I respectfully disagree.... Long reply


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Posted by saint on 8, 2000 at 6:12 PM:

In Reply to: Its downhill from here on posted by kev on 8, 2000 at 12:05 PM:

Well, I guess it will come as no surprise that I
respectfully disagree. The one important distinction
that I hope everyone will bear in mind is that BYOAC
is not about emulation at all. Emulators are one
of the fun things you can do with customized arcade
controls, but this stuff works just as well with
off the shelf software.

The emulation scene has indeed suffered from mass
exposure. As well as the hobbyists who love the
hobby for it's own sake, it's flooded with the
free-lunch warez crowd, to its detriment. I don't
want to get into the legality/morality of ROMS thing
here -- mostly I'm referring to the unfortunate
lack of respect and "I deserve your hard work without
thanks" attitude we've all seen surface in the emulation
scene.

But the arcade controls hobby is different -- there's
no such thing as a free lunch here. You either have to
build, or buy, whatever particular setup you're after.
Anyone who gets and stays interested has got to be
willing to put in some effort, not because they should
to be "good neighbors" but because they have to, simply
because there's no other way to get anything. I had
no less than 7 people willing to help me out with the
scripting help I asked for! (Which, by the way I very
much appreciate. I apologize if you haven't heard back
from me with my recent (second!) hard drive crash).

The only commodity this web site has is knowledge, and
that is free of course. The only real sore point has
ever been finding the particular set of knowledge you're
after. Part of it is the fault of the makeup of the
web site -- this web site grew by group effort with one
person coordinating things, and as such wasn't really
"planned" (btw - many thanks to those folks of course,
and a big tip of the hat to Tom61). Accordingly, it's
not always easy to find things, and that's one
place where the message board has been a big help.
People can almost always find a friendly answer
here much quicker than relying on me to email
them back -- often I don't know and have to go
look myself first!

I don't intend to single anyone out here, and I
especially want to emphasize that this point has
no direct relationship to recent events or your message
here. However, the last thing I want to see happen is
stifling newbie questions here. Clueless people
talking to other clueless people is what got us to
the point we are at now, with the majority of us
benefiting from the incredible generosity of those
who had some expertise. Both the hobbyists, and
the vendors with products to sell, have been very
forthcoming with the tricks and secrets that end
up with a set of arcade controls. I can't think of
very many other industries that willingly share the
very techniques that their income depends on. I'd
rather see a hundred newbie questions here than
to see nothing but old-hands sitting around fairly
stagnant. Don't get me wrong, I love to see the old
hand chatting it up -- this has developed into a
community after all -- but IMHO there's always room
for more. I re-emphasize, by it's very nature, only
folks who are willing to put some effort into this
are going to be here for long. The "unwashed masses"
will quickly get bored and go elsewhere, and I wish
them good fortune finding that part of the net that
interests them.

One thing I'm willing to do if people feel the signal-to-noise
ratio is getting difficult is to implement another
message board, and rename this one. We can have a
"Question & Answer board" for newbies and tech
questions, and an "OldTimer's board" (*please* help
me think of a better name) for folks who want to
chat, announce new projects, would-be-vendors wanting
to know if there's interest in a product, etc...
Essentially getting the newbie questions on to their
own board. I would hope that the oldtimer's would
help out in the new board of course :)

Any interest in that? I hate to fragment into too
many message boards and lose value in one, but I'm
willing if they're getting too noisy... Let me know,
I'll go with the majority here.

I'll close with a reference to my interview with
Kinox.org, mirrored here. Take a look at questions
1, 5, 7, and 12 :)

Thanks!

--- saint


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