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Consider an emulation subforum?


mizapf

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Would it make sense to have a subforum for emulation topics? As I already wrote in another thread, this could be useful to collect information about all our emulators, to have pinned topics in particular for new users, to have a place for announcements etc.

 

Supporting tools could also be discussed there, like disk image managers, TiDir, TIImageTool, TiDisk-manager.

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Maybe... I could see this getting very compartmentalized though... Seems to me like it would be a veeery specific subforum. For instance, I have often encountered TI problems which were a result of bad programming (on my end) or a corrupted disk or file. There have also been instances in which the problem ended up being emulator-specific. (i.e. ToD Editor in Classic99)

 

Would seem like threads would need to be constantly moved from one subforum to the next when that thread leaned towards hardware/real software or towards a more emulator-oriented thread.

 

Maybe I am missing the point, but just seems like to me, it would be an unnecessary split that might cause confusion and make topics more difficult to search/find.

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No - we don't need more subforums for specific issues. A sticky or megathread would more than suffice.

 

A subforum would indeed create too much compartmentalization and tedium.

 

Agreed. The forum has already been split in half, and the 2 halves don't seem to have any real differences. There are similar topics in both halves and everybody probably checks out both areas already. I can't tell what belongs in one area and doesn't belong in the other area. Why make things more difficult? I'd rather see everything in one place instead of two, and let the user decide which topics they want to look at.

 

Gazoo

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One "megathread" for all different kinds of emulators that we have, including all kinds of issues? Does that make sense? Seriously? This is like killing the idea of topics altogether.

 

And I don't see a reason to join a subforum of foreign emulations - most people here are interested in TI-specific emulations and would have to work their way through all topics.

 

While the programming and the parent forum don't have so strong differences (yet), an emulation subforum would have a very distinct topic field (and make much more sense to me). But maybe we have a different view what we expect in such an emulation subforum.

 

Well, I can live with a single forum, but I just thought that many people here are not so interested about emulation topics, while new users keep looking for the same topics that some time later disappear at the bottom.

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Years ago when AA was first getting going, and emulation was in its heyday, it might have been wise to make emulation sub-forums, one for each machine. But no further drilling down. No sub-forum for tools, no subforum for different emulators or their versions. Just machines. Presently it would be a herculean task to sort out all the topics and pigeonhole them into any newly made subforums anyways.

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One "megathread" for all different kinds of emulators that we have, including all kinds of issues? Does that make sense? Seriously? This is like killing the idea of topics altogether.

 

A megathread for each emulator issue. As the issue is resolved, emulators updated, people familiarized, the thread will fall to the bottom and out of the way.

 

 

 

Well, I can live with a single forum, but I just thought that many people here are not so interested about emulation topics, while new users keep looking for the same topics that some time later disappear at the bottom.

 

Sounds like 2 things need to happen to fix that situation.

1- New users need to learn how to use the search function.

2- The search function on AtariAge is useless.

 

For example, if I want to see all the messages I ever posted that have the words "Keatah" "MicroModem" "Voyager", I can't do that. The AA search function returns nothing.

 

But google returns this:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/224913-i-had-the-best-of-times-with-the-apple-ii/

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Yeah, the AA search function is fairly primitive.

In any case, I would favor a subforum dedicated to emulation, simply because emulators are constantly evolving, and none are perfect. On the other hand, we could just have a simple thread for emulation under the regular TI forum. Either way I'm fine with it.

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Would it make sense to have a subforum for emulation topics? As I already wrote in another thread, this could be useful to collect information about all our emulators, to have pinned topics in particular for new users, to have a place for announcements etc.

 

Supporting tools could also be discussed there, like disk image managers, TiDir, TIImageTool, TiDisk-manager.

 

Honestly, I'm not even viewing the development thread on a regular basis, another group would just mean even more stuff I'd be missing out on.

 

I'd hate to see any information on TiDir get pigeon-holed into an emulation only thread, as Nano's and HxC users can rely on that program and these people use R.I.

 

Now when Tursi has something new for his Classic99 for example, and he posts something on it, the thread goes to the top of the list and gets my attention. If his updates were in an emulation only sub-group, I'd probably miss out on seeing it..

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Now when Tursi has something new for his Classic99 for example, and he posts something on it, the thread goes to the top of the list and gets my attention. If his updates were in an emulation only sub-group, I'd probably miss out on seeing it..

 

Yeah, I don't see the problem. Active topics automatically go to the top, inactive to the bottom. There's only about 30 updated threads on a good day anyway, and that's between both of the current forums. Scrolling doesn't take THAT long, does it?

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On the other hand, wrt emulators, if I'm looking for some specific information, like how to make RPK files for example, then I'll know where to go to get the info. Or if I want to post a bug report, or a feature request.

 

I'm against sub-forums but it seems like a sensible idea for emulators just because it could be so useful for organisation of information/feature requests/bug reports/disk images/cart images etc.

Edited by Willsy
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I don't quite agree with most of your arguments, but anyway, it was just a question whether there is a general interest, and as it seems, we'll continue to post emulation topics as is, in one of our two forums. When there are things to preserve I'll put them on ninerpedia, supposedly the better location to look up things.

 

As for the visibility of messages: If you look at this forum you see that the oldest topic that can be directly seen is from about 14 days ago. You must click to find more topics. Second, many important messages are hidden behind topics where you would not expect them. Also, we see many occasions where people ask for things that were actually discussed some months ago.

 

Well, we could say "use the search function", but for me, this sounds as the absolute bottom of service that I dare to offer someone, the next one only being "don't bother me". For that reason, if I know the answer, I try to first sum up what was said before and then provide a reference. In order to be able to search for something you must be able to identify your problem by certain keywords, and if you can do that you've come pretty far already. If you don't find an answer you may either have not searched far enough, you overlooked something, you used the wrong keywords, or your problem is something else. As an example, people told me that MESS sometimes unexpectedly locked up, and in the end it turned out that they were in partial mode and pressed the "P" key which is defined as pause. In that case, what should be used as search terms?

 

In my view, on the bottom line, forums are great for discussion, including this one, but they are not the best way to help people out of trouble.

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It has been said before, but I think a sticky thread in the main forum (not the development subforum) for all emulators (not one for each individual emulator), containing FAQ's and references to ninerpedia/harmlesslion/whatever... would be extremely helpful for newcomers. I agree that an entire new subforum dedicated to emulators might be a bit too much though.

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I like this idea of a special sub forum for Emulators and Tools very much!

 

Proposals like searching for informations is not a user friendly use case its only a work around. Some of us abbreviate names at will, doesn't have English as their mother tongue and even those (with English as their mother tongue) are not entirely correct with spelling. Thus, it is made unnecessarily difficult for many/some of us to find the right posts. All that you should always keep in mind. No one will think and act as you yourself. Think different!

I hate it when behaviors are imposed. Not the technology determines the actions of the user, but the other way around. Therefore, soft ware is finally called software.

So, you should help to improve a system and not eagerly looking for reasons such to prevent. This is not productive. Efforts should be made to identify problems, do not discuss them away and you should concentrate to find ways for solutions.
What I read out from most of denials, is a fear of change.

By the way: I see the fact that we are here with our TI topics as "Guest" on AtariAge, as the main problem. In principle, it would be more advantageous an independent TI forum.

 

 

I just read the last post of MiZapf.
Ninerpedia is THE location to place results from our discussions. The right place for HowTo's and description for all possible use cases.
I've been to support this location better. This is a place where to find things and not searching for them.
Edited by HackMac
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@HackMac, actually, there has been a lot of cross-feed between us and the Atari side of the forum, so being here is a major plus. I'm not sure anyone is trying to force an opinion on the others. The breakout into two subforums was (and remains) a bit problematic, and as a result of that specific experience, the desire for further breakout is low. Constructive ideas have been posted as well--I personally like the Emulator sticky thread idea. It keeps it from dropping off the screen for those times when there isn't much traffic there (or when traffic on other threads is just super high), so it solves many (not all) of the issues. It is a nice compromise position--and that is something we all have to do sometimes :) Thanks for being here--and for contributing to the conversation. It is those things that make this a wonderful place to be. :)

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Well, we could say "use the search function", but for me, this sounds as the absolute bottom of service that I dare to offer someone, the next one only being "don't bother me".

 

You are so right, Michael.

We should do not use the meaningless Like-Button... I like to have buttons with different pre formatted postings. One of them could be the "don't bother me" button.

;-)

Edited by HackMac
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Hi,

my understanding on "sort & order" is the followig.

 

1. Have some clear structured subforums for only some "big" topics, like i.e. "Develolment", "Emulators" and and and.

With that, you can "walk" by topic/forum through this (sub-)topics, to have a look out, means

just exploring them, like I do that with the windows-explorer on my harddisk (as I have a good sort&order on my data :)

 

2. the search-function, used from the main-(TI-99/4A)-forum, should be able to search the subforums (=subtopics) as well,

but with the choice, wether to search down below or not. (maybe it has, don´t know)

(Missing that function on the windows-explorer, as he searches from the starting-point down below the whole structure)

 

So, you would have 2 types of searches, the "browsing/exploring" one to walk through (a clear sorted structure),

and the full text-search, searching it all (please with the options "with" and "without" subforums)

So this is like windows is organized, "exploring" and "searching".

 

All other "options" are for people who have the big disorder on their machines (and maybe everywhere),

finding nothing without maybe the windows-search-index as helper against that.

But this indexes support more disorder...

 

Ralf

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Thanks Ksarul for your reply and your opinion!

 

I'm sure there are a lot of other ideas (I didn't want to say that everyone is bad): You could use the tags in a better way, for example. But you have to define the tags, so you can better find and assign them.

 

And, well I'm not an expert of configuring such a forum. I currently use it like a newspaper by scanning headlines (and I wish I could move topics titled like "My new project" to trash) and I don't follow threads that are boring in the first 20 posts (because someone like to announce his opinion about a topic that doesn't belong to), even at the risk that I'm missing the interesting parts or I can contribute my part to. Thereby I only have my focus only at the TI relevant two forums. Currently there are only "TI-99/4A Computers" and "TI-99/4A Development". It would cost too much of my lifetime to additionally keep an eye of Atari specific subjects or read every thread completely to pick up the few crumb of interesting topics.

Such circumstances tempt me to not use this forum in that way, how I would do. So from my view point it is a good idea to make more specific sub forums.

 

Furthermore, in my opinion using linear threads are somewhat incorrect. With each reply a discussion braches out to different topics, so you will find multiple leitmotifs. With the progress of time, those types of threads will be impossible to handle. The use of such environment is an anti-pattern per excellence. The only way you can represent such a structure is a tree! With those structure you have the chance to skip all the "dump" and you can concentrate on the core theme, you don't always have to read the complete quotes of patently written topics (in that environment quotes can be dismissed completely) and if you need, you can easily extract a node as a new root of a discussion.

Okay, that's not really a constructive solution proposal and make a change in the structure helps currently no further. I just think loud. It is a general problem-which can't be drive out of the Internet. We currently won't bring out a change or improvement here...

So, now I have spent more than three hours to bring me in here with two contributions. Much time witch is now missing for my TiDisk-Manager...
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I am a member of a fishing forum here in Tennessee. We do alot of fishing, so we talk alot about it, read alot about it, and discuss methods, techniques, species, and locations.

 

Ths forum has 20-25 different subforums including species, specific lakes/rivers, etc.

 

Nice thing about it is you can set your own viewing preferences. For instance, when I log in, my user control panel allows me to view topics forum by forum OR I can view by newest to oldest. (This encompasses ALL subforums and would look just like our old Atariage format with all topics in one)

 

What Im saying is, if I had to sift through all 25-30 subforums, it would really suck. But having the ability to view what I WANT to view in whatever order I want based on my User Control Panel settings means I can view ALL topics in a top-down format.

 

Thn, if I need specific info (like Springtime catfishing on the Tennessee River) I can either search the whole site, OR go to the catfish subforum or the Tennessee River subforum and look at those specifically.

 

I could see our TI forums here working similarly. Subs for new game development, hardware development, classic99, MESS, assembly programming, BASIC, XB, whatever...

 

Then the user has the option how he/she wants to view those topics, either all on one page (irrespective of forum) or go sub by sub for very specific searching.

 

When one posts to this fishing forum, a subforum must be selected... But it is really just a very nice compartmentalizing formality, because users do not have to SPECIFICALLY visit that forum to read or comment on a post.

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In my view, on the bottom line, forums are great for discussion, including this one, but they are not the best way to help people out of trouble.

 

I totally agree, and adding a new forum doesn't fix any of what you listed as problems.

 

In fact, you listed "I have to click to see more topics" as one of the problems. Adding a forum makes a THIRD place to click and thus an additional place to look. It makes that particular problem worse.

 

But that's just opinion. You don't have to agree with opinions. But like you say, Ninerpedia is where you should go to look things up, here you can come and ask new questions. ;)

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This forum has 20-25 different subforums including species, specific lakes/rivers, etc.

 

When we reach that level of traffic, that starts to make more sense. I don't see it right now. I don't really like the current split.

 

FWIW, I don't review the rest of AtariAge either (most of the time), which probably affects my perspective. There are a /lot/ of subforums here, and yeah, it would be nearly impossible to keep up with all of them. :)

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While I do not have an opinion on this matter one way or another, I do feel compelled to punctuate a correlate of the point mizapf made: there are a number of people who do not make the topic of their threads reflective of the content. I find this to be a real-life problem that affects emails, too, but when I respond to a crappy email I can change the subject to match the content -- we have no such latitude in forums so the onus is on the OP to ensure that the topic adequately shows what will be in the thread.

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