We need a dedicated Forum/Blog Mod
by Dynasoul · in Torque 3D Professional · 02/04/2015 (3:09 pm) · 18 replies
Spam is akin to letting cobwebs grow on a website, let's try to keep this place tidy :)
I'm available for a spam check position if anybody's interested, seeing the pages fill up with spam can feel kind of discouraging. Preferably though it would be someone who's around a lot.
I'm available for a spam check position if anybody's interested, seeing the pages fill up with spam can feel kind of discouraging. Preferably though it would be someone who's around a lot.
#2
How I want this little game engine to succeed! Do we have a way to chat in realtime?
02/04/2015 (4:06 pm)
Hey Ron! I suppose my time on the web with small communities has colored my perceptions of moderation as being something members from the community are willing do for free. The website doesn't get a lot of people visiting, it seems as though it's not really an issue of moderating the website as much as it is being able to delete some of the spam that makes it to the front page. How I want this little game engine to succeed! Do we have a way to chat in realtime?
#3
^IRC
02/04/2015 (4:08 pm)
Quote:Do we have a way to chat in realtime?widget00.mibbit.com/?settings=4c4bdb0c9496a9cc6a3575af8756f5e4&server=irc.ma...
^IRC
#4
02/04/2015 (4:33 pm)
The problem I believe is that to do that, would also allow you to 'moderate' user accounts, which is where all purchased products are tied too ...
#5
I feel the spam could become a problem that would ultimately deal the last blow to our already battered game engine. When someone works hard and takes time out of their day to work on a game engine I'm sure you can appreciate the effect going to the project's website and seeing "The top racing horses revealed" show up is going to have on them.
02/04/2015 (5:14 pm)
I wonder if this website run by custom code or a pre-existing content management system. Most forum and blog software allows there to be some granularity in account permissions wherein a particular account could be configured to not have access to other user account details like that, especially when the internals of the website handles things like purchases. It's possible that this particular level of granular access was never needed to run the website when it was being run by GG in which case the point is moot and any moderation effort would surely seem to be more trouble than it's worth. It feels as though there's this huge disconnect between the state of the website as a platform for conversation and the goal of having our Torque3D engine enjoying the success of Unity when the website starts to show signs of being run-down. I have never seen a good end to websites showing signs of spam, they never "come back." I feel the spam could become a problem that would ultimately deal the last blow to our already battered game engine. When someone works hard and takes time out of their day to work on a game engine I'm sure you can appreciate the effect going to the project's website and seeing "The top racing horses revealed" show up is going to have on them.
#6
02/04/2015 (6:10 pm)
It's a custom nightmare - I've seen it.... 
#7
Ok, fine, then in the TRUE nature of MIT and Open Source Software, what are WE as a community gonna do about it?
This has been the question since DAY freakin 1 of MIT. We all knew Garage Games was going another way (I do NOT blame them) Game engine dev is an expensive and HARD to profit at business model), A few folks have made efforts to move things;
forums.torque3d.org/
and there are more out there.
I for one have been HERE at Garage Games since 2001 or so.... YEARS, HELL, goin on decades now. Even when I felt I wanted to LEAVE.... drop it all....I could not. Probably a flaw in my personality :-). Or, in the end, I discovered that the community, the program, the thought process behind this whole thing was not flawed, I was.
T3D/T2D have their issues, we all know this. This community has grown and shrunk over the years. We know this as well. I have met an overwhelming positive bunch of people here. (Everyone from Eric and Dave Wyand and Richard Ranft, I even managed to enjoy my conversations with Jolinar and Duion (we disagree at times but, they are still SOLID people who stand behind their convictions and one can NOT discredit that.) I don't care WHERE T3D/T2D goes for a home. I just DON'T want to see it vanish from the planet.
Yeah this code (on the web site) is terrible. But hell, it's DECADES old. Spam is NOT our worst enemy. It will NOT kill this engine. Our indifference will be the death of this engine. Obviously, we need to do something. If Garage Games does not have the resources then, perhaps we need to migrate this stuff to the .org site. Either way, much like the engines we work on, WE the community need to decide where we go.
Ron
02/04/2015 (6:39 pm)
Battered game engine.... uhm, yep. I agree with that. As for the site... I see your point, un-ending spam usually means 'nobody cares'. Ok, fine, then in the TRUE nature of MIT and Open Source Software, what are WE as a community gonna do about it?
This has been the question since DAY freakin 1 of MIT. We all knew Garage Games was going another way (I do NOT blame them) Game engine dev is an expensive and HARD to profit at business model), A few folks have made efforts to move things;
forums.torque3d.org/
and there are more out there.
I for one have been HERE at Garage Games since 2001 or so.... YEARS, HELL, goin on decades now. Even when I felt I wanted to LEAVE.... drop it all....I could not. Probably a flaw in my personality :-). Or, in the end, I discovered that the community, the program, the thought process behind this whole thing was not flawed, I was.
T3D/T2D have their issues, we all know this. This community has grown and shrunk over the years. We know this as well. I have met an overwhelming positive bunch of people here. (Everyone from Eric and Dave Wyand and Richard Ranft, I even managed to enjoy my conversations with Jolinar and Duion (we disagree at times but, they are still SOLID people who stand behind their convictions and one can NOT discredit that.) I don't care WHERE T3D/T2D goes for a home. I just DON'T want to see it vanish from the planet.
Yeah this code (on the web site) is terrible. But hell, it's DECADES old. Spam is NOT our worst enemy. It will NOT kill this engine. Our indifference will be the death of this engine. Obviously, we need to do something. If Garage Games does not have the resources then, perhaps we need to migrate this stuff to the .org site. Either way, much like the engines we work on, WE the community need to decide where we go.
Ron
#8
Unfortunately, this one isn't as simple as "hey community, step up." There is some serious thought that needs to go into this and it's about 12 years too late for an easy fix.
02/04/2015 (9:55 pm)
I've volunteered at least twice, but as has been pointed out the account system is tied up so that if you have forum moderation permissions you also have account permissions that would allow you to "grant" people copies of the stuff in the store. I see why they're not really keen on that idea, so as long as that's the case we're stuck with what we have here. The only other option is to move everything to a completely different site. And that doesn't stop the spammers from blasting this site, or the new one (but a new site would be able to allow more open forum moderation).Unfortunately, this one isn't as simple as "hey community, step up." There is some serious thought that needs to go into this and it's about 12 years too late for an easy fix.
#9
The biggest issue right now is that there is a great contrast between the scope of the website and the amount of people active. The website is bigger than its user base, we can't put so many barriers in the way for people to reach things.
The crowdsourcing of a program can be a dangerous thing if its not going to be treated with a certain seriousness. Allowing spam is a canary in the coal mine for me at least, its not proper. It makes me feel like there's nobody at the helm who cares, its a perception issue that can bring things to a halt. Commercial operations have failed entirely due to perceptions. I can't bring myself to invest time into a game engine that is lagging behind everybody else with price as a selling point, the current front page as an introduction, and a disturbing lack of technical questions from new users trying to figure out how to use this engine for the first time.
Folks, is it too late? Did we miss the mark here? I feel like this is too much project with not enough funding for the guys attempting to run this thing on their own. Big moves are needed here, how will we proceed?
02/04/2015 (10:10 pm)
I second the motion to move things to a separate forum, the one linked looks modern and clean, and just overall a healthier depiction of what a community should strive to look like; Uncluttered; Fresh; Active. It's a new year. GG is moving in a different direction and it would be of benefit to both the commercial education side of Garage Games and the Torque3D side if they were both distinct entities represented directly by their particular caretakers.The biggest issue right now is that there is a great contrast between the scope of the website and the amount of people active. The website is bigger than its user base, we can't put so many barriers in the way for people to reach things.
The crowdsourcing of a program can be a dangerous thing if its not going to be treated with a certain seriousness. Allowing spam is a canary in the coal mine for me at least, its not proper. It makes me feel like there's nobody at the helm who cares, its a perception issue that can bring things to a halt. Commercial operations have failed entirely due to perceptions. I can't bring myself to invest time into a game engine that is lagging behind everybody else with price as a selling point, the current front page as an introduction, and a disturbing lack of technical questions from new users trying to figure out how to use this engine for the first time.
Folks, is it too late? Did we miss the mark here? I feel like this is too much project with not enough funding for the guys attempting to run this thing on their own. Big moves are needed here, how will we proceed?
#10
Maybe we need to volunteer to fix GG's forum code, rather than to become super-admins. I've suggested that in some other thread, but maybe I should make a formal request :P.
Existing attempt to provide a new home for the GG community is torque3d.net, though nobody really started using it. I tried, then just kept forgetting to check it because nobody else was using it. It also lacked a dedicated developer - James was/is willing to host, but wasn't a PHP expert. Lukas and Nathan appear to be more hands-on, which I think is necessary for this thing to work. If this gets off the ground (which it better since it's sitting in our official domain :P) then I think we should start some sort of formal migration, and possibly make some sort of arrangement with GG. The only issue is that we're paying for forums.torque3d.org, so we'll need to figure out who wants to do that, or if we can set up a donations hub to chip in.
02/04/2015 (10:51 pm)
I agree with Dynasoul about spam being the canary in the mine.Maybe we need to volunteer to fix GG's forum code, rather than to become super-admins. I've suggested that in some other thread, but maybe I should make a formal request :P.
Existing attempt to provide a new home for the GG community is torque3d.net, though nobody really started using it. I tried, then just kept forgetting to check it because nobody else was using it. It also lacked a dedicated developer - James was/is willing to host, but wasn't a PHP expert. Lukas and Nathan appear to be more hands-on, which I think is necessary for this thing to work. If this gets off the ground (which it better since it's sitting in our official domain :P) then I think we should start some sort of formal migration, and possibly make some sort of arrangement with GG. The only issue is that we're paying for forums.torque3d.org, so we'll need to figure out who wants to do that, or if we can set up a donations hub to chip in.
#11
02/05/2015 (12:52 am)
Maybe the easy answer is to ask GG to add a button to the top navigation bar of the community section entitled, ' MIT Community' which redirects to torque3D.org, and then the community section here is made read only so that it is closed but is still the first landing page when interested parties come looking. That's literally a 5 minute copy and paste job with a small link change.
#12
Heh anw, it seems like forums.torque3d.org is getting a bit active, it might be the forum that finally takes off. I'll keep developing it and fix/implement community requests, so it can grow into a new home. If we move to the new forums, then I don't mind keeping it alive.
I moved it to a VPS so I can open up for access to other people to change the site itself and not just through the admin page, so the new forums will be significantly more flexible and allows for expanding and shrinking as needed. If this is the path we take, then I'll be behind it all the way :)
02/05/2015 (2:28 am)
I don't understand why no one has mentioned the lack of Hello Kitty on the GG website.. Where are our pink fix? This was one of the main issues, that I tried to resolve with the new forums.. Also spam..Heh anw, it seems like forums.torque3d.org is getting a bit active, it might be the forum that finally takes off. I'll keep developing it and fix/implement community requests, so it can grow into a new home. If we move to the new forums, then I don't mind keeping it alive.
I moved it to a VPS so I can open up for access to other people to change the site itself and not just through the admin page, so the new forums will be significantly more flexible and allows for expanding and shrinking as needed. If this is the path we take, then I'll be behind it all the way :)
#13
02/06/2015 (8:25 pm)
Personally i'm happy to see everything shift over to torque3d.org and the GG website link over to that instead of showing outdated information that will be never updated. If you went to the GG website for the first time, you would have no idea they have nothing to do with T3D anymore. It just comes across as it's product maintained by them still. 
#14
02/23/2015 (12:15 pm)
Thinking of the long term outcome I'd like to know how we can protect/back up the contents of this site. The forums and all of the blog/resource content make up a huge (if totally disorganized) archive of Torque knowledge. 
#15
02/23/2015 (1:10 pm)
@Henry - At any point, GG can back up the content on this site into a portable database. We also have a dev version of this site, which lags behind in terms of content...but it still contains an archive of several years.
#16
Not even joking really.. There's a ton of good stuff from the early days that still applies.
02/23/2015 (5:32 pm)
Thanks, I should have assumed you guys would already have that covered, but it's good to hear it. Everyone talking about forum migration gets me worried that we'll lose undiscovered TGE code snippets from 2003. Not even joking really.. There's a ton of good stuff from the early days that still applies.
#17
02/24/2015 (11:44 am)
Richard Ranft and Nathan Martin are now moderators. They cleaned up the spam just now and will be able to from here on. I will also help. So at any point if Richard, Nathan, or I see spam, it will be nuked.
#18
02/24/2015 (8:25 pm)
I don't know how "dedicated" I am, but I do hate spammers.... 
Associate Ron Kapaun
3tdstudios.com
Just kidding, Keep in mind that Garage Games is NOT focused on this web site so much. They have their own thing going on (education, gamification of education, etc) and well. It cost a bit of cash to hire a 'maintainer' specifically for the purpose of sweeping out all the trash. I think they are doing ok, given we 'the Torque Community' get this nice site and some free hosting from the goodness of their hearts. Let's all remember, once this set of products went MIT, GG was in NO way responsible to carry forward. The fact they have tells me they DO want these projects to carry on and are supporting them as best they can. Yes, the spam is pretty terrible but, trust me, if you had to maintain this site you would want a bit of cash to do so. Just a thought. Also, thank you for at least offering to help. That is what this community is all about!
Ron