Backup for Bro. Argos?

[Sol_Invictus]

In light of the recent outage and Brother Argos much more important real life issues is there any discussion happening amongst the admins on getting someone else trained to recover the site when it goes down?

[IronDrake28]

Taking the circumstances into account, the speed at which the site got back up was good enough, and I'm sure the members here survived a few days without our internet plastic fix.

 

Edit: Not that it would be bad to take some of the weight off of Brother Argos!

[Kelborn]

Exactly. He got more important things to worry about.

Just as a helping hand for him, not for us.

[Soldier of Dorn]

This struck me as pretty damn quick, actually.

 

IIIRC, last year during the ETL it was down longer, or at least felt like it. *shivers* Those were dark times...

[CommodusXIII]

It's not necesessarily just about speed. Having a backup is important for any role. What if Argos has to be away for an extended period of time, or God forbid something happens to him? I run a couple PC gaming communities and I make sure someone else at least knows where the switches are just in case.

 

Having only a single person with the ability to fix things if they break, no matter how responsible and trustworthy, is a huge risk in the long term.

 

Also, Argos is dealing with a lot in his personal life. He shouldn't have B&C at the back of his mind while he's taking care of his family. Having someone else, even if it's only an emergency back-up, might take some weight off of him.

[Soldier of Dorn]

That'll teach me to read things more closely. :sweat:

 

Yeah, I agree: there should be someone with the ability to fix things in the event that Argos is unable to. However, I'm sure it's something that's been discussed by the administration before, and I'm certain they have a good reason for whatever the current policy is.

[CommodusXIII]

Over two years ago, Argos announced that he was preparing to hand off the technical administration of the B&C due to personal reasons. Don't get me wrong, I'm very glad that he hasn't left us. But I am curious as to why no one else has been trained/given access if he raised the issue himself way back then.

[Kurgan the Lurker]

We have people if it comes down to it. Not necessarily board members but they are there.

 

 

Ages ago we survived being offline for 121 days. We will survive again.

[Soldier of Dorn]

We have people if it comes down to it. Not necessarily board members but they are there.

 

Ages ago we survived being offline for 121 days. We will survive again.

 

Kinda assumed that was the case. Can't imagine that you guys wouldn't have some sort of contingency plan.

 

121 days. tho? Phew. Glad that wasn't the case this time. Don't know that I would have handled that very well.

 

Thought for the day: Trust in the Emperor and his Administratum. They will protect.

[Brother Argos]

We have access to external technical resources, they however would need to be paid. The amount of money we raise from donations normally covers hosting costs, software licenses etc. Any extra above the $3000 we raise goes towards possible upgrades and an emergency fund which has saved us in the past from certain death (dead drives, motherboards etc), and is where the money for the external resources would come from.

 

Obviously like most money conscious volunteer organisations, we try and fix things without spending our reserves (which usually means I do it). The reserves then give me the option of calling in extra resources if I cannot deal with the problem.

 

Over time my involvement with the board has been decreasing, as it has moved towards self funding (I used to pay for most of it). But like any proud parent, whose child stumbles and falls, I rush forward to help. Sadly like most parents, I will eventually not be here to do that, which is why the external resources are lined up to help.

[CommodusXIII]

Sorry to continue to drag this along, but have there been attempts to identify internal resources rather than paid contractors?

[Brother Argos]

Yes a number of times.

[Joe]

Keeping the current thought of resources in mind, and expanding onto utilities, when it comes down to the painters how much work would be necessary to improve upon the current painter, specifically, the wargear beta? Is it something that a small group of people from the forums could collaborate on (in terms of art, scripting and presentation; I'd assume working on new lines and appearances for the wargear would largely rely upon imitating the existing code?), or is it something you'd rather handle internally should you ever be in a position to do so?

 

I'm rather keen on the idea of the painter. >_>

[Sol_Invictus]

In my line of work there is an oft floated question that goes like this, "What if so and so got hit by a bus?". Which is usually followed by a discussion of backups, knowledge transfers, and cross training. So we know in this case that there are paid technical services that could get us back in order if Brother Argos is unavailable but I was thinking more along the lines of a member of the board who could step in as a technical resource as needed to relieve some of the burden from Brother Argos. While a loving parent wants to help their child when they stumble and fall it also feels them with pride to see their child become self-reliant.

 

I'm guessing it comes down to the fact that anyone who has the access to fix issues on the back end would have an incredible amount of "power" that would require of thorough vetting process before the admins would feel comfortable granting that access. And I'm not sure how you do that with faceless individuals on the internet... 

[CommodusXIII]

The nature of the Internet is that, short of meeting someone in person, there's no way you can be entirely sure.  Even in real life you can never be sure.  Fortunately, a wargaming community like B&C most likely won't face the same kind of shenanigans as a gaming community like EvE Online or World of Warcraft.  No one from BoLS or Dakka Dakka is going to sneak onto the Admin team to wreak havoc.

 

From my point of view, I generally consider:

• Technical skills - does he or she have the front-end (forum control panel) and back-end (server-side), and possibly even hardware maintenance experience necessarily to be useful?
• Availability - if something breaks, can he or she get online and work on it within a reasonable period of time?
• Trustworthiness, responsibility, accountability, etc. - does he or she embody the same spirit or philosophy as the rest of the Admin team?
• Longevity - is he or she going to stick around for the long term, or will you have to find someone new in 6-12 months?

The downside is that, especially for online communities, it's incredibly rare to find someone who meets all of these requirements.  The question often becomes, do you find someone that's willing but not able, and train them?  Or do you find someone who's able but outside the community, and hire them?  It sounds like the Admin team is going with the latter, which is understandable.  Hopefully someone eventually steps forward that can handle this from inside the community, but for now at least there's a contingency of some kind in place.

 

Thank you very much, Argos & Co., for putting up with my nagging questions.  And thanks for putting in so much time and effort.  It's a hell of a lot of work and it's appreciated.

[Brother Argos]

@ Isinfer: As the person who wrote the software for the Painter in its entirety, I currently have no plans to resume work on it. To be clear, it is not a community developed or owned project and nor is it open source (although some libraries used by it might be). The artwork also is not open source either and specific agreements with its usage are in place with Games workshop (after having "discussed" it with their legal team a number of times). I know that sounds harsh, but I am trying to be honest. I have unreleased art and code for the painter which I may work upon if time allows (but this is not a commitment).

 

@Sol_Invictus: The primary reason for the current arrangements are based in the main upon the conclusion you have drawn in your final sentence. The arrangements with the external resource mentioned above are with a company and are contractual and based upon previous experience with the persons / company involved. They have done work for me professionally and with other companies who are my clients (therefore a modicum of trust has been established). Having seen the demise of other large wargaming boards over the years (such as Warseer etc), allowing multiple people access to a live webserver configuration containing many gigabytes of data seems somewhat reckless.

 

@CommodusXIII: Your correct about the decision making behind the choice of external support. This contingency has been in place since the end of 2013 and without anyone knowing has worked well (they have done work on the B&C behind the scenes since that time).

 

Hopefully this is sufficiently enlightening as to the "behind" the scenes decisions?

[CommodusXIII]

Makes sense to me.  I'm been in the position in the past of dealing with both life events and forum damage control.  The former is obviously more important and the latter is, in the grand scheme, inconsequential.  But I couldn't help but feel accountable, knowing that I was the only person who could fix things.  So, when I saw your post about coming home and getting the B&C sorted out, I was hoping that it wasn't because you were the only person who could do it.  That wouldn't have been fair.

[Sol_Invictus]

Thank you for the detailed explanations and your patience, Brother Argos. I just wish there was more the Frater could do to help with some of the technical work so you wouldn't need to be bothered.

[Joe]

@Brother Argos;

 

As I said in my PM, that's alright mate; I wasn't fully aware of the situation and was just making a general inquiry. Thank you for taking the time to explain it. \o

[Teetengee]

-snip-

allowing multiple people access to a live webserver configuration containing many gigabytes of data seems somewhat reckless.

-snip-

Maybe it's just the industry I work in, but not having at least one person with access (though who doesn't typically exercise it) seems a little reckless as well? Or is the company previously mentioned able to get into the system without your permission in an emergency. Obviously the B&C isn't beholden to anyone to stay up, so it isn't like it has critical functioning maintained by steps detailed in a business continuity plan, but something like that wouldn't be a drawback as far as I am concerned.

[Brother Argos]

The external company has full access to our server at any time.

 

As much fun as answering peoples questions appears to be, I have other issues I wish to focus on now.

[Teetengee]

Ok, thank you so much Argos. Also, sorry I was not understanding the situation fully, but you have cleared everything up very nicely.

I wish you the best in all you are dealing with right now.