An Interview with... TalonMan - News

by Craig S , posted on 22 August 2008 / 2,920 Views

This is the second in a series of articles where I interview key members of the VGC staff – be they moderators, administrators, PR men, contributors, database admins and maybe even some ordinary members who stand out due to their contributions to the site.

This second interview with Pat, better known on VGC as TalonMan, was conducted on the 20^th August. Below is an edited transcript of that interview.

Introduction:

Machina - First of all - Where do you live? And what do you do in real life?

TalonMan - I live in good 'ole New Jersey in the US. I'm a senior developer in the healthcare field - been coding for about 12 years now.

Machina – What does that involve?

TalonMan - I started out programming pharmacy systems and did that for about 8 years. These are the computers pharmacists use to fill your drug prescriptions. The last 4 years I've been working with laboratory software. We deal with HL7 messages generated from actual lab equipment to gather test results for patients and display them on a secure website for doctors to login and verify.

All very yawn-inducing for most, but it pays well and I am a code-head. I [b]love[/b] having to piece things apart and back together and trying to figure out what went wrong...

And hey, I can say 'I'm saving lives, here!' :P

Machina - That leads nicely to my next question - What's your primary job on VGC?

TalonMan - I'm pretty much involved in [b]all[/b] phases of the site – from development, to forum moderation, to game database monitoring.

TalonMan’s job on VGC:

Machina - When I first visit VGC each day I perform a little routine - I look for new numbers on the front page, then I check the Gamerscore league for new posts, then I see if there is any news that I need to post on the site, then I view the staff forums, and so on.

Typically, what do you do when you first go to VGC?

TalonMan - Good question. Well, first thing I do is comb through any outstanding PMs - some days, there are [b]lots[/b] of messages there for me and by the time I've combed through and responded to each (and yes, I nearly [u]always[/u] respond to every message I receive), I have no more time or energy to even play around on the site.

After that, I will typically head on over to the Website forum and see if there are any disasters going on that I need to know about or any suggestions I can implement with relative ease. Take Super_Etecoon's poll request - it was innocently done, but in my mind, raised an important issue. So I jumped right on that and got busy.

After all that (and if I have any energy left), I'll poke through the headlines, hot topics, and any postings I'd made (to see if there were any replies added).

Machina – As for those PMs that take up most of your time, do they typically involve your mod duties, forum bugs/problems, or something else?

TalonMan - They include [b]all[/b] of that. They could be a complaint from a member about a poster, a suggestion (or problem) with the game database, or just a general 'hey, how are you'. The ones that take the most time though are 'bug' reports - trying to narrow down what and where the problem is happening (when we have such a varied user base using a variety of web browsers) can get tricky.

Machina - Is your particular role unique amongst the website's staff? Are there any others who are involved in all of those aspects of the website (other than ioi)?

TalonMan - Yeah, it's fairly unique. We all have different roles in how we help develop and grow this site - my contribution is on a technical level. I certainly don't make the decisions on a philosophical level as to which direction to take things on this site (as 'The Boss', that's solely ioi's domain and what he says, goes). But I'm allowed some freedoms to add functionality that I hope will keep our community growing (like the 'code sharing') and add value to the site that new users won't be able to ignore.

Machina - How did you get your job on VGC?

TalonMan - Well, let's see. I joined VGChartz almost 2 years ago. At the time, the community really just stared to grow as ioi had just implemented the forums. He was looking for 'news contributors' at that time and I (along with Keith) had immediately volunteered for the job. I started off writing some articles, but quickly got diverted with forum moderation as, at the time, that was a by-product of having news writing rights.

Shortly thereafter, I began sending update requests and ideas directly to ioi (most of which involved the soon-to-be-developed games DB) regarding ways to improve the site and help keep the community expanding. As the game database expanded (thanks to our awesome community), we needed a way to manage and monitor all of the things going on in there - that became my 'real' position on the admin staff.

Developing and maintaining code on the site just became a natural progression of all of that because the ideas and changes I felt were needed were flying out of me faster than ioi could keep up. I think I simply wore him down to the point he just said, 'fine, you deal with it!'.

Machina - Taking some of the recent improvements that have stood out for me - the way the polls have been improved and the new friend codes/tag/names section of our profiles. How long does something like that take to get from the idea stage to actually going live on the site?

TalonMan - Well, the code stuff took about two weeks. Mainly because:

1) I wanted to test it extensively before letting it out - and due to the very nature of 'sharing codes', we need 'codes' in the DB to test sharing!

2) Because it can touch many things, it was critical to make sure nothing [b]big[/b] got broken in the process.

The poll stuff was done in a matter of hours - there was just a slight hiccup in getting ready for a 'live' push that won't be a problem in the future. I'll be able to bang out stuff like that [b]very[/b] quickly.

Future changes to the site:

Machina – When I interviewed Starcraft, I asked him what one thing he would change to the website if he could. In your case I'll ask - Are there any big changes/improvements coming to the site that you can reveal?

TalonMan - Right now, I've put the finishing touches on the game specific 'friend code' stuff, and it's been ready for about a week - but once again, I'm running into problems testing it. This one [b]needs[/b] to be bug-free almost from the start. The last thing I want to do is break a 'new' feature - in my experience, that's the quickest way to turn off users.

Machina – That’s kind of a natural progression to work already done. Is there anything 'from left field', as it were?

TalonMan - We're also going to be putting together a 'games portal' similar to the 'news portal' we have now. We'll have dedicated console pages and whatnot - it should be [b]really[/b] nice!!

Machina - How would that work?

TalonMan - Well, you'll land in a 'games portal' that will be similar to any of the various websites out there. You'll see the usual games, release dates and reviews etc. all smooshed together on the front page, with links to take you to a 'Wii' page, or a '360' page, or a 'PS3' page. Those pages will have dedicated information about the console, the games, etc.

Machina - Wow excellent , that sounds really good.

TalonMan - That's the long-term project. That doesn't mean two years from now, but it does mean it's not going to be next week... :P

Machina – It sounds like a huge project – do you envisage that requiring additional VGC staff or will the game database, admin and news submission staff deal with that?

TalonMan - At this point, that's a really tough question to answer. I know, at some point, we will be expanding the database admin staff. Right now, our 'queue' system for dealing with game submissions is not quite adequate for the job it's trying to do.

When there are 100+ submissions in there, even 4 people will end up banging into each other in the queue, so we're forced to keep the team small. I have a new queuing system almost complete, however, and should be getting that out to live in the next week or so. After that, we'll get some new database admin to help out. Beyond that, I think we'll have enough people in place (between the admins/contributors/dbadmin) to keep things running smoothly.

Games:

Machina - What current-gen consoles do you own? And which is your favourite?

TalonMan - I'll be honest, I'm a Nintendo fan, through and through. I know that'll upset some people, but I honestly don't have disdain for any of the other consoles (I usually play PS3 at my buddy's house) - I just prefer Nintendo games. So, with that said, I've got everything Nintendo (minus the VB which I'm still trying to buy!) from my very first NES (with R.O.B. and zapper!) all the way to the Wii.

Machina - What's your favourite Wii game? And what Wii game are you most looking forward to?

TalonMan – I l ove Super Mario Galaxy and Rock Band. I really want to play Fatal Frame, but I don't hear much about it these days. That makes me sad...

Machina – And finally, if you could have one PS3 or 360 game on the Wii, what would it be?

TalonMan – From the PS3 Metal Gear Solid 4 is a no-brainer. From the 360 it would have to be Banjo (fingers crossed that Rare doesn't screw it up). God, I miss Rare.

Machina - Thanks so much for the interview. There’s so much to talk about, how about a second interview sometime?

TalonMan - I've got no problem with that - I'll always make myself available.

Machina – Finally, is there anything you would like to add to the end of the article?

TalonMan - Keep your eyes peeled for more and more website updates! I'm banging them out as fast as my fingers can code ‘em, so don't forget about the 'Website' forum. If you've got other suggestions or areas you'd like to see developed/improved, please don't hesitate to start a topic there - I'm always lookin' around in there.

Machina – Thanks for your time.

TalonMan - No problem - my pleasure.

Thanks for reading. Next month I hope to interview one of the forum moderators, so look out for that.

28 Comments

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outlawauron (on 24 August 2008)

Good for Talon. He is a mod that kinda goes under the radar.

The Ghost of RubangB (on 24 August 2008)

Hell yes! Console specific portals!!!

I'm gonna be all over the Game Boy one.

TalonMan/Biden 2008!

rocketpig (on 24 August 2008)

I dig these site interviews... It's also nice to see Talon get a little fanfare, he does a lot of work for this site from behind the curtain.

Strategyking92 (on 24 August 2008)

not entirely boring to read, good job.
I wonder what VGC will look like next.... please don't make it another gamespot, they screwed that site up so bad now...

lightbleeder (on 24 August 2008)

TalonMan is a great guy, he likes to read what members of the site have to say, if one of us has a request he'll take it into consideration, and all the major updates are made by him, all of this without wanting any recognition from us, he just wants us to enjoy this great site, I'll have a beer in your name TalonMan!

I love ThunderCats BTW, hope some publisher buys the license...