Posted on May 4th 2022 at 04:42:39 PM by (bickman2k) Posted under Site news
Hello again!
Over the past few days, we have made a lot of progress on the site functionality so I wanted to give an update!
Submissions/Approvals These are now working as expected! We found some settings that were keeping this from working that have been temporarily changed to allow things to function properly. This has also allowed the "All Collections" list to update as expected as well.
Forum error messages This has been fixed as well with the changes we made. Again, this is another band-aid fix to the root issue, but it will let things get back to normal while we continue to make the changes.
https I have heard the question a few times, so I figured I would update here with the status of this. The server is currently already https enabled. The reason why it isn't enabled site-wide at this time is largely due to the forum software being out of date. I have plans to set up a sandbox page at home, run the required forum upgrades, then begin developing a new theme. The new software supports https, so this combined with the other efforts of updating/auditing the code for hardcoded paths should allow us to finally enable https site-wide.
A huge thanks to everyone for reaching out to report issues over email, site PM, or Discord. Having a lot of data points helped to determine what was going on better. Another big thanks to the staff members who were helping me to test the various functions as we made changes to verify functionality.
And, naturally, thank you to everyone for your patience and understanding as we worked through this. I know it took longer than I hoped, certainly, but we're certainly on the road to making a lot of progress in updating the site for the future.
Posted on Apr 13th 2022 at 08:51:52 PM by (bickman2k) Posted under Site news
Hey everyone! We recently went through a server migration for several reasons (OS no longer supported, security updates, space, etc), but, as you may have noticed, we have had some issues since the migration. I am trying to correct all of the issues as quickly as possible, but it certainly hasn't been easy.
Thanks to everyone in Discord who helped report the current issues. If you would like to reach out, please join the Discord where we have a site issues channel for people to report the issues. I also plan on posting those issues on a Trello board here so I can more easily track them. You can find the board here: https://trello.com/b/Jxj3...rf-generation-site-issues
Finally, I can't say enough how much I appreciate the patience from all of you while we make the required changes to get the site up and running fully again.
Hey everyone, just wanted to give a heads up that there will be some down time soon. The OS that the server is on is going end of life soon, so we need to upgrade. Unfortunately, in this case, that means that we have to take it down and deploy a new server because of the version that we're moving to.
What does this mean? Well, I don't anticipate this taking an incredibly long time, but the site will be down while this is happening. We'll have the URL redirect to a Wordpress blog that we have set up for situations where there is an extended down time. You can watch for updates there in case something majorly breaks, but you can also hop in the Discord or follow the site on Twitter as well to get additional updates or if you want to hang with the community while this is being worked on.
Sorry in advance for the inconvenience, but hang with us while we get this done and we'll be back soon. So, while you may end up changing inputs temporarily, be sure to change it back to channel 3 when we return.
Today, RF Generation turns 16 years old. If you would like to read a little about the site's beginnings, please check out the page here: http://www.rfgeneration.com/PHP/about.php
Speaking personally, I have been in my position as the Technical Director for nearly ten years. I have seen a lot of things around here. Some weren't super great, but I think that we have made a great community even better as time has passed. I'm incredibly pleased to be working with the staff that we have here and, although I don't post a bunch, I'm glad that the conversations continue moving as well on the forum side.
We have gone from sporadic front page posts to new content every other day, 3 podcasts (and another one...), and we are growing our community in many new ways. There are things we have done that I never would have guessed we would do if you would have asked me ten years ago.
16 years, more than 135,000 games in the database, closing in on 10,000 hardware entries. We've made a lot of progress and continue to do so. I know it feels like I've done a bunch of these "Thank you" posts recently, but I truly mean it. I've been very lucky to be able to be in this position and only continue to do it because I care about what we have created as a community.
As I write this, I'm sitting in the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport on a 3 hour layover. I've been up since 4:45am after going to bed some time around 2am.
[img align=right width=400]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/repository/17701thank-you-key.jpg[/img] It's that time of the month again! No, not that time, the good time where we thank all those awesome members of our wonderful little site that have helped to grow our most prized possession, the Database!
I'll start off thanking some names I didn't recognize, though they have been around the site since 2013, so thanks amprice5474 and josulli3 for becoming active and making over 100 submissions. And then there's a couple regulars, CoinCollector, Furnessly, and Sauza12 who also each made over 100 submissions. But the real butt-kickers in August were Shadow Kisuragi with over 500 submissions, ae.tc with over 700 submissions and ApolloBoy with nearly 1000 submissions. Thanks to all of you and everyone else who made a submission in August.
But we can't forget about our awesome staff members who work tirelessly to make sure all those submissions are being reviewed and approved. Izret101 and Tynstar each had almost 300 approvals. ApolloBoy had almost 800 and Shadow Kisuragi had almost 1000 approvals. Thanks guys for keeping the gears of the RFGen running smoothly and getting those submissions taken care of.
First off, I want to give a big "Thank You" to the 9 members who have taken the time to donate money to the site during our annual donation drive. So Thank You Tadpole13, Razor Knuckles, Raidou, Nupoile, Zagnorch, OatBob, and Wempster. Together you guys have raised over $600 to keep the site running. And unless someone tops your donation in the next couple days, you'll be receiving an ultra-rare gold colored NES game. If you're not one of these fine gentlemen, and want to help keep the site alive, you can send a PayPal donation to webmaster@rfgeneration.com or just click the little Donate icon at the bottom of this article. Either way, your contribution is only used for paying the hosting bill around here, which is around $100 each and every month. If you don't know how much to donate, donate whatever you can, whether its $5 or $5000, every little bit helps. But for reference, the average donation amount this year has been $77.21. I'm not saying you must donate that much, but if you want to conform to the standard, you probably should.
And of course, I must thank all of you out there that are PAINING YOURSELF WITH SUBMISSIONS! In may, the most PAINED WITH SUBMISSIONS member was Zagnorch, with 2190 submissions. Next was ApolloBoy with over 1000 submissions, and each with over 500 submissions were Flee, MrMeek, Aeroc, and ae.tc. Thanks guys, you are obviously taking this competition seriously, and you should be. One of you is likely to walk away with another copy of that super-rare gold colored NES game. If your name isn't listed here, don't worry, you can still win this thing. But you better get your butt moving, Zagnorch really wants that game, and you wouldn't want him to get it would you?
But don't forget about those poor souls who tirelessly sift through all those submissions to find the ones that are worthy of approving into the database. Without them, we'd have a database full of incorrect information and stolen images. May's biggest Approver was Shadow Kisuragi with an astounding 3468 approvals and who knows how many rejections. Next up was Tynstar with just shy of 1000, and ApolloBoy with 733. Thanks guys, you have been doing an awesome job at keeping that queue down this year, I only saw it above 100 once this year.
Thanks to everyone else who has contributed in May and during our annual contest so far. It really is true that every little bit helps. Whether its a page edit to fix a typo or a donation of $500, we truly appreciate it all.
So, we just migrated everything over, but we're moving back!
This new server is just too fast. It reminds us on staff about broadband and new technology. Pages loading when you click them? Pshaw. We need to go back to the golden age of the Internet.
Until we make this switch, I'll be artificially throttling the speed on the server so everyone can get used to it again.
Also, after working with theGrue, we're going to dump the Android app and develop only for Palm.
RF Generation coming here soon!
We feel that this will take the site back to its roots in classic gaming, when you didn't need "day one patches", "DLC on disc", and "stability updates". Things broke when they did and that's the way we liked it!
The big server move is going to happen beginning tonight. At 6pm Central time, when I get home, I'm going to begin the change so this site is redirected to our new emergency blog. This will let us finish transferring some items as well as pull a fresh DB backup so we can move it all, optimize everything, and bring the site back up on the new server.
Feel free to get your IRC client ready for the down time.
Server: irc.quakenet.org Room: #rfgeneration
Feel free to stop by and chat with myself and others while this is in the works.
Maybe I'll even start a Google Video Hangout tonight...
Looks like 2014 is already 1/12th over. Despite off and on connection issues, our dedicated members have been hard at work makin' those submissions. In fact, you guys made over 2600 submissions in January. Which is very commendable considering the sporadic outages we've been experiencing. And if those outages have been keeping you away from making submissions and from the site in general, I've got some good news for you. There will be more info once it's all done, but rest assured everything will be lightning fast again by the end of the month.
So who made all those submissions in January? Well, it was mostly ApolloBoy with 757 submissions! ericeskapade had over 400, and HungryMoose and Shadow Kisuragi each had over 200. And of course, there were another 63 members who together made another 1000 submissions. So thanks to all of you who helped out this January, I know it wasn't easy with the downtime and sluggish load times.
As always, I'd like to thank our dedicated submission-approving team that has to deal with all of those submissions every month. Our top approvers in January were Tynstar and Shadow Kisuragi with over 700 and over 400 approvals respectively. Paully3433 also had over 100 approvals in January.
Thanks again everyone, and if you've been putting off those submissions because of our site issues, be assured it will be getting better, but as always, good things take some time, so expect things to get speedier by the end of February, and possibly sooner, depending on how smoothly things go. We're definitely trying to roll out these changes as quickly as we can.
Happy New Year! Its hard to believe another year has come and gone, and just as I was getting used to dating stuff with 2013...
2013 wasn't an easy year for RFGeneration, with temporary outages and performance issues have been occasionally plaguing us the last couple months, but nothing worth doing is ever easy. Luckily for us, things don't have to be so easy when you have hundreds of awesome members helping out. With so many people each doing a small share, we no longer have to employ a dozen children in China to fill in the tedious information. But who needs them when you have slaves members who will work for free? Kidding aside, we really do appreciate all the work every one of you do here at the site. Whether its just a small page edit to fix a typo or adding every game for a system that's been neglected.
And boy, did we ever have a lot of submissions in 2013. How many, you ask? 44,373 total submissions if you must know. The best part of that IMO is that more than half were images, which are always awesome to have more of.
So, who submitted the most this year? It was our very own DB Reviewer, Bildtstar with a truly astounding 5542 submissions this year, that averages out to more than 15 submissions every single day in 2013. I tip my hat to you sir, and I suggest everyone else does so as well.
Up next, we have DB Editor ApolloBoy with 3909 submissions. Thanks man, you've been here since week #6 and have made over 20,000 submissions over the years, more than all but one other member.
Next is a fairly new member, joining in only November, he has somehow managed to rack up 3331 submissions. Keep up the pace Kaysow, and you'll do just fine here.
And our last member to get over 3000 submissions this year, the world famous Crabmaster2000. Somehow, between shoveling a mountain of snow 9 months out of the year, co-hosting the greatest podcast of all time, and running his own store, this man has managed to make 3280 submissions this year.
As an honorable mention, I'd also like to thank Shadow Kisuragi not only for his 2910 submissions this year, but for his tireless and never ending work on keeping the site running. He and bickman2k are out there every day in the code trenches fighting bugs as well as trying to bring new functions and features to the site.
But that's not everyone, I'd also like to thank the following people for making over 1,000 submissions in 2013. Tynstar, ericeskapade, CoinCollector, thegreatska, Sirgin, and Razor Knuckles. And thanks to the other 240 of you who made another 14,500 submissions.
If you're sad that your name isn't listed here, there is a simple solution, just submit more. Its simple to do and is even a bit addictive. Start out simple with the games you know well and then move onto things you're less familiar with.
And if every game page you look at it is full on information and pictures but you still want to help out, there is always the option to help us out financially. We haven't started our annual donation drive yet, but that doesn't mean you can't beat the crowds and get that donation in early. Just hit the button below and chip in a few bucks.
We are a community of collectors, gamers and the likes, and some of us enjoy to let the world know what is on our mind. For those members, we have the community blogs, a place where they can publish their thoughts and feelings regarding life, universe, and everything. Some of those members might even choose to write about gaming and collecting! Whatever they write about, you can find it on their blog. You can either see the latest community blog entries in the feed you see to the left, or you can browse for your favorite blog using the menu above. Interested in having your own blog hosted on RF Generation? It's rather simple, first be a registered member, and then click the "My Blog" link that you see in the navigation above. Following those two steps will certainly get you on your way to blogging.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy our entries, rantings, and completely unrelated series of thoughts. We write for you to read, so we certainly hope that you enjoy our material.
