Post by M-G Corki on Mar 1, 2009 23:49:19 GMT
This will be a rather lengthy post, which I now I should have put up earlier, but I hope this goes some way to explaining why I did the massive u-turn after the rejection of DM's proposal. Some people will still be angry, but it was the Band's long term future that I had when I made the decision. I know what I put below I have already said, but I want everything kept in one place.
Firstly, my handling of the situation was terrible. It came out of the blue, and obviously would annoy people. I should have kept you guys informed, especially after the vote to reject the original idea. I listened to you then when you said “no”. After that rejection, I was in contact with Empy, and there seemed to be progress. I should have come to you, but looking at the overall picture here if we left, I had to make a snap decision. Sometimes a leader needs to make a key decision that will not make everyone happy. And this was most definitely one. I have stuck my neck on the line, but I am staying with this decision – and despite the setbacks now, I feel the long term is better.
Secondly, I could not see the Band lasting much more than six months if we went it alone from DM. Activity at our off board sites has dipped considerably over the last year – once we could get 40 members a day visible; now we struggle to get to 25 or 30 daily. Just look at the dip in the number of people signing into roll calls - we can't even get 50 or more members, like we used. Getting new blood would be difficult and the Raw Recruit Scheme would be useless. I know people said we could get members through advertising, but we’ve had adverts out for a while. I know it is for Banders only, but only one person has stumbled across our Facebook group and asked about it. So, current activity at the off board site and the lack of gaining new members were the two biggest factors that influenced my decision to do a u-turn on the original rejection of returning to DM. I am not a gambler at all – and when the safety and future of the Band was put into doubt (especially after 4+ years of hard work to build things up), a move back to DM was the sensible (and to be honest, only logical) choice.
One of the sticking points has been the servers for DM. I managed to get the info out of Jason, which I post below. There are a few extra bits of info in there as well that relate to previous problems.
Another issue has been data transfer – and there is hope for this. One big problem with proboards is that it does not offer a database to transfer threads/accounts etc over. Proboards v5 is supposedly going to do that – so hopefully we can transfer our posts about with us in the future.
I will not deny that DM has its problems – but so does this place. There has been progress at DM, and I am sure there will be more. Empy is definitely a person I am happy working with – and someone who wants changes at DM. What I have seen and heard for DM 8 makes it better than the SMF boards. A request has been put in to see if a “ORG Leader Control Panel” add on can be made. Proboards has been extremely slow in bringing their version 5 out – if they had brought it out earlier, I don’t think I would have changed my view. DM, through SMF and now myBB, allows for usergroups and no passwords – something proboards does not allow. Also, through Mystica, it has been brought to my attention that threads from boards are missing – and I can’t seem to fix it at the moment.
There will be other areas that people will want – sig pics and avatars is one that springs out. But if enough pressure is put on, I am sure that the staff at DM will start to listen – if not, well, I do enjoy jumping up and down!
I know that this decision is going to split the Band – it already has done. But in the long run, I feel it is the best decision. We wouldn’t survive on our own; and it wouldn’t be right joining a different site. People will hate me for doing it – but the Band’s long term future is what is most important. I hope those that leave will see that. And those that do leave will be more than welcome to return. DM will not be perfect (nowhere is), but I will make sure that the Band lasts and survives.
I will get in contact with those that have left to explain things to them. I know certain members who have left are extremely cross and angry with me (and I understand that), but I will tell them why I did my u-turn. I don't expect them to return, but they might. The least I can do is set the record straight with them.
Much work and consideration will be needed to draw up a timeline to move back. Not everything will go across immediately. The transfer won't happen until I know a date for when DM 8.0 is going live.
I am burying a large hatched with DM. I have strong feelings over aspects of DM - but I feel confident change can come, especially with Empy as ORG Leader Admin. I have been rather anti-DM in the past, but I hope others can drop the grudge we have had for the last 2 years if the Band is to succeed and be successful. The Band has always had a fighting spirit and I hope we can take that with us to make DM a better place for us and others.
I hope I have done some explaining, and I am happy to answer any questions that Banders will have. Most will probably be down to why I overturned our initial rejection. My answer is that in the long run, the Band would not survive alone - it would become stale and slowly die. And I am sure that is something none of us want.
Firstly, my handling of the situation was terrible. It came out of the blue, and obviously would annoy people. I should have kept you guys informed, especially after the vote to reject the original idea. I listened to you then when you said “no”. After that rejection, I was in contact with Empy, and there seemed to be progress. I should have come to you, but looking at the overall picture here if we left, I had to make a snap decision. Sometimes a leader needs to make a key decision that will not make everyone happy. And this was most definitely one. I have stuck my neck on the line, but I am staying with this decision – and despite the setbacks now, I feel the long term is better.
Secondly, I could not see the Band lasting much more than six months if we went it alone from DM. Activity at our off board sites has dipped considerably over the last year – once we could get 40 members a day visible; now we struggle to get to 25 or 30 daily. Just look at the dip in the number of people signing into roll calls - we can't even get 50 or more members, like we used. Getting new blood would be difficult and the Raw Recruit Scheme would be useless. I know people said we could get members through advertising, but we’ve had adverts out for a while. I know it is for Banders only, but only one person has stumbled across our Facebook group and asked about it. So, current activity at the off board site and the lack of gaining new members were the two biggest factors that influenced my decision to do a u-turn on the original rejection of returning to DM. I am not a gambler at all – and when the safety and future of the Band was put into doubt (especially after 4+ years of hard work to build things up), a move back to DM was the sensible (and to be honest, only logical) choice.
One of the sticking points has been the servers for DM. I managed to get the info out of Jason, which I post below. There are a few extra bits of info in there as well that relate to previous problems.
Current DM Server
------------------
Dell brand sever
3.0 Ghz Intel Pentium D CPU
2 GB RAM
Gigabit NIC
SuSE Enterprise Linux 10 OS (will switch to Ubuntu for DM 8)
(Apache / MySQL / PHP)
40 GB hard drive (RAID 1 mirroring configuration)
External 80 GB drive for nightly backup
New Server to be added for DM 8.0
-------------------
Dell brand sever
2.2 Ghz Intel Core2 Duo CPU
1 GB RAM (will be increased later this year)
Gigabit NIC
Ubuntu Linux OS
(Apache / MySQL / PHP)
80 GB hard drive (RAID 1 mirroring configuration)
External 100 GB drive for nightly backup
Additionally, DM is backed-up to an off site location on a semi-
regular basis.
Connection
--------------------
The DM servers are connected to the Internet via a dedicated Fiber
Optic line. The service is for a 20 Mbit uplink connection, but every
test I run shows that it actually gets ~ 36-40 Mbit.
---------
Once again, the limit does not come from the speed of the hardware or
software. The last time the site went down was when RJ died. We will
likely NEVER see that sort of traffic again. Our server and
connection were handing the load just fine. The problem was due to the
fact that the blog software was trying to load several thousand
comments for every page load. It's a simple bug that was fixed, but
we didn't realize it until after I returned from his funeral.
Before that occurrence, the last downtime we had was scheduled
downtime for when we moved the site onto the server and connection
listed above.
------------------
Dell brand sever
3.0 Ghz Intel Pentium D CPU
2 GB RAM
Gigabit NIC
SuSE Enterprise Linux 10 OS (will switch to Ubuntu for DM 8)
(Apache / MySQL / PHP)
40 GB hard drive (RAID 1 mirroring configuration)
External 80 GB drive for nightly backup
New Server to be added for DM 8.0
-------------------
Dell brand sever
2.2 Ghz Intel Core2 Duo CPU
1 GB RAM (will be increased later this year)
Gigabit NIC
Ubuntu Linux OS
(Apache / MySQL / PHP)
80 GB hard drive (RAID 1 mirroring configuration)
External 100 GB drive for nightly backup
Additionally, DM is backed-up to an off site location on a semi-
regular basis.
Connection
--------------------
The DM servers are connected to the Internet via a dedicated Fiber
Optic line. The service is for a 20 Mbit uplink connection, but every
test I run shows that it actually gets ~ 36-40 Mbit.
---------
Once again, the limit does not come from the speed of the hardware or
software. The last time the site went down was when RJ died. We will
likely NEVER see that sort of traffic again. Our server and
connection were handing the load just fine. The problem was due to the
fact that the blog software was trying to load several thousand
comments for every page load. It's a simple bug that was fixed, but
we didn't realize it until after I returned from his funeral.
Before that occurrence, the last downtime we had was scheduled
downtime for when we moved the site onto the server and connection
listed above.
Another issue has been data transfer – and there is hope for this. One big problem with proboards is that it does not offer a database to transfer threads/accounts etc over. Proboards v5 is supposedly going to do that – so hopefully we can transfer our posts about with us in the future.
I will not deny that DM has its problems – but so does this place. There has been progress at DM, and I am sure there will be more. Empy is definitely a person I am happy working with – and someone who wants changes at DM. What I have seen and heard for DM 8 makes it better than the SMF boards. A request has been put in to see if a “ORG Leader Control Panel” add on can be made. Proboards has been extremely slow in bringing their version 5 out – if they had brought it out earlier, I don’t think I would have changed my view. DM, through SMF and now myBB, allows for usergroups and no passwords – something proboards does not allow. Also, through Mystica, it has been brought to my attention that threads from boards are missing – and I can’t seem to fix it at the moment.
There will be other areas that people will want – sig pics and avatars is one that springs out. But if enough pressure is put on, I am sure that the staff at DM will start to listen – if not, well, I do enjoy jumping up and down!
I know that this decision is going to split the Band – it already has done. But in the long run, I feel it is the best decision. We wouldn’t survive on our own; and it wouldn’t be right joining a different site. People will hate me for doing it – but the Band’s long term future is what is most important. I hope those that leave will see that. And those that do leave will be more than welcome to return. DM will not be perfect (nowhere is), but I will make sure that the Band lasts and survives.
I will get in contact with those that have left to explain things to them. I know certain members who have left are extremely cross and angry with me (and I understand that), but I will tell them why I did my u-turn. I don't expect them to return, but they might. The least I can do is set the record straight with them.
Much work and consideration will be needed to draw up a timeline to move back. Not everything will go across immediately. The transfer won't happen until I know a date for when DM 8.0 is going live.
I am burying a large hatched with DM. I have strong feelings over aspects of DM - but I feel confident change can come, especially with Empy as ORG Leader Admin. I have been rather anti-DM in the past, but I hope others can drop the grudge we have had for the last 2 years if the Band is to succeed and be successful. The Band has always had a fighting spirit and I hope we can take that with us to make DM a better place for us and others.
I hope I have done some explaining, and I am happy to answer any questions that Banders will have. Most will probably be down to why I overturned our initial rejection. My answer is that in the long run, the Band would not survive alone - it would become stale and slowly die. And I am sure that is something none of us want.