The Mana World Forums

Just a suggestion. I think we should have 5 user groups, Somebody who has submitted useful data that has or hasn't been used, Somebody who has submitted new data that has been used, Somebody that can properly perform updates to the server and keep consistency within the game data, Somebody that will enforce rules appropriately and quietly at their discretion; I feel that players should enjoy the game but also be on there toes about following the rules, warnings should be private out of respect for the player who might have had an oops moment., Somebody that can change user groups when necessary, moderate the forums, keep things organized and be effectively communicable. I can't think of anything else currently.

There has been allot of question and discussion about user groups. Why they are bad, why they are good, who does what, who is active and who isn't? I think its best just to organize something that works, that is clear and something we can stick to and don't have to constantly manipulate due to somebodies activeness or not. It is however important to keep an eye on activeness on things that can't be preserved like moderation. I propose this construction as this is still a development forum and not everything is necessarily used in the game that is produced on the forum. I'm not going to do a vote or a poll on it. If you want it just simply put "yes" if you don't "no" and if you provide a reason than your response is worth looking at. Let me know what you think.

Counter proposal: Bring back the old, simpler groups.

The only relevant title here was "TMW Developer", with the same coloured swords as everyone else, and roughly the same coloured name as everyone else (a close enough approximation given 15 or so seconds at a colour picking tool).

You probably don't even need the bright red names for forum admins anymore, since it's no longer just elven and bjorn, and the project is apparently led by committee now.

Game masters probably need the distinction for the court house forum, as they need the immediate recognition when dealing with people that may not immediately recognise them. There isn't anywhere else that should be that level of serious business, and I don't see why anyone else needs bright neon "LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!" signs.

Keep it simple and a nice unobtrusive thing for those recognised when people take a break from their projects long enough to push the buttons to do so. Focus should be on the game, not on silly titles and badges. The more elaborate they are, the more people will be inclined to endlessly argue over irrelevant semantics.


---Freeyorp

You are throwing together two unrelated things here. PhpBB has two completely unrelated features: ranks and groups.

Ranks are the text under your online/offline picture and the rank picture below that (the swords). They are purely cosmetic titles without any technical meaning. A user can only have one rank.

Groups are your name color and your access and moderation permissions. They are mostly invisible (except for the name colors, which are optional) but have important implications because they say what you can and can't do. You can also send mass-messages to groups. A user can be part of any number of groups, but I would like to avoid that to keep the administration simple.

These features are completely unrelated. Please always be clear about what you are talking about to avoid misunderstandings.



These are the ranks we have right now (minus those which are automatically assigned by post count):

- Forum Administrator
- TMW Advise
- TMW Committee Member
- TMW Committee Member, Game Master
- TMW Contributor
- TMW Tester

These are the groups we have right now.

- TMW Advise
- TMW CR Contributor
- tmwAthena Content Developer
- tmwAthena Testers
- Mana Developer
- TMW Committee
- TMW Game Master

Some of these groups are obsolete and I am going to rename or prune them soon.

I actually only have a problem with "contributor" vrs "developer"
Contribute feels like just a small part where Developer feels more whole.

Here is an example I gave on irc.
(i.e: I've discussed something useful and that would mean I have contributed something. I created something useful and that would mean I have developed something.

correction

crush wrote:- Forum Administrator
- TMW Advise
- TMW Committee Member
- TMW Committee Member, Game Master
- TMW Contributor
- TMW Tester

at the moment tmwAthena Testers is a group, not a rank (hopefully).


Counter proposal:
GROUPS:

• tmwAthena Testers: good as it is, a group not a rank.
• if a group of contributors is needed, then they should be as testers: only a group.
• Advisors: I can see the need of a group, but nothing else; especially i don't see the utility of a rank except to confuse users.
• Developers: only confirmed ("senior"?) developers should a dinstinctive mark so that new contributors know easier who they are. May be a dinstictive color can exist for server and client developers.
• TMW Comittee members (should include GMs according to it's definition) (maybe a group)

To belong to a group; invite should be the rule: Test, report or contribute first, then you get invited.

5 swords is a distinctive mark of authority; In order to avoid any possible confusion, such as it occured in the past, they should be reserved exclusively to people with some kind of authority toward users:

• Forum administrators
• Game Masters
• Game and server administrators, Content Leader if not among the former.

People who are in need of chocolate medals should go to candy store.

A contributor is somebody who submit something every Xdays and isn't in charge/very involved on a content release (ie: Korcha). While a developer is somebody involved in content release and who can lead contributor to make the release being released (ie: Jenalya).

It's like you become a developer when you did enough time as contributor, it's how we do in Evol since 2years and it always worked properly. (ah, and you loose your developer title when you didn't submit for age, it should apply for 70% of actual developers on here)

Reid wrote:you loose your developer title when you didn't submit for age, it should apply for 70% of actual developers on here

developer is not a title but a status. 70% hmmm

Edit: The "Mana Developer" and "TMW CR Contributor" have no longer any reason to exist: Mana is no longer supported and TMW CR is inactive and leads to confusion now.
Edit 2: I thought TMW advisers were invited by TMWC, the group is "open" at the moment.

Nard wrote:Edit 2: I thought TMW advisers were invited by TMWC, the group is "open" at the moment.

Changed from "Request" to "Closed"; added Jaxad.

Reid wrote:A contributor is somebody who submit something every Xdays and isn't in charge/very involved on a content release (ie: Korcha). While a developer is somebody involved in content release and who can lead contributor to make the release being released (ie: Jenalya).

It's like you become a developer when you did enough time as contributor, it's how we do in Evol since 2years and it always worked properly. (ah, and you loose your developer title when you didn't submit for age, it should apply for 70% of actual developers on here)

You have a misunderstanding of the words contributor and developer.

meway wrote:

Reid wrote:A contributor is somebody who submit something every Xdays and isn't in charge/very involved on a content release (ie: Korcha). While a developer is somebody involved in content release and who can lead contributor to make the release being released (ie: Jenalya).

It's like you become a developer when you did enough time as contributor, it's how we do in Evol since 2years and it always worked properly. (ah, and you loose your developer title when you didn't submit for age, it should apply for 70% of actual developers on here)

You have a misunderstanding of the words contributor and developer.

That was just a proposal, but where am I misunderstanding something?

My definitions have been that a contributor is anyone that helped out, while a developer has also shown their intention to continue working for the project, ongoing. Does this mean I also misunderstand semantic trivia?


---Freeyorp

Your misusing the word and its irritating.

Please enlighten us, meway. What's your definition of "Contributor" and "Developer".

Freeyorp101 wrote:My definitions have been that a contributor is anyone that helped out, while a developer has also shown their intention to continue working for the project, ongoing. Does this mean I also misunderstand semantic trivia?


---Freeyorp

Reid's one about Contributor is someone who occasionally helps, Developer is the same. So it is close to yours.
But, problems occured before with the GM40 status and dev cap. So Jenalya attached the developer status to TMW repository access. Though I think GM40 is, with very few exceptions, useless because of testing server, this definition is rather a good one for the project.

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