Thanks, as you know, the scoreboard is at the center. my final breaking point was when "upgrades" made it imposible to adjudicate. please make it a priority to revert all programming changes made to the adjudication interface across the last year. i have completley stopped adjudicating for months. but if the interface was reverted, coupled with the hope your return brings, i know i'd start adjudicating again.

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Originally Posted by Snowflake

Thanks, as you know, the scoreboard is at the center. my final breaking point was when "upgrades" made it imposible to adjudicate. please make it a priority to revert all programming changes made to the adjudication interface across the last year. i have completley stopped adjudicating for months. but if the interface was reverted, coupled with the hope your return brings, i know i'd start adjudicating again.

Please explain the specific issue to me exactly so I understand why it is "impossible" for you to adjudicate.

well the truly impossible issues i suppose have been removed. so perhaps i'm overstating, but the terrible layout makes it uglier to go through. i'd say the two current biggest issues for me are

1. the thumbs up/thubs down
1a. when you vote, it looks like you didnt vote, then when you vote a second time it says you already voted making you think the second vote was unnecassily. this leads you to next time only vote once thinking thats enough, only to later find out the first vote really doesnt count, and you do in fact have to vote twice
1b. thumbs up/down isnt very intuitive, especially in disputes. does thumbs up mean the score is good and should stay? or the dispute is good and the score should go?

2. the matrix layout. a list was far better. if this is just my opinion my fine, but if i'm gonna vote on many things as well as abstain on many things, i need to know what i already voted on. the old list layout made it clear what i i did and didnt vote on.

or in short, just revert everything that was done in your abscence. all we got was downgrades. its been hell here

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I appreciate the post Jace, and as one of the negative instigators, I will take a step back from my part in it.

I've mentioned this in a few places, but will mention it here. I feel like the certificates are one of the most immediate things that has to be dealt with. Money has been taken from TG members and the certificates have not been fulfilled. Please figure out the problem and rectify the situation and stop accepting money for certificates until a foolproof and transparent (for the certificate purchaser) process has been instituted.

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Originally Posted by Blackflag82

I appreciate the post Jace, and as one of the negative instigators, I will take a step back from my part in it.

I've mentioned this in a few places, but will mention it here. I feel like the certificates are one of the most immediate things that has to be dealt with. Money has been taken from TG members and the certificates have not been fulfilled. Please figure out the problem and rectify the situation and stop accepting money for certificates until a foolproof and transparent (for the certificate purchaser) process has been instituted.

All the certificates that are supposed to go out, are going out now. We moved offices and that caused an unexpected delay and disruption of process. There will be no new certificates issued going forward until we get the new system in place. I do not know when that will be, but when they become available again it will be announced.

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Originally Posted by Snowflake

well the truly impossible issues i suppose have been removed. so perhaps i'm overstating, but the terrible layout makes it uglier to go through. i'd say the two current biggest issues for me are

1. the thumbs up/thubs down
1a. when you vote, it looks like you didnt vote, then when you vote a second time it says you already voted making you think the second vote was unnecassily. this leads you to next time only vote once thinking thats enough, only to later find out the first vote really doesnt count, and you do in fact have to vote twice
1b. thumbs up/down isnt very intuitive, especially in disputes. does thumbs up mean the score is good and should stay? or the dispute is good and the score should go?

2. the matrix layout. a list was far better. if this is just my opinion my fine, but if i'm gonna vote on many things as well as abstain on many things, i need to know what i already voted on. the old list layout made it clear what i i did and didnt vote on.

or in short, just revert everything that was done in your abscence. all we got was downgrades. its been hell here

I will look into this. We will likely not "revert" but from what you describe it sounds like the problem can definitely be addressed to satisfaction.

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i'd also like you to consider unbanning glen updike ninglendo. He brought to our attention that TG was doxing us, making our personal info public. Not only were we never informed of this official like was tg's ethical responsibility, but when glen spoke up about it dave quickly silenced him. its a shame that the person trying to help tg so much got banned. more effort went into hiding problems than fixing problems.

glen used to run a "live adjudications" stream that encouraged others to adjudicate. it not only helped clear the queu and help the scoreboard but it was also fun and made a social atmosphere. side note -- theres less toxicity when everyone likes each other, and glen made an environment where peole made friends with each other

its a real shame hes banned just cause dave wanted to cover up the doxing

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One of my recommendations would be to delete everything out of New Track Marketplace that has clearly been abandoned by OP.

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The issue that started my whole descent into constant anger was the Track Creation and how it was offered to make tracks without SP cost. Now I 100% agree we can't just allow everyone to make free tracks, I still believe there should be some folks in charge of track creation and accept requests without costing the member any sp.

Yes I do believe I would be perfect for this, shoot me. At least I want to and it will be something for me to focus and could be great for this site.

Now I know that could never be a thing, I do have a request to clean up how Derivatives are made. Right now, it is just a drop down menu and you have to guess at which tracks are what and what system they could be for because it just has the track name. It's a mess.

I know I've been on a tear lately and I still feel most of it needed to be said. You can hold me accountable, I understand my own faults but this is something I've been more passionate that almost anything else in my life beyond my wife and family... and actually collecting games.

Please, I'm open and willing to talk more one on one with track creation whenever we both have time. I just really want this one thing from tg and that is to document any every game that I have the power to do so.

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Originally Posted by Snowflake

i'd also like you to consider unbanning glen updike ninglendo. He brought to our attention that TG was doxing us, making our personal info public. Not only were we never informed of this official like was tg's ethical responsibility, but when glen spoke up about it dave quickly silenced him. its a shame that the person trying to help tg so much got banned. more effort went into hiding problems than fixing problems.

glen used to run a "live adjudications" stream that encouraged others to adjudicate. it not only helped clear the queu and help the scoreboard but it was also fun and made a social atmosphere. side note -- theres less toxicity when everyone likes each other, and glen made an environment where peole made friends with each other

its a real shame hes banned just cause dave wanted to cover up the doxing

I will certainly consider your request, however the story you discuss regarding "doxxing" is not accurate. My understanding of the abbreviated narrative is that there was an early beta version of the mobile app that glenn received for testing as part of admin that allowed him to see some profile data. We know exactly what staff downloaded that beta version of the app and what the level of access was, and there was zero exposure of data outside of TG paid people (which Glenn was at the time) - unless Glenn or other administrative staff deliberately and in violation of their agreements showed that limited data to others (which is a different type of issue.)

While it was unusual for Glenn to have that access for that moment, there was nothing ethically improper with his exposure as a member of TG administrative effort at that time. The point of his access to the app was of course to test it and identify problems.

Glen, who was not aware and had no way of knowing that the app version that he downloaded was only downloaded by a small number of TG staff at that time of his discovery, raised a concern that he believed to be public issue that in reality was not actually public issue yet. Again, that version of the app was not downloaded by the public in any way, and certainly that version of the app, if you happen to somehow have it, does not display anyones personal data now.

Obviously the issue was fixed before the actual app was downloaded by the public.

Regarding Glen's specific ban, I am not aware of the actual thing that resulted in that decision. My last understanding in his regard was that while he was being paid by TG there was some important google document that he started on behalf of TG, that many people in the TG Staff contributed hard work into, that he removed or deleted upon his exit for some reason.

The last I heard was that Dave was asking Glen to put that document back, as it belonged to TG and was for the benefit of the database/community and that Glen was unresponsive to the request. This was quite a while ago.

I haven't been that close to the situation and I dont know if it ever resolved or if Glen's ban has anything to do with that.

That' all I know off the top of my head. I may be missing information.

Regardless, I would consider unbanning Glen, assuming all the various issues have been addressed. Maybe they already are, I don't know.

Originally Posted by Desidious

The issue that started my whole descent into constant anger was the Track Creation and how it was offered to make tracks without SP cost. Now I 100% agree we can't just allow everyone to make free tracks, I still believe there should be some folks in charge of track creation and accept requests without costing the member any sp.

Yes I do believe I would be perfect for this, shoot me. At least I want to and it will be something for me to focus and could be great for this site.

Now I know that could never be a thing, I do have a request to clean up how Derivatives are made. Right now, it is just a drop down menu and you have to guess at which tracks are what and what system they could be for because it just has the track name. It's a mess.

I know I've been on a tear lately and I still feel most of it needed to be said. You can hold me accountable, I understand my own faults but this is something I've been more passionate that almost anything else in my life beyond my wife and family... and actually collecting games.

Please, I'm open and willing to talk more one on one with track creation whenever we both have time. I just really want this one thing from tg and that is to document any every game that I have the power to do so.

Ok I will consider it. Let me think about how it would be possible.

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Tossing out my thoughts here...

First, around fixing issues with the website - I had started a list of known bugs on the wiki, available at https://www.twingalaxies.com/wiki_index.php?title=List-of-Known-Website-Bugs. This isn't meant to say anything about priority, just that these are issues that have been affecting the site for a while, and it never felt like any of these issues were being addressed even after they were brought up. This is an example of one more reason things felt neglected.

Now, you point out the toxicity on the site. I've seen discussions regarding other sites in the past that can be summed up as "familiarity breeds contempt". Essentially, it's at least partially the result of having a small user base of which many people have been around a while. Things build up over time, and it's the same group of people interacting for the most part. Sure, things feeling less neglected will help increase positivity, and moderation action will help stop the worst too, but I think there's another key piece here.

It's that small user base with not a lot of change. I'd like to offer two suggestions here. Initially, I'd say that there needs to be some effort spent on re-evaluating and improving the experience for new users to TG. Not just the details of signing up for the site (such as the verification issues that show up from time to time), but the "onboarding" - where new users are presented with information on how to interact with the site, how to submit, and what's expected, along with methods to get them involved and interested.

I'm not sure exactly what that means. I'd suggest improved guides to using the site (maybe the wiki new user's guide, maybe something else), perhaps more free submissions before requiring any points, then slowly raise it up after they start getting some accepted, and so on. Also some process to get feedback from new users about what worked well for them and what didn't. But make it easy and welcoming - right now, it's more a hurdle than a welcome mat.

Then once that's cleaned up, I'd suggest more ways to reach out to the gaming community. I'm sure you're already working on this, there's no question it's hard - but it at least looks like there are things not being utilized well. Twin Galaxies' twitter is nothing more than links to the news stories - what if there were great clips of video from some submissions that people could share? I suspect those of us still on here would promote TG through social media if there were things to promote. We're a resource waiting to help if given the means to do so.

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oh right how could i have forgotten, by way of tracks, the reach out to speed run. I repeatedly -- i mean more than 4 times when i eventually lost count, asked to unlock/import whatever the speedrun track for intellivision dungeons and dragons treasure of tarmin https://www.speedrun.com/adanddtot/full_game#Hard . yes i got permissoin from the track creator there, tagged him in the posts (im not gonna waste his time tagging him again) and he verified we had permission. yet no movement from the tg side, not even so much as an acknowledgement of the request.

And one other small thing... I'm sure that you'd find lots of us here willing to help with various tasks if possible. Not as in employees, but willing to update images, clean up typos, or whatever. I know that actually having a mechanism to manage access for users to do those sorts of things isn't free, along with tracking and managing changes in case someone abuses their trust. But I just want to toss the idea out there about bringing in members of the community to help a bit more when it makes sense.

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someting half way between appointd referree and tgsap style democracy might work. something like a republic. vote for, well, as timmell would say a commisioner

I'll use gibgirl as an example, though i greatly disagree with her on what should be tracked, i would vote to give her the authority to add tracks for free. its precisely because she is so stringent (in my opinion more so than needed) that i dont think we'd have to worry about her going to far. as for the other direction, valid tracks she wont make for free, well the current pay to create system will fill in that gap. anyone who feels so passionately about the few tracks not made for free should be willing to pay up

i personally would be willing to do some testing and could report on bugs before they're released. I've worked with patient data for crying out loud, i can keep secrets of what i see, especially on a test site. granted, for free i'd only put in enough time to catch the most glaring bugs -- but that would make a big difference. for pay, i'd put in signficantly more time

theres no shortage of people willing to run tournaments just to help

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Originally Posted by Jace Hall

I will certainly consider your request, however the story you discuss regarding "doxxing" is not accurate. My understanding of the abbreviated narrative is that there was an early beta version of the mobile app that glenn received for testing as part of admin that allowed him to see some profile data. We know exactly what staff downloaded that beta version of the app and what the level of access was, and there was zero exposure of data outside of TG paid people (which Glenn was at the time) - unless Glenn or other administrative staff deliberately and in violation of their agreements showed that limited data to others (which is a different type of issue.)

While it was unusual for Glenn to have that access for that moment, there was nothing ethically improper with his exposure as a member of TG administrative effort at that time. The point of his access to the app was of course to test it and identify problems.

Glen, who was not aware and had no way of knowing that the app version that he downloaded was only downloaded by a small number of TG staff at that time of his discovery, raised a concern that he believed to be public issue that in reality was not actually public issue yet. Again, that version of the app was not downloaded by the public in any way, and certainly that version of the app, if you happen to somehow have it, does not display anyones personal data now.

Obviously the issue was fixed before the actual app was downloaded by the public.

Regarding Glen's specific ban, I am not aware of the actual thing that resulted in that decision. My last understanding in his regard was that while he was being paid by TG there was some important google document that he started on behalf of TG, that many people in the TG Staff contributed hard work into, that he removed or deleted upon his exit for some reason.

The last I heard was that Dave was asking Glen to put that document back, as it belonged to TG and was for the benefit of the database/community and that Glen was unresponsive to the request. This was quite a while ago.

I haven't been that close to the situation and I dont know if it ever resolved or if Glen's ban has anything to do with that.

That' all I know off the top of my head. I may be missing information.

Regardless, I would consider unbanning Glen, assuming all the various issues have been addressed. Maybe they already are, I don't know.

thank you obviously my comments were based on the pubilc discussion i saw and with no denials at all or explanatoins like you just gave you can see why i believed glens version. at first all that was asked for was a confirmation or denial and we couldnt even get that. i certainly didnt just take glens word for it at first, but refual to deny nor confirm followed by his ban sure gave that appearance.


thank you taking the time to explain the situation

The last couple of days was a giant bitchfest. Many of us took part, posting memes or sarcastic comments. We took shots at each other and blew off steam.

I take full responsibility for my toxic behaviour. I removed my entire blog post. I can't guarantee to be completely drama free of course. But I do promise to be much more positive with my posts.

I offer my apologies to those I offended or hurt.

I believe that more frequent messages from the folks in charge would go a long way to counter-act or even avoid the rumblings of the "inmates" as one legendary member likes to describe us. I did not realize Dave was still sick and in such pain. I don't think anyone would begrudge him from taking time away from the site. I just wish we knew before hand.

The people who have stuck through everything over the past X years with TG are a special group. We are here because we believe, and we want to help. Please let us do that.

Welcome back Jace. We hard core types really miss you when you are gone.

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@Jace Hall. Please review the thread and address this...Currently my #1 pet peeve right now. It deserves, at minimal, a response from you. Thanks.

https://www.twingalaxies.com/marcade/wall/6708/petition-for-the-pinball-platform-to-count-in-the-overall-wr-and-esi-member-leaderboard-tally

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I would love to see Glen Updike welcomed back to Twin Galaxies. If anyone should be labelled legendary member, it should be him. His knowledge of games, his massive collections, his willingness to promote community spirit, all these things should be embraced.

I was banned for a week without being told why. It was quite painful actually, as I was just heading out to California and I wanted to share my road trip (Marc and I travelled from Las Vegas to Banning together, great time!). Thanks to poor testing of the App, I was still able to post -- which I did in as comical a way as I could.

Please unban Glen. Put the the past behind us. Water under the bridge. Forge new connections. Onwards and upwards. Kindness and Co-operation. The beat goes on.

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Glen will be addressing his ban, and the allegations made against him tonight on his stream. He wants to clear his name.

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