[Forum] L2j Presents: Advanced Users

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ThePhoenixBird
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Re: [Forum] L2j Presents: Advanced Users

Post by ThePhoenixBird »

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ZaKaX read your PMs.
momo61 i will not delete your posts on this topic, but stop it, if you dont then i will remove them all.

Keep your personal matters out of this forum from now on, i know you hate each other so fight over MSN or Email or whatever you want but OUT OF THIS FORUM, this goes for both of you.

@theone
Lets go by parts, lets start about the L2j Hierarchy
Link: http://yfrog.com/jvl2jhierarchyp
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As in any project we need some organization to keep certain order in our work, i tried to simplify the way of how this order is stablished, maybe on a future i would have time to put the duties and responsabilities of each team in L2j, as you can see this hierarchy has two branches, the ones with Developers and the one with the Community, your vision of coaching a whole community is really impresive, but you need to stick to the reality, you cant really coach more than 14.000 users people efficiently, even if this amount doesnt reflect the current active L2j users, lets talk about 1.000 users to keep it small, is still hard to do, i have studied management and organization procedures in the college, and they all recommend that you need to divide in smaller groups the amount of people to manage, because you will be overflowed by them, is better to coach properly an small amount of people than coaching badly a big amount since you cant really focus on all of them at the same time, how come you can keep an eye on 1.000 users and follow them individually to see where they do wrong or they do right? is almost impossible to dont say that isnt possible.

Here is where it borns the Advanced Users idea, if you have read the first post, the goal of this group are:
  • Providing Quality Support to other Community Members through forums.
  • Testing 0-day patches
  • Testing New Features before being commited to the SVN
  • Testing New Releases during Closed Development
  • Providing Retail Gameplay Information
  • Providing feedback about our work and the Community.
  • Idleing on IRC with us
  • Becoming Wiki Editors
  • Getting involved in team decissions.
Like you said in your example with Fulminus (a personal friend of mine) he can make a Tutorial or Guide with people questions or contributions, and that provides more knowledge to the Community, well our idea is quite similar, we ask to Adv. Users to "create" those guides in the Wiki and to give Quality Support in forums, that means to dont just sit and watch the topics like many people does, we ask them to get involved and participate in the community to spread that knowledge that they have with other people, this is where it enters the Support Team (still under development, not official yet) those guys will do a wonderful job with the people that usually see their questions still unanswered or without solution, actually personal coaching with every member of the L2j community isnt posible at this moment, and as L2j grows it would end as a impossible task, but our goal at this moment is to create a new Documentation (wiki) and to provide better support on forums, mostly that support directed to the users that arent programmers but they still do have knowledge about how to administrate a server (n00b admin wannabe arent included) of course, this effort will not only be over the Adv. Users shoulders, all the Team Members and Developers will start to write down their own articles and start to create a new Documentation.

Managing the community as a whole is really hard to accomplish, maybe with a smaller community it would be possible but when you exceed an amount of people in this community is starts to get "difficult" when *fork* you have a limited number of people working on it, and is easyer to get in touch with everyone that way, but with BIG things, you need BIG ideas and BIG decisions.

About DrLecter rare sights i have to say that he is on the process of retirement, he has done a great job over the years, with more than 1.200 commits since 2005 but once in a time you find that you have to work to live, be with your wife and childrens so time is limited to develop and contribute, anyways he tries to find free time and reads the Dev Private forums to give his throughs about the current discussions and ideas, his experience as developer and project leader is really valuable for us the "new" Inner Circle members, we can say pretty much about the rest of the Project Leaders as (Dalrond and Julian) they are still around teaching and coaching us mostly on IRC, but not actively developing so they will step down from their position in the next weeks and another one will take their chair.
theone wrote:I think this is very ego-centric on his part... no one is so "high and mighty" that he is above saying "hi" or "thank you" to the people who help his project on a daily basis. From my point of vue, it looks as if he thinks that all the contributors on his forum are "lower life forms" and that he'll talk only to the select few who he chooses to be part of his team. In other words BigBoss, please mind your own business if you're going to talk through your [I think I cant say this word here...].
You are badly wrong by saying that, with limited amount of time tries to keep up with the current private discussions and projects inside the Private Dev area and the IRC dev channel, i think that all the L2j Team members value a lot the effort that DrLecter makes to stay with us either than just "disappearing" from the scene. If you really need to get in contact with DrLecter i suggest you to write down a PM, of course, try to dont waste his time with stuff that you could manage to solve with the rest of us.
theone wrote:With a team about 1/2 the size of your "official team" we managed to create an emulator much more complete and much more efficient than L2J
I dont want to make any biased comment about this, but since you cant prove what are you saying because your project is private and closed source, there is no way to check this. And the word "create" is wrong in your argument since you "modified" an already existing project like L2j and i really doubt that you have modified more than the 10% of the code (about 90k lines of code) anyways you are always welcome to keep contributing pieces of code to our project, you are also an experienced and great developer that knows his kung-fu. If you think that you can make your code public then we may look at it and see where we can improve L2j with your modifications, or you could commit those modifications to our forums.
theone wrote:you know why? because we consider our members as all equals! everyone has a voice, everyone has a right to make mistakes as long as he/she learns from them, everyone learns from everyone else.
You can ask to ANY of the L2j Team members and they will say that everyone has voice and rights, they are all equal to us as developers, they are the group of people that we trust, feel free to ask any developer, some of them have made mistakes and they were pardoned because they learned their lesson, have you ever seen a notice saying "XYZ has been kicked from the L2j Team" here in L2j we learn from each other and we like to be who we are, we do not force anyone to stay or to leave, if something was "forbidden" to be commited (by Senior Devs) it was mostly because it didnt fulfiled our coding guidelines, mostly custom stuff and badly programmed contributions.
theone wrote:It's not by doing everything important behind closed doors that you'll better your project, but by opening yourself up to the community, because they are the future of your project, not you or your team, the community as a whole is the future of L2J.
That is what we try to accomplish with the recent changes and future ones.
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Re: [Forum] L2j Presents: Advanced Users

Post by pokiokio »

pokiokio has received 7686753 damage from Wall Of Text. x_x

I think there's no need for drama here, don't you get enough of it in L2 ? :P
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ThePhoenixBird
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Re: [Forum] L2j Presents: Advanced Users

Post by ThePhoenixBird »

Originally from viewtopic.php?p=52632#p52632
ThePhoenixBird wrote:
DrHouse wrote:Uhmm... TPB only Fulmi can write such huge posts :lol:
Fulmi is retired now, i have learned the "Long Posts Lvl 10 - Passive Skill" from him :P
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Re: [Forum] L2j Presents: Advanced Users

Post by theone »

ZaKaX wrote:@others talking shit about DrLecter and others inactive members of the L2JTeam:
They have other things to do, they've been around for years and believe me years after years your will to work on L2J fly away. That's something you'll never understand though, simply because you don't do a shit on your own.

This thread should be cleaned. It's going nowhere with those crying babies. Amen.
I'm the one who started this "shit talk" as you say, and I'm no cry baby.
I've contributed more to this community alone than you will ever, so please be careful who you direct your comment to.

This being said, I did not mean to start anything, I was just passing along a personal message to the people concerned. And as it turns out I'm not the only one who thinks like this. I realize, and so does everyone else, that Lecter has a life, so do I. But this shouldnt prevent him from saying a "hello world" once a month just to show that he's still alive and to make the contributors feel like the leader of this project is around overseeing things. It's simple courtesy to do so.
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Re: [Forum] L2j Presents: Advanced Users

Post by theone »

Probe wrote:how the hell cares about your personal rivalries? you're getting way out of topic, it's not about who does more than the other, it's about taking this project forward, which neither of you are doing atm.
+1 (hmmm... +2 instead)
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Re: [Forum] L2j Presents: Advanced Users

Post by theone »

to Phoenix:
I know you guys are trying hard to improve the project, I was merely stating my opinion(and as I said before... maybe I'm wrong) that maybe keeping things more simple and closer to the people/community would improve things. I'm not going to argue with you on your post, you know I've always had great respect for you and my post was not intended to start a big war but just to get some stuff off my chest. Maybe I should have kept some of it to myself... or maybe it will do some good in the end, only the future will tell us. :)

P.S.: Yes there is more than 10% of the L2J code modified on *fork*(we're on revision 2463...since our last SVN server move a few months ago... so in reality probably around 4000), but no it wont go public. As I had mentionned there was a time, when we first started, when we opened our forum, trac and SVN to the L2J team, but things happened and we were forced to "part in good terms". If you want to test it you can try one of the *fork* live servers, there are now many of them but, of course, I will not name them here by respect to the "dont name your server" rule which I endorse 100% and is one thing that L2J does on its forum which I've always been really proud of.
Last edited by theone on Sun Feb 28, 2010 9:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: [Forum] L2j Presents: Advanced Users

Post by theone »

pokiokio wrote:pokiokio has received 7686753 damage from Wall Of Text. x_x
+1 :mrgreen:
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nBd
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Re: [Forum] L2j Presents: Advanced Users

Post by nBd »

You are pointing that Lecter have to write "Hello my Masters" just to show hes still alive? He has to show nothing. The Team is active and showing things are on the correct way. That should show enough. He visits us not often and gives only comments to Stuff where we are unsure. And as you noticed, others are in hold of this Project now. Before Lecter went inactive, he gave other ppl enough power to go forward with L2J and thats what happening. You Guys want changed & more Public work, but still you dont want to share with the L2J Team. I kinda understand it, but before you start bitching at those that try, try yourself first.
We dont need you nor your work if you dont want to share it. The Team has enough Manpower todo the same themself, but we follow some guidelines & goals. Those were mentioned often already. As you saw, we nor one of the other L2J members took any of the Code leaked from your Project. We didnt do that because of Copyright or any other relation to it, but we did it since your implementations didnt follow the general Project guidelines.
Yah, i know you start same about me now, but who cares your opinion? I not. If you think we should miss you, go on, but we dont miss you.
<ZaKaX> Ohh nBd, you're so professianal with your analconda.
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Re: [Forum] L2j Presents: Advanced Users

Post by DrHouse »

First of all, I would like to congratulate ThePhoenixBird for his BRILLIANT post.

@theone

It looks easier for you to give coaching and managing lessons, specially when talking about *fork*. Also, you have somehow flamed DrLecter for how he conducts the project. However, I hope you have forgotten some important points:

1) I'm really surprised how easily you say bad things about a guy with more than 4 years for L2J Server, with more than 1000 commits. A big part of L2J exists thank to DrLecter.

2) Public activity is not the same as inner (team) activity. Judging how a guy is involved in this project by the number and the frequency of his commits is really poor. This is not the first time I say this to you, but seems you dont understand.

3) During DrLecter and nBd absences you can consider me as "Project Executive Leader" in matters of programming for both projects. On the other hand, ThePhoenixBird will take any other responsabilities related to project out of pure coding and I will assist him on his decissions. Our command chain is perfectly defined. However, this is not improtant for public eyes I guess

Now some points about *fork*:

4) Where does *fork* man power come from? From this community I guess

5) *fork* is a closed project in which his developers work for his own. L2J is a public open source project in which his developers work for everybody. I hope you, as a good manager, can see the differences about people motivation. L2J developers hardly get anything from community. All *fork* work starts and ends in the same point.

6) *fork* takes some things from L2J/L2JFree/etc but also the private stuff coded by its developers. My question is, how couldnt it be more advanced and efficient than L2J?

7) *fork* was born with very interesting ideas and principles that I supported but I cannot see them now. In the past, some l2j devs and even myself could access *fork* svn/forum/ts/... Now I'm not wellcome even in IRC channel from where I was banned! I have been always a big supporter of *fork* and I'm still wondering what we did.

8 ) We know there are a big amount of leechers in L2J community: leeching code, leeching ideas, etc... but after studing how *fork* has recruited guys from this community I have discovered the WORSE way of leeching: the man power leeching+code leeching! It is an awesome combo ;)

@momo61
I expected 'more' from you... now I must agree those who placed you in the group right below Spam Bots (see ThePhoenixBird concept map)

@nBd
I think *fork* files are GNU/GPL compliant, they come from L2J. We did not commit anything because of something called respect

@L2J Team
I am proud of you mates and I'm proud of being part of it, regardless our "efficiency". We spend our free time here for everybody, sharing our stuff, that's more than enough for me.
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Leadership and management are not talk and talk, but talk and do

Proud of being a part of this project
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Re: [Forum] L2j Presents: Advanced Users

Post by momo61 »

DrHouse wrote: @momo61
I expected 'more' from you... now I must agree those who placed you in the group right below Spam Bots (see ThePhoenixBird concept map

Hahahhahahaha omg house ^^ <3
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Re: [Forum] L2j Presents: Advanced Users

Post by Probe »

you weren't banned drhouse (except for occasional nekys mishappens), we just made chan invite only to be leech-idlers free (not that you are one, I actually liked you there)

as for the *fork* part.. I'm not exactly familiar with the entire story but it is to my understanding that the previous 'agreement' l2j and *fork* had was stopped because stuff was getting committed without proper recognition of the people behind it, and some misbehaviour by some devs.

many of us would love to see cooperation back on the table.. you guys are doing great work, especially gigii and DS with upcoming big commits, and at least I myself would be more than willing to help... but you gotta also understand how we feel when we are not appreciated for the work we do..

anyways I think this kind of talk is more appropriate for private channels.. this discussion isn't about *fork* but about l2j and getting it forward, which is a common goal for all forks whether open or private.
Last edited by Probe on Sun Feb 28, 2010 10:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: [Forum] L2j Presents: Advanced Users

Post by ThePhoenixBird »

Probe wrote:anyways I think this kind of talk is more appropriate for private channels.. this discussion isn't about *fork* but about l2j and getting it forward, which is a common goal for all forks whether open or private.
You are right, lets continue this conversation over other channels.

This is getting unrelated to the Advanced Users topic.
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Re: [Forum] L2j Presents: Advanced Users

Post by theone »

nBd wrote:You are pointing that Lecter have to write "Hello my Masters" just to show hes still alive? He has to show nothing. The Team is active and showing things are on the correct way. That should show enough. He visits us not often and gives only comments to Stuff where we are unsure. And as you noticed, others are in hold of this Project now. Before Lecter went inactive, he gave other ppl enough power to go forward with L2J and thats what happening. You Guys want changed & more Public work, but still you dont want to share with the L2J Team. I kinda understand it, but before you start bitching at those that try, try yourself first.
We dont need you nor your work if you dont want to share it. The Team has enough Manpower todo the same themself, but we follow some guidelines & goals. Those were mentioned often already. As you saw, we nor one of the other L2J members took any of the Code leaked from your Project. We didnt do that because of Copyright or any other relation to it, but we did it since your implementations didnt follow the general Project guidelines.
Yah, i know you start same about me now, but who cares your opinion? I not. If you think we should miss you, go on, but we dont miss you.
As usual, you're missing the point completely nBd, but then what else is new...
I'm saying that a leader(and that's you included), if he/she wants his/her contributors to be active and better themselves has to be a motivator in the first place. It's not necessary to be a good coder to be the leader of a development project, but it's necessary to be a good communicator and motivator. The morale and motivation of the troops is crucial in any project/enterprise, and him(or you in that matter) showing up once in a while and saying a little 'hello guys and thanks to all those who contribute, we dont always commit your stuff for different reasons but keep at it I see alot of potential out there' is usually more than enough from a leader to keep the people motivated.
As many times before nBd, with this comment, you've really proven once more that you're everything but a leader. Being able to code great things only means one thing: you're a great coder... it doesnt mean that you have what it takes to lead people(or in this instance make pertinentt comments)
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Re: [Forum] L2j Presents: Advanced Users

Post by theone »

DrHouse wrote:2) Public activity is not the same as inner (team) activity. Judging how a guy is involved in this project by the number and the frequency of his commits is really poor. This is not the first time I say this to you, but seems you dont understand.
House, we've known each other for some time now and you know that have nothing but respect for you, but you're missing the point entirely.
I'm not 'flaming' at Lecter's involvement in the project, but at the fact that he never even comes out to say a word to the hundreds of people who contribute to his project, which would be simple courtesy. As stated in my answer to nBd, it's not the programming knowledge or personal efforts that make a great leader, but the fact that this person can motivate and stimulate everyone in his project, team members, contributors, everyone included. I know full well that Lecter has done alot for L2J, but this doesnt make him in any way a leader, it just makes him a big contributor, and I'm the first one to thank him for that, but this is not on subject right now. He's the project leader, he should act as a leader, even if it costs him development time. His involvement as a REAL LEADER and motivator for the community would be infinitely more profitable to everyone than anything he can code because a motivated community will contribute infinitely more code than he could ever produce himself.
This being said, no hard feelings house ;)
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Re: [Forum] L2j Presents: Advanced Users

Post by theone »

DrHouse wrote:Now some points about *fork*:

4) Where does *fork* man power come from? From this community I guess
Yes, members of this community, and in most cases some of the most promising ones, who are tired of how things are done here. Which is why I'm making these comments... it's to help you guys, not to start a war! Some of the things that make good contributors leave are the ones that I'm pointing at so that you guys can fix them.
Believe me, we dont have to recruit...
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