Amiga.org
Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga.org site announcements => Topic started by: amigakit on February 04, 2015, 11:27:53 PM
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We want to open a discussion with the regular members here at Amiga.org regarding which sub-forums you use and value the most and which you feel are maybe under used and are candidates for either deletion or restructuring.
Browsing through all of the sub-forums, many are used daily and have a healthy post count, but there are some notable exceptions that are only active infrequently.
These are your forums, so your feedback is most welcome on this matter.
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I'll be honest and say I almost never even click on the "Forums" button. The stuff that's on the homepage is what's most important to me, and with my current situation I'm able to browse it frequently. I rarely even scroll down. The gallery pics are small and out-dated, and what's with so many Amiga owners having such terrible quality cameras? ;)
At a glance, it looks like you've already gotten rid of useless forums like the electric cars one, and whatnot?
I will say that the Amiga Google+ group someone mentioned here the other day is kind of awesome. That's pictures done right, if you want some ideas. ;)
https://plus.google.com/communities/109361184436507514764
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I usually post in the Amiga Hardware Issues and Discussion forum.
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I agree that many of the images that you see in the gallery are not worth keeping. Maybe when a member becomes inactive for more then 6months the images they uploaded are removed?
Honestly, topic treads that have nothing to do with the Amiga or at least a computer in general should not be posted here or just have a "general off topic tread" and leave it at that.
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The Electric Cars sub forum is still there. I am not sure how relevant this is for an Amiga computer forum TBH. It's a good example of some of the sub forums that don't enhance this website.
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I think maybe commodore usa forum could moved. That my opinion.
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I agree that many of the images that you see in the gallery are not worth keeping. Maybe when a member becomes inactive for more then 6months the images they uploaded are removed?
Honestly, topic treads that have nothing to do with the Amiga or at least a computer in general should not be posted here or just have a "general off topic tread" and leave it at that.
I believe the old images, like the old Amiga, are a big part of the history and flavor of this site! Please don't throw the baby out with the bath water. I like the way they randomly appear on the main page, recalling something I may have forgotten. If they are deleted, new images probably won't re-accumulate with the same speed and variety, our numbers are too low.
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please don't get rid of any amiga pictures and just delete the sub forums that haven't been used in along while and that have nothing to do with The Amiga
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Yes the deck chairs could do with some shuffling. But isn't there a latent issue behind the symptom of "lack of use" that might prompt some more strategic, proactive and positive initiatives?
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Yeah, there seems to be a lot to remove, haven't checked those out for ages. I usually just browse the latest threads from front page and never visit the actual forum pages, unless I'm starting a new thread.
I don't quite understand why there's complete sub-forum for just one marginal program which wasn't even top of its genre (Aladdin 4D). Couldn't it be where the rest of the software discussion is made too?
CUSA shouldn't be in Amiga related Operating Systems forum at least... if at all in its own
sub-forum.
And Coffee House seems to have a lot of useless forums... maybe just few categories would be enough. Get rid of electric cars, immortality and quantum computing at least.
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please don't get rid of any amiga pictures and just delete the sub forums that haven't been used in along while and that have nothing to do with The Amiga
Agreed, I quite enjoy looking at the hardware set-up pics and people's Workbenches etc.
Vote to keep the gallery from me!
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The gallery pics are small and out-dated, and what's with so many Amiga owners having such terrible quality cameras? ;)
Probably because most of them were taken 10 years ago, and it's been a long time since I uploaded a picture here but I remember there were restrictions on the size? I remember spending about 10 minutes trying to get it under a max resolution, then file size when I last posted. Could be a reason nobody posts them now, as I recall it was a bit of a headache making it fit with the restrictions.
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Those who don't like pictures could have an option to filter them.
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i think amiga.org be right as it is now :)
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My suggestions:
Merge Amiga Software Issues and discussion
with Amiga UNIX
Could The Hardware Issues and Discussion thread just be Hardware Issues, everything else should be in general chat.
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I agree that many of the images that you see in the gallery are not worth keeping. Maybe when a member becomes inactive for more then 6months the images they uploaded are removed?
Honestly, topic treads that have nothing to do with the Amiga or at least a computer in general should not be posted here or just have a "general off topic tread" and leave it at that.
If my pictures get deleted, I won't upload them again. People forget what effort was taken in getting them in the first place. They are a historic value to the community.
Unless you get new hardware to talk about, this forum is not going to grow.
I think the Amiga being emulated on ARM like the Raspberry Pi could be a good thing to grow your forums. Unfortunately, there hasn't been a lot of interest in the users getting involved in development unless someone does it for them so therefore there is a lack of cooperating with budding developers. Lack of cooperation means there will be nothing new.
It is a new millennium. Commodore is not coming back. Budding developers cannot get the old chips in quantity and the old processes of making some of that stuff may not exist anymore. I am interested in developing with new hardware from off the shelf products and there isn't an interest.
The Commodore users I knew wrote their own programs and were more of a D.I.Y. community and I don't see it here. I went out and bought several ARM development boards, a book on ARM architecture, Jtag cables for high voltage programming, a book on ARM assembly language. I'm ready to buy an ST Link for programming ARM. I've been researching and surveying different available chips for a couple of years and it really is a hard task because it took companies to make a computer but there is no interest here.
You should really question how long the old Amigas will function before breaking down. 10 years? My Amiga stopped working after 10 years. What will you have to talk about then? If you exist at all, it will be a smaller group or you will be into something different entirely like belonging to a Raspberry Pi forum.
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@ChuckT
Just to clarify: no images are to be deleted.
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I believe the old images, like the old Amiga, are a big part of the history and flavor of this site! Please don't throw the baby out with the bath water. I like the way they randomly appear on the main page, recalling something I may have forgotten. If they are deleted, new images probably won't re-accumulate with the same speed and variety, our numbers are too low.
I agree with this, completely. But if you all want to read/add to some really off the wall ideas, head over to "http://www.lemonamiga.com/" in their "Chit Chat" forum. It has everything from electric cars to good 1940's movies. Some of it can be quite interesting. You will find some familiar "faces" too.
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In response to comments here, could it be made easier to upload new high resolution images?
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In response to comments here, could it be made easier to upload new high resolution images?
This board required my pictures to be reduced before I could upload them. My pictures are actually higher resolution than this board allows.
I suppose if Amiga and Amigaworld doesn't want to pay the bandwidth, hosting them on a site like Photobucket or another site may be able to do it if they don't exceed whatever is free bandwidth.
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97 KB is a challenge sometimes, but if uploading images from a mobile phone it's impossible to reduce them, and many people don't even own pc's anymore or have software to reduce them on their tablets or whatnot...so how are they supposed to upload images?
Also, I think the site logs users out far too quickly. I always find myself having too keep pressing "Preview" every couple of minutes when composing a post just so it doesn't log me out.
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the coffee house section should go :)
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If we're putting things on a wishlist, I'd like the homepage to auto-refresh. Like a scrolling ticker of new posts. :)
I've never had the logout problem. FIrefox, Opera, Internet Explorer, multiple versions, multiple computers. I also run CCleaner on my computer every day to clean it, but I specifically have it set to *not* delete cookies for sites like this. Huh. I know lots of other folks have had that problem. Maybe it's something to do with their ISP? Don't you guys still filter/block by IP address? Could be related to that? No idea.
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We want to open a discussion with the regular members here at Amiga.org regarding which sub-forums you use and value the most and which you feel are maybe under used and are candidates for either deletion or restructuring.
Browsing through all of the sub-forums, many are used daily and have a healthy post count, but there are some notable exceptions that are only active infrequently.
These are your forums, so your feedback is most welcome on this matter.
1 Amiga forum (*all* Amiga flavors of course, including the real 68k one and all "NG" ones)
1 Other Computer Tech forum (for everything else computer related that's not remotely tied to Amiga)
1 General Forum (free for all)
That should pretty much cover it all IMHO. It's not like the traffic on this site is rising anyways, and most people are merely clicking on the posts on the main page, so...
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Although I *want* there to be an Aladdin4d forum, the problem is when you post a message there it NEVER shows up on the main page where recent messages are shown.
Because of this, anything you post there gets buried in obscurity making it useless to use those forums.
Can this be fixed? Also the half-dozen Aladdin4d forum categories should probably be folded into a single one as it doesn't generate a lot of traffic.
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I agree, It would be great to have the whole Aladdin4D section overhauled. By "un-burying" so to speak may generate some interest in the software too.
I think I'll go dig out my Aladdin4D software right now and install it on my A1200! :) Anyone have any cool renderings they want to share?
It would be nice if this (joke like) Aladdin4D wiki got updated! :hammer:
WTH is DiscreetFX these days anyway?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aladdin4D
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97 KB is a challenge sometimes, but if uploading images from a mobile phone it's impossible to reduce them, and many people don't even own pc's anymore or have software to reduce them on their tablets or whatnot...so how are they supposed to upload images?
Also, I think the site logs users out far too quickly. I always find myself having too keep pressing "Preview" every couple of minutes when composing a post just so it doesn't log me out.
When you download the pictures to a PC, you can email them to yourself and Outlook Express will often ask to resize the picture.
https://support.office.microsoft.com/en-us/article/Reduce-the-size-of-pictures-and-attachments-89a7ca1a-0f5d-478f-bd69-28089da1e641?CorrelationId=0742954e-3e1c-4f87-84eb-95105db0975c&ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US
Or you can use Paintshop Pro to reduce the pictures
Or you can choose the file size in some cameras before you take the photo.
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the coffee house section should go :)
The coffee house section was abused. I wanted to talk about electronics, other small computers, etc., because I respected the rules here because it is an Amiga forum while other people wanted to talk about stuff that belongs on other social forums.
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I'm sure AmigaKit is already regretting posting this thread. ;)
But while we're on it, I'd like to see a forum for new games being released. For example, you've got this great new game, very polished, and what does the link say? "Check it out over on EAB". :(
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=68278
Now I'm sure EAB is a swell forum. I don't have time for more than just this one here, though, so it would be great if there was a place where info on new games was posted, so people could discuss them. Like, a thread for each new game. I know this is kind of "still thinking in the 1990's", when new Amiga software was released on a regular basis, but I feel like there's still a lot of new software being released out there that gets absolutely no mention on this entire site. And that's just a shame. :(
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The Commodore users I knew wrote their own programs and were more of a D.I.Y. community and I don't see it here.
Heh, I am the ultimate C= end user. If it's out there for 8-bit Commies, I'll buy it or demonstrate it or find someone who can do it. I was never a programmer.
You should really question how long the old Amigas will function before breaking down. 10 years? My Amiga stopped working after 10 years.
Hmm, my A1000's are still going, as are my other Amigas up to the 1200 and 4000.
FCUG celebrating 33 years,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
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Larger file upload is something I miss, in the past I used image hosting services but today it's just easier to put the pictures on my own webserver and IMG tag em here.
But I know some people prefer attached images instead of huge ones in a thread so if bigger ones where allowed I would upload like that also.
Oh and something this forum really need is a option to set a thread to "project" when creating a new thread.
To explain what I mean, when I do something bigger on my Amigas I take pictures explain and post here and make a thread about it but as the project moves on I edit and add new pictures to my initial post but after x amount of time you can not edit your first post anymore and thus making a "Amiga 1200 project" thread hard to maintain since you gotta post new replies with pictures and then the images will be inside the thread and easy to miss for people who do not read the entire thread.
This is a feature I would want, set a new thread to "editable project".
Then I would post more of my projects here since it's easier to maintain. As I did in the past I posted quite a lot of pictures.
The biggest problem not having this feature is that when the image hosting place or i rebuild my file/web server struvture the images in my threads goes bye bye.
This happened in my quite detailed A1200 project thread, I wish I could edit it and put the pictures back.
So if this feature is added I would start making threads again with my projects.
Oh and ditch the electric cars sub forum ^^
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My suggestion is to merge all the subs in Coffee House into one where everything not fitting elsewhere goes, no need to structure it as it's hardly the reason people visit Amiga.org regulary but not so trivial as to simply get ridd of... we all have off topic questions sometimes that we want Amigaminded peoples input on.
Merge all Alladin4D subbs into one and possibly make it a sub under one of the Amiga forums such as "Amiga Software Issues and Discussion".
Move "Alternative Operating Systems" from "The Not Quite Amiga but still computer related category" to "Operating System Specific Discussions" and merge "Linux PPC discussion" with it.
Move "Amiga Emulation" from "Not Quite Amiga but still computer related category" to "Amiga computer related discussion".
Merge "CommodoreUSA Amiga" with "Coffee House".
Make "Amiga community support ideas" a sub under "Amiga News and Community Announcements".
That's my 2c
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I'm sure AmigaKit is already regretting posting this thread. ;)
But while we're on it, I'd like to see a forum for new games being released. For example, you've got this great new game, very polished, and what does the link say? "Check it out over on EAB". :(
If they aren't regretting it now, they most likely will. This could get very interesting (was that Maxwell, or some one else).
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I only look at the coffee house to read about electric cars.:)
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I only look at the coffee house to read about electric cars.:)
I own stock in freaking Tesla and I don't even read that crap here. :lol:
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I use the software development sub forums although I've posted in software thinking that was the right place in the past. What I would seriously like, is a wiki of sorts here a.org that served as an Amiga development learning hub. Tutorials and examples for BASIC, C, C++, E and whatever else people are into at the moment.
That is something I could seriously get behind.
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Heh, I am the ultimate C= end user. If it's out there for 8-bit Commies, I'll buy it or demonstrate it or find someone who can do it. I was never a programmer.
Hmm, my A1000's are still going, as are my other Amigas up to the 1200 and 4000.
FCUG celebrating 33 years,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
Commodore 8 bit computers is something I have a heart for and don't mind reading about. I hope others would like a forum here for that too.
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I think if you look at some of the social groups here like FPGA computers and the like, you might find room for some forums that might keep those users around if they are active.
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I think CH/Electric Cars, CH/Immortality, and CH/Quantum computing could be removed and the threads moved into the other Coffee House forums. The Aladdin forums could probably be consolidated from 5 to 1 or 2.
I also only just noticed that there seem to be two (http://www.amiga.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=54) different (http://www.amiga.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=10) "other operating systems" forums that could be consolidated.
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The "Social Groups" can be removed as they haven't been accessed in years -- as long as you save the pictures...
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What I would seriously like, is a wiki of sorts here a.org that served as an Amiga development learning hub. Tutorials and examples for BASIC, C, C++, E and whatever else people are into at the moment.
That is something I could seriously get behind.
I support this brilliant idea!
I got my first computer back in 1986 - it was a CBM 610 (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/CBM-600-Serie#/media/File:Cbm610_klein_01.jpg) (128 kB RAM) that I expanded to an CBM 620 (256 kB). There was near to no software available for it, aside from a word processor.
So I coded on it day and night (CBM Basic 4.0) and finally came up with a sort of GUI for it. It made the use of that machine much more convenient - just a mouse was missing, but I used the arrow- and enter-keys instead to move the cursor around.
I also ported many C64 games that didn't rely on colour and graphics with the help of a ROM cross reference list.
Then I got my first Amiga in 1989 - an A500.
I always wanted to learn how to code for the Amiga, but as there was enough software commercially available, there was no need to learn coding for the Amiga. When you went to a store, there always were hordes of pupils in the electronics section gathering around the Amigas and copying tons of floppy disks with the latest cracked software.
I was so busy with testing the new software titles to see if they are usable that no time was left to learn how to code for the Amiga. Of course I legally bought those titles that turned out to be a "must have" and so have a nice collection of Amiga productivity software today - including last StormC version, some Basic dialects, Hollywood and so on...
But when the NG Amigas came up and when many old software became more and more useless (like e.g. browsers), I started to regret that I never learned to code for the Amiga.
When I tried to, I quickly gave up again, as it turned out to be very time consuming to gather all necessary information on the web without the help of someone experienced. So a central point to get all the necessary information on how a beginner can learn to code for the Amiga (classic & NG) in the different languages would be more than welcome.
Different topic:
What I'm also missing here in the forum at A.org is a way to "mask" links like it is possible e.g. at Amiga-News.De (http://www.amiga-news.de/). At amiga-news.de they have a button on the posting screen that - once clicked - opens an requestor where you can enter the URL and another one to enter the title (e.g. name of the website). This is a very neat feature, as some links can be really long (several lines) and it really makes sense to "mask" them like I did above with "Amiga-News.De".
I also miss buttons for bold, italics and underlined.
Or to enter code that shall get displayed as entered (and not interpreted as html) like I used it here (http://www.amiga-news.de/de/forum/thread.php?id=35632&BoardID=1#367398) to draw a schematics.
Furthermore I miss the large list of emoticons to pick from for use inside a posting. All I can see is a (short) list to pick an emoticon from for the thread title - below the editor window. The list for the use inside postings on the right side (or was it left?) disappeared some years ago...
Such little gimmicks would make posting here much more convenient without having to know html...
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Different topic:
What I'm also missing here in the forum at A.org is a way to "mask" links like it is possible e.g. at Amiga-News.De (http://www.amiga-news.de/). At amiga-news.de they have a button on the posting screen that - once clicked - opens an requestor where you can enter the URL and another one to enter the title (e.g. name of the website). This is a very neat feature, as some links can be really long (several lines) and it really makes sense to "mask" them like I did above with "Amiga-News.De".
I also miss buttons for bold, italics and underlined.
Or to enter code that shall get displayed as entered (and not interpreted as html) like I used it here (http://www.amiga-news.de/de/forum/thread.php?id=35632&BoardID=1#367398) to draw a schematics.
Furthermore I miss the large list of emoticons to pick from for use inside a posting. All I can see is a (short) list to pick an emoticon from for the thread title - below the editor window. The list for the use inside postings on the right side (or was it left?) disappeared some years ago...
Such little gimmicks would make posting here much more convenient without having to know html...
What are you talking about? All these features are available and have been for years. Typing BB code isn't necessary.
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User can select between Basic/Standard/Enhanced Interface in User CP -> Edit Options -> Message Editor Interface. The Basic one is mostly just a text box without any formatting tools.
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User can select between Basic/Standard/Enhanced Interface in User CP -> Edit Options -> Message Editor Interface. The Basic one is mostly just a text box without any formatting tools.
+1. All those features you've requested are already available! :hammer:
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Frankly, I loath change, so I would rather not see ANY changes made to the format of Amiga.org's forums.
That being said, I do tend to avoid going straight to specific forums UNLESS posting.
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Every teardrop is a waterfall!
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User can select between Basic/Standard/Enhanced Interface in User CP -> Edit Options -> Message Editor Interface. The Basic one is mostly just a text box without any formatting tools.
O.K. - thanks - will try that!
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User can select between Basic/Standard/Enhanced Interface in User CP -> Edit Options -> Message Editor Interface. The Basic one is mostly just a text box without any formatting tools.
Yeah - Thanks!
I really just had the basic editor. I never found how to Change it.
I just remembered that it was much better than that before AOrg's owner changed for the first time years ago.
:cool:
I could never figure out how to change it back to the appearance I was used to!
So again - thanks alot!!!