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Post by mementovivere on May 24, 2016 6:34:39 GMT
MSPA Forums went like 6 months once without a single ban (at least according to the ban log) Ah, but is that because the people were well behaved, or because the forums were terribly understaffed, as was made evident in the Hackening. Plus, I suspect that 6 months you're referring to was in the middle of one of the larger pauses, when the forums become largely dormant, with the number of active users dwindling down to under a thousand. So it's debatable whether ban-dry-spell statistics are as meaningful if we're comparing against other forums that might have more constant usage. I mean, while the mods were generally understaffed, I don't feel like it was all that inadequate most of the time... it generally became immediately apparent when someone needed to be infracted, because people were (usually) pretty decent at reporting the posts that warranted it, and we got emailed when that happened. It's definitely possible that stuff slipped through the cracks, but for the most part I think the relative scarcity of bans/infractions was because people were generally pretty well-behaved and civil and on-topic and whatnot. The modmin team and the people in charge of the technical side of the forum are two different groups, so the "Hackening" was something completely unrelated to ban rates. |
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Post by Arashi500 on May 24, 2016 9:29:25 GMT
Ah, but is that because the people were well behaved, or because the forums were terribly understaffed, as was made evident in the Hackening. Plus, I suspect that 6 months you're referring to was in the middle of one of the larger pauses, when the forums become largely dormant, with the number of active users dwindling down to under a thousand. So it's debatable whether ban-dry-spell statistics are as meaningful if we're comparing against other forums that might have more constant usage. I mean, while the mods were generally understaffed, I don't feel like it was all that inadequate most of the time... it generally became immediately apparent when someone needed to be infracted, because people were (usually) pretty decent at reporting the posts that warranted it, and we got emailed when that happened. It's definitely possible that stuff slipped through the cracks, but for the most part I think the relative scarcity of bans/infractions was because people were generally pretty well-behaved and civil and on-topic and whatnot. The modmin team and the people in charge of the technical side of the forum are two different groups, so the "Hackening" was something completely unrelated to ban rates. I think Obsidalicious means the Hackening made evident just how badly the modmin team needed a code monkey. |
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Post by jacquerel on May 24, 2016 13:29:42 GMT
I don't think that can be what Obsidalicious meant, or if it is then they misunderstand greatly what each staff member's role would be.
Banning someone requires no interaction with code at all. The moderation team on their own would be perfectly capable of enforcement without need of anyone with server or technical skills.
Counter-hacking requires web management skills and also access permissions to the site server. This is what the team was missing, but would have had no effect whatsoever on the running or enforcement of the community, only its site security, maintenance, and upgrades.
A long period with few bans can only speak to the behaviour of the community, or the quality of enforcement. Unless the ban system was literally non-functional (and it wasn't) then neither of these would be an indicator of whether more web support staff were required, and Obsidalicious is falsely linking two entirely separate discussions.
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Post by Arashi500 on May 24, 2016 18:09:54 GMT
I don't think that can be what Obsidalicious meant, or if it is then they misunderstand greatly what each staff member's role would be. Banning someone requires no interaction with code at all. The moderation team on their own would be perfectly capable of enforcement without need of anyone with server or technical skills. Counter-hacking requires web management skills and also access permissions to the site server. This is what the team was missing, but would have had no effect whatsoever on the running or enforcement of the community, only its site security, maintenance, and upgrades. A long period with few bans can only speak to the behaviour of the community, or the quality of enforcement. Unless the ban system was literally non-functional (and it wasn't) then neither of these would be an indicator of whether more web support staff were required, and Obsidalicious is falsely linking two entirely separate discussions. Ah, see I thought the remark was less to do with the bans and more to do with how the Hackening affected things code-wise, thus indicating the need for someone who does know how to work with the underlying code in case of something like the Hackening, rather than simply staff the forums with modmins who are able to do everything but. Didn't think it had much if anything to do with the ban frequency on my first read. Guess we'd need Obsidiliscious' word to e sre, cause rereading it could read both ways. |
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Fish
Rungjumpin' Ragamuffin
mostly on discord
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Post by Fish on May 24, 2016 19:12:49 GMT
I think many of the admins did know how to work with the underlying code. I mean, Rincebrain was working on a new version of the forums for like years. ashdenej has also done some forum manipulation (you might be able to find his forum profile on web archive). But these changes were only made when they had direct communication with someone at Andrew Hussie/What Pumpkin, it seems - in the last year or so, they wouldn't have had access to what they'd need to make backups.
It's still a bummer that no one at What Pumpkin or from way way back seems to have never made any backups.
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Post by obsidalicious on May 24, 2016 21:47:50 GMT
I think that there probably are backups*, it's just that all those staff who could qualify as 'code monkeys' had gone absent in one way or another by the time of the Hackening. And since we've a total communications blackout from WP, it would seem that none of those staff are available to go and retrieve the backups and put them back in place. It could be that the Hacker has managed to actually lock all the staff out of the Web Serve, but I can't imagine that would be a totally unmovable obstacle.
As for my earlier post: I do understand and appreciate the difference between the code monkeys who'd deal to the Hackening and the mods who deal to infractions. But from what I remember, when the Hackening was going down, the staff, of any sort, that turned up consisted of about 3 moderators and 2 ex-code monkeys who had no power. Obviously that moment of time, balls deep in a pause, is hardly indicative of a typical staff roster, but in all the years I spent on the Forum, the number of active staff members was seemingly always only a small fraction of those listed, with most having been absent for years, or only hopping on once in a blue moon.
*however they might be fairly old. But at the very least I would expect there'd have been a backup made during the server shift that happened in the gigapause(or was it omega?)
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Post by gimeurcookie on May 24, 2016 22:52:03 GMT
I think many of the admins did know how to work with the underlying code. I mean, Rincebrain was working on a new version of the forums for like years. ashdenej has also done some forum manipulation (you might be able to find his forum profile on web archive). But these changes were only made when they had direct communication with someone at Andrew Hussie/What Pumpkin, it seems - in the last year or so, they wouldn't have had access to what they'd need to make backups. It's still a bummer that no one at What Pumpkin or from way way back seems to have never made any backups. Sadly I do not think those 2 things (With Rincebrain and Ashdenej) were the type of coding that they needed. See there's 2 types of coding (Ok more then that but for simplicity sake we're going to say there's 2.) Front end: Which is what I do. HTML, CSS, and a little of javascript. It makes things pretty, it changes things around and even edits placement. It's the "skin" of the site. Back end: This is the tougher stuff. Php, python, C++, ect. It's what makes the site work. Making a new forum layout or even forum manipulation is front end. Sadly working front end doesn't mean too much when it comes to backend. You can do what ashdenej did by having someone who did have access to backend, and asking them to place in some css and html you coded up. That's not to say that Ashdenej didn't know backend, they could have, but the examples you are saying are nearly pure front-end work. Stopping what happened would have taken someone with backend knowledge. (Or someone to just look up the newest update of the forum software apparently.) I do believe Rincebrain does know backend though but as I believe what Rincebrain said before, they hadn't even been on the forums for a year or two before this incident. |
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Post by jacquerel on May 24, 2016 23:14:33 GMT
I'm certain that there were more than three moderators, the moderation team was absolutely enough to cover the forum.
They were and are just also completely powerless to do anything with the backend of the site.
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thedude3445
Scampermaster
Homestuck? More like, Homo suck... oh wait...
Posts: 212
Pronouns: other (see signature)
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Post by thedude3445 on May 25, 2016 0:02:34 GMT
Rincebrain is on Twitter but has a protected account... has anyone tried contacting them?
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Post by mementovivere on May 25, 2016 0:53:03 GMT
Rincebrain is on Twitter but has a protected account... has anyone tried contacting them? Not LATELY, but he was one of the more active admins during the Hackening... at least, during the brief window when the main page of the MSPA forums website was inactive, but the forums themselves were still directly accessible if you went around that, and there was a topic to address the password insecurity issue. There's a skype chat for the MSPA forum modmins, but it's pretty dead as you'd expect. I'm under the impression that Rincebrain hasn't really been in direct contact with WP in a while, and he was pretty cynical about the future of the forums while all of that was going on, so I doubt he knows much that would help (or that hasn't been said numerous times already). |
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Post by flowey on May 29, 2016 22:21:54 GMT
ive heard on the grapevine that the following is true
-the forums are not going to come back in their previous form, that stuffs gonzo
-there is a human being working on the new forums, which will be new forums
-they are going to try to like, get some sort of archive of the old forums but it isnt a sure thing, and this would be after the new forums are made
-they said that WP is aware of the animosity and frustration but lmao
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Post by Arashi500 on May 30, 2016 1:52:18 GMT
-they said that WP is aware of the animosity and frustration but lmaoWait, what? They're amused by it? That seems mighty strange. |
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Post by flowey on May 30, 2016 1:59:17 GMT
no thats me going "lmao" at that
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lyla
Boy-Skylark
And if it's true, I will surround you and give life to a world that's our own.
Posts: 137
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Post by lyla on May 30, 2016 2:15:06 GMT
Are these news sure enough? Because it sounds cool, if they are. I still wonder why they don't just communicate it themselves, but ok.
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Post by Arashi500 on May 30, 2016 2:32:27 GMT
no thats me going "lmao" at that Ah, ok. I misunderstood. |
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Post by flowey on May 30, 2016 3:54:08 GMT
Are these news sure enough? Because it sounds cool, if they are. I still wonder why they don't just communicate it themselves, but ok. i also am honestly confused at WP's lack of communication on the matter i have no reason to doubt the information's legitimacy |
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Post by kanye west on May 30, 2016 7:43:04 GMT
what pumpkin doesn't care about forum people
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Fish
Rungjumpin' Ragamuffin
mostly on discord
Posts: 285
Pronouns: he/him/his
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Post by Fish on May 30, 2016 16:32:22 GMT
flowey where did you hear this from?
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Post by Nero on May 30, 2016 16:38:57 GMT
flowey where did you hear this from? on the grapvine are you blind |
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Post by jacquerel on May 30, 2016 18:01:05 GMT
yeah yeah next think he'll be telling us that to get to the new forum we just have to pick up some of his "friendliness pellets"
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thedude3445
Scampermaster
Homestuck? More like, Homo suck... oh wait...
Posts: 212
Pronouns: other (see signature)
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Post by thedude3445 on May 30, 2016 20:06:19 GMT
The forums coming back in any form are about as likely as the next Transformers movie being a cinematic masterpiece.
Nice to see Kanye West is a Homestuck fan, though.
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Post by hargleblargleboo on May 30, 2016 20:29:35 GMT
The forums coming back in any form are about as likely as the next Transformers movie being a cinematic masterpiece. Nice to see Kanye West is a Homestuck fan, though. Wait... What? |
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Post by Sharkalien on May 30, 2016 20:34:53 GMT
The forums coming back in any form are about as likely as the next Transformers movie being a cinematic masterpiece. Nice to see Kanye West is a Homestuck fan, though. Wait... What? i'm a huge fan of homestuck Woah, that's amazing!!!! |
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Post by mementovivere on May 30, 2016 21:21:02 GMT
Hmmm, what an interesting rumor!
If (hypothetically) someone from What Pumpkin was working hard on preparing the return of the MSPA Forums, I feel pretty certain that a more official announcement about it would be made pretty soon... so while I understand people are frustrated and impatient, the best thing to do is to try and be patient until that happens, and also to not be dicks about it.
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Post by jacquerel on May 30, 2016 23:23:13 GMT
If they were hypothetically planning such a thing I'd think them fairly foolish, or in fact, actually incompetent not to have already produced one by now.
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