Please take fights off of the forums

[Juju]

Oh god what the hell happens here. I am disappointed.

I have an alpha version of Axeanoid ready to release since earlier this week, I don't think I'll release anything before the dust from all the drama happening on Omnimaga settles...

Solidarity with DJ and Ashbad.

I disagree, we shouldn't let dramas affect our work, we should be worried with them and try to solve them, but I don't think we should slow things down in Omnimaga due to what happened.

Well, of course I'll work on my projects at school (because, most of the time, I have nothing else to do). But still, what happens on this forum now disgusts most of the people, that's why some of us slowed down or even stopped posting. Just look at DJ. He's extremely disappointed of the community he founded years ago.

So we should solve this problem now and then everyone will be happy to work together, like an awesome community.

Because we can be awesome.

[shmibs]

ohithur, everyone
here are my two or so cents in regards to taking part in a community and what (theoretically, at least) makes omnimaga different from other web-sites:

Unlike in large-scale economics, the method of operations best suited to our community is not an "every man for himself" battleground, but rather one of cooperation and, if you will excuse the blatant plagiarism, "Friendship Unity Caring [and] Kindness."

In all seriousness, our community is far too small to survive the ravages of internal conflict. The people who write the programs, compose the music, and create the artwork you see here do so for one reason only: because they enjoy doing so. there is obviously no fiscal benefit in what we do (well, aside from uberspire maybe, and even then he's only talking about asking the bare minimum for sales of his project). Just check ti-calc; every single file there is free, and a huge percentage of it is open source.

What does this mean?
If the feelings of enjoyment during and satisfaction after developing an original piece of work are taken away, such works will simply cease to exist. Some of our older members have seen this in action with the lull in community activity that was a result of people being intolerant, impatient; curt; and; at times, downright rude.

How is omnimaga different?
Omnimaga has done it's best to create an environment in which the development of ambitious projects are encouraged rather than scoffed at as being naive aspirations. In many cases such large projects have been discontinued, as the scoffers would have said they could easily have predicted, but we also have a large number that have been very successful, such as third party operating systems, impressive emulators, and full-length RPG's written single-handedly.

That's not to say that other forums or groups are completely devoid of amazing things. A huge number of other impressive projects have been made or are in the works around other places (just check the impressive portfolios of Kerm or benryves, for example). The main difference is that, through the encouragement of such encouragement (), we have seen impressive things, even to the extent of being featured on other sites, from members who have only registered weeks before.

How does this apply to you?
In becoming a member of the omnimaga community, each of you agreed to help "provide discussion environments free of any hostility for all coders wanting to learn, give or get help, show off their work and/or discuss." In order to do so, it is necessary that you avoid, either intentionally or through negligence, provoking other members to start a conflict. Everyone makes mistakes, of course, and deserves the understanding of fellow members, but acting or speaking without having first thought about how doing so will affect others is not acceptable.
There IS a difference between a troll and a hardworking member who accidentally something from time to time. Both will be treated accordingly by staff and, we hope, by other members of the community as well.

mad props on the continued efforts to make this the best community dedicated to messing with horrendously outdated hard and soft wares of a particular nature in existence, everyone!

[jnesselr]

Where's the TL;DR?  j/k, read it all, and it was a nice post.

[ztrumpet]

Very well said, shmibs.  Thanks for the accurate summary of our events here.

[Xeda112358]

Your words are like sanity. Fresh and much needed. Thanks, shmibs

[Builderboy]

shmibs that is so true, that post should be framed.  I am somewhat less elegant with words, so I shall merely say I hope that we can all strive to be better, and not punish ourselves for not being perfect.

[Binder News]

I agree with Builderboy. I have been noticing the complaints lately more and more. I think they started around early February. I really think something more needs to be done (there is stuff already being done), but I don't know what it is. We could say insta-ban if you're a new member and don't follow the rules. I don't know. But this has got to stop. I've only been here since last October, but I already love it here. You don't get criticized for starting or dropping anything. No matter how big or small. Everyone is kind. I don't want to lose such a unique place.

[alberthrocks]

Those words...shmibs... are just beautiful.

* alberthrocks drops a tear

This is exactly what I wanted to hear. I was going to post a "sanity" post, but you know how I am with words.
Taking the good parts of it and discarding the bad parts (nearly the whole thing ):

To sum it all up in a few words: can we all just GET ALONG, and have FUN?

We are small, but we are a privileged community. And I mean the WHOLE TI community.
We develop and make stuff for calculators, right? Comparing to GP32x (a niche group), and the iDevice community (a large but not-so-gathered, sometimes confusing, and secretive community), we're just right and in a nice spot. Why? MILLIONS, if not BILLIONS, own things that we dev on: calculators. And we make awesome programs and games for them. We also assist new developers along the way, continuing the tradition for plenty of years to come. The kindness, support, and FOSS nature of our community propels us faster than ever! We do it for fun, and while doing so cater to the millions/billions of students sitting there bored in math class. We make and get fame, play around, and again, just have fun!

We can't let something like this keep us from having FUN. Sure, we all have our down times (most of the community is made out of young people, so it is expected). But what makes us unique is how we are able to walk past it and become MUCH more awesome than before.

Simply said, we can/will/should move on from this, and continue what we do best - make calc stuff!

[fb39ca4]

Well said. I know I have made mistakes in the past, but I'm sure none of you think of me as a troll.

A lot of these issues could be avoided if you think before you click on "submit".

[Builderboy]

But this has got to stop. I've only been here since last October, but I already love it here. You don't get criticized for starting or dropping anything. No matter how big or small. Everyone is kind. I don't want to lose such a unique place.

Thats not quite what I was saying.  I was saying more along the lines of be the best person you can on the forum, and don't expect everybody else to be perfect.  Banning people instantly if they make a mistake would soon land us with a zero member userbase, because everybody makes mistakes.

[DJ Omnimaga]

Btw I am sorry for my post earlier and the angry messages some of the admins got in response to something they were discussing, I just got tired of this happening and I felt they needed to wake up and realize everyone is different.

Note, the person in question did not leave, but he was upset at the post directed at him. The worst ever thing to do to this person is to publicly badmouth him. Expect a very bad response, and I am fairly sure the person that badmouthed him got one via PM. Rude badmouthing should be kept via PM if possible.

That said, remember that a lot of us are pretty young and will most likely do more mistakes and some people learn slower. One of our most active contributor even went through many warnings and a 1 week ban before he nearly became perfect. It just took longer, but now the person is one of the most constructive contributor. This is why I think instant ban might not be the best idea in the end.

And Shmibs pretty much summed up Omnimaga goal. I just wish that before judging someone, moderators would remember that everyone is different and that some people might learn slower. I think they can make the difference between a nice user that makes mistakes and doesn't improve very fast and an user that only joins to cause havoc.

Anyway I hope to see improvements on the latter, because otherwise things are fine here. Also the rating system is a great way to make people think before typing. Before it was installed in 2009, we had more moderation to do.

With the rating system, people will think: "Hmm I should reread this to make sure it's not harsh, since it's not my intention, else I'll be rated down"
Without it, people will not think as much and be less careful. A smaller group will think and say "Hmm I should reread this to make sure it's not harsh, since it's not my intention, else I could get banned"

[Michael_Lee]

I would like to state that I'm kind of disappointed over the constant drama that seems to have been occurring for the past few weeks/months.

I don't know if I was just oblivious when I joined to begin with, or if Omnimaga just happened to be going through a relatively peaceful lull last summer, but I do know that as of late, it seems that nearly every time I check Omnimaga, yet another drama seems to be taking place, and frankly, I'm sick of it.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind others to just relax and to not take things so seriously.  If somebody says something that you take issue with, please don't automatically assume that they mean harm, and attempt to resolve the issue peacefully first.  I've always believed in giving other people chances -- please refrain from jumping to conclusions and accusing them of being malicious unless you are absolutely certain that they mean harm, as doing so can cause the situation to escalate.

I've always admired Omnimaga for its unusually supportive atmosphere -- let's not taint it by creating more drama and fights, please?

[Binder News]

But this has got to stop. I've only been here since last October, but I already love it here. You don't get criticized for starting or dropping anything. No matter how big or small. Everyone is kind. I don't want to lose such a unique place.

Thats not quite what I was saying.  I was saying more along the lines of be the best person you can on the forum, and don't expect everybody else to be perfect.  Banning people instantly if they make a mistake would soon land us with a zero member userbase, because everybody makes mistakes.

You are right.

[DJ Omnimaga]

@Michael_Lee I think what happened is:

1) In feb, we got an extra load of new members, thanks to nDoom and Ndless 2.0. However, that group of members were mostly gamers, rather than a few programmers.
2) Typically, gamers on the Internet, especially FPS or RTS fans, are often troll-ish, no offense to the few that are fine. Login on Starcraft II chat rooms then ask how to defend vs 6 pool: Expect only trolls and name calling.
3) These people did not care much about Omnimaga policies, and thus, caused trouble.
4) When this stopped, we still were stressed, and as a result, it's easier to get irritated right now.

Things will go fine again soon, but people just need to do their part of effort so that everyone combined we get through this.

Note: I am happy nDoom got such huge following. I guess what we just got a few weeks ago was kinda some side effects of the gamer mentality.

Personally, though, I was also disappointed by stuff that happened outside Omnimaga, so that didn,t help my case much. Sorry again if I was rude to anyone.

[Hot_Dog]

DJ, I like everything you said in reply #25.  Well said.