Sharing Minkata's administration duties

[Doobes]

I agree that it shouldn’t, but as long as nobody else steps up to help – more determinedly than I once did – that’s the way it is.

I honestly doubt nobody has ever stepped up and asked if they could help out with admin duties given Minkata is the gateway to MOULa. The question then becomes, if anyone DID ask, were they vetted and eventually offered the keys or just told the obligatory "We'll let you know"?

Ideas are cheap, execution is what counts.

Agreed. It just seems like people are ready to do or even did said execution, but there is no real clear path to implement anything as far as Minkata is concerned. This has driven away any genuine momentum when they get fed up with the little to no movement.

Note that the only new content that HAS made it into MOULa in recent years, as buggy as it was, bypassed OpenURU and Minkata entirely. That says a lot.

There are things that can be done without requiring involvement by rarified, such as making sure we have a client that is compatible with both MOULa and Korman.

That's all well and good, but we need to push boundaries and truly test...dare I say, break things...in order to fix them and make them truly compatible with MOULa, all out in the open where everyone and anyone can have a look. Otherwise, you're tying the programmers' hands far too much.

But my impression – from back in the day, maybe things have changed – is that most of the people who are technically and availability-wise capable of it are not very interested in contributing to MOULa, due to mentioned restrictions from Cyan or whatever other reasons.

People have been dying to add content to MOULa since long before open source was announced, and still do. I have a distinct feeling that nobody would mind working within Cyan's restrictions...that's part of the challenge...but when nothing moves at all, it can be disheartening for those who invest their time...and more of a reason for them to give up altogether.

At the end of the day, we need to ask:

1) What giant leaps has Minkata taken since its inception, if any?
2) If none exist, why is that and what can we do to unjam this blockage?
3) How best to we spread the workload so it's not all on rarified's shoulders?

Question 3 is partly the answer to question 2. It's why this thread was started.

Sharing the admin duties would help rarified and give others a chance to have a look at Minkata and see what they can do to enhance it.

[Christian Walther]

I honestly doubt nobody has ever stepped up and asked if they could help out with admin duties given Minkata is the gateway to MOULa.

Maybe, although if it happened as “determinedly” as I said I would have thought I would have heard of that.

People have been dying to add content to MOULa since long before open source was announced, and still do.

I was more coming from an engine than content point of view, but regarding content – I am genuinely curious, can you point to any such activity? To my knowledge, you are still the only person who has ever pushed – on an “execution”, not just “idea” level – for their ages to make it into MOULa. Have I been out of the loop, or forgetful?

we need to push boundaries and truly test...dare I say, break things...in order to fix them and make them truly compatible with MOULa, all out in the open where everyone and anyone can have a look.

Yes, but how much of this actually needs Minkata? Of course it would be nice and save some effort to use Minkata for it, given that it already exists, but if there’s a bottleneck at Minkata, couldn’t much of it also be done on other shards, not even necessarily public ones? Even if Minkata remains the gateway to MOULa, wouldn’t it also take work off its maintainers if contributions already arrived there tested in a MOULa-like environment? I’m not seeing that happening, which is why I am less optimistic that Minkata is the only bottleneck and unjamming it would get us much further.

[rarified]

I hate to fall into Doobes’ “We’ll get back to you” bucket, but I am working on a substantial response to the points raised here, as well as a proposal I hope will be able to improve things.

_R

[Doobes]

I hate to fall into Doobes’ “We’ll get back to you” bucket, but I am working on a substantial response to the points raised here, as well as a proposal I hope will be able to improve things.

_R

Believe me, "we'll get back to you" was merely an observation with no ill will behind it. Honestly though, rarified...it's time to truly share the shard with those who can help, particularly the crew at the Guild of Writers. I can personally vouch for their professionalism if you simply take what they say seriously and practice a proper give and take and, just maybe, let some of them work on the shard. If you've seen their work on Gehn Shard, they know what they're doing and won't permanently break anything.

I know you play this close to the chest, but look at what that has gotten us so far. It's been years and not one fan Age while other shards have several. Fan clothing made it into MOULa, but only after bypassing Minkata and OpenURU altogether. Some under the hood fixes, yes, but as great as those are, they won't keep fans coming in or attract new ones.

The fact that it's only you testing this stuff and not sharing the raw data (particularly crash logs) with those that know the engine well...or, dare I say, better...goes against the whole idea of open source.

With all due respect, you have to stop treating Minkata like your personal project and truly let others in to work on things. This will be beneficial to you, your workload, and to the whole process.

[Hoikas]

I was more coming from an engine than content point of view, but regarding content – I am genuinely curious, can you point to any such activity? To my knowledge, you are still the only person who has ever pushed – on an “execution”, not just “idea” level – for their ages to make it into MOULa. Have I been out of the loop, or forgetful?

Doobes is definitely the age creator who has pushed the most in that regard. Most of the other age creators tend to work in a form of public silence. I would not make the error of mistaking that silence for apathy toward having their ages on MOULa.

Yes, but how much of this actually needs Minkata? Of course it would be nice and save some effort to use Minkata for it, given that it already exists, but if there’s a bottleneck at Minkata, couldn’t much of it also be done on other shards, not even necessarily public ones? Even if Minkata remains the gateway to MOULa, wouldn’t it also take work off its maintainers if contributions already arrived there tested in a MOULa-like environment? I’m not seeing that happening, which is why I am less optimistic that Minkata is the only bottleneck and unjamming it would get us much further.

This is where you're out of the loop, I believe. Personally, I would not dare argue that any largely unproven fan content be initially tested on Minkata. I know that Doobes rigorously uses the Destiny Shard for testing his ages against a MOUL-like environment. I am personally working on a solution for being able to spin up small testing servers on demand. Additionally, while Gehn is not a testing shard, we have four fan ages that have been working great for years. We did quite a bit of private testing on each one before it was released on the public shard. That testing was even more strenuous for the Pub... I think we about drove poor Doobes out of his mind with defect reports. So, in other words, we have four ages that are ready for integration testing (and have been for years). Integration testing happens on Minkata, ergo, Minkata is the blocker.

What gets me is that we know the Pub has some problem on the Minkata client. Ok, great. When Minkata alpha first came up 6 months ago, I tried to personally debug the problem, only to find the Pub was not actually available on the shard. There has been little visible movement at that time. I would be glad to help with the matters I actually have the know-how to work with. So far, what I've offered has resulted in silence or stonewalling. It's not surprising, considering that's the reason why the code was forked in the first place eight years ago.

Let me be clear, having an integration testing shard for MOULa is important. I also think rarified plays an important part in that process. However, we need to ensure this process is a) inclusive and b) does not play to a specific set of contrived circumstances with no readily apparent benefit.

[Doobes]

I think we about drove poor Doobes out of his mind with defect reports.

Indeed ...but in the end, the Age turned out much better, both functionally and aesthetically, because of all of us working closely together. Plus I recall you guys were able to squash a few nasty bugs in the process too.

I believe that same give-and-take, back-and-forth open communication can also be brought to Minkata.

[Christian Walther]

This is where you're out of the loop, I believe. Personally, I would not dare argue that any largely unproven fan content be initially tested on Minkata. I know that Doobes rigorously uses the Destiny Shard for testing his ages against a MOUL-like environment. I am personally working on a solution for being able to spin up small testing servers on demand. Additionally, while Gehn is not a testing shard, we have four fan ages that have been working great for years. We did quite a bit of private testing on each one before it was released on the public shard. That testing was even more strenuous for the Pub... I think we about drove poor Doobes out of his mind with defect reports.

I do know about Doobes testing on Destiny and about the ages on Gehn. But these are not “MOULa-like environments” in the way Minkata is, or are they? To my knowledge they both use H-uru clients, ones not tweaked to be compatible with MOULa in technical (as recently done by cjkelly1) and political respects.

Integration testing happens on Minkata, ergo, Minkata is the blocker.

See, this is the point I don’t get. Of course it would be the easiest and least effort-duplicating way to do it on Minkata, given that that is its purpose, but if that doesn’t work for whatever reason, what is there to stop a person or group with sufficient determination and time available from doing it on their own shard? The only thing that OpenUru.org has that someone else doesn’t is Cyan’s blessing as the official trusted gateway, and I would guess even that could be negotiated given a demonstrably better-working process.

In a volunteer environment, don’t make yourself too dependent on other people, because you have no say over what they do. If you are not happy with how things are done (and efforts to change that stall), do better yourself. (Generic “you”, not directed at anyone here.)

But I’ll stop barking up that tree now. It makes it sound like we’re arguing, when we are actually in agreement for the most part.

[Emor_D'ni_Lap]

[/quote]

... if that doesn’t work for whatever reason, what is there to stop a person or group with sufficient determination and time available from (testing Fan-created content) on their own shard? The only thing that OpenUru.org has that someone else doesn’t is Cyan’s blessing as the official trusted gateway, and I would guess even that could be negotiated given a demonstrably better-working process.

Okay, let's talk about that.
What would be required for Cyan to trust content from a shard other than the one to which they've previously given their blessing?
It's been implied that Chogon or others at some point gave a list of qualifications to OpenURU. Forgive me if I haven't done adequate research, but does such a list exist - and is it public info?

I do see in OU's Discord channel (dev) that Chogon posted the following:
Ok, I finally read through @Adam {Hoikas} post on OU "MOULa H'Uru Client: The Patcher" It would be much easier to create a new manifest. I wonder if there would need to be an external and internal new manifests? Theoretically they would always contain the same files but is there a case when they might not? In any case, sounds great! Nice to see some major movement!

Also, I do believe that - knowing the amount of time and effort rarified has put into Minkata over the years - *no one* really wants to undercut his work by doing an end-run around him.

[JWPlatt]

There was no such list of qualifications.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=613

[Doobes]

There was no such list of qualifications.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=613

Sooooo...you're saying Cyan is not extremely picky so long as what we give them works? While that would be great, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. There must be some sort of requirement(s) in which they want us to work. Otherwise, why not just go with what Gehn Shard or The Open Cave are using currently as far as clients/server structure/content/etc.? If Cyan is worried about malicious content or something, all of that work is available to view publicly on GitHub.

If there's really no big requirements, what's been the hold up, sir?