So Is Anything Ever Going To Happen?

[Suitably Ironic Moniker]

I'm just sayin' that there's a difference between writing "I have some problems with what you've stated on the board versus what you've actually accomplished (or something of that ilk) compared to "And that right there is why you're a pathetic moderator...Are you fucking stupid...". That's all.

[Lee]

Man a lot of people are getting uptight around here lately. Maybe it's the heat.

[Suitably Ironic Moniker]

Man a lot of people are getting uptight around here lately. Maybe it's the heat.

What's it to ya? Don't make me come through the intarweb and kick your ass !!

[Lee]

Man a lot of people are getting uptight around here lately. Maybe it's the heat.

What's it to ya? Don't make me come through the intarweb and kick your ass !!

I think I could take you....f'ing muppets.

[loc-nar]

Man a lot of people are getting uptight around here lately. Maybe it's the heat.

What's it to ya? Don't make me come through the intarweb and kick your ass !!

I think I could take you....f'ing muppets.

Pink floyd sucks.

[Suitably Ironic Moniker]

Please, with my deadly Air Force combat training, I could at least give you a good coffee burn or paper cut.

[Lee]

Man a lot of people are getting uptight around here lately. Maybe it's the heat.

What's it to ya? Don't make me come through the intarweb and kick your ass !!

I think I could take you....f'ing muppets.

Pink floyd sucks.

That's the second time that has been posted on the forum this week. OO has really gone downhill. If this was a civil forum, making such comments would be banable offense.

(Think we derailed this thread enough to quiet it down yet?)

[Lee]

Please, with my deadly Air Force combat training, I could at least give you a good coffee burn or paper cut.

Coffee burn? You must be a MSgt.

[Suitably Ironic Moniker]

Please, with my deadly Air Force combat training, I could at least give you a good coffee burn or paper cut.

Coffee burn? You must be a MSgt.

SSgt, actually. All of our MSgts make the underlings brew the java.

[ChrisGwinn]

Running a serious website that's going to take significant traffic and manage content contributions from multiple people over time is not a trivial task. Doing it well is harder. Doing it well, while integrating it with the forums, isn't a problem that's solved by off-the-shelf software that I'm aware of. I had some productive conversations with Peacedog a few months ago, and there were significant unanswered questions that needed to be resolved before even settling on what a software solution would look like. But that's good, because it means that people are actually thinking about the answers to those questions.

Having a sitemap and a page layout idea is nice, but it's just the beginning of the road when it comes to implementing this sort of thing. I've worked on the implementation of major websites with news/commentary/community/etc., and I shudder to think of the difficulty involved in managing that sort of project with volunteers and no canned software solution. It's simply not the trivial afternoon hack you're making it out to be.

[Crux]

Running a serious website that's going to take significant traffic and manage content contributions from multiple people over time is not a trivial task. Doing it well is harder. Doing it well, while integrating it with the forums, isn't a problem that's solved by off-the-shelf software that I'm aware of. I had some productive conversations with Peacedog a few months ago, and there were significant unanswered questions that needed to be resolved before even settling on what a software solution would look like. But that's good, because it means that people are actually thinking about the answers to those questions.

Having a sitemap and a page layout idea is nice, but it's just the beginning of the road when it comes to implementing this sort of thing. I've worked on the implementation of major websites with news/commentary/community/etc., and I shudder to think of the difficulty involved in managing that sort of project with volunteers and no canned software solution. It's simply not the trivial afternoon hack you're making it out to be.

See, but I think you're assuming that the words godhugh so nicely put in my mouth are the words I actually said. Nowhere have I referred to a content management system integrated with the forums and called it trivial. I might be pissed off but I'm not crazy I said that we could get a good looking, simple front page with suitable links, blogging-type capability and other capabilities over the space of a weekend. If we wanted a truly professional looking front page with these kinds of things (links, blogging and other stuff) it could be done in a month (obviously the CMS with forum integration they're talking about probably take longer given the volunteer nature of the project).

Apparantly they are aiming for something more than that, and that's their perogative. I don't own OO, nor do I run it. If they never put anything up, that is their perogative too. They could take 15 years to do it, and that would be up to them. I just wanted to know what if anything was going to happen in regards to this, and now I know. Gedd pretty much gave the information I was seeking, and some other mods have added to that information to give a reasonable picture. That's fine.

The.. content of my last post is in response to being baited by a mod. So I'm human and sue me. I won't take it back because asshole behaviour sometimes deserves like in return.

On another note, those damn muppets are out of control. Threatening good citizens with paper cuts? The horror!

EDIT: Edited the first paragraph for clarity.

[Gedd]

Two more clarifications Crux.

1. It hasn't been eight months discussing content. Keep in mind that we came up with some rough ideas of what we wanted to do functionality-wise, and then I spent some time with Peacedog kicking around how we could approach it from the software solution-side. I think over the course of several months I investigated someting like 15 CMS packages, installed about 10 of those on my linux box, and threw 5 of them up on a test server for the rest of the staff to comment on and evaluate.

It was sometime around March or April that we had settled on a CMS that could be tweaked to fulfill our "interim" CMS needs, and I layed out the process for going from there to getting things up and running (looks like this occured on April 12th). So in reality we're talking about 3 or so months that we've been in the sort of stalled state.

2. Although what I said earlier may have sounded like we had no idea what the frontpage was going to be, and that it could still range in the "simple" realm, that's not the case. I know a lot of what the staff would like to do, and none of it is as simple as throwing a blog up. What my process for moving forward involves is taking the broad view and nailing down the details. So while it may seem from my earlier comment that the knob could be set to anywhere from 1 to 10, in reality it's somewhere from 5 to 8 or so, but we need to figure out exactly where in that range it is.

Nowhere have I referred to a content management system integrated with the forums and called it trivial. I might be pissed off but I'm not crazy Very Happy I said that we could get a good looking, simple front page with suitable links, blogging-type capability and other capabilities over the space of a weekend. If we wanted a truly professional looking front page with these kinds of things (links, blogging and other stuff) it could be done in a month (obviously the CMS with forum integration they're talking about probably take longer given the volunteer nature of the project).

Again, I think you're throwing out projections for how long this should take without truly understanding the scope here. In a team of one, with just you working on it, you can get a great deal of work done in a very short amount of time. With a team of many, most of whom have very little time to put to this, things take a whole lot more time because you sometimes have to wait for schedules to align. If I need to get something from Staff Member X, and it takes two weeks for that Staff Member to get it done, I may have to wait 2 more weeks until I have a window to work on that piece, and I may also require more feedback/detail from Staff Member X, which extends things even more.

And while it may seem like a grand idea to get even more folks involved, even folks with more time available, in the end it can actually end up taking longer because now you need to get more schedules to sync up, not to mention getting new folks ramped up on what we're doing.

A few of my old co-workers and I used to have an expression we used to explain things to our managers that went something like this. With one programmer you can get the job done in 90 days. With two programmers you can get the job done in 60 days. With three programmers you can get the job done in 50 days. At that point adding any more programmers produces no further benefit and may actually harm the project.

Now, with every project the number of days that each added programmer subtracts from the schedule and the number of programmers until reaching the plateau changes, but the principle still stands. More bodies does not necessarily shorten the development.

[godhugh]

EDIT: You know what, this is stupid.

Crux, I don't know why you made this personal but what you said fucking sucks. I was trying to get across to you how the process you think is so easy and quick, in actuality isn't so simple. If you want to take it down a personal path, then well, fine. I'm done.

[ChrisGwinn]

Running a serious website that's going to take significant traffic and manage content contributions from multiple people over time is not a trivial task. Doing it well is harder. Doing it well, while integrating it with the forums, isn't a problem that's solved by off-the-shelf software that I'm aware of. I had some productive conversations with Peacedog a few months ago, and there were significant unanswered questions that needed to be resolved before even settling on what a software solution would look like. But that's good, because it means that people are actually thinking about the answers to those questions.

Having a sitemap and a page layout idea is nice, but it's just the beginning of the road when it comes to implementing this sort of thing. I've worked on the implementation of major websites with news/commentary/community/etc., and I shudder to think of the difficulty involved in managing that sort of project with volunteers and no canned software solution. It's simply not the trivial afternoon hack you're making it out to be.

See, but I think you're assuming that the words godhugh so nicely put in my mouth are the words I actually said.

I'm drunk right now, but fuck you. No. I read every single post of yours in this thread, and I skimmed his. This has nothing to do with what other people "put in your mouth" and everything to do with how you've behaved in this thread.

[Eduardo X]

If I need to get something from Staff Member X, and it takes two weeks for that Staff Member to get it done, I may have to wait 2 more weeks until I have a window to work on that piece, and I may also require more feedback/detail from Staff Member X, which extends things even more.

Hey Hey HEY! I am not a staff member! I'll be glad to give you feedback, but if you are going to give me this strange, yet enticing, official status, GIVE ME TEH POWAR OF TEH INTARBWEB!

I can't say good job to the mods yet, but I do appreciate you all getting back with us and being honest, even if that isn't a nice thing to hear.
It isn't easy to say "we're not doing much," but if that's what's happening, that's what I want to hear. Thank you, and as usual, if the members can help, ask and we'll do what we can.

Also, please make it quick.

[Kelric]

Whoa, people, calm down. It's an internet forum, not the end of the world.

[Eduardo X]

Whoa, people, calm down. It's an internet forum, not the end of the world.

Says you, heathen.

[Rich in KCK]

Just my quick thoughts from reading this thread and watching the workings of the mods & admins from outside through solid wood but I think we have way too many Chiefs and maybe a couple of head Chiefs who are tripping on their headdresses.

In my opinion mods should moderate the forums and that is all. At the very most they should act as liaisons between the populace and the site admins and creators. CoC excepted since that greatly affects their jobs but site creation, content and implementation should be out of their hands and none of their concern at least no more than that of a non moderating member of the forums. But from reading this thread and what I'm guessing at is we have a council of 12 or so who can't agree on things and have been given too much responsibility and are suffering from overload or burnout. If all the mods are in on making decisions it could still work just drop your modding duties and focus on site admin (not creating site content) with a simple majority vote rules for better or worse and see where it takes us.

If we do have 1 or 3 people who like to think of themselves as more equal than the rest of the people who have been in on making decisions then fine let them take over, wash your hands of all but the modding or whatever one task they assign you, and let them run with the ball. If you don't like the assigned task then quit and let them find someone who will follow their vision.

The question the 2 or 3 people who should be in charge should be asking each other is what we can get up now and what can we get away with leaving a Coming Soon or For Future Content signs in place of the real content.

Again it doesn't really sound like there has been much discussion of where content is going to come from and it does sound like there has been a bit too much of we want this type of content talk. It should be obvious by now that the mods plates are full and they have no time for adding content to the front page. If a mod wants to be involved with an editorial or feature of the front page then step aside from the modding and possibly all admin duties as well and work on that instead. And if there were someone really in charge of production they should have made that decision for the mod (if there even is a mod that fits this hypothesis) instead of letting them go on functioning the way they have been.

Even something as simple as keeping up with current patches and getting the info and links (if there are any in these days) up is too much for just one person. But it isn't too much for the Chief to anoint someone a department head and leave the task of gathering up a group of people to tackle that task by genre or some other method. Now we are talking about volunteers here so there has to be a lot more slack given to a department head than if they were paid but a volunteer who volunteers to do nothing doesn't make much of a volunteer IMO. There appears to be no chain of command and without that there never will be anything approaching a continuously updated front page but hey even Qt3 has something up and I still check it to see if TC has a new Shoot Club up, so get something up and a chain of command in place that isn’t stretched too thin.

I will say this now speaking for myself (I’ve been trying to speak as a non biased outsider), Rip I think this forum and potential site is bigger than any one or two people to hold hostage and even though you may hate the idea and are wary of stepping in I for one would support you if you told all those making decisions now to function as a majority rules council or if you appointed someone to general manager who has the right to say my way or the highway. The decisions have to be made as to what kind of chain of command there is going to be and then get people to stick to one job because it isn’t working letting them all be admins, site creators, and moderators. Just because someone had control at GG or was there in the beginning of OO doesn’t necessarily mean they should have a lifetime appointed job. Rip, ultimately I believe anything other than a forum run by mods is going to mean you’re going to have to decide for the current mods and admins what type of command is needed and to implement that command whether some of them like it or not.

edited to add:

If we are going to stick with just a forum and that is all, well, that seems to be working ok as far as I'm concerned.

Also I fucking hope somebody reads all this shit since I spent so long typing it up.

[Gedd]

Rich, this isn't about being held up because the current staff doesn't have time to *create* content, it's about determining the content and functionality of the frontpage. In the situation you describe, we'd have a frontpage, but it would be dead (like GG was). In the latter, we have no frontpgae at all.

One thing you have to keep in mind in terms of the current staff is that this isn't like GoneGold, where you had Rich bringing folks in specifically to moderate the forum. The staff is a group of people who came together to setup OO, and all contribute in one way or another. In a system like that, there is no clear leader unless the staff appoints one.

I can tell you for sure at this point this isn't about folks on power trips or clash of the egos or whatever. It's the people who are involved with this particular phase of work being too busy to complete that work (edit: and not because they spend too much time with admin/mod duties).

[Crux]

EDIT: You know what, this is stupid.

Crux, I don't know why you made this personal but what you said fucking sucks. I was trying to get across to you how the process you think is so easy and quick, in actuality isn't so simple. If you want to take it down a personal path, then well, fine. I'm done.

I'll apologize for the cussing, because it was unnecessary. I was just more than a little pissed off at the time. But come on godhugh. I specifically did say I would gladly volunteer my time and efforts. You then turned around and accused me of making an excuse NOT to volunteer. And you want to pretend that you aren't expecting any sort of reaction?

This isn't R&P. To have a moderator posting like an asshole as though it was R&P... well I wasn't in a good mood already and you intentionally pushed buttons. So please stop pretending like you were just posting in good faith and I came out of nowhere to abuse you. We both could have handled the thread a little better.

[Rip]

Just my quick thoughts from reading this thread and watching the workings of the mods & admins from outside through solid wood but I think we have way too many Chiefs and maybe a couple of head Chiefs who are tripping on their headdresses.

In my opinion mods should moderate the forums and that is all. At the very most they should act as liaisons between the populace and the site admins and creators. CoC excepted since that greatly affects their jobs but site creation, content and implementation should be out of their hands and none of their concern at least no more than that of a non moderating member of the forums. But from reading this thread and what I'm guessing at is we have a council of 12 or so who can't agree on things and have been given too much responsibility and are suffering from overload or burnout. If all the mods are in on making decisions it could still work just drop your modding duties and focus on site admin (not creating site content) with a simple majority vote rules for better or worse and see where it takes us.

If we do have 1 or 3 people who like to think of themselves as more equal than the rest of the people who have been in on making decisions then fine let them take over, wash your hands of all but the modding or whatever one task they assign you, and let them run with the ball. If you don't like the assigned task then quit and let them find someone who will follow their vision.

The question the 2 or 3 people who should be in charge should be asking each other is what we can get up now and what can we get away with leaving a Coming Soon or For Future Content signs in place of the real content.

Again it doesn't really sound like there has been much discussion of where content is going to come from and it does sound like there has been a bit too much of we want this type of content talk. It should be obvious by now that the mods plates are full and they have no time for adding content to the front page. If a mod wants to be involved with an editorial or feature of the front page then step aside from the modding and possibly all admin duties as well and work on that instead. And if there were someone really in charge of production they should have made that decision for the mod (if there even is a mod that fits this hypothesis) instead of letting them go on functioning the way they have been.

Even something as simple as keeping up with current patches and getting the info and links (if there are any in these days) up is too much for just one person. But it isn't too much for the Chief to anoint someone a department head and leave the task of gathering up a group of people to tackle that task by genre or some other method. Now we are talking about volunteers here so there has to be a lot more slack given to a department head than if they were paid but a volunteer who volunteers to do nothing doesn't make much of a volunteer IMO. There appears to be no chain of command and without that there never will be anything approaching a continuously updated front page but hey even Qt3 has something up and I still check it to see if TC has a new Shoot Club up, so get something up and a chain of command in place that isn’t stretched too thin.

I will say this now speaking for myself (I’ve been trying to speak as a non biased outsider), Rip I think this forum and potential site is bigger than any one or two people to hold hostage and even though you may hate the idea and are wary of stepping in I for one would support you if you told all those making decisions now to function as a majority rules council or if you appointed someone to general manager who has the right to say my way or the highway. The decisions have to be made as to what kind of chain of command there is going to be and then get people to stick to one job because it isn’t working letting them all be admins, site creators, and moderators. Just because someone had control at GG or was there in the beginning of OO doesn’t necessarily mean they should have a lifetime appointed job. Rip, ultimately I believe anything other than a forum run by mods is going to mean you’re going to have to decide for the current mods and admins what type of command is needed and to implement that command whether some of them like it or not.

edited to add:

If we are going to stick with just a forum and that is all, well, that seems to be working ok as far as I'm concerned.

Also I fucking hope somebody reads all this shit since I spent so long typing it up.

I have only provided the assets that OO resides on, and invited the mods to do what they may with it. Not only do I not feel I have authority to start assigning duties, I see myself near the bottom of the pole. The only thing I take a rigid stand on are TOS/AUP issues. Since I am ultimately responsible if some laws were broken. What OO becomes (or fails to become) is something that will rest with the mods. Every decision placed in front of the group has been made, in a proper and professional manner.

Content was never a big problem because in the beginning there is expected to be no content. The problem is just the infrastruce design and implementation. A decision was made that as a group we wanted to open the frontpage with certain look and capabilities. Will it change? Perhaps. If it does it will be by the will of the staff as the site belongs to the group not to me. In fact I am sure at some point we will establish an LLC or other entity from which OO assets can be handled.

Rip

[Crux]

Running a serious website that's going to take significant traffic and manage content contributions from multiple people over time is not a trivial task. Doing it well is harder. Doing it well, while integrating it with the forums, isn't a problem that's solved by off-the-shelf software that I'm aware of. I had some productive conversations with Peacedog a few months ago, and there were significant unanswered questions that needed to be resolved before even settling on what a software solution would look like. But that's good, because it means that people are actually thinking about the answers to those questions.

Having a sitemap and a page layout idea is nice, but it's just the beginning of the road when it comes to implementing this sort of thing. I've worked on the implementation of major websites with news/commentary/community/etc., and I shudder to think of the difficulty involved in managing that sort of project with volunteers and no canned software solution. It's simply not the trivial afternoon hack you're making it out to be.

See, but I think you're assuming that the words godhugh so nicely put in my mouth are the words I actually said.

I'm drunk right now, but fuck you. No. I read every single post of yours in this thread, and I skimmed his. This has nothing to do with what other people "put in your mouth" and everything to do with how you've behaved in this thread.

Righty-ho. You have a nice day too. Sorry I pissed in your cornflakes.

[Crux]

Again, I think you're throwing out projections for how long this should take without truly understanding the scope here.

You're probably right in that regard. There is a very small circle here that actually knows the full scope of what it is you are planning. Heck, even now I don't understand entirely what you have planned, but it is beyond the functionality I had pictured for an OO website. So please don't feel like I'm busting your chops for not having it done. My opinion that you could have a good looking, functional page up and running relatively short order stands. Obviously you guys are shooting for more, and as I said above, that's your perogative.

In a team of one, with just you working on it, you can get a great deal of work done in a very short amount of time. With a team of many, most of whom have very little time to put to this, things take a whole lot more time because you sometimes have to wait for schedules to align. If I need to get something from Staff Member X, and it takes two weeks for that Staff Member to get it done, I may have to wait 2 more weeks until I have a window to work on that piece, and I may also require more feedback/detail from Staff Member X, which extends things even more.

Absolutely. And again it comes down to the scope. The bigger the scope, obviosuly the longer it all will take.

And while it may seem like a grand idea to get even more folks involved, even folks with more time available, in the end it can actually end up taking longer because now you need to get more schedules to sync up, not to mention getting new folks ramped up on what we're doing.

Hehe. Actuall, I'd say the opposite. A grand idea would be to get the team down to people who will produce the work on some sort of a schedule. Easier said than done of course.

[Rich in KCK]

Rich, this isn't about being held up because the current staff doesn't have time to *create* content, it's about determining the content and functionality of the frontpage. In the situation you describe, we'd have a frontpage, but it would be dead (like GG was). In the latter, we have no frontpgae at all.

One thing you have to keep in mind in terms of the current staff is that this isn't like GoneGold, where you had Rich bringing folks in specifically to moderate the forum. The staff is a group of people who came together to setup OO, and all contribute in one way or another. In a system like that, there is no clear leader unless the staff appoints one.

I can tell you for sure at this point this isn't about folks on power trips or clash of the egos or whatever. It's the people who are involved with this particular phase of work being too busy to complete that work (edit: and not because they spend too much time with admin/mod duties).

That's all I'm saying is that if you want a frontpage w/content I think you do need a leader or all of you need to realize that running a site and modding it is just too much to ask of a volunteer staff. I just don't see a frontpage with a variety of content happening otherwise. You said that the problem isn't with the staff having time to create "content" but you so say it is with determining the content and functionality, to me that sounds like they don't have time to be admins but do have time to be content providers which is exactly what I said in my first post. Later on you say they are too busy but it isn't with admin/mod duties. Well we know they don't spend too much time on the admin/mod duties, if they did the problems with determining content and functionality would have been resolved by now. Maybe you weren't clear enough but it really sounds like you are contradicting yourself from paragraph to paragraph. Face it you are stretched too thin for each of you to all be site designers be it vision or actual implementation, content providers, and moderators. Some of you need to just step away and give up all rights or pretences of control of a front page to those who can get something done. I still think you have too many cooks in this kitchen.

I’m curious as to how features are decided upon now. Does everyone have an equal vote and the majority rules or do you have some grand vision of a unanimous vote to get any feature approved? I get the feeling there is too much of “we can’t agree so let’s just agree to wait for new ideas or for some to change their minds.” I guess in the end I feel like a shareholder and not a customer and I don’t think the heads of this corporation have presented us a solid plan. I say lay everything out content ideas, artwork what ever you have now and vote on it and then tell us we are going to have this, this, and this. And then implement those features that were voted in. Sites can be redesigned later on if part of it isn’t working.

I also want to say if I were too busy outside of the site or within the site with too many duties I believe I would suggest to the other members running the site to find a replacement for me since I don't have the time to contribute to the original vision the team had for the site. If you want to keep things the way they are with individual mods only being able to contribute time to modding and occasionally working on an idea of a frontpage then scrap the idea of the frontpage and just call it a gaming forum, add some better artwork and go on about your duties.

I will take this time to volunteer myself for any lackey duty you need in tracking down information on game content be it news releases or game updates. I know myself well enough to know I can’t keep track of every game either in the pipeline or already out but I could handle keeping up with a small genre of games.

And I did say in my first post any thoughts of a single mod or any number of mods being on a power trip or having an ego was purely hypothetical.

[Zaxxon]

Wow; here there be dragons!

Mods, thanks for the updates. Even though none of us peanut gallerites are likely happy with the current status, it's good to have honest clarification as to precisely what that status is.

And to Crux and the others who clamor for a 'functional' front page in a matter of days, yes, it's possible. Yes, it would suck in relation to what has been publicly announced here as the planned feature set. With respect, unless you've been deeply involved in the planning, creation, and execution of a site of the scale of which the OO front page is planned to be (and I have), you have no idea of the workload involved. It's freakin' huge. Granted it's certainly possible for a team of part-timers the size of the mods here to get it done in a quarter to a half the time that we've been waiting, but postulating that this team could have gotten it done in that amount of time assumes too much about the time available, commitment level, and skill set of our leaders, so I won't do it.

In short: I'm just as impatient as you to see OO blossom into a 'full-featured' site with more formal content from its members, but I'm willing to wait until it can be done right.

For those like Crux who believe the community is ready, able, and willing to produce content that others wish to see, I invite you to join and contribute to my fully unofficial and totally poorly-planned OO Wiki. If what you say is true, we should have an entertaining wiki full of interesting content in a matter of weeks, and I'd love to see it.

If not, hopefully some people will back off of the mods for a bit longer.

[Suitably Ironic Moniker]

Even though none of us peanut gallerites are likely happy with the current status

I, for one, come here for the forum and though I would certainly read the front page, it would never be a priority for me. Granted, I only started visiting GG at the end of '01, but it was still getting pretty regular updates at that time. Nevertheless, I usually got my gaming news and reviews from other sites first. I don't think OO will improve in that regard. I just like posting amongst all of you folk (except for you, JSHAW. God, how I hate you).

[Kraken]

How much more can you ask from us?

Free liquor and finger foods?

Yeah! But not the kind they serve at Wendys.

The solution here is simple and obvious.

1. Use the weekly cover of Octopus Overlords magazine as the main page.
2. Hotlink the article titles to the threads that inspired them.
3. ???
4. Profit!

Was that so hard?

[Kelric]

1. Use the weekly cover of Octopus Overlords magazine as the main page.

Those really do need to be worked in there somehow.

[Lee]

Did I miss where HT said he was willing to do a main page with his magazine covers? That's a lot of pressure and time on him.

[Crux]

If not, hopefully some people will back off of the mods for a bit longer.

Well, regardless you can consider my as already 'backed off'

[ImLawBoy]

Q: Why do you ignore those who submit content?
A: As far as I know, no one who has submitted content has been ignored.

I see Kratz has already posted himself, so I'll let him do the talking, but yeah, I think he was kinda ignored at least.

The key qualifier there being, "As far as I know."

Kratz, I apologize for the lack of communication. I guarantee you'll hear from us by the end of the week with an update, if nothing else. If anyone else has submitted anything and not heard back from us, please send me a PM.

Other than that, I don't think there was anything to update based on my previous post. If there's anything else specific that anyone wants me to comment on, let me know.

[Koz]

I just wanted to say I agree with Rich in KCK. Moderaters should be moderating, not building/designing site content unless they have the time to do that.

What this whole thing needs is a leader who has the time, energy and experience to do this. I'm not sure if such a person exists, but it seems to me the vague, foggy council-like system now isn't terribly efficient at getting things done. If no one wants to step up to the plate, then perhaps we shouldn't be concerned about having other content.

Personally I'm not all that concerned about what happens in the long run, as the forums are the #1 important thing for me. However, I would hope that some small changes, like Kratz's forum graphics, could be put in so the frothing masses can at least be somewhat appeased.

[Yankeeman84]

When are we going to get a front page?


:runs from Rip cause he is chasing me with a trident:

[Fretmute]

1. Use the weekly cover of Octopus Overlords magazine as the main page.

Those really do need to be worked in there somehow.

If that were the case then I'd absolutely have to bookmark behind the front page, as would a lot of others who'd rather not have hi-res photos of women on their monitor at work.

[The Mad Hatter]

1. Use the weekly cover of Octopus Overlords magazine as the main page.

Those really do need to be worked in there somehow.

If that were the case then I'd absolutely have to bookmark behind the front page, as would a lot of others who'd rather not have hi-res photos of women on their monitor at work.

I'd also bookmark behind it, not because of the women but because of the hi-res part.

[Smutly]

Holy shit! I had no idea what was in the meta forum and this was the first thread I read. I had no idea it was going to be so entertaining.

Thanks, all!

USA! USA! USA!

[Kraken]

Did I miss where HT said he was willing to do a main page with his magazine covers? That's a lot of pressure and time on him.

I am comfortable with that.

If that were the case then I'd absolutely have to bookmark behind the front page, as would a lot of others who'd rather not have hi-res photos of women on their monitor at work.

I am comfortable with that, too. See how easy it is when you don't overthink things?

[AgtFox]

As a person on the other side of the GG split (the Console Gold side), I can tell you that it is very hard to create a website and keep it up and going. We were lucky enough to have a website before we had a forum (of our own...we used GGs forum for a long time)...OO is taking the reverse way. In many ways it does sound like positions need to be divided in this situation where there are staffpeople who work solely on the website and ones that work solely on the forum.

At CG I do both, however I was a staffperson before I was a forum admin. I was asked to be forum admin because of my previous work as a moderator on other forums and there needed to be a connection between the staff and the users of the site. The mods and the staff are clearly divided in tasks on CG and the moderators are not even allowed to see the Staff forum and vice versa. The moderators work on their side of the site (the forum), the staff works on their side (the front page).

It sounds to me from a 3rd person view that the people of OO are trying to do too many things at once. There's a reason Rich (and Bill) were the "face" of GG versus also doing moderation in the forums...you pull yourself in too many directions at once doing both. Ron is the "face" of Console Gold and he rarely does any sort of moderating on the forum unless something needs immediate attention and none of the rest of us are around.

You do need some sort of manager on this front page task if you want to see it up and running. It took a lot of hard work to get a database up and going for Console Gold. I am going to guess you guys will want a database of some degree as well...it will be hell and it doesn't sound to me like anyone has the time to give it the proper nurturing around here. Having a CMS system is fine, but you have to build borders of what you want to cover. With the loss of GG we expanded to cover PC games as well, making the database exponentially larger and the need for more information to be put into it.

Front pages are not easy and to be honest I think you guys have a nice setup as strictly a forum. Maybe it would be best to stay as that in order to keep everyone sane. Anyway, I think I've said enough...I just wanted to give you guys another perspective as you try to venture into this type of thing.