The nitty gritty!

[LeekClock]

Sorry if you thought you read "titty" -- there will be no titties in this post.

This is just a short message to address several complaints, and to explain what is going on with the staff (though this has rarely been a matter of public concern, certain members have taken an interest in this side of things).

If i'm allowed to lodge a complaint myself, it would be that certain users have found themselves with nothing more to do in this community than troll and fight for their right to post titties. While the Clock Crew is not exactly renowned for being high-brow, I'd like to think we've come a long way in terms of gaining a focus on flash as opposed to the largely pubescent lifestyles of our users.

I think that unless you are here primarily to further your own creative interests in making flash masterpieces (and whatever other kind of related masterpiece), then there are other channels open to you at the moment. That's not to say we are serious business, but I feel we are losing track of what's important when we start bickering and splitting the group over trivial administrative matters like we have been doing.

Complaints to be addressed officially:

1. We need new admins!
2. You are not utilizing our collective talents to make the website better!
3. I wish there were a better/simpler skin for the bbs!
4. Boy I wish things would just get done faster around here. Where are my medals and why isn't that contest judged yet?

1. Yes we could take on more staff, but only at the cost of security. Just a few days ago we discovered that through a breach in security only possible by someone gaining access to an admin account, a script was placed on the site which enabled the perpetrators to steal sensitive user information, such as passwords. The risk of such attacks and worse attacks is only increased by the addition of administrators.

2. Do you have something you feel you can offer the site? Please contact me and I'll let you know if you can help or not. Whatever the case, I don't think you necessarily need to be an administrator on the bbs to help.

3. A new skin is in the pipeline.

4. We're very proud of our members achievements and contributions to the community, and it is also frustrating for us to see these things unrewarded. That is why we have established recurring user-maintained events (such as foto fandango, and phlash phandango) so that judging contests is not always the task of staff -- which I think is a refreshingly diplomatic alternative in any case.

Positive coda:

Leading up to past clockdays we've been under so much shit, in terms of e-drama and site failures and hacking and general lack of unity, that we were lucky to have even had a site by August 15th.

This year we have a site with an impressive set of all the site features we need to facilitate our work (fla library most notably), and there's literally nothing stopping us from doing what we should ideally be doing, other than this constant bickering. So  let us please start knuckling down by ourselves or in groups to get our projects sparkly and ready for Clock Day.

ps We will with luck be promoting at least one user to administrator in order to help things get done quicker, but this is, as i've explained, a serious matter, and it takes time and consideration to come to a satisfactory solution that isn't going to make things more dramatic and distracting than before.

update: ZombieLincoln as been promoted to administrator. Hurray!