Omnimaga

Calculator Community => Other Calculators => Topic started by: Madskillz on October 22, 2010, 04:51:52 am

Title: Revolution Software is Staff Searching
Post by: Madskillz on October 22, 2010, 04:51:52 am
Hey everybody,

RevSoft is looking for staff again. As you can see from our forums: www.revsoft.org/phpBB3 (http://www.revsoft.org/phpBB3) that we are pretty inactive. Well I shouldnt say inactive, because a lot of work is going on behind the scenes. All forms of Wabbit are constantly being worked on by Buckeye and Spencer and I assume Will as well.

We are working on a complete overhaul on the main site. It wont be a total reworking of everything but it is going to more user friendly and hopefully easier for the staff to manage in the future. As one of the longer runner programming groups around we gotta keep stuff fresh somehow.

As for the staff positions we are looking for people that wanna bring something new to the table. Be that a sweet calc project or a tool to help aid in the development of sweet calc projects. We aren't picky on what language you programming in, be it z80 assembly, 68K, BASIC, the awesome Axe or some other rare attempt at making on calc programming better (*cough*)MLC...ahem. We are mainly a z80 group and always have been, but have branched out to include staff that do program in BASIC or for the 68K line of calcs. We are pretty open. With the power of Axe we hope to get a lot more interesting projects going on in the community.

We don't mean to take away anyone from a particular forum. We only aim to bring some of the best projects to the community, some with ridiculous amounts of time and effort put forth. Our name pretty much speaks for it self.

So if you've got a work in progress or a great new project just starting out...and you think you might be interested in becoming staff of a highly respected group. Shoot me a PM on here or over on the RevSoft forum. Send a brief description of what you think you can add to the team as well as some screenshots or sample programs if you have any.

Thanks for your time and lets continue to make this community great,
-Travis (Madskillz)
Title: Re: Revolution Software is Staff Searching
Post by: Jonius7 on October 22, 2010, 05:52:03 am
I may like to join, im kind of starting out in the TI-nspire field (for 5 months anyway so far), ill pm you soon about it
Title: Re: Revolution Software is Staff Searching
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 22, 2010, 09:48:20 am
It would be nice to see some life again in other TI websites. Omnimaga revived, then Cemetech got more activity again and TI-BASIC Developer still seems to get quite a bunch, but it would be nice if RS/MC and others could be revived. I can't wait to see the new site and I hope there are still some current projects including Zelda that are still in the works and that you get new ones soon. :)
Title: Re: Revolution Software is Staff Searching
Post by: tloz128 on October 22, 2010, 07:46:39 pm
I might like to join. Who knows, maybe if the site becomes more active we'll see more progress on Spencer's Zelda.
*nudges Spencer to keep working on it
Title: Re: Revolution Software is Staff Searching
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 22, 2010, 08:37:12 pm
I would have some suggestions to help the future of the site, but that might just be my opinion and one point in particular is kinda based on what sporadically happened to United-TI and Omnimaga from Spring 2009 to 2010:

-Have more project updates being announced to the public, even if the updates are not super large (not "Update! Added a sprite at coordinate 16x14", but you get the idea). I saw Zelda stuff being posted in group.revsoft.org that never made it to RS board. Most people check forums for progress and will think it's not being updated.

-When WabbitEmu gets updates and they are announced on Omnimaga and Cemetech, authors should always post them on Revsoft too, even if activity is lower

-Maybe have some staff rules requiring staff to keep a certain minimum of activity. On Omnimaga staff have to keep an average of at least 10 posts in the last 30 days and 5 in 30 days during Summer. On Epic Programming Studio staff had to login once a week, I believe. It doesn't have to be like that and can be higher too, but a certain minimum rule might help. Some people get side-tracked and may forget about forums from time to time. That would prevent staff from all becoming inactive for half a year and seeing the other staff take their example, which I noticed often on the old Omni board.

-Either being slightly stricter on repeated offenses à la DarkSunDS, or simply putting a warning in the TOS saying that Revsoft claims no responsibilities for the behavior/tone of other members and that the user agrees that offensive behavior might happen. That way, fewer problems occurs and you have fewer chances of seeing new member joins then immediately leave following some events.

-Do NOT delete Revsoft history! MaxCoderz did that mistake in 2006 when they switched to a new portal. FFTOM, Dark Star, Phantom Star, etc... all that stuff was gone. RealSound, WabbitEmu, RGP and SSP should remain available for download on Revsoft website.

-Maybe get a better hosting provider. I'm not sure what is being used right now but the site was not responding for about 5 hours yesterday. However, if you don't have the money to get a new host then I understand. I think for RS, a 1and1 or Surpasshosting plan might work well. They're generally having good uptime and if the site goes down it usually only lasts about 2 minutes unless your site is busy.

Anyway, as I said, those are just suggestions based on stuff I saw before. Revsoft is not Omnimaga so it might not work as well for your site as it does for Omni or others or it might work better.
Title: Re: Revolution Software is Staff Searching
Post by: Madskillz on October 23, 2010, 01:16:37 am
It's hard for us to make it mandatory for staff to continue to make posts. Most of the active staff, Buckeye, Nano, Spencer and I do check in at least once a week. However most of our staff are senior members in the community, meaning we work 40 hrs a week or we have college classes and that does take away from our projects especially since in the highschool days we had more free time. If I myself cant follow that rule, I cant make it mandatory. Our projects are also bigger then most. We tend to pick stuff that are more difficult, all of our projects are big. A lot of that stuff in the group stuff was well just for our group. Spencer and Jim messing around with different things etc. I've also played various iterations of Zelda and it is awesome.

I don't handle the hosting, I wish I did because I would move to something better.
Our history will always be maintained. I would at least like to keep our memory around even if nobody was there to staff it. I don't know why Maxcoderz ever got rid of theirs.

Me personally, I'm pretty tired of assembly programming I havent done it in years. I branched out into some projects for the PSP and have moved on from that into the mobile phone market. I do enjoy checking out the great projects that people come up with and really the stuff coming from Axe looks great. I'm impressed with the quality that has come from that and all the great projects. It's what MLC was trying to be and so much more. I'm not done with calcs by any means. I would like to finish at least one of my projects before I hang up my hat but I don't know if I have the time.

I do like the suggestions and those of which I can make use of I will try my best to implement.

As for Zelda progress it has taken a backseat to Wabbit, but I think we can agree that that is ok too
Title: Re: Revolution Software is Staff Searching
Post by: Ranman on October 23, 2010, 01:29:45 am
Good luck Madskillz! I want to see Revsoft to not only continue but to thrive. :)

I am a really busy part of my life right now. I am happily married and have 2 wonderful kids. I work full time at Lockheed Martin and it is really busy right now. I'm also pursuing a Masters degree in Software Engineering -- in hopes that I can teach C/C++ at our local college. Spare time is pretty rare for me.

I know there are lots of great TI programmers here at Omnimaga as well as TI Freakware. You should post this request at TIFW too. I am confident you will find some great people willing to be staff members.
Title: Re: Revolution Software is Staff Searching
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 23, 2010, 01:26:12 pm
I hope eventually you get some time to release a little something calc related again Revsoft :D. That said I hope RS stays alive and gets more activity in the future. Even if it's not as high as it was in 2006 and 2007 it would still be nice if it had some, so it attracts new members. Good luck!
Title: Re: Revolution Software is Staff Searching
Post by: Munchor on October 24, 2010, 03:53:22 pm
Hey, I would like to help you. I have a lot of experience in GUI programming and some calculator programming. Will PM you and go to the forum ;)
Title: Re: Revolution Software is Staff Searching
Post by: Madskillz on October 31, 2010, 01:10:31 am
Well the staff searching is over, thanks to everybody who sent me in stuff!
I know we'll be looking again around spring time so hit me up. I'd love to see what you've accomplished.

The new army of darkness...I mean RevSoft staff members are:
Deep Thought, Hot_Dog and Raylin.

They all bring something a little different to the table and all of them have interesting stuff in the works.
I'm gonna do my best to keep things rolling over at RS. We/I do have some interesting stuff coming. So stay tuned.

Thanks again,
-Madskillz
Title: Re: Revolution Software is Staff Searching
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 31, 2010, 01:18:34 am
Wow awesome! Congrats to all the ones that applied. Hopefully Revsoft will revive. I know it was never really as active as the large sites, but it was still awesome when there were some amazing project updates and stuff and some life on the forums.

Can't wait for the new site. :)

By the way I like the forum theme so far. The only thing I would change is making the text with the green background smaller.
Title: Re: Revolution Software is Staff Searching
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on November 12, 2010, 12:46:20 am
Hmm I can't access the Contra sub-forum on Revsoft. ???
Title: Re: Revolution Software is Staff Searching
Post by: TIfanx1999 on November 12, 2010, 11:24:46 am
@DJ, yea it's wonky for some reason, myself and others have let Madskillz know. SAD was the same way but it's been fixed.
Title: Re: Revolution Software is Staff Searching
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on November 12, 2010, 04:28:56 pm
Ah right. I remember that happened with BBC Basic on MaxCoderz too. It seems that PhpBB3 sets sub-forums visible only to admins by default.
Title: Re: Revolution Software is Staff Searching
Post by: yunhua98 on November 12, 2010, 04:51:39 pm
I thought I'd join (not as staff).  ;)  I won't be as active there as Omni, but I think I'll help boost activity.

EDIT:  IMO, RS has  a better chance to gain populartiy than MC.  ;)
Title: Re: Revolution Software is Staff Searching
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on November 12, 2010, 05:14:56 pm
Yeah, I kinda agree. On MaxCoderz, it seems like only Benryves is active anymore in the staff. tr1p1ea says he wants to continue to code, but he seems too busy and barely post anymore, even in the 3D engine topics. Revsoft had Madskillz, Buckeye, Spencer, Nanowar and Will that were still kinda around, Galandros who was lurking and now they got some new staff. Also, most MaxCoderz releases point to the former URL, which doesn't help them getting new members.
Title: Re: Revolution Software is Staff Searching
Post by: Madskillz on November 12, 2010, 06:25:37 pm
As far as I am aware the threads should now be fixed. Phpbb3 does some messed up stuff when creating a forum thread. I think the permissions should be fixed. Let me know if it still doesnt work.
Title: Re: Revolution Software is Staff Searching
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on November 12, 2010, 08:49:09 pm
Cool to hear :D. Keep up the good work on the site. :D

And I see.. it reminds me when I add a member group over here: I need to set all EzPortal blocks (dozens!) permissions manually for them. There's no way to just copy permissions from another group. When creating a new board, the respect/rating system is disabled by default in them, too, and due to a mod we installed, topics are sorted by the first post date by default instead of default forum settings. X.x