community.ni.com

[Phillip Brooks]

OK. I feel a bit guilty . I read the info-labview posting about the new community.ni.com forums; and... joined. I saw that no one had posted, got the fever, and posted a vi. Now I feel a bit ashamed. On the other hand, I was the first poster, so my name will live in history

There are a few tidbits in the NI Community FAQ that catch my eye.

How is This Different from the Other Examples on ni.com?

The primary difference is that you, the content contributor, own your examples on NI Community. We are providing a rich set of tools, like revision history, RSS, and ratings to allow both the users and the community to get more out of the examples.

Any examples you post will be found by users searching NI Developer Zone

[crelf]

How is This Different from the Other Examples on ni.com?

The primary difference is that you, the content contributor, own your examples on NI Community. We are providing a rich set of tools, like revision history, RSS, and ratings to allow both the users and the community to get more out of the examples.

I really hope that I'm wrong, but has the launch of the NI Community revealed this user's true intentions?

[pallen]

Maybe it's just me. But I find the new NI Community pages a little confusing, and there's only a few entries.

I guess it's just not apparent to me how they're going to manage navigation once they have a number of entries.

[PJM_labview]

I really hope that I'm wrong, but has the launch of the NI Community revealed this user's true intentions?

Given his latest blog entry, I think it is safe to say he was involved.

PJM

[peteski]

Please answer my poll, if for no other reason than to clear my conscience....

Phillip,

I have to say that if I were going through a slow spell at work, I'd probably check out the NI hosted forum, but I'm a bit overwhelmed between Work and Home To Do lists. I find that there is a very high quality of information from very high caliber personnel in the LAVA forum which is largely unencumbered by any corporate affiliation. I would say that its going to be hard to beat that. Seems to me that we recently had an April fools joke that scared the *&%$ out of some of us along these lines.

Now, if I could only get around to donating to LAVA...

(procrastinate... procrastinate... pro..

-Pete Liiva

[Michael Aivaliotis]

Well, considering NI has million dollar budgets and lot's of manpower, I'd have to say that I'm not impressed. Then again, their priority is in sales and they probably find it hard to justify spending money on stuff like this. I actually knew about this over a year ago. Was even asked for my opinion on the matter from NI, so I can't say I'm caught off guard.

I was a little surprised to see Phillip Brooks post the first file and in response no less to a LAVA post. Then again, I know there was no ill intent, no hard feelings. I'm sure if LAVA had such an outlet, you would use it instead.

I wonder what will happen if LAVA members start posting VI's with secret scripting stuff enabled? Will NI censor them once again? C'mon folks you can't beat LAVA for that one and only reason... freedom.

One final thought, I don't know about you guys but I find that password protected VI's do not help in the growth of knowledge in LabVIEW. I think it's the same as going to a C discussion group and posting built executables..., what's the point? I think code is just as much about learning then just solving a problem.

[crelf]

Now, if I could only get around to donating to LAVA...

Let me help you with my signature below:

[Michael Aivaliotis]

BTW, this is what NI is using for the community site:

http://quintagroup.com/

What It Costs

The cost will entirely depend on what is required for the solution. It will be agreed with you and specified in the contract.

So basically, the sky's the limit...

[colinchristofferson]

I really hope that I'm wrong, but has the launch of the NI Community revealed this user's true intentions?

Foiled! :headbang:

Being a little "pessimistic" about our community site launch is very much an honest and understood reaction.

What we are trying to do here is simply add another avenue for the community to collaborate. It has been said before, but I will say again that we do not want to compete or otherwise step on the toes of our partners on the web. I hope you understand this is not the goal.

What I always would want is to talk with you all about the usefulness of the site, your concerns with posting, and the like.

Of course, my true intentions in LAVA is to communicate with you all and help develop a better partnership. Ocassionally, I may EVEN be able to offer a LV hint or two...

PS. The community.ni.com site is built on an open-source technology called Plone, and we developed with the company Michael mentioned. It's a very impressive tool in my opinion.

[Jim Kring]

Foiled! :headbang:

Being a little "pessimistic" about our community site launch is very much an honest and understood reaction.

What we are trying to do here is simply add another avenue for the community to collaborate. It has been said before, but I will say again that we do not want to compete or otherwise step on the toes of our partners on the web. I hope you understand this is not the goal.

What I always would want is to talk with you all about the usefulness of the site, your concerns with posting, and the like.

Of course, my true intentions in LAVA is to communicate with you all and help develop a better partnership. Ocassionally, I may EVEN be able to offer a LV hint or two...

PS. The community.ni.com site is built on an open-source technology called Plone, and we developed with the company Michael mentioned. It's a very impressive tool in my opinion.

Colin: You speak of "partnership" repeatedly. So, what has NI done (or is NI planning to do) to partner with LAVA and other independent LabVIEW resources? There are several NI employees who do provide regular high-quality contributions to LAVA, in the form of forum participation, and I think that's great. However, I think that NI could do a whole lot more. Also, NI needs to realize that we are not very interested in partnerships that co-op our efforts for NI's direct benefit.

[crelf]

...my true intentions in LAVA is to communicate with you all and help develop a better partnership.

Are you serious?!? If you want a true partnership then try being a partner: tell us what's going on and maybe we can be involved in the building of such a community. Don't just start asking loaded questions - that's downright rude and belligerent.

Being a little "pessimistic" about our community site launch is very much an honest and understood reaction.

I'm not "pessimistic" - I'm far from "pessimistic", I'm angry! This is a forum for and by the people - I like that NI staff visit us, help out and occasionally learn some stuff - it's in all our interests - but I think you picked the wrong forum to be manipulative on. If you want to do that, then maybe you should stick to your own moderated forum. :2cents:

As I said, if you want to truly partner, then IMHO you'll need to do a much better job that you did.

[Phillip Brooks]

I was a little surprised to see Phillip Brooks post the first file and in response no less to a LAVA post.

When I made the "First Post", I had no ill intent.

It was pure impulse, which when I reflect on it made me think of my three year old daughter. We've just moved into a new home, and there is a large flower bed in bloom. I was walking behind her to the door when she suddenly stepped into the flowers and started to stomp them. I screamed "WHY?!" and she started to cry. I asked her again after she stopped crying, and she said "I don't know".

That's how I feel now, "I don't know why..." I've actually lost some sleep thinking about what I did. If you don't believe me, look at my avatar and signature. Here are the conclusions I've come to:

I belong to various communities in my life. These are all of my own choice. These communities sometimes cross paths. I continuously discover that I share interests and habits that reaffirm my membership in the LAVA community. Thats why I'm a member and contribute. I'm part French, and once mentioned Pineau des Charantes in a LAVA post. These sorts of things appear to be outside the community.ni.com Community Policy.

I sense that NI sees "beautiful fruit" (vis, solutions) in the LAVA community, and would like to find a way to create this sort of "orchard" for it's whole customer base. The tools that are hinted at (revision control, collaboration, integration with the Find Examples tools) are exciting, but do not a community make. Tell us how we can use this great tool and still keep our independance, and I'm sure we would listen.

NI is the catheadral and LAVA is the bazaar. I go to cathedral once a week because it is compatible with my way of life (test engineering). I go to the bazaar every day to trade fruits (ideas and code) and occasionally to talk about life. When I'm at catheadral, I reenforce my knowledge and skills. When I'm at bazaar, I don't evangelize; and try to live by my beliefs (universal only, absolutely NO GLOBALS . I hope to actually go to The Catheadral in August, if time and money allow).

Thank you Colin for the opportunity to share the meager fruit of my garden. If I have extra and can help feed the masses, I will give when I can. I hope I can offer the millionth, and I won't expect an iPod. I might suggest that you begin to make references to A community rather than THE community. I will continue to belong to both, but will not confuse the two.

P.S. My daughter still stomps the flowers She's young, and will learn. I'm old enough to know to say "I'm sorry, Papa Michael. " ( I've edited my LAVA post and placed a copy of the file HERE.)

P.P.S. Would this post be moderated out on an NI forum

[crelf]

That's how I feel now, "I don't know why..." I've actually lost some sleep thinking about what I did.

I wouldn't beat yourself up too much about it Phillip - we're all in this together mate

NI is the catheadral and LAVA is the bazaar.

That's a great attitude - I like it!

[Grampa_of_Oliva_n_Eden]

Off-Topic (slightly)

I am a little confused about some of the comments being made in this thread. Specificly the apologies to Michael for posting to the new NI-Community forum. I get the feeling that I owe Michael about 4000 apologies but I am not sure why.

Lacking the time or bandwidth to issue the appologies here and now, maybe I can offer the following quote to make up for my errors.

"

As a contributor to both forums I see the two forums this way.

If I want to answer a question, I go to the NI-Exchange.

If I NEED an answer, I go to LAVA.

"

Ben

[Michael Aivaliotis]

Off-Topic (slightly)

I am a little confused about some of the comments being made in this thread. Specificly the apologies to Michael for posting to the new NI-Community forum. I get the feeling that I owe Michael about 4000 apologies but I am not sure why.

Lacking the time or bandwidth to issue the appologies here and now, maybe I can offer the following quote to make up for my errors.

"

As a contributor to both forums I see the two forums this way.

If I want to answer a question, I go to the NI-Exchange.

If I NEED an answer, I go to LAVA.

"

Ben

No oppologies required really. Everyone can feel however they want. They can also post to whatever website they want. I think this point is obvious but I'm just stating it so people don't feel they owe me something. I do what I do because I love doing it. Members come and go, even though lately when members join, they tend to stay. That's a good sign I guess. You, as members should do what YOU do for whatever reason makes you feel good inside.

Peace!

[crelf]

Colin: You speak of "partnership" repeatedly. So, what has NI done (or is NI planning to do) to partner with LAVA and other independent LabVIEW resources? There are several NI employees who do provide regular high-quality contributions to LAVA, in the form of forum participation, and I think that's great. However, I think that NI could do a whole lot more. Also, NI needs to realize that we are not very interested in partnerships that co-op our efforts for NI's direct benefit.

Colin: have you anything further to add regarding partnerships?

[crelf]

Hey Philip - you're famous!

[colinchristofferson]

Colin: have you anything further to add regarding partnerships?

Hey crelf.

If you look back to a blog post I made after re-visiting LAVA back in late March:

I have been thinking a lot about Community lately, and how we have a long way to go from a feature and strategy standpoint. National Instruments as a company has a great community of users, primarily centered around LabVIEW. We need to do a better job at partnering with them.

There are several ways I think we can partner better together. Since I live primarily in the web-technology world, I can really only speak to those things, but there are plenty of others as well.

I think we can provide better content sharing, where you somehow can find content from all of our partner sites in a centralized format. I think we can do a better job of understanding what forum/web features the community is interested in, and working together to make those happen either on an NI web property, or on a site like LAVA.

One important thing to note is that, strategically, it doesn't make sense for NI to "control" everything that is being discussed, shared, and produced. Communities like LAVA help out in so many ways - they allow for an honest, objective look at our products - and this is a very good thing for NI.

Speaking specifically about community.ni.com - its primary purpose was to replace the old examples submission system, where you essentially put your content into a vacuum.

[crelf]

...National Instruments as a company has a great community of users, primarily centered around LabVIEW. We need to do a better job at partnering with them.

Sounds promising but is that a company push, or your opinion? I'd be careful advertising how NI needs to work on partnerships without qualifying where it's coming from...

I think we can provide better content sharing, where you somehow can find content from all of our partner sites in a centralized format.

So do you want to have a page that links out to LAVA (that already exists here), or do you want to actually somehow incorporate LAVA content into your website dynamically?

I think we can do a better job of understanding what forum/web features the community is interested in, and working together to make those happen either on an NI web property, or on a site like LAVA.

Are you really interested in doing the leg-work on finding out what people want, and then "give" it to LAVA without using it yourself? Or is it more like your last effort - you poll LAVA users to find out what they like and then use the results to improve your own forum?

Honestly, I'm not trying to be cynical - I LabVIEW and am for pretty much anything that'll get it out there to the masses more dynamically, but I really don't follow where you're aiming at, and what you've written above hasn't made it any clearer to me.

[Phillip Brooks]

Should I submit a new revision and password protect the diagram? I'm not a contributor to the NI Exchange forum, but I did a quick search to find the first post. I found stuff back to 1999. Maybe it was imported from some other list or something?

Anyway, I'll show my grandkids someday and they will say "WOW!", then tell me to stop talking about when people programmed in 2D.

"Dang whippersnappers! I had to align my own wires and used an actual CRT monitor! None of this holographic nonsense!"

[crelf]

"Dang whippersnappers! I had to align my own wires and used an actual CRT monitor! None of this holographic nonsense!"

Back when we used mice and keyboards - <sigh> that's when there was real feeling in programming...

[Mike Ashe]

"Dang whippersnappers! I had to align my own wires and used an actual CRT monitor! None of this holographic nonsense!"

The image of Scotty in "The Voyage Home" (aka Save the Whales) where he picks up the Apple mouse, turns it over, holds it up to his mouth and says, "Computer!" ...

Even funnier is that we actually now have real transparent aluminum ...

I'm still holding out for a lightsaber ...

On another note: I had a medium sized post all ready, throwing in my 2 cents on this community.ni.com bit and the power went out here. I literally had my finger over the mouse to hit "Add Post". Too bad, as it was a gem if I do say so myself. I won't try to reconstruct it. Lets just say I've had a couple of good cups of coffee and a long coffe break walk since then and am feeling a bit more charitable, so Colin and NI get off easier.

To summarize, Colin, NI sounds like Microsoft when you do what you have done here on this forum and then do what you've done on your new "community" site. Yes, I know, and want to believe that you (NI) wants to "partner", but frankly, NI has a pretty pee poor record when it comes to partnering with anyone it sees as smaller than itself and proclaiming loudly that "hey, we're really good guys, ... trust me" just rings hollow.

I'll probably mousey on over to your new site, but so far it's a PR flop. Sorry, but you did say you come here for honesty. I'd like to be shown that NI can change back, at least some. I really would.

[Grampa_of_Oliva_n_Eden]

Colin,

When I showed the new site to my boss he clicked on the terms of use and it still looks like there is legal verbage included for the new site that fails to maintain our IP.

Could you please fix that?

Ben

[Aristos Queue]

When I showed the new site to my boss he clicked on the terms of use and it still looks like there is legal verbage included for the new site that fails to maintain our IP.

Could you please fix that?

In a bit of role reversal, when I joined LAVA, I was advised by several folks not to post anything more than small demo VIs to LAVA because of language that didn't clearly maintain NI's intellectual property. MichaelA and I had a bit of a talk about it, and finally decided to avoid any question by posting anything that might have IP value on my personal website and link to it from here. I don't think that any group is happy with anyone else's legal verbage, and everyone is terrified of being sued or having their code claimed by someone else, etc. etc. etc. So if you're bothered by the IP language over on ni.com, you might try my trick... post the VIs themselves to a site whose IP language you trust and then post to ni.com with only links to the VIs instead of the VIs themselves. Seems to me like a way to leave the lawyers out of it and let us all get back to code development.

[Grampa_of_Oliva_n_Eden]

... post the VIs themselves to a site whose IP language you trust and then post to ni.com with only links to the VIs instead of the VIs themselves. Seems to me like a way to leave the lawyers out of it and let us all get back to code development.

Good point Stephen,

Durring the redesign of my company's web-site, I requested that I be given this functionality. Now if I actually get it, that's another story.

Ben