Regarding the recent "PropHunt Incident" & current state of GFL Administration.

[BestKevin 89 / 1,644]

Don't have it in me to argue too much these days within this community, but my general view after being here for a year in the GMOD division is that it is stagnant.  The only servers that get help are ones that the council take under their wing like Purge (launch, wouldn't say current day Purge gets a lot of attention), Alpha in my opinion has been drowning in issues and errors in code since he got SM.

 

I personally believe if those two SM's didn't go to LBG they wouldn't have gotten banned, Yogpod uses his own website to save/send data for Rotations Jihads which could collect IPs with one line of code being added.  Is he going to get banned?  Probably not.

 

As for the "silencing" it would be pretty easy to prevent certain things from being said, keywords, block all posts from specific people until approved, but I am not sure personally they do that here, they just lock threads to end discussion.

 

Won't say much else because I don't know much else, but in GMOD the servers are ran by the SMs and if they are working it's because of the SMs, usually the players are there for the server, it's community, and because the SMs are doing a good job.  Did that loading screen break and the SMs couldn't get any help?  It is kinda embarrassing to have a broken loading screen on a popular server, sounds like they resolved it themselves which is a security issue but lets not act like everything here is handled properly and legally.

 

Maybe instead of being afraid of some audit that will never happen, why don't you do a full audit of all your code on your servers, you might be surprised what you see.  This PH loading screen was only brought to light because PH became another Salad project.

Edited July 16, 2022 by BestKevin

[MutedMike 151 / 4,188]

Damn

[Dragoon 385 / 10,460]

8 hours ago, BestKevin said:

I personally believe if those two SM's didn't go to LBG they wouldn't have gotten banned

8 hours ago, BestKevin said:

This PH loading screen was only brought to light because PH became another Salad project.

I mean... I can't say that I completely disagree with you here. Though the both of them left GFL for LBG at the same time, I can't tell you that it was a coincidence that the two were banned at the same time for different reasons. I let Salad know that my web filter said that the MOTD was a malicious site, and I asked him to restart Prop Hunt before finding out the content pack was made private (Both of these were on separate days). When it comes to Toxic's case, the MOTD was on his website, and that was presumably found out after I told Salad. If Toxic had left GFL for another community, if he had left for no community at all, or even if he had still remained in GFL as a Member, I believe that he probably would have still been banned because of the security aspect. 

 

8 hours ago, BestKevin said:

As for the "silencing" it would be pretty easy to prevent certain things from being said, keywords, block all posts from specific people until approved, but I am not sure personally they do that here, they just lock threads to end discussion.

Besides the occasions where posts get locked, this doesn't happen. When this happens, I usually don't view this as limiting discussions. I'm not inclined towards the belief myself, but I can see the case for discussion being limited on this one. Some people may have had questions about it and would prefer to ask on the Forums rather than sending a message on Discord about it.

Edited July 16, 2022 by Dragoon

[Joshy 4,364 / 44,945]

I did hide a post from lobster because it was low quality random gibberish.  Just being transparent here about what I hid.

[lobsterpaw 174 / 3,327]

14 minutes ago, Joshy said:

I did hide a post from lobster because it was low quality random gibberish.  Just being transparent here about what I hid.

to be clear it wasn't "low quality gibberish", it was the first chapter of 1984. i was making a joke

 

e: it was low effort copypasta but it wasn't gibberish or low quality!!

Edited July 16, 2022 by lobsterpaw

[BestKevin 89 / 1,644]

16 hours ago, Dragoon said:

I mean... I can't say that I completely disagree with you here. Though the both of them left GFL for LBG at the same time, I can't tell you that it was a coincidence that the two were banned at the same time for different reasons. I let Salad know that my web filter said that the MOTD was a malicious site, and I asked him to restart Prop Hunt before finding out the content pack was made private (Both of these were on separate days). When it comes to Toxic's case, the MOTD was on his website, and that was presumably found out after I told Salad. If Toxic had left GFL for another community, if he had left for no community at all, or even if he had still remained in GFL as a Member, I believe that he probably would have still been banned because of the security aspect. 

 

Besides the occasions where posts get locked, this doesn't happen. When this happens, I usually don't view this as limiting discussions. I'm not inclined towards the belief myself, but I can see the case for discussion being limited on this one. Some people may have had questions about it and would prefer to ask on the Forums rather than sending a message on Discord about it.

 

 

Yeah, people having personal content they host on their own steam account on Workshop is common here for some reason.  That is supposedly how Loke broke MC, seemingly happened on PH and also with Duck on rotation.  What do you expect when the SMs put in 150% effort to make the server successful then leave?  The line in the CoC about GFL owning your content is just a lazy auto-copywrite considering they don't do much to help the SMs or make the content.

 

Also it's easily fixable by reuploading the server files back to workshop (sounds, models, materials, etc.).  When they resigned did someone like the DL reach out and ask for the files?  Or did GFL let it happen due to the ignorance of how their own servers are constructed.  That is what happens when you make the structure a corporation and one piece of the hierarchy is completely missing as it has been for over a year now in GMOD.

 

Luckily enough people want the "honor" of being SM and working for free to make GFL money with basic paywalling of the content they are making, then get shit on if they leave and get in their bad graces.  No wonder one of the big issues here is finding staff and "passionate" people to expand the community.

 

 

 

EDIT:  Instead of making this another post ill just add it here, this quote is the most suspicious to me from that post "I suspect that this was put in place shortly after we upgraded our web machine in February of this year as the reason cited for making this change was that the old site stopped working at this time"

 

Does this mean they knew the loading screen was down and did nothing at that moment?  Shouldn't GFL know what was running on that old site and worked to replace the broken content? The proper course of action from a gaming communities "administrators" would be to know what is running where and if they take something down THEY should know and reach out to fix it. Not sure why the burden fell on the SMs when the admins took the old site down knowingly?

 

It's easy to make a post and say stuff about some people when they have no chance to defend themselves anymore.

Edited July 17, 2022 by BestKevin

[MilkMan 569 / 10,710]

I saw my name.

 

Seems were on the topic on change and improvements. 

 

I haven't seen any of the active servers recently to really go off of anything, but as far as making improvments to a community its really the fun and dorky addons. Granted, i didnt know how to program safisticated addons myself at the time. So, it was soley based on how fun I MADE it. By being present to my players and showing them that there are people who care about the community. 

 

Id say Loke was a big help in programming some of the addons behind the scene with me, wasnt truly a staff member quite yet, but he trained me on certain things and it really helped me make it more fun for my players. Training might be the biggest thing, but also someone who knows already is even better obviously.

 

I really wish we hadnt shut down TTTMC but it is what it is now, but if theres a chance to jump start it for others and just for me to see, that would be pretty sweet to see it be the number one server again. 

 

This may or may not help and hello.

[hdscorpio 90 / 1,438]

4 hours ago, BestKevin said:

 

Yeah, people having personal content they host on their own steam account on Workshop is common here for some reason.  That is supposedly how Loke broke MC, seemingly happened on PH and also with Duck on rotation.  What do you expect when the SMs put in 150% effort to make the server successful then leave?  The line in the CoC about GFL owning your content is just a lazy auto-copywrite considering they don't do much to help the SMs or make the content.

 

Also it's easily fixable by reuploading the server files back to workshop (sounds, models, materials, etc.).  When they resigned did someone like the DL reach out and ask for the files?  Or did GFL let it happen due to the ignorance of how their own servers are constructed.  That is what happens when you make the structure a corporation and one piece of the hierarchy is completely missing as it has been for over a year now in GMOD.

 

Luckily enough people want the "honor" of being SM and working for free to make GFL money with basic paywalling of the content they are making, then get shit on if they leave and get in their bad graces.  No wonder one of the big issues here is finding staff and "passionate" people to expand the community.

 

 

 

EDIT:  Instead of making this another post ill just add it here, this quote is the most suspicious to me from that post "I suspect that this was put in place shortly after we upgraded our web machine in February of this year as the reason cited for making this change was that the old site stopped working at this time"

 

Does this mean they knew the loading screen was down and did nothing at that moment?  Shouldn't GFL know what was running on that old site and worked to replace the broken content? The proper course of action from a gaming communities "administrators" would be to know what is running where and if they take something down THEY should know and reach out to fix it. Not sure why the burden fell on the SMs when the admins took the old site down knowingly?

 

It's easy to make a post and say stuff about some people when they have no chance to defend themselves anymore.

 

You put a lot of faith in the argument that the old loading screen was even broken to begin with... Why do you trust that it even was? Collecting and storing steam ID's has to be specifically set up on the new loading screen. Linking those steam id's to the IPs also requires specific set up. You can display the steamid of the person connecting without ever storing that data. For all we know, and we really dont right now, the higherups have specifically proven that the information was stored, I dont know if they have. 

People who fled GFL to a community that was specifically set up to be more toxic (judging by the issues Roy had with slurs being banned) don't exactly fill me with hope that it wasn't nefarious in some way. 

Edit: Ignore the above, I read the announcement properly and they dont actually know if the information was stored. The argument that the old loading screen was ever broke to begin with is still valid however.

Edited July 17, 2022 by hdscorpio

[BestKevin 89 / 1,644]

2 hours ago, hdscorpio said:

You put a lot of faith in the argument that the old loading screen was even broken to begin with... Why do you trust that it even was? Collecting and storing steam ID's has to be specifically set up on the new loading screen. Linking those steam id's to the IPs also requires specific set up. You can display the steamid of the person connecting without ever storing that data. For all we know, and we really dont right now, the higherups have specifically proven that the information was stored, I dont know if they have. 

People who fled GFL to a community that was specifically set up to be more toxic (judging by the issues Roy had with slurs being banned) don't exactly fill me with hope that it wasn't nefarious in some way. 

Edit: Ignore the above, I read the announcement properly and they dont actually know if the information was stored. The argument that the old loading screen was ever broke to begin with is still valid however.

 

 

The entirety of the statement was speculation.  Yeah, most websites have logs/tracking to know what IP addresses have interacted with it, and for the loading screen to work it sends the Steam ID.  I don't think the way to address this is with more speculation and generalizing based off of how the other community is being ran.  

 

Also, if they lied about the old site being down then the administration should be able to prove that, but did not share that statement or even confidence as to when any of this happened.

 

If they moved to Roy's community, THEN set this up it would be different.  Can't the tech admins here see when the file was edited last or when a configuration was changed?  If anything randomly banning them could lead to that information being misused if it was even being stored in the first place.  Regardless if they feel it is a security issue it is fine to ban them, though it doesn't prevent anything at this point.  

 

Point is, if it was done because a non GFL resource was used to store/handle data, then I am sure an audit of all of their servers custom code will reveal a few more people that need to be banned, probably still here working on their servers. If it was done because they left and are in a competing community then that is a bit shitty. 

 

Gotta follow that CoC right?

Edited July 17, 2022 by BestKevin

[sntt 9 / 0]

Biggest point right here.

Liloz, you were @'d because of your contribution of crying in the other thread. Never mind. I shouldn't have @'d you because that whole paragraph contributed nothing to my main concerns.

[DaPainWayne 469 / 9,402]

[Auralanity 1,097 / 19,948]

50 minutes ago, Bretoni said:

Liloz, you were @'d because of your contribution of crying in the other thread.

And your thread and replies isn't crying? 

[sntt 9 / 0]

10 minutes ago, Auralanity said:

And your thread and replies isn't crying? 

I think out of everyone in GFL, you have cried the most.

Good server admin though, thanks for implying my criticism and genuine concerns is similar to crying.

[Liloz01 1,256 / 19,845]

15 hours ago, Bretoni said:

Liloz, you were @'d because of your contribution of crying in the other thread.

My response to this:

14 hours ago, Bretoni said:

thanks for implying my criticism and genuine concerns is similar to crying.

Ditto

[sntt 9 / 0]

I see where the priorities lie. 🥶

This thread can be closed. I think points were made across the board and I am hopeful for changes based on the promises made here.

[VilhjalmrF 2,099 / 30,689]

The evil GFL cabal strikes again! (This is satire don't delete)

[DaPainWayne 469 / 9,402]

22 minutes ago, Bretoni said:

This thread can be closed.