> I never removed access to anyone.
I haven't named names because it's not my place to do so, but needless to say, I HAD access and was able to make changes - and that access is no longer granted to me.
> Now stop taking out your frustrations on me. When you
> present me with a COMPLETE, working system for zd...then
> I'll take the time to put it up. I'll say the same thing
> I've been saying for YEARS: someone just DO IT. You're
> using me as a scapegoat for the failures of everyone who has
> tried.
In other words, design a new site from scratch with no access to the server and hand it to you on a platter - and you'll take time off your busy schedule to take the credit for it.
I'm not taking any frustrations out on you, Sam. I'm posting on a public forum in regards to the site the forum is on. I'm not PMing you, not emailing you, not calling you. I said you were right to take away my access because it wasn't "through proper channels" - and you know full well that's exactly what you did.
I don't have express permission to put the full story out in the open, so I haven't. But that doesn't mean you get to pretend like you're completely innocent in this entire manner. You're two-faced, a liar, a flim-flam man. You're killing ZD. Let me try to explain why.
You own ZD. You've appointed "managers" and "admins" that don't have full access to anything - and up until recently, if the situation in fact changed at all, you were the only person able to make SFTP accounts to grant access to the server to even begin to upload things.
I remember when I was on staff, and even then you tried your hardest to make people afraid of you. You berate people for making simple mistakes - myself included. You never gave a pat on the back for a good job. You whined about how slow updates were... and made it known just how easily replaced anyone was.
I can only speak for myself on this, but you PMed me a while back and told me I was on staff again. You said I didn't have access to the staff forum because of a "bug" that you didn't have time to search out and fix. I asked about SFTP access, and you rebuffed me by not responding to the PMs - and when I caught you in #zophar on IRC, you told me to "dance" or some such nonsense. And when I complained about it on the forum, you called me crazy and said I was too "unstable" to give access to.
I don't even know why you host ZD, I really don't. Is it for the forum? You're never around anymore to begin with... which makes you a sort of absentee server admin. People on staff have been, and possibly still are, SCARED of you, and have said in the past that they had to -get your permission- on things.
But your grand, sweeping answer is, "Design everything from scratch, do it on your own server, do all of the work - which is impossible to do - and hand it over to me, gift-wrapped, and I'll look over it, and IF I like it, I'll use it."
How can I clean up the emulator files on the server without SFTP access? How can I write a new download script without access to the cleaned up directories? If I plopped years worth of emulators on a server, wrote up a php script and used a MySQL database on it to get the page fully designed, scripted, and filled out - what would I do with it? I couldn't just hand over a MySQL statement.
Beyond which, I seem to recall a few times in the years past, when page designs were brought up - and you called them ugly, and said they wouldn't be used on YOUR site. I recall it as recently as the Mambo install, which YOU told me about in lieu of SFTP access, and I switched over to a theme that was already in place -- and you said it was too ugly to use. Then again you didn't have permissions set up on the server to customize the CSS file at all, or to upload new graphics through the Mambo backend... and I didn't have SFTP access to make any changes.
You're oh-so-easy to get in touch with to begin with... if I had a little page and emailed it to you, and said "put this on the server, I want to see the output", I'm sure you'd get RIGHT on that. That leaves me to the 'suggestion' you gave me once, which was to ask a staffer WITH SFTP access to upload files for me.
I'll say this much: One staffer was kind enough to just give me his username and password, because he's busy with other things, and that's what I used to do the minor updates I made to ZD to begin with. And when I set about fixing the RSS feed, and it ran a script that -someone else- wrote, and somehow crashed the MySQL server, I woke up the next day to people stressed the hell out because you were on the rampage. The staffer that had given me access was scared he was going to be banned for his actions... but it ended fairly well, where he had to change his SFTP password and was warned that if he ever did it again, he WOULD be banned -- and that effectively, say it with me, REMOVED MY ACCESS.
So I'm a Jerk -- because I can call you on your bullshit. That's fine. You walked away? Then why the fuck are you still in charge of everything? Why do people still deferr to you? You should be the "silent partner" - the guy who runs the server and makes sure everything is in working order.
You point out that everyone else has failed. Fine - I've proved myself capable of making change. Why the hell are you so against giving access to people who still want to try? Oh, I'm sorry, I don't have a COMPLETE, working system designed to just hand over. Like you said, you'd "take the time to put it up." Meaning, even if I HAD a complete replacement for ZD, zipped it up, and emailed it to you, I STILL wouldn't have access to the server - it would STILL have to go through someone else.
I stand by my statement. ZD is dead, and you're the cause.
<P ID="signature">http://www.sloganizer.net/en/http://www.sloganizer.net/en/style5,Packard.png</a></P>