How is the board consolidation going?

[Alys Kinch]

How would you know what goes on in another org if yoiu havent even introduced or visited that org?

 

i think what she meant was that since nothing happens here and since the links would all be hidden, she had no clue it was active. how would we know if everything happens where we can't see? it's like saying there is nothing in ocean while only looking at the surface, and only looking at the surface because you don't have a clue about depth.

[Simon the half-demon]

And Canuk... why do you need to scroll past the General Discussion board?  Don't you want to mingle with other DMers?  Meet people outside your own Org?  General is the best place to mingle without getting caught up in inside Org crap.  I encourage people to come here, try it, post, come to General, and get to know others.  Chances are, you just might *gasp* like people outside your own Org, once you try.  After all, we're all here because of the same fantasy series.  That's one thing we have in common, right there.

 

you ever thought that just maybe people dont want to meet 'new people'

 

maybe this is just me, and thats more than possible, but i dont like to go looking for freinds. its unnececerily complicated and causes all sorts of awkward moments. if i join a place anyways, im perfectly civil to the members, unless they give me reason not to be, and if that causes them to be my freinds then yes, from then on they are. but i dont go looking for them, i mean on the internet how many thousands of sites are there that are forum based.

 

your argument could quite easily be applied to any random site ever. 'why not joing and see if you make freinds?' just because people read the same book doesent make them compatible people, or really neccecitate that they have anything in common.

 

i personally, am a member of this site because of the people. yes i read WoT, and yes, i enjoyed the series. however, if i was to join a site because it was a fan site of a book, no offense to anyone, id probably go with terry pratchett, or another series. i actually found the BT while searching for a WoT mod for oblivion (which is an elderscrolls game in case your not familier with it).

 

not everyone needs to meet new people. a lot if not most people are more than content with the freinds they have, and dont feel the need to expand their freind base. not to mention a lot of people simply dont have the time for another board.

 

 

---------------

now, a new point. when you say why not try it, kath, there are a couple of reasons.

 

A. i am MORE than aware that if you say youl try something because someone wants you to do it, youl try it, and before you know it, it will become too bothersome to -stop- trying it for a lot of people. so a number of people who dont like DM will either have their activity go down, or theyl just leave altogether if it becomes difficult to go back.

 

B. i already use DM, since i am a tinker, and i have participated in an aiel invasion.

barring the slowness and less reliability of the server, and the increase in rules and restrictions, i would like to say that i am in fact happy with the people that i know at BT, and the only possible incentive to join DM is the new member base, and as ive already stated, i dont particularily like mixing with new people. im happy at BT, and i wish to stay there. and the offsite boards are basically the insite boards, just faster and less restrictive, i think im happy where i am thanks.

 

C. if we try DM for a while, i am sure that this means the offsite BT boards will be down for a while. now, while i doubt vanion would allow that anyways, but if he did, then that means for x amount of time, i -dont- have the BT and are then forced to use DM for x amount of time, which as ive already stated i dont want to.

 

 

[Simon the half-demon]

Also, we normally don't have a problem with people being members of other sites, holding staff positions there, or even starting their own.  I have several things I do in this fandom outside of DM myself.

 

But you can't tell me "Oh, our offsite boards are a whole other site that just happens to have all the same members and staff and promotions." Come on. It's either a completely seperate site or it's not. If it's completely seperate, then it shouldn't be any problem if the owner isn't part of DM Staff. If it's still part of DM, then your boards need to be hosted here.

 

ok, thats fair, but if the offsite BT breaks off, are you saying that despite the fact that it becomes a seperate site, tay (who is holding a staff position at another site, which you said you dont have a problem with) has to be removed from the staff position here?

 

your saying one of three things.

 

your saying you only allow tay to be the org leader here because hes the org leader on another site, but since your trying to smash that org to little pieces, i doubt thats the case.

 

your saying that you actually dont care if tays the leader of another site, but your throwing your weight around to try to bolster DM further.

 

your saying these things, but you actually -do- have a problem with it, despite what you said.

[HeroAndros]

I was dead set against posting in this when I heard of it, but after reading everything that's been posted I feel it is my duty to DM, and the BT, to say something.

 

This concern has been repeated more times then I would even attempt to count, but the DM boards are too slow.  Now I've run base servers, and seperate websites, so I know a little about how they work, but I also know there is a way to fix it.  That should be your first concern, bringing DM up to speed.  You, the Admins, admitted yourselves that DM crashed for nearly a week upon RJ's death just due to the amount of traffic that came in.  Now I'm not as sure about the Band, but I know that the SG and BT have numerous members who are always posting in nearly as many threads as they can.  Since the BT came to our new boards we've put up over 180,000 posts, and that is in less than 2 years.  I can only assume that the Band and SG have done the same, just knowing the little I do about their members.  If the current servers at DM can't handle the traffic it gets now from the members what will happen when it has to accomodate upwards of 600,000 posts from ONLY 3 Orgs?  I don't know about the rest of you, but I doubt that DM can handle it.

 

A lot of mention has been given to the quality of the Websites for Offsite boards etc, and I think everyone is agreement here: quality is in the eye of the beholder.  I, frankly, can't stand how DM looks in the forums and on the whole.  I mean the DM Banner hasn't worked properly since you took us to the 'brand new 7.0'.  The design of the offsite boards are exactly what the MEMBERS of the Org wanted, and in the end that is what is important...the Members.  Without members you have nothing.  Yeah, you'll always get new members, and no one is irreplacable, but when you have to deal with newbies who don't know anything about what they are doing you will run the site to the ground.

 

As for the rules and regulations, I've belonged to numerous boards, and ran many of my own, and none of them have evern been as strict as DM is.  I know we are known as the Official source of WoT information, and that's just fine and dandy, it's a big part of why I've continued my membership at DM through the last 5 years, but the Message boards should NOT be considered part of that.  That's why you have the Newsposts, RJ's blog, and the Podcasts.  All Official information is represented there, in the proper format.  So what, then, is the harm of cutting your members a little slack when it comes to a place they go to hang out and have a good time?  So long as you have a Staff with the knowledge of what goes and what doesn't with the proper access to all posts there shouldn't be a problem.  I've been a Moderator at the Black Tower for nearly 2 years now and only rarely have we had a problem of anything that needed editing.

 

I'm in agreement with Roka, Tayol and even Corki here, in the fact that I want to keep the BT's connection to DM.  The move might even make things simplier for everyone involved, but at the moment DM does NOT have the capabilities necessity to host all the activty that the BT, SG, and Band are keeping on their offsites.  So, again, fix DM, then we'll talk.  No matter what the circumstance is NO one likes people coming to them and saying "This has to be done by this time.".  Why?  Because then we feel as if an organization that we've put a lot of time and effort into has been for nothing.  We feel as if our opinions are not valid and that the Admins/Bosses etc. will do what they feel like when they feel like reguardless.  Yes this topic exists now, but it only exists because the BT, SG, and Band had an issue with how you came forward about it.  Hindsight is 20/20, but respect is human nature and should be taken into consideration no matter the circumstances.

 

To further the difficulties of moving EVERY Offsite board to DM let's look at the update from 6 to 7.  What was promised to be a smooth transistion taking only a few weeks took MONTHS.  That is where 90% of the activity on DM was lost, because no one went to the back up boards.  Frankly I don't blame them, I hardly went to the back up boards myself.  Even when 7.0 was started it took another few months before it had any semblance of regular time.  Again driving off more of the activity, because DM was always down.  It has been pointed out before and I think it bears repeating, for as long as I have been a member of the BT I've NEVER seen our offsite boards with unscheduled and unexpected downtime.  Our upgrade to a whole new server, and whole new website, was done in an orderly and timely fashion, and we didn't lose anything from it.  The former boards were kept alive until everything relevant was moved to the new boards.

 

Finally, and what I think is one of the biggest issues that no one has mentioned yet, is the fact that the Offsite boards are controlled wholly by the Members.  The BT, for instance, was built from the ground up by one of our own, who hosted it out of his own pocket, and spent his own free time building us a website that, in my opinion, is better then anything DM could ever hope to put together.  The best part about all of that is the fact that We, the members of the BT, have a say in what goes and what doesn't.  Any and all updates are done in an orderly and timely fashion.  It's practically clock work when Points, OP Scores, and Promotions are posted.  I've yet to see anything that DM can offer that even comes close to the organizational skills shown by the Staff at the Black Tower.  Yeah we all have our own lives outside of DM that can, occassionally, get in the way, but it doesn't take very long to make the necessary updates on a regular schedule.

 

I know nothing is ever gained without loss, and that compromise is the only real solution to a ton of different problems, but from what I've read it is you, the Admins of DM, that want all the Orgs to compromise and you're not giving us anything in return.  You are calling for full conformitity to rules that you can't even keep straight.  Kath, herself, has contridicted her statements numerous times throughout this entire ordeal.  I know the Org leaders, and members, of the Band, BT, and SG want everything to remain the same as they already have on Offsites, but I also know that we would all be willing to reach an agreable compromise.  No one involved here has been unrealistically stubborn in their requests on this matter.  You've said you're giving us all a chance to at a 'trial run'.  I've seen no objection to this matter, and I don't have one myself, but again to the compromise:  If we don't like what the 'trial' shows us we have to cut our ties with DM.  Many of the BT members are prevalent members in other Orgs.  I, myself, am a member of the Warders Guild, and since my return I've been thinking of numerous ways to improve activity at the Guild.

 

Getting back on topic:  You are asking us to compromise with you, when in reality you need to compromise with us.  I've not seen one good thing from the Admins when it came to dealing with our requests on this matter.  We, the Orgs, are not going to give you EVERYTHING and not get anything in return, and that is exactly what you are offering.  Again I know I'm being repetative, but it is a point that you seem to be missing from each and every post in this topic.

[SinisterDeath]

Initial reports run by the DM admins on the server at the time suggested an increase of traffic of about 250-300 times the normal amount. We estimated that it would take about 120 extra CPU’s to fully handle all of the requests coming in at every moment. The DM server is brand-new, still cutting edge, but with the kind of numbers we were seeing, all we could do was try to keep the website stable.

 

I'm pretty sure Three orgs, don't constitue 250-300x the normal amount of traffic or posts.

fyi, DM currently has almost 6k members, I'm guestimating about 3k semi-active? with 500k posts.

At RJ's death, Instead of our normal load, we had something akin to 1 million hits on this server each day. Mind you, Assuming even 1000 people visit DM daily, those are spaced out between 24 hours, so its more like 45 hits an hour, vs 20k hits upon RJ's death.

 

That is not a valid arguement as to DM's 'slowness'. If your orgs were getting those Hits, and not affected, I'd like to see it. (Look at it this way, MMORPGs like WoW/EQ/ect have about 20k people per server, Do you think there servers can handel 1 million hits an a day?

Answer. Nope.

 

If anything DM may need a better ISP, but the Servers ARE good, you may not know this, but Jason got new servers, and they are 'top of the line'.

[Guest Far Dareis Mai]

I'm part of the Staff at SG, and I like these boards. I like that I can visit all my orgs on this site, but I also prefer the artistic freedom of the SG offsite boards. It's not important enough to make a fit over, but those are my thoughts.

 

If the SG private boards decide to unaffiliate, I would continue to be just as active at DM as I am now, and I would continue to hang out over there as well; and I would treat it the same as I do the other WOT sites I'm a member of, because that is what it would become--another WOT site. I don't see what the big deal is really, if the SG offsite isn't affiliated with DM at all, which basically means removing their links to DM, since they still hold intellectual rights over all material on that site. All of the links to the offsite boards were removed from the Org boards here long ago, so it's not as if any new SG members are being sent to the offsite boards. Many of them probably don't know such a place exists.

 

You say you are working on getting some different skins here, and that's cool. I love the fact I have 8 pages of pm's so far and haven't caught my limit yet!!!!! The boards haven't been too slow for me, which is nice. I still don't "trust" these boards, but time will heal that wound. ;)

 

I guess that's it from me. I really like these boards, but I don't want to be persecuted if I choose to continue to participate at Shayol Ghul, if they properly unaffiliate and choose to be their own site. I'm not sure if that was in any way intelligible or understood, but that's what being sick gets ya. :D

[loki redfern]

I've let this go for the past couple of weeks because it didn't seem quite right to bring it up. I don't know is there is still anyone else left that still cares, but I do, and some things that have been said is this thread make me wonder how I'm going to keep the rest of this civil. there are not many things that I'm actively passionate about, and most people who know me say that I'm so laid back as to be horizontal, but reading the , what seemed like to me , hypocrisy of the statements was actually making me shake with anger.  I also though maybe the orgs being assimilated should maybe know of the 'lovely' way DM treats the people already here. 

 

 

 

No one can force you to be a member here or to post on our forums. But why call yourself a member of Dragonmount then?  All we're asking is that if you want to be part of DM, you post here.

 

It seems more like your actively trying to discourage posting in some places..in fact I think you said something to that effect once. but then I guess telling people they don't count at all and hiding where they do post away so it can wither and die.. yeh all you want us to do is post isn't it?

 

 

 

  Threatening to leave doesn't build community.  Coming here, posting, and mingling builds community.  I know about the Band because of Corki posting on the Seanchan board, etc.  I had NO idea that the BT or SG was organized or active at all, because no one from there mingles elsewhere.

 

 

Then once you have posted and you community is all built up and nice, they do their up most to destroy it.

 

 

 

This is what I posted on this board, back in July of this year. There was a big thread, but this was on the first page.

 

Consistent branding across all DM affiliated groups

- Consistent handling of issues, problems, cases, etc

- More professional feel to the entire site if everything is on one

domain

- More than most WoT websites, DM is seen as representing WOT in

general. (Some places think we publish the books). Having forums

spread all over the internet is tacky and unprofessional and reflects

badly on the brand

- Banner ads on DM provide DM with revenue for upgrades, new servers,

faster bandwidth. [Jason hopes to more than double our connection speed in

the next 12 months]

- Spreading communication or announcements to all org communities is

FAR easier with one set of boards

- Having all boards in once place is much simpler for all members

both new and old

- Having forums all linked together encourages people to more easily

check new places out.

 

 

 

 

Consistent handling of problem, issues and the like? Much like springing changes on a board that even its mods weren't told of, then ignoring two threads dedicated to its issues, and finally an e-mail sent to the supposedly relevant place, eliciting absolutely no response whatsoever . Pretty well handled indeed, and one must applaud the professionalism that the information of where to go was so hard to come by. I think I covered most of the other points at an earlier time.

 

So in summary, if you have somewhere nice that you don't want interfered with and ruined, DM seems not to be the place to bring it, it actually sounds better to stay separate, but then that's just my embittered opinion.

 

 

 

oh and wasnt DM down for a while the other day..i remember not being able to get on it for about an hour, was there a reason for that?

[Simon the half-demon]

a point id like to make here is that even if DM can handle the additional postings, which while we wont make as much of as impact as sinister death suggests, you cannot deny with such people as are on BT that the impact wont be significant. i dont know whether it can handle it or not, and that isent the point im making.

 

the point im making is that whether through a better server, more efficient code, or just less members, the offsite boards ARE faster.

 

so, were we to mak the transition, we would be on a slower board, yes?

 

so, regardless of DM's total capacity, you are STILL asking us to move our entire activity to a much slower board.

 

and you dont see this as something the members would not want to do?

 

oh, and for the record, 'semi-active' does not come close to members like demi, and shadowmaker (though hes on LOA atm.)

 

and while i dont do this anymore, there was a time, when if i was awake, and not out of the house (which isent often) i was always at BT, since i have the emails alert me at more or less everynew post, and i made a point of responding to EACH and everyone, exept for demi's midmorning spam spree (which is every day, and consitutes him posting on every thread on the first page, and often on some on the second page) and i used to respond to half of that.

 

with members like this, it is quite possible, that if they arent turned-off by the slow speed, will, despite what you say, make an ENORMOUS increase to posts.

 

 

so, in your synopsis, not only are you glossing over the fact that your argument doesent make DM any faster (and its pretty slow, lets be honest) it also fails to take into account that we effectively have spam gods on the BT.

 

demi: makes his daily spam spree (over 20 thousand posts, and hes been a member since the 7th of october 2005)

 

shadowmaker: the same as demi, but the number of spam sprees can be as many as three in a day when hes active (16495, and hes been a member since 18th of november 2006 and has spent HUGE amounts of time on LOA, and even when he isent hes only able to be online for a short time a day. once he moves out of his parents house (a few years time probably) hel have huge amounts of posts)

 

myself: not so much anymore, but before, and i probably will again, goes through days of responding to (barring demi's spree) EVERY POST while awake, and im an insomniac, and i sleep very, very little. oh, and if desiree is online, and i am online as well, wel post back and forth, often with most of it being PM's and we have still had nights when weve tallied more than 20 hot thread points for her, and countless amounts for others, which is a HUGE, HUGE amount of pages, and with 15 posts to a page, thats a lot. in fact i remember a night when we actually had over 1000 more posts on our posts counts as the result of ONE night, and that was not including PM's and the fact we spent most of our time talking on yahoo, which we often cant do, and since shes getting her own computer soon, its quite likely that sprees like that may happen again. (15618 posts, member since 26th of october 2006, doesent post that much anymore compared to the infamous spam days, which once my mocks are over (they start next week, and end next friday) i am considering starting them up again.) (in fact, i think im going to talk a bit today, since im in a fairly decent mood, maybe ill post back how much that number has increased in one afternoon.)

 

those three members have over 15000 posts EACH. the next member down has very near 10000 posts, but is not so active atm, because shes pregnant.

 

with that amount of posts, especially on spree days, you are effectively asking us to have up to about 7 seconds on some occasions (yes, they are often that slow for me, compared to the practically instant times of the BT) extra per post time because of DM's slowness. that adds up. if i ever were to do a spree in which i post over 1000 times in a day again, and this is not counting the extra amount possible due to PM's and yahoo being absent, that could be 7000 seconds in my day GONE. in minutes thats 116.6 recurring minutes, which is 1.94 HOURS!!!!

 

that means, should i ever wish to replecate that process at any space in time, if the DM server happens to be as slow for a prolonged time, you are asking me to spend 1.94 hours sitting here watching a white screen (which can be quite painful for my eyes) doing NOTHING but waiting. in my honest opinion that is unnacceptable. true, i often dont post that much, but i can if i want to. and so can other members im sure, which is a tremendous time of lag for us. not to mention the lag would probably be increased by a fair amount were we to be posting in that quantity.

 

so, even if the server WOULDENT be taken down by the extra activity, sinisterdeath, the extra sloth of the servers, is taking quite a lot of time from me and other members, and you cant dispute that.

[Simon the half-demon]

now, that was a long post i know, but i counted how long it took.

 

there was a plain white screen for upwards of 8/9 seconds (the line was kinda close) and i dident start counting for a while, because i dident initially think of it. it took, not counting the lag time for me to think to count, a whole 15 seconds for the page to load back to a point where i can post again.

 

not including the time for the reply screen to be loaded properly, were DM to do this on a regular basis, that would mean given my last post were i to recaluculate, that would be up to somewhere along the line of 4.16 HOURS of time WASTED by the sloth of your server.

 

and i flatly REFUSE to suffer that, so i would actually be unable to post as much as i like.

[Guest Far Dareis Mai]

I resent this statement Karana:

I had NO idea that the BT or SG was organized or active at all, because no one from there mingles elsewhere.

 

I'm quite active all over DM, and I hold a position with the Illuminators. I'd appreciate it if you would not over-generalize. There are quite a few members of SG that are active elsewhere on DM.

 

 

[HeroAndros]

My point was that the 'new' DM has a history of being unable to support the activity of it's members in ANY way.  If it began seeing the full amount of posting from the BT, SG, and the Band the already unreliable servers of DM would lose the tiny speck it has now.

 

They may be 'top of the line', but that may be the problem.  It is a known fact that all new technology have inherent issues that are worked out over time.  Do I think that DM could work out the issues in it's servers in time?  Absolutely.  Do I think they can do it by the January deadline they have for the Orgs to give up their offsites, or their ties to DM?  Absolutely not.  This version of DM has been operating for over a year and it still has issues.  If they've not been able to correct them in roughly 21 months how can they even consider us believing they can in 2?

 

If you want to look at it like that, fine, let's double the current post count on an hourly basis and you'll start to scratch the tip of the posts that go up on the BT, SG, and Band.  And that's just those three Orgs.  Once again, my point is still valid.

 

And next time let's not jump to conclusions about what I may know, or not know.  I was only stating my fair opinion, without taking any personal shots to anyone.

[Kivam]

. . .

 

Just because this is the internet, doesn't mean civil laws don't apply.

You can not legally ban us or discriminate against us because we choose to associate on a website that is not under the Dragonmount domain name.  Offsite boards are legally PRIVATE PROPERTY.  Members of private boards are free to come and go as they please.

 

My comment stands for all the Org/Com offsite boards.  You have authority only in the perview of www.dragonmount.com.  You cannot force us not to associate elsewhere.  You cannot penalize us for associating elsewhere. That is in direct violation of the Freedom of Assembly.  . . .

 

Canuk - would you like a short class on first amendment law and its applicability?  Because if you'd like, I could do a dissertation on the legal errors in your post.  I wouldn't even bill you for it.

 

I've said it a thousand times, I don't ever go to offsite boards, so my opinion on this topic is essentially worthless.  But don't wrap yourself in the Constitution if you don't understand it, m'kay?

[Alys Kinch]

kivy, what's the legal stance of keeping ideas developed for a company where you didn't sign a contract, but you did completely volunteer of your own accord?

[Simon the half-demon]

i dotn know, but i suspect unless it was the idea for a patented design, there free to use by both parties.

 

however, dont quote me on that.

[Kivam]

kivy, what's the legal stance of keeping ideas developed for a company where you didn't sign a contract, but you did completely volunteer of your own accord?

 

Ideas?  Ideas are not copyrightable or trademarkable. Particular expressions of those ideas (i.e. the skins for a site, the postings on it, the structure of an org) . . . well, now you're getting into interesting territory, copyright wise.  Essentially (and this is off the top of my head, so don't take this as legal advice  :)), unless you are an employee or subject to a written work for hire agreement that says what you create is the property of the organization, your original work is your own intellectual property (in the same way that the stories being crafted over at the illuminators' are their writers' property)

[Roka]

you've got kids O_O, cool beans *nods*

[JenniferL]

Alright, we're getting nasty in here and I think we've said everything that needs to be said. Thanks for your thoughts. They've been passed along to the appropriate people.