User:X010

Hello, I'm X010. A moderator on the wiki (feel free to ask me anything about it), and the BA forum. Usually a kind one, that is. Also see my GitHub: https://github.com/Leader-board.

I'm often not active on this wiki as I'm busy with other things, but retain full access to this wiki. If you ping me and I don't respond in a couple of days' time, please send me a short message on my talk page (or on the forum). I respond to that quickly since my email client notifies me of it.

What BA does well and not
This is just my personal opinion as a forum moderator and not the official view of BA or anyone else


 * BA has forum and Discord rigour - that is, a fairly strict policy on getting FTP Access and posts which I think is reflected in the (generally) above average quality of posts when compared with other communities (and it extends to Discord). Fewer memes and low-quality content in the Discord compared to others I've seen.
 * The FTP server works well and is free - credit goes to mrpijey to that. The releases are also high quality in general.

However, personally,


 * Andy and mrpijey are good website and very good FTP and forum admins, but poor (to be very kind) in handling a wiki. From 2010 till 2019, due to spam, they thought that locking it down (to the extent that one had to get 3 months of FTP Access + message Andy directly) was the right solution to manage a wiki. They clearly didn't know the myriad of tools MediaWiki has to combat spam and nonsense. I showed them how in 2019, but then the damage has been done because of BetaWiki (which I won't fault at all given how poorly the BA wiki was managed back then).
 * Here's an example of this: Andy insisted the creation of a Moderator usergroup on the wiki, mirroring that of the forum. What he didn't realise is that moderator is comparable to adminship in MW, and administrator -&gt; bureaucrat in MW. It's nowhere a big thing, but it is an example of the lack of experience which, in my opinion, has hurt rather than helped the wiki.
 * Plus, it took me quite a long time for me to have filesystem access to the wiki, which has been very valuable for me as it allowed me to install and update most extensions on the wiki. However, I still have to ask Andy to do many tasks such as updating the wiki and so on, which is irritating because co-ordination between the two of us is difficult (and Andy is not familiar enough with MediaWiki, see point 1). It took months for the wiki to get upgraded to MW 1.35 because of that.
 * I have also clearly demonstrated that I am trusted enough to work with advanced features without messing the wiki or forum up, both with the work I do here and elsewhere. For reference, I am a sysop at two Wikimedia wikis (and have experience single-handily blocking spammers on wikis much more popular than BA), and have even worked with others for pay. While this does not mean that I know everything about MW, it at least means that I am trusted enough to handle advanced tasks without breaking things up, and have done so since June 2020, when I was given 'crat and filesystem access though FTP.
 * Yet, Andy has put up a sandbox for the wiki which means that it cannot talk with the forum, which is required for features such as SSO (single-sign on), for which everything else has been done. I've been trying to have him lift this (absurd) requirement, but he's just so obstinate and it's so frustrating working with them...
 * One thing about the FTP access: I feel that it's time to allow downloaded contributions for FTP Access in some way. This has been unsuccessfully challenged in the recent past sadly, with mrpijey thinking that every beta user will have a laptop that has a DVD drive or similar (and no, it's not easy to even get a USB drive nowadays). He has a point in that this rigour is responsible for the high quality, but I think some users are being unfairly disadvantaged as a result. I had suggested a rigorous alternative using the wiki, but haven't gotten a response either way.
 * TLDR; working with Andy or mrpijey is often an exercise in frustration, especially if you're interested in making tangible improvements and are not prepared to wait forever like me. After all, I see none of these plans made back in 2019 implemented, more than 18 months later. Beware.

(yes there are more)