Springinfo (possibly closing)

[Forboding Angel]

there is no news in tasclient anymore because forb is too nOOb to maintain his website correctly

Message subject: springinfo
From: Satirik
Sent: Wed Nov 04, 2009 10:33 am
To: Forboding Angel
Message
if you don't remove the huge top banner of springinfo.info/tasclient.php i'll just remove the news from tasclient ... don't even ask why

So having the name at the top isn't maintaining it correctly? Or maybe you're referring to the website that I run and work on in my spare time (which I haven't had any lately), or maybe you're referring to the community website that I started in order to get some decent info out to newbies and help people out with what is going on around here (without having to scour forums), or maybe you're referring to the website I started in order to properly advertise things in spring to new or prospective users...

Yeah, real mismanagement going on here. Oh btw thanks to the rest of the community for helping me out with it... Oh wait, the community didn't. Wow I should feel really bad for not constantly updating it because I obviously don't have a life or a job that is more important...

The above is taken from a pm that i got (and never bothered replying to) and a few forum posts from another thread. The title says it all. I don't have the time nor the will to keep springinfo updated with news and whatnot, and the whole thing is in danger of being shut down.

The question being, do you care? If not, that's fine, no big deal. It was intended to be something that the entire community could maintain, but everyone here always refers to it as being "My property" when my intention was for it to be community property.

I am too tired to care anymore about the ridiculous politics that fly around this place anymore. If there is enough reason to keep it around, I'll keep it around, but if there isn't then I'll just shut it down.

What say you?

[Argh]

I say that if it's too much of a pain in the arse to maintain, then maybe we need to come up with a better solution, where people can post their news without having to take up other folks' time.

I like the idea of a Spring News source that tells the world and the Lobby crowd what's going on- but perhaps we need something more automated, like an "announce" section here, where we just post a blurb to an ISS feed or something of the sort, and Lobbies can pick it up there, keeping the process as hassle-free as possible for both Lobby developers and everybody else.

[Forboding Angel]

Well at the time of Springinfo's creation, this site was still the old design, and community wasn't a part of it (and really still isn't for that matter. It's not good for newbies (tho it has gotten better).

This site is geared more towards the development side than anything. A while back I suggested moving springinfo over alongside this site but never heard much about it.

The thing is that springinfo is set up so that anyone can maintain it. It isn't hard, and isn't too time consuming, but the fact is that I'm just one person and I can't take the time necessary to grab news from here as often as I like. As a meter, how many posts have I actually made here in the past two weeks? IRL, I am getting so much work that I can't handle it all, and considering that my business employs exactly 1 person, that means that everything else takes a backseat.

Few regulars here have ever really accepted Springinfo for what it's supposed to be, and it's at the point that I dunno why I should care anymore. Updating it isn't hard, like I said, but when you do it all by yourself for a year, the motivation isn't there. Also, SPringlobby has never implemented anything to show Springinfo RSS stuff in the lobby, so that set of users isn't even aware of existence. It isn't mentioned anywhere on this site (except in a few places you'd never look), and satirik is pulling his normal "I'm going to cry in a dark corner and cut myself crap"... So with all that in mind, it's a fairly large community site (Hundreds or thousands of people that don't come here), a quite decent google ranking, with 0 community support... tell me that isn't some form of an oxymoron.

[TheMightyOne]

springinfo is great. the first thing i did when i turned on my tasclient was checking whether there are any new news. it has all it needs to become the most informative spring source. keep it up. even if you'd update it once a month the info that is already there is very useful so dont take it down plz.

[knorke]

huge top banner

I am not quite sure, but I think when using TASclient at 1024*768, that annoyed me too.
News in lobby are cool but the way it was done in tasclient it always feelt like "omg mega lag pop-up of doom."
I use springlobby now since some time so I do not know if that was changed. Maybe if it only shows up if a new news is posted?

It isn't mentioned anywhere on this site (except in a few places you'd never look)

HELP -> Getting Spring Content and Links -> its the second link.
Seems fine?

[AF]

If you have a logo I can use Ill add it to the darkstars links page. To be honest when I release new AIs, putting it on springinfo just doesn't occur to me.

[very_bad_soldier]

Springinfo is great. All it needs are regular updates.

[Forboding Angel]

Well that's kind of what I thought, but what am I supposed to do when no one will help me keep it updated?

[AF]

None of my original points about why this situation arose have been addressed or even considered. Infact, it has gotten worse!!!! There are no indications that user submissions are accepted, or even wanted on the frontpage, or any pages for that.

Even if the user assumes this is the case, there are no indications of how to do it.

Making one further step of assumptions that the site is powered by wordpress ( and there are no indications other than guesswork that wordpress is being used ), there are no login links to log in to write a draft article.

Assuming then a login link was indeed added, How do you login? There isn't even a registration link!!!!

Your current criticism is 'its easy just register and login'. My point, is that this is actually quite hard, and is not apparent at all.

And this is your number 1 hurdle right now, and it has gone completely under the radar.
(snip) Point made, no need at all for the attacks after that.

[Forboding Angel]

None of my original points about why this situation arose have been addressed or even considered. Infact, it has gotten worse!!!! There are no indications that user submissions are accepted, or even wanted on the frontpage, or any pages for that.

Even if the user assumes this is the case, there are no indications of how to do it.

Making one further step of assumptions that the site is powered by wordpress ( and there are no indications other than guesswork that wordpress is being used ), there are no login links to log in to write a draft article.

Assuming then a login link was indeed added, How do you login? There isn't even a registration link!!!!

Your current criticism is 'its easy just register and login'. My point, is that this is actually quite hard, and is not apparent at all.

And this is your number 1 hurdle right now, and it has gone completely under the radar.

Hey great idea! Oh wait... List of links, top right.

Your number one enemy in battling this problem which you yourself are a detractor to is:

'Its simple enough already, we dont need to make it simpler'

I have never once said that. stop putting words in my mouth.

(snip) Thank you for playing fair.

Now fi we take a metric for demonstrating how succesful it is under the current design, we can use submissions and registrations of new users, and their activity.

AF, I have stated over and over that I will happily take forum posts for news submissions. Why the hell do you think that the Community news forum exists?

[AF]

changed website was changed

Even if I had made a stupid mistake, would it not be far less effort to just point it out instead of going all FUCK RAEG DEH BASTED?

Also your response that it was simple was a paraphrase of you saying somethign along the lines of the following:

AF - You could perhaps remove the need to register and login completely by adding a page that had a submission form embedded in it. The user would never have to login or post on forums or email or pm

Forb - Why bother its basic enough as it is *followed by rage rage rage*, its easy to post in the forums, why does nobody bother?

[Pressure Line]

You could perhaps remove the need to register and login completely by adding a page that had a submission form embedded in it.

Thats just *begging* to be abused.

To be honest when I release new AIs, putting it on springinfo just doesn't occur to me.

This tbfh. seriously Forb, it's not a deliberate "ahh I can't be bothered to send this to Forb/post in community news/post it myself on Springinfo" thing. It's just that it doesnt neccesarily occur to even think about it.

But what the hell do I know, last time I released something more than a single unit at a time was in '07 lol.

[Forboding Angel]

changed website was changed

Even if I had made a stupid mistake, would it not be far less effort to just point it out instead of going all FUCK RAEG DEH BASTED?

Also your response that it was simple was a paraphrase of you saying somethign along the lines of the following:

AF - You could perhaps remove the need to register and login completely by adding a page that had a submission form embedded in it. The user would never have to login or post on forums or email or pm

Forb - Why bother its basic enough as it is *followed by rage rage rage*, its easy to post in the forums, why does nobody bother?

If you weren't an asshole about it I wouldn't have responded that way. It was a good suggestion, why not leave it at that rather than calling me stupid and an idiot?

And PL, I know. I'm not sure what else I can do about it. All things considered, it should be a gathering spot for people who know nothing about spring. In short, it's a news, info, and showoff site, but if the community doesn't support it, then there isn't much point to it.

And PL is right, a submission form would just make things worse, not better. I'm not worried about spam, I just don't what to have to deal with all the 13 yr old kids around here making my life miserable. Registering requires a username and an email address. There isn't any wierd capcatcha, it's cut and dried.

The story I'm getting here is:
"Springinfo is great, but I don't want to have to be bothered by it".

Ooook. You can't post news on this site, you can only post in the forums. Over there you can actually post a news item that shows up on the front page. Why not copy and paste your forum post as a news submission?

Would it be more helpful if I provided an email address (mailto:link) where you could email your submissions? Like news@springinfo.info? Should I ask the moderators to move all release postings to the community news forums?

What would make it easy for you?

[Forboding Angel]

And perhaps something like this could help:

Could read
"Latest Community News"
"Lated Springinfo Headlines"
etc, etc.



I tried to have all the forum posts from here in an rss feed on springinfo, but tobi yanked the rss from this site as it was causing a lot of problems.

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