways to get around a ban.
FYI and FWIW- I have not created any identities on this site other than this one and phenicks.
I am done with fixxxer even though he is obviously still here. I hope he can begin to grow up a little and stop fueling "the fire".
Without the ability to reliably ban someone from simply making a new login ID I would like to suggest the following as food for thought:
To help cut down on banned members coming right back to start more crap:
-2 to 4 week period before new members can post AND/OR
-2 to 4 week post (not read) restriction to general/q&a sections for new members
To help cut down on redundant and misplaced threads by noobs:
-20/30 post minimum before new members can make a new thread
To help clarify who is actually a senior member:
-500 posts to earn senior member status
(It can be confusing for a noob who to direct questions to, also I have seen as high as 32 posts/day counts.. senior member in 3-4 days?)
-neb
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Hey neb,
For once, welcome back! I am glad that you guys are putting this whole thing behind. For the last few days, I have felt that things have really began to calm down in here (particularly because we don't see that many reported posts/threads from here anymore). I will take your suggestions to the site admin and the other mods and see what they think. Some of them can be a bit hard to implement (particularly the first two), but the other ones, I couldn't agree more (especially on the Senior Member threshold, I agree that 100 posts is just way too little). In fact, I invited the other mods and admin over here as well, so they might up in during the day as well. This thread is guaranteed to have exposure to everyone that needs to see it
Papa Smurf151 said:
To the users who r act like natzis...the mods will decide if a subject goes into a different section. Either contribute to the thread or shut up. I'm so tired of someone ask a question or post a thread and watch the wave of senior members (a select few all the time) say this should go to this section. Is it that hard to answer the question or post a link to the answer (this goes for the whole use the search button also). Sometimes when u search for an answer there r so many results and it shows all result including from first day forum started and some of those are way out of date and a noob isn't as experienced enough to sort through what newer and what's older.
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Agreed that searching can easily and often be a fruitless PITA.
As far as the response.. "if you don't have anything nice to say then don't say anything at all" (right?, lol)
I am not one to bust someones head for posting in the wrong section. I will sooner ignore the question.
I don't see any harm in telling someone they have posted in the wrong section but I think it would be great to see those types of comments accompanied by some sort of helpful reply.
*edit-
egzthunder1 said:
Hey neb,
For once, welcome back!
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Thanks Egz, Nice to meet ya!
egzthunder1 said:
Hey neb,
For once, welcome back! I am glad that you guys are putting this whole thing behind. For the last few days, I have felt that things have really began to calm down in here (particularly because we don't see that many reported posts/threads from here anymore). I will take your suggestions to the site admin and the other mods and see what they think. Some of them can be a bit hard to implement (particularly the first two), but the other ones, I couldn't agree more (especially on the Senior Member threshold, I agree that 100 posts is just way too little). In fact, I invited the other mods and admin over here as well, so they might up in during the day as well. This thread is guaranteed to have exposure to everyone that needs to see it
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Ya know, I woud like to see guys from other devices in here as well. These changes being propsed aren't just relevant to CDMA Hero's. Post Count and status should effect the whole site.
To make XDA better as a whole and to maintain it's "Developers" status so to speak, you have to quiet the people asking basic questions some times.
Personally I am not good at training, I don't want to have to teach someone how to dial there phone
egzthunder1 said:
Hey neb,
For once, welcome back! I am glad that you guys are putting this whole thing behind. For the last few days, I have felt that things have really began to calm down in here (particularly because we don't see that many reported posts/threads from here anymore). I will take your suggestions to the site admin and the other mods and see what they think. Some of them can be a bit hard to implement (particularly the first two), but the other ones, I couldn't agree more (especially on the Senior Member threshold, I agree that 100 posts is just way too little). In fact, I invited the other mods and admin over here as well, so they might up in during the day as well. This thread is guaranteed to have exposure to everyone that needs to see it
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yeah, it took me no time at all to hit senior member status, and I don't post nearly as often as some (some of you may have a hard time believing this, but i'm still averaging less than a post a day. I like to think mine are just....memorable ). Though it might add more work, it might be useful to have 3 membership types instead of 2. I mean, I can TOTALLY see needing to be around for a while before you get your senior badge, I don't think it is necessary to make a dude wait till he has 500 posts to put up a link, you know what I mean?
EDIT: w00t! I lied! I just hit avg 1.05 posts per day!
Papa Smurf151 said:
To the users who r act like natzis...the mods will decide if a subject goes into a different section. Either contribute to the thread or shut up. I'm so tired of someone ask a question or post a thread and watch the wave of senior members (a select few all the time) say this should go to this section. Is it that hard to answer the question or post a link to the answer (this goes for the whole use the search button also). Sometimes when u search for an answer there r so many results and it shows all result including from first day forum started and some of those are way out of date and a noob isn't as experienced enough to sort through what newer and what's older.
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Hey cb, I mean Papa
Love the new avatar... I guess now I understand why you wanted your name changed . Moving threads for us is a bit of a nuisance, but it has to be done so that important sub forums don't get flooded by a bunch of "asking for help" or "what do you guys think its better x or y" threads, none of which are exclusive to noobs, but some seniors as well.
The way I usually handle (or at least I used to handle when I was a regular member) the out of place threads, was normally to direct towards a solution and used the "Report" icon on the thread/post to get a mod to either move it or delete it, if needed be. People who just flat out burst into flaming or insulting the member asking the question are simply out of place and should not do that. However, I have learned over the years that many people on the internet (not only here) would much rather write a long rant on how someone should google before asking questions, than to simply say "here is the link" and pressing the report button saying "please move to x y z section"... I guess it is a culture thing...
nebenezer said:
Agreed that searching can easily and often be a fruitless PITA.
As far as the response.. "if you don't have anything nice to say then don't say anything at all" (right?, lol)
I am not one to bust someones head for posting in the wrong section. I will sooner ignore the question.
I don't see any harm in telling someone they have posted in the wrong section but I think it would be great to see those types of comments accompanied by some sort of helpful reply.
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I can agree with that but there are a select few that r like section police. Every thread that's in the wrong section they r there to let them know and that's all they contribute. I find myself reading them say that going douche just answer the question or ignore it. That's just ne though
I like LMGTFY, it gets the point across, but is helpful at the same time. Some folks get offended, but most get the point and say thanks.
edit: not to derail the thread, but a lot of people don't know HOW to search properly. It ain't enough to just plug a bunch of words in the text box and hit the button. A lot of us grew up in the pregooglenet dark ages, when searching wasn't nearly as easy, and have skills that these young whippersnappers do not posess.
tejasrichard said:
yeah, it took me no time at all to hit senior member status, and I don't post nearly as often as some (some of you may have a hard time believing this, but i'm still averaging less than a post a day. I like to think mine are just....memorable ). Though it might add more work, it might be useful to have 3 membership types instead of 2. I mean, I can TOTALLY see needing to be around for a while before you get your senior badge, I don't think it is necessary to make a dude wait till he has 500 posts to put up a link, you know what I mean?
EDIT: w00t! I lied! I just hit avg 1.05 posts per day!
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The fact that your post are memorable rather than "fillers" is a good thing (I wish more people would do that)
We have 3 levels of membership:
Junior member (up to 10 or 30 posts, I cannot remember this one)
Member (up to 100 posts)
Senior member (anything over 100 posts)
I will ask the admin about moving senior and junior levels up, because I honestly think that those are the important ones.
egzthunder1 said:
The fact that your post are memorable rather than "fillers" is a good thing (I wish more people would do that)
We have 3 levels of membership:
Junior member (up to 10 or 30 posts, I cannot remember this one)
Member (up to 100 posts)
Senior member (anything over 100 posts)
I will ask the admin about moving senior and junior levels up, because I honestly think that those are the important ones.
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Well slap me silly! I never noticed the middle designation at all.
I know I am gonna sound like a jerk, but I am a jerk most of the time, so what ..
I suggest that we refuse to answer Questions that are posted in the wrong Forum ...
The Stickies clearly state what to post where ...
If you have a question about an app, and it is not an app that has its own thread in "Themes and Apps" it Goes in "Q&A"
If you have a question about how to flash a ROM, it does not go in the ROM thread, that thread is for ROM developers to post their ROMs
If you have a question about a specific ROM it does NOT go in the Q&A it goes in the ROM thread or wherever that Chef wants you to post it ....
If you want to know how to install a Theme or a Mod, it goes in the Q&A , questions about a specific Theme or App it goes in the thread for them.
Now I know that the people that this actually pertains to will not even read this this post, so I leave it up to those that waste their time wading through senseless threads that are in the wrong place and constantly having to tell people to move things around, to decide to help police it..
We are a community, we cannot just say, "Let the Mods handle it..." There are way more of us than there are of them.
I could rant on this subject for hours but you get the point ....
Now not saying if it is the persons 1st or 2nd post that they should be pounced on, but should be nudged with whatever amount of force is needed to get them to understand.
The mods have enough problems to deal with, we should all be intelligent enough to, read the rules , read the stickies, and use some common sense ...
Thanks ....
Mods Please delete this if you feel it is over the top ..........
EDIT:
This really is a site wide issue not just picking on the LEO forum, but I am in this one 99.8925674% of the time, so figured I'd put my soapbox down here ...
While I agree with everything your saying Im not sure if ignoring the posts will do any good, they'll just end up posting again 20 minutes later asking why nobodys responding to them.........
I've not been around here all that long but I get the impression that this epidemic of repetitive questions and pointless threads is a fairly recent thing and is getting worse and worse...... No doubt this is due to so called "smartphones" being made more readily available to dumbasses, myself included.
The only reason I ever ended up visiting XDA was because I had a problem with my shiny new windows mobile and google directed me here as I'm sure it does to hundreds of people on a daily basis.
I dont really think that there is any sure way to reduce the amount of pointlessness thats occuring.
Perhaps a 24 waiting period between registering and being able to post might encourage those who turn up for the first time to search before posting.
Unfortunately we have to put up with the fact that 94.6% of the worlds populations are just dicks.............
conantroutman said:
While I agree with everything your saying Im not sure if ignoring the posts will do any good, they'll just end up posting again 20 minutes later asking why nobodys responding to them.........
I've not been around here all that long but I get the impression that this epidemic of repetitive questions and pointless threads is a fairly recent thing and is getting worse and worse...... No doubt this is due to so called "smartphones" being made more readily available to dumbasses, myself included.
The only reason I ever ended up visiting XDA was because I had a problem with my shiny new windows mobile and google directed me here as I'm sure it does to hundreds of people on a daily basis.
I dont really think that there is any sure way to reduce the amount of pointlessness thats occuring.
Perhaps a 24 waiting period between registering and being able to post might encourage those who turn up for the first time to search before posting.
Unfortunately we have to put up with the fact that 94.6% of the worlds populations are just dicks.............
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I know nothing may change, but I can always hope, I agree with the 94.6% thing fully ....
But if they keep posting the same question over and over THEN it does fall in the Mods domain as spamming , and the mods can handle it with legitimate reason.
I mean simple things, like posting in the wrong forum/thread , it is like walking into a bakery and asking them to change the oil in your car , I mean what kind of person does it take to do a bonehead move like that ...
Oh and I am not saying to really to ignore the posts, because people might learn if a few people hit their thread in the wrong place, and tell them they have the answers but will not answer it because it is in the wrong thread, I know that is being a ****, but , sometimes teaching means writing the lesson on a big stick and smacking them with it till they get the message ..
watcher64 said:
I know nothing may change, but I can always hope, I agree with the 94.6% thing fully ....
But if they keep posting the same question over and over THEN it does fall in the Mods domain as spamming , and the mods can handle it with legitimate reason.
I mean simple things, like posting in the wrong forum/thread , it is like walking into a bakery and asking them to change the oil in your car , I mean what kind of person does it take to do a bonehead move like that ...
Oh and I am not saying to really to ignore the posts, because people might learn if a few people hit their thread in the wrong place, and tell them they have the answers but will not answer it because it is in the wrong thread, I know that is being a ****, but , sometimes teaching means writing the lesson on a big stick and smacking them with it till they get the message ..
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One reason we (and I refer to new folks like me) have a difficulty with this (well I do, any road up) is that the thread header, or whatever they're called are so full of guff.. unnecessary messing about with symbols and other distracting crapola. I for one am looking for another theme to replace my constantly crashing sense and am always lost.
Perhaps a plea for making the headers clearer would be necessary too
blakeboro said:
One reason we (and I refer to new folks like me) have a difficulty with this (well I do, any road up) is that the thread header, or whatever they're called are so full of guff.. unnecessary messing about with symbols and other distracting crapola. I for one am looking for another theme to replace my constantly crashing sense and am always lost.
Perhaps a plea for making the headers clearer would be necessary too
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I would not argue against that point at all .... Can't find it or even search for it , if it is unreadable in the first place ....
watcher64 said:
I know nothing may change, but I can always hope, I agree with the 94.6% thing fully ....
But if they keep posting the same question over and over THEN it does fall in the Mods domain as spamming , and the mods can handle it with legitimate reason.
I mean simple things, like posting in the wrong forum/thread , it is like walking into a bakery and asking them to change the oil in your car , I mean what kind of person does it take to do a bonehead move like that ...
Oh and I am not saying to really to ignore the posts, because people might learn if a few people hit their thread in the wrong place, and tell them they have the answers but will not answer it because it is in the wrong thread, I know that is being a ****, but , sometimes teaching means writing the lesson on a big stick and smacking them with it till they get the message ..
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Yeah that does sound fair enough...........
Ive just had a good laugh at the thought of somebody walking into a bakery and asking how to flash there HD2..........
@blakeboro - a lot of the thread titles actually give a pretty good indication of what they are about (once you get used to it), but your right some are just total gibberish, there are guidelines on how to title releases etc but as with most of the rules they tend to be ignored far too often.......
Let me throw in my $0.02 in here.
As watcher mentioned already, there are very few of us compared to the sheer volume of users that we get on a daily basis and it is very difficult for us to do everything we do, plus having to baby sit people who cannot read the rules.
The rules of the site are very simple and straight forward. In fact, Rule #1 is "Search before you post". Even if the title of the thread itself is misleading, you don't have to go through threads to find what you are looking for. The site does have a search engine, which may not be the best, but it gets the job done. Also, you have our friend Google...
Responding harshly to threads/posts with questions that are completely out of place may work (most times it doesn't though), but here is the approach that I have always used. Flaming the user takes you nowhere and tends to ignite flame wars as users get pissed with one another. Shortly after that, since this is a public forum, everyone and their grandmother believes that they are entitled to give their two cents/piece of mind... and that's when things begin to get ugly, which is why we have to get involved and in many cases, we (moderators) end up looking like bad guys because we don't allow user A to tell user B what he/she thinks of the situation. There have been many instances where users just flat out turn against mods, stating that we are on power trips and stuff like that, case which couldn't be further away from the truth.
Ignoring the posts doesn't really cut it either as it is very likely that the user in question will either bump his question or ask again. As much as we don't like it, it happens... a lot. So, if you have the time, it helps us tremendously when you report the posts, because we can move the post/thread to where the person may get help and not be flamed for it, which in turn avoids the flame war situation depicted above. It helps also if you don't post inflammatory comments in the post of the "Search you stupid n00b" line.
If you know the answer and feel like helping others, simply post the answer with an explanation that next time, he should post in the right section. Otherwise, just report it and we will move it.
FYI, this has been the case for XDA for as long as the site has been running. It happens more nowadays because our user base is on the rise.
@egzthunder1 I do agree with not flaming them, but at the same time a "Flame" is a relative term, we have seen threads blow up , just by suggesting they search, because their post is a couple of days old and nobody has the answer ...
So really I don't know what the answer is, I don't think anybody does, how do you "make" someone learn ...
I mean to use the analogy I used earlier, it is like going into a bakery shop to get your cars oil changed, if the person stopped and read the sign that mistake would not be made ...
The problem on forums I think is the anonymity of the internet/forum, people think they can shut their brain off, and since we don't know who they are we'll spoonfeed them just to shut them up ...
This does not make a good environment for anybody here, the Devs get bogged down with BS posts, the Users have to wade through countless posts to find what they are looking for.
So while it is not a perfect solution, while not ignoring their posts, waiting till they are in the right place or asked correctly/nicely, to answer them might start to train them, pavlov's dogs and all ....
I just reported quite a few in the themes and apps forum. I really don't see a way to stop it without posing an undue burden on the moderators.
You could for instance have all "new" post in the themes and apps forum have to be approved by a moderator.
Or perhaps have a question come up asking if this is a new theme, app, wallpaper, ringtone, question, request, etc. when someone clicks to post a "new" thread. This could even insert "[THEME]", "[APP]", "[WALLPAPERS]" into the thread title as most authors currently do and new question, request selections could go to the Q&A forums instead of posting in the apps forum.
The problem is the first way would burden down the moderators even more while the second would require some special programming.
I think that instead of just having the forum layout of the threads oldest to newest, replies to a specific thread be attached to that tread and to see them you have to expand them. Just sayin.
Phantoms said:
I just reported quite a few in the themes and apps forum. I really don't see a way to stop it without posing an undue burden on the moderators.
You could for instance have all "new" post in the themes and apps forum have to be approved by a moderator.
Or perhaps have a question come up asking if this is a new theme, app, wallpaper, ringtone, question, request, etc. when someone clicks to post a "new" thread. This could even insert "[THEME]", "[APP]", "[WALLPAPERS]" into the thread title as most authors currently do and new question, request selections could go to the Q&A forums instead of posting in the apps forum.
The problem is the first way would burden down the moderators even more while the second would require some special programming.
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Click to collapse
Yeah. I counted 13+ that you reported. That's insane! Thanks for the help but unforunately I cannot do it since it's not my fora. I like your ideas... that is all but the "must approve post" one. There are currently 2,511,618 active members and it's growing on a daily basis. And the handful of moderators (only about 80 or so and 29 of them are device specific such as myself) have 434,244 threads to monitor as of this moment for the 84 different devices. So it's very difficult for us to continuously monitor half a million threads for 84+ devices with only 80 moderators. (ref stats)
Also keep in mind that because of this very limited amount of moderators to keep the site organized, clean and friendly it would be difficult and not to mention very time consuming to approve new threads each time and still be productive in the forums.
There is also the matter of urgancy.
I have come across more posts than I could count that someone has literally begged for immediate assistance. It could take hours or even days to approve the post for that member. We are trying to encourage people to use the site. That may only prove to be counter-productive.
The idea of a quick questionaire might help... but even I would have to admit that there have been times that I've seen a post that could be relavant to multiple forums (such as a question or statement about building roms, Q&A or development?) It's a tough call for even some of the most experienced members and may prove to be too much of a hassle. Oh and Watcher, this really should be in General since it's not actually pertaining to this particular device but to the forum as a whole. Even you mentioned this yourself in your original thread which only proves my point that there can be a black and white area as to where to post something.
So in the meantime just continue doing what your doing and they will be moved eventually. What I tend to do in my forums is move the thead in question and post a reason as to why I moved it. Sometimes send a warning to the OP stating that (s)he should review the forum rules about searching and post in the appropriate thread or else I won't just move it next time... I'll move and close it until he sends me a quote of forum rule #1 and give me at least three reasons as to why it is important to post in the correct section. In my opinion we should educate these members since most of them are Junior Members.
Which brings me to my idea. I have this crazy idea that for Junior Members ONLY should have to go through a CAPTCHA verification on a agreement of the rules before being able to post anything. That way if these members do post in the wrong section it gives us more grounds to take the appropriate action. It may also cut down on the SPAM that the site receives.
In any case, keep reporting the posts and we'll keep cleaning it up for ya.
Binary100100 said:
Which brings me to my idea. I have this crazy idea that for Junior Members ONLY should have to go through a CAPTCHA verification on a agreement of the rules before being able to post anything. That way if these members do post in the wrong section it gives us more grounds to take the appropriate action. It may also cut down on the SPAM that the site receives.
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Click to collapse
Oh I like that idea, say for people under 50 posts have to use a CAPTCHA and maybe on that CAPTCHA , a reminder to search before posting and to re-read their post before submitting ...
I am sure that most of the people here that do the things we are talking about, would be just as annoyed if someone bugged them the same way with their chosen hobby.
Another suggestion, if we were able to modify the forum this much, would be to have buttons underneath the first post saying: "Use forum search!" or "repeated question!" - if say, 10+ people click the button, then an automatic reply is generated saying: "Please use the forum search for answers" etc.
(These could appear for a new member's first 10 posts etc)
We also have to realize that in the HD2 Leo forums, the Q&A forum was just recently added. So you have to change people's habits of posting those questions, request, etc. in the Themes and Apps forum. Along with that you have a ton of posts already in the Themes and Apps forum that will need to be moved to the Q&A forum as replies bring them back to the top of the Themes and Apps forum.
Binary100100 said:
Yeah. I counted 13+ that you reported. That's insane! Thanks for the help but unforunately I cannot do it since it's not my fora. I like your ideas... that is all but the "must approve post" one. There
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Click to collapse
Yeah, reported about as many tonight. Just think what would happen if you didn't have to wait 1min between reports. Not really. I go through my regular routine of reading the new post in the themes and apps forum as usual. The ones that don't belong in that forum (questions, request, etc.) I open in separate tabs and report as I can while reading through the rest of the new post.
The "must approve" suggestion I knew would be to burdensome on moderators. On just new threads it's a lot of added work. I don't think whatever route is taken you have to worry about individual replies, just entire threads that are off topic. If you could find a way to automate the moving of improper "new" threads that would cut moderators work in half right there. That's where the suggestion for adding a selection when clicking "New Thread" of the type of thread (and automatically moving those in the wrong forum) came from. Still, some users would get wise to it, not care and click the wrong selection (App instead of Question) just so they could get their thread started in the wrong section.
Hi,
Here are some ideas and thoughts on how I would try improving the overall tone in the forum through moderation and rules. This thread is by no means intended as any demands or criticism, it's just what I think could help. It's also not written with anyone specific in mind.
First off I would like to see posters refrain from personal attacks, this goes both for intentional trolls as well as those reacting to trolling. If the "no personal attacks" rule was enforced more we would get rid off a lot of the hostility in here.
Asking questions
Just saying "RTFF", "Use search, you noob" and so on is pretty counter-productive. Which search terms to use aren't always obvious so a lot of the times it's better to go for an approach like prefacing the answer with: "That question has been asked and answered many times before, try searching first and checking FAQs". The point comes across, the poster gets his answer and hopefully a potentially valuable member isn't scared off. Everyone's a noob at some point.
Personally I encourage asking questions but some people might find that annoying so I propose two things:
1. Either labeling the thread accordingly, like "No questions" or stating that in the original post.
2. Leave the job of moderating questions to the OP. If you don't want to answer then don't say anything, slamming the question doesn't help anything.
General conduct
There are forum rules for this already so I won't go into detail too much. I just wish that people would skip the insults and personal attacks. If you want to criticize something then criticize the subject not the person. Calling someone an idiot and flaming them doesn't do any good. That goes for the spelling and grammar police too.
Thoughts on moderation
My suggestion would probably increase the moderators workload but I feel it might be necessary. Posting a quick motivation when locking a thread is great, keep at it. Let the OP of the thread dictate the tone in it and only go after rule violations unless the complaints come from the OP himself. If the OP still interacts in a thread even after it's veered way off-topic you could ask him to edit the topic to reflect this. Threads can be seen as conversations and those are seldom static so going OT is almost inevitable.
Just a few thoughts, feel free to comment on them.
You're an idiot loser who likes to lick iPhones.
(AKA: I agree with your ideas and wish to suscribe to your newsletter.)
Its not the tone only in X10 forum, you can find the same thing else where. But thanks for putting together this nice notes and helpful instruction to behave right. Before anyone sign up for a new account they should pass a test by doing that they are forced to read all these notes. Its the nature of human that thinks he or she is right all the time and knows better that everyone else, just like me.
Well, I hope people get the point and stop bashing each other over some none sense problems.
Nimche said:
Its not the tone only in X10 forum, you can find the same thing else where. But thanks for putting together this nice notes and helpful instruction to behave right. Before anyone sign up for a new account they should pass a test by doing that they are forced to read all these notes. Its the nature of human that thinks he or she is right all the time and knows better that everyone else, just like me.
Well, I hope people get the point and stop bashing each other over some none sense problems.
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I singled out this board simply because I have no experience from the other parts. You could even make a case that the issues mentioned are universal in all forums with lots of users. I've seen the things I talk about happen other places too and how well similar guidelines have worked so it might be worth a shot.
ddewbofh said:
I singled out this board simply because I have no experience from the other parts. You could even make a case that the issues mentioned are universal in all forums with lots of users. I've seen the things I talk about happen other places too and how well similar guidelines have worked so it might be worth a shot.
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Click to collapse
Don't get me wrong. What I was trying to say was that reminders are awesome and I do really appreciate your time putting your thoughts on here for us and I will be the first one to follow. I do respect XDA.
Yeah, I got your point. I just wanted to elaborate on why i talked about the X10 forum in my post and not forums in general.
Like many, I was more than saddened with what happenned on XDA/X10 forii regarding some development threads yesterday.
Without wanting to start yet another flame war, some suggestions to help to try to prevent this and other nastiness from repeating itself in the future:
TO ALL USERS
- XDA is a space meant for collaboration and sharing information. Use it for that
- XDA is not a chat room. Posts just to thank or put down another user do nothing to help its purpose (There is a reason for the "Thanks" button).
...Nor do posts whose only content is "Use the search tool" or "posted previously in this thread" (w/o further information) or similar - while some people may in fact be lazy enough to not to search/look in some cases it's kind of hard to look through 300+ pages of posts to find 1 link or piece of information. Or to sort through hundreds of hits to a search. If you know the answer to a question, please share it. If not, welll....don't say anything.
- USE THE SEARCH TOOL and HAVE A LOOK AT A FEW PAGES of the thread of interest before posting the question .Likely you will find your answer and it helps PREVENTING threads from reaching the aforementioned 300+ pages, of which maybe like 30 pages actually contain INFORMATION.
- REMEMBER that what you are getting, you are getting for free. That applies both to stuff developed and put up on XDA, be it ROMS, tweaks, patches, whatever and to the wonderful people behind XDA - moderators, etc... whose work is often forgotten. If we as users can't be expected to read through all posts in a forum, why should we expect mods to have to act as if they had the time to do this?
- Having said that, if you like a development/tip/tweak, whatever, use the thanks button and leave it at that. If you don't like something, leave it at that. Posts to the effect of "You are God" or "You sleep with the devil" do nothing but mess with egos. And this forum is about messing with mobile computing platforms, not egos.
TO MODERATORS
- Please refrain from deleting threads. If they get out of hand (and they sometimes do) I humbly suggest that you (a) close them and/or (b) ban any offending users, albeit if only temporarily (aka "suspension").
For all the crap that may have gotten into a thread, most if not all threads contain a lot of useful information that may/will get lost if the thread is deleted. so the non-guilty parties get shafted as badly as the guilty. And I prefer to think that the majority of users are actually interested in moving things forward.
- Just an idea - but rather than having a simple requirement to have an account to post, would it be possible for you guys to set up a system whereby certain forums could only be posted to by users of a certain seniority - and preferably with a distinction to starting new threads or replying to existing threads.
Following on to this, I believe that the seniority requirements can be improved in a relatively easy way - maturity comes from experience, which is not necessarily related to # of posts (any fool can type 30 irrelevant posts in a day). What would you say to a system where, in addition to a minimum # of posts, a user needs to have been a member/at his previous seniority level for a certain amount of time? That should not be too difficult to implement and would help people get into the feel of things before blabbing off. Short tempers usually can't hold off a couple of weeks/months...
- THANKS for this great place!!!! Your efforts are too often forgotten.
TO DEVELOPERS
- Thanks for your time, effort, patience and hard work. We really appreciate it!
- Please consider that the strongest point of Android (hey, I'm posting this to the X10 forum, which is Android, no beef against WM or any other platforms) is that it is OPEN, meaning we can ALL work on it, improve it, tweak it, etc...
- That means that users can by default consider whatever is posted as being OPEN and can do likewise. If you feel that whatever you have developed/done is NOT open, then say so. And if you want a stronger protection for your work, or users aren't respecting your work, then publish it under some kind of license so everyone else knows what to expect and you have legal grounds - GPL, LGPL, ASL, Berkeley, etc... there are a number of them to choose from.
- Collaboration means being open to new ideas, praise and constructive criticism. Attitudes like "THIS **** IS MINE AND NOONE TOUCHES IT" (pardon the profanity) isn't really very constructive in an open source environment. You are not god. Help and inspiration may come from even the least probable places.
Well, that was long-winded. If I have offended anyone (I hope not) pardonnez-moi
"
...Nor do posts whose only content is "Use the search tool" or "posted previously in this thread" (w/o further information) or similar - while some people may in fact be lazy enough to not to search/look in some cases it's kind of hard to look through 300+ pages of posts to find 1 link or piece of information. Or to sort through hundreds of hits to a search. If you know the answer to a question, please share it. If not, welll....don't say anything."
actually. members are supposed to read the thread and look for answers. thus eliminating redundant and repeat posts
All in all though ideas that are already in place
If people respect the rules then good things happen
And as for not deleting threads
if the dev leaves then there no point leaving it open. otherwise we jsut clean them
as someone who runs a forum and moderates, deleting people's posts for no reason, is pretty poor. Mine was deleted for no reason and no explanation. The situation in the end was to the poorer for XDA. As a DEV left, and could be followed up by more. Instead of a calm hand, all members got was a heavey handed approach, threatening bans. Sorry that is a crap way. and in end has lost XDA many members. how sad
-PiLoT- said:
actually. members are supposed to read the thread and look for answers. thus eliminating redundant and repeat posts
All in all though ideas that are already in place
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Sure thing - but adding an additional post to JUST say "look in the thread" only makes it longer. No need since the rule is already in place, right?
-PiLoT- said:
And as for not deleting threads
if the dev leaves then there no point leaving it open. otherwise we jsut clean them
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Click to collapse
Precisely - CLOSE them - they will take up some disk space and trickle down through the thread (being closed).
Cleaning some threads would take you guys ages (500+ pages in some cases).
Deleting them however loses information, whether the dev has left or not (he may always come back as has happened...) and only fans flames for conspiracy theories and other idiocies...I do concede that leaving them there may also spur more garbage initially, but that will stop as the (closed) thread ages.
acmbc said:
Sure thing - but adding an additional post to JUST say "look in the thread" only makes it longer. No need since the rule is already in place, right?
yes but sometime sits the steps that people need to take since people will not read the rules
Precisely - CLOSE them - they will take up some disk space and trickle down through the thread (being closed).
Cleaning some threads would take you guys ages (500+ pages in some cases).
Deleting them however loses information, whether the dev has left or not (he may always come back as has happened...) and only fans flames for conspiracy theories and other idiocies...I do concede that leaving them there may also spur more garbage initially, but that will stop as the (closed) thread ages.
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the last lot of threads were closed not deleted
Crocodile1973 said:
as someone who runs a forum and moderates, deleting people's posts for no reason, is pretty poor. Mine was deleted for no reason and no explanation. The situation in the end was to the poorer for XDA. As a DEV left, and could be followed up by more. Instead of a calm hand, all members got was a heavey handed approach, threatening bans. Sorry that is a crap way. and in end has lost XDA many members. how sad
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some posts are deleted during a routine thread cleanup
Im not saying your suggestions have no merit.
im saying that some of them are already looked into and some wont work as weve tried them in the past
-PiLoT- said:
Im not saying your suggestions have no merit.
im saying that some of them are already looked into and some wont work as weve tried them in the past
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Click to collapse
Kudos to that. If it's been tried and not worked, my bad.
acmbc said:
Like many, I was more than saddened with what happenned on XDA/X10 forii regarding some development threads yesterday.
Without wanting to start yet another flame war, some suggestions to help to try to prevent this and other nastiness from repeating itself in the future:
TO ALL USERS
TO MODERATORS
TO DEVELOPERS
- Thanks for your time, effort, patience and hard work. We really appreciate it!
- Please consider that the strongest point of Android (hey, I'm posting this to the X10 forum, which is Android, no beef against WM or any other platforms) is that it is OPEN, meaning we can ALL work on it, improve it, tweak it, etc...
- That means that users can by default consider whatever is posted as being OPEN and can do likewise. If you feel that whatever you have developed/done is NOT open, then say so. And if you want a stronger protection for your work, or users aren't respecting your work, then publish it under some kind of license so everyone else knows what to expect and you have legal grounds - GPL, LGPL, ASL, Berkeley, etc... there are a number of them to choose from.
- Collaboration means being open to new ideas, praise and constructive criticism. Attitudes like "THIS **** IS MINE AND NOONE TOUCHES IT" (pardon the profanity) isn't really very constructive in an open source environment. You are not god. Help and inspiration may come from even the least probable places.
Well, that was long-winded. If I have offended anyone (I hope not) pardonnez-moi
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well, my 2 cents
i agree on the "users" part
on the "to moderators" part, i disagree
mods don't need to "refrain" from deleting threads, that's what mods do. they do it for specific reasons, not just because they are self-proclaimed e-gods with a ban hammer. if threads need closed or deleted, that's what mods are here for. also, this site is not a democracy. a lot of members don't seem to understand that petitions and moral support for offending members who were banned or threads closed/deleted, will not exactly unban/reopen. granted, i'm sure if there was a collaborated majority between the mods, it will. but users making 30+ separate threads on the same subject (or lately the same dev) only makes things worse. all of these trip apostles are doing more harm than good. i know all these recent trip threads annoy the crap out of me, i can only imagine the work and annoyance it brings moderators.
as far as the dev section of your post goes
you can't take info/sources from some, then accuse EVERY dev for using yours, making comments like "i'm going to download this and check the files for my sources". seriously, it's unprofessional and immature.
as far as the trip situation goes
i have no idea what happened last night, but, where as he may be a great dev, being a dev is NOT for him. he cannot take criticism, he wants to share nothing with other devs, he was not working collabratively with anyone to benefit the community, and honestly, he seems the have the attitude of a 14 y/o girl. how many times does one person need to "threaten with leaving", then never doing so. then upon realizing that not enough begs to stay filled his ego, actually leave only to make a sudden reappearance because, there's really no other dev site out there to the extent of xda.
this isn't the first time he's been gone, although i this time was not his choice, i'm sure he will be back again.
oh, one other thing, you go to any other sub-forum on xda, and there is no drama like there is on the x10 sections. seriously, did SE market these things specifically to 14 y/o drama queens?
svtfmook said:
well, my 2 cents
i agree on the "users" part
on the "to moderators" part, i disagree
mods don't need to "refrain" from deleting threads, that's what mods do. they do it for specific reasons, not just because they are self-proclaimed e-gods with a ban hammer. if threads need closed or deleted, that's what mods are here for. also, this site is not a democracy. a lot of members don't seem to understand that petitions and moral support for offending members who were banned or threads closed/deleted, will not exactly unban/reopen. granted, i'm sure if there was a collaborated majority between the mods, it will. but users making 30+ separate threads on the same subject (or lately the same dev) only makes things worse. all of these trip apostles are doing more harm than good. i know all these recent trip threads annoy the crap out of me, i can only imagine the work and annoyance it brings moderators.
as far as the dev section of your post goes
you can't take info/sources from some, then accuse EVERY dev for using yours, making comments like "i'm going to download this and check the files for my sources". seriously, it's unprofessional and immature.
as far as the trip situation goes
i have no idea what happened last night, but, where as he may be a great dev, being a dev is NOT for him. he cannot take criticism, he wants to share nothing with other devs, he was not working collabratively with anyone to benefit the community, and honestly, he seems the have the attitude of a 14 y/o girl. how many times does one person need to "threaten with leaving", then never doing so. then upon realizing that not enough begs to stay filled his ego, actually leave only to make a sudden reappearance because, there's really no other dev site out there to the extent of xda.
this isn't the first time he's been gone, although i this time was not his choice, i'm sure he will be back again.
oh, one other thing, you go to any other sub-forum on xda, and there is no drama like there is on the x10 sections. seriously, did SE market these things specifically to 14 y/o drama queens?
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I agree with you.
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate Trip's work, heck, I even use it on my phone these past months.
There's a post I made in "News about current circumstances" thread that explains my point extensively.
Also, I know it in my gut that he will be back for sure.
You know why?
He feeds on publicity and Modaco forums are too low-populated for his huge ego.
I hope though, that upon his return he will be much more sophisticated and reasonable,
for the sake of every one here.
One can always dream...
PS: I was a 14 year old girl 10 years ago and, man, I'm telling you, I was a major drama queen.
I want to believe I've grown out of it though.
I really think the ideas from the original post would be used in some way at least. Good post OP. Hope xda considers this. There are some great ideas here.
Sent from my X10i using XDA Premium App