Related
As a member of XDA i am proud that there is a place where people, ideas and developers can come together to work out problems and create new, better, faster software.
I love the ideas and the creations here, but i am somewhat tired of the negativity and "flaming" going on in some of the forums. Specifically Samsung Galaxy forums, with each passing day/week there is an exponentially increasing amount of NEW THREADS, pretty much dedicated to venting anger at the phone's manufacturer. While some claims do have merit (crappy GPS), other complaints are ill-researched, (samsung to blame for not releasing froyo, how did rogers release it to me?).
There was even a "Supposed" samsung rep. SamsungJohn, who reached out to the captivate community on the behalf of Samsung. (once again supposedly) If he was in fact from samsung he received the WORST welcome from the community, he was badgered and hammered with anger before given a chance to explain what his goal/role here was. In a recent post it was referred to him "stepping on the XDA hornets nest". Honestly it looked more like a forum full of angry 10 year olds, although to be COMPLETELY FAIR, 99% of the members "flaming" (to SamsungJohn or in other posts) ARE NOT DEVELOPERS OR PROGRAMMERS just bored people that feel XDA is a good place to vent anger. IT IS NOT.
If you have actual hardware problems with your phone, flood the manufacturers forum NOT OURS! If they had as many complaint posts as we do on a public forum they wouldn't be able to deny any issues exist, you could link to them, they would be right there, ON THEIR SITE.
I love my phone, for any flaws it has, any other phone will have another, sometimes we can fix it here, sometimes we cant. It is understandable in this day and age that many times products are rushed out the door and moved on to the next. Its the world we live in today. Accept it or check out..
Please remember XDA is a place to come together for ideas and working out problems NOT NEEDLESSLY COMPLAINING ABOUT THEM!!!
Speak my man!Perhaps that is the most right opinion I've seen on the forums!
PS:Love your PC setup dude!If it had a 69xxHD ATi it would be my dream machine!
Peace, love, harmony. Everyone, repeat. Hehe.
There will always be flaming. We have pretty diligent moderators that find the offending members and take proper action. Everyone can help out here just by being nice to one another. This is a community. A community benefits when its citizens are helpful, friendly, and contributive.
Well said! The forum needs more people to be constructive in their postings rather than petulant and needy.
This OP should have his post stickied in all the galaxy S forums IMO.
mputtr said:
This OP should have his post stickied in all the galaxy S forums IMO.
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if i was a moderator or web dev of this site the message would pop up, and you would have to agree before veiwing the forums!
I know its been getting bad. But they have stepped up and got more moderators. So it will get better. Plus all the new devices that keep getting added. So much for everyone to keeo up with. Thats why as you know the report post is there. Helps alot.
@OP, I couldn't agree more with you, with the recent influx of new users into XDA via their new purchases and nearly everyone owning a smartphone we will have to adapt to them and their misconceptions of what XDA is. Although they may misunderstand what we are about we are always trying to show them what our roots were and still are today. We try to keep it under control to the best of out abilities, but with a ratio of moderators to members being 40:1,000,000 it can be an uphill battle at times. Thanks for sharing your opinion and we hope to improve down the road.
yes, i have been using the "REPORT" button, on an increasing basis.
is there by any chance at least a single moderator dedicated to each phone, with experience with that device to know what is un-related/ garbage information/threads.
also some threads deserve deletion rather than closing. just wasting space with usually no information what-soever
Trusselo said:
yes, i have been using the "REPORT" button, on an increasing basis.
is there by any chance at least a single moderator dedicated to each phone, with experience with that device to know what is un-related/ garbage information/threads.
also some threads deserve deletion rather than closing. just wasting space with usually no information what-soever
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yep, we have this in place. They are called Forum Specific Moderators, and have a title like
"HTC XYZ Forum Moderator"
They are responsible for a small number of forums, to try and spot this stuff
Im not sure if i have come across my "captivate" mod, is there any easy way to find the mod for your forum? could an easy way be added? link in each phone's forum? (for issues PM...)
Trusselo said:
Im not sure if i have come across my "captivate" mod, is there any easy way to find the mod for your forum? could an easy way be added? link in each phone's forum? (for issues PM...)
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Yep, though it seems the assigned mod for your forum was recently promoted, and therefore there is no "assigned" mod right now. When you get one, their name will appear at the lower right of any of the general/dev subforums.
pulser_g2 said:
Yep, though it seems the assigned mod for your forum was recently promoted, and therefore there is no "assigned" mod right now. When you get one, their name will appear at the lower right of any of the general/dev subforums.
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well that explains a lot
Hopefully we get a new mod soon!
Herp Derp Captivate XDA
Even with the influx of immature morons, this place is still two thousand times more coherent and mature than any iPhone modification related forum.
I swear, all I see over on those boards are a bunch of people crying and cursing and yelling and making threats because jailbreaks and unlocks are slow to release.
I am loving your new member posts, very informative and a great way to get informed about this site!
Agreement
I completely agree with you man.
I think we need two things,
First of all, people who respect the earth and its benefits.
And secondly, some respectful people who watch and guide people who don't know the value of being beneficial and so respectful, one by one.
---------- Post added at 09:05 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:49 AM ----------
I really consist with this oppinion that an improved society just can born and keep on by everyone's usefull endeavour. In the other word a wise intellectual man/woman cann't grow up and even say a little bit of his/her knowledge in a tidy palce.
So, be in the way and enjoy your home.
Hopping success and enhancement.
I could not agree with you more.
Sent from my GT-S5360 using XDA
This is the truest thing in the world. Been happening a lot on my devices forum, the flaming amongst members and devs.
It just shouldn't happen
I have noticed that in the Galaxy Tab Forum, It must the target demographic that the device attracts as owners. I Joke obviously, I don't want to attract any unwanted attention
I think XDA suffers a little bit from how big it is. It's probably before a lot of manufacturers sites on search result for what ever normal people type into Google and with 4.5 million members you're going to attract a wide cross section of humanity......There might even be some women on here Nah There's no women on the internet.
Speaking of XDA being a place of coming together and solving problems, let me throw a couple out there
Maybe there should stop new members creating threads on any forum.... drill it home to use the site properly. I think slatedroid or one of the forums focused towards the more "exotic" Android devices does that. Frustrating though that might be it will make people think is it really worth the effort, You could measure a members "dedication" by not only post but visit frequency and what types of posts they view, so even if they feel they cannot help with replies they still get to post eventually. Although that last sentence makes XDA sound like a bit of a cult.
That would probably have stop me from posting my first though (Ironically a Samsung Galaxy Tab external SDCard booting method) but you win some/you lose some
In Fact If you want to get a little more draconian. you could introduce perma-bans for all sorts of minor indiscretions such as anyone who post the words "vs" In a thread title as we don't really need another thread about who's dog barks the loudest, anyone complaining about lack of support from the manufacturer, there are more but they escape me now
So in summary. PermaBan The Lot Of Em'
trevd said:
I have noticed that in the Galaxy Tab Forum, It must the target demographic that the device attracts as owners. I Joke obviously, I don't want to attrach any unwanted attention
I think XDA suffers a little bit from how big it is. It's probably before a lot of manufacturers sites on search result for what ever normal people type into Google and with 4.5 million members you're going to attract a wide cross section of humanity......There might even be some women on here Nah There's no women on the internet.
Speaking of XDA being a place of coming together and solving problems, let me throw a couple out there
Maybe there should stop new members creating threads on any forum.... drill it home to use the site properly. I think slatedroid or one of the forums focused towards the more "exotic" Android devices does that. Frustrating though that might be it will make people think is it really worth the effort, You could measure a members "dedication" by not only post but visit frequency and what types of posts they view, so even if they feel they cannot help with replies they still get to post eventually. Although that last sentence makes XDA sound like a bit of a cult.
That would probably have stop me from posting my first though (Ironically a Samsung Galaxy Tab external SDCard booting method) but you win some/you lose some
In Fact If you want to get a little more draconian. you could introduce perma-bans for all sorts of minor indiscretions such as anyone who post the words "vs" In a thread title as we don't really need another thread about who's dog barks the loudest, anyone complaining about lack of support from the manufacturer, there are more but they escape me now
So in summary. PermaBan The Lot Of Em'
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Hi, I am new to XDA, and I just wanted to express my admiration of your ideas, as well as to the OP, truly a superb insight.
Idea: There should be a demarcation of topics and subforums known as the Noob forums. Unless and until you contribute something OTHER than a post (eg, a ROM, theme, or hack perhaps), you remain in the Noob forums.
Good idea?
Sent from my LG-VM701 using Tapatalk 2
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
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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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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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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).
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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.'
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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.
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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.....
Now that I have a Galaxy Nexus and I'm looking threw to see what's out there to flash. I get to my favorite community here and find out that for whatever reason GSM and LTE models are mixed together in one big cluster f**k that can potentially brick my phone if I don't read the fine print. This is insanely dumb, it poses a potential risk for me even tho I feel I'm a seasoned veteran of the Android flashing community, and to anyone that is completely new to this and doesn't understand the subtle differences of CDMA and GSM. So here I am typing this out trying my damnedest to wrap my mind around WHY XDA DOESN'T CREATE SUB FORUMS FOR EACH TYPE. A lot of other sites do, and it makes the search 1000000x easier to navigate.
So please could some moderator explain to me the reasoning behind having one giant pool of ROMS and mods that are completely different from one another? Is it really that hard to create a sub forum to take you to either the CDMA or GSM version?
I'd like to get some feed back here or am I the only one that is slightly frustrated about this? I mean its completely unorganized and the whole forum just feels really sloppy already.
You're not the first to mention this and, if you searched (cause you're a vet with 47 posts), you'd know the Mods are looking into it
But in essence I agree, or you just hope the threads are labelled correctly (LTE/GSM)
Dude if you used XDA as much as you say you do then you would have done a search on this topic and realized that there are already 2 threads in the last week on this subject.
Mods can we please merge all "Separate GSM/LTE forums" posts.
yeah I did try searching for it, thanks for the most obvious response
but ya know what its hard to find something when I don't know what to call it....
you'll notice that I never used the word separate which is the key word I was missing
so thanks for the ****-ish way you gave me that info it was slightly helpful i guess...
Just for the record I agree with the op. However I'm not too worried about it. This site has given me so much and asked for very little in return. I'm just greatful to have access to all this great info.
robby88 said:
yeah I did try searching for it, thanks for the most obvious response
but ya know what its hard to find something when I don't know what to call it....
you'll notice that I never used the word separate which is the key word I was missing
so thanks for the ****-ish way you gave me that info it was slightly helpful i guess...
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Some veteran. You really can't just look at the title of the thread to see if it says "LTE" or not? The only important threads that should be looked through are on the first two or three pages. Not that hard.
If you seriously brick your phone because you can't figure out whether something is LTE or GSM, you are a bit slow IMO. So far we only have one page of relevant ROMS and mods in dev section and you're already complaining about having trouble finding things when search isn't even necessary. Come on...
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
It's because this site is a joke. There are so many things wrong with the way XDA structures and manages these forums. Look at rootzwiki...or even droid forums. The mods actually do their jobs there and make it EASIER for devs to post their work and manage their users problems by preventing/deleting/combining duplicate threads. Both of those forums even provide sub-forums for popular devs to let them manage it as well. And a simple thing like separating the LTE and GSM versions into their own forum was a non-issue at rootzwiki...yet here at XDA it seems we're asking the admins to split the atom.
That's why devs are/have moved to rootzwiki to post their work. Sure they'll copy and paste their topics over here eventually, but the difference is that if you want your post to be read by someone at the developer level, you're probably at the wrong forum. You should have seen the XDA droid bionic forums before everyone packed up and went onto rootz...LOL, it was like the wild west.
mb02 said:
Some veteran. You really can't just look at the title of the thread to see if it says "LTE" or not? The only important threads that should be looked through are on the first two or three pages. Not that hard.
If you seriously brick your phone because you can't figure out whether something is LTE or GSM, you are a bit slow IMO. So far we only have one page of relevant ROMS and mods in dev section and you're already complaining about having trouble finding things when search isn't even necessary. Come on...
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I wasn't talking about myself jackass, there are tons of people out there that have never flashed a phone before and not knowing the difference between GSM and CDMA can be a confusing concept for most. So thanks for trying to make me out to be the jackass when you've accomplished that all on your own.
I'm not having trouble finding anything considering there are only 2-3 ROMs for LTE, but in a month there's going to be 50 pages of crap to sift threw. So that's the problem I see, and the fact that if it was just broken down in to 2 different sub forums from the start would of been something very simple and I just don't see why it wasn't/hasn't been done.
quentin0 said:
It's because this site is a joke. There are so many things wrong with the way XDA structures and manages these forums. Look at rootzwiki...or even droid forums. The mods actually do their jobs there and make it EASIER for devs to post their work and manage their users problems by preventing/deleting/combining duplicate threads. Both of those forums even provide sub-forums for popular devs to let them manage it as well. And a simple thing like separating the LTE and GSM versions into their own forum was a non-issue at rootzwiki...yet here at XDA it seems we're asking the admins to split the atom.
That's why devs are/have moved to rootzwiki to post their work. Sure they'll copy and paste their topics over here eventually, but the difference is that if you want your post to be read by someone at the developer level, you're probably at the wrong forum. You should have seen the XDA droid bionic forums before everyone packed up and went onto rootz...LOL, it was like the wild west.
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It may be disorganized and full of duplicate threads, but it is an excellent resource. I have been here since Windows mobile 6, The G1, and a whole slew in android phones... and it is the same story. The devs move to some other site. You get a new phone and everyone comes back to XDA. If more people kept their mouth shut the site would be easier to navigate. I could care less, as I mostly lurk and find what I am looking for. No need to comment in every thread, because it probably wouldn't contribute much.
XDA is a great resource, if you don't like it go to another site and browse their forums.
axion68 said:
It may be disorganized and full of duplicate threads, but it is an excellent resource. I have been here since Windows mobile 6, The G1, and a whole slew in android phones... and it is the same story. The devs move to some other site. You get a new phone and everyone comes back to XDA. If more people kept their mouth shut the site would be easier to navigate. I could care less, as I mostly lurk and find what I am looking for. No need to comment in every thread, because it probably wouldn't contribute much.
XDA is a great resource, if you don't like it go to another site and browse their forums.
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I completely agree, I started flashing my first droid and found everything I needed right here with super helpful devs and a mostly wonderful community that would aid you. I personally don't care what gets posted in General though. I think only dev's should be able to post in the development forum to keep things to a minimum, but if a topic needs to be brought up multiple times to get it done then so be it. That's how things get done if a topic is shoved back into the darkness then it needs to be brought to light over and over til something gets done.
I agree totally, I started using rootz instead because they seperated the 2 devices. Also it should be GSM or CDMA. LTE is GSM. Lots of confusion can happen here.
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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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.....
Okay, the time has come where I must ask.
The Samsung Galaxy S Relay 4G came out in September of 2012. Since then it has quickly become the most requested phone of all time in the new forum request thread, gained an 80+ page thread in the G2 forum filled with information on how to unlock and hack the phone, and through the hard work of members trying to co-ordinate their efforts without an official way to communicate, gained an unlock method, a hacked recovery, and a functional CM9 ROM. Despite this, it still has no forum of its own. In fact, the threads that been instrumental in the work that's happened so far have recently been locked, making further developments much more difficult.
So I ask you, what on earth is the holdup?
I came to the Relay 4G from the Sidekick 4G. That was a phone that had great hardware, but due to a lack of support from Samsung, and a lack of development here, never got past the Froyo ROM it launched with. Now we've got a phone that looks like a worthwhile replacement for it, and people working on it, but they can't share their work here or connect with other people who could help. It feels like I'm being let down for the second time. First by Samsung, now by XDA. I'm afraid of this continues, development for it is going to trail off sharply as well once the phone loses it's newness. And I'd hate to be stuck with another phone with terrible software support. After all, I'm not the sort of person who can afford to casually buy a new smartphone every few months. And given how popular that thread was, I think we can safely say there are a lot more people who are eager to see this phone succeed.
I hope someone who knows what's going on can comment on this. I've worked on the board of a non-profit, so I know all too well what happens when a small number of people in control don't communicate with the larger membership. You've got a large group of people who are feeling let down, or outright angry right now. They're in the dark and upset and distrustful. And in the absence of reliable information, people are very good at spotting patterns, be they real or imagined, and turning them into very strongly held opinions. Speculation runs rampant. Then it doesn't take much to go from "Something happened" to "There's a conspiracy." And it can take years to get past the perception that something malicious went on. I urge you guys to communicate now and nip this one in the bud, before it blossoms into an ugly mess.
Any development which has been done for the Relay 4G can be posted in the Miscellaneous Android Development forum.
As you can notice just from looking down the first pages of that forum, those devices which don't have their own specific forum can have development projects posted there instead.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD
We get that there is a misc development forum. There are already development threads there for the Relay. Our issue is that we had a discussion thread in the G2 forum for so long, with well over 800 posts, as well as threads in various other QWERTY phone forums. Nobody seemed to object to its existance there, and then out of nowhere we get a simple "off topic to this phone" reply and thread closure. Said thread deserved the decency of being moved to an appropriate forum, and now we have no idea where to discuss our device.
We are essentially lost with no explanation. The moderator I messaged gave me nothing more than a "we could have moved it, but nobody would know where. Do you expect me to pm every user?" I was then told that it is standard procedure to just shut a thread down. But one that big, where for so long nobody seemed to mind?
You. Will. Obey. XDA Premium - Samsung SGH-T699
pudgybunnyBry said:
We get that there is a misc development forum. There are already development threads there for the Relay. Our issue is that we had a discussion thread in the G2 forum for so long, with well over 800 posts, as well as threads in various other QWERTY phone forums. Nobody seemed to object to its existance there, and then out of nowhere we get a simple "off topic to this phone" reply and thread closure. Said thread deserved the decency of being moved to an appropriate forum, and now we have no idea where to discuss our device.
We are essentially lost with no explanation. The moderator I messaged gave me nothing more than a "we could have moved it, but nobody would know where. Do you expect me to pm every user?" I was then told that it is standard procedure to just shut a thread down. But one that big, where for so long nobody seemed to mind?
You. Will. Obey. XDA Premium - Samsung SGH-T699
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Can you pm me a link to that thread please. I'll find a home for it somewhere.
Sent From My Fingers To Your Face.....
Thank you so much, it really is appreciated!
Where is this thread? I can't find it