Contribulle

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LienRag
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Contribulle

#1 Post by LienRag »

Are you aware of the new service Contribulle, launched by French free software activists (many of them not developers - actually I should have wrote "free software and free culture activists") ?

Its goal is for projects looking for specific contributions to have a place to describe their needs, and for potential contributors (especially non-techs) to find a project to contribute to.

Shouldn't FreeOrion create a "demande de contribution" ?
(or many ones, as projects are supposed to create separate demands for different contributions)

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Contribulle

#2 Post by Geoff the Medio »

If you're volunteering to set it up, go ahead...

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LienRag
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Re: Contribulle

#3 Post by LienRag »

Yes, I can do that.
The thing is, as I wrote above, what is expected of our "demande de contribution" on Contribulle is less a generic "we need contributors" than a more specific call for precise competences.
So I'm not sure what are the actual needs of FreeOrion, especially the non-tech ones ?
I know we need devs for AI, but apart from that ?
  • Testers ? To test what exactly ?
  • Maintainers for the wiki
  • Design, but actually that's not entirely true, the forum is not extremely welcoming and new ideas have more chances to be rejected than accepted
  • Do we need moderators for the forum ? What would be the requirements ?
  • Graphics : I especially believe that we need different icons for species, ship hulls, specials, ship parts etc. that could be used by creators of new FOCS content like myself with no graphical skill
  • UI : I've been asked (and others too) for mockups and I'm not really confident that I can produce something useful myself...
  • FOCS scripters : do we have specific needs identified ? I remember there were demands about fields, I did some myself but am not really satisfied with the result.
  • Music & Audio : any specific need ? I know Human2 started to work on a big overhaul but if I understand correctly he's doing it alone so far.
  • Translation : any specific need ? I'm not entirely happy with some of the choices made in the French version (so I play in English usually) but I've been told not to mingle with it.
Is there someone that could be considered a reference for each item of this list, that I could either ask directly about needs or refer to to potential new contributors ?

For information, I get a 404 error when trying the URLs for github pages in the "Design" section of the "How to help" page (this one https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/ ... /techs.txt for example).

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Contribulle

#4 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Off the top of my head, I would say we need:
-Icons for scripted content. Policies in particular lack good icons in most cases. Some specials and probably buildings have poor icons.
-Expanded species descriptions, particularly from which decisions could be made about what other content a species would like or dislike.
-Play-testing and balance of content and game mechanics.
-Translations in general. Ouaz is in charge of French, but other languages are generally less well maintained.

It's a somewhat awkward time for FOCS contributors to join since o01eg is working on a new parser format.

Music could use some attention, though doing more than just adding some new songs is difficult without some programming interaction, and it's not really a priority right now for me to implement robust support for contextual music selection. Longer term it could be good, though.
Is there someone that could be considered a reference for each item of this list, that I could either ask directly about needs or refer to to potential new contributors ?
Just the forum in general, I think.
For information, I get a 404 error when trying the URLs for github pages in the "Design" section of the "How to help" page (this one
https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/ ... /techs.txt for example).
That file no longer exists, since tech were split up into many separate files. The wiki is not well maintained. Rather than having someone add a bunch of stuff to it, I'd rather it be simplified and redirected to more maintained pages on GitHub or the forums.

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Re: Contribulle

#5 Post by o01eg »

Geoff the Medio wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 5:49 pm It's a somewhat awkward time for FOCS contributors to join since o01eg is working on a new parser format.
It is not big issue as we going to have two parsers in parallel but it better to learn Python too.
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Contribulle

#6 Post by Geoff the Medio »

o01eg wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 5:56 pmIt is not big issue as we going to have two parsers in parallel but it better to learn Python too.
If the Boost Spirit FOCS parser will be removed, then I think it's an awkward time, as the syntax learned now will for the fully-featured FOCS parser won't work in Python, but the Python parser isn't fully-featured yet. That both can be used (sort of) now doesn't change that...

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LienRag
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Re: Contribulle

#7 Post by LienRag »

I"ve prepared a demand for icons but they're asking for an email that will be visible on the demand page.
Before putting mine I asked them whether they have any antispam or anticrawler mechanism and am waiting for their answer.

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Re: Contribulle

#8 Post by o01eg »

LienRag wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 5:06 pm
  • UI : I've been asked (and others too) for mockups and I'm not really confident that I can produce something useful myself...
I suppose soon we will need Godot developers.

Edit: And still we need C++ developers.
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LienRag
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Re: Contribulle

#9 Post by LienRag »

o01eg wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 5:56 pm It is not big issue as we going to have two parsers in parallel but it better to learn Python too.
Contribulle is designed primarily for potential contributors that do not know how to contribute, so asking them to learn something like Python first is not really the way to go on this platform.

It's entirely fine to ask for skilled contributors in order to not waste the little time that core devs have, but the idea is to have an easiest as possible path to contributing.

By the way, once I settle the question of the email address, I can put a demand for Godot developers, Python developers for AI, and C++ developers, but it would help to be able to tell explicitly what level of knowledge is expected from the potential contributors in each of these domains.

I parsed through the FAQ and "how to contribute" pages, and found nothing of the sort (the best example being this page).

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Oberlus
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Re: Contribulle

#10 Post by Oberlus »

LienRag wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 10:03 pm Contribulle is designed primarily for potential contributors that do not know how to contribute, so asking them to learn something like Python first is not really the way to go on this platform.
Too bad. Python and C++ skills are badly needed.

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Ouaz
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Re: Contribulle

#11 Post by Ouaz »

LienRag wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 5:06 pm
[*]Translation : any specific need ? I'm not entirely happy with some of the choices made in the French version (so I play in English usually) but I've been told not to mingle with it.
:?: Who said that?

I would be always happy to have some feedback or suggestions, if it makes sense.

For example, a friend didn't like the translation of "Policy" by "Stratégie", rather than "Politique". I explained to him why I made this choice, and he was finally like "Oh yeah, makes sense, but "Politique" works too" :mrgreen: ). But if someone else thinks "Politique" fits better, I will be OK to change the translation, which is good too.

EDIT: Well... speaking of it now and thinking about it again, I'm going to change the translation today. ;p

Whatever, if you have suggestions or feedback, you can post on the fr_stringtable topic or open issues on my Github repository, as you wish.
I release every updated file under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license.

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LienRag
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Re: Contribulle

#12 Post by LienRag »

Oberlus wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 6:51 am
LienRag wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 10:03 pm Contribulle is designed primarily for potential contributors that do not know how to contribute, so asking them to learn something like Python first is not really the way to go on this platform.
Too bad. Python and C++ skills are badly needed.
Well, I certainly can make a demand for Python programmers and/or C++ programmers.
That's something different than asking for contributors to learn Python first (as the way the website works, Python programmers will find the demand for Python programming, that's not the same thing as rebuking a non-python programmer willing to contribute by telling him "you can't, go RTFM").

Actually, I just got the answer that the team behind Contribulle doesn't have any antibot/antispam filter, so I don't really want to put my own mail on an internet-faced page.
Is it okay if I create a [email protected] account or something similar for that purpose ?
I can share the password by PM to whoever you want after that.

Also, should I create a mastodon account for FreeOrion ? From what I've searched there are none on the Fediverse.

o01eg
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Re: Contribulle

#13 Post by o01eg »

LienRag wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 7:33 am Also, should I create a mastodon account for FreeOrion ? From what I've searched there are none on the Fediverse.
I was thinking about to write ActivityPub bot for my servers but didn't managed to find enough time to do it.
Gentoo Linux x64, gcc-11.2, boost-1.78.0
Ubuntu Server 22.04 x64, gcc-12, boost-1.74.0
Welcome to the slow multiplayer game at freeorion-lt.dedyn.io.Version 2024-03-15.b3de094.
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LienRag
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Re: Contribulle

#14 Post by LienRag »

o01eg wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 8:24 am I was thinking about to write ActivityPub bot for my servers but didn't managed to find enough time to do it.
Indeed ? For what use ? Players' discussion or something else ?

Anyway that doesn't answer the question : should I create a Freeorion mail account and/or a Mastodon account ?
I'm not officially part of the project, so I don't want to usurp anything, and I had official blessing from Geoff only to do the various Contribulle demands.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Contribulle

#15 Post by Geoff the Medio »

What would this email address be used for exactly, beyond being visible?

I don't know what Mastodon or the Fediverse are.

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