Improving calculatedChaos

[Kriegsmarine]

2. stop this shit about improving cC, we have more members now than ever and most of them aren't even that bad

Doesn't matter how well you think things may be going around here at any given time, there will always be room for improvement. So how about not.

Improvement's always good, but right now we're literally tearing things apart trying to fix them.

We don't have to stop improving, I just think we should be going at it from a different direction, one with not so much yelling.

[Beetle]

I think that maybe a few new high admins would be nice. We don't have very many left that still visit the server regularly. Maybe we can get votes up or something to upgrade some of the lower admins? I'm not sure how that whole process gets figured out...

I'd be glad to hop in and check every now and then, maybe even play more often, but there's a big problem. Often (or at least in the past, often) kicking/banning people that weren't following the rules caused more problems than it was worth. I guess that's no longer the case.


Also, if prophunt was added, I'd be glad to update ccdorm and make it a prophunt map.

[_Pipeline]

I do like prophunt sometimes, but it tends to attract so many squeaky 13 year old boys that my ears would bleed out for sure.

[LaN]

I do like prophunt sometimes, but it tends to attract so many squeaky 13 year old boys that my ears would bleed out for sure.

Drop the mute bomb.

[Haunwulf]

I think that maybe a few new high admins would be nice. We don't have very many left that still visit the server regularly. Maybe we can get votes up or something to upgrade some of the lower admins? I'm not sure how that whole process gets figured out...

I'd be glad to hop in and check every now and then, maybe even play more often, but there's a big problem. Often (or at least in the past, often) kicking/banning people that weren't following the rules caused more problems than it was worth. I guess that's no longer the case.

Most veteran players take their kicks and bans as a grain of salt, and I'm pretty sure it's been like that for quite a long time.

There really isn't a reason to go crazy about a kick in the first place, even if it was for no absolute reason. Unless you happen to be a try hard attempting to get as high up the scoreboard as possible.

[Beetle]

I think that maybe a few new high admins would be nice. We don't have very many left that still visit the server regularly. Maybe we can get votes up or something to upgrade some of the lower admins? I'm not sure how that whole process gets figured out...

I'd be glad to hop in and check every now and then, maybe even play more often, but there's a big problem. Often (or at least in the past, often) kicking/banning people that weren't following the rules caused more problems than it was worth. I guess that's no longer the case.

Most veteran players take their kicks and bans as a grain of salt, and I'm pretty sure it's been like that for quite a long time.

There really isn't a reason to go crazy about a kick in the first place, even if it was for no absolute reason. Unless you happen to be a try hard attempting to get as high up the scoreboard as possible.

If people so badly want new higher admins, what's the biggest reason why?

[_Pipeline]

Well many of the oldfag high admins just plain never play anymore, except for TGame, Flaminsarge, Spleenter, and occasionally Thursday. As Kriegs also mentioned some time back, people have been blaming Flamin for literally everything they think is wrong with the server, and many took the issues they had with him "godmodding" the server "excessively" (because he totally does that all the fucking time)/sarcasm to the point where they wanted him either banned or stripped of his root access and basically leaving control of the server in empty hands while Captain's not around. It may have started as a reasonable enough complaint about modding on the server, but it clearly derailed and got way fucking out of hand, and nothing particularly good has come of it.

Now there's also that huge list of maps LaN has been trying to get added, and it's really no secret that everyone's also been constantly pressuring Flamin to upload them onto the server since he's currently the only active admin who has the ability to add maps. Needless to say, he's been implying lately that he's sick both of being blamed for everything that goes wrong around here while simultaneously being expected to add whatever maps people want him to whenever our whims desire it, especially when many of said maps turn out to be broken or otherwise full of issues that do not seem apparent at first--a new map may turn out to crash the server every time it is played on, for example.

This leads up to the main issue I want to bring up, and that is that we need more people with the ability to add maps to the server. Flamin said a week or two ago on the server that control over the maplist and rotation shouldn't be something that everyone expects only him to be responsible for, and that we need new "map officers", as he called them, who have the ability to add and remove maps from the server and the nomination list.

By now we all know that cC is far from just a Team Fortress 2 community anymore, but we still have two servers: plenty of regulars still play on the funserver on a daily basis, and use of the mainserver for members' weekends and other play sessions is not uncommon. New people also join the community all the time via the TF2 servers. Did I mention that a number of them tried to join the forums recently but couldn't because there seems to be some kind of issue with new member registration? I think it's pretty fucking important that we fix that as soon as possible. In case any of you haven't noticed yet, our newest member is a spambot that signed up several months ago, and it's not like new people have lost interest in joining here.
and fix the chatbox too plox

This is a thread specifically for improving this community and so far I've seen plenty of promising ideas. Are we ever going to actually go through with any of them, though, or is this thread just going to become yesterday's news like several others just like it?

[krubby]

Here's a list of the order I think people should become high admin. If we do decide to add more, I think it's important that we get this figured out. Y'all give your opinion on this, too. My list is just of the admins that are still on frequently.

1. Haun
2. LaN
3 Scrambles
4 Kat
5. Pipes
6. Me
7. Denzo
8. Kriegs
9. Other peeps

I'm trying to be objective about it as I can and am basing it on:
how much the person is on,
how good they'd be at using their powers so everyone can have fun,
how little they'd use their powers to ruin the fun,
how popular they are
how long they've been an admin

[Beetle]

I'm pretty sure no high admin has access to the ftp servers other than flamin and maybe blue. That's been that way forever.

[Burnerman]

Here's a list of the order I think people should become high admin. If we do decide to add more, I think it's important that we get this figured out. Y'all give your opinion on this, too. My list is just of the admins that are still on frequently.

1. Haun
2. LaN
3 Scrambles
4 Kat
5. Pipes
6. Me
7. Denzo
8. Kriegs
9. Other peeps

I'm trying to be objective about it as I can and am basing it on:
how much the person is on,
how good they'd be at using their powers so everyone can have fun,
how little they'd use their powers to ruin the fun,
how popular they are
how long they've been an admin

i cant put myself on there because I hate fun and would just lose it

[krubby]

sorry I forgot about you, burnerman ;-;

[Burnerman]

Gub Admin ploz

[Denzo]

Here's a list of the order I think people should become high admin. If we do decide to add more, I think it's important that we get this figured out. Y'all give your opinion on this, too. My list is just of the admins that are still on frequently.

1. Haun
2. LaN
3 Scrambles
4 Kat
5. Pipes
6. Me
7. Denzo
8. Kriegs
9. Other peeps

Don't put me on this list, you dingo.


Anyways a lot of what has been needed to be said has been so there's nothing to really add here. We gotta start implementing a lot of what's going to improve this community and definitely get more community involvement (woah buzzwords) rather than just dicking about on the funserver. The steam group is there for a reason and a good portion of those in the group see the announcements so let's get some prize raffles or something (I'll get some games or hats or something to give out) and we can jump off from there.

[katattackk]

i think itd be cool if like. i think i brought this up on the steam page but if we had a set day of the month, like every third weekend or something, or just an arranged day where we can test maps and get some stuff added. that way its once a month and instead of poking flaming you can just submit it to a list, and then once a month maybe flamin or if someone else gets the ability, we can test some shit out and get it added.

/edit double posted because macbook. sorry. fixed it.

[_Pipeline]

These ideas need to be more than just a series of symbolic straw polls we all happen to agree on, guys.

At least in the case of the TF2 servers, somebody with the actual power to make changes, or who is at least in contact with Captain, ought to at the very least have a good look at this thread and tell everyone what they think.

[krubby]

Yeah, we've got a cycle of:

1. Severe pessimism of cC and it's future
2. Bright optimism of improving cC
3. Saying "fuck it" and taking a nap.

If Captain is ever online again then I'll talk to him, but he hasn't been online in over 200 days.

[FlaminSarge]

Nearly entirely unrelated, but since this is the thread people are paying attention to, I'll post it here.

There's an issue where our website's database is rejecting logins that aren't from the web panel. This means our servers can't access the database, so stats, admin, and maprate are down.

The login info is correct, but it's rejecting the login based on where the login is coming from.

Somebody poke captain with this info, please. I don't remember his email address, and I don't think tf2@captainangry.com is it. Giggles, who seems to have some kind of direct line of communication to him, has been offline for four days.

With regards to this thread's content, stockMaps probably ought to be used more often. Avoiding it solely because the admin list for it is different isn't really an excuse if one really claims to be a part of this community.

[the asylum]

People on the stockMaps server? When has that ever happened?

[Denzo]

People don't avoid stockmaps for the admin list, they avoid because it's just stock maps. They want maps with flavor and character, so they flock to the funserver which has variation. So if you nixed the funserver for a while you'd get either a bunch of stock map traffic or no traffic at all. A tough decision to make.

[krubby]

Honestly, there's no reason why the mainserver would be any better than the funserver. It's just that we've built up a huge reputation in our mind of the mainserver being a magical place where we have constant fun and enjoyment and the funserver is the wretched place of screeching bullshit. And because we think of it that way, it ends up like that. All the members we know and love go to the mainserver "cuz it's better" (or you're Giggles and have a crapple that can't load funserver maps) and the funserver becomes a place with a bunch of jerks and/or idiots along with the members that usually go there, maintaining it's bad rep. I dunno what I'm really suggesting here, but I do think that as we discuss what should be done, we should drop our old stereotypes of the servers.

[_Pipeline]

The exact same people play in both places, and whenever I ask about who all the "stupid funserver kids" that we go to the mainserver to avoid are, I don't get any names, let alone a coherent answer, and I can't really think of anyone who always plays on one server but never the other. In both places you get people shouting over the mic; in both places you get the same frivolous chatspam; and in both places you get small children and random pubbers who automatically flock to whichever server has more people playing, act obnoxious, then jump to another random server somewhere when the map changes and never come back.

The only map the mainserver has that the funserver doesn't is desperados, ironically not a stockmap, and when I think about it the only legit reasons I can think of as to why several people prefer the mainserver over the funserver are that: they prefer to play exclusively on stockmaps; that they want to be free from abuse by the funserver's huge admin pool (if Thursday's on either server, though, there's no escape); or because they want to go to a place where nobody can vote for breakfloor, melee checkers or meleefort every two seconds, which is also a bit redundant because I honestly cannot remember the last time the server attempted to vote for one of those maps without an admin canceling the vote at the first possible opportunity.

[Haunwulf]

These ideas need to be more than just a series of symbolic straw polls we all happen to agree on, guys.

At least in the case of the TF2 servers, somebody with the actual power to make changes, or who is at least in contact with Captain, ought to at the very least have a good look at this thread and tell everyone what they think.

Over a month in, 5 pages. This thread isn't making the community going anywhere.

It's too bad there's only Captain and (sort of)Giggles that can actually make changes right now. Both of em' not even so much as existing, especially on the forums.

[krubby]

These ideas need to be more than just a series of symbolic straw polls we all happen to agree on, guys.

At least in the case of the TF2 servers, somebody with the actual power to make changes, or who is at least in contact with Captain, ought to at the very least have a good look at this thread and tell everyone what they think.

Over a month in, 5 pages. This thread isn't making the community going anywhere.

It's too bad there's only Captain and (sort of)Giggles that can actually make changes right now. Both of em' not even so much as existing, especially on the forums.

Giggles is easy to contact. Do you want me to say something to her?

[_Pipeline]

According to Flamin, Captain is actually alive, because he fixed the server the other day and everything there is working again. Still should really fix the forum's new member registration issues too, though.




AND THE CHATBOX AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[katattackk]

okay. so. this idea was kind of sort of revived on the facebook so im going to post it here in one big hopefully clear explanation possibly with a nice little FAQ at the end.

I think some new maps would be nice. I think we could all agree a few new maps every once in a while is always a good switch. I think the best way to go about this would be to have a vote. People can submit maps, and we can schedule a map testing day. This day would be planned way ahead in advance, and probably/definitely be on a weekend when school more than likely can't interfere. Maybe more towards the evening, unless we decided to make this an all day event and just stick the server on a cycle or something. After the map day is over, we can go back to the forums where the maps would have their own little threads within one giant thread. You can say yes this map was fucking awesome or no this map was fucking shit or whatever you want to say. Obviously majority vote would decide if the map makes the cut or not. We could do this maybe once every other month or so. This could also be applied to plugins if we wanted it to be.

now.

But who will add the maps?
Well, Flaming is currently the only one to my knowledge who has the ability, and since this does require him to take time out of his busy schedule to help us, were gonna have to get him on board, but it also might be a good idea to consider getting someone else who can add maps. This would also need to be discussed.

how is this any different than what flaming was doing for us before?
before, he was just kind of putting things we liked up or testing things out, and it was really hard because people werent always on and then things got changed and people got mad. If we can keep this totally organized its not only beneficial to the server, but to admins and to flamin since its not something that he would constantly have to do, and its not being thrown at him, it'd be organized and laid out on the forums ahead of time.

why is this vote/submit shit on the forums?
because not everyone has a book of faces (thats a facebook), and I'm not sure how organized doing it via the Steam page would be, and I don't thing its something everyone checks.

so. cool. yeah. just gonna throw this out there. dontyellatme.

[yuki]

okay. so. this idea was kind of sort of revived on the facebook so im going to post it here in one big hopefully clear explanation possibly with a nice little FAQ at the end.

I think some new maps would be nice. I think we could all agree a few new maps every once in a while is always a good switch. I think the best way to go about this would be to have a vote. People can submit maps, and we can schedule a map testing day. This day would be planned way ahead in advance, and probably/definitely be on a weekend when school more than likely can't interfere. Maybe more towards the evening, unless we decided to make this an all day event and just stick the server on a cycle or something. After the map day is over, we can go back to the forums where the maps would have their own little threads within one giant thread. You can say yes this map was fucking awesome or no this map was fucking shit or whatever you want to say. Obviously majority vote would decide if the map makes the cut or not. We could do this maybe once every other month or so. This could also be applied to plugins if we wanted it to be.

now.

But who will add the maps?
Well, Flaming is currently the only one to my knowledge who has the ability, and since this does require him to take time out of his busy schedule to help us, were gonna have to get him on board, but it also might be a good idea to consider getting someone else who can add maps. This would also need to be discussed.

how is this any different than what flaming was doing for us before?
before, he was just kind of putting things we liked up or testing things out, and it was really hard because people werent always on and then things got changed and people got mad. If we can keep this totally organized its not only beneficial to the server, but to admins and to flamin since its not something that he would constantly have to do, and its not being thrown at him, it'd be organized and laid out on the forums ahead of time.

why is this vote/submit shit on the forums?
because not everyone has a book of faces (thats a facebook), and I'm not sure how organized doing it via the Steam page would be, and I don't thing its something everyone checks.

so. cool. yeah. just gonna throw this out there. dontyellatme.

Works for me. Anything to update/improve the maplist is okay in my book

[Bluedemon0015]

So whenever a good amount of maps are in the suggestion a list should be made of them and then thrown up to be picked from. Or even just put them all on [as long as they're stable maps for the server] for one weekend a month maybe?

[_Pipeline]

There is literally so much we could do to improve this community, and that is not saying that there are too many things wrong so much as it is saying there are literally shitloads of opportunities, all realistically within our grasp, which can be undertaken to make it better as well as livelier, if only real action were taken on the part of those who are capable. I stress again, although way too many of our old guard members have become too entangled with their busy lives to pay more than miniscule attention to this community in recent days, have little to no remaining interest in TF2, or have simply moved on with their interests and lives, that doesn't mean that those of us who are still around and active in the community, or newer members among us, can just be completely disregarded in terms of our interest in perpetuating cC's existence.

If there is a consensus among enough of us that, rather than simply give up on what we're left with, we should seize the opportunity to make real improvements to both the server and community, then by all means, we ought to. The recent interest in reviving the map testing tradition is one example. Captain is of course nearly always too busy to take the time to check up on the community, whilst Flamin has neither the permission nor the actual ability to make significant changes himself, and even in cases when he does he gets a sour reception from too many people for it.

So considering it's wrong to expect Flamin to be responsible for addressing all the issues and potential for improvement at hand, and considering Captain really can't be bothered to come and look things over when his busy schedule does not permit it, the best course of action at this point would probably be to construct some single, coherent statement by members of the community on what we would most like to see get done, and in whichever way he thinks best, Captain can respond to them whenever time permits him to. Others may not see things this way, of course, but it's just my idea of one way we could potentially do this.

[krubby]

Really, all of this can happen if we can just get more people who are still around to be given the right to change stuff. Our only major holdback is the fact that people who can make changes aren't around. Flamin should be made an admin on the steam group and other cC admins who are programming competent should be given more power to change the funserver, although maybe have them just check with Flamin before they do stuff. I feel really bad for Flamin because he's just getting swamped in all this shit when he has other things to do. It would probably be best for all parties if we just get some more people in power.

[Bluedemon0015]

we just get some more people in power.

I feel like this sums up what could help, with Captain and Flamin being busy maybe try to get other people with the capability to make changes the power to make these changes with maybe a check by Flamin for a while till they are fully trusted. Or just make sure they are qualified and keep back ups to make sure any mistakes are possible to roll back so Flamin can be bothered less.

This only needs people with the ability to help step up.

They mainly need to be able to add in maps to the server, add them to the list of vote-able maps[or set up a loop of the maps] and be able to hold a back up in-case mistakes were made.
Possibly be able to install mods onto the server. But not entirely needed.