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NANY 2011 :: A New Concept -- Have your say!

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TucknDar:
Hey Tuck, I don't mean to offend anyone here rly and actually I donated to the site back quite a while ago.
-lotusrootstarch (April 17, 2010, 11:44 PM)
--- End quote ---
No offence taken ;) But I guess I see it quite differently than you do. I really don't see any kind of "DC decline", unless perhaps one thinks of DC as "just" the home of mouser's software and the fact that there are no new programs coming from mouser recently, but instead bug fixes and and added features. I think of DC as something more, though, even if I was originally drawn here by FARR and ScreenshotCaptor IIRC. Now, it's more of a place to have friendly discussions, advice etc. mostly concerning software. And again, I don't see the decline that you do.

Btw, I do agree that you don't necessarily need to provide any statistical evidence, the "feeling" you refer to is also an indicator, but I feel differently from you ;)

mouser:
I think we can take some comfort in DC not feeling like we are in a rat-race to grow bigger.. If we continue to provide a fun family for each other, and a place that is of occasional value to the rest of the internet, and continue to produce an occasional surprising gem, that is something to be proud of.  I think DC has always had a bit of an ebb and flow to it, and if you're not feeling particularly impressed with DC lately, lotusroot, hopefully that will be just a temporary thing :)

mouser:
Back to NANY (but not unrelated to the latest tangent), I am becoming a convert to the Simple-Is-Better position advocated in this thread, which is a bit of a reversal from my position at the start of this discussion.

It is my view that we should encourage more DC members who are coders to work on more substantial applications for NANY -- to use NANY as motivation to start a new programming project they've been putting off.

But I think now that rather than trying to codify that in the rules/deadlines/etc., we should try to keep the procedure for participating in NANY as simple as we possibly can, and do this "encouragement" informally.

lotusrootstarch:
but are you saying that you think that we should be encouraging more serious software?
-Perry Mowbray (April 18, 2010, 04:11 AM)
--- End quote ---

Absolutely but the outlook on this may be bleak.

If you read this article writen by mouser published in April 2006:
https://www.donationcoder.com/Articles/One/index.html

I had an account on this site early in 2006 and my understanding was that the article dealt with real-life problems and solutions at DC at the time but more importantly pursuing something (donationware as a concept maybe?) that was obviously larger than the site itself. It looked to me as an experiment pioneering ways to develop donationware sustainably.

Now if you look at DC exactly four years later, it chills you how little had actually changed over this long period...

Back then the site was all about mouser software and support forums (except for some freebies on the site coded by ppl like Skrommel and f0dder). Now look that the site may I say it extended little in essence from what it used to be? If you load up the software download page -- all these actively supported and popularly used software are still listed only under mouser's name, the rest are just either abandoned or forgotten (no seriously most NANYs don't count as software we all realize that). In the case of CircleDock, you know it's only very loosely associatedly with DC and the distance has always been there.

So in the last 4 years, did DC incubate any serious software under the model? I say no. Will it encourage any serious software in the future? Given the momentum and how things are going, very doubtful. Let's face it, the entire gravity of the site rests on things that were created back in 2005/6 and they have been slowly evolving for a few years forming rigid exo-skeletons and bone structrues leaving little room for new creations. And since the site lays on top of these programs it's entering maintenance stage as well, and there's nothing exciting about maintenance rly.

There probably will be a time when mouser himself loses interest in the site and the whole shebang is going to Internet Archives.

We're keen to make NANY a great event for entrants and users alike. Or are you saying it's past its use-by-date?
-Perry Mowbray (April 18, 2010, 04:11 AM)
--- End quote ---

Don't do it. Let holidays just be holidays, no more "as a DC regular/veteran/supporter/fanboy, you've got to pledge now to make something by NY's day!!" blah blah. It's becoming an annual tradition to embarass, not to enjoy. Just do some market research to see how many coders in there have REALLY got the urge and enthusiasm. I just refuse to believe these proggies are the culmination of weeks of exciting brainstorming and motivated coding efforts leading up to the mug distribution day.

Perry, instead of spending tons of efforts on something as silly as NANY, how about being a manager and get a DC group project rolling this year?

mouser:
Lotus, i realize your intentions may not be to come across in an antagonistic way, but it's hard not to get that impression from the way you are writing.  Whatever your motivations are, it doesn't really seem to me personally like you are trying to be helpful and supportive (you say you donated to the site -- maybe you feel like your donation has not been earned or was wasted -- if so just email me and i will refund it).

Let's try not to get distracted about other issues not related to NANY on this thread -- if we want to start a new thread about general issues on DC we can do that. I'll just say that you talk about the lack of new software on DC -- one of the most delightful surprises about DC has been the explosion of the Coding Snacks section of the forum which has seen the creation if literally hundreds of new, useful, free utilities written by members of the site based on nothing more than a request by someone on our forum.  There is always room for improvement of the site and we're always happy to discuss areas where the site can be made better.

But really let's not let THIS thread devolve into a discussion about something other than NANY.

Rather than having everyone who loves DC start to respond and feel like they have to defend DC against your negative statements, maybe the best thing is just to look past some of the language you are using and just focus back on the issue of NANY and the best way to move forward on it, and take your criticisms of it as a valid opinion of one person.

People please keep focused on suggestions about how we should do NANY this year.

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