Whats up with the GP32X forum??

[Asmo]

irregardless of the forum technology used

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irregardless


Sorry. Not had Coffee yet.

 

[mali]

It's back. We can turn the light off, now.

 

[atomicthumbs]

This forum is garbage. phpBB is always having PUBLIC exploits published not to mention numerous privates that still exist, the layout is confusing and counter-intuitive, and it has an overall worse feel than IPB. Also, if you've ever been to gp32x, it just doesn't feel like home.

This.

If only vBulletin was free...

I was going to flame you to no end until I looked to the left and saw your user name.

Yes, I sarcastically imitate the stereotypical Internet dumbass a lot, don't I.

 

[Eniko]

It's back. We can turn the light off, now.

Maybe if the entire site wasn't down right now we could. :huh:

 

[God Ginrai]

I've been on GP32X ever since before the GP2X was released, and I've only seen the forums go down 3 times. Last fall, this time, and one time because of a MySQL error, which I believe to have been a problem during an update.

You forgot the half a dozen times that the GP32x forum can down to a grinding halt. Just saying

No I didn't. Down means that the server's data is not being transmitted. You're talking about Slow. That's a bandwidth problem.

EDIT:

I'm wary of diving into this dust up.... I'm sure to upset someone by making this comment...

No offense to any of the parties involved, and irregardless of the forum technology used, the root problem here is having a large active forum without an active site admin. The less active a site admin is, the more frequent and severe these kinds of outages become.

Forum moderators can take you a very long way, but large communities like gp32x require a fair amount of attention. Regular site updates, particularly forum updates, are a must.

I think it would be sad if we needed to abandon gp32x.de and move elsewhere. It has a well established community that would be fractured by moving it elsewhere. But I think it may be time to, politely, ask hando if he'd be willing to hand over the reigns to someone else who had the time and energy to maintain the site.

The same is true here. forums.openpandora.org is a great idea, but without active moderators or site admins, this place is effectively stagnant. Yes, it's slow because all the action is happening over at gp32x.de, but still we have months old stickies irrelevant to the discussion about Pandora. The site needs active pruning and community leaders to seed the site for future growth. ED should similarly consider handing over the reigns to someone willing the time to perform site admin duties.... perhaps to take the duties back once manufacturing details of the Pandora were sorted out.

This isn't to say Chip and others aren't doing a good job in forum moderation.. on the contrary they've been doing a fantastic job. But site admin duties are different alltogether. Communities on the scale of thousands of users expect downtimes measured in hours instead of days, even if they don't "deserve it" or are impatient. The Pandora will thrive on these active communities and Pandora Ltd neglect them at their peril.

I actually *have* played secondary site admin to a site that was owned by another person that was exceptionally busy, and was hard to contact when things went down. I had FTP access and passwords, but I wasn't the client, wasn't paying for the site and couldn't complain to the ISP if things went wrong. After several similar outages I eventually ported the site to another location and upgraded all the server software... a good thing too as the original site domain name expired weeks later without a word from our site owner. We haven't heard from him since.

On another note, I think it's a bad idea to split up the GP32, GP2X, Wiz and Pandora folks... Even though their user communities might be somewhat segregated, their dev communities are much more tightly integrated, and there's a natural evolution from GP32 to GP2X to Wiz and Pandora behind the scenes. Even as a Pandora dev, there's plenty of dev gems of wisdom hidden in the gp2x dev forums that would be lost if user groups were segregated to different sites.

I don't mean to start a flame war... this is a discussion to have *after* gp32x.dees back online. For the moment we'll sit tight here and wait out the storm.

I understand what you mean. However, I believe that instead of replacing the admin like you seem to be suggesting, that instead hando should appoint multiple administrators, that way there can always be an admin on the lookout. This method has worked on many forums I have been to previously, and I believe that if hando gave out admin status to a few people he knew he could trust, who had some time on their hands, that it would work very well.

-God Ginrai

 

[Tor]

This forum is garbage. phpBB is always having PUBLIC exploits published not to mention numerous privates that still exist, the layout is confusing and counter-intuitive, and it has an overall worse feel than IPB. Also, if you've ever been to gp32x, it just doesn't feel like home.

This.

If only vBulletin was free...

What kind of software is this forum (openpandora) running? Every time I come back here I re-discover how this forum is just so much nicer to interact with than the gp32x forum sw.

EDIT: Actually, I see at the bottom that it says "phpBB". So, it's the same as gp32x? How come it's so different?

 

[God Ginrai]

This forum is garbage. phpBB is always having PUBLIC exploits published not to mention numerous privates that still exist, the layout is confusing and counter-intuitive, and it has an overall worse feel than IPB. Also, if you've ever been to gp32x, it just doesn't feel like home.

This.

If only vBulletin was free...

What kind of software is this forum (openpandora) running? Every time I come back here I re-discover how this forum is just so much nicer to interact with than the gp32x forum sw.

EDIT: Actually, I see at the bottom that it says "phpBB". So, it's the same as gp32x? How come it's so different?

Forums have modules. GP32X is custom built. These forums are pretty much the default settings. And btw, I don't see how you see these forums as nicer. GP32X is much more polished in features and style.

-God Ginrai

 

[Chip]

GP32X runs on Invision Power Board, which is a completely different piece of forum software. PhpBB is free while IPB is not.

 

[God Ginrai]

GP32X runs on Invision Power Board, which is a completely different piece of forum software. PhpBB is free while IPB is not.

Yea, I used to use Invision back when it was free. It was really good, like vB but without pay.

-God Ginrai

 

[Tor]

And btw, I don't see how you see these forums as nicer. GP32X is much more polished in features and style.
-God Ginrai

To me it's much easier to get an overview of unread posts on this forum, and much easier to click the go-to-last-posts link. And the gpx32 forum doesn't even have a 'mark forum as read' button, you have to use a cumbersome pull-down menu. And the gpx32 form looks bad as well, IMO. Old-fashioned, cramped. I could go on and on.