Happy new year! Same procedure as every year, a bi-annual Tech Department update, except that I forgot to write an update this summer (again). Let me take you through what we're and have been working on this and next year.
What are we working on?
Generally
- We've changed name from Web Services Department to Technical Department. The roles and such are still the same, but the new name reflects more correctly what we do, as not everything is web related.
- For us, 2025 will have more focus on bringing stability and maintaining the services we have so far, instead of introducing a lot of new things. We're a bit strained on time and are currently on the limit on how much we can maintain at the same time. This also means we can't implement seemingly easy new services, because it adds to our maintenance list as well.
- The one larger upcoming change in January will be moving to a new server provider. The current one has periodically given us performance and network issues, which of course is reflected on the price we pay. The issues in this December are not related to this. With so many services we run at the same time, moving provider will increase our costs, but it's simply necessary and should have been done a long time ago.
Control Center
- This year CC tasks were much oriented around the introduction of GCAP and VATEUD integration, while that was a bumpy ride, o boy it's nice to not send all those solo endorsement emails anymore, right? 😄 This is also complimented with the tasks functionality to get more streamlined communication between mentors and training staff.
- CC is open source, which means other vACC's are able to use and contribute to the same software. In our case around 7 others are using it right now!
- Onwards we don't have any big plans for Control Center right now, which means we can focus on other areas.
Discord bot
- The bot has been unstable for a while and Markus is working hard now in December, to rewrite code that has increased in complexity over time and moving out components that the bot should not need to handle. We hope to release the update in start of January. The staffing functionality will be resolved in phase two after this.
- We'll also introduce better rating tags that are split into FIRs and also only have active controllers. This way we don't spam inactive controllers or members who have access to many channels.
Moodle
- We're not developing Moodle, but in general just holding it up to date with latest updates and functionality.
Wiki
- The new solution we introduced last year seems to fill the need and is working great so far. Just a reminder to all editors to tag your content as per editor guide, otherwise the search quality is getting worse.
Homepage, forums and events
- This year a lot has happened here. The old forum which also was our homepage has been replaced with a new forum and a brand new homepage has been made.
- With the removal of old forum we also had to make a own event website to post events.
- So far we're happy with the transition from Invision forums to Flarum. The new forum is maybe not as feature rich, but is good enough for our quite limited use as Discord has taken over most of the talking the last years. Flarum was chosen due to it's lightweight and also understandable UI, in comparison to Discourse.
- This change saved us around 200€ yearly in costs, as Flarum is open source and free alternative.
Stats and facts
I’ve collected some statistics from our division and services that I though be fun to share.
We're still a large subdivision, and has as of today, 5313 (+435 in '24) registered members according to the VATSIM Database. On Discord we are 2836 (+550 in '24). Ranking us, at least on the official VATSIM Discord list, 6th (+2) largest Discord server and 1st largest subdivision.
Seem like this year, the Norwegian channels are the most used in our Discord as well. This is data for last 4 months.
When it comes to ATC related statistics, based on ATC activity the last 12 months, this is our top 10 controllers based on online hours! Thank you for your dedication!
Controllers with most ATC hours per 2024-12-31. Congrats, Lasse Skage! 🥇
Whole community average: 128 hours (+28h since last year)
Whole community median: 70 hours (+26h since last year)
That's all!
Thanks to all of the tech team's members: @David Mortensen (1419105) , @Markus Nielsen (1401513), @Simon Bjerre (1581824) and @Thor Høgås (1512667) for their dedication and work. Also a big thank you to all you who individually contribute directly to our open source projects!
With this, I wish you all a happy new year! 🎉
