What's happening in here?

[_Zenith_]

August last year Event Staff had a good addition

And some users were inducted to Difficulty Consultant and Wiki Staff as well

[ItsOnlyDanO]

Slight tangent but I feel this is relevant:
All I care about is knowing what's going on and what progress is being made

good example would be the batch (at least the last for the last month or so), for the most part good communication has been established to indicate what the judges are doing and how long until the batch is completed

a bad example would be the lack of fixed scores on harder files, there has been little communication from devs about the issue (I could be wrong about this so feel free to disprove me) which pretty much leaves most of ffr going 'are they actually doing anything?' because of their poor communication, it creates distrust between users and devs, but because we sure love to generalize, all admins get the blame

there needs to be a more consistent throughout the staff to communicate to all users what is going on, what work is being done etc. The stuff in the batch is a good start and songs of the week clearly indicate work is taking place. however if this is not consistent from staff from all areas then it creates this disjointedness that we see today, which comes full circle when threads like this are made because users don't know whats going on.

tl;dr get more consistent communication from all areas of staff. users like to know whats going on

that or i'm just full of shit and have no idea what im talking about (more likely this)

[andy-o24]

There was no June or July site updates post on the front page. Clearly nothing has gotten done, or else they'd make it public, right? Also the changelog.

-o24

[One Winged Angel]

Originally Posted by hi19hi19

Honestly this site is being held down by red tape at this point. Every time anything gets suggested, you have to cross verify the changes with 3 other people and check the 13 year old rules and make sure nobody is ~offended~ and all that shit. The amount of potentially beneficial actions and events I've seen get stuffed because "da rules" or "needs to be judged!!! (9 month wait)" or "but muh levelranks" is starting to get old. If it's not clear by now to people in charge that things need to just happen quickly, then the site is going to die.






You know it's bad when I want Tass to come back.


EDIT- This is not to say I've personally been a huge part of the solution. I'm too pessimistic about the site at this point.
I'm torn between having seen how incredibly inefficient the site setup is and how difficult it is for meaningful change to happen, with the fact I love the game and the *most* of the community.

Would like to echo pretty much everything in this post (and I think I did on skype to you a couple days ago, right down to missing Tass because he forced activity with or without abiding to rules and structure and all that stuff...I totally agree stuff just needs to happen instead of waiting for 10+ staff members to agree on it or not)

I proposed this to Dossar earlier in the week and it looks like this is probably going to come to fruition. It's very obvious that activity on the site has plummeted and many users have migrated to Stepmania, o!m, or other gaming sites. Largely due to lack of updates but I think another reason is that FFR becomes very tedious to play after passing a certain threshold in skill. Files that are accepted pretty much have to be guaranteed to have AAAs or they're deemed 'too hard' and rejected. A good proportion of players enjoy Stepmania more than FFR simply because there's a much higher difficulty ceiling and thus they can set specific score goals that aren't simply AAAs, which is what FFR has been focused on for the most part.

The difficulty spectrum is going to be expanding from 1-120. I've been working on exactly how the current difficulties will be restructured but the goal is to have significantly more files in the old '13' difficulty level (FSO, currently 93+ in game...for reference: RATO will probably be sitting around 110-113 on this new scale). I believe a sort of mental restructuring where FFR is taken from a game solely focusing on AAAs and expanding the spectrum to include more files of a much higher level will increase activity across all divisions (we all know that even D1 players will mash through DP/RATO from time to time just due to the sheer absurdity in difficulty, and they still find it fun).

The exact details for how we're going to go about with these releases have yet to be finalized among GMs given the current backlog of files, but ultimately the goal is to have a 'tru hard pain' event release, with additional files reserved for the future tournament to get rid of AAA or die meme bullshit.

No idea what's going on with the devs but I'm hoping that they finalize the transition to raw scoring and all the messed up rank stuff that happened during score migration sometime soon, I know many players (including myself) have been less motivated to play because of that.

[yo man im awesome]

FFR used to be like a second home for me.


There is a much smaller drive to be on this site now, and even less so to play the game.

I do love playing and I've recently been trying to get back into this/stepmania, but in the end it'll come down to whether or not forums become relevant again. I'm not going to play this game only to have no one to (want to) talk to about it.

I want to be here, and I want to play still, but I need a reason to be here.


OWA bless that post

[Rapta]

I spent an hour on a post and said "nevermind" lol

In a nice, short, non essay, I would like to exclaim that I think if staff applications were open at all times, and staff applications constantly reviewed, and consensus on said reviewed applications was reached with a (subject to change) time minimum of one month of contemplation about said applicant being reviewed, it might be a good idea. I also agree that what's going on should be expressed in some way, or at least a more effective system be put in place which allows ALL staff and possibly all users to know what's going on with EVERYTHING.

In fact, someone tell all staff about this thread please, this is a well past due "what is happening" thread

[MinaciousGrace]

[HeZe]

See, now I'm told that TC_Halogen was never an admin. Well, as far as I know, he was the one who was handling things and making things run. I don't care what the actual rank was, there always needs to be some sort of coordinator.

As long as there isn't anyone to coordinate the site, nothing good is going to happen. Synth is not going to commit in this dilemma, nor does Tass, so who will?

[gold stinger]

I am not worthy of my FFR Wiki Staff title can confirm noname has been doing all the work.

Also just want to point out real quick that since halfway through last year and now I have never been invited to any sort of staff chat, nor had any sort of communication from noname & the other admins about it outside of complimenting on work when I did provide the small amount of work I did when I was up to it.

[gold stinger]

Originally Posted by Charu

Oh, btw, Halogeeeeeeen, what community are you a part of now?

I think my new home is GameFAQS, lmao. Well, one specific area of GameFAQS, but I gets to be my forum crazy self there as well so it's all gooood.

btw Team Pony chat is still a thing. It's less about pony and more about Speedruns, internet day-brighteners, reddit/imgur stuff, twitch tournaments (when they arise) and still a general relaxed place to hang. If you want in there just hmu I'm pretty sure everyone loves it when you pay a visit.

So that's where I've been hanging out as of recently. As for games though, I got involved in some World of Warcraft private servers & the in-browser game Hacker Experience, although Hacker Experience is kind of suffering for the same reasons FFR is right now.

[psychoangel691]

Originally Posted by HeZe

See, now I'm told that TC_Halogen was never an admin. Well, as far as I know, he was the one who was handling things and making things run. I don't care what the actual rank was, there always needs to be some sort of coordinator.

As long as there isn't anyone to coordinate the site, nothing good is going to happen. Synth is not going to commit in this dilemma, nor does Tass, so who will?

He was just game management, he dealt with batches and such. The other things like dev, events, etc are handled by different groups.

Edit: oh yeah he did do events management for a little when I passed it off to him.

[AragakiAyase]

Originally Posted by Zageron

I've been trying to write a good response to this for a while, but I can't write anything that wouldn't make at least one person angry. Instead, I'll ask a question.

What would you do, given the ability to control the full direction of FFR?

I would remove all current staff titles except from the head of each group and open applications for each group.

[psychoangel691]

Originally Posted by AragakiAyase

I would remove all current staff titles except from the head of each group and open applications for each group.

That would be really unfair to the people who have been active on staff.



Personally I just think there needs to be someone that is kinda like checking in with all the groups once in a while and getting an update on what's going on to make sure that things are getting done. The weekly what's happening posts were cool for a bit but then there were times I couldn't get anyone to let me know what was going on so I stopped doing them.

I think there just needs to be a lot more transparency about what's going on and if there's areas or people who aren't working out then maybe new people need to replace some people in those areas.

There's always been a huge lack of communication between the various areas of staff and from staff down to the users, which keeps sparking these threads.

[AragakiAyase]

Originally Posted by psychoangel691

That would be really unfair to the people who have been active on staff.

Let me elaborate a bit on why I think it's a good idea. If this process happens, you let everyone know that it's not as a punishment or anything like that but as a way to gauge current interest levels. Now when people apply, you have a few possible ways that staff may react (off the top of my head):

1. Staff who is demoted is passionate about their position, reapplies, gets reaccepted. No change there.

2. Staff who is demoted is inactive/doesn't care much. They either don't reapply at all (because inactive/too much apathy) or they reapply half-heartedly. Maybe they get accepted, maybe rejected, who knows.

And this also opens the door to other people who have a very strong interest in helping out with FFR management who may have applied in the past and been rejected, or have had a strong interest but haven't had a chance because staff applications are rarely open.

[psychoangel691]

Originally Posted by AragakiAyase

Let me elaborate a bit on why I think it's a good idea. If this process happens, you let everyone know that it's not as a punishment or anything like that but as a way to gauge current interest levels. Now when people apply, you have a few possible ways that staff may react (off the top of my head):

1. Staff who is demoted is passionate about their position, reapplies, gets reaccepted. No change there.

2. Staff who is demoted is inactive/doesn't care much. They either don't reapply at all (because inactive/too much apathy) or they reapply half-heartedly. Maybe they get accepted, maybe rejected, who knows.

And this also opens the door to other people who have a very strong interest in helping out with FFR management who may have applied in the past and been rejected, or have had a strong interest but haven't had a chance because staff applications are rarely open.

Okay but I don't want to put my event staff through having to re-apply, they don't deserve that. I've removed people as they've become inactive and added in new people as needed.

Each manager for each group should be doing that and holding applications as needed, not just remove everyone who's been working with the site for however long.

[AragakiAyase]

Originally Posted by psychoangel691

Okay but I don't want to put my event staff through having to re-apply, they don't deserve that. I've removed people as they've become inactive and added in new people as needed.

Each manager for each group should be doing that and holding applications as needed, not just remove everyone who's been working with the site for however long.

Ok, then have the most active members keep their titles as well, at the discretion of each group manager. Remove everyone else.

I don't know how things have been going because I only recently came to the site but from what I gather there are a lot of inactive people and lack of transparency. Both need to be fixed but I think the inactive people problem has a more direct solution.

[psychoangel691]

I and many others have been down the road of pushing for inactives to be removed, and actually a lot finally had been. I don't know about the groups currently because I've just been staying within the events management lately, but I mean the new judges were just brought on so I doubt there's much inactivity there. I know my events team and what goes on there. Idk the dev and mod side of things, that would be for Zag to answer

[justin_ator]

Originally Posted by Zageron

I've been trying to write a good response to this for a while, but I can't write anything that wouldn't make at least one person angry. Instead, I'll ask a question.

What would you do, given the ability to control the full direction of FFR?

Adam, you're a dope dude but I'm not a fan of this post and here's why - if you're not going to flame someone then step on some toes. The site administration has faults. Parts of the userbase are definitely salty as well, and that is a pretty big fault in itself. But the reality is that communication will not roll out smoothly from the question you posed. A civil conversation (no matter how many toes are stepped on) can be far more productive. Is there change being worked on? Pass some updates through the change log at least! Are there not because "x" is lazy? Call them out on it - if they're serious about being a helpful part of FFR staff, they'll understand where you're coming from as long as it isn't rude. Do you take offense to AJ's accusations about staff being a shit-show? That's fair too! Express that. Staff commentary does not need to necessarily be representative of the entirety of the staff's thoughts on the matter, nor are we expecting any huge executive decisions to be made on a whim in this thread. The ball may be rolling but nobody sees that currently. If it's not, I don't feel that it's a bad thing for that to be recognized, especially by staff. It just needs to be addressed as necessary.

I'll humor you with your question though. I don't think I would want to be in charge of the site or its direction as a whole anyway, but if I were I think a big part of it would be having some accountability by staff to either have goals that they are pursuing, or projects to be working on. Have occasional meetings where people brainstorm things, and if nothing comes up that's fine. But stick with it, because if nothing comes up for changes or additions, or ways to keep the community involved you have a whole different problem. I actually have a very similar situation with this being an issue in the service fraternity I'm a part of at my campus. We're a small group of people to begin with - without highly encouraging people to be a part of things and head projects, we see very little happen. Our executive committee for the past few semesters was not very transparent and things weren't taking place often. We had VERY low member commitment to activities that were going on. Once we swapped out that committee and had people that were willing to hold each other accountable to the goals they had set and the activities we were trying to participate it, that made a world of difference. Do we still struggle to stay active on campus? Yes. Do we still struggle to get involvement? Yes. But it's improving drastically because we're working to make it what we want it to be.


I don't know if that made as much sense to you all as it does in my head, but enjoy the read.

[Funnygurl555]

Originally Posted by One Winged Angel

The difficulty spectrum is going to be expanding from 1-120. I've been working on exactly how the current difficulties will be restructured but the goal is to have significantly more files in the old '13' difficulty level (FSO, currently 93+ in game...for reference: RATO will probably be sitting around 110-113 on this new scale). I believe a sort of mental restructuring where FFR is taken from a game solely focusing on AAAs and expanding the spectrum to include more files of a much higher level will increase activity across all divisions (we all know that even D1 players will mash through DP/RATO from time to time just due to the sheer absurdity in difficulty, and they still find it fun).

yyyyeeeeeesssssssss

[TC_Halogen]

Originally Posted by Zageron

I've been trying to write a good response to this for a while, but I can't write anything that wouldn't make at least one person angry. Instead, I'll ask a question.

What would you do, given the ability to control the full direction of FFR?

first off, don't ask that question and give people these ridiculous ideas about what to do when that's not the issue right now. Resolve the same issue that has been brought up every single time these threads have come up by concerned users: offer some transparency. Stop hiding behind your proverbial closed doors and actually talk to the community.

this question looks like a "oh how about you put yourselves in our shoes for a moment and think about things" -- no. Come up with a solution as an administrative team on your own and then confer with users and see where things go. Don't get users involved in this shit until YOU have a plan.

EDIT: and if you're unable to come up with a plan, find someone else who can.