Gratitude for all devops work on SC

Hello SuttaCentral Admins, Sysadmins, Developers, moderators, etc.,

Back when I was a layperson I used to set up websites somewhat like SC for a living. It’s a hard job that many people are well-paid to do, and to do the job well takes a lot of skill and patience. So I feel I can especially appreciate all the massive effort and TLC that has clearly been put into SC and discourse.SC.

When I was a Systems Admimistrator, the job was very stressful, and quite thankless. When everything is running well, virtually nobody thanks you. Then when something breaks, people are quick to complain and sometimes they seriously lose their cool over the slightest inconveniences. So generally it’s a thankless job by nature.

It’s easy to forget that there are many living, breathing humans behind the scenes (who have feelings) at every underlying layer of SC, those underlying layers going right down to the bare metal hardware, making this all possible.

I wish to express gratitude as only “One Who Has Been There” can. SC and discourse.SC are tremendously valuable resources in the world of Buddhism.

A big Thank You to Ajahn Sujato, who seems to be the driving force behind all this.

And lastly, thank you for not being Facebook (and the like), intermediating and controlling this all (inside a “walled garden”).

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Thanks so much! May I echo the gratitude for our developers, especially Ayya Vimala, who has contributed more than I could possibly have hoped, and Blake, who has been beside me since the start of the revised site, and from whom I have learned so much.

Yes, very well put. We often think of code as being somehow a lifeless entity, but ultimately every glyph in every line of code was written by a human being; usually one who was trying their best to solve a hard problem in too little time. Coding is fun, but it’s also really challenging, not least because there’s such a disconnect between the work you do and the enjoyment and benefit that others experience from that.

We’re so lucky that the team, both the internal SC team, and the IT team at STXNext (who you can meet on another thread), have been great to work with as human beings, not just coders.

In addition to the developers, there is a long list of people who have helped in all kinds of ways. Special shoutout to the moderators, doing the hardest job on the internet!

For other volunteers, you can see our list of Acknowledgements—maintained by Ayya Vimala!—here:

https://suttacentral.net/contacts

I am sure there are many people missing, as well. Please let us know if anyone is missing.

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Sounds like we got a back up.:grinning:

Join the club.
If I make a slightest mistake a ton of brick is on my head.
My bosses motto is s— is only go down neve goes up!

This is why I have lot of sympathy for front desk operators.
They have to take all the s— of other people.

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Back when I was an Anagarika/Novice/Junior monk (about 7 years ago), I undertook an ambitious project to post a whole bunch of Dhamma Talks on the web. Among other things, I wrote a bunch of amateur python and bash scripts, and the whole endeavour took me about 1000 hours of labour, plus there were about 6 volunteers who contributed dozens of hours of labour (doing ID3 tagging in the MP3’s), and one layman even donated a computer.

Those talks have now been downloaded by well over 1M people. So I like to think I made an impact.

That’s my big contribution to Buddhism on the Internet. The page has gone a bit crufty, but oh well, the basic MP3 downloading still works.

Once that project was as complete as I could make it, I decided not to get involved in any such projects again, as my meditation practice really suffered from that. I went forth as a monk to become an arahat, after all.

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Quite an impressive effort. :grinning:

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I am new here, and an infrequent visitor.
But since discovering the offline version of SC some time ago I feel very grateful every time I use it.
Sadhu sadhu sadhu and a heartfelt anumodana to every one of you who have created this resource, and this space.
(And a heartfelt agreement about being independent of FB and the like. I disabled a FB account that I never used and prefer to keep it that way.)

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How do you use it or how can I download to my computer or iPhone?

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I downloaded the file (available on this page) to my laptop; it was very easy. But that likely won’t work on a phone; other more experienced beings here will undoubtedly know whether there’s a version that will.

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Yes, the old downloadable version is limited, and probably won’t be much use on a mobile.

But the new site with be a PWA, which means it’ll function pretty much like a native app on Android, and in the future, iOS as well (we hope!)

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Yes this is such a great feature. I hope the new website will also have an offline version that can be downloaded.

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Thank you so much! It’s so nice to have some positive feedback from time to time!

I love doing this work and the wonderful people I work with, from whom I’ve learned so much! But also our kind supporters and all the people here on D&D as well as our great moderator-team. This is a team-effort, and without you all it would not be possible! :pray:

On a separate note, a very warm welcome to Ayya @Viranyani! I hope to see you again in Belgium in 2018?

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Thank you, Ayya! (For both the warm welcome and all you do here.)
And yes, do I hope so. I’ll send you a PM with the dates.

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Hello Bhikkhunis and Samaneris and other Buddhist ladies,

I think you might enjoy this. There’s this freakishly smart nerd lady (and I mean that in a good way) named Radia Perlman, who is arguably a founding “mother” of the entire internet, what with her profoundly mind-boggling genius invention of the “spanning tree protocol”. This algorithm lies at the heart of how ALL Internet routing works.

Basically, for these words to have reached your eyeballs whatsoever (and I don’t care where you are on planet Earth), we all have Radia to thank.

I’d like to voice appreciation to her as well. Thanks, Radia! :slight_smile:

Edit: Oops, she doesn’t like being called “The Mother of the Internet.” Well, none the less Thanks, Radia.

PS: Nice quotation from her:

“My designs were so deceptively simple that it was easy for people to assume I just had easy problems, whereas others, who made super-complicated designs (that were technically unsound and never worked) and were able to talk about them in ways that nobody understood, were considered geniuses.”

In just this same way I think that the teachings of the Buddha are often overlooked as they sound so simple, yet took such blinding genius to formulate and teach, solving extremely complex and wide-ranging problems, namely the suffering of Samsara in its entirety.

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I am not capable of expressing the joy and gratitude I have on finding SuttaCentral.net. I know, you all have been working on this excellent resource for years; I only found it recently, at a perfect time in this life. ::deep bow:: … thank you. May all beings achieve liberation, may I use this life and this resource with increasing skill and with metta, may this resource aid many beings to liberation.

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Dear SC volunteers,
Please read this post, for an offer of a gift to have some free Nextcloud hosting.

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Those talks been appreciated here, and quite a lot of them I dare say - nice to know who done that great job

Anumodana :anjal:

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