Omnimaga
Omnimaga => Site Feedback and Questions => Topic started by: DJ Omnimaga on July 14, 2012, 11:39:25 pm
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I hope to be more active during my vacations in a week or so, but Omnimaga doesn't necessarily revolve around me, so activity doesn't always have to be 5 times my monthly postcount. I mean, in June 2012 I only had 229 posts (my lowest June activity in Omni history, excluding years of no Internet access/site being gone), yet the membership still pulled over 4700, and I'm sure at least half of it wasn't Sorunome/Blue_bear_94's spam section activity. Granted, 45 posts in 24 hours without a single spam is not this bad, but there are projects in the works, minecraft and other games as well as general calc discussions (such as contest entries) and I'M sure a few people are still around at the moment who could contribute to discussion, right? And I am shocked that there were only 47 posts considering Deep Thought's posting spree a few days ago... ???
I didn't say anything since it was Summer, but I started getting concerned yesterday when I noticed there were 8 hours separating two threads in the new posts section in the very middle of "rush hour", and that there were like 10-15 threads being posted in in the day. The last day under 50 posts on Omnimaga was back in February 2010, before Ndless arrived and when Axe still lacked Sprite support.
Thankfully this is Summer and ATM this month averages at 100 posts/day, which is not too bad for Summer time, but it would be a good idea to at least keep it up that way or higher, right? Because you know what happened to United-TI, MaxCoderz, Detacheds Solutions, etc. Omni and Cemetech had the same issue back in the days and recovered, but it took years and was hard. At the moment, the site, although posting quality has become far better than it was last season, is back under Axe-era activity levels. D:
(http://www.omnimaga.org/statsgraph.php)
Maybe in the future there could be some special forum rewards, even if small for those who remains active in certain forum sections (such as outside humor, now that spam was locked), have a project in the works and gain a certain amount of post "likes". I'm thinking for example about temporary Charter member position, allowing access to early staff releases to the top 10 posters in a month that had at least 100 posts outside humor/jokes/intro. That charter membership would void if the member drops under 10 posts in the last 30 days in average (like Coders of Tomorrow membership before), the month following his promotion. Another idea was giving away download codes for my music, but considering my music albums are $2-4 on Bandcamp, I'm not sure how it would make much difference.
Or maybe bring back the forum RPG? (Although that might be a problem since we no longer use Invisionfree)
Or a free alternative to taptalk and/or new mobile version of the site (replacing the crappy SMF default with no IMG tag support)
Or the other thing is me replying to 30% of the replies like back in the days, but that would be hard with my neck problems preventing me from concentrating and sitting down for too long, and being out of calc stuff getting the motivation to do it regularly would be hard. Not to mention as I said above that Omnimaga should be able to sustain itself a little, right (unlike that infamous DJ-loses-internet-access-for-five-months episode in 2007)?
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Yeah, 50 posts/day is kinda low... What happens with you guys?
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I know I am usually busier in the summer and am more active around school. I will try to bring more discussion and that will be easier with the new tapatalk integration, as I am usually away from my computer. I did notice a major slowdown on posts though.
Sent from my SGH-i937 using Board Express
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Yeah, I noticed that too. I remember last year at the same period (more or less), everytime I went on Omni, even if I already came earlier the same day, there was a huge amount of new posts. It is not the same now.
Concerning myself, maybe I post a bit less because holidays is the when I have a lot of time to work on my projects, TinyCraft for example, but as you might have seen, I often make updates, sometimes double-posting.
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I think a problem may be that good programmers just left.(Aichi comes to mind).
I think real life stuff may be an issue, but perhaps gaming(minecraft...)? Idk.
I personally don't play any games in general. I could't be so active lately since I'm helping painting my grandparents house(windows, doors, etc..).
But to say the truth, even if I had more time I should not try to be so much busy with calcs. I don't want to spend more than a certain time otherwise I'm spending too much time on a hobby.
Anyway, I guess there aren't so many new active projects out there. Also I believe that z80 programmers might be switching to computer/ nspire programming...
I hope activity gets better.
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Yeah if we check the stats averages per day it kinda went like this over the years. Yearly averages only spans through days of operation:
July 2005: 27/day (excluding deleted posts) - Entire year: 40/day
July 2006: 61/day (excluding deleted posts) - Entire year: 80/day
July 2007: 46/day (excluding deleted posts) - Entire year: 51/day
July 2008: Forum offline from Mar to Aug - Entire year: 21/day
July 2009: 37/day (deleted posts included) - Entire year: 41/day
July 2010: 211/day (deleted posts included) - Entire year: 239/day
July 2011: 258/day (deleted posts included) - Entire year: 316/day
July 2012: 103/day (deleted posts included) - Entire year: 180/day
As I said before, at 100 posts a day with not too much spam section activity is not too bad, but under that it gets dangerous because that leaves hours with no new posts sometimes, which makes people check less often, causing a downward spiral, making it very hard afterward to keep the site active. On top of that there are bigger risks of people asking help or showcasing their projects, only to get no response at all. On the other hand, over 400 posts/day consistently gets rather hard to keep up with. X.x
@Stefan: I definitively think Minecraft is a major issue. It reminds me of the WoW activity purge in 2005 on MaxCoderz. As for Nspire activity I think it's the opposite, though, because of what TI did with Ndless. However Nspire activity kinda rebounded lately due to OS 3.2.
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Not sure about everyone else, but for me I'm just taking a break from calc programming this summer. Too much other stuff to do.
EDIT: Heh, I still remember when ephan and others were posting >100 posts on the average day... Hectic XD
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I have been so busy for the first two months that I havnt had alot of time to do other stuff, Although I think I will get more time in about 2 weeks or so
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I'm working on my nspire projects, but I'm just not a person who replies to every thread
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I really haven't been active since the computer section is always dead. Most of my attention is also being sucked up by the Ouya since I'm planning on truly breaking into game development on that console.
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I don't really do any calculator development, and almost everything here is calculator-related (contests, most of the forum) and I only do computer development, I don't really do much here anymore.
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We have a computer section thought, right? ??? (if you have projects to showcase, for instance)
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We have a computer section thought, right? ??? (if you have projects to showcase, for instance)
A large part of the slow down is because it is summer. In addition, with the passage of time, conditions for programmers have changed. Prior to the release of the nspire, we were sort of in a classic period where many people including myself enjoyed the opportunity to quickly and easily program the 83/84 series calc's. Now however with ti's continuous effort to control what can and cannot be programmed on the nspire and the limited commands available, things are not as simple and inviting as they were and I believe that is a large part of the reason for less activity here.
We can all post more but that doesn't solve the problem which I believe is the discouragement of the restrictive programming that ti's latest calculators offer. Some time ago, I suggested changing the emphasis on this site to the Casio Prizm but that was not well received. I am concerned that the site will disappear from lack of use so I again suggest some emphasis on the Prizm but I am open to supporting any solution that will generate more interest in using this site. On the other hand, encouraging people to post more doesn't solve the long term problem which I believe is a general lack of interest in nspire programming due to the difficulties and complications in dealing with nspires. Just my opinion based on my perceptions.
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I believe one of the biggest disadvantages of the nspire is that on-calc programming isn't as good as on the z80 series. For Lua you have oclua, which is good but not ideal (because it was only intended to be a intermediary solution), but for C/asm there's nothing. It would be great if you could program in breaks, and not only when you have a computer with you.
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A large part of the slow down is because it is summer. In addition, with the passage of time, conditions for programmers have changed. Prior to the release of the nspire, we were sort of in a classic period where many people including myself enjoyed the opportunity to quickly and easily program the 83/84 series calc's. Now however with ti's continuous effort to control what can and cannot be programmed on the nspire and the limited commands available, things are not as simple and inviting as they were and I believe that is a large part of the reason for less activity here.
Yeah actually the biggest slow down on Omnimaga is Nspire-related. 83+ stuff is fine, as you can see on Ticalc.org with the amount of 83+ features from late 2011 or this year for POTY 2012, but Nspire got affected the most, and since we had a lot of Nspire coders, I guess this didn't help.
Some time ago, I suggested changing the emphasis on this site to the Casio Prizm but that was not well received.
The problem with that is that since PRIZM development started, people from other calc sites have continuously been told to invite Omnimaga PRIZM coders to join other sites and certain PRIZM coders joined on their own. I wouldn't be surprised if even some site owners did the same thing too. On our side we always avoided PM or public advertising (unless that changed in recent times?) and the like unless another site was on the verge of collapse with no hope of recovery, so getting PRIZM coders that way would be impossible in our case. Because we only had two PRIZM coders of our own and both quit calc programming, this made it very hard to keep our PRIZM programmers. In addition to that, both main Casio community site have revived since the past months, so most people who temporarily migrated to Omni and Cemetech while Casio-only sites were dead have since returned to their home.
A big part of the problem for PRIZM programming is that it's considered too hard for a lot of people. Notice how on the Nspire there were far more Lua programmers than C and ASM. When Nspire dev was at its peak (before Lua arrived), there were only about 5 C coders and 1 ASM coder. On the PRIZM, all you got that is viable is C and ASM. As long as the PRIZM will lack Axe Parser, Grammer or Lua programming, it will never thrive on Omnimaga and will have difficulties having success even on a site that is mainly focusing on the PRIZM.
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Yeah, well C isn't the easiest language ever, especially on the Prizm where there's not a lot of documentation, some calls are only documented by their prototypes in the header files and stuff can mess up easily... Not that I want to scare off programmers lol.
So yeah we really need something like Lua.
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Well there's a bunch of doc now with the Wiki on Cemetech, but even then I guess some people found C too tricky. It would definitively help to have a bigger range of languages.
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I wonder what the age distribution on Omnimaga looks like. Maybe there are spikes around certain age groups that happen to be in a busy year this summer.
EDIT: You know, I could actually try making one (anonymous of course), except that many of us have very ... interesting dates of birth.
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The two large core Omni usergroups joined at specific times it seems. The Eeems/geek/builder/ztrumpet group that was very active until mid 2011 joined in Early 2009. Then we had the rush of Nspire users after Ndless came out. However now the first group became less active and the second group was almost lost entirely to TI's wrath. Prizm never really took off due to lack of interest, and ASM/C on the Nspire was only done by an handful of users.
The vast majority of users join around 15 then quit after 18. Those who joins at 12 or 13 generally have faster shifts in interests and as a result, they generally don't even stay one year. Those who joins after hi-school generally remain quiet, as they lack the time to participate enough. There are a few exceptions, of course, such as annoyingcalc (who wasn't even born when Lionel started calc programming), or on the extreme opposite, Critor, Art_of_Camelot & Lionel. I stayed nearly one decade after finishing hi-school, but I slowed down in calc programming about a year after starting college.
If the Nspire scene nearly died in the future and if we are unable to get non-calc coders to use the computer section that used to be quite active too, then I guess Omni would have to focus mostly on Z80 calc programming, which still seems strong, or would have to find alternate ways to find members (maybe e-mail new ticalc.org authors who seem to have potential? I only ever done that once, with Nitacku, but that can be time-consuming since you got many programs to try). Maybe there could be computer game programming contests? (Now that the calc ones here are over)
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I just picked up this topic :)
Maybe a computer contest would be grate! Maybe in the rules it must say stuff like that you may not use gamemaker to make games as with that one it wouldn't be to fair against the hard-core from-scratch coders XD
Well, from my part, I can't do a lot recently as very soon I'm moving and thus am very stressed.
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I would love a computer contest, personally. It doesn't even have to have physical prizes, save maybe a cool userbar like Cemetech did for their last contest.
We have a computer section thought, right? (if you have projects to showcase, for instance)
I have some of my own projects showcased there (three, actually) but something I've noticed is that they never seem to generate a lot of interest. Even though Daemons has about 7 pages worth of posts, a lot of the time it would only be me posting there or every so often an exchange between one other member. Even my project System Crash which ended up taking first for the Cemetech contest got very little attention here. It's actually very discouraging to try and continue a project when no one seems interested, which is understandable seeing how this is a Calculator Development forum. But I've tried looking for other sites like Omnimaga, but for computer development and I've found none. (Cemetech is closest, but it just feels too hostile (or would volatile be a better word?) for my tastes.) But if there was more interest here for computer development, I think Daemons would have been completed by now and I'd still be working on System Crash.
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^ That last paragraph was almost exactly my experience there back in 2010, minus the computer and contest stuff.
Anyway a computer section sounds good :)
And I can agree the Prizm could be documented better, last I looked there wasn't much.. is anyone working on an emulator btw?
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I would love a computer contest, personally. It doesn't even have to have physical prizes, save maybe a cool userbar like Cemetech did for their last contest.
We have a computer section thought, right? (if you have projects to showcase, for instance)
I have some of my own projects showcased there (three, actually) but something I've noticed is that they never seem to generate a lot of interest. Even though Daemons has about 7 pages worth of posts, a lot of the time it would only be me posting there or every so often an exchange between one other member. Even my project System Crash which ended up taking first for the Cemetech contest got very little attention here. It's actually very discouraging to try and continue a project when no one seems interested, which is understandable seeing how this is a Calculator Development forum. But I've tried looking for other sites like Omnimaga, but for computer development and I've found none. (Cemetech is closest, but it just feels too hostile (or would volatile be a better word?) for my tastes.) But if there was more interest here for computer development, I think Daemons would have been completed by now and I'd still be working on System Crash.
I really need to check the section again. An issue is that when the forums had 400 posts a day, I was busy then began to check some sections less often, especially projects, where posts became TL;DR for a certain period of time. Eventually I kinda lost interest in general so I never really started checking much again, even though there were less posts. I think my last post in the computer section dates back in June 2011 or so. With vacations arriving I began catching up on the more recent project topics, so hopefully I should get to the computer ones soon. :D
I think there are people interested, but with limited free time and the focus on calcs, they tend to not show it much. ALso a lot of projects lack any screenshots or graphics, so those would probably generate even less interest than others anyway.
Opening the archives to computer programs from non staff would also be a solution I think, but I fear if it got popular that it would fill Netham's server very fast, especially if most releases are 60 MB or so.
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But I've tried looking for other sites like Omnimaga, but for computer development and I've found none. (Cemetech is closest, but it just feels too hostile (or would volatile be a better word?) for my tastes.)
I'd agree that some responses I got on Cemetech were confusing, and terse at times, no matter how friendly and influential KermM was, he was only part of the picture. And people who are members here on Omnimaga seem to act a bit differently on Cemetech.
But anyway, I had noticed this general posting decline (and looking at the graph now I am pretty startled at the continuing downward trend), earlier in the year when I was really active (March-May 2012).
http://ourl.ca/15770
It got to the point where there were little responses to my many posts at times by others except for DJ_O and sometimes Juju I guess. Maintaining that level of posting is hard and I'm afraid I can no longer afford to do that (at least until next year). But I hope people overall can stay motivated and post and reply on the topics that count.
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Yah true. As for myself I am busier than last year so getting more active is harder (although thankfully I feel better in general so aside from neck issues my health doesn't really stop me much from posting more) so it would be next to impossible to reach the activity levels I had a few years ago, plus I'M currently working on some music-related stuff, which cuts some of my free time. Hopefully that changes a bit in the future, though.
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I think replying to "everything" just to try to make the forums more active is a wrong strategy and may give the feel of 'cheap' posting.
I think a big reason why the forum is less active is since there isn't (a) huge project(s) going on.
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I think a big reason why the forum is less active is since there isn't (a) huge project(s) going on.
O.O gpsp4cx and TinyCraft are not big enough ? :P
But you are right, what brought me here in first place was TI-Boy SE, which is indeed a big project (I came here because of a bug but anyway :P)
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I think the Nspire series is just much less popular than it used to be a few years ago. Back then, the arrival of Ndless gave it some momentum, until TI started doing crap against it. I'm pretty sure that just because of that, people don't see as much future in the platform as back in 2010-11.
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Honestly I think a greater emphasis on more viable programming platforms may help traffic. Prizm's, 83's/84's and computers are pretty unlocked while the nspire periodically gets unlocked and then blocked again a few months later. I am not by any means advocating leaving the nspire but I'm saying that we should emphasize some other kinds of work also. I still say that if we could get the computer section up and running so that it is used a good amount more then it currently is being used then it would help the whole site. Also as others have said the prizm is here and its open a port of axe or of other languages to it may help it even more so that you could have everyone be able to develop for it.
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I would be very active on the computer section if it had more emphasis. I could especially help embers with questions and issues they have with computer languages. The only reason I am not so on calc sections is that I don't understand Axe and Grammar so I'm not helpful any.
A computer section would also lead to a subgroup of users devoted to that, like we have members devoted to the music section.
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I was thinking a lot about an handlheld devices section in the non calc section. It could include or have categories such as Android development and Petit Computer programming. The rest is pretty much aimed at computer development.
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True, there's no section about handhelds (unless you consider them as either computers or consoles).
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Something I just had an idea about, what if we had a few very small contests/games that would help bring in new ideas and concepts?
I think a game like, code this small application and the best at the end of a week determines the next app could do well. I know we had a thread like that before, but it died.
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I think the Nspire series is just much less popular than it used to be a few years ago. Back then, the arrival of Ndless gave it some momentum, until TI started doing crap against it. I'm pretty sure that just because of that, people don't see as much future in the platform as back in 2010-11.
I think that Lua has enough programming possibilities, and should be a good reason for people to code on the Nspire. Especially since TI has many updates improving Lua. The fact that TI blocks Ndless, with a good reason, should not be a reason to not learn Lua and create epic programs for the Nspire series.
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Lack of a standard print() function? (Without Ndless) Inability to read/write files? (Without Ndless) Annoying bar at the top of the screen? (Also without Ndless)
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Lack of a standard print() function? (Without Ndless) Inability to read/write files? (Without Ndless) Annoying bar at the top of the screen? (Also without Ndless)
Meh, Nspire Lua is a fun language. I found it very flexible compared to Java and C++, even if it's limited. :P
Although we could debate if a language is suitable or not, it gets us nowhere. People just aren't using the languages and platform, or are not active with it. Thus lowering activity. Attracting new members would probably be better for increasing activity.
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Lack of a standard print() function? (Without Ndless) Inability to read/write files? (Without Ndless) Annoying bar at the top of the screen? (Also without Ndless)
You really don't need a print() function or the ability to read/write files to make a decent game. The annoying bar can be removed in 3.1 WITHOUT ndless. Levak does that with nyan cat. Seriously, Nspire Lua can do plenty of things...
And yeah, arguing about this will get us nowhere. :P
There has been somebody named David Paquette who has uploaded maybe three or four Lua games to ticalc. There's also a Karl Noss who has developed a few Lua applications.
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Lack of a standard print() function? (Without Ndless) Inability to read/write files? (Without Ndless) Annoying bar at the top of the screen? (Also without Ndless)
You really don't need a print() function or the ability to read/write files to make a decent game. The annoying bar can be removed in 3.1 WITHOUT ndless. Levak does that with nyan cat. Seriously, Nspire Lua can do plenty of things...
I stand corrected.
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Something I just had an idea about, what if we had a few very small contests/games that would help bring in new ideas and concepts?
I think a game like, code this small application and the best at the end of a week determines the next app could do well. I know we had a thread like that before, but it died.
Yes community run contests for fame(and maybe occasionally prizes) I remember when I first joined I tried to start something like that but there was already the cage matches so it didnt really work. My idea was to have people vote on a topic for a program/game and then give people 3 weeks to make it (individually or teams) then when it was done just post a poll for voting on winner. If I can find my old thread I'll see if I can post the rules from that if we want to try doing something like that
EDIT: http://ourl.ca/8809 was the topic but I was way to inexperienced to actually set it up especially with cage matches already running
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I remember another thread similar to that where I had released my first game on this site.
I would definitely try to keep up with it, should we start it up again. :P
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Yeah my other idea was to have a large community project(s) with at least one being on computer. I'd think that could generate traffic especially when we finally made something amazing.
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Something I just had an idea about, what if we had a few very small contests/games that would help bring in new ideas and concepts?
I think a game like, code this small application and the best at the end of a week determines the next app could do well. I know we had a thread like that before, but it died.
Yes community run contests for fame(and maybe occasionally prizes) I remember when I first joined I tried to start something like that but there was already the cage matches so it didnt really work. My idea was to have people vote on a topic for a program/game and then give people 3 weeks to make it (individually or teams) then when it was done just post a poll for voting on winner. If I can find my old thread I'll see if I can post the rules from that if we want to try doing something like that
EDIT: http://ourl.ca/8809 was the topic but I was way to inexperienced to actually set it up especially with cage matches already running
YEah that was actually pretty cool. Too bad there were many other contests going on at the same time. It could be an idea to have such contest during Fall or Winter, since during Spring and Summer we have calc contests. It's best we be careful with team projects, though, because most of those fall apart due to poor management.
Also, if a computer contest is done it should probably not be restricted to specific languages. I notice that Omni users often go towards higher-level languages such as Lua or Java rather than ASM or C, so such contest should focus on the game content, ease to install/use and usability I guess.
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I think I might try remaking that topic and starting a new version of it. The only questions I'd have would be that since I'd be making it language independent what requirements must it meet(being able to run on XP/7 or linux or both?). There has to be some standardized way of running it so they can be compared on even ground(at least in my opinion)
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For now, I think it would have to be Windows XP or above, but add Linux and Mac if there's demand. Surveys/polls should be ran, though. As for judges, I guess they could be required to run both Linux and Windows, like Juju. Mac might not be a good idea, though, since most people cannot afford a mac computer.
Another contest idea would be android. It's not calc-related either, but it's still for portable devices for the most part.
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Most projects can be easily compiled for both Windows, Mac and Linux using the right libraries, like LOVE, SDL, Qt and others, so it's not a problem.
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My idea would be cross platform or specific platform if the topic required it.
There also wouldn't be judges but a poll. I think t would be better to give everyone their say. Maybe even pols for different aspects of the program
Maybe their could be something added under your profile pic or somewhere saying you one the competition or you got blank place if you win
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If some were willing to make them, there could be userbars for winning. It'd be a nice way of having something small to show for your achievement. :P
Having polls for different aspects of a program is something I like :D
I think that some may require the project to be open sourced, but I get the feeling it'd pretty much be that way anyways :P
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Well if there's only a poll, then Linux and Windows would have to be separate categories. I know a lot of Omni users don't have Linux installed anywhere, and as a result, Linux-only programs would get far less votes than Windows-compatible ones.
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Well if there's only a poll, then Linux and Windows would have to be separate categories. I know a lot of Omni users don't have Linux installed anywhere, and as a result, Linux-only programs would get far less votes than Windows-compatible ones.
Maybe there could be separate voting polls for each OS and extra points for cross compatibility? and there would be fewer linux only then windows only mainly because its easier to recompile most linux things to run on windows then the other way around in my experience.
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If anything, that will only be an issue with C/C++ and other compiled languages. For others like Java or .NET, they shouldn't have a problem with cross-compatibility.
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I thought it was the other way around? ??? I mean I was sure that C/C++ and Java was available on every platform but .NET/VB/VC++/C# were Windows-only ???
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Programs like DotGNU allow .NET to be run on Linux platforms :D
There is most likely a similar application for Mac OS.
C/C++ need to be compiled on each platform. So if someone isn't running linux or windows, it'd be an issue. Though they could provide source for people to compile anyways.
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I heard about weird issues with .NET on Linux, though. People were using mono to attempt running some and they would not work, from time to time.
Other than that I guess the only language compatibility issue might be if someone uses Game Maker, RPG Maker and such software to create his game, but in a contest he would lose almost all his originality points anyway because most game code would be written by somebody else (the company that created the game maker program)
Are Python and Flash available for Linux?
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I know for a fact Python is, Flash is supported as well, it seems.
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If anything, that will only be an issue with C/C++ and other compiled languages. For others like Java or .NET, they shouldn't have a problem with cross-compatibility.
One of the requirements of the competition would be source code release. Otherwise it would be way too much of a hassle to compile for all the different architectures out there though the author could if they wanted to.
Python is better supported on linux then windows usually and flash has support but its a lot buggier on linux then on windows