Botcon TFCC Panel Coverage

Let me just chime in to the growing list of people breathing a big sigh of relief!

Indeed, I don't understand that one at all. If an electronic form was sent, there'd be no NEED to "interpret," because it would be much clearer to begin with!

Yeah, Brian was actually really awesome at the panel this year, giving in-depth answers. (Oh, and him, Karl, and Ben (I think that was all) came out with Rodimus style beards.) But on this one, he was way off the mark.

Some of the other excuses why he thinks online registration won't work is:
-Lots of people bounce emails - how does this change anything? They'll also have their address and phone number. No different than how it is now.
-Each year some of the rules change - Yes, but they change in predictable ways.
-A human reviews it this way - Yeah, and you can make them review the online orders too. You can even put validation on the forms for certain things.
-People make errors - Yeah...I don't see how this hurts online registration though. A good online form will way cut down on errors. Like pop-up help links giving more detail about certain options, to help people understand things AS they are looking at the form. Plus, with a proper system, they can go in and make adjustments themselves, changes take place immediately, and are checked against current inventory, instead of re-faxing.

I don't think he's ever talked to a GOOD software shop - or even a single good developer. I've seen the forms for 3 years now - there's NOTHING on there difficult. People who don't understand software development will hear his answers as good reasons, but those of us in software know it's not the case.

I understand him being scared, because there are tons of shitty software shops. You have to hire people who either have a good education or are self-taught by reading books (not just copying/pasting code from google results). Software is fucking expensive, no doubt, and too many shops try to get by cheaply by hiring idiots. And usually their managers don't know software, and they hamper things.

It really all just comes down to money. He doesn't want to invest in a proper online system. It'd be expensive, their ENTIRE system needs to be reworked to get rid of Cold Fusion - and that's why everything is hampered so much right now. It's all software that has to work with their cold fusion backend (which stores their membership information).

I'm a programmer, and a form to take in that information (but not do any creditcard processing) would be relatively simple.

If you wanna bitch about my sig, please send me a PM.

I've got experience in software development and indeed setting up a webform to take order is relatively easy. I guess what Pete is worried about is the maintenance and security issues. Makes sense to me.

Sometimes the best ways are the old ways, at least for now.

Frankly, I don't think this is about Pete at all...

We are working on some images for next issue, just not sure what those are yet...

Regarding G2 Stunticons being possibly being released via the club.

I will say that I would totally be fine with them being released via the club (and yes I am the guy who won Motormaster/G2 Drag Strip MOSC) since I think if it is possible, everyone deserves a fair chance at them and I won't mind that one bit (I think about others over me).

When the Seacons were announced to be released via the club, that made me happy since it could allow me to have a set to enjoy for example while giving my Universe Test Shot Ones a break and allow anyone who can buy Club Exclusives to have a fair shot at them and that is WHAT makes me happy.

So I say if G2 Stunticons could be released via the club, I would give it, my full support.

-TF2