[Sprint HTC EVO 4G LTE] SoraX64:
"That's not quite true as it relate to this whole issue. Say that you both you and I create a rom using the definition of original quoted above but you get to post yours one hour before I post mine, yours is original and mine isn't."

I see what you're saying, but that isn't exactly what I mean.

For example, in an imaginary world CM9 has not been worked on at all for our phones. If I went and compiled a build for this phone and posted it, that would be considered original development. If I wasn't able to get everything working, and you were to come along and produce a build that has no bugs, your work would become the original. The reason for this would be, "A significant “first” in development for a device." You would have produced the first fully working build of CM9 for our device. My thread would be moved to the other section as it no longer represents the "first".

"I do not see a legitimate reason to substantiate the need to create a completely new sub forum for original roms. Furthermore, as some have stated before, the amount of “original” (as defined by mods, admin, etc…) work will be minimal, or to be about 10-20."

I see that as being the whole point. These forums are, honestly, terribly organized. The development section is filled to the brim with different threads containing mods, scripts, ROMs, and so on. Anyone coming here for the first time would be lost. There is a lack of organization in the forums, and this seems to remedy that situation a bit.

This is beneficial for both normal users and developers. For normal users, it basically tells you to, "look here for the cool stuff." In other words, the most significant developments will be found there, instead of jumbled into all of the other developments. A good example of this is the JB thread that is floating around. When it was in the normal development forum, it would get buried. This is because it's an open development project that not many people are working on, meaning the thread does not get much traffic and it is pushed down by other threads that do. By taking that thread and moving it into a more isolated environment, it becomes more exposed to other developers.

That brings us to the positives that the system brings for developers: the ability to find development. In most cases, the things that will have bugs are the original developments, because they aren't always using a base provided by HTC. The normal development forum will house the ROMs that just work, for the people who need a phone that just works. The original development forum will allow the developers to find out what's going on, communicate with each other better, and keep track of what needs to be done. Having a smaller amount of threads in the original forum will allow everything to be seen.

For example, this is what the development forum would have looked like before:

[ROM][STOCK]7.11.12 SuperROM | FAST | SMOOTH | BEST

[ROM][STOCK]AWESOMEROM | SuperROM BASE updated 7.11.12

[MOD]Dual Core Mod

[UTILITY]ROOT

[Q]How do I root my phone?

[ROM]Themed Stock updated 7.1.12

[DEV]JB Development

[MOD]Faster THREE GEEZ

[UTILITY]Edit your bootloader

[Q]Why does development suck on this phone?

So, picture a developer browsing through this mess of threads. Chances are, he or she will easily miss the JB development thread, because there are so many other threads surrounding it. The site's appearance does not help to differentiate different types of threads.

Now, in the original development forum, that same developer would see this:

[ORG SENSE]ViperROM

[ORG NON-SENSE]ViperROM (de-Sensed)

[CM9] CM9 unofficial development

[JB][Dev] JB development

[MIUI] Official MIUI Jewel

And all of the other threads would still have their place in the normal forum.

I'd also like to add that I don't think what they're doing now is the best solution either. What's going to happen is that BOTH are going to be cluttered because of mods and extra ROMs. I believe that the original section should be very limited in what it contains, because if it's the same size as the other section then it's just going to be two cluster****s instead of one.