FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

I have noticed recently that a lot of people have been leaving because of the community. I also noticed that there are hardly any new people that are going to stick around coming in. We need to have a better community. Just something I noticed, please share your thoughts.

In every community folks keep coming and leaving. Thats a fact.
One could ask what could be done to stop those who came from leaving.

People who don't fit leave, that is how a community works.
There is nothing you can do to avoid it.

Although look at Dan Duncombe's post. He left because some of the community were "f*cks"

... Some of us would applaud people leaving because they don't read the f**king manual! Don't make me lose my patience, and I'll be helpful fellow. Ask a QAATT, and I'll either quote, link, just give a hint, or lose it. (Sorry Dan!)

Could the community be a better place? Heck yeah. Will it? Nah. It's a fact of life: everybody here is a volunteer. I didn't hire you. You appointed yourself. Easy come, easy go. People like Cornernote, and other talented modders, didn't leave because the community was a clique of dumb**ks, but because they had a personality conflict with a specific member.

And there's nothing that can be done about that.

I wonder about people who have rage quit or left in a huff. I find it easier to deal with people with conflicting personalities on the Internet because I can ignore them, or just leave when I've had enough, so I wonder what some of these people do when there are personality conflicts in real life. But I guess on the other hand, there may be more incentive to just deal with difficult people in real life (job, other relationships it could hurt, etc...). I have debates like this with myself all the time :-)

Okay, I wasn't complaining about people leaving. What I am worried about is the people who left were important parts of the community, they left because of the community. Also, the other thing I am worried about is not many new people are coming in.

... there's been an upsurge in server users, but not forum users. Why? Some people just want to _play_. Usually the forum represents 10% or so of the userbase.

seriously. I've never found a community so serious and productive, I feel good because we respect between us. I love you all.

In a nutshell,

tinoesroho is partly right, though i'd add that answers like RTFM rarely help. There's a cognitive dissonance between wanting more contributors, and the way they're greeted. For the most part though, unless people get themselves banned, they tend to just take long vacations.

There are also cultural differences which are plainly obvious. Some tend to be very direct whereas, example, Commonwealth members tend to be more polite. Employment experience - or lack thereof - is also a factor in being able to work with others. Finally, English is a second language for many - including some native english speakers apparently.

Communication and consensus building could be better, but no one can force it.

They blame the "community" as they can't blame anything else.

That's the "usual" suspect in these cases.

They're bitching for no good reason; which is also trying to scare away new people -- a thing we DON'T want.

That's why the I'm leaving posts are bad for business.

Jordach, you'd have to start by producing something to understand some of the issues people run into. People who complain the most about ragequitters rarely have attempted to contribute themselves.

tinoesroho wrote:... there's been an upsurge in server users, but not forum users. Why? Some people just want to _play_. Usually the forum represents 10% or so of the userbase.

^ This. A forum is rarely a good gauge of a community at large. There are always many more lurkers than contributors. Fact of life.

One of the issues is community diversity. Minetest speaks to different people in different ways, it attracts a much more varied audience that other games might. This is includes a fairly large age-range differential, which obviously is a huge factor in dealing with different personalities since some personalities aren't even truly "finalized" yet (still lots of maturing to do. But enough about me).

Minetest in general has an uphill struggle to attract new users because of the fact that it will instantly be compared to Mine Craft and the fact is, Minetest isn't anywhere near complete (although "fully" functional); it's still very much in heavy development. That puts a lot of people off. They don't want heavy development, they want little tweaks and shiny new little features. They want a nice little gift wrapped cube... with Mese inside.

As a relative noob, I've found these forums helpful. I think the latest website design is pretty good and lays things out pretty well. Nothing turns a potential user off faster than an inability to find what they need to find e.g. the files, help and information.

I think the Wiki could do with some additional content but if I understand it correctly it's being ported from a previously community-run Wiki? So, I get that this is probably a work in progress.

The only other criticism I would have is that it might be a little tricky getting into (understanding) server games. I played fairly extensively on singleplayer maps before venturing online. When I finally did start playing online, I had no concept of protections and interact privs (Never having played Mine Craft before probably didn't help either). On the plus side, when I got response, I found admin and other players to be helpful.

I've not used IRC so I can't comment on that.

In general, I'd say there's a good base for new users to jump right in to the community. There's a wealth of resources available. AT times, it seems like there's almost too much choice which might be overwhelming for a user (I'm thinking in particular of Mods). So things like forums to try to keep a handle on mods/servers/games etc is a good thing. An actively maintained database would be even better but of course that requires more dedicated time and man-power (at least initially).

On a personal note, I tend to ignore the I'm-leaving-tantrum-posts, as oft amusing as they are.

mauvebic wrote:Jordach, you'd have to start by producing something to understand some of the issues people run into. People who complain the most about ragequitters rarely have attempted to contribute themselves.

I have two pulls waiting for Minetest_game. I know how it feels to wait on them for a long time. Sam II IS ONE OF THEM.

Well I'm talking about posting mods: being nagged about code licenses, graphics licenses, the way you format your posts, the filehosts you chose, people who say "why dont you contribute to the original mod" when they themselves fork just about everything, people who are offended by other people asking questions, etc. I could go on but I think my point is made.

It tends to suck all the fun out of contributing.

mauvebic wrote:Well I'm talking about posting mods: being nagged about code licenses, graphics licenses, the way you format your posts, the filehosts you chose, people who say "why dont you contribute to the original mod" when they themselves fork just about everything, people who are offended by other people asking questions, etc. I could go on but I think my point is made.

It tends to suck all the fun out of contributing.

I thought you were talking about git, and yes, I have made and uploaded my own mods before. Never got bugged about it though.

Jordach wrote:I thought you were talking about git, and yes, I have made and uploaded my own mods before. Never got bugged about it though.

Sometimes I suspect they're personal issues masquerading as technical or legal ones, not everyone is scrutinized at the same level.

Don't get me started on core lol If it weren't for RBA and Jeija I don't think the API would evolve at all. :-)

mauvebic wrote:

Jordach wrote:I thought you were talking about git, and yes, I have made and uploaded my own mods before. Never got bugged about it though.

Sometimes I suspect they're personal issues masquerading as technical or legal ones, not everyone is scrutinized at the same level.

Don't get me started on core lol If it weren't for RBA and Jeija I don't think the API would evolve at all. :-)

You should come back to IRC, I miss these chats.

I read the logs two months ago and it convinced me to stay away lol I get much more done without it anyways.