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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 I can understand if it's a thread with only a single post or perhaps even one that has become outdated (like a Cupcake release date thread) but why a thread that has 4 pages of information for a topic that doesn't have any reference for it already?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.
Okay, before everyone starts flaming...I know that there are probably hundreds of thread in the Dream General section suggesting a support section or a "Support thread" but they have been incredibly unsuccessful and members are constantly reporting and starting new threads on their problems in Dream Android Development and in General. Isn't the whole point of GENERAL suppose to be GENERAL? And not a support area?
This is why I'm proposing that we create an entire new area for people to get help and for people to post their problems and give solutions. If you take a look at the amount of locked threads in development and the amount of threads in Dream General pertaining to the numerous amount of problems that people are having, you will understand. I understand that there is in fact a brick thread inside Dream Development, but people don't care. They just post it in random places and mods have to constantly remind people to post in the right place and to SEARCH! With this proposal, I believe that if a support section is created, people will be more likely to search in THERE because it's a special place set aside for just that, SUPPORT.
Mods please take this into consideration and don't lock this thread. How many of you think that we should have a support section and not clutter Dream General and Dream Development with hundreds of two post threads talking about bricks and eventually them getting locked or moved to the trash within seconds.
Thanks for reading this. Comment in the posts below
Thanks to Milestone for a list of good reasons why we should have a support section! thanks milestone!
milestone.it said:
i feel that a support section would be useful for many simple reasons
1) it would aid in the moderation task - most people can read the word "support" and realize to post in there. if they can't then don't get a g1!
2) it would allow for a few people who are interested in helping out other newbie users to correct their problems without everyone having to read them if they don't want to.
3) there can be a place to move wrongly posted requests to.
4) everyone knows where to post them to in the first place!
that was my £0.02p
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Everyone here with a few exceptions i'm sure are using a rooted phone. If you noticed, each thread that contains a ROM will also provide support for that ROM. Most of the problems are specific to each rom. So there would need to be a support thread for each ROM released in a seperate forum section, which already exists in the developer section. Also, each rom released is pretty much a beta and will always remain a beta because there is no standards to which these roms are created and no "end point" to the development, its always on going. And unique bugs and problems will always occure with each Rom. So it is a continual part of development to post, read about and repair those bugs and problems to make each Rom better. I don't think a support section needs to be created. I just think people need to be less lazy and use the search tools. Even bricked phones are being bricked by a specific rom...or SPL or what have u and again should fall under development since most bricked phones was because of a bad SPL or bug in a ROM . And if it is not specific to anything that has been created or released here...Tmobile DOES have their own support forums =)
Good point, but we're not T-Mobile and T-Mobile doesn't JUST carry the G1 now do they?
alritewhadeva said:
Good point, but we're not T-Mobile and T-Mobile doesn't JUST carry the G1 now do they?
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You've a good point as well =). ...Yah, T-mobile mentioned something about them carrying the ION soon....so I guess "T-Mobile" can be replaced with "Your phone's manufacturer and/or carrier" hehehe
Did XDA not create forums for the Magic and the Ion and the Sapphire? Most of this development is geared towards the G1 for the most part...which pretty much is T-Mobile....Now if they just made a Forum for "ANDROID DEVELOPMENT" that encomposses all the android phones...that may work out better. But the support would still end up in the specific rom forums... I dunno...to many roms and too many phones and too many carriers lol getting had to keep up
alritewhadeva said:
Good point, but we're not T-Mobile and T-Mobile doesn't JUST carry the G1 now do they?
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No, and T-Mobile won't be able to support the myriad of problems that come with rooted phones and custom ROMs anyway.
The sad fact (and why this idea has never really taken off) is that no matter what you do; stickies/wikis/locked threads/temp bans etc... there is always going to be a host of fng's that don't know any better and will continue to post out of context and out of laziness.
Hell, there's a couple people that straight up know better and will still post in the wrong section because "nobody's gonna be able to help me in the Dream forum, so I'm posting here anyway."
It would seem you can't change human nature, so you're forced to moderate. Or so I've decided.
i feel that a support section would be useful for many simple reasons
1) it would aid in the moderation task - most people can read the word "support" and realise to post in there. if they can't then don't get a g1!
2) it would allow for a few people who are interested in helping out other newbie users to correct their problems without everyone having to read them if they don't want to.
3) there can be a place to move wrongly posted requests to.
4) everyone knows where to post them to in the first place!
that was my £0.02p
tep065 said:
You've a good point as well =). ...Yah, T-mobile mentioned something about them carrying the ION soon....so I guess "T-Mobile" can be replaced with "Your phone's manufacturer and/or carrier" hehehe
Did XDA not create forums for the Magic and the Ion and the Sapphire? Most of this development is geared towards the G1 for the most part...which pretty much is T-Mobile....Now if they just made a Forum for "ANDROID DEVELOPMENT" that encomposses all the android phones...that may work out better. But the support would still end up in the specific rom forums... I dunno...to many roms and too many phones and too many carriers lol getting had to keep up
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Yeah there's a forum for the Magic/Sapphire but the ION has not really been officially launched, but when it does I'm sure XDA will create another forum for it. I still think a support section would be a good idea. Most other forums have something like that, however this one does not. Just my opinion
milestone.it said:
i feel that a support section would be useful for many simple reasons
1) it would aid in the moderation task - most people can read the word "support" and realise to post in there. if they can't then don't get a g1!
2) it would allow for a few people who are interested in helping out other newbie users to correct their problems without everyone having to read them if they don't want to.
3) there can be a place to move wrongly posted requests to.
4) everyone knows where to post them to in the first place!
that was my £0.02p
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Good list. Updated OP
So, I've been thinking about this a bit more... and drinking bombay/tonic and shots of patron, so take it with a grain of salt...hehe
Anyway, I actually think it could be useful at this point. Seeing all the troubleshooting threads in this forum, it could be useful to seperate truly general things with support related things.
The way I see it, at this moment:
Dream (26 Viewing)
Dream android development (237 Viewing)
Dream accessories (2 Viewing)
Dream themes and wallpapers (25 Viewing)
Dream applications and games (23 Viewing)
Obviously, development gets all the attention.
That's the main reason so many people go straight there to get a question answered.
However; a support thread probably wouldn't see any less visitors than the other 4 threads and certainly more than the accessories thread. I dare say, accessories could be merged with general and be replaced with support.
It wouldn't hurt to have a handful of stickies of current support issues and an entire thread dedicated to it. Maybe having a thread that floated to the top in development called support that tried to redirect people to a support forum might work well.
Anyway, just a thought. Back to the tequila...
milestone.it said:
i feel that a support section would be useful for many simple reasons
1) it would aid in the moderation task - most people can read the word "support" and realise to post in there. if they can't then don't get a g1!
2) it would allow for a few people who are interested in helping out other newbie users to correct their problems without everyone having to read them if they don't want to.
3) there can be a place to move wrongly posted requests to.
4) everyone knows where to post them to in the first place!
that was my £0.02p
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Agreed =] I'm thankful for everyone commenting in this thread and keeping it alive. Come on guys, don't PRETEND you DON'T want a suppport section. Aren't all of you tired of the cluttered threads and the people telling you to sift through 300 page threads for answers? With this support section, finding an answer should be a breeze. I'm proposing we have sepeerate threads in the section for different ROMs and to post known problems and known solutions in the OPs. Let your opinions be heard! Going to go ahead and bump this up there. Come on! Comment! and vote in the poll
original topic at
[Q] Proposal to merge all Galaxy S family into 1 neat and big sub forum
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=764084
That is brilliant. Can't believe I did not post it first, it is a peeve of mine, big time.
I would like to see this as well.
I support this!
It was like that at first, but I think they did this so that people wouldnt start flashing things on their phones without knowing which one it's for.
I wouldnt mind a general "Galaxy S General" forum though.
yes, this would be a definite plus. and give us an off topic section for us sgs users as well.
+1 .....10 char
^bump^
as i don't have any Mod power to make it a sticky, much less make the original topic cross posted across the 5 SGS forums
115 Yes
7 No
Wow...
I didn't at first, but I found my self looking at the other forums today because its really obvious that there is tons of cross over. Of course I'd agree that development should be seperate, but cases and other things should totally be combined.
I just hope my sticky stays a sticky
jz9833 said:
It was like that at first, but I think they did this so that people wouldnt start flashing things on their phones without knowing which one it's for.
I wouldnt mind a general "Galaxy S General" forum though.
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It wasn't exactly like that at first I think..more precisely only the i9000 forum existed as it was the only device out at the time..
Right now we got almost the devices out the door and most of the stuff are compatible..if not minor tweaks make it compatible...
But yes thats exactly what the proposal will do..it will separate out the development with some room for cross development and keep the other categories like general the same
As long as the development sections are separate I think this its a good idea..
Especially if we have enough mods to watch over us...
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
and also take out the Galaxy Spica subsection which no one seems to use.
I do like the idea though the only thing I'm worried about is people getting confused in the development section. And I'm assuming since the software is basically the same for all the phones then themes would work across all phones.
yeah that might be an issue. if we do merge, I think it's best if people start id'ing their thread with something like
[CAPT] dadada
[VIBR] dadada
[EPIC] dadada
Let me clear things up a bit....the Development thread will have sub-forums for each device...so anything that is unique or only for 1 device will be in the sub-forum...things that work on all devices or multiple devices will go into the main Development forum where we will tag it something like this "[V][C][F]" which would mean works for Vibrant, Captivate, Fascinate only.
I agree, checking all the other SGS forums is a litle annoying.
kizer said:
I didn't at first, but I found my self looking at the other forums today because its really obvious that there is tons of cross over. Of course I'd agree that development should be seperate, but cases and other things should totally be combined.
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I was under the impression that the Vibrant and Captivate don't use the same cases (Captivate has lines vs curves), so already there is an instance where this idea falls apart.
Theres going to be a SGS with a keyboard soon, that case won't be compatible with cases for the other phones.
So....we could mix the Vibrant and i9000 forums because they're basically the same form factor, but why bother.
There is enough different about all these phones that it's probably better keeping them separated.
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EDIT:
With that said, when there is an issue with one phone, it does seem to carry over to the others and it is freaking annoying having to delve the forums of the other phones to find a solution.
Unfortunately, what is the "better" solution? Either one is going to be somewhat confusing for somebody.
Bump.
To the people that still doesn't know about this idea, please go vote if you would like to see the big Galaxy S family forum merged.
Thanks.
If any of the forum mods are reading this, can we please look into, or possibly even put into effect a structured dev forum the way the HD2 community has? Everything is clean, uniform and organized.
I think this would help out everyone. Any new threads, or anything should follow the same rules. etc. here's a link to their dev forum.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=928
Hd 2 different animal, you have winmo 6.xx section, then you have windows 7 section, then you have android section and meego..etc. Totally different format. What would be nice is to have the postings tagged so whatever the version is 2.1 2.2 or 2,21 or 2.3... it was organized that way. But, I asked this question and according to the Moderator they system can't do that and they do not have time to do it manually........... so there you have it...........
I'll keep an eye on this to see what other opinions are floating about, but oka1 has said it all really!
If there are any great ideas, then do post them and we can flag them for the admin to consider.
It would be better as OK1 suggested if we had the development thread divided by the versions. But to be honest, it ain't that difficult to post or find a thread here. All good.
The moderators can't do anything about how messy our forum is, we can and there won't be enough of us to help with the "cause" so might as well end it here... i do like oka1's idea though.
Well like oak said, to add the tags, but my idea was mainly to keep the format ie:
[kernel/ROM/mod][updated date][version][name of rom/kernel][o/c no o/c etc][anything else]
and to make it mandatory, i think a little order would bring some more maturity to things... if everything is unorganized and chaotic then the way people act will be likewise (in my opinion of course)
and as far as not EVERYONE doing it, those that don't update their roms will slowly fade into the pages thus not being brought back up, but i do believe most of the roms/kernels that are active right now the devs do care about them, and the new format is not something that should be taken as a "bad" thing, but something again to bring some order to such a young group of viewers.
now again this is my own opinion, feel free to have your own, but please be mature about it.
xriderx66 said:
The moderators can't do anything about how messy our forum is, we can and there won't be enough of us to help with the "cause" so might as well end it here..
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your mentality on looking at things is very pessimistic, which is why if it doesn't work, where in lies the problem. inability to change and adapt to new things. Change is good, it keeps things fresh and interesting, nothing has been done or changed which i think in the end is hurting this sgs community.
nothing against you saying that you're "always" pessimistic, but that line was.
Firstly I would just like to say that I am eternally grateful to the devs for choosing to share their work here and I have no complaints (other then one) and I think the work the do is amazing, without them we would be stuck on carrier firmware and out of date software/features so much respect!
My issue is and personally think this is long overdue is that we REALLY need a global (or in least the GS2 section) XDA naming convention/rule or forum addon for adding rom threads so that all rom topic titles are consistent and uniformed.
I probably say this and think about it more because my 2 previous daily devices were the immortal (and best ever smartphone) HTC HD2 and the Galaxy Tab (P1000) and in these forums all dev topics were pretty uniform and all rom/kernel topics has date stamp at front of title so that people browsing section could easily see at a glance if there had been any updates to their roms or in general for people like me who have ORD.
Other sections though like S2 seem to be completely random and its more of a pain to look through roms and the "at a glance" checking of rom updates is completely non-existent.
IMO we really need a rule set of posting topics in dev section as far as rom/kernel releases goes, for example..
[DATE][ROM/KERNEL] Rom Title [Version][Extra Info]
Obviously thats just a quick example but really think the first 2 sections (ie date/type] should be mandatory at front so that all dates/types are in line. Anywhere else and they all just go completely random.
Agree/Disagree , why, thoughts?
:good:
Thoughts? Sure, site-wide rule suggestions don't belong in device sub-forums.
oinkylicious said:
Thoughts? Sure, site-wide rule suggestions don't belong in device sub-forums.
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Well it was in the least just for our forum since mods can create per section rules, however the rule could be made global ideally.