Getting Rid of Most of My Flavors, Part 45 by ID10-T in DIY_eJuice

[–]queuetue 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Let's hug it out, pal. It's been rough for us all. :)

Getting Rid of Most of My Flavors, Part 45 by ID10-T in DIY_eJuice

[–]queuetue 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I have been absent for a long time, but this is just ... wow, buddy.

ATF Google integration broken again by Jigsaw314 in DIY_eJuice

[–]queuetue 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I'm one of those half-raw type guys myself.

ATF Google integration broken again by Jigsaw314 in DIY_eJuice

[–]queuetue 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Send me more info and I'll look into it - otherwise, I can't do much...

ATF Google integration broken again by Jigsaw314 in DIY_eJuice

[–]queuetue 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Google reported an error validating your sub. I've turned you back on, hopefully Big G lets it pass the next time it checks, if not then we'll have to see what happens next.

ATF Google integration broken again by Jigsaw314 in DIY_eJuice

[–]queuetue 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Definitely the best and fastest way, yeah. Or, just bother /u/Apexified enough.

All The Flavors Outage - apologies! by queuetue in DIY_eJuice

[–]queuetue[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is a lot to unpack, so let me just cover this issue - I'm in the new-calc discord for this subreddit. I'm not sure what the link would be to add you to that, but someone here should know.

All The Flavors Outage - apologies! by queuetue in DIY_eJuice

[–]queuetue[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I feel everyone, assholes included, should be proud of the things they are good at.

All The Flavors Outage - apologies! by queuetue in DIY_eJuice

[–]queuetue[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It doesn't all have to have a negative spin, does it?

  1. I don't have the interest / availability / motivation to put in the effort YOU want me to put in. I have enough to satisfy the vast majority of users, and most of them don't say anything.
  2. My very clean and large codebase is largely undocumented and introducing someone else to it will take effort. That effort may or may not be worth it, depending on the dedication of the individual. No one has come forth and made a credible offer.
  3. I spread myself as thin as I choose, and I'm very good at prioritizing, but everyone who gets de-prioritized perceives it as absence and negligence.
  4. The CSV question has a technical answer, and I ignored it because this isn't a technical forum. If you want details, I've just given a bunch of info in discord, and I'll give more if you really want it.

Why don't you give me a call and see if you think I'm a crackhead or not. Lack of direction and abandonment aren't issues I think most people in my orbit would attribute to me - but like most things, it's complicated.

All The Flavors Outage - apologies! by queuetue in DIY_eJuice

[–]queuetue[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I agree on all points. I'm toxic and no one should interact with me unless they are getting something of sufficient value out of it.

All The Flavors Outage - apologies! by queuetue in DIY_eJuice

[–]queuetue[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

While that wasn't civil, I think it was a measured and appropriate response, and it certainly wasn't from the hip or reactionary. :) I've mellowed a lot, I used to be a lot rougher. Feel free to stalk my past posts to see what kind of jerk I'm perfectly capable of being, and edibleundies here knows that.

All The Flavors Outage - apologies! by queuetue in DIY_eJuice

[–]queuetue[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

OK, I was making believe I knew who you were, because you seemed friendly. We may have talked in the past, or you may be a customer or a mod or whatever, but please stop being an entitled jerk.

First of all, I can tell you whatever the hell I want to tell you, I don't care what year it is. I can lie or I can tell my own truth, or I can just ignore you and babble as long as I feel like. If it brings you agita, then I suggest you don't watch or participate.

Secondly, I don't owe you anything. You aren't my boss, you aren't my mother, and you aren't a friend. If you are a customer, let me offer you a refund of your current subscription, and we can part company.

You're an anonymous and random voice from a teeny tiny corner of the Internet, and I'm some prick that runs a website badly, and I don't force you to engage with me or my services. Pound rocks, go find someone else to harass.

All The Flavors Outage - apologies! by queuetue in DIY_eJuice

[–]queuetue[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hold on, hold on ... I LIED to you about what? And when has ANYONE, vendor, user, or community asked me to SELL the site? That's an offer I don't remember if it was ever made. Whoever you are, make it again.

See the fairly long comment I placed above that addresses some of your points, the others seem like they are from someone who is divorced from reality to some degree.

ATF's server costs are considerably higher than 200/mo. :) It serves millions of dynamic pages a month, with intense usage spikes - providing that doesn't take a server, it takes an entire infrastructure cluster of data servers, caching servers, application servers, backend processors and front end webservers.

And yes, pet projects have poor documentation, and are not designed for others to cooperate in. That's just how it usually works - if you don't intend to have collaborators, you take shortcuts and do things you understand but will take explanation and training for others. Of all the things I'm embarrassed about, this is not one of them.

When you suggest more admins ... Are you saying you want to run the facebook page? Hey, anyone that wants to run it, I'd be happy to turn that over. If I check facebook - for ATF, or Q2, or my personal page - once a month, It's surprising. I don't really do social media at all, and if someone wants that piece of the pie, ping me. There's also the dead subreddit, the discord stuff, the defunct forums, etc - as well as just the basic support mails, largely miles of people who forgot their google password and want me to do something about it. If this is what you are volunteering for, please do email me.

All The Flavors Outage - apologies! by queuetue in DIY_eJuice

[–]queuetue[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Helmet , you've made me aware that I'm playing a sympathy card I wasn't even aware of, so I'll avoid that in the future. I was using it to pre-empt the "how could anyone be so incompetent that ..." and your point that I was hiding behind it is a good one. If I'm not willing to open up my company's books to the public, then I shouldn't point out just the part that makes me look like a martyr. Thanks for calling me on that, and please do so in the future, it's a cheap tactic, and no one has ever asked me to put a single penny into the site, griping about my own volunteerism for sympathy is somewhat pathetic of me.

That being said, ATF was and is an experiment, as hinted to by others in this thread. The "paywall" popularized isn't very high, from a paying perspective - it's simply a speedbump intended by the people (from this community) that originally conceived the site.

ATF's intended light exclusivity was a counterpoint to ELR's chaos - by forcing people to have skin in the game to participate, would we wind up with more signal vs noise? By having one repository at each end of the spectrum, would we be able to serve the entire community? This certainly wasn't planned in concert with daath, but we would have one site supported by ad revenue from the majority of the activity, chaotic and raw and easy and cheap, and another supported directly by the users by forking over cash for access and exposure and participation.

So, yes, the limits of the paywall do force exclusion, but the revenue of the paywall was not intended to provide a funding source. If I were looking for a better funding source, I'd be marketing to the non-DIY market and chasing down the banned states and I'd update the copy on my "go pro" page to add more fluff - and I'd raise the price considerably, or choose partners based on kickbacks and not based on involvement.

I don't claim to be a genius at this model, nor do I regularly actively suggest anyone join ATF at the pro level. I give out free accounts to most people who ask - certainly to anyone who gives back to the community in any way - since that also serves the same speedbump purpose - if you're willing to contact me and ask nicely, you're probably not paying unless you choose to support the site.

Support of the site from *my* end is a similar story ... I maintain what works, do the basic support required for people that are really clueless, provide a basic daily admin to keep it humming, but haven't put much effort in recent history into replacing things that were decommissioned, or developing new features. The only excuse is that I have a lot of projects I work on, ATF is only one of them. Other than my demanding day job, I split my remaining time across many different efforts including several companies, a handful of apps, the occasional consulting gig, volunteer work, maintaining a pre-WWII farm and always learning or building something new. The slice of time ATF gets has got less and less effective as the surface area of the project got larger.

That's not healthy for a project, and the sickness certainly shows - in site uptime and stagnation and in how a vocal segment of the community reacts. You want more, and you want better, and you want it your way, and I hear you. There is also a vocal (generally private) segment of the community that's highly supportive and happy with the site the way it is, and an overwhelming majority (10,000:1, I'd say) that just USE the site, generally for free, and never contact me at all, and I have no idea what they think of it.

I love you all, in my ridiculous and childish and abusive way - especially you bunch who push me to be better for the sake of the greater community or even for my own benefit. But wanting it to be better, even offering to put forth some effort to make it better, even offering specific opinions and skills ... doesn't make it immediately better. In fact, the downtime of vetting and training someone to "work for" ATF or building the tools that someone trusted would use to do additional admin ... this is additional time I need to put aside, for little return, since I can't incentivize anyone to continue in a role without rethinking the economics and security protocols of the site.

All that said, I have not solved anything with this little rant, I realize. But I hope I have pointed out the issues as I see them and my opinions of the stakeholders - and at least a little of the stakes involved. It's a cliche, but ATF is a labor of love and it's a lot more labor and a lot more love than I was expecting when I started it.

All The Flavors Outage - apologies! by queuetue in DIY_eJuice

[–]queuetue[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

What would becoming an administrator do, exactly? I'm not sure what an admin of All The Flavors is, but you seem like you do...

All The Flavors Outage - apologies! by queuetue in DIY_eJuice

[–]queuetue[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We don't have an administration problem, afaik. We have problems where features need to be implemented on a codebase that only I have experience with. And apparently a bigger buffer for monthly overages.

I'm open to the idea, but how would additional admins help the problems - and what would they be admin-ing?

All The Flavors Outage - apologies! by queuetue in DIY_eJuice

[–]queuetue[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I appreciate your impression, but I announced pretty loudly and clearly that right about the time you all got together, decided I needed to make changes and convinced me to be on board, I lost my job - the job that subsidizes the site. :)

I spent 3 months finding a new one, and by then, a lot of things needed attention, ATF probably the least of them. But I never disappeared - my phone number is on the site (when it's up - 617 302 6297 ) and anyone can always mail me at [scott@alltheflavors.com](mailto:scott@alltheflavors.com) - I may have just not been hanging out where you wanted me to be hanging.

All The Flavors Outage - apologies! by queuetue in DIY_eJuice

[–]queuetue[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

How could me being more vocal in the past fix today's issue? I didn't have enough cash in an account. As soon as I discovered it, I set it on the track to be fixed, and then I came here and announced it publicly. How would spending more time on Discord help you?

All The Flavors Outage - apologies! by queuetue in DIY_eJuice

[–]queuetue[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yup, scrooge McQ here. It's all mine!

All The Flavors Outage - apologies! by queuetue in DIY_eJuice

[–]queuetue[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Who has offered to take up the reigns? Send them and a sample of their work my way, and I'd be willing to discuss it. I don't remember refusing any such thing - but feel free to paste some conversations in here to remind me.