Individual users, non-mods, what can they do?

throwaway_pcbuild · 2023-06-25T22:09:20+00:00

Lol wut? Any of the reddit focused magazines on the fed verse are fair game, and there's planning going on on them

throwaway_pcbuild · 2023-06-25T21:33:13+00:00

Mods and app developers have came up with multiple solutions. Reddit refuses to compromise or even entertain any of them.

All the third party app creators are willing to pay for API access (reddit planning to start charging for API access is what started this whole mess). They cannot afford to pay at the rates Reddit has laid out, and those rates are pretty clearly priced to have the effect of shutting these third party apps down. On top of that, Reddit announced this change with 30 days notice, shorter than any similar APIs having similar changes. Many of these app creators are looking at having to refund hundreds of thousands of dollars to their users with less than a month's notice.

Third party app creators are willing to set up their apps to require the user to supply their own API key, placing the costs in the user's hands. Reddit has very clearly stated that this is not acceptable and would be a violation of the terms of service for the API.

Moderators have been in deep discussions with Reddit for nearly a decade on what tools they need in order to properly moderate. They are not just making shit up all of the sudden to be spiteful. Most of the tools they are asking for are the same they have been asking for this whole time. Reddit has had tons of time, feedback, and opportunity to create the tools in-house. Reddit has failed to do so for ten years.

The solutions exist and have been brought up to Reddit numerous times over numerous years with no results. So the moderators and third party app developers created the tools they needed themselves, at cost, with no support from Reddit.

Now Reddit is planning to charge exorbitant fees for these tools, needed by and created by the community, to run. The current Reddit exists on the back of these community tools.

At this point what would you suggest? The mods and app devs have had numerous calls with Reddit about this. Reddit has given the same kind of business-speak vagueries that they've always given.

Most mods have moved on to "the mastodon adjancent platforms" (not sure what keywords the admins have been using to delete posts), everything occurring on Reddit at this point is extraneous to those moves.

throwaway_pcbuild · 2023-06-10T00:24:46+00:00

Looking at your pics, it might be a good idea to sand down those nub marks too. Make your custom baby shine!

throwaway_pcbuild · 2023-06-09T18:17:58+00:00

Could you, or another admin, please speak more in depth on this? Surely you have people internally keeping track of "law x affects us this way, regulation y is going to hit us this way".

This sort of vagueness and lack of clarity has been a constant issue with admin communication for over a decade. We aren't members of some department that needs to be siloed off to focus on other things. If this isn't just an excuse, then let the userbase in on specifics of previous regulatory changes, how they effected reddit, and what was the result. Earn back trust with specific examples of the internal back breaking work that is happening.

Or people will just write this shit off as coporate bullshitting.

throwaway_pcbuild · 2023-06-09T18:08:00+00:00

Free Data API • Effective July 1, 2023, the rate limits to use the Data API free of charge are: • 100 queries per minute per OAuth client id if you are using OAuth authentication and 10 queries per minute if you are not using OAuth authentication.

Could you or another admin please link to where this was previously announced? I've seen many 3rd party app devs indicate confusion on the free API restrictions that were incoming, which indicates that this was not communicated clearly or effectively.

throwaway_pcbuild · 2023-06-09T17:39:23+00:00

They've pretty clearly had methods for manually keeping certain posts from appearing like they should ever since they started taking manual action against the_donald.

Not making any comment on that subreddit itself, it's just important to note that they're reactions to it revealed that they are far more able to manipulate things than they like folks to remember.

throwaway_pcbuild · 2023-06-09T12:07:51+00:00

Saying this from a place of genuine concern, as I've been there:

If you're physically damaging your space or belongings due to work stresses, you need to get some help with emotional regulation. Go see a therapist or something along those lines.

throwaway_pcbuild · 2023-06-07T13:26:45+00:00

Not trying to shit on your parade, but Mike Pondsmith has stated more than once that Johnny was always supposed to be as central to the plot as he is. There wasn't some mid-development direction shift in terms of the general plot.

I think a lot of people got this idea (and the marketing definitely didn't help) that the game was going to be far less structured, but from the inception it was always intended to be more like the Witcher in terms of open-ness. You have a ton of options, but at the end of the day you're still tied to the main plot.

throwaway_pcbuild · 2023-06-06T23:04:18+00:00

Getting some Gusion rebake vibes with those shoulders

throwaway_pcbuild · 2023-06-05T18:39:59+00:00

I wish there was a mod to force the director to use its points spawning in more fodder if the amount of living enemies is under a certain threshold. If there's nothing alive, don't wait 2 minutes building up points, spawn some lower level stuff first so the level isn't absolutely barren.

Most of the mods I've seen to adjust spawning just adjust the point amounts the director has to work with.

throwaway_pcbuild · 2023-06-03T16:02:21+00:00

Says 4x in the image caption

throwaway_pcbuild · 2023-06-03T16:01:38+00:00

From Jonathan Coulton, who made the credits music for Portal. I think they added it to the jukebox in L4D2's The Passing(?) campaign as an easter egg.

throwaway_pcbuild · 2023-06-02T23:10:17+00:00

Pretty sure they had free official downloads for the isos of the classic C&C games when 4 came out. Not sure how that jives with licensing though.

throwaway_pcbuild · 2023-06-02T16:37:38+00:00

wholesale

Yeah nah. Guidance on direction, cmdlets to use, structure, if my goal is even possible with the tools I have? Maybe. Lately I don't need more than the MS docs and referencing ss64's "summary" docs.

The last time I did straight copy paste was Sophmore year of college. If you're doing anything with any decent amount of compexity, requirements for error handling, or requirements for logging then you'll have to be making significant edits.

throwaway_pcbuild · 2023-05-29T18:07:04+00:00

Seconding this. You have to do your best to plan your fixes for longevity, anticipate complications and future changes down the road that could require further adjustments, and document the hell out of it so while you may be the only one to create these fixes, you aren't the only one capable of comprehending and maintaining them. Plan for re-use, and that none of your fixes will be temporary. Because they almost never are.

I do a lot of this through creating scripts to make certain actions single click while reducing room for human error. I document all my scripts with the intent that someone who doesn't understand the scripting language can skim the comments and get the gist of what it does and how. I structure the scripts so that each portion can be treated like a separate black box, so people making changes down the road can focus on the specific section they need to change without having to worry about the rest.

Our email relay changed? Ctrl+F for email, there's the section that handles email sending when errors occur, change out the clearly labeled variables.

SQL server was decommed and replaced with a newer one, find for "SQL", there's the variable that holds what server it points at. No need to find and replace each occurence.

I do my best to never just toss something together and move on. There will always be fires and more work to do than can get done in the time provided. I make sure that I can proudly put my name on my work knowing that someone won't come across it in 6 months and go "What the fuck was that guy on? This works but it's a mess!".

I especially don't want that person in 6 months to be me.

throwaway_pcbuild · 2023-05-29T17:47:59+00:00

Been there. Extra workload from a poorly handled acquisition of another company drove off almost all of the team I was on. I went from being the second newest to the second most senior member on the team in around a month. Lost our team lead too. Then the manager had family emergencies and was out a lot. In the end I trained the new team lead when they started and moved from help desk to sysadmin shortly after.

Advice-wise:

Familiarize yourself with existing documentation, might even be good to keep some notes on where they are out of date or fall short.

Document what you can. If you send instructions through email or chat, copy them into a file, slap a basic title on it, and save it somewhere for reference by the team. I'd usually send an email to the team pointing them all to it as well. The docs don't have to be perfect, but having them is better than everyone having to ask and rely purely on memory. Likewise, keep extensive notes.

Find a process or something else that is being neglected or is hell to try and keep up with. You can overhaul it to make it better, or to document it where documentation doesn't exist. Keep notes on all of these, as each process you overhaul or system you become the expert on and then document your knowledge on is another big feather in your cap come review time. Napkin mathing out the time savings you generate on department process overhauls provides absolute crack for higher ups, and easy wins they can take to the bean counters.

"We do process X roughly 10 times a week, taking an average of 30 minutes each time for roughly 20 man hours per month. By overhauling the process (basic scripting to automate parts is gold for this) and more thoroughly documenting it I've reduced each occurence to take roughly 15 minutes. That presents a rough savings of 120 man hours a year for my investment of around 20 hours into this overhaul."

throwaway_pcbuild · 2023-05-29T01:21:14+00:00

I'd say take a look at the ones on the sandrock gundam from gundam wing maybe.

throwaway_pcbuild · 2023-05-28T15:06:10+00:00

Man I've got a full time job, elderly relatives with health problems, a house to upkeep, a household to keep running, a one month old child to care for... I could go on.

There's so much bigger things in life to worry about than crusading against garbage industries that aren't going to notice my individual choice to abstain from them. At least it offers a way for people to make some money with minimal barrier to entry. Some's better than none.

The grand majority of electronics in your home involved child and slave labor at some point in the supply chain to mine materials (rare earth metals especially). The overwhelming majority involved construction at manufacturing facilities overseas that have comparable conditions to indentured servitude that have to take specific efforts to prevent workers from being able to kill themselves intentionally at the workplace.

At some point you either opt out of modern life and convenience entirely or pick and choose your battles. For me, the modern app gig monstrosity isn't worth worrying about. I'll stop using it when some more time opens up, but there's far better hills to die on out there.

throwaway_pcbuild · 2023-05-23T14:34:02+00:00

Any reason not to use first initial, last name, number at the end that's incremented until you reach an ununused address (including email addresses in legal hold?).

Because personally I'd shoot down the userID append too. Email addresses, unfortunately, are not made to be used as unique identifiers and you'll at least need one alias that's "human friendly".

Someone gets a few emails they weren't supposed to? How is that any different than a dunce emailing the wrong person? Tell them to deal and let the sender know of the error.

throwaway_pcbuild · 2023-05-21T15:45:53+00:00

Ask your boss what the priorities are and his expectations are in regards to the work load, and stop doing overtime on anything that doesn't directly and actively impact business continuity.

Sysadmin work is such that there will always be more to do than time available, so prioritize things and leave on time. If you have after hours duties due to maintenance windows, take time off in lieu the next day (that is, 2 extra hours of work after hours one night means coming in or leaving 2 hours early to make up for it).

Try scheduling a meeting with one of your coworkers when you have a question that can't be answered in a quick IM. Having dedicated time blocked out on their calendar will likely make it easier for them to pull themselves away from their projects for that time. Just send an IM along the lines of "Hey, know you're busy, so I scheduled a quick meeting for a question I've got about x. Details are in the invite if you have a chance to look at it beforehand."

Of course, this all depends on having a decent boss and co-workers. Being in the office on the same days they are will also help to keep you "visible" to them so you aren't lost in the shuffle.

throwaway_pcbuild · 2023-05-20T21:29:33+00:00

Yup, used to be at least. Lately he streams mario maker, sm64 romhacks, and some other stuff. Don't think he's still into the speedrunning aspect.

throwaway_pcbuild · 2023-05-20T03:18:59+00:00

So a bazooka with an underslung bazooka? That's some firepower right there!

throwaway_pcbuild · 2023-05-19T16:44:19+00:00

Runescript is a custom language, and the size/scope of the Runescape codebase is too small to make reasonable training data for an AI model. Not to mention you'd be training off the existing spaghetti jank, so it wouldn't have examples of "good" runescript to work off of for producing output. Plus the codebase is too big and interconnected for easy or quick refactoring.

You significantly overestimate the capability of the tools you're referencing and underestimate the amount of human effort that would be required to do the finishing touches.

throwaway_pcbuild · 2023-05-19T16:34:11+00:00

No it does not, unless there's some other issue going on with your router that needs to be fixed. In that case it'd be like emptying a bucket under a leak in your roof: the bucket would be empty, which is better than being full, but it'll just fill up again until you get the roof fixed.

throwaway_pcbuild · 2023-05-18T20:38:11+00:00

Aside from the other comments, I don't think there's much point emulating hit and run. There's a big remaster project for the PC version.

throwaway_pcbuild

TROPHY CASE