Develop Bugs

Regarding Rights To OUR Intellectual Property Here

In light of what I considered to be a couple of very disturbing developments, I think at this point, a dialogue/debate needs to be opened on what rights/copyrights a contributor has on the intellectual material he/she posts here.
Sakajati was abruptly censored when he suggested that future roms may be administered through a tool bar and not administered through this site.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=3288089&postcount=10332
And the way that BeyondInvisible was driven off this site by the " takers " and not supported by this site. ( the people that stole his new pay/per icons and published them for free, should have been banned). http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=2798052#post2798052 because he dared suggest that it might be time for all the takers to pony up.
When your work becomes widely successful ala; olinex, jockyw, sakajati, MobileMatt, JCKOTZE, Schap, in the kaiser forums, at what point does toiling around in poverty while you work hard for others for free, become less attractive than selling your work?
Who now owns your work , you, XDA, is it copyrighted? When you decide to take it private what ownership rights does XDA retain?
If you request that XDA remove your work, can they leave an archive of it?
I love this site it is the greatest resource on the net for PDA's but I think these subjects could use a good going over by the Mods and the membership.
Dennis

Removing SJ's toolbar was NOT censorship, regardless of how you're trying to spin it. We received several complaints from users who don't feel comfortable being required to install a toolbar just to use their favorite ROM... ask any Mod, we all get the emails. The action I took (editing the toolbar links) is the most benign available to Moderators. I could have closed the thread, and moved it to a Mod-only section while the investigation/discussion took place. Instead, I opted to merely edit out the download links.
There is no justification for requiring users to install a toolbar into Internet Explorer (or any other browser in the Windows environment) just so they can have access to a Chef's ROMs.
Now while a decision has not yet been made, I can confidently say that if SJ had promoted his toolbar as a tool to help all users of his ROMs get the latest "breaking" new on development, and NOT required it in order to obtain the password required for flashing, then we [most likely] would have allowed the toolbar to stay linked on XDA.

I think part of the problem here is that many seem to think that they are entitled to what the chefs produce for nothing. The hours spent porting and testing should count for something but for many it is just expected. I for one have no problem contributing what I can when I'm able. It is too bad that more don't do this.
Kirby

Intellectual property laws protect the inventor/creator rights of ownership to their intellectual property in cyber media. So there is no fear but a concern for any coder that his or her work marketing could be abused or it could be stolen. That is the risk one takes without his or her choice when they share their creations with others.
I also read XDA rules, and it clearly states that soliciting anything for money is prohibited. many cooks are on the border line of asking for money rather encouraging donation for sharing the fruit of their work with others. I do not have a problem with that and believe the majority here share my sentiment. I have a problem however with someone begging for donation without any substantiating efforts, invention or creation to merit the donation solicitation. That being said, I believe SJ was a true gentleman in all of his posts and never infringed on callus donation request; having a tool bar that he feels if XDA was out ( and it was out few times in the past month) as an optional site but not alternative support site that can be accessed where members can help each other is not a bad idea.
We seem to forget sometimes that XDA site was created to help one developer another achieve excellence in the field of e-communication.
so again, I have no problem with SJ promoting his tool bar as long as it is not used to ransom donation for solving issues and i am sure like I said earlier, this is NOT SJ's intention.

NotATreoFan said:
Removing SJ's toolbar was NOT censorship, regardless of how you're trying to spin it. We received several complaints from users who don't feel comfortable being required to install a toolbar just to use their favorite ROM...
There is no justification for requiring users to install a toolbar into Internet Explorer (or any other browser in the Windows environment) just so they can have access to a Chef's ROMs.
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Click to collapse
That was one of my major points, there " was " no requirement . because there " was no rom ". You struck preemptively to something that had not happened yet, because it might happen in the future. You squashed his right to promote a private project , as many many people do here, because a few ungrateful people complained that in the future they might have to obtain the rom it SJ's way.
Had he stated that the next rom would be available only by joining his website, would you have shut him down?
My question is, at what point does a chef have the right to take his work private, and how , without any interference from this site.
Believe me, I am not trying to "spin " anything against anyone, I have a great deal of respect for you and all you have done for this forum ( we miss your input in the Kaiser world ) I just thought that it was a heavy handed response ( and yes censorship ) to something that hadn't even happened yet.
A simple PM could have alieviated the situation for the time being, while the Mods figured it out. Not a head on erase everything, assault SJ's right to promote his work and wares.
And I would say again, that the integrity of this site depends on people to share openly and honestly without fear of unjustified reprisal, SJ has said that he will not for the time being, take any new roms private. I think that is enough for all his links to be restored. If not, what other definitions of censorship do you have ?
JimmyMcGee said:
Your opinion is respected. But the appearance was that he WAS requiring people to use the Toolbar to get the Password for the ROM.
Sakajati can do what ever he wants with his ROM, if he chooses to require the Toolbar, that's his choice. If XDA, the people who maintain and provide some presence for his ROM here say that's not in the spirit of the community, then he can release the ROMs on his website soley.
Basically you have to follow certain rules to post your stuff on SourceForge, so think of at as the same thing.
You seem to be the only one with a problem. sakajati is a great guy and is being cooperative in the investigation.
There is written law and common law. This falls more into to "Common Law" area, which is why I said it was a Grey area.
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I brought this over from the Hyperdragon thread to here, to discuss.
I just want everyone to know, this has more to do with the big picture than it has to do with sakajati. This has nothing to do with NATF or with jimmy and I am probably not the only one who has a problem with the way it was handled. I am just the one with the big mouth. And we all know that sakajati would never say a word or give anything less than his full cooperation.
I just want someone to tell me not just for SJ, but for the good of the whole community and as a precedent for future complaints of this type, why SJ couldn't have been shot a PM asking what his intentions were, and if they approached a grey area, he could have been informed and he would have cooperated. End of any problem. It is not like there was any urgency, as I said before, there was no requirement because there was no rom.
And if people did over react then it is good for everyone to get a dialogue started. That is what this site is all about.
Thanks guys for doing a great job !

denco7 said:
That was one of my major points, there " was " no requirement . because there " was no rom ". You struck preemptively to something that had not happened yet, because it might happen in the future. You squashed his right to promote a private project , as many many people do here, because a few ungrateful people complained that in the future they might have to obtain the rom it SJ's way.
Had he stated that the next rom would be available only by joining his website, would you have shut him down?
My question is, at what point does a chef have the right to take his work private, and how , without any interference from this site.
Believe me, I am not trying to "spin " anything against anyone, I have a great deal of respect for you and all you have done for this forum ( we miss your input in the Kaiser world ) I just thought that it was a heavy handed response ( and yes censorship ) to something that hadn't even happened yet.
A simple PM could have alieviated the situation for the time being, while the Mods figured it out. Not a head on erase everything, assault SJ's right to promote his work and wares.
And I would say again, that the integrity of this site depends on people to share openly and honestly without fear of unjustified reprisal, SJ has said that he will not for the time being, take any new roms private. I think that is enough for all his links to be restored. If not, what other definitions of censorship do you have ?
I brought this over from the Hyperdragon thread to here, to discuss.
I just want everyone to know, this has more to do with the big picture than it has to do with sakajati. This has nothing to do with NATF or with jimmy and I am probably not the only one who has a problem with the way it was handled. I am just the one with the big mouth. And we all know that sakajati would never say a word or give anything less than his full cooperation.
I just want someone to tell me not just for SJ, but for the good of the whole community and as a precedent for future complaints of this type, why SJ couldn't have been shot a PM asking what his intentions were, and if they approached a grey area, he could have been informed and he would have cooperated. End of any problem. It is not like there was any urgency, as I said before, there was no requirement because there was no rom.
And if people did over react then it is good for everyone to get a dialogue started. That is what this site is all about.
Thanks guys for doing a great job !
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My Friend read this...
sakajati said:
Just uploaded the cab to download center. It will add [Slide down for call functions] feature.
*** Please all of you install my toolbar [mod edit: link removed], this is the tool that will keep you updated and you will receive alert/message via the toolbar for news and announcements regularly from me. If you're using HyperDragon ROMs, you have to install it since the next rom release will be password protected and you'll get the password only via this toolbar . No adware, spyware, crapware, underware, read the Toolbar Privacy [mod edit: link removed]for details.***
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Read the Green Parts. The general consensus is IF sakajati REQUIRES people to use the Toolbar to use his ROMs, he is no longer contributing to the XDA ROM Community.
sakajati is ALLOWED and not censored to require this if he so chooses. However the ramifications are, that he would no longer be allowed to advertise his ROM here.
The "common law" rule is, if you post a ROM on XDA, you are contributing to the community and the ROM shall have NO STRINGS attached. No requirement to Give Money, no requirement to have a toolbar installed.
If sakajati wishes to offer his toolbar as a way to stay in "constant contact" with him, then I don't see a problem. But the release of the ROM shall not be contingent on the toolbar. At least not while it is advertised on XDA.
And P.S. lets not get into calling ROMs Intellectual Property, because honestly, ROMs are Microsoft's I.P. All chefs do is tweak, improve and skin ROMs. And I don't mean to take anything away from chefs awesome work by saying that. So saying sakajati's ROM is his I.P. is like saying you taking you Toyota Celica, painting it Pink with Green Racing strips and boring out the engine, makes that car your I.P.
But as NATF has said, no final desicsion has been made, I only type this reply to give full disclosure, to show that our intentions are not to censor.
Thanks.

JimmyMcGee said:
If sakajati wishes to offer his toolbar as a way to stay in "constant contact" with him, then I don't see a problem. But the release of the ROM shall not be contingent on the toolbar. At least not while it is advertised on XDA.
But as NATF has said, no final decision has been made, I only type this reply to give full disclosure, to show that our intentions are not to censor.
Thanks.
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Since this has all been put to rest, I just have some final thoughts and then I'll shut up.
It was never about XDA's/Mod's disapproval as to what he intended to do, you all are entrusted with the success and smooth running of this site and have every right to administer this site as you see fit, (as I have every right to question why ) And it was not really about SJ, he was just the vehicle of my overall concern about creative people leaving this site because of real and perceived ( do it our way or get out ) disagreements.
I guess I just wanted to know, if people decided to take their projects private,such as a new rom, would they still be welcome here to support older projects or develop new projects here ( that fell within XDA guildlines ) and while supporting their projects, could they in a subtle non-commercial way, direct people to private/financially enhancing projects.
And of course I still object to the way it was handled, that sort of, " we are taking it all down until we decide " way of doing it, is something that happens to noobs that don't know any better. Not to someone who has done as much for, and contributed so much to the Kaiser community as sakajati has done.
The Mods always preach, " if you have a dispute with another member, take it to PM, " Unfortunately this great advise wasn't followed, and I am glad that SJ was not offended by this and did not pack up his toys and go home ( like unfortunately other members have done )
And I am sorry if " I " have offended anyone, that was not my intention. I love this site and think that discussions like this benefit the longevity of this site. I am glad everything has been resolved and I will shut up and go away now
Oh yeah ........one more thing
And P.S. lets not get into calling ROMs Intellectual Property, because honestly, ROMs are Microsoft's I.P. All chefs do is tweak, improve and skin ROMs. And I don't mean to take anything away from chefs awesome work by saying that. So saying sakajati's ROM is his I.P. is like saying you taking you Toyota Celica, painting it Pink with Green Racing strips and boring out the engine, makes that car your I.P.
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Tell that to Chip Foose and Orange County Choppers. They take other people's parts, design and tweak and create masterpieces worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Your telling me a Foose Design isn't intellectual property?

denco7 said:
The Mods always preach, " if you have a dispute with another member, take it to PM, " Unfortunately this great advise wasn't followed, and I am glad that SJ was not offended by this and did not pack up his toys and go home ( like unfortunately other members have done )
And I am sorry if " I " have offended anyone, that was not my intention. I love this site and think that discussions like this benefit the longevity of this site. I am glad everything has been resolved and I will shut up and go away now
Click to expand...
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This is not an issue of personal disagreement, it is a violation of our rules of operation. When we see questionable activity, we will always take the action of stopping the activity, contacting the OP, and trying to resolve it quickly. I am sure SJ understands this as well as anyone here that it was nothing personal, and simply just S.O.P. around here. It's a lot easier to take down a problem for a couple days, and then let it back up with an apology than it is to remove it after we've debated.
As for you question about prior contributions, of course anyone is welcome to support anything that they have and continue to offer that is in compliance with our rules here. Nothing even stops a user from selling some stuff, and giving others away. It's just that they can't post the stuff they're selling here, just the donation ware.

IP
I have just a couple points. The Phoenix team has a separate website we use for tracking bugs and other discussion so we don't clutter up this site. However our intent is to foster creativity, open communication and cooperation among users and chefs which we hope results in better products for the users of this site. So don't always think a private website like ours or SJ's is a bad thing.
However, I would like to point out what was only stated one time in the thread--the guts of these roms are the ip of microsoft and htc. Now as chef's we find other bits and pieces that are added--and these are the ip of their creators. Sometimes we contribute our own ip--like skins, icons and very specific know how to get the roms to help our devices perform at peak efficiency. But anyone who would try to take a rom private and sell it, would have some major issues without first getting license to do so from MS, HTC and those other people who own the other intellectual property.
There are many examples of apps that were developed by talented people here that have gone commercial. Those apps are still discussed and linked to here because they all have trial periods. There is nothing wrong with commercializing your own ip..The wrong comes when you commercialize ip that you don't own or haven't properly license.
So let's continue a great tradition of creativity. I believe that this site is the primary reason that HTC and microsoft keep trying to make a better operating system. This site is where many ideas come from. This site gives the OS life beyond the normal experience.

denco7 said:
(snip)
Oh yeah ........one more thing
Tell that to Chip Foose and Orange County Choppers. They take other people's parts, design and tweak and create masterpieces worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Your telling me a Foose Design isn't intellectual property?
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Pfft Those Posers

some confused thinking here -
A cook can ask for a contribution for his time but there is no way he can claim that a cooked rom is his IPR because it's belongs to someone else start with - no licence to modify has been granted!
Now creating programs from scratch, that's a different issue and how they want to deal with payment is upto them.

my theory is whoever created the forum and then got ppl to volounter to mantain it
ITS THERE FORUM
Its really up to them what they want to do

a few suggestions about adding non-htc WM devices support

*edit: as many people suggested in the posts. a new single forum for other manufacturers with 1 single subforum per maker might be a better idea than whats suggested in this post**
the mods have explained several times why they are not willing to support other non-HTC devices for various reasons over here so im not gonna ask that. i will however ask that the admins to consider spinning off another site to do that.
there are some other sites that try to do that but they ALL fail miserably because they dont have the ridiculously high number of smart users registered to them. to solve this major problem, i propose that the users data base of xda-dev gets synchronized with the newly created site.
the new site may look something like
- windows mobile support and development forums
- htc built devices like palm,xperia...etc
- 1 subforum per device (more if its a very popular devices like xperia X2,omnia, toshiba tg10...etc)

I wasn't aware of the reasoning for no non-HTC device forums. You have a link?
Personally I think we should have subforums for the popular non-HTC devices like i780, Omnia, Epix, SG01, Asus devices, etc. But who am I?

there are many http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=464635
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=463252
and the reasoning is that "jack of all trades is a jackass" or something like that

THE GRIZZ said:
mods: please drop your whack-a-mole hammers and consider this
the mods have explained several times why they are not willing to support other non-HTC devices for various reasons over here so im not gonna ask that. i will however ask that the admins to consider spinning off another site to do that.
there are some other sites that try to do that but they ALL fail miserably because they dont have the ridiculously high number of smart users registered to them. to solve this major problem, i propose that the users data base of xda-dev gets synchronized with the newly created site. all that is needed is for the user to confirm the newly created account in the new site (in case some of the users explicitly dont want to register)
the new site may look something like this
- windows mobile support and development forums
- htc built devices like palm,xperia...etc
- 1 subforum per device (more if its a very popular devices like xperia X2,omnia, toshiba tg10...etc)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First of all, title is misleading.
Second, it's never gonna happen (another site needs more resources, which this site is struggling with.
Third, I give you one day before this thread gets closed.
Cheers

THE GRIZZ said:
mods: please drop your whack-a-mole hammers and consider this
the mods have explained several times why they are not willing to support other non-HTC devices for various reasons over here so im not gonna ask that. i will however ask that the admins to consider spinning off another site to do that.
there are some other sites that try to do that but they ALL fail miserably because they dont have the ridiculously high number of smart users registered to them. to solve this major problem, i propose that the users data base of xda-dev gets synchronized with the newly created site. all that is needed is for the user to confirm the newly created account in the new site (in case some of the users explicitly dont want to register)
the new site may look something like this
- windows mobile support and development forums
- htc built devices like palm,xperia...etc
- 1 subforum per device (more if its a very popular devices like xperia X2,omnia, toshiba tg10...etc)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And add ponderous, overlarge, and un navigatable

sa2.14 said:
And add ponderous, overlarge, and un navigatable
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Click to collapse
just vote no and spare us your silly negativity. i was merely asking for them to consider it. if its a bad idea it will show from their replies and from the poll.
Third, I give you one day before this thread gets closed.
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stop suggesting them ideas. and they wont

Its so much easier to add a single "other devices" subforum (not even full section like what they are doing now for every single device device).
this way we all get the advantags of having non-htc devices without the extra work and headache that goes with creating full website page.
i like the " the users data base of xda-dev gets synchronized with the newly created site" part though

My opinion is to leave XDA as it is now
Do not add more non HTC forums!
It will just make it slower
Should be around the net good forums for other brands
When have you saw a site together between reebok and nike?
Every one has its own stores
Just my 3 cents

i had the same idea when i bought my omnia
http://winmodevelopers.co.cc
this site deals with all of the non htc devices
((although may i remind you its no way affiliated with this site it just served as inspiration))
it already has a few roms and a marketplace was opened in january, and yes were stuggling with resources but thats the way it is in the shadows lol
any non htc winmo device can be added, although smartphones will be added through poularity
also we are moving the entire site soon to a dedicted server soon courtisy of QUICKSITE and this will take time but feel free to add your nuggets of info to winmodevelopers.co.cc
also take note its a very fimiliar format to xda so u wont get lost
(disclaimers : winmodevs is not an affiliate of xda-developers.com, the onlt connection is certain members including me who frequent both sites)

I think that would be really cool! The TG01 needs to have support from the wonderful ppl @ xda!

ive already got the tg01 there and now ive just installed a chatrrom for geeks

THE GRIZZ said:
just vote no and spare us your silly negativity. i was merely asking for them to consider it. if its a bad idea it will show from their replies and from the poll.
I apologize for your dismissiveness. Only thing I would point out; is that in any enterprise, diminution of effort is really a bad thing. Take the examples of the car cos. just to name a couple. Orb3000 has it right, I've got a motorola device. Found forums that are exclusive to that. I believe that works out the best.
Click to expand...
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jayjay8585 said:
ive already got the tg01 there and now ive just installed a chatrrom for geeks
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Nice! Where did you get the TG01 from and for how much?
And guys, let's not be dismissive or overly negative like that please, we should try to be friendly.

jayjay8585 said:
i had the same idea when i bought my omnia
http://winmodevelopers.co.cc
this site deals with all of the non htc devices
((although may i remind you its no way affiliated with this site it just served as inspiration))
it already has a few roms and a marketplace was opened in january, and yes were stuggling with resources but thats the way it is in the shadows lol
any non htc winmo device can be added, although smartphones will be added through poularity
also we are moving the entire site soon to a dedicted server soon courtisy of QUICKSITE and this will take time but feel free to add your nuggets of info to winmodevelopers.co.cc
also take note its a very fimiliar format to xda so u wont get lost
(disclaimers : winmodevs is not an affiliate of xda-developers.com, the onlt connection is certain members including me who frequent both sites)
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the site in your signature has more forum sections than actual posts or members. in its current status, it cant complement xda-devs in any way

orb3000 said:
When have you saw a site together between reebok and nike?
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Well as I understood HTC as a company has nothing with this forum?
And I'm sure reebok and nike wouldn't make site together because each of them want to sell it's sports equipment.
But, if some sport equipment lover make site about sport equipment I'm pretty sure there would be nike and reebok and many others.
I have HTC so I selfishly don't care if there are other devices on XDA-developers.
But if I buy some other non-HTC device some day I would really love to have support for it from great site like xda-developers
cheers

Can someone please explain to me how operating a forum with the amount of members and posts is not a profitable business?

THE GRIZZ said:
the site in your signature has more forum sections than actual posts or members. in its current status, it cant complement xda-devs in any way
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Click to collapse
well firstly
Board Statistics
Our members have made a total of 272 posts
We have 341 registered members
and theres only bout 23 or 24 forums so that makes ur stateate very brash
secondly you think anything you start now will imediatly get 1.5 million members and chefs will flock and devs will batlle to host there crap on ur site, it doesnt work that way
ive worked really hard to get to the site in it urrent state and itll only get bigger
also you have to take into account everyone is eih ergreedy or impatient so if theres question asked on wimnmodevs then nobody sticks around too long because they wont answers now
so see as many little members there is that brilliant going when u rememerb the site only been opened for 6 months and xda has been going for years
but then again u sdont have to use it, thee are a few who are. but i mean if you really dont like it and if its that bad feel free to trawl around xda asking bout it when theres one there
btw this wasnt meant to sound *****y if it did i apologise im just saying if u want a new site at the drop of a hat that has this much support then it not happening im afraid site like this take time

Ok then. Whoever is willing to pay for the major bandwith and whatnot step right up and pay.

Usually I have never comment on those post ”we should get additional None HTC device listed here” but now I will give my 2 cents on this subject. THIS IS MY PERSONALY OPIONIEN I DON’T MEAN TO INSULT ANYONE!!!!:
I NEVER UNDERSTOOD WHY WE SHOULD NOT LIST NONE HTC DEVICES.
This forum has started to developt WinMo and during that time HTC were first manufucturer of such device. However this forum became so famous in last 8-10 years so that when you type anything WinMo related word in Google or any other search engine it leads you at least few times back to this forum. So with Such search engine power many old and new brilliant people come here to meet and share their knowledge. With Such knowledge base and information the searchengine crawlers are as I believe the most band wide consumer.
Now been this site so famous and this site been only on HTC devices, gives actually VERY BIG Marketing advantage to the “Company HTC” As I believe over the years HTC owns some of their popularity to this forum but DOESN’T HAS TO PAY SINGLE CENTS. I mean many other companies paying hard cash to make their names and their products popular in the search engines so that consumers can find them easily.
Furthermore we all here given so much feedback on our Dream devices or find so many mistakes on the current device models so that HTC itself can learn and align them self for future devices or even make correction on next produced patch for devices that are still in production. Again all these are for free of charge and without making expensive surveys. I assure you for HTC it is a kind of Gold mine here.
I personally believe competition amount of the manufacturer can bring only advantage to the consumer. This is for price and for quality!!!
Therefore As I believe continuing supporting only HTC devices here in XDA_DEV gives HTC big advantage on the mentioned COMPETITION and hurt as Consumer!!!
Be frank I don’t believe on those sister forums or what so ever (again I don’t wanted insult anyone’s idea it is just my opinion)
my simple mathematic is:
A forum based of people…people brings Knowledge/information…Knowledge/information brings search engines…. Search engines bring people.
From my experiences building a forum and been successful (popular) is very very Long and hard job
[FONT=&quot]Conclusion of above I would say we should Support here also none HTC devices[/FONT]

redbandana said:
Can someone please explain to me how operating a forum with the amount of members and posts is not a profitable business?
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Look arround you will obviously see that this forums attention is not making money!!! But I do fully agree with you that there is alot of opertunity to turn this site to BIG CASH...
However according the websiteoutlook (http://www.websiteoutlook.com/www.xda-developers.com) it stands not to bad there:
Net Worth $1.04 Million Daily Pageview 474342 Daily Ads Revenue $1425.48

Changes at XDA, Please Read

Hey Everyone,
I’ve been an XDA user (under another name) for a long time, but now I’ve been appointed a new role to work with Flar and the moderators to make the user experience here better. For example, some of you may have noticed that the site has gotten faster in the last several days and that there are fewer 502 gateway errors. This is no fluke—we’ve employed an expert server administrator who has been restructuring the database to allow for quicker access speeds and far fewer errors. There is still a lot of work to be done, but we’re off to a pretty good start.
Beyond improving site speed, number two on our list is to cut down on spam. We’ve already experimented with a few tactics that have had varying levels of success, and we’ll keep at it until we get it right.
We’re also working on a home page redesign (or the “portal” as some of you know it). Our goal is to make it a useful destination for finding the best content in the forums and to make it easy for users to find new information about a particular device without having to scan through dozens of threads. We are recruiting volunteers to help identify and "promote" content to the main page, which requires some writing skills (see the "news" posted to the home page in the past couple of days). If you're interested and serious about helping, send a PM to Flar; she is organizing the effort.
Finally-- and hopefully this doesn't cause a mass uproar-- we are considering the idea of selectively adding non-HTC device forums (focused on Windows Mobile and Android devices). Every day we get requests from users for this, and there's really no good reason why we cannot oblige them. Already the discussion is happening in the general forums. That said, we will only add new forums if: 1. We are confident added traffic won't cause site speed to suffer; 2. We can recruit quality moderators; and 3. The content and discussion is of high quality. The only way to know these things for sure is to try it out. So, within the next 14 days we are going to add two or three non-HTC forums. The delay is to ensure the site continues to operate at a reasonable speed and so we can figure out where to put the new forums (the forum homepage is already absurdly long and cluttered). We are open to suggestions as to deserving devices for our first non-HTC forums, so give us your ideas in this thread.
I look forward to working closely with you to bring about exciting new changes to XDA that will make the experience better for you.

Hi Svetius
I asked a while ago for a forum for the Roadster, HP iPAQ HX4700, unfortunatly i received no more information on the topic since I sent a PM to Flar, if this could be added as a new forum, i would be happy to moderate it
svetius;5335158
The delay is to ensure the site continues to operate at a reasonable speed and so we can figure out where to put the new forums (the forum homepage is already absurdly long and cluttered). We are open to suggestions as to deserving devices for our first non-HTC forums[/QUOTE said:
It's not that bad Just make a Bookmark
Thanks
Badwolve1
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XDA in 2010
Great to know about all this changes and modifications!
XDA is the number one forum on it´s genre
Personally I think adding non HTC devices could add a lot of intensive traffic and may deviate the main objectives and efforts from what this site was created, but I will support and promote any final decision made by Owners & Admin
Count with my help if required.
Just my 2 cents
Long live to XDA!!

It's great to see another Admin aboard XDA, and a very ambitious one at that! These sound like very exciting changes XDA will be going through, and some are much needed, like spam control and an update to the portal. I look forward to watching these take effect

Amen to non-HTC devices!
As a longtime HTC fan, I appreciate the great community we have here at XDA. But I'm looking to branch out, and I recenlty purchased a Toshiba TG01 that is a powerful device and I'd love to see a forum for that if there is enough demand.
The LG Expo is also poised to be a big seller here in the states; already there is work going on with that here at XDA, so perhaps that deserves a forum (it's one of the first WinMo Snapdragon devices after all).
Long live XDA!
PS Maybe a different color scheme would be nice, the yellow has been giving me lots of eye strain recently...

chambo622 said:
Amen to non-HTC devices!
PS Maybe a different color scheme would be nice, the yellow has been giving me lots of eye strain recently...
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If you use Firefox you might want to try this.

Very glad to hear XDA is dropping their completely non-sensical rule of not allowing non-HTC devices (oh, but we will allow Android on a WM-centric site? pfff)
Aside from l3v5y, none of the better known people on XDA I talk to on a regular bases agree with this rule (most think it's a really stupid move), so I'm sure a lot of people will be happy there will be change.
If I might be so bold as to make a couple of device suggestions:
- Samsung Omnia 2 I8000 GSM & I920 CDMA
- Samsung Omnia Pro B7610 & Giorgio Armani II B7620 (pimped pro)
- Toshiba TG-01 (aka T-01A)
- LG Expo (aka IQ, Monaco)
- Acer F1 (aka neoTouch S200)
Of course there are lots of others but most of them are quickly getting old... At least from my perspective these are the most important devices... Then again, what do I know, ey?

Nice to hear that you guys are so busy in making the experience better on XDA.
But I think we should not include those other non-HTC phones.
Personally I hate those Omnia's, they're in my opinion just crappy phones.
Sad to see it happen but you Mods probably know what's best for the community...

Sounds great to me!
It means my SE X2 will have your support!!!
Bravo!

Chainfire:
The main reason I've been opposed to extra forums is because it would impact the rest of the fora here. If the speed of this site is the first priority, and if this site can still achieve what it was made for (it's in the name really, XDA developers) then I can't really disagree.
Also, it would make a significant increase in the workload for the existing moderators, unless we recruit more....

I think it would work well if the devices selected were only ones that pass muster and are as feature rich as their HTC counterparts (e.g. Omnia II, Toshiba TG01 etc).
I'm fairly new to here, but one thing I do like is that this site is heavily slanted towards Windows Mobile. So while I think it would be great to welcome other Windows Phones into the community, I do not think that Android devices outside of HTC phones should be accepted.

This is absolutely awesome, thanks so much. Having the support of Xda-Devs is absolutely a must when buying a phone. until today buying a Samsung-device was completely unimaginable!
Maybe you can add some JS/AJAX to the page, so all device-specific subforums are folded, except the devices the user needs (multiple devices would be nice).
And IMHO you need a really good and catchy logo.
If you want me to help with designing feel free to send me a PM

What a great Decision
I am really happy to hear this. With my second smartphone (TD) i entered the world of xda developers and found answers for every question i ever had. I think it is the best place for discussions about htc devices. When i bought my Samsung Galaxy i was i little bit f***d up because of no more xda developers and it is great to hear this news now.
...hopefuly there will be a section for Galaxy Users?

I was crazy about xda back when I had an Apache/ppc 6700. But I am also a person who likes to try new things and move on to better things. There is no reason we should be penalized for buying a MOTOTOLA DROID or SAMSUNG GALAXY. Show us some love.

Great News Indeed

Wow! Just an awesome news! I think this is a realy good idea and the right way to became thes most important source for ALL Winmo (and Android) devices.

It's not nonsensical to focus on HTC devices on a website that is FOR those devices.
Imagine people asking for help with their Honda's on a Ford Mustang Forum.
As a long time XDA user, I love this website, when I got the Wizard, then the sapphire, I was insanely grateful to have such resources available to me on this site.
Eventually I got the DROID, at which point I had to abandon this forum, and all it's resources, which sucked, but I understand this isn't the place.
With that said, I am excited to see this forum open up for non HTC devices, as I will directly benefit from it. I am worried however that the forum may suffer not just in speed, but in focus. Think about those Chinese food restaurants that sell Italian food, hamburgers, and burritos, they make everything, but they don't make any one thing well. XDA forum is the equivalent of the BEST burger shop in town, so I think it is a very good idea to run a "Trial Period" and I hope for the best!

.... and yes svetius welcome on board mate

This site keeps getting better and better, I appreciate you guys taking time to consider and address suggestions (adding other popular phones-Android and Windows based) to the site. Keep up the good work guys and gals!

samsung galaxy

[Q] Implement Reputation System?

Hey guys (mostly the senior/mod/admin folks, but anyone feel free to chime in). Could XDA implement vBulletin's (I think there is an official plugin/option... I may be wrong about this though; I cannot say for sure since I am not an admin on any site that uses vBulletin, $user = phpbbWhore reputation system? If it's not built into the latest version of the code, I'm sure there is a 3rd party plugin available from VBulletin's official site (I know of at least a few of those that exist and would help if needed).
My thought behind this is that sometimes someone posts some really useful information and adding a reply that says something like "+1 thanks!" almost seems like a waste of a post to me (I really dislike "filler"/OT threads, but I still want to give the person credit). However if I was able to give a person a point (+) or if someone was just being a jerk for no reason (-), I think more people would take the time to think before they posted. Plus, since we know "post count" mean nothing in terms of someone being a helpful person or not, this would allow new users to spot trustworthy/reliable folks.
My only qualm is that I don't know if XDA as a whole is mature enough to use this kind of system responsibly, but I have faith that any real abusers could be weeded out fairly quickly. I think it would be cool to at least trial run this. Thanks for your time .

Hi DeeBG,
Yeah, it's good idea generally, thou i'd prolly advocate XDA going a step further right off the bat, and implementing a point trading system as a supplement to the donate buttons, especially for those without easy access to paypal credit.
Reputation has issues when someone on the fringe of the group is battered down for being different. Like imagine someone says "Let's make an iPhone section!". They might lose a years reputation in like a day. At least with a point trading system you're dealing with actual assistance or virtual services, rather than base emotional responses or crowd bullying.
I'm still learning about XDA's donate system, which seems fairly arbitrary or opaque. Maybe someone can explain how well that system is working out so far.
Cheers.

Reputation is built into vB, looks like they opted to turn it off. Good thing, every forum I've been a part of / admin'd, it's been abused.

I7redd said:
Reputation has issues when someone on the fringe of the group is battered down for being different. Like imagine someone says "Let's make an iPhone section!". They might lose a years reputation in like a day. At least with a point trading system you're dealing with actual assistance or virtual services, rather than base emotional responses or crowd bullying.
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The reputation system only works through "thanks", doesn't it? So your reputation cannot get worse, but only better.
I7redd said:
I'm still learning about XDA's donate system, which seems fairly arbitrary or opaque. Maybe someone can explain how well that system is working out so far.
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It's not much of a system - you can donate directly to xda, which will help cover costs of running the servers, or you can donate to individuals (like me ) whose work you like.

Well there are really two types of systems. One is where you can give a thumbs up or thumbs down on a comment (sometimes represented by a [+] or [-] sign), and then there is the "Thanks" system, as seen on such sites as http://androidforums.com.
I agree that the first system can and sadly usually is abused (I think I saw it work well on one private torrent site I used to belong to a long time ago). There is a somewhat "pack mentality" that some users can fall into, whether someone is "outed" (falsely or not) for being an abuser of the forums or sometimes members are found "guilty by association".
I would like to see at least a "Thanks" system in place, again the folks at androidforums.com (which I'm sure at least some of you are also members at or at least have been directed to a post there before) have this successfully working within their vBulletin-powered site and would happy to help XDA admins if needed (not that I don't have faith in the XDA site owners/coders, you guys are pretty awesome yourselves =p). Of course I would be happy to lend my ~10 years of PHP/MySQL/etc experience to the process if it'd help.
I would start a public poll, but I think it's really in the interests of the site owners (also they can probably setup a more wide-spread poll than I can if they want public opinion).
Your friend in code,
DeeBG =)

I think it would be good to show appreciation to other users but It would be abused knowing that you can knock down someone's reputation (last thing we need is more flaming)

Captainkrtek said:
I think it would be good to show appreciation to other users but It would be abused knowing that you can knock down someone's reputation (last thing we need is more flaming)
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Yeah, that's why I think a system where you can ONLY give thanks would be cool. Again, forum admins, let me know if you need any assistance getting it up and working (it shouldn't add a performance performance hit to the backend database/system... the php code would be very light and the mysql db would maybe grow a few hundred kB since users without thanks wouldn't have any data).

Developer Bidding...
Livven said:
The reputation system only works through "thanks", doesn't it?
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Still open to cheating using multiple accounts to "Thank" themselves here and there and everywhere.
It's perhaps harder to gain anything with requests from yourself, and gifting points to yourself, while offering up public solutions. Thou i wouldn't put it past someone to try.
It's not much of a system - you can donate directly to xda, which will help cover costs of running the servers, or you can donate to individuals (like me ) whose work you like.
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Hmm... There seems to be a growing trend on XDA towards "donation requests" or "developer bidding" in certain forums. (see Xperia x10 Froyo request topic for example).
It involves people collectively posting that they will each donate a small amount to their favorite cause. (Android on Samsung Wave being another good example)
The current running tallies of offered donations is also interesting idea, thou there is some concern that those who have offered to donate $10 or $20 dollars will actually do so once the developers have done their magic.
Again, the opaque or arbitrary nature of hidden donations is a problem here.
Without going as far as escrow payments system (for requests that could likely need time limits and a refund), a basic "pre-paid" point system should work pretty well. For instance, once a task is completed the points could then be traded back for paypal dollars, completing the "circle of trust".
Any other ideas on this?
(or is there already an active "services" marketplace here somewhere that i've perhaps overlooked?)

How to Fix Threads in Mango (Concept)

Hello everybody, I'm Saad from Windows Phone Daily and I thought it'd be worth sharing a concept I worked up last night and published this morning to the site.
It's actually in response to the editorial I read in WMPoweruser from Malcolm.Williams in which he pointed out many potential issues in Mango's Threads feature. I was pretty compelled by the idea of improving the feature, so I decided to pretty up his own concept. Instead I ended up with something a little more complex with more features than I thought I would include
Anyway to make a long story short, I noticed many comments about the iffy Threads implementation and so I did something about it. The pictures are pretty large so I can't upload them here, but please feel free to check it out at the site and leave us a comment there or here about what you think!
http://windowsphonedaily.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-to-fix-threads-in-mango-concept.html
So, do you like my approach or Microsoft's? (Tell me honestly!)

I Am Honestly don't like your concept. The pivot implementation just doesn't feel the regular pivots (bigger fonts for each pivot). And I read the article on wmpoweruser too, I feel like the author was trying to create a problem that wasn't there. I for sure dont care much about where the message was from ot sent to as long as the conversation flows. Plus, I believe in mango, you can see which platform you are currently chatting on that's all it matters.
Sent from my HD7 using XDA Windows Phone 7 App

Nice concept.

I like that concept!

sunxin8086 said:
I Am Honestly don't like your concept. The pivot implementation just doesn't feel the regular pivots (bigger fonts for each pivot). And I read the article on wmpoweruser too, I feel like the author was trying to create a problem that wasn't there. I for sure dont care much about where the message was from ot sent to as long as the conversation flows. Plus, I believe in mango, you can see which platform you are currently chatting on that's all it matters.
Sent from my HD7 using XDA Windows Phone 7 App
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I agree & disagree, I see no problem with the way it is, but this concept does add a nice feature too.

Thats exactly what we propesed in the other thread.
I would rather make the pivot text big and than have the name as the title so you keep it in line with the default panorama controls (check email hub or marketplace to see how the design should be http://newsziphone.buyer.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/WP7-Marketplace-Apps-300x291.jpg instead of ALL --> FIRSTNAME LASTNAME).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abZxFxk-rtQ&feature=player_embedded
here is a good video about it.
The main concern is the frequency in which IM's are delivered and that people use SMS for more important stuff like adresses and meeting times. If those get rapidly sunk in all the high frequent IM's comming in, the average consumer will switch the feature off or will be annoyed by trying to find this address back.
And switching with pivots will prevent you from opening a selection menu, it will keep the user experience streamlined and on the same level. It will be more pleasant and quicker to use and/or find the information you need.

I like the concept of the pivot feature but it does not look quite right as people have said, really good idea though and I hope they implement something like it.

I totally should've asked you to PhotoShop that!
Again a lot of ideas to toss around the swimming hole, so to speak. Its surprising to find a more intelligent discussion of it on xda though...but again it is also why it is xda DEVELOPERS and not USERS
Again, I never said in the article that a unified messaging hub is a bad idea. Heck I was impressed and as a user anyone would be impressed. But Microsoft has this thing of good idea, poor implementation. That's not to say that the current implementation is poor, but like everything, there is room for improvisation. I think a pivot is far easier than going through an option menu and in the options there should be far more filtering available.
The people I have multiple contact information with, I don't use the same mannerisms or speech. Frankly if I have a SMS conversation with someone, I won't be discussing the same thing on MSN or vice versa. Chances of me myself switching a conversation due to availability is great, but what about users who keep those identities separate? There is still freedom for me to do as such, but wouldn't it be far easier than punching through a setting?