Database Users

Why Are Threads Being Trashed?

I was looking for a couple of threads that I had recently bookmarked to go back to later on only to find that they weren't bookmarked anymore. I spent almost an hour searching for them only to find the one specific thread in the trash. No warning or reason was given. Why was this done? I can understand if it's a thread with only a single post or perhaps even one that has become outdated (like a Cupcake release date thread) but why a thread that has 4 pages of information for a topic that doesn't have any reference for it already? Isn't this going to just create more new threads? More e-mails? More questions? Isn't this defeating the purpose of posting a new thread about a topic that hasn't been posted or stickied, if it is just going to be deleted?
If you look in the trash you will find SEVERAL Dream threads. In fact... just on the first page HALF (TEN out of TWENTY) are from the Dream thread! So just to clearify... of the dozens of different threads for different phones half of all trash is for the G1??? Isn't the trash supposed to be for SPAM?
How are these spam (just from the first page)???
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=525564
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=524956
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=519591
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=525034
There are a few more of course but I can understand because most of the questions have been answerered and it would be faster and easier if these people used the search feature. But some haven't been. (example)
Instead of deleting the threads... merge them. But of course you get stuck with a 500+ page thread that MOST people will not read all the way through to see if the question they are about to ask has been asked/answered already. Which is of course why they post a new thread but guess what? It gets deleted and so another thread gets posted. It's never ending and I realize that this must be hard work for the mods.
So what to do?
I propose that instead of deleting these threads without reason or warning, to PM the original poster of the thread to ask of the significance of it and to provide a legitimate reason and purpose for it. Otherwise give warning or notice of the possible deletion. Of course this does not exempt the threads that are posting warez, copyright infringements and other obvious violations of memberships.
This is only my opinion and I hope that I have made an interesting point or two about this matter.

Look at the Sticky "Tough Love Moderation Alert". Basically the admins will lock/delete threads they think duplicate or off topic. I can't say as I agree with their method (no explanation) but there is a need to keep the threads under control. The development forum is the worst of the problem area but all the Dream forums have some abusers.
On the other hand it is leading to silly thread titles "[ONLY] something [ONLY]" (which is silly since people who would have posted off topic before still will) and confusion as well as "What happened to my last post" threads. Time will tell if their methods achieve their goal.

JanetPanic said:
Look at the Sticky "Tough Love Moderation Alert". Basically the admins will lock/delete threads they think duplicate or off topic. I can't say as I agree with their method (no explanation) but there is a need to keep the threads under control. The development forum is the worst of the problem area but all the Dream forums have some abusers.
On the other hand it is leading to silly thread titles "[ONLY] something [ONLY]" (which is silly since people who would have posted off topic before still will) and confusion as well as "What happened to my last post" threads. Time will tell if their methods achieve their goal.
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Yeah... okay. I agree that some of the most annoying problems with the dream thread is that people do post in the ROM Development thread. But is deleting so much easier then moving to the "Dream" thread? If so, does it out weight the inconvenience of the possiblity of the same question being reposted because it was unable to be found by the search feature?
Say this post gets deleted... and it likely will be... and someone else notices the same issue... and they search to see if this has been posted. Will they find it? No. Because hardly anyone looks in the trash. So what do they do? They post it as a new thread. So what happens? A mod goes in and deletes that post. And it repeats over and over again until the mods stop deleting the posts. Then what? Nothing. The post stays and maybe even grows. Is it really a bother that a thread is over a month old and hasn't had any recent posts? Does it really bother anyone? Of course not! They just ignore it, right? So why go through all the trouble to delete it? Some of the threads in the trash are still useful and there is absolutely no harm in keeping it in the proper catagories (ie Dream, Applications, Themes, etc).
Any mod that simply deletes a useful and recently commented thread because it was mistakenly posted under the wrong catgory instead of simply moving it, is just lazy in my own personal opinion and is doing more harm then good. Again... just my opinion.

Binary100100 said:
Say this post gets deleted... and it likely will be... and someone else notices the same issue... and they search to see if this has been posted. Will they find it? No. Because hardly anyone looks in the trash. So what do they do? They post it as a new thread. So what happens? A mod goes in and deletes that post. And it repeats over and over again until the mods stop deleting the posts. Then what? Nothing. The post stays and maybe even grows.
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That doesn't indicate that what the mods are doing is necessarily wrong, it means that new members continue to disregard the rules (posting already answered questions, posting in wrong forum, etc).
That said, I think the mods need to reevaluate how and when they do thread merges. The form of discussion in forums like these tend to be "conversation" centric. However, the threads are presented in a flat format (by default). That means that merging two threads of identical or similar topics will cause their conversations to intermix, with disastrous results. People already have piss-poor reading skills as it is.

What do you expect the moderators to do? We didn't give them a choice. The Dream forums are out of control and it would take the 3 or 4 moderators for these forums 8 hours a day not being paid to police it. You want someone to blame? Blame your fellow XDA members because there are only 2 solutions for this problem:
Get more moderators to baby sit the forums or increase the quality of posting within the Dream forums. The later is what we need here and what the moderators are hoping for.
Edit: And honestly, I think this is the best method. Do we have the potential for losing good information? Yes. This is how you teach the multitudes of Dream posters that there are consequences for being ignorant. Being stupid is not an excuse.

It is pretty annoying how the Dream thread has exploded and that the same questions just keep on cropping up. When I reply I do try to either re-direct them to my signature (which has the basic links to Dude's ROM, SPL, Apps2SD, Radio etc), teach them how to search with the actual result or just point them to the right direction.
However with 500+ pages or whatever, it can become a chore for newbies to read though, even if 70% of the info is in the first page.
I did recommend to the mods that the Dream section needs cleaning up, with a dedicated sub forum purely for the established (or popular) cooked ROMs. So underneath the Dream Dev sub-forum is another just for JF, Dude, Cyanogen, Haykuro etc. That should remove quite a lot of traffic and usual questions then from what is supposed to be a general development thread for other matters.
Then I would suggest a much more organised and up to date FAQ in such a sub-forum which covers all of the same questions that get asked daily. Any such questions that get asked in any of the ROM forums would then be re-directed to the FAQ.
Most of us I'm sure have come from large forums (lik-sang, avsfoums, etc) and know how to search, read etc but many newer members don't, be it due to lack of effort etc. However I'm sure there are many genuine new members who are willing to learn that only need a nudge in the right direction. Simply blocking them off by trashing, linking them only to the search page etc isn't helpful and won't generate a positive community.
I would put myself forward to help moderate the Dream section but I know that zero mod positions are available at the moment, but I do agree with the OP that trashing isn't always the solution.

NeoBlade said:
linking them only to the search page etc isn't helpful and won't generate a positive community.
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The main problem is that for the veterans who have been here since Sept/Oct 2008, everything more or less makes sense because they have seen it evolve to its current state. It's a lot like a guy who lives in a very very messy room who can still find the book buried under a pile of empty ramen cups and dirty laundry. Thus its easy to say "use the search!" in response to any newbie query. That said, from the first-timer newbie perspective, there are a few problems: 1) A lot of information crammed into two poorly organized subforums. 2) A lot of information is outdated and is superseded or contradicts newer information. 3) Some of the sticky threads have very poorly written or maintained first posts.
Sticky threads are not a very good way to store information for general consumption, unless the original poster is a very good communicator and also vigilantly updates the first post with concise information from the entire thread, no matter how long it is. Of the former sticky posts, few actually meet that standard. The ideal format for information conveyance is wiki, but then there is the disconnection between the wiki and active development. In other words, people don't like to move back and forth between the wiki and the forum.

I know what you mean jashu, I love my "organised mess" at home ^_^
It does take effort alright in keeping threads on topic and up to date, I remember when administrating the TokyoToys forum (I since had to close it, joint decision by myself and the owner) and also organising events for fans and people alike to meet up and have fun, took effort and more often enough without any recognition as well which can get discouraging.
Certainly if the OP kept his or her first post updated often enough with information it will keep questions down to a minimum however I still approve of a well made FAQ which is stickied. It then becomes a focal point as any FAQ should. I'm actually in the middle of writing one myself and once its done and the people concerned are happy with it, I would be happy to post it here too.
Ideally a wiki would be best because its user editable however I had a look at the XDA wiki and it does need a bit of TLC.

I will qualify my statement in that I come from the standpoint as an administrator in a prominent Linux forum that gets more posts in an hour in than the Dream forums get in a day. I firmly believe that draconian administration is not the answer and makes the forum far less pleasant to use. I think of administration as keeping things civil and posts in the right forum more than controlling creation of threads. Forcing the organization into a few mammoth threads is not any better than letting users create new threads without rules.
The developers forum is a bit of a mess and completely left to its own it would be worse than it is. The Development forum is not really about development anymore though. It more of a "custom ROM" forum. It is rare that I see an actual post on development on the android platform. Since the primary topic on the forum is custom ROMs the support questions for said ROMs get put in the development forum and generates a mess. Creating a ROM forum would just shift the mess, so I am not sure that would be better.
I think eventually the newbies who are flooding the forum with threads that could be answered by searching will either go away or learn to search. The current choice of administration is not educating the newbies though, it is just forcing them to learn. Regardless of how any of us users feel about the subject though the administrators have made their choice on how to deal with the Dream sub-forums. We are just along for the ride.
The thought that scares me more than any other is that the flood of newbies up to this stage could be just the tip of the iceburg. XDA-Dev before the last year or so was a forum for a fairly small group of people who generally know how to deal with their own problems. Lately the number of users with limited technical ability and desire have been increasing. This is partly due to the ease of having the Android platform, partly due to the fact that smart phones in general (including iPhone) are becoming much more mainstream. If android truly takes off on HTC phones then either the users will have to be forceful to new users to get them into line fast or the philosophy of the XDA-dev forums itself will need to change. Linux forums have a reputation for rude users, this is largely due to the veterans being unforgiving to repeated questions. Harsh but it does work over time.

JanetPanic said:
The thought that scares me more than any other is that the flood of newbies up to this stage could be just the tip of the iceburg. XDA-Dev before the last year or so was a forum for a fairly small group of people who generally know how to deal with their own problems. Lately the number of users with limited technical ability and desire have been increasing. This is partly due to the ease of having the Android platform, partly due to the fact that smart phones in general (including iPhone) are becoming much more mainstream. If android truly takes off on HTC phones then either the users will have to be forceful to new users to get them into line fast or the philosophy of the XDA-dev forums itself will need to change.
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This and the fact that it's brand spanking new. Give it time and the kids will find something new to play with and move on while the people that give a rats arse (us) will be left behind. I've seen it time and time again on car forums. This isn't any different. The first 6 months is bliss. The following 1-2 years is absolute hell. Then comes the volume drop off and the true development. I've all for tough love but it's not like the tide is ever going to stop. We are just going to have to wait it out.

There's always methods in dealing with issues and I do agree that its more of a ROM section than Development thesedays... Hence in my opinion it would be better off having a ROM section for such people to post on, which will clear up for people actually developling or helping to improve the android platform - Most notibly the Bluetooth OBEX support.
This isn't the fastest forum I've seen or been involved in in terms of volumes of posts, however it is getting to the point where re-structuring and possibly more moderators are needed to help ease the burden. When a large number of people register and start being active, it is often the best time to set an example and indeed set and establish a community where people help people - Be it to simple things as pointing them to the right direction to much more techinical issues.
Without the ethos to help each other, where would open source be?
Granted I know nothing about Linux myself and couldn't code to save my life but I do enjoy the technical discussions that take place. A lot of this is lost with the usual questions that get asked, hence the need for a more up to date FAQ. Tough love is needed but I believe with the right organisation, it shouldn't have to be the only answer.

uberingram said:
This and the fact that it's brand spanking new. Give it time and the kids will find something new to play with and move on while the people that give a rats arse (us) will be left behind. I've seen it time and time again on car forums. This isn't any different. The first 6 months is bliss. The following 1-2 years is absolute hell. Then comes the volume drop off and the true development. I've all for tough love but it's not like the tide is ever going to stop. We are just going to have to wait it out.
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the G1 is the new sidekick. and the sidekick was such a fad and trend for kids to use as a phone. the hip hop and celebrity community did well in terms of marketing the sidekick to the mainstream public as being a "your not cool if you don't have one of these" items. also the emo/scene kids are all about what the "in" things and fads are, so that highly popularized the sidekick as well.
and now since the G1 came out, most of the people that got a sidekick for those particular reasons mentioned above, are now "upgrading" to the next newer cooler big thing.... the G1.
young people love to follow trends, fads, and what's cool at the moment.
right now, the G1 is just that.
it's a double edge for Android and the G1. the popularity is one of the key things needed to make Android and the G1 a success. but with popularity comes a lot riff raff and criticism that is not welcomed so well. but i digress lol
i just hope the sidekick comes out with a touchscreen version or something, so the kids have something new shiny to play with haha

Not owned a sidekick before but then I presume its more popular in the USA than it is in the UK? I moved to the G1 after my Nokia N95. Got impatient waiting for the N97 so made the jump and thanks to the incomplete stock OS, I was tempted to move back to my N95 until JF released his research, Haykuro and Dude. Now it feels more complete with only a few things missing.
Back on topic though, the place isn't as bad as it could be but since this is more a development forum to begin with and not a social based one, just a few tweaks here and there would help newbies a little.

NeoBlade said:
Not owned a sidekick before but then I presume its more popular in the USA than it is in the UK? I moved to the G1 after my Nokia N95. Got impatient waiting for the N97 so made the jump and thanks to the incomplete stock OS, I was tempted to move back to my N95 until JF released his research, Haykuro and Dude. Now it feels more complete with only a few things missing.
Back on topic though, the place isn't as bad as it could be but since this is more a development forum to begin with and not a social based one, just a few tweaks here and there would help newbies a little.
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ohhh i have an idea...
like when you sign up you pick the phone and platform you use then instantly redirects the new member to a FAQ or pertinent threads associated to their liking of phone and platform and at the same time directly email them a link to those FAQ and whatnot.

NeoBlade said:
Not owned a sidekick before but then I presume its more popular in the USA than it is in the UK?.
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Yeah, it's just how mrcrs described it. The Sidekick became quite the fashion accessory model when celebrities started picking them up. They are pictured all over the tabloids and mentioned a lot of times in up-start musician's songs. I doubt very much that it would have panned out this way if T-Mobile released the SideKick 3G before the G1 but then again, T-Mobile needed a victory and a halo phone really fast.

That would take a fair amount of modification to the forum files to do (I've done my fair share of phpBB, phpBB Plus, IPB etc) and also is on the pretence that every single mobile has a suitable FAQ to begin with.
And easier way and modification to the forum could be to send a general stock welcoming PM along with a reminder to search and any additional helpful links within. That is, if XDA wants to go down that route.

NeoBlade said:
That would take a fair amount of modification to the forum files to do (I've done my fair share of phpBB, phpBB Plus, IPB etc) and also is on the pretence that every single mobile has a suitable FAQ to begin with.
And easier way and modification to the forum could be to send a general stock welcoming PM along with a reminder to search and any additional helpful links within. That is, if XDA wants to go down that route.
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whenever i join forums and in my inbox i get a message automatically, which is usually from the forum itself, i usually disregard it because all it is a "welcome to xyz forums... yada yada yada... enjoy your time here"
i usually don't open and read it, delete it then... go wreck havoc on finding out the information i want to know or read about. but that's just me

JanetPanic said:
This is partly due to the ease of having the Android platform, partly due to the fact that smart phones in general (including iPhone) are becoming much more mainstream. If android truly takes off on HTC phones then either the users will have to be forceful to new users to get them into line fast or the philosophy of the XDA-dev forums itself will need to change.
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To get a glimpse of where Dream/Magic forum is headed, just look at the xda Winmo forums. "Development" in this case basically just means rom customization. It's already pretty much at that state here too. Of course if Android fulfills its promise of being a mainstream smartphone OS, there will be many more newbies here than there ever were on the Winmo forums (you don't see many kids rocking Touch Diamonds).
Linux forums have a reputation for rude users, this is largely due to the veterans being unforgiving to repeated questions. Harsh but it does work over time.
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IMO there's nothing wrong with being a bit curt, especially in the "development" forum. This isn't an interactive tutorial, a hand-holding journey. Too many people seem to get the idea that the unsupported hacks enabled by rooting can be generalized and simplified for mass-market consumption. That kind of thinking is faulty and the resulting bad publicity may jeopardize the Android hacking community on the whole.
The problem is that in most cases, being rude only keeps away users who had initial reservations and cautions to rooting-- precisely the kind of user who actually might take the time to indepedently and/or responsibly learn how to do things properly.

jashsu said:
To get a glimpse of where Dream/Magic forum is headed, just look at the xda Winmo forums. "Development" in this case basically just means rom customization. It's already pretty much at that state here too. Of course if Android fulfills its promise of being a mainstream smartphone OS, there will be many more newbies here than there ever were on the Winmo forums (you don't see many kids rocking Touch Diamonds).
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I have been here since 2005 with the Blue Angel (then the Wizard, Jam, Magician, and the Artemis). Eventually XDA started dedicating a subforum to ROMs with the general development thread up top for WinMo development. The Dream right now just has the one combined forum. Another difference is that the ROM threads in Dream seem to grow faster than I remember on the WinMo threads. I am not sure what the difference is, maybe that usually there are a couple debug threads that die out which in the Dream forum is discouraged. Regardless the rapid posting makes it harder to keep up with more than one ROM.
jashsu said:
IMO there's nothing wrong with being a bit curt, especially in the "development" forum. This isn't an interactive tutorial, a hand-holding journey. Too many people seem to get the idea that the unsupported hacks enabled by rooting can be generalized and simplified for mass-market consumption. That kind of thinking is faulty and the resulting bad publicity may jeopardize the Android hacking community on the whole.
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I agree, well put.
jashsu said:
The problem is that in most cases, being rude only keeps away users who had initial reservations and cautions to rooting-- precisely the kind of user who actually might take the time to indepedently and/or responsibly learn how to do things properly.
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Good point as well.

Concerning jaxouk Thread on Best Roms

Okay firstly this is what jaxouk wrote:
I have read many posts where people are asking which is the best rom for my device (and have done myself) only to get abrupt replies with something like "how dare you ask this, chefs put a lot of effort into each rom and its down to personal preferance blah blah" ................"THREAD CLOSED"
Does every one think think this is the best way for xda to be run or is there other people that think this should be allowed to be debated? I know this is originally a developer forum, however I would hazard a guess that there is now more public users that devolpers.
The thing is developers develope roms and yes certainly they put a lot of time and effort into it and are respected rightly so for it. however can the end user really be expected not to be allowed to discuss these roms on the forum only to be told the above mensioned things. It happens time and again over and over. People like myself (the end user) do not have time to flash every rom to find the ones they like. (its a days setting up for myself after a flash) and if its crap (which there is no denying. some are) its a day wasted.
What I think the forum needs is a "ROM USER REVIEW" section where people like myself can go and rate a rom for other users referance.
Surely this is the key to better roms. If one developers rom is poor hes going to be able to see that its poor and will/might take the user rating / comments on board and the next time try harder.... ultimately producing a better rom.
Competition is what makes better products, If handset manufacturers took the same stance as xda we would be waiting for the realease of the o2 xda 2s later this year. and this is the same in all industries.
Okay so firstly Spot on and totally agree with you which as we all can see the majority of members using XDA agree with too.
Secondly this is what itje wrote who is a Moderator here:
I closed this thread, due to the same reason all the others that are similar all over xda are closed on sight.
These kind of threads usualy/always ends up in disputes and flamewars, there is always some hotheaded ppl who burst into flames when someone dont have the same view as they do.
So... sorry, yeah we close
So basically what you are saying is we as members are not allowed to treat XDA as a discussion forum as well as a Developer Forum? I thought the whole meaning to the word Forum, was for people to discuss there DIFFERENT opinions and have certain disputes with one another.
Sorry if people dont agree with this and please tell me why but I just think its silly that a mod would close a thread incase someone shouts and god forbid have an opinion.
Let me know what you guys think

It´s realy funny, when new user come to this forum and try to tell the old, experienced user, how the forum should go. I sometimes need to laugh about those statements but there are times i only want cry
I´m 100% agree with the Moderators (cause they are Moderators ). If you spend some more time around here, you will see how this forum works. Just use it, don´t complain.

I wasnt telling anyone how to run THIS forum I was basically explaining to everyone how a forum is normally run, if this is the way everyone likes it then fine but looking through 100's of posts and topics around here all I see is members and "noobs" getting put down from the likes of you.

crazy cat said:
It´s realy funny, when new user come to this forum and try to tell the old, experienced user, how the forum should go. I sometimes need to laugh about those statements but there are times i only want cry
I´m 100% agree with the Moderators (cause they are Moderators ). If you spend some more time around here, you will see how this forum works. Just use it, don´t complain.
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me no understand

This has been explained again and again.
Personal and objective opinions are not allowed here. So if you can't make your own judgement on which ROM's to use you might want to stick to the stock ROM. Or The best thing to do is setup your own personal blog for these types of things. Then you can say what you want.
This will be another thread closed soon i feel.

It's impossible to determine what 'the best rom' would be...
Some ppl love a transparent clock, others hate it.
Same with the slider bar.
Same with themes.
Some ppl love a windows build with the start button on the top, some ppl love it with the button on the bottom.
Some ppl love to have a crapload of apps installed, some ppl hate it.
Some ppl love to have the newest unstable build, some ppl want the secure and stable one.
I might love a rom and you might hate it, the only objective criteria is how stable a rom is but even that can be debated. So you just have to try, see what works for you and go from there.

thread closed (i wish)

i have no problem myself with people arguing about something, even when things are heating. i am more then capable to defend myself
you know what they say - when the going gets tough, the though gets going
it is clear that general policy of this forum will not allow this kind of debate
what i am suggesting is something i saw on othe forums:
a special place with a big warnig ENTER ON YOUR OWN RISK, or something like that
this special place is organised as a battle place where every user can call out another user on a subject and then they have a public "battle". the other users are the public and in the end they choose which of the fighters is the winner
here the rules are somehow loose and mods only came in when things are realy degenerate - curses, personal insults, family offense, etc.
bottom line - i, personaly, would allow topics about best roms, best apps, best whatever, and when people cross the line i would suggest them to cool down on the battle field
this can be a stupid ideea, but maybe something like that will help users to get off the presure somewhere and then to disscuss cool and polite the subjects they are interested in
regards

noris08 said:
i have no problem myself with people arguing about something, even when things are heating. i am more then capable to defend myself
you know what they say - when the going gets tough, the though gets going
it is clear that general policy of this forum will not allow this kind of debate
what i am suggesting is something i saw on othe forums:
a special place with a big warnig ENTER ON YOUR OWN RISK, or something like that
this special place is organised as a battle place where every user can call out another user on a subject and then they have a public "battle". the other users are the public and in the end they choose which of the fighters is the winner
here the rules are somehow loose and mods only came in when things are realy degenerate - curses, personal insults, family offense, etc.
bottom line - i, personaly, would allow topics about best roms, best apps, best whatever, and when people cross the line i would suggest them to cool down on the battle field
this can be a stupid ideea, but maybe something like that will help users to get off the presure somewhere and then to disscuss cool and polite the subjects they are interested in
regards
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Another problem with this kind of thing is you will have people come to this thread and ***** and complain about a particular ROM instead of the original ROM thread. The truth be known many of the problems users face are due to them not following instruction or due to some other incompatible software there are trying to use and then they blame their problems on the ROM creator. The down side to this is a thread like this will only open up negative criticism of a ROM and cause harm to the cook that maybe unjust. Not to mention that the problems need to be kept within the ROM threads in order to better improve the ROM's.
I understand what people want and this is why I made the statement to open your own blog or site to do these things and then link to here.

i have to agree. cooker cooks a rom and we rate it. if it was just "cook, post, upload, thread closed" in res of the world then everyone would buy apple, but cause its the information age we need to know what is what and where is where.
this should be even more seen here on "professional" forum like xda-developers.
i totaly agree with OP.
@bazgee: saying that 'noobs' shouldnt talk.. makes you so much more a 'noob'. your ass wasn't born smart and so wasn't OPs.
bobsbbq said:
Another problem with this kind of thing is you will have people come to this thread and ***** and complain about a particular ROM instead of the original ROM thread.
....
The down side to this is a thread like this will only open up negative criticism of a ROM and cause harm to the cook that maybe unjust. Not to mention that the problems need to be kept within the ROM threads in order to better improve the ROM's.
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This is what forums are for!! To ASK, and to ANSWER!!

Edit; I'm not going to say something, post removed.

Really, is it *that* hard to understand there is *no* best ROM? They are all different!
It's apples vs oranges. It can't be compared. If your imagination needs a bit of help, look up consoles vs PCs, or PS3 vs x360 threads. Have you ever seen one not turn into a massive flamefest? ... exactly!
If you want to make sure a ROM working, check the last 2-3 pages of ROMs thread to see if there are people complaining.

Developers Forum?
The notion that this is a developers forum is a myth anyway. The end users play a massive role in here, determining bugs, requesting new features or feature removal and indeed critiquing the ROM within its own thread.
The idea that WW3 will break out if we allow dedicated discussion threads seems a bit weak to me. I've seen heated discussions in ROM threads and they never became more than that.
I'm sure it is more to do with protecting the ROM developers so that the ones who's ROMs may be bottom of the pile don't walk away, which is fair enough.
But from some people there is an all around lack of respect on this forum for the general user who do that deepest broadest testing, offer wirespread feedback and go a long way to making the ROM's what they are today.
And do not forget - if these folks weren't here to download the ROM's, how many chefs do you think would be here to cook them! Both sides need each other. I don't doubt the chefs get a kick from giving people what they want.
The moderators don't 'need' to do anything (We will all be here anyway) but if they have some respect then they should take on board and accomodate what appears to be the opinion of a vast number of users.
I'm sure there is some middle ground somewhere if we try and look ....

Really, is it *that* hard to understand there is *no* best ROM? They are all different!
That is not the case. There are roms that are the fastest, Roms that are the smoothest, Roms that have the best landscape support, Roms with the best apps to suit needs amongst others. Certainly if you try and make one overall top ten then it is going to be a lucky dip, but nobody suggested that.
It's apples vs oranges. It can't be compared. If your imagination needs a bit of help, look up consoles vs PCs, or PS3 vs x360 threads. Have you ever seen one not turn into a massive flamefest? ... exactly!
I'm not sure consolve vs PC is quite the same a comparing different ROMs as they have the same hardware, similar architecture, purpose etc Your also getting a little needlesly condescending now ;-)
If you want to make sure a ROM working, check the last 2-3 pages of ROMs thread to see if there are people complaining.
This is good advice for bug testing but does not offer any more constructive information on the whole.

mwillems2 said:
Really, is it *that* hard to understand there is *no* best ROM? They are all different!
That is not the case. There are roms that are the fastest, Roms that are the smoothest, Roms that have the best landscape support, Roms with the best apps to suit needs amongst others. Certainly if you try and make one overall top ten then it is going to be a lucky dip, but nobody suggested that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How exactly they are not different then? There is no two exactly same ROMs, with exactly same aims and objectives of a cook over here. Reading ROM description tells you exactly what the rom does and what the cook aims to achieve.
As an example; some ROMs have custom themes, some roms use MaxManilla, some use stock, some use something completely different. You can't quantify what's better. It's personal preference.
You can't possibly quantify 'best apps to suit needs' as everyone has different needs. As I said apples vs oranges.
If you want to make sure a ROM working, check the last 2-3 pages of ROMs thread to see if there are people complaining.
This is good advice for bug testing but does not offer any more constructive information on the whole.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Again, I'm trying to understand what are you on about, but I can't. What is constructive information according to you?
You have ROM description on the first page, you can check the last few if there are any issues with it. What else do you want?
[/QUOTE]

i agree what bobsbbq said ,is not fair to say that this rom is good and this rom is better but if you try the other rom is far more better,is dissrespectul from the chefs trying to help you guys having best rom's avialible and to open another thread to say things like that is bad,so for me i choose my own judgement and would not ask others wich rom is best,so this thread is closed

mwillems2 said:
The notion that this is a developers forum is a myth anyway.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're saying this like it is somehow an acceptable, or possibly even a good thing. It is not.
It's true that this forum is now visited by people who:
cannot be bothered to read the first post of any thread
have no intention of educating themselves, only blindly consuming
will shamelessly ***** and make demands about things they are getting for free
These people do not make the community "better" in any way, and this kind of behaviour should not be tolerated in my view.
mwillems2 said:
The idea that WW3 will break out if we allow dedicated discussion threads seems a bit weak to me. I've seen heated discussions in ROM threads and they never became more than that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Heated discussions in themselves do not need to escalate any further. They are already a waste of everybody's time, and have no place here.
mwillems2 said:
But from some people there is an all around lack of respect on this forum for the general user who do that deepest broadest testing, offer wirespread feedback and go a long way to making the ROM's what they are today.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm relatively sure the user who is seriously interested in testing and reporting is not in need of a completely seperate thread to voice their opinion on which ROM is somehow "best". For testers it's not constructive to voice opinions about a ROM in any other thread than the original ROM thread.
mwillems2 said:
And do not forget - if these folks weren't here to download the ROM's, how many chefs do you think would be here to cook them! Both sides need each other. I don't doubt the chefs get a kick from giving people what they want.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not so sure about that. I've seen plenty of chefs say that they basically cook for themselves, and just like to share. Even if they are cooking for the community, they do not need people to praise or diss their ROM's in any other thread than their own.
Overall, I feel the biggest problem with having a centralized ROM discussion thread is the intented audience: people who cannot be bothered to test and compare by themselves, people who cannot be bothered to read individual ROM threads.
What would be the point in creating a new thread for these people? Once it gets beyond 1 page, they will not bothered to read it anyway.

for me personally these "top 20s" don't have any value whatsoever but i understand why so many people want them. some of them are just lazy and want to avoid to read the threads, others are not able to think for themselves and need to be told what is good or bad for them and there are those who want to become famous reviewers.
for cryin' out loud, don't fix what is not broken! this forum is perfect as it is. moderators, don't let the comorades tell you what to do!

Volw said:
How exactly they are not different then? There is no two exactly same ROMs, with exactly same aims and objectives of a cook over here. Reading ROM description tells you exactly what the rom does and what the cook aims to achieve.
As an example; some ROMs have custom themes, some roms use MaxManilla, some use stock, some use something completely different. You can't quantify what's better. It's personal preference.
You can't possibly quantify 'best apps to suit needs' as everyone has different needs. As I said apples vs oranges.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think is better we not make comparative, believe it is better for all!!
but if you say it is impossible to compare among themselves the Rom, you're wrong!

lol reopened.
anyway i belive this huld be discussed. we are here three levels of people. so this will need for 1st level, and 2nd level will be trying the roms and giving feed backs. so 3rd level always will be cooking and editing roms. just my opinion.
lets start the work.. i go for duttys HG V.08

ROM OP's / Chef's suggestion - please read for a friendlier XDA

Hello guys,
I know this thread is not directly about a ROM, but this is where this thread belongs because it directly involves the OPs of all these threads... so please read my suggestion.
There is an ever increasing amount of flaming going on here, mostly shooting down newbies for asking the same questions over and over again. I have a suggestion which would be very useful for avoiding the repetitive questions as well as the bad vibes and time wasted generated by so much flaming.
My suggestion is to have all OPs of a thread, make post #2 or post #3 available SPECIFICALLY as an up-to-date info aggregating post... so:
1/ in the FIRST post of the thread, mention is made and a link given to a post (perhaps post #2 or 3) which is dedicated to NEW FINDINGS and WORK AROUNDS.
2/ Someone volunteers to update this post, a beta tester or friend of the OP's or a fan of that specific ROM. the would start and edit/maintain this post #2 or #3 each time a new finding is made (delete helvetica on Darky 7.5, for example)
3/ instead of reading dozens of posts of wasted energy flaming people (it makes ZERO difference and ONLY serves to make the flamer look arrogant and unfriendly) we could all politely point newbies and confused old farters like myself to the first post and post #2 or #3 where they can get useful information without being expected to waste hours reading hundreds of useless comments or failing to find what you want by searching.
4/ Searching only happens when you ALREADY have a problem you need to solve. This idea of post #2 or #3 being used for important new info would tell people ALL they need to know, so if they read that, they would not need to search! IMO searching can take a long time, and XDA limits you to one search per 30 seconds, which DISCOURAGES searching!?
IMO it is not THAT much effort for one person to take on this job per thread...
What do you think?
tx
Mark.

I totally agree with you but you probably know that keeping a post up to date is hard as you can't constantly be on xda.
A solution could be allowing multiple users modifying one same post so updating won't rely on one person.
But I don't know if this is currently feasible.

If you check out Doc's thread, this is basically what he does already. Several posts chock full of information with the most revelant addons, fixes, changelogs, etc.

chambo622 said:
If you check out Doc's thread, this is basically what he does already. Several posts chock full of information with the most revelant addons, fixes, changelogs, etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi
Yes, to some extent this is done on Doc's thread, though it contains (or has in the past when I was using doc's roms and reading those tips) some stuff which is outdated/irrelevant/incorrect an it is a bit disorganised.
I would love to see some kind of standardisation, so anyone trying out a new rom can read about the rom in the first post, and read the second post to see what the latest findings/fixes/issues are.
For sure, Doc's is a lot more informative than most...
Tx
Mark

Any specific information you'd like to see? If you have any questions, I'll try to answer them best I can.
I (at least try to) keep a detailed, up-to-date FAQ on my ROM's page. The problem is, not many people are asking questions.

I'm guilty of chastising folks sometimes too, especially the ones that come on here complaining that their phone is dead and how Samsung sucks because THEY didn't bother reading threads on how to properly flash, or not paying attention and flashing a captivate rom on a vibrant or a i9000m, whatever.
When I have a problem and need to ask a question, I've already spent time searching the net, searching xda, and reading related threads. I guess it is much easier just to hit "new post". How about a forum rule where it is mandatory to actually search, read the stickies, and the first few pages of a rom thread before posting? Or maybe a new thread should be created for every new ROM revision, with the thread title for older versions changed to include "OBSOLETE"?
Also, finding specific information in this forum is quite difficult sometimes because it is spread across hundreds of threads, sometimes buried a few hundred pages in. Another problem is that the i9000 is grouped in with the i9000m, and honestly, there should be a subforum specifically for the i9000m, where we can store all the QQ posts about SD failures and the like. Save the main forums for information we can actually use.
Just my 2 pesos... for what its worth.

This suggestion only covers part of the problem, the other problem is aspiring rom chefs was also shot down by fanboys of more established rom chefs. And as a result, not many would venture into rom cooking anymore.
While I have utmost respect for the chefs, what irks me most is fanboys calling others as thieves... Pathetic....
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

g00ndu said:
While I have utmost respect for the chefs, what irks me most is fanboys calling others as thieves... Pathetic....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi there,
I agree its definitely not constructive, people taking out their anger on others is uncool regardless of who-how-why.
shadoslayer said:
How about a forum rule where it is mandatory to actually search, read the stickies, and the first few pages of a rom thread before posting?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
most of this is already a requirement/request when you join the forum, but flamers get all self righteous and hammer anyone they deem has not done their homework.
searches are very fallible. if you search for a generally used word you come up with way too much, and search too narrow and you are likely to miss something. I was looking for "battery fix" because that is what the thread title mentioned, but in the actual thread it was called "battery drain" or something, so I did not find the "battery fix" and had to ask.
all these little important things that sit somewhere in a 1000 page thread need to be collected and put somewhere immediately after the first post...
IMO that would make the XDA experience more pleasant for more people!
Mark.

I agree its desperately needed .
Whats happening is that other forums mention the various roms .
Owners then download the rom without even the most basic knowledge of roms Odin flashing etc expect them to be just like factory roms . Get into trouble refuse to read page 1 ask for help often on subjects beyond their very limited knowledge .
jje

fredphoesh said:
Hi there,
I agree its definitely not constructive, people taking out their anger on others is uncool regardless of who-how-why.
most of this is already a requirement/request when you join the forum, but flamers get all self righteous and hammer anyone they deem has not done their homework.
searches are very fallible. if you search for a generally used word you come up with way too much, and search too narrow and you are likely to miss something. I was looking for "battery fix" because that is what the thread title mentioned, but in the actual thread it was called "battery drain" or something, so I did not find the "battery fix" and had to ask.
all these little important things that sit somewhere in a 1000 page thread need to be collected and put somewhere immediately after the first post...
IMO that would make the XDA experience more pleasant for more people!
Mark.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree for an extent. There are a few exceptions however:
1) There have been some cases where people have knowingly presented assumptions as fact... REPEATEDLY! Even after it is questioned. So flaming in that case might not be nice, but flaming is the only way to get them to go away. One such example was when someone was telling everyone "Google Mytrack is buggy, not the GPS". He refused to provide adequate evidence. RAM's another area where everyone is a professional, but none of the professionals have proof..
2) There are also a growing number of users who are blatantly IGNORING strong warnings about some ROM's.... And many of these are users with no development skills, or who haven't even tested official roms first. Then when something goes wrong, they demand help from the community, and later they bug the poor developers, who already knew there were serious bugs.
3) And then, there are the people who don't try to solve their own problem first. Granted, some searches CAN be missed. However, we are often seeing questions which often obviously can't be answered by the community (such as "when will Samsung release Gingerbread for SGS"). Well, clearly in that case, it would be best to speak to Samsung (duh). Or "my sd card is dead, will AT&T replace it". Clearly they should speak to AT&T
4) Then there are the guys too lazy to bother with basic fault fixing skills "my phone jammed up.. What do i do?"
I do agree in general it would be nice if things were friendlier. However, in some cases, I'm not sure if we should embrace people who were mentioned above....
What we really need is a thread designed as a faq consolidating answers

Poll Request

I would love to see a poll of "What ROM are you using on your dinc" or What is your favorite ROM".

Can we get a poll on what Rom is the most popular?
overground's post before closing that thread:
The reason we close what's referred to as "Best ROM Threads" is because the vast majority of the type end up a nasty flame fest. The reasons should be obvious. It's really a matter of opinion, and then you get the fanboys of certain devs chiming in, and well, you get it. My advice is try a few and make that choice yourself. It's easy to find the most popular ATM, because they stay on page 1 of the dev sub. That doesn't necessarily make it the best, however. Give some a shot and see what's best for you. To credit this thread, 8 pages and still civil. Seems DINC is growing up.
Thread closed
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

byrong said:
Can we get a poll on what Rom is the most popular?
overground's post before closing that thread:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would like to see the poll numbers, period. I'm not interested in the reasons or the debates. I think it would be a mistake not to allow the vote because you want to avoid the discussions you anticipate. What does it matter anyway if people get into a heated discussion?...1- you don't have to read it. 2- that's why we have moderators. A forum should not avoid threads on controversial issues.

marcmarshall said:
I would like to see the poll numbers, period. I'm not interested in the reasons or the debates.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's even more worthless than the arguments. If you just have people clicking a button, how do you know what else they've tried? What use is it to know that Redemptive Revolution is John Smith's favorite ROM if John Smith has never used any other ROM?
That's one of the many reasons that raw numbers from such polls is generally worthless. You don't know whether any given vote is being cast by someone with solid experience, or some guy who is brand new to Android and thinks that the new ROM he just flashed is pretty. Clearly, these two votes should carry different weight, but in a poll they do not.
Besides, I do not believe that the forum software allows for a poll without an open discussion thread. If you would like to set up your own poll using another site's software, nothing is stopping you.
marcmarshall said:
I think it would be a mistake not to allow the vote because you want to avoid the discussions you anticipate. What does it matter anyway if people get into a heated discussion?...1- you don't have to read it. 2- that's why we have moderators.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't care one way or the other. I'm just a member. You're right: I can ignore such a thread.
But the quote I posted was from a moderator here, so your point that "that's why we have moderators" is short-sighted and not your call to make. Just because you think that mods should spend their time looking after an unnecessarily heated discussion does not mean that they want to spend their time that way.
I don't really care about this subject one way or the other: I just thought it would be helpful to provide you with a link to one of the countless "best ROM" threads and a quote directly from a Mod on why such threads are discouraged.

byrong said:
That's even more worthless than the arguments. If you just have people clicking a button, how do you know what else they've tried? What use is it to know that Redemptive Revolution is John Smith's favorite ROM if John Smith has never used any other ROM?
That's one of the many reasons that raw numbers from such polls is generally worthless. You don't know whether any given vote is being cast by someone with solid experience, or some guy who is brand new to Android and thinks that the new ROM he just flashed is pretty. Clearly, these two votes should carry different weight, but in a poll they do not.
Besides, I do not believe that the forum software allows for a poll without an open discussion thread. If you would like to set up your own poll using another site's software, nothing is stopping you.
I don't care one way or the other. I'm just a member. You're right: I can ignore such a thread.
But the quote I posted was from a moderator here, so your point that "that's why we have moderators" is short-sighted and not your call to make. Just because you think that mods should spend their time looking after an unnecessarily heated discussion does not mean that they want to spend their time that way.
I don't really care about this subject one way or the other: I just thought it would be helpful to provide you with a link to one of the countless "best ROM" threads and a quote directly from a Mod on why such threads are discouraged.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You make good points byrong. I can understand that moderators don't want to spend a lot of time in such a debate, especially if it gets heated.
I also see how some opinions are more experienced and valuable than others. I also know that what makes a ROM attractive to one person another person might not care at all about, and that there there are a tremendous amount of variables to be considered in a single vote. All that said, In the aggregate when there is a large amount (thousands?) of votes, I think the result might be interesting to see. Maybe your right though and it would just be more noise than information.
Certainly if the forum software does not allow for poll vote pages this discussion is moot and maybe a bigger waste of time than the proposed thread might be!

Why didnt you just make this thread a poll? Its weird that you started a thread wanting to see a poll but you could of just made this thread a poll. You still could make this a poll by clicking on Thread Tools. Weird

incubus26jc said:
Why didnt you just make this thread a poll? Its weird that you started a thread wanting to see a poll but you could of just made this thread a poll. You still could make this a poll by clicking on Thread Tools. Weird
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ha- I remember wondering why I never saw polls on XDA and I thought I had noticed in the past there was no option to start a poll in the thread tools. I see now I could have, duh
At this point I'm almost swayed against it but I am going to try the thread tool and start the poll right after this post.
BTW- thanks for WarmZ, one of the few I've tried and a great ROM imho!
Edit- Never started a poll before. Of course I would I have to list all the ROMS as choices. Going to take a little ahhh...effort, and will have to wait a bit. I have to start on my taxes!

Well taxes done but I now realize byrong is right and how pointless this would be. Hopefully this thread will be yanked.

Keeping it real

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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
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?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
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