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Post by mementovivere on May 31, 2016 16:22:15 GMT
I would not personally consider it (hypothetical) incompetence for a company to wait to make an Official Announcement like that until things are more set up and concrete--that's actually a pretty standard way of going about something like this. It's usually better to announce something when you actually have something substantial to announce.
I mean, let's not forget what the MSPA Forums website already says: "MSPAforums.com is temporarily offline for maintenance work. We apologize for any inconvenience-- see you soon!" The fact that the forums are being worked on is not technically "news", even if people eventually doubted its truthfulness due to a lack of hearing anything else since. Sure, it would have been reassuring to get more frequent updates about it, but let's not forget that it's been less than two months since the forums went down, months that we KNOW have been super busy for What Pumpkin, and there are only so many ways to say "we're working on it". Would it have made THAT much of a difference if we'd been given a constant transparent play-by-play, if the end result was ultimately the same? Maybe! But hindsight is 20/20.
Again... don't be a dick. The #1 rule of the forums is still Yes Respect, and that includes openly insulting the hypothetical real-life people who would hypothetically be working hard to improve the situation.
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Post by jacquerel on May 31, 2016 16:30:19 GMT
No the incompetence is that they haven't done that yet, almost two months later.
Their job is communication and it is something that they have demonstrably and unarguably failed at doing.
"Forums down for maintenance", a statement not even true if that information is correct, is not that. Especially when numerous conflicting messages were there before it.
Not informing people their passwords could have been compromised is not that.
This is not an insult to any particular person, it is a statement that they have failed as a company to do their job.
Literally "we're working on forum solutions" as a tweet from anyone at the company would have been all they needed to do to remedy this and it never happened.
By the time they've bothered writing a more formal address they aren't going to have a community left to gather back.
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Post by Arashi500 on May 31, 2016 18:03:01 GMT
I would not personally consider it (hypothetical) incompetence for a company to wait to make an Official Announcement like that until things are more set up and concrete--that's actually a pretty standard way of going about something like this. It's usually better to announce something when you actually have something substantial to announce. I mean, let's not forget what the MSPA Forums website already says: "MSPAforums.com is temporarily offline for maintenance work. We apologize for any inconvenience-- see you soon!" The fact that the forums are being worked on is not technically "news", even if people eventually doubted its truthfulness due to a lack of hearing anything else since. Sure, it would have been reassuring to get more frequent updates about it, but let's not forget that it's been less than two months since the forums went down, months that we KNOW have been super busy for What Pumpkin, and there are only so many ways to say "we're working on it". Would it have made THAT much of a difference if we'd been given a constant transparent play-by-play, if the end result was ultimately the same? Maybe! But hindsight is 20/20. Again... don't be a dick. The #1 rule of the forums is still Yes Respect, and that includes openly insulting the hypothetical real-life people who would hypothetically be working hard to improve the situation. No the incompetence is that they haven't done that yet, almost two months later. Their job is communication and it is something that they have demonstrably and unarguably failed at doing. "Forums down for maintenance", a statement not even true if that information is correct, is not that. Especially when numerous conflicting messages were there before it. Not informing people their passwords could have been compromised is not that. This is not an insult to any particular person, it is a statement that they have failed as a company to do their job. Literally "we're working on forum solutions" as a tweet from anyone at the company would have been all they needed to do to remedy this and it never happened. By the time they've bothered writing a more formal address they aren't going to have a community left to gather back. I sorta fall in the middle here. While I understand WP has a metric shot ton of things they need to do and that the team likely isn't half as big as it should be to address these things, it's been a super shitshow with less than the bare minimum of communication on anyone on the company's part. At this point, WP should prolly just hire someone to do nothing but scrawl through forums and subreddits to do the communicating on behalf of the company. Either way, I'm just glad to hear that something might maybe possibly be being done. |
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Post by Evonix on May 31, 2016 20:21:44 GMT
Dunno if it's already been mentioned but chocolat PI forums are fine.
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Post by tirgo on May 31, 2016 20:49:47 GMT
Nice to see Kanye West is a Homestuck fan, though. it was actually tirgo, sorry to ruin your dreams |
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wolftamer9
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Post by wolftamer9 on Jun 1, 2016 1:53:28 GMT
I'm a bit confused, didn't the hackers put up that front page or something, along with all the previous ones since the forums were first hacked?
And yeah, not even really acknowledging what happened to the forums seems like either severe incompetence or just dickish apathy to me. Unless more information is revealed, I'm not really gonna give them the benefit of the doubt.
Anyway, it seems like the MSPAF, OU, ET and CP forum communities are too divided into factions now to re-merge into a glorious hive-mind if and when WP brings the forums back. I know there's a bunch of other reasons that's not feasible, but it's disappointing that all these different cool people can't have one central community hub anymore.
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imglasses
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Post by imglasses on Jun 1, 2016 2:30:24 GMT
Obviously TOG stole the MSPA Forums What Pumpkin isn't allowed to talk about it
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Post by obsidalicious on Jun 1, 2016 4:12:25 GMT
I'm a bit confused, didn't the hackers put up that front page or something, along with all the previous ones since the forums were first hacked? Yeah that page went up while all the other pages were still being fucked with by the hacker. Combined with the fact that this page went up while the hackening thread was talking about the lack of proper staff, and thus that would've been the ideal time for a code monkey to step in and tell us that they're working on it, I highly doubt that page was the staff' doing. |
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Post by mementovivere on Jun 1, 2016 14:28:24 GMT
I'm definitely not saying there's no room for valid criticism, just that frustrated speculation in an informational void tends to lend itself to the most unflattering possible interpretation of events. We've got plenty of reasons to believe that there have been roadblocks that were out of What Pumpkin's hands, and that they don't have tons of money they can just throw at problems in order to fix them. Yes, past and present communication could be much much better, but people have already been saying that for pages and pages of this thread to the point where it stopped being CONSTRUCTIVE criticism a long time ago. I can definitely understand why people are frustrated, but I guess it's disheartening to me that even after (indirectly) receiving the good news we've been waiting for, this thread is still largely comprised of salt and negativity over it. I'm a bit confused, didn't the hackers put up that front page or something, along with all the previous ones since the forums were first hacked? Yeah that page went up while all the other pages were still being fucked with by the hacker. Combined with the fact that this page went up while the hackening thread was talking about the lack of proper staff, and thus that would've been the ideal time for a code monkey to step in and tell us that they're working on it, I highly doubt that page was the staff' doing. While I have no actual idea who put up that page, I don't think it's that unlikely that someone from WP did as a temporary fix... there's a big difference between having a code monkey with which to fix some completely borked forums, vs having someone with the ability to make an extremely simple HTML page as a temporary band-aid. I could have coded that page, and I know jack shit about coding. The idea that hackers destroyed the forums but then had the courtesy to put up a What-Pumpkin-branded maintenance page in its place was only ever speculation, though of course there's not much to do but speculate when you have nothing else to go off of. |
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Post by tirgo on Jun 1, 2016 15:38:58 GMT
if you don't want people to complain about the forums being down and talk critically about how and why it happened, why the hell is this thread even still open? i mean what exactly do you want to be discussed here otherwise?
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Post by tirgo on Jun 1, 2016 15:42:11 GMT
if you don't want people to complain about the forums being down and talk critically about how and why it happened, why the hell is this thread even still open? i mean what exactly do you want to be discussed here otherwise? forgot to mention the completely inept way that this entire thing has been handled. i mean honestly it feels like nobody even really gives a shit what with nobody in a position of higher power even bothering to talk about it. personally i think this entire thing is just completely fucked and like i said, what pumpkin doesn't care about the forums to begin with, which is why there's been no communication about it and no real attempts to put up a new one in several months. do they just think "well homestuck ended so what the fuck should we care?" |
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Post by , on Jun 1, 2016 16:57:53 GMT
I partially agree, we've been constantly looping through the same conversation I'm not sure there's a reason to keep this open other then to reloop right back in to the same conversation all over again. I agree, the situation was very unprofessional and I don't think it'd be too hard to just give a tweet "It'll come back one day" or "It's dead" but I'm also not sure how many times we can keep having this same conversation. It also seems any other conversation that goes on this topic starts going in to the too far area such as making some pretty not cool comments about people who are both not here (thus cannot tell their side of the story) and have nothing to do with the forums going down.
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Post by Arashi500 on Jun 1, 2016 17:55:00 GMT
i mean what exactly do you want to be discussed here otherwise? Maybe some positivity that we actually got some word on it, even if indirectly? |
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imglasses
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Post by imglasses on Jun 1, 2016 18:08:00 GMT
i mean what exactly do you want to be discussed here otherwise? Maybe some positivity that we actually got some word on it, even if indirectly? I'm not really reassured by a word from a guest who says they heard some vague things about it "on the grapevine." |
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Post by , on Jun 1, 2016 18:41:02 GMT
Maybe some positivity that we actually got some word on it, even if indirectly? I'm not really reassured by a word from a guest who says they heard some vague things about it "on the grapevine." Pretty much this. Almost all the information we get are from people who are unwilling to tell who they are or who their sources are. Plus we already have info that the forums are being worked on, on the page where the forums used to be there's a message saying just that, aka official word that yes, someone is working on it. I'm not sure why people keep assuming that's a message from the hacker from before, it seems really clear to me that's an official message. |
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Post by The One Guy on Jun 1, 2016 19:01:13 GMT
What makes me suspicious of the page where the forums used to be is that it says it's down for maintenance, when it clearly wasn't taken down for maintenance purposes.
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imglasses
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Post by imglasses on Jun 1, 2016 19:13:18 GMT
It seems to me like a message that's set to automatically appear if the forums are taken down, not one that was made for the specific circumstance.
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Post by arbitraryTemplar on Jun 1, 2016 19:15:21 GMT
Insanity can be described as doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result every time.
In a way, this discussion has turned into insanity.
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Post by phillip on Jun 1, 2016 19:59:17 GMT
Hey guys! I'm Phillip Huang of What Pumpkin! (please don't hurt me) I'm happy to announce that, a few weeks ago, I was assigned to rebuild the forums! Look, I understand WP has really been dropping the ball on keeping the community up to date with regards to the forums. I wasn't a part of the team until pretty recently, so I can't really speak on behalf of them or whatever policies they had to follow in the past. But I do know two things: First, please do not think for a second that we don't care about you guys. Andrew and the rest of the team absolutely feel the growing animosity and discontent, and we're working as hard as we can every day to try to keep the fanbase happy. By my personal observations, the reason the forums have been on the back burner is because there are just too many other things to be working on right now (most notably Hiveswap--game development is a BEAST). Second, starting with this post, I am going to try to make amends by increasing transparency, feedback, and communication, at least with regards to the forums and their reconstruction. Technically I'm not supposed to announce very much now, but if you have a burning hot question go ahead and ask me here (not PM pls so I don't have to repeat myself) and I'll see what I'm allowed to say. Once the new forums are up, I'm going to try to get some of the other WP team members to start posting on them so they can answer questions about more general things (no promises though!  ). A part of this initiative is me trying to contact the old mods and other prominent community members to help shape the creation of the new universe relaunch of the forums (lol mementoviviere you can stop pretending now, Wesley Foxx please check your Skype, Sharkalien I'll try to PM you soon, Blaperile please check your messages). So what happens now? WP probably won't be making an Official Announcement TM about this until the forums actually launch. I can't make any promises on a launch date or any features. In the meantime, it's probably best to keep this news and your hypes on the down low. Expect the worst, conksuckiest piece of software that that ever still somehow qualified as a boot forum, to be released as a $50 DLC to the Remastered Hiveswap 6 Collector's Edition. Also, please don't pester the mods to give any info, and mods please don't leak anything else (I SEE YOU "flowey"  ). Alrighty, thanks for your patience y'all. We really appreciate your dedication to this community throughout all of these difficulties. Hopefully I'll see you on the new forums! (when they launch, which is never) |
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Post by imglasses on Jun 1, 2016 20:20:43 GMT
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Post by , on Jun 1, 2016 20:27:01 GMT
My only question is if you have a tumblr or twitter or anything else where you can post that you're working with WP and on the forums. We just had a conversation about unreliable sources and while I hate to be weird about this I rather if there was a more official account that could post this info just so we know for a 100% certainty that no one is pretending to be phillip.
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Post by jacquerel on Jun 1, 2016 20:39:22 GMT
I know it's not at all your fault Phillip and to be honest, I really feel bad for you as the guy who has no responsibility for what has been going on and also very little power to affect anything in the future who has now been dangled into a shark tank despite having almost nothing to offer us except hopeful promises, but to be frank the fact that they are sending you, only communicated now, and have also been terminally poor at communication in the past means I cannot really be convinced that they really do care about the community all that much when it would have taken virtually no effort at all even for a very busy person to drop us a line at basically any time.
It wouldn't have had to be a plan, any confirmation at all would have prevented so much bad feeling and nobody even bothered to do that.
Perhaps they even do care, but if they are this poor at showing it I don't see that the intention really matters all that much, they're still failing to back it up with any kind of gesture.
I'm glad someone is working on fixing the forum but as none of the old stuff is going to be on it I fear that most of the people I talk to have no intention of returning to any What Pumpkin forum after this point. Other people provide the same service, except actually are there to deal with their communities rather than make a series of serious errors that appear to have been caused by having no engagement with the forum they were trying to run at all (this is hardly the first).
Almost the only positive interaction with anyone who "worked" for What Pumpkin has been with the forum moderation team, who weren't actually even What Pumpkin employees, have a long background of their own poor treatment at the hands of the actual company (which I am not confident you can do anything to fix), and were also kept entirely in the dark about this.
This it the last of a long litany of failures to engage with the community and the straw that broke the camel's back already fell.
Good luck with your job though, I hope you aren't left with as much bad feeling as so many others I'm still in contact with that were What Pumpkin volunteers (I guess I can assume that at least you're getting paid!)
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Post by mementovivere on Jun 1, 2016 20:44:03 GMT
My only question is if you have a tumblr or twitter or anything else where you can post that you're working with WP and on the forums. We just had a conversation about unreliable sources and while I hate to be weird about this I rather if there was a more official account that could post this info just so we know for a 100% certainty that no one is pretending to be phillip. Nah it's legit, I can confirm that phillip has been in contact with myself and the other MSPA Forum mods for a few days working hard on getting stuff ready. I actually asked him to make that post so that I could stop being so cagey about what I knew and actually assuage people's doubts, because apparently vague noncommittal hypothetical hints aren't good enough for you ingrates!!! jk. Thanks for the sub-official update phillip, and I appreciate all your efforts  |
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Post by imglasses on Jun 1, 2016 20:49:41 GMT
Are the old posts going to be recovered, or is a new forum being made from scratch? If it's the latter, wouldn't it be easier just to stay here?
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Post by jacquerel on Jun 1, 2016 20:52:30 GMT
Are the old posts going to be recovered, or is a new forum being made from scratch? If it's the latter, wouldn't it be easier just to stay here? Information I had from a mysterious source implies that the old posts probably ain't going to be here... but there's 0% chance What Pumpkin would run their official homestuck forums from "omegaupdate.freeforums.net" when they have their own webspace, aren't the web admins for this forum, and this is running on free software with banner ads. They're going to want something on their own site, and entirely under their own control, which also means paid for by them. Any company would. This forum fits none of those criteria. |
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). A part of this initiative is me trying to contact the old mods and other prominent community members to help shape the 
). 
