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seriously, this one forum is cluttered with hundreds of threads about ROMs, Recovery, Root, Guides, and other off-the-wall stuff. Can we get subforums made specifically for ROMs, Recoveries, Root (and only Root-related discussion), and Guides? this will organize the forum more efficiently, and we won't have to sift through hundreds of threads and thousands of posts to look for what we need. thanks for the good work so far!
bump, seriously, the Evo Development forum is a mess! we really need some subforums to help keep it organized.
do u mean like this? ~> http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=709267
i feel creating a entire subforum will cause more harm then good. the wikis organize things a bit and are stickied to the top of every subforum in the EVO 4G section. these wikis can be maintained and updated by all users of the forum. also it makes it possible to organize the guides and roms by type and such. i do see ur point though and that is why i created the wikis in the first place. i thought about creating a new subforum for a while, but the truth is that it will end up cluttered just the same. at least with the wiki u can look on one page and see all the roms,recoveries, and guides that relate to our device, not having to sift through the most popular to fine roms that arent. at the same time u can see that some roms are development roms and therefor still worthy of the development section. i just know from working on the Sprint HeroC that the wikis were life savers. specially months into owning the device, with old roms no longer being supported and buried by new roms. i hope this helps resolve ur issues. please PM me if u have more to add. thanx for the suggestions as ideas are always welcomed.
i just think it would make the Dev forum look a lot cleaner and organized if all the ROM threads were in a "ROMs" subforum; all the guides threads in a "Guides" subforum; all the kernel threads in a "Kernels" subforum; etc etc.
wikis are nice, and are very helpful in organizing information, but they don't make the forum look neater or any less intimidating, and the forum is where most people go for the most up-to-date information on everything.
right now, everything is just thrown into a single place. It's the equivalent of having a single forum called "HTC Phone Discussion" that is flooded with 1000s of threads related to MyTouch's, Evo's, Diamonds, Dreams, Hero's, Nexus', HD2's, etc etc. it's really inefficient and hard to sift through because everyone's threads are getting lost in the forum. albeit, on a much smaller scale, but you get the point.
agreed
Yes, def be a big help...
I feel we do need to keep better control over the threads and make a few different sections.
yeah - would definitely make things easier.
I agree. At least group some threads, such as tons and rooting guides (there's plenty of those!) This would help make other threads a little easier to find. Not everything needs a subforum, but some things would fit naturally. With evo dev so hot right now many threads are getting buried faster then you can find them.
+1 on this, the Nexus One android development forum also has the same issue, it is full of Rom's (which is great) but you cannot find the actual development threads any more..
yeah, we dont need a subforum for everything. i think 2 will suffice: "ROMs/Kernels/Recovery" and "Guides".
+1 to this suggestion for N1 too.
bump.
do the admins even read this board?
cnstarz said:
bump.
do the admins even read this board?
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Of course we do! We'll have a resolution in the coming days. Sorry for the delay.
no worries. my thing is this:
why does xda have forums for every phone they support; why not just create a single wiki for every single phone? because having just one forum and wiki for 100 different phones is ridiculous. it'd be impossible to keep up with updates because everything would get burried. the same thing is happening to the dev forum.
At least one post in 90% of threads here have a question in them, so why aren't they all moved to the Q And A threads? Forums are discussions of opinions and questions for each other to talk about.
If one thread is going to be moved that (imo) is not a question, then why aren't all the others? tbh, it annoys me, and i think the moderation here is a little too heavy handed.
Agreed... and to add another question why do some devices have a Q&A sub-section and some not? Seems inconsistent. Anyway the forums are hard to navigate anyway (too many sub-sections, outdated stickies, too many "READ THIS BEFORE YOU POST"-threads etc..). I guess at least the Q&A part could be merged with 'General' of every forum. Also Accessoires & Wallpapers/Themes get an extra sub-section? I'd lump everything together and make just two per device (General/Dev).
Oh and don't take this as "This is how you run a forum " - just my humble opinion
Ok. When a device general forum gets over 10,000 posts, or 1000 threads, it gets a Q&A section.
General vs dev only would result in even more junk in both to be fair...
I reckon at present there is a good balance as almost everything is consistent across the site. Go to HTC G1. It has, by and large, the same layout as all other sections.regarding outdated stickies, contact the mod for the relevant section by pm and point it out.
Regarding questions being moved, we can only move what we know about or see... So drop the mod for the section a PM with the threads.
MarkusPO said:
At least one post in 90% of threads here have a question in them, so why aren't they all moved to the Q And A threads? Forums are discussions of opinions and questions for each other to talk about.
If one thread is going to be moved that (imo) is not a question, then why aren't all the others? tbh, it annoys me, and i think the moderation here is a little too heavy handed.
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Heavy handed? Howso??? Feel free to PM if you want.
Typically, the original post in a thread defines the rest of the thread. If it is a question, then evidently the correct place is Q&A. I don't really see any way to argue with that to be fair.
Regarding a question that emerges later on in a thread, perhaps a move is not needed. For example, are you suggesting a ROM thread should be moved because someone asked a question?
As before, the reason some things get moved and others don't is because we are not aware of them. The report post feature, and pm to the section mod, are both essential in letting us know what is going on.
Finally, XDA is a development site first and foremost, so keeping questions clear of development areas is a pretty high priority. People spamming the dev areas with pointless and basic questions annoy everyone, and just bury the content we are all here to see (ROMs and tweaks)
pulser_g2 said:
Heavy handed? Howso??? Feel free to PM if you want.
Typically, the original post in a thread defines the rest of the thread. If it is a question, then evidently the correct place is Q&A. I don't really see any way to argue with that to be fair.
Regarding a question that emerges later on in a thread, perhaps a move is not needed. For example, are you suggesting a ROM thread should be moved because someone asked a question?
As before, the reason some things get moved and others don't is because we are not aware of them. The report post feature, and pm to the section mod, are both essential in letting us know what is going on.
Finally, XDA is a development site first and foremost, so keeping questions clear of development areas is a pretty high priority. People spamming the dev areas with pointless and basic questions annoy everyone, and just bury the content we are all here to see (ROMs and tweaks)
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Thanks for the response. My time here has been fairly short I know, but I'm not new to forums of course, and this is my experience thus far:
a thread that wasn't a question, but was about speculation for a nexus tablet was merged into the 'what phone / tablet should i buy next' thread. wtf.
other threads have been merged into semi-related, but not completely related threads. wtf.
i see sticky threads for newbies about development in - for example - the nexus s general on how to root / mod etc. wtf.
i know it's a fine balance between heavy-handedness to try to enforce an overall tidy forum vs user intuition and the chaoticness that is the weird and wacky thoughts of people.
imho this processing of my threads annoys me, and i'm sure it does other people too. if it drives people away, then that's bad for advertisement revenue. as long as threads are in the sort-of-right forum, then so-what. i for one tend to browse all the forums for a particular phone. so i'm going to reply if something catches my attention.
though, i do like the concept of having an accessories forum, dev forum, and general forum. i don't think a q+a forum is needed, ie. if i were to ask "does the otterbox commuter have this feature as a thread starter" where should it go? naturally the accessories forum, but it's a question... if i were after information about accessories, i'd head to the accessories forum as i may have the same question.
forums thrive on questions and answers. moving some questions to a q+a forum, and appearing to turn a blind eye to others just doesn't make sense. yes, so you miss some, but visitors don't know what you miss, and what you leave.
i'm thinking maybe test out a slightly looser mod regime for a while and allow related questions in the forums.
MarkusPO said:
Thanks for the response. My time here has been fairly short I know, but I'm not new to forums of course, and this is my experience thus far:
a thread that wasn't a question, but was about speculation for a nexus tablet was merged into the 'what phone / tablet should i buy next' thread. wtf.
I will look into this. Sounds strange.
other threads have been merged into semi-related, but not completely related threads. wtf.
i see sticky threads for newbies about development in - for example - the nexus s general on how to root / mod etc. wtf.
Those threads are pertaining to development, as without a way to root/hack the device, nobody can really develop for it. That's basically the way it's been for ages, so that's unlikely to change.
i know it's a fine balance between heavy-handedness to try to enforce an overall tidy forum vs user intuition and the chaoticness that is the weird and wacky thoughts of people.
You are right, it's hard on occasion to strike a balance, but to be honest, you have no idea what kinds of trolls we get here Most of the time we can sweep away the awful stuff before people see it...
imho this processing of my threads annoys me, and i'm sure it does other people too. if it drives people away, then that's bad for advertisement revenue. as long as threads are in the sort-of-right forum, then so-what. i for one tend to browse all the forums for a particular phone. so i'm going to reply if something catches my attention.
Fair point, but we have about 600,000 threads I can assure you we won't be cutting the number of forums per device, as that would make things unmanageable. Regarding the "right sort of forum", will address next. The trouble is that when I want to find some hack or tweak, I go to development. I don't expect to hunt through 200 pages of "I NEED HALLLLLLLLLLLP PLEEEEEEEEEEEZ NAOOOOOOOOOOOOOO KTHX" just to find a buried "[Mod] Trackball Wake source edit" or whatever...
though, i do like the concept of having an accessories forum, dev forum, and general forum. i don't think a q+a forum is needed, ie. if i were to ask "does the otterbox commuter have this feature as a thread starter" where should it go?
That would go in accessories. To be honest the Q&A is actually for beginner device questions moreso than that. I do see your point here, but I think you are misunderstanding the idea for the Device Q&A forum. If you want to ask "how do I flash a ROM on SPL v0.1", then Q&A is the place to go If you are more asking about a theme, then themes & apps is the place to ask it (provided it's about one of the existing themes and you can post in the existing thread). Regarding development forum, the idea there is that ONLY roms and other hacks go there, or discussions about achieving them. Essentially, anything not development related should be in general ("I like this device, do you?", "Is your screen darker at the bottom than top"? etc...), and the questions about ROMs etc in Q&A...
naturally the accessories forum, but it's a question... if i were after information about accessories, i'd head to the accessories forum as i may have the same question.
It would belong to the accessories forum. As above, Q&A is for device/ROM questions.
forums thrive on questions and answers. moving some questions to a q+a forum, and appearing to turn a blind eye to others just doesn't make sense. yes, so you miss some, but visitors don't know what you miss, and what you leave.
Interesting... You got any such examples? It would not be normal to move a question thread from a forum other than development, in my experience, so if there's an example, I'd love to see it. If you mean moving questions from development, that's not something we're likely to change, as it drives away the developers and hackers who make the ROMs you use
There shouldn't be any "blind eye turning", though if something is borderline or in doubt, it wouldn't usually be moved.
i'm thinking maybe test out a slightly looser mod regime for a while and allow related questions in the forums.
Other than the development forums (they're not going to change- we're having to add restrictions in there as well like postcount to stop spam and junk), that should be the way it is... Please PM me any examples you see, as I'd be keen to follow them up.
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Answers inline.
P
Hi all,
Since January, I am a regular reader of xda-forum galaxy s and its subforums. First of all I want to thank you all for your great work. It helped me a lot.
I would appreciate though if the forums could be more fine-grained like for example that in the section "Questions & Answers" there would be subfolders for "kernels", "roms" etc., and that related threads could be found in there and only there. I also suggest to do this for every section of the galaxy s forum. I think this would give the forums a little bit more structure and newbies would not get clobbered over the head with tons of threads. I know that people should search the forums with their specific questions, but it would be easier to begin with xda and maybe this would even curtail the flood of posts. By the way, this holds also for the other device specific forums
Thanks.
zimbardo.ea said:
Hi all,
Since January, I am a regular reader of xda-forum galaxy s and its subforums. First of all I want to thank you all for your great work. It helped me a lot.
I would appreciate though if the forums could be more fine-grained like for example that in the section "Questions & Answers" there would be subfolders for "kernels", "roms" etc., and that related threads could be found in there and only there. I also suggest to do this for every section of the galaxy s forum. I think this would give the forums a little bit more structure and newbies would not get clobbered over the head with tons of threads. I know that people should search the forums with their specific questions, but it would be easier to begin with xda and maybe this would even curtail the flood of posts. By the way, this holds also for the other device specific forums
Thanks.
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The trouble with this is that huge numbers more forums just give us WAY more to move around.
The trouble is that people who are unsure just post everywhere instead of posting once somewhere wrong
Adding the forums causes a huge strain on every page load as well, and vBulletin doesn't cope too well with large numbers of nested forums IIRC
Pitty, but thanks for your reply anyway
I've been a member for over a year and been fairly active in the Epic 4G forum.
It has been my experience that a myriad of questions are constantly re-asked & re-answered by ROM devs and other little elves b/c people are too lazy to search/read-back the threads, or are simply too daunted by 10's & 100's of pages of posts.
This has become a problem to the point where on a couple different occassions we created off-site Wikis just to help redirect people to answers to common problems. The problem with this is people have to be told each time..."Go to the Wiki [here]". It would be grand if you would enable Wiki-posts. It would allow each thread to have its own little ecosystem so that Devs wouldn't have to micro-manage & update OP with Q&A on every little bug, the little guys could keep it up to snuff. It's a great way to crowd-source troubleshooting. I've seen it successfully done on a number of threads.
What's more, I believe the OP can disable it if he prefers not to have one.
Thanks for listening!
.
Thread moved. Would advise you to read forum rules and post in correct section.
Xda has a WIKI for all devices granted some pages need updating so i doubt the Admin will enable wiki in posts
lufc said:
Xda has a WIKI for all devices granted some pages need updating so i doubt the Admin will enable wiki in posts
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Very aware of the XDA Wiki, in fact, we are using it at the moment (albeit it, somewhat unsuccessfully).
One advantage of in-thread Wiki is that it's all right there, right below the OP, right after all the other instructions. EVERYONE sees it, instead of a link to another page.
Another advantage is that it's generally easier for people to edit the in-thread wiki posts than an actual Wiki-page (I know neither is difficult, but this comes from my experience helping to maintain a ROM-devoted Wiki).
As far as the drawbacks of in-thread Wikis, perhaps spam, or it being forced after the initial Post?
I'd like to throw the idea around. I know it would help troubleshooting/Q&A in the forums I participate in, thought I'd throw it out there in case others would be interested.
Thanks!
P.S. Thanks for moving my thread (and shame on my for not reading the forum descriptions more closely)
I second this. It's borderline vital in long development threads. The off thread wiki doesn't do a whole lot of good if the link to that wiki needs to be hunted for, same as everything else.
Too bad the wiki doesn't even work on my computer...I think it's something with my wifi but idk.
Years on and this is still something I wish we had on this forum. In thread wikis are essential, especially on a website as big as this with threads that run for hundreds of pages. When you come to a thread months or years after it started, the OP is often irrelevant, and the links broken. It's not reasonable to expect someone to read hundreds of pages in a forum thread to find out what the current situation is.
So people ask the same questions, over and over. Eventually people get annoyed and stop answering, and just say the ever unhelpful "go read". I'm always willing to read and learn. But wading though tons of outdated data doesn't have to be a necessity. A simple thread wiki post would make this so much easier. If you're not familiar with the concept SlickDeals.net has one (it's available to every thread but not always used). A deal is posted, people chime on on how to improve the deal. The thread may go one for a few pages, but the wiki means you can get all the relevant info in one place. The info from the OP can change, the OP doesn't have to answer basic questions over and over, or any questions. Another person can take over the thread and keep it relevant.
I checked out this wiki https://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/Samsung but it's not updated. So why not a wiki post, it's right where people are looking for the info, so more likely to remain relevant and updated.
Years on from this OP and still no in-thread wiki post? Any reason why?
I'm a PHP developer, and have been for more than a decade, if any techs want to talk more about this, I'd be happy to chat.
My favorite is when people start belly aching and go on a tirade if a newcomer hasny read the entire thread. 1/4 of which is people asking for ETAs, and the other 1/4, people getting pissed at people asking for ETAs. Like they are getting brownie points from the Dev or something X^D
I have wasted so many people's time because I've had to ask questions that have been covered a billion times. I've also had tips/tricks get buried and never come to light again which is a shame.
XDA is all about development and progression, and yet the absence of a wiki post prevents a lot of knowledge from being readily available and wastes Devs time.
Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
Often a single thread will wind up having many hundreds, even thousands, of posts. In most cases, one would have to be a masochist to read them all, but, unless one can come up with good search terms to find posts relevant to a particular aspect of the thread topic, one is likely to miss significant, even crucial, information.
It seems that, in many contexts, starting new threads is frowned upon here, and users are encouraged to add new topics to existing threads. An extreme example is the thread:
Barnes & Noble Nook Color > Nook Color Android Development > Development Q&A - Ask Developmental Questions Here!
Mikey starts the thread with the message:
If you have any questions that may be development related please post them in here instead of making a new thread. Hopefully others will try to answer your question to the best of your abilities. Plus it saves me from moving a few hundred threads a day
Thanks!
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To me this makes no sense. Wouldn't it be better to have a sub-forum for such questions, so that users who have a question, perhaps even one not clearly formulated in their mind, could see what questions have been posted and possibly answered already? (Parenthetically, I would like to know how to distinguish "Developmental Questions" from other technical questions.)
Also, I think a lot more use should be made of the Wiki. For example, wouldn't it be useful to have a Wiki page for each ROM or closely-related set of ROMs for each device or set of devices that said ROMs have been developed for? Couldn't any guide that will inevitable require updating in response to developments and user questions be better done as a wiki page? (I would allow for the possibility that changes in the page might require the approval of the author of the guide.)
Am I banging my head against a wall here?
There is a lot of good info in the threads. But you expect devs to keep things up to date in one location? Some of them do and do a really good job at it. But most don't. Hell 95% of the time they don't even have a description of what the benefits of buying their paid apps over the free version are in the market. They don't put forth the effort when they are trying to get you to spend money, why would they do it in the forums. [/rant]
Sorry guys, just sick of the lack of descriptions/features the market.
aarons510 said:
Often a single thread will wind up having many hundreds, even thousands, of posts. In most cases, one would have to be a masochist to read them all, but, unless one can come up with good search terms to find posts relevant to a particular aspect of the thread topic, one is likely to miss significant, even crucial, information.
It seems that, in many contexts, starting new threads is frowned upon here, and users are encouraged to add new topics to existing threads. An extreme example is the thread:
Barnes & Noble Nook Color > Nook Color Android Development > Development Q&A - Ask Developmental Questions Here!
Mikey starts the thread with the message:
To me this makes no sense. Wouldn't it be better to have a sub-forum for such questions, so that users who have a question, perhaps even one not clearly formulated in their mind, could see what questions have been posted and possibly answered already? (Parenthetically, I would like to know how to distinguish "Developmental Questions" from other technical questions.)
Also, I think a lot more use should be made of the Wiki. For example, wouldn't it be useful to have a Wiki page for each ROM or closely-related set of ROMs for each device or set of devices that said ROMs have been developed for? Couldn't any guide that will inevitable require updating in response to developments and user questions be better done as a wiki page? (I would allow for the possibility that changes in the page might require the approval of the author of the guide.)
Am I banging my head against a wall here?
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Once a Device forum reaches a certain amount of posts, a new sub-section for "Q&A" gets added to the device forum. In the meantime, we use a specific thread for questions regarding development. This makes it easier for devs to read through there threads and pull out issues and come up with better products. You as a user are assumed to have the basic knowledge to search for your answer before posting questions. If you still can not come up with an answer, then by all means, post your question in the "General" sub-forum.
Also, can you tell me what being a masochist has to do with anything?