Can the Amiga community be saved?

[Wayne]

Ok, so we had a great conversation in the thread about Amiga.org being sold again, so here's the question of the moment...

Is there anything that can be done, right now, to "save" the Amiga community, or is it a foregone conclusion of a slow, painful death?

Wayne

 

[Wayne]

After the interesting conversation and looking at the state of things, my gears are turning and I'm thinking aloud about jumping back into the fray... Would it be worth it?

 

[ilwrath]

Well, I suppose it depends on what your definition of "saving" the Amiga community is?

And what the Amiga community itself is, for that matter.

You've got the collectors, the next gen'ers, the cottage industries, the emulation fans, the retro gaming junkies, and, unfortunately, the not insignificant griefer camp, the scammers, the bankrupt, and the clinically insane.

How the hell do you fit all that under a flag?

 

[faethor]

I see the Amiga community as a fringe hobby group. I'm doubtful some company will come along and promote the Amiga into the 21st Century.

On the personal level I've been looking to get a used Mac G5 and start hobbiesting me some MorphOS. All this mainstream computing on the day-to-day I've felt lost in the 'fun' aspect of computing.

 

[Cyberus]

After the interesting conversation and looking at the state of things, my gears are turning and I'm thinking aloud about jumping back into the fray... Would it be worth it?

Wayne, I may type a more detailed response in the morning (11pm here), but I would say if you value your sanity or finances I wouldn't go near it with a barge pole!

Mixed metaphors but you get the picture

 

[Wayne]

Thanks. I needed the reality slap.

I just hate seeing what I remember -- in the 1998/99 mindset -- was such a vibrant community being reduced to what it seems to be now. Very depressing, and I'm not even a retro-hobbyist. Old computers annoy me (as I type from my 27" i7 iMac) so I'm not sure where the "fun" might be found. I was just wishing that someone could do something to bring back the communal feel that I do -- sometimes -- miss without all the argumentative and rabid bullshit..

Wayne

 

[JoBBo]

I just hate seeing what I remember -- in the 1998/99 mindset -- was such a vibrant community being reduced to what it seems to be now. Very depressing, and I'm not even a retro-hobbyist. Old computers annoy me (as I type from my 27" i7 iMac) so I'm not sure where the "fun" might be found. I was just wishing that someone could do something to bring back the communal feel that I do -- sometimes -- miss without all the argumentative and rabid bullshit..

I am not sure your memories are accurate. If you read Amiga Usenet discussions from the 90s, you will find plenty of argumentative and rabid bullshit. Things have not changed that much, in my opinion. It is just that there are a lot less product releases and interesting developments to distract from all the usual craziness.

If you take a look at other alternative computing communities, you will not necessarily find less drama. There is a reason why there are a million Linux distributions, desktops, UI toolkits, and so on.

 

[Wayne]

I am not sure your memories are accurate. If you read Amiga Usenet discussions from the 90s, you will find plenty of argumentative and rabid bullshit. Things have not changed that much, in my opinion. It is just that there are a lot less product releases and interesting developments to distract from all the usual craziness.

If you take a look at other alternative computing communities, you will not necessarily find less drama. There is a reason why there are a million Linux distributions, desktops, UI toolkits, and so on.

Memories are always subjective. You can remember the same two events in multiple ways depending on your particular viewpoint at the moment of recollection...

I guess maybe a more valid question might have been "would there be any point in me trying to even support the community now?"... I see lots of things which could be done better, but the question of "why?" (Other than as a potential source of google ad income) is looming in my head..

 

[Robert]

@Wayne:

As recently as five years ago I still thought something positive could be done and would've been cheering you on but even I've lost the faith these days.
I still keep all my various Amigas* and occasionally tinker but I'm 99% Mac at home (100% Windows at work for now.)

Having said all that, if a compelling, modern incarnation of the Amiga ever does appear, I'm sure I'll be one of the first to part with my Smackeroonies**.

* Two actual A1200s and three 'modern' (aherm) imposters, A1XE, Peg1, iBook with MOS demo.
** New Scottish currency, as predicted by Kevin Bridges.

 

[Cyberus]

** New Scottish currency, as predicted by Kevin Bridges.

OT: I loved that sketch, he's one of my fave comedians right now

 

[ilwrath]

Thanks. I needed the reality slap.

I just hate seeing what I remember -- in the 1998/99 mindset -- was such a vibrant community being reduced to what it seems to be now. Very depressing, and I'm not even a retro-hobbyist. Old computers annoy me (as I type from my 27" i7 iMac) so I'm not sure where the "fun" might be found. I was just wishing that someone could do something to bring back the communal feel that I do -- sometimes -- miss without all the argumentative and rabid bullshit..

Wayne

I know what you're saying here. I grew up around the BBS scene on the C64 (and then later Amiga)...

And my only real interest in old computers is in a historical / preservation sense. (I think it's important that the knowledge of old systems isn't lost.) I don't find them particularly "fun" in any sane sense of the word. But when looking for a modern solution, sometimes it's good to look back to how we did it back in the bad old days.

Today, I have absolutely zero interest in running a BBS or even a web forum. I'd sure love to figure out how to build a new community like we had back in the early days, though. Say what you want about rose colored memories, but in my opinion, it was a pretty special time in technology.

 

[Wayne]

I'd like to thank the kids over on Moobunny for providing both an answer to my question(s) of "can/should the Amiga community be saved" with a resounding "no" as well as a shining example of why the Amiga community failed in the first place.

http://moobunny.dreamhosters.com/cgi/mbthread.pl/amiga/expand/251344

I wasn't here "getting rid of my demons". I was just feeling nostalgic for the way things used to be back around 1994-98. Despite all the childish bullshit and drama, it's hard not to check in on your children (meaning AO) once and again and wish they were living a better life. That's very much how a parent feels after the child has left the home I suppose.

I also see the current Amiga.org being left to wither and die by "amigakit" (whoever that is) and "Trevor" (whoever that is) telling me to "give them 6 months" to improve things and wanting me to stop shaming them publicly for their complete plan of inaction...

I'm not even a great site admin and a complete redesign would have been finished and online within 1 single month of -- presumably -- spending money to buy the site... They've had three and don't even bother to check the Bug reports, or know how to add forums to the "new posts" module.... They don't -- afaict -- have anyone left like Karlos to help them out with the real stuff, so I just have to ask, why exactly did a garage-business with a commercial vested interest pony up the cash to buy a site they had no apparent interest in actually running?

Also for the record, I'm not looking for an admin role there. Even if I wanted to (I really don't), I couldn't really step in. Too many cooks in the kitchen so to speak. I just wish they'd do SOMETHING aside from the same "nothing" that Bill P did for the last five years and after three months of ownership, not even knowing how to operate the 6 year old software -- nevermind upgrading -- is mind-boggling.

FFS, I don't even have anything left to do with the Amiga any more and I'm doing more for the community at this point than they are by simply providing the domain name and hosting for Amigawiki.com

<rant over>

Wayne

 

[JoBBo]

I also see the current Amiga.org being left to wither and die by "amigakit" (whoever that is) and "Trevor" (whoever that is) telling me to "give them 6 months" to improve things and wanting me to stop shaming them publicly for their complete plan of inaction...

I'm not even a great site admin and a complete redesign would have been finished and online within 1 single month of -- presumably -- spending money to buy the site... They've had three and don't even bother to check the Bug reports, or know how to add forums to the "new posts" module.... They don't -- afaict -- have anyone left like Karlos to help them out with the real stuff, so I just have to ask, why exactly did a garage-business with a commercial vested interest pony up the cash to buy a site they had no apparent interest in actually running?

Have you even considered that they had not planned to buy amiga.org at all but were approached by the previous owner regarding a sale and decided to 'rescue' the website before the domain would be sold off to be used for other purposes?

Also for the record, I'm not looking for an admin role there. Even if I wanted to (I really don't), I couldn't really step in. Too many cooks in the kitchen so to speak. I just wish they'd do SOMETHING aside from the same "nothing" that Bill P did for the last five years and after three months of ownership, not even knowing how to operate the 6 year old software -- nevermind upgrading -- is mind-boggling.

The reason why A-Eon have the funds to buy amiga.org is that its owners are relatively successful business people, who, as far as I can tell, do not manage or develop websites for a living.

 

[cecilia]

jebus H christ why would anyone look to moobunny for an opinion??

those cranky idiots are nothing but cry babies bitching and moaning as a career

 

[Robert]

jebus H christ why would anyone look to moobunny for an opinion??

those cranky idiots are nothing but cry babies bitching and moaning as a career

I had actually forgotten Moobunny even existed until this thread but a quick look reminded me that you are absolutely right.

 

[Cyberus]

I had actually forgotten Moobunny even existed until this thread but a quick look reminded me that you are absolutely right.

Last time I looked (last week) it was flooded with homophobic spam. Not cool

 

[Wayne]

Have you even considered that they had not planned to buy amiga.org at all but were approached by the previous owner regarding a sale and decided to 'rescue' the website before the domain would be sold off to be used for other purposes?

Lots of things never occurred to me. After all, they took over the site so silently that I didn't know about it for three months. I might have imagined that Bill would have said at least something about it, but then again, communication isn't his forte.

That being said, the issue isn't their intent -- or maybe it is. If they bought it with the intent to sit on it just like Bill did, mission accomplished. If they bought it to actually do something with, then my prodding cannot hurt as they've had three months and accomplished nothing. The remaining community NEEDS the latter (do) as opposed to the former (do not), which is my point.

If they intended to do nothing with it at all, then applause could be offered for standing over the life support machine but my viewpoint in that case would simply be that it would have been better to let it die so that the community might have self-healed by "defragmenting" to AW or some other site.

It might seem as though I just went about those upgrades all willy-nilly, but any change in the Amiga community that helps pull it kicking and screaming into the 90's is a good thing by very definition

Wayne

 

[ilwrath]

The truly sad part is, that thread is actually the closest thing to Amiga related content on Moobunny in a while, from the looks of the place. I thought it had closed up shop years ago.

Anyhow, why the hell would you want to mess with that faction of "community"?

I can see the need for a reference site for knowledge of the old hardware.

I can see the need for a forum dedicated to home projects in new hardware building. (MiniMig, etc.)

I can see needs for several other healthy groups that exist within the Amiga community, as well.

I can't see ANY need for trying to consolidate that cancer as shown in Moobunny back into something useful, though.

 

[Pyromania]

Wayne you are of course entitled to your opinion but I did not just sit on Amiga.org for 5 years. I didn't even have full control of the site for several years after 2009. Once I did have full control in a strange twist of fate, I had some great plans for the site. I did turn it around revenue wise. Amiga.org was growing and generating monthly Google, donation and Affiliate link revenue. I was working on a major redesign with updated commercial forum software. Unfortunately a family medical crisis that I'm still dealing with happened in late 2012 that was both a financial and emotional burden for my wife and I. This forced me to sell the site. I'm only posting this for transparency reasons.

I always loved the Amiga and it's community and am a big Amiga fan myself. It's nice that it's even alive in 2014 and has new machines coming out and the operating system is still updated and supported. The fact that OS 4.1 can now be run within WinUAE and the X5000 & AmiStore are coming out soon shows there is still life left in the community. I better not forget to mention the newly released MorphOS 3.7 and nightly builds of AROS as well. New 3rd party game and software releases continue to come out too.

 

[Wayne]

Ouch. Crap Bill..

This is what I get for jumping to conclusions (but hey, I got my training in the Amiga community where it's the norm)...

My sincere and utmost apologies, and best wishes for you in the future... I'll lay off of whomever the hell "Trevor" or "Amigakit" is as well. I don't honestly know why I care any more TBH, but again, sincere apologies and best wishes to you and your family.

Wayne