Whatever Happened To The Real Amiga Community.

[Rob]

I don't think there is a problem with people calling themselves Amigans, rather when others claim you are *not* (and using words like "true" or "real" as an emphasis to this). That's when problems arise. That and the secterism that has been carefully cultivated in some circles. Luckily most of those people hangs out on other forums than this one though.

Your sig.  LOL.

[Belial6]

What happened to it was that people started defining the community as "The Real Amiga Community" vs. the fake Amiga community.

[Karlos]

Your sig.  LOL.

Ah sweet irony. Like coppery, 'cept made of iron!

[spirantho]

My own 2c...

Back in the olden days, there was one Amiga, and it was Good. Amiga owners stuck to Amiga sites, Atari owners to Atari sites, and there was healthy rivalry between the sides. Most of the sane people treated it as a bit of a joke, same as it had always been right back to the 8-bit days when Spectrum and C64 owners would taunt each other in the playground.

These days, however, the name "Amiga" encompasses no less than four systems, and Amiga.org attempts to cover all of them. The result of this is that each 'camp' is within the same forum. So, the fighting is the same, but this time it's all within one forum instead of between fora; hence, it looks like in-fighting, whereas before it looked like partisanism.

For myself, I subscribe to A.org for classic Amiga hardware and older OSes - my interest in A500s, A2000s, bridgeboards and the like is satiated here - I go to AW.net for software news and high-end Amiga stuff like my A4000, and Amigans.net for OS4 on my A1 or A4000. Aros-exec.org does fine for my AROS needs, MorphZone.org for MorphOS. I would never go to Amiga.org for a MorphOS statement any more than I would go to MorphZone.org for an Amiga question.

I realise that A.org tries to be a forum for all flavours of Amiga, but in my experience it doesn't work - and won't work for as long as the MorphOS fans jump on Amiga threads or Amiga fans jump on MorphOS threads.

The parallels to religious sectarianism are many, and in much the same way as the whole world would get on better if we all learned to respect our differences and choices rather than push our own belief system on others, so the same applies here.  It's like you have a forum about Christianity.... you all want the same belief but the Catholics and the Protestants will never see eye to eye.

OK, maybe that was a bit more than 2c.

Edit: just to clarify, this post isn't meant as a criticism, just as an observation. Well, not a criticism of the site, anyway. More a criticism of the people who keep chiming in about how x is better than y in a thread about y.

[Franko]

Wow... what a mixed bag of replies here...

@ Cammy
I find it a bit odd that you'd choose to stay away from this site just because of polls, it's not as if your forced to read or take part in them so I don't see how that would make you post here less which is a great pity...

@ Save2600
I know you yanks don't have much in the way of a sense of humor but is U.K. humor really so bad that you'd rather condemn yourself to Amibay...

@ redrumloa
Why what happened in 2003, sounds like a good bit of historical reading to me...

@ whabang

Your brother is right - we are a bunch of sad retards, but we are passionate sad retards.

There are few others who care enough about 25 year-old electronic equipment like the Amiga
community does.

Thought I'd highlight this one on bold for when the brother-in-law & his cronies take there next peek on the site, nicely said I say...

@ Iggy

I think its very cool that I can run unmodified 68K code under MorphOS on my Powermac PPC based system. Amiga related OS' are compact, efficient, and have very quick booting times. With NG OS' we have software that makes our systems practical substitutes for common PCs.

How many other retro systems can claim this? None that I know of. We may sound like fanatics, but personally I think it's just pride in the resilience and vitality of our market.

Another great comment for the bro to read and weep...

[adz]

@Franko

Now? This is nothing! Everything is zen now compared to years gone by online. If I had to put a finger on the worst, most ugly year, it would have to be about 2003.

Ah yes, 2003, the great purge :lol: Those were funny days, dead butterflies and burst boing balls a plenty...

[Karlos]

Ah yes, 2003, the great purge :lol: Those were funny days, dead butterflies and burst boing balls a plenty...

Yep, the inspiration for these old avatars



Alas there was a brief armistice

[Karlos]

@Franko

Now? This is nothing! Everything is zen now compared to years gone by online. If I had to put a finger on the worst, most ugly year, it would have to be about 2003. That said, probably every year from about ~1998 to ~2007 were pretty ugly. The few really hardcore camp minded folks have migrated off to (insert camp here) minority sites.

Sure nowadays we get some slagging here and there amongst ourselves, but it is nothing you won't find on any other discussion forum on the internet with membership of this size.

^ this.

[Cammy]

It's not just the polls...

I guess I can't put my finger on it. Perhaps it's the lack of interest or support for any new Amiga developments.

It seems like Amiga.org has become the joke forum of the Amiga community. I guess it could be worse.

[Karlos]

It's not just the polls...

I guess I can't put my finger on it. Perhaps it's the lack of interest or support for any new Amiga developments.

It seems like Amiga.org has become the joke forum of the Amiga community. I guess it could be worse.

We are a tough audience, to be fair. Don't interpret wariness and lack of immediate enthusiasm for lack of interest.

I've lost count of the number of times I've been let down by developments that came to nothing. A-Box, BoXeR, BlizzardG4 (I would have happily sold organs for one of those), AmiJoe G3, Shark, ColdFusion and Dragon to name just a few hardware items alone.

Dennis had the right idea with the minimig. He didn't announce it until it was almost finished and he delivered a product that was based on a realistic target and avoided falling into the trap of adding more and more stuff to it. Thanks to other people taking up where he left off, it looks like the AGA version will come to light. Which is just awesome.

Consider the NatAmi. I've said a few times that I worry this project suffers from feature creep. Does that mean I don't support it? Not at all. That criticism is on how the project appears to be managed, not what their motivations are. It is vapour until I have it in my grubby paws. Am I excited by it? It's touted to be a machine that picks up where AGA left off, with greatly improved speed and improved features. What's not to be excited about? It's exactly the sort of thing I wanted, ever since the  boxer was first announced.

I can't speak for anybody else, but I'm cautious. Not uninterested.

[Plaz]

It seems like Amiga.org has become the joke forum of the Amiga community. I guess it could be worse.

Not the joke, but maybe the "old folks home".

"Hey! You kids get your dang OS off my lawn!" :lol:

Though I'd like to, I also find fewer converstations to participate in these days. Seems it's all been said before... many times. Why repeat? I keep hanging around though hoping for better days. If I had more free time/money I'd contribute more to projects , but that's just not possible for now.

Plaz

[odin]

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=29050 <- that didn't happen. Or rather announcements (lots of them) happened and then nothing else.

AT happened, then unfortunately Jim Collas happened, Bill Buck happened, Bill McEwen happened, Barry Moss happened, the Merlancia idiot happened, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.

Etc....

I guess you get my point.

[Cammy]

Plaz, I think you got it right. I just find hardly anything worth contributing to now, and it certainly seems like the same topics keep being brought up time and time again. The useless threads just keep getting bumped, but when something new or useful gets announced it slips under the radar. Take Quick Videos for example, for the first time in forever we finally have a new video editing program for Amiga systems with a nice, easy to use GUI, and yet the thread gets a single reply and is never seen again.

Compared to last Christmas, this year's Festive Game Making Competition has been a complete failure due to lack of interest or participation. I wasn't sure about running it again this year because of the way the forums have been going lately, but I did anyway since a few people said I should. This will probably be the last time I ever try something like this. Either the community just doesn't care anymore, or a lot of people don't like me personally. I don't think this is somewhere I fit in anymore, if I ever did. I'm not ready for the old folks home yet.

[kedawa]

Pretty much all forums are full of petty bickering and pointless flame wars.  The differenece here is that there's not much else going on to thin it out.

[coldfish]

I think it comes down to passion and lack of resources, combined with narrow-mindedness.

Some have very specific opinions on what is a "worthwhile" Amiga/ish project and they might view projects that exist outside their comfort zone as competing for resources with their ideal.  The reality is, those projects are directed by people who are just as passionate about their chosen direction, so there's no competition just an alternative option.

But helping passionate and opinionated people see sense is a problem as old as humanity.

The trick is to see anything even vaguely related to "Amiga" (in the year 2010) as positive, ie; even bad news is still news. With all the passion and vitriol still floating around 15 years after the fact, at least the Amiga wont die through indifference.

[EDanaII]

Either the community just doesn't care anymore, or a lot of people don't like me personally. I don't think this is somewhere I fit in anymore, if I ever did. I'm not ready for the old folks home yet.

Or maybe there's another option: not enough time to spare among a busy life? Although I'm not exactly sure how the "not like you option" fits in there. Are you sure you're not taking this all a little too seriously? Just puttin' that out for thought.

Just wanted to interject. Time for this old fart to nod off again... Now, get off my lawn!