forum.freeciv.org

Last year we had some discussion about the (lack of) feedback people give about the development, near the end of this thread: http://forum.freeciv.org/f/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=597
Though the claim there was more that people are not informed about the development; that the discussion is not where the interested parties are.
It's problematic to have the same discussion going on multiple platforms, but for a couple of weeks I tried posting some of the tickets that I opened myself, to these forums. Those didn't get any comments either.

Since the very beginning (a quarter century ago) the freeciv project has maintained that everybody has a right to comment on the changes before they go in to the codebase, and only when wider consensus cannot be achieved despite best efforts, it's up to maintainers team to do the decision (and the word "team" there means that no single person has the power to do the decision in such a case)

Now there's a suggestion/comment that we could drop the requirement for that "Review Period" when people can comment on planned changes, arguing that as nobody comments anyway, it's just making the workflow heavier: https://osdn.net/projects/freeciv/ticke ... 1651581936

What do people think about that?

For people interested about following the development: the main resources are the tickets at https://osdn.net/projects/freeciv/ticket/ - even anonymous ticket creation and commenting is enabled (which may change if there's too much spam), freeciv-dev mailing list (https://www.freelists.org/list/freeciv-dev) where any subscriber can send, and the freeciv-tickets mailing list (https://osdn.net/projects/freeciv/lists ... e/tickets/) for receiving emails about any changes to above tickets, so you don't need to check hundreds of them to see which ones have changed. We still have some activity on older ticketing at hrm, but the very reason we left it is that we cannot have new accounts there.

I trust the "team" about all the changes that are made official. I wrote several topics in the "Wishlist" section of the forum. The were quickly replied by you (cazfi) and, despite not being to my entire satisfaction, I accepted the answers. It is the team who knows the code better than anyone else and they know what can be done (and with what amount of effort) and what can't.

And the workload is overwhelming.

And some of the planned features are beyond my understanding because I don't know the code and how it is structured (I have inspected it on several occasions, being a coder myself).

Thank you (cazfi and other coders who may not be active in the forum) for all your work.

I would also like to thank the Freecivweb team for the "Filter console messages" dialog, which I find very useful.

Of all the projects that I have published I recall only three comments. But I persist with the model so that (a) users know they can comment if ever they see a need to do so, and (b) the hope that if someone sees a mistake (or an opportunity for improvement) they will comment.

cazfi wrote:Last year we had some discussion about the (lack of) feedback people give about the development, near the end of this thread: http://forum.freeciv.org/f/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=597
Though the claim there was more that people are not informed about the development; that the discussion is not where the interested parties are.
It's problematic to have the same discussion going on multiple platforms, but for a couple of weeks I tried posting some of the tickets that I opened myself, to these forums. Those didn't get any comments either.

Those didn't get many comments either. I was, of course, the proponent, and it is not too surprising that I did, in fact, comment. But it was not often, and there were two reasons for that (a) proposals are often not controversial and (b) the judgement as to what should be discussed where was questionable.

It was, and still is, my view that matters of general interest to the user community should be discussed where they are likely to see it. Arcane matters can be relegated to more private (but not exclusive) settings, but that does not mean just the ticketing system. Separate fora where people can choose to follow or not follow should also be considered.

If proposals are made public then that necessarily implies a 'Review Period', but there should be a clear distinction between requirements and design.

nef wrote:matters of general interest

I still don't know how one can tell what are those changes. Often the comments that we do get are to where I would least expect it - providing a surprise new view to something that I've considered rather trivial cleanup of no notable consequences at all. People who are not interested about introduction of entire new game concepts can have a very strong opinions about any change to a corner case of a corner case.

But feel free to start doing that, raising discussion about some tickets to the forums.

Judgement is subjective, of course, so there is no exact definition even in a narrowly defined context, but an example of what I had in mind can be seen in a comparison between the subject material in the topics "Proposed feature: ....." in the forum http://forum.freeciv.org/f/viewforum.php?f=14


and the posts in the following threads:

fc2.6
fc3.0
fc3.1
fc3.2

The former are mostly technical issues concerning development or release creation.
The latter are mostly matters that will affect gameplay for distro rulesets and modder rulesets (i.e. features). Now of course the former will be of particular interest to some but not me, so IMO these would be candidates for a more 'private setting'. The latter are of interest to me. (In particular, I look for features that might be of use in improving the civ1 ruleset but that`s another story.)

Often the comments that we do get are to where I would least expect it - providing a surprise new view to something that I've considered rather trivial cleanup of no notable consequences at all. People who are not interested about introduction of entire new game concepts can have a very strong opinions about any change to a corner case of a corner case.

I have noticed this so I am pleased to see it is not just me.

In one of C. Northcote Parkinson`s books there was a chapter discussing a council`s deliberation on an agenda comprising two items: (a) a new bicycle shed for a school and (b) a nuclear power plant proposal. No prizes for guessing which received 99% of the attention and discussion. The point was that people take in interest in matters with which they are familiar and understand.