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Holy crap...
Posted By: Konrad9 <ltkonrad9@aol.com>	Date: 7/17/03 10:06 p.m.
In Response To: Re: Hey Louis (Louis Wu) : Pretty unlikely in the near future. :( (Pretty unlikely in the far future, at : the rate we're going, for that matter.) : Here's the problem. : The Tricks section is by far the most complicated section here. Tricks that : come in have a combination of pictures, movies, and text descriptions, of : varying quantities - there's no easy way to template them. For a while, I : semi-templated them; I had a few generic templates, and I'd use one each : time a trick came in. Almost all of them required some sort of : customization, unfortunately... so the templates didn't save much time. So : I decided they had to be databased. There's really no other way. : However: building the interface for this particular section is non-trivial - : and while I might only need, say, 10 or 15 hours in a stretch, you can : triple, quadruple, or septuple that number if I have to split my time : between it and other things; keeping all the pieces in my head is quite : difficult (much more so than other sections, I've discovered). This is : definitely MY limitation - so all the posters in the world saying 'but : it's really not any harder than, say, the movies section' isn't going to : change the fact that I KNOW it's harder, for ME. : Okay, so I need several days of uninterrupted time to do this... or a couple : of weeks of interrupted time. Why not just do it? Well, because as this : site has gotten more popular, the quantity of submissions has gone up - : and there simply ISN'T that much free time. When Fan Fiction submissions : (which once were 1 or 2 a week) climbed to 3-4/day, I couldn't keep up - : so I imposed limits. They didn't help, so I created a submission form, and : forced people to use it. Now, instead of formatting stories from whatever : form they come in as and posting them by hand, I just have to make sure : they're correctly submitted, and approve them. Except... : 1) submissions have climbed to 10+/day - even if they're perfect, and I just : scan them to make sure there aren't problems, it's STILL 15-30 minutes. : 2) There are ALWAYS problems. It ASTOUNDS me, ESPECIALLY in the fan fiction : section (where people are WRITING, for god's sake, which would imply they : enjoy reading, as well) how MANY people can't follow simple directions. So : tack on an extra 15-30 minutes/day to fix the crap. : Artwork submissions range from ~10-50 pieces/week. They all need to be : thumbnailed (I have yet to find a tool that will automatically thumbnail : an image nicely, 100% of the time; most of the thumbs need manual cropping : before being made, almost all need sharpening, etc), databased, and : posted. : Movie submissions are up to over 1/day, and almost every one of them needs : post-processing; the tools to make clean, web-friendly movies are simply : not cheap, and the vast majority of Halo moviemakers don't have access to : them. : Dialogue snippets now come in at a rate of 10-50/day, and almost all of them : need post-processing (either cropping, to get rid of extraneous noise, or : maybe just renaming to get rid of web-unfriendly characters like spaces : and apostrophes) - and then need to be added to the database, with a bunch : of information. Takes a boatload of time. : Oh, did I mention I have a wife, 3 kids, and a full-time job? (A job which : would eat 15 hours/day if I weren't working on HBO?) : Many people have offered to help with HBO over the years... but rarely do any : of them show that they're willing to live up to the attention to detail : we've tried to maintain. (Some do - and we hire 'em. Witness Finn and : mnemesis, for example.) : The backend HBO uses (MGI, by PagePlanet Software) is relatively obscure - : even though it's pretty powerful and easy to learn. We can't just snag : off-the-shelf solutions in, say, PHP, because HBO runs on a Mac (in OS9), : and PHP doesn't run in that environment. (Yes, you can FORCE it to run in : that environment... but it ain't pretty, and it's certainly not fast : enough to keep up with a website getting between 500,000 and 1,000,000 raw : hits/day.) So if we're gonna get coding help, the volunteers are gonna : have to learn MGI. : It's quite doable - witness the Tips section. We didn't have one, and Cybrfrk : said 'you need one.' I said, 'yeah, I know - but i don't have time to make : it. You wanna make one, go for it.' : So he did. : I guess what I'm trying to say is that just keeping my head above water here : takes many hours a day and a lot of help from the other HBO maintainers - : but I can't do much more on my own. And the Tricks section, unfortunately, : is where the camel's back got broke. : So here's the deal. If anyone wants to step up to the plate and learn MGI : (all the reference material you need is right here ), and build a new : interface for the Tricks database that allows easy submission of tricks : (in a flexible manner, given the types of media that come in for them), : I'd be happy to accept the help. I am NOT interested in holding someone's : hand through the process, however - if you wanna do this, just do it, and : come to me with a finished product. (Well, functional product - we can : talk about finishing it once a goodly chunk of the work is out of the : way.) If nobody is willing to step up to the plate, it's simply gonna have : to wait until I can breathe again (which may be never, unfortunately; In a : month or two, Halo PC will be out, with a whole new set of demands on my : time... and then six months or so after that, Halo 2 will be out...). : I have limits, unfortunately... and I'm finding more of them every day. :( You could have cleared the tricks queue two fold instead of typing that ; )

Message Index

Hey Louis	dalecooper	7/17/03 4:23 p.m.
Re: Hey Louis	Louis Wu	7/17/03 5:15 p.m.
...wow...	goatrope	7/17/03 5:25 p.m.
This is gonna sound ....err....	guy who doesn't post....too often	7/17/03 5:40 p.m.
Re: This is gonna sound ....err....	Louis Wu	7/17/03 5:46 p.m.
Re: This is gonna sound ....err....	guy who doesn't post....too often	7/17/03 6:23 p.m.
Mr Wu U R greatly appreciated, and I would donate$ *NM*	decibel	7/17/03 7:23 p.m.
The Wu is too old fasioned...	Shishka	7/17/03 7:27 p.m.
I try to be nice and I get insulted Thanks Shishka *NM*	decibel	7/17/03 7:32 p.m.
Humor 101	Shishka	7/17/03 7:39 p.m.
Re: Humor 101	BOLL	7/17/03 8:03 p.m.
Re: Humor 101	Shishka	7/17/03 8:05 p.m.
Re: Humor 101	BOLL	7/17/03 8:46 p.m.
Re: Humor 101	bikeman704	7/17/03 11:27 p.m.
I guess I wouldn't turn down money, especially....	decibel	7/18/03 2:27 p.m.
Re: I guess I wouldn't turn down money, especially	Louis Wu	7/18/03 3:24 p.m.
Re: This is gonna sound ....err....	AJ Mendoza	7/17/03 10:08 p.m.
Re: ...wow...	dizzy	7/17/03 5:47 p.m.
Re: Hey Louis	deanero	7/17/03 5:47 p.m.
Re: Hey Louis :)	Wado SG	7/17/03 5:59 p.m.
Re: Hey Louis	dalecooper	7/17/03 6:29 p.m.
Re: Hey Louis	Louis Wu	7/17/03 9:33 p.m.
Louis...	Ross Mills	7/17/03 6:30 p.m.
Re: Louis...	dizzy	7/17/03 6:43 p.m.
A HA ! now i found him :)	vshields ash	7/17/03 8:37 p.m.
Re: A HA ! now i found him :)	Louis Wu	7/17/03 9:30 p.m.
Re: A HA ! now i found him :)	dizzy	7/17/03 9:56 p.m.
Holy crap...	Konrad9	7/17/03 10:06 p.m.
Re: Hey Louis	Elfster	7/21/03 5:37 p.m.
Re: Hey Louis	Louis Wu	7/27/03 7:37 p.m.