[Epic 4G General] art3mis-nyc:
This has become a stickler point for me.

How exactly do these "roms" that post on xda to gain the large audience with links to thier own sites with thier own forums and downloads do it?

Why does XDA allow the threads to exist?

To me it's a confusing point, on one hand you've got the huge user base that XDA has and it's "helpful" but on the other hand these "roms" have chosen to move else where to have a clear cut definition of "who" their users are.

I for one would love to see xda delete these threads, if your rom isnt hosted here why should XDA pick up the tab on the traffic and moderation to "support" the people that don't want to follow basic rules.

It's one thing to post on here saying that it's out it's quite another to have a thread devoted to the rom for "support" when they've got their own site and thier own "donation" setup and don't offer direct links to the roms.

I'm thinking of Bonsai and Baked Snack when I say this, although other sites like ppcgeeks are guilty of it as well.

Here's the breakdown...

Baked snack was a rom a while back that Hero_Over ran, he had people that loved his roms, but he wouldnt share his gpl code, so XDA to avoid issues banned him and removes his threads.

Bonsai started up thier own "business oriented and non-hobby"(randy's words) website and started offering up betas to people that donated, BANNING people that would share this beta software if they found out.(or so his users have said)

PPCGeeks.com basically is a forum that has very little of it's own content and tends to backlink to threads here on XDA. This should not be allowed. it's cheap and annoying to think that other forums all link back to xda but refuse to use and follow it's rules touting it as the devil for thier moderators sucking and other offhanded badness, while at the same time using it's resources for thier own gain.

If you want to follow the XDA rules on rom posting fine. Post here. If you want to have your own site to support the rom fine have the site, but if you get removed from the site for not following the rules, do NOT expect to keep using it to support your users.

The rules of posting should be simple.

If you post a rom in a thread there should NOT be an external sign up on said site to get the rom.

If you post a rom, there should NOT be a pay to play system in place to get "advanced" copies,(nor a "shopping cart" for the rom)

If you post a rom, there SHOULD be a direct link or mirror link to the rom.

If you post a rom, there should be open disclosure and read-only sources to what you've done.

In essence i for one WANT to see all support threads for non-hosted on XDA roms removed, they put a burden on XDA to moderate, the put a burden on XDA for bandwidth and hardware, and they cause undue traffic to those that don't want to play by the rules they signed up for.

Side note, i'd love to see hotlinking from other sites also disabled on XDA to stop those crap spring up offshoot websites thinking they're better and "more laid back" from not having to bother with their own content and users.

Analogy time:

Think of it like this... You've spent a lot of time and money to make a large car lot, you allow others of the community who've used your car lot to gather and sell their own cars on your lot free of charge. It all runs fine until along comes one person that feels they should be allowed to use the facilities of the lot for only themselves and break ruin the good bathroom, now they setup thier own bathroom close to thier table but only people that come to thier table and purchase a car may use this bathroom. After a little while you find that they have opened up their own car lot across the street. You ask them to take their cars elsewhere, and remove them from your lot. BUT they setup a table on your lot and take up valuable real-estate to "answer questions" about their car lot across the street AND about their cars. while using your facilities and security etc. Would you do that in normal circumstances? or would you remove their table as well and let them use their own car lot as a support and sales team for their own cars?

Anyways, thats my take on the whole off-site roms but XDA support.

Add thanks to this if you support this idea, OR post away and add something new to the conversation, *I* personally think that XDA should take a hand in removing these threads from here as they are a detriment to the community that exists and undermines the ideals attached to opensource projects.