Omnimaga
Omnimaga => News => Topic started by: Hot_Dog on April 08, 2011, 12:24:02 am
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I am going to make a long story short, and if you'd like to read my full argument, please read the gray box with the small text further down.
I want to start by reminding everyone that at Omnimaga, we strive to create an environment where people are welcome no matter the programming language/software used or the skill level the programmer has. We also believe that every calculator site has the right to be respected no matter their mentality or policies, and as such we always do our best to make sure that any form of site bashing is prevented. We also want people to remember that each site has rules, so it's only fair that by becoming a member of another site you should abide by the site's rules.
With that said, if you're a Omnimaga user who likes to visit #cemetch, please set a good example so that visitors will continue to join our website knowing that we are caring people who welcome all promising contributions. I think we have generally done a great job with this so far when talking on #cemetech, and there's no reason to quit. If someone on #cemetech is insulting you or Omnimaga itself, speak softly. If you don't think you can do that, help us out by just leaving the #cemetech channel. A bull-fight and counterattack on #cemetech is only going to make things worse for our community.
FULL ARGUMENT:
Discussion can be a wonderful thing on IRC channels. I speak on IRC all the time to find solutions to problems, help someone write a program and talk with people who need a friend. If there is a programmer who doesn't like what I do, IRC gives me a chance to ask what went wrong, and how I could do better. If someone on #omnimaga dislikes Cemetech, a cemetech user has a good chance to defend Cemetech, and the same thing with someone on #cemetech disliking Omnimaga.
But there are people on #cemetech who are just not going to like Omnimaga. You can make some excellent arguments, talk as wise as an owl and show caring feelings. Yet these people are not going to change, even if you speak softly.
What's the solution? Yelling, swearing or calling names is not going to change the person's feelings, nor is it going to help. In fact, he's going to cling even more to his opinion, because we are only helping to prove his point. Suppose someone hated me because I lost my temper easily. What happens when I yell at him for a comment like that? I just lost my temper again! He has all the more reason to believe that I lose my temper easily.
So if you kindly defend yourself, your friends or omnimaga to no avail, you don't HAVE to be on #cemetech. If you're not on #cemetech, you don't hear all these insults and they can only make fun of us to each other. But fighting is only going to strengthen any bad opinions a person may have about us.
And thus, our insults and fights will only give us a bad name. Do you not believe it? I can name an example where it happened to Cemetech, and there's no reason it won't happen to us as well.
Take a look at me. I posted projects on Cemetech, with people eager to see more progress and offer constructive critisism. But as much as I like Cemetech, I have a lot of friends on Omnimaga, and I LOVE Omnimaga. For goodness sake I'm a manager! So what happens? People insult our website and the users. Furthermore, four good friends of mine are attacked by the same people who want me posting on Cemetech. (You can hurt me, but leave my friends alone!) So how likely is it that I'll show up on Cemetech again? I don't want to have to see or be a part of this kind of thing. I don't want to give pleasure to those who hurt people I'm fond of. And thus I avoid the pain by simply not going to Cemetech, whether they like it or not.
If #cemetech can get away with this, it's their website, let them do what they want. But let's not let Omnimaga turn into this. IRC is where people will see us for who we are. Let's give people something that we can be proud of. If you can't do that, please don't harm us by making things on #cemetech worse.
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I love Omnimaga, Cemetech as well, it's fun to be there, but they totally don't need drama. I hate drama. It's not fun.
I totally agree with you Hot_Dog :)
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Very well put Hot_Dog. I'm not sure that there is anything I can add to this. Our collective calculator enthusiast community is rather small in the grand scale of things. I can only hope that in the future, everyone can realize this even more, and work towards a stronger more united community. :)
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Yeah I agree too. Personally I took the resolution that if I feel my work for the community is disrespected somewhere and I don't like it, I'll avoid that place altogether. That goes for any site or channel. I prefer to avoid getting into an argument with the said persons because like you said they're certainly not gonna change their views, especially if they are doing it solely to hurt us.
IMHO no view on each site is superior or inferior to any other and none are facts, either. Everyone has their own mentality, sense of humor, style of programming, and if it's not your style, it doesn't mean it's bad.
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I must say: Well said, Hot Dog.
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Nicely said Hot_Dog.
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>People insult our website
Simple answer: restore the original SMF theme.
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>People insult our website
Simple answer: restore the original SMF theme.
It's actually not that simple. After all, others are going to become displeased if we do so, simply because they like the current version.
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I agree with you Hot Dog, however, I disagree that there should even be discussions on defending Omnimaga or Cemetech.
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>People insult our website
Simple answer: restore the original SMF theme.
It's actually not that simple. After all, others are going to become displeased if we do so, simply because they like the current version.
As far as I know the main page has a theme switcher?
Mardoxx please look into that please.
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Aye. Well said. And, umm, any other praise I can think of would be redundant actually. It's already been said. And bears repeating: Awesome work, Hot_Dog.
It's the posts like this that make Omni what it is, the impassioned arguments and reason that stand out against the background, and also the help that's needed, but never asked for. This is what makes Omnimaga awesome, and that's why I shall continue to be here.
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IMHO, I believe that we already did a good job at preventing any form of bashing of other calculator websites that promotes third-party development. Of course you'll hear things against people who are totally against calculator development and innovations or groups that discourages calc gaming, since this goes against the nature of the entire TI community, but to me, Cemetech and Omni are groups that are willing to improve the TI community with good program releases and offer two different kind of discussion environments. I'm sure Revsoft and MaxCoderz, despite being quiet, has the same mission and United-TI help forums encourages third-party calc programming too. In the end, we all have the same hobbies. I'm saddened that a few people elsewhere including calc programmers devotes so much time in trying to hurt our image by spreading lies or acting like their views are facts, but I guess this is how those people work.
@Mardoxx I'M sorry that you dislike the forum theme. However you can try the other ones on our front page to see if you like any. In the future the SMF default theme might be added to the site, but I don't like it much because then the board would look the same as many SMF boards, so it's never gonna be the default theme.
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>People insult our website
Simple answer: restore the original SMF theme.
To which those same people reply that omnimaga can't even get an original theme, let alone good ideas.
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On SMF website, there's a showcase section to advertise your forum to get feedback, and boards using the default themes are not allowed. I think it's the same on every board system site, and if you use the default theme you're accused of being unoriginal. I guess having it as an option might be an idea, though. After all, on the old Omni board, we had the default IPB 1.3, IPB 2.0.x and PhpBB2 themes as option (the PhpBB2 one was a Invisionfree conversion of it).
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I personally haven't seen any of the Omni directed insults or bashing recently and I think much of the issue is rumors and just general distrust. And any negativity seems to be both ways. There are many people who do visit both sites and I don't really see this a being a real issue.
I do have to mention that I am not too comfortable with the line "If #cemetech can get away with this, it's their website, let them do what they want." being on your sites front page. It seems like you are implying that our IRC channel is the only one this is going on in and that it is not in fact bidirectional. I would much prefer if the "FULL ARGUMENT" part was at least removed from the front page as to shorten the article and to not seem be claiming your IRC channel does not have its own issues.
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Well I got logs of the instances of what we considered as bashing actually, which Merthsoft got and the entire Omnimaga staff has them. You could always ask him or I could forward you the 4 PMs I sent to him containing them, or I could post them directly here. However, a lot of the stuff is missing, as I did not have time to check.
That said, no offense but I checked #ti and #inspired logs and didn't see anything bad happen. I don't know about #prizm and #tcpa, though, but #tcpa isn't a calc channel anymore anyway. The stuff that happened came from one channel and unfortunately it was the one you are in charge of. I think the line you quoted could be changed to "Cemetech team are the ones who decide what is allowed in their channel and what's not.", though.
Also our chan had similar issues before, same for one topic here in particular, but all were dealt with, which is why we mentionned we try to make sure that stuff is discouraged here. Merthsoft even received a PM containing these issues, to be fair.
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Singling out what many see as one's "rival" site on the front page would not be something I would allow a Cemetech staff member to do, because I could see how it would be provocative to the other site's members and staff, but as we've all agreed, neither of us or our staffs have any position to tell the others how to run their own site. :) I think the sentiments that Hot_Dog expressed in terms of everyone worrying about their own members being polite and following their own site's rules are very good; I think Jonimus' main concern was "If #cemetech can get away with this, it's their website, let them do what they want. But let's not let Omnimaga turn into this.", which I'm sure Hot_Dog didn't mean as passive-aggressively as it sounded. :) At any rate, it's probably best to let sleeping dogs lie.
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Yeah the major issue is really that certain people want each other's sites to be ran the way they want. I tried to make sure people keep their complaints about other sites on the appropriate sites but I did get similar complaints about Omnimaga is ran directly here too and I often saw Cemetech complaints on #cemetech too. That said, while I encourage people who have problems with Omni to directly come to the 4 regular admins, in the suggestions forum or even myself to attempt at solving the issue or giving suggestions about the site, it will have more credibility if it doesn't come with an encrypted hacking threat message. (yes, we actually had this happen before).
And although I am repeating myself here, I think it's important that if someone really has problems with a site but it is clear his wishes won't be answered, if that person isn't willing to cause problems, then at the cost of causing the loss of a site member, it's best that he leaves. In the end that will improve the site because there will be less tension. I believe I even suggested other sites to a forum member before due to that.