Glad to see you guys got the ball rolling on next semester. Go ahead and reserve all 3 dates just to be sure you get the two you want.
Also nice to see a solid spread of games on the upcoming LAN. Make sure Mod Nation is freeplayed so the Mario Kart fans can learn before the tournament, the last thing you want is people not playing simply because they don’t know the game and don’t have the chance to learn before the tournament.
Ephraim said:
9:01 PM
Forum-Related Issues
Kaz-Ka brought up several concerns with the forums. He made several suggestions:
—That the Administrative section be removed.
—That a new online message board be created.
—That the alumni write a set of instructions on how to maintain the servers.
This concerns me. The administrative section is there for a very good reason. The WCUGA message board doesn’t support private sections and they’ve been caught with foot in mouth several times. For example, someone posted an AIM conversation that was obviously meant to be kept secret (discussing things like stealing money, etc) but because of lack of secure communications it became a popular download among WCUGC execs. Have any of these changes been discussed with the webmaster because I can’t imagine him being OK with any of it?
As to the new message board, what system do you plan on moving to? How much is it? Who will maintain it? Who will host it? Who will code the skin? Can the database be transitioned? These are few common sense questions that should have answers before even considering moving to a new system. It was bad enough when IT tried to delete 5 years of our history but intentionally losing it in a board transition would be just as bad. IPB is the premier message board, hence why they can charge a fee and people actually pay it. It’s not only one of the oldest, but it’s MUCH more secure and is overall just maintained better by the developers. It’s also lightyears easier to manage and run than any other system you’ll find, that’s the part you guys should be concerned about.
As to your instruction manual, why is this an issue now? Felix has had every question he’s asked answered and *should* know how to do everything. If he doesn’t it’s not for our unwillingness to help him. Now I’m sure between us we could spend the 30-40 hours writing a manual for you guys but let’s be honest, no one will really read it. Not to mention that Microsoft’s Server 2008 manuals total about 1800 pages, add to that 100 or so that are gaming related and you’ll end up with either the best PC VP of all time or, more likely, the worst who’d have been much better off just having a couple hour training session with someone getting the general rundown on what he needs to know.
Ephraim said:
9:07 PMServer-Related Issues
Liquid suggested that a Minecraft server Felix had created on his PC be used as the official Minecraft server. Felix announced that he finds the way the servers are currently set up to be “convoluted” and wishes to reorganize them to his liking.
Felix hasn’t logged into Atari in over a month or the forums in over 3 weeks. This isn’t my opinion or a random guess, I checked the logs last night and the logs don’t lie.
I’d ask that before you let someone who obviously doesn’t take their job seriously intentionally screw everything up please make him run his “ideas” on “reorganizing the server” past the people who’ll have to fix and maintain it once he loses interest again.
Yeah, that’s negative, and I’m not sorry about it. Making this idea sound like a good one would be a lie, and I don’t do that. It’s nothing personal against Felix, I’d have said the exact same thing if Kuros or Nickname were making the suggestion. It’s just not a good idea. Liam is busy with life, I’m busy with grad school projects, and if Felix for whatever reason can’t get things working again during the “reorganization” then everything just stays broke.
If Minecraft is the driving force behind this then it should be noted that the VM for it has been ready to go for about 6 weeks now. All it needs is to have Minecraft installed on it and the firewall configured. As PC VP, that’s Felix’s job.
Just out of curiousity though, what’s “convoluted” about the server? The servers are organized by Pub or LAN, by game, and by server number. For example, TF2 Server #2 (the idle) is in \pubs\TF2-2 and the CSS 24/7 Dust2 is in \pubs\css-247\. I’ve been managing gameservers for 3 years and know of no way to make it less convoluted than that. If he knows of a way I’d love to hear it, as would Liam and Adam.
Btw, removing the administrative sections means dirty laundry like this goes in the open sections. Something to keep in mind 