Re: RFOR: Is LGDC really crap?

[Christian Reiniger <creinig@mayn.de>]

On Thursday 03 January 2002 15:37, Chris wrote:

> Internet Survival Rule #56: Online polls are about as accurate as a one
> eyed, drunk archer. I know from harsh experience that they are far too
> easily skewed by people with an axe to grind or a motive to throw the

*g* I know - I just needed a good subject for the initial mail :)

> - visibility. How many people are there on the mailing list, compared
> to the number of authors and teams/team members on happypenguin? And is
> happypenguin a good indicator of how many linux games there are? I'm
> working on two and neither of them are on happypenguin and won't be
> until I'm good and ready to release demos.

I'm not sure, but I think happypenguin can serve as a (very rough) 
indicator. As long as you keep in mind that many of the listed games are 
dead while some prospering games are not listed.

> - content scope. The list description is ambiguous about this "Helping
> people new to Linux game programming.", "Generally discussing game
> development problems / ideas etc" do not really help define the
> subjects that are permitted. For example, yesterday I was having a load
> of gdk related problems but I didn't ask for help here because the
> problems were in one of the game support programs (a texture file
> editor) rather than in a game itself. I wasn't at all sure how the list
> members would react to me asking questions about texture formats, Imlib
> and GdkRGB widgets. I doubt I'm the only person here who has run into a
> problem but not asked here because I wasn't sure if it would be taken
> as too off-topic. Perhaps a document describing in more detail just how
> far from pure "game developmet" the subject can get would encourage
> people to post about such problems.

Hmm, good point. That description *is* ancient :)
I'll replace it with something more fitting (along the lines of "if in 
doubt, post it" - vetos to me)

> - poor integration with the website. For example, there was no mention
> of Steve posting the keyboard issue document on the site (although
> that's probably as much my fault as anyone's :/) Important "problem
> fixes" like that need to appear on the site and make it plain that they
> came from the mailing list - that's the only way to get osme people to
> join.

'nother good point.
but like "normal content" this either requires someone actively posting 
stuff or people used to submitting things they find interesting.

> > * I have some plans to allow everyone (well, everyone with a valid
> > site account) to post, edit and delete news and resources. Of course
> > all changes only take effect after someone trusted has reviewed them,
> > but it allows everyone spotting an error, a missing thing etc to
> > simply "fix it on the spot" (using the nice web forms that are
> > currently reserved for maintainers) and it simplifies the
> > maintainer(s'|'s) job of handling such changes.
>
> Hmm.. I would suggest something closer to Freshmeat. As Steve said,
> most of freshmeat is useless to a game developer BUT the way they do
> things - each project has a page where all the details, comments and
> links to the homepage and files are collected in one place and users
> can "subscribe" to projects they are interested in - would be a very
> valuable way to handle developer resources. Of course, this would mean
> getting authors to actually add their projects to the system, or have
> someone do it for them, but from then on it would be a "developer's
> freshmeat": and with the subscribe option developers with little time
> on their hands could flag specific libraries or tools they are
> interested in and only hear about updates to them.

That's not quite easy - just have a look at what's currently in the 
resources section. Only a part of that is projects/software. What *would* 
be easy though is to have the possibility to specify a second link (e.g. 
to the respective freshmeat page) for each resource. That should have 
basically the same benefits

> This will mean that all submissions would need to be moderated - we
> don't want to have games themselves listed, just the tools and
> librarires needed to make them.

Sure. That's what I described above - a better moderation system :)

> > * I think it would be useful to have (optional) "verbose"
> > descriptions for news items and resources - just have a look at these
> > CrystalSpace announcements :)
>
> This is a bit redundant IMO - the short description can link to the
> full text anyway, which avoids the text storage/maintenance problem
> anyway.

Hmm, perhaps. Having a detailed description would lead to a "generic" 
Slashdotesque thing though: overview pages linking to pages with the 
detailed views of single items, together with their forum...

-- 
Christian Reiniger
LGDC Webmaster (http://lgdc.sunsite.dk/)

"use the source, luke." (obi-wan gnuobi)