SpringRTS Organizational specification

[gajop]

Let's try to put this into form.
Things that should be discussed are: user roles + assets (infrastructure + finances) and the connection between those, as well as the current state of things (whatever we know and is currently done either officially or defacto).
I've started here: http://etherpad.springrts.com/p/organization and I invite everyone to give their contributions for now. If there are any disagreements on how things should work we should probably resolve them by voting (probably done by all forum developers..?). The etherpad is pretty early but I think this also just shows how little we have defined so far.

This is all pretty important.. both for new (and old..) people in the community who might seem confused trying to piece the big picture, but also for dealing with things such as financing, communication with other entities (e.g. SPI) and so on..

[abma]

its difficult to name roles. i've added rapid and springfiles, as they are very important for the spring community imo.

also, do we need a "leader"? imo currently it is some mixture of anarchy and democracy.

[gajop]

Yep. It's possible some others should be added (e.g. moderators), or the way they are appointed.
I've written that they're appointed by "The Leader", but that's really not someone we have, and I'm not sure if we should. OTOH, it complicates things if we have to do a global forum vote for appointing people at any of these points, so maybe do that by committe (would need to name it) ..?

[abma]

historically seen, such votes were done in the meeting minutes (which we currently don't have because lack of time / discussions already done in pm's or forum).

[Tim Blokdijk]

@gajop you read my proposal but you haven't commented on it other then the suggestion to share it publicly on the forum. Which I may do. But is there a specific reason why you decided not to comment on my proposal?

As for having a leader.. I don't know if it would be beneficial for Spring. I currently more like the meritocracy approach. Bunch of people that have the skill and time to do things are given as much room to do what they need to do. I would like to have a community structure that empowers those that want to do not necessarily those that are chosen.

[gajop]

@gajop you read my proposal but you haven't commented on it other then the suggestion to share it publicly on the forum. Which I may do. But is there a specific reason why you decided not to comment on my proposal?

I was hoping to comment on it when it goes public (as I persume a lot of the discussion would be duplicated). Do you want me to send those in PM first instead (would have to happen tomorrow, already 2AM now)?

As for having a leader.. I don't know if it would be beneficial for Spring. I currently more like the meritocracy approach. Bunch of people that have the skill and time to do things are given as much room to do what they need to do. I would like to have a community structure that empowers those that want to do not necessarily those that are chosen.

Maybe not a leader but I'd certainly want some group of people that can make certain global-level decisions. It feels like we sometimes lack action because there's no one in "charge", or you don't know who that one is. (Just having SSH access everywhere doesn't mean someone should be treated as the king)

[Tim Blokdijk]

Yes, please give me feedback in a PM.

As for Springs leadership. There is a group of people that can make certain global-level decisions.
I manage the DNS (and pay for) the Spring domain names. That is springrts.com springrts.org and springrts.net
Only springrts.com is in active use.
The current DNS settings are:

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springrts.com new ip: 78.46.100.157
springrts.com old ip: 94.23.170.70

Name                            Type    Value                           TTL
springrts.com                   A       78.46.100.157                   14400
*.springrts.com                 CNAME   springrts.com                   14400
modelbase.springrts.com         CNAME   omega.licho.eu                  14400
modstats.springrts.com          CNAME   omega.licho.eu                  14400
plasma.springrts.com            CNAME   omega.licho.eu                  14400
ladder.springrts.com            CNAME   ladder.springlobby.info         14400
infologs.springrts.com          A       188.165.214.142                 14400
replays.springrts.com           CNAME   replays.admin-box.com           14400
replays-test.springrts.com      CNAME   replays-test.admin-box.com      14400
*.replays-test.springrts.com    CNAME   replays-test.admin-box.com      14400
*.replays.springrts.com         CNAME   replays.admin-box.com           14400

If changes are needed to the DNS settings people can contact me and I will make the changes after consulting with Licho, abma or other developers.
New services hosted at the spring domain need to adhere to some basic rules (open source, multiple admins, data availability)

Licho is currently managing the donations. Up till a day ago for both Zero-K and Spring itself. I'm just reading that this has been cut. So someone has to take responsibility for Spring donations.

Abma is the one that I currently would contact if things would need to be changed on the server side.

Note that I personally do not have admin access to the server or have access to funds that are donated. Other developers do not have access to the DNS settings. So by design we have to work together to make these global-level decisions.

[abma]

So by design we have to work together to make these global-level decisions.

thats imo great and (mostly) works very well! :)

Only springrts.com is in active use.

thats incomplete :) in use are:

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springrts.com
*.springrts.com (i.e. test.springrts.com / packages.springrts.com / ...)
replays.springrts.com

these are (sadly afaik only, not sure) unused:

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modelbase.springrts.com
modstats.springrts.com
plasma.springrts.com
ladder.springrts.com

[PepeAmpere]

By gentle touch of pro-active moderator my attempt to get some result from anonymous ehterpad discussion was moved from here. If you skip the notion about that my post "is nothing more" than just edited text, you can read it on new placement, which disallowed me to edit more:

http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=32921

[Silentwings]

Since the etherpad turns out to be rather disorganized, let me make its status clear, in case the wrong impression is given - it is an (anonymous, if you want it) open blank sheet where anyone can record their ideas on how Spring could/should be organized. That's all!

[Silentwings]

I'd certainly want some group of people that can make certain global-level decisions. It feels like we sometimes lack action because there's no one in "charge".

I've felt this way too at times - in the past there were developers meetings (which were minuted) at which large decisions could be taken. My memory is that any bigger decisions than that were taken in discussion between engine devs and community/forum leads - like any organization at some point we have to rely on a group of people to consist of sane individuals and imo thats the best way of finding them here.

I think having meetings is generally a good model, except that that now we are in a situation where many areas are well developed and don't need constant/regular developer discussion. I very strongly dislike the idea of splitting Spring up into people with voting rights and those without. So I like the idea of a little more organization of the (open) discussion that normally takes place in channels, with some of it done in meetings called for stated purposes.

I personally don't feel a need to define a power structure in any more detail than it currently exists. We already have a functional community that's survived the test of time. What I would like is that forum "ranks" (i.e. the role tags) & profile pages more accurately reflect what people contribute. So basically my preference is for clean-up & more visible use of of the forum groups system to reflect the current set of people & activities.

[Super Mario]

May I ask, what is this for?

[gajop]

I'd certainly want some group of people that can make certain global-level decisions. It feels like we sometimes lack action because there's no one in "charge".

I've felt this way too at times - in the past there were developers meetings (which were minuted) at which large decisions could be taken. My memory is that any bigger decisions than that were taken in discussion between engine devs and community/forum leads - like any organization at some point we have to rely on a group of people to consist of sane individuals and imo thats the best way of finding them here.

I just think we should know who those people are, what power they have, and how they get chosen.
Even saying that "forum admins" = "ultimate power" and they are chosen by other "forum admins" is something. We then know they're responsible for appointing people to specific roles. Take for example the SPI thing we need to figure out who's going to be Spring's liason. AFAIK abma gave Anarchid "verbal" permission to act as that for Spring (which I approve actually), but Anarchid's also been unsure if that's really enough, or if there would be some process to decide who it would be. Figuring these things out shouldn't be done ad-hoc imo.

I very strongly dislike the idea of splitting Spring up into people with voting rights and those without. So I like the idea of a little more organization of the (open) discussion that normally takes place in channels, with some of it done in meetings called for stated purposes.

The thing is, that's much the same as to what we have now, except people with vote rights are those with SSH+root rights. I'm not saying it's the wrong people, but I would prefer if there was at least some process for major decisions. I don't believe that leaving decision makers undefined helps, as they will always exist.
I agree we should discuss things more openly, and I don't think the decision makers can't be questioned, but I also don't think we can have anarchy where everyone would participate in the decision process (devs should still have the right to vote for those in charge imo).

I personally don't feel a need to define a power structure in any more detail than it currently exists. We already have a functional community that's survived the test of time. What I would like is that forum "ranks" (i.e. the role tags) & profile pages more accurately reflect what people contribute. So basically my preference is for clean-up & more visible use of of the forum groups system to reflect the current set of people & activities.

It should certainly be more documented.
We also need to define financing better than it's currently done, as we've split it from ZK.

[raaar]

single leader = bad idea

[gajop]

single leader = bad idea

Type more. People are not here to vote, but present suggestions.

[raaar]

Single leaders have the plus as tie breakers and can be more decisive and consistent, but can do more harm than good to the community if they are biased toward friends, etc (which is likely). It's also a burden no one should have to bare (namely unpaid people).

In general, i agree we should have a clearer scheme of who's responsible for what. How people get to be responsible for stuff, i'm not sure.

There should be a group of managers (based on merit, will) with authority to make some decisions:
- that have no apparent effect on the average user of the spring infrastructure (techical details, server maintenance)
- minor tweaks to engine or infrastructure

major breaking changes in infrastructure or engine development that have a significant impact on the users should be subjected to a public approval by the community, in two steps:

1- open up the subject in a forum thread, call people to discuss it for a month

2- open up a poll about it for a week or two so people can vote (open poll + game dev teams only poll, then average the two?)

the group of managers should poll people more often about stuff, namely to figure out priorities. I'm not saying the community in general should force the devs to do A or B instead of their personal preferences (it'd make developing engine less fun), but people should be heard, and it would help people in general be more informed on what the average user thinks.

[Jools]

Dennis: I told you, we're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to be a sort of executive officer for the week...
King Arthur: Yes...
Dennis: ...but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting...
King Arthur: Yes I see...
Dennis: ...by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs...
King Arthur: Be quiet!
Dennis: ...but by a two thirds majority in the case of external affairs.
King Arthur: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!
Woman: Order, eh? Who does he think he is?

Just had to post that because the discussion is so similar. But anyway, I like what you are doing, it's always good to define roles, although they do not have to be so strict. We can also be an anarcho-syndicalist community. Well, we already are. Well, maybe not syndicalist, which refers to trade unionism.

But it's good to define who elects who and how. That increases transparency.

[gajop]

I think it's a bit weird that the entire Spring infrastructure is not financed by Spring.
I guess we could use the donations (that we haven't setup yet) for something else then?

Also as Silentwings mentioned, can we* clean up the forum groups. They are horrible really.
We don't need mods and admins that are inactive for years. -> Anyone that hasn't logged in since 2013 should be relieved from such a role.
What are "Site Admins"? Original creators of Spring and these forums? What power do they actually have?

There are so many groups that are meaningless: "Lua Coders", "Developers & Committers" (not related to "Spring Engine Developers"), "Mappers", "Modelers", "Classic developers", "Global Moderators"(?), "Birthday Present!" (??), and so on.

Imo the only truly needed groups besides phpbb ones (e.g. "Registered user", "Banned") are "Moderators", "Administrators", "Engine Developers" and "$PROJECT developer" (such as "Balanced Annihilation developer").

*And by "we" I mean people with access - I assume forum admins could?

[FLOZi]

Been on my TODO list for ages, problem is I don't know what they are all for and if some have some special permissions etc.

[abma]

Been on my TODO list for ages, problem is I don't know what they are all for and if some have some special permissions etc.

imo: try and error