Adding long-term site supporting

[Enfaru]

Code bounties are quite popular, kickstarter was just an example.

[Frisbeeteria]

Has Max/Violet considered kickstarter (or similar) to hire a coder to actually solve some of these challenges?

I don't think the problem is money.

Any new coder needs to be extensively vetted before being given access to site code. For instance, SalusaSecondus first showed up as a White Hat hacker, pointing out vulnerabilities to [violet]. He was made Tech Modling for several years before he was given full access. By the time he became both fully trusted and conversant with the game code, RL pressures (school, work, family) pulled him away.

It's a big, sprawling game with lots of weird stuff in it. At its core is the amateurish code created by author-playing-at-being-coder Max Barry in 2002. There are fundamental flaws (primarily that it wasn't originally set up as database driven) that prevent easy code changes. When we did hand the game over to supposed pros to make extensive changes, we got the horrible mess that was NS 2 and those idiots at Jolt. Once bitten, forever shy.

Since Max and [violet] insist on retaining control because of that mess, coders must become trusted first. They have to play the game and have decent reputations, preferably for several years. That's why Pyth, Ballo, and Elu were made admins (and also why several other candidates were turned down). It's not a fast process.

[Enfaru]

I know what I want!

Thread Subscription. *drools*.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Has Max/Violet considered kickstarter (or similar) to hire a coder to actually solve some of these challenges?

I don't think the problem is money.

Any new coder needs to be extensively vetted before being given access to site code. For instance, SalusaSecondus first showed up as a White Hat hacker, pointing out vulnerabilities to [violet]. He was made Tech Modling for several years before he was given full access. By the time he became both fully trusted and conversant with the game code, RL pressures (school, work, family) pulled him away.

It's a big, sprawling game with lots of weird stuff in it. At its core is the amateurish code created by author-playing-at-being-coder Max Barry in 2002. There are fundamental flaws (primarily that it wasn't originally set up as database driven) that prevent easy code changes. When we did hand the game over to supposed pros to make extensive changes, we got the horrible mess that was NS 2 and those idiots at Jolt. Once bitten, forever shy.

Since Max and [violet] insist on retaining control because of that mess, coders must become trusted first. They have to play the game and have decent reputations, preferably for several years. That's why Pyth, Ballo, and Elu were made admins (and also why several other candidates were turned down). It's not a fast process.

Great history lesson, thanks for filling us in. I'd heard bits about the NS2 fiasco, but never knew those details.

[Allanea]

I'd just like to add that I'd like to be able to support the site in more ways, but I don't really need anything more than it already provides. I suppose we can just buy telegram stamps!

[Greater vakolicci haven]

I know what I want!

Thread Subscription. *drools*.

Thread subscription would be amazing. I'd literally be happy to handle all of the emails from thread subscriptions to stop its spam reports affecting ns if I could.

[USS Monitor]

I don't think the problem is money.

Any new coder needs to be extensively vetted before being given access to site code. For instance, SalusaSecondus first showed up as a White Hat hacker, pointing out vulnerabilities to [violet]. He was made Tech Modling for several years before he was given full access. By the time he became both fully trusted and conversant with the game code, RL pressures (school, work, family) pulled him away.

It's a big, sprawling game with lots of weird stuff in it. At its core is the amateurish code created by author-playing-at-being-coder Max Barry in 2002. There are fundamental flaws (primarily that it wasn't originally set up as database driven) that prevent easy code changes. When we did hand the game over to supposed pros to make extensive changes, we got the horrible mess that was NS 2 and those idiots at Jolt. Once bitten, forever shy.

Since Max and [violet] insist on retaining control because of that mess, coders must become trusted first. They have to play the game and have decent reputations, preferably for several years. That's why Pyth, Ballo, and Elu were made admins (and also why several other candidates were turned down). It's not a fast process.

Great history lesson, thanks for filling us in. I'd heard bits about the NS2 fiasco, but never knew those details.

Reppy has posted some good rants about NS2 that you can dig up if you want more details. I wasn't around back then, but apparently the Jolt mods were overruling NS mods about who and what was allowed on the forums, Jolt didn't pay Max money that they owed him, etc.

[Xerographica]

Yeah! Monthly payments, that can be used to help prioritize site suggestions!

Personally I get the feeling that this website is slowly dying. It seems like there's fewer and fewer online members in the forum. Elsewhere The Great Minarchistan shared this...



I really don't want this website to die. A couple of my favorite plant forums died and it really sucks. I'm guessing that they were killed by Facebook groups.

[Gandoor]

Yeah! Monthly payments, that can be used to help prioritize site suggestions!

Personally I get the feeling that this website is slowly dying. It seems like there's fewer and fewer online members in the forum. Elsewhere The Great Minarchistan shared this...

(Image)

I really don't want this website to die. A couple of my favorite plant forums died and it really sucks. I'm guessing that they were killed by Facebook groups.

How the hell does Google Trends show that this website is 'slowly dying'.

A more useful metric would be the statistics from the history page on this site itself. Now sure, the history page lacks data for 2017, but according to the data, NS has not gone under 100k active nations since 2012. Right now there are 160k active nations. (Of course, who knows the exact number of those nations that are puppets but even still, this game has a very large community)

Of course, this game can ebb and flow in popularity, might get a big boost when posted to a popular website like Reddit (as happened a couple of years ago, if I recall correctly) but that doesn't mean this game is dying.

[Reploid Productions]

Yeah! Monthly payments, that can be used to help prioritize site suggestions!

CAPTAIN BUZZKILL IS HERE TO RUIN THE DAY!

We are definitely NOT going to add any sort of promise implied or otherwise that site supporter will give technical suggestions more weight.

[Xerographica]

Yeah! Monthly payments, that can be used to help prioritize site suggestions!

Personally I get the feeling that this website is slowly dying. It seems like there's fewer and fewer online members in the forum. Elsewhere The Great Minarchistan shared this...

(Image)

I really don't want this website to die. A couple of my favorite plant forums died and it really sucks. I'm guessing that they were killed by Facebook groups.

How the hell does Google Trends show that this website is 'slowly dying'.

A more useful metric would be the statistics from the history page on this site itself. Now sure, the history page lacks data for 2017, but according to the data, NS has not gone under 100k active nations since 2012. Right now there are 160k active nations. (Of course, who knows the exact number of those nations that are puppets but even still, this game has a very large community)

Of course, this game can ebb and flow in popularity, might get a big boost when posted to a popular website like Reddit (as happened a couple of years ago, if I recall correctly) but that doesn't mean this game is dying.

Like I said, it isn't just Google Trends, it's also my perception that forum participation is slowly but steadily decreasing. Back in the day it was common to see lots and lots of lines of online members... nowadays it's not unusual to see the online members only occupying a single line. Does this reflect participation in the game? Maybe people are playing the game here but discussing topics on Facebook? I don't know.

But it's a given that any entity that doesn't adapt/evolve will go extinct. Has this website adequately adapted/evolved? If not, then it is dying.

[Reploid Productions]

Like I said, it isn't just Google Trends, it's also my perception that forum participation is slowly but steadily decreasing. Back in the day it was common to see lots and lots of lines of online members... nowadays it's not unusual to see the online members only occupying a single line. Does this reflect participation in the game? Maybe people are playing the game here but discussing topics on Facebook? I don't know.

But it's a given that any entity that doesn't adapt/evolve will go extinct. Has this website adequately adapted/evolved? If not, then it is dying.

Forum activity is not an accurate indicator of overall site activity. Forum activity is a tiny fraction of overall site activity, which remains quite healthy.

[Xerographica]

Yeah! Monthly payments, that can be used to help prioritize site suggestions!

CAPTAIN BUZZKILL IS HERE TO RUIN THE DAY!

We are definitely NOT going to add any sort of promise implied or otherwise that site supporter will give technical suggestions more weight.

So who decides the weight of suggestions? Why not allow weight to be determined by voting?

[Xerographica]

Like I said, it isn't just Google Trends, it's also my perception that forum participation is slowly but steadily decreasing. Back in the day it was common to see lots and lots of lines of online members... nowadays it's not unusual to see the online members only occupying a single line. Does this reflect participation in the game? Maybe people are playing the game here but discussing topics on Facebook? I don't know.

But it's a given that any entity that doesn't adapt/evolve will go extinct. Has this website adequately adapted/evolved? If not, then it is dying.

Forum activity is not an accurate indicator of overall site activity. Forum activity is a tiny fraction of overall site activity, which remains quite healthy.

So you don't deny that forum activity is decreasing?

[Reploid Productions]

So who decides the weight of suggestions? Why not allow weight to be determined by voting?

Once again:

We are definitely NOT going to add any sort of promise implied or otherwise that site supporter will give technical suggestions more weight.

[Trotterdam]

Why would anyone type NationStates into Gogle? The URL is literally "http://nationstates.net/". Are people so lazy they can't remember that?

[Xerographica]

So who decides the weight of suggestions? Why not allow weight to be determined by voting?

Once again:

We are definitely NOT going to add any sort of promise implied or otherwise that site supporter will give technical suggestions more weight.

What you copy and pasted really doesn't answer my two questions.

[Reploid Productions]

They don't require answers. The answer is "We are not doing that."

[Xerographica]

They don't require answers. The answer is "We are not doing that."

Me: So who decides the weight of suggestions?
You: We are not doing that.

Me: Why not allow weight to be determined by voting?
You: We are not doing that.

I already know that you aren't using voting to prioritize suggestions. What I don't know is why.

Me: Why aren't you using voting to weight suggestions?
You: We aren't using voting to weight suggestions because ________________________________ .

Please fill in the blank. Or not. You are absolutely not at all obligated to be useful to me or any other concerned member of this website. Maybe that's part of the problem.

[Reploid Productions]

We aren't using voting to weight suggestions because we're not doing that.

[Xerographica]

We aren't using voting to weight suggestions because we're not doing that.

How did you become an admin?

[Kyrusia]

How did you become an admin?

Through vetting and appointment; they've been site staff for fifteen years, give or take.

If you want a more detailed answer, here's the last one we gave you; it applies now to your linking of the same (locked, I might add) thread here:

Moderation has made clear that these suggestions simply do not work. They have a considerably high likelihood of needlessly upsetting, if not outright breaking, the game's balance in favor of those who decided to pay - something we have no intention or desire to do. The technical viability is, at best, questionable, and otherwise simply not possible or valuable, restrictive of Moderator time, and otherwise would be putting a burden on Admin to add something with no discernable benefit. Which, at last, as has been brought up repeatedly: we have no intention of making, or gesturing toward making, NationStates a site which unduly grants benefits to paid players simply because they've paid.

Do not expect any further response to making the same suggestions; you will receive the same (or self-similar) responses.

The answer remains "We are not doing that."

[Xerographica]

How did you become an admin?

Through vetting and appointment; they've been site staff for fifteen years, give or take.

If you want a more detailed answer, here's the last one we gave you; it applies now to your linking of the same (locked, I might add) thread here:

Moderation has made clear that these suggestions simply do not work. They have a considerably high likelihood of needlessly upsetting, if not outright breaking, the game's balance in favor of those who decided to pay - something we have no intention or desire to do. The technical viability is, at best, questionable, and otherwise simply not possible or valuable, restrictive of Moderator time, and otherwise would be putting a burden on Admin to add something with no discernable benefit. Which, at last, as has been brought up repeatedly: we have no intention of making, or gesturing toward making, NationStates a site which unduly grants benefits to paid players simply because they've paid.

Do not expect any further response to making the same suggestions; you will receive the same (or self-similar) responses.

The answer remains "We are not doing that."

I guess you haven't really read anything that I posted after my post first in this thread... so let me clue you in...

Why not allow suggestion weight to be determined by voting?

[Kyrusia]

[snip]

Because we're not doing that.

To put it another way: technical suggestions are not subject to voting, popularity, et alia. We do not allow polls in Technical; we're not going to have technical suggestions be subject to vote. They are subject to administrative discretion, determined viability, and technical considerations behind the scenes.

Your question has been answered.

[Xerographica]

[snip]

Because we're not doing that.

To put it another way: technical suggestions are not subject to voting, popularity, et alia. We do not allow polls in Technical; we're not going to have technical suggestions be subject to vote. They are subject to administrative discretion, determined viability, and technical considerations behind the scenes.

Your question has been answered.

So you firmly believe that the phpBB community is making a big mistake by allowing members to vote on suggestions?