[Q] Housekeeping

I have been saying this same idea for some time now. I don't want credit for it, maybe others suggested it too before me. But still, you are the one that came up with this thread so like me I know there are some others that support this idea.

I remember back in the Froyo days when there wasn't that much trouble. I remember when a developer tested one of the ROM with the members that donated to the project first and then released it to the public. Also, I remember developers getting the phone either with them paying for it or getting donations so there was practically no need for users to test the alpha, beta, charlie, delta... releases. Also, I remember when Whitehawk decided to stop releasing ROM when we were getting many source leaks and then he came up with the Valhalla Final. We didn't have lot of controversy. Soooo it came to my mind that the trick for this was to have a controlled tester group.

It's simple, as you said, the testers would be chosen among the most savvy users that know how to report logs and then when the project became final it was released so there was no need for reports and requests with exception of maybe one or two more releases if something came up. This would have eased the pain of developers for releasing ten builds in a week and getting hundreds of useless replies and mainly would have avoided the drama and fireworks. Right now the forums seems to be under control thanks to the new moderator. But for me, and you, this is the very best idea I could think of.

Thanks for doing this. Hopefully other will be supportive too.

We do get testers in IRC. Most of the people in there lurk thoughk. When I have asked for someone to test before, no one really does. If you want to take an active stance you need to go where your devs are talking. Team Acid tends to be on #teamnerd all the time.

Also. Why not just take the time to read. Useless posts I don't think there are many useless posts. We all have different opinions and ways of understanding things and some of the posts that have helped me out over the year fit in to your definition of being useless. Also there is a thank you button but what kind of world is there where someone can't take the time to write a meaningful personalized message thanking the dev. Even if it literally says thank you it took more effort than clicking a button. We have a gift to read and share knowledge praise thanks and I like seeing the different forms if gratitude and I think the devs should think of it as being respectful and gratious. Also do we really need a thread complaining. Just be happy. And relax. Its a great day and age we live in. And threads aren't that drastically cluttered and as fb said you really want to help?? Join the irc and Google **** send logs. Not ***** about thank yous and small jokes. Relax and enjoy the forums. Its entertainment or else no one would be here.

Sent from my SGH-T959V using xda premium

I agree with using a group of testers to help provide logs and such on builds. However I dont think, and this is just my opinion, that testers should have to idle in irc to get those builds. Because Im sure there are several people that could help but dont or cant idle there because of family, work, or school. I have seen erikmm mention a user or two using his builds before release. That is very good.

I also believe if a dev gets frustrated at a question being asked over and over again use the report button and ignore it. That applies to everybody if you see a question asked a second, third or more times report it. However answer the question if you can. Ask the mod to move it to a q&a thread. A general thread to move those is lumins stickied stupid questions thread. Maybe we can get sixstringsg to chime in on this. I know it aggravating to see these questions over and over but sometimes just answering them and asking to have the question moved is the better option then refuse and say use search. If you feel its spoon feeding or whatever remember somebody had to answer the question at some point. Not everybody has google-fu skills to find the right answers and simply answering saves so much frustrations on everybody.

TL;DR?
Extend the test build outside of irc because not everybody can idle in irc.
Questions that frustrate need to be reported.
If you can answer that question maybe do so and ask to get it moved.
Lumin's stupid question thread would be a great landing point if a thread isnt available.
sixstringsg maybe chime in regarding moving these posts instead of deleting them.

Asking dev's to test builds is something most of them do already anyway. You get a build to a stage where you can release it. Then you hope that people find the small bugs you missed and give you logs so you can track them down and fix them. That is the whole idea behind this site. The problem doesn't lie with the devs it lies with the users. The ones who don't read, mess something up, then come crying to the dev thread either wanting help or blaming the dev for putting out a non perfect product. Look at whites thread for Valhalla. He releases it as a final and their are still 17 pages of pretty useless questions in the DEV section. That's the problem. We've all seen it. Tommy the Newb frantically posting everywhere so he can get to the magic number ten which allows him to post in the dev section. Then he posts some useless bit of already answered drivel. Look at how may times Erik and I have already had to ask people in the MiUI thread to use Q&A. Dev sections should be for just that development. Sorry but how do I put swype back on is not development. So asking the devs to fix the problem is putting the cart before the horse. How about we educate the users a little and if that doesn't work report the posts that need to go or get moved. Or you can just do what I've done and get used to people posting useless drivel and learn to speed read.

Every point you make hecheon I can counter. However If I do it will turn this thread into something its not intended to be.

This quote sums up this device community.

FBis251 said:

Don't piss off the devs!

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anoymonos said:

Maybe to make it alot simpler when a dev releases a project they should lock it instantly resulting in members to post in correct sec.
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA

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Github bugreports is awesome.

anoymonos said:

@Hechoen I by no means putting any blame on any development, I agree it is the users that clog up threads. But if you really think about it we are all Hippocrates we tell people where to post stuff in appropriate section but they continue posting q in wrong sec and then someone usually a senior member will post In the same wrong sec resulting in double useless info about the rom. And then mod will post I have moved your thread to correct forum creating another post in Wrong sec I think you guys can understand what I mean.
Maybe to make it alot simpler when a dev releases a project they should lock it instantly resulting in members to post in correct sec.

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What we're really looking at here is a way to make the forums cleaner. I am just as guilty as any one else as far as posting things where I might have been able to post elsewhere. I try not to but sometimes when answering a question I add to that post count of the thread. I didn't men to insinuate that you where blaming the devs at all. Only pointing out that the ROM's that are released are pretty stable for the most part. If we all start to adopt the idea of posting logs in dev threads and questions in Q&A that would be the first step in keeping things a little easier to follow. The thing is there is no simple answer. People will continue to do what they want and we will have to just put up with it. If we all try to do are part maybe slowly we can change things.

Here's a thread that kinda goes through the how to control the useless posts idea. Pages 1 and 2 are pretty entertaining. It's from December. lol

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1375331&highlight=people

I don't chime in much on things around here but I really want to tell you all that I greatly appreciate the fact that this is a discussion and not what everything else seems to turn into. I think it shows that we are, indeed, a community of people that care about our phones, the development that some really good people spend their time doing, helping each other, helping the new folks, and we care about the community in which we communicate.

It's good to see people caring about what goes on around here. That alone is what made me feel the need to write.

I can't say what the best way is going forward with keeping the dev area cleaner. Each dev is a different person and we're in an open community so I don't know that trying to "lock-down" how it's done will work. Wrapping a development life cycle approach is a good idea but I don't know how effective it can be in a non-corporate environment. I do, personally, like the idea of a small team of testers. I'd like to be one of them but I also realize that my work and personal life interferes with how much I can contribute. Ask FB, he waited a month or so for me to help develop an update to the GB Starter Pack and I never got it done. I love helping the community but I falter, too

I do believe the dev threads should be kept to clicking "Thanks" (PM the Dev if you want to write that heartfelt note/letter), log files, and bug reports. As others have pointed out, though, we can't stop people from doing whatever they want to do. We can encourage, we can point out (Hey, this doesn't belong here), but at the end of the day we can only control our own behaviors.

I want to reiterate my thank you to all of the community here. I'm glad to see we're coalescing & gelling to make this a better place. I'll help with that in any way I can.

Thanks again - Steve

stephen_w said:

I do believe the dev threads should be kept to clicking "Thanks" (PM the Dev if you want to write that heartfelt note/letter), log files, and bug reports. As others have pointed out, though, we can't stop people from doing whatever they want to do. We can encourage, we can point out (Hey, this doesn't belong here), but at the end of the day we can only control our own behaviors.

Thanks again - Steve

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Steven that is a very good point. We cant control others. But we can control what is posted. The report button works wonders. Instead of just posting telling people this doesnt belong here and leaving it at that, point them to the proper thread/subforum. I dont mean just tell them to post in q&a or themes link to that sub-forum. Then report both your post and the post your answering and ask the mod to move it to the proper thread/forum. Help the mods out so they arent spending more time fixing/moving and can enjoy the site as well.

I dont mean to blame the devs for everything that is wrong. I agree a portion of this is the non-dev community is responsible for. I want to quote something from the do you wanna be a dev page.

A Recognized Developer is a user on XDA, with a history of producing cutting edge work, and doing so in a mature and respectful manner, co-operating with others, and generally setting a good example with regard to adherence to open source licenses and other legal concerns.

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IMO that puts a lot more responsibility on devs than they realize. I know people have bad days and all it takes is a simple comment to set you off. Ive been there many times. But as a RD and a possible RD you are the face of xda. If somebody comes here and sees RD under your name they think man xda thinks this guy/gal is the bees knees. Then they see this RD being rude or whatever it taints their idea of xda.

Regular members have so many faces. We can also make a opinion of xda based on how we treat the new members. We dont carry as much "weight" in this until a RD jumps in and partakes in the razzing of the noob. Once a RD does this people think man this guy is a jerk and so is this community.


In the end everybody here offers some sort of support, be it endless posts helping a new person, somebody offering ideas to help clean the forums and make them organized, or a RD or RD IT releasing roms. We are a community here. Every single one of us. It is up to us to fix what is broken. The mods can only do so much. By blaming one group or the other only keeps a line divided in the sand. The devs and members need to work together and make this place pleasant.

well im new here but my brother develops roms on xda so this seems like a good thread on paper but i just download it the miui rom and i love it even though it's not final since it has bugs i don't care I mean i love trying the new roms that are released whether they are alpha or beta or final. I think if we have to wait for a final rom(i searched thru dev section) we would of had to wait til Valhalla final then Valhalla Black final and to be honest to wait from march to like november for a rom would of been hell lol my opinion, that is all...

You guys are killing me with this thread.
This forum is working because we a have mod that isn't afraid to use the ban hammer.
Devs using testers? um to an extent they already do.
I personally don't think a non dev has any business telling a dev how to pursue their enthusiasm.
And lastly, you are preaching to the wind the people who need to see this won't because reading is fundamental and that's to much to ask or they do but they disregard because it's one post and they really need blah blah!

eollie said:

Github bugreports is awesome.

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I have to admit that this is actually one of the more useful things you guys can do, if you ARE going to be willing to help. Airfluip mentioned the camcorder bug in CM7 the other day, and Bryan said he had forgotten about it, so I opened a bug report for it. I hadn't used the issue (bug report) capability in github before, but I'm going to start using it more extensively because it's a good way to keep track of what's gotten fixed and what needs to be fixed, rather than having to wade through all the posts on XDA, so I recommend you do this to help us out with any of the projects we have since they're all linked to github from their respective threads.

lol eh idk about roms having to be final to be released because sometimes test groups get busy with life or dev gets busy but won't write more about it cus don't wanna sound like i disagree just think it'll cause probs because everyone has a life outside of xda. Well I'll just leave you guys with this pic of an unfinalized rom i wish i could release