I know I’m not the only one with this opinon and it’s time someone said it.
Jerry, when are you going to finish the board upgrades?
Can you finish the board upgrades? I don’t think you are capable of scaling a cluster, modernizing the SDMB or being the sysadmin during a transitional period. A potentially major transition period where we open up the board to search engines and let the unwashed ignorant masses in. I no longer trust you. This place is rotting because you don’t care about it. You let your todo lists sit for MONTHS. I don’t care if Ed is willing to make excuses for you (“he’s busy doing other things…”). Fact of the matter is that you have made some really bad decisions and shown very little technical know-how. It’s time you asked to be relieved of responsibility for the board software and server setup.
Nothing for at least a month, then two rant threads in the same day. Odd.
Personally, I have a hard time seeing this place ‘rotting’. But then, as long as the board runs smoothly enough for me to read and post, I don’t really care about much more than that.
You think there is some large pool of candidates waiting to take over the responsibility? According to the Chicago Reader Staff list, Jerry’s department meetings could probably be held in a broom closet.
I’ve been openly critical of board management and sysadminship for a long time. I am very disappointed that the SDMB has largely missed the latest technology industry expansion despite the fact that there are so many knowledgeable individuals here. The Barn House and Straight Dope Chicago are not exactly the direction I have heard anyone suggest this place go. The suggestions that is has gotten - move to a scalable architecture, allow the search engines in - have been totally botched. They should have taken less than a week. Grab a sysadmin from any internet startup and they could turn this place profitable in no time.
The SDMB works. You can read and post. Yes, it could work better - the search function seems to be one of the most popular candidates.
My disclaimer: I know nothing about the mechanics of a bulletin board/forum, but, having said that, the snail’s pace at which the changes take place is surprising. Ed Zotti has said that any criticism of Jerry The Tech is forbidden; that he is doing his best, and that he has other calls on his time. So, no criticism - just a question: wouldn’t it make Jerry’s life more predictable and help to prevent the endless cries of ‘when will x happen?’ if a time line (giving dates) was supplied?
If that is impossible, it would suggest either that the organisation of the SDMB is in some disarray, or that the powers-that-be have little interest in the SD. Or that there aren’t the finances available to implement the changes in a predictable manner.
Ah, of course… why didn’t anyone think of that! You seem to have resolved every project manager’s problems in one go! “Don’t miss deadlines” - simple yet elegant, and devastatingly effective.
Or maybe, just maybe, it’s not that easy to hit the deadlines?
As they say, “we aim to deliver this project on-time, to cost and to quality… but in reality you only get to pick two”.
In any project, surely, you set deadlines, and attempt to meet them? If you fail, you haven’t done your job properly; if you succeed, you have. You seem to be saying ‘I’ll meet two out of three of your requirements, and that’s the best I can do.’ No, of course it’s not easy - but that’s why you’re commissioned and paid to do the project: because you’re better than the two out of three man.
(NB: if I am correct in remembering that Ed has said Jerry isn’t being paid for this, then the above doesn’t apply specifically to him. All other disclaimers apply.)
Well, I think that’s rather the point! The project manager can only work to the deadlines and cost/quality contraints set by the project owners… if I ask you to build the channel tunnel in 2 wks for 50p you will fail, but that’s hardy your fault is it?
You can’t create more hours in the day, and resource costs money… if the money’s not available the work cannot get done. That’s no reflection on the project manager, just reality. And the reality is that many project managers are presented with unrealistic customer expectations, hence the time/cost/quality decision.
Heading hugely off track, but actually it IS the project manager’s responsibility. They should be examining the expectations as soon as they receive them and determining if they are realistic, if not then it’s their responsibility to ensure that these points are addressed. Alright, I’m knee deep in PMI stuff at the moment so that’s theory…I know full well through experience that that doesn’t happen perfectly but the project manager should be flagging and assessing unrealistic expecations as soon as they are spotted.
However, even the most lenient project timescale, say 30 minutes a day, has been passed.
Honestly there isn’t that much work to do. It’s like a 16 hour stretch or something like that for someone who knows LAMP and has access to Google. I’m not talking knows how to code in PHP, but someone with basic programming literacy that can scan-read code and fix problems. Jerry must be able to do that, but the amount of time he spends on accomplishing simple tasks is pathetic.
I’m telling you, the way to do this is all at once, and any decent sysadmin would have done it that way. They would have done the research and then done the migration, and they wouldn’t have fucking slept until it was done. And it wouldn’t have taken that long.
Generally, as a PM you will say “your deadling is unrealistic, and frankly for this price you’ll never get what you want”. To which the Board will say “not our problem, you’re the PM sunshine, get on with it”.
This is especially the case where the Board have no personal liability for the success or otherwise of the project - public sector govenment projects, for example. That’s why so many local and central govt projects go tits up, because no-one accepts the warnings raised.
And if Jerry isn’t getting paid, or allocated the time and resources (I don’t know the details), then it’s not suprising it’s not high on the priority list.
This is why I’m ever grateful that the company I work for signs up as following the PMI methodology
If a Sales person runs in saying “oh my god I’ve sold this to the customer and I’ve promised they can have it in three months!”. One, the Sales person will be beaten swiftly with the “get a clue” stick for not engaging PM support prior to signature, Two, I’ll end up pouring over the scope to see what’s actually realistic and what we might be able to do via schedule compression and Three, if Sales have utterly messed up…they are going to be the ones who have to explain it to the customer.
Maturity wise I think we do pretty well, not 100% PMI but almost as close as we can get it for our business (there’s always room for improvement), it’s been a fight to get it to this point though.
Speaking as a full-time sysadmin, the important variable we’re not aware of is “what other demands on Jerry’s time are there?”–because, frankly, I’ve got four or five “16 hour stretches for someone familiar with LAMP, tops” that have been on the back burner for months because I have other, more serious projects that need my attention.
In a lot of cases, those are “I can’t fix the web server because I’m too busy babysitting the ancient office technology you don’t have the money to upgrade (like for example my Windows 2000 domain controllers running on two Pentium 2s for a network of 75 people and a few terabytes of DFS)”. So you don’t upgrade, you patch and tweak and jiggle the handle until the water stops running, and hope someone gives you the money to hire a contract plumber or even buy a goddamn flutter valve.
Adding the new forums is basically the tech equivalent of standing up, it’s trivial and not really distracting the sysadmin from anything else.
