January 14th, 2012, 14:36
Posts: 3,390
Threads: 31
Joined: Dec 2009
I've been mulling this over, and I don't understand why all responsibility needs to be put on the shoulders of one person.
We get one person as Chairman, the primus inter pares.
He gets tech support from one, preferably two people.
The most popular games here get a Moderator (BtS and FFH for sure, and maybe a third for the rest). The Moderators will form a sort of Council together with the Chairman, helping out with issues he's facing.
Anyway, it's just a proposal, I just wanted to throw this into the group. I don't RB is dying (in fact, I've never seen so many non-member lurkers), but I'm sure we could get it to work better. 
January 14th, 2012, 14:39
Bobchillingworth
Unregistered
Quote:I don't RB is dying
Yeah, that was a poor formulation on my part. What would have been more accurate was to state that RB is infected with a serious virus and frequently lapses into a death-like comatose state, but is emphatically not actually terminal yet. Probably.
January 14th, 2012, 14:46
Posts: 3,390
Threads: 31
Joined: Dec 2009
Bobchillingworth Wrote:What would have been more accurate was to state that RB is infected with a serious virus and frequently lapses into a death-like comatose state, but is emphatically not actually terminal yet. Probably.
Yes. Much, much better. 
January 15th, 2012, 13:11
Posts: 4,443
Threads: 45
Joined: Nov 2009
Ilios Wrote:I've been mulling this over, and I don't understand why all responsibility needs to be put on the shoulders of one person.
We get one person as Chairman, the primus inter pares.
He gets tech support from one, preferably two people.
The most popular games here get a Moderator (BtS and FFH for sure, and maybe a third for the rest). The Moderators will form a sort of Council together with the Chairman, helping out with issues he's facing.
Anyway, it's just a proposal, I just wanted to throw this into the group. I don't RB is dying (in fact, I've never seen so many non-member lurkers), but I'm sure we could get it to work better.
Its not really that, the long term commitment to hosting and maintaining a website is harder than you think especially when you can't simply hand over the keys and leave especially if its not hosted on some host company's server. The website needs to be electronically transferred, domains/payments need to be transferred etc. Then you need to keep it up and hopefully up to date and secure.
In Soviet Russia, Civilization Micros You!
"Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."
“I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.”
January 16th, 2012, 04:32
Posts: 3,390
Threads: 31
Joined: Dec 2009
Hmm, I clearly don't know what I'm talking about, and can understand T-Hawk's reluctance to take over.
January 16th, 2012, 10:47
Posts: 813
Threads: 30
Joined: Oct 2012
antisocialmunky Wrote:Its not really that, the long term commitment to hosting and maintaining a website is harder than you think especially when you can't simply hand over the keys and leave especially if its not hosted on some host company's server. The website needs to be electronically transferred, domains/payments need to be transferred etc. Then you need to keep it up and hopefully up to date and secure.
Well it's normally not a huge amount of work to keep a site & server up to date. The problem here would be starting from so far behind. Also the problem with vbulletin is it's not free, may make sense to convert over to another system to keep costs down since there would be a lot of work updating everything anyways.
I can certainly offer hosting for free if that's holding anything at all up. Currently have a VPS account just sitting around mostly collecting dust that would be much more than enough for this. Wish I wasn't so rusty (6 years ago was system admin supporting and maintaining web servers for several hosting companies) so I could be more help but any help I can give let me know. Haven't been posting much but I certainly lurk and don't want to lose my reading material
January 16th, 2012, 21:04
Posts: 6,471
Threads: 63
Joined: Sep 2006
Bobchillingworth Wrote:Yeah, that was a poor formulation on my part. What would have been more accurate was to state that RB is infected with a serious virus and frequently lapses into a death-like comatose state, but is emphatically not actually terminal yet. Probably.
We didn't fill up an 18 civ pitboss (with multiple new players) including both partners/teams and players who didn't get a spot in....72 hours? While also running a 12-player pitboss? While simultaneously launching a PBEM? And while running at least one new SG?
Yes, we're this close to death.
____________________
I don't think the big limitation is ability to either technically troubleshoot the site or even the time/money to host the thing. I think it has to do with the gravitas some people feel about handing over ownership of RB. A lot of us have spent the majority of our adult lives on this site. Sure it's just a collection of ~100 people that play a few video games, but it still has a lot of history, lore, and meaning, at least in per-member terms. Considering the tendency people have to sign up for pitboss games and then drop out, get into flame wars, etc I think it's not a terrible idea to move very cautiously here.
Now none of that is any more of an excuse to ignore the security loopholes, but it may help explain why the powers that be didn't immediately appoint a leadership team, council, or whatever...
January 16th, 2012, 22:55
Bobchillingworth
Unregistered
If the site goes down permanently or becomes unreliable / unsafe to the point of no longer being usable, then it's dead. Not terribly difficult to understand. It has nothing to do with how many people want to play in the latest game, although the fact that there are still plenty of people visiting RB should spur on greater urgency to fix this mess, not less.
It's frankly bizarre to suggest that KoP hasn't fixed the virus infection or security loopholes or constant site outages because he is worried about somehow inexplicably tarnishing the "history, lore, and meaning" of the site. An explanation with more basis in reality might be that he doesn't actually have any investment or interaction with the currently active RB communities, doesn't have much technical expertise, and is in poor health. And I understand that, and I'm not bitching for him to drag himself over to the computer and Fix Everything for me, because I understand that that may just not be feasible for him for a variety of very valid reasons. But what I do want is either for someone to be appointed to a position where they can fix the problems with the present site, or for a new RB to be created using modern forums software, with the old material ported over. I'm not going to do it, I haven't the clout & have none of the relevant tech skills. But there have been plenty of volunteers for hosting or bug fixes or getting rid of the virus or patching the VB software or resolving almost all of the myriad issues RB suffers from presently.
I have not the slightest inkling of what you are talking about regarding flamewars and people being unable to commit to pitboss and how that has the any implication that KoP or whoever needs to be "very cautious" in fixing forums tech issues. And the suggestion for a "team" to deal with site's issues was only made like two days ago. We're not asking here for the bloody Illuminati to convene a Grand Council of Bug Fixes. There is no reason why this had to be such a stupid ordeal.
January 16th, 2012, 23:36
Posts: 6,699
Threads: 131
Joined: Mar 2004
Bobchillingworth Wrote:It's frankly bizarre to suggest that KoP hasn't fixed the virus infection or security loopholes or constant site outages because he is worried about somehow inexplicably tarnishing the "history, lore, and meaning" of the site.
KoP hasn't fixed this stuff or handed over because he's been hospitalized for several weeks. I didn't want to break confidentiality on that, but it needs to be said to defuse the rancor building in this thread.
Have patience, folks.
January 17th, 2012, 01:00
Posts: 6,471
Threads: 63
Joined: Sep 2006
@Bob - EDIT, too mean. New draft...
I'm just saying a technical issue with the site does not equal dead. For some reason it seems when people are bringing the technical issue to light, which is great and definitely merits being addressed, they also keep overstating things. The site isn't "dead." It isn't in a "coma." It isn't "only probably not terminal."
New proposals being raised every two days with novel and exciting ways to run the site and calls to move the forum are exactly why I'm asking people to calm down the rhetoric.
What's wrong with...
Quote:Hey guys, the site has a virus-type thing infecting it. Here's some technical info on how to fix it.
Quote:Hey guys, that virus thing is still there, just a reminder. I'm technically skilled, so let me know if you need any help.
Even if you don't share my appreciation of how this site has been run in the past, if I'm KoP, seeing posts like these reminds me why I want to resist the calls to transfer ownership rashly.
|
