Re: New Dedicated Pandora Forums

[Tom`]

I probably wasn't clear enough (I tend to do that ). The difference is not only can the company host the site locally, but they also have direct control over what goes on on their site, including the forums. Here, they don't have that. Not total control, anyway. ED may have admin privileges, but what's to stop any other mod from overriding or revoking those privileges? In addition, they don't have to ask or discuss changes or additions/subtractions to the forums to be made, they can just do it. This, obviously, can be seen as a positive or a negative to you and I, having no part in the actual monetary creation of the product, but for people like Craig, ED, and everyone else who have some kind of livelihood-stake in the project, it can be quite the plus.

Just to make it clear, I don't see OP having "total control" as a positive thing - ED has done a good job as an admin here, but Craig's record is spotty at best. ED being admin means that he doesn't actually have to discuss changes to these forums, he does it because the forums are run for the users' benefit, not the other way around. I suspect that if they want people to actually use the new forums, they'll have to avoid running them like an oligarchy, no matter how "official" they are.

Tbh, I'm amazed ED is willing to moderate both the forums here and over there. It's a lot of work between what he's already doing. Anyway, like I said, it turned out to be a good move in the Caligari/trueSpace case, even though a handful of people felt screwed over. But that doesn't mean everyone will ever see their forums turning out to be a good thing as a "good thing." That, in itself, isn't wrong either. It's your personal opinion which you're entitled to. I'm just trying to point out that it can be a good thing for a company to host their own forums and it's something they probably should have done from the beginning.

If you still don't think my reasoning is enough to convince you, well... I tried.

Slight correction: admins have control over moderators, so no one but Hando can revoke ED's status (as far as I'm aware - I've never moderated or administered an Invision board before).

With that said, if this had happened as the Pandora began to ship, I might agree with you, at least to a greater degree than I do now. I don't entirely agree that every company needs their own forums - it's been stated here before that OPT only filed for that status because they needed it to make deals with the various suppliers. The project originated here in this community - if the community here had been started as an unofficial OP support board or something, it would be different, but as it is, the only reason for the split was that Craig wanted the freedom to be a jerk to whoever he wanted without fear of moderation. Whether the consequences will be positive remains to be seen, but the cause was not.

 

[absolofdoom]

He also had this shootem up where the player could morph between a mecha and a jet, but I can't remember the name. For some reason, I wasn't that impressed by Sonic the Hedgehog.

Herzog Zwei, perhaps? That wasn't really a shooter tho, more RTS. There was also Heavy Unit (import only), and a couple others I can't recall at the moment.

Thanks for suggesting those. After checking them out, I went to wikipedia. I think the game I played was called Arrow Flash. But watching it on youtube doesn't seem to be the same as my memory of it. I thought it was a lot more vibrant, but that could be nostalgia.

Morph between a mecha and a jet? Thexder, maybe?

 

[Esn]

I come back from a months' vacation to this?

Ugly, ugly, ugly....

(not to mention that my "350-450" Pandora still hasn't arrived in my mailbox...)

I'm sorry to say this, but it looks to me like the reason this happened is also the reason that Craig is the largest single contributor to funding the Pandora - to be a successful self-made businessman, most of the time you have to really want to be an alpha male. This also means that you take defeat badly, and prefer striking out on your own to compromise, consensus, or conflict-resolution.

The Pandora wouldn't have happened without Craig. All the same, I'd be wary about him managing a community.

Thankfully ED is the complete opposite.

 

[Aninhumer]

Forgive me if I paraphrase a little here...

... [ OpenPandora have control over the forum ] ...

I'd certainly agree that having more technical control over the boards would be a good thing.
It looks like the thing that might win me over is the newer theme!

As long as Craig keeps his word and hands in his Admin badge at some point...

... [ The split may create two complementing perspectives ] ...

Hopefully a more significant difference than whether they think the split is bad!
But yes, you have an interesting point, different environments create different cultures, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I can see from your sign-up date that you've been on these forums for a while, so I can see how you may take the new forums in a bad way.

It's even worse than that, I was active here in the GP2X days and then was away for a while, my opinion of these forums is formed in no small part by nostalgia

I'm still very dubious about the confusion this is going to cause, but you have at least presented some interesting arguments.
You obviously have experience of something like this, and being in the same position as I am now, so your opinion is valuable.

I'm not going to pretend I wasn't being emotional here.
But I was more annoyed by the way everyone just seemed to be accepting the split without any decent reasons being presented.
And the fact that Craig did it without even consulting the rest of his team, never mind the forums, didn't help.

I will at least register in the new forums now anyway.

 

[Prometheus]

As long as Craig keeps his word and hands in his Admin badge at some point...

As far as I'm aware, this is already the case.

 

[MonkeyChops]

yea, he's now just an "advanced member" whatever that is. He is in the group: "Official OpenPandora Team". I don't know if that gives him mod abilities or not But if he owns the forum, I'm sure he can do whatever he wants.

Did I miss something or did Craig and Mali only really have that one big "what your order number" fight + the warning/sig change battle? It just doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me. This kind of crap happens all the time, how does that threaten Craig's business?

 

[-Tj-]

@Aninhumer
Don't worry about the paraphrasing... quote pyramids can get quite messy. :lol:

I'm glad I've been able to provide some useful side to the discussion. Tbh, my intent isnt't to sway anyone to either forum, but hopefully that part came across, too. I agree, it can be annoying when everyone just "accepts" a new forum; it kinda leaves a bad taste your mouth when there's an attempt to fix what isn't really broken (and it's hard to wash away), and it can feel like a real slap in the face. In this particular case, the catalyst seems to be a big part of what makes it hard for everyone to accept. There's a lot of good, fun, smart people here; it'd just be a shame to see the community divide because of something like this.

Morph between a mecha and a jet? Thexder, maybe?

I don't think that was it, if it was, indeed, a Genesis/Mega Drive game Gerix was thinking of. Thexder was never on that system (AFAIK, anyway), and the game itself was never really that colorful. Mainly whites, reds, blues, and grays. :lol: Fun game though... and HARD.

Just to make it clear, I don't see OP having "total control" as a positive thing - ED has done a good job as an admin here, but Craig's record is spotty at best. ED being admin means that he doesn't actually have to discuss changes to these forums, he does it because the forums are run for the users' benefit, not the other way around. I suspect that if they want people to actually use the new forums, they'll have to avoid running them like an oligarchy, no matter how "official" they are.

A company having control over their own forums means many things, more than just being able to control what's said. On the positive, they'll now have the power to directly able to maintain the board itself, including its inner workings, and they can better integrate it with any and all services they provide. On the negative, it does give them the opportunity to go completely crazy with moderation (oxymoron :lol: ), like what happened on the i-mate forums not long ago, where they completely shut the forums down. Presumably they did it because they were frustrated with all the negativity from their users. Ultimately i-mate closed up shop. Hopefully, that doesn't happen on the new boards.

I don't entirely agree that every company needs their own forums

No, not every company needs its own forums, but I feel that it could be beneficial to OP in the long run. I us a lot of "coulds," "mights," and "mays" in my statements because this really is all speculation. None of us will really know how things turn out till it happens. Ultimately it's up to us, the users, to make it a success or a failure, but my hope is that OP will do what they can to help make it as much of a success that they possibly can.

... the only reason for the split was that Craig wanted the freedom to be a jerk to whoever he wanted without fear of moderation. Whether the consequences will be positive remains to be seen, but the cause was not.

I don't know the details, but it seems to me that the thing between he and mali was just the breaking point, something that pushed him enough to make him say, "ok, this was going to happen anyway, so now's as good a time as any." Perhaps the timing of it wasn't great (yeah, it looks bad that he did it "because" of the problems that originated here), but what's done is done.

Anywho, I think I've added enough to the discussion. I'll still visit both forums. Both have a lot to offer.

 

[WizardStan]

Craig's move may have been partly fueled by some awful behind-the-scenes crap, but for purchasers and users of Pandora and ICP, this more centralized forum will likely be a better move for everyone in the long run.

This is the thing that's leaving the biggest bitter taste in my mouth. Official forums is likely to ultimately be a good thing, and if OPT had reasoned it amongst themselves and came to the logical conclusion that they, as a team, needed a little more control, I'm sure there would have been a much easier transition.
The way Craig went about it, however, makes it seem as though it was fueled entirely on a personal level: not because it is a good idea for the Pandora, but because it is what Craig wanted.

Incidentally, Friday I vowed not to log in until everything was sorted out, and now that they more or less have been, I look back on my weekend and realize it was the most productive weekend I've had in months. I'm thinking an extended forum vacation may be in my future.

 

[SomeGuy99]

I'm thinking this new forum may work out okay, at least for a while.

Having said that, hopping between the two leaves a sort of... alienated taste in my mouth.

 

[r00tw00t]

I missed all the drama. That feels nice.

Back to hibernation mode

 

[Consequence_9]

I missed all the drama. That feels nice.

Back to hibernation mode

+1 this is some dumb shit, everyone's just bein a little baby bitch about the internet

 

[EvilDragon]

I missed all the drama. That feels nice.

Back to hibernation mode

+1 this is some dumb shit, everyone's just bein a little baby bitch about the internet

But... but... but... the internet is the real world... no?

 

[Consequence_9]

I missed all the drama. That feels nice.

Back to hibernation mode

+1 this is some dumb shit, everyone's just bein a little baby bitch about the internet

But... but... but... the internet is the real world... no?

;]

I actually am pretty disappointed in both parties in this situation tho. Mali was a seemingly good mod, I dunno what's been up with him lately but some of his comments after the matter have been pretty off-hand & out of character. and craig is well... being craig. There seems to be very little middle ground. I just hope this doesn't further compound the already somewhat fractured community. I know there were other 'good reasons' for the move, but I really don't see this as being helpful to anyone but craig really. It was a very reactionary move on craigs part, and now we all have to deal with cross-posting & fragmented information just because of some forum spat. I just don't want to see a repeat of the dingoo.

 

[WizardStan]

Mali was a seemingly good mod, I dunno what's been up with him lately but some of his comments after the matter have been pretty off-hand & out of character.

I think he was intentionally trying to act like an ass, get himself banned, Craig be all "see, I was right" and then return. Throwing himself on the proverbial grenade, as it were. It's the only explanation for his sudden personality change that makes sense to me. That or Body Snatchers.

 

[MonkeyChops]