Commmunity involvement

[Eonwind]

Now. I've said all the above and again, it will probably sound harsher than if I would say it. I'll move on to the part where you can rip me to shreds based on my suggestions.

What do I believe needs to be changed
* There needs to be one volunteer that is dedicated to welcoming new recruits and sending them off to their respective leaders. They will seek out every complaint, thought, idea or feeling the recruit has. They will also act as a guardian and advocate for the recruits idea's, so that the recruit will feel welcomed, valued and understood.

good idea who is willing to do it 24/7? we're looking for one since quite some time

* All the information gathered by the Recruitment-volunteer in the management-tool will be quantified, stored and made into reports. This is to understand the motivation of recruits and so that the system can be adjusted accordingly and what could be improved in the team, backed by numbers rather than opinions.

numbers are not going to approve a task, people do. It's always been like that in almost any project especially those involving art and graphic.

* The notion 'Planeshift is not a democracy' should be killed right here, right now. Whilst I understand that PS is managed as a company, even managers of Fortune-500 companies (actually, especially those) actually listen to their employees. 'Planeshift is not a democracy' kills any innovation, any free thought that any recruit (or member) might bring into the development. It kills progress, it kills motivation and results in the loss of new recruits.

No, the majority of the open projects out there, including opensurce projects are a "dictatorship of workers": who work on a project has the final say. Would be pretty odd if the first one passing by could "force" someone to work (not paid) on what he wants. Aside that I always listen to new ideas, and if they're good enough, technically possible and in line with the project goals I implement them.

* The notion that people should be thankful to receive experience in exchange for working for this project should be removed from our collective memory. Instead, people should be thankful to be working in such a supportive collective that values the person work (in a way) regardless of its quality. This means accepting almost any work into a central database. If the quality is bad, the offending items will be shelved for improvement. If it is truly horrible, at least the recruit had his chance. But most importantly, the recruit will be kept exactly as busy with new things as he/she wants to be at the quality he/she can provide.

Ok so you're basically saying we should pile up stuff that doesn't meet the project requirements? Maybe you don't know some stuff are easier to re-start from scratch than spending tons of hours fixing something buggy. It takes more time.
Also have you ever trained someone? Maybe you didn't or you should know training is time expensive, difficult and when you finally did it none can guarantee the trainee doesn't leave right away. I do it nevertheless but it should be noted that is not a trivial task.

* In combination with the above, adjust any requirement to join the team to zero. Anybody (18+) should be capable of joining. It is simply not our place to demand anything from the volunteers at the start and it deters people who otherwise could become constructive members. Instead, the team should be a place where new recruits (some without skills) are trained and formed into advocates of the game.

New recruits should get the opportunity to first grow the love for a team that has their back, then the work they need to complete and only finally, the entire Planeshift project.

If someone want to join I've never said no, but still the learning curve is steep.

Finally, the motivational factors you've mentioned. The reasons why people help:

* To help improve the game for yourself and everyone else.
* To enjoy being able to see your work in the game and others enjoying it.
* To give back. We've all played the game on Talad's dime. Why not give something back?
* To get practice at doing what we do.

These are all internal motivational factors. These all rely on the mentality that the person has undying love for the project and the belief that the project HAS to work. This is not something you can ask from people that haven't got any reason to do this yet.

Internal motivation is what we're looking for. People that haven't got any reason to do this yet means they have no love for the project, so what can we offer them? Money? Fame? No sorry, we don't have any of both, if that's what they're looking for I suggest they look somewhere else because with PS they would loose their time.

The first two factors, improving the game and the ability to see(enjoy, experience) what you've done are basically the same. They rely on the notion that you have love for PS and actually care that they are used/placed in-game. However, this excludes the majority of recruits: Unconvinced people that are repelled by the slow and tedious process of actually getting your stuff in the game. The people that remain already have much love for the game. But how can you grow a culture that trains people to have an undying love for PS when the condition to be accepted in that culture is to have an undying love for PS?

by playing the game and enjoying it?

The third factor... well... Realistically, nobody who joins today, yesterday or last month will really care whether they give anything back to Talad. They do not know the guy, they do not know how the system operates. Why should they care? Because they are inherently 'good' people?

I'm pretty sure "give anything back to Talad" means "give back to the project". The game is free to play, cost nothing, people that develop it are not paid, the server is donated, if someone doesn't absolutely feel thankful at all for that, well ... good luck with his conscience.

[TheAuthor]

good idea who is willing to do it 24/7? We're looking for one since quite some time

Well, the point I'm trying to make is that if you have the right tools, nobody needs to be on 24/7 anymore.

With the right tools:

• Tasks can be assigned to members and queued so new members always have something to do.
• Reminders and other messages can be (auto-)sent for specific tasks when people aren't responding anymore.
• People can receive, store and respond to alerts and messages on their smartphone, reducing the total amount of effort needed to communicate with the team to 'getting your phone out and swiping to the left'.
• The recruitment leader would get an alert at the precise moment a new member arrives and he can offer help right away.
• The system remembers all the recruits that pass by. If we combine this log with their thoughtprocess and feelings of certain aspects of development, we can improve those aspects.

This way we act in a way to reasonably counter (respectively):

• People that leave because there was nothing to do / nobody responded
• People that leave because they forgot about their project, just need a little motivation or are afraid to ask for help.
• People that leave because they feel communication via PC only is tedious.
• People that leave because they feel lost and awkward because they don't know who they're supposed to talk to.
• People that leave because of feelings, thought or motivations that I haven't mentioned yet.

numbers are not going to approve a task, people do. It's always been like that in almost any project especially those involving art and graphic.

I believe you misunderstood me (I don't understand otherwise) but with 'data' I meant asking recruits (via a survey of sorts) how they feel about the project, tasks, team etc.

A question could be: "When I entered the chatroom I felt welcome" - Highly Agree - Agree - Neutral - Disagree - Highly Disagree.

If the responses are:
1x HA
2x A
3x N
5x D
2x HD

Then you're apparently doing something wrong. That's what I mean with numbers, not opinions.

No, the majority of the open projects out there, including opensurce projects are a "dictatorship of workers": who work on a project has the final say. Would be pretty odd if the first one passing by could "force" someone to work (not paid) on what he wants. Aside that I always listen to new ideas, and if they're good enough, technically possible and in line with the project goals I implement them.

I don't understand the first part, but the second part (Aside that I [...] implement them.) is great! However, I still feel we should move away from opinion (Who decides what's good enough?) towards a data driven implementation process. If 5+ people tell you that the communication between teams is bad (and somebody wrote that down), then you simply can't deny that somewhere there's something going wrong. It might be still your opinion that you're doing the best there is, but that isn't actually relevant anymore

This is what I mean with listening to your workers. If you listen to 5+ separate workers and they tell you that communication between teams is bad, and you respectfully tell them that you feel that communication is OK because you have all these examples of when it went well... Well, that's not actually listening and it causes recruits to simply walk away...

Ok so you're basically saying we should pile up stuff that doesn't meet the project requirements? Maybe you don't know some stuff are easier to re-start from scratch than spending tons of hours fixing something buggy. It takes more time.
Also have you ever trained someone? Maybe you didn't or you should know training is time expensive, difficult and when you finally did it none can guarantee the trainee doesn't leave right away. I do it nevertheless but it should be noted that is not a trivial task.

With this point I purely meant 3D-models, textures etc. You're correct on coding, sorry I wasn't clear.

What I meant was that dev-members should handle contributions in a different way. Rather than criticism (no matter how constructive!!) and asking for (immediate) rework, it's better to accept the image, store it somewhere and ask the original artist (or a new artist) a week later to rework the image / model because you found something wrong with it. This is easily achieved by creating alerts of sort that remind you automatically after a week, so you can bring it up again with the original artist.

That way you change a negative and boring experience (rework rework rework) to a positive, gratifying experience. The new member is happy because he's done something for the team/game he loves and thus willing to repeat that process again. Rework isn't even that bad anymore because the artist had time (it's easier for the artist to spot the flaws) and other work (the work isn't as boring anymore) in between. Eventually you get to the same spot (great work) but via a more effective (albeit longer) route.

If someone want to join I've never said no, but still the learning curve is steep.

Agreed. It's still stated a bit harsh on the PS website though (for example: Several years of tabletop Roleplaying. That's a small pond to fish in!) and the learning curve is indeed steep. But I really feel that a 'good experience' (with the recruitment management process I've described above, or something similar) softens that curve immensely and gives motivation for a recruit to return when he/she hits a rough spot in the production process or in real-life.

Internal motivation is what we're looking for. People that haven't got any reason to do this yet means they have no love for the project, so what can we offer them? Money? Fame? No sorry, we don't have any of both, if that's what they're looking for I suggest they look somewhere else because with PS they would lose their time.

Internal motivation is why people join. External motivation is why they stay. A fun team, clear communication between members, up-to-date information in the Dev-libraries, diverse tasks etc. Parallels can be drawn with Herzberg's Motivators and Hygiene factorsSource.

* Motivators(Internal Motivation) are things such as achievement and responsibility ("I want to join because I want to add to the game that I love!") and cause the person to feel good (Satisfaction)
* Hygiene(External Motivation) factors are things such as policies and working conditions. They do not cause good feelings, but they prevent bad feelings (Dissatisfaction) from happening.

So no money and fame, but a well-oiled, communicative team that is a pleasure to work with and a nice system that respects new visions and idea's.  In fact, every day in real life, people take (large) cuts in salary to work in a new company ONLY because of the positive culture and attitude the new company or his/her new team has towards their ideas. Isn't that an interesting thought?

[Candy]

Even the SkunkWorks project was kind of a mess for me, personally. I showed up to the weekly meetings at first (in which I felt rather unheard, by the way), then they seemed to dwindle, and after months of what I thought was inactivity I found out that things had been moved to the German channel for all that time. The impression I got from the experience was "Welcome to the team now GTFO". The worst part? I joined because I wanted to make a positive change, yet the lack of cohesion I wanted to help fix was the what squeezed me out of the team.

[Sen]

It was SkunkWorks that realized Leatherworking - so everyone using leatherworking should have a thought on contributing can work.
(Actually, Minks was doing almost all the work *hails*)

Therefore, I don't regard SkunkWorks a mess, though there would be room for improvement organization-wise.

[Candy]

They let a willing, eager member of the team fall to the wayside. Things are at least a little messed up if that happens.

[Eonwind]

What I meant was that dev-members should handle contributions in a different way. Rather than criticism (no matter how constructive!!) and asking for (immediate) rework, it's better to accept the image, store it somewhere and ask the original artist (or a new artist) a week later to rework the image / model because you found something wrong with it. This is easily achieved by creating alerts of sort that remind you automatically after a week, so you can bring it up again with the original artist.

That way you change a negative and boring experience (rework rework rework) to a positive, gratifying experience. The new member is happy because he's done something for the team/game he loves and thus willing to repeat that process again. Rework isn't even that bad anymore because the artist had time (it's easier for the artist to spot the flaws) and other work (the work isn't as boring anymore) in between. Eventually you get to the same spot (great work) but via a more effective (albeit longer) route.

So are you saying a prospect who submitted an art asset which is not good enough to be used (and so it's been stored somewhere) would be glad and happy knowing his work will never end up in game? Or are you suggesting a dev should lie saying "yes of course your work is good and will end up in game ... not now, in a few weeks ... or months ... or ...".
This would be mocking them, and I've never seen anyone being happy to be made a mockery.
If someone is not skilled enough for a task, he can choose to hone his skill by putting a lot of effort into it, or give up. Simply giving the illusion people are good enough is of no help for both.
However when a prospect working for a department feels like he's not fitted but he's still willing to help it's not the first time we give him the chance to try something else.

[Pierre]

Agree with Eonwind here - if I were a prospect submitting work, and the work was not right (did not fit the game or was of poor quality) I'd rather know this up front so I could work on my skills or on creating work more suited to our settings.

There are better and worse ways to communicate that information.  E.g. if I were told "this doesn't work because we don't think hot pink stones should pave the roads in Amdeneir," I like it.  I can argue why fuchsia goes really well with Klyros wings, but ultimately I would be totally ok with why my work doesn't work.

Similarly, if I made a model for Lemurs, supposedly the most beautiful creatures under the crystal, and they are basically stick figures, then someone can say "this work is not up to the level of our other races and we need it to be" and I must go back to the drawing board, or try to make hot pink paving stones.

However, there are ways to give criticism that just kill the motivation and demoralize the artist.  If the art asset is mostly good but needs alterations, it's best to say that up front - "good work, impressed - it needs to have this or that done to it before it can be considered for use."

Just saying "do this or that" then after a re-work "ok now do this or that" without any acknowledgement that the work is decent (or appreciation for the effort) is not the way.

Back to people skills I guess?  But maybe this is what you all were talking about with "internal motivation" - in the sense that if I believe in my work enough and love the project, I wouldn't need someone to say "looks good" before saying "fix it up and we'll consider it."

That kind of internal motivation works for only a subset of human beings - I personally have it in a limited way.  When I submit my work to my advisor/collaborators, I can stand criticisms without any positive feedback up to a point.  But I definitely need people to appreciate me and how I work in order for me to do my best work.  Maybe many others are like this too.

In fact, I only know some mad mathematicians who don't work like this - they could not care less about what other people say, even people advanced in the field - they work because they love the work and nothing can de-motivate them.

TL;DR:  Honesty is the best policy.

[Eredin]

Devs and GMs are nothing more than overwrought people spending their precious free time, when they could be with their families or playing the game, battling an ever increasing backlog to bring new and exciting things to the community. 

People with feelings, exactly   like prospects.

What do I believe needs to be changed
* There needs to be one volunteer that is dedicated to welcoming new recruits and sending them off to their respective leaders. They will seek out every complaint, thought, idea or feeling the recruit has. They will also act as a guardian and advocate for the recruits idea's, so that the recruit will feel welcomed, valued and understood.

I would love to see that and I'm not alone. That little word “volunteer” illustrates the problem. The system of tracking, work assignments, positive feedback and storage of work that isn't quite ready would require at least one person to spend all of their PS-dev hours managing all the relationships between individual devs and prospects. Are you the volunteer we need?

There have been 18 applications to the engine department since Jan 2013. I have personally attempted to contact all of them. Every single one. With multiple emails. Mostly I just get no response. I constantly encourage and offer private, personal help to members of the community. I even spent time with a couple people that were fresh out of college and had great enthusiasm but little knowledge, in an attempt to get them ready to apply. After all this, two recruits have produced results : Sangy was a capable prospect who essentially communicated only with me, and only via email, produced the 'renameable containers' patch then although we were on  friendly terms he vanished. Real life came first. Natoka is a capable prospect who continues to crank out good features at a pace that I can barely keep up with ( \o/ a happy problem to have! ). That's less than 5%.

Well, the point I'm trying to make is that if you have the right tools, nobody needs to be on 24/7 anymore.

What specific tool did you have in mind and would you be willing to set it up and maintain it for us?

However, there are ways to give criticism that just kill the motivation and demoralize the artist.
...
TL;DR:  Honesty is the best policy.

Then substitute "dev" for "artist" in your statement, and consider your attitude toward Taya. I believe you owe her a sincere apology. It was not constructive criticism but rather, as you say, demoralizing...and to more Devs and GMs than just Taya.

Devs are often called all manner of bad things. Engine devs specifically are called idiots, stupid, incompetent and lazy (search the forum if you doubt me) primarily because we didn't do things someone else's way on their time schedule. It's really a vicious cycle - We cannot bear a steady diet of insults and attacks without either developing a very thick skin or quitting in disgust.  IF we develop a thick skin then we become subject to more attacks simply because of that have a thick skin.

Internal motivation is why people join. External motivation is why they stay.

That kind of internal motivation works for only a subset of human beings ...
But I definitely need people to appreciate me and how I work in order for me to do my best work.  Maybe many others are like this too.

You are SO right !! Our source of external motivation is the community. If you want to see things getting better then become one of those positive people. To Those people who tell me they enjoy my stuff and truly appreciate my efforts – YOU are the ones that make the insults bearable and the job worthwhile. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

[Mariana Xiechai]

I've actually had a fairly good experience with the dev team. But then again I'm pretty much just a book writer and a quest writer. I make suggestions about what might be cool to put in the game (the courtship books, Numbers in the DR, whatever) and I have a sort if take it, leave it or tweak it relationship with the team. If they don't think a particular idea will work I just let it go. No big for me. For instance, I had suggested that letting author-characters actually have stories published in Jayose's library might be cool, and though it hasn't happened yet they've been open to it and are considering some submissions.

* Mariana Xiechai shrugs.

What people have to realize is that everyone is working during their free time, so really, TheAuthor, it seems to me that much of your commentary is actually applicable to devs themselves. I'm not saying there cannot be any improvement, but I think folks have to also acknowledge that everyone is operating under a completely (or almost completely) rewardless system. Sure, I can agree with you that there needs to be more comaraderie, and maybe more activity. That said, a lot of the issue there is sheerly lack of resources. The team isn't all that big, and I'd wager part of the degenerative cycle is like this:

Prospects sign up, but so few out of those that do actually put forth effort

Over time devs become jaded due to the lack of effort, and on top of it, jaded over the insulting manner of some others (as per Eredin's remarks about being called stupid)

Because the dev team seems hard to penetrate to reach a respected level to provide feedback, folks like you, Author, who DO actually want to contribute and perhaps WOULD stick around get understandably bitter, or at least disheartened.

The entire fiasco becomes a negatively sprawling us versus them. Like most things in life there's no one side to it. From this conversation, personally I think that:

The prospects need to acknowledge that, for the moment, there are limited people resources. I know it's tough, but change doesn't happen overnight either. Patience can be key, and as PS is in a sort of lull right now it'll take time to implement any suggested changes. This has nothing to do with dev competancy (or lack of it) but rather their balancing dev work with their amount of actual free time.

The dev team should reintiate taking polls for certain suggestions. Prospects, if they see something they really want changed, can put forth a specific topic to be voted upon. If the vote is positive, then the prospect who put forth the vote should be allowed to help mediate the change they want to see in the system, working in tandem with a dev. To be effective as a community, everybody needs to be open to suggestion, so long as it is actually provided in a manner that IS constructive. I will throw in that Taya-bop has always been amicable towards me and I've observed her open to suggestions from others, so whether one reads her single forum reply as negative or not, it's certainly no example of her dev-bearing as a whole.

These are just my two cents, flame away!

[Pierre]

Taya seemed extremely chill about my post.  I was harsh, and I apologize for being too harsh.  I have a problem with the way Taya interacts with people who criticize and how he or she thinks about events.  But it is completely correct to say that me being harsh makes matters worse.  And I could have said what I said without that.

I was clear that I have no problem with other devs, and in fact apologized in advance to them.

However, that has just been modified.  Whoever "Eredin" is, if not Taya, is out of line to make a new forum identity to bash me and stick up for someone said explicitly that she can take criticism.

If you were offended and wanting to demand an apology, Taya, better to say it to me up front and not have other devs coming in here for one post identities to do the dirty work.

Cheers, I'm off the thread but will certainly still read it.  I feel like the issues are getting listened to now, and discussed realistically with listening on both sides, not so much deflection.  I'm happy about that.

[cdmoreland]

Pierre, with your attitude I can see why you might have a problem with Taya, or anyone else for that matter. As for your remark about Eredin, he has been around for some time. Maybe he never felt the need to post before this and I can see why he choose to now.

[Mariana Xiechai]

Eredin has indeed been around for a very long time, I think a year, maybe more? And has attended every dev meeting I've bothered to be at.

It's kinda mean to accuse Taya not only of making a bash-alt title, especially since from what I read the post wasn't bashing (and if it was, then you must agree your post at Taya was as well,), but then to say she's having other people fight for her, when it's entirely possible and probable that Eredin was merely sticking up for a friend. Escalating harshness works this way, Pierre, but there's no need to make those passive aggressive attacks upon Taya's character, and in this case I can say they were both 100% entirely incorrect, if anyone reading wanted to know.

[Pierre]

Sorry Waesed, Mariana, not constructive, not helpful, in my opinion.  Not interested in being bashed without any contribution to the discussion.

I will still post on other threads and give my two cents.  I will still write up the GM events that I love.  But I'm off this thread.  Bash away peeps.

[Mariana Xiechai]

Pointing out that your accusations were wrong is not bashing, and anyone reading is capable of telling you the same. Telling you both that Taya is not Eredin and that Eredin is not simply doing her dirty work, both things I know as fact, is merely me dismantling two things you accused that were wrong, which is itself a completely valid thing to do. I have not made any negative comments upon your character, nor have I intention to do so, I am merely pointing out how your accusations can be hurtful. I'm sorry if you are unable to see that, and if you felt I was attacking you.

Another thing I think the devs either are doing or might be contemplating doing is letting players take brief control of GM events. I think, at least in a scenario where it's a trustworthy player proven to stimulate engaging RP, this is a wonderful idea. After many event hostings, such a player may even be able to cooperate with a dev or a gm to use certain pcs to make longer reaching, story oriented, NPC-involved plotlines.

Any thoughts on this?

[Lumi]

If we can't discusss without beeing called "bashers", we wont go far... But i think THERE is the main problem no ? You can't take critiscism without a spoon of sugar? Com'on.

NO ONE of the tasks asked to either Devs, prospects or GMs are easy. It's never something like : "Hey here is my work ! Thanks, wonderful *implemented*" . There is always 67 steps before the work is even tested.
There is always something that is to take into account and which, in the end, ask to rework the submitted work : lore not fitting, impossible to do engine wise because totaly crazy, too long for a quest, etc... And EVEN DEVS has to abandon some ideas because of those reason.

In the other hand, it's not easy for a new prospect to enter a team that work together since years. It's true, not easy. But maybe it's due to the number of people coming and going too. Still it's possible and trust me, some are extremly welcoming and do all to help you feel listenned and supported. But in the other hand if you can't take criticism such as : " We can't do this." than you are just not made to work in team. That is all. Nobody is perfect, i know no team where there is no problem at some point. It's HUMAN ! 

And i still, i really still prefer to have a "NO, YOUR ARE SILLY" kind of answer then no answer at all, it's the worse thing possible to do to a possible prospect.

All in all, either you feel like working in for the game (motivation reason is enterly up to you), either you don't. I don't think there is a middle ground here.

Side note : We should avoid going personnal, it's all except a personnal affair. Honestly thought, i don't see the problem with Taya's first post o.O' I re-read it several time and still don't see where is the problem ? As i understand it, she was just trying to make the balance, it's not all on the Dev shoulders...

To the Project Dev Topic now
TUATHANACH ASKED :
1: Are people interested in contributing to either a: a project lead by me or b: the game in general?
2: Do people have ideas to increase/encourage community involvement in game development?

1/a. Should be hell of a fun !
2. I think despite the tone of the post, TheAuthor gave some ideas to improve the involvement. Dev should atleast ANSWER to the prospect, give a feedback beeing negative or not. In the other hand prospect should be ready to take criticism and ready to rework several time on their stuff. It's no BIG DEAL! Doesn't mean the work is bad, it's just normal. To give an image to this : You have to make a square fit in a circle. Yes it ask several work around