PLEASE comment, ALL of you

It's time we have a serious discussion about the life and death of the community. I honestly believe that we are coming to a crossroads. Either the community will survive, or it will die. This may not happen for months, maybe even a few more years. But it's something I want to discuss now, with the hopes that things can change before it comes to the worst case scenario. The crossroads I speak of is at the very core of the EV development community. It is in the information and experience collected over years. It dates back to the beginning of EV, and continues on with us to EV Nova, and hopefully, beyond. Our information about the game engines, our experience gathered through countless plug-ins, released or not, and the discussions we've had about plot, graphics, and everything else - this is what our community is about. It is what allows us to develop plug-ins for all three games, and made possible two of them.

I see a grave threat to this. It has been around for many years now, and will probably be with us as long as there are people developing plug-ins. My fear is that the threat is growing, and

The threat I am talking about is the alternative communities for EV development. I'm talking about the ev-nova.net forums, AP^3, KRF, the rest of the well-known ones, and many others less-known or yet-unannounced. I fully expect to get negative reactions from the owners and administrators of these establishments, especially when I cross-post this to many of those forums. I would hope that those who do run those places are respectful enough to hear me out, and let their members hear me out as well. This is something that concerns you as well.

Essentially, I fear the division of information these communities create. I fear that by separating developers and their experiences from each other, development as a whole loses out. After all, when a new member of the development community comes along from the Nova board, they generally come here. And let's say they have an idea for a plug-in, and want to do something rather interesting. Fortunately for them, somebody here has already figured out a way to do it, and is able to point them in the right direction. If not, a discussion gets started, and sure enough some people come along and work out the problem. In the ideal world, everything would be so simple. Unfortunately, our experienced developers are getting stretched thin. A piece of information on ev-nova.net is not readily available here, and vice versa. I know most people do not have the time to hunt down every last piece of information all over the internet. People do not cross-post over many different developer communities, or even know about them all. This means that information and experience gets lost. It gets hoarded within plug-in development teams' private forums, it gets hidden on obscure websites, it disappears from the greater body of knowledge. The more information and experience gets scattered, the more the community will die, and the less productive our developers as a whole will be.

This forum, the official forum for plug-in development for the EV series of games, is, and should be, the central source. As a moderator here, I have tried to make information readily available, and make development as easy and as smooth as possible. I consider it my duty to help out however I can, and take personal offense whenever new alternative boards spring up to do the job that EVDC should be doing. I believe that if EVDC is not living up to what it should be doing, we, as a whole community, should fix it. As a moderator here, I consider it a solemn task to lead the way. I have created a member-run FAQ for people to use, and encourage everyone to use it and add to it. I have created a central list of links for people to add to, and encourage it's organization. I have created or sponsored lists of beta testers and unemployed developers.

I want to help YOU, and I know everyone else does too. If you are not satisfied with how things are going here, if you need something, I want you to come here first. Post a topic, send me an email, do what you need to do to let me and the rest of the community know what you need. Please, do not go off and start your own forums if you are not satisfied. Ask us first for help, and let us try before you leave the core community. If you do leave, please try to stay active here and share your information across both here and there. Let this place be what it is meant to be.

I created this topic for a number of things. One, to rant. I was quite upset after a conversation with somebody who has decided to create a new site for plug-in developers, and did so without any comment ahead of time, or attempt to rectify the issues he perceived here. This is something I cannot understand. Two, I want to find out what needs to be done to make people here happy and productive. I don't want to lose any more of you, and with you, information we need. Three, I would like those of you who have gone to alternative communities to share your reasons, and I want you to consider coming to post here to share your experience and information.

ALL COMMENTS WELCOME.

We have an awful lot of knowledge stored on these boards and I recognise that there have been some attempts to organise it, eg the Cool Nova Hacks topic. However, this is just a list of links to other topics where you have to search through a number of posts before you find the actual technical details on the hack and may find you can't make head or tail of the data anyway. I feel a web forum may not be the best solution as far as a knowledge management system goes.
What we need is someone with enough time and skill to be able to sort through all the information, re-write it in a logical easily-understandable format, and compile it into an organised database which is easily browsable and searchable. New information should be submitted to someone who will then process it and add it to the database in the same way.
Unfortunately, no-one seems to have that kind of time.

This post has been edited by Guy : 06 March 2005 - 03:25 AM

All comments, eh?

Well, I'll say at this point that this forum has been a valuable resource...the problem is that you have to dig around for information these days. Some places are valuable when they provide those progress logs of theirs, but it has an overall effect on the community...granted, I'm too lazy to really go to those places, but just because I'm not particularly involved doesn't mean that other people aren't.

That said, it wouldn't be such a bad deal if people started to hop back on board. This will ultimately cripple the state of things, having all of the valuable information spread around willy-nilly.

-Consul Bob

I agree with mrxak. I've always felt a little uncomfortable about the satellite developer communities that have sprung up over the years. Most seam, smug or arrogant, or elitist in one way or another...

But at the same time though, I agree with both comments above: forums and bulletin boards do not make for good stores of information. Ideal situation; Ambrosia would host a PHP driven developer site where information can be catalogued, structured and intelligently accessed without needing to resort to a haphazard search facility, where articles can be written and sheared, where some focus can be applied...

And that's why I think a lot of these satellites have sprung from - a desire to marshal the information any one group has, because the EVDC is too unwieldy and too inaccessible.

In short: I agree that the EVDC should be the absolute nexus of all EV developer knowledge. I also think that the current system is far from perfect. mrxak, if you want to change the way this community works, you're going to have to change the medium it flows through.

This post has been edited by Hudson : 06 March 2005 - 04:22 AM

I've never seen these smaller forums as a threat to the EV DC, mainly because most of them have about 4 members. (With the exception of EV-Nova.net)

If I have a developing question I come here, whether to post it or have a search for the answer. Though I agree, because of the sheer amount of posts here, it could be a bit daunting to someone whose new, and they may seek out a smaller community.

The idea of a centralized source of knowledge is a good one, Information not just in posts on a webboard. Look at what Zacha Pedro's doing at the moment with his annotated templates (I seem to recall he's going to put them all up on website somewhere when he's finished, if not, apologies) But that's what we need, clear consise information that will be easily accessible.

I'm sure we've got enough people willing to do the actual writing, It could be split up into different sections Graphics/Missions/Universe Creation etc etc and all the relative information stored in sections, but what we need is someone willing to spend time to collate it all together in one place.

I also feel that the loss of the EV specific Image Gallery has had a detrimental effect on the community as a whole, but I may just be crying over spilt milk.

http://www.ambrosiasw.com/forums/index.php...ry&cmd;=sc&cat;=6

Hudson, on Mar 6 2005, 11:13 AM, said:

http://www.ambrosiasw.com/forums/index.php...ry&cmd;=sc&cat;=6
View Post

<_< I know, I know, but the gallery isn't exactly set up very well to enable discussions about peoples work, you can't even quote people.

I'll stop complaining.

I feel that mrxak makes some very good points here. At the same time, I would like to say that AP^3 was never designed as a developer's resource like the EVDC, instead being more of an internal plug-in team forum. As such, I have often encouraged our members to visit and post on the EVDC and related forums, and will continue to do so.

As I joined the community for real a year ago. I think we have come a long way on making information available. I had to ask for everything earlier. A search is way to much work to look through.

I have not yet found any information on ev-nova.net that i could ot have gotten here. So i don´t think there is that much of a problem. It migh be in the future though.

What we need, is as mentioned, an organized webpage. With articles on plugin development.
What we have now is ok, but it´s way to much work to look through all the posts to find what you are looking for.

Maybe a board which is strictly regulated. Where there only are posts wich actually contain useful information. I don´t know if this is possible.

Maybe articles will have to go through a process here before ending up on that board.

Scenario:
1. Article concerning something is posted on EVDC.
2. Article is considered by EVDC community.
3. If deemed good enough it goes up on the EVDC articles board.

The only thing I´m concerned about is if a board is the best way to present this information.

Just an idea.

This post has been edited by modesty_blaise_us : 06 March 2005 - 08:54 AM

The first thing I think of is the parallel development of Background music using the Nova Engine: Space Pirate figured out one way of doing this and posted to ev-nova.net. Some time after, I figured a different way, and posted it here.

Neither of us had heard about the other.

Now, on the one hand, that's all the more ways and situations that the same concept can be applied.

On the other hand, it's also a measure of the lack of flow of information between two of the largest developers communities.

This post has been edited by Eugene Chin : 07 March 2005 - 12:18 AM

I have to agree. The community is fractured, though besides ev-nova.net I don't see a lot of actual competition (it almost seems to me that a more mature audience is here, though).. Most of the satilite boards are mostly internal plug specific and not meant for general developers, with perhaps the exception of the KRF (though traffic there doesn't seem to be what it once was).

I think that more people would congregate here, as opposed to the other locales, if they could have thier own develpment forums here. That isn't likely nor really a good idea- too many plugs fade out and leave useless forums scattered around for anyone else to have to take care of, and doubly so as mrxax has not admin privilages (I think...?)

I think it's great that the EV community is big enough to have forums at ASW, ev-nova and now the ones at evula have returned. It should be a testement to the power that ev has had in general that so many people want to develop for it, and that so many alternative communities have struck up. But I do agree that it makes things very fractured and I for one think that the dev community should be congregated here. I've never seen Pipeline hanging out on ev-nova.net, afterall.

UE_Research & Development, on Mar 6 2005, 07:16 AM, said:

I feel that mrxak makes some very good points here. At the same time, I would like to say that AP^3 was never designed as a developer's resource like the EVDC, instead being more of an internal plug-in team forum. As such, I have often encouraged our members to visit and post on the EVDC and related forums, and will continue to do so.
View Post

I have tried to run the KRF in the same way. Its purpose is not be an alternative to the EVDC, but instead provide a place where other development teams can have their private boards without needing to use an ad laden free board host.

As I've said, the main problem is that for all the pooled knowledge this board contains, finding any one piece of information within it is like trying to find a needle in a hay-stack. As a result, individual seek answers from other individuals they have more of a direct contact with, which ends up with satellite communities forming, diluting the community as a whole.

There's two components at play here; conversation and knowledge. Unfortunate, one obscures the other in a pure bulletin-board context. The more a subject is talked around within a group, the more obscure the actual facts - the knowledge gets to late-comers to the debate. That's not to say that conversation is bad - it's clearly not. The point is the nuggets of wisdom that these conversations produce, get lost in the conversation as a whole.

A solution: an ASW hosted portal-style site where information can be martialed, catalogued and browsed easily. Articles can be submitted, news items can be swapped, and at the core of you'll have a bulletin board where people can swap information and bounce ideas off each other. When those ideas become concrete, they can be added to that catalogue of data for other users to access easily. You can have helpful conversation and crystallised knowledge within one context.

Discuss.

I think the idea of having actual articles and topics presented in a cannonical format is overall good- but who wants to stop development on thier own projects to assume the full-time job of categorizing and making presentable all of this acculmulated knowledge? Not that I wouldn't use it, but working it?

Perhaps if we all were assigned a topic and wrote an in-depth report on it? That way no one of us would be innudated with excess work.

But I would personally perfer to see a solution that utilizes existing resources- I.E. the existing EVDC.

Hudson, on Mar 6 2005, 11:20 AM, said:

A solution: an ASW hosted portal-style site where information can be martialed, catalogued and browsed easily. Articles can be submitted, news items can be swapped, and at the core of you'll have a bulletin board where people can swap information and bounce ideas off each other. When those ideas become concrete, they can be added to that catalogue of data for other users to access easily. You can have helpful conversation and crystallised knowledge within one context.

Discuss.
View Post

An EVDC wiki?

The Real Darth Bob, on Mar 6 2005, 06:02 PM, said:

An EVDC wiki?
View Post

I think it - what ever it is - should sit within the control of ASW. These things have been tried externally before. They tend to fail, like a custard rampart.

This post has been edited by Hudson : 06 March 2005 - 12:26 PM

Speaking as a member of KRF and a user of ev-nova.net, I have to agree with mrxak. They are becoming too much like separate communities.

But people who work together will almost always need a member lounge. I know that from the EV:Genesis team. On each of the 6 forums we used (after the third they became the KRF forums, I think) there was always a "chat" place.
This ideally should be picked up by the B&B.

Some people want to be in control of things, and so the ev-nova.net private developer forum for EV:Genesis didn't meet its purpose because it was one forum section in which we could post (Genesis being a TC, we needed to be capable of having different sections: graphics, story, ).

My idea is to make ev-nova.net useless. I don't truly know if people would accept it, but that way you wouldn't have the effect of duplication.

Let's look at ev-nova.net's status right now.
Small team plugs (Arpia 2 for example, where the rest of the team helps with graphics while I do the rest) can be handled right now by ev-nova.net. Big TC teams, where every person works with another to get the story together, where graphics are handled only by certain people, where you need to discuss every aspect, will most likely find a forum of their own.

The EVDC right now is more the kind of place where you first go when you're new to developing and where you come back once you're in need of very precise technical help. In between, people tend to go to ev-nova.net. Why? Because the EVDC doesn't go off topic. Because ev-nova.net is more dev team-oriented. Because the EVDC is a place for questions and answers, but no discussions.
It isn't here that people come to see what's happening to plugs. It's not here they come to show their progress.

The ASW boards should ideally be the ones providing space for the small team plug forums, and the EVDC should have plug discussions. ASW should host an "upcoming plugs" directory with progress logs and all.
That way, the EVDC will grow from what it is right now to include the "add-on development and upcoming plug-ins" kind of talk.

This post has been edited by Pace (haldora) : 06 March 2005 - 02:02 PM

I never really though about things the way mrxak presented it. But I don't see it as a problem, as most of the alternate communities are too dis-organized and not run as well.

Information organization is a great idea, the only hard part is starting one up. The idea of a wiki is a good one. An excellent one in fact. The only proble is where to host it, who to run it, etc...

My two cents.

I also never thought about the alternate communities as a threat. And right now, they aren't really, but I can see how in the years to come, we could have issues like this. There's already enough "I hate XXX thing about ASW's boards so I don't go there" over at ev-nova.net. This will only escalate in the future. Who knows, we might end up with geniouses turning to other communities for these reasons, and if they are totally separate, the people in them will lose valuable information in the other.

This post has been edited by orcaloverbri9 : 06 March 2005 - 04:54 PM

I tend to agree with orca and nfreader; I do not see these satellite communities as an immediate threat. The fact that so many concerned people can be gathered in so short a time compared to zero response on ev-nova.net speaks volumes for the strength of this community. It seems the main problem is the scattering of information. If there are going to be two separate boards, they must be able to communicate important ideas. If the EVDC is to be the "central source", then such communication should probably be handled at the ev-nova.net end.

I like modesty's idea for an Article Board, but I don't think it's feasible to lose the bulletin board layout. Even after it is agreed that the article is worthy of inclusion, we would still need a way to discuss possible modifications and additions. I would be in favor of something resembling the old FAQ's. You can click a link to see any subsequent discussion, but all necessary information is contained in the article itself. Of course, that means one of two things would have to happen: either the mods would have to take up the added responsibility of maintaining it, or the article writers themselves would have to be responsible for maintaining their own work. Given the general level of maturity and responsibility in this community, I believe the latter option has more potential than it would appear.

PBoat