Unofficial spring pages / profiles on social media

Unofficial spring pages / profiles on social media

Various things about Spring that do not fit in any of the other forums listed below, including forum rules.

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knorke
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Unofficial spring pages / profiles on social media

Post by knorke »

I think it would be good to discuss how to handle spring-related pages other than springrts.com
tl;dr: sadly they all have serious problems

springrts.fr downloads are old:
Offers Spring 95.0 - current is 96.0
Offers Springlobby 0.169 - current is ~0.180
"Dernière version de Balanced Annihilation 7.84," - current version is BA 7.91
(For wanting to be a site about spring it also seems quite "BA-heavy.")

Another example, BA webpage was offering old game version for months ( http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=31623 )


On moddb the latest news on engine is "Spring 0.82.7 bug fix release" and if you click it, then you end up here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/springr ... e/download
Downloading an 3 year old version without any clue that it is totally useless.


https://plus.google.com/+Springrtsengine
Does not give good impression of spring either.
For example it links to these games:
Zero K
Evolution RTS
Gundam RTS
Conflict Terra
Spring: 1944
That is neither up to date nor complete list.


http://sourceforge.net/projects/springrts/
Offers old 95.0 on front page: 828 Downloads (This Week)
828 people per week for whom playing will work...

Just some examples, there are many more.
Just fixing some links now will not be enough, they would just outdate in little time, the problem is deeper:

Those sites/profiles never get maintained and always collect outdated news, spam and dead links.

In least worse case, one or two people regulary use the site: But then the content only shows their projects (or their interessts) rather than representing whole spring.

It is not a matter of:
"if you want more news on the moddb spring profile then just post some"
or
"If you want to help people on spring facebook with bugs then just post there"
or
"If you want your game on google+ then just add it"
This way every time someone creates a new page or profile on social media it forces other people to also waste effort on it.
The past and present show that does work.
:arrow: There simply is hardly enough "manpower" to maintain even this one site springrts.com
If someone makes a mod/lobby/anything then it must not be that he is basically "forced" to represent it on so many different sites.

Last years have shown spring peoplepersons can not spread so thin across multiple places, otherwise we would not have dead profiles like the moddb one etc.
Spring peoplepersons can NOT update 3 different image galleries, can NOT maintain 4 different list of games and can NOT provide help with bugs in 5 different forums.
It is nice that some people want to help by making sites/profiles but examples like above do more harm than good.

Suggestion:
1) Do not spawn more spring engine sites or profiles.

2) On existing spring sites/profiles remove everything. Put a spring logo, put a note "Go to springrts.com for all spring needs"
Make it clear that this page is unofficial, any downloads that might be found do not work and that noone will provide support.

3) If you want to make a site about your game, then make a site about your game. Do not try to represent other games or spring itself, it will not do them justice.
gajop
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Re: Unofficial spring pages / profiles on social media

Post by gajop »

Regarding 1) and 2), I think it's really important to not have any download links, as they get obsolete fast, but if people want to advertise Spring, I think there's no harm in that (outdated news are better than old ones, as long as its clear that's what they represent).
I agree with 3).
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PepeAmpere
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Re: Unofficial spring pages / profiles on social media

Post by PepeAmpere »

Agree, maintain your page at least as NOTA does on its banned page or just link springrts.com/forum. Any other approach brings confusion.
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FLOZi
MC: Legacy & Spring 1944 Developer
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Re: Unofficial spring pages / profiles on social media

Post by FLOZi »

+1 to all of the above
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Jools
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Re: Unofficial spring pages / profiles on social media

Post by Jools »

+1 to what Flozi wrote
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SinbadEV
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Re: Unofficial spring pages / profiles on social media

Post by SinbadEV »

I can adopt the G+ page if the moderator adds me... anybody anybody know who that is?

(I don't think we can stop people from spawning crap sites but making an official policy that if you are linking to versions of spring or games that you are encouraged to make it clear you are not official source of information)
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Forboding Angel
Evolution RTS Developer
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Re: Unofficial spring pages / profiles on social media

Post by Forboding Angel »

Knorke, what is your beef with the G+ page? Me and Koshi maintain it.

I fail to see how it gives a bad impression of spring.

It links to games that have something to link to, yes.

You are the king of non-issues, so I'm trying to see if you have a point this time or if it's just your usual melodrama.

The other stuff I don't care that much about, but the G+ page is actively maintained, even if you don't see everything (and you don't).
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knorke
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Re: Unofficial spring pages / profiles on social media

Post by knorke »

About google+:
It links to games that have something to link to, yes.
This is Spring's list of games http://springrts.com/wiki/Games
Just compare it with list on google.

Making up a new list of games based on your own ideas is not good.
Even if "having something to link to" was somehow a good criteria then there is the question why you would link to moddb-profile of discontinued GundamRTS over say Kernel Panic or The Cursed or Spring Tanks or the homepage of Imperial Winter and a games list without BA can not be serious anyway.

It says: "Official Google+ community for the Spring Engine."
Is that really official and who even decides such thing.

It links to this youtube channel but there are no videos:
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvuhoUup-5W627doLtl4Iyg

The last news of engine are about 88/89 (but at least no downloads)
In the discussion-part one post is randomly about 95.0

In "map releases" there is only one post from 2012.
the G+ page is actively maintained, even if you don't see everything (and you don't).
I see the above things, which is the same that a random visitor would see.

Or look at all posts on https://plus.google.com/+Springrtsengine/posts and what they are on about. There are not that many, so should be quick.
29.02.2012 We have a new vanity URL! :-)

11.03.2012 Rumor has it that Spring v87 may go live within a day or two!

03.03.2012 Having some issues getting the community headline feeds to update

15.03.2012 Help give Spring 88 a new name!

25.03.2012 Spring 88.0! hugs and kisses!

05.06.2012 New Spring version in testing phase

29.05.2012 Our main lobby server is having some difficulties atm.

22.09.2013 Spring Server is being Moved!

14.04.2013 Good call... "mods" being removed as a valid place to house sdz/sd7 files


That are all posts from last 2 years..not many and most are meaningless or just about the site itself.
For example the "give spring 88 a name" poll was never acted on, there are always spring test versions, do not see why 88.0.1-264-g89ee3b2 needed a post but others not.
The only posts I would consider usefull are the ones about lobby server downtimes but even there stickied threads in forum had more info.
In the "community/discussion" part there are a few dozen more postings but it is also a random mess and most are again about the site itself like "Welcome to the site" or "How to change your nickname." Real content or info is very spare which makes the google-site (and thus spring) look dead.
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Forboding Angel
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Re: Unofficial spring pages / profiles on social media

Post by Forboding Angel »

From top to bottom:

No intention of mentioning games that are *A based. Just... no.

The wiki games page got updated? Holy fuck, the first time in years. Lets have a party! Added the unlisted games to the link list.

GundamRTS existed, and there is a lot of media for it still around. We don't hide discontinued projects, that would be silly. I did however make a note on that list that it is discontinued.

The community is called: "The Spring RTS Engine Community"
Not sure where you're getting your stuff.

Youtube channel has content in the making. I'm one guy, I can only work on so many projects at one time, oh master.

WRT posts, I had been using it as a way to communicate with spring fans when the spring server was down, but as Sinbad pointed out, that doesn't look so good, so as a result, the posting strategy has been revised.

So yes, while some of your points contain half-validity, they have already been addressed. Feel free to harp on the other crap that is unmaintained (non-G+), but leave the stuff that is actually maintained alone (G+).

BTW I might point out that the reason I have not been doing a lot of updating on that front is actually Amba's "fault"... He knows why.

But all that is changing, so once again, non-issue is a non-issue.
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knorke
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Re: Unofficial spring pages / profiles on social media

Post by knorke »

but leave the stuff that is actually maintained alone (G+).
...
I just gave you many examples why google+ does not look any more maintained than the other sites...
The wiki games page got updated? Holy fuck, the first time in years. Lets have a party!
The wiki games page gets updated all the time. Usually just nicer layout or different descriptions.
Those games were all listed on springrts.com since multiple years and have been around for a long, long time.
And adding the links now does not adress the issue. In some time the links will be outdated again until someone notices and tells you to update them, again.
No intention of mentioning games that are *A based. Just... no.
So is this your decision now? Yes they are old and atari blabla imo but random peopleperson with a facebook page are not to judge what is worthy or not.
BA and *A are on springrts.com and so should be on other sites.

...also you just now added many images of *A games including this one where it even says "Balanced Annihlation": https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-ps3P ... age065.jpg
(also grats for finding some of the oldest screenshots ever, even that old map with the large trees is back again)
Of the newly added images every fith one is from evo-rts (15 of 71) imo not a balanced presention of spring.
Meanwhile other games you present with oldest screenshots ever, even when they have much nicer ones on their websites.
It says: "Official Google+ community for the Spring Engine."
The community is called: "The Spring RTS Engine Community"
Not sure where you're getting your stuff.
The "official" part is still visible in google cache:
Image
So either can just not find it anymore or it was there until before a few moments ago.
Either name still sounds too official imo. Call it "Forbs spring fan page" or something.
edit, here it says "official": http://abload.de/img/blubcnjmi.png
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Funkencool
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Re: Unofficial spring pages / profiles on social media

Post by Funkencool »

It sounds like it's your opinion that partial representation is worse than no representation. I, and many others probably, disagree.

Looking unmaintained and being unmaintained are two entirely different things. If someone was looking for support or posted on the g+ page they would get seen and more than likely replied too. Besides it's a social platform you can post on it just as easily.

Edit:
The whole point of it is to branch out and bring them back here. Anything might do that. What's the point of having Nothing?

I bet the majority of those 828 downloads found spring through sourceforge not google. In fact that's how I found it originally. Not having that page would have lost more users than possibly frustrating a minority of them by having 95.
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Forboding Angel
Evolution RTS Developer
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Re: Unofficial spring pages / profiles on social media

Post by Forboding Angel »

Knorke the name of the community hasn't changed since the day it was made.
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knorke
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Re: Unofficial spring pages / profiles on social media

Post by knorke »

It sounds like it's your opinion that partial representation is worse than no representation.
Spring is many games, why would you want to give a different impression?
I, and many others probably, disagree.
It would be ironic if those people were to be the same ones who complain about "Spring is only seen as BA!"
Looking unmaintained and being unmaintained are two entirely different things.
The effect on visitors is the same.
No matter what effort you might put into invisible things, if after two years not even the list of games is correct than that is bad.
If someone was looking for support or posted on the g+ page they would get seen and more than likely replied too.
No, excactly that is what does not happen. Look through comments on moddb or elsewhere, lots of un-answered posts like
Guest Jun 5 2013, 4:58pm says:
I can't manage to get the latest Spring, or the spring lobby just doesn't want to work. Is it discontinued or something?

Maybe not so many such posts on google+ yet but that is more because few people use it.
Actually why don't you? if you feel it's misrepresenting do something about it.
I do not think it is my job (or anyone elses job) to fix pages that others created and neglected. I explained that in first post.
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knorke
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Re: Unofficial spring pages / profiles on social media

Post by knorke »

The whole point of it is to branch out and bring them back here. Anything might do that. What's the point of having Nothing?
I did not say to have no profile at all, I wrote:
On existing spring sites/profiles remove everything. Put a spring logo, put a note "Go to springrts.com for all spring needs"
Do not try to recreate things that already exist on springrts.com, because in past it has always failed and after short time it becomes outdated.
I bet the majority of those 828 downloads found spring through sourceforge not google. In fact that's how I found it originally. Not having that page would have lost more users than possibly frustrating a minority of them by having 95.
I did not say anything how they found their way there. Fact is many people do download the old version and that is bad. Keep the page, remove the download. If you pay attention to forum or lobby chat, many many people try to play with outdated game or spring versions.
They must get those old versions from somewhere and that is surely not from http://springrts.com/wiki/Download
Knorke the name of the community hasn't changed since the day it was made.
In case you did not see: http://abload.de/img/blubcnjmi.png
Are you only going to reply to that tiny bit?
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Forboding Angel
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Re: Unofficial spring pages / profiles on social media

Post by Forboding Angel »

I was on my phone knorke. I don't have the time to deal with your book size bullshit.

Fwiw, the G+ page _is_ official. There are reasons for that. The site is linked, youtube is linked (and the youtube is used for more than videos, but that's another thing you can't see) (When I say :linked" I'm not talking about URLs!). The "Name" of the community is "The Spring RTS Engine Community". "Über" means "about" (roughly, in this context). And yes, the description is accurate.

The G+ community is linked to the official G+ page. I have put a considerable amount of time and effort into all of this stuff, and a lot more that you don't know anything about, so listening to you talk is just annoying.

G+ is very important in terms of SEO. Something that spring has been lacking for a long time, and I am not going to debate this with you. That's just the way it is.

Now, that said, the maintenance could have been better, sure, but it was never ill maintained, and I and several others have alerts set up so that the moment someone interacts with the spring engien on G+ we get an alert can can act upon it. You can see evidence of this on the evo G+ page where people will ask questions and I respond within a few minutes. I do the same thing for the spring side of things.

You also don't see the interaction on other people's posts and interactions with other gaming communities. None of this is front facing (nor should it be). It's called cultivating a following. Unfortunately, I am one person, so I can't do as much as I would like and have a backlog of things to do, but I am doing them, and your bellyaching butthurt isn't helping matters.

Spring desperately needs new blood. I don't really feel like spending the time to explain how interaction on G+ works because you clearly don't know, but suffice it to say, the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. There are a lot of things I am juggling with spring right now and I'm doing a pretty damn good job of it.

If you would like to be a contributor to the page then I will add you to the list and appreciate the help. There are some guidelines to follow, but they are pretty easy.

At the moment, you are doing a great job of hurting motivation and promoting despair. I wish I could tell you everything I am working on, but the time is not right yet.

Few people use Google+? G+ has over twice as many active users as twitter (around 600 million or so - Active users are measured as people sharing posts either publicly or privately - +1's are not considered in the metric, unlike twitter and facebook who count users who only click like as being "active"). But google+ is designed around a completely different idea than the other networks. G+ is all about interacting with people you don't know, who share similar interests.
I did not say to have no profile at all, I wrote:
On existing spring sites/profiles remove everything. Put a spring logo, put a note "Go to springrts.com for all spring needs"
Do not try to recreate things that already exist on springrts.com, because in past it has always failed and after short time it becomes outdated.
This is not a good idea, for a lot of reasons. I have to deal with evolution rts being listed on 1000's of different sites, generally with little knowledge on my part. I have a google alert set up that allows me to monitor them, and also I monitor analytics so that I know where traffic is coming from. It's the nature of the beast.

All in all I am very frustrated with the fact that I have spent all afternoon messing around with dealing with your arguing. The fact of the matter is that the Google Plus page is very much actively maintained. Could more be done? Sure, more could be done, and _IS_, but it takes time.

Now, thanks to you, I am going to end up spending till 5am getting ready for the evo games tomorrow, because you can't accept what you are told, regardless of how asinine your comments may or may not be.

As for the other disconnected crap, I more or less disagree with you, but good luck doing anything about them, because generally they were created by random community members who came and left. I have been around for 8+ years, and chances are that I will still be here LONG after you have gone away.

I suggest, for all of our sakes, that you put your efforts towards something more constructive.
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knorke
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Re: Unofficial spring pages / profiles on social media

Post by knorke »

I was on my toilet Forb. There I have lots of time to deal with book size bullshit.
I have to deal with evolution rts being listed on 1000's of different sites, generally with little knowledge on my part.
It seems not everyone could or wanted to deal with such situation in the last years. Why else would there be so much old/wrong things on all these sites? Keep those sites very basic so that there is not as much maintaince to be done.
Unfortunately, I am one person, so I can't do as much as I would like
Excactly the reason why these sites never work.
Excactly the reason why it is better to use things from springrts.com, rather than try to do everything all over again.
At the moment, you are doing a great job of hurting motivation and promoting despair.
Well yes, it is sad that many people put time and effort in sites or profiles. But in the end these sites have caused and continue to cause more confusion than good. I am sorry, but that is just the way it is. Lots of effort was spent to make it clear that mods are infact games and how spring is more than TA and to clean this page from TA/Spring confusion... and now all these sites make mistakes of similiar nature all over again.
If you feel otherwise then argue it needs some arguements instead of just saying "I'm doing a pretty damn good job of it."
If you see the problems with the other sites then you see be able to see them on the google+ site, too.
G+ is all about interacting with people you don't know, who share similar interests.
:oops: Kinky. :oops:
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Forboding Angel
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Re: Unofficial spring pages / profiles on social media

Post by Forboding Angel »

knorke wrote:
Unfortunately, I am one person, so I can't do as much as I would like
Excactly the reason why these sites never work.
Excactly the reason why it is better to use things from springrts.com, rather than try to do everything all over again.
Nice word twist. The problem with your assertion is that it already does work.

What I was saying is that because I am one person, I cannot update the content as often as I would like, but it DOES get updated.

Now Sinbad is helping as well, so that makes things even easier. As stated, there is a reason that not a hell of a lot has happened with it yet. I've kind of been in a holding pattern.

I suggest, for all of our sakes, that you put your efforts towards something more constructive and leave those of us who are actively working to clean things up, alone unless you plan to get off your ass and help.
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Funkencool
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Re: Unofficial spring pages / profiles on social media

Post by Funkencool »

I don't think anyone would disagree that some sites need to become links to spring, but not all.

Any user should and probably does know certain sites are just portals (tips of the ice berg). No one is going to find the spring G+ page and stop there if they're interested.

The whole point is to get them here, at the spring page.G+ is just one of those pages drawing them here. But why? Why should they come here? A simple lonely link will not do that. Pretty pictures, explanations, simplified lists; they're also needed to draw those users. This site is the end game.

knorke wrote:I did not say to have no profile at all, I wrote:
On existing spring sites/profiles remove everything. Put a spring logo, put a note "Go to springrts.com for all spring needs"
Do not try to recreate things that already exist on springrts.com, because in past it has always failed and after short time it becomes outdated.
Like I said. People like G+, People want spring on G+, People use G+. It does not recreate or replace this site, it complements it.

I agree sites should have prominent links and/or a "Visit the Forums!" and download links should always point here. I just think your understating the usefulness of having these sites in the first place.
(I'm pretty sure G+ and other social ones do exactly this)
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knorke
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Re: Unofficial spring pages / profiles on social media

Post by knorke »

Not a word twist:
If you have still incomplete game list for 2 years then it is safe to say that it does not work. 2 years is plenty long.

If you make up your own rules like excluding some of the games that are on http://springrts.com/wiki/Games that is also hint that it does not work.
and leave those of us who are actively working to clean things up, alone unless you plan to get off your ass and help.
Best plan for cleaning things up, is to have fewer places to clean up.
You are actively working to spawn more places that then need cleaning up.
---

Funkencool:
Any user should and probably does know certain sites are just portals (tips of the ice berg).
I think google+ does not give that impression: It calls itself "official community" so to casual surfer it seems like those posts are really all that there is to it, no ice berg.
I just think your understating the usefulness of having these sites in the first place.
Not at all.
Even if I personally think facebook, google+,myspace,twitter,.. are super stupid shallow web 2.0 shovelware shovelers, I still see how they are important.
But I also see how a bad social media profile does more harm than good.
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Forboding Angel
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Re: Unofficial spring pages / profiles on social media

Post by Forboding Angel »

knorke wrote:"official community"
Image

"Official Google+ community for the Spring Engine."

Please stop telling falsehoods and wordsmithing. The reason is says that is because anyone can create a community. At a glance, people can tell that this is the real one due to the "Verified" symbol, and the description (although I need to change the vanity url).

Incomplete list? Gooby please. So, because your arbitrary rules aren't met, then something doesn't work.

Not linking to *A is for good reasons. It's not an arbitrary thing.

Google+ is google. That's what people like you don't understand, and like it or not, google search rankings matter. In the words of Larry Page "If you ignore Google+, Google Search will ignore you.".

What that means is that sites with brand pages get ranked higher, have a better chance of showing up in relevancy searches, get a giant card to the right of the search page on result screens, and Google+ is pretty much the grandmaster of all SEO wet dreams.

You can poo poo SEO all you want. No a page on facebook doesn't matter, in fact, it's a black hole, because facebook nor twitter allows google to index it's content, as a result, spending time working on either a twitter or facebook listing is just wasted time.

Google+ on the other hand, was built for this very specific purpose.

Bad social media profile? Just because you don't see spring interacting with people doesn't mean that it isn't happening. I'm talking direct interaction, as in commenting on other people's posts, entering conversations, etc. You don't see this, and you aren't meant to, but engagement is the key to success.

Here is a handy chart:
http://i.imgur.com/bTIr9v9.jpg


Edit: changed to this:
Image
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