Instability and lack of communication.
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So when Keith mentioned some site features were being removed in 2016, it seems he was actually talking about himself...
<p>I really had fun when the site was in its prime, and I really hoped that we could benefit from Neopets&; issues, but fact is, we seem to have the same issues too, with lack of content and server issues. It seems like Subeta is just...very, very passive, now.</p>
<p>And this is just sad. I can&;t even have the energy to be angry anymore, it&;s not worth investing. I&;m just sad.
Just selecting the sentences that I am feeling too. Granted I wasn't an official member of subeta for 11 years because 11 years ago I was 10. I waited until I was 13 to become a part of subeta but I stalked subeta while my cousin played at my house. Subeta was the pet site everyone wanted to be a part of because it was so "mature". I waited 3 years to become a part of this site and now that I am 21 I am agreeing whole heartily with all the long time members. This site feels like it is dying. I am not angry with staff or Keith, I am just sad. I am also not investing as much because now that I'm somewhat of an adult I can actually spend my money on here. There is a lot of nostalgia for me with this site and I try to defend staff and recruit people on here but it is almost getting to the point where enough is enough. If Keith can seem like he is moving on, maybe I should too. That is how I am feeling.
There are a few things for me to respond to here.
- The server instability. We are still making changes and trying to work our way around this. We've actually increased server capacity over the past few days which I was hoping would sort of stop the bleeding from an ongoing attempt to bring our servers down. Unfortunately it just means it takes longer to bring the servers down.
I've also been investigating the logs to try and find the attack vector, which admittedly is not my greatest ability. I think I found it last night and pushed a code change (but I can't announce things like that, because if I'm right they see that I've found out and move on to something else, and if I'm wrong we get mocked and probably more attacks) that I think plugs a hole. You've probably noticed a new timer that popped up, and we've noticed some improvement there.
Unfortunately when it comes to things like our servers being under attack (and they still are, as evidence by the stupid cloudflare "under attack" still being enabled, which loses us google searches and I'd like to have turned off asap fyi) it's hard to communicate because we have to walk the line between giving information that will be useful to you, and not giving information that will be useful to attackers.
tldr; I'm making small changes based on the data that we have to hopefully decrease the downtime and the number of minutes that we're down daily. Right now attackers are using clever exploits in our code to do things like submit things a million times to lock up our servers. This is a real technical problem, and something that we need to build out to resolve for ten years down the line, but right now we're mostly applying bandaids.
- I'm a Code for America fellow! That's really awesome and is a really great opportunity for me to help people in the US have better access to social services. I'm really, really excited about this. It's a fellowship that doesn't last the whole year, and has hours that don't really make it a full time job. The first question I asked during the interview process was if people in the past (this is the 5th class of fellows) have had other jobs, and the answer was about a quarter of each year have other jobs. I'm pretty confident that I'll be able to make it work (and have already started giving smaller tasks of mine to , and ) once we get past the insanity of the first few weeks. I'm still here, I'm in our staff chat channel every day answering questions from other staff members and primarily working on servers and infrastructure. We're hiring another PHP developer (yay!) and I hope to have some news on that and other exciting design-related developments soon, but I don't want to announce anything too early.
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First of all, congratulations for the Code for America opportunity. :D
I'd hope that things are getting better, because the last six months were...honestly, not that great, in my eyes.
I'm used to see so much quality content, this site has an history of doing great, being good with lore, having great immersion, and I feel it was lacking in the second half of 2015. Is it because creative department talent is running thin? As I said earlier, I can't remember last time we got new artists! It was a while ago for sure!
I mean, I can forgive a lot of site stability issues if the site is exciting and fun! Hopefully we can go and leave 2015 behind, and move forward.
I only want to see the site do its best, and lately, I had a hard time focusing on here, because it feels...I don't know how to say it...routine? Not big bangs, but whispers, you know!
Man, I am digging myself the biggest pit today.
Thank you for addressing some of our concerns. Having this sort of communication is helpful and much appreciated. In terms of the server attacks, I get where you are coming from about announcing what you fixed or found. However is there a way to keep some line of communication open, or at least on the twitter and facebook pages at least acknowledge that you guys are aware it is still problematic for us users. Right now your two social platforms are making it seem like subeta is all rosy and it is not.
Since this summer I had this feeling like Subeta is about to close.. It feels like the Subeta Team is a little bit tired of running the site, like at any moment Keith can say "I'm leaving".. I don't know why I feel like this, this big grey cloud above the site that hinting about the end :( I hope I'm wrong, I really hope, but things needs to change.
but, I just want to point out that the best thing in 2015 came from the items admins and - thank you for communicating with us and listening to our needs! honestly, we removed a lot of items this year from our wishlists! so THANK YOU!
To be honest, I don't need an in-depth explanation about things being done to the code or anything about the site - as Keith said it's best not to reveal that information as the attackers will see - however, I would really like a simple "working on it" when something is wrong.
Honestly, when the site was down for hours yesterday and all I was getting was blank white page, I was going back and forth refreshing the subeta facebook and twitter, trying to find out if anyone on staff even acknowledged that it was happening...
When something is wrong with a site, the most comforting thing to me is seeing "we are aware of this and are working on it" rather than worrying and wondering if everyone's on break again.
Other site that I use, will have major issues lasting hours and when I finally can get back on their site, they don't say anything and act like it never happened and I'm just sitting there like ????. I always liked how Subeta took the time to explain things, but these days it's just turning into another one of those sites.
he/him / 31 / EST |  | My best friend is |
This has turned into more of the same.
Players are expressing frustration at a lack of regular communication from staff.
We get a post explaining some stuff, and reassurement that staff are communicating with each other offsite...
But the main point seems to still be missed by staff. :/
3 days, and the only staff post is from saying he has delegated responsibilities to staff members that, other than , don't post much.
I haven't noticed anything that would seem to lead to the end of the site. When I joined, not every event had a plot, not every event had loads of new items... and so, when an event happens and there is no plot, i don't find it abnormal. Rather, having a string of events with plots seems too much for me. There have been a lot of changes to the site that are awesome, but things can't always be 100% exciting. I'd get tired of always needing to be on subeta for 4 hours a day. I mean, this free shop? I remember a year were there was no free shop, so... I don't get where all the doom and gloom is coming from.
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<p>Honestly, when the site was down for hours yesterday and all I was getting was blank white page, I was going back and forth refreshing the subeta facebook and twitter, trying to find out if anyone on staff even acknowledged that it was happening...</p>
<p>When something is wrong with a site, the most comforting thing to me is seeing "we are aware of this and are working on it" rather than worrying and wondering if everyone&;s on break again.
This^
Really, the other day when the site was down a lot because of the errors just a quick twitter and facebook message (I don't have fb but I can see subeta's page) about it being worked on and then when it's back a short news post about there being ongoing attacks and the continuing work would be all I think we needed. No need for details, just for communication.
“Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.” - Benjamin Franklin
"Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the orphan." - Isaiah 10:1-2
Free Shop is nowhere in my top 25 of favorite features. It's fun, for a couple hours, and then, you look at the trainwreck on the economy.
And the items we get from the Free SHop are meaningless if the site doesn't function as it should... :/ THAT's where my doom and gloom is coming from.
you need to remember not every event is designed with you in mind. things are hit and miss. not every event appeals to me. I don't care about wearables and that's the majority of everything released. add that I don't care about stickers, plushies, beanbags, foods, and tc fodder, well there's a lot that doesn't appeal to me.
I only listed the free shop as an event that people miss when it doesn't happen. I remember people being upset that one year it didn't happen. Probably not the best choice of example, and perhaps I missed the thread of the conversation here. I meant to say that even when there aren't tons of new events and plots going on, the site still seems alive to me.
I think I should have thought back to the topic title before I added in my two cents... stability and communication are a must regardless of events or plots.
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I can agree with this to a point. I would love to see the admins as open as they use to be. They use to be on here talking about stuff all the time, making posts about updates and whatever. Keith even use to do livestreaming just to chat with users. Would definitely love to see this happening again.
Do I think Subeta is closing down soon? No, I think it's going to be around for a while yet. However I think the site really needs a recode asap to continue on (due to stability issues, coding being to old , oudated and now broken). And Sopheroo has a point with content though. Maybe opening positions for writers would help? That way artists can work with them to create even better story lines and items.
There was talk of rebuilding the site from the ground up that was starting with heavy areas of the site (like the forums). Any idea if that is still going to happen to give us a more stable site? (Outside of DDoS attacks of course!)
[kiss=blackwolf_2009] [dance=blackwolf_2009] [egg=blackwolf_2009] [TP=blackwolf_2009]
I'm sorry the content from the last year hasn't been things that you've liked. We've had more engagement and users online in the past six months than we've had in two years, and more engagement on the content that we've been posting (both in terms of actual reaction on things like news comment & forums) and time actually spent on site.
I know that it's hard to look past the last month or so of significant server issues (and the tree problem that was completely and totally our fault) or even the parts of the site that you don't like as much (there was a lot of HA content over the past year, obviously) to see that there was a lot of popular content updates.
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- perhaps you could start a brainstorming topic asking people what new content they'd like to see.
[tot=Ciannwn]
We've got a lot of suggestions and ideas threads going, and have a pretty clear idea where we want to go internally. We're going to be trying some new things as far as our internal structure goes as well to try and get content on the site in a faster and more developed/finished way (instead of many projects going on at a time) which I think will really help.
Also I wanted to talk about the broader goal of communication, which is something else that we're really trying to define a strategy on. I agree that we do need some dedicated social media people, and maybe that's something we'll start looking for on an intern/unpaid/volunteer basis soon. If you're interested drop me a sMail ;)
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I personally have loved all the things on Subeta the past year and see no decrease from years before. Thanks to everyone for their hard work. Congratulations Keith on your fellowship..it sounds exciting.
PS A little twitter or facebook message of "yeah we know there is a problem" might have been helpful.
Yeah - we wanna get better at that. I think for me the break is that like, I get a text message that the servers are down so I'm rushing to resolve the problem and usually forget to do the "I'm working on it" message because I'm trying to fix it. The staff member who texted me was on a train and couldn't update our social media at the time to reflect that we were working on it.
I think having better policy there would be much better.
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