Recent Travails of SMF Team and Friends

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

And in the meantime, is it safe for me to set my forum up with SMF ?

Yes, absolutely, positively - At least, that is how I see it, and even though I left the team partially due to this all, I still run a development version of 2.0 on a pretty active website live, and am not concidering to switch to anything else. SMF is still the best there is.

[Orstio]

I honestly think that Amacythe did what she felt was the best for the community and the project.

There's a clear difference between doing the right thing (emotional perception), and doing things right (logical correctness).

I always wonder about statements like this, because you can always mirror the context, and the statement still holds true:

I honestly think that Hitler did what he felt was the best for Germany and the world.

Can anyone argue that he felt any differently?  ( I apologize for using such an extreme example, just needed to demonstracize the comparison to show that it's the same failing logic on a different scale.)

Gosh darn it, you invoked Godwin's law!

I do agree with you there. Hitler likely felt he was doing the right thing. It isn't failing logic, however.

Acknowledging that Hitler probably did feel he was doing the right thing recognizes he's a person, not some demon from hell who knows they are evil and revels in it. Often, even the people who do wrong things do them for the right reasons. That doesn't make the actions less wrong, but it might lend a perspective that demonizing the person isn't the most productive thing to do. That was my point. Tearing Amacythe down might be all fun to those who can see her as some faceless evil, but it misses that she's a human with actual feelings. Sadly, I've seen a lot personal attacks going on in this situation.

Feeling like she's doing the right thing doesn't make it any less wrong.

That can be generalized and still remain true, but that wasn't my point. Don't pick on the person, fix the action or determine the cause and solve that. Just like terrorism against Western society won't stop even if OBL is captured because there is a huge underlying problem, problems in the project won't go away if Amacythe is kicked out and torn up in the public eye.

so when this drama is going to end ?

Finally, we, the end users of SMF are going to affect a lot here.   

When people stop taking cheap shots at an easy target and let the negotiators handle their work. So, basically, not anytime soon given the way this topic has gone.

SMF the software shouldn't be affected with these ongoing issues (other than to perhaps demotivate and distract the developers).

I mostly agree with this.  You'll see some of my posts at smf-friends.org are aimed at people badmouthing Amacythe without personal justification.  They don't even know her, and are fueling fires to lash out against her.  Now, I don't post to defend her in any way.  But people who don't know her have no place talking about her character.  That doesn't do anyone any good.

Feeling like she's doing the right thing doesn't make it any less wrong.

That can be generalized and still remain true, but that wasn't my point.

It might not be your point, but it is mine.  Regardless of how she feels about it, and regardless of how a few others feel about it, what she's doing is wrong. 

One problem will most certainly be fixed by her removal:  The problem of lack of trust.  Most people that know her don't trust her.  That is a fair statement; do a count.  It's also true that most people she knows, she doesn't trust.  You know her well enough to know that.

Just that lack of trust should be enough for you to see that she needs to be removed from the solitary position of managing member of the LLC.  How can she possibly be acting on behalf of a community she doesn't trust, and who doesn't trust her?

[godboko]

Gosh darn it, you invoked Godwin's law!

After 8-9 pages, the probability was 99.7%.

Tearing Amacythe down might be all fun to those who can see her as some faceless evil, but it misses that she's a human with actual feelings.

Given that she rarely ever posts in public boards, it is not surprising that she stands as an easy scapegoat.
Really, what she needs to do here is post a public message, signed by herself, explaining her reasons for refusing to give back the project to [Unknown]. It is one thing to have feelings and I respect them (being a bit of a drama queen myself). But breaking a promise and endangering a project on which dozens of volunteers are working all day long, is another thing. I have done stupid things earlier in my life, but I always explained myself when it came up. Sometimes this has led me to reconsider my point of view. I see no reason why she should be shielded from the public debate.
I, myself, would be tempted to ask: what has Amacythe done for the SMF project in the 6 years she's officially been on the team? The SMF2 project was started 5 years ago and has yet to come to a conclusion. I remember when I joined the team 2 years ago, many people were already complaining that SMF2 wasn't out yet, and the team promised it would be there in a few months time. Sometimes, it feels like the project was secretly renamed to SMF3 without the public's knowledge (given that many more changes have been made in the last 2 years, while it was supposed to be feature-frozen.)
So, as a result, it would only be logical to blame responsibility on the project's lead manager. Which, in this case, is Amacythe. Does she have any good reasons for forcing the release to be stalled? Or is it the developers' fault? If it's the devs, why doesn't she agree on hiring more developers? How many times have I said I was open to the idea of joining the core developer team? It's not only me -- many people like Arantor have expressed their desire to help get this out as soon as possible. SMF2 is not rocket science, it doesn't require a 5-year course to learn how to improve it. I do it myself everyday on my own site.
As I said on smf-friends, I believe it is necessary to change the dev team structure to allow up to 15 capable developers recruited from the best coders around here. A team coordinator could check all code commits and make sure they're good enough. Some of the team could focus on fixing bug tracker reports, the rest could focus on other aspects undoubtedly discussed on the team boards, etc, etc.

Granted, most of the capable developers have left, so it's important that the negociations come to a satisfying conclusion, because I feel SMF couldn't outlive the end of contributions from such talented people as those who left the SMF over the Amacythe fight. The developers who remained on the project, I feel have done so not because they've taken their sides, but because they're either too busy IRL to take part in these discussions, or because they don't like politics. Whatever the reason, one thing is clear (and since the bug tracker is now viewable by anyone, it's easy to check), no commit has been done in nearly 2 weeks now. Waiting for the developers to "want to work on the project again" is madness. There are 4 devs, and they're all MIA right now.

Therefore, I would like Amacythe to publicly explain why she acted this way, and whether she considers she's doing it for the good of the project. I expect the situation has calmed down so it shouldn't create another full-scale war, instead it can only help the community to bring the debate to a public place, if only by notifying them of any progress being made. Because, believe me, I've seen worse team fights than this one, but I've never seen "negociations" drag on for weeks. At this rate, SMF2 isn't going to be ready for its planned release date (October 2017).

Just like terrorism against Western society won't stop even if OBL is captured because there is a huge underlying problem, problems in the project won't go away if Amacythe is kicked out and torn up in the public eye.

The only problem the team has acknowledged so far is that Amacythe doesn't want to project to move on. I'm all hears if there are other issues. Anything that could make me think it's not only due to an egotistical behavior, which the community is currently led to believe.

Basically, what's a community project if one person has power over it all?

When people stop taking cheap shots at an easy target and let the negotiators handle their work. So, basically, not anytime soon given the way this topic has gone.

I don't see why the community's concern could slow down internal negotiations.

SMF the software shouldn't be affected with these ongoing issues (other than to perhaps demotivate and distract the developers).

See above.

Big +1

[ForumGuy789]

Honestly us users just want SMF to continue with the full team, or any faction.

So what you need to do is simple.

1. First try negotiations but give yourself a time-line. If the full team does not agree to something before the time line is over then see the next step.
2. If negotiations fail within the set time (1-2 months), then take your drama to a court for gods sake. Don't whine about it here or scare your users to death. It's hard or impossible to import your forums to other forum software you know! Many of us do not have mom and pop forums, we have real forums. Let the court rule on the subject of who has rights to control SMF and be done with it.

Courts are there to handle drama. Start being more professional and get to work please.

[Nao 尚]

ForumGuy789> SMF is technically owned by Amacythe, that's what a court will say. They won't care for the community or the SMF core values, they will care for the law. They can't prevent her from using her assets as she likes (and as we dislike), even if the original owner complains, even if the entire community of SMF developers and helpers complains. If she wants to kill SMF she can, that's the bottom line. I hope she won't, but I guess she can.

hitler absolutely did believe he was doing good. What is sad is that collectivism is on the rise again, despite the lessons of history. Beware of anyone preaching sacrifice as an end in itself, like hitler.

I don't think anyone with far-right affinities belongs in a conversation about Hitler.

Orstio,
Paranoia is a bad thing indeed and it's even worse when it's about a community leader. If she talked to the community, it would open up a chance of fixing these issues. So far, it looks to me like she has been defying us all and it's looking bad.
I only have one comment for her, which I'm going to borrow verbatim from someone else (I hope that someone else won't mind.)

« 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?

[Dannii]

My first post here. First I want to thank and congratulate everyone responsible for this lovely SMF forum software.

Then *Sigh*.  I had just decided not to migrate my new forum to Vbulletin because of the change of ownership and the nightmares with Vb4.  I did a comparison of all the forums and SMF came out top of my list.
I am very sad to find a big shadow hanging over the future of SMF and I hope that a resolution can come out of it quickly.

The first thing I read when I went into the site is "why SMF is not Open Source" - if I understand right, it is because some people took the work of SMF, repackaged it and sold it or represented it as their own - this is the nature of Open Source.

They did so by removing the credits and original copyright statements - that is against all definitions of free and open source software.

But, that was like 7 years ago. It is well past the time to move on.

[ardd]

Such a friendly site. If you look above, it was nao who made it personal:

I don't think anyone with far-right affinities belongs in a conversation about Hitler.

and someone else previously that brought up hitler. I was merely the third or fourth person to mention it in relation to this topic when nao took a swipe at me, again.

And, beck is way too far to the left for my taste.

You need to take the C&P politics to another thread "I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." Don't push Randian philosophy here John Galt there's no profit motive lurking in the corner. 

[Tony Reid]

I was going to stay out of this thread..... but I have to say that comparing Amacythe with Hitler is quite frankly disgusting and immature.

Yes - a lot of us believe that the project management of SMF(not just Amy) needs to change completely and a number of us feel Amy needs to step down, but personal attacks and comments like that are just not on.

Its how the management are going forward with SMF that needs to be questioned.

Please leave abusive comparisons about Amy out of this.

[LiroyvH]

I was going to stay out of this thread..... but I have to say that comparing Amacythe with Hitler is quite frankly disgusting and immature.

Yes - a lot of us believe that the project management of SMF(not just Amy) needs to change completely and a number of us feel Amy needs to step down, but personal attacks and comments like that are just not on.

Its how the management are going forward with SMF that needs to be questioned.

Please leave abusive comparisons about Amy out of this.

+1, personal attacks or odd comparisons to anyone should be left out of this.

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

I was going to stay out of this thread..... but I have to say that comparing Amacythe with Hitler is quite frankly disgusting and immature.

This I don't believe was even meant to be the comparison, but someone just lead the topic off the rails and it ended up being about Hitler...

[Tony Reid]

Where is Gri when you need him.

[SN]

I was going to stay out of this thread..... but I have to say that comparing Amacythe with Hitler is quite frankly disgusting and immature.

Yes - a lot of us believe that the project management of SMF(not just Amy) needs to change completely and a number of us feel Amy needs to step down, but personal attacks and comments like that are just not on.

Its how the management are going forward with SMF that needs to be questioned.

Please leave abusive comparisons about Amy out of this.

This is exactly what happens when you make matters like this public. You get 100's of opinions coming from all angles, which will eventually get out of control.

This is why this whole episode should have been kept behind closed doors and dealt with internally. Otherwise you can do more harm than good...If not to the project itself, but to peoples feelings and ultimately damage SMF more.

Lets be honest here, only a select few know the FULL story and they know who they are. If you don't know the full story you should be all hoping for the best.

I personally would lock this thread before it gets out of hand

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

Lets be honest here, only a select few know the FULL story and they know who they are. If you don't know the full story you should be all hoping for the best.

The whole team knows the full story, most of the friends know the full story, and pretty much everyone who read this topic through knows most of the story.

[Tony Reid]

And SN, its best not to mention closed doors - as that's kind of a sore subject.

[Amanda.]

The woman everyone is talking about, does she really even exist?
Seriously, I'm a relatively new convert to SMF and I'm loving the software, and up until the recent events occurred I was also loving the whole community and support given.
Someone said in one of the posts here that Amacythe 'doesn't post on public boards', which is a concern because a short post from her assuring everyone that she has the best interests of the project and users in mind and will endeavour to sort this mess out ... well it would make a huge difference and probably come as a relief to many.

[SN]

Lets be honest here, only a select few know the FULL story and they know who they are. If you don't know the full story you should be all hoping for the best.

The whole team knows the full story, most of the friends know the full story, and pretty much everyone who read this topic through knows most of the story.

And compare that to the amount of views and replies this thread has had...then like i said, its still only a select Few, be it 30 or 40+

[Tony Reid]

The woman everyone is talking about, does she really even exist?
Seriously, I'm a relatively new convert to SMF and I'm loving the software, and up until the recent events occurred I was also loving the whole community and support given.
Someone said in one of the posts here that Amacythe 'doesn't post on public boards', which is a concern because a short post from her assuring everyone that she has the best interests of the project and users in mind and will endeavour to sort this mess out ... well it would make a huge difference and probably come as a relief to many.

Amy does exist and posts mostly in the Team boards and has input on the PR posts you see coming from the team.

[SN]

The impression i get from some of you in this thread, is like you do not want SMF to survive as long as Amy is in-charge

IMO that is the wrong attitude.

Whether Amy is in-charge or not, we should all be willing to compromise to keep SMF alive

[Kindred]

I have deleted the seriously off-topic comments, especially those related to the politics of Hitler, and other personal issues.

Yell censorship if you want... but that's not what this thread is for.

Amy is not Hitler... and I do not think anyone is comparing her directly to Hitler... Godwin's law declared that it must be brought up though... Amy is the current manager of Simple Machines LLC, that is all. Recent issues included, her goal is to run the LLC and improve the product. The arguments regarding the recent issues have not been about motivations, but about methods of implementation.

Also, to respond to a bunch who have obviously not read the whole thread

1- This post was made to address issues which had alreayd been made public. if you had not seen or been aware of them... well and good, you can continue to ignore this thread and the contents there-in.
2- SMF is not dead and is not dying. We will continue despite any interpersonal or other internal issues.  This project is bigger than any one person.
3- For those of you commenting on "keep this behind closed doors". Actually, we are endeavoring to do the opposite. Our goal is (going forward) to keep the community informed and involved. Especially when... see #1 above.

[Orstio]

The impression i get from some of you in this thread, is like you do not want SMF to survive as long as Amy is in-charge

Then you have the wrong impression.

We all want SMF to survive.  But it will not survive as long as Amy is in charge.  It will continue to stagnate and become vaporware, as it has gone in that direction for the past few years.

The first step to changing that is her removal.

I have deleted the seriously off-topic comments, especially those related to the politics of Hitler, and other personal issues.

Yell censorship if you want... but that's not what this thread is for.

Amy is not Hitler... and I do not think anyone is comparing her directly to Hitler... Godwin's law declared that it must be brought up though... Amy is the current manager of Simple Machines LLC, that is all. Recent issues included, her goal is to run the LLC and improve the product. The arguments regarding the recent issues have not been about motivations, but about methods of implementation.

Also, to respond to a bunch who have obviously not read the whole thread

1- This post was made to address issues which had alreayd been made public. if you had not seen or been aware of them... well and good, you can continue to ignore this thread and the contents there-in.
2- SMF is not dead and is not dying. We will continue despite any interpersonal or other internal issues.  This project is bigger than any one person.
3- For those of you commenting on "keep this behind closed doors". Actually, we are endeavoring to do the opposite. Our goal is (going forward) to keep the community informed and involved. Especially when... see #1 above.

Just wanted to point out here that when I invoked Godwin's Law, I was not comparing Amy to Hitler.  I was comparing Motoko-chan's logic to the logic of a Hitler-sympathizer.  It was a comparison of logic, not a comparison of persons.

CENSORSHIP!!! (J/K )