(no subject)

[strredwolf]

I usually don't blog about stuff inside Comic Genesis, but then... well, a bit of work philosophy.

You see, I'm a bit open about how I work.  I've found out that the more people know, the less they question and the less they bother you about things.  I'd rather know what's going on and have some documentation over having to dig through source code myself (the latter is evident with AutoKeen, which I rewrote into WolfKeen and hopefully will soon test publicly).  I try to maintain a To-Do list on the CG Wiki, so that everyone knows what I'm trying to work on and that I know what I have to do (because I forget, I'm only human).

However, my co-admin has a different philosophy that doesn't mesh -- she rather do it and leave everyone behind, causing major problems when I try to do something that was valid before her changes.  She doesn't tell anyone despite being asked many times, having several avenues of communications availible to her.  I keep asking and asking, and nothing is being replied back until I force the issue.  It makes me look bad, it makes her look bad, it makes CG look bad, it makes Keenspot look bad.

Over CG's IRC channel, we got into an argument.  I didn't know what was going on and I ask.  I wait and ask again.  I wait again.  And then I tell people that I will wait, with was a passing threat (even though I felt it wasn't).  Then the co-admin starts virtually wailing into me while questions finally get answered... and it devoles down to a volunteer asking the co-admin about something, getting a friend to help her, and the co-admin saying yes.  I wasn't told.  I didn't get any word of this, after asking her to.  And I get hell when I try to find out myself.

I asked her again, over and over, to talk to me, tell me what she's doing so I can:

• Get out of her way
• Raise objections if need be
• Support the end product when folks email me

It's such a simple thing.  Tell me what you're doing.  I'm already telling you what I'm doing.  Talk to me.  I don't automatically shoot everything down.  Just talk to me.

And yet she doesn't do it, and does her own thing, giving me the excuse that I'd shoot it down or kill it. 

Yeah.  Like the individual forums idea she wanted to do.  Folks couldn't wait, and wanted forums now.  I dragged that out and asked folks opinions.  I told her that before, durring, and now I've had to clean up her attempts because we need the server for another use.

I know about the co-admin's problems outside CG.  I do read her journal.  She did contact me and Keenspot when she was having problems securing Internet access, and Keenspot helped out. 

I know we're having problems.  I'm willing to work things out, but it's like I'm being left behind.  I don't like that, especially when I asked to be kept in the loop in order to perform my role at CG admin.  When I'm unable to do that, I will make myself known so I can...

...and if it continues on for too long, I will have to take drastic action.

Comments

[kisai.livejournal.com]

I hope you realize you aren't left out of the loop, only left out of the negotiation panel. I would much rather get something done then have to wait for approval I don't need if it's not going to break anything. That entire issue with the forum slaving was a disagreement in how to add more forums without killing the entire thing, I wanted redundancy, you wanted 'now'.

You're wanting 'now' is what pisses people off when you come into the middle of things and meddle where you weren't asked to, or form a conclusion without knowing all the answers.

I don't want this to turn into good cop/bad cop, with you always portrayed as the bad cop. Take a look at ComicGenesis History and see how it is almost always you taking unilateral action AND getting the flack for it.

I'll be honest and admit I've been leaving you behind in development matters because I don't want you even trying to fix anything I write, because when you do, it gets broken worse. There are three rules I try to abide by in coding:
1. Write bug-free code (always fix warnings)
2. Write secure-first code (always initialze variables, validate everything)
3. Write flexible code (no throw-away code, a lot of perl stuff uses the same framework)

Nowhere in there is "document clearly" or "get approvals from 15 layers of management"

So this means that in Perl, always using use strict and -w, in PHP this is turning on the debugger and making sure there are no warnings, ever. PHP is a lot more difficult to get bug-free code since there is no defined output. It either works or you get the white screen of death.

I experiment a lot and only put in code that I know works. Sometimes it outgrows it's usefulness like the last version of the newsbox. Sometimes it was written for one thing and got used somewhere else (the ENTIRE database backend was designed for the GUIDE originally.)

What really pisses me off is when you decide to do something that has a major effect on ComicGenesis and people complain. I always put a poll in the forums to see if people even want said feature if it's going to be significant. Check out the newsbox size poll, I opted to implement all the sizes anyways (as different ad caches), but the 150x300 image size is still the newsbox size. There were times where you were saying that you were going to change the size to the keenspot size and I was like NO we aren't, and you still repeated it.

I even remember back when I proposed half of this DB design for a new database backend, when nate actually did something on the server, and we agreed to use a new backend... and nothing became of it. So not everything I want to do ever works. There was the experimental help.keenspace.com that didn't work (The wiki was a much better idea), there was putting the jams in the wiki, that didn't work. There was the javascript flatfile newsbox that didn't get used by more than three people, there was a bunch of utilities I wrote in shell script and perl when we still had the flatfile backend that people used and I wound up throwing them away because they weren't adaptable to the database.

The FIRST program I ever wrote that used a database is a perl program to automate changing the forums and tying it to the keenspace account... guess why this never was released? Because I wanted the database backend for keenspace at the time and the flatfiles were easily destroyed.

So using the forums as the main "author-user" database was part of MY plan all along, and I would still throw this all away if I could write everything from scratch.

In fact It wouldn't be too far fetched to just write a dozen different updaters... you know HTML3.2, HTML4.01, XHTML, XHTML+CSS,XSLT, AJAX, etc and let the user use. I'm all for choice. I converted most of the existing Autokeen to have both XHTML and XHTML+CSS versions of tags so people could do some customization, something I wanted to back before I EVER did anything with keenspace. You might say my having anything to do with keenspace was being in the right place at the right time.

[strredwolf.livejournal.com]

Let me go through your post:

I'll be honest and admit I've been leaving you behind in development matters because I don't want you even trying to fix anything I write, because when you do, it gets broken worse. There are three rules I try to abide by in coding:
1. Write bug-free code (always fix warnings)
2. Write secure-first code (always initialze variables, validate everything)
3. Write flexible code (no throw-away code, a lot of perl stuff uses the same framework)

Nowhere in there is "document clearly" or "get approvals from 15 layers of management"

Unfortunately, you have a problem. You have at least one person (me) who has to support CG along with you, and who know who else will come down the line and become a full admin. Leaving me out of the development causes me to do what you describe: take unilateral action BECAUSE I don't know better AND take flack for it. I HATE THAT!

What really pisses me off is when you decide to do something that has a major effect on ComicGenesis and people complain. I always put a poll in the forums to see if people even want said feature if it's going to be significant. Check out the newsbox size poll, I opted to implement all the sizes anyways (as different ad caches), but the 150x300 image size is still the newsbox size. There were times where you were saying that you were going to change the size to the keenspot size and I was like NO we aren't, and you still repeated it.

What pisses me off is when you decide to do something that has a major effect on CG, and I'm left out of the loop. I don't check the forums often, and sometimes I don't see you polling on stuff you do change. I see things that are broken and there's no bug report, no notice saying "This is broken, don't touch it, I'm working on it" and I get people calling me on IM, Email, on LJ and the Forums saying "WHAT'S GOING ON, THIS IS BROKEN!!!"

Take Siteadmin for instance. Folks are complaining they can't log in, and I'm turning into a FAQ machine saying "Use your forum account, then hook your comic account to it." I just now inserted a one-line mod there saying "Please use your CG Forum account to login" to try to kill the whole mess.

Now, I've made what I want to change public. It's on the CG Wiki as RedWolf's Todo List (http://cgwiki.comicgenesis.com/index.php/RedWolf%27s_Todo_List). I'm going to keep that updated, and I'd love people come to me when they have a concern about what I'm doing.

You keep getting complaints about me, and I've asked you to forward them to me. I think last night was the second time I've asked you to do so. If you want me to change, and I don't know what is wrong, how am I going to know what I do need to change?

[bibliophage.livejournal.com]

I'll make one comment here, that I can see is a HUGE problem.

I'm a computer consultant. I own my own company, although it's only me at this point (It's been as high as three people). I know a number of programmers, and I know good programming style.

You don't have it.

Here are the rules.

1) Document your code.
2) Document your code.
3) Document your code.

It doesn't matter HOW wonderful and bug free your code is, unless you are ONLY writing it for your own use, in your house, on your own personal PC. If it's anywhere ELSE, someone else may end up having to use it, modify it, or support it. If you're part of a community effort, then your attitude of "I don't want you even trying to fix anything I write" is not only stupid, it's unethical. Part of the reason I'm _not_ doing anything with Keen is because I was left in a vaccum - fixing problems and answering questions is impossible without at least some information.

Thus, documentation.

What happens if you get hit by a truck tomorrow, and someone else _does_ have to modify your code, support it, or otherwise? What if you have to take a two month leave of absence, and don't remember what you did? (Don't even TRY to pull the "I know my code" bullshit.)

I can hand you several hundred pieces of code written for a MUD that are well written, with zero documentation. I'd bet you'd have just as much problem as I would figuring out what the person was supposed to be doing with it - and you can't debug it properly because it's depending on something that was modified in another portion of the base code - which has no documentation either.

If you aren't willing to write documentation - even after you've finished the code - you should get out of programming completely, unless you hire a technical writer to go behind you and document.

However, that brings us back to communication. If you aren't willing to tell other people what you're doing, why you're doing it, and how it's going to affect things, you're obviously not communicating well enough to have someone else put documentation in.

You figure out what I'm saying here. It's pretty obvious.

Bookworm

[kisai.livejournal.com]

I am not paid officially to work on comicgenesis, nor do I have the time to do everything I want with it. One of those is documenting everything. I Document changes to other code, but you know what, almost nothing was documented from the start. AutoKeen and PHPBB2 have scant if non-existant documentation. Redwolf leaves me out of the loop when he fixes something in my code so I have to sometimes revert the whole bloody thing to figure out why it's broken worse. Take the comment about changing the login page, well I had to go and revert it back to the original pre-modifcation-by-anyone and make each modification again manually untill it worked right.

I don't apply for programming jobs because I don't really care to work on programming, despite any talent I have for it. Any programming I do have done for comicgenesis was purely out of me wanting to improve it.

Strredwolf has to remember that he is not the be all ends-all to comicgenesis and this entire tiff started with him threating DMCA against someone ELSE WHO WAS VOLUNTEERING TO DO SOMETHING WITH COMICGENESIS.

The last person, and I do mean the LAST person that I got into this kind of argument with, I quit. It's not worth my time to argue with someone who doesn't listen, who makes dangerous threats, and pisses off everyone. This also happened three years ago to the date. I am not wanting a repeat of it.

[strredwolf.livejournal.com]

Strredwolf has to remember that he is not the be all ends-all to comicgenesis and this entire tiff started with him threating DMCA against someone ELSE WHO WAS VOLUNTEERING TO DO SOMETHING WITH COMICGENESIS.

Let me clarify what started this:

• Someone volunteered herself and her friend to help with Comic Genesis skin the CG Forums.
  
• You said yes, go ahead. YOU DID NOT TELL ANYONE ELSE YOU DID THAT
  
• I come along, not knowing any better, and find her friend doing something which I thought was wrong.
  
• I try to ask the friend about it, and don't get a quick responce. I then said I'll wait, because I didn't want to do any legal wrangling. IF THAT IS A THREAT SO BE IT.
  
• Then all hell breaks loose when everyone goes in and starts wailing on me for how I tried to get information!
  

It all comes back to how you're not communicating your intents and purposes to me and the rest of CG. I'm supporting CG, Kisai, along with you -- and Nate did say we have to work together. If you do not want a repeat of what happened three years ago, then take Bookworm's advise to heart: [b]You[/b] need to change when someone is willing to listen, willing to change, but is not getting what he is asking for to effect those changes.

[the-samsee.livejournal.com]

"The last person, and I do mean the LAST person that I got into this kind of argument with, I quit."

If it keeps happening that you have such arguments with people, maybe it's you and not them?

Look Kisai, nothing against you personally, but you're not what I would consider a good coder. There has been more than one occasion when I've had to set you straight on how something works because you were making a foolish and/or dangerous assumption about how the application or database works.

That's not to say I don't think you have the potential to do wondrous things, nor that I don't appreciate you for what you have accomplished, but it makes the fact that you don't communicate with Striker that much worse.

In a professional environment, it's extremely important to talk with your colleagues to make sure that you're on the right track, and to make sure that you're not the absolute only person who can do something (like support code). So why should you tackle this with anything less than a professional attitude? Because you're not being paid? Give me a break. This is a job, whether you're paid or not, and if you're not up to the task of working as part of a team, and can't handle the amount of work to do it properly, maybe you SHOULD quit.

Striker has his own issues. He's often heavy-handed in his relations with the users, but he's got a good head on his shoulders and seems pretty good at not only knowing what is the right thing to do (when talking about code/systems), but how and why. He just needs some adjustment on his people skills :) (sorry man, but it's true ;) )

Honestly, if the two of you cut all of the bullshit out and worked as a team I think that CG would be far better than anything else, but your seeming hatred for him drags everyone down.

You just need to realize that he has the same goal as you, and if you help each other and work as a team you will do better. If you keep him out of the loop you're going to continue to bash heads with each other, over and over and over, and that benefits no one. It makes for a worse system, more difficult to fix, more difficult to keep working, harder to use and with more conflict than anyone needs to see.

"Without Striker, there is no loop." Make that your mantra. It's a good place to start. Keep the lines of communication going so that if someone contacts him with a problem he has a chance to figure it out.

Sam

[strredwolf.livejournal.com]

"He just needs some adjustment on his people skills :) (sorry man, but it's true ;) )"

Yeah, I got to get out more too so I can.

[bibliophage.livejournal.com]

I didn't bring Strike into this at all. I was referring _only_ to your comment about documentation.

No, documentation doesn't take much time. I'm not talking about reams of paper describing everything, I'm talking about a line of text that says things like..

# 02/22/05 - Added regexp() to search names through this function.

One of the absolute WORST coders I ran across liked to call functions crap like good_stuff() and really_good_stuff().

I had to debug his code more than once due to breakages in other sections done by other people. Needless to say, crap like that doesn't help much.

What you COULD do is set up a forum of your own, and every time you go to do anything (either of you), just put in a post. That'll datestamp, do a subject, and you have a starting point.

Subject: Working on glimmer_txt.php
Body: Changing to allow green aliens to shine.

(note - I've found that Wiki's are much harder to use for casual things like this)

BW

[kisai.livejournal.com]

You know what I wrote 10 pages of stuff, but I'd rather sum it up this way:
I'm not paid for it, My code is MY code, If I'm hit by a truck tomorrow, nobody cares anyways.

[mulethunder.livejournal.com]

I don't apply for programming jobs because I don't really care to work on programming, despite any talent I have for it.

No fucking shit you don't. I'm sorry, random stranger who commented on a blog I read, but this is absolute anathema. The following cannot be stated in strong enough terms.

When people go to program something professionally, in large teams, they have one guy who wears the hat labeled "tech lead". This person has a few jobs, but one of the most important ones is to eat the liver of anyone who isn't documenting their code. Newbie programmers get boxed about the ears about it over and over, with their jobs on the line of threat, until they acquiesce to make very clear what they're doing, and participate in top-of-file changelogs.

No, you're not getting paid. Yes, it's a hassle. Document your code. Document your changes. I personally can't believe ANYONE could stand working with you if this is your attitude on code documentation.

Document.
Document.
DOCUMENT.

[kisai.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to turn this into a bloody LJDrama(TM)

READ: "I DO NOT DO PROGRAMMING OUTSIDE OF COMICGENESIS"

Fine, if I get hit by a truck tomorrow, I don't care. I'm not saying I like not documenting the code, but rather that's the only thing between me working on it and KeenSPOT hiring someone to do it.

[kazriko.livejournal.com]

*sigh*

Well, at least my wife's comic is no longer on Comics Genesis, so I don't need to worry about the little squabbles. :)

[4-elements.livejournal.com]

Excuse the use of the username - it's my wife's account. This is rkolter. I'm just tossing in my own .02.

Redwolf - your lack of people skills makes your arguement dangerously like a battle. You are a good admin. You need to hire a PR guy.

Kisai - Please don't go. You have been the impetus for many good things here at ComicGenesis. Saying you would not be missed if you left is about as silly as anything I've heard.

Can't the two of you agree on something simple that would help you both? The idea was mentioned earlier of a private forum for you two to post changes you are working on. Wow - fast and cool concept. Then at the very least, you know if your changes may stray into what the other person is doing. I can't see why you wouldn't beg for something like this - you both are obviously frustrated and upset specifically because you two aren't communicating.

Kisai, I know you aren't getting paid and can see your point of view, but adding your info to a forum or database would make the job you have taken on easier! RedWolf - You have a task list, but it's not updated with current statuses (or it wasn't when I last viewed it). You'd have to put the effort in too.

Anyway, the last piece of my .02 is this - ComicGenesis simply won't continue to function properly without the both of you. Or rather, it would... after a very long period of suffering. Say what you want to about it, but I (and a whole crapload of other) CGers really like it, even with its problems. Don't let your differences (professional or personal) endanger a good place to be.

Please.

[mercury-hat.livejournal.com]

I understand wanting to continue this discussion after the thread was locked, but this is not the way to do it. You took something which was a community issue and dragged it from the neutral territory of the forum to a biased one.

So instead of doing something like PMing Kisai over the issue or making a thread about it in the Admin/Wrangler area where you can further discuss it, you chose to pull it away.

You brought it here where you can present your own opinion on the situation and you still don't seem to grasp the problem. "Even though I felt it wasn't [a threat]"? Your choice of words, "I'll wait, but I don't want to get DreamHost on the line and have [site] yanked on a DMCA violation." cannot be seen as anything but threat, especially coming from someone in a position of power. You whois'd his domain which shows an even more clear intent on following through with said threat.

You say you apologized for the threat. No, it's more like you apologized for voicing your threat. Your apology is more like "I'm sorry I got caught". "I'm sorry you got upset even though I saw no reason for people to take it so seriously."

If it weren't for the fact that his like for the community and helping it outweighed his dislike for you and your actions, I wouldn't have been surprised if he had decided to disallow use of his theme entirely.

[shinedog.livejournal.com]

if kisai goes, we will all hate you even more.

[shinedog.livejournal.com]

look, the point is this.

(just for the record, i dont think kisai coding whatever comes into this or has anything to do with it)

ok, kisai didnt tell you about this - fair enough. call that bad, its entirely irrelevant to your conduct.

War was doing something, that was, unless you are a blatant fucking idiot, obviously pertaining to a future site revamp.

its WAR. hes one of THE most respected people on the forums. it doesnt take a leap of logic a mile long to figure out that hes not up to anything illicit or dubious.

the only thing that should have run through your mind was something along the lines of "oh, war is looking at redesigning the CG forums? ill have to ask about that."

not "WHAT?? WAR IS REDESIGNING THE FORUMS? THIS IS EVIL FILTH AND I SHALL THREATEN DOOM! DOOOM! I HAVE ADMIN POWER!! MUHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA!"

this is where we are all annoyed - the fact that you felt the need to take ANY kind of action against someone who has always been a part of, and always helped our community out.


It basically cemented the reputation you have as someone who, well...Just Doesnt Get It.


get it?

[strredwolf.livejournal.com]

Guess what DID go though my mind:

"Someone's doing a CG design? Check... hey, it's War. It's his domain, suprizingly enough. I should ask him about some mods and if he's going to do it for us. War? War? I better wait."

I shouldn't be suprized that everyone's taking that to mean "SUE THE HELL OUT OF WAR AT THE HAGUE!" I really shouldn't. Apparently any effort to change my reputation among folks here is going to end up tanking no matter what I do.

Texas is looking quite nice now.

[mercury-hat.livejournal.com]

What went through your mind and what you said are two clearly different things. You did not say "Let me know when he gets back, I have some suggestions for his design".

You can be as well-intentioned as you want. You can perceive the situation your way as much as you wish. However, when there is a discrepency between what you thought and what you actually said, do not blame us for not being mind readers who know what you meant to say.

[shinedog.livejournal.com]

he obviously doesnt get it ;)

[strredwolf.livejournal.com]

I do apologize for that. I should of made myself fully clear about that, and assume that noone's going to screw anyone over -- except the spammers.

[shinedog.livejournal.com]

but is this apology as hollow as the other one, which you turned into an attack on kisai?

[strredwolf.livejournal.com]

No. I am fully to blame as to what I say.

[rpin.livejournal.com]

Goddamn, you guys posting after the thread was locked is getting pretty annoying!

Take your conversation somewhere private if you really don't want the userbase to meddle in it.

[mercury-hat.livejournal.com]

I agree. I locked the thread for a very specific purpose: I didn't want people to respond to the issue. Period. Just because you have the power to reply to a locked thread does not mean you should so that you can get the last word in. Locking threads is a clear sign for "Don't reply to this anymore" whether you're a user, moderator, or admin.

[rpin.livejournal.com]

Let us just drop the subject, Merc. Kelly comes from a school of thought where administrators have the OK to threaten the normal users. Let us all pretend we live in his bizarro world where Kisai's the one to blame that he wanted to sue War over a copyright violation.

This whole LJ thing is beyond stupid. We now have a bunch of folks not knowing jack shit about what Keenspace was then and what Comic Genesis is now and accusing her of not being a good programmer.

[mercury-hat.livejournal.com]

I shouldn't have even responded here in the first place, really. Christ, I would have unlocked the thread and at least have it be a more equal yelling-field if I'd known this was the alternative.

[burgundycomics.livejournal.com]

It bothers me still that you are convinced you did nothing wrong! If users threatened to petition to the fab 4 about removing you from admin status of anything, you'd be throwing a hissy fit that we'd be threatening you. It doesn't even matter if it would go past that, or if nothing ever happened. The point is, you'd still be insulted. It's no different than threatening to contact someone's service provider to ask them to yank someone's site on something that was obviously not harmful. People can't read your tone of voice. Even if you were being Sarcastic, we can't tell. It doesn't help that you've been so trigger happy in the past either. Your reputation will always make Comicgenesis' users assume that every threat you type is a true threat.

Arguing the point anymore is actually asinine. This whole "Listen to me whine in my LJ because I'm not getting my way on the forum," only proves more that your apology was never meant to be sincere and that you never have the intention of ever making one. That's that. The subject was locked and was asked to be closed until you were sincere about apologizing for what you did wrong and I believe that will never happen. You're too selfish of a person to ever think about anyone other than yourself.