Dear Ganiman, (op updated)

[Correction]

So after all this, we're supposed to be morally outraged because... wiki admins didn't shop around and get The Best Possible Price. Even though the only difference it would have made is more raffle money (wiki raised nowhere even remotely close to enough money to support the site long-term, especially with massively ballooning bandwidth). Yeah, that's the same raffle money that you're still aimlessly bitching about now.

"Grasping at straws" is precisely the right term to use for this thread. After every single legitimate question was asked and answered, we're left with absurd garbage like, "i could have gotten much better deals on t-shirts!!!!" and "why didn't they post all this stuff to BG from the start?!?!" (yet, amazingly, no one seems to feel that alla, KI, ffxionline, etc. innately deserved such a courtesy).

Nice work.

Pause for a second to consider exactly what it is you stand for. Are you actually defending the wasteful mismanagement of 9 thousand donated dollars? I think in the last 10 pages of discussion only one person has asked for the money back. We get it, the money isn't coming back. Ever. The lingering question is whether or not the powers that be at the wiki can be trusted with any kind of decision on behalf of their contributors. So far the answer is still 'no.' Even with the move to Wikia it's still these two knuckleheads in charge of everything.

[Attila]

So after all this, we're supposed to be morally outraged because... wiki admins didn't shop around and get The Best Possible Price. Even though the only difference it would have made is more raffle money (wiki raised nowhere even remotely close to enough money to support the site long-term, especially with massively ballooning bandwidth). Yeah, that's the same raffle money that you're still aimlessly bitching about now.

"Grasping at straws" is precisely the right term to use for this thread. After every single legitimate question was asked and answered, we're left with absurd garbage like, "i could have gotten much better deals on t-shirts!!!!" and "why didn't they post all this stuff to BG from the start?!?!" (yet, amazingly, no one seems to feel that alla, KI, ffxionline, etc. innately deserved such a courtesy).

Nice work.

Pause for a second to consider exactly what it is you stand for. Are you actually defending the wasteful mismanagement of 9 thousand donated dollars? I think in the last 10 pages of discussion only one person has asked for the money back. We get it, the money isn't coming back. Ever. The lingering question is whether or not the powers that be at the wiki can be trusted with any kind of decision on behalf of their contributors. So far the answer is still 'no.' Even with the move to Wikia it's still these two knuckleheads in charge of everything.

No, it's not the wasteful mismanagement of 9k. it's the possible misguided decision of the swag that was offered. Just because you don't approve of the costs they had for their servers doesn't make you right. The majority went for exactly what it was said it was for. Like said above, a ballooning bandwidth and NOT MEETING YOUR GOAL IN THE FIRSTPLACE does not a successful fundraiser make.

[Charismatic]

So after all this, we're supposed to be morally outraged because... wiki admins didn't shop around and get The Best Possible Price. Even though the only difference it would have made is more raffle money (wiki raised nowhere even remotely close to enough money to support the site long-term, especially with massively ballooning bandwidth). Yeah, that's the same raffle money that you're still aimlessly bitching about now.

"Grasping at straws" is precisely the right term to use for this thread. After every single legitimate question was asked and answered, we're left with absurd garbage like, "i could have gotten much better deals on t-shirts!!!!" and "why didn't they post all this stuff to BG from the start?!?!" (yet, amazingly, no one seems to feel that alla, KI, ffxionline, etc. innately deserved such a courtesy).

Nice work.

Pause for a second to consider exactly what it is you stand for. Are you actually defending the wasteful mismanagement of 9 thousand donated dollars? I think in the last 10 pages of discussion only one person has asked for the money back. We get it, the money isn't coming back. Ever. The lingering question is whether or not the powers that be at the wiki can be trusted with any kind of decision on behalf of their contributors. So far the answer is still 'no.' Even with the move to Wikia it's still these two knuckleheads in charge of everything.

No, it's not the wasteful mismanagement of 9k. it's the possible misguided decision of the swag that was offered. Just because you don't approve of the costs they had for their servers doesn't make you right. The majority went for exactly what it was said it was for. Like said above, a ballooning bandwidth and NOT MEETING YOUR GOAL IN THE FIRSTPLACE does not a successful fundraiser make.

Due to their mismanagement of funds even if they WOULD have met their goal, so much money would have been wasted that it wouldn't even matter.

That's the part you missed.

[Metah]

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What Spider-Dan said. It just baffles me that people who didn't donate a single cent to FFXIclopedia are so emotionally invested in this that they're willing to resort to grasping at straws to this extent after almost everything has been clearly laid out on the table.

No one's grasping at straws, there have been a multitude of legitimate complaints that overall really haven't been addressed except "poor management of funds". I think it's quite hilarious that people are defending criminals, god forbid any of you are involved in a rape or murder trial, you'll just say "the guy just wanted to get laid" or "that person really pissed him off so he had to shoot him". Get a fucking clue.

Because rape is just mismanagement of one's penis.

Oh my God that caught me off guard

[Spider-Dan]

Pause for a second to consider exactly what it is you stand for. Are you actually defending the wasteful mismanagement of 9 thousand donated dollars?

Wow, that's an impressive figure. Nine thousand dollars were wasted, you say? So seeing as how they've only spent 7k, and ~5k of that went directly to hosting the site, how do you arrive at the number "9000"?

Let's be clear: we are talking about mousepads and t-shirts, the end. Now, since not a single person in this thread raised any objection whatsoever to promised swag for donators when something could have been done about it (i.e. 9 months ago), I consider any claim of "there should have never been any swag to begin with!" to be baseless hindsight armchair quarterbacking. So then, the real point of your objection is that you disagree with their deal-finding skills on purchasing said t-shirts/mousepads. Of course it's easy to look back months after the fundraiser ended, look at how many items were needed, and then say, "well if you just buy that number or greater right from the start then you save eleventy thousand dollars!"

Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that frugal shopping could have cut those $2000 in swag costs in half. That would mean that their money management "wasted" 1k by not doing so. Given that wiki admins still possess ~2k (and there's no reason to believe that that money wouldn't have been used on server funding without the Wikia move), that means that of the $9000 raised, $8000 of it would go specifically and exclusively to that which was promised. Only 88% of optimal return on a donation? WHERE IS MY F*CKING PITCHFORK?

Due to their mismanagement of funds even if they WOULD have met their goal, so much money would have been wasted that it wouldn't even matter.

That's the part you missed.

Due to the quadrupling of bandwidth needed, even if they would have exceeded their goal, they still would have needed to broker some sort of deal. That's the part YOU missed.

[Attila]

Yeah, b/c having an asston of overhead in buying too much would have been better. They probably would have ended up with the same amount spent, and more swag. Everyone would be OBVIOUSLY more pissed off about that somehow.

[Correction]

Wow, that's an impressive figure. Nine thousand dollars were wasted, you say? So seeing as how they've only spent 7k, and ~5k of that went directly to hosting the site, how do you arrive at the number "9000"?

Seeing as how 1/3 of the paid server time was for unused servers, I think the word 'wasteful' applies pretty well. It's 100% their fault for trying to do everything themselves and not letting someone with some expertise set things up. This has been quite the pattern with the Wiki admins.

So then, the real point of your objection is that you disagree with their deal-finding skills on purchasing said t-shirts/mousepads. Of course it's easy to look back months after the fundraiser ended, look at how many items were needed, and then say, "well if you just buy that number or greater right from the start then you save eleventy thousand dollars!"

You still don't get it. Take a breath. This has nothing to do with numbers anymore and everything to do with faith in people who dodged the issue for days before opening up and answering some pretty important questions. The wiki is an important resource to a lot of people and we've pretty much been taught that the people running it are thin-skinned, clumsy, and have no business sense.

Do you think they've learned from their failures? Has anything posted by either Mierin or Ganiman given you any faith in their ability to continue running Wiki in a manner best represented by the wishes of either the contributors to the wiki or the people who foolishly donated money to it? They've taken repeated unapologetic stands for what they've done and have admitted zero fault for any of this catastrophe. All they've done is shown contrition on how long it took to actually disclose where the money went, and it was only after Taj flew a 747 into their twin towers on 9/10. That is not responsibility taken. And they're still in charge. If you royally fuck up you either a) show you've learned from your mistake and restore faith that you'll never repeat it or b) fire yourself and get someone competent to do the job in the future. So far the Wiki administration is batting 0/2 ("I know I've seen a WS paralyzed before!").

Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that frugal shopping could have cut those $2000 in swag costs in half. That would mean that their money management "wasted" 1k by not doing so. Given that wiki admins still possess ~2k (and there's no reason to believe that that money wouldn't have been used on server funding without the Wikia move), that means that of the $9000 raised, $8000 of it would go specifically and exclusively to that which was promised. Only 88% of optimal return on a donation? WHERE IS MY F*CKING PITCHFORK?

http://i11.tinypic.com/5z3anlt.jpg
Hi.

[Aangeliceus]

Don't know if anyone caught this....

http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/15/0327236

Not FFXI related, but similar story.

Also, Here.

Then Discussion

[Riel]

You still don't get it. Take a breath. This has nothing to do with numbers anymore and everything to do with faith in people who dodged the issue for days before opening up and answering some pretty important questions. The wiki is an important resource to a lot of people and we've pretty much been taught that the people running it are thin-skinned, clumsy, and have no business sense.

Do you think they've learned from their failures? Has anything posted by either Mierin or Ganiman given you any faith in their ability to continue running Wiki in a manner best represented by the wishes of either the contributors to the wiki or the people who foolishly donated money to it? They've taken repeated unapologetic stands for what they've done and have admitted zero fault for any of this catastrophe. All they've done is shown contrition on how long it took to actually disclose where the money went, and it was only after Taj flew a 747 into their twin towers on 9/10. That is not responsibility taken. And they're still in charge. If you royally fuck up you either a) show you've learned from your mistake and restore faith that you'll never repeat it or b) fire yourself and get someone competent to do the job in the future. So far the Wiki administration is batting 0/2 ("I know I've seen a WS paralyzed before!").

QFT. This post sums up perfectly what's happened here (along with alot of LOL).

[Sagacious Sundi]

So far the Wiki administration is batting 0/2 ("I know I've seen a WS paralyzed before!").

I just checked the archives for that discussion. As far as I can tell, only Nynaeve (a JUNIOR admin) was actually saying that. Gahoo/Chris (an admin and another JUNIOR admin) seem to have just been defending her, but not the idea that WS can be paralyzed. (Although I haven't reread Chris's stuff.) Are people seriously going to keep on bringing the paralysis ordeal everytime the word "wiki" is said?

[fantasticdan]

Don't know if anyone caught this....

http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/15/0327236

Not FFXI related, but similar story.

Also, Here.

Then Discussion

According to this story, the proprietor of the guild wars wiki was paid (in both cash and stock) to basically discontinue their domain registration and allow their content to be moved to wikia. Is it possible anything like that happened with the ffxi wiki? Boy that would be some drama.

[Spider-Dan]

Wow, that's an impressive figure. Nine thousand dollars were wasted, you say? So seeing as how they've only spent 7k, and ~5k of that went directly to hosting the site, how do you arrive at the number "9000"?

Seeing as how 1/3 of the paid server time was for unused servers, I think the word 'wasteful' applies pretty well.

Please explain how you arrived at the magical number of 1/3. They leased them for 7 months and "are still using them now."

In case you're thinking Taj's "May" statement means something: it doesn't. The second thread he linked clearly says the following in the first post:

The short story is, the hosting company did not set up a private link between the servers, so they have been using bandwidth on the public network. If this were to continue, we would quickly go over the monthly bandwidth limit and it would be very costly.

This very issue was mentioned in Ganiman's quoted statement. There is no reason to believe that the servers have not been up since March.

It's 100% their fault for trying to do everything themselves and not letting someone with some expertise set things up. This has been quite the pattern with the Wiki admins.

I believe the phrase you are looking for is "paying someone with some expertise to set things up". I can only imagine the sh*tstorm that would occur if consulting fees were added in.

You still don't get it. Take a breath. This has nothing to do with numbers anymore and everything to do with faith in people who dodged the issue for days before opening up and answering some pretty important questions.

Dodged the issue... where? On BG?

They had no reason to believe that the people who actually donated the money (i.e. no one posting in this thread) had any concern about their donations. It was entirely people bitching for the sake of bitching. See: "WSes can't be paralyzed lol" parrots and the disgruntled bannees crawling out of the woodwork.

Do you think they've learned from their failures?

WHAT FAILURE?

They secured a long-term solution to wiki hosting while eliminating the previously stated concerns with Wikia. They are organizing a way to benefit the community with the excess donations as a result of said solution. The only arguable failure (in THIS case) is a debatable lack of efficiency in their swag shopping... which none of the swag recipients (i.e. the actual donors) are complaining about.

If you royally fuck up you either a) show you've learned from your mistake and restore faith that you'll never repeat it or b) fire yourself and get someone competent to do the job in the future. So far the Wiki administration is batting 0/2 ("I know I've seen a WS paralyzed before!").

Yes, because whether or not WS can be paralyzed is CRITICALLY VITAL to wiki administration.

[Spider-Dan]

Protip: When taking donations for things, make sure you cover the most important part - that is, the thing you are raising money for - before promising stupid swag. I'm 99% sure that people who donated would rather see more servers than see a tshirt in their mailbox.

Read the donations thread. The majority of people posting in the thread are asking about swag.

This has already been mentioned.

[fantasticdan]

Protip: When taking donations for things, make sure you cover the most important part - that is, the thing you are raising money for - before promising stupid swag. I'm 99% sure that people who donated would rather see more servers than see a tshirt in their mailbox.

Read the donations thread. The majority of people posting in the thread are asking about swag.

This has already been mentioned.

I doubt that many people who donated post on the ffxiwiki forums, they are way worse than alla.

[Spider-Dan]

After rereading the linked threads (and looking at the one week difference this time), it does seem like the new servers didn't go live until May. (Apologies to Taj.) Still, this is no justification for the 20-page sh*tstorm of "fraud" accusations.

But feel free to make it your rallying cry. It's a hell of a lot better than whining about bulk mousepad deals.

[Charismatic]

Due to their mismanagement of funds even if they WOULD have met their goal, so much money would have been wasted that it wouldn't even matter.

That's the part you missed.

Due to the quadrupling of bandwidth needed, even if they would have exceeded their goal, they still would have needed to broker some sort of deal. That's the part YOU missed.

So, where are you getting this quadrupling of needed bandwidth?
Where's the official numbers?

[Sykes]

After rereading the linked threads (and looking at the one week difference this time), it does seem like the new servers didn't go live until May. (Apologies to Taj.) Still, this is no justification for the 20-page sh*tstorm of "fraud" accusations.

But feel free to make it your rallying cry. It's a hell of a lot better than whining about bulk mousepad deals.

The servers were purchased at the END of March. They went in to service the 2nd of May. They were unused for a little over 1 month (a far cry from the 3 month number that someone pulled out of their ass). It may be a little bit long, but it's not entirely unreasonable.

So, where are you getting this quadrupling of needed bandwidth?
Where's the official numbers?

From here: "We have quadrupled our bandwidth since January, from 600GB to over over 3 Terabytes a month (2400GB on one server and 600-700GB on the second server). The assumptions that we were operating under in January when we began dealing with these issues have magnified significantly - and show no signs of slowing down."

[Charismatic]

I see Ganiman saying that the bandwidth numbers have quadrupled... but as far as I can tell FFXIclopedia higher ups only tell us what they hope we'll think sounds good (if Mierin's posts are any indication).
So I take that with a grain of salt.

Even if we assume that it's true (which I already have issues with...) are we to believe that they didn't plan on their bandwidth usage increasing and weren't going with a plan that could handle it?
If so, that makes my initial point that much stronger.

[Norellicus]

While I'm sure people appreciated the mousepads and tshirts; I would think you would do that if you had the extra money left over from the fundraiser.
Considering that you didn't even have enough for your projected expenses it seems silly to go buy mousepads and tshirts.

How many times does it need to be said before people f*cking get it?

The mousepads and t-shirts were promised to donators at the beginning of the fundraiser!

It would be ten times worse than whatever it is you're currently complaining about (I can't even tell anymore) for them to promise people merchandise for donations and then just say, "oops, we decided against that." It's about 9 months too late to bitch about that now; all of you hindsight Greenspans should have been saying, "hey, we don't want our donation money wasted on complementary swag" back in JANUARY (you know, when it was actually announced) instead of f*cking SEPTEMBER.

This entire thread has taken proxy bitching to a stunning new level. We've gone from "you stole all the extra money" to "well where are your receipts?!" to "you got ripped off on mousepads!"... almost exclusively from people who aren't even the ones who have a right to complain. And gee, amongst all of the complaints, do we see a single apology for unfounded accusations of stealing? Of course not.

As for what the money was supposed to be used for:

1) the money was NEVER going to purchase servers (see: original annoucement)
2) the donation target was not reached
3) the bandwidth requirement of FFXIclopedia quadrupled since the fundraiser was started

So let's see, 75% of goal reached / 4 times the bandwidth requirements = ?

Seems pretty fortunate that the wiki stayed away from Wikia as long as it did.

This is precisely why donators (or at least myself) are complaining.

com·pli·men·ta·ry
adj.
1. Expressing, using, or resembling a compliment: a concert that received complimentary reviews.
2. Given free to repay a favor or as an act of courtesy: complimentary copies of the new book.

It was advertised as "Donate for SERVERS, get a free shirt/mousepad!"

They weren't free. Of course we know this naturally, TANSTAAFL and all, but it's still a shitty proposition to know that I essentially paid for a tshirt/mousepad (which I am one of the ones who provided no address, since I didn't want the junk, just to keep wiki running...I said as much in my paypal receipt) instead of server uptime. If it was handled like a Krispy Kreme fundraiser, there would probably be a lot fewer people up in arms about it; you knowingly and willingly overpay for a product, with the knowledge that the profit for said goods went to a good cause. It could be argued that this is what was done thanks to the donation thresholds, but again the fact was it was advertised that the swag was a free gift as a response for donations, meaning your donation money was going to the purpose of the fundraiser, and not to overhead costs.

And then, to add insult to injury, they spend the money they got, KNOWING they were already coming up short, and pull the plug and transfer to Wikia when the account ran dry.

That is why I, and likely many others, have reason to be upset about how this was handled.

[Correction]

I grow weary of explaining every nuance of every word I've ever said.

I believe the phrase you are looking for is "paying someone with some expertise to set things up". I can only imagine the sh*tstorm that would occur if consulting fees were added in.

This is all in hindsight, but I'm sure they could have simply asked for advice/help and have received it for free. Wikis are communities built on volunteer service in the first place.

WHAT FAILURE?

If in 40 pages of discussion you haven't spotted failures then me summarizing them in 2 sentences probably won't help but here goes: They a) mismanaged a lot of the money they were donated and b) didn't address the issue to the community until it was very late and 80% of their time was spent on damage control.

Yes, because whether or not WS can be paralyzed is CRITICALLY VITAL to wiki administration.

Did you miss the part where Mierin also abused his administrative powers on the wiki to squash opposing viewpoints in the matter, even after aurik provided some pretty strong screenshotted evidence to his anectodal?

If anything, you're starting to sound like you're under a sheet with mascara dribbling down your cheeks screaming 'LEAVE THE WIKI ALONE!'

The only way for this to end well is for there to be a change of leadership at the wiki. Plain and simple.