A complaint about this section of XDA-DEVS. (Development and Hacking)

[djboo]

quite simply, the the 'development and hacking' section of xda-devs has a cluelessn00b to developer ratio of about 1000-1. I understand that everyone is excited about some of the stuff that goes on in that section, but its bad for several reasons:

firstly, how can any dev communicate when people are continuously rudely demanding information (in broken english or text speek) which is on the first page of a thread or has been communicated several times since then.

secondly, its not safe for the cluelessn00bs... if i was a bit more evil, i could easily make an app to kill to boot loader and pretend that its the latest manila4d or whatever. real devs would probably think about it before running it, clueless noobs would dive right in and we'd have a wave of bricked devices.

i know its hard to fix this kind of issue, and this post is not meant as any disrespect to any mod or admin of xd.com (its clearly disrespect to the cluelessb00ns who cant read the domain name, the forum section nor the first post)

the only suggestions i can personally make are an allow list on threads - managed by the thread owner (and the ability to pass ownership of the first thread would make sense too) or maybe to post in dev+hacking you have to be a senior member (having said that, ive seen some senior members be as clueless and the n00bs)

i beg that some consideration is placed on this, because, in all reality, ive given up on the manila3d thread. theres just no point in me battling the waves of idiocy any longer. the chance of me actually developing? pffft.

[character]

I was a bit disappointed hearing this from a marvelous developer such as you are but I believe you are not evil because you have tried your best to bring us the best out of our devices

Please do reconsider...

[dzelaya18]

I hear what you're saying, mate. I lurked around this place for over six months before making my first post, just reading up and learning. People don't want to read anymore...they think that this place is the instant free tech support center.

[Ufufu]

djboo, I don't agree! Most of the threads in D&H subforum are developer or constructive threads. This is not an easy thing to accomplish, and I think it shows the quality of the forum. You can't disable access to "noobs", developers make their stuff for everyone, not just other developers or experienced people! I'm glad if other people like something I make.

[shmilson]

quite simply, the the 'development and hacking' section of xda-devs has a cluelessn00b to developer ratio of about 1000-1. I understand that everyone is excited about some of the stuff that goes on in that section, but its bad for several reasons:

firstly, how can any dev communicate when people are continuously rudely demanding information (in broken english or text speek) which is on the first page of a thread or has been communicated several times since then.

secondly, its not safe for the cluelessn00bs... if i was a bit more evil, i could easily make an app to kill to boot loader and pretend that its the latest manila4d or whatever. real devs would probably think about it before running it, clueless noobs would dive right in and we'd have a wave of bricked devices.

i know its hard to fix this kind of issue, and this post is not meant as any disrespect to any mod or admin of xd.com (its clearly disrespect to the cluelessb00ns who cant read the domain name, the forum section nor the first post)

the only suggestions i can personally make are an allow list on threads - managed by the thread owner (and the ability to pass ownership of the first thread would make sense too) or maybe to post in dev+hacking you have to be a senior member (having said that, ive seen some senior members be as clueless and the n00bs)

i beg that some consideration is placed on this, because, in all reality, ive given up on the manila3d thread. theres just no point in me battling the waves of idiocy any longer. the chance of me actually developing? pffft.

I partially second that, although I think that membership seniority based on number of posts isn't the best practice if to implement what you proposed. As I, for example, don't post a lot but read the forum for almost 2 years, and have dev. background (and I guess there a lot of others like that), there are some that post a lot of questions and/or comments that are not that dev. inclined or do not have the knowledge (yet?).

I do see your point here, and me too stopped following the TF3D thread after tons of non development related issues. Maybe putting Dev/Hack as read-only and people would have to ask a mod / admin for posting rights on it? And then giving full access to the Q&A thread / new section? So devs. could enjoy it more, general community could still get the latest (downloading newer version from Dev/Hack, etc.) and get questions answered in an orderly fashion... BUT, what with those nice little apps people write and post here from time to time, that come from someone that is not THAT involved in the community? They'd simply go elsewhere, and I guess this IS the most valuable asset the community have. With all due respects to the "regulars", I think those that pass by once in a while and contribute are
invaluable too. Guess it's the price to pay for innovation, having to sort through the non-sense to find the gems.

In the end, I think the problem here are the filters we use. Maybe we just need to find a better way to organize the data here, so it's easier to follow... What I do hope, is that whatever is done, doesn't change the essence of this great oasis...

[xudsa II USERT]

I kinda agree with ur second part but i'm sure someone would have told the mods if it was a "dangerous app", rite?

[Lancelot94]

Ok, I understand quite well what you are saying. Being a noob myself, i am learning as much as i can, slowly but I hope surely.

I try to read thoroughfully each thread that I have interest in.

The only regret I have is the search engine. For example, I'm still searching for a thread where it explains how to modify spb mobile shell files to have PI8 as the default calendar. I know the intel is there somewhere, but I'm having a hard time to find the right post/thread.

So maybe one of the possibilities would be to enhance a little the search engine or the way results are shown => enlighten the searched words...

Please reconsider, don't be to hard on the noobs, I think we aren't so bad, some of us want to learn.

And thank you very much for your patience, talent and ideas.

[ultramag69]

I do agree too that there is too much "I like that.... whats it for?" when a lot of the time the developers do put the information in their posts. BUT..... sometimes these STUPID, RANDOM comments do contribute by putting an idea out there to be expanded on. Sometimes they provide needed feedback and ideas.
If you restrict access to these areas then you may as well shut down the site.
This is a forum and as such there will ALWAYS be those annoying clueless posts but you have to remember that you were once there yourself...
You have to make allowances for those members who DON'T speak english very well as they may be very tech savy but just have difficulty putting their ideas down in English. They may actually give something back..


And thats my 2 cents

[brunoisa10]

hi all

in fact there was a section missing , here , for asking

seems they are doing something very soon , reading the sticky thread
Here (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=438818)

and so the D&H will come back to be free for real dev ;)

[shruff]

djboo perhaps you are a little hasty in this thread and I agree with some of what you say, however, alot of ppl respect everything you and other developers give us immensely! without ppl like yourself alot of us would never use Windows Mobile devices, instead following the masses of other "mind washed" CrApple iphone uses, anyway please don't stop sharing just because a few mindless teenagers didn't get enough Oxygen at birth!

[nir36]

people make their own choices. if you post something which might trigger a brick and someone uses it you can blame him for either trying something without investigating first or for just being plain stupid (depending on the circumstances).

the fact that this section is a target for terrorist idiots action isn't different from any other internet or real forum in the world. people tend to go wherever's warmer and cuddle there.. and try to suck every little ounce of good they can find in that place.
that's why you can find thousands of stupid posts and questions instead having a clear, professional section. not using search, not being able to read rules before posting.. that's international.

as for restricting... I must disagree to the proposal. it would require more work from the dev to find the members he'd like to share this with instead of just posting his work. and being a senior member on this forum means NOTHING considering it depends on the number of posts you have rather on how long you've been around or how much you have contributed to this community.

but what i do suggest is, that a member will have to be at least X months old in this forum to post. this will make people use search and learn before they come up with stupid questions.

cheers.

[l3v5y]

As a link above has p[pointed out, there is a new forum coming for questions. If you really have a problem with some of this noob questions, PM a mod/report the post.

Also, if you want to post a thread as an announcement, rather than a questions/answers thread, PM a mod to get it locked.

If you don't let new members post, they will never find anything out.

One final thing: you yourself have posted this in an area in which it doesn't belong. It has nothing to do with Development or Hacking, it's about what happens in this forum. As such, I'm going to move the thread to the "About xda-devs" section.

[DaveShaw]

Thread's like this always remind me this post by Kyphur: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=2031989&postcount=45

Ta
Dave

[djboo]

i dont beleive personally in censorship of anysort. seriously. im like a big ass hippy and everything.

but some of the people in the developers section of this site have barely developed full sentances let alone developed on an 'xda' phone. the floods of the same people asking the same questions over and over again is just disheartening.

maybe just the ability for the thread owner to delete posts would help. since about post 40 on the manila3d thread, theres been...ooh. 7 maybe 8 relevant posts? the rest have been 'my device wont turn off' which is answered in the first post.

meh. maybe we should just open up a new thread for the real developing. disguise the topic. then we might get some work done.

[l3v5y]

i dont beleive personally in censorship of anysort. seriously. im like a big ass hippy and everything.

but some of the people in the developers section of this site have barely developed full sentances let alone developed on an 'xda' phone. the floods of the same people asking the same questions over and over again is just disheartening.

maybe just the ability for the thread owner to delete posts would help. since about post 40 on the manila3d thread, theres been...ooh. 7 maybe 8 relevant posts? the rest have been 'my device wont turn off' which is answered in the first post.

meh. maybe we should just open up a new thread for the real developing. disguise the topic. then we might get some work done.If you want closed developing, why not do it via e-mail, or PM?

[djboo]

Thread's like this always remind me this post by Kyphur: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=2031989&postcount=45

Ta
Dave

that man said it better than i ever could.

[djboo]

If you want closed developing, why not do it via e-mail, or PM?

i dont want closed developing. i want developing. currently the main thread in question is more like doing lines for teacher. once a day, log in, "HTC-CA drivers disable shutdown, TF3D uses those drivers. use manilatoggle to disable TF3D before you power down" x10

[dalepl]

i dont beleive personally in censorship of anysort. seriously. im like a big ass hippy and everything.

but some of the people in the developers section of this site have barely developed full sentances let alone developed on an 'xda' phone. the floods of the same people asking the same questions over and over again is just disheartening.

maybe just the ability for the thread owner to delete posts would help. since about post 40 on the manila3d thread, theres been...ooh. 7 maybe 8 relevant posts? the rest have been 'my device wont turn off' which is answered in the first post.

meh. maybe we should just open up a new thread for the real developing. disguise the topic. then we might get some work done.

djboo... I understand where you are coming from, but I also do not totally agree with your comments. Although I may be a noob, I do have a lot ov experiance in computing. I do not have the time to develop of backwords engineer apps. I wish I did. I would enjoy doing it. I agree with you that the thread owner should be able to delete posts that are off topic, but I think the thread owner should also move a question with an answer to the first page if they see multiple posts. This would make it easier to find some of the common answers. I agree that users should use the search, but it does not always return what you are looking for. I have made a post and been berated for not using the search (when in fact I had). I truly enjoy the work you and the rest of the developers are doing. Without you guys, my phone would be quite boring, but because of the work done on this site, I am quite happy with my phone and how it operates. I have friends that think I am a god because I help them with thier phone, but I would not be able to do half of what I do if it were not for the work done here. I hope you go back to work on Manilla3D. We noobs need the knowledge you provide. As for off topic posts such as the nes on the Manilla3D thread, a lot of them go on due to people endulging these people by answering thier post or flaming them. I have seen senior members do this and all it does is fuel a lot of these guys. Ignore them! Geez, I have had my ligidimate questions ignored, why not ignore the non-ligitimate ones? Anyway, I will get off my soap box. I appreciate everthing all of you developers do and I hope one day I will have the time to contribute to the development community. Take care.

[neoobs]

It is possible to set up a "thread owner" or thread based permission system but it would take some work and more importantly a Vbulletin developer to iron out the issues that may come up.

I have tried it on one other site but it was a little difficult. Of course I think a more productive idea is to have developer groups. Vbulletin has a group system built in as of 3.7 and it allows for comments and such. In 3.8 it will allow groups to have their own message boards. With a little help you can set up 3.7 to also have message boards controlled by the owner of the group.

[JimmyMcGee]

Thread's like this always remind me this post by Kyphur: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=2031989&postcount=45

Ta
Dave


that man said it better than i ever could.

Yup that's why it's in my signature under XDA Mantra.

[Noonski]

I think many feel the way you do (including me).

A nice solution without changing how the Forum works could be something in the line of how Sleuth divided his UC thread into a user thread and a Cook thread.

But having to many of those in the Dev and Hacking would clutter it to much again.

So having a secondary "Users" thread in another Section might help like one in General.

But even then it might be to much to keep track of unless you can find a user that want's to keep track of the second thread. (wishful thinking with the 1000 to one ratio)

And When you don't directly respond to a question some people start acting like they are entitled to an anwser.

Another good way to scare some NOOB posts is by Giving the Thread a Beta/Alpha/Project title.