spaceghetto: Inside Edition – Open Letter (click through to read)

Some history for those not in the know:
 

As some of you may have noticed, the past few days have been awfully eventful for the entirety of the SG society. There’s several reasons for this, but the important and central point I’m going to focus on is the dramatic change in management. Obviously, there are always going to be conflicting idea about what SG is or should be, and that’s no different in the case of the two people who have been closest to SG for the past couple of years. Nigamajiga and myself took it upon ourselves in 2009 to drastically change the layout and scope of the site. He had lined up several interested parties to host us as we simply couldn’t operate on shared hosting any longer due to the nature of our site. One of those options available to us was too good to pass up as it was an SG user by the name of Alexfoo who was offering us a free URL and hosting which at the time were out of our limits due to them being tied to terminated accounts. 

Some history for those not in the know:
 

As some of you may have noticed, the past few days have been awfully eventful for the entirety of the SG society. There’s several reasons for this, but the important and central point I’m going to focus on is the dramatic change in management. Obviously, there are always going to be conflicting idea about what SG is or should be, and that’s no different in the case of the two people who have been closest to SG for the past couple of years. Nigamajiga and myself took it upon ourselves in 2009 to drastically change the layout and scope of the site. He had lined up several interested parties to host us as we simply couldn’t operate on shared hosting any longer due to the nature of our site. One of those options available to us was too good to pass up as it was an SG user by the name of Alexfoo who was offering us a free URL and hosting which at the time were out of our limits due to them being tied to terminated accounts. 

 
Fast Forward; Nigamajiga puts me in charge of all development of SG (and it subsidiaries) in it’s entirety. It’s at this point his involvement in the site drops to what he at one point called, “Public Relations.” He is now generally considered the face and creator of spaceghetto. Things are going smoothly for a period of time and a lot of work is done which brings the quality of spaceghetto up and allows a boom of popularity in which we grow over 10 times in terms of pageviews and registered users. We have a new content management system and a picture host of our own. Feeling good about the stability and the direction the site is taking, I begin to plan for the future of SG in which we would not have to be reliant on free hosting of a good samaritan. This is the point when I begin the groundwork of making our own online store to funnel profits generated by SG merchandise into a business account for any and all future funding needed by the site. 
 
However, Nigz has concerns about the profitability of the online store and desires a user subscription system instead, in which a certain percentage of profits could be shared amongst mods and admins, despite general displeasure at the idea. None of the mods or admins agree to taking any profit from the users. The complicated SG+ system is born anyway which causes general confusion and negative feedback which causes traffic to suffer drastically and the site begins to stagnate. Tempers flare and in-fighting begins amongst some members which is met with undeniable hostility by nigamajiga which can only be described as user abuse. Alleviation efforts on my part to stimulate some interest in the site (Free SG Weekends, etc.) are implemented fairly easily and without much hassle. 
 
Due to the nature of Alexfoo’s job at the time, he was sometimes not able to address server issues for quite some time which sometimes left us with periods of downtime and improper site functionality such as the email system or laggy page calls. We were simply too big of a site for one busy man to address every few hours. It’s because of this that I suggested we become a customer to Alexfoo’s company, or to move to a new server and thank him graciously for keeping SG alive when absolutely no one else could. In response to this, Alexfoo builds us a new, beefier server and things are going swimmingly once again. 
 
Despite all of this, I continued to work with nigamajiga and develop the site. A lot of my work is continually undone by nigz to save “server resources” and many of my ideas never see the light of day. New user registration is shut down favoring a manual “Donate X amount of dollars to get an account” through an IRC channel operated by nigamajiga. Frustration with him charging users to post and using the site as a paycheck begins to set in. I attempt to voice my opinions and was continually met with half hearted attempts to appeal to my sense of community and the betterment of SG as a whole. I always told myself, “Well, he knows the place and the people better than I do.” despite many, many users telling me otherwise. Over time, I eventually became aware that I was the buffer between his irrational thinking and acts and the site itself. He had placed himself in a position above and outside the circle of SG and that left me holding the keys to the future of the community.
 
Dissension was always my last intention but in the end Nigamajiga and I simply had two very different ideas as to what SG should be. At one point he had the same perspective, but I’m sure you’ll all agree that it has changed over the years. All of this lead to a separation of SG management. I try to be humble, but I think my track record with this place speaks for itself, and sometimes you have to acknowledge that. That’s especially apparent when you have full support from the community you helped to build and give a place to call it’s own, because when it all comes down to it, the reason SG exists is not because of Nigz, myself, Alexfoo or any of the previous admins of the site. You guys, the users, are the sole reason for the existence of SG and I’m simply here to make it happen. I have always vowed to make this place the best it could be and a place I would want to visit. Hopefully, most of you share the same vision. 
 
Some facts:
  • There is absolutely no animosity from me towards nigamajiga. I acknowledge and respect his dedication to SG and hope we can one day be a united force again.
  • His new site is http://spaceghetto.net/sg/ previously known as the Beta SG. Please give him some of your time and check out his efforts. 
  • There will be absolutely no lines drawn in the sand here saying you must choose one site or another. As far as I’m concerned, we’re still the same place.
  • All funds previously accepted by me personally are going towards the invoice of this server and any other projects that may come down the road. That money has not been lost, stolen or misappropriated.
  • I vow to always have transparency into the management of this site, all you have to do is ask if you have a question.
  • All accounts of events stated here are solely from my perspective alone.
Thanks goes to EVERYONE involved in SG, no matter their level of involvement. Special thanks to my moderators who always have great opinions and advice (especially those with opposing views, I value that the most). Extra special thanks to Nigamajiga for actually getting me involved in SG when I wasn’t even sure I wanted to. 
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Current SG Status: YELLOW

I love you spaceghetto. :3

As of posting this I have transferred all users and their respective titles over and emails are working. Check your profile to modify the comment notification emails to your liking. 

Still to be done: 
  • Badges
  • Side Menus
  • General Layout Modifications
  • Backend coding
  • Misc. bugs

Anything else you think needs to be addressed, please leave a comment. 

Please know that I am working as much and as fast as I can on the site but there’s a lot to do and I work 40+ hours a week in a regular job. All my previous work was deleted or moved so a lot of this is coming from memory and outdated backups which means I’m going to need some help remembering how everything was. 
VIVA LA SPAEC_GROTTO

I love you spaceghetto. :3

As of posting this I have transferred all users and their respective titles over and emails are working. Check your profile to modify the comment notification emails to your liking. 

Still to be done: 
  • Badges
  • Side Menus
  • General Layout Modifications
  • Backend coding
  • Misc. bugs

Anything else you think needs to be addressed, please leave a comment. 

Please know that I am working as much and as fast as I can on the site but there’s a lot to do and I work 40+ hours a week in a regular job. All my previous work was deleted or moved so a lot of this is coming from memory and outdated backups which means I’m going to need some help remembering how everything was. 
VIVA LA SPAEC_GROTTO
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