Shake Up Proposal

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Shake Up Proposal

PostPosted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 10:46 pm

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Anubis
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In the last few days Ive had MS come to me with a list of ongoing concerns about the state of certain aspects of our infrastructure at the moment. Having read them, and discussed them with him, I have come to the decision that they are genuine issues that I have either failed to see, or failed to address, for quite some time now. Im taking this opportunity to table this proposal, a Structural Shake Up proposal if you will, to try and do just that. Shake out the cobwebs, refresh things, and solve a number of long overlooked issues in the process.

The following list of proposals is open to debate and discussion, naturally. I want to get everyones input on both the issues themselves and the proposed changes before anything is implemented. Feel free to speak your mind :)

Issues and Proposed Changes For Resolution

General Forum Moderators -- Theyre out of date, its that simple. The list currently comprises of three Global Mods/Admins, Lighty (who left 3 years ago), and BlueFlames who rarely visits. My opinion is that a complete replacing of the list is required. In order to try and bring together the community more, MS has suggested and I agree, that the new list should be made up by several leaders of our most active groups, and others who have not been tasked with such responsibility before. Therefore, the proposal is that the following be appointed as the new General Forum Moderators Kahn, undrin, Laughing Man, Syro, Stracius.

As a subnote, it has also been suggested that the General Forum be renamed to something that more reflects its position as a Community gathering point. Namely "Community General" or "SSX Community General". Whilst it is not currently proposed that this be changed as part of this Shake Up, thoughts on this point are welcome.

Forum Administrators -- It has been noted that we havent had a new Administrator in quite some time now, and the team tends to rely on the same three or four people most of the time. Whilst realistically there is not generally an awful lot of admin work that needs doing on the forum at the moment, as time has gone on a lot of us have gotten busier, and perhaps that should be telling us that we should consider appointing a new Administrator to learn the ropes as it were and provide an extra pair of hands for when it is required. Since he is, in effect, a Site Administrator already having Admin level access to the News and widespread access to our various group websites, along with being a Global Moderator and very active around IRC (which will help massively should problems arise), it is proposed that MS be appointed as a new Forum Administrator.

IRC Automatic Operators To anyone who frequents IRC, it is no shock to hear that a lot of Opping goes on. However our AutoOps list isout of date, being comprised of mostly outdated nicknames and people who rarely visit. It is proposed that, with Eds permission of course, the following nicknames be removed from the IRC Auto Ops list SSX-Killjoy, SSX-esd, Saad, esd, and Goober5000. It is also proposed that the following nicknames be added to the Auto Ops list Judd-MGT, firedancer, SSX-MS, and Isileth.

Group Forums It has been pointed out that for a long time, probably for too long a time, both the Lore and the FS2 group have been in effect dead. Their group forums however, have always managed to avoid any archiving generally because of the feeling that As long as there is someone still playing, it stays. Unfortunately, I can think of no-one who actively and regularly plays either of the games under the SSX banner anymore (except perhaps esd in Lore, but his time has been limited of late). I really dont think we can justify leaving open the dead forums anymore, whatever our sentiments may be (and believe me, it being my original group I will be very sad to see FS2 go). Realistically, this should have been done a long time ago, therefore it is proposed that both the Freespace and Lore groups be archived.

It has also been mentioned that our list of Archived forums is getting fairly long, and the possibility of turning them into subforums has been raised. Whilst this is not possible with phpBB2 without significant modding, it is a core feature of phpBB3. Last I spoke to him, Fahd was going to look into the possibility of making the switch namely how we could do it without breaking everything due to our mods. I will be chasing this up when I next catch up with Fahd and seeing how we can proceed down that path, because admittedly this too is a very good point.


As stated above, thoughts/comments, even more ideas for incorporation in this Structural Shake Up are welcome :)
Last edited by Anubis on Mon Sep 15, 2008 10:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Perhaps this is what I have always wished for since that day. The loss and destruction of all. That's right, one must destroy before creating. In that case, if my conscience becomes a hindrance to me, then I will simply erase it. I have no other choice but to move forward....therefore!" - Lelouch vi Britannia/Zero, Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch

Forever an eXile and proud of it!

PostPosted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 4:31 am

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Messiah
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And it all seems so reasonable. The end times are indeed upon us.

No objections. I've been a global mod or admin since the old days, but can't really remember ever moderating - never really my style. Good idea to open the windows and air out the place. Don't want it growing musty.

PostPosted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 6:44 am

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Isileth
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All seem like good ideas.

I would also like to add my support for the renaming of the General Forum, there is always a lot of posts that could be shared with ssx as a whole that tend to just be posted into a specific game forum. Would definitely help to bring everyone together a bit more if it was used as much as possible for anything non game specific.

PostPosted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 8:46 am

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If MS is already a site/tech admin (i.e. what I am), then surely he should already have forum admin rights. I thought that came with the position :weird:. As regards to the auto-op list, I don't think Saad will mind - I'll poke him to visit the IRC channel though :).
It has been pointed out that for a long time, probably for too long a time, both the Lore and the FS2 group have been in effect dead. Their group forums however, have always managed to avoid any archiving
:(. Yeah, archive 'em. They've not had new posts since March. That's 6 months...
Last I spoke to him, Fahd was going to look into the possibility of making the switch namely how we could do it without breaking everything due to our mods. I will be chasing this up when I next catch up with Fahd and seeing how we can proceed down that path, because admittedly this too is a very good point.
:nervous:

I'll get to work on it chief :p;). I'll be on IRC this weekend, so we can talk it through then.

Speaking of which, you've left if rather late to pass "new legislation" Anny. If someone stalls these proposals till the next Arbiter session, does that mean they have to be introduced a second time :lol:;)
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 10:07 am

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Well better late than never, I always say. I am in support of the proposals, and I want to add one more into the mix.

Why not just redo the forum altogether? As in completely rebuild everything from the ground up with a brand new forum that has all the bells and whistles instead of throwing on bondo and duct tape (aka upgrades) to the one we already have? The good side is that it would be less of a hassle to add something new in, and that we would have a newer look altogether. The bad side is that it would probably take a lot of time and effort, not to mention cash, (which I am more than willing to help out with in this particular case).

I have seen lots of newer forums these days and with what is out now, we can certainly do a lot with them.
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 1:25 pm

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Anubis
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SSX Fahd wrote:If MS is already a site/tech admin (i.e. what I am), then surely he should already have forum admin rights. I thought that came with the position :weird:. As regards to the auto-op list, I don't think Saad will mind - I'll poke him to visit the IRC channel though :).
I'll just clarify this point - he isn't currently a Site Admin, but the list of things he has access to gives him in effect the same access. It's been a fairly slow thing where as time has gone on his access has grown as he has been doing more group sites, and as such needed News access and widespread Site Manager access to go with that role. He doesn't have any administrative duties or anything atm, its just how things have worked out. It would be a fairly minor change, imo, to grant him formal admin capacity since he's already working/worked with so many of the tools etc. Thats why I suggest it, he is the most logical choice and has already proven he won't blow things up (on purpose :p).

As for my leaving it late, I realise this heh. Until these issues were brought up by MS a few days ago, in truth I hadn't even noticed that some of them had become issues (General Forum moderators for example), and as such had no plans to propose any changes etc until after the elections. However after thinking it through I thought it better to address it now whilst my attention is on the problems at hand, rather than have to inundate any potential new Arbiter with them in three weeks time. If people agree, and changes don't get finished before the vote is done, I'll finish the task up rather than leave the new Arbiter with a half finished list of things to do. I would also tar and feather the one responsible too, incase anyone was wondering (looking at you Fahd ;)).

Also, I look forward to chatting with you about phpBB3 at weekend :)
Why not just redo the forum altogether? As in completely rebuild everything from the ground up with a brand new forum that has all the bells and whistles instead of throwing on bondo and duct tape (aka upgrades) to the one we already have?
As to this idea...personally I don't like the idea of leaving our archives and the like behind. We've got a lot of history on these forums, and I'm proud that we're keeping it all here for public display rather than just deleting it. Upgrading to phpBB3 will give us the chance to bring all that with us. We'd be getting a new look in phpBB3 anyway, and its improved functionality would mean we may not need to rely on mods so heavily in the future (except in certain cases, like Sig Pics), so I'd much rather us switch to that if we can.

Everyone feel free to weigh in your opinions on this idea too however.
"Perhaps this is what I have always wished for since that day. The loss and destruction of all. That's right, one must destroy before creating. In that case, if my conscience becomes a hindrance to me, then I will simply erase it. I have no other choice but to move forward....therefore!" - Lelouch vi Britannia/Zero, Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch

Forever an eXile and proud of it!

PostPosted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 5:16 pm

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I believe the proposals so far seem fairly sound.
Except tbh, I wouldn't archive Lore and Freespace.
Perhaps change there names to Max Gaming Updates and
SSX core history or something sure...
but I wouldn't archive them.

As far as upgrading the forums goes,
I was going to chime in with phpBB3 as well,
even wondered why we havn't discussed switching before (since its been out for like 3/4 of a year now hehe).

PostPosted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 5:52 pm

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Messiah wrote:And it all seems so reasonable. The end times are indeed upon us.

No objections. I've been a global mod or admin since the old days, but can't really remember ever moderating - never really my style. Good idea to open the windows and air out the place. Don't want it growing musty.
Ditto, I've been a global mod for ages and rarely have had to do anything... most of what I've done has been moving threads, which has been very rare.
""I like my women like I like my coffee. In a plastic cup.""

PostPosted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 6:45 pm

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Anubis
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Padishar wrote:As far as upgrading the forums goes,
I was going to chime in with phpBB3 as well,
even wondered why we havn't discussed switching before (since its been out for like 3/4 of a year now hehe).
I talked about it to Fahd a little bit back when it was initially released, and KJ actually ported a copy of our forum over to phpBB3 for testing purposes at one point. Sadly, that's as far as we got. Time investment is required to track down any issues our mods will cause and fix them, then we have to sort out issues like skins etc (of which there were extremely few at the time). It was expected at the time that it would be a fair few months before we were ready to switch over, so it would not have been quick at any rate.

It does need addressing though, certainly. If for no reason than Security Updates alone, I'm very keen that we work towards it quickly.
"Perhaps this is what I have always wished for since that day. The loss and destruction of all. That's right, one must destroy before creating. In that case, if my conscience becomes a hindrance to me, then I will simply erase it. I have no other choice but to move forward....therefore!" - Lelouch vi Britannia/Zero, Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch

Forever an eXile and proud of it!

PostPosted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 10:04 pm

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undrin
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Great Ideas all in all. As for the rebuilding of the forums that is for the people much smarter than me :smack: Have fun with that thought I would be willing to help in anyway that I can.
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 06, 2008 12:26 am

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Ideas look good to me.

As for putting new ones to the table, I've only got one... but it's not so much to do with the forum structure as it is group structure.

With our membership getting older and getting more going on in their lives, I've seen several responses from those nominated for Arbiter concerned on being able to spend the time to take care of it. Would it be a decent idea then to start placing 2 group Arbiters at a time instead of 1 to share the responsibilities? Either that or having a primary with 2nd place in votes being the sub in the event the Arbiter is unable to perform their duties for a period of time during the year.

PostPosted: Mon Sep 08, 2008 4:23 pm

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You can blame me for this being posted up late btw. :p
Some of the things brought up here aren't recent concerns of mine but ones i've had as time has moved on. Since i saw nobody else air similar feelings i wasn't sure whether it was just me that had them, whether others were afraid of bringing them up, or if they were even valid. So i just kept them to myself all that time up until a few days before Anny made this post when i decided to just write a list and talk them over with him.

My thoughts on the FS & Lore forums were that i honestly couldn't think of a good enough reason to justify leaving them open personally. Different games/groups are always going to have special memories & history for some of us. Whereas Neocron might have been the group i joined in and have the best memories from, the same could be said for Freespace for the people that was part of that or LOTRO might be the same for someone else that has joined us more recently perhaps. The list could keep going really and it's where do we draw the line? I thought had they been forums for other groups with the same activity level they'd have been archived already, so to be fair, they should be too.
For me it was sad to see the NC forum archived and the NC website pulled so i can understand where people would be coming from and perhaps that's why these 2 are still open. I had infact spent my time making alterations to the NC site to reflect the removal of the /ssx part of our url that changed back then, just a couple of days before the decision was made to remove it, so you can imagine how i felt about that lol. It was the right thing to do though i feel. :)

PostPosted: Mon Sep 08, 2008 7:08 pm

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Magdalena wrote:With our membership getting older and getting more going on in their lives, I've seen several responses from those nominated for Arbiter concerned on being able to spend the time to take care of it. Would it be a decent idea then to start placing 2 group Arbiters at a time instead of 1 to share the responsibilities? Either that or having a primary with 2nd place in votes being the sub in the event the Arbiter is unable to perform their duties for a period of time during the year.
Apologies for not replying to this sooner. I meant to, but it appears to have slipped my mind :)

Personally, I am not so sure that 2 Group Arbiters could work. Two people could be elected with very different mindsets, or people with different approaches to problems, and I'd rather not have us run the risk of two Arbiters 'butting heads' as it were, or feeling that the other's different approach may be undermining their own.

Having said that, I do like the idea of the individual that attains second place in the vote being a substitute in the event of the Arbiter being unable to perform their duties for unexpected reasons. When the vote goes up in a few days, this idea will be implemented (and specifically it is, imo, a better resolution to the problem of Stracius' holiday should he be elected).

The rest of the ideas are still open for consideration for a few more days yet. Should no objection be forthcoming, they will be implemented hopefully at the end of this week.
"Perhaps this is what I have always wished for since that day. The loss and destruction of all. That's right, one must destroy before creating. In that case, if my conscience becomes a hindrance to me, then I will simply erase it. I have no other choice but to move forward....therefore!" - Lelouch vi Britannia/Zero, Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch

Forever an eXile and proud of it!

PostPosted: Mon Sep 15, 2008 2:50 pm

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Man so that means I'm not going to be a global moderator anymore?

And that position was created explicitly to serve my lust for power. Then given to a few other people so that it wouldn't seem like I was in charge of anything (god forbid).

BAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!

PostPosted: Mon Sep 15, 2008 3:39 pm

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I said General Forum Moderators, not Global Mods ;)

The Global Mods we have are fine, and have done a great job so far. I see no need to change them currently, unless the need for moderation drastically increases. Unless people disagree of course.
"Perhaps this is what I have always wished for since that day. The loss and destruction of all. That's right, one must destroy before creating. In that case, if my conscience becomes a hindrance to me, then I will simply erase it. I have no other choice but to move forward....therefore!" - Lelouch vi Britannia/Zero, Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch

Forever an eXile and proud of it!

PostPosted: Mon Sep 15, 2008 4:10 pm

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Ah.

I don't really mind either way. I was just bawwing because it's fun to be a whiny bitch. The less power I have, probably the better, even though in my mind, I deserve everything and anything.

GIVE ME THE ADMINISTRATION POSITION. I MUST HAVE IT. I NEED IT. IT BURNS IF I DON'T HAVE IT!

PostPosted: Mon Sep 15, 2008 7:59 pm

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I am honored to serve in any capacity. I am here daily whether I post or not.

Thanks!

PostPosted: Mon Sep 15, 2008 10:07 pm

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Anubis
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Aside from the IRC Operators, which will hopefully be being attended to in the next few days, the proposals have now been implemented. I also took the opportunity whilst I was archiving the FS2 and Lore forums to clean up the descriptions and names of several forums that seemed to me to need freshening.

Because I've been approached outside of this thread with a general dislike over the idea of renaming the General Discussions forum, I have decided to put that proposal on hold for now and just update the forum's description. This will likely be raised again in the future (possibly when we make the move to phpBB3 and are tidying up the forum in general) so that we can all debate it and reach a majority decision on it. However, seeing as it was not intended to be a part of this anyway - just an extra idea to consider - this is not really a major issue in regards to the Proposal.
"Perhaps this is what I have always wished for since that day. The loss and destruction of all. That's right, one must destroy before creating. In that case, if my conscience becomes a hindrance to me, then I will simply erase it. I have no other choice but to move forward....therefore!" - Lelouch vi Britannia/Zero, Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch

Forever an eXile and proud of it!

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