Questionable Gratification
Greetings, crickets and trolls. Welcome to another edition of the Friday Q&A, your source for Fark-based rumor and innuendo. I'm glad you joined me again, even if your compulsion to do so is rooted in some kind of severe mental imbalance. The more the merrier! This week, I'll be taking a look at an exciting new addition to our community, which many of us have been requesting for years.
Q: They're going to start paying us!?
A: Unfortunately not. The economy is still in the crapper, remember? We'll be lucky if Drew doesn't sell the site to pay his gambling debts. I'm referring to a feature that incorporates a bit of the Leaderboard's functionality into Fark itself. This newly-minted Contest Browser seems quite similar to what many of us have been requesting.
Q: What purpose will this new feature serve?
A: It remains to be seen how the community will make use of this new feature. Photoshoppers will no doubt use it to keep track of which threads have hit the main page. I'm also hoping the browser will serve to draw more viewers into the contests. I'll be monitoring the stats to see if there's any impact.
Q: Why can't we just use the Leaderboard?
A: It's important for Fark itself to do the jobs that various satellites like the Scrutinizer and Leaderboard have been forced to perform. These sites, no matter how well-built, are inexorably tied to their creators. The whole thing falls apart when that person walks away. We've seen it happen several times already, and there's no reason to think the Leaderboard is immune. These changes are necessary to prevent another Dark Age of Photoshop like the one we experienced last year.
That's all for this time, gentle reader. Thanks again for stopping by. I'd like to offer my sincere apologies to TheSniperZERO, whose scheduled mockery was cut from this edition in favor of actual news. I sure hope nothing happens next week, because I can't wait to get back to annoying TSZ.
Stay tuned for more planned aggravation from the Doctor!
Friday, February 4, 2011
Friday Q&A
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2 comments:
The Doctor said:
"These sites, no matter how well-built, are inexorably tied to their creators. The whole thing falls apart when that person walks away. We've seen it happen several times already, and there's no reason to think the Leaderboard is immune."
While I'm sure some folk would like me to go away, ain't gonna happen. In December I renewed the domain for 3 years; this week I'll be doing the same with my web host. I put my $$ behind my words. Should I "go", dsclink takes over. We are both committed to keeping and growing MisfitSquirrels. The site has already been around 1 year so tag on 3 more - that's longer than Mr Squirrel's Scrutinizer Forums. The Leaderboard will have a home on MS as long as HoboSong wants it there.
I'm not just hosting the Leaderboard either; I'm in classes now to beef up my PHP & MySQL skills to be an true back-up. Our goal is for me to write the queries to deliver the Percentage group stats currently missing. I can write SQL in my sleep, but I like to understand what I'm doing and I've been a Windows monkey most of my career.
While helping HoboSong tailor his app for MS, I contacted Drew and told him what we were doing and why. Fark is a business; Drew is a businessman and I pitched the "Leaderboard" as an investment - on or off his site. So now we have the Fark Contest Browser & Top Photoshoppers page. ALL of these pieces form a complete set that makes sense: the more general tools (for a general audience) are on Fark; the detailed group and individual stats (more useful to hardcore choppers) are on MisfitSquirrels, a site tailored to hardcore choppers. And it makes business sense too: Drew gets the Fark name on another site and MisfitSquirrels benefits from increased traffic.
So I helped coordinate these developments, but the reality is, had HoboSong not stepped up to do the actual development, we would still be in the Dark Age. We all owe him a lot and my commitment is to make sure his app has a home whether I'm here or not.
i-dig
You should email me from time to time so you don't have to rely on speculation. Just a thought...
That's good to hear i-dig. You and Hobosong have done a lot for our community. I'm glad you lined up dsclink as a replacement, but don't go rushing off any time soon.
You definitely did the right thing by bringing in Drew. That, along with the cooperation between you and the other Misfit Squirrels, will ensure the Leaderboard has a much more robust lifespan than the previous archive sites.
You should email me from time to time so you don't have to rely on speculation. Just a thought...
A blog that doesn't rely on speculation and occasional outright falsehood? What's the fun in that? Anyway, thanks for setting the record straight.
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