I was lurking through TI-BASIC Developper tonight and when checking the recent posts list, I was saddened to read one of the comment that showed up regarding Omnimaga. I feel it was uncalled for and seeing as TIBD allows such comments on the site (and stuff like bashing large games and games with multiple files, as well as JFGI/RTFM comments), I no longer wonder why so many people have left UTI/TIBD and joined Omnimaga instead. (I know some people left UTI because of the downtimes and the removal of the download section, but I know that for many of those people, rude comments towards newbies and negativity towards certain TI-BASIC projects played a big role in their migration to Omnimaga and the decreasing activity on UTI and TI-BD forums.

Normally, I do not pay much attention anymore at negative comments towards us, because I learned to either ignore them or laugh at them, but this time, the one I found was too much. I never had to deal with such comment before about Omnimaga. Here's the deal:

Someone on TI-BD, who goes under the nickname Yatzy doesn't seems too happy about our site design, but the way he expressed his view, without even having the courage to come and tell us in our face, has put me into a not-so-good mood, especially with the amount of effort I spent on that dark forum theme (1 weeks, usually all day long, as I had some free days), the time I spent working on Omnimaga and the amount of contributions our members have done to the Omnimaga community.

Here is the comment at http://tibasicdev.wikidot.com/forum/t-267491/site-s-dying#post-883938

I could not believe my eyes when I have read it, because I believe it is a lack of respect and could have been worded in a much different way that sounds more respectful, like saying you don't want to sign up on Omnimaga because you don't like the site design and prefer the way TI-BD is done.

Had this been a comment from someone like Nikky that really sounds like trolling, I would probably have let it go or simply joked and said "Well, I guess the site is not that bad after all, considering it gets 7000 posts a month while TI-BD gets 150 and UTI 200" or something like "Well, I guess Omni isn't that bad after all, considering so many people left UTI/TIBD to migrate to Omni. Shouldn't we be looking for why people left TIBD instead?". However, I could not resist sending a PM to this guy on Wikidot:

Hi, I was lurking through TI-BASIC Developer website tonight and I stumbled on one of your comment in the recent posts list, regarding Omnimaga website at http://tibasicdev.wikidot.com/forum/t-267491/site-s-dying , quoted below:

"Jesus, my eyes just got laseredbeam by omninaga.com. I sure hope they are better on programming than doing web design. I haven't read through the other posts, but what I like about this website is that it's so convenient and user friendly, you got all in one spot- all the commands explained with tips and thorough guides on certain areas, which atleast gave me a really good base for getting started with programming. Nevertheless, it's also eye-friendly,not trying to combine pale pink with blue making the user dazzled."

I would like to tell you that I take extreme offense at your comment and I request an apology. I do not feel that you have much rights to insult my web design skills considering the insane amount of work I devoted on it (2 weeks just for the default site theme, several days for one of the alternate theme that can be selected on the main page and the 3rd theme, which is a remake of a 2006 theme we used on Invisionfree, had at least one week spent on it, by a former staff member, back in the days), and the fact you probably have yet to contribute any notable game on ticalc.org (with a green icon beside its name and a news article. Show me if you have any.).

Also you do not have the right to judge Omnimaga quality just based on web design and the fact it doesn't have every detailled BASIC commands on it. Omnimaga is not a TI-BASIC wiki, nor a TI-BASIC tutorial. It's a calculator site oriented towards game projects showcase and due to the calculator gaming side of the site. TI-BASIC Developer is help-oriented, so it's a great thing there's a full TI-BASIC wiki here. On the other hand, when we showcase our calculator game projects there, nobody cares. I saw many RPGs being announced on TI-BD and I myself announced one back in 2009, from my previous Wikidot account, and they barely got any attention. Each sites got their good side and downsides.

Also, the pink thing you see on the site is temporary: it's to attract members attention for the programming contest survey. Hence the different and bright color. It's not even going to be there anymore after October! Also I am not sure why you hate the forum theme so much considering the site gets so much activity (50000 posts in 9 months). I guess it isn't that bad after all, right? Do EVERY calculator website have to use light color designs with nothing fancy on them? Plus, you can select your forum theme anyway, from a drop down list. One of them is similar but brighter. The other one is darker, but it was only brought back up for nostalgia purpose. Also, if you haven't noticed, a lot of gaming sites on the web uses darker designs. White+light blue or beige doesn't always fit such site well. MaxCoderz original website used a high contrast design too and it was the most active community back in the days.

Also you do not realize who you have insulted. I devoted 9 years into the TI community, releasing several TI-BASIC games since then, most of which are RPGs (Reuben Quest and Illusiat might ring a bell) and tried to offer at least one calculator website where you could announce your project without getting flamed for using BASIC and where people care, no matter what game genre your project is, no matter if it uses libraries or not, no matter how large its filesize is (I got bashed on UTI/TIBD because of game file size) and no matter how many sub-programs it uses, plus not getting yelled at if you did not search hard enough on the forums before posting, even thought it's your first internet forum post ever.

And finally, if you dislike the web design, it doesn't mean the rest of the site is crap. Yes, there are experienced programmers there, although we do TI-BASIC, ASM, Axe Parser and TI-Nspire C. If you do not feel like going through the project posts to see what the members are working on, just check this Youtube video, which shows many of them:

The next one shows older games (most of which are mine)

So I would ask you to have more respect for people who devote lots of effort without getting paid to the TI community, be careful what you say about people and other people work and keep destructive comments for yourself. The way you are talking sounded like Omnimaga was one of those old Geocities website designs. Plus, you could have simply posted on the Omnimaga forums about your opinion about the site anyway, instead of bashing the site on another forum. Right now it looks more like a troll or libel.

Regards,

Kévin Ouellet, a.k.a DJ Omnimaga

P.S: I have let the entire Omnimaga community know about your behavior on the forums. Here is the topic: http://ourl.ca/7224

Sorry, this had to go out. I normally don't post rant topics about negative comments towards a TI community contribution anymore, but this comment struck me and his narrow-mindedness just deserves to be shown in public, on the community he insulted. (He didn't bother signing up to rant about our design here. Since he did it elsewhere, why wouldn't I forward his rant at the right place? It concerns Omnimaga, after all.)

On top of that he did not even get the URL right. It's omnimaga.org, not .com.

If he did not want us to see this, then he took a huge risk, because a lot of Omnimaga members have TI-BD accounts.

I like the design...

(I support you fully on this!)

yeah, if they only had been less troll-happy...

lol, that comment, it is kinda resembling the type of Youtube comments I see all the time

"LOL, THINGZ IS ST00PIDZ! IT L00K DUMB SO I QUIT DURR HURRR HURRRRR" <- like that

Should I at least change it to omnimaga.org? Omnimaga.com doesn't even exist.

DJ: I applaud your dedication to politeness and to maintaining a positive atmosphere here on omnimaga.org and elsewhere in the calculator community.

Kinda weird the guy posted that though.  The design on this site the very calm and pleasent.  maybe his brightness on his pc was put up to 1000% or something.

Lol Broseph, we never know

I might delete it if it needs to be, or just edit it.

Nah, keep the comment intact. You could always edit the URL typo but otherwise, you should maybe keep it. It is up to him I think to decide if it's worth keeping or not and if he wants to edit it. On Omnimaga, personally, I do not delete posts unless they're flood from a spammer or bot and if they contain innapropriate content like links to warez sites or warez torrent trackers, I'll edit out the link from the post. If it breaks the page layout I may resize the text or images. There is no thing such as free speech on Omnimaga since there are rules to follow but I like to censor as less stuff as possible. Not only people sees what happened if someone was to be punished for repeated offense (people won't keep asking "why was X person banned???") but it allows bad comments to backfire on their authors, their behavior humiliating them until they decide to change behavior or edit/remove the comments.

That reminds me, though: at one point I should maybe start working on the SMF remake of the skin I added as alternate skin on the old board in December 2005, which we started using as default skin shortly afterward. It looks like the 2006 theme, but the dark gray is light gray, the purple gradients are gree-blue-ish and the background image was an hand drawing by one of the staff back then.

Reviving the first skin we ever used on Invisionfree would be cool, too.