The New HaloMods -- Official Q&A

[SHOUTrvb]

Hey guys, it's SHOUTrvb here with a little more insight on the huge events that have occurred over the past.. well, few hours really. HaloMods got a vast new look, and with that came a lot of major changes. Some we anticipated, some we didn't. HaloMods got some new management, management with the site's best interest at heart. All of this was set privately in motion many months ago, and despite minor setbacks, we're still very excited to present these changes to the community. When dealing with a website this large, people need to note that not everything will run according to plan. For starters: What was meant to be a very smooth transition that we tested over and over again coding wise later turned out to be hell when trying to move the changes over to HaloMods. Things that should have been straight-forward, flip flopped like a dying fish. That said, we prepared for the worst, got close to it, and we're at constant work to bring you guys the healthiest HaloMods you've ever seen. Those who know me well here, and have known me for a while know that I love this site with a burning passion. I would willingly sell myself to this site to give it whatever it needed to survive. When SourceGuy and I teamed up again to take on this project, we didn't take it on lightly. I like to consider myself an active advocate of the community. The whole reason I'm writing out this post and creating a new thread as opposed to Tural is so you guys can focus your questions directly on the source. If you want answers, I'm here to give them. You guys are all my friends, and are all very important to me and the Dev Team/Staff, and I'm here to make you happy. I will, however say that some changes will be staying. We can tune them up and change them around a bit further, but some things aren't going anywhere. You guys feel blindsided, and that's understandable. We wanted this to be a pleasant surprise, and we weren't ignorant to the idea of negative reactions. The difference is, most of you are thinking now and today from the shock, but not thinking long-term. I think you'll appreciate a lot of these changes in the long run. That said, I'm here to formally ask what you guys think just absolutely should change. Think hard, and respond constructively. I've prepared a small Q&A below answering most of the bigger questions. I'm limited on time, but I'll try to answer most as best I can, and return later to finish them off:

New Modding Sections.. What the Hell? THIS IS HALOMODS!!one!

Trust me, we're not looking to change that. We did a lot of private surveys though to see what people these days were modding in hopes to build some research interest around. HaloMods has been known for years for churning out some of the best researchers and programmers the internet has to offer. However, with Halo 3 modding moving so slow, we thought we'd give you guys a place to practice your skills in a quieter area. If the other Modding forums fail miserably and only have a few mods, it's ok. Their purpose is merely a sandbox if you will.

Dev Team? Who do you guys think you are coming up in my space and taking over our beloved site?

Hey, we love this place too. In fact, most all of us have been in the scene since HaloMods was still a growing child, and we each had our own parts in the past to help it grow properly. A lot of people are confused is to what the Dev Team actually is.. we're not some private police group here to give you guys a hard time. Our purpose is to sell ourselves daily to the betterment of the site beyond what the Staff are able to do, since most of their time is spent keeping you guys in line. Seriously though, we're just another branch of the site working behind the scenes. Rank isn't the issue.

Rank isn't an issue? The Staff seem to beg the differ.

Yeah.. I'll admit that we could have kicked things off a bit different. Had I personally known that the Staff wouldn't have had more information so close to the launch, I would have just told them myself so they could at least make a less stressed decision. However, deadlines got dangerously close, and air was scarce, so things got kicked off a tad prematurely. There, I admit it. However, to answer your question directly.. to be honest, rank truly isn't the issue. Being that I've been in some way, be it Staff or a behind the scenes aid to this site since I first joined, I've built a lot of respect and trust for the Staff we have here. These people are my friends, and I've loved working with them for so many years. The simple fact that SourceGuy has given me more authority over them doesn't mean that it's something I'll abuse. I talk to the Staff on AIM/MSN/What-have-you frequently, and they have a vast amount of influence over my actions to further this site. Even the resigned Staff, such as Tural, Shadow, DeToX, and GTAF are free to hit me up anytime if they see something that needs to be done. Even without their rank, I consider them equal partners as long as their hearts and mind is for bettering this site.

Ok. Well, this forum layout is still ugly to me. I miss the old simplicity of PhpBB2 and the calmer layout we had before.

This one was a controversial behind the scenes from the beginning. Trust me, a lot of arguments popped up when SouceGuy decided to upgrade to BB3. Still, with BB2 support being discontinued soon, we all just decided it was time to upgrade. Geo worked hard and long to bring you guys the most familiar layout he could, but we still had setbacks with dealing with an unfamiliar systems. However, this is one of the areas that we encourage very strongly that the community participate in and help us out. Be it layout, code, whatever, the forum is the community's dwelling place, so the community has influence here.

Home page.. lookin' pretty sharp there, Shout!

Haha, thanks! Also extend your thanks to Phil and Anthony for their awesome coding.

Were some of the Staff demoted?

No. In fact, they were all strongly encouraged to stay. Problems arose in the Staff threads a few weeks ago partially due to the change in leadership. I've some of this, and no one was ever truly provoked.. The whole thing seemed pretty petty on both sides.

Yeah, both sides my ass. SourceGuy = Dictator.

No!! This is truly what can destroy a site.. At the very least, SourceGuy kept this site alive when it was very close to simply dying due to inability to maintain the old server; and he did so out of love for this site. You may not like our changes to this site and his blunt decision making, but you cannot deny that he is the soul reason HaloMods is still here for you every day. He and I don't always see eye-to-eye.. in fact, it's almost rare that we do. (:P) However, we both eventually find a proper median and go with it for the betterment of the site. SourceGuy has been here since literally the beginning, so please take my word for it when I say he knows HaloMods better than any of us.

Who is that Warlord guy, anyway?

Hah, right place right time I guess. Dev forums weren't private at one time, and he basically stumbled on them. He had some pretty awesome ideas for the site, and recommended several of the great features you see on my design. He's not an official Dev Member, nor does he have power. However, he is an older, and respected member; plus I've been talking with him for years now, so I trust his judgment.

Are all of these changes final? I'd really like to see some of the community's opinions implemented. I genuinely feel it's in the best interest of HaloMods.

No, not all of the changes are set in stone. I'm afraid you'll just have to live with a few, but if you genuinely feel that you have something better to offer, we want to hear. Seriously, handling a site this size is tough, so feel free to let us know when we're doing it wrong -- granted, most of you already have.. we do ask that it be done more respectfully though. A lot of your reactions are expected.. This community has never accepted change in a united manner. Hell, I remember with the forums were merged a while back.. I complained about some of the same things. I was a files forum Staffer back then, so having the User forum Staff coming up and moderating my downloads forums pissed me off, and me coming in and moderating their precious pissed them off. Seriously, things were no different then than they are now.. it's just that this change is on a grander scheme. We realize this.. Obviously things didn't go perfectly. The transition 'still' isn't even complete yet. As most of you have noticed, there are still plenty of bugs to be worked out.. Please allow us some time to get everything ironed out. Keep pumping out suggestions and we will continue to do the best we can.



________________________________________________________________________________________________________________



I got cut off earlier than hoped. Girl stuff. However, hang tight and I'll finish this as soon as I get home. I've included some posts that need to be noted before replying in this thread. I left a few out, so don't be mad if yours isn't here. There are many questions to be answered, and issues to be resolved, and your Dev Team is here for ALL of them!

I'll be signing off aim/msn fairly shortly, but feel free to bombard me with PMs and questions.. I'll try and answer each as best I can. As for most of the community, I do ask that you allow a few days for us to iron out all the changes so that everything functions correctly as they do on our developer pages. I know this is all very weird and different for everyone.. I can easily imagine why most of you are pissed, and it's completely understandable. However, do know that I, along with the rest of the team have you guys and this site in our hearts. I personally love this place as if it were a living brother of mine. HaloMods has been an enormous part of my growing life since 2004; I was only 12. Anything I've ever done in action with this site, I did so with its best interest in mind. When Grenadiac posted earlier last year about a potential closing of HaloMods, I was literally heart-broken to a vast extent. It felt like a huge part of my life was about to just become a memory. Within months of my official registration here in early 2005, I made it a point to get seriously involved and guarantee that this site remained healthy and breathing until the end of times. What originally started out as a reuniting of the Vicis Developer group wanting to create HaloMods fall-back plan in case the site did die, later turned into a full-fledged site take-over -- Gren carefully handed over his baby. I'll start with apologizing for not telling everyone here.. to be honest, it was very difficult for me. Most of you are my friends whom I've come to get to know quite well in all my years here, so I genuinely felt like I betraying all of you. However, simply changing HaloMods' server was a huge change, and to make sure this never had to happen again, the Dev team felt that even more large changes needed to occur to guarantee survival. A lot of you are freaking out as if this is some hostile takeover.. but it's not. I've willingly donated myself to this site for years, and I don't intend on stopping. Instead of telling us what all you hate about the changes in chaotic rants, give me and the team some serious feedback. It hurts to see several of the Staff whom I've worked with for years just suddenly drop out in anger. By assuming that we don't have this site's best interest in mind, you've lost its best interest in the process. I'm hear to listen and accommodate. What can I and the Dev Team do for you guys? But before you answer, disregard personal preference and ask yourself: "What can we with the Dev Team/Staff do for HaloMods?".

And this was the short version. I love this site, and I love you guys, so help us out.
-Shout/Myles

Well, it's been a tough night. We've worked together for hours and hours on this, and finally we can put up the forums. As you can see, there have been made some major changes to the website. As allways with big changes, some people like them, some people have to get used to them and some people will never like them. We believe that we changed HaloMods for the better.
As you may or may not imagine, I'm completely overloaded at the moment and therefore I can't respond to everyone. It's 7am here and I really need to go to sleep. I will address the issues that were posted in this thread tomorrow morning - please don't think that I don't care what you have to say. In fact, you are the most important to me.
Enjoy the new HaloMods!

When I first got word I would be taking over HaloMods, I was very excited to have the ability to revive the site I used to spend hours and hours on. I felt that the activity on HaloMods was diminishing, like many users, and that change was required to give things a boost. To figure out a direction for the 'new halomods', I asked the opinions of some old friends that would eventually become part of the dev team. I asked many people, including some staff members questions like "Would you have any suggestions for HaloMods? What do you think should happen?". I was mostly greeted with 'haven't thought of that, don't know'. I considered starting forum debates - but I pictured long discussions and many disagreements about what to do with the new HaloMods and decided that that was not the way to go. After selecting some oldtimers I thought knew the community very well, we thought long and hard about the changes that we should and should not make. I decided to introduce these new changes as a surprise, and I genuinly thought the community would love them.
We've all put many many hours of work in changing HaloMods from the better, trying to improve it and turn it into a new direction for the better. It's understandable that some people don't like some of the changes, because we changed a lot. But some people here are not giving this a chance at all. "Ooh new theme! HaloMods is dead!" "We can have HaloMods is dead signatures!" "We want Grenadiac back!". You can imagine, after working on this for a long time, staying up a night with no sleep, paying for a brand new server out of my own pocket and more this is the last thing I expected to face after finally applying our work.
I will be doing my best to improve this place. I will keep everyone in the loop from here on out. I will try and look at the posts with constructive criticism and improve on those. That's what I'm going to do after considering the posts in this thread. Having said that, I will also not tolerate any more posts that say things like 'HaloMods is dead' and 'SourceGuy is a bad admin'. Frankly i'm quite fed up with them, and I find it offensive that people could say such things considering the efforts I and the dev team have put into this. Such posts do nothing but introduce unneeded negativity and decrease morale. Please guys, stop it, change back your sigs, act mature. I'm here to help HaloMods, I'm not your enemy.

One last thing I would like to address are the 'major staff issues' that Tural and Gametag seem to be referring to. Before I implemented the changes to HaloMods, I informed the staff that the dev team would be ranking above the current staff. There were several reasons to do that. I wanted to recognise the hours of work they put in the site. Also, I wanted there to be people that I trust and know well to manage the current staff - I felt there was a need for that after reviewing the boards intensively. I didn't expect the staff to dislike this change. Most staff responded positively, but some didn't. That was the smaller part of the staff though.
Another issue that caused some staff problems is the fact that I did not consult them before implementing changes to this websites. I already made clear my reasons for that. Some staff promptly resigned after they were faced with the new forums - I would have preferred to discuss this with them first, but they made up their mind. I was planning on leaving all the active staff in their current positions. Again, this is the smaller part of the staff. We are not in anarchy.
The final problem that I believe caused staff problems is a post I made about new 'staff etiquette'. It described a philosophy of mine that says user-friendlyness of moderators is more important than to strictly enforce all the forum rules. It incorporates things like more leniency and the use of punishment as a last resort to improve the atmosphere on these forums. Note that I am very aware sometimes punishments are in order, but I felt that the way staff was handling some things did not match my philosophy. I tried to change my staff to behave according to these views - but again, a minorty of the staff felt that this change was a bad one: They were in favor of stricter moderation.
Again, I would really have preferred to solve these issues with my staff and keep them on, rather than to deal with these prompt resignations.
We have some open staff positions now. If you think you're fit to act as staff on these boards, send your username and motivation to [email protected].

Ah, it feels good to get this off my chest. I hope you can understand things better now that you have seen things from my perspective. Please, post constructive criticsism, always show respect to your fellow HaloMods members and most of all, have a good time!


Your new administrator,

SourceGuy

Ah change…Happens every few years…There is always some people who won’t like it…There has been a thread like this for every change I’ve made to the site, and it was always worked through…Unfortunately, this time I’m on the other side…

I like the new front page…It looks well done…Kudos to whoever put the time into that…I can even tolerate not being able to find my way around…New forums will do that to you…CH was a lot different, took me awhile to figure out what I was doing, and I had the advantage of developing the site for it for the forum merges…I can only imagine how the users felt when introduced to it…I’m sure I’ll get used to the new locations for buttons…

Now onto the other side…Clearly someone jumped the gun wanting to get the new site out…Can’t fault them for that, I’m sure they were excited about all the changes they had in store…But still, clearly jumped the gun…The new theme is just horrible…Someone needed to read a few documents on basic web design…Screen space is a premium…So to have the left column so wide you could triple the avatar restrictions is just plain criminal…That blank area is taking up valuable real estate that could contain things like, I dunno, the forum post text?..The color scheme looks similar to the old site…I like the mild blue colors, but without some distinction between the posts (eg. a bar), the contrast between the alternating colors needs to be much different…I also know it’s a little thing, but the site feels somewhat more bloated now…I was outraged when mIRC added 3 pixels to the status bar (and I’m still using an old version to this day)…I don’t like lots of space around things that seems to make everything take up space for no reason…I like efficiency!..If a slightly smaller font will let me see 15 threads per page instead of 13, I like that idea…The right column on the thread list page is slightly too narrow, so sometimes it takes up three lines instead of two, which takes up even more space…It just seems like there’s more cramming to be done on the thread page…But that’s just my personal preference…

Seriously now, raise of hands…Who here clicks banner ads?..Who here even reads banner ads?..In this day in age, by now you’ve learned to completely phase passed them if they don’t interest you in the least, which they rarely do…Now, I know banners pay for the site, and they’re a necessary evil…But to think that you will somehow increase your view count, or your click through rate by placing them inline with the posts is just naive…Put one at the top, everyone will say “yup, we need banners”, and move on…In my resolution you could even fit one between the logo and the search box, that’d take up even less of my screen, giving me less scrolling per post…Putting them inline accomplishes nothing but alienating your readers into “this is just another slapped together forum, nothing special to find here”…

This site was founded on research…Not just research, hardcore research…Does anyone believe we’re going to be a great source for iPhone modding?..No…Putting new modding forums is like adding a café…Someone might post something there in passing when they’re bored on the site, and have a question, but I guarantee you a quick google search will find your answer, or find you a better resource…I assume those forums will quickly go to the place where lame forums go to die…It won’t increase membership, it won’t increase activity on the site…No ones going to join halomods for our great Crysis posts…

As for the staff resignations…Staff doesn’t always need to be kept in the loop…Granted, I probably would’ve given them some heads up beyond “SURPRISE, WE HAVE A NEW SITE!”, but you can’t win them all…New rules are just a given when a new administrator takes over…If you don’t like them, you step down…No one can really be faulted for that…As SourceGuy said, he is the new administrator, so in the end, he is right…The real problem with new administration is the new hierarchy…A new administrator means that his friends are now the new staff…It doesn’t matter if you’ve been staff for a month, or 3 years...Odds are pretty favorable that in a disagreement, they’re probably going to win over you…This has nothing to do with all those members who want the fancy title, or think they deserve the fancy title, or are entitled to something special…It has everything to do with putting in blood, sweat, and tears into a site, and being demoted without having a change in status…That guy you were telling to follow the rules yesterday, he’s now your boss, have a nice day…No one can really be faulted with this either…When I was made an admin, I cleaned house with staff too…So I’m not surprised in the least to see several staff members step down from power…

What I don’t like, is auditions…How can you post “hey, if you wanna be staff, just shoot me an email!”, how is that any way to select new staff members?..”Hey there, my names Jim, I’ve been on the site for along time now, people seem to like me, and I think I’d do good at enforcing the rules in a friendly manner”…I call *** on that…You pick your staff based on who you can trust…I also know from experience that it takes very few, very dedicated (and you know who you are) staff to keep the site up and running…They may not have been the most friendly about it, but this site was a clean well oiled machine…I would think even with demotions, the newly added ranks to staff would be sufficient to handle it…Aren’t they up to the challenge?..

I know this site was dieing…I was actually excited to see the new team take over…I think a lot could have (and could) been accomplished…A lot of this could have been done differently…I understand the need to upgrade to phpBB3…But to try and change halomods into something halomods isn’t wont save halomods, and re-invigorate it…There’s a lot that could be done to help with that, without destroying the fabric of our history…Things like the serenity repository, and the gamertag database…Things from the “would be nice to have, but no one has time or energy” list…To take our site, and make it better by doing things we all love, and making them easier for us…

Your old administrator,

- Iron_Forge

I'll be back as soon as I can for more. -Shout

[Tural]

Why did you lock my topic? SourceGuy told me to keep the bitching in one thread, so I made one. Now you just lock it and make your own. There's the thread for opinions, and there's a thread for forum issues. I see no grounds for you locking mine to promote your own. You can answer questions there. All you did was repost what's been posted, which is unnecessary. People aren't having trouble with that thread, there's no reason it should be locked, especially when I was permitted to make it by your admin. You want to "direct attention"? Make this a sticky. There you go, and you didn't have to lock my topic and censor the people there, which is what you're doing by removing their place to express concerns that you deem invalid for this thread, because they are not applicable here.

[Xero]

=o

[sashankta]

100% likin it here: thanks to sourceguy and his pro administering

[shadowkhas]

I don't think it was confusing for anyone in the last thread who were the ones questioning and answering...

Good game, HaloMods. Good game.

[warlord]

You want to "direct attention"? Make this a sticky. There you go, and you didn't have to lock my topic and censor the people there, which is what you're doing by removing their place to express concerns that you deem invalid for this thread, because they are not applicable here.

Do you not agree your thread was getting over heated?
I don't see ShoutRVB censoring any opinions at all, though i wouldn't be one to comment on others censoring their opinions to be honest.
I've taken the libery to read through the entirety of shouts post and it seems as though both Shout and sourceguy were involved in this project from the begining and i dare say i doubt shout would have made this thread against our admins wishes.

[latinomodder]

There you go, and you didn't have to lock my topic and censor the people there, which is what you're doing by removing their place to express concerns that you deem invalid for this thread, because they are not applicable here.

Tural shut up. You're hypocrisy amazes me.

Anyway. My personal opinion on the matter. Users are scared of the site going to shit so they also say its horrible.

In reality this is the sites last fighting stance against death. Maybe the theme isn't everyone idea of the new halomods but that is just about the least important issue, it can change. A site survives not based on how it looks but by the Users that post in it and keep it alive.

Changes that should be done.
-Tweak the theme to a more old-school look that combines new features of PB3 and possibly a graphic over haul of the old one.

Edit: I was informed by one of the mods of this site that the problem is deeper than what meets the eyes. Well I still don't agree completely on them resigning because it creates more a problem than a solution. I will wait for their statement on the matter

[BEEF!!!]

I personally love the new setup.

Theme is the only thing that will take a bit to get used to =P.

[Tural]

Do you not agree your thread was getting over heated?

I had specific permission from SG to put the bitching in one thread. That thread was made specifically so people could post those types of messages, and now it's being censored.

[warlord]

There you go, and you didn't have to lock my topic and censor the people there, which is what you're doing by removing their place to express concerns that you deem invalid for this thread, because they are not applicable here.

Tural shut up. You're hypocrisy amazes me.

Anyway. My personal opinion on the matter. Staff aren't happy so they go and threaten to resign because they don't like the changes. Users are scared of the site going to *** so they also say its horrible.

In reality this is the sites last fighting stance against death. Maybe the theme isn't everyone idea of the new halomods but that is just about the least important issue, it can change. A site survives not based on how it looks but by the Users that post in it and keep it alive.

Changes that should be done.
-Tweak the theme to a more old-school look that combines new features of PB3 and possibly a graphic over haul of the old one.
-Staff should come back and quit bitching because they apparently prefer to see the site die than to help it live through tough times.

I agree whole heartedly.

I personally love the new setup.

Theme is the only thing that will take a bit to get used to =P.

Thats good to hear.

I had specific permission from SG to put the bitching in one thread. That thread was made specifically so people could post those types of messages, and now it's being censored.

And look what happened.
users left right and center panicin, if you care so much for the site why not stay and help the community out instead of saying "ok i dont like this because i wasnt told first so i quit".
It would make much more sense to stay help the devs do what their supposed to do which happens to be Develop the site while you do your job which was Moderate the site.

[Tural]

users left right and center panicin, if you care so much for the site why not stay and help the community out instead of saying "ok i dont like this because i wasnt told first so i quit".
It would make much more sense to stay help the devs do what their supposed to do which happens to be Develop the site while you do your job which was Moderate the site.

I'd love to. However, they don't want our help, that's been made very clear to me. I've been giving insight as to how I, and the other staff, see things for the last week, and not a single thing I said got through. Every time I said something, I was just told "I'm the boss" or "My decision is final." They don't care what I, or the rest of the outgoing staff, have to say. Believe me, I've tried.

[-DeToX-]

k warlord then you're an idiot.

We left because SourceGuy doesn't like to inform his Staff members who actually DID SOMETHING about the site, and likes to just pull changes out randomly. The lack of communication is rediculous. In the topic of Tural's statement in his threat, I wholeheartedly agree that SourceGuy pulls the "I'm the admin, it's my choice" card alot. Even SHOUT can admit that.. Warlord your argument is we should appreciate the fact that Halomods is still here. I could've easily found someone who'd adminstrator the site and keep secrets with his friends, who he's graciously placed at a higher rank than normal staff, who don't deserve it at all. Please.. They're just your friends so you let them ride the Staff train. Look at the people who made this site what it is. The people who actually worked towards it. What do they get? Nothing more than we ask for, and we now lose our communication with our admin who likes to pull wild cards on the site. What did devs do? Lets look at all the staff and see if they deserve their position:

Geo, hah doesn't deserve his position. Let's look at how much work he put into the site as apposed to the others who've been helping it for a long time.
Phil, what the hell did he do for the site to deserve that position.
Ketchup_Bomb, great guy, but does not deserve that position. Though he is a very efficient moderator and etc, he doesn't deserve higher than those who quit.
SHOUT, you? I've talked to you about why you don't deserve it.
And Anthony, who is one of the best people I've met and did a great job on the new Halomods home page, but definitely doesn't deserve higher than other staff.

If you want to give people who didn't make this site as much what it is as those who did, a better title, then whatever, shows your style of administrating and I don't want to be a part of the Administration and Moderation.

But mainly your lack of communication is horrible. I told SHOUT two weeks before you did this just by looking at your attitude as an administrator that you would slip up like this because all you're doing is keeping secrets.

k. my point is now out there.

[shadowkhas]

users left right and center panicin, if you care so much for the site why not stay and help the community out instead of saying "ok i dont like this because i wasnt told first so i quit".

It isn't just that...

It would make much more sense to stay help the devs do what their supposed to do which happens to be Develop the site while you do your job which was Moderate the site.

When I first read the post by SG that there would be a Dev Team and a staff, I assumed that the two most active posters, who happened to be Staff members, (Tural and GTAF) would be in that. I know that I personally feel that there should have been, shockingly, a Staff-wide Dev Team. Sure, some of the current ones have talents that others don't, but if all of the Staff (you know, the ones of us who have put some years into this site as well) had been asked of their opinions, we could have probably come up with a better final product that was more refined. The idea of having separate people to make the website and police it seems strange to me. All of us have talents, all of us have opinions, and I like to think we could have had a pretty damn good idea of what would've been a good compromise for everyone. It's not about a whiny "but I want to know what's going on!", but a want to make a good product. Which is shockingly exactly what you guys want to do.

[Infern0]

Hi, my name's Jim, and I'd like to apply for administrator!

Seriously. Although, my name's not Jim.

[warlord]

Detox, for your information i am not a fool that is just a very arrogant remark.
Ive been watching this develop for sometime if you havent noticed i am also one of the devs who has been actively contributing to the development.
As far as i am currently aware [sourceguy if im wrong do correct me on this] the Devs are on par with the staff but in a different department.
Conider this in terms of a business shop.
You have the shop floor workers some maybe there for years and might have put alot of blood and sweat into the shops reputation.
But you also have those workers behind the closed doors who work on keeping the business running the developers in this case they are to liaison with the staff to develop the backend of the site while you staff work on the front end, neither is above and beyond each other.
Geo, i feel does deserve his posistion for the place of work he is to be working from is vital for various tasks of the site.
Phil was the one who did a large amount of coding to make alot of the additions to the current code work with BB3.
Shout worked on the frontpage as well as various other tasks.
The list carries on but my point is although you may not feel these memebers deserve their place there maybe more to this than you've yet fathomed.
I've spent most of today talking to source guy via IM with suggestions to improve the effectiveness of the transfer although you may have had issues tryong to suggest ideas i would like to think he maybe more open minded now since all hell has now broken loose.
Shadowkhas, there is a staff forum for a reason, why not discuss this in the staff forum instead of dragging it onto the main forum for everyone to see?

[shadowkhas]

Shadowkhas, there is a staff forum for a reason, why not discuss this in the staff forum instead of dragging it onto the main forum for everyone to see?

Um.

Because I'm not a Staff member?
Because this is where I should be addressing this? Is this not a purpose of this topic?

[warlord]

Shadowkhas, there is a staff forum for a reason, why not discuss this in the staff forum instead of dragging it onto the main forum for everyone to see?

Um.

Because I'm not a Staff member?
Because this is where I should be addressing this? Is this not a purpose of this topic?

the thread is about the changes not for how the changes were executed.
And i thought you was the moderator of the mac section or did you quit like tural?

[ScottyGEE]

I did not realise Shadowkhas was staff..........
I did not realise you had any part in the site. You are not part of the dev team, how were we supposed to know?

I'll still vent my dislike for the new theme. You can blame my recently calibrated (by recent, I mean about a month or two ago, but thats still more recent than my old: Never) monitor, you can justify it all you want that its the default proSilver, but that doesn't change the fact that I have to turn down the brightness to be able to read comfortably and that every other site I attend does not cause this issue.

[Tural]

the thread is about the changes not for how the changes were executed.

Yeah, and Shout locked my other topic, so now all of the discussion that would go in there will now go in here. If you'd like it to be separate, which it should be, let him know he should unlock the other thread. shadowkhas isn't staff, nor am I, nor Gametag, nor Detox, and we're going to be posting our feelings here unless the other thread is going to rightfully unlocked.

Scotty: What? shadowkhas was staff before yesterday, then he resigned with us. He is not staff now.

[warlord]

I did not realise you had any part in the site. You are not part of the dev team, how were we supposed to know?

Announcement section thread announcing new dev team

Halomods dev team:
SourceGuy, Geo, Phil, warlord, SHOUTrvb, Anthony, and Ketchup_Bomb

I'll still vent my dislike for the new theme. You can blame my recently calibrated monitor, you can justify it all you want that its the default proSilver, but that doesn't change the fact that I have to turn down the brightness to be able to read comfortably

Im rather sure the current theme will be tweaked soon enough so may i request we skip this record on go to a new one such as any bugs from the forum transfer and how we the dev's can help develop the forum further which could make this much more comforting to the users in general?

Yeah, and Shout locked my other topic, so now all of the discussion that would go in there will now go in here. If you'd like it to be separate, which it should be, let him know he should unlock the other thread. shadowkhas isn't staff, nor am I, nor Gametag, nor Detox, and we're going to be posting our feelings here unless the other thread is going to rightfully unlocked.

I got the impression your topic was more about personal opinion of feeling pushed out which is not the situation.
This topic how ever is for the Constructive development of the website as a whole reporting bugs dislikes about additions and dislikes about additions to the features of the website not the hierachy.