You want to know what's really going to tick you off <-certainly NOT the language I'd LIKE to be using about this whole situation, but toned down so I don't get offensive about this whole thing, Russ?!
You can try emailing the folks at D.Net about this (go ahead and try), but you're not going to get any response. In fact, judging from the news pages, the .plan updates and just about every other frigging page that D.Net hosts, you're going to get the impression that no one there even knows jack squat about what's going on.
So eventually, there will actually be some written word that someone in all of the staff of D.Net has a clue that something is wrong. But he won't be the one that's able to fix it. The guy who can actually do something about it (and I might add, there only seems to be one soul at any given time in the whole universe that can ever seem to fix anything that's broke at D.Net... god help us if this guy ever gets hit by a bus, eh?) is going to be away at his 17th trade show of the year or spending the weekend with his girlfriend or waxing his cat or in meetings with investors or playing tiddly-winks and he won't be able to "look into things" for a couple of days.
Then, later... much later... the problem might be fixed and most of the blocks will finally be credited and the stats will be just as jacked (but in another direction this time) and evidently, the folks at D.Net will figure that all of us dumb sheep that contribute have forgotten all about whatever in the heck went wrong this time. So there will be a 5 line update in someone's .plan explaining that things are fixed. Now, you have to understand that there's not going to be any details, there's not going to be any discussion of preventative measures to assure that the problem doesn't recur and in general, you'll be left with the feeling that the whole thing was a "non-event". But, the sheep have been placated with an "explanation", right? So everything is back to business as usual.
Uh huh...
Now... really. I know that there's probably someone that notices these problems right away, I know that they probably get right onto the situation and one or more folks at D.Net probably start working furiously to troubleshoot and fix the problem. They probably lose sleep, they probably spend time away from their families to work their butts off and get things put right. If I knew all that goes on, I might be more appreciative than I am.
However...
Since D.Net has never done an even half-way decent job of letting their contributors know what the heck is going on, we'll never really know. They have mailing lists (I've maybe gotten 3 emails on them in nearly 2 years), they have .plans (sometimes they get updated with something, most of the time, they don't and probably 10% of their users know what the heck they are and how to get to them), they have a news page (news? this thing gets an update when they start a whole new project... evidently that's all that's "newsworthy" to 'em) and they have a front page to their site (that's updated with something worth reading in the event of apocalypse, rapture or sufficient cobwebs on the pixels that someone notices) so they have GOBS of means of communication, but what they're lacking is.... wait... wait for it.... YEAH! actual communication occuring upon the aformentioned means. :disgust:
I know the staff at D.Net does a lot of work and it's a really amazing project that they have going... I try as often as I can to show my appreciation for that. Heck, I was so happy that the OGR graphs were updated that I made sure that a thank you was put up on our site and I followed that up with a personal email! In return, of course, the OGR graphs have never since been updated. :disgust: Their general lack of communication to the contributors has been my only complaint with them and it's been the proverbial thorn in my side for over a year now.
In short (ooops, too late), I'd feel better after this rant if I felt that everthing that I'd just typed was going to make a rat's butt worth of a difference.
-Brian
