What's happening in here?
 

10/10/2015 Update: DossarLX ODI

I feel like this thread has run its course and efficiently delivered a wake-up call. Check the Weekly Batch Update Thread for updates on the Batch and Temporary Web Development Team. There will also be What's Happenin' front page posts which are planned to be bi-weekly according to psychoangel691. Front Page Posts will be utilized much more now.

Thanks for all your patience. The original post can be seen in the spoiler below.

- Dossar

Re: What's happening in here?
 

Nobody wanted to have an official with old files, I asked and the community didn't want it. So I can do nothing with that until the batch situation is sorted out.

P.S. AJ was never an admin

Re: What's happening in here?
 

Fiffer is generally dying, however staff still does it's job as best as it can, and with somewhat decreasing manpower (due to real life reasons like school starting soon or already starting for some).

I cannot speak for the Event Staff, but there should be an Official Tournament this year as a poll and thread were made directly for the files being used in the Official Tournament which would verify that an OT is going to happen this year. Even though some Staff Actions aren't public, they are still doing something, ya know?

Scores are still janky and I agree, however there iirc is no easy distinguish-able signs that a score was rated or not (except for the 99s). It's a problem that the dev team is probably tackling as best as they can even if no public movement has been made (apparently and I would assume devs have testing ground now).

Batch I cannot say anything about because it's one thing I definitely do not know so someone can answer that accordingly, but the additions of judges should help with the process even if it's just a slight shift in help.

Most of Staff are aware of its issues, and where it may seem beneficial to bring them to light, I'm sure it is a redundant statement to say "What's up with Staff and why is fiffer dying". It is apparent that some staff parameters are understaffed, but staff is entirely volunteer, which means that when real life conditions happen then they have to be attended to which can cause a lapse in staff activity.

It's an ever-growing topic, however I'm not that worried.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

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.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

There isn't anything offensive about change. The GM Team has been discussing issues with the batch for the past several days, and tonight we can provide a detailed response about what's been happening and some of the next steps forward. However when it comes to dev that is outside the scope of the GMs and the dev team itself will have to give updates on their end.

I've been on this site for a decade and it's been an archive of rhythm gaming history and a home for me. I feel your pain too and these issues are actively discussed between the GM staff -- I can't say how it is for the other groups though.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

HeZe: flattering, but I was never an administrator for reasons that I'll never come to terms with agreeing with. Maybe it was because of the fact that I had too much of a straight-forward and direct attitude towards people when they failed to get shit done the way that it was supposed to. I came back to the forums on my account for the first time in over a month after hearing about this thread, because you know what - I'm no longer on staff and I've finally moved on from this community to a different one. I finally feel like I can be as honest as I can while not giving two shits about the feelings and emotions about the others on the top levels on staff.

Here's the first step: stop being offended of what you're doing wrong, own up to it, and fix the problem rather than cowering away in your hidden little staff bubbles. Everyone is human, everyone makes mistakes, and everyone gets tired of what they're doing on occasion. Let it out and work towards fixing things, and if it becomes too much to handle, then find someone who you feel is as passionate about it as you are.

Right now, the administrative team is absolutely fucking useless. You guys can sit here and preach that things are being done on the back, but you guys NEVER offer any sort of transparency. How the hell are people supposed to believe that anything is getting done when you guys are too inconsiderate to even provide any sort of reasonable updates about what is and isn't getting done? I'm sorry, but I have absolutely no understanding as to why half of the administration team is even on the team in the first place when they're providing absolutely no useful contribution to the site. Users upon users both in the community and out of it are saying that the site is dying, and that's because absolutely nothing is moving. Have the administrators ever thought to maybe come together and make a weekly update about the progress that's going on? Are there updates to the site coming in the future? Is the game being worked on? Is there anything being done to bring the site back to life? No? I didn't think so. If there is, why haven't you shown anyone? Staff seems like a massive circle-jerk at the top levels (p.s. I've had this thought even while I was on staff) at this point.

I can direct this part to someone on the administration; to my knowledge, it was Zageron but it might not be anymore: when I was on staff, there was a so-called "community manager" that was supposed to be overseeing the community and everything contained within it. Who has that job? Why are they NOT doing what they are supposed to? A community manager that is resting as an administrator is not just looking after the user community contained within the forums, they are looking after the ENTIRE COMMUNITY AS A WHOLE, including the staff members, to make sure that things are getting done in the interests of the community. If people who are in their respective teams are having issues with getting things done for whatever reason, that's completely fine - people have their issues and sometimes things get in the way. If said people are continuously making excuses and not helping in the progression and growth of the community. With another thread like this popping up, it's very obvious that the current team situation isn't working and the person who is overseeing things isn't doing a good job. And I absolutely do not want to hear a bullshit excuse about how you tried to transition people to Slack and others didn't keep up with it -- using Slack was a dumb idea in the first place and if people weren't keeping up with it, you should have forced them to have some activity if they wanted to keep their staff position... or you know, not been so fixated on trying to gather people on a different medium and instead actually use the Skype staff chat properly by incorporating all various staff members, since you know, according to that previous staff chat, the judges and events teams that help keep the game alive and interesting for users don't matter at all. But hey, what do I know?

The simfiling team is complete and utter fucking shambles right now. Now, with all due respect, I do have some blame to take here because I didn't resolve this situation, but the activity of those who have the simfile judge title is absolutely pathetic. The lack of committed judges is a big reason why FFR is in trouble right now -- the file releases have had to slow for the purpose of saving files for the presumably soon to come official tournament, but very little has gotten done with the addition of a new team. The structural issue on the game management side that I hoped to resolve by doubling the staff for one area of the site ended up falling flat because the transition was simply too rough at the start, and it's gotten to a point where it's probably much harder to even want to work on things because the previously mentioned lack of staff. I have no doubt in my mind that the task of game management can be done properly, but it needs to be pushed WAY harder than it is now, without question. There are two very capable users who are able to do a lot more than they have, and they need to step in and do what they were told to do. They can only do so with a competent team below them. If it were my way, I would remove the simfile judge title from a huge majority of the judges because they have done jack shit for whatever reason/excuses they have.

At the very least, the Events team has TRIED to keep things going with TCG, but even their activity levels have gotten reduced a ton themselves and not enough is being done to engage with all of the users. One of the things that I can say that is extremely frustrating with the Events management (and I had to deal with this myself) is that they have to rely on the administration team for occasional things rather than being self-sufficient, which is an annoying problem in the first place. Right now, the two biggest attractors of users are simfiles and events. Events engage users, simfiles engage users. Both are being stifled for various reasons.

I agree with hi19 in this point: the site's staff have a LOT LESS to worry about than giving a shit about the trivial bullshit of "level ranks this" and "old rules that" and yadayadayada. Changes need to be made, or this site is going to completely crumble and there will be nothing left. As shitty as this sounds for the userbase, radical changes will probably be the only way to get things back together. And for the first time in a long time, I can actually agree: I wish Tass was here too. I was not the biggest fan of Tass, but after being on staff and evaluating how things were done then and how they are now, there's one thing that I can commend Tass for: he knew how to keep EVERYONE flying right.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

Lets migrate FFR to osu! or something.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

You know, this problem goes right to the top.
The KING of being useless and having no transparency is Synthlight himself.
Where has that fucker been? Makes a huge "coming back" announcement.

THEN DISAPPEARS AGAIN.




I'm not going to have any faith in this site again until he shows his face. For real.

EDIT- I'm aware that the top-level admins have the access they need to the site.
That doesn't change the fact Synth is completely MIA for other important business-related stuff.
What if I get a big label that would give permission contingent on contacting the company owner? OOPS OUT OF LUCK

Re: What's happening in here?
 

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.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

tbh, imo synth isn't even relevant because staff has had all of the necessary accesses to do what they need and there was an established top end (this "community manager" position); there were/are three tiers of administration, with Synth being the top as the main webmaster. I know for a fact that access was passed downward to Zageron and potentially others in that tier of administration that sat just above being a regular forum administrator.

if you have something specific you want to tell him that's fine, though.

edit: way to beat me to my point you fucker

Re: What's happening in here?
 

I still like FFR, because I can play it

Re: What's happening in here?
 

and SoFurry (#exposed)

Re: What's happening in here?
 

Staff has contact with Synth though, all they have to do is shoot a text to him. I've talked to him through text a few times. Yes he's not a huge presence on the site anymore, but things can still get done without him.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

News to me. Last time I asked about contacting him it was "nope he's MIA again"

That is good to hear though. Sadly that last part of the statement doesn't seem to be happening.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

Well anytime I ever had to reach out to him he got back to me. It may not be immediate, but I've never had him ignore a message totally.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

Maybe it would help if more staff positions were offered to the community so that people who could devote more time towards FFR could be more productive.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

This has happened a few times, there were dev applications, event team applications, mod applications, judge applications.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

When was the last time any positions were offered? Maybe it's been long enough that new members can help with site updates and judging files.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

It really hasn't been that long, judge applications were the most recent. New judges were just brought on.

Edit: June 16th new judges were announced.

Feb 16 Trumpet was added to dev team

Oct 27th last year had a major staff addition with devs and the switch in game management and such.

It really hasn't been that long.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

i'll tell you what's going on:
you are an entitled whiner prick

Re: What's happening in here?
 

August last year Event Staff had a good addition

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

Re: What's happening in here?
 

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)

Re: What's happening in here?
 

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

Re: What's happening in here?
 

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.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

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

Re: What's happening in here?
 

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

Re: What's happening in here?
 

:mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Re: What's happening in here?
 

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?

Re: What's happening in here?
 

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.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

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.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

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.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

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

Re: What's happening in here?
 

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.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

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.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

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.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

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.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

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

Re: What's happening in here?
 

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.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

yyyyeeeeeesssssssss

Re: What's happening in here?
 

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.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

I agree!

Re: What's happening in here?
 

i just realized the fact that AJ has moved to the osu community indirectly indicates that he thinks the osumania dev team is more competent than ffr's

damnnnnnnnnnnnn

Re: What's happening in here?
 

I can't speak on behalf of the dev team but I can provide insight to restructuring that's taking place with how the batch is being handled. Recently some of you may have seen the post about adopting a Sprint-Style structure similar to what would be used on JIRA, and I'll explain how that fits in to the judging process after listing out the many inefficiencies of the traditional approach to the batch system. This post is informational and presents the situation the way it is, no sugar-coating or sensationalism -- the community should have a fair treatment to understand what's going on.

Traditional approach: Judges didn't get assigned tasks. They voluntarily said they would judge a set, but too often what happens is that weeks after stating this they don't give a response and then the original deadline would come up.

Better approach: To analyze the current practical judge team, find the most active judges and ask them for their availability. Assign tasks to the Judge Team. Organize what's in To Do, In Progress, and Done. Judges also need to log their hours worked on their set. This way the Judgment Team can see if the Judge is taking longer than expected on a set, that judge can do 50% and another judge can do 50% to split up the work of the task accordingly instead of having the task hang for a long time with no communication.

Essentially I can make a similar connection to the dev team. From what I've seen, they have no progress monitoring process and don't assign tasks clearly. With this new idea of 2-week sprints with a spreadsheet showing what's To Do, In Progress, and Done, the dev team can see who was assigned a certain development task, how long the person has spent on it and if that person needs help, and redefine tasks if a situation changes.

Silvuh has done a great job keeping track of which files have been submitted to which batch. However, right now there is a huge backlog that's just sitting in the batch email and to make OWA's idea come into life would be unrealistic. Right now I'm working on finding potential hard files to be in a special batch that should be open in the next week to contribute to this mentality shift of harder files and a bigger difficulty spectrum.

Here's currently what is on To Do, In Progress, and Done in the spoiler.


Take a minute to think about the above tasks. It's clear who is assigned what (and which tasks are unassigned). If dev also took this approach, similar to JIRA, they would know how much time has been spent on a certain task (I didn't include that here but the spreadsheet does list logged time) and be able to monitor progress appropriately.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

At first we actually made good progress on the batch when the new judges (myself, Gradiant, DarkZtar and Lurker) were added to the team. But around late July to early August things just fell apart. I don't think there's been any actual progress in two weeks.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

I'm going to call complete and utter bullshit on this, because this has been a problem even when I was on staff too.

Or are you going to sit here and say that you talked to people like me when things were going bad? No, I went out on my own and said that problems were happening and fixed them accordingly with my corresponding teams, who I was very thankful for their cooperation.

If you're so pissed about the progress of the site, then you or someone else as a(n) administrator community manager need to do something about it.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

"as if my frustrations weren't made clear many months ago"

No they are not clear

transparency or riot

more ;like I have no clue what you are talking about, did you make a thread or somethign Zag?

Re: What's happening in here?
 

Zageron, I remember there was a word document on Google Docs stating a rewriting of the Site Rules and I participated in drafting some improvements on the old rules. After putting in some more content and asking someone else to look into improving what I wrote down, nothing happened. I strongly believe that the rewriting of rules idea never continued to progress because nobody was actually assigned tasks related to it.

Similarly, I can't tell what dev is doing to monitor progress or if there are even assigned tasks.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

Exactly. That's exactly how an organisation should work. Have weekly meetings, designate tasks, report on those tasks, etc. Then, it would be much easier to tell the community what's going on.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

>implying no dev cares about osu!mania
for example theres been a bug when you played a 7k song and then came back for a 4k song your arrows/notes get stretch
everyone knew that and they needed 2 years to fix it
and actually they didnt really fix it, ONE dev changed the configuration files( 4k,5k,6k,7k .ini ) to be inside the skin.ini , it randomly fixed the bug but removed some features such like using different images for combos

sry bad english

#fission 4 admin

Re: What's happening in here?
 

Ugh there's like so much I want to say right now but I don't want to end up pissing anyone off.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

Sometimes to change old things you gotta piss people off

imo post something valueable with as little insults towards people or groups as you can, but place blame where necessary, you are the current events manager iirc so I'm sure we would like to hear from you

Re: What's happening in here?
 

feelings waste billions of dollars a year

trufax

Re: What's happening in here?
 

In my current workplace JIRA is used for assigning tasks to Developers and the QA Team. There are daily Scrum meetings so everyone on the Team is on the same page and knows if anyone is blocked by another developer (there's a software defect preventing QA testing, etc.)

I have no issue with providing weekly updates on the batch similar to a format like I showed in my earlier post about what is To Do, In Progress, and Done. I feel like if dev adopted this kind of structure, they would have a much better idea of who is assigned a development task and provide better estimates of how long something will take -- it will also allow the definition of a task to be made clear so the team knows it's done.

For posts regarding hurting feelings, remember that it's important to provide a sense of direction when giving feedback. There is nothing wrong with having genuine concerns.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

For real. If it's legitimate and constructive it honestly does have a place in a thread (and general discussion) like this.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

I have to say that AJ's big post mirrors a lot of what I've been feeling lately, and then a lot of these other posts seem to exemplify Parkinson's law of triviality. Basically, everyone has an opinion on how management should work, which is not really the core of the problem if you ask me.

Before I became staff, I really felt like transparency was a HUGE issue, like, I lost sleep over it because I cared so much about the site. At this point however, while transparency is important, I think it's the transparency between the different staff groups that needs improvement. The dev team specifically is likely to have low transparency because we're the ones who are most likely to have big crazy ideas that would kind of explode if everyone knew about them... in a bad way. But, for issues like bugfixing, yeah, transparency is important.

Another issue that I kind of just noticed is like with OWA changing the difficulties around: DEV NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT THAT! Especially me, because I'd need to completely rework the skill rating system, but I think there are other reasons too. In general, each group needs to know what each other group does so that we can work together if necessary, or at least be aware of changes that will effect everyone else's work.

If we're thinking that the solution to this problem is to remove most of the staff and then reopen applications, the first issue is deciding who exactly wants to be responsible for each of the groups (in a volunteer organization like this, that's A LOT to ask) and then those people have to figure out what they're looking for, and then review the applications. But if you can manage all that, I'm fine with reapplying for my position. Normally I'd say it's a waste of time, but like, very little progress is being made, so w/e.

Oh and another thing, sometimes people just want to do one specific project, and then leave, which I think should be allowed, and we should READILY allow those people into the group temporarily to give them CRUCIAL FEEDBACK, with the option of joining if applicable.

Please pm me if you have questions about dev stuff, I never get any pm's :(

Hahaa... dude yeah we tried that. Organization is not currently the issue for dev.
I would be ridiculously happy if the dev team could get to work on, i dunno, making a new version of the FFR engine (that's what dev is meant to do right)? That is what I want to happen, and what I want to be a part of. Unfortunately we've got a laundry list of bugs on the site and in the engine, and I'm not qualified to fix them, neither is anyone else so far.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

Since my first time on staff in 2011 I've begged for there to be a better system with things. I was always brushed off or when I'd offer to take on certain roles to try to help resolve things I was told oh well that's so and so's job but they weren't doing their job. It's also always felt like you only get somewhere on staff if you're buddy buddy with someone. And not to be rude but it almost looks like there was some goal to make the entire admin team from Canada given the current active admin staff.

I was an admin for a little bit and I resigned because of a lot of this stuff that happened but when AJ decided he couldn't deal with it all anymore I was ready to jump back on. Despite all the hard work I had put in over however long I had to fight to even just get back the accesses I needed to do my job as event manager. There was no reason for that, I never did anything malicious to the site ever. I've had some outbursts sure, but I never once abused any power I was ever given.

Another annoying thing is having to rely on anyone else for anything because it's like things just go ignored or get forgotten. I asked about the av-miss engine and if it were still around got I'll check into it, then never heard anything. Way back when I first started on staff I was always giving new ideas for things and asking if I could do them, checking with all of the staff every step of the way and it would go ignored. Then when Jae took my position all of a sudden he was doing all my ideas and gaining credit for them. That was like a huge slap in the face to me. I always always tried communicating with all the staff and it was like no one cared to participate in any sort of discussion.

I checked the staff slack and I see there really hasn't been anything going on in there either, idk if there's more in the dev chat that I can't see but it just seems like everyone has gone astray and there's no real structure to anything.

There needs to be a top level manager who is actively checking in with the managers of the various groups and posting updates on the happenings that are going on to the users. And if those managers aren't effectively doing their jobs than this top level manager needs to be able to remove that person and find a replacement. It seems like too many people pussyfoot around to try not to cause a stir, but that's not getting the site anywhere. Same goes for the managers of the various groups, they need to be able to take charge and remove people as needed. I removed Zenith from my team because things weren't working out and he was really pissed off at me for a good long while (might still be, idk) but that's just part of taking on these roles, you have to be willing to step up and do what you need to do to make it work. There is more staff that have become inactive in their roles and need to be retired and possibly replaced if needed. I think we actually have an excess of admins right now honestly.

I think that there needs to be another thread asking users what features and upgrades they're looking for when it comes to ffr. Then go through them and figure out which ones are actually manageable for this site and which aren't

I also want to note of course users are going to be pissed off when they barely even see the staff members post at all around the site, let alone let them know what's going on. My file has been sitting in the batch queue for over a year now and that annoys me, I can't even imagine how those feel who are still waiting for things to be judged. (I mean no offense to the current team working on it right now) But I've said for years that staff needed to be more active with the users, so this is really nothing new from me.

I'd gladly go back to writing weekly or bi weekly what's happening posts if the teams would be willing to speak with me on that (bi) weekly basis so that I can actually make good posts about what's going on.


Not the best structured thing ever but it's just coming straight off the top of my head.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

FTR Kayla I hold no anger towards Event Staff; I at the time really fucked up by leaking one of the images in a Scavenger Hunt to Zageron in profile chat, and rightfully so was discharged from the team.

Since then I tried to get back on staff but it takes a lot of hard work to prove yourself once again after a fuck up like the one I had made, but nevertheless the brutal simple statements work wonders in some situations where one can be blunt about what is happening.

Throughout this entire thread, just having various staff members and leaders from various groups within staff talking within the thread mixing in the boiling pot with various topics is somewhat a right step in the right direction.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

Trumpet: I think that sounds like a good idea. That one guy a while back made an epic offline engine but didn't want to be dev. We could use people like that.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

lmfao

And honestly, read this thread. Can you blame him?

Re: What's happening in here?
 

These threads come up, some of the staff replies, then it goes back to the same ol same ol every time.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

I don't think that will be the case if staff applications are opened. Usually adding new people jump starts things, if even for a little while.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

And this is the problem. How do we get actual movement?

Re: What's happening in here?
 

I should word this better

By having a top level manager that isn't afraid to hurt someone's feelings by essentially "firing" them if they aren't doing their job and someone who isn't influenced by who they're friends with. But I already know this wont happen cause it's come up a ton of times.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

get competent administrators rather than relying on the current structure? make infrastructure changes along the way?

you don't just get rid of an entire team and gauge reaction of interest, you phase people in and out and get a working team - contrary to belief, there were periods where parts of the site's staff were actually working and moving

this extends in a different direction from needing new staff - it requires an upper level restructure beyond the areas that are suffering in the first place; as said earlier in the thread, the issue is with the administrative staff not doing their due diligence in communicating things

Re: What's happening in here?
 

There has been so many times staff applications have gone up, that isn't going to make a difference when things aren't being managed in the first place. Just continuing to throw people on with no organization helps nothing.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

hey while we're on the subject of the batch has anyone stopped to think what the fuck the point of the batch is and why you do it

Re: What's happening in here?
 

Let's have a second tier top level manager, a guy below someone else, so that if they ruin everything, someone is above them and can fix everything if need be. The guy above the second tier manager doesn't even have to be active, just be available if something happens.

Just spit balling here sorry if this seems like a super raw idea

Re: What's happening in here?
 

Reworded what I said so it would make more sense

But yes, there needs to be more of a structure like you'd see in a company. I mean most companies have a regional manager, a store manager then department managers. Here we really don't have anyone that's actually acting like the top level management at all. Everyone's sticking to their own groups.

Anyway, this is all stuff I've said for like the last 4 years. I've been trying to not get so involved in any of this anymore because it's caused me a ton of backlash and no progress. Like I mentioned in my long post, I'd gladly start doing a what's happenin' again at the least if all the groups will work with me.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

If you need someone to just annoy every group on a regular basis, I'd be happy to volunteer.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

Getting movement isn't the problem, keeping the momentum going is - I think that's what you're referring to but wanted to mention that.

The issue in my opinion boils down to accountability. If "Bob" doesn't feel the need to do A, once they don't feel like doing A it doesn't happen and B/C/D/E don't ever get addressed and F/G/H never come up because we are still sitting at A.

I don't mean to downplay the Twitch addition Velocity did on the site, but if he (or any other dev with the ability to do back-end SITE changes) had taken my original questions and pushes seriously when I tried to get the Twitch streams things integrated I think it could have been a far more engaging and useful thing to the FFR community. By the time it got integrated (and not at the level I was hoping, I might add) nobody (not to be rude, but it's true) honestly cared anymore. There was a time where Twitch streaming FFR was a regular thing. At this point I'm lucky to see anything but osu streams on the front page.

Back to the accountability example, if Bob is held to finishing A by a given deadline, then he either delivers or steps down for someone that can (barring life circumstances etc that legitimately would be priority - in which case maybe Bob should focus on those and not be an admin for the time being). This provides a consistent amount of effort and involvement from staff, and creates an environment where changes take place and continue to, because they must.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

FYI gold stinger, I've sent PMs concerning communication within the usergroup and a few decisions that needs to be taken.

That would be really nice (I kinda miss those fpp). Should I contact you by PM or Skype and what would be the best date (sunday?) to send you a message for that ? edit : I should ask, who's interested to do this apart from me ?

Re: What's happening in here?
 

It might be a good idea for someone to reread this thread and make a list of things and then narrow the list down to the most important things. I would but i'm working on my essay due in 3 hours so I don't have time to do anything else than spitball atm

Re: What's happening in here?
 

It's not about just annoying the groups, someone needs to be able to take charge and be able to get rid of/add people when needed, make sure the groups are doing their job, etc.

Plus I offered a ton of times too and never got anywhere :p

Re: What's happening in here?
 

I don't think I saw this mentioned anywhere, but I think ultimatums should be cast upon people who don't get their shit done BEFORE just demoting them. Maybe that could motivate the current staff.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

I prefer skype so I can ask questions if needed and I'm usually on skype all the time, as per a day I guess we'll have to figure that out based on the groups and how they're working things. Or really whenever people can get to me with updates.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

i'm trying to do that, but im still lost on somethings cause i dont truly know the whole situation other than really really bad communication and organization due to segregation between most of the staff.
1. poor communication
2. slow/no batch judging
3. inactive staff members
4. replays cannot be deleted
5. bots
6. hacked/bug exploited scores
is all i got

[edit]Priorities taken from rapta:
1. Staff communication
2. Restructure/Reorganize current staff structure
3. Address inactivity within staff
4. anything else

edit: I like doss' posts cause theyre very informative such as the "todolist" post. it is enlightening to what needs to be done and id like to see more of that.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

You're right, thanks for clarifying.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

Now, I took a hiatus for 5 or so years so take my opinion with a grain of salt:
But would it be safe to say that if we had bigger community it would inspire shit to get done? Or is the community on it's last legs because nothing was getting done?

Re: What's happening in here?
 

Well yeah, I guess I should have really thought out my post a bit better. I wouldn't just remove someone who may have had something come up or something. Comes around to communication again though. In most situations people get warning before being removed from something I think.

Re: What's happening in here?
 

That's why you're posting it in the thread so people can suggest what to add/change and help you with that.

Also, management and activeness should be the first priorities, right

Edit: What Zenith said sounds better.