Irkoo (Thanks system)

oldgitBEN · Mon Nov 21, 2011 7:13 pm

If I understand this correctly the 'thanks counter' would be done away with but on a specific post it could say 'userA, userB say Thanks for this post'

This would be much better!

.Will · Mon Nov 21, 2011 8:00 pm

What has happened to Irkoo anyway?

Is there any reason why they have gone down?

Mon Nov 21, 2011 8:04 pm

As of yet I don't think anyone knows. It just seems to have disappeared off the face of the Earth sadly

There are a few possible things, but to my knowledge no one has a definite answer.

formula1fan · Mon Nov 21, 2011 8:05 pm

.Will wrote: What has happened to Irkoo anyway?

Is there any reason why they have gone down?

My guess is as good as yours, Will. I have no idea as to what's happened to Irkoo.

Big Dave · Mon Nov 21, 2011 8:12 pm

Ran out pennies to keep the forum going, system completely blown up, could be literally anything.

Mon Nov 21, 2011 8:19 pm

Closest I found to an answer was this... except it's no answer at all really. Just a response to an email someone sent off to Amazon Web Services (who I assume to be the host) regarding the outage:

Hello,

Thank you for contacting us regarding with your concerns and I certainly hope the rumors regarding this account owner are incorrect. To answer your question, if an account were to go past due beyond a certain point and we were unable to reach a client to resolve this- the account would eventually be suspended eventually the account would be closed. I'm not able to provide advice or insight regarding the use of another customer's account using Amazon Web Services. Furthermore, I couldn't even accept a payment towards this account because all accounts are accessed via account numbers or specific email addresses only and not by the web address associated with the account.

Best of luck,

aws.amazon.com

Rather cryptic to me - no idea what these 'rumours' are. Seems to be suggesting that the account owner possibly didn't pay his hosting bill. Definitely not worth taking with anything more than a pinch of salt.

Mon Nov 21, 2011 8:26 pm

Well all we know are that attempts to reach the author (and host) have failed, and no one has heard anything from him.

There could be many possible reason.

Mon Nov 21, 2011 8:31 pm

I think the clear reason why Irkoo has buggered off is simple:

They used to operate out of a network of shipping containers. Unfortunately, Merlin recently bought the containers that housed their servers, and now the service is down whilst they locate a new home.

Jordan · Mon Nov 21, 2011 10:39 pm

It's a shame we appear to have lost all the rep data. If it doesn't reappear, I do hope this is a bit of a lesson learned for the team that ultimately, this data and functionality shouldn't have been left to a 3rd party which had little history and experience of running such a system, when the possibility of rolling our own code would've been a much better choice in the long run.

I don't really buy into the whole "X feature/software doesn't scale to our massive needs" when many other forums online (running a variety of platforms) manage to surpass our quantity of active users and posts with little effort, although I understand that this isn't necessarily a software problem (however it does beg the question where optimizations could be made instead of scrapping features entirely) - more that the resources provided in the first place to the team are ever starved and inadequate, almost comparable to shared hosting :/

Jordan · Mon Nov 21, 2011 10:52 pm

McFlurry wrote: Upset that you got kicked off the team is it?

I've made comments about the suitability of the rep system ever since it came in last year, Aly. And tbh I try to make suggestions where I can about where improvements can be made, but I doubt that any get taken on board, and I was never given the opportunity to work on the forums in the first place. But without making personal attacks, I do doubt the extent of the technical ability of the responsible person(s) for this area, which is why I think we had such short-termist 'solutions' brought in in the first place.

Mon Nov 21, 2011 10:53 pm

Technical ability or not, the system worked while it was here and certainly lasted quite a while (from what I know). Why should the team have to spend hours designing and implementing a thanks system when an adequate one was provided and fitted well on the forum?

In hindsight, the lack of a back-up hosted on TTF's servers obviously is an issue, but for a long time, Irkoo worked a treat.

Kaycee · Mon Nov 21, 2011 11:00 pm

Just to add my two pence, I'm all for Joel's idea. People can see who has appreciated an individual post, without creating 'reputation' that doesn't account for 'abuse' of the system (thanking spammers, stupid posts etc.

), or producing some skewed 'hierarchy' of posters.

Edit: And wu-oaaaah, seem to have waded into one of the many things I'm sure I've missed. Don't mind me... :doh:

Mon Nov 21, 2011 11:02 pm

I think the 'technical ability of the person responsible' is more than adequate. Joel spends an awful lot of his own time working on TTF so it's completely understandable if he used an outside system for thanks. If Irkoo hadn't have gone down then this point wouldn't have even been made Jordan.

Sometimes technology fails, I don't think that it should be turned into a topic at digs, not at you & certainly not at Joel.

Craig · Mon Nov 21, 2011 11:07 pm

Let's not lose sight of the fact this is a discussion forum too, thanks is but a small feature of the forum as a whole!

Tue Nov 22, 2011 12:30 am

SMF has a built in 'karma' system, does it not?

The added reputation isn't attributed to a particular post like the thanks system, but each user has their own karma score...

DiogoJ42 · Tue Nov 22, 2011 12:36 am

Given how many different vertions TTF has been through (Thanks, Thanks and Boos, +/- Rep Points, + only Rep Points, then back to Thanks), I'm starting to wonder if there is any point bothering with a new system. It'll only be scrapped again in a year's time.

Joel · Tue Nov 22, 2011 3:31 am

Wilt wrote: SMF has a built in 'karma' system, does it not?

The added reputation isn't attributed to a particular post like the thanks system, but each user has their own karma score...

It does, but it kinda defeats the obvious point of people wanting to "thank" a particular post in order to show support for it without having to actually post to say so.

DiogoJ42 wrote: Given how many different vertions TTF has been through (Thanks, Thanks and Boos, +/- Rep Points, + only Rep Points, then back to Thanks), I'm starting to wonder if there is any point bothering with a new system. It'll only be scrapped again in a year's time.

Sorry, I obviously completely missed we chose to scrap Irkoo!

DiogoJ42 · Tue Nov 22, 2011 4:08 am

It wasn't intended like that Joel. It's just that the whole idea seems doomed. Every time we get a new system, it seems to last about a year before something goes wrong. As much as I appreciate your and the rest of the team's hard work, maybe this is a sign that the whole concept is more hassle than it's worth?
...And you of all people should know how much I liked the thanks system!

Joel · Tue Nov 22, 2011 4:21 am

I understand what you're trying to say now. And yes, truthfully we do keep learning new lessons when it comes to the whole thanks/rep/post appreciation aspect of the forums.

For such a small feature, it does attract an incredible amount of attention and feelings, and we've had our fair share of issues with it also, from general technical issues where we had so many thanks that the server crawled, to more behaviour based issues where people with high thanks/rep counts acted like it was a status or right to authority. These issues prompted those changes.

We thought we'd cracked the nut with Irkoo, with no server load, and a play off of easy to use and integrate features vs demands of our members - it just all seemed to fit our needs. Then, without any warning (which is REALLY frustrating - I had some great email responses from Irkoo in the beginning and throughout, had faith in them to hand over control of thanks and even got to endorse their system on their homepage, and at any point they never appear to be nothing other than a professional set up with the best of intentions - right up until they actually just disappeared!) they disappeared and left us in this lurch annoyingly. Why they did just disappear and didn't announce their intention to shut the system nobody knows. The poor guy could have just died for all I know, and not paid his Amazon bill! I doubt we will ever get to find out.

Now, after many lessons, we're hopefully getting it spot on by developing something simple, quick, and hopefully does what we, and you, want it to do without all the fuss - to say thanks to someone for a post they made, simply and easily

DiogoJ42 · Tue Nov 22, 2011 4:35 am

Forgive my bleak outlook (you know what I'm like). But a pessimist is never disapointed. Expect the worst, and with luck you will be pleasantly surprised. If the worst does happen, then at least you can say "I told you so"