[About XDA developers] dharvey4651:
HD2 Forums

Guess it's time for me to chime in here... As the HD2 Forum Mod, I know and understand this issue better than anyone. Hell just the other day a user opened 3 threads with the same title and same content and all 3 of them had just about the same first reply regarding searching.

Needless to say I closed 2 of the threads, PM'd the user, and posted in his thread in an attempt to help him and prevent a 4th thread being opened.

It's a very common issue in this modern day and age and its truthfully a combination of many smaller problems creating a very large one. I am using my HD2 forums as an example here.

1. The HD2 supports 5, count em, 5 different operating systems. Some more developed than others. Because of this, I have 5 different user bases that my forum accommodates, both veteran users and new registrations.

2. Veteran users who have been here for a while, generally understand the rules and are more helpful to other users. This, however, is a blanket statement. There are quite a few Senior Members who are starting to get really irritated with all the garbage flooding the forums with the dawn of Android and WP7. Once finished, Meego and Ubuntu will also have this affect on the HD2 forums. There's no way to prevent it.

3. Those Senior Members who are getting irritated with the garbage are starting to become less helpful and more hostile. It's a natural reaction. One can only take so much before getting upset and eventually, post something less than constructive.

4. New registrations are a BEAUTIFUL thing. It means that the site is growing. This, however, has it's ups and downs. New users are the future of the site. Without them, the site will eventually die. New users become next year's contributing seniors and then they teach next year's new users how to become contributors. It's an endless cycle and very important for the forum to continue to grow.

This unfortunately, is not necessarily the case for all new registrations. Many new users, like said in this thread before, are referred to us from their Mobile Service Provider because they are unable to solve a problem for their user. Those users assume that this site is an extension of their provider's tech support and come here demanding assistance and those are the one's who are getting flamed. The biggest problem is that new users don't seem to want to learn. They are here simply to use us and nothing more. They want us to fix their problems so they can go on their merry way and forget about XDA until it's time for their next "fix".

5. The amount of animosity in the HD2 forums has grown to a level that is difficult to moderate effectively. To put it simply... A lot of new users do not want to search or read and senior members do not want to help those users - I personally do not blame them. This still doesn't make it alright though.

It seems that many users will actively seek threads that are in the wrong forum or threads where it is obvious that the OP did not search and deliberately post a (pardon my language) jackass comment with no intentions other than belittling and insulting the OP. I do believe that every one of us, at one point in our lives, had someone tell us "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all".

This saying applies to online forums such as XDA as well. Treat others how you would like to be treated. If you know the answer, do not flat out tell the user what it is. Instead guide them to where they can find the answer. For starters, this user will be grateful to you that you posted something constructive. Secondly, when they're not attacked, they're more willing to cooperate and read up and learn. It's simple. Just be nice... If you'd rather not post an answer, please refrain from acting like a troll and simply leave the thread and move on with your life. No harm done to anyone and one less post that gets reported and inevitably deleted.

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With all of that said, I'd like to tell you all a story. A true story from years ago before XDA started on this downward spiral...

Back in February of 2007 I bought my first Windows Mobile PPC, a T-Mobile MDA, also known as the HTC Wizard. I thought it was the coolest thing ever with it's super fast 200mhz CPU, big 2.8" QVGA display, full hardware keyboard and Windows Mobile operating system. After a while I got bored of the standard Windows Mobile "look" that came on the phone and so I started searching for themes and apps that I could install on it to make it look cooler.

By accident, I stumbled across XDA and found their Wizard forum. Now I found Faria's Wizard Mobile 6 ROM and decided to just download it and flash it without doing much reading(I had read enough to guess how to use the software.. That's about it). I attempted to flash the phone and sure enough, it didn't work. I created a thread frantic for help because this was my only phone and I really needed it.

The first reply wasn't very helpful but it did send me looking in the right direction, the next reply was the typical reply... "Search and read the wiki".

I was inspired!! I read everything that I could find and eventually became a contributing member of the forums and now here I am today. I've gone through maybe half a dozen phones, I've posted more than 2500 times and now moderate the largest device forum on the entire site.

It's because of that first reply that I got in that thread telling me *what to search for*, not just telling me to search.... That I was able to recover my device and became so interested in learning. If not for that user, I probably wouldn't be where I am today.

This is why I say "Pay it forward" (took that from a movie I really liked). If someone has helped you in the past, go help someone else. Then that user will be more inclined to help someone in the future, and so on and so on. It's not hard to help someone and if you already know the answer, it will take just about the same amount of time to answer the question than to post a rude comment or ordering the user to go and search.

I know that chances are this post will be overlooked by some, maybe even most, definitely by the users who don't read, but I thought that if there was ever a time to post this, this was the time.

My suggestion to all - Not if, but when you happen across a thread asking a question that has been answered a million times, don't make yourself look a like a jerk by posting a rude comment or insulting the OP. Instead, guide him/her in the right direction without actually helping them with the answer. This will encourage users to read more and will make the forum less cluttered and we just might eliminate some of those duplicate and triple posted threads.

Thanks guys,

-Dan