To whom it may concern:Update of Wesnoth Philosophy Document

[irrevenant]

Open letter to whom it may concern:

I was just reading the Wesnoth Philosophy Document. The final section "Wesnoth Philosphy II" is about making a concerted push to reach version 1.0.

Now that that's well and truly behind us, it seems a good time to update the document for "Wesnoth Philosophy III" - "the engine is feature complete, the artwork and music is getting nicely polished - where do we go from here?".

Thanks.

[EDIT] Hmm, I need to read the news page more often. It indicates that the new focus is on achieving a number of high quality campaigns. If this is correct it would still be good to have it reflected in Wesnoth Philosophy III[/EDIT]

[Noy]

Not really. Part of this was fleshed out on the mailing list when 1.1 came out.I'd urge you to read there . I don't see why this needs to be discussed here either.

Simple answer: There is always room for improvement with everything.

edit: added link.

[irrevenant]

Not really. Part of this was fleshed out on the mailing list last year, I'd urge you to read there. I don't see why this needs to be discussed here either.

This seemed like the best forum, but please feel free to move it if you think another one is more appropriate.

It's nice that it was on the mailing list, but most users don't read the mailing list, or even realise that it exists. The Wiki is the ideal place for centralised reference documents and it's linked from the home page.

Simple answer: There is always room for improvement with everything.

Of course. But given the many possible contradictory definitions of 'improvement' it's nice to have a universally recognised focus.

[EDIT] Thanks for the link, I'm checking it out. But I'm not just after an answer for myself, I'm after a bit of centralised guidance re: the direction of Wesnoth that's easily accessible to everyone.

[Noy]

Not really. Part of this was fleshed out on the mailing list last year, I'd urge you to read there. I don't see why this needs to be discussed here either.

This seemed like the best forum, but please feel free to move it if you think another one is more appropriate.

It's nice that it was on the mailing list, but most users don't read the mailing list, or even realise that it exists. The Wiki is the ideal place for centralised reference documents and it's linked from the home page.

Thats not our problem, its not like we make these discussions in secret. Want to contribute to the game, you join the ML, and IRC. With the exception of certain sub forums (art being the main one) the forum is not for discussions of this type for two reasons.

#1 they tend to generate exccessive noise with little use for devs
#2 it can create false expectations.

In wesnoth development it tends to be the people who actually do the work who make the decisions. Discussing issues like this here, where there is few developers, becomes frightfully similar to having people who are not actually doing anything trying to influence development policy. Thats why I find threads like this absolutely useless and should be avoided as a rule.

(I think the Art forum works well for a different reason because of the very active participation of the developer in charge of that area)

Simple answer: There is always room for improvement with everything.

Of course. But given the many possible contradictory definitions of 'improvement' it's nice to have a universally recognised focus.

Funny, because for the last two years, we've worked pretty well without a "helpfull discussion" like what you're proposing.

[irrevenant]

Thats not our problem, its not like we make these discussions in secret. Want to contribute to the game, you join the ML, and IRC. With the exception of certain sub forums (art being the main one) the forum is not for discussions of this type for two reasons.
#1 they tend to generate excessive noise with little use for devs
#2 it can create false expectations.

I suspect you misunderstand me. I'm not suggesting anything more than an update of the "Wesnoth Philosophy" Wiki page to explain the current focus. It would also be useful to post a summary of the outcomes of other important mailing list discussions on the wiki where everyone can refer to them.

I'm not suggesting starting a discussion, and I'm certainly not suggesting that mailing list discussion should be replicated in the forums.

[EDIT] I've also tweaked the original post to hopefully make my meaning clearer.

[Noy]

no I think you misunderstand me. We DON'T need it. Given how we operate and our goals at present, if someone wants to add something are are skillful enough to do it, they do it, and that works with our ethos of general improvement across the board.

The reality is, discussions like these aren't helpful, and we're doing just fine without it.

[nightcrawler]

You're suggesting that guiding principles and a rough set of goals aren't necessary? Under what circumstances would that ever be true, for anybody, in any situation, ever?

No, of course not! You said goals exist, and they're sort of accessible. I agree with irrevenant that it sounds like you're debating against a proposal to discuss it. I don't think any such call was made. No discussion.

Irrevenant just wants the current TWP added to the TWP document. TWP is a public announcement of Dave's ideas that has been wildly successful in explaining a whole lot of "why" over the last 3.5 years. It's not a bad idea.

[appleide]

no I think you misunderstand me. We DON'T need it. Given how we operate and our goals at present, if someone wants to add something are are skillful enough to do it, they do it, and that works with our ethos of general improvement across the board.

The reality is, discussions like these aren't helpful, and we're doing just fine without it.

Irrevenant wasn't suggesting a discussion, just a notice of what has already been decided.

[Kestenvarn]

no I think you misunderstand me. We DON'T need it. Given how we operate and our goals at present, if someone wants to add something are are skillful enough to do it, they do it, and that works with our ethos of general improvement across the board.

The reality is, discussions like these aren't helpful, and we're doing just fine without it.

I'm really not seeing anything in his posts that even implies a discussion, for that matter - just a simple request for an update to the wiki with the current 'Mission Objectives'.

[turin]

uhm....


Anyway, updating TWP sounds like a good idea to me.