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Our side of the story
Posted on 8 March 1999, 16:37 GMT

This message is posted on the ticalc.org news system, and will be sent to Dimension-TI and the TI-Files for posting on theirs, if they are interested in showing our side of the story.

So. To the point. Why was Bryan dismissed? Well. First of all, it was not because of the TI-Files "incident". Nor was it because of the recent backlogs in the filearchives. Nor was it because of any other member of ticalc.org.
To put it all together very simply, the reason was a complete refusal from Bryans side to cooperate on the staff.

Now for some details.

As Bryan mentions in his mail, we had a change in staff structure last autumn. However, we do not share Bryans view on what the situation was before. According to Bryan, the situation was that everybody was equal. According to the rest of us, it was just "he who yells highest and most often gets it his way". Also, Bryan stated that nobody could tell others what to do. Yet, this is exactly what happened. People were not "told" what to do. But they were nagged on until they did. We did not feel content with that, and felt the need for a change.
In the beginning (a long time ago...), the flat system worked fine. Everybody was able to discuss things through until we got do a decision. This no longer worked.

To replace the old "flat system", we (mainly me, Chris and Isaac, the oldest members of ticalc.org) designed a proposal for a new staff structure, to keep things more structured than before, and hopefully bring back some of what we had lost. As Bryan said, this was posted on our internal mailinglist for discussion. Nobody (including Bryan) disapproved of this original proposal, which only listed sketched positions and not whom we recommended to hold them. A few changes were made per requests from the rest of the staff, but this was mainly very minor things. After this, we sent out the "second proposal", which included our recommendations for the initial holders of the posisions. Bryan was, as you all have heard, not nominated for "coordinator", but "only" for news system, PotM manager, File Archive and at least one "upcoming section". This proposal was met from Bryan, with general complaints on a lot of points. Some of which were the same points that he earlier approved on. The discussion went on for a few weeks, and everybody posted comments. Including the "new staffers". Not all comments were posted "in public", because anything written there was usually hevaliy bashed down on. Eventually we held a vote, and a clear majority decided that this new system was what we wanted.

Thus, the new system was implemented. In the beginning, this meant almost nothing to the existing staff, except the amount of bashing on the internal mailinglist dropped rapidly. Also, in order to fill all the posts listed in this new structure, we hired Nathan Haines to handle the support mail. Nathan was hired on a 30 day trial basis, which he passed easily by doing a great job in handling the help mail, which had fallen behind for months before his hiring.
As we had agreed on before the initial vote, a new vote for both the system and the coordinators was held in late january 1999. The vote consisted of two questions, "Should our new staff organisation be kept" and "Should the current coordinators be kept". The current coordinators were NOT entitled to a vote on the second question, in order to keep the system fair. Though we will not disclose who voted what (secret ballot - which is common procedure), I can tell you that pretty much everybody voted yes on the first question. Some of the coordinators voted yes there, others abstained from voting in order to make it even more fair. On the second question, everybody except Bryan voted yes. To the story is that some staff members changed their votes after they had been sent the complete original proposal (which they had not read, because they had not been on the staff long enough). But this did not change the outcome of the vote, it just made it clearer.

This should hopefully explain the issues raised by Bryan about the new staff structure and about the voting. Now for the real reason Bryan was dismissed.

The rumors say that the TI-Files incident does or does not have anything to do with it. Well, the TI-files incident does not have anything directly to do with it. The fact that we had to lean on Bryan very hard for a long time in order to make him apologize for it does. It is part of the reason, but in no way the whole story.

As far as I can recall, it has not happened more than a very very few times in at least 6 months that Bryan has backed down from a point. In our opinion, a site like this can only be run if the staff-members cooperate. And cooperation is based on compromise. And compromise requires people to back down from their standpoints. At several points, discussions brewed down to just throwing insults around. Or whenever somebody made a "bad comment" on one of Bryans sections, the result would be "but [insert somebodys name here] hasn't updated in a long time". Some people were "afraid" to post to the internal list, because they knew that they would get sawed off at the feet by Bryan. The general atmosphere on the staff list was not a friendly one, and we feel that we cannot operate under such conditions. This was not all Bryans fault, but in just about every case it started with Bryan.

On several occasions, Bryan either threatened to, or did, take over other members sections because "they weren't working fast enough". However, as soon as somebody even mentioned that he might need a backup (not to mention if somebody said it was time for the backup to step in) on the filearchive section (or any other of his section), things rapidly turned ugly.

Over the time he has been on our staff, we have also received a large number of complaints about his behaviour on the IRC. Channel-takeovers and generally bad behaviour against newbies have been the major reasons. When you are a staffmember of a TI site, whatever you do in the TI related IRC channels will be associated with the site you work for, and this is not what we wanted. This alone would not in any way warrant a dismissal from the staff, but it doesn't exactly strengthen the position in front of the other issues.


Finally, about the way that Bryan was dismissed.

First of all, let me say that this was not a "moments choice". A lot of people requested that we dismiss him after the TI-Files incident. Internally, such requests were voiced even earlier than that. Several times over, we decided "Bryan deserves another chance", and told him what was required to do so. One of the times, it was the apology about the TI-Files incident. Other times, it was just about cooperation.
We were happy to see that Bryan, after a lot of leaning on him, decided that he should apologise. And we are even happier to see that he now beleives it was the right thing to do.
However, we repeatedly saw no movement towards a more cooperative attitude. The posting of the "file archive procedures" that Bryan did this february, was one of the few things he did. Chris did not, however, ask him to do that during january. It was a part of the original new staff structure proposal that was sent out in october last year. Nevertheless, while some of the comments on this proposal were out of line, all were not. But they were all met with the same irresponsive stubbornness from Bryans side.

After many of these repetitions, we decided we had no other choice than to let Bryan go. After this decision, things moved fairly fast. I beleive it took about two or three days. During this time, only the coordinators were informed. The actual disabling of his account was done at a time when Bryan was usually on-line, at around 02:00 GMT (21:00 EST). As Bryan said, it was unusual that he was not around by then, and I beleive this is one of the things that led to the confusion. A mail was sent to Bryans personal non-ticalc.org mail address. The fact that he did not read this mail "by default", which we did not know, was probably another.
Right after the mail was written to Bryan, a notive was posted on our internal mailinglist. A bit later, it was posted on the main site. We were very surprised that Bryan did not act, and now we know why - he simply was not there. However, we had done our best to time it to some point when he was usually on-line. Our staff is spread throughout many timezones, and this kind of coordination is very hard. It is one of the things we have always had trouble with, and probably always will.

After the dismissal, some of our "junior staff members" expressed concerns about why this had been done. However, after the coordinators had explained what had happened, they all beleive that what we did was for the best of the site. It was not an easy decision, but it is what we all beleive is for the best of the site. If this results in a "boycott" of our site, then it's out of our control. We hope this does not have to be the case, and that people will continue to use our site, as well as others.



Magnus
(With, I beleive, the support of the rest of the staff)

 


The comments below are written by ticalc.org visitors. Their views are not necessarily those of ticalc.org, and ticalc.org takes no responsibility for their content.


Re: Our side of the story
Homie Dawg

It's kinda funny... this TI site is like the U.S. Government. They give you freedom and no real rules, but then the ammendments and bills come in, making things more restricted. You guys get my drift?

     9 March 1999, 01:01 GMT

Re: Our side of the story
Kirk Lane
(Web Page)

Listen, people. I personally came here ONLY ONCE to do something other than get programs, and that was to get the link cable plans. I guarantee you that there is a large amount of people that ONLY use this site to get new programs. And who is (was) in charge of the archive? Bryan Rabeler. It looks like nobody else even peeks at some areas, like the reviews. For crying out loud, it's a website, not a S&P 500 megacorp. You're just a bunch of guys united because you want to make a good TI-Calc web page. And on top of it, you don't go BSing around claiming he left when YOU cut him off. That's just plain pathetic. Besides, I can't count how many times his QUADFORM for TI83 has saved my butt on a math test. You had a great thing going. It's gone.

     9 March 1999, 01:02 GMT


Re: Re: Our side of the story
Magnus Hagander

As far as I know, nobody has claimed that Bryan left on his own idea.
Now that that is said, it's very much true that it is not a large corporation, but a small group of people working on a website. And for just this reason, it has to be "fun" to do the job, or people will just quit. And endless flame-wars on internal mailinglists is NOT fun. The option in the fairly short term would be losing most of the rest of the staff.

     9 March 1999, 11:18 GMT

Re: Our side of the story
Keith Kirton

When an organization such as ticalc.org exists as an entity, it will be in a state of continuous evolution. Eventually, such growth will necessitate the abolition and creation of organizational structure(s) for the "common" good of its officers, laborers, and those whom it serves. These are fundamentally philosophical and intensely practical issues (and will ultimately mean the difference between survival or decay).

However, what I see lacking is any clear organizational philosophy in these comments. Instead, there's just a lot of politics -- on both sides. I would be surprised to learn if there exists in writing any standard policy or procedure for the discipline or termination of an "employee" of ticalc.org (I say this because it appears that the coordinators made up their minds what to do as they went along). Now, I think that when an organization exists as a group of leaders with one chronic dissenter, it is to the benefit of all that they part ways.

I will say that I tend to support the decision to terminate Bryan (though not necessarily for the reasons given). What troubles me, though, is the issue regarding the tampering of votes. It would be appropriate that the vote should have stood. At the very least, the vote could have been ruled null-and-void and an entirely new vote taken after further discussion with ALL voting members. I would really like to know what Robert's Rules of Order have to say on this, but it seems unenthical the way it was handled. It makes it really difficult to accept the item Chris listed as part of a coordinator's responsibility: "...upholding the site's integrity." (It would not surprise me to learn that something such as this could jeapordize an organization's non-profit status, though I don't know for sure).

For those who aren't clear on this, two weeks is the customary time period an employer expects an employee to remain in service from the time notice of RESIGNATION is tendered to the time when separation actually occurs. Every employee that I've had to terminate was always immediate (however, it was done in person).

I'm going to reserve my final judgment as I watch and see how the "powers that be" conduct themselves in the near future. But I think that they ought to take a really close look at their own misconduct and own up to it (just as they had to "lean on" Bryan to do the same).

     9 March 1999, 01:42 GMT

Re: Our side of the story
Tom

Okay, your stories are very alike. I think that both parties have told the same story from their perspective, and perhaps now you both can discuss it like mature induviduals and if not come back together, at least settle things face to face, instead of using news stories.

     9 March 1999, 01:47 GMT

Re: Our side of the story
Joe Wingbermuehle
(Web Page)

About three years ago, shortly after recieving my first calculator, a TI-92, I stumbled upon this site. This site was the first large site I found relating to the calculator. I thought it was fantastic, but it seemed abandoned! I don't remember the details exactly, but the last update was somewhere around a few months old. Some time later I discovered the Fargo Archive, which immediately became my favorite site. I think the point is, ticalc is going to either become a site run by immature calculator nerds with serious ego problems or it is going to become a ghost town again. Bryan, a person for whom I have great respect, made this site wonderful and those who are on the staff made a serious mistake. Oh well, I'm looking forward to another great site like the Fargo Archive once was.

     9 March 1999, 02:07 GMT

Re: Our side of the story
Sean "Pops" Froyd

All of you people have to grow up. At any job if someone is being a stickler about details and generally slowing down work, he must be dealt with, be it with a word or two on the side or with a firing as is this. Both sides have their valid points, but in the long run it was often the majority vs. one person. When running a site like this, the coordinators must look towards what is best for the people using it. This is what this appears to be, and both sides should get over it.
It is regrettable that Brian had to be discharged, because he did a good job, but such things must be done for the general welfare of the site.

     9 March 1999, 02:18 GMT

Re: Our side of the story
Eric Hansen

Well, this certainly has been an interesting week, hasn't it?

The thing that I've continually seen while scrolling down these comments is that Ticalc either means the world or nothing to every person on the list. There is no in-between, which I think is fairly sad.

First, for the people that think this is world: Well, I hate to break it to you, but you're wrong. Also, before I start on this, let me say that I am in no way bashing the site. I have great respect for each and every "staff member" or whatever they choose to call it. This is a tough thing to do, and they've done it well. But, it is by no means the end-all be-all site on the internet.

Yeah, games are fun, and *yeah* the math programs can sometimes bail you out on a math test, but this is like a little bubble. When you don't get your head out of the sand and look around, it *does* seem like this is the only and best site around.

To sum that up, in case you got lost (I don't blame you if you did; I am lost myself), quit whining. It's not like this site will decide the fate of the calculator industry; it just won't. Has it yet?

To address the people who couldn't care less about the site: Most of them are right to an extent, but I do have to admit that the archives are a valuable resource. I will also concede that nobody reads any of the stuff posted on the site, with the probably exception of the news on the main page. I do enjoy the site, but I'll admit that I don't read most of the material on the page, and I'm willing to bet that a majority of the people who visit the page don't, either.

This site is an important place for people to get their programs, however, and the archives have been very well maintained, as well they should be. I don't know if that will change with the departure of Bryan, hopefully it won't, but I do forsee the site losing a bit of my interest. For one, I don't exactly *like* what has happened with all of this mudslinging going on....Bryan and Chris (Sorry, had to pick out one of you guys) mainly throwing stuff back and forth at each other.

So, in conclusion, get over it. The end.

Eric Hansen

     9 March 1999, 02:54 GMT

Re: Our side of the story
ldspartan

the real problem with all this discussion is that none, or at least very few, of you have worked with Bryan in an administrative situation. In my dealings with him on IRC, I can understand the staffs point. Don't get me wrong, I like him quite a bit, but he was a pain in the ass, to put it mildly. He used to be an owner, meaning very powerful, in #ti, but he would obsess over things and generally cause trouble. On several occasions he tampered with other owners flags (for those of you who don't know, "flags" on irc allow people to become operators of a channel and other such things. They allow changes to the power structure and such.) Needless to say, this did not contribute to his popularity among the other owners, but we let him remain so in accordance with our pseudo policy of giving ticalc.org members power. Recently, particularly in the days. leading up to his dismissal, he had become more and more beligerent, and had started to change flags and settings on a more massive scale.
I hope that all you people who don't know the whole story understand that you can't grasp a situation without experiencing it. I have worked with Bryan, and I agree with the ticalc.org staff on this one. As far as I know, a large portion of the other owners share this view.
By the way, if you reply to this, and want me to respond, email me. I don't read ticalc.org messageboards cumpulsively.

     9 March 1999, 03:43 GMT


Re: Re: Our side of the story
Bryan Rabeler
(Web Page)

I normally don't respond to these things, but I have to respond to this one to clear some things up.

<< On several occasions he tampered with other owners flags (for those of you who don't know, "flags" on irc allow people to become operators of a channel and other such things. They allow changes to the power structure and such.) >>

ldspartan is confusing channel operator flags (+o) with owner flags (+n) here. It was my responsibility, as a owner, to give out and take away channel operator status to users. I never have tampered with owner flags. Doing so, I agree, would be a serious offense.

<< Recently, particularly in the days. leading up to his dismissal, he had become more and more beligerent, and had started to change flags and settings on a more massive scale. >>

This statement is misleading and inaccurate. ldspartan is confusing flags with the channel stats on one of the bots. I did reset some of the channel stats, however these stats were already invalid and were going to be reset anyway in a few days. No flag tampering was done. And this deal about "on a more massive scale" is absolutely not true.

     9 March 1999, 04:52 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Our side of the story
ldspartan

this is long in coming, but bryan didn't email me a response like I asked.
To his first comment, he did change owner flags, and did so on a daily basis. Even so, it is general policy on #ti to not op (+o) anyone without the consent of at least a couple active owners/masters. I don't recall Bryan handing out ops without asking, but these things tend to get fixed whenever another owner notices, so it is entirely possible I was not informed. I won't argue with him on that one, since he already said he did. More over, his behavior on the botnet was horrid. I will not go into the details of running #ti on a public forum, but trust me on this one.
To his second comment, that's true, leading up to his dismissal he basically went nuts over an error in a database of channel stats. Now, this database was going to be reset in a few days anyway, but Bryan took it upon himself to reset it manually. The reason it had not been reset yet was the program that maintaned it was being tested, and it needed the data there to produce results. Normally, I wouldn't really mind, but since he did it on my bot, using a script that I had made, while it was being worked on. There are few things more annoying then having the databse you are trying to fix minor problems in get erased while you are fixing it.
Anyway, Bryan threw a hissy fit of such proportions that I was forced to bring the entire statistics keeping program down in order to shut him up. This was not an isolated incident, Bryan tended to go crazy over minor things that bothered him. More importantly, he tended to take major action instead of conferring with other owners. Worse still, he would change things (major things) on other owners bots without asking. Once again, I will not discuss #ti matters on a public forum without a really good reason.

     11 March 1999, 04:54 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Our side of the story
Bryan Rabeler
(Web Page)

ldspartan seems to be confused on many points.

<< To his first comment, he did change owner flags, and did so on a daily basis. >>

Changing owner flags means giving people owner power (+n) or taking owner power away (-n) from users. I don't know what you have been drinking ldspartan, but the people who have owner status on #ti are a very static group of people. I have very rarely taken away owner power, probably once or twice in the last two years.

<< Even so, it is general policy on #ti to not op (+o) anyone without the consent of at least a couple active owners/masters. I don't recall Bryan handing out ops without asking, but these things tend to get fixed whenever another owner notices, so it is entirely possible I was not informed. >>

I don't recall ever giving somsone op status without talking to at least one other owner.

<< More over, his behavior on the botnet was horrid. I will not go into the details of running #ti on a public forum, but trust me on this one. >>

Horrid? I don't think so. You and I did have a disagreement over the channel stats, but no horrid activity occured.

<< To his second comment, that's true, leading up to his dismissal he basically went nuts over an error in a database of channel stats. Now, this database was going to be reset in a few days anyway, but Bryan took it upon himself to reset it manually. >>

The reason I went nuts over the channel stats was because another owner purposely changed my stats just to make me upset. Everyone agreed that the stats needed to be reset, so I decided to reset them myself. I agree, this kind of behavior is pretty stupid and child-like, just like all IRC behavior tends to me. I don't see why we are arguing over this.

<< Anyway, Bryan threw a hissy fit of such proportions that I was forced to bring the entire statistics keeping program down in order to shut him up. >>

I was upset that my stats could be changed and that no one else cared. It was ldspartan's decision to take down his scripts.

<< This was not an isolated incident, Bryan tended to go crazy over minor things that bothered him. >>

This was an isolated incident. There have been many disputes on IRC, some I have choosen to get involved in and some I have choosen to stay away from.

<< More importantly, he tended to take major action instead of conferring with other owners. Worse still, he would change things (major things) on other owners bots without asking. >>

This is not true. "major things"? Major things would be delinking bots for no reason, stripping all flags from a particular user, etc. I did not do such things. However, all _my_ flags were stripped for no particular reason.

<< Once again, I will not discuss #ti matters on a public forum without a really good reason. >>

Good.. talking about IRC here is really pointless, its a totally different world and a lot of people wouldn't relate to it.

     11 March 1999, 17:08 GMT


Re: Our side of the story -- Bryan is still wrong
ldspartan

Bryan, I'm too sick and too tired to argue with you, and I really don't care. But, you did make several false / misleading statements in the above paragraph. If you or anyone else is truly curious, email me like I asked originally.

     12 March 1999, 02:30 GMT

Re: Our side of the story
screw

screw you and your side of the story.

     9 March 1999, 04:10 GMT

Re: Our side of the story
Ray Kremer
(Web Page)

I, too, have to be on Bryan's side here. There are a number of issues:
*Bryan and the file archives:
Being a perfectionist myself, I understand and agree completely with Bryan's reasons for wanting exclusive control. Many times have I done something myself to prevent someone else from screwing it up. Perfectionists are a pain in the butt sometimes, but they are valuable assets to any staff. Also, I had no idea that Bryan tested every program and also went beyond submissions to gather programs. That's committment, people. There are people you couldn't pay and get that much from. Everybody knows that ticalc.org and the two other calc-mega-sites are file archives first and all that other stuff second. Bryan did an amazing job with the archives and we already know that his replacement isn't going to work nearly as hard.
*ticalc.org's grievances:
Among them was that Bryan took control of other people's jobs when their performance did not satisfy him. Bryan denies it. But even if it were true, I would again count this as a good thing. If Bryan cared that much about the site to do other people's jobs or at least complain when they aren't doing them, then it could only have made ticalc.org a better site.
They also complained that Bryan was argumentative. I know what it's like to be right yet also surrounded by idiots who won't listen. I sympathise with Bryan.
*The method of dismissal:
Even if Bryan had been on-line at the time, that's what, five whole minutes notice? Oh wow. To plot behind his back and then stick a knife in it the way they did is dispicable. It makes the remaining ticalc.org staff look even more like a%%holes then when Bryan erased TI-Files. Speaking of which...
*The TI-Files hack:
At the time I was distressed that Bryan did such a thing, but now that I think about it, it was kind of funny. Heck, why else would someone give him that password if they didn't want him to do some damage. Besides, TI-Files should have been able to restore their backups within 15 minutes. That they didn't says something about them.
*A ticalc.org boycott:
If only we could. But there are too many people that visit the site and have no idea who Bryan even is. I suppose we could make up an "I support Bryan Rabeler" anti-ticalc.org graphic for our web pages. I'll even do it myself if there is interest. At any rate, ticalc.org will continue, but they probably won't be the best calc-mega-site anymore. TI-Files, anyone?
*A work of thanks:
I'd like to thank Bryan for thinking of me back when they were looking for a staff member to do the FAQ and help e-mail (the job eventually went to Nathan Haines). It's for the better that I didn't get the position since I now don't have to resign it over this travesty.
*To close:
I wish Bryan all the best, and I hope he doesn't drop out of sight in the TI community just because the twits at ticalc.org didn't appreaciate all he did to make their site a better place.
Ray Kremer
(This note simul-posted on the CALC-TI list and ticalc.org's "Our side of the story" comment board.)

     9 March 1999, 04:25 GMT

Re: Re: Our side of the story
Jimmy Conner
(Web Page)

I have to say that I totally agree with you on this. I too, am a perfectionist. I have always thought that it is better to do it yourself than to have fix what someone else has f***ed up becuase they didn't know what they were about. Most people would think that this is unacceptable, even the coordinators obvisively, but this is really a vitrue. When you have someone trying to do someone else's job becuase they are slacking off, then he should be praised not... well we won't go into that. He is doing what is in "the best interest of the site"... which has been said.
Well, I believe mistakes were made on both parts and grievences made beyond reconcile. But hopefully the ti community can rebound off of this.

Jimmy

BTW: There is a lesson learned from this... When something like this happens again (it most likely will), don't put up a message board, it only invites the bored and may I say, ignorant, people to come up with ideas of boycott and the like.

     9 March 1999, 12:02 GMT


Re: Re: Our side of the story
SPUI

Doesn't ti-files also do stuff like this? IMO dim-ti should become the new hq if there is to be one.

     10 March 1999, 01:52 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Our side of the story
the original Eugene

And it could. The thing that makes Dimension TI seem like some secret place is the background, though.

     10 March 1999, 09:39 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Our side of the story
SPUI

Didn't Adam get kicked out of files for working too hard on the archives? Seems some interesting parallels are going on here...
They should join together IMO. IIRC dim-ti lacks 92 programs. That is Bryan's specialty, so he can do that.

     11 March 1999, 02:05 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Our side of the story
atom
(Web Page)

Absolutely not. I quit, I was not fired. The reason was because I was the ONLY one (except Dave, who does the archives there) who actually did any work and I felt that I didnt get any appreciation for it. Besides, I wanted to work more on Dimension-TI. It wasn't the archives, either :)

     11 March 1999, 13:33 GMT

Re: Our side of the story
billybobIV
(Web Page)

I know I said i wouldn't post anymore, but I just thought of something...

Obviously with the thousands of people that come here every day, certainly not more than 25 to 50 at the very most would take the time to read up on this incident, and if they did most of them just wouldn't care.

However what can be done if anyone is unhappy with the performance of ticalc.org is to start another ti site. I don't mean this in a very hostile way to ticalc.org (just minorly upset).

I think that they wouldn't mind at all trying to be better than another site. The only reason that there site is more than an ftp directory is because they like what they do and they want to do it good.

Lets start a new site...

We need someone with a server and unlimited internet access and a t1 connection. Wait no one has that so I guess well all just keep coming to ticalc.org like usual unless someone provides...

! ssam noilleber

     9 March 1999, 04:55 GMT

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