New Xilinx forum.

Symon,

Well, all I can say, is that this is an attempt to improve our service.

As everyone here knows, c.a.f. is open to everyone, and anyone, and there is no censorship (so most Xilinx employees will not post here).

It was felt that a true Xilinx sponsored forum might be beneficial - allow direct communication.

Obviously, Peter and I feel a little odd, as we felt we were doing a good job here on c.a.f. (Perhaps we are, but more is needed?).

But, in defense of those who feel that a "real Xilinx forum" has value, I am going to advise folks to give it a try.

After all, if people use it, and find it valuable, then it serves a purpose.

If it is of no utility, it will die a natural 'Internet Death', and go away.

Take it as an opportunity. After all, there will be 'real' applications engineers and hotline folks who will be monitoring this new forum (whose job it is to make customers happy).

For every post here, I must consider my competition is reading every word, and just waiting to pounce. That does not allow me the freedom that some other forum might offer.

Austin

Sigh, just what we need, more places to look for info. Granted the noise level here is high, but the signal is even lower at vendor specific "web forums". The Altera one is particularily horrid with multiple subdivisions, all with near-zero contents.

Alas, this is not going aways as marketing department want to "control" the information and with a web forum they can pull articles that doesn't follow the party line. (I'm not paranoid, I've seen the inside of such forums).

Grumble, Tommy

Could you explain this? It sounds like Xilinx employees are afraid of people giving their honest opinions of Xilinx's posts.

I got an invite to the forum, too. Interesting point: they used the email I haven't used in a year and didn't duplicate to the address I've been using since.

I'd love to see more EDK issues go to the forum since those are Xilinx-specific issues.

I remember when Xilinx had their own forum. I'd check posts there and on the newsgroup when I first started perusing the boards. It didn't seem the forum was very helpful back then with some of the questions asked in both places anyway.

If Xilinx-specific issues can be handled on the forum, more power to everyone who uses it!

I don't think I'll bother signing on. Besides - my next chip has to be brand A. :-/ I got the pricing and experience from brand X but someone else across the country got the pricing and experience to take me back down a road from my distant past. Oh well. I *was* originally going to use Lattice for the project, anyway. :-)

- John_H

My take on 'significant' was that anyone with a pulse was asked ! ;)

-jg

??

Not sure I follow the reasoning. Surely ANY forum could have lurkers, but perhaps the Altera lurkers are less likely to point out 'excessive arm waving' in a closed Xilinx forum, and thus users miss out on an important reality check. That could be exactly what you meant by 'waiting to pounce' [..on bogus claims?]. I can see that may be an advantage to Xilinx spin, but how is that an advantage for a customer ?

-jg

I think that scattering the ressources makes them less useful. The only benefit I can see over c.a.f is the access to more Xilinx engineers. But that is something that the combination of WebCase/ AnswersDatabase fulfills allready.

Instead of fragmenting the newsgroup I would have thought that adding real new functionality that the newsgroup can't solve would have been more useful. Some suggestions of Web 2.0 features for Xilinx that come to mind:

- allow users to add comments to answer records I spend a lot of time browsing through answers, and sometimes I find answers that are related but not linked, or solutions that also apply to other bugs, not immediately listed, or incomplete answers, or better solutions to the same bug, or find out that the same solution also applies to other versions of the software not listed in the original record

- allow users to write their own answer records. This process could be moderated

- have a bug tracker I often stumble over problems that I immediately have a workaround for, but that should be fixed in later versions of the software anyway. I sometimes file a webcase noting that the case can be closed immediately once it is escalated to the developers. However, I believe there is both more incentive to posting bug, and also more opportunity to help the softwaredevelopers to understand a bug, if the processing of the bug is visible, like it is in open source projects. Also, other users can find the bug in the database and can add their test cases, etc.

Kolja Sulimma

It is really easy to set up an interface server that allows xilinx to moderate posts to c.a.f by its employees.

Kolja Sulimma

DJ,

Xilinx has policies about employees communicating in any public forum (like any company). Anything posted here by an employee has to be in compliance with Xilinx policies. Violation of these policies is grounds for dismissal.

One has to "keep their cool" and be fully aware that regardless of the provocation, there are lines we can not cross. Most employees would rather not deal with this. There are about five employees (total) that accept the risks, know the rules, and post here. Peter and I keep track of all Xilinx employees who post, and discuss the requirements with them.

In a discussion group that we directly control, we have more options.

'Honesty' has nothing to do with it.

Aust> aust>> there is no censorship (so most Xilinx employees will not post here).

Jim,

That was not clear. I see now that statement was confusing (rambling, etc.).

1. it is a public forum
2. there is no censorship
3. Xilinx has policies for communication in public forums (the general rule: it is not allowed whatsoever)
4. we are a very large target (and there are some who enjoy bashing us)

Take each item above as an independent statement.

Every post made is re-read at least six times, and then edited (sometimes removing stuff, and even often deleting the whole thing).

Austin

Perhaps,

But, if the policy is that no Xilinx employee should be communicating in any pubic forum without permission and review, why bother?

Creating a non-public forum may have benefit.

Austin

Tommy,

I encourage everyone to vote with their keyboards: to post, or not to post. On c.a.f. or on a private forum.

Your choice.

Peter and I will remain over here in c.a.f. land (unless everyone leaves).

Austin

Xilinx has had private forums for years

bin/forum). I read them for a while, but it seemed that many people were posting questions, but very few were answered. What will be different about this new deal?

Barry

Barry,

What will be new?

I really don't know. I have looked at the webpages, and templates, and it seems to me, that since staff are assigned to reply and participate, this might be very useful.

Austin

Symon,

Altera has been involved in several web forums for customers discussing its products for quite a while now. The Nios forum

has been around since about 2004 as I recall. About the only moderating I've seen done was removing spam before the forum software could be updated to filter out bogus registrations. Many people voice their design problems, questions, rants, etc., as you would expect. There has been a great involvement with users helping each other as well as employees fielding questions. I'm not as active there as I used to be but I don't see any signs of that changing. It has seen quite a lot of traffic and a large user base develop over the years.

More recently, Altera launched another forum site for general Altera tools/devices/etc

Anyway, I cannot speak for how X will run their new forum site, but before casting blanket judgment I invite you to browse around at the existing sites to see how they are run and what people are posting/ what support they're getting out of it. At the same time, I can see how a brand-agnostic technology forum would be great. For now, it seems that this news group continues to fill that void. I've seen several FPGA related but non-brand-specific web sites start over the past several years but have not seen many take root.

There is a great deal of functionality that a modern web based forum can provide that leaves usenet in the dust anyways. For example, being able to freely host design files showing an example, screen shot of a problem, etc.; things usenet will ultimately die off to. (Nothing against c.a.f per se; this is about the only of several news groups I used to read that still looks interesting at all).

Jesse Kempa Altera

Only for FPGA related topics or for anything ?

In anycase, that doesn't sounds quite right to me ... but maybe it's common in the US ...

Sylvain

Hi Jesse, Thanks for those good points in your post. I agree that pictures may be a help, that ASCII art sometimes runs out of steam. However, even today when I've not just returned from the pub {ahem}, I still think the 'brand-agnostic' argument still swings it for me at the moment. It might be hard for a company to leave critical comments on its own website. Those bloody shareholders might start complaining... Anyway, time will tell. Thanks again for replying. Cheers, Syms.

Usenet is not yet moribund. Ideas work fine in text, and it's quite easy to post an http link to a pdf/graphic file when need be.

Most internet providers allow customers a free ftp account and a moderate amount of free space to play with.

-- Mike Treseler

I heard about this forum a while ago, and I will participate there as well as here at comp.arch.fpga. I am sure that more Xilinx employees will participate in the forum, since it is a more sheltered environment. I like analogies: Participating in c.a.f. is like standing on a soapbox at Hyde Park Corner, surrounded by people who throw questions (friendly or nasty, open or anonymous) at you, and you want to answer them as best as possible, while you sometimes get quite annoyed by certain questions. Keeping your cool, keeping your professional reputation, and staying loyal to your employer is not an easy juggling task, in a critical and sometimes hostile environment. That's why so few people from Xilinx or Altera appear here.

A forum is more like inviting some people for a beer in a pub, to have a sensible conversation, where you can let your hair down, and maintain a more civilized atmosphere, ans use more than only ASCII characters.

We'll see how it turns out. I will join both parties, as will Austin. Peter