jwatte, without the posts you list, there would be NO posts. If there’s so many off topic posts, why do you bother frequently visiting this forum, and dare I say it, replying to the offtopic/beginners questions?
Mr.Watte,
I apologised for my offtopic post about the quake2 source code as a preface - the topic had OT (ish).
It wasn’t completely offtopic, because I was more concerned with Carmacks use of OpenGL than anything else - it’s frequent contributors that turned it into a c++ vs c debate - that was far from my mind when making my initial post.
Thankfully, I don’t have to apologise to anyone.
I don’t understand why this topic keeps coming up. Why don’t you all just accept the contents of the forum? If you don’t like it, go to Nutty’s forum, or somewhere else. Can’t you get it out of your heads that this is a public forum? And just as people can say what the hell they like in a public bar, so they can say what the hell they like here. God knows why you select few think you’ve got the right to say what and what not should appear here. If a moderator was appointed, and he/she decided that jwatte spouted a load of rubbish (basically, if they didn’t agree with his opinion, or right to express it), would you find that unfair?
The “OpenGL Advanced” title is a general guideline to the topics on discussion, not a bloody dictate.
Seeing the growing number of off-topic and beginers posts here, I asked myself “what’s an advanced OpenGL question ?” Quick answer : a question about an advanced feature of OpenGL. Now, what would you ask about an advanced feature? Chances are you will ask about the functionnality, which is API independant (it is a concept, like “what is cube mapping good for?”, “can I use dependent texture reads to do this or that?”, or whatever you like). If you ask about the API itslef, the answer is 99% of the time in the spec, or in the numerous demos posted on IHVs’ developers sites. The 1% left is when the spec is ambiguous, or when an implementation has a bug and produce incorrect results.
kehziah,
of course a lot of the information is in spec files and all over the net for that matter.
By that logic, you dont need to go to school. Just sit at home and read all you can.
This is a place for meeting and for discussion by people who have a good quantity of experience with GL (and if you want to include math, 3D graphics in general, that’s fine IMO).
Some people cross the line and they obviously dont belong here.
Originally posted by kieranatwork:
I don’t understand why this topic keeps coming up. Why don’t you all just accept the contents of the forum? If you don’t like it, go to Nutty’s forum, or somewhere else. Can’t you get it out of your heads that this is a public forum? And just as people can say what the hell they like in a public bar, so they can say what the hell they like here.
And just like a public bar. Others can beat you up for hitting on their girlfriend, making fun of their mother, spilling beer on them, peeing on the toilet seat, smoking in their face.
To continue with the horrible analogy. Nutty invites you to his house party.
PK
Originally posted by knackered:
jwatte, without the posts you list, there would be NO posts. If there’s so many off topic posts, why do you bother frequently visiting this forum, and dare I say it, replying to the offtopic/beginners questions?
Please lay off jwatte. His posts to this board and others round the net are intelligent, insightful, and much appreciated.
PK
I’m sorry, but I don’t post here very often anymore … when I did It was for an answer to a specific question, or maybe (?) help someone.
It seems to me that this forum has gedenerated into nothing more than an ego match between all you ‘experts’. Maybe I’m wrong … but this is a public forum where all opinions should count. Ok - a degree of moderation should be here - although it should be restricted to moving posts to the proper forum, or removing idiots like C++. Other than that, I’d say leave it alone.
I don’t post here often, but I read it all the bloody time, and I’m quite pleased with it.
To break up the format of this forum would be a bigger sin. Thgis is the only place where you can get a truly expert opion on certain subjects. And if you decide to go elsewhere, it would be a bigger shame for OpenGL.
Regards
I didn’t actually make a value judgement in my post. (Though it’s illuminating to see how differently some other posters reads it 
Personally I find the OpenGL advanced forum fine. As nice and organized as Nutty’s forum is, I prefer the simplicity of just quickly browsing the main page, see if there are any interesting topics, and moving on if nothing peaks my interest.
Having to dig down into subtopics doesn’t give me the sense of community, It actually seems to dilute it.
As far as Trolls are concerned you guys should just not respond.
Heath.
Originally posted by jwatte:
1. Collision Testing
Actually it wasn’t intended to be a “Collision” detection post at all, rather it was meant to be similar to a post I remember titled “Shameless plug”. So I’ve made a note in my post to that effect…
Other than that, I agree with jon. As for “why do we care what people post” I ask “why don’t we just have 1 global forum where everyone discusses everything…?”
The reason there would be “No” posts without the 10 (ahem 9 
) jon mentioned is probably the reason the number of posts on the OPENGL-GAMEDEV mailing list appears to have increased…
Spliting advanced/beginners up to 5 forums would cause HUGE jumping every time I wanted to JUST READ all the recent topics. I think the Nutty’s forum is split too much. But it would be nice to have:
“Super-newbies” forum, with questions like how can I create window with GLUT 
, WTF is glColor3f etc.
“Intermediate” all the standartized OGL 1.4 things MultiTexturing, extension loading, syntax for some semi intermediate stuff etc.
“And GL Gods forum” shaders, vbo’s, creative ideas etc.
Otherwise if I have beginer question like how glTextureCoordPointers ar specified for multitexturing, I just won’t get answer at beginners forum, but that’s 1000000000 miles to advanced too 
Originally posted by rgpc:
Other than that, I agree with jon. As for “why do we care what people post” I ask “why don’t we just have 1 global forum where everyone discusses everything…?”
“We”? This isn’t your forum, this isn’t my forum - this is just a forum set up on opengl.org’s server. You have no more say in what is posted here than c++. If you want to influence posts on a forum, set your own up and moderate it yourself.
In the meantime - forget all this and get on with some work!
Originally posted by kieranatwork:
“We”? This isn’t your forum, this isn’t my forum …
Good on you…
Why do guys like C++ represent a problem? Because lots of users here reply to really stupid topics like ‘DirectX->Direct3D’. Just ignore posts like these and lame posters like C++ will give up (eventually).
In my personal opinion, the best way to do it would be to have the moderated version be topic-moderated (in that all new topics have to be approved), but post-open (in that anyone can post anything they want to any topic.) I think that’s the best of both worlds.
I guess everything beginners need is somewhere in “search”, but that ain’t funny
By the way, Im absolutely agree with "kansler"s words. Im not your problem. Your problem is those who posting even if theme is exhausted. For example, why you still posting to here? Or you dont see that this topic isn`t “OpenGL advanced”?
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r u l33t/ 1 m l33t.