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Engines, Libraries and Tools Xith3D Forums
#1

Hi,

This forum gets quite big and it’s ever more difficult to locate particular threads. I’m sure there are interesting topics beyond the first 10 thread pages down to page 36 but at least for me it takes too much time to search them all.

What about having another forum called for example “Helpdesk”
where people can post small problems or questions and can check whether their particular problem has already been solved before.

A “HowTo” forum would be helpful to find working solutions to common problems or tutorials.

My suggestions:
General: To post everything just as it is now.
Helpdesk: small questions and problems
HowTo: solutions to common problems
Demo: People posting their demo and awnser questions on how they did it.

The disadvantage of this approach is that one would have to check more forums instead of just one to keep up to date.
Is it possible to link threads from one forum to another ? Then one could create a virtual forum containing threads linked to the normal xith forum.

Just an idea …
Ca$cade

PS: If the effort of sorting the threads of this forum is the problem. I will do it.

#2

[quote]Hi,

This forum gets quite big and it’s ever more difficult to locate particular threads. I’m sure there are interesting topics beyond the first 10 thread pages down to page 36 but at least for me it takes too much time to search them all.

What about having another forum called for example “Helpdesk”
where people can post small problems or questions and can check whether their particular problem has already been solved before.

A “HowTo” forum would be helpful to find working solutions to common problems or tutorials.
[/quote]
We discussed about more forums some time ago. With the current activity one forum seems to be sufficient. If we want more forums we can’t stay at java-gaming.org, because I don’t think we’ll get another dedicated forum (actually there were proposals to mix 3rd party API forums). Having forums at two places or moving away from java-gaming.org is dangerous in the current situation. (If the activity were a lot higher we could do the move.)

I think xith.org is the right place for this. The “Helpdesk” is clearly something like the xith.org-FAQ (maybe “HowTo” fits in there, too). The demos can be presented at the xith.org demo section, which is not exactly a forum, but the xith.org Wiki is very flexible. For instance you could create one page per demo and put the explanations there. If the demo presents one particular feature, has documented sourcecode and explanations I will happily include it in the Getting Started Guide (see signature).

Your help/interest is very welcome. If you like you could locate some old threads and submit the interesting information to the xith.org-FAQ. As far as I know the FAQ can easily be split into Sub-FAQs, if the number of questions increases significantly (currently 17 questions).

The structure is pretty much ready to be filled with more information, but if you have other suggestions just tell them.

#3

I definitally encourage the use of the FAQ and Wiki to track bits of Xith3D information posted in the forums.

Make sure you use the forum search feature - it does work, I use it a lot (just set your max-age to 999).

You may notice in the FAQ that there are a few questions which refer to forum threads - this is good for ‘questions’.

I’ve been thinking of having a wiki forum “index” page to list informative threads. I have now started one here with a handful of threads: http://xith.org/tiki-index.php?page=InterestingThreads if you register you should be able to edit it (let me know if you can’t). Anyone is welcome to add new threads of interest to that page. We can also add that page to the “Docs” section.

Will.

#4

As long as the e-mail notification of subscribed topics doesn’t work (and it doesn’t work in most cases for most people and I this has been reported long ago) this whole Javagaming forum is just a toy and not serious at all.

This is a shame!

Even our local pet breeder pet’s home page forum is more professional!

While it’s not directly connected to the Xith3d sub-forum, it affects the entire Java gaming community.

I really wonder why we haven’t started to use an own Forum on an own webpage, so we could have e-mail notification, moderators, etc.
If just I knew more about Internet and network stuff… :frowning:

#5

[quote]I really wonder why we haven’t started to use an own Forum on an own webpage, so we could have e-mail notification, moderators, etc.
If just I knew more about Internet and network stuff… :frowning:
[/quote]
In my opinion setting up a forum is technically no problem. If TikiWiki has a forum module it could be directly integrated in xith.org (which is the appropriate place for own forums).

#6

Quite right. If there is demand for a dedicated Xith3D forum, we can have one up and running in minutes. Is there demand? At the current rate of new postings in this forum, I just don’t see the need.

Will.

#7

I meant the idea of moving the entire Javagaming forum to a fast and working server, with e-mail notification, real moderators, and so on.
:slight_smile:

#8

Haha :slight_smile: Tried that :wink:

Cas :slight_smile:

#9

[quote]Hi,

This forum gets quite big and it’s ever more difficult to locate particular threads. I’m sure there are interesting topics beyond the …
PS: If the effort of sorting the threads of this forum is the problem. I will do it.
[/quote]
Do teh sorting, and make it into an article. I’m sure the Xith3D .org will be happy to have it, but I’d certainly like to get one done for the JAva Games Factory - we never managed to find anyone willing to do a Xith-specific article to go side-by-side with ones from other devs (e.g. JME etc) as a collection of similar-but-biased articles so people could compare and contrast more easily.

#10

[quote]I meant the idea of moving the entire Javagaming forum to a fast and working server, with e-mail notification, real moderators, and so on.
:slight_smile:
[/quote]
I suspect that if that is REALLY a sensible idea then it will probably happen with JGF. I’ve stated categorically that I’m not aiming to replace these forums with JGF, but there will be some (whatever people need) and if the situation is as bad as you think then people will simply tend to migrate.

However, I don’t believe it’s that bad. I agree it’s bad, but I don’t think it’s bad enough to outweigh the advantages (both real and imaginary) of a Sun-owned forum site. Even if it does make Sun (a networking and server company) look incompetent /me ducks and runs for cover :P.

#11

That’s nice.

[quote] and if the situation is as bad as you think then people will simply tend to migrate.
[/quote]
Most people are just too lazy to move until it’s unbearable. In many cases this is too late.

[quote]I agree it’s bad, but I don’t think it’s bad enough to outweigh the advantages (both real and imaginary) of a Sun-owned forum site. Even if it does make Sun (a networking and server company) look incompetent /me ducks and runs for cover :P.
[/quote]
Yes, there are advantages. You’re also 100% right that non working forums do blame a network server company.
However, it doesn’t matter because the mass of game developers don’t take Java serious anway. Unfortunately.
Even the JME lead developer started to discover that NET/C# for games is much more interesting than C++ (and I hate to say: not worse than Java) and probably will work for M$ xbox headquarter soon.