What's happened to the message boards?

Hi guys,

Not sure if anyone even remembers me, but I used to post pretty regularly here. for the past 6 months or so, I’ve been too busy with work, etc. to try and keep up with what’s been going on here, but things are slowing down and I’ll probably be dropping by every now and then.

Looking through some of the recent threads I’m struck by something odd… the board doesn’t seem as friendly as it used to. It seemed that just about every thread I checked had someone complaining about it being a “beginner” question. I can understand that, there was a bit of that back when I used to frequent the boards here.

The main difference now seems to be that people are a lot meaner about it. One thread even seemed to degenerate into personal attacks.

On another note, I look forward to some more interesting threads, and also can’t wait to see what comes of the new OpenGL 2.0 specs!

Yes i have also noticed that it has been getting worse since i first started coming here. Now i cant say i have never said “this is a beginner question, go to the beginner board, blah blah blah” before so im not innocent by any means but some people here take it too far. Most of their posts are “go search google” and no real help at all, its like they dont know opengl themselfs and the only thing they can do is refer people to google. While some questions on here sometimes do make me a bit irritated i try to help anyone i can. I do hope things like that on this board get better.

Oh and by the way, welcome back to the board.

-SirKnight

[This message has been edited by SirKnight (edited 04-04-2002).]

Deiussum:
I’m quite a newbie around here but I can already confirm your thoughts. It’s a cold cold world around here.

I must admit, I do get a bit annoyed when I read problems that are more related to general programming or linker settings but I think I’ve managed to just shut up in absence of meaningful input. But more often than not it’s better to just answer these seemingly idiotic questions. We’re all sitting in the same boat, promoting OpenGL amongst developers, right?
A helpful pointer to a good general programming related board is fine but posters just won’t accept that kind of advice from a person that behaves like a f*ing bih.

BTW, Google is a great tool and it does help to point people towards it. Many people have no idea how many great and useful things you can find through a simple google search. So not everyone pointing to it should be considered an ass

However, that doesn’t justify how some people behave - knackered, if you read this, please take offense - and I’m with you on that matter, Deiussum.

With a little work and commitment, this place just might become a nice community - maybe it was someday, I wasn’t there then.

[This message has been edited by zeckensack (edited 04-04-2002).]

Welcome back Deiussum, it has been awhile hasn’t it?

I have mixed feelings on this. I think there has been some excessive OT posts by one or two individuals which led to oversensitivity by some, I did some investigation when I saw the complaints and saw some clear abuse. Unfortunately I don’t think I looked far enough (I’ve not been reading regularly), I have since seen some bad treatment of posters on here recently. It’s more recent than the last 6 months. I don’t understand it either, it’s like there’s some club of l334 k1dd13 hak0rz has descended on us.

What is this board for? Are we only to discuss the latest vertex programs and pixel shaders here? There is a big difference between an OT post and a beginners or “intermediate difficulty” post placed here. The definition of a beginners post is not “one you know the answer to”. People post because we’re supposed to know the answer.

Some of the less patient are very smart people, I wish they’d just help or not post. Why post and raise the thread to the top of the list again if you think it’s in the wrong forum?

These guys don’t own this board, aren’t moderators and they are not the judge of what is an advanced question. I’m not in favour of OT posts but I think one of the most counterproductive things you can do is criticise someone learning for asking a basic question in the advanced forum. At the very least don’t be insulting about it, save that for the worthwhile flamewars.

If you aren’t here to teach, learn or both then why are you here?

[This message has been edited by dorbie (edited 04-04-2002).]

Originally posted by zeckensack:
I must admit, I do get a bit annoyed when I read problems that are more related to general programming or linker settings but I think I’ve managed to just shut up in absence of meaningful input.

You know, I hate to point this out but answering questions in the beginner’s forum with responses like “Open f*ing mouth. Insert motherfing foot.” is not helping the situation.

My guess is that when the OpenGL forums are switched to the new system, the boards will be organized a little more logically (as opposed to just beginner/advanced). Hopefully that will make this a better tool for both new and seasoned coders.

Originally posted by Decimal Dave:
You know, I hate to point this out but answering questions in the beginner’s forum with responses like “Open f*ing mouth. Insert motherfing foot.” is not helping the situation.

This is taken out of context. Here’s the thread you’re talking about: http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubb/Forum2/HTML/008049.html
Everyone please judge for themselves.

Originally posted by zeckensack:
Everyone please judge for themselves.

I’m not suggesting your answer was wrong. Actually, it was on about the same level as the original question. I’m merely pointing out that posting something which is neither insightful, inquisitive, or funny adds no value to the thread. It only increases noise on the board.

Welcome back Deiussum !

Things have changed quite a lot since you “left”. But this “flaming” problem only really started about two months ago.

I have been reading these boards daily, several times a day for about 3 years now and I must say that I sometimes wish some people never got the forum’s URL.

I do get fed up with OT posts and it is sometimes just too hard not to tell these guys that what they’re doing is bad for the forums. I can’t remember writing any insult though… and I am not approving when people do so.

Anyway, the bottom line is that the forums are now very different from what you knew. But you still get interesting answers to interesting questions. And I am sure this is still the best board for discussing OpenGL (as well as C++,pastas, puddings… ).

The only thing that frightens me is that advanced users of OpenGL could get fed up with the situation and leave the forums for good (or move somewhere else ?) which would then make the board a lot less interesting…

Regards.

Eric

I think you’re being a little oversensitive about this - which will become a problem in itself.
I believe flames are irrational aggressive responses to reasonable questions (or responses).
I don’t feel I’ve been guilty of this - but some of you do feel I’m guilty, and you’ve expressed this to me. As a result, I’m getting quite paranoid about what I say, what advice I give (in case some find what I say patronising) etc.
I’ve nothing against people learning opengl, as I have gleened some useful information from this forum myself.
Please like me

Hi,

I’m actually new to this board, though I’m not new to programming since I started studying I have more time to deal with OpenGL. Yes I was developing OpenGL-Apps before but I wasn’t really deep in there.
There are several issues where I was wondering what is to be considered advanced or basic.
My lucky position is that I wasn’t offended by some poor specialists, yet.
I think this discussion is more or less a clear issue:
The people helping are real specialist, those people offending others are in my eyes just thinking they are good in OpenGL.
Okay, I might post a message which might be considered basic, but after I fought with it for hours it isn’t basic at all to me.
If you search on the board for the stuff I contributed it is mostly basic math but to implement it isn’t basic at all! (For me)
In my eyes it is easier to answer a question and to point out it is a beginner question, then to offend people, and it uses much less space on the board(nice side effect, isn’t it?).

Thanks to everybody who answered my questions and by this helped me to get forward with my project,

Martin Peter Hanke

Originally posted by knackered:
I don’t feel I’ve been guilty of this - but some of you do feel I’m guilty, and you’ve expressed this to me.

knackered, I didn’t really think about you when writing my previous message.

My point was that I do not always approve the tone people use to answer misplaced posts (especially when the insult the poster).

That being said, I am sometimes really irritated by some OT or beginners posts in the advanced forum so I understand the feeling (I have certainly been guilty of that myself !).

Anyway, to summarise my thoughts:

  1. I hate misplaced posts (ok, the definition of misplaced is highly subjective).
  2. I don’t like it when people insult the faulty poster (unless he’s really looking for it, and we’ve had an example recently).
  3. Some people are too sensitive about 2).
  4. I am hungry.

Originally posted by knackered:
Please like me.

I do !

Regards.

Eric

Well I’ve been lurking around here for a year or so, and I’ve noticed a distinct shift over the past few months.

It’s not just the beginner/advanced question, frankly I don’t feel I want to start judging that.

There seem to be a lot more posts which are questions about simple programming, some barely related to OpenGL, with little or no evidence that the poster has tried to find out the answer for [him|her]self before asking here.

The Linux forum is even worse for this. There are quite a few “I’ve used Windows, now I’ve installed Linux, and I can’t find Visual C++. What gives?” questions. How can one possibly respond politely in any other way than to direct the questioner to the broader Internet.

Zeckensack, out of curiosity, what exactly were you trying to achieve with that post?

Thanks, guys. 'tis good to be back. And I’ve already been able to help out a couple people on the beginner boards. flexes I had almost forgotten how good that feels.

I can certainly understand the frustration of Off-topic and misplaced posts, and I think I’ve even guided people to the beginners board on a couple of occasions (after helping them, however.)

Nutball, You saying that VC++ doesn’t come with Linux!? The horror!!

Originally posted by Maj:
Zeckensack, out of curiosity, what exactly were you trying to achieve with that post?

What do I know. I don’t think I’ve achieved anything there.
It sounded an awful lot like a prank, just like this here .
Either way, that question was a demonstration of unacceptable forum behaviour. I was upset and fired away. These were two of the three posts I made here that can be considered insults. I still think my ratio is quite good.

Perhaps this is a sabotage attempt from M$.

wb Deiussum! Do you remember me?

anyhow… how many more threads on the state of these boards are we going to get?! They’re starting to out-number the OT posts!

Then we’ll get threads complaining that ppl make too many threads on the state of the boards… hehe, ad infinitum…

ppl on here spend far too much time complaining IMO, and not enuff time making cool opengl stuff.

Go forth and code…

(Yeah I am in a good mood, my GF4 just got dispatched today! wehay!)

Nutty

Of course I remember you Nutty. I’m glad to see a lot of the old familiar names still here.

do you remember me, too? i dunno, i don’t remember you at least but i’m a friend of nutty, so i’m sort of familiar, am i not?