Attention: FFR Administration and Staff

[noname219]

Re: Attention: FFR Administration and Staff

what's the purpose of a site whose owner won't let admins have access to its servers

I've been in that situation and in the span of 7 years, the website went nowhere, stuff broke and we couldn't repair anything, couldn't add new extensions/features/whatever and everybody left.

[DossarLX ODI]

Re: Attention: FFR Administration and Staff

This site is large enough and has enough content such that getting anything (serious) done and maintaining it is (probably) going to require full-time efforts. Unless you're getting paid, this is really hard to pull off when you're only relying on the free time of volunteers. And those volunteers have to be both trustworthy and competent, too.

Major change can't really take place anyway when you lack direct server access. Synth is unwilling to give up his baby, and yet he is also unwilling to put in any effort into the site's growth/expansion/etc (which actually isn't much different from how he has always handled the site). He's been pretty consistent about this for nearly a decade, now. His approach to communication (i.e. radio silence) makes any potential discussion an exercise in futility.

I would say this goes back to my post. Synthlight spends money on servers and whatnot, and then doesn't want unpaid volunteers having access to the backend. However this is ultimately the worse decision because not only will the site go down, he also wasted money for those servers for not allowing other users a chance to maintain the site. Even the most successful companies need the element of trust when it comes to sensitive information.

Even if Synthlight is busy, that doesn't mean that he can't delegate responsibility to other users to maintain the site. Going back to my post, I see a major issue with trust which ultimately leads to lack of delegation. Nobody really knows who's in charge of what, and no successful company runs like that.

[Fission]

Re: Attention: FFR Administration and Staff

doesn't want unpaid volunteers having access to the backend

while you mention this, it doesn't really make sense of him to do this. if velo wanted to stop FFR from functioning i'm sure he could. access to the web server and it's associated services isn't going to change anything with how secure the website is, if i'm not mistaken.

[Trumpet63]

Re: Attention: FFR Administration and Staff

Maybe part of the problem is vision.

It seems like everyone has a different vision for what FFR is or should be.
Let's think about this from a practical point of view. FFR is basically just some files on a server. You've got the engine(s), the user accounts, the actual site, and the forums. Who knows what machinery is being used to connect all these things, but one thing I do know is, I've left out something important from this list. US. THE USERS.

These people who we know at least have some affinity for rhythm games, and may or may not read this thread, and feel varying amounts of apathy about the whole problem. The people here are NOT the property of Synthlight, especially since there's no money involved. So who decides what happens to the people after FFR may or may not disappear? WE DO.

We're the general populous of FFR whether we like it or not, and we have all the power. If anyone wants to make a change, it has to go through us first. The only problem we seem to be having here is a discrepancy of opinion concerning what to do with US.

I for one, would like to see something happen, but I don't know what. Until someone tells me what I should do about any of this, I'll just sit here, typing on my keyboard. Unless somebody wants to announce some specific goal that I have some power over, all I can do with this information is sit on it.

And it's probably just because I haven't been here that long that I don't have a defeatist attitude about this, but seriously, there is so much manpower here. There's no way we couldn't code a site, call it NotFFR.com, and make our own engine in under a year.

There. I'm off my soapbox.

[___________]

Re: Attention: FFR Administration and Staff

solution: fake site issues, force synth to come back, and then beg like crazy

[DossarLX ODI]

Re: Attention: FFR Administration and Staff

while you mention this, it doesn't really make sense of him to do this. if velo wanted to stop FFR from functioning i'm sure he could. access to the web server and it's associated services isn't going to change anything with how secure the website is, if i'm not mistaken.

The idea is that Synthlight probably thinks he has to do all the configuration when that's clearly not working. It was mentioned previously in this thread from Velocity that Synthlight had another server he could install but never got around to it.

If you swamp someone with too much work and that person is too busy, something's got to give. If nobody is given that kind of access, well the problem of that small amount of space left isn't going to just go away -- you need others to help.

[Fission]

Re: Attention: FFR Administration and Staff

i suggest the admins discover why synthlight is reluctant to allow developers access to FFR's backend and work from there. i'm sure there is some reasonable compromise that will give the developers more control.

[choof]

Re: Attention: FFR Administration and Staff

i suggest the admins discover why synthlight is reluctant to allow developers access to FFR's backend and work from there. i'm sure there is some reasonable compromise that will give the developers more control.

but this is a circular issue because none of the admins can actually get synthlight's attention unless the site goes down (and from what velo said, the site can't handle another large crash)

the current staff, and the userbase as a whole, would love to hear from synthlight, but is that going to happen? given synthlight's history, no. it's not.

ffr is going to die and there is nothing we can to do to stop it, aside from creating yet another offshoot website (gg ts) or going to other existing communities, which, in terms of rhythm gaming, consists of bemanistyle, stepmania.com, and osu

[Wayward Vagabond]

Re: Attention: FFR Administration and Staff

i suggest the admins discover why synthlight is reluctant to allow developers access to FFR's backend and work from there. i'm sure there is some reasonable compromise that will give the developers more control.

Because he just doesn't want to. Synth is stubborn and unwilling to talk about changing anything FFR relates. Getting every admin to talk to him about FFR is just going to lead to everyone not being able to get in contact with him.

[Fission]

Re: Attention: FFR Administration and Staff

you both mention that he doesn't want to put any effort into FFR's longevity, but that contradicts his mentions about FFR "being his baby." if he is truly invested into FFR like he would imply he is, he would allow those who have the time to continue maintaining it.

so what exactly is going on here? does synthlight not mean what he says? it's difficult to believe this is not the case.

[gold stinger]

Re: Attention: FFR Administration and Staff

Should mention I tried phoning synthlight with the phone number on that enom website to see if I could possibly direct his attention to this thread for 5 seconds but I recently moved into a different house 2 weeks ago and I'm finding out just now that they don't have any international plans on the phone there so I can't make calls to phone numbers outside of Canada's directory.

Anyone else wanna try?

[TC_Halogen]

Re: Attention: FFR Administration and Staff

going to other existing communities, which, in terms of rhythm gaming, consists of bemanistyle, stepmania.com, and osu

not an active forum anymore, unfortunately -- they removed the forums and it's all exclusively Facebook, and it has been this way for quite a bit now.

[Wayward Vagabond]

Re: Attention: FFR Administration and Staff

you both mention that he doesn't want to put any effort into FFR's longevity, but that contradicts his mentions about FFR "being his baby." if he is truly invested into FFR like he would imply he is, he would allow those who have the time to continue maintaining it.

so what exactly is going on here? does synthlight not mean what he says? it's difficult to believe this is not the case.

Synth is a little kid with a pet goldfish. He wants it and will keep it forever but doesn't want to take care of it

[Charu]

Re: Attention: FFR Administration and Staff

If this site dies, I kind of want to still have access to R^3, lmao.

Y'know, just throwing that out there as well if everything does explode into bits.

[choof]

Re: Attention: FFR Administration and Staff

you both mention that he doesn't want to put any effort into FFR's longevity, but that contradicts his mentions about FFR "being his baby." if he is truly invested into FFR like he would imply he is, he would allow those who have the time to continue maintaining it.

so what exactly is going on here? does synthlight not mean what he says? it's difficult to believe this is not the case.

babies grow up but synthlight doesn't realize that his inaction is fucking up his baby's ability to keep growing