OSDev.org

I found this interesting extract from a conversation about the forums, and I was wondering what you guy's think about it? The conversion was unbiased, but could hold some truth or not?

At the same time this is only just two different perspectives by two different people. The first and second being a and b.
Oh. I also wanted to add that I am in no way apon either side. I myself have most likely done something very similar to what is being talked about. What I am doing is taking a neutral stance and asking what do others think? I myself would love to tell someone they are just wrong about this, but from experience I have and I am still learning that what may seem like just bunch of bull might actually be true. So pretty much repeated myself here and asking what everyone or anyone else thinks?

Maybe all this bickering (and what comes from me being a __large__ part in a few incidences here) is really hurting the forums more than helping, and this might be directly related to the format and features of the forum. When I say features I am not requests additional features, but just trying to give an example by saying that there is no easy way to seperate a correction or conversation about a correction (argument) from the actual content, and this may cause viewers to get the impression that the forum is not very welcome?

I think the poster is just too lazy, although to an extent, he may have a point. (Not a very large point, mind you, but a point nonetheless.)

<b> better read real books, specs, think and code on your own *grin*

Does this not make sense to anyone else? By receiving any outside information to a larger extent (eg. reading a book on osdev.) you're not truly thinking on your own. For example, if I'm going to read OSDAI, I'll probably use several of the techniques Tanembaum uses.

<a> *grins back* Meh, im trying. I'm usually reading a tutorial andlook at the specs and compare, trying to teach myself how to read the specs without messing up totaly. Then i code something, stumble upon something stupid, spend 5 hours trying to take apart my code, learning a very basic but nevertheless deeply needed lesson ...

Yes. It's always good to waste hours of your life working something out when your answer was written down somewhere the entire time....

(non-direct) rtfm scares me away from that place)

Oh, but we're so friendly!

The ONLY threads ive found of any use other than in the purely philosophical parts

(I'm assuming that by "philosophical", he's referring to Theory) IMO, 500 threads on theory is much better than 1000 on implementation details.

I think this forum is very helpful and patient. It's only when the regulars see another "HOW tO STARZ?" thread that they become violent.

personally, as i read that, i started to realize that that was exactly what i have been thinking lately...

it seems that the quality of responses here has seriously gone down over the last year or so

a year ago (before the merger im guessing, as we got a lot of new people coming from MT), we had fewer posts-per-day, but they were generally of much higher quality, and more patient/etc (also, the 'theory' board may have done something as well...idk)

it wasnt a sudden change, but slowly over the last year or year-and-a-half, i think the quality has slipped, and some of our more experienced people have either left, come less frequently, or have become less understanding/patient, and newer people who are unforgiving of anyone who disagrees with them seem to dominate at times, and i have seen many people with questions which were either blown-off, or not answered at all (my being gone for several weeks a month or so ago didnt help)

i have to admit im guilty myself, while i try to avoid posting anything controversial, i have been a little less than dedicated here since my assignment as a player-mod on RS (which already took a large part of my free time, combined with the fact that none of my dev tools are currently installed, means my os isnt going anywhere until i get enough money for a new computer...)

I try my hardest to always answer every question to the best of my ability. You know that English is not the native language of a lot of the people here and the manuals can get pretty confusing at times. I remember when I was first starting out with all this stuff and it was all so confusing.

Also like the quote said what good is searching the forum going to do if when you find a question like yours you find that basically everyone has responded with RTFM.

Just my opinion of course.

I do try to be courtious also, but there is a minimum amount of common sense you could expect somebody to have. I guess it's all about how the question is phrased. If they're nice and courtious, they deserve a courtious reply, and a helpful one too. Even if it is a pointer to a wiki page, I see no problem with that.

When the user is rude and types in all caps, they probably wouldn't have got far in life anyway.

http://www.cad-comic.com/comic.php?d=20060823

I do think that the "before you post, read this" exists for a reason, especially in the OS development forums. People who neglect to read that and consequently violate the rule of not searching the web and posting thread titles like xyz confuzion, do annoy me. And to be honest, I have been rather blunt with those kind of people.

Still, the number of noobish questions have increased significantly over the past year, which was mainly the reason to open up that thread. I can't say I get the impression that it helps, in fact it seems to be getting worse, but that's maybe due to the fact that you expect people to read the caption of the top threads and behave accordingly.

Alboin pretty much nailed it:

I think this forum is very helpful and patient. It's only when the regulars see another "HOW tO STARZ?" thread that they become violent.

For the people who don't qualify for a lousy response, I try to give the best help I can (which includes keeping out of the topics I have little experience with).

Hi,

I get to quite a few of the 'How do I start writing an OS?' topics and the tone of my response is generally geared towards the question style. If my response includes 'read osdever and the wiki', I don't see it as an RTFM response, because that is genuinely good advice.

On the other hand, if a questioner comes across as 'Show me how to make an OS NOW - I know how to use vbscript' and then re-posts in full caps after 45 minutes because they don't have a response yet, my answer is a little different. I will personally try to ignore the latter style of post in the future rather than taking the bait.

Cheers,
Adam

I will personally try to ignore the latter style of post in the future rather than taking the bait.

and if everyone did that, i dont think we would be having this conversation... (at least much of my post wouldnt be relevent) -- turning a question (even a poorly written one) into a flamewar is never good for PR...

Maybe all this bickering (and what comes from me being a __large__ part in a few incidences here) is really hurting the forums more than helping, and this might be directly related to the format and features of the forum. When I say features I am not requests additional features, but just trying to give an example by saying that there is no easy way to seperate a correction or conversation about a correction (argument) from the actual content, and this may cause viewers to get the impression that the forum is not very welcome?

IMHO it depends on the intended audience. If people are genuine interested in OS development they will quietly search the forums, do some background searching on the subject, get familiar and ask sensible questions. These are the people you wish to keep at the forums. The lame people like FreeVista for instance, sorry, you dont want to keep because having those type of subjects on the forums does more harm then good. You need to ask the question: do i want the forum to be for everyone or for the serious OS developers. I think you know the correct answer.

"OSDev" is probably a bit more search-engine friendly name than "Mega Tokyo" ever was. I would find it hard to believe that this forum is not growing more popular since the switch. Add on the fact that the number of internet users is only going up.

As this place grows, the levels of resident experts vs. newbies will grow in favor of the latter.

Filtering out the genuinely interested from the lazy "spoon feed me" types is always a delicate matter. However, I personally haven't seen much problem with how it is being handled. Those who are obviously lazy and do not want to exert any effort on their behalf for even the most simple concepts deserve to be ignored... at the very least. The ones to show effort are usually offered patience and much guidance... even if it is redundant.

As for the highlighted conversation, it is fairly obvious that person a does not want to exert much effort and expects someone to hold their hand along the way, essentially removing any ability for them to actually learn anything themselves. I have never had respect for people who want to reconfigure the world to meet their learning style merely out of sheer laziness in adhering to standard forms of communication. Person b sounds like your typical misguided elitist zealot who pretends to know more than they really do. I can easily identify at least a couple of people here who would perfectly fit as person b.

Bottom line, if you come to a place like this and cannot find your basic OS development information by searching and reading alone... you need to adjust your attitude or find another hobby

Bottom line, if you come to a place like this and cannot find your basic OS development information by searching and reading alone... you need to adjust your attitude or find another hobby Wink

while i do agree with this statement, i think the real problem is the number of threads started by people looking to start, but then the thread is stolen for use in a flame war...

"OSDev" is probably a bit more search-engine friendly name than "Mega Tokyo" ever was. I would find it hard to believe that this forum is not growing more popular since the switch.

that is only true if you assume that the board was formerly called 'mega-tokyo.com' -- which is untrue
there was no 'switch' -- it was more like a buy-out

the board didnt change addresses, it was absorbed by another board -- this board, at this address, is older than the MT board -- so it really isnt a 'new' and 'more search-engine friendly' address, rather it is simply another site, which you joined when your site died -- so the address really has not changed our presence, nor increased interest in this site

JAAman wrote:

Bottom line, if you come to a place like this and cannot find your basic OS development information by searching and reading alone... you need to adjust your attitude or find another hobby Wink

while i do agree with this statement, i think the real problem is the number of threads started by people looking to start, but then the thread is stolen for use in a flame war...

Agreed. That should never happen. Newbie bashing does not make you "kewl"

JAAman wrote:

"OSDev" is probably a bit more search-engine friendly name than "Mega Tokyo" ever was. I would find it hard to believe that this forum is not growing more popular since the switch.

that is only true if you assume that the board was formerly called 'mega-tokyo.com' -- which is untrue
there was no 'switch' -- it was more like a buy-out

You mean like YaBB titling the forum index as the "Mega-Tokyo Message Board" or the OS Development forum was simply titled as "Development, Design, FAQ, etc"

The content of the threads and the OSFaq at MT was the thing, and usually *is* the primary thing, keeping search engines interested. However, my experience in search engine dynamics tells me that meta tags are not ignored as much as you'd expect. Adding all of that content to osdev.org was just a healthy shot all around.

JAAman wrote: the board didnt change addresses, it was absorbed by another board -- this board, at this address, is older than the MT board -- so it really isnt a 'new' and 'more search-engine friendly' address, rather it is simply another site, which you joined when your site died -- so the address really has not changed our presence, nor increased interest in this site

I understand that osdev.org came, "left" and came back... then finally assimilated the MT OS dev content and members. I think it was about time since I never considered MT "my site" and I thought having it along side anime and other non-OS dev subjects was only hindering its popularity among OS developers.

You mean like YaBB titling the forum index as the "Mega-Tokyo Message Board" or the OS Development forum was simply titled as "Development, Design, FAQ, etc" Question

not at all what i was refering to -- i meant this board has always been at the address www.osdev.org (at least for the last 7-8 years)

I understand that osdev.org came, "left" and came back... then finally assimilated the MT OS dev content and members. I think it was about time since I never considered MT "my site" and I thought having it along side anime and other non-OS dev subjects was only hindering its popularity among OS developers.

not exactly...

osdev.org never really 'left' -- basically, this site was operating on chases self-built software, which was quite minimal, and running on an unreliable web host -- it was frequently down, and often would be down for a several days at a time

one day it disappeared -- nothing unusual about that, it happened frequently, but it did stay gone for a few weeks (almost a month, iirc) but then we discovered why: chase had moved to a new (more reliable) host and had installed phpBB instead of his old software -- a major improvement, then it started to regain its old users and a lot of new ones, growing considerably

without any downtime that i recall, it continued to grow rapidly for the next ~18 months (iirc), during which time carbonbased and i were made mods, and we grew to several thousand members -- actually, i believe chase said that before the merger, we had a lot more members than MT did (though i believe we did have fewer posts-per-day), so basically, it was the second-largest osdev forum closed out, and its members were adopted by the largest osdev forum

you stated that since the forum 'moved' to the url 'osdev.org' the new url would be a bigger draw because its more 'search-engine' friendly, and i was pointing out that this address isnt new, and this board existed almost exactly like it is now, for about 18 months before the merger, and the site itself, complete with a moderately active forum, has been at this same address for 7-8 years (minimum - not sure exactly when it started, but the oldest posts on the forum were from osdev.org, and are dated early 2000 and imply that the older posts were lost due to problems with the hosting)

I remember seeing this place a few times over the years but the content was dismal. I remember the tree-list version that looked like it had a lot of info, but the layout was just awful... and then it disappeared altogether. I don't think anyone misses those old tree-style forums

FEB 2005: 100-500 members(?), 768 articles. (~18 months before merger)
SEP 2006: 1713 members, 12311 articles. (right before merger)
OCT 2006: 1876 members, 81658 articles. (Merger)
DEC 2006: 2293 members, 84711 articles. (~2 months after merger)
JUN 2007: 3658 members, 96709 articles. (~8 months after merger)
OCT 2007: 4000 members, 105808 articles. (~1 year after merger)

Don't forget that MT forum software allowed guests to post as well, so some people never bothered to register.

At any rate, we can all agree that this place is growing one way or another... and that was the basis of my main point... the number of newbies vs. experienced members *will* only continue to grow in favor of the newbies.

I remember seeing this place a few times over the years but the content was dismal. I remember the tree-list version that looked like it had a lot of info, but the layout was just awful... and then it disappeared altogether.

yes... it did kinda look like a tree didnt it...

the forum was the main draw of this board at that time, and, dispite what you thought about the layout, it was active, and contained a lot of very useful information, and was home to a lot of very knowledgeable people

as for it disapearing... apart from frequent outages, it was only gone for a month...

I don't think anyone misses those old tree-style forums

i do...

FEB 2005: 100-500 members(?), 768 articles. (~18 months before merger)

that was right after the rebuild -- it had just come online -- actually all your counting here is the number of people who registered the first week the new software was in place (the old software didnt have any real registration, just a way to enter your name...) -- and of course all the old posts were gone... it took a very long time to get those back...

Don't forget that MT forum software allowed guests to post as well, so some people never bothered to register

so did we until shortly before the merger iirc...

At any rate, we can all agree that this place is growing one way or another... and that was the basis of my main point... the number of newbies vs. experienced members *will* only continue to grow in favor of the newbies.

which we all can agree on...
my argument was not with the fact that we have been growing a lot, it was with the reason we would be growing much faster now that we were before

the greatest attribute of MT was always the FAQ, while this our greatest attribute here was always the forums (which were always nicer and friendlier, with fewer wars, flames, trolls, etc than the MT ones) -- now we have one place with both (although i havent seen it much, i think i do prefer the old FAQ to the new wiki though...)


my point was that we have lost too many of our better people and the problem isnt with the quality of the questions (given the chance, most people will improve over time), but with the quality of the responses

and not specifically with the things mentioned in that conversation, as i dont really have a problem with expecting people to do some of there own research, (although i think some questions could be answered better), but with the attitudes of the responding people -- like my dad always told me, if you dont have something nice to say, then just dont say anything... (which is actually much easier to do online then in person...) -- i never have a problem with the 'younger' (not necessarily age-wise) peoples questions, as they are often inexperienced, but when the regulars respond, i expect more maturity -- if you dont want to answer the question, or if you think the persons name, or use of capitalization, or puctuation proves that they arent serious and dont deserve an answer? nobody is making you reply...

i think a lot of things could be improved if people would just reread the post before posting it -- a lot of times i write a very lengthy reply to someone, and then press preview, then walk away, and come back in a couple minutes, and read what i wrote -- most of the time i will just close the tab and continue reading other threads -- realising that my post was angry or would start a flame war