Secret Discussions

TSSH is in danger of being like some other clubs.If discussions on anything that will affect all members must be held in SECRET,surely all members should be allowed to know what goes on,its called democracy !

Hi Roger,

I will guarantee you that NOTHING is being spoken about in “secrecy”, and anything that is discussed between the footplate crew that will “affect” members are things that members are already aware of and have been raised by everyone and directed to the team for resolving.

The last time anything major was spoken about between the footplate crew (almost a year ago) it was trying to establish what improvements were needed to the forum such as new forum logos, a little de-clutter, some new areas opening and any issues that ALL users had brought up that needed seeing to. Nothing major there, just routine maintenance that happens everywhere.

Beyond that only one future goal had been raised and that was the potential idea of having our own file hosting site, nothing secret there as it has been raised by nearly everyone since the forum started. The idea hit a hurdle in that none of us have any experience in running a full on website, but as with all things that knowledge will come from experience. The other issue is with hosting the files for the site as it would require a lot of space to be “rented”.

As there are 2 members who have knowledge in this area it was decided that we would look in to it to find out the best options available to us and then we would present the WHOLE PACKAGE to the entire forum as a whole and solid workable idea, rather than saying to everyone:

“Hey we've sort of had think about what people have said, and we sort of have less than a quarter of an idea on how this would work, but it may take us a year or more to figure it out maybe…”

It was decided to try and do this properly first go rather than have everyone asking whether or not we knew what we were doing and how long it would take. So far we have ruled out having the files hosted by any Australian company as it is too expensive, it is a little less prohibitive in the UK but there is still a cost involved. So the current idea is to try and find the better host that has the lower price. The other option would be to have it housed in a “FTP server” (basically a PC bulked up with hard drives that would require access to be given to members to have access to the files), whilst this would be similar to UKTS, just where this sever would be located is still under consideration. A safe home for it is available should we go ahead with that idea, but again cost are involved.

During all decisions on this project the main issue has been keeping the costs down, not trying to be cheap and nasty but because there are members of this forum who are not in the best financial positions and would struggle to justify spending say £5 per month (NOT AN ACTUAL FIGURE. JUST A RANDOM NUMBER FOR THE POINT OF CONVERSATION)  just to download MSTS content. So a lot of thought is needed before anything can happen.

The only easily determined thing was where the website would be hosted, and I PERSONALLY OFFERED a website that I had made for myself for conversion to the TSSH web hosting site.
With things going on in my personal life, the offered website has become unavailable, and also using MY NAME for the TSSH site would be rude and self-centred, so I PERSONALLY set up ANOTHER website for the specific purpose of being used by TSSH for file hosting. There is currently nothing on that site asides from the TSSH logo, but you are more than welcome to have a look. Keep in mind that the site is basically thrown up to protect the site name as new sites open regularly.

http://tsshonline.weebly.com/

Beyond that, there is no news. Asides from the fact that I have been incredibly ill for the last 10 days to the point of nearly blacking out and being bed ridden for almost a week and the forum IS STILL MY FIRST PRIORITY, it is the first place I visit when I wake up and the last place I visit before I go to sleep. That quite often involves me using a “tablet” computer to access the forum whilst flat on my back in bed trying not to throw up.

I hope that this answers the issue that you raised Roger,

Justin

p.s. I set the new website up once I was able to stay upright for more than an hour without being sick. I'm still recovering slowly but I’ll get there.

I stand chastised,though I had a point of view and voiced it.

As for you being unwell I am sorry to hear that,though what I said was NOT a personal attack on you and I sincerely wish you a speedy recovery.

Roger
We always appreciate input into TSSH, but as Justin has pointed out we try and minimise the "when" question. Please continue to comment and when necessary ask the pointed questions - sometimes "wood is not always seen for the trees"!
I very much hope that we can resolve the file hosting question, as I would personally prefer to upload any files away from UKTS.
Finally I imagine Justin et al will keep us in the loop as the situation develops.

Hi Roger,

I do appologise as it would appear that my post has a negative tone to it. It was in no way meant to scold anyone, just to point out the fact that this forum is (I hope) a bit more open about what happens rather than things just being done "for the greater good" without taking into account that we are dealing with friends.

That is one reason we don't have a group called "moderators" or "administration" as we are trying to be more open and approachable than other forums. Anyone is welcome to raise a point or question and put forward ideas, but it still needs to be sorted through a panel of sorts to make sure that the right answer is given rather than having 6 completely different ideas going on at once which would end up in a terrible mess.

The main reason that I took offence was that I am the person whom set up the forum and ultimately I am the one who is the main person responsible for keeping things fair and pushing through the "heavy dirty work" (like a 9F really) to keep the forum in as good of shape as possible. I knew it was not a personal attack, it just ruffeled my feathers a bit.

Again I do appologise for my post being overly negative,
Justin.

(Sent from my Tablet computer whilst lying in bed trying not to freeze. It's bleeding cold before the sun comes up).  

Hi Roger, et al,
I can see both points of view and I echo Justin's comments. But we only discuss the way forward for the forum and we don't discuss members or politics off the forum. We discuss ideas and we do tend to put this live within threads from time to time. Please understand there are sections  which do need looking at and this is one of the items that Justin and myself are discussing off thread so that it is easier for our members to find things and they know where to post things.
We as Moderators (If you like) is our job to make sure the forum runs smoothly and that any threads that are posted go into the right place, so not to confuse others if they want to check on how to do certain things....
Can you see my point and what we are trying to achieve?
I love Justin's comment about the 9f (I'll have to remember that one!).   
I understand that it is difficult to put things across in the written way on a forum... But you have to admit some Admins/Moderators on other forums are worse than others!!
We go by a Policy of banning a member for really bad things such as spammers....
I personally think this is one of the most helpful and friendliest forums around. There will always be issues as I have said with the way things are written. I always prefer face to face.   
We will continue to try and improve the forum as it grows and to keep you in the frame as much as we can. If anything us as Moderators just bounce ideas off one another.
Justin and myself are looking at ways to host a download site...  I do believe if we do decide and find a decent way to host a download site that we get more MSTS members onboard from UKTS.
Please by all means your good self and others can voice their opinions but this is where we are and how we work.
Hope this has put you in the picture?
All the best
Andy

Having just read all the content on this thread, I too would like to see a facility for downloading set up, but I will be just as happy with the forums to carry on as was intended when it was first set up. I think Justin and Andy are doing a great job and it has certainly helped to keep MSTS alive and running by having a forum just for those interested in this simulator. May TSSH continue to get better!

Thanks for the reply and kind words Geoff.   
I personally think if we are going to host an MSTS File Library site, then we might have to do it by a monthly Subscription. I haven't discussed it recently with Justin, but I think we would need to get more people from UKTS whom are still interested in MSTS over to a new site.
The problem I think we have with using Dropbox as an example, is if we get a lot of members using Dropbox and with the lack of space available that we will run out of hosting space very quickly!!
Best Wishes
Andy

Whilst continuing the deviation off topic I note that TrainSimDev use a different form of uploading/downloading - see HERE - and I'm not sure what the implications of this would be!

Alec,
If we were to go down what is known as an Illegal route, we would still need a site to host the files. To me personally I wouldn't like to use this.
I have added a thread for members to vote on Here; - This way I think it would make it safe and secure for everyone!

Hi Andy,
Bit Torrents aren't illegal, in themselves - it's just what people use them for!
However, if we were to go that way, it means that as well as there being a central depository of downloads, any of us could act as "seeds", once we have the file downloaded on our system. Anyone then downloading the file would get it from any number of us, each contributing a small bit. BUT this almost certainly breaks the conditions that files are uploaded to specified libraries and are only available there-from!

Cheers,
Ged

The idea of using P2P for file sharing is an interesting suggestion; however from a purely personal perspective based on the size of my uploads (I'm generally an activity writer); a TORRENT file is 35kb (Ubuntu 13) whilst a ZIP of one of my uploads is only 25kb.

I do feel though that it has it's merits for larger uploads but there should still be an option to physically host files if necessary.

I would have no objection to my content being hosted by any method - the only condition would be to let me know it is there!

For what it's worth; CMSs such as Joomla/Drupal have file library functionality built in and I did play around with this a while back. Similarly Wordpress could be used; but that is, in my view, more of a faff (although I quite like it as a platform).

In so far as I'm always lost in these areas plus I haven't forgotten my early experience with Trainsim, I am dependent upon the research, etc. by Andy and Justin.
However what I would say is that were we to set up such a service that service would be the the only place where those items created by myself would be available.
Once I have finalised the outstanding FG DMU work they would be uploaded to UKTS because several of the given permissions relate to using UKTS!