Lost Overview in Board

[dei]

I don't know how it feels for you, but we have a lot of valuable discussions, ideas and feature-requests in this board which is time consuming as a dev when looking for something to implement or design.

Wouldn't it make sense to summarize the contents in a central structured way? In the Issue-Tracker (Github), the wiki, some other form or is this already taking place?
For this task, not as time consuming as developing itself, I could sacrifice an hour a week if I could help you with summarizing until I can start developing in fall. (I'll read through the code and nearly all forum posts until then anyway)

 

[Cervator]

You're exactly right, I agree, and have been waiting for a good time for us to switch over to Xenforo rather than put any effort into the current setup. Any help summarizing and such would be great. For now I'm not totally sure how to even organize the new site / forum / etc - thus the stuff over in the mod forums thread. Any suggestions on structure between forum / pages / wiki / issue tracker would also be appreciated

 

[dei]

As a Ubuntu user I admire the way Canonical has organized its development. Less elaborated concepts or ideas to be splitted and voted on (like now on this Board) are managed in their IdeaTorrent (http://www.ideatorrent.org/). Then translated into a Blueprint (=Feature-Issue) in their Issue-Tracker on Launchpad (see blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu). There they manage their Bugs, Translation and some support-requests too. The Launchpad Project is Opensource, works with bzr and can be used for free by Opensource-Projects hosted on the Canonical Servers (like Github).

So I would use a solution as ideatorrent to track and priorize feature-requests from the "public". The devs or moderators can then translate the most important ideas into well-defined and well-structured blueprints in the issue-Tracker (can be left on github). So the developer only has to implement small features and doesn't have to read through hundreds of boardposts. The same process can be used for administrative belongings like marketing, webadministration...

The wiki is good for documentation like it's used now. Support for users as for devs can be handled through the board but with a note that feature requests have to happen over the ideatorrent or issue-tracker. IMO we can leave the bugtracking on github too. (perhaps make more use of the closes #... functions in commit comments)
To support and motivate developers we could publish a suggestion link to http://coderbounty.com/ so if someone wants a feature he can sponsor the developer two beer (5$).

 

[overdhose]

The only xp I have was using Mantisbt, integrated with svn and Dokuwiki (as those were readily available). That was my version of our own little intranet, mainly for the bugtracking, and worked quite well. What was sweet were things like feature requests, versioning and automatic change log, and the feedback request status of issues. Would still be my own choice if it was a viable solution

 

[Cervator]

Behold, this is on a shiny new forum now

We still have some construction and reorganization to do, but many more options now!

 

[begla]

Yep and we'll all have to thank AlbireoX for kindly contributing the license.

 

[Cervator]

Okay - I've taken an initial stab at some structure and purpose, even!

I know we'll need more forums than this later, divided into more specific topics, but for now I'd like to keep the forum sprawl from getting out of control. That, and it'll be enough work just to trawl through all the posts and moving them somewhere appropriate as it is

I've reviewed some of the related suggestion threads on organization but certainly haven't caught and applied everything - so please suggest further changes to organize us better and even to approach fancier frameworks if appropriate.

My main focus has been putting together a sort of funnel from vague to concrete. There's a Suggestions forum for initial intake of whatever, can be as good as random. Anything from there that really strikes a cord with somebody can be picked up by the main Development team for actual Design & Implementation (focused for core game features) or secondary potential (modding) - ignoring the whole "mod" definition debacle for the moment, I purely mean it in its traditional meaning of an extension to the game here

Likewise there's a General Dev forum where ideas could also be lifted out from for Design & Implementation (Research & Development might be more traditional - but it feels too close to other Dev topics / naming?) or Modding. Haven't adopted specific forums to "Game Modes" yet (Genesis, Untrue Tao, full DF-style Terasology) as I think we're still pretty general on modes (and the whole terminology soup)

From any of those along with the new Support forum we might spawn outright issues for the tracker on GitHub

There's a tasty looking long-term planning forum that is not access controlled yet - but it will be, so right now it is just forbidden fruit with no caloric content

User groups are in progress and we'll badge them up sometime soon. Could work like informal teams - design, world gen, art, architecture, modding, etc

Oh, and then there's this shiny new Website forum, be sure to check out the one other thread on observations noted on how to get along with this new Xenforo beast of ours

 

[Cervator]

Haven't sorted the topics a lot yet, but I'm torn on the Dev forums - seems like there are too many considering our track record of going off-topic so one thread ends up qualifying for being in 3-4 different forums.

I'm wondering if I should merge back down to two - Dev Portal (anything general) and a focused feature development forum (reminds me of that old Design & Implementation again - can start at design and go through the whole SDLC process more or less). Plus Art and Contrib Intro as separate forums. I know "Modding" makes sense later, but I just don't see it currently (ideas not immediately fit for implementation would end up just staying in the suggestions forum)

For sorting ideas - I looked through the Xenforo addons real quick looking for something, figuring there might be something, but a brief search didn't spot anything. I might have missed something tho, so anybody else feel free to check (I keep thinking there's got to be something). I was able to dig up an example ideaTorrent site: http://sourceforge.net/apps/ideatorrent/sourceforge - does look pretty nice.

Maybe we should just add a little more focus on maintaining threads? Moving them around if needed. Fewer forums help there. I dunno.

 

[overdhose]

Sometimes you need to chase cats with a broom to teach them to stay out of your living room
My mom seemed to love that concept, she chased cats with a broom on daily bases...