yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] eagle 1:
I hate to say it, but I agree with Daniel. The forums have become very hostile in the recent weeks. It seems that some people can say and do anything, which only promotes a hostile environment. Once it is seen that a senior, respected member can humilate another member, other adds to it to sound knowledgable (sic). I may have even contributed to noob bashing in a sarcastic way. Yes, the excessive PM's begging or demanding a rom or help should be stopped. The hatred and terrible language does not help the situation.

The hostile environment could have been lessened if the moderator's were more heavy handed in warning noobs and senior members; even suspending if necessary. Deleting stupid posts, or moving them would also help, Yes, I know there are not enough moderators. I'm sure they are many people willing to help moderate (I even would).

As for rules, maybe they should be updated and posted more often.

I agree with some of the other suggestions

Posting wait time, but not longer than 24 to 48 hours.

Sending new users links to the wiki and other useful information regarding using the search function and thread search, google search, etc.

yea, I know I will get flamed and seem unpopular, but we are all to blame for letting this get out of hand.

I guess maybe its time to buy a new device and try out some of the other xda forums until this one settles down.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] mxlaser:
Theres a VERY simple solution...

Have all the forums/wiki read only. To be able to post, you either need to add something to the forum, or pay a donation. Its stops cheap leeches and also in the same breath, will improve XDA due to a higher increase in donations.

Senior members etc all have a pass, along with those that contribute.

Its harsh, but its a win win. If a noob pays $10, im sure the extremely reduced repeated questions will mean that the odd few noobs will get treated better and there problems anwsered. Those that don't donate are left with read only... Maybe have that expire after 30 days possibly...

just a thought...
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] Arktronic:
How would they add to the forum if it's read only? :confused:
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] shigeo:
my 2 cents

after reading this thread and going throught the now closed black 2.0 from start to finish as well as tons of other pages since i started this is my suggestion for the issue at hand...

a primary probation period like 2 week to 1 month from the day you register during which you can only read wiki's, threads etc. and cannot PM anyone unless that person approves to allow probies to contact them

a secondary probation period that you can post to the threads but are limited to the number of time per day/week that they can post to the thread. maybe that way they would have to think if their question/comment it worth using their "credits" and still cannot PM anyone unless that person approves to allow probies to contact them

and then have a system that tracks time registered and number of post to find a sufficent time to allow an increase of "credits" and privledges as the mods see fit. as well as decreaseing privledges as they see fit.

as an extra help the mods can give extra powers to some senior members that can help police the threads for abusers that can be reported to the mods who can take appropriate action.

thats just what i think again my 2 cents...
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] denali:
Good cop, then bad cop...

I've learned an incredible amount about my 8525 here, almost all by just reading and asking only after looking hard for answers. Looking for answers now is harder because of the increased noise, and the idea of an impending brain drain just sucks. A couple of my thoughts:

1. The search function IS inelegant & cumbersome. I've resorted to google searches now because of the flexibillity and better results. May want to look at improving the current function, or just bringing in google.

2. Tone of posts is important. Yeah, we should do something to cut down the inane newbie questions, and I can condone some of the beat-downs (especially the creative ones), but perhaps instead of flaming, a simple, neutral, "Please read the Wiki and search the forums before posting again in this thread" will suffice. If not, just ignore the post and/or flag it for the mods.

3. 24-48 hour no-post period with an explanation of some sort as to why: RTFW, search the forums, and re-iterate penalties for inane, worthless posts.

4. Move pof's administrative post to be the number one sticky in every forum, titling it "Read before posting, especially new members" or something. Include some selected links to the juicier parts of the Wiki--ROMS, tweaks, for beginners-- to entice spectators to visit there first.

5. Encourage all active members to include a link to the Wiki(s) in their signatures.

6. Finally, if the above is not sufficient, three strikes you're out- 24hr suspension, 7day suspension, banned. Mods need to go Stone Age on this and brutally carry it out.

FWIW,

denali
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] mshagg:
*sniff*

Makes me so proud to be Australian!!! In the words of one of our fave comedians "chopper says harden the f--k up"

But seriously, i cant imagine how frustrating the last few weeks have been for all the WM6 ROM cookers. I simply dont get where people run into so much trouble.

The WIKI makes ROM flashing oh so simple. With smart cookies like olipro giving us our fancy bootloaders, blokes like you cooking up ROMS, everyone spelling it out in the wiki in plain darn english... it seriously took me half a day to go from "hey, you mean i can upgrade this thing??" to "hey check it out, i got windows mobile 6 on this sucker".

Some of the restrictions being suggested in this thread are ridiculous. People need to read - thats all there is to it.

If they dont want to read, i dont know if this hobby is really suited for them.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] Lowglide:
That is very true and I hadn't considered it in that light. I flash ROMs on hardware very regulary and know what sort of damage can occur so when it came to doing my 8525 I proceeded only after reading everything that I could.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] bleeding_edge:
Instant irritating noob check :D ,

not sure if your one of those annoying noobs that eveyone seems to be complaining about. Then theres a great self test yes, you can self diagnose severe noobity problems right now!!

1) find one of your posts

2) click on your username at the top of your post

3) click find all posts from user

now if you can see that all your previous posts are **** or dont actually contribute anything then obviously you are one of the offending noobs.

you could even help others who are misguided into thinking they are not the ones being complained about to diagnose this irritating behaviour.

This is in reponse to the mutliple "OMFG theres noobs here" threads that seemed to have popped up from so called "non noob members".

congrats to the admins for stepping in and closing these, it seems overnight the forum awareness has increased causing the amount of **** posts has decreased somewhat.

the noobs seem alittle more concerned about what they are posting now.

I also think the potential of a ratings system might be worth investigating not sure if this board supports it but ive seen it work wonders elsewhere.

bring on the serenity.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] krafty:
If anyone here would like a different perspective:

I am new to this forum, I lurked for several months before joining (which would have been far sooner if I would have known it would give me the "View First Unread" option,) but anyway, I did not join until I wanted to download some files. Then I did not post until I needed some help, even then I read first and posted my request with all the applicable information. I posted the USB logs, had downloaded and ran the suggested MTTY commands, checked if I had KITL enabled..., blah, blah, blah, my point being that I can read, follow instructions, am extremely grateful for the help I very promptly received and yet I have not posted again and probably won't after this. Why would I or any other new member when it is 75-25 that some arrogant prick will harass you for no apparent reason except to up their own post count?

Again, I have a great respect for many (most?) of the people on here and will continue to watch this forum but my opinion is that there is a lot of housekeeping to be done on the members (senior or otherwise) as well as the clueless newbie's that post inane questions repetitively

fwiw, just my opinion

P.S. you don't have to look very far above this post for a perfect case in point
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] mxlaser:
By providing information after their 30 day grace period, or maybe thats a bit harsh. Maybe a 7 day one is better. or donating. Anyone willing to donate will simply be a higher calibre ofposter by sheer common sense. Their paying for the help, but no individual on the board benefits, the forum and the community does though.

Or, have a mandatory READ THIS FIRST post, that new users have to read through, then post accepting they have read it. That way, its far easier to punish (read temp ban, permanant ban) those users if they didnt pay any attention.

Made th readme consist of links to the wiki, description on how to search, and rules consisting of what they MUST do to not be excluded from the forum, like you MUST search first etc,
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] cyphol:
Noobs are Noobs. Sometimes, they don't really care what are the consequences of their craziness, misbehave or misleading. They are just like users of the shortcuts already created on the desktop, not the users who browsing through every folders to find the smallest possible way of executing programs. Why? because the're just lazy. Lazy to to read through the options of searching capabilities or just lazy to do the search, lazy to browse through the WIKI pages. Yeah maybe there're some difficulties in finding somes but not all posts are that hard to find. That's why they won't be a master in anyting they do. That's why sometimes scavengers are better than the richmen because they search every places.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] angelome:
Where is WM7

Geeze i have searched and searched but i still cant find WM7 :p . Just kidding. This is a great forum. Im new to the PPC world. Last week i attempted my first ROM upgrade. Felt confident and gave it a go. 3 shots error 260. After a quick post Legolas pointed out my noob error and i was off. Everything was good. i really dont care if someone uses foul lanquage or rubs my bottom to make me feel better. Im a big boy and can take care of myself .But i am new and willing to learn.

Unfortunately me area of expertise is not with PocketPC's. I wish i could add more to the community. One area i think would help is. After a thread has been started the Moderators should close it when the question has been answered. Some have gone on and on. Also a simple reply of "ASKED AND ANSWERED" could follow a thread if it in fact has. Thanks again im enjoying my new Hermes.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] cyphol:
Yeah! A better housekeeping for every whats and hows.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] mushroomphoto:
Yeah ... you searched and searched but obviously you didn't read through this post and each comment cause your "where is WM7" joke was just played out 3 - 4 times already ...

not just in the field of PDAs, you're a noob in any discussion board field ....
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] ach2:
Ever considered that maybe you are part of the problem? 8 posts - and all of them are asking a question or making an inane comment...

If you're going to have a go at someone, try to add something positive as well, that way they learn - or maybe YOU haven't learned enough to add anything positive yet?

See how easy it is to get carried away...
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] joej:
This forum was nice and friendly up till the past few weeks after WM6 (Black/LSVW) and the slew of great utilities from Pof and Olipro are released. Launching the avalance of n00bs. Hope that it will go back to the way it was. Where people come in and get the information they need and ask questions when they are unable to locate it in the wiki or search results.

Quite a lot of good suggestions here. Hope that the mods and senior members might be able to take it up. Cheers and hope that things get back to the way it was.

The subscription based model for downloads is a good thing, it'd help the upkeep of the forums even if it doesn't go to the authors of the various builds and utilities. Running this site definitely costs money. I have sent my little token of donation to Jasjamming for Black which I have been using for the past few weeks successfully.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] chenga:
I think a post/comment rating system similar to Digg and Slashdot can help a lot. If people think the post is useless, they can give it a thumbs down (-1). If the post is helpful, give it a thumbs up (+1).

Then you can set a minimum score for viewing (default is usually "> -2") so you see only the posts that are rated "good enough" for you to actually want to read. The posts below the minimum score are collapsed/minimized.

Read through some http://www.digg.com or http://www.slashdot.org comments if this makes no sense. You can see the ratings of the comments and the "show comment" option for comments below the viewing threshold.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] mushroomphoto:
I learned a lot - but not enough to re-invent the wheel or contribute as what you (maybe you) or other senior members do (or want to).

My eligible questions do contribute to other people who don't have superior knowledge like senior members, like yourself, and I guess a dumb question from a noob once in a while might just be on to something.

I don't think all comments or questions should be positive - that's just half of it. Negativity is also good.

Also, I view your comment towards me as negative, but I don't have any hard feelings toward it at all. Thank you.

Best regards,

Mushroom.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] princeasi:
(lmao while talking)OMG, why are some of you people so cot dayum sensative in here?? Its only the internet! The information and great proggies for our hermes on here are FREE! This stuff is donated!!! If some of you on here feel that the guru's on here are sometimes rude or f**kheads then here are your options: 1)move on to another forum, 2)if your not a kiss @ss then get rude back, 3)or shut the f**ck up, take the flame, do more searching and use the great offerings of this forum! If some of you guru's feels that some of these noobs are F**king morons then flame'em, ignore'em, help'em, or do whatever's your fancy, then move on! Hell, I think I got flamed on here one time by a chef. I didnt take it personal. I didnt care at all! I still dl'd and used the "FREE" @ss program or rom that he/she created, and kept it moving. Man with all this free stuff on here, I have no expectation! All I try to do on here is read, dl, and install loll!
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] mushroomphoto:
You're quite right.

But I guess sometimes it's hard to take the 'feelings' factor out.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] princeasi:
Man i swear, Ive never seen a forum so apologetic before posting a question!!...... "noob here im sorry"... "forgive me for being a noob"... "Im sorry for the stupid @ss question im a noob"... "noob here be gentle" lol dayum people, it seems the gurus have scared some of you senseless!! Stop being sorry, and sensitive, and just search & read lolll!
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] mushroomphoto:
Hilarious ... LOL ... also " .. I'm sure I'm gonna get flamed for this, but ... "
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] princeasi:
yeah exactly loll, man I think some folks on here mustve thought they enter an "XDA-Developers Friends Circle" or something lmao!!!!!
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] texazzpete:
I've done the n00b check thingy on myself! My first post was a typical lazy n00b post, but the next one i drew mrvanx's attention to an error in his guide, the next one i tried to help someone 'solve' the problem with his camera and i even tried to pitch in with a 'fix' for the FILTERFS probs (even though it wasn't needed). So you see, us n00bs aren't all that useless :D

Seriously, i've read all the posts up til now, and it seems many of you guys are going way off the mark here. Shogunmark opened this thread so we could agree on ways to make this place better and more conflict free, but lately all the last few pages have been full of people (and mostly junior members!) tryin to outdo each other with more draconian measures than even the mods are suggesting.

How can someone suggest a ban on posts for new members for 30 days? I mean, 24hrs to 1 week is okay, but 30 days? What exactly are we trying to prove here? Lock the gate while we're in so no one else gets in? As someone said, most people here are drawn by the promise of wm6, locking people out for 24hrs to 3days is enough for any curious person to read the neccessary stuff.

Then there's the suggestion of mandatory donations. that's all fine and dandy, WM6 has given my tytn a new life, i've got a well paying job and i can afford to pay, but let's remember, there are other continents in the bloody planet apart from The Americas, Europe and Australia. I'm a Nigerian and I live in Nigeria. We don't have paypal and credit cards here (especially if you're not into anything illegal). Western Union won't let us pay money out of here. How the hell do i get the money paid? I wish i could donate to Olipro, Jasjammin, mrvanx and especially xda developers. But i can't! And i pretty much think most other ppl from Africa would have the same probs. Anyone who has a helpful suggestion could let me know.

I think a 3day ban on newbie posting and answering a short quiz are good solutions. but here's my own two cents:

Can't it be done that when you're about replying or posting a new request, in the textarea where you type, there's some text saying "Please search first to ensure this hasn't been answered before. Punitive measures may be taken against you if you ask a question that has been answered in the Wiki.also, 'thank you' posts are not required". Then when the user goes ahead and clicks in the textarea, the text is replaced by the blinking cursor. I believe this could be done by Javascript, and stop n00bs in their tracks long enough for their brains to kick in...

It just might make a difference...:D
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] Olipro:
where are the WM7 ROMs?

Thanx
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] ecips:
Getting the ROM files - THE TRUTH

I think you have to be part of the secret new site that has been started to get the ROM files.

:D

I am not aware of the address of the new site myself, but I have sent JasJamming 11 PM's asking for the address, so I am sure he will get it back to me anytime now.

Gee, I cant wait.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] SPVuser:
My first post : Flamed or Not, Here I go

I agree with people that I think the problem will be shortlived & the problem will "fix itself" very soon (new phones, other builds,etc.) I admit, I lurked for some time before registering and deciding to take the plunge with downloading & am still amazed at the skills shown by the chefs.(Jasjammin, LVSW, Kyphur, MRVanx, to name a few) whilst I still do not feel that I will ever attain the levels reqd to assist with this, I am happy I can try the fruits of their labours. (I know my MMS/GPRS settings off by heart now)

We all must remember that this is now an instantaneous information society (yahoo answers etc..how many maltesers to sink the titanic?? sort of thing)

How about when a new release is published, it forces anyone to go to MRVANX upgrade page before downloading the build, might cut down some of the questions.

Also a delay of a few days for new registrations to be able to post to new release threads/create new topics (don't know if this is possible?)
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] Bimboy:
jasjamming and those who agree with his utter pompous assholishness... you cook roms then call users leeches. What a frikken hypocrite. Wtf do you expect people to do if they have problems with your roms? If you don't like the questions, don't empty out your PM box. Leave it full and be ignorantly bliss in knowing everything is hunky-dory.

Admins: you are letting this place turn into a bloodbath by only repimanding the n00bs and not the people like jasjamming, sometimes even joining in the abuse. Are you that hard up for content contributors that you let abuse occur by these people? Shame on you and I don't want to part of a community like that, regardless of my personal benefit in new roms/radios.

I agree that the search function is there and used by many.. it saved me quite a few times, but it is difficult to navigate. The hermes has been out for a while now, expect the forums to grow in both wealth of info and in fluff. That happens in every forum. These idiot abusers are far worse than the n00bs, reading the forums.

jasjamming, you think pof didn't get emails and pms? Ignore the ones you need to, but don't be the abusive whiney ***** you are. As far as I'm cocncerned, you can shove your roms up your arse, just taking your attitude into account. You must be fun to work with.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] mrvanx:
WOW we certainly have calmed down in here havent we?! Typical posts like that are what inflamed the place initially. Answer me this, the forum has been fine all the way up to the last few weeks in which an influx of hit and run downloaders have suddenly began to ***** and moan about stuff not working as THEY like...why should we take the time of day writing guides and such if these people are not going to read them!?! I totally agree with why jass et all are getting pissed off. If YOU dont like it there are plenty of other fori you can go on instead.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] dbaser:
Whew!

I'm glad you responded... That was painful to read, Bimboy.

So will WM7 Photon install on my RAZR?
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam ROM Development] jasjamming:
Bimboy,

there are differences between NOOBs and Newbies, id suggest you look it up. Once you understand the difference you will see that I have nothing against the newbies, only the NOOBS.

"Newb and noob may have somewhat different connotations. Newbs are simply newcomers—noob and n00b, on the other hand, generally means someone who is obnoxious, annoying, or breaks the rules; whether they are actual newcomers or not is mostly irrelevant. Therefore, a noob may be someone who has been around for a long time but still engages in behavior that he or she should have learned is unacceptable. Noobs are generally confident in what they are doing, but in reality are annoying others. "Newb" is not necessarily an insulting word, but "noob" usually is. If someone makes an unintelligent comment on a forum or asks a question that even other newbies could answer then it is said that they are making a "noobish" comment or asking a "noobish" question."

In the meantime http://www.howardforums.com/ is seeking new ****wit members so I suggest you rush there and join quick!