TripleA development

Panther

@frigoref For years (some more than a decade), these have been my playgrounds:

qualified answers to rules questions (core game rules)
engine testing
bug reporting
Github issue investigating, accepting or denying (when rules / gameplay related)
end user support for engine and map-related issues
end user support for software issues on the user's side
end user support for some core procedures on Github
end user support for some aspects of map creating and tweaking
forum administration (some special tasks)
forum moderation

In the past I have understood myself as being sort of an "interface" between development/developers and end user.

Not sure how that fits to any profile.

frigoref

@panther the profiles are kind of the facets a contributor can have and they should lead as guide for people who are willing to contribute to a point where they can actually do the contribution they want to.
It is very welcome if contributors as yourself match to multiple facets (=profiles).

At the moment my goal is to complete the list of profiles, get a common structure, get support to fill them out and finalize them in a group.
Would you be willing to take over the profile of a rules guru?

Panther

@frigoref said in TripleA development:

Would you be willing to take over the profile of a rules guru?

Yes, of course.

beelee

@frigoref heh heh "guru" just makes me chuckle

frigoref

Please have a look for my started contribution page, give feedback and fill the "tbd" parts according to our list:

Developer with merge rights ( @RoiEX, @LaFayette )
Developer w/o merge rights ( @RaiNova, me )
Issue manager ( @beelee )
Map makers ( @RogerCooper )
Rule gurus ( @Panther )
Forum moderators ( @Cernel )

beelee

@frigoref I guess for mapmaker you'd want an understanding of how xml works as well as graphically creating the map.

LaFayette

@frigoref

WDYT of adding a "$$ Funding" contributor role that links to our paypal?
What type of content will be behind the "player" contributor role link?

frigoref

@beelee
Can you help me please on the "graphically creating the map". A map maker should have a way to create image files for the map items like territories and units, i.e., a tool (like Photoshop) and the skill to design it in the tool?

PS: The link was an invitation to contribute on github directly

frigoref

@lafayette
Alright, I have added the role Donor.
For the question on the content behind the "player" contributor role link, I would ask you to try it: Player

Panther

@frigoref said in TripleA development:

PS: The link was an invitation to contribute on github directly

PR sent

frigoref

@panther thanks for you input.
Anyone else is also welcome!

TheDog

@frigoref
Maybe the Map Maker should be called Map Loader or Map Git Loader?
AFAIK @beelee and @ff03k64 could be added to the list of Map Loaders.

To me a Map Maker is alkexr, ebbe & Frostion they are not always the same as a Map Loader.

LaFayette

@frigoref

Missing Roles

Seemingly two missing two roles:

Map Admin: These people curate the maps and generally try to make sure that they work. They tag maps and check for them for quality and to the best of their ability trademark issues. They help out with updating XMLs as needed, helping to ensure that all maps are complete (have images) and generally play well.
QA: these people do extensive user testing of the game, typically on the prerelease and then submit high quality bug reports regarding their findings. They help doing regression tests before 'stable' releases are launched.

Terminology - Contributor Role vs Community Role vs Project Role

Having "Players" as a contributor role was seemingly a bit odd (or so I thought initially). Though, I see we basically ask Players to submit problem reports when they come across them. I would consider renaming the term: "contributor role" to "community role" or "project role" perhaps.

Alternatively, we can avoid labeling these roles and rename the header of the section to something like "How to contribute to Triplea"

beelee

@frigoref said in TripleA development:

@beelee
Can you help me please on the "graphically creating the map". A map maker should have a way to create image files for the map items like territories and units, i.e., a tool (like Photoshop) and the skill to design it in the tool?

Yea idk how to do the graphic stuff other than tweak a few existing units. Cernel and wc_sumpton can do both xml and graphics that are currently active here. A few others as well.

PS: The link was an invitation to contribute on github directly

ahh ...

frigoref

@thedog @beelee @LaFayette
Please don't take offense in my question, but I am genuinely interested in what prevents you from using the link to make a pull request to contribution page, but you are still writing - even some extensive - posts here about what should change?

TheDog

@frigoref
I dont know what a Pull Request is or does.

I find github is not intuitive and not easy to use. I have tried to use it to upload a map and failed and wasted over 3 hours achieving absolutely nothing.

The TripleA forum is ideal for offering opinions and thrashing out ideas and so others can agree or disagree.

Then you as the original owner of the document make the changes, as I dont feel qualified.

frigoref

@thedog I understand your frustration, but this is a normal MD file which is even having a text editor like for any post you make in the forum.
Adding some text is as simple as writing a post here.
But maybe that was not clear and some are not feeling comfortable on github due to past experiences like you seemed to have had.

TheDog

@frigoref
I didnt know what a normal MD file was so I googled it.

The file format is 'md', which stands for Markdown documentation. It is a lightweight markup language that can be easily converted to text.

GitHub still does itself no favours.

On a positive note I do use github to help Devs, but I treat it like a forum post,
my greatest contribution is;
https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/issues/7819

frigoref

@lafayette I am not quite sure how to adjust the current page.

Map Admin is the Map Maker as far as I can see.
QA is not a proper name. How about 'Release Tester'?
The role term should reflect that it is an active component. 'Community' or 'Project' are reflecting more a passive association. Therefore, I would vote to keep 'contributor role' as the role term.
I would definitely want to keep a proper name. We are missing currently a clear structure and for new community members it is difficult to see how they can contribute to the project. Defining roles gives guidance for new members and also identification for existing members. Furthermore, the role lables indicate who is supposed to do what and this separation of concerns is helping to give a community spirit.

LaFayette

@TheDog , just a few responses to what you posted:

The TripleA forum is ideal for offering opinions and thrashing out ideas and so others can agree or disagree.

It is actually far easier to comment on a pull request than it is to offer one or offer other changes. Because comments are in-context, notably they can be specified to the specific lines and can be resolved, it is far easier to track a multi-facetted conversation on a pull request. Forums are actually really bad at this, as soon as a thread has more than 2 or 3 topics, it is difficult to manage them. Further, any topic and conversation creates more content, contrast this with well organized discussion threads that are resolved (and so the amount of content is reduced as consensus is reached vs the other way round).

Then you as the original owner of the document make the changes, as I dont feel qualified

Once an item is merged, the owner is the 'TripleA' organization, there is no actual explicit personal ownership. In other words, it's not my code, it's TripleA's code and documentation.