Recent Travails of SMF Team and Friends

[Kindred]

I have not locked this thread yet for the simple reason that, if people can't post here, they'll do it elsewhere...  places which might not be appropriate or places which I may miss and thus miss a chance to respond.

I may lock this later... we'll see.

[bullan]

I hope you are discussing that in those private/hidden forums;
having around 90 hidden forums means you have a lot to talk; just try to concentrate all of you on the good forum


you should lock this and update it once a day (or more) if you have something to say to us

[JBlaze]

How about we all let go and convert to IPB?

* JBlaze laughs evilly and goes back to his dark corner.

[Douglas]

Welp, I'm not the only big board person moving from SMF.

Without identifying who it is, this is a huge loss for SMF.

6.1 million+ Posts in 127K+ Topics by 31K+ Members
Switching to another software.  This is someone that I have a LOT of personal respect and admiration for.

Sad.

[TheListener]

How about we all let go and convert to IPB?

* JBlaze laughs evilly and goes back to his dark corner.

The IPB forums I have seen are no match for SMF.

[JBlaze]

The IPB forums I have seen are no match for SMF.

I beg to differ.

[TheListener]

ugly is one word I can think off

[Rumbaar]

First this discussion is for all of the community, and shouldn't be limited to those 'in the know'.  As it's important to everyone who's involved with SMF from a user of a SMF forum to an Admin.

SMF belongs to ALL of us.

This most important fact posted here!

Honestly, the only people that REALLY REALLY matter in this project are the coders.
*snip*
All that matters is Programmers.

While true, even when [Unknown] left SMF it did not die, when Grudge, Thantos, JayBachatero, Orstio, etc left it did not die.  The community is the most important part.  It's a shame this action seems to be destroying that community.

The problems didn't occur overnight and they won't be solved instantly or by any one action.

Well one did, and in one action made it far worse it seems.

I've long said the core idea behind the action was needed, but it's implementation was done so wrong that it negated all of the good it was intended to do.  It was about giving leadership the respect and tools to lead the project and in their first action they disrespected key leaders and LLC partners with their direct non inclusion of planning and implementation.

[Nao 尚]

Amacythe,

Although I thought your post was quite convincing in its own way, it's unfortunate that it's such a pile of lies. Other replies have already addressed these points (Eren, akabugeyes, Antechinus, CountryLady, JayB...), but there are a few remaining things for me to say. I had personal comments to make, but I've decided not to post them in the end, and to keep it general, for the sake of the debate.

1/ What ForumGuy said about you may hurt you, and it's a caricature I can't condone, but the gist is that coders do the bulk of the work indeed. SMF is a huge project and requires knowing all of its source code very well if you want to update it without adding more bugs. Believe me, I've been studying it for years and I'm still not finished. So, in over 3 years, you made small tasks, attended 2 expos, organized a couple of internal meetings and sent plenty of T-shirts and other goodies. In the meantime, SMF2 was slowly dying due to the lack of developers.
Excuse me but I fail to see how strong your commitment was to the software.

It was already mentioned by other members that if you feel concerned about SMF's future, you should be stepping down because many developers would return in that case, which would be the best outcome for SMF. I'd love to know your opinion on that. After all, you're the only person to ever receive a salary for your 'contribution' to SMF. You can contribute by being more open.

2/ You didn't answer my earlier post. I didn't expect it, but still... I think it deserves to be made clear who wrote the quote I sent:

« You have every right to have the feelings that you do.  But there are times when you must put your own feelings aside and react in a professional manner.  Your comments reflect on SMF and our entire team if we do nothing when you violate our rules and core values.  What's fair for one should be fair for all. »

By the way, guess who wrote that?

Of course, it was you, Amacythe, who told me that by PM, because you felt I was being unprofessional in my decision to end one of my mods' development back in May 2009. I felt you were partly right in that respect, BTW.

However, as was pointed out many times in this topic, the very same quote can be sent back right to you. Your actions reflect on SMF and the entire time. You violated SMF's core values several times recently. "What's fair for one should be fair for all." You're not above your own statement.

Maybe you don't deserve to take all the blame for what has happened, but as the owner of SMF, you should remember that what matters most is the health of your assets. If you'd rather see it die rather than leave it to a non-profit committee and turn it to open source, then you should also remember that you're not killing a software, you're killing a community, *and* you're making many, many team members angry because they feel like they've committed many years of their time to a project that had no future.

Even if you feel you're not responsible for all the team members leaving, you're still the 'manager'. And as manager, you know very well that you're taking responsibility for all the failure of the company. SMF2's development was started 4 years ago, it's a failure. You should step down if only because of that. Then tell the team you're a candidate to be re-elected. That's the way things are done.
Or, you could allow the Friends team to fork SMF2 into some other software. I'm 100% sure the Friends team will even allow SMF to take all improvements from the forked software and integrate them into SMF.

If none of this happens, more and more people will have to take sides. More and more mod developers will take their creation to another platform. Stop the bleeding while you still can, please.

[Fustrate]

I've long said the core idea behind the action was needed, but it's implementation was done so wrong that it negated all of the good it was intended to do.  It was about giving leadership the respect and tools to lead the project and in their first action they disrespected key leaders and LLC partners with their direct non inclusion of planning and implementation.

And it wasn't that they just forgot to include us (now-)former leaders. In my case, Amacythe "tested the waters" with me, and when it was clear that I wasn't going to approve of the coup, I was shut out of any further information. A decision was therefore made to purposely keep all of the leaders in the dark except for Tyrsson™, who was gung-ho about it and was then let in on what was going on.

[Peter Duggan]

No matter who's right or wrong or whatever happened in the past, Amy needs to go.

@Amy, if you're reading this, I'm sorry to say (as the person who originally brought you onto the Team) that Akyhne is right there. No matter who's right or wrong and no matter how you see things yourself. Nothing is forever and it's time to step aside.

Sincerely
P

[Antechinus]

Nao, very nicely put. 

[~DS~]

Nao, very nicely put. 

Doesn't he always? 

[Antechinus]

No. Sometimes he does his nut. This time he was awesome.

[scottb]

Well as a long time follower of the SMF project, the YaBBSE project before it, and not to mention an early Charter Member. I must say it saddens me to see things come to this, and hope that whatever the out come that SMF remains alive and well. SMF and it's continued progress and success is what matters most here, I hope the powers that be here make the right decision for the welfare of the project.

[ryanhellyer]

Because someone actually asked...

Many have been asking time and time again. Someone kept removing our posts

Because your "staff" kept censoring our posts I had to start posting outside of SMF just to alert other SMF users to the mess. Please do not do this again! It highly ticked me off!
http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=657382
http://www.wptavern.com/forum/general/1220-smf-down-toilet.html

Why did you post a balance sheet from 2006? Why don't you post all of them?

Please, let it go, folks. This is a team+friends matter, and anyone who is not part of that group, please kindly do not comment.

No, I'll post wherever I want.

[Antechinus]

Oh and speaking of balances: Amy attempted to imply there were missing funds not paid over to the LLC when the assets were transferred to the LLC. The reason for this is that the transfer was delayed and therefore the previous owner had had to pay out for server costs, etc for the intervening period. In other words, there was nothing dogey going on, just legitimate costs.

I cannot see how Amy could not have known this since she was directly involved at the time.

[The Wicked Flea]

I, for one, am tired of the behavior of all the irritable trolls and goblins here. Two wrongs don't make a right, and the reaction by most the "SMF Friends" group to being shut out has completely demolished what pity I felt for them. For guys like Unknown and akabugeyes (and Jeff Lewis) I still feel pity, as they're not interested in bemoaning the man-hours lost or in stooping to anything near blackmail.

But understand this, SMF Friends. I won't be using SMF thanks to the stagnation of v2.0 and because of how they treated all of you. But, I won't be using whatever the forum package is you're planning to make either! Additionally, I'll be professionally turning down any work that involves support, creation of, or maintenance of any SMF or "SMF Friends" powered forum.

I just hope most of you goblins wise up and stop setting fire to your own ship.

[Rowdy]

So the meat of the issue is resentment because Amy got paid? Or is it resentment because in some people's views she didn't get enough done to warrant the salary? Or, is it a combination? If she hasn't done her job, fire her. What's the problem? But you can't complain about paying a salary being incompatible with your principles if you offered it in the first place.

[Dannii]

No one can fire Amy but Amy herself. That's the problem, she holds all the cards.

That she took money is a very minor issue that I haven't seen many of the friends actually say they care much about.