29 replies to this topic

[knackered3]

Is it me or is this site dead?

[SpreeTree]

Its is definatly true that the number of posts has decreased since Flipcode came back from the dead itself, but also the number of "Crap not another one of those questions" posts have also decreased, so its not all bad.

DevMasters is still one of the best places to get well thought out, and useful, replies than anywhere else in my opinion

Spree

[NomadRock]

Flipcode is beginning to be a lot more like gamedev as it has gotten a lot of new people lately, and devmaster has gotten a lot more like the old flipcode. flipcode is still nice, but devmaster is my new hole away from most of the idiots.

[knackered3]

With all due respect, could someone who DOESN'T have a vested interest in this site care to comment? (are there any left who have it bookmarked?)...

[Goz]

knackered3 said:

With all due respect, could someone who DOESN'T have a vested interest in this site care to comment? (are there any left who have it bookmarked?)...

With all due respect i don't thick either Nomad Rock or Spree Tree have a vested interest...

Personally i've had some interesting discussions. So what if its not bursting at the seams with acitvity. I know where i'll come to when i have a complicated problem to discuss.

Ya know whats funny about flipcode though. I have answered thousands of people's questions and not once has anyone answered any question i've asked ... says a lot for the level of competency on the forum ;)

Why do you care anyway? If you think its dead you don't have to check it.

One word comes to mind ... TROLL!

[john]

knackered, why are you so much against this site? The interesting thing is, although you seem to dislike it, you still seem to stick around.
as Goz said ... TROLL!

[baldurk]

Goz said:

One word comes to mind ... TROLL!

john said:

as Goz said ... TROLL!

Perhaps knackered could, as he often could, have phrased it in a better way. However, I would say that the point is valid and worth discussing.

I'm not going to say yay or nay because I have a vested interest in the site.

[Goz]

baldurk said:

Perhaps knackered could, as he often could, have phrased it in a better way. However, I would say that the point is valid and worth discussing.

I'm not going to say yay or nay because I have a vested interest in the site.

I assume you know the guy? 'Cos its a blatant trolling technique ...

Hmm ... been a long time since my IRC troll'ing days :lol:

[Mihail121]

I'm here... and i always will be!

[baldurk]

Goz said:

I assume you know the guy? 'Cos its a blatant trolling technique ...

Hmm ... been a long time since my IRC troll'ing days :lol:

only as much as you do, I would think. However, from what I can tell he often presents his views without politeness or courtesy, I've rarely seen him simply troll. Most of the time he has a valid point, or at least an opinion that isn't just intended to cause flames. As in this case he's raised a good point. You can fault his way of raising it perhaps, but I would think it's better to ignore that and discuss the point than waste your time with ad hominem attacks.

Just my thoughts.

edit: spelling.

[knackered3]

Wow. An island of sanity in this wilderness of knee jerk reactionaries. Sorry for the mixed metaphor.
I agree I'm impolite sometimes, most of the time to be honest, but my intent is never to troll, whatever that means. I attempt to argue points I'm interested in, and don't see why other peoples sensabilities should be a concern of mine. If I upset someone by speaking my mind, then I consider that their problem and not mine. I don't restrict this approach to the internet - I'm like this in the pub too. I like black humour (re: bad taste, not racist..before you ban me again) which also lands me in trouble, especially in the pub.
I stick around and ask the question about the site being alive or dead simply because I think it's a really good site - the content is a bit lacking, but the layout and mechanics of it are spot on in my opinion. If there's something beneficial to the site to come out of having this discussion then I'll be happy. Just don't expect me to sugar up anything I say, in case I offend.

[NomadRock]

knackered3 said:

my intent is never to troll, whatever that means.

If that wasn't a trolling effort, I don't know what is ;)

So knackered, care to help out with the lacking in content? An article perhaps? What is it you do? What do you specialize in? What are you working on?

[anubis]

Quote

I stick around and ask the question about the site being alive or dead simply because I think it's a really good site

that was the first positive thing i heard out of your mouth so far... i'm impressed :)
keep it up...

[bladder]

knackered3 said:

With all due respect, could someone who DOESN'T have a vested interest in this site care to comment? (are there any left who have it bookmarked?)...

bookmarked? It's still one of my homepages - but I guess me dosent count...

but anyway, every place has its ups and downs. I've been missing a lot on the internet the past few weeks - exams/projects/harddrive crash!! But it seems like ill be regular again...

[baldurk]

NomadRock said:

knackered3 said:

my intent is never to troll, whatever that means.

If that wasn't a trolling effort, I don't know what is ;)

So knackered, care to help out with the lacking in content? An article perhaps? What is it you do? What do you specialize in? What are you working on?

That's roughly equivalent to the childhood saying "If you can't do better, don't criticise". He's got a perfect right to raise this topic because no-one had before.

However on the other hand, a community is nothing but the sum of its members. If we lose members (for example when flipcode returned and people stopped trumpeting this place as "Flipcode 2.0" - thank god) or the input from members slows down, the site will slow down. Bringing the site back to a more active life is as simple as providing more input.

Knackered reminds me in some ways of bishop_pass from GDNet, for those of you who know/knew him. He was a very knowledgable and level-headed guy as was demonstrated when the GDNet staff gave him moderator privileges/responsibilities. However, he all but stopped posting totally (he has since returned). The reason? he was too forthright for many members and presented his views without any niceties and dancing around the point.

It's a shame, but it seems to be human nature.

[SYS49152]

i like this site. its not overrun and there are alot of nice people with good skills.
ofcourse some people are back to flipcode but i think this has nothing to say really.
its not the sum of articles or posts thats make a site strong.

anyway i like this site. so keep it up !!! :)

- Andy

ps: i would contribute more but do to my spare time and my bad english........ hehe :)

[NomadRock]

Oh, I am not saying he shouldn't raise the point. I am trying to get him to reveal a bit more about himself. He generally only talks about other projects, and while I have heard a good deal about the projects of other members, he remains elusive. Now that I think about it, the same goes for you baldurk. What do you do?

[knackered3]

Well I'd rather not start talking about the specifics of my work, to be honest. Reason being that this name tag I've lumbered myself with has been involved in some pretty nasty 'debates' over the years on various forums, and the casual observer would see my posts (taken out of context) as being venomous and nasty, and completely miss the positive contributions. With this in mind, I don't want to give anybody any clues as to my true identity (I'm not saying I'm in anyway famous - just in the business we call 'graphics'). So, I'm a successful graphics programmer - not a genius, just someone who's done some pretty stuff over many years.
If I can help, I will. But time is not on my side at the moment, though you'd never know it considering the amount of crap I've been spouting on the forums recently....my rebuild-all times are huge is all I can say.
I could potentially do some simple tutorials on the following:-
Cheap image based effects such as fake HDR, bloom, depth-of-field, cheap soft shadows, full scene reflection/refraction (pervertex/perpixel), volumetric fog effects, fft water rendering. I know these things have been covered before, but all the tutorials I've seen have been very accademic and elitist...bit overwhelming for someone who just wants the effect and doesn't have an interest in how it was conceived, and how it can be taken forward. From personal experience, deadlines make it imperitive to get down to the gritty details as soon as possible, something accademics don't seem to appreciate.
So, you should have a section called "Show me how to...." followed by a series of links to these articles...if no article has been written, you simply leave an email link for so someone can submit one. I may drop one in there if it were that simple.

[SYS49152]

knackered3 said:

I know these things have been covered before, but all the tutorials I've seen have been very accademic and elitist...bit overwhelming for someone who just wants the effect and doesn't have an interest in how it was conceived, and how it can be taken forward.

well said. this was one of the first problems i come over when i started with 3d programming. most of the docs out there was way to hard to read for me as an beginner or way to accademic like you said.

( still is not easy... hehe )

- Andy

[baldurk]

NomadRock said:

Oh, I am not saying he shouldn't raise the point. I am trying to get him to reveal a bit more about himself. He generally only talks about other projects, and while I have heard a good deal about the projects of other members, he remains elusive. Now that I think about it, the same goes for you baldurk. What do you do?

heh. Unfortunately, I'm still pretty much a newbie to graphics programming. The best things that I've done are probably my entries to the contests on this site :/.

knackered3 said:

Well I'd rather not start talking about the specifics of my work, to be honest. Reason being that this name tag I've lumbered myself with has been involved in some pretty nasty 'debates' over the years on various forums, and the casual observer would see my posts (taken out of context) as being venomous and nasty, and completely miss the positive contributions. With this in mind, I don't want to give anybody any clues as to my true identity (I'm not saying I'm in anyway famous - just in the business we call 'graphics'). So, I'm a successful graphics programmer - not a genius, just someone who's done some pretty stuff over many years.
If I can help, I will. But time is not on my side at the moment, though you'd never know it considering the amount of crap I've been spouting on the forums recently....my rebuild-all times are huge is all I can say.
I could potentially do some simple tutorials on the following:-
Cheap image based effects such as fake HDR, bloom, depth-of-field, cheap soft shadows, full scene reflection/refraction (pervertex/perpixel), volumetric fog effects, fft water rendering. I know these things have been covered before, but all the tutorials I've seen have been very accademic and elitist...bit overwhelming for someone who just wants the effect and doesn't have an interest in how it was conceived, and how it can be taken forward. From personal experience, deadlines make it imperitive to get down to the gritty details as soon as possible, something accademics don't seem to appreciate.
So, you should have a section called "Show me how to...." followed by a series of links to these articles...if no article has been written, you simply leave an email link for so someone can submit one. I may drop one in there if it were that simple.

It's a kind of viscious cycle with most articles above intermediate level - they assume in depth knowledge of X, which assumes knowledge of Y, which assumes knowledge of Z, which assumes knowledge of X. Unless you can somehow break in, or you have some sort of extra boost, you can't get into the circle.