The need for Change

[mShred]

As i know most of us here do, i feel HTS needs Goatboy. Or someone else who can act in the same position that he did. He acted as someone who constantly looked over HTS. I'm not saying he was here every second of every day, but he certainly did 'moderate' a lot. He kept rules in place, while at the same time he kept HTS going and welcomed anyone and everyone. Now we're practically running with only fashizzlepop and sanddbox.
Don't get me wrong, they're certainly good for HackThisSite. I'm not bagging on anyone. I'm just saying HTS administration seems to be slacking. Monica is _gone_, Goatboy left, half the forum mods are practically inactive, and it just seems like we're kinda just running on fumes here. I know the dev team is probably doing what it can do for the recode and everything,
I'm just saying, it seems a little more dead without some sort of Administrative power, besides Kage, watching the site.
Now to get to the real point of this post.
I've seen a lot of posts lately asking if HTS was a ghost town, or if it's fifteen minutes of fame are up. I love HackThisSite, but I've got some things to share. If you would take a look here, you'll see what i mean. That graph shows the traffic that we've been getting for the last year. This time last year, we were doing pretty well off. But as you can see, we took a huge plummet, and it seems like we're struggling to get back up. I don't want my favorite site to take another plummet, this time right into purgatory. This may seem like another one of those annoying cries for change in HTS. I'm just saying, and i know many others will agree with me, if HackThisSite wants to ever be on top again, we as a community need to strive for it. Sitting back and chatting on irc and the forums just won't cut it. /rant.
This is HackThisSite. We are elite. We've got to prove that. And i am in no way referencing the recode, i mean completely. Without the right administration, without the right staff, what can we do? Just sit back and wait for HTS to just magically make it back on top? No, the way i see it, the only way anything is going to happen is from our own actions.
I know this probably seems like another bullshit post just to stir things up, but really. I don't feel like seeing HackThisSite struggle for it's fame.
-mShred

[acevic]

+1 for Goatboy. HTS is not fun or well led without him around. It's sad that HTS has come to this. I also had a bad feeling about this as HTS was also my favorite. Two moderators and a dev team just can handle things this way. Kage is missing over half the time, barely visits the forums and there is nobody to supervise this site. Fashizzlepop and Sanddbox are doing their work just great but I don't see where this is heading without leadership. Someone needs to find an admin fast and some new plans, otherwise, as Cent once posted, R.I.P HTS.

[Gatito]

I miss Goatboy too guys, he made HTS look somewhat alive, but saying we want him back badly won't solve anything, so rather than making this a "we want Goatboy back" topic let's discuss other matters. About moderation Fazz did become a mod just a while ago and he does a decent job, could be better could be worse, yet a decent job. Sanddy on the other hand seems to be trolling the forums rather than moderating them recently... In the end I agree with everyone that HTS lacks staff, at least in the forums. I remember acevic wanted to give a lecture about social eng. and seeing as there wasn't any official notice about it I bet it never aired (correct me if I'm wrong) which is ironic as staff urged that if you want a lecture make one yourself and when acevic takes the initiative nobody's there to make it happen (again correct me if I'm wrong).

[Pat-man]

I'm just saying, and i know many others will agree with me, if HackThisSite wants to ever be on top again, we as a community need to strive for it. Sitting back and chatting on irc and the forums just won't cut it.

I think the other way around. I think HTS is stuck in a deadly loop. The empty forums are scaring potential new members away, and because they are being scared away the forums remain empty and so on. The only ones that join up are those who are truly committed to learning or the 1 posters who want to ask someone to hack in to their friend's facebook account.

By current users being active on the current forums we might bring life back to this site. When a new user comes around, and sees that there is an active community, despite being few in numbers, instead of having posts on the front page of some parts of the forums going back to May, then instead of moving along to another site he might decide to stay and become part of that active community.

[LoGiCaL__]

Pretty much with everyone on this one. Maybe instead of one more mod to replace goatboy, how about 2 to offset the others down time? Anyways, I was just looking online and there were about 200 people online total, 56 actually who are signed up. Most if not all of them I never even seen on the forums.

It's usually the same people on here. Hopefully it will turn around, I would like to see it more active then it has been. As for acevic's lecture. Hell with it...I say just make a time, post it a few times in a week(bump it) and have people meet in the lecture room on irc, then someone can host a ventrilo so you can have comms. That's basically what the lectures were anyways.

[Phantom Wolf]

I know the idea of a rep system has been suggested before, but how about something like Stack Overflow's? If new users were unable to vote until a certain number of post, a certain rep, or both we wouldn't have problems with kiddies. Once users gained a certain rep, they would have limited mod abilities. Of course, there would still have to be 'real' mods to settle disputes, but I doubt that problem would come up very often

This could help lessen the load on our current moderators, and give HTS a strong sense of community leadership.

[JoeyPardella]

In my opinion it is not solely a lack of activity, leadership or whatever that keeps the active user count low. A far more important issue is in my eyes who you want to adress with this site. I mean the "constant stream of noobs" as I think it was referred to is still steady, but those users won't stay because everyone around here is tired of repeating the what-to-learns and beginner tips.
What would get users to stay is more coding discussions, more theoretical stuff about security topics and so on. A decent security expert won't stay on HTS very long as also pointed out by others because it has nothing to offer, besides the missions that might be fun. But again, more technical content and people might hang out. And that's exactly what Goatboy delivered. I know you all remember that recent thread where somebody asked to check his website and then, OH here's a picture of me with admin rights on your website. that was fun and had some practical aspects we are all looking for.
but that's just my opinion since I am also quite new. What kept me here were the missions.

[acevic]

I miss Goatboy too guys, he made HTS look somewhat alive, but saying we want him back badly won't solve anything, so rather than making this a "we want Goatboy back" topic let's discuss other matters.

Point well made.

About moderation Fazz did become a mod just a while ago and he does a decent job, could be better could be worse, yet a decent job. Sanddy on the other hand seems to be trolling the forums rather than moderating them recently... In the end I agree with everyone that HTS lacks staff, at least in the forums.

I really wouldn't blame Sanddy. It does get boring moderating a dead forum. HTS needs more staff and active leadership.

I remember acevic wanted to give a lecture about social eng. and seeing as there wasn't any official notice about it I bet it never aired (correct me if I'm wrong) which is ironic as staff urged that if you want a lecture make one yourself and when acevic takes the initiative nobody's there to make it happen (again correct me if I'm wrong).

It is sad though that none of the staff ever bothered to provide a helping hand on this. I've never attended a lecture before and did not even know the technical aspects of carrying such out. Goatboy initiated when he was around, but other than that, I had no support. I tried bumping the thread to get the attention of the moderators and my efforts were in vain.

As for acevic's lecture. Hell with it...I say just make a time, post it a few times in a week(bump it) and have people meet in the lecture room on irc, then someone can host a ventrilo so you can have comms. That's basically what the lectures were anyways.

I'd no idea how this was carried out prior to this. And it's not the easiest thing to organize when you have practically no support from the staff. The only reason I wished to carry out that lecture was to bring part of HTS back to life. Have a look at my post count, feedback and compare it to my time of registration. Relative to most members, I have attempted desperately to bring life back into HTS and like always, it usually ended up in a pointless IRC session with the staff who are not even informed of what is going on with HTS. I've seriously made my best attempts to contribute to this community, but you can't help if you're not allowed to.

I can say with great confidence that I have tried to bring this forum back with a lot of effort and I have failed. This is undoubtedly not a one man job. If anyone should be reading this post right now, it should be Kage and the rest of the staff. It is just very disappointing to see that you do not come forward to assist contributors in assisting the HTS community.

[Vulpine]

With so many people wanting to be uber hax0rz, why should they choose HTS over HackForums or the IRC channels for groups like Anonymous? After all, we offer learning and links to Google. HF and AntiSec groups offer LOIC and other point-and-click solutions.

[acevic]

With so many people wanting to be uber hax0rz, why should they choose HTS over HackForums or the IRC channels for groups like Anonymous? After all, we offer learning and links to Google. HF and AntiSec groups offer LOIC and other point-and-click solutions.

HTS never offered point-and-click solutions in its lifetime as far as I can remember. It used to be famous then, why not now? Groups similar to Anon and Lulzsec always existed. Yet HTS never failed to reign. The answer is inactivity and lack of contribution. The HTS learning policy is undoubtedly top notch as it provides users a holistic learning experience rather than a solution in a can.