Tigereye wrote:QUOTE (Tigereye @ Aug 24 2010, 10:42 AM) When I was given the 'job' the community already had a bottleneck. The first thing I did was create the ZL structure so that responsibility was distributed over a set of people instead of one.
I also created a set of tools for those ZLs to use which gave them the ability to do the things Pook used to do around here without requiring "one man."
Then when Thalgor told me he would no longer be hosting ASGS, I migrated the entire system over to my server which required a lot of little changes to get it to work right. (There is no "ASGS Installer" or other simple tool to put things where they need to be. It's a custom system which requires specific knowledge).
After the migration and the training I received from Pook, I realized how specialized the knowledge was, and how necessary it is in order to keep things running the way they are today. So I then worked to separate everything that ASGS does into one standalone virtual machine image so that future moves would be drastically simplified: shut down a VM, copy it to the new server, then start it up.
Now I realize that none of this is "special" and I didn't "create the keys" and that some of you feel I'm hindering progress more than I'm helping, but I want you to look at my actions since I became admin here. Every step along the way I have made the conscious effort to distribute the responsibility and access to other people so the community could be more self sufficient and would not rely on one man.
As long as Allegiance has existed there has been some form of bottleneck at the top. Before me there was Pook, before Pook there was the collective KGJV/Vencain, and before them was Microsoft. Complaining about these "bottlenecks" is nothing new and is frankly a waste of energy and time. If you look at *ANY* organizational structure from corporations to charities to countries you will see the same issues we have here.
blah blah blah
excuses excuses excuses
ASGS ASGS ASGS
etc etc etc
Everybody realizes that. I think people might possibly be suggesting, your highness, that there NOT be a bottleneck. You know, that little thing called "change". Why are we even
talking about ASGS? Yes, herr Tigereye, I hear you about how
complicated and
specialized ASGS is and how none of the many technically skilled people in this community could ever possibly handle it, but I haven't seen anyone asking for a brief history of What TE Has Done For ASGS And Why Only He Could Have Done It. But CSS is gonna be done in Two Weeks (how many
years have changes been held up with the excuse of "just wait for CSS"?).
I'm going to tell you this right now -
don't write up a mission statement. It's a waste of your time. Why? Because there's three types of people in this thread: the bootlicking sycophants who'll ignore your mission statement and praise you unconditionally, the trolls who'll smell bull@#(! at the mere MENTION of a "mission statement" and will troll you regardless of the contents, and the people who'll ignore your mission statement because they have
specific grievances with how things are being done and won't appreciate your attempt to distract them. "One day" we'll have a full-fledged ASGS replacement? The CSS team says they're starting up closed beta
very soon, so this might be a good time to address the
long-held complaints of the longtime dedicated developers and determine how to organize things under the new system (otherwise, you'll just run CSS the same way you ran ASGS) instead of wasting precious manhours on your public manifesto.
You're the administrator. You don't have a "mission", you have a "job" or possibly a "position": to keep @#(! running. And since you've resisted any movement to spread out that responsibility or ensure redundancy, no point in complaining about all the RESPONSIBILITY you have. Yes, yes, I know business and I know IT, so I know all about the flowery language and the doublespeak and @#(!. THIS IS ALLEGIANCE. CUT IT OUT. And most of all, don't write an essay about it. The devteam seems to have the perception that you're trying to play popular dictator and turn these periodic dramafests into personal ego-trips rather than actually addressing the problem, and
you're not disabusing them of that notion when you say "well forget about all your very specific and clearly stated issues, let me instead write A GLORIOUS MISSION STATEMENT FOR THE PUBLIC".
Don't you dare delete this post. If I'm seeming a bit offensive, that's because I have a real nose for bull@#(! and I HATE THE $#@!ING SMELL. So go ahead. I'll give you super special awesome permission to edit out all the curse words and personal attacks (I'll keep a copy so I can correct y'all if you "accidentally" delete something important or relevant). But nothing kills the community's sense of participation like realizing that nothing of value can ever happen in these public threads about what goes on behind the curtain, because SO MUCH of the "opposing" side gets deleted. I haven't even been around all that long and I'm still pretty sure I'd need to use two hands to count the number of times I've seen this kind of thread brought up with the exact same issues as always, and nothing ever happens because all the relevant info gets deleted, all the really sick burns get deleted, and the weak burns simply get ignored because the crew behind the curtains
doesn't care. Has Tigereye EVER taken a community suggestion or a dev suggestion? I don't know, because his forum posting typically amounts to closing his eyes, covering his ears, and singing self-composed ballads about how
great he is and about all the things he's
done for Allegiance because he is the only contributor who matters in the areas he gives a crap about.
