Can we keep this forum permanently?


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This is something to think about, people. Don't take a decision like this lightly.
There are good pros and cons for keeping this forum:

+
Separation promotes Identity
As a different handheld with a different goal and target audience. The Pandora sharing the same forum as before doesn't necessarily promote that.

Competition Leads to Good Things

Two communities in constant competition with each other over who has the funnest games and who gets them first could potentially spark innovation and creativity.

Software is created for the core audience

GP2X- did it have USABLE WMs, web and desktop apps? No. The GP2X and Wiz not having internet connectivity is also a fundamental difference, and a single community will encourage coding for the lowest common denominator.

-
Separation Burns Bridges and Divides resources
Two communities with two similar yet different (fantastic) ideas and needs choosing sides? :(

Competition Starts with Flames

Competition = Flaming and we know it.

Software is created for the Device, not the community
If I with my Pandora get Quake II with multiplayer, who says you with your Wiz shouldn't? (Other than your dual d-pads :lol: )
 
The wiz doesn't have dual DPads anymore. Anyway, those there some pretty good points. I never thought of all that positive competition stuff, though I doubt it will happen...

Anyway, yeah. I'm for keeping both.
 
whoever runs gp32x forum doesn't seem to take the job very seriously. as the presale is ongoing this is an important time for prospective buyers and many will want to check out the community, find out more about the product, etc.

if this is a worst case scenario, then find another hosting company with rapid deploy and restore the forum from offsite backups.

whatever the reason, i'd rather use this forum anyway. i assume it will be more reliable and it is focused on the pandora while gp32x.de is obviously focused on an older product. make a fresh start here and use the old site as reference.
 
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depends how you define "laptop". it definitely isn't compatible with PC software, so i'm gonna call it my "open source gaming / UMPC device". for my usual tasks (word processing, internet, gaming) the Pandora simply blows a full fledged laptop out the water. Small laptops (10-13") are much more expensive, still last only 4-5 hours on the battery, plus have weak GPUs. larger laptops are larger and not very portable, and they still suck in terms of power usage. Oh, and add to that, a spare battery for a laptop costs in the range of 60-90£... Pandora: 15 quid for TEN+ MORE HOURS. simply awesome.

It's more like a PDA than a UMPC... UMPCs are much more bulky, cost £800 / $1000, last like 3 hours on the battery and run Vista... ugh! :lol:

gaming device / PDA / UMPC hybrid? lol, i can't decide. the Pandora's flexibility of uses is awesome for such a small device. :)
 
os10 said:
whoever runs gp32x forum doesn't seem to take the job very seriously. as the presale is ongoing this is an important time for prospective buyers and many will want to check out the community, find out more about the product, etc.

if this is a worst case scenario, then find another hosting company with rapid deploy and restore the forum from offsite backups.

whatever the reason, i'd rather use this forum anyway. i assume it will be more reliable and it is focused on the pandora while gp32x.de is obviously focused on an older product. make a fresh start here and use the old site as reference.
Once again, gp32x is not directly related to the pandora team
 
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There's two ways of looking at this:

  • We were victims.
  • We are worthy to be victims.

:D

Edit: This should be at the bottom of the thread, not in the middle. Time discontinuity methinks...
 
To be honest, i don't see the added advantage of gp32x.de. Just look at the user account, etc. here. The forum here has already reached the same level ( even higher ) as before the Pandora launch that gp32x had, and this is just a specific Pandora Board.

During the Pandora launch, the maximum the board reached during launch was 482 ( last i checked, and that was at 18.00h GMT+1 ). This forum, while being rather well hidden, has already peaks of almost 200...

Hell, it has been only a few hours from when the Forum tab on openpandora.org has been altered to reflect to this forum. All that time before, it was just a link under the blog section.

I for one don't see a advantage of the Pandora forum being on gp32x. Let alone the fact that the maintainer has trouble getting the site back online. A 2 day downtime is not considered good by any company's standard. And lets face it, its bad PR for Pandora if it happens again to gp32x. Also, the Pandora crew have no control over the gp32x forums as we see now.

The downtime of the gp32x forum scared the shit out of me ( and i'm not the only person ), because it was my main source of information at that time. And seeing the gp32x forum going down just half a day, after placing your order. Trust me, not a good sign.

Take it from me. I used to work at a company who's level of commitment to its customers was questionable. That was one of the reasons i left ( and i'm now working a freelancer for one of those customers ;-) ). We need to provide the customers a product, and service thats guaranteed. The customers ( with a few hundred of thousands of members ) there website 's ( what they needed for member management, invoices etc ) being down for a few hours each month or 2.

All because of a known firewall problem ( hard lock - and it needed to be manually powered down & up at the data center = 2 or 3 hours downtime for the customer ), all because the boss refused to pay 300 euro's for a APC ( or other required hardware! ). Its all a mater of perception to the customer. The forum being down is just a small thing, but it all adds up. There is nothing more fun having the customer shewing your ass off for something you have no control over.

One of the complaints i read several times already on slashdot, etc. Something in the line off: "The links don't work on ther site. Look at the design with almost no info. Looks like a untrustworthy company behind it". Thats several potential customer less because they where unable to get information from the forums.

So no, i'm not a supported of the forum moving back to a 3th party, with no control over it. Look at it, gp32x is down already for 3 days almost... Whats needed is a temporary page at gp32x, informing that the official forum for the Pandora has now moved to this location.
 
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I'm not against this forum...

as long as

...we get some moderators in here fast. We've got duplicate threads, people keeping images in quotes, off-topic banter, etc., all over the place. It's even worse than than the scene at GP32X. :(
 
Well chip is already here, and so are some other mods from GP32x, we could just make them mods
 
Yeah, +1 to needs mods now. Here, there is nothing to search through, and thus no real understandable reason to yell at someone for being ignorant. This forum will be a sea of flames in no time otherwise.

Guess when you finally don't have any mods, you understand their value rather than criticizing how they do things, eh? *recalls the Chip attack threads by chad78* :wink:
 
benjiro said:
To be honest, i don't see the added advantage of gp32x.de. Just look at the user account, etc. here. The forum here has already reached the same level ( even higher ) as before the Pandora launch that gp32x had, and this is just a specific Pandora Board.

During the Pandora launch, the maximum the board reached during launch was 482 ( last i checked, and that was at 18.00h GMT+1 ). This forum, while being rather well hidden, has already peaks of almost 200...
But there are a lot of people that haven't joined up. There was also a lot of useful info there.

benjiro said:
I for one don't see a advantage of the Pandora forum being on gp32x.
Other than that is the home of the community, this is a community project, the developers were part of that community...
The bulk of the interest and the original momentum supporting the developers came from GP32X.
benjiro said:
Also, the Pandora crew have no control over the gp32x forums as we see now.
Nor were GamePark or GPH in control of the community forum at GP32X.

benjiro said:
The downtime of the gp32x forum scared the shit out of me ( and i'm not the only person ), because it was my main source of information at that time. And seeing the gp32x forum going down just half a day, after placing your order. Trust me, not a good sign.
Yeah, I got to agree there...

benjiro said:
One of the complaints i read several times already on slashdot, etc. Something in the line off: "The links don't work on ther site. Look at the design with almost no info. Looks like a untrustworthy company behind it". Thats several potential customer less because they where unable to get information from the forums.
OK, but I don't think that was the developers original priority. It might not even be a suitable device for a lot of slashdotters. I think the second batch is capable of being targetted and marketed.

benjiro said:
So no, i'm not a supported of the forum moving back to a 3th party, with no control over it. Look at it, gp32x is down already for 3 days almost... Whats needed is a temporary page at gp32x, informing that the official forum for the Pandora has now moved to this location.
I don't dislike this forum, the software used etc. I just think it would be a real shame to do anything that causes a split. There were many talented people at GP32X - some might want to stay there.

Would the GP32X mods mind moderating here? Is it just a case of ED or someone setting them up?
 
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I doubt it has anything to do with the person seeing it on slashdot or digg
 
I wonder if chad got a preorder in..
Personally i think the only thing that makes sense right now is to leave both open.
In time people will decide which one they like better, and that will become the forum of choice.
 
mkinzler said:
Keeping this forum seems no splitt of the community for me

How can you say thatt? Forcing people to move to another forum is splittting the community. Many of them (me included) want to stay att GP32X (when itt comes back up).
 
Im in favor of gp32x being the official forum, but whether they keep it that way or make it this one, there needs to be only one. it's not good to have it split up like that.
 
But this is the official site of the Pandora-project and seems appropiate for hosting the official forum
 
benjiro said:
To be honest, i don't see the added advantage of gp32x.de. Just look at the user account, etc. here. The forum here has already reached the same level ( even higher ) as before the Pandora launch that gp32x had, and this is just a specific Pandora Board.
441 users. at this forum.
youre about 15 thousand people off.
During the Pandora launch, the maximum the board reached during launch was 482 ( last i checked, and that was at 18.00h GMT+1 ). This forum, while being rather well hidden, has already peaks of almost 200...
you mean users online? that has nothing to do with whether its forum.openpandora or g p32x. like i said earlier to a stubborn user, corelation does not imply causation. the pandora forums and many other sites had been going down. naturally, people are going to be going to whatever source they can for information. thats why there are bloated numbers. also, the majority of gp32x at that point was really just going for the pandora forums anyway.
Hell, it has been only a few hours from when the Forum tab on openpandora.org has been altered to reflect to this forum. All that time before, it was just a link under the blog section.
this isn't fact but an opinion, i think the forum tab was actually much less notable than the blog post was.
I for one don't see a advantage of the Pandora forum being on gp32x. Let alone the fact that the maintainer has trouble getting the site back online. A 2 day downtime is not considered good by any company's standard. And lets face it, its bad PR for Pandora if it happens again to gp32x. Also, the Pandora crew have no control over the gp32x forums as we see now.
lets face it: all sites will go down under extreme stress, and that isn't always in the maintaner's, in this case, hando's,... hands. also, i'd say the pandora crew have a fair share of control, but you are right they dont have total control and honestly i would prefer it that way. 'official' forums tend to have a large bias for obvious reasons and delete all criticism. gp32x is also well established as a homebrew community.
The downtime of the gp32x forum scared the shit out of me ( and i'm not the only person ), because it was my main source of information at that time. And seeing the gp32x forum going down just half a day, after placing your order. Trust me, not a good sign.
the force was distributed. if gp32x wasnt around at that poiutn and it was just openpandora.org and its forum, im sure it would have crashed too.
Take it from me. I used to work at a company who's level of commitment to its customers was questionable. That was one of the reasons i left ( and i'm now working a freelancer for one of those customers ;-) ). We need to provide the customers a product, and service thats guaranteed. The customers ( with a few hundred of thousands of members ) there website 's ( what they needed for member management, invoices etc ) being down for a few hours each month or 2.

All because of a known firewall problem ( hard lock - and it needed to be manually powered down & up at the data center = 2 or 3 hours downtime for the customer ), all because the boss refused to pay 300 euro's for a APC ( or other required hardware! ). Its all a mater of perception to the customer. The forum being down is just a small thing, but it all adds up. There is nothing more fun having the customer shewing your ass off for something you have no control over.
blah blah blah personal anecdote that in real life is only about half true, internet laws etc
One of the complaints i read several times already on slashdot, etc. Something in the line off: "The links don't work on ther site. Look at the design with almost no info. Looks like a untrustworthy company behind it". Thats several potential customer less because they where unable to get information from the forums.
... those people are obviously very unaware, but what dose this have to do with the forum anyway?
So no, i'm not a supported of the forum moving back to a 3th party, with no control over it. Look at it, gp32x is down already for 3 days almost... Whats needed is a temporary page at gp32x, informing that the official forum for the Pandora has now moved to this location.
3th...? lol. you know, the pandora archive has been down, too, i guess they should host it somewhere else. oh, wait...
mkinzler: its the official site of the pandora hardware, but not of the community and you can never force that. the community will make or break the handheld. gp2x was more or less an average chinese mp4 player device before it ended up getting picked up by linux enthusiasts.
 
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