for those of you who have read the graveyard post, this is a simple request for suggestions as to the aesthetics, interface, etc. of the site. for the rest of the world i suppose i should go into more detail. it was proposed not long ago that someone create a site which acts as a "graveyard" for old, dead plugs, so that other developers can download the unfinished plugs and finish them. now we've gotten past the "if" of setting it up and are on to the "how." this post is for any suggestions/requests for the site so that it can be pleasant to more than just those involved in its development. thanks in advance for your help

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if tin whistles are made of tin, what's a fog horn made of?

Well, we first have to figure out WHO is too be involved and WHO is too update it. I geuss I could help update it, like being a kind of moderator for the site. We shouldn't make it too complicated at first, but gradually update it and eventually make it a really nice site.

The initial website should just be one where people e-mail the moderators (for which I voulenteer) including in the e-mail the plug-in that they want to submit. However, for larger plug-ins we would have to do something else. Anyway, once the moderator has it, he/she posts it on the website.

Sound good?

-Captain Carnotaur

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To Escape Velocity: Nova and Beyond!

I'm not offering my help (god knows I've got enough on my plate - girlfriend, school, work, and a sort of social life), but why don't you set up a cgi request form where potential developers request a plug. Kind of like filling out a beta test form. BTW, the beta test form for EV Nova is up at the moment, places to test will be going fast methinks.

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(url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/Forum10/HTML/001524.html")The Tides of War(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.ohhla.com")The Original Hip-Hop Lyrics Archive(/url)
Hip Hop Recomendation of the week: Beastie Boys - Ill Communication
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hehe, i wonder how many people I fooled....

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(url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/Forum10/HTML/001524.html")The Tides of War(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.ohhla.com")The Original Hip-Hop Lyrics Archive(/url)
Hip Hop Recomendation of the week: Beastie Boys - Ill Communication
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(This message has been edited by the Necromicon (edited 11-22-2000).)

I have a question about the sharing ethic behind the site. Please don't think I'm saying the idea is doomed from the start--I think it's a great idea to be able to finish plugs that others found they lost interest in, or didn't have the time--but there are some issues I'm wondering about:

1.) What you're proposing is that individuals willingly surrender their unfinished plugins to unknown parties who can then do what they wish with them. My sense is that many people who have had to stop working on their plugins hope that they will get back to them "when they have more time." Whether this happens or not, they may not be willing to surrender their babies because of this hope. There may be other reasons for not submitting plugins, of course (mentioned in the post suggesting the idea of the graveyard).

2.) As has been pointed out by research into MP3 sharing services (Napster, gnutella flavors, etc) by the folks at Xerox PARC (see (url="http://"http://www.parc.xerox.com/istl/groups/iea/papers/gnutella/FreeRidingA.html")http://www.parc.xero...reeRidingA.html(/url) ), the 20:80 rule applies. By this I mean the maxum that 20% of the people do 80% of the work. If this holds true for the "graveyard" site, very few people will contribute "dead" plugins (see point 1 above), while the vast majority of people will be downloading plugs to use/rework as they see fit.

These may or may not turn out to be valid concerns. If they are, the question becomes how to counteract them. I don't believe that issue #1 can be overcome easily, and, though I was involved with a content sharing organization which ran into issue #2, I do not have a simple solution. One which I have heard suggested in other circles is a policy of "give one, get one." A given user logs on and submits 1 plugin. This gives them a credit toward downloading 1 plugin. These credits could be transferred to others. The only problem with something like this is the relatively easy cheat of uploading an empty plugin.

These are my thoughts. Again, they were not made to discourage people. Instead, I hope they stimulate action to overcome these potential problems.

-STH

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(This message has been edited by seant (edited 11-22-2000).)

Hmmmm, I see your point. However, I think we can stop that with this:

1. When a person sends in a plug-in, he says whether or not he or she wants the plug to be finished by someone else. If they say yes, then we will include that statement in the read me. We will also say in the read me that if they do finish the plug, they MUST include the person who started the plug-in in the read me.

2. If the person says "No" I do not want this plug-in to be finished by someone else, then we will include that statement in the read me. We will also say that although the person can finish it, he CANNOT publish it on the EV or EVO addons page.

Sound good Nighthawk?

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To Escape Velocity: Nova and Beyond!

Regarding the aesthetics: it would be a nice touch if the graveyard site was modeled after the old escape-velocity.com. I really liked the look of that site. If you can approach Captain Scurvy on a good day, perhaps he might be of assistance; I'm assuming he still has the website's graphic elements on a hard drive somewhere.

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PlanetPhil
burn it clean

Meh...

I'll look into that... and only cause PlanetPhil made me laugh

CS

::chuckle::

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PlanetPhil
burn it clean

Uh oh. I forgot one slight problem.

Who is going to host the site? Nighthawk, could you do it? I can't. If you can't then we'll have to hire some other host and pay them to host it for us.

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To Escape Velocity: Nova and Beyond!

Ummmm, did you mean to make a smilie?

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To Escape Velocity: Nova and Beyond!

Quote

Originally posted by Captain Carnotaur:
**Uh oh. I forgot one slight problem.

Who is going to host the site? Nighthawk, could you do it? I can't. If you can't then we'll have to hire some other host and pay them to host it for us.
**

go to <a href="http://www.stas.net">www.stas.net</a> and go down to the set up a new account thing. they've got some cgi stuff on there so i don't have to take the time to learn it right now (it's probably not bad, but i've only got three free days in the next few weeks). i would do it myself but i've already got an account there and i doubt they'd let me have another. alternatively, if you find a better host that'd be great, i've just found stas to be at least decent. i'll do the actual html, though, unless someone else wants to

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if tin whistles are made of tin, what's a fog horn made of?

As a guesture to the Turkey Gods (in the hopes that today's turkey will be good) I have decided to pick up this endeavor, since no one else seems to want to check it out.

I have a little time this weekend, and my guess is that after this site is up, with a few relatively simple scripts, wont take very much to maintain at all.

If everyone doesn't mind, I'll be using a modified version of either the EV or EVO old site to do this.

Anyone who wants to help in this, feel free to post, you'll get to help, I'll make sure everyone gets access (well, some poeple at least )

A few questions for everyone:

With dead plug-ins, again, it was brought up that several people might not want to submit their plugs, so therefore we must offer a variety of resources.

Of course, we'd want to provide every single application for EV and EVO that can be used to assist in the making of plugs.

We'll need an EV and EVO graveyard section.

I also suggest that we set up a shared section (pieces of plugs that can be used on both, such as graphics and descriptions etc.)

Well, I'm off, maybe i'll get something up today, depends on how full I am after Turkey...mmmmm...turkey....

Yum! Yum! I already had my turkey. Mmmmmm, mmmm! Very good! Special recipie too.

Anyway, I'll be glad (And EXTREMELY eager :D) to help! I can suggest to you, Captain Scurvy, that you should also e-mail nighthawk. He knows a bit about making a website, he has his own already.

However, I'm not good at all at making new websites, just maintaining them (with a little help, this will be my FIRST website). I could be something like the moderator on the site, along with you, maybe, and possibly even nighthawk. He seems interested in the idea.

I also agree with what you're proposing for the site. However, I dislike the original EVO site, so could you use the original EV site instead? What do you think nighthawk?

Remember, I am very willing to help!

-Captain Carnotaur

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To Escape Velocity: Nova and Beyond!

(This message has been edited by Captain Carnotaur (edited 11-23-2000).)

Quote

Originally posted by Captain Carnotaur:
Yum! Yum! I already had my turkey. Mmmmmm, mmmm! Very good! Special recipie too.

yes, food is very good, esp. for those of us who had to work all day (/disgruntledcraig)

Quote

I can suggest to you, Captain Scurvy, that you should also e-mail nighthawk. He knows a bit about making a website, he has his own already.

as does scurvy, if he's still the same captain scurvy as was on the first ev board. if i remember correctly, we swapped links back when we were both starting ev sites

Quote

However, I'm not good at all at making new websites, just maintaining them (with a little help, this will be my FIRST website).

it's not at all a challenging process, esp. with all the wysiwygs out there now

Quote

I could be something like the moderator on the site, along with you, maybe, and possibly even nighthawk.

it may be possible if the traffic volume stays small, but i don't have all that much time if a lot of plugs start coming in

Quote

I also agree with what you're proposing for the site. However, I dislike the original EVO site, so could you use the original EV site instead? What do you think nighthawk?

i'm really largely indifferent to how it looks, as long as its decent. one thing which should be decided at some point, though, is how the plugs are going to get to the site. a public ftp thing's kinda dangerous, but i don't think anyone wants to go through several hours downloading plugs via email and then uploading them to the site. i guess it's not that much of a problem for anyone with high-speed access, but that's hard to find (esp. high-speed upstream connections)

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if tin whistles are made of tin, what's a fog horn made of?

(This message has been edited by nighthawk (edited 11-24-2000).)

Yeah, your right. Maybe we should have it something like what the (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiaSW.com/games/ev/addons.html")EV Addons Page(/url) has now.

P.S. Your coming out with some plug-ins nighthawk? Cool. Can't wait till they come out!

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To Escape Velocity: Nova and Beyond!

i'm guessing it's basically a public ftp to a temp area, and a reviewer subsequently moves it to the appropriate place. that seems like a fairly decent idea, though i'm not sure how to work it on a server not controlled by someone involved in the project. if someone can think of a good way to set something like that up it'd be a good way to go.
next time i'm at school i'll check the upstream speed of their connection, then if i can get free time i could do at least some of it via email (maybe there could be several of us each handling as much as we can of the workload off of some dummy email addy. it'd have to have a lot of space and be web-based or something else which leaves the messages on the server, but i think we could find something). dunno. other suggestions would be great

almost forgot:

Quote

P.S. Your coming out with some plug-ins nighthawk? Cool. Can't wait till they come out!

the only one i'm really working on at all right now (and somewhat slowly at that) is the human chronicles i: the first steps from earth. it's currently looking like this:
map: 75%, spöbs: 7%, plot: 25%, plot implimented: 5%, ships: 93%, outfits: 100%, ships implimented: 82%, outfits implimented: 80%, graphics: 1%, sounds: 0% (i may or may not make new sounds. this might end up as 100% because i say so). other human chronicles (so far out to 4) may or may not follow, depending on how this one is recieved (give it a month or so, probably new year or a little later)

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if tin whistles are made of tin, what's a fog horn made of?

(This message has been edited by nighthawk (edited 11-24-2000).)

Okay. Sounds cool nighthawk. Sounds very interesting.

What can I do right now? I'm kind of puzzled on what I should or even could do. You can also e-mail me.

-Captain Carnotaur

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To Escape Velocity: Nova and Beyond!

(url="http://"http://www.oxy-web.com/ev/graveyard/")http://www.oxy-web.com/ev/graveyard/(/url)

I know this doesn't have the official (now unofficial) EV design on it right now. Thats because I'm having some trouble with my backups and I wont be able to get the actual design again until Monday. Until then, i'll be working on the site content with this design.

Obviously its horribly incomplete...I hope to change that soon. What do you think of the way it will be divided up so far?

CS

seems decent, though i'll reserve judgement until the whole thing exists. if you want any help with it let me know, though i've only got one day left in the break. side thought: the guides link is .../guides/ at the top and .../guide/ at the bottom of the page; they should probably both point to the same place eventually (sorry if i'm being a backseat coder)

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if tin whistles are made of tin, what's a fog horn made of?