Some Core Changes

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

Hello, everyone. In this post, I would like to outline some changes to the internal structure of GFL's higher-ups and how this is intended to impact GFL.

 

Community Advisors changed to Council
Community advisors will be changed to Council with a new job. The new Council rank will be at the same level as a division leader.

 

New Jobs/Roles

• Maintain the community as a whole.
• May help division leaders (with their consent) with their divisions.
• May help divisions without a leader (E.g. Call of Duty 4, Fistful of Frags, etc.).
• Work with the directors on projects.
• Advise the community. This includes brainstorming ideas when not working on any projects and addressing them to the directors.
• Look for people with potential and address them to the other Council members & directors.

 

Other

• The Council and directors should be working on the same projects together.
• The Council are essentially directors, just with less access (back end and such).

 

Revamping the Council Team
The team itself could be revamped. This means we should demote inactive members who don’t show enough interest in GFL, and promote members who have potential and are willing to dedicate a lot of time into GFL. If a member is inactive, they should be given a warning immediately; if they continue being inactive without a valid reason, it will immediately progress to demotion. We shouldn’t be waiting so long on demoting people. If somebody doesn’t show interest, dedication and motivation, they should be demoted.

 

All members from the current community advisor team we plan on keeping should be talked to before this Council change is in effect. We should ask if they’re still interested and possess the will to truly step up (spend more time on GFL and do all the new jobs/roles assigned to them with Council), gain feedback on what we (directors) can improve on, and more.

 

Directors Given More Access
With the Council change, directors will be given more access in the future. This includes access to the back end (web and game servers such as OVH). With this change, we have to prepare our user base. This leads to even more ideas.

 

The reason we are giving directors more access is to take the load off of Roy. If Roy isn’t available, there’s a high chance a director can fix the issue with the back end (e.g. the website going down). They will have the access to fix it and can try to. If they don’t know how to, they can try googling the issue or just wait until a director with more experience comes online.

 

Why?
The biggest issue with giving directors access to the back end is trust. I trust that most of you still remember what happened last year and the negative effect it had on GFL, but after the past year and a half, I have realized that I need to give access to more people. Many things such as giving access to new managers or completing various tasks in the back end relies on me and it is heavily backed up. For example, look at the web VM move; I wanted to complete this back in the summer and it still isn’t complete. I tried getting Balon to help me, but he turned out to be inactive and busy.

 

If our goals are to get GFL off of the ground again (which they are), we need to start trusting people again; that’s just the reality of the situation. GFL won’t get far if we can’t trust people that can potentially have a major positive effect on GFL. What happens if I have to leave for a while and nobody else has access to the back end? What happens if the website goes down? We need others there we can rely on. This may also give the directors more motivation as well.

 

Preparation
The biggest part about this change is preparing for it. We saw what happened in the past. If one of our directors goes rogue, we must prepare for the worst.

 

Nobody will have access to the PayPal besides me. The most a director could gain access to is the PayPal API credentials, but you cannot take funds out of the PayPal account with only the API credentials. Therefore, the worst possible thing a director can do is dump the IPS 4 user’s database table including emails and hashed passwords. Although these passwords are hashed, it still would be very bad if this was to happen. Realistically, if a hacker got into our back end, they could also dump the database table.

 

Now, I wanted to do this back in the summer of 2016, but I haven’t been able to. Realistically, no website on the Internet is safe and the best thing a user can do is secure themselves from any possible breaches. While we aren’t expecting any breaches in our database, we should definitely prepare ourselves and our users for them. I would like to have a page in the About GFL project dedicated to explaining security. While we are confident in our security, we should also explain no websites are 100% safe. We should be telling the truth to our users about security and highly encourage them to use a random generated password (or a password not used on any other websites/logins). We should also recommend programs such as LastPass or KeePass. I feel this may also deter hackers away from GFL; if we were bragging about our security, it would probably increase the chances of a hacker wanting to try to get through our security.

 

I would also like to add our thoughts on security to the user registration page (perhaps under the password field). We could even add a button that automatically generates and uses a random password along with copying to the clipboard for the user. Another idea is sending a forum PM/email to the user after registration about security (along with general GFL information).

 

The next worst thing a director who has gone rogue can do is completely delete our files. This can include our website files or just game servers. This can also include the virtual machines themselves. This is why I want to implement an automatic backup system in GFL that backs everything up hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly. We should be trying to back up as many services as possible. This includes our websites, databases, game servers, and virtual machines (perhaps the core files). Balon has recommended some services we can use that are cheap (cheaper than purchasing a separate machine for backups).

 

External Consultant Badge
I would like to make an external consultant badge for our technical administrators that aren’t a part of GFL, but still help out when needed. These members (as of now) would be @setup.sh and @balon.

 

We’re Looking For Potential
We are currently looking for motivated, interested, and trustworthy members of the community to join our staff team and assist us with the upkeep and expansion of GFL as a whole. We are currently figuring out the logistics of how we plan on recruiting individuals, and an announcement will be made soon with more information.

 

Darkling as Council Leader
So far, the current community advisors know this. However, for those that do not know, @Darkling will be “leading” the Council team. While he won’t have a separate rank and will still be a part of Council, he will be leading the team overall. There is a possibility we will make a badge representing the fact that he is the leader. 

Darkling has a lot of motivation for GFL. In my opinion, he is a role model to the Council. He is motivated, dedicated, mature, and generally very approachable. From what I’ve seen, nobody has a problem with him being leader of the Council team and after asking a couple of CAs, they said they already look up to him as a CA leader.

 

We are discussing more changes and have more to announce in the near future!

 

Thanks!

[Eli 708 / 11,596]

Me to @JoelSmith in teamspeak "I wonder what theyre gonna do about staff"

less than a second later: *New post from roy*

[kneegerrlover123 389 / 8,946]

Now this is the stuff we wanted to hear long time ago, good job everyone

[Runda 206 / 5,849]

Damn, Need advisors, Who else will I pay for advising my homework?

 

Edit: @Darkling ayy bb wtb some homework ;)?

Edited November 17, 2017 by Runda

[TheLastBee 310 / 6,301]

@BillyMartin read this.

[Zero 447 / 10,862]

@TheLastBee you already did, that means I did too. Its about CA's being changed to councils and darkling being the leader of them all and stuff like that. Were the same person, remember?  

 

No but I actually just finished reading it and since you just posted telling me to read it I'm assuming we literally read this at the same time... reminds me of when we posted the exact same comment nearly at the exact same time... amazing how closely related we are  

 

And congratulations @Darkling, haven't talked to you much but I love you :D

Edited November 17, 2017 by BillyMartin
2 Suc darkling

[VilhjalmrF 2,099 / 30,684]

The changes are happening. :O

Edited November 17, 2017 by Kite9867

[Ben 2,378 / 31,861]

What a nice change, looking afterward to any future decision and announcement.

[gekkota 684 / 11,375]

Interesting... I love it! Great idea, @Roy.  

 

EDIT: I forgot to say Congrats, @Darkling! <3

Edited November 17, 2017 by Gekkota

[annoying furry 6,300 / 63,950]

Congrats @Darkling

 

[Joel 543 / 12,777]

Congratulations @Darkling! Looking forward to seeing the changes and GFL's Future projects completed!

[King_Wailord 965 / 15,577]

Interesting changes! I'll be looking forward to seeing the future development of GFL.

Also, Congratulations @Darkling!

[John Jeez Man 556 / 12,201]

I didn't read that much. I only saw "congratz darkling" so I only read where @Darkling was tagged. So, Congratz @Darkling! 

 

[rapperdan 2,323 / 0]

10:44 AM - transperoman | also endorses AMD: yo
10:45 AM - transperoman | also endorses AMD: I gotta ask what your thoughts are on bringing back council.
5:01 PM - Xy is now Online.
5:07 PM - Xy: I've known about it for a while but to make things clear
5:07 PM - Xy: the council would be replacing CA
5:07 PM - Xy: instead of director
5:07 PM - transperoman | also endorses AMD: lol
5:08 PM - transperoman | also endorses AMD: ya I just went digging and found out about that idea :L
5:08 PM - Xy: yeah
idk mang :L

 

also I'd like to suggest this @Roy https://passwordsgenerator.net/ I may or may not be using a 2048 character pw atm for the gfl website what is secure from a blunt force attack?

Edited November 17, 2017 by transperoman

[VilhjalmrF 2,099 / 30,684]

Want free likes? Then just tag the shit outta of @Darkling!

[RVFK 1,037 / 15,970]

Does this mean I'm getting co founder?

[rapperdan 2,323 / 0]

2 minutes ago, LegendaryFluff said:

Does this mean I'm getting co founder?

ya dawg me founder and you co founder lesgo the best duo the story behind @SoJa and @Roy but you and me homez 

 

[Joshy 4,364 / 44,927]

Stop wasting your time on the name.

 

Roy is giving you all a big hint about your chance at Staff roles if you wanted it before, want it now, or may want it in the future: Yesterday was the time to shine, but you can start today.

[RVFK 1,037 / 15,970]

3 minutes ago, Joshy said:

Stop wasting your time on the name.

 

Roy is giving you all a big hint about your chance at Staff roles if you wanted it before, want it now, or may want it in the future: Yesterday was the time to shine, but you can start today.

Full founder?

[Bae 2,489 / 41,520]

Congrats Biggest Penis @Darkling

 

And welcome back council role :d