Zifei of Sonic HQ, Andy Wolan of SSRG Move On

This surprised many. Zifei Wu of Sonic HQ has resigned as president of the #1 site. He appointed staff member Tony to take over, but now it appears Vector, the second in charge, will become president.
Zifei recently posted an article on why this is happening on the Mobius Forum:

1. Why did you quit?
Z: Because it’s not fun anymore. The staff is getting more and more polar. You have the workers, and then the others.

2. So what are you doing now?
Z: Can’t say, but remember the name: SonicNEXT.

3. Will Sonic HQ be the same?
Z: I would want to say yes, but most likely, no. But I hope whoever becomes the president will do a good job of hiring new members to replace the ones going with me.

4. Going with you to SonicNEXT? Who?
Z: Ehh…I can’t say at this moment. Let’s keep this SonicNEXT thing quiet for now…’k?

5. Can I still email Sonic HQ related stuff to you?
Z: No, I’m in no way related with Sonic HQ’s updating structure anymore.

Zac, a fellow HQ staff member, asked about SonicNEXT on the board. Zifei replied:

SonicNEXT will be a fresh start for me. SHQ isn’t in my hands anymore, so anything that I do that effects this site…well, that’s not my problem. 🙂

Now onto the other ‘resignation’: Andy Wolan is no longer going to head the SSRG, and Simon Wai is no longer part of the organization! Here’s the wacky story from Andy:

Whenever I go on vacation, something screwy always happens to the site. So, I decided to go on a “secret” vacation this time by not informing anyone that I was leaving for the week. Well, I guess I can shoot that theory to hell. Simon Wai, (it’s always the person you least suspect), of the infamous Sonic 2 Beta page left the SSRG staff. He deleted everything of his off the server and left nothing behind, which includes a resignation letter or even a explanation on why he left.

From what I was told, he was not happy with the “unification” concept of the SSRG group. This comes as a big shock to me because I asked him point blank in at least one SSRG staff meeting and he mentioned that he though it was a good idea. Now, he has left the group so he could break out of our collaboration effort to work on an independent site. Is this a good thing? Well, let me ask you this, is it a good investment of time to duplicate someone else’s efforts? Do we need 5 sites covering the same material or is one central “data bank” more appropriate?

My main motivation to unify the Sonic Hacking scene was to co-ordinate efforts of fellow hackers so work could get completed at a more rapid pace. I don’t mind if someone want to leave the SSRG group to work on their own. After all, joining is completely volunteer, so succeeding from the SSRG “union” is always an option, I just choose not to see it exercised.

In any event, I had a surprise waiting for Simon when he got back from his vacation. You see, next week, I start my senior year at UMass. I will definitely have less time to work on the site, so it would be wise to pass control to someone else who would have the time. I have been thinking about a successor for some time now. I originally picked Stealth, but the staff was divided 50/50 on whether or not he would make a good leader.
After weeks of though, I decided I would choose Simon to become the new head. I was going to wait until he got back from vacation, but I guess he had other plans. In any event, it’s time to choose someone else since the clock is ticking.

Two days later a person was picked:

After many hours of lost sleep, heavy thinking and putting the voting booth results into consideration, I have decided to select Saxman (Damian Grove) as the new head of the SSRG site. The main motivation that ultimately lead me to select him was the fact that he is better at public relations of the three candidates. And if I learned anything from my vacation this week, it was that communication is the lifeline that keeps a company going forward. There are many examples which I won’t go into.

So, with this in mind, I would like to congratulate Saxman as the new head of the group. He will be taking control fo the site shortly. However, I will still remain as overseer to assure that corruption does not set in while a level of quality is assured to the public. I don’t expect this to occur, but I’ll be around to correct it if it does.