[Q] Information about the nitty gritty of XDA - About xda-developers.com

hey, i recently joined this page on facebook (i've withheld the name of the page as to not seem like i'm here to promote it or such, not that it requires promotion with its 2 million members) and a many of us including the owner of the page there are a free-thinking bunch. The problem is that whenever some user finds something we say offensive, we get reported and are blocked from posting for 10-12 hours, sometimes entire days...
The gracious admin there took it upon himself to finance an entirely new site as a refuge for us. But most of lack the technical know-how of getting a site up and running. We have a few volunteers ready to devote their time and skills to help in the site's construction.
The owner suggested a forum-esque feel to the site rather than something like facebook itself and when anyone mentions forum the only thing my mind thinks is XDA!! This site is the epitome of what a forum should be about!!
So i was hoping if anyone could give me some sort of information as to what the site is based on (HTML, PHP, etc)? what type security measures should we be looking at? we read something about a using social networking engines to enable features like instant messaging...
i was hoping if someone could point me (and by relation, us) in the right direction.
Any help would be much appreciated.

psychocyst said:
hey, i recently joined this page on facebook (i've withheld the name of the page as to not seem like i'm here to promote it or such, not that it requires promotion with its 2 million members) and a many of us including the owner of the page there are a free-thinking bunch. The problem is that whenever some user finds something we say offensive, we get reported and are blocked from posting for 10-12 hours, sometimes entire days...
The gracious admin there took it upon himself to finance an entirely new site as a refuge for us. But most of lack the technical know-how of getting a site up and running. We have a few volunteers ready to devote their time and skills to help in the site's construction.
The owner suggested a forum-esque feel to the site rather than something like facebook itself and when anyone mentions forum the only thing my mind thinks is XDA!! This site is the epitome of what a forum should be about!!
So i was hoping if anyone could give me some sort of information as to what the site is based on (HTML, PHP, etc)? what type security measures should we be looking at? we read something about a using social networking engines to enable features like instant messaging...
i was hoping if someone could point me (and by relation, us) in the right direction.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This site is running on vBulletin 3.8.6 which is commercial software. There are free bulletin boards out there. As for security, this is a massive topic that I don't think anyone can summarise. Obvious things like good password policies (long and random, never re-used, etc) and keeping all software patched up to date are key. Other than that it all depends on the implementation. Also, there are penetration testing tools that you can find off the internet to test your site.
Dave

thanks a million Dave. i'll look into it and pass the message on to our group.

psychocyst said:
thanks a million Dave. i'll look into it and pass the message on to our group.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What Dave said, but beware that your site is only as secure as the system it runs on.
Your system can be the most secure in the world, with lovely nice PHP code, the latest patched vBulletin install, and I might still get into it...
If you are using shared web hosting, and some peon is using an out of date wordpress install, they can likely wreak a fair bit of havock on a poorly setup server.
Unfortunately most shared hosting is poorly setup. If you have 2 million members, you WILL need dedicated server space. I would also suggest you need to seriously consider the undertaking here - 2 million people is A LOT, and I don't know how many simultaneous users you are talking about, but it sounds a big target...
You will need a fairly powerful server from the sounds of it. I would suggest looking at the available forum systems, installing them (free ones), or trying out the demos.
I assist in the running of a number of sites, from single figure numbers of visitors per day, through to hundreds of thousands/millions per day... The requirements for these differ HUGELY. While something free like SMF might be good for a site with 200 folk, it's not likely a good idea on a site with 100,000 visitors per day posting...
Consider backup strategies too, for WHEN the worst happens - not if... Where will you store backups? How will you secure them?
Finally, remember to look to the future. phpBB is pretty poor, I suggest avoiding it. But what will you move to next? Make sure you pick a system that ain't gonna die tomorrow... If it does, you are stuck without security updates, and you might find it hard to migrate to another one... Be sure to go with a system that has good support to migrate further if/when the time comes...

woah!! ok, this was a big help...although we have close to 2 million people signed on, only about 30 - 40% of those are regularly active and perhaps 100 or so who're almost always there...
i saw BBCode implementation at linux mint forums and found it a total fail compared to XDA...i had completely forgotten about the back-up portion...
knew i could count on XDA for a lil' help...God i love this site!!

psychocyst said:
woah!! ok, this was a big help...although we have close to 2 million people signed on, only about 30 - 40% of those are regularly active and perhaps 100 or so who're almost always there...
i saw BBCode implementation at linux mint forums and found it a total fail compared to XDA...i had completely forgotten about the back-up portion...
knew i could count on XDA for a lil' help...God i love this site!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haha no worries.
From those figures I would size the site based on coping with 5000 simultaneous users minimum. I doubt you will get as much tbh, as many people hit the homepage and look at the latest, then go to the next site they visit.
If you can afford, aim to cope with 10k+ simultaneous, to cover you for if you get a bout of publicity...
I'd reckon on a well-run server you would be OK with 8 to 16 GB of RAM, and a few hundred gigabytes of hdd. Bandwidth is hard to gauge without info on the site and content...
But I think it could be run for under $400 per month, and that is a very high estimate to cover things like multiple backup locations.
You will instantly ruin your site reputation if you need to use backups and they don't work...
If nobody is experienced in server management, hire someone to do it. These things are often best left to the experts where you are unsure... It will likely pay for itself in their expertise at least 3 times a month (or at least that's how often some of my clients proclaim I saved their "lives" )

Related

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
Click to expand...
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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...
Click to collapse
jayjay8585 said:
ive already got the tg01 there and now ive just installed a chatrrom for geeks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
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?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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

Want Something on the Front Page? Contact Us.

Hey all,
You may have noticed that the front page (a.k.a. the portal) of our beloved forums has been getting regular updates, leading to news, improvements, and more.... anything related to xda-developers. Keeping up with the latest and greatest apps, themes, mods, hacks, etc. is our way of giving those developers that put the time and effort in this community some 15 minutes of fame by being featured in the largest online community of its kind in the world. However, since we are not omniscient and hence cannot spot every single piece of software that shows up in a 2.5 million member community, we would like to ask you for help. If you see something that is of interest to you, that you believe could have an impact on XDA, or you simply made the next best app in the world, drop us a pm. We will be more than happy to evaluate the submission and feature it on the XDA Portal.
Here is the contact information for the News Writer Team:
orb3000
ben_duder
mic_888
Wen(WM)
ElCondor
sirphunkee
Livven
nqnguyen2
Leddy
wingman1487
egzthunder1 - Portal Administrator.
Any help and tips are greatly appreciated Together we can make xda-developers even bigger than it already is.
Sincerely,
News Writer Team
Introduction
As some of you may know me
I´m orb3000, and been around XDA since 2006; this site change me the way of seeing mobile world. Interested mainly on Windows Mobile platform.
I started with Universal which I had for almost 5 years, after that I got a Rhodium and a Maple and later a Leo.
I write most of my articles for that OS and also do active help on spam reporting, as well as welcoming new members
I do not consider myself as an expert, I am simply a regular member trying to help to they wayI do better to the first and only community I love so much
XDA!!
So, feel free to contact me if you think something of your work may go to our Front Page.
Come on!, don´t be shy
orb
Thanks guys, I love the way you are being updated without losing the essence.
Everything in xda is getting better.
I am ElCondor, and I'm from Holland. You might know me from the GTX Sense theme.
Back in February, I started this job as a news writer, because I wanted to be part of and contribute to the xda-developers community.
Since then, I started to love writing these articles, and my English improved drastically.
My articles are mostly Android or Windows Phone 7 related.
You can always contact me if you have any suggestions or special requests. Also if you have found something newsworthy, something other users may enjoy too, just let me or any other newswriter know.
Best regards,
ElCondor
XDA News Writer
Hi guys, I've been around since 2007 when I bought the HTC Touch, well things have moved on a lot since then, and I've tried my hand at developing for WM and Android (still learning), but wanted to contribute more by becoming a News Writer for XDA
I write mainly Android articles, and some Windows Mobile. We're always sifting through the masses of threads for front page news, but do let me or the other guys know if you think anything is newsworthy including any breaking news!
I guess I will add my little "intro" in here as well
I'm egzthunder1 and I am the Portal Administrator as well as a Senior Moderator. I have been a XDA member for a very, very long time... since July 2005 to be more precise. I have gone through many devices, starting out with a Wallaby (SX56) and kept on going afterwards with many other devices (Blue Angel, Wizard, Vogue, Raphael, Herman, Mogul, and ultimately HD2)... most of which I still own and are fully functional. I have helped many, many people throughout these years, despite my lack of development ability. A few months ago, I became a News Writer based on a suggestion by Flar (Retired Admin) to try to increase the flow of people to the site by creating a more dynamic front page of the website, with up to date content about everything XDA. Shortly after, I became Senior Moderator, and really shortly after, due to Flar's departure, I became Editor in Chief and Portal Administrator.
I would like to invite all of you (as I stated in my first post in this thread) to let us (the news writer team) know if you know of something that would be cool to have in the front page.
Looking forward to your input and thanks for supporting XDA!
Sincerely,
egzthunder1
Hi there!
I've been a member since 2008, when I got my Universal after having the Monet for some time. Although it was basic, the Monet forced me to get another Windows Mobile phone as I was instantly addicted to how much potential the operating system had - before then I could never really check emails, browse the internet or watch video without booting up my PC.
After the Universal came my much-adored Touch Pro, which I still use. I recently bought and fixed up a G1 so that I could branch out into the Android side of the site a little more, and I'm really enjoying tinkering with the system.
I wanted to become a news writer as I have always felt an urge to contribute to the community despite not having any technical knowledge (some of you might have seen me giving out dodgy advice around the forums ).
Having both phones should let me write articles about both Android and Windows Mobile, and I hope I can help if you want to get your story out on the front page.
Well done is better than well said.
Maybe something to expand on....
Found a website that analyzes the value of other sites.
What is the Website Value of XDA-Developers.com
It seems that xda-developers.com is being valued at $13.28 Million. With 1.66 Million Pages and with a World Wide rank of 1,806. Compared to that: Htc.com is only worth $12.66 Million Google is ranked 1 worth $8 Billion and Microsoft on rank 19 worth $1 Billion.
http://bizinformation.org/us/www.xda-developers.com
A little side note, my Blog only ranks at 1.4 Million and is only worth 7800.- For Obvious reasons.
Thanks for the information!
Not sure if we can write about that but I will find out
swiss420 said:
Found a website that analyzes the value of other sites.
What is the Website Value of XDA-Developers.com
It seems that xda-developers.com is being valued at $13.28 Million. With 1.66 Million Pages and with a World Wide rank of 1,806. Compared to that: Htc.com is only worth $12.66 Million Google is ranked 1 worth $8 Billion and Microsoft on rank 19 worth $1 Billion.
http://bizinformation.org/us/www.xda-developers.com
A little side note, my Blog only ranks at 1.4 Million and is only worth 7800.- For Obvious reasons.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Website valuation sites are notorius for being crazily inaccurate when it comes to valuing Forum sites and Blogs. They tend to be based on assumptions about traffic, potential sales and ad clicks. Few Blogs and Forums sell much if anything and that just leaves ad clicks. Forums are very poor at generating ad clicks as Members tend to become completely blind to the ads and don't click them at all. Much of the traffic to blogs and forums is repeat traffic and they are even less likely to click on the ads (not to mention ad blockers). When was the last time you click an ad on here!?
Mike
mikechannon said:
Website valuation sites are notorius for being crazily inaccurate when it comes to valuing Forum sites and Blogs. They tend to be based on assumptions about traffic, potential sales and ad clicks. Few Blogs and Forums sell much if anything and that just leaves ad clicks. Forums are very poor at generating ad clicks as Members tend to become completely blind to the ads and don't click them at all. Much of the traffic to blogs and forums is repeat traffic and they are even less likely to click on the ads (not to mention ad blockers). When was the last time you click an ad on here!?
Mike
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Absolutly true, and I am sure I did not motivate anyone to sell xda-developers.com. But it is still a amusing evaluation. For me XDA-Developers.com has definetly much more continues value then htc.com but I guess one might not exist without the other. But regarding clicking adds I rather donate directly. But off course I donate to many different people not just XDA-Developers.com. Regarding the adds I wonder how much money they really generate? If they are useless I would not mind to see them gone. Dont worry I will donate something for saying that. lol
mikechannon said:
Website valuation sites are notorius for being crazily inaccurate when it comes to valuing Forum sites and Blogs. They tend to be based on assumptions about traffic, potential sales and ad clicks. Few Blogs and Forums sell much if anything and that just leaves ad clicks. Forums are very poor at generating ad clicks as Members tend to become completely blind to the ads and don't click them at all. Much of the traffic to blogs and forums is repeat traffic and they are even less likely to click on the ads (not to mention ad blockers). When was the last time you click an ad on here!?
Mike
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wait, there are ads here?!?!?!?!
chrialex said:
Wait, there are ads here?!?!?!?!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
'nuff said.
I love XDA, for not having those huge ugly pop up ads ! Now days some forums/portals have the ones which can't even be shut !
All hail XDA. It's worth can't be counted in millions or billions of dollars.
He he, in the mean it is:
The site is ranked 1,702 in United States.
price less knowledge!!
swiss420 said:
Found a website that analyzes the value of other sites.
What is the Website Value of XDA-Developers.com
It seems that xda-developers.com is being valued at $13.28 Million. With 1.66 Million Pages and with a World Wide rank of 1,806. Compared to that: Htc.com is only worth $12.66 Million Google is ranked 1 worth $8 Billion and Microsoft on rank 19 worth $1 Billion.
http://bizinformation.org/us/www.xda-developers.com
A little side note, my Blog only ranks at 1.4 Million and is only worth 7800.- For Obvious reasons.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
as the guy stated the websites are mostly rated by how many clicks and traffic they have from ads as well. I believe the knowledge that this site provides it's priceless. And because it is distributed free the value ranks it to one of the most important (if not the most important) website from celphone developers to the least know hows users. This website I consider it the Great Library of Alexandria!
nikoskavliaris said:
as the guy stated the websites are mostly rated by how many clicks and traffic they have from ads as well. I believe the knowledge that this site provides it's priceless. And because it is distributed free the value ranks it to one of the most important (if not the most important) website from celphone developers to the least know hows users. This website I consider it the Great Library of Alexandria!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Completely agree!!
note, although im not listed on the main post by Ez iam a news writer maybe its cause im still a newbie
Captainkrtek said:
note, although im not listed on the main post by Ez iam a news writer maybe its cause im still a newbie
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Patience, you too will be on the front page.
Lol. So much to be on the front page

[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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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?)

Dedicated File Sharing Website for XDA

Hello All,
I am a regular visitor of the XDA and found it the most resourceful website on the planet. It gives me a sense that I have come to my people place.
After browsing on to various posts and topics I felt that I should also do something for this community and decided to create file sharing website where most powerful brains (XDA members) can put there hard work and share with the world without any difficulty as I have seen many of you people uses (4shared.com, rapidshare, megaupload, etc) but they all not so easy place to download the files. I want to give you people a beautiful place to upload and download files.
I firmly believe that we can grow high with each others support and can always take a further step even in those directions for which people says "Its Blocked".
I want that this place (XDA should be called as one stop mobile solution place) because where peoples thought ends we start working from that place.
But I want to know that do you people really require this service, because only after that I will be able to work upon it.
Please give my your feedback.
vikas_vtcm said:
Hello All,
I am a regular visitor of the XDA and found it the most resourceful website on the planet. It gives me a sense that I have come to my people place.
After browsing on to various posts and topics I felt that I should also do something for this community and decided to create file sharing website where most powerful brains (XDA members) can put there hard work and share with the world without any difficulty as I have seen many of you people uses (4shared.com, rapidshare, megaupload, etc) but they all not so easy place to download the files. I want to give you people a beautiful place to upload and download files.
I firmly believe that we can grow high with each others support and can always take a further step even in those directions for which people says "Its Blocked".
I want that this place (XDA should be called as one stop mobile solution place) because where peoples thought ends we start working from that place.
But I want to know that do you people really require this service, because only after that I will be able to work upon it.
Please give my your feedback.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Many people have tried this before, but the bandwidth needed usually puts paid to them, as cost of running is HUGE. One month, I used 3TB bandwidth just for one ROM. If our team has 5 ROMs just now, that could be a lot of bandwidth (not necessarily 15 TB, but lots)... Multiply that by number of devs, you could have issues with finding a data center...
And storage space. Each ROM for android is 100 to 200 MB, multiplied by all the devs, that would be a hell of a lot of storage space... And where would you back it up to?
It would be a mammoth task... Just saying
pulser_g2 said:
Many people have tried this before, but the bandwidth needed usually puts paid to them, as cost of running is HUGE. One month, I used 3TB bandwidth just for one ROM. If our team has 5 ROMs just now, that could be a lot of bandwidth (not necessarily 15 TB, but lots)... Multiply that by number of devs, you could have issues with finding a data center...
And storage space. Each ROM for android is 100 to 200 MB, multiplied by all the devs, that would be a hell of a lot of storage space... And where would you back it up to?
It would be a mammoth task... Just saying
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your quick response,
Bandwidth and the data space will not be a problem with me ...
As i can arrange an Unlimited data space and bandwidth for this service. With a real high speed connectivity...
But I need your support .... Are you with my me???
Hello all,
I need feedback please...
Is this services really required???
As Pulser said, bandwidth can be a huge issue. However the even larger issue would be with the software companies taking issue with a central repository like what you propose.
Generally, rapidshare and the others offer a certain degree of anonymity, which came in handy whenever Microsoft got a bug up its butt.
Sent from my rooted Droid X, powered by Froyo and Big Red.
As NATF said, the issue of hosting the files would put you in shaky legal waters (regardless of where you live or hold the server, since something like this could reach international scales pretty quickly)...
Even with unlimited bandwidth and unlimited space, I can assure you there will be a limit, where the datacenter would not allow a dedicated server to operate at (I presume you are talking dedicated server, as anything less than full dedicated would have you kicked off the package faster than you could say XDA
But as for bandwidth, I have saturated out 5x100Mbps mirrors with one ROM release, so I honestly think you would be facing an immense task.
Coupled with the fact that even the tiniest slip up would result in almost all the ROMs available being offline while maintenance occurred (making your service lose credibility), if there was data loss, it could be catastrophic if nobody had backups. (Data loss could be due to police raid and seizure warrant, or hack attempts)
Personally, I will always release ROMs from either servers I own, or using space kindly donated by users of our ROMs who have servers operating below capacity.
Mediafire/multiupload etc are also so popular that it would be hard to persuade people to move across. And being able to upload there keeps people further from Microsoft etc, rather than directly uploading...
Imagine if you got subpoenaed for ftpd logs (the logs of all uploads to the server), or worse, the apache access ogs (the details of everyone who downloaded from it)
Whilst it's a very kind and generous offer, I think the logistics and legal issues would prevent it being feasible. A central repository is a good link in the chain to burst, hence why the scattergun approach is much more effective
pulser_g2 said:
As NATF said, the issue of hosting the files would put you in shaky legal waters (regardless of where you live or hold the server, since something like this could reach international scales pretty quickly)...
Even with unlimited bandwidth and unlimited space, I can assure you there will be a limit, where the datacenter would not allow a dedicated server to operate at (I presume you are talking dedicated server, as anything less than full dedicated would have you kicked off the package faster than you could say XDA
But as for bandwidth, I have saturated out 5x100Mbps mirrors with one ROM release, so I honestly think you would be facing an immense task.
Coupled with the fact that even the tiniest slip up would result in almost all the ROMs available being offline while maintenance occurred (making your service lose credibility), if there was data loss, it could be catastrophic if nobody had backups. (Data loss could be due to police raid and seizure warrant, or hack attempts)
Personally, I will always release ROMs from either servers I own, or using space kindly donated by users of our ROMs who have servers operating below capacity.
Mediafire/multiupload etc are also so popular that it would be hard to persuade people to move across. And being able to upload there keeps people further from Microsoft etc, rather than directly uploading...
Imagine if you got subpoenaed for ftpd logs (the logs of all uploads to the server), or worse, the apache access ogs (the details of everyone who downloaded from it)
Whilst it's a very kind and generous offer, I think the logistics and legal issues would prevent it being feasible. A central repository is a good link in the chain to burst, hence why the scattergun approach is much more effective
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your credible feedback..
Is there some solution to overcome all theses legal and other kind of issues... and on my side I will look in the matter and get back to you guys...
I really appreciate that you guys took pain in putting some light in this matter.

Apps - A Coordinated Effort?

We all know one of the biggest gripes about Windows Phone is the lack of a few key apps. I know that I frequently contact a few companies to let them know that I am looking forward to a Windows Phone version of their existing apps and I’m sure others do as well. So companies get a smattering of requests from some users here and there.
Just wondering if perhaps we focus on one or a few particular apps at a time with many people emailing, tweeting, comments on Facebook etc in a sustained way to let them see that there is actual interest from a large number of users in the Windows Phone community. Who knows, maybe if there is enough noise, some of them will rethink their stand.
Not sure if this is the right place for this, but seemed like good place to see what people think.
Thoughts?
Bad idea. Software business works by different way. No one cares about your tweets or fb posts or forum noise - it's just a children game.
I agree that it may not make a difference, however companies often do actually listen to what people are saying. If it sounds like there is a demand, some companies who have been on the fence, may well pull the trigger and make something happen.
I've had luck getting companies to do things when I ask publicly that they wouldn't do when I asked privately. So it seems like getting more people asking publicly may well help in some instances.
willp2 said:
I agree that it may not make a difference, however companies often do actually listen to what people are saying. If it sounds like there is a demand, some companies who have been on the fence, may well pull the trigger and make something happen.
I've had luck getting companies to do things when I ask publicly that they wouldn't do when I asked privately. So it seems like getting more people asking publicly may well help in some instances.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Other than XDA, if you also post this on WPCentral forum, you will get much much much better and enthusiastic response for such requests. There is a list of app-requests somwhere in this forum too, if you wanted a place to pick apps-in-demand from.
I'm afraid you are mistaken. Companies are "listening" their marketing stuff, investors and personal CEO/chairman opinions. Neither facebook posts nor tweets can change company budget, marketing strategy or development roadmap. In fact, the most companies are controlled by the intelligent and informed people, so you may be sure they already knew about WP7 platform
P.S. Let me guess: you've never worked in software industry, don't you?
Thanks for the comments on WPCentral forum, good point. More regular users over there.
sensboston - You made my point exactly. Companies are listening to marketing staff, investors and personal CEO/chairman opinions. Those people, especially the marketing types pay attention to what the outside world is saying. If they see noise about a particular topic, it gets their attention.
For instance, if that company releases a new version of an app that has big problems, they'll hear about it first from all those social sources and they will generally try to react quickly to quite down the noise.
Not that it matters or even relevant to what I'm talking about here, but I've been in the software industry for over 20 years.
willp2 said:
For instance, if that company releases a new version of an app that has big problems, they'll hear about it first from all those social sources and they will generally try to react quickly to quite down the noise.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's a completely different case. Yes, I agree - huge noise/rumors about critical bug in popular app/software can push (some) companies to force fix or workaround immediately (good example is a Nokia representatives, who's - I believe - are monitoring XDA forums daily)
But porting app to the different platform (especially to WP7!) is very complicated. Most primary titles are written on C++ and uses native code/API calls. "Porting" C++ code to C#/Silverlight isn't just "porting"; it's much more close to complete rewrite. Also WP7 platform support means an additional tier of Q&A and etc. and so on (if you are really worked more than 20 years in industry you can easily extend these requirements).
100 or even 1000 facebook posts and forum requests can't show you a real app demand but statistics can. Unfortunately WP7 market share currently is too small (at the end of 2011 it was about 2%).
I thought there was a similar thread already, but if not then perhaps we can do that. I heard a company saying, they'll port it to windows phone if they enough demands.
I do get that it's not a trivial task.
Again I was really just getting at the many companies who are already considering moving to Windows Phone but are on the fence.
As we know more and more apps are being ported every week so many companies already have been thinking about, planning or are already doing it. In some cases a little public pressure may at least confirm to them that people are interested and perhaps move things along.
lamborg - sorry if someone else already brought this up in another thread, I did search around first.
willp2 said:
I do get that it's not a trivial task.
Again I was really just getting at the many companies who are already considering moving to Windows Phone but are on the fence.
As we know more and more apps are being ported every week so many companies already have been thinking about, planning or are already doing it. In some cases a little public pressure may at least confirm to them that people are interested and perhaps move things along.
lamborg - sorry if someone else already brought this up in another thread, I did search around first.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not sure either but I think I have seen a similar thread, Anyway, if that cannot be found.
BTW it was I think Draw Something which said about the enough demand.
Maybe try crowd funding
Maybe this is an area where crowd funding could help.
I mean, people can make noise about want for a particular WP7 app as much as they like, but at the end of the day somebody has to pay for development, in some way, either directly or indirectly.
A successful crowd funding campaign for an app would probably prove much more that there really is demand than just so many Facebook postings.
Of course there is also the danger that such a campaign fails miserably and shows that there isn't real demand, just a very vocal but small minority wanting the app...
rbrunner7 said:
Maybe this is an area where crowd funding could help.
I mean, people can make noise about want for a particular WP7 app as much as they like, but at the end of the day somebody has to pay for development, in some way, either directly or indirectly.
A successful crowd funding campaign for an app would probably prove much more that there really is demand than just so many Facebook postings.
Of course there is also the danger that such a campaign fails miserably and shows that there isn't real demand, just a very vocal but small minority wanting the app...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Guarantee this would not get noticed. Most users on the site don't even donate to the devs that post apps here that they use, let alone donate to some fund for the possibility of an app being ported.
Standard contractor rates for a software engineer are about $100 to $150 per hour. Salaried devs make less, but the cost is close to the same for companies because of benefits packages. So, 1 day of dev time for 1 developer is going to cost around $1000. My guess is a crowd fund would not even reach $100. But even if $10000 were collected, that would only cover a team of 5 for 2 days. And, 5 days for 20 business days would cost $100000. And this is is exactly why companies have been slow to bring apps over. It's expensive.
The other aspect is that although the syntax is similar in C#, Java, and C++; there are enough differences to make it less than a simple task to just switch over. Most devs with experience have been doing either C# or Java or C++. Most have not been doing all 3. This means paying money and taking time to get the existing devs trained or hire additional devs and transfering domain knowledge to them. Both have costs. (Note: iPhone is Objective C, which is different, but also has similarities. Same issues though)
Many companies just don't have the resources to spend when the return on investment is not short term. Long term as more consumers buy Windows Phones, it will be more economically viable for companies to invest in porting the applications.
JVH3 said:
Guarantee this would not get noticed. Most users on the site don't even donate to the devs that post apps here that they use
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He-he... Most users on the site are too lazy, greedy and irresponsible not even for donation but just for vote and review published here on XDA apps And some are so ungrateful that they forget just to say "Thanks"... Don't tell me about donations: I've collected money for Cotulla, for the Samsung's first freedom ROM for WP7... From hundreds of Focus owners here only 13 or 14 people are donated.
As for your arguments: it's 100% true for an adult professionals but of course not for 12-14 years old teens who "has over 20 years of software industry experience"
Yeah, I am myself a professional developer at day time, and I know how much it costs my company to employ me
But still, I think not all hope is lost. Some people may read this thread and just maybe change their attitude against devs that offer "free" things a little to the better - good that we talked about it, then!
And as I program in my free time anyway, just for fun, even a crowdsourced 1000 dollars could nudge me in a direction that I would not take otherwise, and people get the app they like. Of course only if the right APIs and server permissions are there to build it in the first place which of course is not always the case - many apps can only be built by the companies who own the corresponding server infrastructure.
rbrunner7 said:
Yeah, I am myself a professional developer at day time, and I know how much it costs my company to employ me
But still, I think not all hope is lost. Some people may read this thread and just maybe change their attitude against devs that offer "free" things a little to the better - good that we talked about it, then!
And as I program in my free time anyway, just for fun, even a crowdsourced 1000 dollars could nudge me in a direction that I would not take otherwise, and people get the app they like. Of course only if the right APIs and server permissions are there to build it in the first place which of course is not always the case - many apps can only be built by the companies who own the corresponding server infrastructure.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not to be discouraging, but it is pretty unlikely to get $1000 in donation from users here. It you look at the weather city editor that I wrote (link to thread in signature) for Windows Mobile, I got maybe close to $500 in donations from the time I created it through the entire time I worked on it, supported it, and enhanced it. I created it because I needed it and turned it into more than I needed so others could easily use it. The donations came from maybe 20 to 30 users. It was downloaded by well over 10000 users.
If looking for money as the reward, you are much better off paying Microsoft the $100 and putting the app on the marketplace and charging a dollar or making it be ad supported.
You'll still get respect for making cool things and posting them here, but it's not going to make you rich. It's a great place to learn and get some experience making apps though. Lots of people are willing to help if you get stuck on something.
It's a nice thought but, in reality it wont work
I thought about doing this too...
If you got everyone to attempt to do it, it might but, if you only get 50 people to do it(and that would be a lot in a fourm to request something they might not be interested in) that is a little bit compared to their marketplace with iOS or Android.
I personally really want Cut the Rope but, after posting a handfull of times on their facebook page and even emailing customer service, no luck

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