Gp32X Is Not Good Enough

[quote]

Apparently.

Recent tweet from Craig:

We're setting up a new forum for iControlpad + Pandora.

I'm just interested to hear who in the Pandora section would be happy to 'move' there. I know there was some resistance when Chip tried to move people to openhandhelds (or whatever it was called).

Possible reasons for Craig wanting a new forum?
- The iCP needs a forum anyway.
- Craig doesn't like the moderating here, he would prefer to have more control (understandable; they are his products so maybe he feels that he should have control of the community).
- There's been a lot more of this stuff recently. Seperate forums would almost certainly prevent it.

Discuss

 

[Nova]

It's ridiculous. Craig feels like he wants to own the community, and you just can't do that. Seperate forums help noone, we've learnt this before (openhandhelds forum, openxile forum, etc)

 

[lulzfish]

I don't have a whole bunch of important files or fond memories on this board, and I certainly don't own a Wiz.
Of course I would change forums.

 

[Michoko]

I'm not a big fan of this idea. The community here is nice, and I don't see any interest in splitting it. The only motivation is that Craigx could then have a space where he could troll all day long, without having to justify any animosity against people he doesn't like.

At least on GP32X forums, there is some kind of self-regulation done by members themselves, since it is an open space dedicated to a broader community. Joining a place whose sole purpose is to be able to bash people freely is certainly not attractive to me.

 

[Exophase]

I wonder how ED and the rest of the OP team feels about this.

 

[WizardStan]

I know there was some resistance when Chip tried to move people to openhandhelds (or whatever it was called).

To be fair, Chip was really trying to help. These forums were dying and no Hando in sight to fix them. The openhandhelds forum was setup as a temporary solution, Chip simply went so far as to suggest that it should be a more permanent solution. And then ED was given administrative rights here and fear that this forum would vanish one day kinda dried up, and everyone came back. Chip catches a lot of flack for the incident that I don't think he deserved; he wasn't trying to be malicious or anything, just a little over excited or something.

 

[Mahoye]

having a look around these threads, it looks like the mods here are mistaking sarcasm for trolling.
if i was craig i'd be pretty pi**ed with how i was being treated.
but then i dont know how these forums are run
are they run as a dictatorship or a democracy?

 

[Pickle]

im not too thrilled with this.

 

[Nova]

Only bad things can come from segmenting the community. GPH system's developers won't want to port to Pandora and vice versa. We've already seen this from GP32 Spain. You all really need to have a hard think about whether things would be better if you had to visit two forums instead of one.

And I for one don't want to see the day when "What's your order number" becomes a permanent ban.

 

[Michoko]

Only bad things can come from segmenting the community. GPH system's developers won't want to port to Pandora and vice versa. We've already seen this from GP32 Spain. You all really need to have a hard think about whether things would be better if you had to visit two forums instead of one.

And I for one don't want to see the day when "What's your order number" becomes a permanent ban.

I agree. I'm about to receive my Pandora, and I'd like to see as many porting opportunities as possible coming from coders supporting several platforms. When we see what already happens with the Spanish community, it's a living proof that segregation can happen quickly. I'm not judging anybody or taking defense for one side or the other. But I don't want my Pandora to finish into some kind of ghetto, despised by the rest of the open source handhelds, just because nobody can't stand the personnality of some OPT members. Open source is all about sharing, right?

 

[(naw)mcx]

I don't want to leave, but I think we've went over this before.

 

[EvilDragon]

I wonder how ED and the rest of the OP team feels about this.

Well, at first I also thought it's a bad idea.
But I've been thinking about it, maybe it's not that bad.

1. More and more flamewars between GPH and Pandora users recently occur. That's probably because a lot think those are the official Pandora boards and Craig owns them and other guys remember it being the old community boards, etc.

2. A lot of interested guys ask me why there are so many different handhelds on an official OpenPandora board (they think these are the official ones)... it's really confusing for some.

3. Also, a lot of people ask support requests (that should've been directed directly to the distributor, not in the public). I'm talking about hardware problems ("who should I contact", etc.). Some even ended in flamewars about the hardware. It's probably because people think these boards are official.

4. We need some boards for the ICP, and it definately doesn't fit in gp32x.de. But on official boards from the company, it fits.


Basically, one of the main problems is (in my opinion) that there are a lot of new users who don't know whether these boards are official or not. They have no idea if hardware hacking guides void your warranty or not as they don't know whether this site is official or not.

Therefore, I want to setup new official OpenPandora boards for SUPPORT and official FAQs. gp32x.de should stay what it is: A fansite for open handhelds. I think the whole Pandora official / nonofficial problem lead to most of the bad atmosphere problems here.
Of course, I will link to it from the OpenPandora mainsite as biggest english open handhelds community with a Pandora section.

So, if you take a look from that angle, the idea isn't bad if properly done (and I will take care of it).

gp32x.de might finally become the friendly place it always was once again, where people can discuss WITHOUT having fear that these boards are owned by openpandora ltd.
On the same time, a multilingual official support forum could also help so people will not always post the same questions over and over again.

 

[Nova]

The idea of it being solely a support forum for questions is a good one. But I still feel it will drag people away. For example, do developers post news here or at the new place? Because they sure won't want to do both.

 

[Fishbong]

It makes sense for craig to want an own official forum for his devices, especially since many newcomers here think this forum is the official Pandora forum, asking questions related to the gbax.com shop. I'm probably not going to switch as long as there isn't a massive emigration from here, but i doubt that.

EDIT: ninja'd by ED.

 

[Tom`]

The idea of it being solely a support forum for questions is a good one. But I still feel it will drag people away. For example, do developers post news here or at the new place? Because they sure won't want to do both.

IMO it wouldn't be a bad idea to just move the Pandora I Need Help forum there - everything else would stay here. That way, everything could continue as usual here, while new customers can find support there.

 

[sbock]

@EvilDragon

No, this time I don't agree with you. Many fights in the Wiz section started, because we have some people here, who seem to have fun to provoke others. They have no special interests in the Wiz or GPH products. This has nothing to do with official or non-official. It's now a multi platform forum. There is very little to do against it. Also many fights here seem to base on a personal field.

 

[EvilDragon]

Yes. I think this "official / unofficial"-state these boards are in at the moment do harm the community boards here.
No one should think there's a company behind these boards

 

[Pickle]

As long as the gp32x.de frontpage and the pandora forum section stay the same I have no issues.

Although I think this new forum is going to be pretty dry and filled with new user problems.

 

[Exophase]

@EvilDragon

No, this time I don't agree with you. Many fights in the Wiz section started, because we have some people here, who seem to have fun to provoke others. They have no special interests in the Wiz or GPH products. This has nothing to do with official or non-official. It's now a multi platform forum. There is very little to do against it. Also many fights here seem to base on a personal field.

And then we have posts like this, where people like you are berating others based or your own misperceptions while acting like you're completely above any negativity. Some people take any kind of criticism or anything else said that they don't like as an attack against a company and an attempt at nothing more than trolling. If there's a problem with fighting you're part of it too.

 

[SomeGuy99]

If you build it, they will come.

Or not. They might stay here.