Why no official forum?

[Mark15]

I'm totally enjoying OR! I'm just curious why there is no official forum?
Yes, there are forums for OR around, they are linked on the official OR site but it's information spread everywhere. The site that seems to have the most info from what I have found (Elvas Tower) you can't register at nor can you see screenshots in OR threads if you are only a visitor. Unless you're a member there you likely wouldn't bother reading the OR threads if you can't see screens and certainly you have no options for participation or feedback.

OR is the MSTS replacement, great potential for where it could end up but I really think it should have it's own central forum or it's simply limiting it's own progression in many ways. I also certainly couldn't see any potential newcomers to OR willing to run around the web looking for info, they'll just move to another train sim.

I hope this is changed in the future.

[lindsayts]

The Openrails devs monitor trainsim.com and UKtrainsim, so posts on these sites will be read, but there main hangout is elvastower. Now the owner of elvastower does not like people that do not participate so one has to register for almost everything. The site though is quite friendly but does not tolerate poor behavior, ie everyone is expected to show respect for others, this is unlike most sites on the internet.

Lindsay

[seagoon]

Trainsim.com has been in existence at least since MSTS was released......so in round figures that's going on 16 years.

So I cannot understand why on earth the developers of OR have not used this facility as their home, particularly as Open Rails is not a commercial product (a la Trainz and TS2016, and their developers have their own way of communicating to the public).

Elvas Tower has always struck me as being a somewhat exclusive club in that it treats those who don't wish to register as associate members - rather like how women were once not permitted to join a "men's" organisation.

[R. Steele]

Trainsim.com has been in existence at least since MSTS was released......so in round figures that's going on 16 years.
So I cannot understand why on earth the developers of OR have not used this facility as their home, particularly as Open Rails is not a commercial product (a la Trainz and TS2016, and their developers have their own way of communicating to the public).

Elvas Tower has always struck me as being a somewhat exclusive club in that it treats those who don't wish to register as associate members - rather like how women were once not permitted to join a "men's" organisation.

We've been down this old road before (in many other threads) and it never ends well. You realize of course that many (if not all ) of the TS moderators and the senior members are members at ET. I don't know about yourself.

I'm new to these environs, a "Johnny-come-lately" (as I've been reminded of by another member ) and a member of both TS and ET for the past 3 years. Believe me when I say I have seen posts at TS that would not be tolerated at ET and furthermore, certain obstreperous and ill mannered (ill-tempered too?) members that get away with that stuff at TS- behave differently at ET - Imagine that!!

I got chewed out (and rightfully so) when I first joined TS, the mods were worn to a frazzle dealing with the nonsense being thrown around. It has gotten much better here at TS and that is because everyone seems to be making an effort to conduct themselves with a little bit of respect towards the other members.

This may thread may be academic, it is public knowledge that the OR Dev team visits this forum, ET, and other forums in the world. Also they have their own private area to discuss issues. Nothing stopping the owner, admins, and mods from developing a section of TS for OR that would fill any bill being talked about in this thread.

[muskokaandtahoe]

I am the owner of Elvastower.com and the policy on accepting new members changed as of last May. What provoked the change was one individual who could not accept he wasn't wanted on the board... a person who would sneak back in under false pretenses and cause more trouble. He filed DMCA copyright claims against me, he contacted ICAAN in an attempt to get my domain registration invalidated. He told me he intended to take as many names and posts as he could and replicated them all on his own site. He also explained how he used online tools to crank out bogus identities from real names, real addresses, and real phone numbers so if you checked on that registration info it would all be valid... just not valid together. A person who routed his web traffic thru anonymizers to the ip address was always misleading. IOW a person who had no intention of being honest about who is was and has no understanding, appreciation. or respect for hose persons who have created and shared their labor and skills to make both payware and freeware for this community of ours.

Said person continues to register at this site... and continues to be kicked off when discovered. I havn't the same resources available to me so I simply closed the doors and locked them.

Said person continues to post payware for download... payware he didn't create.

All that said, I've never been interested in running up the numbers on registered users... I'm only interested in the quality of the conversation.

I feel ok about making some of the site visible (for 6 months it was completely shut down from outside observation) and I have opened read access to the OR forums (if I've missed images I'll go correct that). Most of the rest of the board will remain closed and the automated registration process will remained turned off.

If you don't like it don't blame me; I'm just doing what I think is necessary to protect my users, their posts, and their models.

[seagoon]

I am the owner of Elvastower.com .........................(lots of stuff, then)...............If you don't like it don't blame me; I'm just doing what I think is necessary to protect my users, their posts, and their models.

Ummm....you ARE to "blame" (not the term I would have used - "responsible", perhaps?) because, as you've clearly stated, YOU own the site and YOU have taken the actions which YOU have considered necessary.

End of story, really.

[muskokaandtahoe]

Ummm....you ARE to "blame" (not the term I would have used - "responsible", perhaps?) because, as you've clearly stated, YOU own the site and YOU have taken the actions which YOU have considered necessary.

End of story, really.

Yes, I am responsible. Period. My site, my time, my goals, my rules. Why would it be any different? It's not a government run public service. Every site is the same... tho do note that every site has it's own goals, it's own rules which do differ from mine. That should let everybody find a place that's compatible with their own interests an inclinations.

[seagoon]

Dave, I have no reason to question your right to run your site the way you see fit.

That wasn't the point of my original post, which was why the Open Rails people didn't see fit to run their affairs on a site that has been in existence for so many years and which became - for better or worse - the "go to" website for train-sim stuff.

[muskokaandtahoe]

Dave, I have no reason to question your right to run your site the way you see fit.

Sorry that I misunderstood. This whole topic is a huge irritant and I tend towards blunt in those circumstances..

That wasn't the point of my original post, which was why the Open Rails people didn't see fit to run their affairs on a site that has been in existence for so many years and which became - for better or worse - the "go to" website for train-sim stuff.

For the record, forums for Open Rails in both boards were created with a few days of each other. As to why more posts occur in one place and fewer in another, well... people do (and don't) things for all sorts of reasons... or, as I think occurred in this case, for no apparent reason at all. Maybe a Butterfly flapped its wings in Thailand or something and British coders misplaced their passwords. Seriously, AFAIK each programmer chooses for himself what to say and where. There is no team plan on this matter.

WRT my own role on founding the OR team, I had been advocating the need for an open source simulator for quite some time before Wayne Campbell showed me his program. I urged him to go public, form a team of coders, and go for it. I also offered forums at ET and that offer was accepted. IIRC I was the one who asked for OR forums to be created on this board. I was also the one holding out against any OR members being moderators on the boards here as that combination often leads to censorship of critical comments and I wanted no part of that. I still think that's the best way to go when faced with that situation.

As we all know now, Wayne had a great idea and we're all very fortunate he chose to try something like that on his own.

So I think it fair to say that both boards got off to a clean start. After that? Beats me.

[NorthernWarrior]

It just strikes me as sad that positive and constructive participation in a community has to be governed by the actions of a tiny minority. It's like the old days at school when the whole class got the cane because the culprit never owned up (not me though, I was always a goody two shoes!). Unfortunately it's nothing new in the train sim hobby, as Barney and I found out all those years ago when we set up a forum on his Crotrainz site. A couple of anarchic kids from the BVE scene were enough to kill the whole thing dead and removal of the forum.

That said, for those on the outside looking in and as commented previously, Elvas does convey the impression of being a bit of a "boys own" club or Star Chamber at times.

[Mark15]

Hi! OP here again! lol

I tried to email Dave to get registered at ET a few months ago but we could not come to an agreement that was sufficient to allow my registration there. It is Dave's site, he's completely free to do as he wishes, I hold no grudges about this and he is totally within his rights to run ET as he pleases.

However, OR imo needs to have a central avenue ANYONE can access and participate in discussion. Yes, OR developers read all forums but lets be realistic, feedback from people outside ET is going to be very limited. Not having an open avenue to OR will not only remove potential users who could help contribute to OR's development but limit the ability of OR to attract new users.

I consider myself one of those people who could potentially help contribute in time as I learn the software. If I read an extensive thread at ET on something to then come here to post on the same topic in an attempt to continue the same conversation from another site just isn't realistically workable. The discussion is already in one place. How will it work if I wished to quote a post or two from the ET discussion because the posts were relevant to what I was about to post? What if I wanted a response from something a user had said at ET from that user? How would this work? It wouldn't.

I simply believe a completely open, central, all in one place forum for any OR user or potential user is important. You just need to look at MSTS and this site. Completely new user or old user, wouldn't take anyone more than 10 seconds of googling to know to come here. Same is certainly not the case for OR and once you manage to work out ET is where the bulk of the info is you find it's read only. Bound to raise a "WTF???" moment for every person who goes through this.

Anyhow, I haven't been involved in any history here or ET, no issues with anyone, I simply found a piece of software I think has fantastic potential for myself and many, many others. I would like to see all avenues explored to allow it to have the best chance of success.

[Mark15]

Just reading over my last post and not sure it is clear enough. This thread is nothing about ET, anything that happened in the past, any history between any TS users over the years either at ET or here, it's all irrelevant. I'm simply posting in the hope we can somehow get everyone involved in helping the progression and enjoyment of OR for everyone.

[eric]

Ok, this thread has run its course....