[Samsung Galaxy SL i9003] mikef:
problem

OK, home from work now. First, I am not ever going to infract or punish someone for expressing their honest opinion, as long as it is done in a civil fashion, so I definitely appreciate a good discussion.

To respond to this thread in a general fashion...I see vague complaints over a great many forums about mods doing this or that, or not doing this or that, but rarely any specific instances. We do have a thread in this forum: Moderators to assist should anyone want to bring up specific instances of problems. That means links so we can go there and fix the problems. Please feel free to use that thread. Please feel free to (continue to) use the report button as several dozen of you already have. I have several pages full of reports from this forum. Please feel free to PM me. Some of you have done this, I have received PMs from a number of members with requested actions of me. People have posted requests in the thread above as well. In fact that is really where this thread should have gone, but you don't really have specific examples, so ok.

So people here are reporting things which I am taking actions per the guidelines I have been issued by the Moderator Committee. "Strict" is all relative. I thought I had been strict but fair so far. According to other mods, including jayharper08, I have been too lenient. I am not sure how much "modding" the Galaxy users here want but I can state that the answer is not leaning towards "lenient" based on the number and types of reports I am getting. If people here didn't care, they wouldn't bother to report thread after thread, post after post.

Without any specific examples I can't really give you specific answers as to why I took whatever action I did, but I can tell you that my motivations for working many many MANY hours on XDA that have led to being a moderator were definitely not to close or move threads or posts from other users in other forums I had no real time or interest for given that I never owned or ever will own any of them, or to have to explain repeatedly that it is NOT OK to distribute paid applications here on XDA as this is a community of developers, some of which do make their living from writing software, and that piracy is stealing in exactly the same fashion as if it had been lifted off the store shelf and walked out with it, or to reluctantly hand out infractions to users after PMs and warnings proved not to be sufficient. We don't like to do this. Not one mod I have talked to enjoys having to discipline members, but the alternative is far worse. We are not going to let XDA go downhill like many other sites have done. There are community rules and the rules will be followed, for the benefit of all in the community.

Now, to answer this thread with a very specific example which in all honesty seems to the the *real* issue underlying most other issues in this forum.

Hillbeast.

First, can someone point me to a thread or something written down which says exactly what hillbeast was supposed to do and when? I don't want to prejudge the situation, but all I know so far is that several phones were purchased with pooled monies, one of which went to hillbeast, one went to dhiru (I think, not sure on this one), and one went to another (unrecognized?) dev that I can''t recall the name of who seems to have skipped. If there is something written down that gives me very clear guidelines on what was given and what was expected it would be very helpful here, instead of vague complaints and ETA demands, which frankly I did erase without a second thought.

I see several posts here in this thread concerned that I might have erased something important. I promise to every one of you that I deleted nothing that would remotely qualify as "important" or more to the point "relevant" to a dev thread. If there was anything even slightly technical or related in those posts, I would keep it and erase only the unrelated parts. I deleted the initial offending posts which were reported, then I removed the followup piling on posts, some of which went overboard and were also reported. When arguments start, both sides posts are going to be deleted. No one is more right from all evidence I have seen so far. Since I do not own this device and am not in any of the factions here, I am not taking any sides, but I will defend any members from unwarranted attacks or unsubstantiated claims.

I am not sure how many people here have even the faintest understanding of how real development works. Too many people I think have a completely wrong understanding based on ROMs they are seeing from "devs" that are nothing more than zip jockeys. Frankly, I doubt there is one person in 10,000 here on XDA that can really understand what hillbeast is trying to do. Without benefit of assistance from the manufacturer.

In fact, the manufacturer doesn't even want people doing this at all since it might cause them not buy the newest model phone.

So what I need here is the contract that was agreed to by hillbeast and the other devs and the members here. I can't go by anything vague or that isn't stipulated by 100% of the involved parties. I wasn't here when this deal was set up, but I promise to carefully evaluate everything and I will act fairly.

Thank you,

mf2112

EDIT: To be clear, I am not saying I am going to take an action here. My gut feeling as someone who has worked around software development for more than 10 years is that many of you guys are simply being too impatient. Especially given that hillbeast (despite the irony of his username :p ) is not an employee of anyone here to the best of my knowledge.

As far as how people want me to mod...well, I am not jayharper08 so I am not going to do things like he did. I can tell you that I don't want to run the forum. I don't want to go through all the threads and posts and find "modly" things to do in my not-so-spare time. When people report things then I come check it out and figure out what to do. Since people here report a lot, I am here more often, which is fine with me but some people may not appreciate. BTW, your thread was not reported, I found it on my own. :victory:

The above being said, I am human and I can make mistakes. If anyone has an issue then talk to me. If I did something wrong I will correct it. If you disagree with something I have done then let me know why (civilly) and I will explain to the best of my ability. You have no reason to fear talking to me in public or private. I became a mod to help people here, not harm them.