Develop Bugs

Forum sugestion: A "No thanks" button...

So I have been a member on here for a while and have observed the changing trends in devices and users. But something has gotten much worse in last year and I think we need to address it in proper XDA fashion. I am not the type to complain without trying develop a solution and I am looking for some feedback from mods and users of all types, shapes and sizes here.
This forum has a real problem with people making useless posts in the wrong sections, about the wrong topics and while I think the mods do a great job they clearly can't keep up. I am no saint and will admit my own guilt on one or two occasions but some users just post meaningless post after meaningless post and really great threads are being destroyed as a result. This problem has clearly gotten out of hand and it isn't limited to just the devices I follow. A review of the forum shows this behavior in just about every device category. Just my observation...
My proposed solution to this problem I perceive is a "No thanks" button that will function in exactly the opposite way the "Thank you" button works with a few caveats I see as a huge value add.
1. If a certain post is given X amount of no thanks clicks it is automatically sent to a mod for review or perhaps even automatically deleted.
2. 1 Thanks click cancels out X no thanks clicks. This would keep trolls from using it in destructive ways if you are just someone that has a few enemies. Hopefully...
3. One thanks click cancels out X no thanks clicks.
4. After a user receives X amount of no thanks clicks they are redirected to the forums rules page for a period of 24 hours. No matter what link they click or how they access the site they will just be redirected to a page with the forum rules so they can study them.
I could go on listing things but I want to see what you guys think about something like this. It would allow all of us to some degree the ability to moderate our favorite threads and keep the BS posts to a minimum. User that continue to post things off topic or in the wrong threads will find themselves spending a lot of time studying the forum rules. Even if we don't add the enhanced features the no thanks button is long overdue. These people can wear their lack of respect for forum rules like a badge of shame the same way devs wear the thanks button like a badge of honor. It will give them more incentive to think about the things they post and will help ensure that good threads are not destroyed by the same question asked 100 times.

Moved to About xda-developers.com section

i agree it would bring alot of excitement to the forum , and the automatic mod contact would be a great idea for members who are a constant problem , also total negative points could show up in the profile and maybe have a forum top list for easy overview of troublemakers
also it has to be understood that it would bring a massive amount of work as ive never seen 2 types of thanks (or positive-negative)buttons in a vBulletin system

jnutz said:
This forum has a real problem with people making useless posts in the wrong sections
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Moved to About xda-developers.com section
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Sorry, that just made me chuckle..

This has two ways it could go.
one way:
A bury down system, if there is a post that is irrelevant or off topic and not needed in that thread users could bury it (IE: Hide for themselves) and enough votes hides it for all members of that thread.
other way:
Exactly like thanks button but instead has no thanks. Thing is this serves really no purpose as if Post A was useful and then Post B wasn't very helpful and one got "thanked", the other "no thanked" then it would balance out to zero. In the end this means nothing as XDA is about sharing, not who has the best thanks ratio.
I dont think this is the best route for XDA as we move on and mature as there are much more important issues to focus on at the moment

Bury down system seems like a good idea, since inevitably people may reply to the poster before he recives enough -1 to bury the post and if that post is then deleted it will just make the forum read flow badly
Let me suggest that not everyone should be entitled to the -1 button to bury a post, only lets say 60-70% of the members either deicded apon by join date/thanks recived andor post count.
Another problem I've seen in regards to the new 10 post rule is that people are just trolling on other forums typing random useless things in just to increase their post count to 10.
Persistant offenders that have had their posts buried should get some sort of mail to warn them if things dont improve their account will be looked at by a moderator.

arielc said:
Bury down system seems like a good idea, since inevitably people may reply to the poster before he recives enough -1 to bury the post and if that post is then deleted it will just make the forum read flow badly
Let me suggest that not everyone should be entitled to the -1 button to bury a post, only lets say 60-70% of the members either deicded apon by join date/thanks recived andor post count.
Another problem I've seen in regards to the new 10 post rule is that people are just trolling on other forums typing random useless things in just to increase their post count to 10.
Persistant offenders that have had their posts buried should get some sort of mail to warn them if things dont improve their account will be looked at by a moderator.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Report the posts of anyone who is spamming other areas, as I'll simply ban them for spamming the board. The limit is there for good reason, and people trying to get round it will be dealt with severely.
Cheers
P

jnutz said:
So I have been a member on here for a while and have observed the changing trends in devices and users. But something has gotten much worse in last year and I think we need to address it in proper XDA fashion. I am not the type to complain without trying develop a solution and I am looking for some feedback from mods and users of all types, shapes and sizes here.
This forum has a real problem with people making useless posts in the wrong sections, about the wrong topics and while I think the mods do a great job they clearly can't keep up. I am no saint and will admit my own guilt on one or two occasions but some users just post meaningless post after meaningless post and really great threads are being destroyed as a result. This problem has clearly gotten out of hand and it isn't limited to just the devices I follow. A review of the forum shows this behavior in just about every device category. Just my observation...
My proposed solution to this problem I perceive is a "No thanks" button that will function in exactly the opposite way the "Thank you" button works with a few caveats I see as a huge value add.
1. If a certain post is given X amount of no thanks clicks it is automatically sent to a mod for review or perhaps even automatically deleted.
2. 1 Thanks click cancels out X no thanks clicks. This would keep trolls from using it in destructive ways if you are just someone that has a few enemies. Hopefully...
3. One thanks click cancels out X no thanks clicks.
4. After a user receives X amount of no thanks clicks they are redirected to the forums rules page for a period of 24 hours. No matter what link they click or how they access the site they will just be redirected to a page with the forum rules so they can study them.
I could go on listing things but I want to see what you guys think about something like this. It would allow all of us to some degree the ability to moderate our favorite threads and keep the BS posts to a minimum. User that continue to post things off topic or in the wrong threads will find themselves spending a lot of time studying the forum rules. Even if we don't add the enhanced features the no thanks button is long overdue. These people can wear their lack of respect for forum rules like a badge of shame the same way devs wear the thanks button like a badge of honor. It will give them more incentive to think about the things they post and will help ensure that good threads are not destroyed by the same question asked 100 times.
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Click to collapse
I love this idea. I came in to this section, getting ready to request a 'No Thanks' button myself, when I found your post. Some of the completely frustrating examples are:
1) Posting the message 'Thanks' instead of just clicking the thanks button
2) Asking what the battery life on a new ROM is, 2 minutes after the ROM has been posted
3) Asking questions that have been asked 20 times in the current thread
This problem gets exacerbated by other members posting to tell them that they're post is not useful, in the wrong place, or redundant.
If we had a way to flag these posts, maybe by adding more options to the 'report' functionality, without further polluting the thread, it would go a long way towards keeping threads clean.
Thx,
Jason

djgromit said:
I love this idea. I came in to this section, getting ready to request a 'No Thanks' button myself, when I found your post. Some of the completely frustrating examples are:
1) Posting the message 'Thanks' instead of just clicking the thanks button
2) Asking what the battery life on a new ROM is, 2 minutes after the ROM has been posted
3) Asking questions that have been asked 20 times in the current thread
This problem gets exacerbated by other members posting to tell them that they're post is not useful, in the wrong place, or redundant.
If we had a way to flag these posts, maybe by adding more options to the 'report' functionality, without further polluting the thread, it would go a long way towards keeping threads clean.
Thx,
Jason
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I understand, seeing battery related and other FAQ can be frustrating, but they are not exactly spam, and XDA is growing and new users are discovering the world of custom ROMs and flashing because of which certain excitement and stupidity at the same time.
It's in the right spirit to welcome and be good to new members, but indeed if you notice a particular member getting out of hand or a little to n00bish please do report and we the MODs will do the needful.
We all need to strive for a balance between the developers and old school XDA members part and the new members, it can be tough; but i'm sure it can be done
JM2C's.

Hola, I would have liked to quote all of you, since you all have pro´s but there are also plenty of con´s and so I´ll only quote this last ones as reference...
djgromit said:
I love this idea. I came in to this section, getting ready to request a 'No Thanks' button myself, when I found your post. Some of the completely frustrating examples are:
1) Posting the message 'Thanks' instead of just clicking the thanks button
2) Asking what the battery life on a new ROM is, 2 minutes after the ROM has been posted
3) Asking questions that have been asked 20 times in the current thread
This problem gets exacerbated by other members posting to tell them that they're post is not useful, in the wrong place, or redundant.
If we had a way to flag these posts, maybe by adding more options to the 'report' functionality, without further polluting the thread, it would go a long way towards keeping threads clean.
Thx,
Jason
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Click to collapse
I think and welcome the idea of "flagging" certain posts after it is totally clear (I know, sometimes it seems obvious) that the post is "trash" or BS (by the way, my initials). But there are also plenty of drawbacks to the way this can be done, so no hard/personal feelings get "hurt" und thus agrrevate the situation and lead to more discontent and "wrong" behaviour. Maybe anonymously after a poll? But then again, this would also mean more work for the admins or further involucration and responsibility for the OPs (which is my opinion, that they should be held more responsible for their threads and given more authoroty with that rensponsability - but that´s a different thing and not the point here).
As for your "frustrating" examples:
1.) When the "thanks" button got introduced (again), like in so many other boards, for some it´s enough just to push that button to show their appreciation, but others "need" to write a "thank you" post (which used to be the way before) - call it education, need to get the post count up, what ever... I personally think, there is nothing wrong with either method, hitting the button, or writing a thanks post. Doesn´t harm anybody, and btw, to bad the limit is 5 per day, cause a lot of times I find very usefull posts for me (mostly more than 5 per day) and I can´t thank the users for it, unless writting a thanks post. Both of these methods are positive and encouraging...
Now to the "no thanks".... It´s neither encouraging, nor positive, nor really constructive and could lead to further discussions within a thread instead of the intended result.
2.) Answered by madnish below
3.) It´s a pitty, but it´s human lazyness, sometimes not to read the posts from others (not the questions and not the answers to those questions), or simply call it egoism, wanting a personal solution, lack of time... or simply not having payed attention. I´ve answered quite some questions asked over and over again, just like a lot of other members. You can either try to help people, and remind them to use the search and/or read the thread thoroughly before posting a question...., or you can tell them their post is BS, not usefull, has been answered a million times, etc, or you can simply ignore them. All of these lead to the same result. After a while, these users tend to read, search and think before posting, so it has a positive and beneficial effect on the mid/long term...
So YES, "flagging" would be OK, depending on how it´s put into practice.
madnish30 said:
I understand, seeing battery related and other FAQ can be frustrating, but they are not exactly spam, and XDA is growing and new users are discovering the world of custom ROMs and flashing because of which certain excitement and stupidity at the same time.
It's in the right spirit to welcome and be good to new members, but indeed if you notice a particular member getting out of hand or a little to n00bish please do report and we the MODs will do the needful.
We all need to strive for a balance between the developers and old school XDA members part and the new members, it can be tough; but i'm sure it can be done
JM2C's.
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Click to collapse
I´m kinda representing the noob´s side. I´m only a simple and yes, stupid user. No dev, no technical background, but lot´s of questions... Maybe xda used to be different and only for developers, as the name states, but times have changed and also the "kind" of members. The profile is no longer only dev´s and tec´s, but also a lot of users with different expertice (less), skills (other), background, knowledge, age, education, culture, language, etc.
All users should me more responsible, but hey, we are all human and act according to different standards, believes, etc. The only way to solve this problem is by all enforcing and encouraging the rules, "helping" out the OPs, Moderatrors & Admins to keep the threads as integer, clean and "on topic" as possible. I know there are times when some posts are interpreted (and actually are) off topic, but sometimes this is also beneficial for the users and thus for the thread itself.
Basically all this is just to say, it´s not about all that can or needs to be done by rules, limitations, mods and admins - it´s about what WE can ACTIVELY do to improve the situation and avoid it becoming worse...
Btw, I would have pushed the "no thanks" button for this request. Not because I don´t think that it´s a good thing, simply because I don´t agree with it. Very good innitiative, but in my honest and humble opinion, bad judgement, so YES, thank you, but no thanks

Similar to "Thanks" button, please add "Unhelpful" or "Dislike" button

Similar to "Thanks" button, please add "Unhelpful" or "Dislike" button
Some forums on here have grown out of control with nonsense and useless posts and it is too much and even unnecessary work sometimes, for mods to have to deal with. The thousands of users that read these posts daily are perfectly capable of judging these posts and should be able to + or - a post based on its usefulness. This +/- button could be attached to every post similar to the way the "Thanks" button is. It wouldn't require every post to be +'ed or -'ed, but usually the REALLY HELPFUL posts would be +'ed (similar to being thanked) and the real BS posts would be ranked down. Simple.
People who don't bother to read or search first before posting something are an annoyance for many in this community.. and posting stickies at the top of every page titled "PLEASE READ FIRST" or anything similar just doesn't work. Users then "flame" one another, and that doesn't help in correcting the problem either. Additionally, the mods shouldn't have to be monitoring posts like they would a kindergarten class.
Allowing users to simply rate posts with a +/- like on many other sites, would improve the visibility of helpful posts on this forum greatly, while allowing nonsense posts to be hidden. When a posts receives an overwhelming number of -'s as opposed to +'s, that post will be automatically hidden so that other users may ignore it. There is already a "Thanks" button to thank users for being helpful; I think it's unrealistic to not include a way to flag unhelpful posts as well since there are just as many of those. (These aren't always derogatory or negative posts that SHOULD be reported to mods, but instead just wasteful and nonsense posts that add nothing informative to a thread).
Yes, this is a community where we are all here to help each other. In reality though, some users just don't care about anything except what they're here for and end up cluttering the forums with questions that have been answered several times before, or posting in wrong sections, etc . Those posts should be able to be flagged or ranked down by us users (this can be limited to even junior/ senior members for those worried of abuse in such a system, which is really not a threat at all [I explain in a post further down]). Please consider this improvement.
Thoughts?

Love it.
TechReport.com does a similar thing, and if you get five downvotes the post isn't automatically displayed.
Would streamline the site immensely, although I have a sneaky feeling something along these lines may well be implemented in the future.

This would cause so many problems too... All it would take is a few pissed off kids to downrank a helpful/brutally honest/ROM post into oblivion.
I think the way it is is fine, Although I wish they had a "Report as Trolling" button so we could send those ****ers into space somewhere...

posts like this

Not at all. If other users see a post getting downranked and they think it shouldn't be, they can just + it and if the overall community thinks the post shouldn't be downranked, enough people will + it to unhide the post. You sound like you have no faith in the community to do something right. It is such a large community that it will take a large number of posters to downrank something. And the general consensus about the post will eventually trump inappropriate downranks. It's so simple but difficult to explain. Also, this wouldn't require every post to be ranked. It's just there as an option.
Check out some androidandme posts for example. It works wonderfully on there.

IISiDeK1CKII said:
This would cause so many problems too... All it would take is a few pissed off kids to downrank a helpful/brutally honest/ROM post into oblivion.
I think the way it is is fine, Although I wish they had a "Report as Trolling" button so we could send those ****ers into space somewhere...
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Good point Sidekick (Hi btw ) but I do think this would occur much less frequently than the opposite (ranking down trollers and threadcrappers, myself included )
Also, 'sensible users' could easily just rank it back up.

^^ Exactly. It's already a system in place on many sites, and it's obviously used because it works.

I'm in for this. We all know XDA has grown too fast for moderation to keep up. Let the users help out.

This is definitely a really good idea, it would bring up the quality of posts especially on the development related threads. +1 from me

Aspeds2989 said:
Some forums on here have grown out of control with nonsense and useless posts.
The issue of lazy people who don't bother to read or search before posting something annoys a lot of people in this community.. and posting stickies at the top of every page titled "PLEASE READ FIRST" or anything similar just doesn't work. Users flaming one another doesn't help in correcting the problem either. The mods also have enough on their hands to have to worry about monitoring and deleting and moving wrongfully placed posts.
So, in an effort to better the experience for everyone, why not allow users to simply rate posts with a +/- like on many other sites. When a posts receives an overwhelming number of negatives, that post will be automatically hidden (check androidandme.com for example).
I think this will be a more effective and simple way for the community to keep tabs on itself. There is already a "Thanks" button to thank users for helping one another. I think it's unrealistic to not include a way for users to rank down unhelpful posts as well. The report button just unnecessarily pushes more work onto the mods.
Yes, this is a community where we are all here to help each other. In reality though, some users just don't care about anything except what they're here for and add nothing positive to the community. Those posts should be able to be ranked down by us users.
Thoughts?
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How about a [Solved Button]? For those Damn threads you read about a Million Replies to just to find out Help is No Longer Needed!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1178716

PMGRANDS said:
How about a [Solved Button]? For those Damn threads you read about a Million Replies to just to find out Help is No Longer Needed!
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There is actually another thread about this in here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1178716

Unksi said:
There is actually another thread about this in here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1178716
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I know... Sorry!
I actually Started the other thread!
Lol, just trying to Promote the Idea!

Yea.. I didn't think anyone would listen either :-! Oh, well. I tried.

Preach it! This system would be extremely helpful for everyone, especially since there is alot of cluttering going on.

Ehh.. I think writing an essay was enough for me. If people like this maybe they can just keep bumping it until it catches attention.

Aspeds2989 said:
Ehh.. I think writing an essay was enough for me. If people like this maybe they can just keep bumping it until it catches attention.
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I Hear that... I Feel the Same way as you do with my Idea! I actually thought I'd have a lot More comments than I have in my thread. But oh well... Lol!

meeeowww..

Potential for abuse = Huuuge...
Sent From My Fingers To Your Face......

Realistic threat of abuse = Non-existent
Again, I refer to a site like Yahoo that uses this in their comments section that sees multiple times the amount of traffic than does this site and.. EDIT - nevermind

Aspeds2989 said:
Realistic threat of abuse = Non-existent
Again, I refer to a site like Yahoo that uses this in their comments section that sees multiple times the amount of traffic than does this site and.. EDIT - nevermind
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First off, I apologise, I did not pay attention and therefore my last post was irrelevant, allow me to respond properly....
Also, I hope that you didnt decide to edit your post because you noticed I was a mod, contrary to popular belief, users DO NOT receive bans/infractions for speaking their minds
Aspeds2989 said:
People who don't bother to read or search first before posting something are an annoyance for many in this community.. and posting stickies at the top of every page titled "PLEASE READ FIRST" or anything similar just doesn't work. Users then "flame" one another, and that doesn't help in correcting the problem either. Additionally, the mods shouldn't have to be monitoring posts like they would a kindergarten class.
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Click to collapse
Couldnt agree more....
Aspeds2989 said:
That is why allowing users to simply rate posts with a +/- like on many other sites, would improve the quality of posts on this forum greatly. When a posts receives an overwhelming number of negatives, that post will be automatically hidden so that other users are aware and may ignore it (check androidandme.com or any Yahoo news articles for examples). I think this will be a more effective and simple way for the community to keep tabs on itself. There is already a "Thanks" button to thank users for helping one another. I think it's unrealistic to not include a way for users to rank down unhelpful or even negative posts as well. It's like not wanting to acknowledge the fact that there are a lot of nonsense posts throughout the forums. And the report button just unnecessarily pushes more work onto the mods and the majority ignores it, so it's not effective.
Yes, this is a community where we are all here to help each other. In reality though, some users just don't care about anything except what they're here for and add nothing positive to the community, and end up cluttering the forums with questions that have been answered several times before, or posting in wrong sections, etc . Those posts should be able to be flagged or ranked down by the community. Please consider this improvement.
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Click to collapse
Im not sure if this is possible with the version of VB that XDA uses. It probably is but then there is always the possibility that it may not work smoothly due to the existing amount of tweaks to the system that are already in place.
The problem you describe is due to the "gimme gimme gimme" mentality of the current userbase and we are currently taking steps to address this.
In the meantime please alert us to any such posts and we can remove duplicates and tag items as [SOLVED]. We dont mind doing it if people are willing to let us know that it needs to be done.
IISiDeK1CKII said:
This would cause so many problems too... All it would take is a few pissed off kids to downrank a helpful/brutally honest/ROM post into oblivion.
I think the way it is is fine, Although I wish they had a "Report as Trolling" button so we could send those ****ers into space somewhere...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It could be an issue, there will always be a certain "fanboi" mentality that would be inclined to abuse such a system. Some of the developers can be quite blunt (and rightly so) when it comes to people asking dumbass questions in a thread, I would hate to see for threads to be tarnished with downvotes (even if it is just one) all because some asshat wasnt happy about receiving a public dressing down.
There is already a Report button... Use it, we dont like trolls, they will be promptly escorted off the premises.
Aspeds2989 said:
Not at all. If other users see a post getting downranked and they think it shouldn't be, they can just + it and if the overall community thinks the post shouldn't be downranked, enough people will + it to unhide the post. You sound like you have no faith in the community to do something right. It is such a large community that it will take a large number of posters to downrank something. And the general consensus about the post will eventually trump inappropriate downranks. It's so simple but difficult to explain. Also, this wouldn't require every post to be ranked. It's just there as an option.
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Click to collapse
As much as I hate to say it, I have to agree with the bold part at the moment.
I think that too much of the current userbase just want the easy option and want it now.
I think that we would need to adress the issue of discipline and improving the content of posts before we could implement a system like this, we are currently doing this but it will take time.
karnovaran said:
I'm in for this. We all know XDA has grown too fast for moderation to keep up. Let the users help out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you want to help, drop us a PM when you see something that needs attention or use the report button.
I think its unfair to say that XDA has grown too fast for the mods to keep up, we have a highly dedicated and hard working team of many moderators who give up their free time to keep this place running. New moderator applications are being processed at the moment as well, so expect to see a few more jackbooted, goosestepping, uptight internet rent-a-cops strutting around sometime soon.
The problem lies not with the amount of users we have to deal with, it is the amount of stupidity and ignorance displayed by some (too many) of them.
I guess that is going to come off as a pretty negative post but I am not against such an idea, I just think there are more pressing matters to attend to first.
If you havent already done so I suggest you read the forum announcement by Svetius outlining the roadmap for the site.
/rant

[Q] "Iron Fist" clarifications/questions

It's a good start I suppose. Here are some questions:
Does this change how users can report posts/users? Or is it still the troublesome bulky way of having to PM your forum mods and hope for the best? Sometimes days between reports and action?
Will we see more moderator involvement in the community, or will it continue to be a ghostland unless someone flashes the bat-signal for help? (I can only speak of EVO 4G forums).
In short: What should the average joe user who is, say, frustrated with [Q] in development for example, see in the upcoming days/weeks?
Hopefully this can stay on-topic

github said:
It's a good start I suppose. Here are some questions:
Does this change how users can report posts/users? Or is it still the troublesome bulky way of having to PM your forum mods and hope for the best? Sometimes days between reports and action?
Will we see more moderator involvement in the community, or will it continue to be a ghostland unless someone flashes the bat-signal for help? (I can only speak of EVO 4G forums).
In short: What should the average joe user who is, say, frustrated with [Q] in development for example, see in the upcoming days/weeks?
Hopefully this can stay on-topic
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It isn't necessarily a matter of days or weeks of when the new report system/mod involvement will roll out. The report system is being reworked to accommodate the mods and users alike. The old way was only beneficial to the users and create hassle for the mod team. This made it more difficult to deal with reports instead of simpler. The report system was made that way in the first place because, at the time, it was the right way to do it. As the user base exploded here, it became apparent that this was no longer viable.
The old report system dumped all reports into a massive pile and made it difficult to get to the important ones that needed immediate attention. This is why you now need to PM mods to address moving threads. That isn't an important issue as much as flaming, kanging, or warez is.
There is a new system in the works to address the issues that the old system raised as well as make it simpler for users to report posts. You'll just need to be patient while the kinks are worked out. Don't worry, good things come to those who wait.
As far as mod involvement, this is where the new [revised] site direction comes in. It's no longer an act of congress to ban or discipline someone. If a user does something retarded, he will be punished. It's that simple. However, not every mod can be in every place at once. That's the whole reason we have a report function. Especially if you see a forum needs deep cleaning, you should PM the forum mod first. If that doesn't work, PM any senior mod with your problem. There is also a Requests from the users to the mods and admins sticky thread here that you can utilize.
All in all, there are good things on the way. We just need to be patient while the kinks are worked out.

Even if I understand and respect the goal to provide better methods and tools for the admins and mods of this forums, I'd like to ask the question:
"Was it necessary to use the Iron Fist picture and publish it with this title?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Fist
In colloquial English, an "Iron Fist" refers to the authority exerted by a powerful, unforgiving governing figure, extended variously to public or private life, used to describe a person who operates under strictly authoritarian principles. Ex. "Josef Stalin ruled the USSR with an iron fist" ...
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Click to collapse

ThaiDai said:
Even if I understand and respect the goal to provide better methods and tools for the admins and mods of this forums, I'd like to ask the question:
"Was it necessary to use the Iron Fist picture and publish it with this title?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Fist
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They could have called it the "Turd Ferguson Project" for all I care. The name isn't important. However, this one being the Iron Fist that is set to unleash blows to those who think it's ok to use this site as their personal dumping ground seems fair to me.

github said:
Will we see more moderator involvement in the community, or will it continue to be a ghostland unless someone flashes the bat-signal for help? (I can only speak of EVO 4G forums).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Having been a member of the X10 and now Arc forums since joining I welcome "Iron fist", and still believe there should be a week limit when you first join before you're allowed to post anything because that way it would encourage people to search more, along with having to actually read threads where the answer being looked for has been answered a thousand times already. In regards to githubs point, I'd like to see more of that too in the Arc section.
ALL moderators imo should 1. Actually own the phone of the forum they are moderating and 2. Be able to dedicate a certain amount of time each day to the forum, which might help with keeping the forums clean because they have an interest and a duty to keep on top of things.

cajunflavoredbob said:
They could have called it the "Turd Ferguson Project" for all I care. The name isn't important. However, this one being the Iron Fist that is set to unleash blows to those who think it's ok to use this site as their personal dumping ground seems fair to me.
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Spot on.
XperienceD said:
ALL moderators imo should 1. Actually own the phone of the forum they are moderating and 2. Be able to dedicate a certain amount of time each day to the forum, which might help with keeping the forums clean because they have an interest and a duty to keep on top of things.
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Spot on. Our goal has been to assign mods to device forums that apply to them. When possible, we attempt to assign a few mods to each device forums such that time zone overlap occurs.
Some of the challenges we often encounter are:
Infrequent mod attendance; this is a volunteer (aka unpaid) role after all
Mods who switch to a new device at some point before a replacement mod is assigned - i.e. they now manage several forums
Obtaining quality mod candidates
Mods who decide to retire

ThaiDai said:
Even if I understand and respect the goal to provide better methods and tools for the admins and mods of this forums, I'd like to ask the question:
"Was it necessary to use the Iron Fist picture and publish it with this title?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Fist
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This was covered in the message:
Svetius said:
The name "Iron Fist" is a bit of an inside joke among the moderators--we are very clearly not an unyielding Gestapo.
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And, frankly, I'm glad they didn't call it the 'Turd Ferguson Project.'

mrkite38 said:
And, frankly, I'm glad they didn't call it the 'Turd Ferguson Project.'
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The "Allan Parson Project" seems a more befitting name

In reference to reporting any problem post/member, what I've been doing lately is keeping one of my Chrome tabs with the Forum leader List open.
If I encounter a problem post/flame, I create my pm with the links to the post/thread, my reason for reporting it and if the section does not have a mod to send it to, or if i think it needs immediate attention, I then refresh that Forum Leader list to see who is on at the moment and send out the pm to the mod. 9 out of 10, they get it within moments and take care of it, unless they log off by the time the pm is sent out. (or if they deem it not necessary to report).
There are times that even if a section has a mod assigned to it, some issues need to be taken care of immediately before it escalates into a much bigger problem and that is why I'm do the method above until the new reporting system takes effect.
TS out

twospirits said:
In reference to reporting any problem post/member, what I've been doing lately is keeping one of my Chrome tabs with the Forum leader List open.
If I encounter a problem post/flame, I create my pm with the links to the post/thread, my reason for reporting it and if the section does not have a mod to send it to, or if i think it needs immediate attention, I then refresh that Forum Leader list to see who is on at the moment and send out the pm to the mod. 9 out of 10, they get it within moments and take care of it, unless they log off by the time the pm is sent out. (or if they deem it not necessary to report).
There are times that even if a section has a mod assigned to it, some issues need to be taken care of immediately before it escalates into a much bigger problem and that is why I'm do the method above until the new reporting system takes effect.
TS out
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Very good point. I try to only involve my forum mods, but I like your idea too. Depending on the issue sometimes I'll PM a few mods that I have known in the past to be pretty quick to take action and/or helpful overall.
I won't name any names, but one of them posted in here *cough* Thanks!

Hopefully Iron Fist is more like Bruce Lee's Fist of Fury!

Hopefully with less people making useless threads etc, the older members might also chill out a little.

Audionut11 said:
Hopefully with less people making useless threads etc, the older members might also chill out a little.
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Unfortunately there are some "older" members that are causing just as much if not more trouble than their newer counterparts.

So 4 mods posted after my post here...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=276306&page=239
And I guess they didn't feel it was enough for "iron fist"?
Zeus... God of Awesome!

mattykinsx said:
Unfortunately there are some "older" members that are causing just as much if not more trouble than their newer counterparts.
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I second that.

XperienceD said:
Having been a member of the X10 and now Arc forums since joining I welcome "Iron fist", and still believe there should be a week limit when you first join before you're allowed to post anything because that way it would encourage people to search more, along with having to actually read threads where the answer being looked for has been answered a thousand times already. In regards to githubs point, I'd like to see more of that too in the Arc section.
ALL moderators imo should 1. Actually own the phone of the forum they are moderating and 2. Be able to dedicate a certain amount of time each day to the forum, which might help with keeping the forums clean because they have an interest and a duty to keep on top of things.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Id like to respond to this as I'm currently moderating the Arc section.
I do not own the device but to be honest I spend far more time in the forumsi moderate than in the forums for devices I own.
Now, atm you may be thinking, "aye right, the place is a s×××hole"
You may be right as I haven't been around much in the past few days.
However under "normal" real life circumstances. All my forums are swept at least once a day. If I should miss anything then please do not hesitate to PM me.....
I make every effort to close/delete/m ove misplaced or duplicate threads but obv. some do get missed, simply because I cannot read every thread. Again, in such a situation or if you just want to discuss the way the section is moderated then please do PM me and let me know.....
I hope that addresses some of your concerns.
Sent From My Fingers To Your Face.....

Instead of 10 posts...10 or more thanks

First of all I apologise if this suggestion has been already said and discussed. I haven't noticed it in some other thread.
I'm sick and tired of watching 10posters or just spammers to flud developers sections with their idiotic repeatable questions which are already answered in stickies, faqs, etc.
I guess since everyone in our days can buy a smartphone or tablet, this is a situation that we can not avoid that easy. But what we can do is to keep the unworthy out of dev areas at least until the prove otherwise.
10 post count is just rubbish...anyone can just troll these posts out at the OT section and he's done in 2 minutes.
Instead of post count, make it "thanks" count. If anybody has something worthy to say or is a new promising dev he can be "chosen" by the others by his thanks count.
I read many suggestions about dislike/nothanks buttons and such. This is much simplier and imho it could prove much more effective to filter out the noobs and take in the newbies that they deserve it and also can make the mods do their tracking through the forums easier.
Keep the noobs at the general section and out of the dev areas and let in those who have really something good to do or say. Everyone in here, from the users up to developers are trying to help the most they can but Jesus!!! this is not a shelter for retards or something.
I'm trying to remember when it was the last time a saw a proper dev thread not getting noob raped but I don't have so deep memories
Again I'm sorry if this has been said already

+1...ive seen people post stuff like "im trying to get 10 posts" over and over again. this will bring an end to that
but on the other hand, ive seen people with hundreds of posts and only one or two thanks

sweetnsour said:
+1...ive seen people post stuff like "im trying to get 10 posts" over and over again. this will bring an end to that
but on the other hand, ive seen people with hundreds of posts and only one or two thanks
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That's the point!
Everyone can raise their post count with one way or another. This doesn't mean that they have something useful to contribute. There are members for example 1000 posts and 5 thanks and other members (devs almost everyone) with 100 posts and 500 thanks to say the least.
I haven't seen any noob (at least in the subforums I read ) no matter how old member he is or how many posts he has, to have a high thanks count and that's because he doesn't say anything usefull to actually make other members hit that thanks button.
We got the evaluation variable, so let's use it!
Instead for thanks button to be just a cosmetic in the forums, it can really be used as an evaluation measure.

I think it should be 15 or even 20 thanks
Sent from my SCH-I400 using XDA App

I actually like that idea. Interestingly enough I've been working on my 10 posts but I've been doing it the right way.I hate spamming and its a shame that people do that.
Tapped from my CherryPi Atrix

The person who rooted the D3 on this board had to spam in a general forum to get his post count high enough to post in the dev forum.

Excellent idea. A huge +1 to this..
Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using Tapatalk

Actually there are still some ppl who can post some usefull thoughts or questions...
Not everyone is a newbie who cant use the search button.

B-Ace said:
Actually there are still some ppl who can post some usefull thoughts or questions...
Not everyone is a newbie who cant use the search button.
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Of course there are. But for each new contributing member in here, come other 100 lamers that just want to turn their phone into a space shuttle or something. Those are the ones who make the dev threads unsufferable to follow properly. 1 good post among 50 whining and asking lame things.
Either someone should find a proper way to filter them out of the dev sections or could might as well remove completely this useless 10 post count. It serves absolutely no good.

We have the same problem on the forum I mod at, we lowered it to 5 posts and it's better this way, but still there is no perfect solution.
Right now, I'm stuck in a situation where I want to download a file linked here and I can't until I reach 10 posts, that's pretty frustrating.

It's true that even people with higher post counts don't always have many thanks, but you must also take in to consideration that the Admin/Mods recently added the "Thanks" feature. I already had around 4k post before the thanks feature was added in, and I've helped many people in different sections. It's hard to actually get around the spam on the forum, you just have to hope people have common sense to not post non-sense in the wrong section.

Abradax said:
The person who rooted the D3 on this board had to spam in a general forum to get his post count high enough to post in the dev forum.
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And as a DROID3 owner I'm so glad that he was able to get his post count up so he could post in the developers section. I also understand being frustrated with people who don't search. Even tho i don't post here often I'm here often reading threads so i can learn more about developing. If you make the requirements stricter you may want to have a way for people to bypass said requirements if deemed worthy by a mod.

I would wholeheartedly agree to this, even being new here myself, however I was browsing through 20 or so Q&A threads, and I saw one person thanked for giving an answer. There aren't a whole lot of thanks being given outside the dev forums...
Part 2... spammers making a 2nd account to thank themselves. Slightly more work ending in the same result... and more work for the mods

I've seen this idea raised before, and I love it. 100%.
The only issue is that 'thanks' are completely subjective. Someone may 'thank' a completely useless, inflammatory or derogatory post because it's funny or because they've stated the obvious, but may completely dismiss an actually useful post, with no recognition whatsoever.
Posts, on the other hand, are objective. They're universal. Whether they're **** or not, everybody gets them.
Until the 'thanks' feature gets utilised properly by all users (but remember this is a huge ask) it'll be quite difficult to implement effectively. While the 'I'm getting 10 posts' posts will disappear, the 'Why wasn't I thanked for...' will go through the roof.

juzz86 said:
I've seen this idea raised before, and I love it. 100%.
The only issue is that 'thanks' are completely subjective. Someone may 'thank' a completely useless, inflammatory or derogatory post because it's funny or because they've stated the obvious, but may completely dismiss an actually useful post, with no recognition whatsoever.
Posts, on the other hand, are objective. They're universal. Whether they're **** or not, everybody gets them.
Until the 'thanks' feature gets utilised properly by all users (but remember this is a huge ask) it'll be quite difficult to implement effectively. While the 'I'm getting 10 posts' posts will disappear, the 'Why wasn't I thanked for...' will go through the roof.
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Click to collapse
Yes you're right, usage of the thanks button is completely subjective and this is obvious all around the forums.
But still, even under those circumstances there is a pattern even if it is a bit loose.
Contributing active users and devs especially tend to have more thanks than the rest of the mass. Maybe this "trend" it could be used in a way to clear out dev forums and keep it this way.
This is how I originally thought of its application and imho I believe it's making more sense.

mprou said:
Yes you're right, usage of the thanks button is completely subjective and this is obvious all around the forums.
But still, even under those circumstances there is a pattern even if it is a bit loose.
Contributing active users and devs especially tend to have more thanks than the rest of the mass. Maybe this "trend" it could be used in a way to clear out dev forums and keep it this way.
This is how I originally thought of its application and imho I believe it's making more sense.
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Click to collapse
You are 100% correct.
Devs and solid members tend to have a much higher 'thanks' count than others. It would be a good way of thinning down the crap in the Dev forums, for sure.
It could even be broadened, so that you had to have X number of posts, and X% of your total post count 'thanks'.

neilrl79 said:
And as a DROID3 owner I'm so glad that he was able to get his post count up so he could post in the developers section.
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Click to collapse
I ended up here too because I have a D3 and wanted to just thank the person who posted about getting root access. Signed up just to do so. But apparently I can't, either because I haven't existed long enough or haven't made enough posts.
I also see people with less than 10 posts posting in the dev forums, asking the same redundant questions that the 10 post limit is supposed to detour. x.x

While I do agree, I don't think it will rid us of the scourge of noobs with entitlement issues. I literally saw someone post and ***** about the 10 post limit saying "I'm a customer of that product and I should be able to tell him what to do" <-- verbatim.
I just don't want to see the kids who think they are entitled to everything, also the thanks being subjective is completely true, I have helped around 50 people total in the past month or 2 and yet only 19 thanks. That proves people really only thank you if they feel like it or if they are actually grateful rather than just "Oh cool some dude on the internet helped me" *leaves xda forever* No, I am not complaining about my amount of thanks, I'm glad I was able to help people regardless, I'm just showing it's completely subjective.

Indirect said:
While I do agree, I don't think it will rid us of the scourge of noobs with entitlement issues. I literally saw someone post and ***** about the 10 post limit saying "I'm a customer of that product and I should be able to tell him what to do" <-- verbatim.
I just don't want to see the kids who think they are entitled to everything, also the thanks being subjective is completely true, I have helped around 50 people total in the past month or 2 and yet only 19 thanks. That proves people really only thank you if they feel like it or if they are actually grateful rather than just "Oh cool some dude on the internet helped me" *leaves xda forever* No, I am not complaining about my amount of thanks, I'm glad I was able to help people regardless, I'm just showing it's completely subjective.
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Thanks Indirect!
Seriously, we had a similar issue on another board of which I am an admin, what we did is put a 50 post count limit on new accounts in addition to a throttle of course for daily limits. It sort of works but the quality of the posts went down significantly.
The thanks idea is better but as stated a few posts above it's really subjective.
Instead of thanks I might suggest reputation levels. When the users rep level is zero or when it hits a new "low" the section moderator can chose to make his perms go to read only. The user can protest and or try and improve on it by helping or keeping in the general sections.
I am not too particularly fond of these types of comments either.
"I didn't need that file jackass!"
or
"I need help now because I am Chuck Norris dammit!"
By using that system peers can get pretty mean but it really starts to get people to think about what they post. Everybody has to start somewhere.
That's my 2Cents.

Well, I actually don't like the idea of reputation because on another forum there are "repwhores" and rep becomes kind of like a commidity. I'm not saying that's what will happen here, it's just a chance it could. It happened with alot of the 13-15 year old members and though they aren't common here, that doesn't make it impossible for them to be here. D:

Current state of XDA

tl;dr: It's my rant over what xda is today.
I've been a user of this site for a some time now (well not that long either but since winmo 5.0 days). A lot of things i know today are solely due to XDA. It was a fantastic place to meet helpful and knowledgeable people and learn new things then.
However, as of late, XDA is attracting a lot of average joe(s) who would normally be busy in their life but come here to get the most out of their phones. As a result this site has been turned into something full of senseless/unecessary posts. Posts which are full of ETA/feature demands and what not (I've even read people having personal discussions in a kernel thread and then flame on people who report them though I am not aware of what followed that). Most users demand something from their own point of view instead of looking at the collective impact of a certain feature. As of recently, i wanted to look at some code that had been published here on xda, and as usual i did a forum search.. Result ? I was bombarded with enough senseless crap to make me quit my attempts and start from scratch. Maybe my search terms would have been a bit off but considering the amount of such unhelpful posts makes me think about the usefulness of this site today compared to the irc chat rooms which are still a bit less frequented by such people.
I am watching as developers that have contributed so much to this site be treated with little or no respect until they don't even want to be a part of XDA anymore. I am seeing new members being scared off by rude "senior" members. Overall, more and more people are wanting to distance themselves from XDA, Though I totally understand how newbs get on the nerves asking stuff repeatedly, not searching the forums before posting, creating posts in the wrong forum, asking for eta, development requests etc and even more so since i compiled my first android rom and decided i should share it here. I personally see this stemming from the fact that users are expecting far too much. Everyone feels entitled to everything, on their own terms instead of being happy with what they have. Another part of the story is that these users are the ones who help us find bugs and issues in our code but sadly the number of such users is quite small compared to "XYZ NOT WORKING, FIX IT. INCLUDE ABC IN THIS". There is much more I could say, but I think the main points are made and you can fill in the blanks. I'm sure XDA is not alone, here is a true gem i found on google plus from one of the gimp developers.
Well, let me give you a perspective of a GIMP team member.
All the great free end-user software projects I can think of became great, because developers were communicating to users who thought along the same lines.
And it's the best way to work on a project, because you keep interacting with people and improving your work, while still belonging to yourself.
What happens when you let democracy in? Ugly mess. Suddenly people start treating you like you owe to them and should bow to their wishes.
— Hey developer, I used to use X application on Windows. I want the Y feature to be like in that app. What do you mean, it's supposed to work differently? Well, make it an option, you idiot.
— Hey developer, there is this app for Mac that's a bit like your app, except it's for a different target group, different use cases and different task applications. But I want one of its tools implemented verbatim anyway. And I want it now. Not going to? Well, I'm a user, and you should be listening to me!
That's just bull****. Please keep your democracy to yourself.
If you want some free software to change, learn to encourage, learn to make well-fitted proposals that make sense, learn to understand design decisions, but also learn to accept that the developer is the one who has the final saying, because (s)he's the one who's responsible, not you.
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Here's an anonymous quote from one of such incidents, On one of a quite famous software threads here, the developer was inactive or rather busy with other projects and "life" (Even though he has been keeping up to date via twitter with pics of the update and is of course present on irc channels). And as we expected there were ETA demands, and then this
Someone must be dumb to believe those 2 words.
I say, it will not be released.. it's been +/- than 2 years now.. i got my screen shattered and usb broken.. keep waiting guys
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We can certainly not blame the site admins or the mods, though i do hope to see better management for the development sub-forums (even after iron fist). I hope to see XDA become a community again which it once was, where users help one another, don't expect everything to be tailored to them specifically, and share a bit of both gratitude and empathy.
<Insert non-native English speaker disclaimer here for the grammar Nazis>

I haven't been a member here until recently, but i do appreciate and understand what you're saying. It's been an issue lately. But in fairness to the mods (here in ot and my home forum) they have been very responsive in terms of identifying those people who abuse their, shall we say, democracy. The mods have been extremely helpful and easily accessible imho. I just wish other new members like me understand what xda is about and adapt to it. As we all know, veteran members and admins/mods can only do so much...
Please give credit where credit is due..
If you can't even search how can I help you??

And I still don't understand why people still open these kinds of threads. Opening a thread and ranting over everything that's wrong with xda is just pointless. It's a public forum, it's bound to happen. That's just my stand. If Admins really wanted to fix this problem, then they'd be banning like crazy, and making the forum private, but they can't do that can they?
Not trolling, just my opinion on the issue.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2

trell959 said:
And I still don't understand why people still open these kinds of threads. Opening a thread and ranting over everything that's wrong with xda is just pointless. It's a public forum, it's bound to happen. That's just my stand.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2
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The purpose of this thread is to express my opinion just like your post does regarding such threads, this is what off topic is for, "everything else". I totally understand you but since a last few days i was in the same state of leaving or becoming inactive here solely due to such incidents and thought even if i do leave, i should leave a nice explanation what drove me to do that (though i seem to have changed my mind). Your opinion is always welcome.

Rick_1995 said:
The purpose of this thread is to express my opinion just like your post does regarding such threads, this is what off topic is for, "everything else". I totally understand you but since a last few days i was in the same state of leaving or becoming inactive here solely due to such incidents and thought even if i do leave, i should leave a nice explanation what drove me to do that (though i seem to have changed my mind). Your opinion is always welcome.
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I completely understand, I was just giving my opinion.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2

Rick_1995 said:
The purpose of this thread is to express my opinion just like your post does regarding such threads, this is what off topic is for, "everything else". I totally understand you but since a last few days i was in the same state of leaving or becoming inactive here solely due to such incidents and thought even if i do leave, i should leave a nice explanation what drove me to do that (though i seem to have changed my mind). Your opinion is always welcome.
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Well, technically this should go in "about xdadevelopers" so expect posts that you don't like here. This is off topic. It's what we do here
Sent from my HTC_Amaze_4G using xda premium

The state of XDA is a reflection of the average android user. As adoption rates grow there will only be more average Joes coming here for help. And they want help now dammit!

I completely agree... Now registration should be on invite only basis
- - Greetings From India

Babydoll25 said:
Well, technically this should go in "about xdadevelopers" so expect posts that you don't like here. This is off topic. It's what we do here
Sent from my HTC_Amaze_4G using xda premium
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Click to collapse
Hmm, "Anything not related to the phones" and off-topic looked more tempting than "about xda-developers" at first glance, though i agree i might have failed here.

Babydoll25 said:
Well, technically this should go in "about xdadevelopers" so expect posts that you don't like here. This is off topic. It's what we do here
Sent from my HTC_Amaze_4G using xda premium
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Amen.
Now for my opinion on it all
Granted I haven't been on this site very long at all, but I'd been lurking and reading tons on here from early 2010-ish.
Whilst I agree with your point that this may not be the site it used to be, that's also a good thing.
It's showing progression and moving forward.
People who come to this site simply looking to make their phone "cool" and make it do what there friends' phones can't do, annoy each and every one of us at times. That's just something that we've got to deal with.
It's not as if this is the only site where people act like that. It's all based on the mentality of people in general.
There are those, who like us, don't just want to make our devices better, but want to actually learn how it's all done and what makes android, as a whole, work.
But there will always be those who don't care about the journey, as they just want to reach the destination.
And even though there are a ton of the latter around, creating a thread to say that the site's gone downhill because of these people, won't help in the slightest. And considering leaving this site just because of a few dicks? Leave them to it. They'll soon be shown the door if they consistently can't stick to the forum rules.
There's no sense in feeling like you have to leave or others have had to leave because of these people.
Obviously I'm not saying you can't voice your opinion, but there are better ways of doing it to be honest.
But having said that, I respect your opinion

As this thread is "about xda developers", as mentioned above that would be the correct forum for this discussion so I'll move it there.

I completely agree with the Op...
Haven't been around long, but was always fascinated with technology and had a certain respect for those who made possible the things I thought wouldn't be possibly done...
I've heard plenty about the good ole XDA, of how devs used to work with harmony, how they worked because THEY themselves wanted to...and not because of "helppp, my wifi broke, plz fix asap"...
But my bad luck, I wasn't there to witness any of it...
Well the mods and admins know of this issue, and there's only so much one could do to solve it...
Apart from making XDA invite only, and GTFO'ing every noob already present, there seems to be no practical reason that I can think of...
There have been other rather innovative attempts at tackling this noob problem; (as that's what seems to be the root cause of this problem);
Some say we should raise the 10 post limit, some say we put tests/checks to make sure new users understand the purpose of XDA, some say we do aptitude tests to classify users as "devs" and "non devs" and some say to educate everyone already present and yet to come...
I say that we could all of this and still be left wondering what possibly could be done...
You see, part of this problem comes from human nature...
Everyone wants the most utility from the least effort...
They want the best, but aren't ready to give their best...
As smartphones become more and more common & more and more "smart", the people get lazier and dumber...
There is no possible humane approach to making people work for their own self...
You could help them out, point them in the right direction...but for every one person that you help out, there'd be 10 standing with the same problem expecting a personalized response...
I frankly found no solution to end this "I'm your boss, answer me coz you owe me" behaviour...
- Via xda premium

Rick_1995 said:
tl;dr: It's my rant over what xda is today.
I've been a user of this site for a some time now (well not that long either but since winmo 5.0 days). A lot of things i know today are solely due to XDA. It was a fantastic place to meet helpful and knowledgeable people and learn new things then.
However, as of late, XDA is attracting a lot of average joe(s) who would normally be busy in their life but come here to get the most out of their phones. As a result this site has been turned into something full of senseless/unecessary posts. Posts which are full of ETA/feature demands and what not (I've even read people having personal discussions in a kernel thread and then flame on people who report them though I am not aware of what followed that). Most users demand something from their own point of view instead of looking at the collective impact of a certain feature. As of recently, i wanted to look at some code that had been published here on xda, and as usual i did a forum search.. Result ? I was bombarded with enough senseless crap to make me quit my attempts and start from scratch. Maybe my search terms would have been a bit off but considering the amount of such unhelpful posts makes me think about the usefulness of this site today compared to the irc chat rooms which are still a bit less frequented by such people.
I am watching as developers that have contributed so much to this site be treated with little or no respect until they don't even want to be a part of XDA anymore. I am seeing new members being scared off by rude "senior" members. Overall, more and more people are wanting to distance themselves from XDA, Though I totally understand how newbs get on the nerves asking stuff repeatedly, not searching the forums before posting, creating posts in the wrong forum, asking for eta, development requests etc and even more so since i compiled my first android rom and decided i should share it here. I personally see this stemming from the fact that users are expecting far too much. Everyone feels entitled to everything, on their own terms instead of being happy with what they have. Another part of the story is that these users are the ones who help us find bugs and issues in our code but sadly the number of such users is quite small compared to "XYZ NOT WORKING, FIX IT. INCLUDE ABC IN THIS". There is much more I could say, but I think the main points are made and you can fill in the blanks. I'm sure XDA is not alone, here is a true gem i found on google plus from one of the gimp developers.
Here's an anonymous quote from one of such incidents, On one of a quite famous software threads here, the developer was inactive or rather busy with other projects and "life" (Even though he has been keeping up to date via twitter with pics of the update and is of course present on irc channels). And as we expected there were ETA demands, and then this
We can certainly not blame the site admins or the mods, though i do hope to see better management for the development sub-forums (even after iron fist). I hope to see XDA become a community again which it once was, where users help one another, don't expect everything to be tailored to them specifically, and share a bit of both gratitude and empathy.
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I couldn't agree with you enough. I'm absolutely sick of all the hate mail that I get saying stuff like "xyz doesn't work u suck" and "hurry up and add abc to this!".
Seriously, many of the members here are complete a$$e$ that don't give a crap about the work devs do and just want the best for their phone. And if something doesnt work or a feature is not added yet, they start complaining and flaming devs. One of the great dev teams for my phone actually stopped development because of all the hate mail and ungrateful members who complained about their work. On Twitter a person even told the team "you should be embarrassed as dev team" when he asked a question that was answered at least 15 times!
I really hope that the spirit of collaborating and learning comes back to xda....
Sent from my HTC One S using Tapatalk 2

a.cid said:
I frankly found no solution to end this "I'm your boss, answer me coz you owe me" behaviour...
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I wonder why doesn't the thread owner get (limited) moderator rights in his own thread, that would make the job easy at least for development forums, In some low activity devices, we hardly see a mod ever come to clean things up so this would be lot helpful and since this power is limited to development sub forums, it probably won't be abused that much by the new guys hopefully, though i haven't thought of any draw backs in this model but it sure does sound good.

Rick_1995 said:
I wonder why doesn't the thread owner get (limited) moderator rights in his own thread, that would make the job easy at least for development forums, In some low activity devices, we hardly see a mod ever come to clean things up so this would be lot helpful and since this power is limited to development sub forums, it probably won't be abused that much by the new guys hopefully, though i haven't thought of any draw backs in this model but it sure does sound good.
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The mods have said before, and I don't think that their answer will change...mod rights shall not be given to any user, whether limited or unlimited...
Rd's get rights to close their own threads, while Rc's have such rights only in Rc Chat, and not anywhere else...
Idk about Rd's, but they have turned down our request for the same...
If you need thread maintainence/cleanup, the only option is to report a post, and request cleanup...
- Via xda premium

Rick_1995 said:
I wonder why doesn't the thread owner get (limited) moderator rights in his own thread, that would make the job easy at least for development forums, In some low activity devices, we hardly see a mod ever come to clean things up so this would be lot helpful and since this power is limited to development sub forums, it probably won't be abused that much by the new guys hopefully, though i haven't thought of any draw backs in this model but it sure does sound good.
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This is what the report button is for. If you see something anywhere on the site that you think needs attention, hit that button! Please let us know. We can't be everywhere. The Forum Specific Mod that's assigned to that forum will respond. That's what we're here for, but you guys, you're our eyes, too. If we all work together we can get those little fires under control to prevent the big forest fire
I do know that the report function has been removed from the app. In that case, it takes only moments to switch to the web view and use the report function from there. It wasn't my decision to remove that function, however, a new system is being developed for the app and the functionality will be restored with a future version.

reinbeau said:
This is what the report button is for. If you see something anywhere on the site that you think needs attention, hit that button! Please let us know. We can't be everywhere. The Forum Specific Mod that's assigned to that forum will respond. That's what we're here for, but you guys, you're our eyes, too. If we all work together we can get those little fires under control to prevent the big forest fire
I do know that the report function has been removed from the app. In that case, it takes only moments to switch to the web view and use the report function from there. It wasn't my decision to remove that function, however, a new system is being developed for the app and the functionality will be restored with a future version.
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Yes, The report button is indeed helpful but in low activity forums mods are very infrequent, and in high activity forums, it's near to impossible for them to clean threads also reporting multiple posts in a single thread is a tedious issue.

Rick_1995 said:
Yes, The report button is indeed helpful but in low activity forums mods are very infrequent, and in high activity forums, it's near to impossible for them to clean threads also reporting multiple posts in a single thread is a tedious issue.
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This shouldn't be the case, all reports should be actioned in a timely manner irrespective of the forums activity level. If you feel a report has gone unactioned for too long (give us at least 24-48hrs ) then either contact the appropriate forum moderator directly or a senior.
As for reporting multiple posts, to put it simply, don't. Just report and mention that some cleaning may be required.
Sent From My Fingers To Your Face.....

I'm agreeing with all whats posted here. And it's driving me crazy too.
I hope I made a statement in my forum (see here).
I hope there will come a solution for this "problem" as forums are getting filled with crap a lot.
Reporting isn't an option, useless posts are created faster then the speed of sound

Henry_01 said:
I'm agreeing with all whats posted here. And it's driving me crazy too.
I hope I made a statement in my forum (see here).
I hope there will come a solution for this "problem" as forums are getting filled with crap a lot.
Reporting isn't an option, useless posts are created faster then the speed of sound
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I can assure you, reporting posts IS the answer. Well, part of it anyway....
Sent From My Fingers To Your Face.....