I hope you're all having a good Fourth of July (and for those of you that aren't American, Happy Wednesday). If you haven't noticed, we have two brand new DB Contributors, both of these gentlemen have been members here at the site for years and have made thousands of contributions between them over the years.
Because of their dedication, they've been brought onto staff to make it even easier for them to contribute and thus to help flesh out the databases even more.
So congratulations to Aeroc and Sirgin for making it to staff and thanks for your past (and future) contributions!
The results are in for the record setting 2012 PAIN YOURSELF WITH SUBMISSIONS contest. This year's winner really went above and beyond the call of duty, but he wasn't alone at the top. There was a close second place contestant that truly gave him a run for his money. As usual, the winner focused heavily on image submissions, something of which we always appreciate greatly. 5,575 images were submitted by this member alone through the course of the contest. Along with the other submissions this person made, they earned a staggering 55,945 points. More than 2,000 more points than last year's winner!
This year's second place winner submitted a close second place point total of 39,152.
So you're probably what awesome members we have that would submit like mad men to achieve such greatness here at RFGeneration. So, without further ado, the 2012 PAIN YOURSELF WITH SUBMISSIONS Contest winner is .... Aeroc. This is Aeroc's third year in a row of winning the contest. So a big Congratulations goes out to him for this achievement. Everyone here at RFG appreciates your dedication.
So who was the valiant RFG soldier who fought so hard in his attempt to topple Aeroc this year? It was Crabmaster2000 of course. He made a solid attempt, but just came up short. I heard he's already healing his carpal tunnel scanner hand and preparing for next year's contest. Will he be able to topple the reigning three-time champion? Maybe it will be YOU who topples him, or will Aeroc continue his domination? Only time will tell.
So what does Aeroc win? Well, he wins the usual $60 of gaming swag of his choice and this sweet RFG Ringer-T:
For the rest of you that attempted this great challenge, I know some of you fought hard and some of you didn't even realize you were competing. But I thank you for your work regardless of how many points you scored, every little bit really does help make the site better.
To round out the top 10 point gainers this year we have:
disloyalhead - 11,285 points
nupoile - 4,367 points
Tynstar - 3,980 points
Duke.Togo - 2,883 points
Sirgin - 2,854 points
raffa1985 - 2,138
Paully3433 - 1,937 points
blcklblskt - 1,874 points
Once again, I'd like to thank and congratulate everyone who participated this year. Without a solid community like you guys willing to submit like crazy we would never have been able to become THE Classic and Modern Video Games Database. But don't forget that you don't need to wait for the contest, we're happy to accept your submissions all year long!
KEEP IT ON CHANNEL 3!
Today marks the 8th anniversary of when RFGeneration officially went online for the public to use. This is always a big deal here at RFGeneration, every year of existing is a true accomplishment with a site of this size that has no sponsors, ads or any kind of user fees. To make it 8 years in the tough world of online video game databases is truly a testament to our founders' visions and our members' dedication. This accomplishment couldn't have happened without the help of everyone involved with RFGen over the last 8 years.
And to thank you all for helping with RFGen, we hold a contest every year where we challenge you to PAIN YOURSELF WITH SUBMISSIONS! There can only be one winner, one person who goes above and beyond everyone else and submits so much to the database that it causes them pain, whether physical pain of sore wrists or emotional pain of trying to beat everyone else competing in the contest.
And this year was no different, for the past 5 weeks or so, many people have been vying for the prize, and I know it has caused actual physical pain for at least one person. But will it be enough? The competition was fierce this year, we broke submission records, and even had over 5000 more submissions in May this year than we did last year. At this point it could be anyone's game, you'll just have to wait until we can get the points tallied up. So keep it tuned to Channel 3 for the next couple days so you'll be the first to know who won this year's contest.
And Happy Birthday RFGeneration!
RF Generation is turning 8, isn't that great?! For 8 years, we've been working to create an amazing database of games and a swell community. I think we've definitely accomplished that. Our database includes both games and hardware, something most other sites out there simply do not. We have over 80,000 scans, all unique to us and not seen anywhere else on the web. We have over 60,000 games listed and almost 5000 pieces of hardware. Our community is so close knit that it often feels more like a large family spread throughout the world than a gaming forum. So yeah, I think we've spent our 8 years on the Internet pretty well.
But none of this would have been possible with you, our dedicated members who have spent countless hours scanning, editing, and researching to do your part to make our little site even better.
So thanks to each of you that have contributed over these last 8 years. And in order to show how much we appreciate all your efforts, we're giving away a fantastic prize! Now that it is officially the 8th birthday of RF Generation, the Pain Yourself With Submissions contest has officially begun! So get out there, and do whatever you can to help make our site better and you could walk away with a great prize!
Here at RF Generation, we appreciate all the work each and every one of you does, we really do. Its all that volunteer work that makes this place the treasure that it is. So, as a token of our appreciation, we like to hold a contest every year for you guys. I'm sure by now, our veterans are very familiar with it, but for those of you that have joined within the last year, let me introduce you to the PAIN YOURSELF WITH SUBMISSIONS Contest.
Essentially, the contest boils down to this: Be active on the site and you get points, the person with the most points wins! Sounds simple right? It is, but there are a few more things you need to know to fully understand how it will work.
First off, keep in mind while this contest may not be easy to win (last year's winner had well over 3000 submissions), any little bit you can do to contribute is appreciated. And we've tweaked the point system from last year, so hopefully the contest will be a bit more unpredictable to give more people a fair shot at winning.
Here's how the point breakdown will work:
Title Addition: 5 Points
Variation Addition: 6 Points
Page Edit*: 2 Points
Review*: 50 Points
Overview*: 20 Points
Image Upload: 10 Points
Submission Review**: 1 Point
Blog Post*: 30 Points
Blog Comment: 1 Point
Forum Post: 1 Point
Forum Karma: See Explanation
*Regarding the asterisk: For page edits, if it is noticed that you are consistently only adding one field per edit multiple times for a single ID just to up your points, you will be disqualified. Any review or overview completed will count as a page edit as well the points for an overview or review. To get the points for an overview or review you MUST contact me via Personal Message so that I can keep a tally. In addition, the review or overview must be on the actual game / hardware page. A review or overview of poor quality could result in less points than stated being granted. The same statement holds true for blog posts.
Regarding Forum Karma: Because we want the forum to be a lively place of fun and interesting posts, we're enabling Karma during this contest. Karma rewards members that make good posts and smites those who do not. Your Karma will play a wildcard role in posts. Positive Karma at the end of the contest will increase your point total by a factor, while negative karma will decrease it.
As with any contest, there is fine print. Any submission that you make must adhere to the RF Generation Policies and Guidelines. We wrote these policies and guidelines for a reason, and well, we’d like everyone to adhere to them. Failure to adhere to the guidelines could result in a disqualification.
Any point reduction or disqualification can be contested. In the event that you wish to contest, you must explain why the reduction or disqualification is unfair. If you win the contest, we’ll restore your greatness, but if you lose, you shall be pelted with figurative rocks and garbage.
Everyone, except for the directors of this site, is in this contest. Because staff members get that extra point for each submission review, and those staff members will have thousands of submissions to review in addition to their own submissions, their total score will be halved to make things a bit more fair and lively.
So now that you know all the rules and have the scanner warming up, you probably want to know what you can win. Well, don't worry, its quite a substantial prize. The winner will receive their choice of gaming swag (not to exceed $60) plus an official RF Generation Ringer T-shirt!
The contest will start on April 28th, at midnight and will come to and end on June 8th. So get your stuff ready, the contest will start soon.
I can't believe you all fell for it! And don't tell me you knew it was all a ruse, I know you thought it was real. The good news is that RF Generation is not going anywhere, we'll always be here for you guys and we certainly wouldn't intentionally betray our audience like that.
In fact, I don't even own an Android device or even its competitors, so its safe to say you're all safe from us becoming Android Generation for real.
However, theGrue's Android App is most definitely real, and you all should download it and give feedback on it if you do have an Android device.
Keep it on your Android device Channel 3!
As you've probably noticed, we are now Android Generation. We feel this change will make us better suited for the future of gaming and technology in general. We're confident in that in a few short years, everything will be Android powered, so we're jumping on board sooner rather than later. Soon, our entire database and collection tools will be optimized for Android devices. However, since all of our development time will be going into that, we will no longer have the time or resources to update the current versions, the ones designed for your PC, whether you use Windows, Linux, or Mac, you'll soon be unable to visit Android Generation, or use our collection tracking tools. So, if you don't already have an Android device, you better go get one ASAP.
We'll also be mandating all members have our current App installed in order to continue to be registered here. So, if you haven't already download it here now so you won't be deactivated after this transition is complete.
And remember to keep it on Channel 3 your Android Device!
The site is going down again.
Now, breathe.
This is planned downtime and it's for the better. Our host recently merged with another company and, along with this, they are changing our server configuration. We were on a VPS with 1GB of RAM and a meager 20GB of drive space. We are moving to a dedicated server with 4GB of RAM and dual 500GB drives! More everything! This should allow us to remain stable and hopefully lessen the database connection issues we have been experiencing.
This all goes down Saturday night at 10PM Central US time (3AM GMT). We will be placing the entire site in a maintenance mode. We did it Saturday night in case there were problems so we could have Sunday to fix it, again, if needed.
If you need your fix right away, please go ahead and bookmark this page to get to the IRC room.
See you when we're back!
I'd like to officially announce three new staff members to the RF Generation team!
First off, we have two new DB Contributors, Bildtstar and Raffa1985! These guys have been a submission storm the last few months, with hundreds of images and page edits, and they have been great assets in our fight toward cleaning up the Euro sections of the DB. So take a look at the Euro sections, especially the PS1 and PS2, there's still a lot of work to be done, but its going to get there a lot faster with these gentlemen on staff.
But that's not all for staff additions, we have one more, this time its an entirely new staff position. TheGrue will be joining the RFG team as a Programmer. This position will allow him to take his already wonderful Android App to the next level, making it run smoother and faster. He'll also be helping out with normal site programming in the future, allowing us to roll out new features and fixes even faster.
Last but certainly not least, we have the promotion of Shadow Kisuragi. Shadow's been excelling at every staff position he's been at and has shown he is devoted to RF Generation, so the other Directors and I thought it would benefit everyone to have him be a Director. His main responsibilities will be overseeing the Technical/Programming aspects of the site, so he'll be the one mainly in charge of making sure the site continues to run smoothly and keeping the staff on track to rolling out new features.
So give these gentlemen a round of applause, they definitely deserve it for all the hard work they have already done and all the hard work they will be doing in the future to making sure that RF Generation continues to be THE Classic and Modern Video Games Database.
Keep it on Channel 3!
MySQL did not play nice tonight. We learned a valuable lesson about our server and trying to optimize mySQL tables. Long story short, don't do it unless you shut down the site.
So, the forum got screwed up... again. If you are affected by the forum screw up, I must extend my apologies. But, the forum is back up, using a backup from yesterday to restore order to the messages and topics.
It actually seems like everything that is an Innodb table got restored back to the original configuration. It would make sense that Innodb tables got screwed up as it was Innodb that crashed. Sadly, that means not just the forum reverted, but as some members have already pointed out, the collections have reverted back too.
We are very much trying to keep the site from doing this. We are doing daily backups to ensure all keeps going well. It pains us when this occurs. We all put so much time and effort into this site to make it our community. We will get this site back in tip top shape. The hackers may have taken us down, but we are not out. We will get through this.
Well, here we are, back up again. After over a week of downtime, we feel that we are ready to give this another shot as well as explain what had happened.
Last month, we were informed that our server was hosting a PayPal scam site. Our host was working with us to close up the exploit. It seems that whoever got in may have used more than an exploit. I found a couple of new domains on the server that were not set up by us. After further investigation, it was thought that they had the root password to the server. This fear was confirmed when the site went down.
Our initial check led us to the fact that our database tables had been dropped. That's bad.
[img width=423 height=315]http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lklne4CZne1qh7oxso1_500.png[/img]
This effectively removed our forum and game databases. We have been working to try to restore the forum from the information that was left on the server, but after all of the effort, we were stuck. Eddie was able to get the game database back from early December. This also included the blogs. The forum, however, was not so lucky.
The initial forum restoration that we found was from 2009. This included the member table. I happened to attempt to make a backup back in January, but it only partially backed up. Fortunately, this was successful in including the member list and even PMs. So, while we have now lost a ton of the forum, that can be recreated. The important part is that we were able to recover a fairly recent backup of the game DB and almost all of our members (not sure how many registered in the few weeks since my backup).
Now what happens? This experience has certainly left an impression on me as well as Dave, Eddie, and Mike. We will be implementing means to do (starting off) biweekly backups and as we get things honed in, we hope to get this down to possibly daily. We will also be working to have a system in place to test these backups and make sure they are good to prevent this sort of downtime in the future as well as making it easier for us to move hosts in the future should we need to do so.
We are very sorry that this has happened and that it was down for so long. We hope that it hasn't tarnished our image for you and that you continue to come back. Personally, I appreciate everyone that came in to the IRC room during the down time to keep the conversation going and your words of encouragement really meant a lot. The community has always been fantastic here and now that we're back up, I hope we continue to get stronger as a result. Thank you for your patience with me and my stubbornness to try everything I could to try to get it back to where it was before the disaster struck.
Welcome back to Channel 3!
November is already over? Time sure does fly, and another month brings a ton of new submissions to this place we call home. Just how many submissions occurred? Well, November brought exactly 4866 new submissions to the site. Of those, we had 1299 new images added to the site! Talk about a great month! You all were kicking butt with submissions!
Of course, one of you truly was the top submitter in November. That distinction goes to NES_Rules with 1304 submissions! Sure, he may be the Site Director but that does not mean he can't take top prize! Oh wait... sure it does. The top non-staff submitter was Bildtstar with 1025 submissions! That's more submissions than any staff member other than that certain Site Director!We also wish to thank Bildtstar for assisting with expanding our European PS2 database. It's appreciated, and we also appreciate everyone who submitted. We are truly grateful for all submissions, and though we can't thank each and every user we would like to at the least thank those users that submitted more than 100 things: Shadow Kisuragi, Tynstar, ApolloBoy, raffa1985, Necron99, and Alabama Shrimp. Thanks again to all made submissions in November!
Of course, member submissions are meaningless if people do not exist to approve them. I'd like to thank Shadow Kisuragi for being our top approver this month. He approved 1149 of the submissions. That's a lot. Of course, Paully3433, ApolloBoy, and Tynstar also helped with approvals, and it's appreciated!
So, December is here! Do you feel the Holiday Cheer? Here's to a great month of submissions!
 I know it is only Thanksgiving in the US, but I still want to wish all a happy Thanksgiving, be you American or not. For those of you that are, may the Turkey be plentiful and tasty.
On a completely different note, the Type of Release field is has been added to our database. At this time, you cannot see it on games or hardware pages because this is a mandatory field that will allow users to filter out entries they feel are extraneous from the database. Many users feel that RF Generation has grown beyond the original scope of the site. For those that feel that way, while we cannot undo the major changes in scope, we hope that this addition will help those that feel the database has grown to be unwieldy.
Please help our staff set types of release for all entries. Please note if you make any edit to the database you will be required now to also set the Type of Release field if it is not set. I must stress again that this field is mandatory.
Should you come across any major technical glitches with this please PM me about the glitch. Any questions or comments about the actual content of the field should be directed to a DB Editor or Mike.
I hope you enjoy this new addition, and oh yeah, Keep it on Channel Three.
-Your Friendly PHP Programmer
So, July is over. For those of you in the US, let's hope that means the heat is going to subside. Things were HOT. No, not just outside, but here as well! You guys made 3795 submissions! That's a hell of a lot! Of those, we added over 1100 images! You guys were blazing in the realm of submissions and it showed!
So, who submitted the most this month? That distinction goes to Izret101! He submitted 1095 things, most of which were probably in a secret project that I have already spoken too much of. Of course, plenty of other people submitted as well. y2ritchie, ApolloBoy, Shadow Kisuragi, raffa1985, NES_Rules, Marriott_Guy, and Box In the Back all submitted over 100 things! Great work you guys. Of course, they were not the only people who submitted things, and we thank everyone for the submissions they made.
Of course, someone has to review this stuff, and our DB Reviewers do an excellent job doing so. This month, ApolloBoy approved the most submissions; and Shadow Kisuragi was just behind him. Thanks to all staff members for approving the submissions! You guys keep the site going!
Thanks to you all for your submissions and approvals. RF Generation grows stronger with each submission! Here's hoping for a great August!
You may have noticed that swell little section over on the right side of the front page, the one titled Site Statistics, well look at what it says for Total Scans. That's right, over 70,000! That's way more than nine thousand.
Of course, that wouldn't be possible without the thousands of members who have helped by submitting scans of their games. If you've added one of those scans, pat yourself on the back and then thank anyone else who has added a scan. And if you haven't added a scan yet, what are you waiting for? Its very easy to do and your name will be forever immortalized on that game's page here at RF Generation. Everyone who looks at that game page will be looking at your item. If you don't have a scanner, no problem, we also accept photos of items as long as they're high quality.
It looks like the 70,000th scan was for Crusader: No Remorse submitted by y2richie. Congrats y2richie for making history here at RF Generation!
Thanks again to everyone who has made a scan submission.
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