Most power in this community is only held because nobody is there to share or contest it and someone has to do it. Most people here had privileges thrust on them, and the days of grabbing and taking the way people are being accused of ended many years ago
I'm honestly not sure what's left to discuss on the subject of Merit. A great number of people oppose it, and of the rest, many have suggestions and changes wanted. Even if it was instigated, we're simply not a large enough community on the forums to make it work, especially when most of the currently active forum posters have already posted in this thread. Why not just give everyone in this thread a badge and be done with it?
Merit
Moderator: Moderators
Re: Merit
There is different kinds of work, but forum moderation is also work. You could argue that those who are often present on the forums are suitable for moderating it.abma wrote:active forum poster != persons who do workAF wrote: especially when most of the currently active forum posters have already posted in this thread. Why not just give everyone in this thread a badge and be done with it?
- Silentwings
- Posts: 3720
- Joined: 25 Oct 2008, 00:23
Re: Merit
Well, the conclusion seems to be that we can't use the merit system, as it stands.
So, I have a slightly different suggestion. At the moment the phpbb user profiles are not very useful, and very few people create wiki profiles. Since someone might be offering to code things here :p , imma briefly become an idea guy. How about, extend the phpbb profile page to include:
(1) A list of so-called contributions, to which users can add whatever they choose, whenever they choose, as a line of text with a link. For example, I might add "maintained BA 2012-2015" with a link to the repo. Maybe it would be sensible to attach dates; each gets a date chosen at creation, then if needed a second (end) date can be added later and the first date then becomes a start date.
(2) Each contribution on each profile can be thanked (at most once) by each user, by clicking some button next to the profile. And the list of people who said thanks is visible with some mouseover.
It has some advantages over merit that in it is more more detailed, doesn't attempt to create a power structure or a class system, but does (potentially) makes it clear who actually does what. The forum ranks, since they can contain only a single role, don't do a very good job of this. It might also make it easier to find stuff. Like merit, its utility relies on people actually wanting to use it. Of course it has downsides; links can go dead, it would need moderation like any other forum post, some might record tiny things and others other major things, etc etc.
So, I have a slightly different suggestion. At the moment the phpbb user profiles are not very useful, and very few people create wiki profiles. Since someone might be offering to code things here :p , imma briefly become an idea guy. How about, extend the phpbb profile page to include:
(1) A list of so-called contributions, to which users can add whatever they choose, whenever they choose, as a line of text with a link. For example, I might add "maintained BA 2012-2015" with a link to the repo. Maybe it would be sensible to attach dates; each gets a date chosen at creation, then if needed a second (end) date can be added later and the first date then becomes a start date.
(2) Each contribution on each profile can be thanked (at most once) by each user, by clicking some button next to the profile. And the list of people who said thanks is visible with some mouseover.
It has some advantages over merit that in it is more more detailed, doesn't attempt to create a power structure or a class system, but does (potentially) makes it clear who actually does what. The forum ranks, since they can contain only a single role, don't do a very good job of this. It might also make it easier to find stuff. Like merit, its utility relies on people actually wanting to use it. Of course it has downsides; links can go dead, it would need moderation like any other forum post, some might record tiny things and others other major things, etc etc.
Re: Merit
Perhaps the ability to add GitHub repositories and links to SVN repos or project sites of their Spring Related work would be better, then we just show a number by their alias on posts
Alternatively, I'm still not sure what this is trying to solve. Anybody can join the forum and post valuable information about something on a whim, just as much as they could waltz into a thread and start spouting nonsense. The real problem is that everybody pounces on said person and tries to argue them into submission, derailing things rather than just getting on with stuff.
The one thing we have very little of in this forum is the polite dismissal. I know it's not what people want, but the solution is to just tough it up, we're basically discussing how to award ourselves medals for our contributions with the express intention of showing other people that we earned them so that they can tell the medal owners apart from the new guys. Swapping merit for something else doesn't help, it's still a claim to authority.
Alternatively, I'm still not sure what this is trying to solve. Anybody can join the forum and post valuable information about something on a whim, just as much as they could waltz into a thread and start spouting nonsense. The real problem is that everybody pounces on said person and tries to argue them into submission, derailing things rather than just getting on with stuff.
The one thing we have very little of in this forum is the polite dismissal. I know it's not what people want, but the solution is to just tough it up, we're basically discussing how to award ourselves medals for our contributions with the express intention of showing other people that we earned them so that they can tell the medal owners apart from the new guys. Swapping merit for something else doesn't help, it's still a claim to authority.
Re: Merit
I think it's helpful to quote the first post again: the problem is not with how we display the title, or however that page is coded. The problem is the title itself, in other words the power structure. The title should be representative of what one actually does. Now it is not. For example, my title is now "XTA maintainer", but this is wrong. I am actually the XTA Developer, in the same way that BA and S44 has Developers. I did not put this title here myself, nor did anyone ask what title would be appropriate. Somebody just decided that this is a good title for me.Tim Blokdijk wrote: First a little background
Spring doesn’t have official leaders, no hard responsibilities or requirements.
This lead to some unfortunate friction when developers where not happy with the way the server was functioning. Which escalated and never really .. anyway we had some trauma.
To prevent situations like that in the future we need to communicate a bit more effective about who is responsible for what. What is expected and what needs to be done if those expectations aren't met.
Titles are meaningless unless they reflect what role one person actually has. People deserve to know who in the community does what. Then titles can be useful. It does matter much less whether the titles are presented on the forum or on a wiki page or whatever. It's the content that matters.
- Silentwings
- Posts: 3720
- Joined: 25 Oct 2008, 00:23
Re: Merit
I don't think commit count or automated metrics really capture contributions, at least not for game devs. Texturing a unit can be hours work for a single binary file commit whereas you can make 10 lua commit in 10 minutes. But I agree, a list of repos contributed too could be a good idea, although its never going to be a complete picture on its own.AF wrote:Perhaps the ability to add GitHub repositories and links to SVN repos or project sites of their Spring Related work would be better, then we just show a number by their alias on posts
I think of that as a separate issue, one that has improved in recent years and ought to be handled by forum moderation anyway (although its not easy). The issue that I think can be helped here is communicating which people actually do what.The real problem is that everybody pounces on said person and tries to argue them into submission, derailing things rather than just getting on with stuff.
Re: Merit
I just modified all "Maintainer" ranks to read "Developer".Jools wrote:The problem is the title itself, in other words the power structure. The title should be representative of what one actually does. Now it is not. For example, my title is now "XTA maintainer", but this is wrong. I am actually the XTA Developer, in the same way that BA and S44 has Developers. I did not put this title here myself, nor did anyone ask what title would be appropriate. Somebody just decided that this is a good title for me.
All you need do is actually ask.