Concerning the Alcugs wiki

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Re: Concerning the Alcugs wiki

Postby Chacal » Mon Nov 14, 2011 10:47 am

I have had to mediate fights between employees several times.
Given a series of verifiable events in a fight between two persons,
- each protagonist has a different memory of the event and they are both wrong;
- each protagonist has a different interpretation of the event and they are both wrong;
- each protagonist has very good explanations for the other's actions and they are both wrong;
- each protagonist has very good explanations for his own actions and they are both right;
- each protagonist sincererely believes he is truthful and the other is lying, and they are both wrong.

As an employer, I can force the two persons to sit down together and explain his side for each event (without a discussion).
This is a humbling process for both, because they were both wrong for each event.
Most often it results in the conclusion that it is better for everyone if we turn the page and start afresh.

Outside of a work environment, we have no such power of coercion.
It would be a waste of time to have this discussion in public, and it wouldn't change the foregone conclusion:

We were both wrong. Better to turn the page and start afresh.
Chacal


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Re: Concerning the Alcugs wiki

Postby sculp » Mon Nov 14, 2011 11:25 am

Beautifuly put Chacal
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Re: Concerning the Alcugs wiki

Postby diafero » Mon Nov 14, 2011 1:42 pm

Chacal just convinced me not to write a full reply to Dustin's attack. I will however reply to one point, the malware issue. It's probably the one that raised the most eyebrows, and there's nobody besides Dustin and me knowing about it, and he keeps trying to push it.

To put this into the correct time frame: The incident he refers to happened in July 2009. That was after the Alcugs (unet3+ version) and Offline KI release in December 2008, and before I made Offline KI officially support Shards in November 2009. For more than a year already, I had been running a private Alcugs Shard using the Offline KI plus some extra stuff, which was subsequently released. Dhelayan also used to be a member of this Shard, and he became a major annoyance. When he finally decided to remove all the data from the private FTP server the other admin and me had set up, we decided that enough was enough (this was just the top of the iceberg, I don't want to drag this issue into the public as well) and kicked him in July 2008 (this is the "minor misbehavior" Dustin refers to).
A year later, in July 2009, the Pelishard was opened by him and Mystler, his co-admin, who is Dhelayan's "friend" Dustin mentioned. He got kicked (in July 2008 as well) because we had proof that he gave Dhelayan his password to let him access the private forum, which Dhelayan later even admitted. In its first incarnations, Pelishard essentially refused to give any credit to the actual authors of the software that was used. I had even helped Mystler to set it all up, but was not mentioned at all. And then he made it public, and even claimed he had Cyan's confirmation to do so which was quickly denied by Chogon. I was seriously annoyed by such a person using my work and taking all the credit. The Offline KI back then already "happened to work" on a Shard (since I wrote it on one ;-) ), but that was just an internal detail. So, in what was probably an over-reaction, I decided to make a change to the crash detection (the crash detection, btw, was an idea of Dustin, but written by me) so that, after the next update of the server software, the KI would constantly think it crashed, and quit the client. Shards that did not use the Offline KI would continue to just work. After all, the Offline KI was not even supposed to work on Shards - yeah, a rather lame excuse. You could say this was my attempt to take revenge to Dhelayan. I do not even remember whether the update actually landed on Pelishard before I told Dustin, but it probably did (I had still considered him a good friend, and he did not give any sign of what he says now he had already thought about me back then). He then made aware to me that by doing what I did, I was essentially as bad as Dhelayan. I was still angry at him (Dhelayan), but calmed down enough to see this was true, and reverted the change about a month after it was committed.
Well, and that's it. Yes, I made a mistake. Yes, it was a bad idea to take such destructive action. And yes, I am sorry that I did it.

But no, I do not think that qualifies as malware. Please judge yourself, I hope I did not forget anything. The source code of all the tools I wrote for Uru is out there, for anybody with coding knowledge to check (though I admit 20k lines of code in the server are hard to verify ;-) ), and I can - again - assure you that the code is as malware-free as I can get it, and also free of purposefully hidden pitfalls like the one I described above.
I prefer e-mails to "diafero arcor de" (after adding the at and the dot) over PMs.

"Many people's horizon is a circle with a radius of zero. They call it their point of view."

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Re: Concerning the Alcugs wiki

Postby Nadnerb » Mon Nov 14, 2011 2:10 pm

Image
I think it's really a shame how little emphasis some people put on being friendly to their fellow fans, builders, and coders, and how much they put on their own intellectual superiority. The great fallacy of the internet, I think, is this: Being right does not give you the right to be an asshole.
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Re: Concerning the Alcugs wiki

Postby Christopher » Mon Nov 14, 2011 3:56 pm

I always thought Dhelayan wouldn't be such a horrible person like you all say, but now I can fully understand you. He never wanted to tell me why you all hate him so much... I am glad, that I no longer have something to do with him.
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Re: Concerning the Alcugs wiki

Postby diafero » Sat Nov 26, 2011 1:33 pm

http://dusty.homeunix.net/uru-retirement.htm

Looks like it's over. And we need a new server for age distribution.
I could easily set up a UAM server with all the data on it... if I just had the time to set it up and maintain it.

Dustin leaving still feels like a loss to me, but OTOH I can't say I did not hope it to happen. Now let's see if he really means it. Uru has a lot of people who repeatedly said they'd leave, and still are quite active^^.
I prefer e-mails to "diafero arcor de" (after adding the at and the dot) over PMs.

"Many people's horizon is a circle with a radius of zero. They call it their point of view."

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Re: Concerning the Alcugs wiki

Postby Chacal » Sat Nov 26, 2011 4:09 pm

It does feel a loss to me. I enjoyed working with Dustin, and I remember fondly a few evenings we spent together on some shard, I think it was Ancient City, when I had lots of hacking-related questions and he had all the answers. His knowledge is extensive. We also talked about all kinds of non-Uru-related matters.

It is interesting to see that the considerable body of knowledge we had harvested before Cyan released its code, and is embodied by all the current tools, was gathered by different hackers or groups independantly. For instance, Drizzle does not use libHplasma, and yet does similar things.

But hackers are humans too, and have human emotions.
Chacal


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Re: Concerning the Alcugs wiki

Postby Calena » Sat Nov 26, 2011 4:42 pm

diafero wrote:http://dusty.homeunix.net/uru-retirement.htm

Looks like it's over. And we need a new server for age distribution.
I could easily set up a UAM server with all the data on it... if I just had the time to set it up and maintain it.

Dustin leaving still feels like a loss to me, but OTOH I can't say I did not hope it to happen. Now let's see if he really means it. Uru has a lot of people who repeatedly said they'd leave, and still are quite active^^.


Where's the icon for two thumbs up? Diafero, I realize this has been a very difficult situation for you to be in. I just wanted to go public and state that I'm impressed with how you've handled yourself throughout. Maybe it wasn't the way I would have preferred it, but I'm not always right :oops: . This also would have been a perfect opportunity for you to throw in the towel and decide to quit. You aren't doing that. I'm impressed. Good job :).
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Re: Concerning the Alcugs wiki

Postby Wamduskasapa » Sat Nov 26, 2011 5:13 pm

For me this is a Very Great Loss. I have known Dustin since the early days - and he knows my original name.
Dustin will be sorely missed by me and the community.
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Re: Concerning the Alcugs wiki

Postby Paradox » Sat Nov 26, 2011 6:36 pm

Chacal wrote:It is interesting to see that the considerable body of knowledge we had harvested before Cyan released its code, and is embodied by all the current tools, was gathered by different hackers or groups independantly. For instance, Drizzle does not use libHplasma, and yet does similar things.

At one point I remember Dustin expressing that he felt libHSPlasma was "too close" to Cyan's code to be used legally, and that he refused to even look at the code to prevent anyone being able to claim it had "tainted" the Drizzle source.
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