AO - Max security for a connected world

I reiterate what foxy said. And, if anyone remembers my posts from past years, the issue of money has been broached before by me...a few times...

2007 example

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Jupiter had a weak second quarter, with revenues of $34.7 million, down slightly compared to last year. Image revenues did better, rising 2 percent to $27.3 million.

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sorry if I'm blunt...but...in my opinion...$50 for a tutorial of the month...( everyone else I presume gets squat ) seems more than a little cheap for a corporation that has over 100 million dollars in annual revenue.

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To date we have 0 tutes submitted.

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Considering this it doesn't surprise me there's been none submitted.

Just my opinion.

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Not too sure what you mean by 'Eds' but is it possible to get an answer from them?

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Editors ;)

(Hello to those who remember me!)

I left the site a while ago when it was in a lull. I check back every so often to see if it's been remedied or not, and this thread was on the front page... here's my 2c

To answer the OP: I want AO to re-become a community of infosec folks who pro-actively share skillsets, experiences, and intelligence about information security.

This used to be the case, especially around 2003-5. Recently, the interface changed, which changed the priorities of the site. Example:

The old front page used to have:
* default filters on front page content (no GCC, no cosmos, no tech humor)
* top security tutorial writers listed
* top other tutorial writers listed
* top AO earners listed
* Bad users listed
* And on each post, an antipoint status.
http://web.archive.org/web/200304082....com/index.php

New front page:
* How many posts.
* Top poster.

Claim: The only visible metric of contribution to AO is post count.

There used to be indicators to users about how to behave. The examples above made it clear that tutorials were valued more than posts, some users were valued for their contributions more than others, and the bad users list indicated that you should probably watch your mouth.

Right now contribution is pretty specific to comparing against your post count.

Examples:

* Only 1 security tutorial has been published in the past 100 days
* Quote FoxyLoxy :

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we ARE the forum
we are all in the multi THOUSANDS of posts
without us, there IS no AO

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* AO is now resorting to PAY people for good content.
* The front page is usually covered with general chit chat, site suggestions, tech humor... The most active front page thread is this one.

Point: Making the frontpage content relevant to the goals of the site will increase relevant contribution. Again, post count is all that matters to be a contributor by the current software, with no regard to relevancy (a positive karma thread in security tutorials is about as relevant as it can get, but it receives no priority or provide any incentive to the user to write one instead of a "LOL HALO RULEZ" thread in GCC)

I think having visible AntiPoint status on posts had its downsides, but the major upside of "think before you speak". That is gone now so post count is now the metric that makes users stand out, and users can't learn the norms from the mistakes of others (red flashing bars)

So i guess my point is... potential high value users will get to AO and have no idea how to contribute. The purpose of AO was clear in the past, now it's muffled by how users actually treat the forum. Unorganized chaos can work in a place like 4chan, but not here where there's a topic. There's confusion with this.

Here's example improvements:
* Make the default front page hide the non-tech threads, and prioritize the infosec threads followed by tech related threads for the best real estate. (allow for customization for users)
* Bring back the flashing AP thing on posts (AP abuse was/can be dealt with)
* Incentivize users with front page real estate ("So_and_so wrote a tutorial"... paying for tutorials is about as uncreative as it gets)
* ETC ETC Other soft forms of incentive... doesn't have to be AP's but you get the point

Point in shortest:
AO can't have goals or priorities unless the site itself provides incentive to it's contributors. Perhaps I'm alone in thinking this, but there hasn't been much of anything useful here since the software changed the AntiOnline formula last year. AO multi-dimensional incentives to encourage good, relevant content. Site irrelenvancy is near...

I can't believe "let's pay for tutorials" was actually considered to improve this place. That's totally primitive. For myself, the feedback (APs) and "nice tut"'s and postings on EITPlanet and the writing/teaching/learning experience are why I contributed so heavily in the past... and it's the same reason you'll find the same type of action on sites like GameFAQs.com. (they don't pay jack, IIRC)

Look at users like 'catch' and you'll wonder why he'd even bother spending time on this place at all. He probably contributed for the same reasons I did.

I haven't been active in a while, so perhaps things have changed more than I've been able to see.

Wait, the front page only changed about six months ago. What about the 1 3/4 years prior to that? We made the changes because the site had gone down on its own, there was no longer much to risk, so we upgraded the software.

What I'm reading in that post is that some type of acknowledgment system or accolades is what's missing?

Removing the non-tech forums from the main page is not a problem at all, if that's what everyone wants.

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Wait, the front page only changed about six months ago. What about the 1 3/4 years prior to that? We made the changes because the site had gone down on its own, there was no longer much to risk, so we upgraded the software.

What I'm reading in that post is that some type of acknowledgment system or accolades is what's missing?

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I'm speaking of the change between oct 4-16 of 2006
http://web.archive.org/web/200610040...ntionline.com/
http://web.archive.org/web/200610181...ntionline.com/

What you're reading is that expectations for users are clear by definition ("What AntiOnline IS") and by example ("Top Security/Other Tutorial Writers, AntiPoint Earners") in the old site, and that this new AO has suffered greatly since the software upgrade has removed these indicators of what types of contribution are valued or not. Because now, it seems post count is how you become a respected member of the "community"

My, has it been that long? Anyway, my point was the post numbers before the change and those after are comparable. If that change were responsible I would expect to see a marked drop after it, or a least a gradual drop since.

The diminishing numbers came long before that, that's what prompted it in the first place. We couldn't have gotten approval to make any changes to a site that was booming.

By the way, I've removed the off-topic forums from appearing on the main page list of threads.

So we're still on this topic aye?

I think Soda has excellent points. I used to come here first when looking for something that was breaking and likewise, when I had something breaking. Now, I stop over here maybe 2 times a week just to see what's going on.

The point is that many great ideas were presented to JupMed on what "high value" posters are looking for here. Much like a garden, if you fertilize your crops they will grow. Likewise, give us at least some of the suggested items and we will return. With that, more users will show up and the site will gradually regain the strength it once had.

Make sense?

--TH13

the biggest concern seemed to be new tutorials, and we took steps to try to address that. The other glaring request would seem to be for a honeypot, and I haven't gotten word on that yet. You realize of course none of this is up to me, personally. Now, I went back over the thread but those are the two requests that really stuck out. What else was missed?

I understand that people liked the site the way it was, but that isn't coming back. It is impossible. It was an endlessly hacked up version of outdated software, which is no longer even supported or can be found.

Soda's absolutely right that ' prestige ' is the best motivating factor for taking the time to write tutorials, but money is a very good motivator too...however, I really don't think the off-chance to win $50 really has any motivational value at all...in fact it makes JupMed look cheap...personally, if they can't do a lot better than that then you're better off not doing it at all.

For a multi-million dollar corporation to offer their forum contributors a ' chance ' to win ' $50 ' is in the same vein as Bill Gates offering software developers a chance to win ' $150 ' for submitted software.

Just looks very cheap...in fact it looks almost like JupMed doesn't appreciate the time and effort that goes into a tutorial at all...it's almost an offensive amount. IMO

So...yes...the tutorial issue was addressed...but, in my opinion, it wasn't addressed appropriately.

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I understand that people liked the site the way it was, but that isn't coming back. It is impossible. It was an endlessly hacked up version of outdated software, which is no longer even supported or can be found.

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My young padawan - nothing is impossible.

So tell me this. The AntiOnline reputation system, in it's current state; is it the default vBulletin stuff. No additional modifications?

Because writing a mod that is completely independent of the vBulletin DB and Code base is not that complicated.

Oh yea and we're still waiting for the answer to Harriett's -I mean Harry's - sorry that's Nokia's questions about the tut rules.