Hey guys so figured this would be the best section to post this in.
I've recently started a hosting company by renting a couple servers at a local data center. I've frequented this forum for a couple years now and have loved every minute of it.
Since i'm now in a position to do so, i would like to offer free hosting to any developers that need either space for roms, files, etc or even for their website. Sort of a way to "donate" to as many as i can.
The hosting is specifically for developers and is more space and bandwidth than our free hosting option.
All websites are ad-free and will have no forced ads.
If developers go over their quota i have a couple promo codes i setup like %25 forever. Most wont but the possibilities are there.
Just wanted to see if it is okay to post an ad to let everyone know about it, or is that frowned upon?
I read the rules and it says no posting of "products", and specifically i'm not selling a product so-to-speak or even trying to drum up business, i just want to give back to the community that has given to me so much and increased my passion for phones...
I'm not going to post the link because it might be against the rules but pm me if you're a developer and want an account
Related
Right, so as a small group of you may be aware (And those that read my signature too), I have a keen interest in porting google android to mobile devices. Now a particular topic about the Dell X50v recieved a bit of attention, and a small site grew out of it, unfortunately, my dell died and I stopped visiting the site, and the few (25) users gradually drifted away from the project.
Now i've bought a website, set up my own server, and the site is up and running (Check my signature)
Now I obviously want this to take off, and I was going to make a post in General/Hacking + Development on XDA-Devs, as pretty much every device forum has a post "I want android on X device plz!!" here.
I had a look about the Q+A sections and Rules and saw nothing forbidding this, though many forums i've frequented disallow advertising of websites unless in a specific section. I figured this would be a pretty big thing here if it took off, so I wanted people to be aware of it.
So the upshot of this question is: Should I bother creating a thread basically advertising this website?
well first advice i would give is not to crosspost, not that im saying you would, just a precaution
secondly stick to one post and update that one only
thirdly only offer the site address if you think the person needs to have it
Thanks for the help, as you can see, I have a habit of rambling! Would it be acceptable for me to write a draft of the topic here before posting it so you can offer advice?
I saw an add in my local Clist the other day where a guy was offering access to free and most paid apps for download. He obviously wanted to charge a fee for this and didn't give a lot of details. He did say he'd add an app and then add "his servers", which update weekly. Sounds to me like another guy making a buck off of off something meant to be free and developed by the hacking community. I did a google search but only turned up old stuff from at least a year back. All of which had been patched. Anyone know what key words I'm missing or what he's using, it could be cool?
**Mod Edit - Warez requests are against the rules you signed up to when you joined the site. Please read and understand them BEFORE posting in future**
That would be completely against the forum rules.
Developers have to eat. This is piracy and not only against the rules @ XDA, but against the law.
Uncool.
In the thread here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1069298
The admins posed this challenge:
For lack of a better alternative. I challenge anyone to come up with a better alternative, and share it with us.
After goodness knows how much time under this username, and a bit under another (which I also didn't post with) I have to admit that now when I was finally ready to share something with the community (specific to the Motorola Photon) that I ran into this well intended, but somewhat counterproductive at times limit.
The admins acknowledge this:
We get that people might have experience from other fora and think this is a little over the top for them, but there are rarely any developers amongst the people that want to create new threads. There are a few people with a genuine need to post a thread in the developmental fora (developers), these people can contact a moderator to help them get sorted.
However, I have very little time and don't plan to find a mod, convince them I'm legit, etc just to share something that doesn't benefit me (harsh, but true). I make custom ROMs and other bits for my own private use as I device hop every couple of months and don't share them, really, ever because I don't want to support anything (or risk liability in any way). Sometimes I'll run other people's work (CM rocks), but more often I'll try to do something hybrid or unique. I'm using the time I would have spent posting trying to contribute to the community in another way, this message.
So... that's all just context for my suggestion answering the admin's challenge.
When doing a "can user post" check and determining posting has not already been verified do the following
Pull the account creation date, pick an age (say 6 months) and older for additional checking. Accounts younger than 6 months get rejected like everyone does now
Display a page stating "Determining eligibility" and force them to fill out a CAPTCHA of some sort
Pull the page, section or forum access logs. Since I don't know what is stored, I don't know what can be pulled. However, if User created his account 2 years ago and has accessed 4 main areas, and 6 subtopics he's probably not spam. Continue checking
Flag users somehow when they visit developer forums. If I have only visited a single device's development forum, even if the account is 2 years old, maybe additional checking is warranted, maybe not. If I've hit 3 or more devices in a measurable way in that 3 years though, chances are I'm not a noob
Based on some calculation of forums visited, decrease the amount of posts needed to gain dev forum posting access (or waive it altogehter)
Looping in data about files downloaded would be useful here too. In practical terms this means more site tracking of users, which raises space concerns. My recommendation is not to track every page, only increment a specific dev forum counter for number of unique pages visited, one for pages revisited (as if you are checking on updates for a ROM) and files downloaded
Based on the above, you should have a workable experience driven decrement system by which posting access can either be granted or made easier for users who are legitimately competent to post in the dev areas.
Also, I thought I should post these non-development specific reasons to post in the development forums:
- Adding money to a bounty (such as the bounty to get the Motorola Photon's GSM unlocked for US Domestic Towers)
- Providing output from something they were requested to by devs (error messages, radio versions, etc).
That's pretty much it, but both can be useful. Might not have gotten Galaxy Tabs in the US unlocked for Voice and Data without people posting dumps after all, as I recall (not that they worked all that well, or on all carriers, but hey).
I will try to make it back to xda in the next couple of days or weeks to answer any questions this thread might engender but my time and attention is spotty so no promises. Please don't flame me, or send me nasty PM's. Or any PM's really - I literally just read a PM from 6 years ago on another forum I frequent. I never think to check them. If you want to contact me in a way that doesn't involve XDA, use Twitter. I'm ardosi, obviously.
Hope this is a marginally useful suggestion and not overly long winded
---------- Post added at 01:45 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:38 AM ----------
I will add one more thing... the increment system should be over time. So, someone with a 2yr old account can't just visit a dozen forums in an evening and be able to post. It's the persistant, ongoing access to multiple forums, revisiting some of the same threads and regular downloads from the dev section that should be giving the indication that this is *probably* not someone who is clueless.
It's all risk management obviously, but with some devices having very little developer activity at all, it would be nice to lean a little bit more towards allowing additional posting.
ardosi said:
In the thread here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1069298
The admins posed this challenge:
For lack of a better alternative. I challenge anyone to come up with a better alternative, and share it with us.
After goodness knows how much time under this username, and a bit under another (which I also didn't post with) I have to admit that now when I was finally ready to share something with the community (specific to the Motorola Photon) that I ran into this well intended, but somewhat counterproductive at times limit.
The admins acknowledge this:
We get that people might have experience from other fora and think this is a little over the top for them, but there are rarely any developers amongst the people that want to create new threads. There are a few people with a genuine need to post a thread in the developmental fora (developers), these people can contact a moderator to help them get sorted.
However, I have very little time and don't plan to find a mod, convince them I'm legit, etc just to share something that doesn't benefit me (harsh, but true). I make custom ROMs and other bits for my own private use as I device hop every couple of months and don't share them, really, ever because I don't want to support anything (or risk liability in any way). Sometimes I'll run other people's work (CM rocks), but more often I'll try to do something hybrid or unique. I'm using the time I would have spent posting trying to contribute to the community in another way, this message.
So... that's all just context for my suggestion answering the admin's challenge.
When doing a "can user post" check and determining posting has not already been verified do the following
Pull the account creation date, pick an age (say 6 months) and older for additional checking. Accounts younger than 6 months get rejected like everyone does now
Display a page stating "Determining eligibility" and force them to fill out a CAPTCHA of some sort
Pull the page, section or forum access logs. Since I don't know what is stored, I don't know what can be pulled. However, if User created his account 2 years ago and has accessed 4 main areas, and 6 subtopics he's probably not spam. Continue checking
Flag users somehow when they visit developer forums. If I have only visited a single device's development forum, even if the account is 2 years old, maybe additional checking is warranted, maybe not. If I've hit 3 or more devices in a measurable way in that 3 years though, chances are I'm not a noob
Based on some calculation of forums visited, decrease the amount of posts needed to gain dev forum posting access (or waive it altogehter)
Looping in data about files downloaded would be useful here too. In practical terms this means more site tracking of users, which raises space concerns. My recommendation is not to track every page, only increment a specific dev forum counter for number of unique pages visited, one for pages revisited (as if you are checking on updates for a ROM) and files downloaded
Based on the above, you should have a workable experience driven decrement system by which posting access can either be granted or made easier for users who are legitimately competent to post in the dev areas.
Also, I thought I should post these non-development specific reasons to post in the development forums:
- Adding money to a bounty (such as the bounty to get the Motorola Photon's GSM unlocked for US Domestic Towers)
- Providing output from something they were requested to by devs (error messages, radio versions, etc).
That's pretty much it, but both can be useful. Might not have gotten Galaxy Tabs in the US unlocked for Voice and Data without people posting dumps after all, as I recall (not that they worked all that well, or on all carriers, but hey).
I will try to make it back to xda in the next couple of days or weeks to answer any questions this thread might engender but my time and attention is spotty so no promises. Please don't flame me, or send me nasty PM's. Or any PM's really - I literally just read a PM from 6 years ago on another forum I frequent. I never think to check them. If you want to contact me in a way that doesn't involve XDA, use Twitter. I'm ardosi, obviously.
Hope this is a marginally useful suggestion and not overly long winded
---------- Post added at 01:45 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:38 AM ----------
I will add one more thing... the increment system should be over time. So, someone with a 2yr old account can't just visit a dozen forums in an evening and be able to post. It's the persistant, ongoing access to multiple forums, revisiting some of the same threads and regular downloads from the dev section that should be giving the indication that this is *probably* not someone who is clueless.
It's all risk management obviously, but with some devices having very little developer activity at all, it would be nice to lean a little bit more towards allowing additional posting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i totally agree. the newly registered would think twice when posting clutters. they would have to wait all over again as the result is punishment.
I know, I know. It's been done. But I'm a website developer and designer... that's the air I breathe lol
The question here is simple: Would you like to be an author and review devices?
I can't go into the specific details but if you are interested you can PM me or reply to this thread as "Notify Me" and I will promptly PM you as soon as I can with more information. Everyone who joins before the site starts up has to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement stating you will not share the information with anyone but those who are involved. - Don't worry the NDA is digital.
XDA receives free advertising credits on the site for life, because this is the site that grew my passion over the years. Not much else will be posted in this thread. Sorry if it is a waste of space.
The website will not share traffic with XDA, but it will definitely promote XDA. If I have the authorization later on to promote it here, great! If not, that's great too. Not looking for free publicity I can handle the marketing.
All I want is to know who would be interested in learning more. Might be in the wrong section too haha I figured it was more of a question
Are you in?
As a disclaimer, I'm a light participant, I like to root and play around with custom roms and have been lurking around for a few years learning from XDA. That said, though I don't wish to join any wars, I do feel it necessary to call this as I see it. This was just my experience, and seeing what I view as hypocrisy, deception and retaliation, felt I should post it. Ymmv
Short version, echoe banned me, deleted all my posts, and labeled me a "Major C**t", for simply asking a question and calling out their hypocrisy and deceitful behavior. I've paid for their apps before, but I'll stick with XDA exclusively now. Echoe seems to keep evolving and making new reasons to charge for content, always under the premise of theft by some XDA developer. Yet after this incident, it's clear to me Echoe simply wants to be paid for their work, which is fine on the surface, and I previously did just that to access current AEL kernel development. But in practice they seem to just flame XDA and develop new revenue schemes on that premise. Then deceive, edit posts, and ban users (paid users mind you) for simply asking what's up with your access policy and why the policy mysteriously got edited?
Background, I previously had used the AEL kernel on my Sprint Note 4 (N910P). For various reasons Echoe had chosen to leave XDA, but you could access content from their forum. Then you needed a pro app if you wanted to access content sooner than it was posted to their forum. So, I purchased the pro app and was a member in their forum.
Fast forward a few months, I'm now done with my Note 7 debacle and back to my Note 4. Check playstore for echo creations pro update and no go, so is gone. Go to the echoe forum (echoerom.com) to see what's up.
I see this post http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...w-to-access-the-private-non-stop-development/
Indicating "Premium" content for a fee, with access to private forums being granted free to members registered at least 9-12 months.
As i have no access to this new "premium" content, I posted a thread stating I've not visited the site in awhile, but according to that post, I should have access, unless I read it wrong.
I recevied one reply, linked to the post I referenced, except the post was now edited to remove any reference to free access to this "premium" content for prior members. See edited post here http://www.echoerom.com/thread/1742...on-stop-development/?postID=245814#post245814
As I was certain that post was edited, and with my original thread being locked after just that one reply to edited post, I naturally inquired through a new thread. Including links to the cached version and questioning the now locked thread.
Which resulted in all my threads/posts being deleted, being banned, and of course the deragoty label.
So yeah, beware of www.echoerom.com and their constant evolving revenue schemes, and especially of their closely held non-public forum.
It's funny when people think they can just do whatever they want and assume others are too stupid to their blatant attempts to deceive. The funnier thing is, had I received some kind of response indicating I for whatever reason still needed to pay the "premium" fee, I likely would have. The whole deceitful response was unnecessary.
...Just wondering what you are expecting from all this?
DSA said:
...Just wondering what you are expecting from all this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nothing, just putting it out there to inform people. I'm positive there's talented developers over there, but if anybody is considering paying for access there, expect that to be temporary until they come up with a new fee. It's a shame because they could just be upfront and honest and people would likely pay.