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With this post, Daveh finally announces his long-term strategy for UESP. I'll save you the reading: basically, he wants you all to write pages so that he can spend time watching TV and playing video games.
In a TL;DR post, the salient point is embedded at number 7 of 8 and means that UESP's revenues would be used to pay Daveh to do the stuff he should have done months ago if he wanted to keep any kind of credibility.
The fact is that a permanent staff member was discussed years ago between Nephele and rpeh and they agreed (yes, they used to agree) that the post would end up being a kind of super admin and that while they both kind of wanted the role there were too many problems around it.
Daveh, typically, bypassed any sort of discussion.
The fact is that Daveh isn't interested in the community. He's bored with his job and wants to spend hs time profitting from YOUR contributions to UESP to make a living.
The trouble is... I don't expect any of you to speak up and tell him "no".
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You're the one who's always complaining about him not being around.
ReplyDeleteAnd what's the harm, anyway. It's his site.
The harm is in him unilaterally claiming other people's work to benefit himself. He could have invited other users to help out on some of the server admin tasks but he's forcing others to work for him. That's downright evil.
ReplyDeleteYeah that would be true if anybody at all were *forced* to edit UESP. In case you hadn't noticed, none of them are.
ReplyDeleteSo, what's the problem exactly? It's Dave's money regardless of whether or not he quits his job. He has ALWAYS profited from the ad space, and the editor's contributions. What's it going to hurt if he starts taking a little bit to pay his utilities and buy groceries? At the end of the day, he is going to be able to direct more attention to the maintenance that you're always saying the site needs, so unless you just badly enjoy to make up excuses to make him look bad, there really isn't anything wrong here.
ReplyDeleteI could equate it to your blog. You have ads floating around, so I assume you're using AdSense or whatever it's called, but you're not doing shit to better the blog. You're readers come here to read your shit talking, and the blog sits here empty for weeks on end. I could probably find something two or three times a week to write about UESP if I was a troll.
No it hasn't always been Dave's money. It's been UESP's money.
ReplyDeleteYou're missing the point. The thing that makes UESP a success is the users. They're the ones that write the content, correct it, check it and improve it. Daveh has done almost nothing on that score in years.
All he has to do is keep the server running and up to date. He has failed spectacularly at that, with the most obvious example being Skyrim's release when the site was largely down, allowing Wikia's offering to draw level.
Daveh should be resigning in disgrace, not taking money for the work of others.
Oh, and the ads here might pay for a bag of M&Ms in about 10 years if I'm lucky.
ReplyDeleteOn a serious, lesser asshole-ish note... What's the difference, in your opinion, between who owns the money? I was of the opinion that since Dave is the owner of the site, the money, whether used for the site or not, was effectively his anyways.
ReplyDeleteBlogspot profits from the pageviews you get. Are you upset that they're profiting from your hobby?
ReplyDeleteWho created UESP? Who manages it? Who's paying for the servers to keep it running? What would it be if Daveh never created it?
Gosh what a lot of lickspittles you've become.
ReplyDeleteTo Snowmane: the difference is simnilar to me doing, say, a sponsored walk and tell people it's to raise money for a charity but then then keeping the money for myself. The site is only popular because of the effort people put in. They have done this with no sense of personal reward because they want the site to succeed. Now they're working to provide Dave with a living.
To Anon1, there are several wiki-savvy people on the site. Nephele and Daveh know most, but rpeh and the Whining Little Bitch know quite a bit and others aren't far behind. There should be a group of people so that when one needs a beak the others can take over.
@Anon2. Your simplistic attitude ignores the fact that I knew what I was getting in to when I set up this blog. Daveh is fundamentally changing the contract between him and the users who provide its content.
Nephele's never around and rpeh's a chaotic moron who, like I said, isn't interested anymore since the wiki has decided they won't take his shit. RH may be plenty knowledgeable but he'd be about as quick as a snail through molasses about getting things done with his illness, and do you REALLY think people are going to allow him to be in charge of the site when they couldn't even vote him admin?
DeleteIf anyone else has the knowledge to do it they either aren't around enough or aren't trusted enough. Taking turns is a mighty fine idea too but I can't imagine it lasting more than a month, especially if the people sharing the responsibility started arguing (but of course everybody at UESP gets along all the time so that would never be a problem).
Daveh making a full-time effort of it is the best option. Try again.
You evidently don't know much about the way wikis are organised elsewhere. There's usually a division between techs and admins. One group is in charge of the hardware and the other in charge of the content. There's no reason to assume people wouldn't accept someone being a tech even if they wouldn't accept that person as an admin. Personally, I'd have no problem with Whining Little Bitch as a tech, but as an admin he'd be dreadful.
DeleteThe job of a webmaster is to not only keep the site running but to also improve its infrastructure and add new features. One of which is the Mediawiki upgrade that, due to plugin problems (which were added by Daveh by our request to improve the site), was never completed. Have you ever tried completing a 6-hour project in the 5-minute break between classes? It doesn't exactly work. Having him work full-time on the website is like adding a break period - it gives him enough time to sit down and get the job done. (Pardon the analogy, I didn't choose it because I think you're young, it's just the best one I could think of).
ReplyDeleteAnother thing is improving the website. We especially need a mobile website, but quite frankly no one has the time. The rest of us have lives (whether we like it or not :) ) and simply don't have the time to. The young ones have school, the older ones have jobs or families; the website isn't more important than either. If, however, someone is able to simply sit down and work on it without worrying about the bills (ie, a full-time job) then it'll get done. I've looked into coding a mobile website, and it's very difficult, and would take weeks to complete. Not something you can complete in your 5-minute breaks.
Also, why do you keep going on about the site being down for a short period of time? If you download a mod for Skyrim and it breaks the sound, is it your fault that you didn't scan both every configuration file as well as the game engine to find out that it conflicts with another mod? Of course not. And expecting him to scan the entire website infrastructure beforehand is like expecting a plumber to inspect your pipes on a routine basis, even if none of them are showing any signs of wear. I know you won't entirely lay off on this (because your bitter hatred is too deeply ingrained, and quite frankly you have little else to insult the site with), but at least recognize that this was not a belligerent act of defiance or idiotic laziness; it was just a simple mistake.
You do bring up some good points, and it'll give me something to think about tonight, but even if Daveh's motives are skewed the community will either keep him in check or mutiny in a hostile takeover through legal or other means. Or the main contributors will leave in disgrace and the website will crumble. But he may deliver. You may argue (without any major counter-arguments) that he is doing this for selfish reasons, but ask yourself this: If someone does the right thing for the wrong reasons, are they good or evil? Similarly, if someone does the wrong thing for the right reasons, are they good or evil?
Sorry Jak, but this is wrong on so many levels.
ReplyDeleteFirst, although I agree with your definition of a webmaster (many would not - they would say the webmaster does content while an infrastructure team does... infrastructure), you then go on to create a strawman about timescales. I have never claimed that you can do a 6 hour job in 5 minutes but that's not a realistic scenario.
Let's take a recent situation. The discussion about how to handle Skyrim's release started minutes after it was announced. By 11/11/11 everyone knew rpeh was going to be spending the first several hours getting RoBoT to make the major pages UESP would need. My verdict is that he got the pages created, but there were a lot of problems that took a lot of sorting out. According to my sources, the input from Daveh on all this was zero.
Second, no UESP doesn't need a mobile website. Yes, it would have been useful to have one this time but by the time of TES VI - which will be arond 2018/9 - nobody will remember why specialist mobile sites were ever required.
Third, it wasn't a short period of time and it wasn't the first time, and your analogy is wrong *again*. The site wasn't down for a short time after 11/11/11, it was down for roughly three weeks. By the time it was up again it had already lost its audience. This was entirely Daveh's fault because we know from reports he made that he could get on the server and if you can do that and fail to spot a firewall problem you're just incompetent.
You're new to UESP, Jak. You haven't seen all the other ways in which Daveh has screwed up over the years. Twice, he's been on holiday when the servers have died. Well anyone can have one unlucky incident but anyone who allows two should be fired.
You call me our for "bitter hatred". No. Wrong. I'm pointing out something you should all be concerned with. When you post to UESP, you are *licensing* your contributions to the site. UESP - and Daveh - don't own them. YOU still own everything you write or upload. What Daveh is doing is to claim the reward for the research done by other people and that is nothing other than immoral.
Your relative newness means you fail to recongise a further point: the main contributors have already left. Look at the Active Users list (http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Special:ActiveUsers). They're all gone. Lurlock has come back but he's useless. Krusty's still there but he's lost his motivation thanks to Davehgate. Lonely and Desperate is still there but only in an attempt to find someone who likes him.
After that... well Minor Edits looks like a good editor. You, Jak, looked good for a while but you haven't done anything recently beyond maintenance. Krusty is still doing good stuff. Otherwise there's nothing.
I suppose that's why nobody is opposing Daveh on this... the people who had a right to oppose him have left. He knows he can handle the dregs.
Really, honestly, anyone who has a problem with it will leave. Nobody's being forced to edit. They can go, and more will come to fill their places. This has always been the way. Nobody's violently opposed to Daveh because nobody hates him. You're the only one who seems to give a shit because the rest of us have better things to do.
ReplyDeleteI never said I hate Daveh, I just think he's increasingly incompetent and that he's now trying to take money for other people's work.
ReplyDeleteAs I said, the good users have already gone and with nobody left to help them, there won't be anybody useful turning up.
You don't have to say it. It's plain as day.
ReplyDeleteI just find it interesting that first you say there are plenty of people who could take over from Daveh, and now you said all the good editors are gone. If you're going to be such a radical tabloid rabble-rouser you could at least try keeping your story straight.
That's a fair point, although I think several could be persuaded back, and they wouldn't have left if he hadn't started being such a dick. Daveh is in the process of ruining everything. He's scared off a lot of users and turned the site into an advertising board (try logging in anonymously).
ReplyDeleteI'll say it again, though: I don't hate Daveh. I don't hate any UESP user. I don't even hate Elliot. I found his antics amusing in the same way that chimpanzees can be amusing. If you want hate, take a look at rpeh/Elliot.
So there's another interesting thing...you say rpeh is hateful (or equate him with Elliot? Your punctuation is a bit ambiguous so I won't presume there), yet in the past you've all but overlooked his bullshit and denounced anybody who opposed him as pretty much the vilest idiots on earth.
DeleteI don't get it, UESP Watch. This reads more like shit-for-brains Uriel and less like shits-fires-of-pure-rage Tiber. Bring back the old Watch. This is just disappointing by comparison.
If he's saying I hate Elliot, he's wrong. I often found Elliot tiresome but I'd never say that I hated him.
DeleteLol I think a few people have logs that would prove otherwise
DeleteNo. The closest it got was when he started attacking my mother, but even then I didn't *hate* him.
Deleteyeah you can say that all you want but you sure didn't know how to act like you didn't hate him
DeleteYou obviously don't understand the difference between irritation and hatred.
Deleteso when are you coming back rpeh? we're already taking bets for how long you'll go before you get blocked again. i think five months but i may have gone too high.
DeleteI'm not coming back. I've done my bit.
DeleteBullshit. You're probably already back under another sock account. You've flounced off more times than I can even count but you always come back to try and prove you're better than everyone else. You couldn't give up UESP even if you tried.
DeleteIf you're not going to listen to the answer, don't bother asking the question. You're evidently just some lowlife hater or you'd have already confirmed that I'm not around by the usual intrusive use of CheckUser.
DeleteI proved I was better than everyone else a long time ago, so there's no need for me to hang around any more.
So you complain about Daveh being away when servers come down and you have issues with the site not being as up-to-date as possible, and for not providing enough input when Skyrim came out. Now, when he's saying what he could do to have the time to actually work on the site, you don't want him to do that.
ReplyDeleteYou've gone back to the start of the thread there. Daveh could have handed those responsibilities over to other people (at least partly). He could and should have known about the firewall issue with Skyrim. Now, he's changing the nature of the site to give himself a full-time job. It's dishonest.
ReplyDeleteIt would only be dishonest if he told no one and didn't ask anyone's input. It's always been his site, and lack of thanks, credit, payment, or ownership has never stopped people from volunteering before, so why should it now?
ReplyDeleteYes, and that's exactly what has happened. For instance, he's already added the extra adverts, already set up the company, etc etc etc.
ReplyDeleteLack of thanks??? People have always fallen over themselves to say "thank you" whenever Daveh bothers to respond to anything. Installing a new mod takes about 5 minutes. Try it for yourself. It's not hard. Daveh always relied on other people to spot and report problems.
Lastly the only thing that "belongs" to Daveh is the domain name. Everything else is only licensed to UESP. There is no possible interpretation of any law in which the site's content belongs to him.
UESPWatch is right here.
ReplyDeleteDave is stealing content. How can you say this is right?
ReplyDeleteI meant lack of thanks for editors, but good try.
ReplyDeleteWell that's even more wrong then. Good editors always get lots of "well done" messages, cookies and so on.
DeleteYes, the good editors sometimes get thanks, but not always, and others don't. Nobody is paid or owns any part of what they contribute to, and while you can find out who made what changes to a page no one gets credit on the article face itself, and yet people still contribute happily. That won't change whether Daveh takes more money from the site or not.
DeleteYou're wrong there. Every contributor owns their contributions - they only license them to UESP. Daveh is essentially proposing to sell something he doesn't own, which is immoral.
DeleteYour claim that people will keep posting even after Daveh is making money off their posts would need a big "citation needed" on Wikipedia. As I've said before, I occasionaly pop in to correct the more egregious mistakes on UESP but I haven't done since Daveh's announcement. I'm not going to spend my time buying his 3D-TV.
That's exactly what you said. Try learning the implications of what you write, and get a friend to explain "implications" to you.
DeleteI only edit UESP in my spare time to try to improve the wiki. I have only ever been given one cookie (and that was months ago) and I rarely get thanked for working on the wiki. But I don't work on the wiki so that people will thank me or pay me. I work on the wiki because I like the Elder Scrolls series and it's nice to have a wiki for all of the lore, quests, characters etc. I think a lot of people on he site have forgotten why they joined in the first place and now only care about edit counts, fighting over very petty issues and other pointless things instead of just trying to edit content pages.
ReplyDeleteI don't care if Daveh earns money from the website because I only edit due to the fact that I like ES games. If people don't like that then they can leave (and a few already have).
Honestly, RIM, your edits weren't that good and you got the usual sympathy cookie.
ReplyDeleteCookies on UESP serve several purposes. First, you give them to someone who's done something obviously "good". Second, you give them to someone you're trying to suck up to. Third, you give them to a persistent n00b so you can then tell them to stop fucking up so badly.
You fall into the third category. Sorry, but that's the way it is.
Well, like I said, I only really spend a little time on the wiki to help out a little when it's convenient for me, I'm not some editor who spends 8 hours a day on the wiki. But how am I a persistent noob who fucked up badly?
DeleteI always thought you were a very useful editor, RIM. Ignore Tiber.
DeleteIs it even Tiber anymore?
ReplyDeleteSeems likely, since Tiber was always the one monitoring comments and taking forever to approve them...
DeleteI always deal with comments quickly, but the recent batch of bullshit has been deleted. I can't be bothered to host fights between editors. Go somewhere else.
Delete