Fwurg

[Elmer]

I think we would benefit of keeping track of a change-log. Every time we make new rules or apply rules changes, we can add this to the change-log. This way we have a nice list of when a change was and what the change was. Every time there will be some kind of discussion involving the rules changes of the past, we can use the change-log as reference. I think this will also be of help when we have to deal with retro-active changes.

The question then would be, do we keep the change-log as a form thread, with every new post as a new change, or do we keep track of it on the wiki? On the wiki, we can make it a nicer list and apply some queries on it, on the forum, all kinds of information like dates is automatically stored and I think it is easier to find.

[Brend]

I wanted to simply reply with http://www.fwurg.net/dokuwiki/rules:start?do=recent here, but to my horror that list was empty... That list seems to not contain changes older than 7 days (due to the current settings, and must be limited to some amount of days, which will always be to short)

I think that the changelog is best placed on the forum, becuase queries over the changelog will most likely restrict themselves to 'when'. If a rule changes it can then b noted down in the changelog, together with the related discussion threads, and a [title] with the date (since the post dates aren't visible normally.

I think we need someone responsible for maintaining the changelog though. It should be a group effort, with people making rules change notifications also updating the changelog, but knowing how things go it is still good to have someone that feels responsible for the changelog and actually updates it where necessary. And I'm not doing that, for a change :P

[Elmer]

In my opinion, a log with the wiki changes wouldn't cut it anyway. I just don't see a list of when which page is edited last working as a nice change-log.

I have no problems of being responsible of the change-log on the forum :)

[Brend]

How detailed did you want to make the changelog? If you want to maintain it for reviewing and reading back the rules changes it should at least link to the discussions, and maybe a short bullet-wise listing of changes? (Nice example of minimalistic change log: http://coffeescript.org/#1.8.0

Ultimately awesome would be a changelog a la League of Legends or Diablo 3, which not only gives the changes, but a short three or four sentence reasoning for them as well as a detailing of the actual change.


Do you plan on back-logging the changelog for old changes, or do you want to start tracking changes starting now?

[Elmer]

I am not planning to back-log more than 3 years of FWURG changes, since this is more work than it will provide of benefits.

In light of the recent meta rules update, I have created a change-log :)

(pro tip, you can click the title ;) )

[Brend]

I might be overly critical here, but since this change log seems on its way to become extremely useful to everyone, I feel the need to point out a few of things ^_^

Content ones:

Why is it in the technical forum? That's for bug reports and such, and this is certainly not a technical thing. Isn't it better to put it as a sticky in either the "General Discussion" or "Game Design & Rule Discussion"? I prefer General Discussion, by the way. Then the current sticky over there (Brend & Chriz's Technological Emporium) can be moved to game design, where it belongs -- If we like this, I can use some moderator-fu to move things around to save everyone time!

I think the description is very neat, and gives a good summary of the reasons the rules were changed. Though I missed the link to the discussion. Thinking on it, I think that the following links are useful in the changelog: link to the rules themselves (you have that one), link to the related discussion thread(s), link to the rules change announcement. That way we have all info in one go.


And a technical one:

What you did with the code should really not be allowed by phpbb: With the [rules] directly inside a list... I don't even know why you can do that o_O. You have:

Code: Select all

[list][rules]Meta[/rules][*]     There is an expiration term on rewards and change notifications of 3 months. After this period the issue or reward period is considered closed.[/list]

It should only allow:

Code: Select all

[rules]Meta[/rules]
[list][*]     There is an expiration term on rewards and change notifications of 3 months. After this period the issue or reward period is considered closed.[/list]

I think the latter one looks better as well (especially if you have multiple lists for different rules pages and such.

[Brend]

I am not planning to back-log more than 3 years of FWURG changes, since this is more work than it will provide of benefits.

On an unrelated note: we should have kept a changelog from the start ^_^

[Elmer]

Why is it in the technical forum? That's for bug reports and such, and this is certainly not a technical thing. Isn't it better to put it as a sticky in either the "General Discussion" or "Game Design & Rule Discussion"?

Because I saw you posting forum updates in the technical forum as well, so I thought that to be a fitting location :). In hindsight, your updates were all of the technical kind, like bugfixes and such, so yes, the change-log would be better as a sticky in General.

Though I missed the link to the discussion.

Well, actually it is there, but a little bit hidden:

(pro tip, you can click the title ;) )

I meant that you can click the bold piece of text in the post. That one links to the discussion. However, I agree it is not obvious it does so. I was experimenting with a way to add the link without creating more ugly smuck in the post. This might need some experimentation to create the most amount of useful links with the least amount of the ugliness of listed links.

I think that the link to the rules change announcement is a good idea, I will add it when we have a rules change announcement :).

What you did with the code should really not be allowed by phpbb:

Woohoo, I broke internet ^^, okay, I just broke phpbb, I did it this way to have the rules location neatly above the list, and this worked. I think my hack looks better than your proposal, as it has a visual separation between the description and the actual list of changes.

I have changed the code to:

Code: Select all

[amount][rules]Meta[/rules][/amount][list][*]...

to save your brain from trying to wrap it around the broken phpbb (and to prevent future issues, once phpbb is fixed... less broken), and to have still the visual distinction between the description and the changes.

[Brend]

Ah crap. I forgot to make a rules change notification. Will post it ASAHP. I will also move the changelog thread around when we're finished discusing here ^_^

Bold title is link -> Damn, I though you meant the 'Meta' was a link o_O ... How would this work if there are multiple related discussion threads? Or none? In my experience, it is better to make such links explicit.

Style hack "visual separation between the description and the actual list of changes" -> We shouldn't really debate tastes, but I feel that your way has the problem of not having a clear separation between the rules page name and the list itself... The problem might get worse if you have multiple lists (and with multiple levels, which happens).

What's worse, the amount tag is not meant for this, and does not do what you want. Behold, both examples are with an amount tag:

Meta

Settlement

Outpost

• List item for comparison

On a related note, the title should really be the other way around; that way the time information (which was horribly unclear to begin with without a year) is always in a fixed locaition, making it much much easier to scan through the changelog for the turn or date you are looking for.


I tried my hand at an improved template, and would like to hear your ideas about it. Note that there are two things that are a bit off from what I envision: a) inside a doc tag all text in a title becomes bold, I envisioned (and wrote) only the date part in bold, b) the 'OOC' should not be there, but the outer '(' and ')' and the dark color should. The idea is that this also reduces visual clutter, while still keeping explicit links:

Turn 173 / 2014 september 28: Expiration on open rewards and rules changes

In order to encourage players to make story pages, an expiration date is placed on how long a player can claim rewards from a story. At the same time, when a rules change is applied, players no longer have indefinite time to think if they like an retroactive change.

((OOC: Notification / discussion: Expiration on open rewards and rules changes))

Meta:

• There is an expiration term on rewards and change notifications of 3 months. After this period the issue or reward period is considered closed.

And a slightly larger one for comparison with multple pages and list items:

Turn 165 / 2014 september 8: Lorem Ipsum strategic operation

This is a sample text to show you a slightly longer post. To prevent issues with the Lorem Ipsum strategic operation infringing on sovereign territory, we made a small change to the operation. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut tristique congue posuere.

((OOC: Notification / discussion: Rules changed: Piracy patrol, Proposal: Lorem Ipsum is too expensive, Interaction between Lorem and Ipsum))

Piracy:

• Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit . Ut tristique congue posuere.
• Donec imperdiet pretium massa. Donec 200 -> 300

Settlement:

• Phasellus in lacus faucibus, commodo nunc sit amet, malesuada leo.
  
  • Maecenas at porttitor enim.
  • Sed viverra varius arcu 25 -> 45
  • Ac vestibulum nibh ultrices a 3 -> 5
• Sed viverra eros tempus eros vestibulum vulputate. Proin ac aliquet metus. Maecenas pulvinar neque nec quam ornare molestie. Fusce aliquet lacus augue, vel ullamcorper ligula iaculis id. Nulla quis eros arcu.

What do you think?

[Elmer]

hmmm, I think with the dark colours, the discussion and notification link looks acceptable :)

I tried to place the 'amount' tag in front of the title of the list, but that didn't work well. I have updated my post to Brends proposal for the moment. The main issue at this moment is I have no idea ho to make the links dark (aside of using the 'ooc' tags).


ps: for those interested, this is what it would look like with the 'amount' tag in front:

yada yada yada

Meta:

• There is an expiration term on rewards and change notifications of 3 months. After this period the issue or reward period is considered closed.

pps: we need a collapsible 'spoiler' tag :P

[Brend]

The main issue at this moment is I have no idea ho to make the links dark (aside of using the 'ooc' tags).

I've dealt with the technical details of this business:

Added a new [deemphasize] tag (which I will not announce further :P)

I've also moved the log around and stickied it. (I've also fixed the bad 'Change-log' selling to 'Rules change log' so the name clearly states what it is about. And I remove the link from the title, it was doing something weird -- though in hindsight that might have been my broken first attempt at some other thing :S)

Now if I could somehow remove your 'signature' from the log that would be awesome o_O Wait! There is actually a 'Attach a signature' checkbox when you write or edit a post. Maybe that can be used to keep the sigs out of the log? Right now, Elmer's sig is almost bigger than the log entry... Elmer and my forum restyling to this leaner format also means that sigs now stick out like a sore toe.

pps: we need a collapsible 'spoiler' tag :P

Myes, that would be nice, wouldn't it.

[Elmer]

Oh hey, yes, a signature checkbox. I have disabled my signature for that post :)