Good point. If people continue to drive down the wrong road, maybe the signs need changing?

Imperious wrote:

The reason this happens here all the time is because "Marvin" and "Milliways" as headings make no sense whatsoever. For those of […]
Show full quote

Stiletto wrote:

Yeah, you're wrong. […]
Show full quote

Yeah, you're wrong.

If it helps someone like you, here's how to understand that:
Emulation of old PCs, emulation of PC hardware, or emulation of PC peripherals.

You're talking about building a retro rig to run the OS natively. Not running it within an emulation.

So I'm moving this to Marvin.

The reason this happens here all the time is because "Marvin" and "Milliways" as headings make no sense whatsoever.
For those of us that are here a lot it's not a problem, but maybe people shouldn't be rudely jumped on for making
mistakes and a FRIENDLY mention that its been posted in the wrong place and is being moved is all that is required.

No offense to anyone intended but I have noticed that quite often the response to a post in the wrong sub-forum appears unnecessarily rude.
If someone keeps posting in the wrong place, then a stern response is acceptable.

I've been here at least a year and I still scratch my head every time. Though I do rarely venture outside of Marvin as the other sub-boards contain very little of anything I have any interest in, personally.

^That is not to say there aren't good and even great things going on in those boards. Contrary to what some believe, I very much support emulation, just not as a representative of the way things were.

Imperious wrote:

The reason this happens here all the time is because "Marvin" and "Milliways" as headings make no sense whatsoever. For those of […]
Show full quote

The reason this happens here all the time is because "Marvin" and "Milliways" as headings make no sense whatsoever.
For those of us that are here a lot it's not a problem, but maybe people shouldn't be rudely jumped on for making
mistakes and a FRIENDLY mention that its been posted in the wrong place and is being moved is all that is required.

No offense to anyone intended but I have noticed that quite often the response to a post in the wrong sub-forum appears unnecessarily rude.
If someone keeps posting in the wrong place, then a stern response is acceptable.

Not to derail the thread any further, but I kinda feel the same way on all accounts. When I first signed on to the forums, I was more than a bit confused at the "Marvin" and "Milliways" titles (why are they named "Marvin" and "Milliways", anyways?). I can see where this can throw off first-time visitors to the site or people who don't come here that often. And usually when I see a response to a thread that's in the wrong sub-forum, I get this feeling that the response is unnecessarily blunt and detrimental to the topic of the thread, because it's usually a post saying nothing other than a single sentence that goes like this: "Ask in X sub-forum, this one is actually for Y", nothing that contributes to the topic. Maybe we can open up a new thread talking about this since I don't feel like rambling on about something that, to be honest, I kinda wanted to get off my head for a while.

I think the names are references to Sci-Fi, most likely Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Haven't watched it in a while though.

- The BBC series of course, fuck the movie.

Sutekh94 wrote:

(why are they named "Marvin" and "Milliways", anyways?)

Because this forum was started by nerds and geeks. 😀

Imperious wrote:

No offense to anyone intended but I have noticed that quite often the response to a post in the wrong sub-forum appears unnecessarily rude.

Don't think I came across rude... The OP DID say to correct him if he's wrong... 😕

What sucks is when I wrote my above post, I completely forgot the forum name itself, Vogons, is a reference to the series... Or the book, whatever, the TV series is better.

Stiletto wrote:

Imperious wrote:

No offense to anyone intended but I have noticed that quite often the response to a post in the wrong sub-forum appears unnecessarily rude.

Don't think I came across rude... The OP DID say to correct him if he's wrong... 😕

Sorry, rude isn't really the correct word, blunt fits better.
Nerds and Geeks we may be to an extent, but this is the only forum out of quite a few that I frequent where some of the titles of the sub-forums
are meaningless to what they are about. Maybe something the Admins here can talk about.

HighTreason wrote:

What sucks is when I wrote my above post, I completely forgot the forum name itself, Vogons, is a reference to the series... Or the book, whatever, the TV series is better.

For me, book series > TV series > Radio program > Movie. I still enjoyed the movie tho on its own.

And yes, Vogons are the baddies from the books. Fact: for the first few days of its existence, this forum was called OGONS: Old Games On New Systems. I told Snover "why not name it VOGONS?" and he went about renaming the site (then at http://vogons.zetafleet.com ) and retheming all the subforums to be references to the popular sci-fi book series / TV series / etc. 😉

Imperious wrote:

Maybe something the Admins here can talk about.

It's been talked about before, both publicly and privately. The short version: we like our history, we like our uniqueness, we don't care if newcomers can't understand, it won't be debated.

How's that for blunt? 😀

Stiletto wrote:

Imperious wrote:

Maybe something the Admins here can talk about.

It's been talked about before, both publicly and privately. The short version: we like our history, we like our uniqueness, we don't care if newcomers can't understand, it won't be debated.

How's that for blunt? 😀

It's not my forum, do what You want, but the whole point of my original statement was to be a bit friendlier sounding
in the response to an incorrectly placed post unless they are repeat offenders, that is all.

The reason why people are rude or blunt is that despite the confusing titles, there is a description of the forums. And posting to the wrong forum (especially in DOS when you actually post a Dosbox question) is also very rude. Why? Because it shows that you didn't actually care enough to read what is written there.

Yep. Since people regularly fail to find a whole section of subforums which is very clearly named "DOSBox", there wouldn't be much of a point in renaming those other sections. 😉

I must admit, the first time I joined Vogons, the headings of some of the forums didn't make much sense.
However, as already stated, there is a very clear description of what the forum is about. So, regardless of what the heading say, still read the description to make sure you are posting in the right forum.

That being said, the first language of many users on here is not English (so much that some users use Google translate to figure out what other users are saying). By the time you've translated back and forth, I can understand if some users does sometimes post in the wrong forum.

When I read forums, I just usually click on "view active topics" and don't notice in which forum the topic has been posted. That is probably why I've never corrected someone who posted in the wrong forum.

Marvin and Milliways both make perfect sense but only if you are aware of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

If Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is too obscure then it's a sad state of affairs. 🙁

We could probably just use the descriptions and get rid of the names but that would be really boring.

It only takes a simple google search to find out what the name is anyway.

I've had a few topics moved due to my stupidity in not paying attention to where it should be posted. At least in my experiences, the topic was just moved, without rude or blunt commentary. But I do see how this particular situation came off bordering on rude.

I've also had a few topics deleted, sometimes with a brief PM, sometimes without. I've looked for and asked in reply to the PM if there are posting rules or guidelines besides "no abandonware", but never got a definitive answer as to what is allowed or not. Is there a sticky "Forum Rules" topic somewhere that I missed?

VileRancour wrote:

Yep. Since people regularly fail to find a whole section of subforums which is very clearly named "DOSBox", there wouldn't be much of a point in renaming those other sections. 😉

To be fair, you do kinda have to scroll down to find the DOSBox forums. And some people might just be lazy or don't care enough... 😵

clueless1 wrote:

I've also had a few topics deleted, sometimes with a brief PM, sometimes without. I've looked for and asked in reply to the PM if there are posting rules or guidelines besides "no abandonware", but never got a definitive answer as to what is allowed or not. Is there a sticky "Forum Rules" topic somewhere that I missed?

You know, I don't think there is a dedicated "Forum Rules" thread anywhere here... At least, I didn't see one.

As I was about to post somewhere: VOGONS has survived for 14 years without a list of forum rules. Instead of that, it's heavily moderated by a team of people, which you can see here: memberlist.php?mode=leaders

Basically the forum rules are such:

1. The disclaimer at the bottom of every page:

This site hosts no abandonware. There is no material that is knowingly illegal here.
vogons.org will not be held responsible for users' posts.
This disclaimer is brought to you thanks to the BSA.

2. The sales/trading rules set forward by Qbix, forum admin:

Qbix wrote:

Please stop with all those for sale and for trade topics. […]
Show full quote

Please stop with all those for sale and for trade topics.

Especially if things go wrong, then we can't do a thing to help you.

Use something like Ebay.

Thanks.

VOGONS is no marketplace!

The EBay thread in Milliways has special rules: Post 286857

---

"But what about abandonware?" See rule 1. If it's discovered, moderators/admins will do anything, from link deletion and thread lock up to and including thread deletion and ban depending on strength and number of violations. The way it's worded is "hosts abandonware" but this has spread out to become even larger including "linking to abandonware" and "linking to abandonware forums", generally speaking. This has all worked pretty well for fourteen years.

"But what about swearing/this guy is doing stuff I don't like/etc./etc.?" Use the "report" button, we monitor all that quite a bit.

So, IMHO, we really don't need to spell things out further? 😀

I love the forum titles. After all, they were something that drove my attention towards this great book. I had countless hours of fun reading all five original books, watching BBC seires, and then listening to the audiobook narrated by Stephen Fry on a 200km brevet last summer.

For all those who don't understand the titles, there's always the description.