FF Wiki

I don't know the details of the supposed wiki-dickings, but you have to understand the upkeep cost of running a website like that. Yes, the CONTENT was user contributed, however, anyone who has run their own website knows just how much money it actually costs.

Not only do they have to pay yearly for the domain name, which can be $10-$40 a year, for the amount of content hosted on the site they have to pay $80-$200 a MONTH to host it, and even more to do so without ad banners. There is also $30/mo for maintenance, more monthly for web design tools, etc. So contrary to popular belief it costs them hundreds of dollars a month to run a service that you all and millions of others have access to for free. It was a smart decision for them to sell when offered, and if they're not going to charge for continued use of the web page I don't really see the problem.
 
That was my initial reaction too, but that doesn't even remotely justify the shady stuff they did with the donation money, particularly the 2-3k that was never even used for the upkeep costs. And considering they're pretty well off now after the sale, they can't use upkeep costs as an excuse now.
 
What Im wondering is how much ads contributed to their revenue?
 
It was a smart decision for them to sell when offered, and if they're not going to charge for continued use of the web page I don't really see the problem.
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Perhaps, but that's not even addressing the nine THOUSAND dollars (Actually, it was OVER nine thousand...) that people donated, that they never accounted for. Taj actually uncovered emails where the wikia people were saying that they needed to cover up how they spent the money, and also emails of the ffxiclopedia.com big cheese telling his admins just how much they were screwing over the general public

WoW is so empty of drama... but so much funnier to play than FFXI! Hope you all still having fun in Dynamis and with the game! :)
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Great contribution.
 
I think what people are more upset about is that the admins of the site declined because they wanted more money then what was offered the first time to them then spoke out to the public why they weren't moving but failed to mention it was because they wanted more $$$money$$$.

It's how i see it anyways.
 
BG poster in general are mad at the fact that they were defrauded out of the donated money. I can sympathize with that fact. But what I think many fail to realize is that donations are just that -- donations. The recipient of the donations have an obligation for handling the money responsibility. I agree that these donated funds were mismanaged. But seriously, tiered rewards like NPR fundraising shouldn't be criticized (general gist of the first locked thread). And yes... I'm sure they could have gotten better deals but they need volume in order to get those good deals.

The 2nd thread dealt with the "defrauding" aspect. All those "incriminating emails" show a simple thought process that everyone at one point or time was told... "Get paid to work on what you love to do." And to me there's nothing wrong with that. If someone offered you a good salary per year just to play FF11 or to do something that you love to do, wouldn't you? To me, thats what the FF wiki people did. Were they straight forward about? No, but that question shouldn't even be asked. Why? Would you tell your boss that you were offered a significant amount of money to join another company? I know I wouldn't. They tied up loose ends as per requested by the new employer. And thats when things blew up.

This is speculation but I wouldn't be surprised if it weren't far from the truth. Its this lack of alternative viewpoints, lack of thinking "outside the box", and willingness to jump on the bandwagon that I find so apalling with the BG posters.


However, I do not condone the tactics of Taj of obtaining these documents -- probably illegally.

I've come to the conclusion that those that say "GOOD JOB TAJ" needs to have their heads checked. Bending the law is one thing (aka 20/20 or Nightline investigative reporting) but invasion of privacy (eg what happened with Kalia) is a totally different ball game.

I will use FFwiki. If BGwiki is anything like their current amount of information (75% useless drivel, 25% useful information), BG wiki will probably have all the normal shit that goes in the threads mirrored into their BG wiki pages.
 
uh, no?

I'm surprised you read the same mails i did. You donate to a website to help support it's fees and they go off and fund a separate corporation with it or buy themselves lunch, whatever.

The Wikia rep didn't ask them to cover it up, he asked them to account themselves to the community so they could still look ike the good guys, rather than how they look now. He even offered to pay for it himself I believe, just so long as it didn't come out that it came from him as he wanted to preserve THEIR reputation.

It's kinda funny when the bigger company involved looks like the good guys when they absorb a smaller business. Don't expect that one. Usually it's the small businesses standing on principals and ethics rather than attempts at extortion, not vice versa.

I don't get your boss analogy either. If I get a better offer and I'm going to take it, then yeah, I let my bosses know and they can judge whether they want to keep me or wish me luck on my new enterprise. If I say no, there's no point in letting them know cause it's not happening. Your analogy instead hints that you take the offer and sneak out of the office before your bosses notice, which is perhaps not the best way of handling it, but may be a closer analogy to what happened.

I like to enjoy what I get paid for too, but I tend to support honest behavior. I don't ask for help with the rent, take it from kind strangers, then go buy myself lunch and sell my place without paying the rent pocketing that money I asked for.
 
but invasion of privacy (eg what happened with Kalia)
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Wait, what happened with kalia? I have been trying to keep up on this stuff but missed that..
 
Mane said:
uh, no?

I'm surprised you read the same mails i did. You donate to a website to help support it's fees and they go off and fund a separate corporation with it or buy themselves lunch, whatever.
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Exactly... "whatever." People shouldn't even bother caring about something like this. Yet BG people apparently do. In my opinion, donations are at the discretion of the recipient. There are ways to control its usage but no one bothered to do that. And you bring up another issue too. People will interpret these things differently based on whatever experiences they have had before.

Remember there was nothing mentioned about the US$2000 missing in any of those forum posts/emails. Those 2000 was somehow revealed somewhere in the midst of those mega threads which I don't particularly care to browse. The original post only gave us glimpses into the train of thought of FFwiki. And that is as I said before, subject to interpretation.



The Wikia rep didn't ask them to cover it up, he asked them to account themselves to the community so they could still look ike the good guys, rather than how they look now. He even offered to pay for it himself I believe, just so long as it didn't come out that it came from him as he wanted to preserve THEIR reputation.
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I never said that Wikia asked them to cover up. Wikia only said to tie up loose ends.


I don't get your boss analogy either. If I get a better offer and I'm going to take it, then yeah, I let my bosses know and they can judge whether they want to keep me or wish me luck on my new enterprise. If I say no, there's no point in letting them know cause it's not happening. Your analogy instead hints that you take the offer and sneak out of the office before your bosses notice, which is perhaps not the best way of handling it, but may be a closer analogy to what happened.
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To put it succinctly, when you're looking for another job, going back to school, etc, you shouldn't tell anyone inside the company of your plans. Why? You automatically let upper management dictate how much of a raise and/or promotion you'll get during the next cycle. Now, if another company has offered you a job with salary and benefits much more superior to the current job... asking the current company to match it can sour your relationship with your boss and any possible references you may want to use in the future. Its a double edged sword if you speak about it. So in general its best to keep silent. And yes, if I were offered a better salary/job, I would give my 2 weeks notice then take my leave quietly.

And frankly at a more fundamental level, why should we be concerned about the actions of FFwiki? They did nothing illegal to hurt us physically. They did nothing illegal to hurt us financially. What they did was to make a decision of what they (the owners) thought would be appropriate for the future of FFwiki.

And many can't even respect that decision.
 
Jotaru said:
Wait, what happened with kalia? I have been trying to keep up on this stuff but missed that..
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Taj managed to hack into kalia's email. Used the same password to get into paypal. Then took screen shots of "transactions" and posted them.

What I do know is that invasion of privacy can lead to identity theft. What's disappointing is the of Bandwagon posters aren't even acknowledging this legitimate threat. They're just supporting Taj and his actions. I hope he gets jailed.
 
Everyone looks at Taj as a hero because he brings the majority of the people he's dealing with exactly what they want - hot, juicy drama. It's going to catch up to him sooner or later, but until then, we get to listen to people talk about Taj like he's Robin Hood. If he was actually doing any -good- then my opinion would be different, but the fact is he's doing this stuff because 1) he can, and 2) it gets him tons of attention, so far the majority of it positive.

Don't get me wrong, what the Wiki guys did is just as bad or worse, but people need to pull their heads out of their respective asses and realize that what Taj is doing is wrong, illegal, and needs to stop.
 
Also, for anyone who doesn't care about this drama but uses Windower, Taj works on it, and recently he had his wrists slapped for coding in things that would make people toss out items, lock up their games, change their bazaar comments, or otherwise tweak out their game, all into our beloved Windower... all in an 'attempt to show SE exactly how the game can be exploited". In my eyes that holds about as much water as an NM botter attempting to 'show SE how easy it is to bot'. Anyhow, I still use Windower, but just kinda a heads up. This Taj guy, hacking into emails, paypals, game accounts, fiddling with Windower coding, potentially has each and every account name and password of people who use Windower, and has shown before he is willing to utilize his position for major lol-factor.

/shrug
 
Wrists slapped?! He should be slapped down hard, pilloried in the town square, or even drawn-and-quartered (metaphorically, of course :p). Software development like any professional field comes with it an implied bond of trust. Users have to believe that the program they are running is meant to do the job they believe it's doing, and not doing unexpected things behind their back (whether it's logging passwords, installing adware, or destroying the hard drive).

This is a huge violation of trust and should be treated very seriously.
 
Agreed. If you want to use windower, I would stick with 3.26, the last stable release prior to 3.3. As I understand it, he never had touched the older versions. Or, you can use the JP windower, set to NA. No bells or whistles, but it's safe and it works.

No matter what drama/entertainment he brought to the FFXI world, he broke a lot of basic ethical programming rules in doing so. Therefore, leading people to either glorify them (until it happens to them) and/or be weary of using software developed by him.

-AA

Varda said:
Wrists slapped?! He should be slapped down hard, pilloried in the town square, or even drawn-and-quartered (metaphorically, of course :p). Software development like any professional field comes with it an implied bond of trust. Users have to believe that the program they are running is meant to do the job they believe it's doing, and not doing unexpected things behind their back (whether it's logging passwords, installing adware, or destroying the hard drive).

This is a huge violation of trust and should be treated very seriously.
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Jotaru said:
Also, for anyone who doesn't care about this drama but uses Windower, Taj works on it, and recently he had his wrists slapped for coding in things that would make people toss out items, lock up their games, change their bazaar comments, or otherwise tweak out their game, all into our beloved Windower... all in an 'attempt to show SE exactly how the game can be exploited". In my eyes that holds about as much water as an NM botter attempting to 'show SE how easy it is to bot'. Anyhow, I still use Windower, but just kinda a heads up. This Taj guy, hacking into emails, paypals, game accounts, fiddling with Windower coding, potentially has each and every account name and password of people who use Windower, and has shown before he is willing to utilize his position for major lol-factor.

/shrug
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Pics/links or it didn't happen.
 
I can't believe you don't remember that Furax. He would lock arbitrary items in people's bazaars and it took multiple GM calls before it got escalated to the dev team, which then took like a week before they fixed it. All the while people couldn't use their items.

Then there was the time he would force DC anyone in his vicinity. He found a special character that was not typable, but if he forced it into the chat log then everyone's clients would crash when it tried to display the character. It worked over tells, say, shout, emote, etc. Essentially could DC whoever he wanted whenever he wanted.

Another time he got into the test server and was actually levelling up. A GM finally got to him and he asked the GM to warp him to Fafnir because he wanted to see the GM fight. The GM actually did, and the GM soloed Fafnir for a while.

Can find links and pics for all of them if you search around.

That being said, i'm not realy bitter about the bank account hacking / etc anymore. my level 17 dwarven warrior is actually surprisingly fun :p
 
Where was this posted? This is the only forum I look at, beyond the occasional KI lurking. I remember the force d/c thing, I also remember the test server break-in, but I never heard of anything malicious regarding windower 3.3 until now.
 
furax said:
Where was this posted? This is the only forum I look at, beyond the occasional KI lurking. I remember the force d/c thing, I also remember the test server break-in, but I never heard of anything malicious regarding windower 3.3 until now.
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It is not directly tied to windower 3.3, it is past history of what happened before he got involved with Windower.

Item Locking In Bazaars = Happened.
D/C'ing a entire zone and a GM = Happened
Hacking into Atmos World = Happened...

and the list goes on.

The posts are somewhere on BG, I'd have to dig them up if SE didnt force them to remove them.
 
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