Codermin

[nuklearcellphoneg]

Hi, this is not an issue, however it is a bit of uh... calling to arms.

1) If you would like some basic flags for troubleshooting, etc.... we'll get to that, but mainly:

2) I'd like to make a secret forum within the forums we have, that mostly you guys, and then admins, would have access to.

what do u think? :) For example, I believe that you can't actually close an issue, or delete an issue, so this thing will never be gone. So, really, the forum would be a really great place to open a lot of balancing issues, raise problems you have with someone else coding, etc, etc, without having to open issues you can't really get rid of.

[PJB3005]

I don't see the problems with just using GitHub.

Sometimes changes nobody likes will have to be made but even then keeping the discussions closed on an open source game feels wrong.

Also I don't think we need a place to talk about other coder mins, yes there's people who contribute terrible code and such but the solution is to not merge their code.

[Shadowmech88]

I feel like any sort of secrecy involving the coders will serve to feed conspiracy theories by the players about the big bad coderbus.

[9600bauds]

I feel like we LACK player input if anything

[SysadminJeroen]

I know that I haven't contributed much, but if I hear that there is a secret codermin forum I will stop contributing.

I like how open vgstation is, if you start creating factions or obfuscate things it will become an "us vs. them" situation.

[Exxion]

We need more player input, not less Plus, if we had something like that, about 60% of the posts would just be Manaony ranting about how awful the coders are

[ghost]

Github is fine enough as it is. There's nothing that needs to be secret code-wise. If it REALLY needs to be secret for some reason, you can push Pomf to add it to the secret repo, but that's about it

[Intigracy]

1) If you're talking just as being a coder without adminning, ADMIN SERVER DEBUG VAREDIT and maybe SPAWN are the bread and butter that codermins would need.

2)

For example, I believe that you can't actually close an issue, or delete an issue, so this thing will never be gone.

There's two types of people who can close issues: These guys and the person who opens the issue. Both of these groups are able to also re-open issues, but if someone in group 2 is abusing that privilege, issues can be locked to prevent further discussion and force closing it.

And like has been said, there's not really anything that would be worth putting in a secret forum. Most everything is publicly shown as far as coding is concerned (which is good imho), and we don't have the big stigma on talking about exploits in public that teegee has because we fix them RELATIVELY as soon as we hear about them.

[Exxion]

We fix them as soon as we hear about them

No, we fix them when they become a problem, usually a few months after we hear about them But close enough, I guess

[Intigracy]

Well at least I fix them when I hear about them.

[nuklearcellphoneg]

Ah, but you see, the entirety of Github to me is a big secret.

I have trouble navigating it, and a lot of stuff somehow seems to make it into the code despite, I mean, absolutely nobody wanting it.

I only ask these things because, honestly, how the goddamn fuck did cancer get put back into the game? I'm sure you all are fine with just using Github- you're all comfortable with it and can navigate it well. I can do it alright, but in all honesty I forget about it... even though 90% of my inbox seems to be Github reminders I didn't want.

http://ss13.moe/forum/viewforum.php?f=27

I tried this, but no one seems to be using it... I feel like our Server side polls are also underused, too, but in this forum, it allows more for the Everyman to suggest changes, reverts, additions, so on.

The only reason I suggested a secret forum was to act as a filter, so like say:

Coder X suggests idea.

Idea is approved by most of coderbus.

Take the idea from secret forum to public forum.

Playerbase approves/disapproves

---

It seems like the present process is:

Coder has an idea

Coder codes it for (TIME INSERTED HERE(probably quite awhile))

Coder makes it work without crashing the server(maybe, needs play testing on the live server)

Code is merged, doesn't crash/lag the server

Someone hates the new code for gameplay reasons, shitposts in the thread nonstop or whatevs.

---

As an aside, the thread is a terrible way to gauge how the player base feels on anything.

Perhaps my view is a bit too outsider, but I just wish we had a basic form of quality control where a coder says, 'hey I am going to code X, yea or nay???' and for this basic quality control to occur frequently and consistently.

To be completely honest, I highly doubt this is possible... because I can rarely get the players' input, which was another reason I wanted to try a private forum(since you guys don't use http://ss13.moe/forum/viewforum.php?f=27 ), so that you could provide that input for one another, but really... why not just use that public forum there, so the player base can have input on stuff more readily? :^)

I guess it's all impossible really.

[SysadminJeroen]

@nuklearcellphoneg You can unsubscribe from notifications.

Edit: And I give my opinion on issues that I think matter. If you do not want something in the code, vote against it. You can vote on posts using emotes, just like I did with your suggestion.

[Intigracy]

Yeah, with the recent github change adding emoticons it's become much easier to see an immediate feedback counter on PR's, and generally on something truly controversial I see a link posted in the thread pretty fast for people to argue about. I just think github is much more realistic to use for feedback gathering than the forums, since the forums mainly these days are just used for ban related stuff, and not everyone has made a habit of checking it frequently vs the amount of people who've caught on that it's a good idea to check github every so often. Though I do agree we could use having more QC to prevent things from going in that nobody wants.

Is there an easy way to create ingame polls?

The problem with having coders suggest ideas in secret forum x is that it's not just coder ideas that are being coded, it's also a bunch of the feature requests on the issue tracker.

[nuklearcellphoneg]

@Jeroen52 We have 38 watchers, 37 when you mark out the d3athrow reporting user. We have 83 s t a r g a z e r s.

As a sampling, here is the youngest and oldest stargazer profile: https://github.com/Giacom https://github.com/internetcritic , both useless and empty(well, I mean, not really, but we're not tg).

Clicking randomly, I find https://github.com/BestName?tab=contributions&from=2015-08-02 A useful lad, and https://github.com/nyanpasu?tab=contributions&from=2015-04-28 , someone who seems useful, but probably starred us in passing or something, I don't know, not a big vg contributor

https://github.com/Shaska- is the one who stands out to me; Ah, it's Ragnasal, surely he contributes a good deal.

But no, just an idle complaint on that damn radio transmitter in the middle of last year.

So, I would say Watchers are clearly the bit to look at, and make up a paltry 37. I'm really not sure how big our server is, but it is larger than this, by quite a bit. We really could use more player base input on things before coders dig in and begin working, and I truly don't believe github is the place to do it.

As an analogy, I used to try and try to tell people how to do chemistry 'better' and more 'efficiently'. I posted in the thread again and again and wrote up a couple of pastebin guides, etc etc. No one ever listened, except in basically one case, and that was updating the Wiki guides for Chemistry. It's easily accessible, and people already go there. The forums are similar, but yes @Intigracy , it's typically more for bans and such(and mostly only that, but to be honest, it is growing! I-in teeny tiny bits).

I just think that the player base is much more likely to sign up for the forum and give feedback openly and more often if we all invested more time into the forums, but I think Github(while not overly complex) can be challenging to get people to sign up for. I remember when you did not have to prove to 4chan you were not a robot, and then, suddenly, you did. A lot of people did not like it. That's the kind of board we come from.

If something fixes something that is broken, clearly there is little need for discussion. However, things such as cancer, traitor items, weapons, damage, attack speed,new reagents, how many ticks must pass before you can X again, game modes, so on and so forth, player base input would be most invaluable.

http://ss13.moe/forum/viewforum.php?f=27 is just an easy way to plainly view these things, and if you guys had any suggestions to make it better, I mean, I could add a Merged forum for things that pass player criticism, and a Needs Tuning forum for things that just need some tweaks, and a Cancer forum for things that are, well, exactly that. :^)

H o n e s t l y though, I also think we need more access to the Server Polls, but I believe that's a Pomf-side thing. If you guys can make a function that allows us to make polls that persist between rounds, by all means, please do.

[Intigracy]

You'd have to ask Pomf for the polls thing since it's all handled through the site.

[nuklearcellphoneg]

And he is a busy man and not everyone needs +SERVER POLL, so why not get everyone to use the easily accessible foru--

Oh wait, you are using them Intigracy. :^)

[Intigracy]

I wouldn't mind using the forums more if you'd set something up, and I'll happily admit I was wrong about github being easier if it ends up turning out better than what we have now. I just said not everyone is in the habit of checking them frequently as-is, even though I am.

I wasn't saying ask pomf for every time there needs to be a server poll, I meant maybe ask him if he could set up a way for others (read: you or one/some of the collabs) to create them without having to bug him every time.

As an example, when I was head of trialmins on /tg/ erro set up a url on the site for me. On it I could start polls for whether or not an admin should be promoted, it just had a username and password field for me to log in to (seperate from BYOND).

For even more security than that it could be made to just check if you're logged into BYOND.

[nuklearcellphoneg]

I've asked for him to implement this, but he may have overlooked it when I asked. It was on here. I used @ and everything.

Again though, since anyone could make a poll on the forum, I just think that would be a better option.

I guess I'll do some work on the forums. Thanks for your input everyone.

[PJB3005]

Making polls with +SERVER shouldn't be too hard to code.

[Intigracy]

I don't think it should be a flag that many admins have.

[Iamgoofball]

heads up about the watcher thing:

all coders usually keep all codebases on watchlist so that we're all immediately up to date on the latest and greatest fart and poo code added to codebases

[Intigracy]

No it's just so /tg/ TG can take features from other codebases and delete their comments when they comment on the PR.

[9600bauds]

all coders usually keep all codebases on watchlist

How the fuck do you keep up

[Iamgoofball]

open source theft

[Iamgoofball]

i have 25781 unread github notifications

[9600bauds]

pic

[Exxion]

Motherfucker I don't even keep this codebase on my watchlist

[nuklearcellphoneg]

And now I do do have it on watch, thanks guys.

@PJB3005 If it's feasible to code, please do, but it would be better to have a new flag. +Server is needed for some debugging and it would be best to keep the feature separate, really, for the sake of keeping Meme votes down