Thing I find so passively odd is the fact the old regulars of A.org are just sitting back, reading this completely unrelated talking head BS from C-USA (nothing related to the Amiga in the least other than a licensing agreement) and not saying a word, while the site is losing any Amiga content in favor of this troll crap that's got nothing to do with the platform we love.
These people are guys that could be giving advice to some kid having problems with a floppy drive on an A500 he dragged out from a boot sale. These are guys that could be giving coding tips to some guy fighting with his first coding project. These dudes are guys that could be helping some guy that's got a bad display on an old A2000 he put away 15 years ago, but I fear (and in some cases I outright know) people are avoiding the place like the plague due to the propaganda machine.
Instead, I get the feeling the regulars see threads like all this BS spam and just say "screw it, this place isn't worth it" and go elsewhere. They see the front page and "news" posts, and it's mostly garbage having nothing to do with the Amiga. Linux x86 machines that do not even come with an emulator have NOTHING to do with the Amiga - nothing. The fact that the people spamming it are grossly abusive is 10x worse yet, but man - I get a chuckle out of seeing guys like Franko get banned for having a weird sense of humor while this clown show still goes on...
Am I proposing censorship? Never. Am I suggesting that the place shouldn't be a dumping zone for people with personal agendas, trying to make us "see the light"? I sure am. There is a balance, and right now it's horribly out of whack. Amiga.org ain't much of an Amiga site lately.
Right now, some kid is digging an old Amiga out of a relatives closet, having no clue how the thing works, but he's damned curious about it, and he'll need community help to get it going. Right now, someone is having a cold beer, reflecting fondly about a computer they used 20 years ago, and he's looking around on the web, checking out AROS, MOS, OS4 and the FPGA solutions.
All will eventually stumble upon A.org - I hope. Unfortunately, all the "hot button" topics here are essentially free press of a commodity PC vendor selling Linux PC's.
That is a shame.
Wildstar, if you are trying to gauge "success" in sales in a niche market, a market that has been thriving for 20 years off grassroots businesses and inventive people. The Jens S's, the AmigaKit/Vesalia/etc guys, the FPGA guys, the MOS guys, the AROS guys, etc.
NONE will ever get rich off selling what they sell to us. It is a hobby market. They know this. I know this. Everyone knows this. It's not about "progress" and "the buck", it's about having a hobby you enjoy. If you quantify "success" with millions of dollars in sales a year in a hobby community, you are a fool.
We come to Amiga.org to spend time with like minded people that enjoy their hobby - whether it be legacy, PPC, AROS. Everyone has their own definition of what the Amiga is, and far be it from me to force my opinions of that on anyone, and I use all the Amiga platforms anyways.
No one comes to A.org to get spammed by zealots pushing Linux powered x86 product on them in an insulting fashion. No one. No one is here to listen to people drone on incessantly that the x86 platform won 20 years ago. We knew that 20 years ago.
We are here to lend support and good conversation to other people using Amiga variants, and other than a licensing agreement and a sticker/etching, there's nothing Amiga about the C-USA Amiga platform. Not a thing, not even an emulator. If you want to make it into some issue that people here have some sort of witch hunt towards C-USA, go nuts. The day they put out anything Amiga related that goes past case badging is the day they have relevance to the community here.
Their offerings simply have zero relevance at all at this time here, in my books.
People are leaving due to the lack of topical content here, I guess if people want to watch it happen to A.org, there's other Amiga friendly portals on the web that don't pander to entirely unrelated products/companies. Page views won't keep this ship afloat in the long run (A.org).
Wildstar, not sure what your deal is. One minute you seem perfectly capable of having a civil discussion, the next minute it's personal insults like:
"I am not under his control. So please stop spreading such false accusations. That is the problem with you guys. Either you never completed 3rd grade or you guys have some serioius psychological issues. Did you dose too much drugs, lsd, etc. During the 80s and that is why you are so screwed up."
It's reprehensible and childish - either be productive or don't post, before even more people leave this place due to this tripe. Your perceived freedom of speech here doesn't give you the right to make personal insults and grade school slurs.
