FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

Hi, just saying that the forums need some like a ''Featured'' or ''Recomended maps,mods, etc'' only editable by modderators and administators for the newcomers to experience the best face of Minetest

You can select all the options that you whant, and even re-vote if you are not convinced about your votes

For this things, you don't need new sections. A sticky post in a existing sections is enough for it.

The site is, in theory, a better place for that.

http://minetest.net/texturepacks
http://minetest.net/mods

We don't need to add sections for that. Just to "stick-up" (not sure of the exact term) a few number of recommended maps / mods on the top of their sections. A re-base of the mainpages is needed, also.

Remember, that is for the newcomers, i per example, feel lost first time i entered the forums

.

MMDB would be good, BUT it doesn't work completely yet.

I think your idea is good, but instead of a sub forum the information belongs to the wiki. And there is already a list of good games and mods, but it is very limited.

Instead of asking moderators to do more work, how about creating your own blog. Talk about the up-to-date mods you think should be featured and link to it in your signature.

gamergardencat wrote:Instead of asking moderators to do more work, how about creating your own blog. Talk about the up-to-date mods you think should be featured and link to it in your signature.

Maybe, but my PC is slow, and my internet also is slow;
i dont have time for such things, Im at a Technic School, and it demands a lot of time

I am still a strong advocate of adding a section called “Modding Support” for all modding-related questions and problems and finally closing the monster thread. I am an advocate of “one thread for one question” rather than “one thread for ALL questions”.
To show that this sub-section is desperately needed, just look at this absurdly huge monster thread:
Post your modding questions here
This thread has >1300 posts and is completely unnavigable for me. It is full of questions asked repeatedly, intertwined and hard-to-follow discussions etc. It is probably safe to say that this thread has completely gotten out of hand. I almost completely ignore this thread because of this.


But I know this subsection is never going to be added, because it makes sense. >_>
I have suggested this a few times years ago, each time it got shut down for no good reasons or was ignored.


About the other poll options: No, I reject all of those. What is a “high-quality mod”? How do you define that? I fear that this is going to be highly subjective, but it clearly should not be the task of moderators to rate mods. And about that Minetest stable release: This is needless, just visit http://minetest.net/download. Or someone just opens a thread in the Builds forum section. Therefore, there is no need for a subsection either way. I can’t make any sense of the last two poll options.

Wuzzy wrote:What is a “high-quality mod”? How do you define that? I fear that this is going to be highly subjective, but it clearly should not be the task of moderators to rate mods.

Some mods, that represents a great minority, are objectively essentials / high-quality. It's their popularity & maintenance in the long-term that define them as such. They clearly stand out relative to the mass of mods.

I don't want to list them (some of them are already there), but I would say they're just approx. 5% of essentials mods, 45% of decents, and 50% of crappy. Sections in which we speak about are full-filled of noisy redundance, lot of mods that doesn't deserves to be moved in the 'releases' section are moved just by asking, it's not tolerable, too flexible.

IMO, it must be have a more strict entry control over there (even by censuring the worst); and a dedicated corner for an elite of mods, such as the lords reigning on the land.

You should have a section for recently updated mods or at least have some way of easily seeing what is the latest update for a particular mod.

Wuzzy wrote:I am still a strong advocate of adding a section called “Modding Support” for all modding-related questions and problems and finally closing the monster thread. I am an advocate of “one thread for one question” rather than “one thread for ALL questions”.
To show that this sub-section is desperately needed, just look at this absurdly huge monster thread:
Post your modding questions here
This thread has >1300 posts and is completely unnavigable for me. It is full of questions asked repeatedly, intertwined and hard-to-follow discussions etc. It is probably safe to say that this thread has completely gotten out of hand. I almost completely ignore this thread because of this.

100% aggree. It is just silly to have only one thread for that.

Also for the "Released Mod" section it would be nice if the first post on each thread was sticky i.e. that the first post appear on all pages. It would make sense as it is supposed to be updated regulary.

All the replies on this topic so far seem to have a point. Here are some of my thoughts:

When I'm a first time on the minetest forum, I want to see at least/only these sections/threads with ( a link to) comprehensible information about how to :
- download/install a version of the game for my OS
- download/install mods (and perhaps games) that are known to be good/reliable/appreciated/recommended
- connect to a server of my taste
- solve problems/bugs/my own faults doing the downloading/installing and trying to connect to a server,
because this actually makes me start playing.

One thing I didn't see is suggestions to get rid of some sections/threads/topics/posts (In order to make some room for new ones).
- Looking at the topics, I expect not many people ever look further than page 1 (except for Mod Releases). If they don't find what they are looking for they will make a new topic. Perhaps those page 2 and further topics can 'just' be deleted? Maybe with the exception of those that have links in it.

jp wrote:

Wuzzy wrote:What is a “high-quality mod”? How do you define that? I fear that this is going to be highly subjective, but it clearly should not be the task of moderators to rate mods.

Some mods, that represents a great minority, are objectively essentials / high-quality. It's their popularity & maintenance in the long-term that define them as such. They clearly stand out relative to the mass of mods.

You just define them that way. And this is a poor definition in my opinion. Popularity does not imply quality. You claim there are mods which are “objectively” of high quality, yet you fail to present any quality standard. And maintenance can’t be an indicator for quality at all. Maintenance is an ongoing process, while quality is a snapshot in time. Also, just because a mod is currently maintained doesn’t mean it is good in any way.

And you have not defined what “essential” means. Maybe as in “neccessary”? If so, neccessary for what? This term sounds arbitrary as well.

I don't want to list them (some of them are already there), but I would say they're just approx. 5% of essentials mods, 45% of decents, and 50% of crappy.

You obviously just pulled these numbers out of your ass. Why should I trust them? Again, you presented no critera whatsoever why a mod X would fall into one of these arbitrary categories.

Sections in which we speak about are full-filled of noisy redundance, lot of mods that doesn't deserves to be moved in the 'releases' section are moved just by asking, it's not tolerable, too flexible.

That’s just your opinion. The releases section is only for releases to keep general mod talk clean. It is not intended to be any assertion about quality.

IMO, it must be have a more strict entry control over there (even by censuring the worst); and a dedicated corner for an elite of mods, such as the lords reigning on the land.

You are even suggesting censorship and elitism? You are way too extreme with your position here.

You haven’t thought through the social implications. If a modder’s mods gets rejected all the time because it does not win in your popularity contest, it gets very frustrating with time. Fewer people will even try to code, which will harm the modding community in the end. The benefit of a low entry barrier allows it for people to experiment around, yes, to fool around while others may choose to comment, discuss and help. Raising this entry barrier will destroy this.
And since you haven’t specified any quality standard yet, the mods which end up to be viewed as “quality mods” is going to be pretty random. But even if there was a well-defined quality standard, there is no reason why one should apply to every mod. Surely not everyone would agree with that quality standard, other people might have other requirements to consider a mod of “high quality”. Some might hold the position that all high quality mods must, by definition, have <random property X>, while others simply do not care about that.
The system you suggest here carries the danger of going out of hand and the people “in charge” may be motivated to abuse their power for selfish reason. After all, you don’t take conflicts of interest into account. All they have to do is to claim that some mod of hated modder X is of low quality.

We have to keep the entry barrier low, even accept mods which some might consider to be of low quality. If you want to filter mods for your needs, the forums are not a good place for this, really. I view the forums only as a place to announce mods and maybe discuss development. I think the MMDB may be much more capable for your needs.

Feel free to develop quality standard, I have no problem with that. But it is inacceptable to enforce it upon everybody else.




EDIT:
@Topywo: Boy, your last suggestion is even crazier than jp’s. o_O
You are actually suggesting to delete everything beyond page 2. WTF, dude? First of all, you are just wrong, people do look beyond page 1. And even if they don’t, an important function of the forums is to archive discussions so they don’t repeat over and over again. After all, this a webforum, not 4chan.
Guess what, we also have a search function! So it is perfectly fine to retain old topics. It would be better if the search function wouldn’t suck so much, but at least you can use external search engines for that matter.
And just because you don’t care about everything beyond page 2, does not mean you have to enforce that on everybody else.

It scares me a bit that I actually have to explain in a forum of a free software game why censorship and mass-deletions are bad. :(

Wuzzy,

You're right, I unfortunately not defined the quality standards because it's already more or less obvious for people with superior minds/tastes. But I can define them in some criterias. These criterias are generic, absolute and can legitimately fly over the critics.

An essential mod is :

• SIMPLE. Simplicity is a guarantee of reliability. In all systems observed, the more it's complex, the more it can fail somewhere and bring the failure of the entire system or even a group of interdependent systems. A mod, like any (sub)program, is a system with lots of interacting elements (= nodes). Must read : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle
  
  If your needs tends to some complex functionnalities (like Mesecons), choose or make it the most simple as possible, stripped of all unnecessary heavy things or too rarely used by regular players.
  
  
• AESTHETIC. In the sense that adds at best familiarity or realism to the game. Players should feel comfortable almost like in an alternative reality.
  
  
• ORIGINAL. If it's not intented to be realist, so then it must be able to deploy the most fanciful area of possibilities that the imagination of players will exploit. By the way, the originality of a mod finds some unexplored new paths for the community; and often, the original release (if maintained) stays better than its bunch of forks.
  
  
• USEFUL. Simply means massively used and/or increases the comfort of the game.
  
  
• WIDE-RANGE. An essential mod shouldn't provide its thematic things very partially. The overall theme shall be the most complete as possible so that players will use it at best in their specific goals that the mod allows.
  
  
• LONG-TERM MANAGED. Install a mod on a server is a commitment more or less long, but definitive. The game engine evolves, the mod must adapt to it. If the mod is potentially often in the presence of bugs, the author shall be able to make quick repairs and consider suggestions over several years. Retroactive feedbacks represents a part of a powerful engine of development.

All of these criterias are always succeed by the same small number of master-modders there. They represents the elite of the community and they're the ones who participate in this famous 5% of essential mods. If I can give an example about the theme of custom mapgens, Paramat is truly considered as the great expert/demigod for that and through his creations, we no longer need to try other mapgens by other less talented/specialized modders that just add the redundant noise in sections.

Elitism is not necessarily a bad thing. It simply makes it easier to select good things/persons in the turbulent huge flow where you can drown so easily...

@Wuzzy
Rereading it, I saw I suggested to delete everything beyond page 1, not page 2.

Some nuance; removal from page 2 or 3 or 4, removal after being inactive for 1, 2, 6 months would also be fine.

Deleting is indeed a bit harsh. If there's enough storage space, archiving would be friendlier. But using a forum as an archive? Archives are kept away from sight for a reason. You only want to consult their contents if really necessary. For your daily business you only want to see the actual developments. And before going to spit through the archive, it's easier to ask someone who might know.

Topywo wrote:Deleting is indeed a bit harsh. If there's enough storage space, archiving would be friendlier. But using a forum as an archive? Archives are kept away from sight for a reason. You only want to consult their contents if really necessary. For your daily business you only want to see the actual developments. And before going to spit through the archive, it's easier to ask someone who might know.

I think it would be a nice idea to have some sort of archive to store inactive mods.

Esteban wrote:

Topywo wrote:Deleting is indeed a bit harsh. If there's enough storage space, archiving would be friendlier. But using a forum as an archive? Archives are kept away from sight for a reason. You only want to consult their contents if really necessary. For your daily business you only want to see the actual developments. And before going to spit through the archive, it's easier to ask someone who might know.

I think it would be a nice idea to have some sort of archive to store inactive mods.

Why? If they don't work, they go in old mods.

Wuzzy wrote:And about that Minetest stable release: This is needless, just visit http://minetest.net/download. Or someone just opens a thread in the Builds forum section. Therefore, there is no need for a subsection either way.

- There is a lot of new playes with unactualized Minetest versions. (I guess that almost all of them comes from Softonic)
-A lot of new players dont check the Builds Forum section, they don't really need it, they just visit the mods, and other stuff like that sections.

In my humble opinion:

You will NEVER get consensus on the forum as to what are good high quality mods. The solution is twofold:

One: Get the mod database working smoothly and have people do reviews there.

Two: Since a lot of folks aren't going to look at the mod database anyway, if we were going to have a new forum section, it shouldn't be "quality mods" it should be "Mod reviews" Anyone can start a thread there where they list and review what they think are the best mods. Other people will soon figure out which reviewers have similar needs/taste to their own, and they will pay more attention to those reviews.

Mod reviews? In a way, the discussion threads in the forum are already reviews to a degree.

Some time ago, I've started introducing mod categories in the wiki. The problem is that there are so many mods that need to be sorted that this takes more time I have. Krock has provided me with a list of mods which might allow slightly easier sorting of mods than doing a lot of cut&paste for each mod.

For each mod it would be necessary to determine if it can still be downloaded (else category "no download"), if it might still work with current MT/minetest_game (else deprecated/obsolete), and which categories it might fit into. Those categories would then have to be added to that text file Krock gave me, and afterwards a simple script could turn that list into something useful. But even with so little work per mod, it still is too much for one person if there are almost 1000 mods awaiting beeing looked at. Is anyone willing to help? It doesn't have to be perfect. All this aims to is to show players who are looking for mods that achieve something (i.e. add mobs) which threads in the forum contain mods that offer something in that direction.

Hey, I like what they did with the modding sections now. Modding general has been split up, which I think is a great idea. It will be harder to get around, but it is nicer.

Sokomine wrote:Mod reviews? In a way, the discussion threads in the forum are already reviews to a degree.

Some time ago, I've started introducing mod categories in the wiki. The problem is that there are so many mods that need to be sorted that this takes more time I have. Krock has provided me with a list of mods which might allow slightly easier sorting of mods than doing a lot of cut&paste for each mod.

For each mod it would be necessary to determine if it can still be downloaded (else category "no download"), if it might still work with current MT/minetest_game (else deprecated/obsolete), and which categories it might fit into. Those categories would then have to be added to that text file Krock gave me, and afterwards a simple script could turn that list into something useful. But even with so little work per mod, it still is too much for one person if there are almost 1000 mods awaiting beeing looked at. Is anyone willing to help? It doesn't have to be perfect. All this aims to is to show players who are looking for mods that achieve something (i.e. add mobs) which threads in the forum contain mods that offer something in that direction.

Would be nice to "tag" them with the minetest version, so we potentially know which one become obsolete

Max Power wrote:Would be nice to "tag" them with the minetest version, so we potentially know which one become obsolete

I don't think that's particulary important. For most mods, there's a minimal version of MT they may require - due to functions the mod uses not having been available earlier. But that's about it. Most mods can be adapted so that they work fine with newer versions. What I mean by "obsolete" are mods which are no longer needed because an improved version has been included in the default game or the engine has been changed in a way that the need for the mod is no longer given. Or a newer version of the mod is available. If in doubt, don't mark it obsolete. If someone's will become intrested in that mod again, the thread is there and people may discuss there what ought to happen with the mod.

Sadly, no volunteers have shown up so far :-( All that would be required would be to assign tags to mods in a text list.

At least the forums now distinguish between WIP mods and finished mods and modding discussion. That’s a plus.

Now there just needs to be a modding support section and I am happy. :)

Something says to me that I influenced in some way the creation of the new mods section...