The Mana World Forums

A developer is a person that starts and creates a majority of work; In our case we do allot of "sub projects" to further the project (tmw) that almost everyone on the "development forum" contributes to. Somebody could fix some grammar issues in an npc script and that would mean they contributed something but they didn't make the script so they didn't really add anything to the game so they would be a contributor. So A developer is somebody that adds to the game by doing a majority of the work that actually adds to the game and a contributor is somebody that may have helped achieve that goal or idea of the developer or simply moved a few pixels around and made something pretty look prettier. I think it would be fair to call somebody who has made allot of contributions a developer.

Crush wrote:So a developer is everyone with certain privileges, and to get these privileges you have to be a developer? That's circular reasoning.

Please do not be bad faith: to be a developer, contribute on a regular basis; then you will be invited to join (this is called a cooptation process). This has been working well for ages with GHP, GM-40 Dev themselves, for 2 years now with testers. And to have push access is not a privilege, it is a task and a responsibility, sometimes a burden, just as to be a GM or admin. "privileges" are a consequence.

A privilege is "a special right" just because you decide to look at it differently doesn't make it true. It is what it is. With that being said, you are talking about privileges, I'm talking about titles.

meway wrote:A privilege is "a special right" just because you decide to look at it differently doesn't make it true. It is what it is. With that being said, you are talking about privileges, I'm talking about titles.

I am talking about Job and responsibilities which "privileges" (such as github push access) are a consequence of. Groups should be an image of them for communication purposes. If a group needs a special forum identification because it is important that users recognize them, then let's have an identification mark, If not suppress them.
As it's name suggests it, implies some kind of experience or authority. Joining a free access group where 75% are inactive doesn't give you suddenly experience.

Nard wrote:

meway wrote:A privilege is "a special right" just because you decide to look at it differently doesn't make it true. It is what it is. With that being said, you are talking about privileges, I'm talking about titles.

I am talking about Job and responsibilities which "privileges" (such as github push access) are a consequence of. Groups should be an image of them for communication purposes. If a group needs a special forum identification because it is important that users recognize them, then let's have an identification mark, If not suppress them.
As it's name suggests it, implies some kind of experience or authority. Joining a free access group where 75% are inactive doesn't give you suddenly experience.

I read that you put it is a consequence afterwords, oops. "Groups should be an image for communication purposes" To identify knowledge of a particular subject maybe? "If a group needs a special forum identification because it is important that users recognize them, than lets have an identification mark, if not supress them." I think the only reason that a "developer" or "contributor" group would be necessary is because we lack documentation of contributors/developers work. If we kept it well documented some other way I don't even see the need for them. I did see something about license that was well documented for graphics.

Anyway, all groups will be identified and have their members displayed on wiki, in a similar way as GMs are; In the project Name Space pages, but with heavier moderation than now. (That's my "privilege" )


oh! by the way It would be nice to have a (open, no swords, no color) wiki contributors group. It would be useful to contact translators, require help, poke about topics that dive into the forum abysses, make a link with the brand new trello wiki board...)

maybe a new forum category as well for the wiki?

I think the wiki should provide its own communication infrastructure when possible.

I've tried to create a picture that shows of how I see contributors/developers (I usually don't use gimp...): As far as I see it, developers and contributors aren't different groups, but developers are a subgroup of contributors. There's also a difference between active and inactive developers.
But, when to draw the line between 'mere' contributor and developer, and between active and inactive, is rather difficult up to impossible, because there are so many different forms of contributing.

In my opinion, it's not important to exactly draw this line. In the past it has been a hassle to keep the forum group for content developers up-to-date with active developers, and there were people who got removed from the group because of inactiveness, and then felt offended and excluded when they visited the forum again, with the idea to continue developing, but then had to notice they were removed from the group. That's why it'd be useful to have a rather broad and generic group 'Contributors'.

Regarding

meway wrote:I think the only reason that a "developer" or "contributor" group would be necessary is because we lack documentation of contributors/developers work. If we kept it well documented some other way I don't even see the need for them.

there is a very detailed documentation, the git history. It's lacking at those points where people commited the work done by other people, which happens often for art. But hopefully we're going to have a separate author/license file for that in the repository.

Having a lot of specialized forum groups just adds bureaucracy and is likely to get outdated very fast.

Crush wrote:I think the wiki should provide its own communication infrastructure when possible.

When you provide one, I will do my best to do it. At the moment,wiki organization structure is the following:

Bureaucrats (the main wiki administrators) :
http://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php/ ... ureaucrats

• Bjorn
• crush
• wikisysop (Bjorn, I presume):

Administrators (the guys who have following privileges: accept∕refuse applications, patrol edits, ban bad users, access protected pages)
http://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php/ ... nistrators

• bureaucrats (xtra privileges: (choose admins, rename users)
• Ali-G
• ElvenProgrammer
• Nard
• O11c
• Salmondine

communication: write on user discussion pages, use forum. Now (thanks Jenalya): Trello wiki board (give Jenalya or me your trello ID or email to join; if you are interested in)

By the way: the following pages still wait TMWC feedback (except Jenalya's who replied long time ago) and agreement to be inserted in public access pages:
http://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php/ ... _Committee
http://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php/ ... nistrators

meway wrote:maybe a new forum category as well for the wiki?

I don't think there is a need for a wiki forum because:

1. wiki has it's own discussion appropriate medium: discussion pages
2. when it is not enough, Feedback forum make users who are not familiar with wiki to express themselves.
3. for larger projects, we have now a trello board

The idea I have about groups (except GMs and authorities) is mainly no more than a mailing list. If there was no ranking with the groups membership, I guess there would be far less "offense" feelings about being inside or not.

Is the "TMW Contributor" the rank of "tmwAthena Content Developer" group member?

The active content developers should now all be committee members.

Crush wrote:The active content developers should now all be committee members.

Then we have not the same definition of "active"

Crush wrote:The active content developers should now all be committee members.

So I am a committee member?