Answer to Vultraz and the 24 Jul 2015's request for help

[Warfall]

Hi Vultraz,



i'm trying to answer here to your very important announcement: http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=42912



While this is a sad new, the first thought coming to one mind is: could wesnoth helps itself before requesting something from outside?

And the very first thing is: either the unacceptable name "khalifate", unacceptable regarding political and/or historical and/or ethical points of view, is ongoing to be removed forever from any official package (*), either the wesnoth's setting will continue for whatever reason(**) to give a "curiously uncommentated image" for not saying a "favorable image" of a political system comparable to nazism (the califate, with or without the "fine joke" on labelling it with a "C" or "KH") (***).

If the former state is true: i will be glad to help as i enjoyed wesnoth for a long time.

If the latter state is true: anyone is free (and "mister anyone" is free precisely because "mister anyone" have the incredible chance to _not_ leave under the laws of a califate system...) to think, and speak, and promote what he wants. But in this case, there is obviously no help, quite the contrary.

(*) While probably involving a lot of more works, removing any explicite references to any religion / political system should also be a good idea.

(**) Regarding this point, the worst of everything is that the most probable is that the "reason" is a very simple complete lack of any knowledge about the topic.

(***) To name very few references here on the comparison between califate and nazi system: Winston Churchill / Great Britain's Prime Minister 1939-1945 and Nobel price of litterature; Vidiadar Suprajpasad Naipaul / Nobel price of litterature; Voltaire; Alexis de Tocqueville.

I think the conclusion is that currently the ball is on the current wesnoth's team camp: feel free to make the choice you want, and remember that any choice comes with the dutty to assume the choice.



Thanks for reading me,
Warfall

[Whiskeyjack]

This topic was already discussed at length at various other threads in the past (the last one being this one). While I am one of the people that is not exactly happy with the name and would prefer to change it, there are good arguments not to do this.
And I think blackmail by withholding your help on this project is neither the way to reach the changes you want nor usefull for anybody. If you want this to change perhaps you should invest yourself into this project as requests/demands from simple users do not carry the weight a developers stance might have.

[Warfall]

This topic was already discussed at length at various other threads in the past (the last one being this one). While I am one of the people that is not exactly happy with the name and would prefer to change it, there are good arguments not to do this.
And I think blackmail by withholding your help on this project is neither the way to reach the changes you want nor usefull for anybody. If you want this to change perhaps you should invest yourself into this project as requests/demands from simple users do not carry the weight a developers stance might have.

Hi,

i'm certainly not "blackmailing" anything. Otherwise your own sentence is inderstandable as: "close your mouth and help". I can't imagine you have really dared that ;-)

Anyway your error is a very good introduction of the main topic: a pure political matter, and here is one, is not subject to any considerations in the kind "this had already been discussed". For a very simple reason: any sentence like those can be, for very legitimate arguments, be consisred as an interdiction of free speech, at least a try of interdiction of free speech.

And while i understand that this can't be, over and over again, be discussed in the forums of a game, this is also the primary motivation of my thoughts on the topic: introducting something obviously political, and obviously critical, can't be sustained with "classical operation" for the good health of a game's forum.

So, if introduction is not sustainable, removing it is not only the best but the unique way to do.

[Whiskeyjack]

Ah well, blackmail was probably to harsh a word. And I did not want to say that you should not bring this topic up because it was discussed before. What I wanted to say is that I believe this way to be contraproductive because it probably won´t help to get the name changed and it probably also won´t help the current staff problems. It was meant as genuine advice, not as a demand of any kind.

Beyond that I did not really understand what it is you want to say.

[Crow_T]

I've been in the FOSS world for quite some time now, as a user, not a coder. Some thoughts:

The Gimp came really close to dying as a project, and one of the reasons was the arrogant, exclusive-club type mentality of the higher-ups (which has since changed). This community could take an outside look at this, in terms of how they respond to beginners trying to help, micro-managing the community, as well as opening all forums to commentary - no more Ivory Tower mentality. That saying, there are some really cool devs on this project, but the atmosphere could be a bit more encouraging.

Listen to users! I used Blender during the 2.4x series, it was notorious for a) difficult, inconsistent UI b) outdated render engine c) crappy modeling tools. These were constant complaints from the community for years, but were finally addressed- which in turn drove development via user/community enthusiasm. Another project that listens to user input is Krita, which has boomed in recent years, getting 30,000+ euros in its past two kickstarter campaigns, which it has used to hire developers. What is the biggest user gripe in Wesnoth? a hint: it starts with "R" and ends in "G." The RNG turns people away, it is not for everyone, just a small breed. There is no reason why other battle systems couldn't be officially incorporated, to be selected at the beginning of an MP match or campaign. Just like Blender developed the Cycles render engine but still kept the old scanline version, Wesnoth can keep the classic system while creating some excitement and fun with a new system, or systems. I really think making the game more fun would bring a lot more developers on board. You have to be a Zen Master to deal with the current RNG at times, lets be honest. It is the number one complaint of players and if this project wants to stay alive it should be addressed.

[Crendgrim]

shadowm has clearly stated that the Khalifate will not be changed / replaced.

I will therefore lock this thread. We've had enough of this discussion, and the developer team have decided to introduce the Khalifate as is, and asking for every thing to be aligned with everybody's political ideas is undoable anyway. Hey, let's get rid of all violence, Jesus said to keep peace!

If you want to address the other issues raised here (as in, the development team not paying enough attention to their users), feel free to open up a new constructive thread about that.

[Iris]

shadowm has clearly stated that the Khalifate will not be changed / replaced.

It’s worth mentioning that there is some historical context to that post.

If you want to address the other issues raised here (as in, the development team not paying enough attention to their users), feel free to open up a new constructive thread about that.

+1.