AutoHotkey Community

Good morning:

It now looks like the bulk of the core AHK community has flooded over. First, I want to express sadness. I am sad that we seem to have been forced out of a place many of us spend more time in than any social media. I am sad that literally years of support and ideas and innovative work seem to have been taken from us by the person Chris most trusted to protect his legacy... This community has lost much in the past few years. we lost Majkinater, Sean, even BoBo ( I miss you BoBo and your infinite supply of helpful if not seemingly random utilities and tools as well as your witty commentary ). I even miss Titan, at one time a contributor and source of knowledge. I will not judge or pretend to understand what happened to him personally that made him loose interest and time. drugs, alcohol, relationship issues, mid life crisis, I will resist deciding he is just an asshole. We all have unexpected life events. While it is also easy to judge for not letting anyone else assume development and support ( it is a huge security risk ), we cannot ever allow a single point of failure including me. I began immediately before even purchasing this domain last Saturday Sept 28 2013 trying to figure out how I might avoid such.
I have at least one person looking for intern work. If you are a student studying any form of web development and want a little experience. Let me know we can talk about it. Write me a PM about what this community means to you and why you are passionate about supporting it.
I have contacted Sumon and will keep you all posted if I hear from him.
I have granted full FTP access to 2 key members who didn't ask for it so I will keep the names to myself. It wouldn't be hard to guess if anyone tried

Let me crystallize my role. I am here to put my considerable web development skill-set to work supporting this community. But i would drop it all if Poly would allow other developers to take over and resolve the current issues. There is always a BUT isn't there

I have a full time job as a developer for a financial institution. While i have the experience and skills to manage this site. I don't have the time, not long term anyways. I took a week off work just to get this up and running and I have a ton of work left. behind the scenes things like establishing a git-hub repository. and a backup process finding and qualifying at least one lead developer and creating a role and mechanism to separately support the documentation. So that Lexikos isn't the only one that can maintain it. I have already given key forum administration roles to trusted members. I have also added quite a few of the Moderators from the old forums. Please if you Used to be a MOD it is not my goal to strip you of your privileges. Let me know if i missed any.

Going forward there must and will be a leadership structure based on transparency. there are numerous conversations about the idea of re-branding or keeping the brand and moving to a permanent domain. If a new domain is chosen. I will put up automatic redirects to keep forum links and favorites operational from this domain. If that isn't possible Ill alter the links in the DB with some fancy smancy sql.

I intend to go back to letting the various nationalities that used to have separate forums and want them to have them. One example would be the German forums. It isn't separatism, these guys are more comfortable speaking and typing German. there isn't anything wrong with that. they have also a very different user base and may need different spam countermeasures. It is really a matter of using the best technology for the situation. If you are part of an ethnic group that was taken down during Polyethene's reign. Bear with me as I only speak English. Even if we have to talk via Google translate I will do my best to go back to properly accommodating your groups needs. We have a bumpy road ahead of us. It will take time. I intend to keep communication open.

I like your site tank

Anti-tank wrote:I like your site tank

I guess we all know who that is. It's sad but it seems that it has somehow become personal for him...
Like most of us were expecting he has now made changes to the old forum in an attempt to "compete" with the new one. The new look is even worst, though... I can't stand looking into it.

tank, I share your feelings about all of this and support your attitude. We may have "lost" years of valuable contributions but it's more important to have a place where we can continue sharing our work and knowledge and helping each other out. A place where we are heard and not ignored by the administrator.

Thanks a lot!
Long live AHK!

The old/previous forum has a lot of changes recently like the admin ( the only one who can change the theme ) posting stuff about this thing or that, Like TLM being made a MOD, like Tidbit being made an admin but sadly some moderators being turned to normal users. And all that started because of Tank's brave decision to fork out, So i think there are two things to be happy about

First, A new autohotkey which is this one with admins having full authority and control so that they could change whatever they wish to etc and and it cannot be owned completely with a single Person i.e. Tank.. right? That's a huge step in the long run. Courtesy Tank himself. Also i think it was bound to happen one day or other, because of no access to admins to change theme, nor consulting them for any change on the old forum. So the sooner the better. thanks again Tank!

Secondly, now the admin on the old/previous forum who wants the same theme as that of powerbot (I guess it all started with the change of theme, girlgamer left soon after the change in theme, and it was like 2-3 months until this new forum was made and suddenly the Old admin's post were seen, he got scared may be? ) will have to be more docile, he has no other options because of stifling competition with auto-hotkey ( Also he has unheard all the mods previously, now suddenly making users mods/admins etc to make a few happy and to balance those from whom he has taken moderatorship). Also by removing moderator-ship of those who had done a lot of whole hard to achieve the same is a lose-lose situation for him.

anyways it is ultimately good for users! and good for experienced ahk guys.
Courtesy Tank

very kind words that i dont deserve. All i have done is take something i already had (a web server) install phpbb3 and a mod or 2 and copy some static content. out of laziness i gave as much power as was safe to people i knew and trusted. OK so maybe the one thing i did do is actually do it. but let me be clear without the community and the backing of the MODS it is waste. Those are the heros here. they defied Poly. Poly has dismissed me as no one from the beginning of my time in the forum. MODS that were willing to openly promote this new site at risk to their standing. THAT'S BRAVERY. I risked nothing.

Lol, you deserve every kind word, tank (especially the word "pie").

VxE wrote:Lol, you deserve every kind word, tank (especially the word "pie").

I LOVE PIE!!!

Your the man tank ofc you deserv it!

Hello guys,

I am an all-but-frequent developer visitor, sometimes script-copy-and-paster, and I'd like to give a specific point of view and some ideas from my end.
I just happen to be here because of "the other" forum problems frustration and other things that I telephatically(?) experienced.
I am sad about the possible split up and I wish you people or Poly would find common ground again, but in the other case or meanwhile:

I spend 3 hours reading on the old forum after I found this out by chance, and some more hours here and I still haven't figured everything out.
No blame here! That's how it goes, especially since no-one is paid for this, but I am just thinking about other users and also the success of this initiative. SO here are a couple of ideas.

1. I advice that one of your more frequent and legacy people put a quick and short, but very noticeable post (on board index at least) for users with not much time.

Here are some things that you might put in there, off the top of my head:

• What's plan here? For non-frequent developers or even non-developers
  • Short explanation, possibly some main ontopic references
  • Consequences now and future? Forum scripts not transferred here? New registration required? AHK update not automatic anymore? What else?
  • Why? (with some references)
  • Opensource? Git? ( I love the potential opensource direction myself! )
  • ...
• Status?
• What can non-developers / techies do to help? (Link here for google ranking? Write articles on other sites to inform the world? ..)
• Other things that I didn't think of, but might be important; me being only one user and this being one case (LoL) .

I realize that there is still a lot of decision-processes going on, but then at least put this or some "Be patient" in that informative post then so people know this is not dead, nor has no support from core people. (See how I respect you!? )

Please don't answer these questions here; I know a lot of these answers, but it's my goal to get this in a more readable format somewhere at front for others. Unless it's for discussing and to agree on what to put there of course. I also probably won't participate in this myself, I am afraid. Please forgive me, but on that account I am just another typical non-active user what this is intended for (though I have submitted some scripts on the old forum and wrote this proposal .)

2. Tell other users somewhere
.. preferably on the old forum (if not possibly by sticky bc. of Poly, with a lot of replies and views then or how else?) that this domain/forum/initiative exist! It's only because I had a ahk code problem by default looking in the old forum with a coincedence of reading a lot of things that I happen to come across here via via and though I searched with google for my problem a couple of times, I never came out here. I also never thought about checking google for possible other ahk "fork" (I know, but I don't know of a better, diplomatic name).

Another idea I have that is a bit loose from the split, but might help ahk progress faster as well as the succes of this "fork" if you guys would do it:
3. A page/site/subforum for a structured division of all scripts.
As a tree or with tags, but quick and not having to sift in threads and versions (and "on top or in posts?" further sifting, etc..) and focused on the scripts and not the discussion!
Further on possibly with download times or ratings; the scripts and divisions placed by the community itself (wiki or maybe this forum itself if it has the possibility, thoug I doubt it) , but again not too much content, rather focussing towards a browsable list than a real forum/thread/comment thing.

Anyway, Success to ahk (no matter how)!

2. Tell other users somewhere
.. preferably on the old forum (if not possibly by sticky bc. of Poly, with a lot of replies and views then or how else?) that this domain/forum/initiative exist! It's only because I had a ahk code problem by default looking in the old forum with a coincedence of reading a lot of things that I happen to come across here via via and though I searched with google for my problem a couple of times, I never came out here. I also never thought about checking google for possible other ahk "fork" (I know, but I don't know of a better, diplomatic name).

Well I'm an Ex Moderator in the old forum.
I have been kicked due to this.

Unfortunately any attempts to discuss this site have resulted in retaliation. That of course is Polyethenes right but we prefer to still be able to help people whereever they are. In doing so there are references to here poly has not yet discovered. We just aren't poking the bear and provoking all out scortched earth retaliation which serves only to hurt the community. We have also found by making contact that Chris gave up control of the autohotkey domain and isn't hopeful he can get it back.

Meanwhile, welcome! we are glad to have you. You have some particularly insightful comments that I hadn't thought of that way. We had a wiki once poorly maintained but very useful. Amongst other things were a script showcase and a couple particularly awesom tutorials. My time is limited but I like wikis. If some one wants ill put one up if someone will start building some initial content. Your other comments requre some thought and perhaps discussion

Thanks.

Haven't read about this severe retaliation yet! That is really [ugly-unhumane word here]. And is it really his right? Isn't that against the agreement from the site itself or Chris' handover intentions? If it is, we can fight that legally... but who has the money and time, right?
Ah well, it just illustrates the right move of "you people".
On the other hand, a domain dispute does not cost a lot of money and even though it's most probably Poly who will win, if you ask Chris some email copies and send some other relevant info. to ICANN, or rather the current registrar, there is a chance, I would say!
But, like I said, it won't be me. (And I doubt he will handover a backup of the site.)
Maybe involve google somehow?
Or call a hacker? I heard somewhere that even legally stealing back from thieves is not a crime. (Am i next, now that I made this joke? Did I just take sides? )

Anyway, I hope some other points (or other way of telling) can be thought of too.. some time..

right of might is still the right. your right we could fight legally but whats to stop him from just deleteing everything in retaliation? would he? I doubt anyone in the know has any doubts. No better to play the long game. let a vote of feet occur naturally.

I'm no moderator

Hi there,

What happened? I just found this board and don't get why the split. What happened? What's going on?

mostly a disagreement about how a site should be managed and how users should be supported.

And!! ... How users are being treated... It's Important, it's the people that are the most important of all!

http://www.autohotkey.com/ has gone 404. Permanent or temporary?

guessing temporary its back
I certainly hope it doesnt

dont worry! stay here we'll help you we even have cookies! from our excellent chef : Alibaba