Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?

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Parsifal

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Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #30 on: October 22, 2017, 10:24:53 AM »
The only users that seem to care are you guys.

How about the guy who made this thread?

If you'd like to discuss reunification, we'd happily give you guys your own subdomain which you'd have complete control over on the terms that you shut down your site.

That is not a discussion, that is an ultimatum. We are open to discussion, not capitulation.
I'm going to side with the white supremacists.

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Rushy

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Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #31 on: October 22, 2017, 10:25:39 AM »
You are right. I should go ahead and write the regex to remove all instances. Thanks for the suggestion!

You doubling down on poor responses to concerns brought up by your users is exactly what caused the site split in the first place.

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PizzaPlanet

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Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #32 on: October 22, 2017, 10:29:34 AM »
"We never spammed your site"
"Oh yeah, that time. Well I'd hardly call that spam."
We never spammed your site with links, as you allege. You also said you'll remove the filter when we clean up the avatars. That happened years ago. Will you be a man of your word? Excuse me while I snigger.

"We never attacked your site"
"Oh yeah, that time. Well that was my friend using my computer."
Ah, yes, the "attack" meme. You realise you guys already apologised for that one, right? Are you saying Wilmore and Daniel's apology is no longer valid?

I'm pretty sure your will to ignore basic rules reflects on you and nobody is fooled by your rhetoric when you come here. You say I could simply remind you to follow the rules, but most often when you link your site it is in a thread that is discussing that very rule. You are purposefully breaking the rules, and asking me to remove said rules while breaking them. The only users that seem to care are you guys.
You say the word "rules" a lot, but the only rule you can put this under is "advertising". Of course, we're neither a good nor a service, but hey ho, let's say it's advertising. If so, you had the option to enforce the rules as per the guidelines that your team has set. You have not done that. It would have been so easy. Why didn't you follow your own rules, John?

If you'd like to discuss reunification, we'd happily give you guys your own subdomain which you'd have complete control over on the terms that you shut down your site.
We had already agreed upon terms of reunification in great detail, and those were accepted bilaterally. You backed off. If Daniel would like to return to the negotiating table, he's welcome to do so. However, since neither you or I are Daniel, we can't do much to progress this. Of course, our site became much more robust since then, so we'd have to review some parts (for example, your non-existent merch store), but again that's for Daniel to discuss.

You are right. I should go ahead and write the regex to remove all instances. Thanks for the suggestion!
Don't forget URL-encoded characters and link shorteners. In fact, perhaps you should just ban all links, to be safe?

Thanks as always for coming here to waste my time on trivial concerns, that as you point out matter not to you or your site.
You're welcome! As always, you can easily avoid being set straight by us if you simply stop lying about past events. It's a win-win-win for everyone!
« Last Edit: October 22, 2017, 10:34:40 AM by PizzaPlanet »
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Username

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Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #33 on: October 22, 2017, 10:37:12 AM »
Oh, well darn. I thought the official rhetoric was that the site split because we couldn't maintain the software. Instead, its now because I refused to remove rules when those breaking the rules cried about them.


The only users that seem to care are you guys.

How about the guy who made this thread?

If you'd like to discuss reunification, we'd happily give you guys your own subdomain which you'd have complete control over on the terms that you shut down your site.

That is not a discussion, that is an ultimatum. We are open to discussion, not capitulation.
I'm open to reasonable amendments to my offer.

"We never spammed your site"
"Oh yeah, that time. Well I'd hardly call that spam."
We never spammed your site with links, as you allege. You also said you'll remove the filter when we clean up the avatars. That happened years ago. Will you be a man of your word? Excuse me while I snigger.

"We never attacked your site"
"Oh yeah, that time. Well that was my friend using my computer."
Ah, yes, the "attack" meme. You realise you guys already apologised for that one, right? Are you saying Wilmore and Daniel's apology is no longer valid?

I'm pretty sure your will to ignore basic rules reflects on you and nobody is fooled by your rhetoric when you come here. You say I could simply remind you to follow the rules, but most often when you link your site it is in a thread that is discussing that very rule. You are purposefully breaking the rules, and asking me to remove said rules while breaking them. The only users that seem to care are you guys.
You say the word "rules" a lot, but the only rule you can put this under is "advertising". Of course, we're neither a good nor a service, but hey ho, let's say it's advertising. If so, you had the option to enforce the rules as per the guidelines that your team has set. You have not done that. It would have been so easy.

If you'd like to discuss reunification, we'd happily give you guys your own subdomain which you'd have complete control over on the terms that you shut down your site.
We had already agreed upon terms of reunification in great detail, and those were accepted bilaterally. You backed off. If Daniel would like to return to the negotiating table, he's welcome to do so. However, since neither you or I are Daniel, we can't do much to progress this. Of course, our site became much more robust since then, so we'd have to review some parts (for example, your non-existent merch store), but again that's for Daniel to discuss.

Thanks as always for coming here to waste my time on trivial concerns, that as you point out matter not to you or your site.
You're welcome! As always, you can easily avoid being set straight by us if you simply stop lying about past events. It's a win-win-win for everyone!
Last time I discussed this with Daniel, he was no longer interested in reunification. I am the only person that is, and barely. I doubt he has the energy in him to bother with that cluster fuck again, but I'll ask him.



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Username

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Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #34 on: October 22, 2017, 10:39:39 AM »
Hey userbase, any of you planning on fracturing the society due to a word filter?


Anybody?



No?

Oh okay.

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Rushy

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Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #35 on: October 22, 2017, 10:40:33 AM »
Oh, well darn. I thought the official rhetoric was that the site split because we couldn't maintain the software. Instead, its now because I refused to remove rules when those breaking the rules cried about them.

Yes, John, you being unable to properly maintain your site is also known as a "concern". You see, we were also constantly concerned about the site's only active administrator being unable to properly decipher the English language.

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PizzaPlanet

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Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #36 on: October 22, 2017, 10:43:05 AM »
Oh, well darn. I thought the official rhetoric was that the site split because we couldn't maintain the software.
Your chronology is all over the place. It also had nothing to do with the software, it had to do with the way you, personally, chose to carry out a number of maintenance tasks, and how you, personally, chose to address discontent with how things were being done. The "google" filter happened quite a while after that, and quite a while after the avatars had been cleaned up. Your reasoning for this was always flaky, but I put it down to your notoriously bad memory.

Instead, its now because I refused to remove rules when those breaking the rules cried about them.
Au contraire, I'm asking you to enforce the rules as outlined in your rules document. It specifies exactly what actions you should have taken. If you love the rules so much, why don't you just follow them?

Last time I discussed this with Daniel, he was no longer interested in reunification.
That's fine. It's his site and his right to choose. Though it would be nice to hear it from him. Ever since you appointed yourself as First Secretary, Daniel's been awfully quiet. You haven't murdered the man, have you?

I am the only person that is, and barely.
You claim to be, but you litter your offers with shows of bad faith and you keep trying to revise history, only to follow through with an ultimatum you know nobody will even consider. And it's completely different from what you were saying on IRC just days ago. I'm willing to believe (but only just) that you'd like to find an amicable resolution, but you're approaching this in a way that makes success highly unlikely.
« Last Edit: October 22, 2017, 10:48:16 AM by PizzaPlanet »
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Parsifal

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Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #37 on: October 22, 2017, 10:52:17 AM »
I'm open to reasonable amendments to my offer.

Your offer isn't very clear to me to begin with. It seems to only very barely scratch the surface regarding the forum and homepage, and not mention anything else at all. A number of questions spring to mind immediately:

  • Do you mean for us to shut down our wiki, or would there be a separate subdomain for that?
  • Would this forum get shut down when we get our own subdomain, or would they coexist?
  • If this forum would get shut down, would we have access to the database in order to merge their post histories?
  • How would we handle our separate social media presences?
  • What kind of access would we have to post content to the homepage?
  • What kind of recourse would we have to fix technical problems with the homepage?
  • What assurances do we have that our subdomain won't get redirected elsewhere with no notice, given how regularly changes are made around here with apparently no rhyme or reason?
I'm going to side with the white supremacists.

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Username

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Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #38 on: October 22, 2017, 11:38:34 AM »
I'm open to reasonable amendments to my offer.

Your offer isn't very clear to me to begin with. It seems to only very barely scratch the surface regarding the forum and homepage, and not mention anything else at all. A number of questions spring to mind immediately:

  • Do you mean for us to shut down our wiki, or would there be a separate subdomain for that?
  • Would this forum get shut down when we get our own subdomain, or would they coexist?
  • If this forum would get shut down, would we have access to the database in order to merge their post histories?
  • How would we handle our separate social media presences?
  • What kind of access would we have to post content to the homepage?
  • What kind of recourse would we have to fix technical problems with the homepage?
  • What assurances do we have that our subdomain won't get redirected elsewhere with no notice, given how regularly changes are made around here with apparently no rhyme or reason?
Fair enough.

The wiki would need to be discussed. Our societies differ on many points of theory and much of your wiki has very controversial content to the FE community at large. I'd like to make sure this is dealt with in an appropriate way, as I've spent a lot of time interviewing and revising content to help remove this stigma. I'm fine with it being represented. UA comes to mind, and I'd like it to be openly known that this is a discounted view in many circles. Dubay is mostly to blame for this. In my work, I get a lot of shit about this on a daily basis, and I feel these differences cause a number of issues.

You are welcome to have your own wiki, but if you want it to be the Flat Earth Society's official wiki we need to come to an agreement on how we deal with this disparity. I'd like to look at you guys as a chapter of the Society, and ourselves as one as well. Our wiki will bite the dust either way.

No, our two groups will coexist, but this forum will be shifted in its usage as the new platform gets integrated to be more of a social hub. This is a long term project, so it will come when it comes. I will say I have a good amount of the backend work done to this end.

Both social media presences can co-exist. This seems pretty clean cut. We seem to be strong in the areas you are weak, and vice versa.

At first, front page will be editor access. You can post stuff as you feel the need. You guys don't really do so that often, and its always stuff I think we'd all approve of anyways. As we regain each others trust, I'm fine upping this to a wider access. The same system controls everything from cron jobs, to the forums, to the front page, so too much at first is a bit of a scary proposition.

The home page will soon be changed over to the new platform (next month is the roadmap, but since its just me its pretty fuzzy.) If you have someone that knows OO php, and is comfortable working in frameworks that are similar to laravel, I have no problem giving them access to git to fix software issues once I'm confident they won't be borking shit up and can follow standards. I will essentially have to interview them to determine competence. The system I'm creating for us is a bit complex compared to what both of us have in place, but I know you have some smart cookies in your camp that should be able to handle it. As I know open source is important to some of you, I will make this system open source.

I'm also open to giving access to the server for those types of maintenance issues. We will likely be looking at upgrading our server situation to a more modular setup, so I'm sure some of your guys expertise can come in handy. Access will be given when we start setting everything up, so you can participate in the future of the society and the technical decisions that go with that.

As far as the subdomain, we can draft a contract, if you'd like. I've found that pursuing legal action over seas is particularly hard, so I'm open to suggestion. The fact of the matter is that either of us can fuck each over in a number of ways beyond this. We are all clever folks, otherwise we wouldn't know the truth. A reasonable neutral board is a first step many organizations take in these matters, but I'm not convinced that's useful to us or even something that is possible.

Finally, and unmentioned, our side will create our brand book, and decide exactly who the flat earth society is. This includes logo, tone, colors, fonts, mission, etc. I'd like us to be unified on this front and for folks to follow the guidelines, which will be reasonable.

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Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #39 on: October 22, 2017, 11:43:18 AM »
We will also handle membership. The store is fine for you guys to control, but eventually I'd like to see this unified with the rest of the platform and society. E-commerce is last on the last of things for me to handle on the platform, so in the interim I'm fine with your cafe press or whatever you are using now a days. I'd like to see the money go into a fund we can all draw from for various activities such as membership packages, advertisements, and other things that would benefit the society.

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Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #40 on: October 22, 2017, 11:44:32 AM »
I can also write up the code and query (or provide a rest interface) for a unified post history if you'd like, without need for the database to be merged.

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Username

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Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #41 on: October 22, 2017, 11:47:52 AM »
Let me know what sounds reasonable and what doesn't and why.

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Space Cowgirl

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Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #42 on: October 22, 2017, 11:54:12 AM »
Does the other site have the same stick up their arse about this site?
Of course not. In fact, many people from this site decided to set up accounts on ours to "spam" links as well. One notable example would be SCG. We think there's nothing wrong in linking to other websites as long as it fits within the substance of a discussion. A quick search for references to theflatearthsociety.org on our forum yields some 10 pages of results (half of them about how the site is down and/or hacked)


What? I never spammed anything on your site. 

I made an acct after Junker kept asking me to. I posted a couple times in the Lounge, and then never again. If there's someone over there with the username "SCG" that isn't me. 

The only person I recall spamming links is Tom Bishop. That was right after everyone left.
I'm sorry. Am I to understand that when you have a boner you like to imagine punching the shit out of Tom Bishop? That's disgusting.

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PizzaPlanet

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Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #43 on: October 22, 2017, 12:00:08 PM »
I'd like to see the money go into a fund we can all draw from for various activities such as membership packages, advertisements, and other things that would benefit the society.
This is currently in my remit, so just to be clear: We don't make a penny on the store. All prices are Cafepress baselines with no markup for us.

What? I never spammed anything on your site. 

I made an acct after Junker kept asking me to. I posted a couple times in the Lounge, and then never again. If there's someone over there with the username "SCG" that isn't me. 
The word "spam" was deliberately put in quotes. You included a link to this site in your profile, which is not actually spam. However, that's exactly what we did here and that was supposedly bad.
hacking your precious forum as we speak 8) 8) 8)

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Space Cowgirl

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Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #44 on: October 22, 2017, 12:03:01 PM »
Oh, so just the usual dumb bullshit.
I'm sorry. Am I to understand that when you have a boner you like to imagine punching the shit out of Tom Bishop? That's disgusting.

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Username

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Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #45 on: October 22, 2017, 12:08:10 PM »

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PizzaPlanet

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Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #46 on: October 22, 2017, 12:10:43 PM »
Oh, so just the usual dumb bullshit.
Well, it's a case of "it's only bad when one side does it". So yes, the usual dumb bullshit. That would have to go away if we are to work together again.
« Last Edit: October 22, 2017, 12:13:46 PM by PizzaPlanet »
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Username

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Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #47 on: October 22, 2017, 12:14:18 PM »
I'd like to see the money go into a fund we can all draw from for various activities such as membership packages, advertisements, and other things that would benefit the society.
This is currently in my remit, so just to be clear: We don't make a penny on the store. All prices are Cafepress baselines with no markup for us.
It would be nice to have membership handle as part of the e-commerce experience. I'm fine charging our stuff at cost. I am talking with a fellow that has his own cloths line to suit this need for us. As far as when this takes affect, I'm fine with using your cafepress until membership payment is in a good place. We can talk then about whether or not we want this out of cafepress' hands or not. I suspect not due to our history with tshirts, which is understandable and fine.

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Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #48 on: October 22, 2017, 12:15:08 PM »
I would rather not fuck that other fellow over, and I see no reason why both storefronts can't exist when that road is crossed (I'd guess at least a year from now.)

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Username

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Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #49 on: October 22, 2017, 12:17:27 PM »
On a related note, I'll be talking to Parsifal regarding these matters. If you want something to be considered 'from your forum' or what not, pass it through Parisfal. Is this fine?

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PizzaPlanet

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Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #50 on: October 22, 2017, 12:37:03 PM »
I would rather not fuck that other fellow over, and I see no reason why both storefronts can't exist when that road is crossed (I'd guess at least a year from now.)
Understandable and perfectly reasonable.

On a related note, I'll be talking to Parsifal regarding these matters. If you want something to be considered 'from your forum' or what not, pass it through Parisfal. Is this fine?
I hope to stay away from any "official" negotiations for the forum. I've recused myself from administration on the other forum quite some time ago. My personal opinion is that the deal proposed would be a net negative to both sides, but I will not try to get involved with the actual decision regarding the forums.

That said, our model of operation is very different from yours. We're much more decentralised. There are a fair few things that I'm in charge of that Parsifal is not. For example, discussing social media or the storefront with Parsifal would be fruitless, since he currently doesn't even have access to it.
hacking your precious forum as we speak 8) 8) 8)

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Parsifal

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Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #51 on: October 22, 2017, 12:39:00 PM »
First of all, as I'm sure you aware, we aim to run our site democratically. It's not me you ultimately need to convince, but our members. I am telling you this because my own interest is almost exclusively in the forum and IRC, so while I'm going to try my best to speak for everyone, what I say here isn't final.

I should also make you aware that after the previous attempt went dead in the water, we put a lot of work into improving our own homepage, social media and so forth, under the assumption that reunification wasn't going to happen. It is going to be more difficult to come to an agreement now because we are in a much better position than before. Not to beat about the bush, you will likely need to make more concessions than were made in the agreement we had come to with Daniel two years ago in order for any deal to appeal to us.

The wiki would need to be discussed. Our societies differ on many points of theory and much of your wiki has very controversial content to the FE community at large. I'd like to make sure this is dealt with in an appropriate way, as I've spent a lot of time interviewing and revising content to help remove this stigma. I'm fine with it being represented. UA comes to mind, and I'd like it to be openly known that this is a discounted view in many circles. Dubay is mostly to blame for this. In my work, I get a lot of shit about this on a daily basis, and I feel these differences cause a number of issues.

You are welcome to have your own wiki, but if you want it to be the Flat Earth Society's official wiki we need to come to an agreement on how we deal with this disparity. I'd like to look at you guys as a chapter of the Society, and ourselves as one as well. Our wiki will bite the dust either way.

I personally have almost nothing to do with our wiki (that's PizzaPlanet's baby). This sounds reasonable to me in principle, provided we can come to some agreement, but I can guarantee that no reunification will happen without our wiki being preserved in some form.

No, our two groups will coexist, but this forum will be shifted in its usage as the new platform gets integrated to be more of a social hub. This is a long term project, so it will come when it comes. I will say I have a good amount of the backend work done to this end.

This doesn't sound like a good approach to me, as it will confuse new members. What purpose will dividing discussion between two communities serve? Are both going to be linked from the homepage? What will differentiate them?

Both social media presences can co-exist. This seems pretty clean cut. We seem to be strong in the areas you are weak, and vice versa.

This seems similarly confusing to new members. We'd end up with two "official" Twitter accounts, for instance. Again, are we going to link both from the homepage, or is your intent that one die off quietly?

At first, front page will be editor access. You can post stuff as you feel the need. You guys don't really do so that often, and its always stuff I think we'd all approve of anyways. As we regain each others trust, I'm fine upping this to a wider access. The same system controls everything from cron jobs, to the forums, to the front page, so too much at first is a bit of a scary proposition.

Provided we can post content to the front page when we need to, this seems reasonable to me (but again, I'm not the one normally doing so on our side).

The home page will soon be changed over to the new platform (next month is the roadmap, but since its just me its pretty fuzzy.) If you have someone that knows OO php, and is comfortable working in frameworks that are similar to laravel, I have no problem giving them access to git to fix software issues once I'm confident they won't be borking shit up and can follow standards. I will essentially have to interview them to determine competence. The system I'm creating for us is a bit complex compared to what both of us have in place, but I know you have some smart cookies in your camp that should be able to handle it. As I know open source is important to some of you, I will make this system open source.

I have no doubt that we would be up to the job, but while we're on the subject of competence, I think this works both ways. What assurances do our members have that the long-standing problems this site has had with outages, hacking events and random breakage on the homepage won't be continued from your side?

I'm also open to giving access to the server for those types of maintenance issues. We will likely be looking at upgrading our server situation to a more modular setup, so I'm sure some of your guys expertise can come in handy. Access will be given when we start setting everything up, so you can participate in the future of the society and the technical decisions that go with that.

Sounds reasonable to me, provided we can have a reasoned discussion about technical decisions.

As far as the subdomain, we can draft a contract, if you'd like. I've found that pursuing legal action over seas is particularly hard, so I'm open to suggestion. The fact of the matter is that either of us can fuck each over in a number of ways beyond this. We are all clever folks, otherwise we wouldn't know the truth. A reasonable neutral board is a first step many organizations take in these matters, but I'm not convinced that's useful to us or even something that is possible.

I'm not convinced it's true that either of us can fuck each other over. Your proposal seems to involve you holding all (or at least most) of the keys. You would control the domain registration, the DNS, this forum's database, and get to decide who gets access to make changes.

I have a feeling this point will be the biggest obstacle to reunification, since it fundamentally requires us to be able to trust each other. This thread's existence is solid evidence that we aren't there yet.

Finally, and unmentioned, our side will create our brand book, and decide exactly who the flat earth society is. This includes logo, tone, colors, fonts, mission, etc. I'd like us to be unified on this front and for folks to follow the guidelines, which will be reasonable.

I am personally okay with that, but as I previously stated, I can't speak for everyone.

We will also handle membership. The store is fine for you guys to control, but eventually I'd like to see this unified with the rest of the platform and society. E-commerce is last on the last of things for me to handle on the platform, so in the interim I'm fine with your cafe press or whatever you are using now a days. I'd like to see the money go into a fund we can all draw from for various activities such as membership packages, advertisements, and other things that would benefit the society.

SexWarrior's clarification aside, this sounds reasonable to me. We currently don't have a membership register, and you currently don't have a store, so this seems like a non-issue.

I can also write up the code and query (or provide a rest interface) for a unified post history if you'd like, without need for the database to be merged.

This sounds more complicated than merging the database, since it needs to be maintained forever more instead of being a one-time event. Why do you want to approach it in this way?
I'm going to side with the white supremacists.

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Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #52 on: October 22, 2017, 01:27:05 PM »
Never the less, those who do handle that can pass that information through Parisfal. I feel that having one point of contact would only benefit the chances of success and Parisfal seems as good and rational a point as any. You guys can discuss things on your end.

First of all, as I'm sure you aware, we aim to run our site democratically. It's not me you ultimately need to convince, but our members. I am telling you this because my own interest is almost exclusively in the forum and IRC, so while I'm going to try my best to speak for everyone, what I say here isn't final.
Of course.
Quote
I should also make you aware that after the previous attempt went dead in the water, we put a lot of work into improving our own homepage, social media and so forth, under the assumption that reunification wasn't going to happen. It is going to be more difficult to come to an agreement now because we are in a much better position than before. Not to beat about the bush, you will likely need to make more concessions than were made in the agreement we had come to with Daniel two years ago in order for any deal to appeal to us.

The wiki would need to be discussed. Our societies differ on many points of theory and much of your wiki has very controversial content to the FE community at large. I'd like to make sure this is dealt with in an appropriate way, as I've spent a lot of time interviewing and revising content to help remove this stigma. I'm fine with it being represented. UA comes to mind, and I'd like it to be openly known that this is a discounted view in many circles. Dubay is mostly to blame for this. In my work, I get a lot of shit about this on a daily basis, and I feel these differences cause a number of issues.

You are welcome to have your own wiki, but if you want it to be the Flat Earth Society's official wiki we need to come to an agreement on how we deal with this disparity. I'd like to look at you guys as a chapter of the Society, and ourselves as one as well. Our wiki will bite the dust either way.

I personally have almost nothing to do with our wiki (that's PizzaPlanet's baby). This sounds reasonable to me in principle, provided we can come to some agreement, but I can guarantee that no reunification will happen without our wiki being preserved in some form.
This is fine.
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No, our two groups will coexist, but this forum will be shifted in its usage as the new platform gets integrated to be more of a social hub. This is a long term project, so it will come when it comes. I will say I have a good amount of the backend work done to this end.

This doesn't sound like a good approach to me, as it will confuse new members. What purpose will dividing discussion between two communities serve? Are both going to be linked from the homepage? What will differentiate them?
It is less confusing than two societies. They will both be linked. I would compare it to how there are many sub forums on some sites, such as 4chan. The differentiation can be by the 'chapter' of the society, if wished, and eventually our forums will be replaced by a more 'social' sorta beast that does not use smf. This difference in the end will differentiate them. I agree it is not ideal, but I feel it is better than what we have going on now which is essentially the same problem but multiplied by an order.

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Both social media presences can co-exist. This seems pretty clean cut. We seem to be strong in the areas you are weak, and vice versa.

This seems similarly confusing to new members. We'd end up with two "official" Twitter accounts, for instance. Again, are we going to link both from the homepage, or is your intent that one die off quietly?
One die off quietly.
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At first, front page will be editor access. You can post stuff as you feel the need. You guys don't really do so that often, and its always stuff I think we'd all approve of anyways. As we regain each others trust, I'm fine upping this to a wider access. The same system controls everything from cron jobs, to the forums, to the front page, so too much at first is a bit of a scary proposition.

Provided we can post content to the front page when we need to, this seems reasonable to me (but again, I'm not the one normally doing so on our side).
Ok, will you talk to him for us then?
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The home page will soon be changed over to the new platform (next month is the roadmap, but since its just me its pretty fuzzy.) If you have someone that knows OO php, and is comfortable working in frameworks that are similar to laravel, I have no problem giving them access to git to fix software issues once I'm confident they won't be borking shit up and can follow standards. I will essentially have to interview them to determine competence. The system I'm creating for us is a bit complex compared to what both of us have in place, but I know you have some smart cookies in your camp that should be able to handle it. As I know open source is important to some of you, I will make this system open source.

I have no doubt that we would be up to the job, but while we're on the subject of competence, I think this works both ways. What assurances do our members have that the long-standing problems this site has had with outages, hacking events and random breakage on the homepage won't be continued from your side?
I believe this will be resolved by the other assurances you mentioned. You will have access to the servers and git to resolve any problems you wish.
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I'm also open to giving access to the server for those types of maintenance issues. We will likely be looking at upgrading our server situation to a more modular setup, so I'm sure some of your guys expertise can come in handy. Access will be given when we start setting everything up, so you can participate in the future of the society and the technical decisions that go with that.

Sounds reasonable to me, provided we can have a reasoned discussion about technical decisions.
Very happy to, and you will see a marked change in my demeanor when doing so.
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As far as the subdomain, we can draft a contract, if you'd like. I've found that pursuing legal action over seas is particularly hard, so I'm open to suggestion. The fact of the matter is that either of us can fuck each over in a number of ways beyond this. We are all clever folks, otherwise we wouldn't know the truth. A reasonable neutral board is a first step many organizations take in these matters, but I'm not convinced that's useful to us or even something that is possible.

I'm not convinced it's true that either of us can fuck each other over. Your proposal seems to involve you holding all (or at least most) of the keys. You would control the domain registration, the DNS, this forum's database, and get to decide who gets access to make changes.

I have a feeling this point will be the biggest obstacle to reunification, since it fundamentally requires us to be able to trust each other. This thread's existence is solid evidence that we aren't there yet.
Yeah. I assure you, you can. We can figure this out I think. A botched execution of this will be a huge burden to both of us for the foreseeable future, so trust would become a vital necessity.
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Finally, and unmentioned, our side will create our brand book, and decide exactly who the flat earth society is. This includes logo, tone, colors, fonts, mission, etc. I'd like us to be unified on this front and for folks to follow the guidelines, which will be reasonable.

I am personally okay with that, but as I previously stated, I can't speak for everyone.
Then speak with everyone!
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We will also handle membership. The store is fine for you guys to control, but eventually I'd like to see this unified with the rest of the platform and society. E-commerce is last on the last of things for me to handle on the platform, so in the interim I'm fine with your cafe press or whatever you are using now a days. I'd like to see the money go into a fund we can all draw from for various activities such as membership packages, advertisements, and other things that would benefit the society.

SexWarrior's clarification aside, this sounds reasonable to me. We currently don't have a membership register, and you currently don't have a store, so this seems like a non-issue.
Sounds good.
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I can also write up the code and query (or provide a rest interface) for a unified post history if you'd like, without need for the database to be merged.

This sounds more complicated than merging the database, since it needs to be maintained forever more instead of being a one-time event. Why do you want to approach it in this way?

I want to be able to provide to your side a unified post history as that is important to you, but means nothing to us. We don't want our forums to be merged however and our user base and moderation agrees.  This seems to be the way to do that with the least resistance, especially as we move towards the new platform.

We will be moving away from smf and decentralizing our systems, partially through use of rest interfaces. Also, the size of our database will cause several issues you may not yet be aware of. This will allow us to hide the cost and infrastructure of a real search system such as elastic or solr.

Unifying data from two sources always has a huge host of issues that come with it, and ultimately will end up destroying or mismatching data it shouldn't. The appropriate way to deal with this, imo, is to provide a service that will handle it and hide it from whomever is using the data. While you are right that one is a one time cost, it is a one time cost you can't reverse. By hiding this cost behind software, we instead are able to modify that one time cost through changes later as well as maintain our data sources integrity.

To the end user and developer, it will appear as a unified history.

If you would like to choose another person to be the point of contact, I'm happy with that too. I realize this came out of nowhere and you might not have the time you'd like to devote for it.

I do not want this to become too long drawn out or complicated in its nature. Mergers of million dollar companies happen in a shorter span than the discussions around the unification last time. The added time put in usually amounts to the point can we trust each other. The longer we talk, the less hope we have of unification. Part of why Daniel mentioned previously he was getting away from things, and Wilmore for that matter, was due to the intensive and bureaucratic (both my words) nature of the talks.

On that note, I'll try to touch base with Wilmore this week and see his thoughts on things but he wants very little to do with the forums.

Democratically, is good.

As you said, the hardest part of this merger is trusting each other.  Let's focus on that.

What would make you trust us?

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Username

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Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #53 on: October 22, 2017, 01:29:51 PM »
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If you would like to choose another person to be the point of contact, I'm happy with that too. I realize this came out of nowhere and you might not have the time you'd like to devote for it.
As long as its not Thork or PP. I have nothing against either, but I don't see those conversations leading to fruit.

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Twerp

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Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #54 on: October 22, 2017, 01:37:19 PM »
Sometimes I want to write here the society's name in short, so I write the acronym, but it becomes google.
Why is that?

If this thread leads to a merger of some sort, I propose that AFanOfTruth be given a free t-shirt and a coffee mug in recognition of having started it all.
« Last Edit: October 22, 2017, 01:44:37 PM by Boots »
“Heaven is being governed by Devil nowadays..” - Wise

Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #55 on: October 22, 2017, 01:38:53 PM »
Let me know what sounds reasonable and what doesn't and why.

I propose a motion that Parsifal is not allowed to use "smugatars" if reunification goes ahead (e.g. his current avatar).
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Crouton

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Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #56 on: October 22, 2017, 01:41:23 PM »
Sometimes I want to write here the society's name in short, so I write the acronym, but it becomes google.
Why is that?

If this thread leads to a merger of some sort, I propose that AFanOfTruth be given a free t-shirt and a coffee mug in recognition of having started it.

And if this merger goes poorly I suggest that we regard AFanOfTruth as a worse version of Adolf Hitler.
Intelligentia et magnanimitas vincvnt violentiam et desperationem.
The truth behind NASA's budget

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Username

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Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #57 on: October 22, 2017, 01:42:46 PM »
I will personally pay for a box of shirts for folks.

Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #58 on: October 22, 2017, 01:54:17 PM »
I will personally pay for a box of shirts for folks.

I want a shirt please.
Founder member of the League Of Scientific Gentlemen and Mademoiselles des Connaissances.
I am pompous, self-righteous, thin skinned, and smug.

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Parsifal

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Re: Why does The Flat Earth Society acronym become "google"?
« Reply #59 on: October 22, 2017, 01:56:47 PM »
John, thanks for your reply. I've read through it but am also drunk at the moment, so I'll reply once I'm less drunk.
I'm going to side with the white supremacists.