invictus43
Well-known member
Free just doesn't buy you what it used to..I tell ya..
Years of messages and threads gone. GTAM history wiped out. Who cares?
- Thread starter Vlad
- Start date
Free just doesn't buy you what it used to..I tell ya..
I have seen no reports worth quoting and no corrections whatsoever. What was your point again?
Free has little to nothing to do with responsibility. Ask any volunteer-run non-profit organization.
As to duty to report I would say "little to none", in this case, and as the corrective action taken was to get the site running without significant lag, that seems to have been self-reported.
invictus43
Well-known member
I don't see the connection. What, exactly, is the contract that he has with you to maintain your information?
I volunteer extensively (15-20 hours per month) to complete the finances for a non-profit, and nothing disappoints me more than when people complain about trivial matters related to my post. I do my absolute best, but sometimes things don't go as smoothly as anticipated. I can accept that people rarely thank me for the time I put in, but I find complaints are particularly discouraging. I think I can relate to Paul in this regard. GTAM is an excellent website and it will continue to be excellent regardless of a few blips. We should focus on his contributions instead of dwelling on the odd slip-up.
In other words, no responsibility whatsoever. Who wants an uncountable and irresponsible administrator? As to comparing "lag" with total loss of data I'll point you to apples and watermelons...
No contract is necessary. If you assume a role, you take the adequate responsibility. It is not my information. It belongs to all members, but only one can keep it safe.
Do you call the loss of years of shared information collected and posted by thousands of people trivial?
It's hard to focus on annihilated contributions, Paul's as well as everybody elses. All we can do is offer help and that's what I did repeatedly.
It's not an odd slip-up. There are obviously people that do not assign a lot of value to this board and the information collected here. Everyone else, and I'm sure that includes Paul and myself, consider the wealth of information stored here one of the boards biggest if not the biggest asset. All we need is to hear that those in position to do so care as much as the rest of us and are doing whatever is in their power to restore what is lost, but so far we don't even know if there's a backup or not. Keeping users in the dark was never a good policy.
Bottom line: GTAM has lost a lot of it's value, both past and future. How it will recover depends on whether the data will be eventually restored and how will it's members and their contributions be treated from now on. There's only one person that can perform those tasks.
I do assign a lot of value to GTAM posts or I wouldn't be posting here. Out of my 7000+ GTAM posts, over 6500 of them were attempting to help other members with their insurance questions. Although I'm not good with a wrench, I can at least contribute in that regard. I'm fortunate that my most time-consuming and helpful posts are stickies, so they remain on the board -- I would have been more disappointed if they disappeared.
There you go. My remarks were not directed at you personally and we are not that different, except for the fact that I would voice my discontent even if none of my posts (or threads I care about) were affected. In hope they won't get nuked without warning next time there's a "lag"...
invictus43
Well-known member
Of course a contract is necessary. If you choose to put information in a place that has no guarantee of service, why would you assume it will still be there?? That's moronic. It sucks when someone, out of the goodness of their heart, shovels your driveway for you..then when they stop, you crap on them. Shovel your own driveway!!! Yeesh.. Get a life..
Let me draw a picture for you:
- A neighbor decides to build a house or designate a part of his house as a library for everyone to use. He built it and they came.
- He supplies the space and basic maintenance for free, but he's hoping everyone else will contribute books and other materials that make a library what it is. He also hopes some of the book donors will agree to volunteer as librarians. He asks patrons and contributors alike to pitch in a few bucks if/when they can (for that they get a Library Supporter bumper sticker).
- So far so good. Many people contribute their books and their time, the library and it's patronage is growing daily. People from other parts of the city come to borrow/read books they can't find elsewhere because they are unique. There is an occasional vandal and some people cannot be taught to be quiet in the library but they are dealt with swiftly thanks to solidarity of regular patrons/contributors.
- Eventually the the house became so full of books and shelves that patrons couldn't navigate through it any more or reach what they wanted to read. The house owner takes out a bunch of "old books" to the back yard in the middle of the night and burns them. He didn't warn or consult anyone, he didn't tell his contributors/patrons/donors which books he is burning or why, he doesn't say if there are copies somewhere. After a few days, when patrons start complaining they can't find their favorite books or the ones they donated personally the owner says "Sorry, I burned them to make space.". He also tells those that complain that they should have kept the books at their own house if they wanted them safe.
- It's his house and he can do with it's contents whatever he pleases. He is not paid to keep those books, actually he invests his time and money in order to run the library. The books were given to the library with no strings attached - there is no contract obliging the library owner to keep them. And yes, many are only copies or unique specimens, but no price or value was ever associated with them.
Nothing wrong with that picture, right? Don't tell me it's a bad analogy.
I won't waste any more of my time. The only messages I may reply to will be those that contain answers to one of the following questions:
- When was the data deleted? (day is enough)
- What data was deleted? (everything older than n, just threads in forum X older than n, just these n threads, etc.)
- Is there a backup and how current is it?
- Can the backup be restored and how/when that will be done?
- What can I can do to help?
I'd also like to hear that we will be kept in the loop and given prior notice whenever possible in the future, or informed in detail as soon as possible after an unforeseen incident happens. Is that too much to ask?
- A neighbor decides to build a house or designate a part of his house as a library for everyone to use. He built it and they came.
- He supplies the space and basic maintenance for free, but he's hoping everyone else will contribute books and other materials that make a library what it is. He also hopes some of the book donors will agree to volunteer as librarians. He asks patrons and contributors alike to pitch in a few bucks if/when they can (for that they get a Library Supporter bumper sticker).
- So far so good. Many people contribute their books and their time, the library and it's patronage is growing daily. People from other parts of the city come to borrow/read books they can't find elsewhere because they are unique. There is an occasional vandal and some people cannot be taught to be quiet in the library but they are dealt with swiftly thanks to solidarity of regular patrons/contributors.
- Eventually the the house became so full of books and shelves that patrons couldn't navigate through it any more or reach what they wanted to read. The house owner takes out a bunch of "old books" to the back yard in the middle of the night and burns them. He didn't warn or consult anyone, he didn't tell his contributors/patrons/donors which books he is burning or why, he doesn't say if there are copies somewhere. After a few days, when patrons start complaining they can't find their favorite books or the ones they donated personally the owner says "Sorry, I burned them to make space.". He also tells those that complain that they should have kept the books at their own house if they wanted them safe.
- It's his house and he can do with it's contents whatever he pleases. He is not paid to keep those books, actually he invests his time and money in order to run the library. The books were given to the library with no strings attached - there is no contract obliging the library owner to keep them. And yes, many are only copies or unique specimens, but no price or value was ever associated with them.
Nothing wrong with that picture, right? Don't tell me it's a bad analogy.
I won't waste any more of my time. The only messages I may reply to will be those that contain answers to one of the following questions:
- When was the data deleted? (day is enough)
- What data was deleted? (everything older than n, just threads in forum X older than n, just these n threads, etc.)
- Is there a backup and how current is it?
- Can the backup be restored and how/when that will be done?
- What can I can do to help?
I'd also like to hear that we will be kept in the loop and given prior notice whenever possible in the future, or informed in detail as soon as possible after an unforeseen incident happens. Is that too much to ask?
holy **** Vlad.
Me thinks you should change your Signature. because for someone who doesnt visit this board frequently,
you seem to have alot to say
Boo hoo, that some stuff went missing. just start it over again.
Me thinks you should change your Signature. because for someone who doesnt visit this board frequently,
you seem to have alot to say
Boo hoo, that some stuff went missing. just start it over again.
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ItIsWhatItIs
Banned
A wine and cheese thread.:crybaby:
I wonder if HR can have a conversation with Paul, so this never happens again.
If that's true, it's even worse than I thought. Just to clarify, it didn't just go *poof* as in some unpredictable disaster. It was deleted on purpose as a dumb, knee-jerk reaction to fix the "lag".
Not much point in posting to the board either. We may as well create a new one - with administrator(s) that have sense of responsibility for the community and respect for their members.
