HTS Needs to Stop Sucking

[Wells]

btw, are we people entitled to ask whether the new code is based on MVC? If yes, which framework? Zend?

Uh dude, they've written their own shoddy MVC system. You have no idea....

[tremor77]

btw, are we people entitled to ask whether the new code is based on MVC? If yes, which framework? Zend?

The code Thetan and Bren were working on was MVC-ish and the last I looked Zend was becoming a part of "Blue Elephant" as the recode was being named. Before adding Zend, the code footprint was small, fast, lightweight and extensible... Zend added a bit of bloat however. But I spent far too little time actually involved with the project at its early stages, to really speak for it at all... when I played with it, it was becoming developer friendly but not designer friendly at all, of course the implementation of alot of things were still in the works. This was 3-4 months ago, and I took a break from HTS, so not sure where things are now.

In other news I applied for staff but, now i'm not so sure I want to come on-board amidst such a time of unrest.

As a community site admin myself I have to stand behind Kage in regards to his authority, it should not be questioned... and I know how little time one can spend to be actually "involved" in the community when you spend most of the time trying to actually keep it going. On the other hand Kage, I think you need to develop a good "team" that can handle a lot more authority, and you shouldn't keep such a tight leash. Everyone involved here seems genuinely interested in moving forward and make this place the best HTS it can be.

[Kage]

I proceeded due to the fact that NightQuest was clearly elected by the community and believe it or not, by Silent-Shadow himself.

I'm not trying to be a dick here, and Silent-Shadow is part of the administrative triumvirate, but he can't just jump in and say "You're hired for X position," neither can IceShaman. They each have their own responsibilities, and staff are part of mine. Similarly, they cannot come in and say "Monica is fired," however, I can, and it is something--since you already pulled this card--MUCH of the community have frequently requested, staff and administrators included. I have repeatedly backed you on your decisions and work, but lately you seem to think everyone, myself included, is against you, so you're creating authority you do not possess and trying to do something you cannot do. This is going to stop, Monica.

I honestly and respectfully do not believe you are the right person to administrate HTS. You've been on IRC actively for at least a month now, and yet I have never seen you respond to me or other staff, with the exception of Monica. 2 days ago, I submitted a list of changes Goatboy and I had brainstormed, and I had literally no reply; you didn't even acknowledge that you had received my message.

I admit I have been a staff member for a short time, but with the exception of the occasional server maintenance, I have literally seen you do nothing for HTS. You remain inactive, you refuse to hire the right staff members (NightQuest is a case in point), and I have seen you make no effort to improve HTS. Despite your unwillingness to work, you refuse to give access to anyone else so that they may get work done.

This is not acceptable for someone in control of our paypal account, emails, servers, and DNS (at least partially). In fact, at this point I'm not sure you're not simply pocketing all the money HTS makes. I guarantee you, if you ask any intelligent member of HTS who has been here for more than two years, they will tell you that you are the bane of progress here at HTS.

You cannot keep a steel grip on power and not use it in any way whatsoever. You provide no transparency; in fact, you are active exclusively when a takeover is forming.

In order of paragraphs:

1) For one thing, you're almost never even in the staff channels at all, so how are you ever going to see me respond to staff? As for your document, I received it, but keep in mind you're always pinging me at times I'm not directly in front of my computer (God fucking forbid I'm not present 24/7!), then promptly leave before I get the chance to respond. Secondly, you sent me a docx file. Google Docs it, or something other than an MS Word file, or I'm not going to read it.

2) Well, as you said, you've been a staffer for a short time, and you really don't know what you're talking about. For the record, I never said I refuse to hire NightQuest in some capacity, I said Monica does NOT have that right. When he and I are online and have time to sit and discuss things, his position within HTS will be decided. For now, though, like he said in his reply, he wasn't even aware he was awarded such a position, so until he and I discuss his responsibilities and the like, he'll remain in the capacity he was before Monica made her unauthorized proclamation.

3) Oh, here we go again with the "Kage is stealing monies!" line. I'm not even going to entertain this one any longer, but I will say this: Our servers cost a LOT of money, and our ad income has decreased to a point that for the past few months, I've been padding the HTS PayPal with my own personal paychecks to keep it afloat. So, sure, of course I'm stealing money when I'm fucking funding it.

4) So, apparently, operating development in such a way where people have access only to the tools they are responsible for, and the ability to get anything done via some clever development is not how the world should work? So, I suppose every goddamn professional developer position at every company is doing things wrong, too. For one thing, the access granted to HTS devs was done to the degree of what they were responsible for. If you were missions developer, you do not need access to the code for the admin sections, forums, etc. Similarly, if you're working on the forums, you do not need access to the other sections. And if you needed information, asking is one way, but if you're seriously not intelligent enough to problem-solve and figure clever solutions (There was a sandbox where you could upload anything you wanted. Gee, I wonder what utilities you can upload that'll give you information?), maybe you shouldn't be developing in the first place.

But I digress... Just so you're aware, much of the Recode devs have FULL ROOT access to the boxes they're working on. Further, the project is very transparent, as the code is freely available, marginally documented, and visible to anyone who just simply asks. How is this opaque and holding things with a steel grip?

By the way. I did make my own programming mission about 6 months ago. I've contacted Kage directly multiple times and had no helpful response.

I'm still waiting on some code to upload. I don't have anything material from you.

As a community site admin myself I have to stand behind Kage in regards to his authority, it should not be questioned... and I know how little time one can spend to be actually "involved" in the community when you spend most of the time trying to actually keep it going. On the other hand Kage, I think you need to develop a good "team" that can handle a lot more authority, and you shouldn't keep such a tight leash. Everyone involved here seems genuinely interested in moving forward and make this place the best HTS it can be.

I appreciate the support, but it's incredibly difficult to gather a good team when someone in it gets pissed at how things are done and decides to start a bullshit flame parade that leads to full-scale internal wars like we have now. Wells is pissed that we're not using his ideas, he cries and gets butthurt, insults everyone, Monica starts ragging and declaring whatever the fuck she wants, and I'm left trying to quench the fires and clean up the mess. But, of course, those people being fucktards and doing things out of my control is entirely my fault and makes me a bad admin.

[Defience]

Suggestion: Staff meeting?

[Kage]

Suggestion: Staff meeting?

I've tried to organize staff meetings over a dozen times. Barely anyone shows up, even if the date and time are known far in advance. I'd love to do one, sure, but experience tells me no one will show.

[Wells]

When it comes to meetings and lectures and pretty much anything else, IRC is the worst communication medium you could possibly choose.

Forums and mailing lists and google groups are where real progress is made. People can respond from different time zones, they can take their time and prepare well-thought-out responses. IRC should never be used to get anything important organized.

[tremor77]

When it comes to meetings and lectures and pretty much anything else, IRC is the worst communication medium you could possibly choose.

Forums and mailing lists and google groups are where real progress is made. People can respond from different time zones, they can take their time and prepare well-thought-out responses. IRC should never be used to get anything important organized.

Mumble. It's what my gaming clan uses... not to mention the extra added effectiveness and being able to set someones ass straight with a good stern voice.

[insomaniacal]

The last "official" staff meeting I attended (IE, got an email/PM/read a thread about it) was probably close to 6 months ago. Though there's been times when I've logged into IRC in the midst of one. There has almost never been a time when everyone was present. I'm sure if we informed everyone decently in advance (3/4 days in advance) most would show. Too far in advance (7+ Days) and people simply forget, or have more important things to do. For example, HTS is not my primary concern in life. I used to hang out and read the forums here, and got asked to be a Forum Mod. I take it as a responsibility, but I cannot arrange my life around it, and I'm sure most other staff/regulars are in similar positions.

I think from an administrative point of view, we need structured staff meetings. Not ones that go into a flame war with people making sex jokes and calling each other stupid names. Once things are decided, they should be posted either to a wiki, or in a log that is sent to everyone (Who was present or not), and then stored somewhere (For example, a secure FTP server) so any staff member can log in and grab the logs if they missed something.

Anyway, I think that'd help out the problem of staff not being on the same page, which is a big part of the problem. Staff being held more accountable should also occur. For example, a week after I started, I was reprimanded by Monica for using profanity in one of my posts. Of course, she continued to, and still does, use profanity on the board. If we're going to have rules, they need to apply to everyone, and there needs to be some kind of accountability for breaking them. These should also be discussed (Personally, nothing's wrong with profanity, as long as its not a long-flamish jumble).

That's my two cents. I cant say much about the recode, and I don't know the story with Bren, so I won't comment on that.

[sh3llz]

When it comes to meetings and lectures and pretty much anything else, IRC is the worst communication medium you could possibly choose.

I can't speak for meetings, but in regards to lectures I stick by the post I made earlier (amidst the jumbled ranting)

Along those lines, I like the idea of making contribution easier. So I have some suggestions to add in regards to presentations/lectures. I like the idea of live lectures but I think if we allowed other forms of submission we'd get a lot more content. For example, users should be able to make videos for HTS and submit them as lectures. Good solid video lectures are hard to come by, and if we could start building our own collection - well, I don't see how it could hurt. Pre-recorded audio lectures with a links/notes page wouldn't hurt either. Pre-recorded lectures could be placed in with the old recorded live lectures. And if the live lectures were also given notes/links pages - all the better.

And as for the live presentations, we seem a bit stuck in the past. IRC and Ventrilo, really? There's something to be said for simplicity and proven methods, but we could also give solid video/audio presentations through something like tinychat or stickam. The presenter doesn't need a webcam or anything, they can show their computer though manycam/similar-software to better illustrate what they're talking about. Now unless the devs are really lazy, I'm not suggesting that we actually use tinychat. Instead, we could easily set up our own chat room with audio/video to be used only during presentations that request it.

[sanddbox]

1) For one thing, you're almost never even in the staff channels at all, so how are you ever going to see me respond to staff? As for your document, I received it, but keep in mind you're always pinging me at times I'm not directly in front of my computer (God fucking forbid I'm not present 24/7!), then promptly leave before I get the chance to respond. Secondly, you sent me a docx file. Google Docs it, or something other than an MS Word file, or I'm not going to read it.

I'm in the staff channels 4-6 hours a day. If you get a message from me and I log offline before you respond, contact me later. The last time (and first time) I talked to you in private message was December 2nd, and it was an 8-line conversation. If you don't like the file type (which I can understand), send me a message asking to change it rather than ignoring me.

2) Well, as you said, you've been a staffer for a short time, and you really don't know what you're talking about. For the record, I never said I refuse to hire NightQuest in some capacity, I said Monica does NOT have that right. When he and I are online and have time to sit and discuss things, his position within HTS will be decided. For now, though, like he said in his reply, he wasn't even aware he was awarded such a position, so until he and I discuss his responsibilities and the like, he'll remain in the capacity he was before Monica made her unauthorized proclamation.

Fair enough, although I will say that the developer staff issue should have been addressed awhile ago.

3) Oh, here we go again with the "Kage is stealing monies!" line. I'm not even going to entertain this one any longer, but I will say this: Our servers cost a LOT of money, and our ad income has decreased to a point that for the past few months, I've been padding the HTS PayPal with my own personal paychecks to keep it afloat. So, sure, of course I'm stealing money when I'm fucking funding it.

I said quite clearly that the lack of financial transparency is a problem (in fact, it's in my list of proposed changes). I am not in any way accusing you of stealing money, but I am saying that we have no way to know that you are not. This is why financial transparency is a much.

4) So, apparently, operating development in such a way where people have access only to the tools they are responsible for, and the ability to get anything done via some clever development is not how the world should work? So, I suppose every goddamn professional developer position at every company is doing things wrong, too. For one thing, the access granted to HTS devs was done to the degree of what they were responsible for. If you were missions developer, you do not need access to the code for the admin sections, forums, etc. Similarly, if you're working on the forums, you do not need access to the other sections. And if you needed information, asking is one way, but if you're seriously not intelligent enough to problem-solve and figure clever solutions (There was a sandbox where you could upload anything you wanted. Gee, I wonder what utilities you can upload that'll give you information?), maybe you shouldn't be developing in the first place.

Comparing HTS to a company is absolutely ridiculous. Professional developers get paid and thus will accept ridiculous rules and bureaucracy. Here, developers labor for free; as such, it is important they have what they need to develop unhindered.

But I digress... Just so you're aware, much of the Recode devs have FULL ROOT access to the boxes they're working on. Further, the project is very transparent, as the code is freely available, marginally documented, and visible to anyone who just simply asks. How is this opaque and holding things with a steel grip?

I would be quite surprised if they did not have full root access to the boxes they are working on, seeing as how they are working on their own boxes. The project is not very transparent, as evidenced by the lack of updates, and the code is certainly not freely available, nor is it open to anyone who simply asks. Furthermore, my steel grip comment was not referencing the transparency of code anyway.

By the way. I did make my own programming mission about 6 months ago. I've contacted Kage directly multiple times and had no helpful response.

I'm still waiting on some code to upload. I don't have anything material from you.

Did you tell him you were waiting for code to upload, or did you simply not respond?

-- Thu Jan 20, 2011 6:58 pm --

HTS never changes, eh?
Still drama, a lack of active devs, and Monica sticking her hand in the dev cookie jar past her bedtime.
Like I said before, I'd love to help out around here again, but only as an official dev this time. Years ago HTS milked me for missions and didn't really give anything back. (Although Monica did give me a spiffy title which was appreciated)
I was contacted by Bren2010 about coding some missions, but I'd like to hear the opinions of ALL of the devs as well.

Uh, from what I heard, you applied for developer several times and were rejected repeatedly.