Spring RTS Engine

Ok, thanks for taking your time to help figure this out. I will relay that information...

I already wrote in viewtopic.php?f=38&t=32596&start=20#p567406 how groups work. There is nothing to "figure out."
Jools or me could ask the pnöpel to add us to some XTA group but does not mean that everyone can do so. That only works for small sub-set of users.

Normal user (not part of any mod team) has no free group to join.
There are five general user groups: (not "mod teams" like BA group, XTA group etc)
-Lua coder
-Modeler
-Texturers
-Nappers
- Lobby Developers

Joining the lobby-group might actually work, did not try that.
For the other groups there is not way to join them: no leader / no active leader.

As I see the only reason why group-membership is needed to post news is spam protection. So add some "Normal user" group that does not show in profile or whatever and has rights to post news.
Such more general group is imo missing:
Not need to force users to apply for one of the five overly-specifique public (and dead) groups just so they can post one thread. The custom titles imo also do more harm than good, put it in your profile or wiki userpage or whatever.

Last I think having only one person who gets to decide if someone is a napper or not, and who denies application without checking or asking, is not good.

don't make a problem which isn't one. first find a user who needs to post in community blog, is not a spammer and doesn't fit into the existing groups.

There are many such users:

For example, one could imagine that someone who is moderator of a forum and who has not been developing the game — is not the right person to post about how that game has developed over the course of the years and can not easily make a news post over that topic. Why is this so difficult to understand?

Also try to be a little pro-active: look at the news posts that have been made during the last 6 months. Do you see any posts from XTA there? There is clearly a problem.

One possible solution, if administrators are reluctant to give the xta developers the right to post in this forum, is to appoint a media person who manages these posts. Then people can send things that need to be posted to that person, which in turn then makes the news posting. But I don't see how this instead is not complicating matters that could be solved quite easily.

abma wrote:don't make a problem which isn't one. first find a user who needs to post in community blog, is not a spammer and doesn't fit into the existing groups.

That is backwards.

For example there is the imo big potential of player-created content.
Any random player who uploads videos, makes a wallpaper writes a strategy tutorial, produces fan-art,...
All that might be worth a post.
But should someone now be part of that game's development group, because he made some desktop wallpapers? Imo no.

Or any new modders who might appear and post their WIP stuff. It might be interessting to read about that - but should every new guy talk to moderation to create some new user group for him? What if the WIP-mod has no name yet?

Of course that is a bit theory, about "potential" and what "might" happen... but this whole forum is about that.. giving people the option to post news and having as low barrier as possible...

And even if some people might fit into an existing group - there are no group leaders to accept their application.

@Jools
did you talk to pnöpel? If not yet, I will ask him to add you..
Btw in your profile it lists group "Nappers" but not under your name.

pnöpel wrote:Unfortunately I don't know how it works. There is no "invite" button or smth like that

Noruas wrote:Sorry but it appears that I do not have that power.

It should be visible to group leaders in (at least, according to a 5 second google effort.)

Now it works. Thank you.

abma wrote: Posts in this blog-forum are only allowed when the follow these rules:
3) It has to be major enough:
-a new map
-a new game or major game version
-large change in engine
-something else "big", for example a collection of models or a Lua gadget or long text, etcetc.
-generally some effort / thought must have gone into it.
"Fixed some typos" or "Added 2 more mex spots to south" is not major. try to avoid what you plan, try to write what you did.
Avoid to common style, especially in "new map" threads is a post as this:
"My new something XY. Should work for all games. Thanks to bla and blub. Download here: [link]

• "
  That is way too general: Barely giving basic info like authors is not interesting.
  Instead describe how it was made, what is special, how does it work, problems you had when you made it.

We are still not able to post any news about XTA in this forum. Please advice how this is supposed to be working. Or is the news only supposed to be for certain games and engine news?

Since no game/map/etc versions or releases were posted here for almost 18 months now, it might be simpler to keep this blog for engine, website & other community wide stuff.

I've been thinking for a while that probably the best way to publicize project releases/work is to have some way of displaying recent commits to repos on the main page. But ofc I have no idea how to do it.

No posts for games have been posted for 18 months because it's not possible currently, except by some few chosen people.

Should have told me? I will look into the permissions when I get a chance.

I now gave all members of the Content Developer group standard permissions on this forum.

However due to your previous abuse of the associated powers, Jools, you are not in that group.

It would be nice if non-community developers could still be allowed to post, but their posts had to be approved.
Not sure if phpbb allows for such specific settings.

gajop wrote:It would be nice if non-community developers could still be allowed to post, but their posts had to be approved.
Not sure if phpbb allows for such specific settings.

Maybe request an admin move/make a link to the post here?