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Messages - Arantor
5611
Other software / Re: Once upon a time...
« on November 2nd, 2011, 04:18 PM »
I didn't know that at the time, and neither did he. Remember, it was 18+ months ago I did the handover, as it was somewhere around the time of RC3.
5612
Features / Extending the postbit/poster info
« on November 2nd, 2011, 04:13 PM »
This is something that's been bugging me for a while. The user area of a given poster is not exactly customisable. Yes, you can style it, but you can't reorder it or add new items into it at present.

Part of me thinks we could get around it by having a list of items that pertains to the given user and then having a list of what would amount to subsubtemplates to render the content, but that feels hackish. To be fair though, so does any of the other methods I've thought about since template-skeleton doesn't quite cover the case here (though I have little doubt it could be made to do so)
5613
Other software / Re: Once upon a time...
« on November 2nd, 2011, 04:09 PM »
Robbo_ took the mod over from me a long time ago along with a lot of my other mods.
5614
Plugins / Plugins I refuse to do
« on November 2nd, 2011, 04:08 PM »
Right, I've been asked (here privately, and elsewhere) about a few plugins that apparently Wedge 'must have', and instead of answering the requests individually, I thought I'd collect them here.

NOTE: I am not preventing anyone from writing them. Just that I will not write them for Wedge and no amount of bribery or anything else for that matter will convince me.


Hide mod

This is apparently one of the most 'important' mods. The notion that hiding some content away from users until they post is a good way to get their attention and get them posting.

Yes, it generates posts. It generates stupid one line posts where people make the post solely to see the content, and invariably don't even bother replying afterwards to *actually* contribute something meaningful. You turn the problem of lack of participation into a problem of crap participation. I'm not going to condone or encourage it.

Look but no read

This is to allow guests to see into a board and see the names of topics but not let them into the topics themselves. Apparently this is a good incentive. Oh, it's an incentive alright, to discourage search engines from visiting your site - if a search engine visits, they're only going to see what guests see. And if you fudge it for search engines, apart from the fact you just gave users a reason not to sign up, search engines have been known to send out requests that don't identify themselves as search engines, and if the content is different, you can be penalised.

Stop Forum Spam

Although it's gotten better in recent times, it's still somewhat unreliable as far as submitting data goes, and it's still too easy to get unvalidated "I just thought it was a spammer" entries in there. There are better methods of keeping spammers out, it just requires a little more effort on the admin's part (like spending 30 seconds writing a question and answer)

WordPress bridge

Seriously, why would we do this? We have blog support built in...


There may be more, but that's it for now at least.
5615
Other software / Re: So, SMF has declared the cold war...
« on November 2nd, 2011, 02:31 PM »
It would also be worth throwing out builds of some kind for Aeva Media (both strands) simply to help minimise the problem; it's not just Aeva Lite that does auto updates.

:edit: Failing that, how much work is it to disable the auto-update? It might be worth offering a small package that just modifies Aeva itself to disable it (for those who don't want to update anything else)


Also, this makes me consider, very carefully, the viability of having Wedge look up daily for updates to plugins and whether my plans need changing.
5616
Off-topic / Re: Post count fever
« on November 2nd, 2011, 02:28 PM »
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I'm taking this final trophy with a smile, and hoping I can reach 10.000 posts before Pete does 20k
Aw, them's fightin' words!
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Thanks to my sponsor, SpamCorp International, for their technical and logistical help in reaching this milestone.
Wait, you had a sponsor? Shit, I knew there was something I was missing.
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Thanks to Pete for having a slow year up until last last month, I could never have done it without him.
Actually, slow year or not, a lot of our posts come out of discussing things with each other ;)
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Thanks to my girlfriend, as each of these 7500 posts represents several minutes away from her.
Yes, my other half understands this too :P
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Thanks to you readers, for reading at least 10% of these posts. It means a lot to me.
I read every one, quite often more than once.
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Thank you very much. I'll be here all week.
What about next week? ;)
5617
Other software / Re: So, SMF has declared the cold war...
« on November 2nd, 2011, 02:12 PM »
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It's not sad, it's logical.
Even when there is a version that has bug fixes and so on, people still don't move. That's why there are so many forums still with older 2.0 RCs on them for example (including more than one of mine)
5618
Other software / Re: So, SMF has declared the cold war...
« on November 2nd, 2011, 01:59 PM »
The sad part is a large proportion of people still won't update, after all as far as they're concerned, it isn't broken. But I guess you've done all you can really do with it...
5619
Off-topic / Re: Introduction
« on November 2nd, 2011, 10:14 AM »
Hi :)
5620
Other software / Re: So, SMF has declared the cold war...
« on November 2nd, 2011, 01:25 AM »
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I wasn't concerned how it looked to anyone but Nao. lol
The real question is whether anyone notices and posts about it outside of here. Here, it's something of an old wound, but on sm.org for example I remember the fun last summer when it was removed and people were asking where it went.

But if it's now a user agent ban rather than a full on ban, there's no user backlash from asking where it went, which is better for everyone, really.
5621
Other software / Re: So, SMF has declared the cold war...
« on November 2nd, 2011, 01:16 AM »
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please don't read more into what I have already said
Well, I certainly couldn't read anything into it other than what was said but it looked as described, removal due to hammering. The part I wasn't sure of was whether there had been any communication and whether it was implied/stated/unclear as to whether this was a temporary or permanent measure.

And as stated, even if Aeva is updated to remove the code, any pre-existing installs won't be updated because mod users are notorious for not updating things.


As for the CLA issue, I would bear it in mind that it is a bit dangerously worded and even though there is a clause at the top which says that SM agrees not to use anything that is against the spirit of the licence and agreement, just be mindful that if it is deemed in the spirit of benefitting SM, it can be done. I'm not saying it will, just that it could. And while you personally might not, others might.
5622
Other software / Re: So, SMF has declared the cold war...
« on November 2nd, 2011, 12:25 AM »
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That cla was too unclear anyway. What is a contribution. And I don't consider it retroactive anyway. That would stand in court I reckon.
It's not unclear, a contribution is defined, and it is retroactive, and I think it will stand in court - by their definitions, too.

Let me quote the relevant points.
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You accept and agree to the following terms and conditions for Your
present and future Contributions submitted to Simple Machines
There's your retroactive definition covered - it's a licence for *present* as in already given, as well as future, contributions.
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"Contribution" shall mean any original work of authorship,
   including any modifications or additions to an existing work, that
   is intentionally submitted by You to Simple Machines for inclusion
   in, or documentation of, any of the products owned or managed by
   Simple Machines (the "Work"). For the purposes of this definition,
   "submitted" means any form of electronic, verbal, or written
   communication sent to Simple Machines or its representatives,
   including but not limited to communication on electronic mailing
   lists, source code control systems, and issue tracking systems that
   are managed by, or on behalf of, Simple Machines for the purpose of
   discussing and improving the Work, but excluding communication that
   is conspicuously marked or otherwise designated in writing by You
   as "Not a Contribution."
A post is legally an original work of authorship, as is a mod (and Aeva certainly fits both original work of authorship, plus a modification to an existing work, i.e. SMF)

The mod licence covers how 'inclusion in' works with respect to dev rights over mods, and your posts are covered under 'documentation of' the products.

Submission being electronic communication on electronic mailing lists (which includes a forum), source code control systems (anything you put in SVN, even if it was reverted), and issue tracking systems (any bug report). Note that it is including but *not limited to* these things, and that can be stretched without too much effort to include anything you ever posted including Aeva on sm.org.
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but excluding communication that
   is conspicuously marked or otherwise designated in writing by You
   as "Not a Contribution."
Here's where the get-out clause would be, except that I don't think you can 'take it back' once submitted, unless it was defined as 'not a contribution' at the time of posting, or at the point of signing the CLA. I had to make it clear on arantormods for example that none of the mods published were to be considered Contributions just to cover myself.
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Grant of Copyright License. Subject to the terms and conditions of
   this Agreement, You hereby grant to Simple Machines and to
   recipients of software distributed by Simple Machines a perpetual,
   worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable
   copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of,
   publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute Your
   Contributions and such derivative works.
And there's where the hammer comes down. Once they have right to it, that's it, game over.
5623
Other software / Re: So, SMF has declared the cold war...
« on November 1st, 2011, 11:55 PM »
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Pete, ichbin told me to fix aeme to remove the fetch code. I said I thought it was done earlier buy I probably only did it for Aeva lite. I said I might look into it but that even if I fixed it, earlier installs would still fetch the page so I suggested to change the mod page id in the database for an immediate result and just block any direct requests to the original mod page. I only suggested that.
That's what they've done. If I head to the relevant page, I get an empty response, rather than any other kind of failure; the connection is simply dropped, no page served, which is implementing your suggestion to the letter.
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The sad thing is that I just didn't l care about AeMe for smf. Meaning that whether it was online or not didn't matter to me.
What I disapprove is that this was done without my express consent.
*nods* I understand that.
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The point is that I own the files. I worked on it for two f'king years. I think I've had enough influence over Smf's success to have a say here.
Sadly, that's not how it works. The minute you signed the CLA, a surprising number of rights were considered to have been granted. Technically, they have a licence to embed it into SMF if they so chose... (seriously, read the old SMF licence and in particular the terms of distributing modifications) but that's not going to happen, not because they can or can't, but because they won't.
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I left the file online because I was cool with the smf team. My original plans were to delete AeMe for smf entirely so I wouldn't have to deal with supporting it. I cut the problem in two and left the file to show everything was cool.
It didn't quite work like that from where I'm standing, but ultimately this has to come down to you and them; it's your work after all, and their... creative... ways of rewarding you for it.
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Anyway. This post wasn't to rekindle my 'flame' with smf. Just meant to say I didn't approve of this move and thus I'm off the site and don't want to be associated with it any longer. Including contributions.
You don't get off that lightly, just as I didn't. The CLA is a surprisingly big stick they have to wield should they need to, but at the time we both signed them, I at least never dreamed it would come to where it eventually did, where it is used to hold work hostage. (Yes, there's no other word for it; when they removed my ability to delete my own posts, that was effectively keeping my work hostage without any ability for me to have a meaningful say in how it's used. It burned, but it's no longer my problem.)
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As for my posts --- they're nothing compared to yours. Most of my posts were about Aeva media so it wouldn't be a huge loss anyway.
A lot of mine weren't really that meaningful either, when it came down to it. A lot of them were just asking people the same questions over and over and over again.
5624
Other software / Re: So, SMF has declared the cold war...
« on November 1st, 2011, 11:40 PM »
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The official reason is that it's too taxing on their server. So much for encouraging people to develop successful mods eh...
It's not a deletion, per se, I just checked. It's actually a change to the mod site code to physically lock out access. Bearing in mind that they have had a DDOS and a server rebuild (including, apparently, moving 599GB of data between servers[1]) so I can see some validity in their argument - did they tell you they were doing it?

Given the circumstances I'd probably give them a little slack though if they told you that's what they were doing and that the removal isn't just a temporary thing, then I'd be pretty frustrated too. I don't know any more about this than you've posted here, so I have no idea whether it is permanent or temporary, or what the state of play is with them. I did have a reasonably civil conversation with Antechinus in the last couple of days, so I actually thought relations were tenuous but not hostile.
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So basically -- I don't see any point in having any of my mods on their website. I'm hereby requesting the deletion of all my mods and their associated topics.
That would be a waste of time, because while you can remove the mods yourself, they'll only go as far as locking the mod topics, they won't remove the posts because they will claim that your signing the CLA covers their use. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt, cried into my beer afterwards.
 1. What the fucking hell are they using 599GB of data for?
5625
Off-topic / Re: Post count fever
« on November 1st, 2011, 09:29 PM »
Is that a dare or a request?

Incidentally, sm.org has a script to see posts per day to see who's been active and how active.