Time Nick Message 00:03 MTDiscord I think I've brought up similar issues before, possibly on the server list GH repo issues. Using popularity as a metric for ranking tends to encourage a mob mentality and prevents players from discovering new things (I've raised the same issue with contentdb rankings, and since then reviews are now there to help shake things up a little). 00:04 MTDiscord Server also tend to get bumped to the bottom for doing a restart, since they then lose all their uptime and all their connected players, so servers are disincentivized against updating, and this de facto rewards them for running e.g. outdated buggy mods instead of updating to the latest code. 00:04 MTDiscord The problem is that it's inherently hard to design incentives that encourage exactly the behavior you want without people being able to game the system ... especially when you only broadly know what you really want in the first place. 00:07 TommyTreasure i've got a few issues with the contentdb too. but mainly in mods that have been abandoned by their authors, or simply just don't comply with 5.x mod.conf/depends.txt, 00:08 TommyTreasure on the other hand, as a total volunteer dev team, its way out of line to even suggest an audit team to verify mods before listing them 00:24 MTDiscord There's a team of editors that do reviews for new listings, but it's completely infeasible to do something like an in-depth quality review, and then people would argue over quality standards anyway. 00:25 MTDiscord So basically things are listed if they appear to basically work and are properly licensed and don't appear malicious, and then the community decides whether they like them or not via reviews and downloads. 00:26 TommyTreasure i only had an issue with a particular mod, where mining a particular node would crash the server. the author basically told me that it was going to be fixed in the next version... more 00:27 TommyTreasure however, the version i had wouldn't be compatible with the new version. therefore, i would have been plagued with tons of unknown nodes, and noway to clean them properly. was a mapgen node placement 00:34 MTDiscord ah, yeah, tempus fugit, that can be pretty harsh 00:35 MTDiscord Each time a new MT release comes out, I drop support for the release 2 releases ago (I only maintain compat with one old release), but there's no way I can keep developing my game while continuing to try to support every MT version. 00:36 MTDiscord It actually bugs me that there's no way to actually detect old clients that lack certain features, so I can't tell if players are actually seeing the things I'm putting in the game. 00:36 rubenwardy If stuff on ContentDB is broken, then let me know. If it's broken for a new version, then I can hide it from that version. If it's completely broken, then it can be unpublished 00:36 TommyTreasure xocean 00:36 TommyTreasure not sure if they changed to a new version of the same name 00:37 rubenwardy is it just new versions? 00:37 MTDiscord There was a proposal a while ago that MT would bump the protocol version number each time a new release came out that added new features so that mod authors could detect whether they could rely on clients actually displaying those things, but as far as I can tell that may have already failed to happen. 00:37 TommyTreasure the author claimed it was going to be a totally different mod. not sure 00:37 TommyTreasure i'd have to check back at the forum page for that mod 00:37 MTDiscord Oh, yeah, it also sucks when people feel like they need to do a total rewrite when just fixing what they already had should have been fine. 00:39 TommyTreasure i had initially installed that mod because the mod author was a player on my server, and the mod had 'supposedly' won some kind of 'award' (player submission, not a real award), for being the 'best' underwater mod 00:40 MTDiscord Haha, you should try mine, it's won pretty much every award that I give out. 00:40 TommyTreasure and as usuall, i allowed my dissatisfication to get the better of me, and probably created yet another minetest enemy with the mod author 00:41 TommyTreasure i only install mods that have the red dot award now 00:42 MTDiscord If you're shopping for mods to commit to using on a server that you want to be high-quality, one of the easiest things you can do is have a separate junk world you host to test things out, and bring in some of your players to act as beta testers and get feedback 00:43 MTDiscord At least, it makes it easier if you can divide and conquer, and if you try to review every mod yourself, it's hard sometimes to predict how it will respond to other people. 00:43 TommyTreasure from their forum page -- "Yes many bugs i'm guessing. I'm slowly making a new version that has more stuff and is more stable. It will proabably be hard to convert onto your server tho, because now its going to be a modpack." 00:44 TommyTreasure i created the forum post, because of their lack of response to their github bug report 00:44 TommyTreasure https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?p=362936#p362936 00:46 MTDiscord ~~@StarNinjas37 ~~ 00:47 TommyTreasure i only know them minus the 37. most of their family were players on my server 00:48 TommyTreasure they were great builders, but they didn't think it was very important to support their mod 00:49 TommyTreasure in fact, his dad said that he (dad) had his first experience with minetest, on my very first server, back in 2016 00:50 TommyTreasure however, the combination of an open source game, and no real testing and certification of mods.... well, we get what we get 00:57 MTDiscord you could always fork the mod to provide backwords compat 00:58 MTDiscord im not sure why he couldnt provide aliases or l/abms 01:01 TommyTreasure i'm not a coder 01:01 TommyTreasure if it weren't for my co-admin, i'd be at a total loss for that 01:02 TommyTreasure and yes, i have made his old mod work using aliases. but that's not the way a mod author should allow their mod to exist 01:03 MTDiscord lol, aliases is the best case way to provide backwards compat 01:03 TommyTreasure but he did give me a great feeling of encouragement, when he said the modpack would probably not work with my installation 01:03 MTDiscord or optional mod support 01:04 TommyTreasure his mod is still on my server now, but i'll be darned if i'll ever install another of their mods or even a fix for the version i have now 16:54 MTDiscord Im here. 16:54 MTDiscord Yeah there are a lot bugs 16:55 MTDiscord Take in consideration, I made this mod when I was like ten years old. 16:58 MTDiscord I'll look into adding the new version, I'll just make sure its cleaned up and stuff. 16:59 TommyTreasure take into consideration that your mod cannot be easily removed or disabled, without creating tons of unknown nodes. 17:00 TommyTreasure blowing me off by stating the new version was not going to do me any good, wasn't a very professional way to approach my server crash problems 17:01 MTDiscord True point 17:01 TommyTreasure meanwhile, i was able to hack into the mod, and create aliases, and also removed the overspawing of the mobs included. 17:02 MTDiscord But also, before you should ever add a mod to your server, you should bug test on singleplayer 17:02 TommyTreasure ... with the help of my co-admin 17:02 TommyTreasure i installed the mod on the suggestion of your brother 17:02 MTDiscord he is right that you should test stuff first 17:02 TommyTreasure you were also a member of my server, and maybe a word of warning would have been appropriate? 17:03 MTDiscord also you could have used this patch https://github.com/starninjas/xocean/pull/3 from 2019 lol 17:03 TommyTreasure when a mod is on the contentdb for distribution, an admin should be able to assume its a working and stable mod 17:03 MTDiscord Doing it right now 17:03 TommyTreasure lol, this isn't a laughing matter 17:04 MTDiscord im saying the work was already done in a fork, and its minor change to make it not conflict it seems 17:04 TommyTreasure btw, i did apply the suggestions as posted in the forum 17:05 MTDiscord It says there is conflicts 17:05 MTDiscord yeah, so you have to resolve them 17:05 TommyTreasure moot, i followed the suggestions in the forum, and ended up making the mod work, although quite restricted in the mobs 17:06 TommyTreasure also, i had posted a bug report on their github repo, and that was ignored 17:06 TommyTreasure so basically, nuff said. i'm satisfied with the operation of my server as it is now 17:09 MTDiscord Tommy, I know you, and you're a nice guy, quite enjoyed your first server, actually that's how my family learned to play Minetest, anyways, obviously I can't do much to fix the problems now since its on a server. As I said before you should watch out and test mods before, obviously, I didn't know that the mod had a lot of issues, so that is up to you, also my brother said to add it, doesn't mean you have to. And if you think m\y 17:09 MTDiscord mods are not worthy of your sever, then that's fine. 17:10 MTDiscord I'll even tell you now, I am a homeschooler, and I basically started programming in Minetest when I was like eight years old. 17:11 TommyTreasure my concern is being told there was no fix, as you were converting it to a non-compatible modpack, and not even trying to address my issue, is what tripped my trigger 17:11 MTDiscord And programming has never been my strong point, merely something I have enjoyed learning, my strong point is textures 17:11 MTDiscord I undertand 17:12 MTDiscord And that was my problem 17:13 MTDiscord Bug fixing and stuff was new to me, I was prob like 11 when you posted that 17:13 MTDiscord And becasue of that, you should not expect my code to be perfect, I have my age displayed on the forums, so people understand that my stuff may not be perfect 17:14 MTDiscord I am trying to get better and hope to every day 17:14 MTDiscord Anyways ttyl 17:20 MTDiscord numzero: i'm off to work for a few hours, then i'll be done with it 17:22 MTDiscord Simplest solution is to (1) release at least an early-access edition of the modpack once it's reached feature parity with the old one (and aim for that first), and (2) provide aliases from the old mod in the new pack. 17:23 TommyTreasure simplist solution would be to remove it from contentdb, until it's ready for prime-time 17:23 MTDiscord I'll cut off support for old engine versions pretty quickly, but I'm careful to maintain map compatibility. Sometimes I'll do a little nostalgia trip and load up an ancient backup of a map, and fix little alias issues here and there... 17:24 MTDiscord No, things should be made publicly available as early as is feasible. People keep incubating their projects until they're "perfect" and that's one of the reasons why we don't have a lot of good quality content: only low-effort stuff ever actually gets "completed" and released. 17:25 MTDiscord The whole "do it right the first time or don't do it at all" is why we end up with so much "don't do it at all" in general. 17:25 TommyTreasure i think you've missed my entire point! if any author refuses to address a problem, and continue to have their mod on contentdb, is simply wrong 17:26 MTDiscord If the author is unwilling to fix a known bug then they should hand off maintainership of the mod to someone who will (CDB has tools to do this easily). If the author refuses to address the problem at all, then a user should publish a negative review to CDB explaining the problem and warning other users, and the review can later be edited if the author does respond. 17:27 TommyTreasure you're still not seeing the issue. if the mod is not going to be maintained, and there are known issues that cause server crashes, then remove it from contentdb. i said nothing about not trying to fix the mod 17:28 MTDiscord There have been various proposals floated for making "deprecated/unmaintained/broken" advisories a formal feature of CDB but for now, negative reviews are probably the most standard process. 17:28 TommyTreasure i'm tired of debating this issue. i've stated my concerns, and seem to be bombarded by excuses, and not a fix 17:29 MTDiscord You're not seeing the issue here. We aren't going to remove something from CDB just because somebody has a problem with it. Censoring a mod completely needs to meet a higher standard than that, and by the time that standard is met, there should probably already be enough negative reviews that users are already adequately warned anyway. 17:29 MTDiscord You've been told how to fix your problem but you seem to be instead insisting that other people make it THEIR problem. 17:29 TommyTreasure and that seems to be one of the biggest problem with minetest in general. nobody seems to give a damn about things 17:30 TommyTreasure you've also failed to read where i stated that i applied the fixes as suggested in the forum. 17:30 TommyTreasure there comes a time to give up the argument, and approach the hack or fix to make things work 17:31 TommyTreasure btw Warr1024, sorry to say i don't know you, and i wonder why you're trying to continue the debate for something you don't seem to be involved with 17:32 MTDiscord I'm not involved with the specific mod, but I'm involved with CDB policy, which is my concern here. 17:33 TommyTreasure then maybe you should address my concerns about an author that publicly refused to fix their mod, yet their mod was still on the cdb 17:33 MTDiscord I don't much care what happens with one specific mod; that's between the people involved in its maintenance/use. I do care about what standards CDB applies to its content, and what does or does not qualify should not be subject to standards that are too subjective to be applied consistently, or that would result in suppressing content that other people would want access to. 17:34 TommyTreasure so, if i wrote a mod called, "crash_your_server", and it did exactly as indicated, would you allow it to be on the CDB? 17:34 MTDiscord Is the mod still available on the forums? What have the forum moderators said about this? 17:35 TommyTreasure https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?p=362936#p362936 17:35 MTDiscord Hmm, I dunno, I think crash_your_server would probably be allowable. Doesn't sound very useful, but then it's not for the CDB moderation team to decide what users are allowed or not allowed to like. 17:35 MTDiscord I'll fix it 17:35 MTDiscord I'll work on it to day 17:35 MTDiscord Period 17:35 TommyTreasure starninjas, the topic has moved from your involvement. its now a debate with policy 17:36 TommyTreasure i'm quite sure you'll do a fine job 17:36 MTDiscord And I'll send you the new version Tommy, when I am done 17:36 MTDiscord ? 17:36 TommyTreasure thank you very much, but i'm quite happy with my custom edits on the current installation 17:36 MTDiscord Has this mod always been in the WIP subforum, or was it moved back there after having been marked as non-WIP at some point? 17:37 TommyTreasure ok, here's the problem. why do i, as the admin, have to research every mod i install. if its in the cdb, there is the assumtion that someone has looked it over, and has had some sort of basic auditing for use 17:38 MTDiscord Yes, there is that assumption, and yes, it is correct 17:38 MTDiscord however your assumption of how rigorous something has been researched by other people is clearly wrong 17:38 TommyTreasure you guys all volunteer your time to make things work. on the other hand, its the server admins that pay a monthly fee to vps and or hosting companies 17:39 TommyTreasure maybe i'm wrong, but you seem to be ignoring my concern, and then put the blame on me. that's totally wrong too 17:39 TommyTreasure you've also blown this totally out of proportion 17:39 MTDiscord I am not ignoring your concern. You are concerned, and it has been noted. 17:39 TommyTreasure thank you 17:40 TommyTreasure i'm not trying to pick on any single mod author, but when a concern is stated, i expect it to be handled with respect, and not by reversing blame 17:40 MTDiscord However the actions you are proposing I believe are contrary to the larger goals of the project, so I don't think that what you expect to be done is likely to happen, though there may be SOME changes in the future that mitigate the problem in other ways. 17:41 MTDiscord We err on the side of not removing content from CDB if it's possible, i.e. unless there is a serious risk involved, but we also are hoping to add better systems to allow users to be warned of potential issues and filter out search results. 17:41 MTDiscord but that stuff takes time and needs to evolve with real-world feedback. 17:41 rubenwardy Money is not worth more than time. That's capitalism lying to you 17:41 TommyTreasure another world heard from 17:42 rubenwardy ContentDB is not fully curated, but useless mods aren't allowed 17:42 TommyTreasure and another world trying to blame me for the bad work of a mod dev? 17:42 MTDiscord It's not possible to predict all users' needs and then build a system that fulfills those needs and then release it and have everything be good. The only way to KNOW users' needs is to see how they use a thing in the real world, and you basically need to construct the vehicle while they're driving it. 17:42 MTDiscord If you are unhappy with a mod, leave a bad review and file an issue. 17:43 MTDiscord Edit your review if your problems have been addressed. 17:43 MTDiscord What more do you need? 17:43 MTDiscord As for the "I'm paying for my server" argument, my response is the same as every time I hear that: the fact that you're paying somebody else does not affect how much of my time you are or are not entitled to. 17:43 TommyTreasure totally blown out of proportion now. i'm seriously considering dropping completely out of the minetest server community. you guys should be doing your best to increase interest, rather than trying to have us lose interest 17:43 TommyTreasure all i'm asking is for some consideration, respect, professionalism, and to stop reversing the blame towards the admins 17:43 rubenwardy If the mod is broken on a particular version, then it'll be hidden from that version. I've already done this from xocean 17:44 rubenwardy If it's broken on all versions, then it's not useful and can be removed 17:44 MTDiscord You can't expect professionalism as long as we aren't paid for it. 17:44 MTDiscord Not all of us are in the community-building business; some of us are here because we just like to make software, and aren't really bothered by people's threats of not using it. 17:44 TommyTreasure rubenwardy, please stay out of this, i do appreciate and respect your involvement, but your comments are totally out of line here 17:44 rubenwardy Lol what 17:44 MTDiscord lmao? 17:44 MTDiscord this must be the ranter of the forums 17:45 MTDiscord rubenwardy actually probably has the most authority on the subject. 17:45 TommyTreasure this is not a rage quit, i'm just totally tired of trying to communicate issues with a bunch of people that can only see their way 17:46 MTDiscord you can enjoy minetest without having to get people to understand things the way you do, or even really be deeply involved in the community at all. 17:47 MTDiscord A lot of us are in the same boat. We deal with issues created by other creators who simply CBA to actually fix stuff, and so we all end up with a patchwork of hacks and workarounds. 17:48 MTDiscord Any sufficiently-ambitious project turns out like that and it's not really specific to any one project or community. It's just more fun in the balance of things to have the thing with the duct tape on it than not at all. 17:50 rubenwardy I literally said that the mod can be removed if it doesn't work... 17:51 MTDiscord its being fixed it seems, so problem solved soon ™️ 17:51 rubenwardy having WIP / Beta / Maintained / Frozen / Unmaintained status is quite overdue on CDB 17:52 rubenwardy I don't really have the energy for CDB or Minetest currently though 17:52 MTDiscord Yeah, though I still think we should use content_warnings or tags rather than a singleton "project state" for stuff like that. 17:52 MTDiscord Unmaintained for example works concurrently with WIP, (unless you want a WNIP status :-/) 17:53 MTDiscord If we already have filtering for content_warnings then it seems like you'd get a good bird:stone ratio that way. 18:45 MTDiscord Work Not In Progress? 20:00 MTDiscord indeed 21:07 MTDiscord In Minetest, expect "Entertainment, Education and Involvement" Not "Payment, Professionalism or Perfectness" 21:40 celeron55 that was a weird discussion 21:42 MTDiscord :cease: 21:42 MTDiscord Yeah 23:32 Calinou as for maintenace status, I'd follow what Rust does with Cargo: https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/manifest.html#the-badges-section 23:33 Calinou actively maintained, passively maintained, as-is, experimental, deprecated 23:42 MTDiscord and "looking for maintainer" seems like it could apply in MT as well