Let's clear the air (split from the suggestion thread again)

[palmertech]

I will be pissed if the trading post goes away. For example, look at the recent hotel64 thread; It has lots of good info, and is the ONLY thread on the WHOLE INTERNET that gives an idea of the things worth. Plus, what use is feedback if there is no proof behind it? Look at all the cool stuff, the crazy deal, the haggling, the valuable info; The trading post forum is extremely valuable.

As for the rest, you guys know where I stand as far as fixing this forum.

[bicostp]

Yes we know you want to split the community by staging a coup against the current staff through convincing people move over to your own forum where you and your buddies are in charge but nothing else is really all that different, instead of voicing your concerns and opinions so we actually know about them because we're not psychic.

[palmertech]

Actually... I was not gonna rant, but this seems like an invite.

Here is what needs to happen here:

1. Ben needs to actually be somewhat active. He does not even bother to post his finished 360 laptops in the news forum anymore, and us active members rarely know he has done anything new until the forums slow down and we guess he must have done something. If you own a forum, and want to remain at least a little relevant, then actually spend some time on them. What would it take you? A forced 20 minutes a day? Heck (pun!), 20 minutes a WEEK would do fine!

2. The errors in Ben's tutorials and in his book need to be addressed. Even if he cannot fix them, he needs a warning on his book page, or at the very least a sticky somewhere on the forum that explains all the errors, and how to fix them. In addition, all his old tutorials on his site are embarrassing in that they tell people to wire up LEDs with a 10 ohm LED. Sorry, but even a simple LED calculate website can tell you otherwise, and continuing to tell people in the most read part of the site (for visitors) to drive LEDs that way is absurd.

3. Reference section? Stupid idea, not many people wanted it when it was brought up (Yet it was still made anyways, and it is still a bad idea. Sure, removing the idea that every single thing had to be approved by a mod is a step in the right direction, but that limitation was pretty brain-dead to start, IMHO. A several section deep reference forum is NOT a good way to organize the info, and with the forums having a useless search function, it will only get worse as it gets bigger. Sure, a wiki is good, but see my next few points.

4. You guys need a wiki. Great, you have one now; I have been setting up mine for a while, and have a good chunk of stuff in it, and it will be online as soon as I can get my current IRL issues worked out.

5. When people have suggested stuff in the past, it is either ignored, locked, or shot down. Why are you guys making a wiki now? There have been many, many threads that suggest one in the past, and the mods are all to quick to shoot it down (I, for one, was a supporter in those threads). Do I really need to go quote you mods shooting down the idea of a new wiki? An explanation of why exactly you changed from your holy grail reference section to a wiki? What of all the arguments you made for why it is superior? Why will the wiki be good now?

5. I like a lot of mods here, most of them in fact. But childish things like making a Bacteria hate club is stupid, and makes you guys seem immature; I know Bacteria can be abrasive, and that you guys hate him, but making/joining a hate club against a member who has, at least in the past few years, FAR exceeded not just Ben, but ANY member here, PERIOD, in usefulness, guides, progress logs, and guiding new people, is beyond childish. It works you guys in the opposite direction, and alienates someone who is the most useful person on the forum for no reason other than that he irritates you personally. I suggest here in your feedback thread that the mods stop pulling crap like that, and issue a formal, public apology, instead of covering it up and trying to keep it private when the hate sigs went in the opposite direction.

6. The benheck forums has an absurdly harsh definition of flaming. I may have gone over the line sometimes by resorting to personal insults, but they VAST majority of the time, I simply point out facts and ask questions. If those put people in a bad spot, fine; But if people lie, and others can put them in their place with facts, then let it be! It is a far better approach than issuing warnings, locking, and worst of all, DELETING threads. And you know what? A fair bit of this is not just bad judgment on the part of the moderation, it is deliberate action taken by the mods on the request of the liar/offender. I have seen people post "Ha, your post does not even matter, I am having this thread deleted anyways!", and actually get it done, most likely because they are "buddies" with a mod. This has happened in threads that deserved a lock, threads that did not, and ones in between. I have also seen people tell lies, insult me, then when I reply, his, and my reply will be deleted, and the rest of the thread intact. And when I post again to complain? That has vanished, too. There needs to be a very, very clear cut definition of "flaming", and when mods edit or delete posts in a thread, they should say why, and have it signed with the username of the mods, instead of hiding in the shadows. Also, LOCK threads. Deletion should be for spam, and not much else; Even as a mod, who are you to decide if something is worth discussing? Lock it, fine, but leave it there for future reference. If a thread is locked, the maker should be told WHY, and if someone PMs asking why a thread was locked, they should be told, not have the PM read and ignored. This means no locking a thread with no explanation, then ignoring queries on it. Or, worse, continuing to post your own opinions in it, or, cockily and without explanation for the lock, saying things along the lines of "hehehlolol, I totally take creditz for locking this."

6. I will admit I lack access to full traffic records for the forum, and exactly how much ad revenue is made off them. But in my opinion, if the modders are doing all the work, posting all the tuts, mods, and finished portables that bring this site most of it's traffic, how come Ben gets to sit on his ass and reap the rewards? Why not actually give some of that ad revenue back to the very people that make this site worth anything, rather than reaping it all with little effort. You reap what you sow, and not much is being sown here. Since this is prolly my biggest beef, check out my all bold text to make the TL;DR people read this part: While modretro does not have an ads system currently in place, once it does, half of any ad revenue from the mods people do will go straight to the modders. In addition, a large chunk of the rest will go towards official contests that have ACTUAL prizes, rather than bits and bobs donated by generous individuals. This is not a new idea, there are other sites where you get paid for your work, such as Metacafe. If this is gonna be called advertising, then strike me where I stand. I was asked for feedback, and I gave an improvement that I am actually trying to implement in the same way other sites have before. If you want to ignore this, delete this, hide this, or refute this, there is no power in my hands; If it is, however, it will only serve to convince me that it would benefit others if it were.

I have other beefs, a whole load of them, but those are the ones I am dealing out right now. Hopefully you will see that my moves are not just a power grab, as you seem to put it. It was a calculated move, and I am not a "sellout". My goal is not to kill these forums, make you guys lose face, or any such thing; It is to benefit the portabilizing community as a whole, operating with fresh faces, a united front in terms of moderators, a better organized forum, and a system that actually gives people a REASON to mod, or, if they have the drive already, the funds needed to mod. Often, modders build and sell at a loss. If they have a small source of money from the last mod, they will do more! Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

Any feedback?

[Bibin]

all his old tutorials on his site are embarrassing in that they tell people to wire up LEDs with a 10 ohm LED. Sorry, but even a simple LED calculate website can tell you otherwise

I hate to do this, but you made an error while correcting his error - I think you meant to say 10 ohm resistor

Otherwise, yeah, quote from the book of truth. Not the one with the magic sky dude and that cool guy with super powers but that one with chips and boards and stuff.

[Triton]

1. Ben needs to actually be somewhat active. He does not even bother to post his finished 360 laptops in the news forum anymore, and us active members rarely know he has done anything new until the forums slow down and we guess he must have done something. If you own a forum, and want to remain at least a little relevant, then actually spend some time on them. What would it take you? A forced 20 minutes a day? Heck (pun!), 20 minutes a WEEK would do fine!

This forum is more about the hobby that ben started than what ben is doing right now, personally i dont CARE, bens a cool guy and all but he does his own thing, we do ours.

2. The errors in Ben's tutorials and in his book need to be addressed. Even if he cannot fix them, he needs a warning on his book page, or at the very least a sticky somewhere on the forum that explains all the errors, and how to fix them. In addition, all his old tutorials on his site are embarrassing in that they tell people to wire up LEDs with a 10 ohm LED. Sorry, but even a simple LED calculate website can tell you otherwise, and continuing to tell people in the most read part of the site (for visitors) to drive LEDs that way is absurd.

agreed more or less

3. Reference section? Stupid idea, not many people wanted it when it was brought up (Yet it was still made anyways, and it is still a bad idea. Sure, removing the idea that every single thing had to be approved by a mod is a step in the right direction, but that limitation was pretty brain-dead to start, IMHO. A several section deep reference forum is NOT a good way to organize the info, and with the forums having a useless search function, it will only get worse as it gets bigger. Sure, a wiki is good, but see my next few points.
5. When people have suggested stuff in the past, it is either ignored, locked, or shot down. Why are you guys making a wiki now? There have been many, many threads that suggest one in the past, and the mods are all to quick to shoot it down (I, for one, was a supporter in those threads). Do I really need to go quote you mods shooting down the idea of a new wiki? An explanation of why exactly you changed from your holy grail reference section to a wiki? What of all the arguments you made for why it is superior? Why will the wiki be good now?

Please feel free to post links to threads we locked because we didnt like their sugestion.

5. I like a lot of mods here, most of them in fact. But childish things like making a Bacteria hate club is stupid, and makes you guys seem immature; I know Bacteria can be abrasive, and that you guys hate him, but making/joining a hate club against a member who has, at least in the past few years, FAR exceeded not just Ben, but ANY member here, PERIOD, in usefulness, guides, progress logs, and guiding new people, is beyond childish. It works you guys in the opposite direction, and alienates someone who is the most useful person on the forum for no reason other than that he irritates you personally. I suggest here in your feedback thread that the mods stop pulling crap like that, and issue a formal, public apology, instead of covering it up and trying to keep it private when the hate sigs went in the opposite direction.

The mod team had NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT, in fact bacteria came to us, me specifically about the issue. we did our best to address his concerns but he got impatient and childish and pitched a fit about it in public when it easily could have been handled with discretion in a mature manner. Im not going to get into this topic on the forum.

6. The benheck forums has an absurdly harsh definition of flaming. I may have gone over the line sometimes by resorting to personal insults, but they VAST majority of the time, I simply point out facts and ask questions. If those put people in a bad spot, fine; But if people lie, and others can put them in their place with facts, then let it be! It is a far better approach than issuing warnings, locking, and worst of all, DELETING threads. And you know what? A fair bit of this is not just bad judgment on the part of the moderation, it is deliberate action taken by the mods on the request of the liar/offender. I have seen people post "Ha, your post does not even matter, I am having this thread deleted anyways!", and actually get it done, most likely because they are "buddies" with a mod. This has happened in threads that deserved a lock, threads that did not, and ones in between. I have also seen people tell lies, insult me, then when I reply, his, and my reply will be deleted, and the rest of the thread intact. And when I post again to complain? That has vanished, too. There needs to be a very, very clear cut definition of "flaming", and when mods edit or delete posts in a thread, they should say why, and have it signed with the username of the mods, instead of hiding in the shadows. Also, LOCK threads. Deletion should be for spam, and not much else; Even as a mod, who are you to decide if something is worth discussing? Lock it, fine, but leave it there for future reference. If a thread is locked, the maker should be told WHY, and if someone PMs asking why a thread was locked, they should be told, not have the PM read and ignored. This means no locking a thread with no explanation, then ignoring queries on it. Or, worse, continuing to post your own opinions in it, or, cockily and without explanation for the lock, saying things along the lines of "hehehlolol, I totally take creditz for locking this."

Im going to ignore your obvious bias in this and say simply that we do NOT have that strict of a definition of flaming, if you post material intended to instigate conflict or for the sole purpose of harassing somebody it will be edited/removed, we dont need that kind of garbage on our forum. And frankly i am insulted that you seem to think all of us mods just do crap for our own self intrest and for our friends, what would we have to gain from that? we do this job because we were ASKED TO. we get no compensation for doing it and i think we do a damn good job all things considered.

6. I will admit I lack access to full traffic records for the forum, and exactly how much ad revenue is made off them. But in my opinion, if the modders are doing all the work, posting all the tuts, mods, and finished portables that bring this site most of it's traffic, how come Ben gets to sit on his ass and reap the rewards? Why not actually give some of that ad revenue back to the very people that make this site worth anything, rather than reaping it all with little effort. You reap what you sow, and not much is being sown here. Since this is prolly my biggest beef, check out my all bold text to make the TL;DR people read this part: While modretro does not have an ads system currently in place, once it does, half of any ad revenue from the mods people do will go straight to the modders. In addition, a large chunk of the rest will go towards official contests that have ACTUAL prizes, rather than bits and bobs donated by generous individuals. This is not a new idea, there are other sites where you get paid for your work, such as Metacafe. If this is gonna be called advertising, then strike me where I stand. I was asked for feedback, and I gave an improvement that I am actually trying to implement in the same way other sites have before. If you want to ignore this, delete this, hide this, or refute this, there is no power in my hands; If it is, however, it will only serve to convince me that it would benefit others if it were.

if ben makes ANY real revenue from the ads and stuff on this forum it would be a big supprise to me, and if he makes any it sure isnt much, how exactly do you intend to redistribute this so called "wealth" which more than likely comes out to tens of dollars a month at most

I have other beefs, a whole load of them, but those are the ones I am dealing out right now. Hopefully you will see that my moves are not just a power grab, as you seem to put it. It was a calculated move, and I am not a "sellout". My goal is not to kill these forums, make you guys lose face, or any such thing; It is to benefit the portabilizing community as a whole, operating with fresh faces, a united front in terms of moderators, a better organized forum, and a system that actually gives people a REASON to mod, or, if they have the drive already, the funds needed to mod. Often, modders build and sell at a loss. If they have a small source of money from the last mod, they will do more! Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

yes because splitting the community in twain, pissing in the face of the people who keep these forums operating somewhat smoothly and basically flat out insulting us is SO TOTALLY GOING TO HELP. its a freaking hobby not a for profit business venture, if you dont do it for the fun of doing it then dont bother, its not our fault if somebody cant afford to. all this post really is is you crowing about how biased and unfair and mean the mod team on this forum is while pushing your own agenda

This forum was started as a place for people interested in building portables to talk about the things they work on, share information and improve the quality of their work. we are TRYING to improve the quality of this forum by making changes and ASKING YOU, THE USER for input and all you can do is crap all over us and give us crap about how bad of a job we are doing. what kind of message does that send to the other users on this forum? other than painting the mod team in an entirely negative light for your own purposes. not only is that behavior and attitude counterproductive its just immature and childish.

[vskid]

5. I like a lot of mods here, most of them in fact. But childish things like making a Bacteria hate club is stupid, and makes you guys seem immature

I agree, that group was immature, but you are wrong on one major point. Only one mod (as far as I know) ever had the image in his sig, and promptly removed it when asked. I didn't even know what the image meant until that thread that had all the stuff about it and the creation of new "hate" groups. I'm sure that not many outside of the bacteria hate group knew either.
Everyone is entitled an opinion. If I dislike someone, its because I have good reason to, and its not easy to change my mind. I don't let it impair my judgment. Its called tolerance. There are always going to be people that you dislike. You have to learn to deal with it.

While modretro does not have an ads system currently in place, once it does, half of any ad revenue from the mods people do will go straight to the modders.

A good idea in theory. But then there's reality. How would you decide who gets paid? Paying per post would encourage spam, paying per project/tutorial would encourage quantity in place of quality. Paying based on post/project/tutorial quality would be difficult, as it would be largely opinion based. Its like paying school teachers based on performance, a good concept, but difficult in practice.

[bicostp]

1. Ben needs to actually be somewhat active. He does not even bother to post his finished 360 laptops in the news forum anymore, and us active members rarely know he has done anything new until the forums slow down and we guess he must have done something. If you own a forum, and want to remain at least a little relevant, then actually spend some time on them. What would it take you? A forced 20 minutes a day? Heck (pun!), 20 minutes a WEEK would do fine!

Seems like most of the 360 laptops made now are just stamped out of the same mold, and only major revisions are posted on the homepage. (The jump to the curved case, built-in HDD, etc.)

2. The errors in Ben's tutorials and in his book need to be addressed.

Some of the errors have been addressed on the main site (link), and of course in the book forum. What I don't get is how exactly this coorelates to the forums "dying".

3. Reference section?

Yes the reference forum didn't work out as planned. But then again, neither have Portables of Doom or any of the wikis that have been set up over the years. The problem is nobody wants to bother copying information off the board, or bother to look anywhere else for info. The Reference forum was supposed to alleviate this issue. And the entire 'mods have to approve everything' debacle was blown far too out of proportion. It was supposed to add a level of quality control through peer review, and if a guide was given enough favorable reviews by the general populous, not based on the mods' discretion, it would be moved out of the submission area into the appropriate subforum. Certain individuals misinterpreted this system as something it was never going to be: a show of power by the staff. We made the changes they wanted, yet they still ignored and complained about it. Overcomplicated? Yes it was. The best solution? No it wasn't. That's why we got rid of it.

4. You guys need a wiki.

Working on it. As I said, the main issue is making it accessible and encouraging its use. Since the Reference section flopped, we're looking into systems that integrate MediaWiki with phpBB better so people might actually use it time. (And just to clear things up, wiki.benheck.com died because it fell through the cracks during the last server move.)

5. When people have suggested stuff in the past, it is either ignored, locked, or shot down.

The only suggestion I've heard of (at least that is still in my PM inbox, which still has messages dating back to February 2008 because I'm lazy and never delete them) is to create a "Miscellaneous" subforum. It was discussed amongst the staff and we figured the low amount of attention they get meant posts regarding them could be put in Tech Q&A. Only one person asked, and they didn't sell the idea very much (basically they said "Hi I'm working on [console x], we need a forum for [console x] and others". If it had been made into a new thread and actively backed by multiple people who said "this is what we think should change and why", it would have garnered more interest.

We did add the Arcade and Handheld forums, and split the current-gen consoles (PS3/360/Wii) from their last-gen predecessors (PS2/Xbox/GCN) when they were requested by multiple people.

Why are you guys making a wiki now? There have been many, many threads that suggest one in the past, and the mods are all to quick to shoot it down (I, for one, was a supporter in those threads). Do I really need to go quote you mods shooting down the idea of a new wiki? An explanation of why exactly you changed from your holy grail reference section to a wiki? What of all the arguments you made for why it is superior? Why will the wiki be good now?

We're changing from the "holy grail reference section" to a Wiki because, like you said, it's not working out. We thought it might do well because the systems not integrated with the forum have consistently flopped in the past, and of course a subforum would alleviate this issue. The Wiki didn't work the first couple times, so we tried something different. That didn't work either, so we're trying something else. We've tried a Wiki a couple times and each time we get maybe 3 people actually doing anything with it, and even they lose interest when it becomes apparent that it's getting no traffic.

Wait, didn't you just say we need a wiki? This is one of those things you need to tell us; we don't know your opinion one way or the other unless you speak up!

But childish things like making a Bacteria hate club is stupid, and makes you guys seem immature

Okay, most of the mods and admins had nothing to do with that (except for the ones who decided to carry the badge). Personally I didn't even know what it meant until I started getting PMs about it. (I thought it was a gamer group or something.) Even then, the staff sent PMs to everyone who had one of those images in their sig requesting its removal, and threatening bans if it was not. All the stragglers who did not previously remove it on their own accord then removed them. (Except for one, who hasn't logged in since then; We removed it through the admin panel.) And to be frank, you can't lay all the blame solely on us. All Bacteria had to do was PM the people with the images in their sigs, politely requesting its removal. Instead we get a thread full of tension, anger, and spiteful/ironic hate badges which made the problem 10 times more complicated than it had to be. (Bacteria I'm sorry I had to drag you into this by name but it's the truth. Nobody outside those with the images knew what they meant, and making the issue public only exasperated the problem.)

I suggest here in your feedback thread that the mods stop pulling crap like that, and issue a formal, public apology, instead of covering it up and trying to keep it private when the hate sigs went in the opposite direction.

I don't know where you got your information but you only have one side if the issue. There was only one (or maybe two) mod(s) with one of the images in their sig(s). The rest of us did NOT KNOW WHAT IT MEANT. The staff was NOT in some conspiracy against Bacteria or any other member. We have nothing to "cover up". The only people whom it was "kept private" between were those with the images in their sigs. Please don't throw us all in the same boat and place blame on us for something that was not our doing. We don't have anything to apologize for on this matter; we did everything we could to fix the problem after it was brought to our attention, but by creating the thread and bringing it into the public eye Bacteria made it a lot worse for us and for himself. Yes there was a mod who had it. However, just like everyone else with the image he didn't tell us what it meant and we didn't think it was anything to be concerned with. Please don't let one bad apple spoil the bunch.

This whole mess could have been solved by a few PMs to the image carriers, calmly asking them to remove it, and then a PM to any one of us reporting those who did not comply. But making it a public issue made the problem far far worse. I wish we could just put it behind us and carry on. Personally I feel insulted that those of us who helped resolve the issue have been blamed for causing it in the first place, and disappointed that the issue was brought up in the manner which it was.

And I'd just like to make it clear that the mods are not the Illuminati, we are not forming allegiances for or against anyone, and we are NOT conspiring against ANYONE IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM. We only deal with issues as they arise, and when we do we do not make judgments based on personal opinion of the individual in question.

6. The benheck forums has an absurdly harsh definition of flaming.

We're drafting a new version of the rules that addresses these loose definitions and closes loopholes. The main issue is if we're too lenient, feelings get hurt, people get angry, and we get complaints that we're not doing our jobs. When we tighten down, we get complaints that we're oppressive dictators. This issue has swung back and forth between these extremes several times over the years, and there is no apparent middle ground between the two. What do you want us to do?

6. I will admit I lack access to full traffic records for the forum, and exactly how much ad revenue is made off them. But in my opinion, if the modders are doing all the work, posting all the tuts, mods, and finished portables that bring this site most of it's traffic, how come Ben gets to sit on his ass and reap the rewards? Why not actually give some of that ad revenue back to the very people that make this site worth anything, rather than reaping it all with little effort.

What are you on about? Cheap shared hosting solutions ($9.95/mo kind of plans) haven't been suitable for this site since 2006 or so, just due to the sheer volume of traffic it gets. This site has to run on a dedicated server, which costs Ben close to $250 every month. (I've seen the hosting company's sales pages. It's expensive.) That's the monthly payment for a new car. Obviously I haven't seen the numbers, but I seriously doubt the relatively few banner ads this site has makes up for the monthly hosting cost. I seriously doubt Ben is in the business of giving away money. He pays all that money out of pocket every month to keep this board open for us. Remember he's not some big company with publicly traded stock and millions of dollars in the bank. He's one guy who voids warranties in his basement who has his own monthly bills to pay on top of providing a site for modders. How dare you walk in and expect to be given money just for showing up.

Any feedback?

Yes! It's actually very good that these issues are finally being publicly addressed. Like I said before, we aren't psychic; you have to tell us your concerns. If you don't, don't get mad because we don't do what you didn't tell us to do.

[ghosstt]

Why don't we use the actual wikipedia.com?

Or at least one of the sub-sections it has, like the electronics portal. That way, it will never shut down, and when someone asks, we can just say, wiki-it. It would also show up high on a google search because of using wikipedia.

[yoshilime]

Wow! today, my eyes are tired! just look at all this stuff, not to mention the stuff from the palmers in trouble thread!

[bicostp]

Yes, there are definitely issues that have to be addressed, and I'm glad they finally have been brought to our attention. And we can and will work through these problems. Facing the problems and overcoming them is a much better idea than running away from and ignoring them.

[ShockSlayer]

See sig.

Good luck, bic, I'll leave feedback later if I can, I'd like to help!

SS

[palmertech]

Address to post by Triton:

This forum is more about the hobby that ben started than what ben is doing right now, personally i dont CARE, bens a cool guy and all but he does his own thing, we do ours.

Fair enough. My personal opinion is that he should still at least post a news thread when he finishes new projects, but you are right, that is his deal.

Please feel free to post links to threads we locked because we didnt like their sugestion.

None I can find, but I remember a thread where a newer guy mentioned that he had made a thread suggesting a wiki, and it was deleted without any sort of notification. I will see if I can find that thread, but seriously, this is why deleting threads is very rarely the answer; Even if there is no "cover-up", the fact that threads are missing is enough to make people raise an eyebrow, and not at the people who made the deleted threads. Come on, this would help you guys! Instead of people being able to claim you guys are evil and deleting threads for no reason, you can actually retain them in locked form to show that the moderator was, in fact, in the right.

The mod team had NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT, in fact bacteria came to us, me specifically about the issue. we did our best to address his concerns but he got impatient and childish and pitched a fit about it in public when it easily could have been handled with discretion in a mature manner. Im not going to get into this topic on the forum.

I know I am only getting one side of the story, which never lends to the spread of concrete truth... But while I seem to be mistaken in my belief that there was more than one moderator involved, but I was under the impression that after a few PMs, he was ignored. When I have issues, I do not make threads about them very often for the very reasons you say; Looking childish, impatient, etc. But when you PM mods/admins and they read and ignore your PMs, it can make a guy testy. I will rant on this more further down in this post. Also, I thought that the situation only got resolved because the public thread brought it to the attention of BlackSix, who cracked down on the offenders? Let me know, I would far rather hear from the horses mouth what went down instead of having to rely on one side of the story, and getting the story wrong. Unless you "get into the topic", I can have no real idea of what went on.

Im going to ignore your obvious bias in this and say simply that we do NOT have that strict of a definition of flaming, if you post material intended to instigate conflict or for the sole purpose of harassing somebody it will be edited/removed, we dont need that kind of garbage on our forum. And frankly i am insulted that you seem to think all of us mods just do crap for our own self intrest and for our friends, what would we have to gain from that? we do this job because we were ASKED TO. we get no compensation for doing it and i think we do a damn good job all things considered.

First off, the obvious flaw here (paraphrased): "Not like we get any compensation. So why would we want to do stuff for ourselves and our friends? How would we gain from doing that?"

Not the real issue, I just thought the way it was phrased was a bit odd; if you have no real compensation, what do you have to LOSE by doing stuff for yourself/buddies? The main is that the policy on flaming is inconsistent, and subject to the personal opinions of the moderators. It is hard to know when someone is really crossing the line when threads are locked, then opened back up after some of the mods decide against locking. There should be a set of guidelines that makes it clear what is flaming and what is not, and when "flaming" is allowed. There appears to be a new set of rules in draft, so hopefully that is addressed.

Also, when did I say "All of you mods", as you put it? I said that there ARE mods that pull that crap, and precisely because of the fact that they edit/delete with leaving a record, none of the non-mod team has any exact idea who they are. Did I ever say you all do that? Nope, I just pointed out that there are those that make bad decisions, and you decided to take it all personal. In my opinion, I like your mod style (despite the Bacteria thing, as I have done worse), and have never said otherwise. Not sure where you would get the impression I was talking directly at you, or directly at all the mods, or even MOST of the mods.

if ben makes ANY real revenue from the ads and stuff on this forum it would be a big supprise to me, and if he makes any it sure isnt much, how exactly do you intend to redistribute this so called "wealth" which more than likely comes out to tens of dollars a month at most

Again, I am making guesses based on what I can gather from forum view stats and various online resources. But if my guesses are anywhere in the ballpark of correct, he should easily cover the hosting costs with ads. There are very few ads ever since the upgrade to PHPBB3, to be honest, I am not sure why the ads are not at the level they were before. More on this further down.

yes because splitting the community in twain, pissing in the face of the people who keep these forums operating somewhat smoothly and basically flat out insulting us is SO TOTALLY GOING TO HELP. its a freaking hobby not a for profit business venture, if you dont do it for the fun of doing it then dont bother, its not our fault if somebody cant afford to. all this post really is is you crowing about how biased and unfair and mean the mod team on this forum is while pushing your own agenda

This forum was started as a place for people interested in building portables to talk about the things they work on, share information and improve the quality of their work. we are TRYING to improve the quality of this forum by making changes and ASKING YOU, THE USER for input and all you can do is crap all over us and give us crap about how bad of a job we are doing. what kind of message does that send to the other users on this forum? other than painting the mod team in an entirely negative light for your own purposes. not only is that behavior and attitude counterproductive its just immature and childish.

Who did I insult, "crap all over", or even say does a "bad job", pray tell? I even stated that I like not only some of the mods, but MOST of them. How you could interpret that to mean "All of you crap mods do all of these crap things all the time, no exceptions, and in addition, are nazis". The only person I could have even possibly identified would have been you, and that is just the result of me thinking that you were not the only mod involved. I did not name any names, I did not say you all fail, I did not say most of you fail, and I did not even say that the few that do fail-ish things occasionally are always fail; You guys asked for feedback on what could use improvement, and in my opinion, the occasional actions of some on the mod team is one of those things.

I pulled this from the other thread that got locked, as I wanted to address it, but never got the chance:

a group of individuals had logos in their signature denoting their dislike for bacteria, he came to us and asked us to fix it, then decided it was a better idea to cause a stir on the forums at large instead of handling it in a discreet mature manner. now bacteria and a few other malcontented individuals have started their own forums because the mods here are obviously evil bastards who only moderate here to abuse their power, crush peoples wills, and make bacteria, palmer and everybody elses life miserable and since they have their own forum they are only coming back here to brag about how awesome they think their forum is, how much ours sucks, and tell us all how horrible of a job we are doing and how much better they are than us

Did I say you were evil bastards? Did I say you guys all suck? Did I say that you are only here to " abuse their power, crush peoples wills, and make bacteria, palmer and everybody elses life miserable", or even imply that any of you are always "out to get me"? Or did you just pull that idea out of your ass and form an opinion with it? Sorry for being rude, but the way you represent this is not only slanted, it is a point blank lie, and an obvious one at that. Guess what, Triton? I NEVER posted here about modretro till Bic called me out on it. Not once. Nor did I EVER post "hai guys this forum suckz". And again, I did NOT make any sort of big public todo about any issues I had with the mods here! Furthermore, I continued to post here on a regular basis weeks after modretro went up, all the way until the point when I had some IRL issues. And not just "oh hai I posted" posts, I actually posted some helpful stuff! In addition, I responded to 3 PMs in the last week I have received here concerning questions they had about some of my mods, and I gladly answered them, linked them to relevant topics, and did NOT MENTION MODRETRO ONE SINGLE TIME! In fact, I have done NO recruiting work of ANY kind whatsoever on the benheck forums for the modretro forums! Heck, even within the very boundaries of this forum's rules, I am allowed to post advertisements in my sig, but have I? Take a look underneath this post, and see for yourself.

Basically, I have not promoted modretro on this forum in any way, shape, or form, and have not done a single thing that Triton claims I have, and have still kept contributing to this forum in a positive fashion. That post borders on idiocy, and again, sorry if it comes across as rude, but when you make extraordinary claims, you damn better have extraordinary evidence. Or at least some sort of feeble, theoretical basis for your claims. I still think you are a mostly good guy, Triton, but any sort of goodwill I have is evaporating quickly when you pull stunts like this.



Address to post by vskid:

5. I like a lot of mods here, most of them in fact. But childish things like making a Bacteria hate club is stupid, and makes you guys seem immature

I agree, that group was immature, but you are wrong on one major point. Only one mod (as far as I know) ever had the image in his sig, and promptly removed it when asked. I didn't even know what the image meant until that thread that had all the stuff about it and the creation of new "hate" groups. I'm sure that not many outside of the bacteria hate group knew either.
Everyone is entitled an opinion. If I dislike someone, its because I have good reason to, and its not easy to change my mind. I don't let it impair my judgment. Its called tolerance. There are always going to be people that you dislike. You have to learn to deal with it.

It seems you are mostly right, but from the perspective of Bacteria:

Triton - you were one of the main offenders of the anti-bacteria banner and removed it only after two PM's when I pointed out you were spreading hate and were not being unbiased as you should be as a moderator - you were abusing your power. I got Black Six involved as he seemed to be the only moderator prepared to tackle hate here, and he did so, virtually - he also told me he was shocked by the behaviour and hate campaign and also shocked by the mods on this. Black Six, I respect you. Spongebuell - I have no issue with you either.

If the side I have heard is correct, then Triton only removed it reluctantly after two PMs and threatening to tell the other mods, in an attempt to deal with it privately and without much fuss. In addition, the involved parties do not seem to be very sorry for their actions, nor admit wrongdoing, despite people that had the sig being threatened with a ban. I understand that disliking people is fine, but to do so as a mod is not conducive to forum peace, and honestly, what was gained by the sig? I personally do not think that the sig thing was that bad as an action, it was just the way it was handled.

A good idea in theory. But then there's reality. How would you decide who gets paid? Paying per post would encourage spam, paying per project/tutorial would encourage quantity in place of quality. Paying based on post/project/tutorial quality would be difficult, as it would be largely opinion based. Its like paying school teachers based on performance, a good concept, but difficult in practice.

Did you really think I would imagine I would just say "Hey, I am gonna do this!" without giving it some hard thought as to how it would work? The solution is simple: Control the amount of money based on the unbiased input of the very ones that supply it: The viewers. Every view provides a small, barely existent bit of cash. However, put those together into hundreds of thousands (perhaps even more!) views, and you end up with a substantial (By modder standards) chunk of change. Spamming will not help, opinion is irrelevant, and people are motivated to get word out about their mods to as many sites as possible in order to promote more traffic; A win/win/win situation.


Address to post by Bicostp:

Seems like most of the 360 laptops made now are just stamped out of the same mold, and only major revisions are posted on the homepage. (The jump to the curved case, built-in HDD, etc.)

I know, major revisions are posted on the homepage. But you asked for feedback, I think Ben should at the very LEAST spend the 30 seconds it takes to post a link to or, or even just copy paste the whole thing so it shows up in forum search. There are often people who register and ask questions about his laptops that are explained in his main site posts, but cannot be found using the search function. It would take a few minutes compared to the many hours he spends building the thing, it is not too much to ask. Not saying that he is required to do it, or that we are entitled, but if you guys ask what we want to see on the forums, then it seems like this suggestion is fair game.

Some of the errors have been addressed on the main site (link), and of course in the book forum.

That is good. It would be nice for them to be fixed across the board, though, especially those oft referenced excerpts from the book on extremetech.com. On this note, have all the dead links scattered across the stickies been fixed? That is fairly easy to do, and would help a lot of the newbs who do not know that how/why they need to fix the URL to match the current one.

What I don't get is how exactly this coorelates to the forums "dying".

No clue myself, perhaps if you could actually point out where I said it does coorelate, I could actually respond. In fact, even pointing out a place where I said these forums were dying, period, for any reason, I would be at least able to figure out where you got the idea. I have spoken to a few mods on AIM and expressed that despite any feeble efforts made by me and others, it would seem highly unlikely that the benheck forums are going anywhere.

And if you are gonna try to use my sig, know that it is just a very slightly edited version of a quote from Magus/Janus from Chrono Trigger, and in no way reflects anything other than an amusing little play on words.

Yes the reference forum didn't work out as planned. But then again, neither have Portables of Doom or any of the wikis that have been set up over the years. The problem is nobody wants to bother copying information off the board, or bother to look anywhere else for info. The Reference forum was supposed to alleviate this issue. And the entire 'mods have to approve everything' debacle was blown far too out of proportion. It was supposed to add a level of quality control through peer review, and if a guide was given enough favorable reviews by the general populous, not based on the mods' discretion, it would be moved out of the submission area into the appropriate subforum. Certain individuals misinterpreted this system as something it was never going to be: a show of power by the staff. We made the changes they wanted, yet they still ignored and complained about it. Overcomplicated? Yes it was. The best solution? No it wasn't. That's why we got rid of it.

Well put, it would seem I misunderstood the submission process from the start. I am convinced by your arguments.

Working on it. As I said, the main issue is making it accessible and encouraging its use. Since the Reference section flopped, we're looking into systems that integrate MediaWiki with phpBB better so people might actually use it time. (And just to clear things up, wiki.benheck.com died because it fell through the cracks during the last server move.)

Good to hear! Just gonna throw this out there so any future online passerby can know, when the modretro wiki goes online, it is not a copycat act. I had the domain registered a few weeks ago, I just need to make it work correctly before throwing it online (Hated TikiWiki, moving to mediawiki issues, etc.)

The only suggestion I've heard of (at least that is still in my PM inbox, which still has messages dating back to February 2008 because I'm lazy and never delete them) is to create a "Miscellaneous" subforum. It was discussed amongst the staff and we figured the low amount of attention they get meant posts regarding them could be put in Tech Q&A. Only one person asked, and they didn't sell the idea very much (basically they said "Hi I'm working on [console x], we need a forum for [console x] and others". If it had been made into a new thread and actively backed by multiple people who said "this is what we think should change and why", it would have garnered more interest.

We did add the Arcade and Handheld forums, and split the current-gen consoles (PS3/360/Wii) from their last-gen predecessors (PS2/Xbox/GCN) when they were requested by multiple people.

It seems you are a man of action, I will make sure to PM you next time I have any suggestions or issues. I had PM'd other mods with ideas and gotten no replies or quick "Good idea, will look into it" with no later response type of deals.

We're changing from the "holy grail reference section" to a Wiki because, like you said, it's not working out. We thought it might do well because the systems not integrated with the forum have consistently flopped in the past, and of course a subforum would alleviate this issue. The Wiki didn't work the first couple times, so we tried something different. That didn't work either, so we're trying something else. We've tried a Wiki a couple times and each time we get maybe 3 people actually doing anything with it, and even they lose interest when it becomes apparent that it's getting no traffic.

Wait, didn't you just say we need a wiki? This is one of those things you need to tell us; we don't know your opinion one way or the other unless you speak up! :lol

I have said there needs to be a wiki, several times. When it became clear that benheck forums was not going to have an official one, before this modretro business, I actually PM'd a few people who HAD wanted one, and was all ready to go and buy some hosting and run it ourselves, and link to benheck forums. After a few other events, it evolved; Note that the main site of modretro has a wiki link and a main site link, but I have still not gotten around to adding a forums link. Sounds like if you intergrate a wiki, it might work better, that would be great; Keeps people engaged in the wiki, and more info out there can only be good.

I don't know where you got your information but you only have one side if the issue. There was only one (or maybe two) mod(s) with one of the images in their sig(s). The rest of us did NOT KNOW WHAT IT MEANT. The staff was NOT in some conspiracy against Bacteria or any other member. We have nothing to "cover up". The only people whom it was "kept private" between were those with the images in their sigs. Please don't throw us all in the same boat and place blame on us for something that was not our doing. We don't have anything to apologize for on this matter; we did everything we could to fix the problem after it was brought to our attention, but by creating the thread and bringing it into the public eye Bacteria made it a lot worse for us and for himself. Yes there was a mod who had it. However, just like everyone else with the image he didn't tell us what it meant and we didn't think it was anything to be concerned with. Please don't let one bad apple spoil the bunch.

This whole mess could have been solved by a few PMs to the image carriers, calmly asking them to remove it, and then a PM to any one of us reporting those who did not comply. But making it a public issue made the problem far far worse. I wish we could just put it behind us and carry on. Personally I feel insulted that those of us who helped resolve the issue have been blamed for causing it in the first place, and disappointed that the issue was brought up in the manner which it was.

As I said earlier earlier in my post, I regret my mistake, I was under the impression that more than 1 moderator was involved. But, I must say that locking threads, and telling people over and over "KEEP IT PRIVATE DONT DICUSS IT IN THE OPEN SHHHHSHHHH" does not create an environment where people who think a cover-up is going on will be easily dissuaded. And again, when I say "THE MODERATION", I am usually reffering to parts of it. I knew that not ALL the moderators were involved for sure, I never meant to say that because one mod did something, they are all "bad apples".

And I'd just like to make it clear that the mods are not the Illuminati, we are not forming allegiances for or against anyone, and we are NOT conspiring against ANYONE IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM. We only deal with issues as they arise, and when we do we do not make judgments based on personal opinion of the individual in question.

Perhaps "we" (The mods as a whole) do not conspire, but I would beg to differ on not making judgments based on personal opinion. Are you honestly going to say that every judgement is based on the opinions of the moderation team as a whole, and that mods never go off on their own judgment and make a bad decision based on personal bias? ALL of your replies neatly ignored most of my point 6, and I got no evidence of any of you actually taking it under any sort of consideration. MANY forums require the mods to leave a reason when they edit/delete a post, why can you not? How in the world are we supposed to know how to behave in the future, or why sometimes useful threads are locked, if there is no explanation given?! And again!: NO DELETING THREADS. That is not required, obviously, but that is my input, and you guys cleanly ignored it. Want us to feel like you read our suggestions? How about actually letting us know you did? Spam is fine for deleting, when it is obvious, but there are a lot of things that are either locked or deleted with no explanation or warning. And you know what? I had a useful post in one of those threads, and it was deleted (The whole thing! Schematic, discussion and all) because a certain member told an unknown mod to delete it because it made him look bad. Guess what? Now, I will have to remake that diagram, and the text that went along with it. I PM'd a few people about it, but I was promptly ignored.

On that note, want an example of someone on the moderation team going off on their own out of personal dislike for somebody, acting like a child, then ignoring/blocking any kind of attempt to get an apology, NAY, even INFORMATION on it? A few months ago, one of the admins (Not that many, try and figure out who it was) vandalized my signature out of spite over something that did not even involve him, and it took quite a while for me to notice. Wondering if there was a real reason why, I PM'd the people it could have been. Only one of them read my PM and did not bother to respond with a denial, and even after asking multiple times, still no reply whatsoever. Then, later on, when asking him (With the backing of a few people, including a few mods) if he would be willing to take a few minutes to install a PHPBB addon if I finished it, he ignores me yet again. Often, during his rare posts I saw, I would confront him on it without naming any incidents. Most of the time, I would get ignored, but there was at least one time where my post simply vanished.

Is THAT how unbiased moderation goes? Is that evidence that nobody here ever acts on personal bias? I kept it quiet all this time because I like the mods, for the 99% majority of the time, and I knew there was no need to stir up a crap because of a months old incident. Over the months, I have related this story to several mods, and never really got a reply beyond "lol bummer". This is one of the reasons that despite my lack of concrete information, I sided with Bacteria during his mess; If I, by keeping something private, with multiple patient PMs and telling other mods, gets me NOWHERE whatsoever, then why be angry at the guy who makes it public? It is not the path I would have taken, but if the same thing happened again, I do not think that the "quietly ignoring and waiting for action" path would be the one I take, either.

We're drafting a new version of the rules that addresses these loose definitions and closes loopholes. The main issue is if we're too lenient, feelings get hurt, people get angry, and we get complaints that we're not doing our jobs. When we tighten down, we get complaints that we're oppressive dictators. This issue has swung back and forth between these extremes several times over the years, and there is no apparent middle ground between the two. What do you want us to do?

Revised rules are good. If I had any say, I would very clearly define what flaming is, when it is okay, when it is not, and then allow for input from the general userbase in the form of a poll before setting it in stone.

What are you on about? Cheap shared hosting solutions ($9.95/mo kind of plans) haven't been suitable for this site since 2006 or so, just due to the sheer volume of traffic it gets. This site has to run on a dedicated server, which costs Ben close to $250 every month. (I've seen the hosting company's sales pages. It's expensive.) That's the monthly payment for a new car. Obviously I haven't seen the numbers, but I seriously doubt the relatively few banner ads this site has makes up for the monthly hosting cost. I seriously doubt Ben is in the business of giving away money. He pays all that money out of pocket every month to keep this board open for us. Remember he's not some big company with publicly traded stock and millions of dollars in the bank. He's one guy who voids warranties in his basement who has his own monthly bills to pay on top of providing a site for modders. How dare you walk in and expect to be given money just for showing up.

Question: Not suitable for the forums, for his site, or both? His site hosts a TON of images, and I imagine it gets a lot of hits. In comparison, the forums, where all the images are hosted offsite, must eat a much lower bit of bandwidth per vistor; You would need a LOT more visitors to make up the difference, if my guesses are within the realm of possibility. And again, is the $250 for the main site, the forums, or both? If his site is sitting there 90% of the traffic, as my admittedly uninformed guesses would estimate, the extra bit sitting on the side using the forum is not that amazing, price wise. If that is the case, using far cheaper hosting to handle the forums (the way I am doing with modretro), there is a LOT more margin for profit ad wise, for both the people running my site and for and ad-revenue-share plan, if it works.

My main point is, Ben is not paying for that server just for his forums, his site has been up before the forums, and has stayed up during any forum hiatus. I never said that he has done a bad job, more of a "why this over modretro?". And how dare I expect to walk in and get money? Get real, punk. Did I ever say anything about this on benheck, beyond tossing the idea casually to a few mods on AIM over the past 3-4 months? Nope. Did I ever complain about the ads? Nope. Did I ever argue that Ben somehow needs to repay the people who use his forum that he pays for? Again, no. I pointed out the fact that an adshare system WOULD probably jumpstart a lot of projects, and rather than feeling entitled to money, as you would like to imply, I actually went and DID something about my idea to see if it was feasible! How in the WORLD could you conceive that as wanting to be "given money just for showing up"? In my world (Which is making more sense to me right now, ATM), going off on your own without complaining or expecting anything, simply to try an idea you have, is not entitlement, it is somewhere on the opposite side of the scale. If you do not think my idea will work, fine. I never said it would work here for sure, and I am not sure it will work for me, either. But how about actually hitting me on the points where I have done something wrong instead of slamming me on things that are just, from your point of view, not practical. The most you really needed to do was point out the problems in my system as vskid did, not go off on a rant about how inappreciative I am.

Yes! It's actually very good that these issues are finally being publicly addressed. Like I said before, we aren't psychic; you have to tell us your concerns. If you don't, don't get mad because we don't do what you didn't tell us to do.

I do voice my concerns, even according to the letter of how you suggest we deal with personal issues with mods. In addition, you know I have no problem letting my opinion be known in public if I think it is appropriate. But when you are talking to the moderation team about issues with the moderation team, even with disclaimers, crap gets stirred and nothing happens. Other times (the majority of the time, TBH), the response is great, and things get done! But if you guys are gonna take a dump on me for voicing my true opinion (Which I only did after you called me out on it with your own slanted statements, by the way), then what motivates me? Obviously, I do not want this site to just sit and rot completely; Otherwise, why in the world would I take the time to actually give my honest opinion? If you don't like the opinion, don't get mad when you make clarification a necessity. I am not a psychic.

Keep in mind, I like most of you guys most of the time. Any feedback on my feedback?

[yoshilime]

Ok, wow. These last few topics have got to be the most drawn out, detailed, wall of text-y topics i have ever seen.

As for this anti bactira thing, At first, when i saw some people with the badge, i though it wa some sort of modding group. later, now that i see this topic, and the OTHER, i can concluded this: triton is acting very childish. What he is dog is the equivalent of posting posters that say "Bactira once was rude, do you really want HIM to be your president?" all over an elementary school. In my opinion, someone who starts such a club is not fit to be moderator, not trying to be mean or offensive, but it is kinda like being a nazi, spreading the hate. I am just voicing my opinion on how Triton isnt fit to be a mod, so please dont start flaming me or anything, just my opinion.

[bacteria]

Interesting how the portrayal of "truth" is changed and portrayed as "truth". There are examples, some minor, however this one needs pointing out as it, and the subject referred to (I didn't raise it, just responding):

Point 5:

The mod team had NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT, in fact bacteria came to us, me specifically about the issue. we did our best to address his concerns but he got impatient and childish and pitched a fit about it in public when it easily could have been handled with discretion in a mature manner. Im not going to get into this topic on the forum.

Wrong, I had to persude you to remove your banner. I had no choice but to hi-jack a thread and get this matter raised.

As Bic quoted (a bit of a misquote, but hey) from my PM's to him - didn't think we quoted each other's PM's, but as he did me, here's some from my correspondance with Black Six which you will find revealing:

Triton did not (as far as I know) make any of the other mods aware of what you told him, which is a shame because perhaps all of this could have been avoided. I think I'll have to push harder for some changes concerning respecting others on this forum.

I wasn't aware there was any active-hating going on, but maybe I'm just missing the posts where it happens. When I found out about it, like I said, I found it inappropriate.

Putting on my moderator hat, I suggested action be taken, but other staff members have been slow to respond or support that action be taken.

So, as you see, lies have been spoken. Fine, so what if I annoy the mods here? So what if they don't like me - no reason to act as they do. Truth always comes out in the end. compare these extracts from Black Six against what the mods here are trying to tell you is the truth...

I wasn't going to take him up on this, however, as Triton put it - I quote:

How is this for democratic. If you REALLY have a problem with the way I moderate and conduct myself on this forum, if You want me to i will start a topic in forum 42 with a week long poll asking "Should Triton be a moderator, or should he be fired/resign?" Neither myself or any of the moderators will vote and we will leave it entirely up to the forum as a whole. If the vote is for me resigning I will do so Immediately and have one of the admins revoke my mod privileges.

...Ok, put it into effect - let's have a vote...

BTW - at ModRetro will will not tolerate any hate campaigns or harassment against any members. The fact Triton even had the banner in his sig was a personal endorcement of it which makes him guilty and unfit as a mod - any inappropriate banners like that on ModRetro and the poster will be warned once, IP banned if not pulled into check.

It is not surprising that I have lost faith in the mods/admin on BenHeck. They speak with forked tongues. Read the quotes above...

[SonyPortableizer]

as christopher titus said "Hey whoa, hey whoa, whoa hey, hey whoa"
Lets all stop. As seen in history this could be the beginning of the end.
You dont like someone, too bad there here, just tolerate it. (I have for a lot of people in real life, but I just suck it up)
Mods delete stuff (I never noticed it) because its bad, we are a good forum without many spam bots, when they come mods remove them fast and efficiently, we are not like many others on the net.
Everyone makes mistakes, he made a whole book, bound to be some
You dont have to post in News, you can look yourself.

And I quote, that some member quoted that their mom said
"If you dont have anything nice to say GTFO"