I’m starting to think that a moderated Advanced forum would be a good thing, and not just to block spam and off-topic posts.
Moderated forums tend to have a quite a long delay between the time you submit a post and the time it actually appears. The good thing about that it that the forum ceases to be seen as a quick panacea - if you know you’re not going to get a response for several hours, you’re much more likely to try alternatives like Google or the Beginners forum. It tends to limit posts to problems that really can’t be solved anywhere else.
It also encourages people to phrase their questions as clearly as possible, to reduce read-modify-write cycles. I get very annoyed by vague one-line questions couched in the poster’s own private jargon, where they clearly couldn’t be bothered to spend more than 10 seconds asking the question, but expect someone to spend half an hour deciphering it and addressing each of the possible interpretations. Today’s “OpenGL Corruption?” thread is a great example of how questions should be asked - clear, detailed, with demonstrations and notes and context - but many people won’t put this effort in without encouragement.
The downside of moderated boards is that, because of the timelag, easy questions tend to get answered by a string of 20 identical replies before the first one becomes visible. You see this a lot on forums like comp.lang.c++.moderated. Combined with a moderation block on “easy” questions, though, this shouldn’t be too much of an issue.
And we desperately need a FAQ, clearly linked to from every page.
Originally posted by Humus:
[b]How I would have replied:
“I don’t think this forum is the most appropriate for a question like this, but if you’re looking for a depth sorting algorithm you may want to look into BSP trees.”
Note that neither of the replies took significantly more time to write, I gave him a starting point for further investigation.
I do think that (besides less aggressive replies to offtopic questions) additional forums should be added as Won suggested, like
General programming
General 3d and algorithms
Math
3D Hardware
3D Software
etc.[/b]
I don’t agree with you. If you answer his question, or just give him a hint, he will put a new off topic question every time he wants. He will ignore the first part of the sentence “I don’t think this forum is the most appropriate for a question like this…” the same way he is ignoring that this is an OpenGL coding advanced forum.
Same way, there are some forums, mailing lists, newsgroups about general programming, algorithms, maths, … Many times, people have included links to them the same way they have suggested using google.
I propose another ‘constructive’ way of solving the increasing problem of off-topics, beginners, etc. It is to create a common answer to those people. Something like:
“This is an OpenGL advanced coding forum. Your question is more suitable to other forums http://www.flipcode.com/forumshttp://www.gamedev.net/community/forums https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gdalgorithms-listhttp://www.midnightryder.com/article.php3?story_id=148
You can also try this FAQs, info and tutorials. http://nehe.gamedev.net/opengl1.asphttp://www.realtimerendering.com
comp.graphics.algorithms FAQ
…
And put it as the ONLY answer to those threads/questions.
We can create a thread to create this answer so the people can suggest a small list of links to include. (And create it by someone that writes good English, not like me).
What do you think?
Sorry for calling you braindead. You must be lazy. I’m now involved in an argument that I don’t have time to be involved in, and may be considered juvenile…but I can’t resist.
Now, I have to admit that the responses I gave to the guy with the “plane in front of plane” question (titled “Z-buffer”, which just begs to be clicked, don’t you think?) got a little aggressive after a while - it’s just that using hardware to solve a problem should be the last resort, and I remember when we wouldn’t have even considered it as a solution, in the days of software rasterizers.
Maybe a better response to these posts would be to tell people to title the topics in a more thoughtful way - I mean “Z-buffer” is going to waste a lot of peoples time, as its very general.
AngryGLFan,
You are doing it again. You are looking from your perspective and not from this forum one. “just don’t understand how people are so unwilling to help” And, what about you? Do you think you and other people with beginners, off-topic and repeated questions are helping this forum?
“If you guys don’t want these questions on the board, point the people who post them to the information they want and maybe they won’t need your help anymore”. Do you think it? Or do they come back to ask more off-topic questions?
“But Jambolo and Humus have restored my faith in Human-kind… If everyone is so interested in OpenGL and it’s developement, why aren’t you interested in the spread of it’s use? … Stop complaining about other people, and lend your fellow man a hand…” You use too much demagoguery.
I agree there is alot of non opengl posts going on in here recently. Just looking at the list now, the number of OT posts is huge.
Thats why I feel my presence here is diminishing quickly, as I just can’t be bothered wading through all the crap to find interesting stuff on OpenGL.
It’s quite saddening that ppl can’t be arsed to try and sort something out for themselves. THAT IS what programming is! Solving problems with an implementation!
But nowadays ppl just want someone to do everything for them, and to cut n paste the answer into their code.
I think a moderated board would be very good. Perhaps vote on certain frequent contributers, and perhaps give them privelages to remove OT posts. I dont want a situation where posts need to approved 1st, as this would take alot of time, and would tie up someones precious time un-neccasarily.
Plus I enjoy the fact that ppl do respond quickly on here.
But someone with the power to delete OT posts and extremly beginners questions might be good. It would surely discourage the posting of crap knowing your post would probably get deleted.
Provided of course, that the power is used wisely, and they dont go deleting anything they deem OT and too simple, when it might be valid.
I’m gobsmacked this post has received this much attention!
I assume everyone else has a smile on there face while reading the nonesense that’s been said so far. Perhaps the words ‘Frequent Contributor’ should be changed to ‘Get A Life’.
Anyway … we all get annoyed with extremely inappropriate topics. How many of you have jumped to google, typed a couple of keywords from a post, and pasted a URL back in here? Most I’d imagine. And it’s downright ludicrous to have to do that. BUT, if it stops a thread in it’s tracks maybe it’s a worthwhile thing.
As to the idea of turning this into a moderated forum … that sucks - the beauty of this forum is that generally you get very quick, informative, replies. This gives it a certain personal touch, which is worth keeping.
Maybe designating a few moderators with the power to delete cross posts, or move posts to the appropriate forum wouldn’t be such a bad idea though.
EDIT - Just to keep it kind of on (off) topic.
AngryGLfan … this is actually an extremely helpful forum - by far the best. All that is asked is that you respect what it stands for. No more, no less. And you’re original post really didn’t do you any favours. You claimed that was your first post - so how in the hell do you know so much about the attitude of people in here?
Regards
PS … a moderator would have to allow the occasional little gem to stay … such as ‘game download’, posted by wf
[This message has been edited by Shag (edited 03-10-2002).]
AngryGL Fan, Please understand that cross-posting IS annoying. I often check out the beginners forum first to sort out some answers to people who are struggling, but when you then go to the advanced forum to see exactly the same question you’ve just answered, posted there as well, it starts to get on your nerves.
The worst thing that then happens is when they ask a silly question, and get an answer that doesn’t sort out their troubles, they then decide to post again on both forums. Why? Whats the point in starting numerous threads when one would have done? If your question wasn’t fully answered the first time, re-post to the same thread and elaborate on the problem. Chances are it will be solved quickly and easily whilst giving you more knowledge on the subject than you had expected.
Starting numerous threads implies impatience, one of the worst characteristics for a programmer. A good programmer should never get upset at any problem, it should only become a bigger challenge for you to overcome - It is the way that you learn!
You can immediately tell if someone is not willing to take a small amount of time and effort to research and understand a problem.
You wouldn’t ask a car mechanic how to open the boot of your car (trunk to the americans) without first attempting to find it on your own. Asking him 4 times in a row is not going to make him answer quicker, it’s only prone to making him quite annoyed to the point that he either throws some verbal abuse in your direction, or doesn’t answer at all. The same applies to a seasoned programmer…
Zak McKrakem:
You’re right. I am doing it again. But this post is helping the forum. Look at all the (positive) responses it’s gotten. And as far as all the ‘demagoguery’, it’s just how I feel. I generally don’t like people; that’s probably why I enjoy programming so much. That’s why I said that those two had “restored my faith in Human-kind”, because most of the time I have no faith in Humans.
Shag:
Simply because that was my first post doesn’t mean that I don’t look around the forums. I admit that I’m not a seasoned veterans of these forums, but, more often than not, the replies I’ve seen have been rather negetive.
I don’t mean to sound silly, but I’m actually proud of everyone who has replied to my post. Even the people who flamed me at first posted again with reasonable responses. Not only reasonable, but helpful.
I’ve begun to feel that my original post was a little hasteful. Not that I didn’t mean what I said, but because I didn’t understand the semantics of forums. I apologize again for the off topic, but I just found that behavior completely frustrating. But many of you have explained, in a reasonable manner, why these things are frustrating to you and even provided suggestions. That, to me, is fantastic. I feel that my point was made and actually considered. I admit that my posting has absolutely nothing to do with OpenGL, or even forum ediquite in general. I sometimes have a problem NOT helping people, and it often irritates me when people not only don’t want to help, but feel threatened at the very concept (I say this not to continue flaming, just to continue to explain myself). I had promised myself that I wouldn’t post further, but I couldn’t help myself. I am very greatful at the level of response, and I hope at least a few people actually take a few more positive approaches than I’ve seen before.
Well, I’m starting to says things that even I want to beat people up for. So maybe I should stop. Thanks again for the response, it’s actually been quite uplifting.
P.S.
One beginner question and then I’m off to the beginner forums (I promise. You guys won’t see me until I have a graphics card that isn’t 5 yrs. old). What’s all this talk about google? Do you just mean google.com? And if so, any particular area within the site? I’ve been there, and it just seems like another search engine to me.
Originally posted by Korval: Being a jerk just because, for example, you don’t like VisualBasic and someone is trying to make an OpenGL binding for it, is an entirely different matter; that is inappropriate.
That was me, I guess. But don’t forget that this somebody also posted the same question four times under different names, on both the beginners and the advanced boards. Make that eight threads. That’s annoying. The same question has in the meantime popped up on the ‘Suggestions for the next release of OpenGL’ board. Even more annoying. Apart from the occasional expression of my personal attitude towards using VB for 3D graphics programming, I gave out suggestions to solving the problem, heck, I even got a few "thank you"s out of that so it can’t be that bad. But lately, after the sheer amount of multiple threads I started to get the impression that this somebody doesn’t quite understand that OpenGL writing stuff to memory and VB interpreting the data are two distinct things. And it’s seriously challenging to me, to say the least, to deal with that kind of stuff here without ticking off.
Originally posted by angryGLfan: One beginner question and then I’m off to the beginner forums (I promise. You guys won’t see me until I have a graphics card that isn’t 5 yrs. old). What’s all this talk about google? Do you just mean google.com? And if so, any particular area within the site? I’ve been there, and it just seems like another search engine to me.
And Google is not just ‘another search engine’
The allmighty Google gives you everything what you are searching for, not a few sh!tty advertised links and more or less usable links at the end of the page(s).
Just try it, and discover that you can virtually find anything with Google
Google rulez, not only for OpenGL stuff, but for anything you’re searching for.
You can even search on a specific website with Google.
Another great feature of Google are it’s cached links (little ‘cache’ word under every link)
When a website, document or whatever doesn’t exist anymore, you can just browse the cached link!
Personally, I just LOVE this feature, really.
Also, you can view Word DOC and PDF files straight from Google by pressing the ‘HTML version’ link… Cool!
If you’re looking for more help with Google, you could have a look at the Google Help Pages ™ which you can find by going to the Google Sewch Tips, uh-hah-hah-hah (sorry, about the uh-hah-hah-hah, that’s just my default language when using Google )
[/friendlymode]
[This message has been edited by richardve (edited 03-10-2002).]
yeah. TRY GOOGLE
its really THE source for any math/programming/physics-problem EXISTING…
and… learn to know the other pages…
most of the google-links about math-topics (related to 3d) points to information on flipcode for example…
you can have google in ie as toolbar so you can use it whenever you don’t know something… 90% of the stuff i needed during last months i’ve found in google… for school, for programming, for math, for whattheheck
Hey you forgot to mention the language preferences of Google! … Complete with pig latin, 1337, Klingon and even Elmer Fudd!!..
On a serious note… How hard would it be to add some sort of voting functionality? So you need X number of votes for it to be deemed as off-topic and then gets put into a OffTopic forum for a couple of days?
Originally posted by Nutty:
[b]I think a moderated board would be very good. Perhaps vote on certain frequent contributers, and perhaps give them privelages to remove OT posts. I dont want a situation where posts need to approved 1st, as this would take alot of time, and would tie up someones precious time un-neccasarily.
…
Provided of course, that the power is used wisely, and they dont go deleting anything they deem OT and too simple, when it might be valid.
What does anyone else think?
Nutty[/b]
I think it would be good. But, how can we select a couple of people to do it? First, they should be volunteers and then we need to know that they are good to do it. And them, the web owner (OpenGL ARB?) should allow them to do it.
Can you try to get in contact with him/them to see what they think? Probably, they have something to say.
Originally posted by robert: Hey you forgot to mention the language preferences of Google! … Complete with pig latin, 1337, Klingon and even Elmer Fudd!!..
[friendly hugmode]
Hi robert,
If you would have taken a little more of your precious time to read my previous post you would have noticed that I already told him about the Google languages
I don’t want to add to the debate about OT posts. Suffice to say that I agree with most of the “Frequent Contributors” who expressed their views.
On the matter of having one or more (that’s probably better !) moderators (to move/delete posts, NOT approve them in the first place !), I think this is a really good idea: shouldn’t we contact the webmaster to ask whether this is possible (coz’ he might just say “go away” and then there’s no point debating the idea !) ?
If this happens, I just hope that before deleting something, the moderators will talk between themselves to make sure that this is a wise move…
Anyway, thanks for your topic angryGLfan (it could push things forward a bit ).
Originally posted by Zak McKrakem: I think it would be good. But, how can we select a couple of people to do it? First, they should be volunteers and then we need to know that they are good to do it. And them, the web owner (OpenGL ARB?) should allow them to do it.
Can you try to get in contact with him/them to see what they think? Probably, they have something to say.
Volunteers are no problem.
[friendly hugmode]
And if you had taken some friendly time to watch the front page, all the way down, you could have seen the one and only email for sending questions and other friendly stuff about this site: webmaster@opengl.org
[/friendly hugmode]
(ehm… and just for the record… I am NOT gay, as some of you might think after reading my replies from today )
Google is not advanced opengl. The specs for google are freely available on the web - use a seach engine such as dogpile to find them.
Now back to my question on register combiners…just what exactly is “Per-pixel bumpmapping”? Describe in words, without pictures (ascii or non-ascii) please.
… Complete with pig latin, 1337, Klingon and even Elmer Fudd!!..