[Galaxy S II General] tomj777:
Interesting discussion emerging.

A few thoughts...

Eggthunder, for instance, - I bow to the length of time you've been a member which a long while and, like everyone else who's been around for x amount of time, you are very personally invested (as you, I, him over there and her sitting in the row in front are and should be).

And that's my point - we all read here that people care - they don't agree but, heck, they care.

I have my view of how things should be run, it's my view of a utopia that says all true dev forums should be visible to all for that's how we learn, it's my view that the HTC HD2 forums have a highly effective way of identifying ROM's and that would only take a little tweaking to differentiate between different levels of derivation, it's my view that inherited work should be credited, that RTFM questions should be handled sensitively, ideally with PM and then addition to a FAQ or wiki and it's my view that we should all play nicely and in a respectful manner.

That's not going to happen (least of all because we're all human beings and it's not in everyone's nature to play nice and heck, read some of the above to determine if we are being respectful). However, we should fight for each ideal and reach compromise.

To the issue in hand, my objection is that this was a decree fostered upon the community / members or whatever you want to call our collective, that we are demeaning ourselves (my view) with a sense of elite, subordinative and cattle classes. There are obvious differences - my contribution to the forum is considerably less that the devs, moderators, etc. I help occasionally, I ask for help occasionally, I learn and I teach within and outside of xda what I've learnt. One day, I'll have time to be a more productive member of the community.

I reckon of the 4M members we probably have a a hundred thousand or so who are present during a week and that of the 20 odd thousand on line at any one time, the majority are just reading - of those actively contributing, a small majority will be asking questions that they could have found the answer to within the wealth of knowledge others have contributed.

Should we divide further - maybe forums for sensible questions and forums for lesser ones? Oh but wait, here's the rub - that idea, if pursued would also be unworkable without clear definition of what is a sensible question. But that's a digression.

Back to the numbers - folks talk about ethos -old timers look back fondly to the time where everyone was developing and thus contributing and there were no leaches who were merely reading, learning and puzzling respectfully over what others have discovered. If that was the case, that was then. Since then, XDA has evolved. Whatever the number of members truly are, it is the spirit, ethos or whatever of the collective membership that sets the limits of what's acceptable and what we are all about. Or perhaps it's not.

Perhaps I've got it completely wrong.

Perhaps it's only what the first five (10, 100, 1000, paid staff, moderators of x grade, name owner or whatever) say it is.

Either way, I hope we do evolve, for nature shows us that it's a rare breed that can survive without evolution (they do exist) and that most stagnate and die.

The bottom line: We have something good here. Evolve it, try new things, see what works but please don't break it and, if you have a semblance of power here, please make it clear what you are doing, be transparent, open to discourse and encourage feedback.