Attention: FFR Administration and Staff

[Xiz]

Attention FFR Administration and Staff,
We will try to be as brief as possible, but what is being stated needs to be addressed for FFR’s future success:


Legal:

• The Terms of Service for FFR, and acquiring permissions from song artists is also outdated. An updated legal documentation such as the one found at https://osu.ppy.sh/p/terms would be beneficial. (Also it would open the doors to unlimited music on FFR)
• Add a page for disputes in-case of accidental infringement of Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 512
• Including a staff-only administrative email system to follow up on any (worst case scenario) disputes / C&D between FFR and a 3rd party.

Administration:

• Developers lack permission to update / generate new content without jumping through hoops and using other individuals login information in order to implement said new content.
• Administrators need to be re-looked at. As much as I love everyone on the staff team here at FFR, there are those who lack any initiative to keep FFR progressing. The admin’s who are giving it their all are overloaded due to the lack of effort from other admins.
• Communication / Updates with new and regular FFR players. More front page posts, more facebook posts, more info on what is going on in the background.

Website:

• FFR Codebase needs a rewrite to 2014 standards
• Uniformity between different areas of the website allows extensions to be made much more easily. An example of disparate interfaces is the main page and the forums. By consolidating them more seamlessly rather than keeping them segmented allows for a more natural inclusion of the forums into the main website.
• Usability and responsiveness benefits. Increasingly, devices such as smartphones and tablets are being used to browse FFR as the general population transitions to these devices for browsing the internet. By creating a single page web application, FFR will become more responsive on the aforementioned devices.
• More user friendly accessibility to website / contents. This includes the main page, it’s navigation bar, and the side panels. As it stands currently, most of the user interface features (including the helpful ones such as current events) are simply bolted on. They don’t appear to be thoughtfully integrated into the rest of the interface, including the primary navigation bar. Trimming out some less frequently used features and increasing the prominence of more frequently used features

There have been a few amazing and wonderful updates thanks to those working hard to advance FFR, however no there is no initiative by higher-up staff to make anything change. We would like to open up this thread for debate and reach some sort of agreement to progress. We are saying this because we care. Sorry, and thank you.

~ Fission / Xiz

*We will be updating this list accordingly, and please feel free to give feedback on your thoughts.

[Wayward Vagabond]

my favourite part of this post is the legal section

[hi19hi19]

My favourite part of this post is the fact someone finally made it.
This site is so fucking stagnant, ugh. I mean it's great, but it's not going anywhere except slowly losing people, you know?



I almost want Tass to come back and kick everyone's asses :/

[Kanzas]

Now hiring staff, yes?

[_Zenith_]

Originally Posted by Kanzas

Now hiring staff, yes?

^ please.

I've been on the site for 5 years and the time it was down for a year. I've wanted so badly to help FFR become more solid as a website and a community. So far it has been downhill but we'll probably see more people when the official starts (just a guess) and nothing is being done to ensure FFR has a good future ahead of it.

[PrawnSkunk]

We will always be addressing FFR as a hobbyist project built and supported entirely by volunteers, who offer whatever skills they have because they are passionate about the game and the community. Most of the items on your agenda exist because the extensive team of volunteers we are so lucky to have today do not have the experience to properly build them. In such a tightly woven niche community where new forum-goers are a refreshing change, no one wants be the first to stand up and publicly request user X to be stripped of their volunteer staff position. You have explained in black and #f5f9ff what you would like see accomplished to ensure FFR's future success, but I think we can both agree that nothing can happen until someone with the capacity and initiative to do so volunteers themselves.

[Xiz]

Truth of the matter is that I am pretty sure there are people on this site that can truly help out and improve it (doing dev work or whatever)

But that's not the real issue, the elephant in the room is that people don't /want/ to give them power. This can be because of trust or personal drama issues.

[Charu]

Am I the problem?

I'm sorry senpai! I didn't mean to disappoint!

Also, it would be pretty rad if we don't have to worry about permissions at all anymore. I think that would bring some good charts I think.

[Wayward Vagabond]

no one wants to give me power and ive been requesting it forever now

[TC_Halogen]

but

you're the president of TGB

[hi19hi19]

I think a major part of the problem is, I have no idea who still runs the site.

- Who has ownership of the site? Synth still? Velocity buy it from him or something? Synth is still an admin according to the site but who knows what that means. He hasn't even visited the site in like 4 months.
- Servers where? Synth paying out of pocket still?
- Money where? Non-profit organization; can still generate money from ads as long as it goes back into the site, facilitating our goal of promoting rhythm games. Standard non-profit stuff, at least in my head. Money lets you HIRE coders, admins, etc... Missed opportunity? Legal issues? Who even knows this stuff? Tass used to be our pseudo legal expert, now who is watching out for the company legally? Anyone?
- Who has power to make people admins/mods? One of our mods (stavie33) literally hasn't logged on since last year. Is there even a process to determine if that's worth addressing, or is he just gonna sit there in the mod list?

The FFR leadership (or lack thereof?) is a total black box to me, and -usually- I'm significantly more clued-in than the average user. Can't imagine how disconcerting it is as a new community member to not even really know who is in charge.

[Wayward Vagabond]

Originally Posted by TC_Halogen

but

you're the president of TGB

its only for show. im the president but i dont actually have any power

[Velocity]

Originally Posted by hi19hi19

I think a major part of the problem is, I have no idea who still runs the site.

As it stands, no one person runs the site, most staf are split into 2 groups. Content/Event and Developers

Originally Posted by hi19hi19

Who has ownership of the site? Synth still? Velocity buy it from him or something?

Synthlight is the sole owner of the site and won't give up access to the backend (Server/cPanel/etc) even after several requests from Zag & myself.
I don't think I would even take the site if it was given to me.

Originally Posted by hi19hi19

Servers where? Synth paying out of pocket still?

Unknown and supposedly.
We're still using the same HDD on the server since 2006 with our amazing 80gb of space. The site has gone down so many times in the last few months because we've run out of space. As it stands we have about 3gb left before the server crashes for it's final time. Synth apparently had a new server and new HDD for the last several years but has never gotten around to ever installing it.

Originally Posted by hi19hi19

Money where? Non-profit organization; can still generate money from ads as long as it goes back into the site, facilitating our goal of promoting rhythm games. Standard non-profit stuff, at least in my head. Money lets you HIRE coders, admins, etc...

There's no money in FFR anywhere beyond that donation drive for the tournament/prize/whatever it was. Everyone basically does there job either because they want to or they enjoy it. That or they have nothing better to do and only keep doing it because they are the only one who knows how the backend even works.

Originally Posted by hi19hi19

Missed opportunity? Legal issues? Who even knows this stuff? Tass used to be our pseudo legal expert, now who is watching out for the company legally? Anyone?

No one looks out from FFR in a legal standpoint from what I can tell. Even if we received a DMCA, I don't even know where it would go. Hell, beyond PMing admins on the site, I don't even know if we have an email that we supposedly check.

Originally Posted by hi19hi19

Who has power to make people admins/mods?

Most Admin/Mod positions are debated on by bmah, Sky Kitten, OWA, Halogen, Sprite, arcnmx, emerald, Myself.

Originally Posted by hi19hi19

The FFR leadership (or lack thereof?) is a total black box to me, and -usually- I'm significantly more clued-in than the average user. Can't imagine how disconcerting it is as a new community member to not even really know who is in charge.

FFR doesn't have a leadership in any sense of the word. People basically have a single task and unless you ask them what's happening, the going ons of staff members are a complete mystery to even other staff members. Things like our apparent new monthly updates are half a surprise to me unless Prawn is unable to make the change himself and requires help.


I'm very salty about how things have turned out over the years, though I'm partially to blame.

Mod status is also basically for show and gives barely anything. Though that was mainly due to Zageron redoing the entire forum layout/permissions.

Developer status is also pointless since beyond Max, the rest are admins and just fuels our ego trip.

Working on FFR is like trying to revive a dead person, regardless of the amount of work put into it, you aren't getting anywhere unless you get a new person to take the place of the old. It doesn't help that large changes are basically impossible.

[noname219]

Originally Posted by Velocity

Unknown and supposedly.
We're still using the same HDD on the server since 2006 with our amazing 80gb of space. The site has gone down so many times in the last few months because we've run out of space. As it stands we have about 3gb left before the server crashes for it's final time. Synth apparently had a new server and new HDD for the last several years but has never gotten around to ever installing it.

Do you know the details, what is currently taking the most space ? If we want to come up with new features for the website, would the 3 gb left be problematic ?

(Feels like the answers will be pretty obvious)

If the legend holds true (Synth having a spare HDD), that would be one of the very first step. It's critical at this point that we only have about 4% of space left on the server.

[mr_candy]

Originally Posted by Velocity

As it stands, no one person runs the site, most staf are split into 2 groups. Content/Event and Developers


Synthlight is the sole owner of the site and won't give up access to the backend (Server/cPanel/etc) even after several requests from Zag & myself.
I don't think I would even take the site if it was given to me.


Unknown and supposedly.
We're still using the same HDD on the server since 2006 with our amazing 80gb of space. The site has gone down so many times in the last few months because we've run out of space. As it stands we have about 3gb left before the server crashes for it's final time. Synth apparently had a new server and new HDD for the last several years but has never gotten around to ever installing it.


There's no money in FFR anywhere beyond that donation drive for the tournament/prize/whatever it was. Everyone basically does there job either because they want to or they enjoy it. That or they have nothing better to do and only keep doing it because they are the only one who knows how the backend even works.



No one looks out from FFR in a legal standpoint from what I can tell. Even if we received a DMCA, I don't even know where it would go. Hell, beyond PMing admins on the site, I don't even know if we have an email that we supposedly check.


Most Admin/Mod positions are debated on by bmah, Sky Kitten, OWA, Halogen, Sprite, arcnmx, emerald, Myself.


FFR doesn't have a leadership in any sense of the word. People basically have a single task and unless you ask them what's happening, the going ons of staff members are a complete mystery to even other staff members. Things like our apparent new monthly updates are half a surprise to me unless Prawn is unable to make the change himself and requires help.


I'm very salty about how things have turned out over the years, though I'm partially to blame.

Mod status is also basically for show and gives barely anything. Though that was mainly due to Zageron redoing the entire forum layout/permissions.

Developer status is also pointless since beyond Max, the rest are admins and just fuels our ego trip.

Working on FFR is like trying to revive a dead person, regardless of the amount of work put into it, you aren't getting anywhere unless you get a new person to take the place of the old. It doesn't help that large changes are basically impossible.

Pretty much what i thought, it's a damn shame.

So in a nutshell, nothing going to happen until synth either relinquishes ownership, or gives full control to someone.

*Psst* Admins, go make a ffr2 and we'll all come to it.

[hi19hi19]

Thanks for the answers Velocity.

Originally Posted by mr_candy

*Psst* Admins, go make a ffr2 and we'll all come to it.

Please no.
This has happened many times before (R2, Keybeat, Thirdstyle) and each time it's either epically failed or torn the userbase in two.

The only logical thing to do is to get this site under the control of someone who checks in more than every 4 months and establish leadership, revive the company structure, etc. etc.
Trying to save it by all jumping ship at once to a new site has never worked, and it probably never will for a few social-psychological reasons.

[Xiz]

Originally Posted by hi19hi19

The only logical thing to do is to get this site under the control of someone who checks in more than every 4 months and establish leadership, revive the company structure, etc. etc.
Trying to save it by all jumping ship at once to a new site has never worked, and it probably never will for a few social-psychological reasons.

This.


Those who have direct access to Synth might be the key in order to get this done. However, what exactly needs to be said/done is something I am not sure of.
Perhaps if we get every admin (current and past) on board, and have everyone come together and let him know that something needs to change, something might happen.

(still spit-balling here)

[rushyrulz]

Originally Posted by hi19hi19

This has happened many times before (R2, Keybeat, Thirdstyle) and each time it's either epically failed or torn the userbase in two.

But in each of those cases, there was always an FFR to come back to.

[VisD]

It's kinda sad to see how low the site has gone - that any of the stepfiles put up today won't reach the same kind of audience or play count that older files of objectively worse quality have. Things peaking with bad timing, I guess - and there's good things about having a small community as well, in any case.

For my part I'm willing to help out as possible, as a stepfile judge /if I was found to be sufficiently qualified/ for more efficient batches, as a fpp writer (what hi19 wrote in the other thread the other day is important), etc. But as this thread makes clear, the problem's deeper than that. Like Kraezy said though, it's nice to see open and actual discussion on this for once.

[choof]

Originally Posted by mr_candy

*Psst* Admins, go make a ffr2 and we'll all come to it.

what is r2
what is kbo
what is thirdstyle

velocity's engine is arguably an ffr2