Community: Another Perspective.
by Ian Smithers · 01/15/2009 (1:25 am) · 5 comments
This is my first blog post, and a small mini-rant on this community debacle. First of all let me say I was just as shocked as everyone else when I clicked a GG link, and was suddenly presented with a new site. I poked around a bit, and then had a small heart-attack when I realised there was no longer an upgrade option from TGE to TGEA. E-mails were sent, cats were kicked. I happen to like the new layout and look, but that aside I can well understand how important connecting indie devs is.
The problem I have, is that I think a lot of this community outcry is simply hipocritical. I reside in the IRC channel a fair bit and here are a few observations:
1) GG has around 80? 90 employees? How many are in IRC? 1 I believe.
2) Communities live and die by their members and their contributions. The general reluctance to help people, seems completely counter to the cries of, "But, but... where is our community?".
3) There is a reluctance to submit resources - a few reasons for this, covered below.
Whilst this covers a small subset of the community, (ie I've not touched the forums or anything) this general mindset is prevalent throughout.
A quick, fun, Q&A:
You: Why don't you help people if you are so keen?
Me: I am new to Torque, but it's funny since I always ask what the problem is before having to admit that my current knowledge doesn't stretch that far.
You: I checked your profile and you've not submitted any resources either, aren't you the real hipocrit?
Me: No, because I've not done anything yet. Next?
You: I don't want people taking my hard work for free.
Me: Bingo! That's the community spirit right there. If this is you saying this, I'm not sure you understand community at all.
You: People are busy working that's why they (GG) aren't in IRC, or they (everyone else) don't help.
Me: They sure talk a lot of shit in IRC for people who are working so hard. Again, I just call "Lies!" on this.
You: I submitted a resource and was inundated with e-mails from people who couldn't get it to work.
Me: You can't answer every e-mail. Update the resource IF there is a problem, or make a note that it is provided 'as is' and due to a large influx of e-mail from previous resources, you aren't offering support on it. Stopping posting resources, isn't really helping the community.
So far I've been quite astounded at the lack of support from others, I think you get out what you put in, and that the new GG site is a reflection of that. Oh, zing.
The problem I have, is that I think a lot of this community outcry is simply hipocritical. I reside in the IRC channel a fair bit and here are a few observations:
1) GG has around 80? 90 employees? How many are in IRC? 1 I believe.
2) Communities live and die by their members and their contributions. The general reluctance to help people, seems completely counter to the cries of, "But, but... where is our community?".
3) There is a reluctance to submit resources - a few reasons for this, covered below.
Whilst this covers a small subset of the community, (ie I've not touched the forums or anything) this general mindset is prevalent throughout.
A quick, fun, Q&A:
You: Why don't you help people if you are so keen?
Me: I am new to Torque, but it's funny since I always ask what the problem is before having to admit that my current knowledge doesn't stretch that far.
You: I checked your profile and you've not submitted any resources either, aren't you the real hipocrit?
Me: No, because I've not done anything yet. Next?
You: I don't want people taking my hard work for free.
Me: Bingo! That's the community spirit right there. If this is you saying this, I'm not sure you understand community at all.
You: People are busy working that's why they (GG) aren't in IRC, or they (everyone else) don't help.
Me: They sure talk a lot of shit in IRC for people who are working so hard. Again, I just call "Lies!" on this.
You: I submitted a resource and was inundated with e-mails from people who couldn't get it to work.
Me: You can't answer every e-mail. Update the resource IF there is a problem, or make a note that it is provided 'as is' and due to a large influx of e-mail from previous resources, you aren't offering support on it. Stopping posting resources, isn't really helping the community.
So far I've been quite astounded at the lack of support from others, I think you get out what you put in, and that the new GG site is a reflection of that. Oh, zing.
#2
Also, there still is the ability to upgrade from TGE to TGEA, just click "Buy Now" and if you have TGE, the price is only $145, realy gave me a scare.
01/15/2009 (8:48 am)
I agree with Smith, do you see builders do free work for random people, you realy should take more gratitude if you get something for free and not attack other people because they wont do it for free.Also, there still is the ability to upgrade from TGE to TGEA, just click "Buy Now" and if you have TGE, the price is only $145, realy gave me a scare.
#4
@Joseph: The upgrade option is back now, but before it was not correcting to $145. ;) Oddly now, when I try to buy it, it presents a page that has no credit card selection field, or country selector, so I still can't buy it, BUT NO MATTER! :p
@Apparatus: www.petsovernight.com. No you can't have my cat(s), but yours are just moments away. ;)
01/15/2009 (5:36 pm)
@J.C: It's not that I'm expecting it, it's more that it appears to be the exception to the rule, and the very same people who were whining about things, are those who fervently clutch their data and code in death-like grips. No one is under duress to provide extended support, but having this be a reason to no longer help/answer/etc is pretty poor. It was basically just some observations over the current outcry, and the followup, whch to me - didn't align.@Joseph: The upgrade option is back now, but before it was not correcting to $145. ;) Oddly now, when I try to buy it, it presents a page that has no credit card selection field, or country selector, so I still can't buy it, BUT NO MATTER! :p
@Apparatus: www.petsovernight.com. No you can't have my cat(s), but yours are just moments away. ;)
#5
01/15/2009 (9:03 pm)
There was actually a little bit more to my post which appeared to get clipped maybe due to a post size limit or something. Just realized it looking at it today. Wasn't really anything important though was just more of the same.
Torque 3D Owner J.C. Smith
A lot of people here like to help others. But you shouldn't expect it from people. If you get it you should be happy that you did, and if you don't, then you're likely to figure it out on your own, its just going to take longer.
Same with giving away work. You shouldn't expect people to give away something they have worked on for free. If they do, then be happy they shared, and maybe you can reciprocate later. But a programmer is very much in his right if he spends days, weeks or months working on something to not want to simply give it away. If everyone gave away all of their code, then every game would be running on the same Universal engine. Be happy when you get it, but don't be bitter if someone doesn't share. It should also be noted that a lot of indie programmers are doing contract jobs, and if they develop something for a certain project, they'd have to get permission from the contractor in order to give it away. Often they wouldn't want to give that permission.
On the resource and support problem, that is one reason that a lot of people don't submit them. You want to try to help people generally when they ask for it, but when its working perfectly fine for you, and someone else can't get it working, you often have to assume that they botched up the code merge, and more often than