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I was reading through old rants on Fryedsoft website not so long ago and the end of calc.org one reminded me of ticalc.org current situation, with some exceptions of course.

Most of those here who are still active in the TI community probably noticed the drastic decrease in activity on ticalc.org over the past 12 months, while other sites still seems to be alive and kicking. In August they hired two new file archivers. One left, and they decided to fire the other one. He got fired because he became busy and couldn't do the job regulary like he used to, but he said he could at least do some weekly updates. After they fired him they never hired anyone again, so they're left with no file archivers to do the job anymore, so it's the other staff who have to do the job, and they are also pretty busy. Don't get fooled by the fact there is 3 file archivers while looking at the staff page, because it hasn't been updated in a while and all of them are retired now. Patrick Stone announced his retirement from the community last year, Joey Gannon just came back for a short while last summer to help but didn't stayed long and Jason M is supposed to be retired now, considering they posted a news about the hiring of new file archivers. As you can notice on the front page, there is like one update per 3 weeks most of the time. If there is more than that, there is usually only one or two programs added. At the beginning of this month I in fact uploaded Metroid II: The Last Chozo Expansion Set and AaroneusTheGreat uploaded Doom 68k one or two weeks ago, and still none of them got added in the archives. It has beeen like that for about 6 months now and sometimes I am starting considering getting all my files removed from here and making them exclusive to Omnimaga because it's impossible to get anything added here anymore in a reasonable amount of time.

Now the consequences of this: Of course, there is less news being posted on the front page. Less news and updates means that people visit less often and post less comments. You may indeed have noticed the decrease in amount of comments in the past year. Even Omnimaga get more comments on news articles nowadays. This also means less featured programs. Combined with the fact they've been pretty strict in the past 1.5 year in featuring programs it doesn't help their case either, because people feel less like posting their programs, because they never know if they will even be added in archives.

I remember the days where someone used to post their demo/beta on ticalc.org and relying on this one site to show their project preview to public because it would be added within the exact same week. Now it is no longer possible anymore. They now either rely on calcg.org or file uploading services.

Also, if you look at file upload form pending queue, it rarely goes above 150 anymore nowadays, even if the archives didn't got uploaded for months, even in peak periods. It seems like people are getting sick of ticalc.org updates slowness and decide to upload their files on other sites or their own blogs. There is also less reviews, because it can be a month before new reviews are added, and i even seen 6 months once. There has been like 10-12 programs featured in one entire year, while there used to be near 100 some years. Even last year there was twice as much as this year.

You probably also noticed that half of the hosted sites that were still online all suddently shutted down, all at once. I know there was some that were down long ago, but now it's more than half of the list. The server is also slower than it used to be less than 1 year ago, email requests takes nearly half a year, same for the deletion of innapropriate files (recently got a notice that my innapropriate file removal was accepted, even if the request was in early 2007) and now if they're gonna have less traffic, this means their new ads will pay less, thus, making the site stay online and pay for hosting even harder.

It's not that I want to be negative, but it just seems that ticalc.org is going the way calc.org did, minus the downtimes. It's getting less and less updates, and they hire no one else to take over the other staff job. And don't tell me it's the entire community, because on other sites there is the same amount of activity than last year and there is a lot of secret projects being worked on. Also calcg.org file archives increased drastically compared to what it was 2 years ago. At this rate I expect ticalc.org to close or stop being maintained completly around 2009; I don't expect a shutdown anytime soon, but I'm sure if it close it will shut down someday if paying for hosting isn't possible anymore for the founder. Calcg.org (Calcgames), unitedti.org or tifreakware.net may become the main unnoficial TI website then.

Maybe somebody needs to make a replacement service that is a bit more organized and efficient (loading all the games on one page was ridiculous) or they need to overhaul the site.

They need to do something. Ticalc.org must be the largest database of calc games, for any platform. I comepletely agree with DJ. Ticalc.org was a place where people could upload their programs to be tested/reviewed/worshiped or whatever, but now that there is hardly any updates, nobody feels like wasting their time. It is possible that if ticalc.org shuts down completely, many of the people that do upload there might look for alternative sources to upload, and we could possibly see an increase in activity here and at other forums. It's a shame that it's going the way it is, I always liked ticalc.org.

This post has been edited by trevmeister66 on 29 Nov, 2007, 14:28

I sure hope Ticalc does not fade away.

Maybe we are all in for a big surprise. Site redesign... Staff reorganization... automated file uploads... automated reviews... etc....

But... With such few POTY candidates, it may be better to just wait for next year to hold the POTY competition. It is not as much fun if there is no competition.

Ticalc should not compare program submissions to past year's submissions to determine if they should get a feature or not. That is flat-out unfair. It kind of implies that current projects have to be equal to or better than past POTY candidates to even be considered. That is a sure fire way to discourage up-n-coming programmers.



@ necro's signature:

That is the biggest bunch of crap I ever heard or read. It kind of reminds me of Algore stating that he invented the internet -- remember that?

I can't stop laughing.

This post has been edited by Ranman on 29 Nov, 2007, 16:49

it is really sad to know that the TI sites are closing
I have been whacting them for over 3 years and never until recently has it been this bad

I wonder why they won't hire more people. I've never tried to upload to ticalc before so idk how slow it must be. How come it couldn't be an automated system w/ admin/moderators to check the new stuff and make sure it's decent.

that is a good idea, but it would require more man power to check the new stuff meaning they would have to hire more people, therefore costing more money. I think that the TI website's owner has a restricted buget for maintaining the web site

This post has been edited by MSR5 on 29 Nov, 2007, 17:59

For now my biggest hope is that they continue doing POTY. If the first week (or beginning of second) of december they start voting process then there's better sign of life. If they were to not do a 2007 POTY then I would have my awnser


That said let's hope it stay around. I'm sure that even if it would stop being updated completly it would still stay online for about 3-4 more years but it would be better if it was updated like it used to be (especially file archives).

Yes I agree with you completly. They REALLY need to see if they can find some voulenteers to help out at Ticalc. This community is run by the people more so than it ever has been by Texas Instruments and if Ticalc.org died it would be a big blow morally to the community. It is like the last standing behemoth of another time . I remember back when they were well staffed you couldnt go a couple days without some project being announced or some awesome project mysteriously appearing on their front page out of nowhere. There were pretty much updates daily, even if alot of them were poorly written programs with little purpose . The community is still VERY much alive and active but the main outlet for the comminity is dragging its feet and thus the communtiy appears to be less active. Maybe if ticalc had some competiton they would get their act together.

Yeah I miss the days where ticalc.org posted news about projects. I never understood why they stopped doing this completly. It was great times because even if it wasn't guaranteed that the project would be finished it gave more inspiration for the rest of the community.

something needs to revamp the calculator community, like a ti-inspire CAS except...good or zelda

there is alerady Zelda *cough*I am tempted to do a shameless plug*cough*... unless you mean that uber f***ing awesome looking zelda on revsoft

That game looks insane. When that is released, I will be a happy man.

Eh, I think it is really hard for a site of ticalc.org's status to hire somebody. Unless you have a serious resume, not something thrown together.

I mean they don't know if the person really has the time, just wants to be part of ticalc.org to say they were part of it, or if they just want to mess with ticalc.org

There are a bunch of things that could go wrong when hiring people into something like that.

It would be cool if it was automated, but then the moderators wouldn't even be around to check what the bots updated every single day.

I think we should wait it out two more months or so before we say that ticalc.org is dead, I don't necessarily think it is yet. Try to be optimistic, I'm sure they will be fine.

as long as there's POTY

SMB68k is a definite nomination I suppose?

well, they do interview people who volunteer for the jobs.