Angband needs a central web presence

[copx]

Angband needs a central web presence. Right now, the game appears to be dead
/ in a messy state to the outside/casual observer. The central web presence
should be the home of V and provide links to and info about all variants
(like http://www.thangorodrim.net/ did). It should also feature a web forum,
and whatever else the community might need. It most certainly needs a new
central FTP server..

I would like to suggest that "angband.oook.cz" becomes the new central site
if its owner agrees. The site already hosts the popular "ladder" which
should really be part of the central web presence. To clean things up the
old Angband sites must finally be taken down, because they only serve to
confuse people.

http://www.phial.com/angband/ contains VERY outdated and because of this
plain out WRONG information, yet it shows up among the first google hits for
"Angband". Someone should ask BH to take down the site. The historical
information can be integrated into the new central site.

http://www.thangorodrim.net/ is just another dead website. RR should finally
kill it. Just like phial it contains an oudated/wrong statement about who
the current maintainer is. According to thang it is Julian Lightion. You
know, the guy who never did anything, and hurt Angband a lot through by his
non-maintainership..

I think it is about time that this mess gets cleaned up, otherwise Angband
will continue to seem/be in a state of chaos and abandonment.

I cannot stress enough that some kind of centralised organisation IS
important to keep any kind of community or project healthy. For new / casual
players (i.e. the vast majority!) this is especially important. Only the
"inner circle" (people who follow this newsgroup) even know that Angband is
maintained again! To 90% of the people it looks like a dead game!

[Jack Bogonomy]

Post by copx
Angband needs a central web presence. Right now, the game appears to be dead
/ in a messy state to the outside/casual observer. The central web presence
should be the home of V and provide links to and info about all variants
(like http://www.thangorodrim.net/ did). It should also feature a web forum,
and whatever else the community might need. It most certainly needs a new
central FTP server..
I would like to suggest that "angband.oook.cz" becomes the new central site
if its owner agrees. The site already hosts the popular "ladder" which
should really be part of the central web presence. To clean things up the
old Angband sites must finally be taken down, because they only serve to
confuse people.
http://www.phial.com/angband/ contains VERY outdated and because of this
plain out WRONG information, yet it shows up among the first google hits for
"Angband". Someone should ask BH to take down the site. The historical
information can be integrated into the new central site.
http://www.thangorodrim.net/ is just another dead website. RR should finally
kill it. Just like phial it contains an oudated/wrong statement about who
the current maintainer is. According to thang it is Julian Lightion. You
know, the guy who never did anything, and hurt Angband a lot through by his
non-maintainership..

Second making oook the central site. Add FTP and host vanilla
development there; but there's no need for a web forum, since it has the
rgra portal.

Phial and thangorodrim seem like they can go, if they are coming up too
often in Google hits. Or change their main pages to redirect to oook. I
think both are archived at web.archive.org, but archive them at oook too
if you think it's a good idea.

I am not sure dissing Mr. Lighton is called-for here. Things come up,
people get busy, and maintaining a game with (to be realistic) not
world-shaking market share slips down the list of priorities a little.
Yours is the sort of attitude I see (via google groups to get some
history here) Neo/Twisted getting criticised for.

[magnate]

Post by Jack Bogonomy
I am not sure dissing Mr. Lighton is called-for here. Things come up,
people get busy, and maintaining a game with (to be realistic) not
world-shaking market share slips down the list of priorities a little.
Yours is the sort of attitude I see (via google groups to get some
history here) Neo/Twisted getting criticised for.

A delightful reinvention of which Bach would be proud. Well said.

CC

[Leon Marrick]

Agreed with the basic argument (with the ad-hom bit taken out).

However. There's lots of volunteering Other People, but what
people really need to do now is to offer their help and share, not
merely in the talk, but in the work.

*looks hopefully about for a work-gang to join*

[copx]

Post by Leon Marrick
Agreed with the basic argument (with the ad-hom bit taken out).
However. There's lots of volunteering Other People, but what people
really need to do now is to offer their help and share, not merely in the
talk, but in the work.

It is just a management issue. The community has all the required resources
/ enough people who are willing to help, but nobody does anything because of
a lack of organisation. The whole thing reminds me of the roguebasin drama.
We did not manage to do something as simple as replacing the default
wikilogo with the roguebasin logo (which was the result of a contest - many
people contributed / voted for this) for many months .. just because the
organisation was so horrible. IIRC the only guy with the necessary admin
permissions did not actually care much about roguebasin / was busy with
offer stuff, so nothing happend. We also had a serious spambot problem at
that time, because of the management issues nothing was done to fix it
either.

Back to *band, Pav has agreed. Now Andrew only needs to make it official.
Moving the V development there shouldn't be much of a problem. Someone
should be recruited to create / maintain a variant list at oook.cz. Useful
content from the old sites should be copied (only with permission of
course).

No, I have no intend to become the Angband CEO ;) My own game (Warp Rogue)
keeps me more than busy enough. I am just ranting in the hope that it might
encourage some *band community figures to get their act together. Before
someone tries to argue that ranting does not work .. see roguebasin. My not
so soft spoken rant "who the hell is the admin of roguebasin?"
(r.g.r.development) certainly helped to get things moving.

copx

[Pav Lucistnik]

official. Moving the V development there shouldn't be much of a problem.

Funny you say that, the development repository was on oook for years and
got moved out of it last week. ;)

[pete m]

Post by Pav Lucistnik

official. Moving the V development there shouldn't be much of a problem.

Funny you say that, the development repository was on oook for years and
got moved out of it last week. ;)

The angband.rogueforge.net site is much better for development than
the old oook cvs repository.
It's got real bug tracking, and svn is much nicer than cvs, once you
find a working copy or get it compiled. (Significantly faster, easier
to branch, and updates are fully transactional.)

[Billy Bissette]

Post by Leon Marrick
Agreed with the basic argument (with the ad-hom bit taken out).
However. There's lots of volunteering Other People, but what
people really need to do now is to offer their help and share, not
merely in the talk, but in the work.
*looks hopefully about for a work-gang to join*

First, it would be a good idea if everyone could decide just what a
central site would need. Then someone could try to organize efforts
and resources. Otherwise, you may just end up with one or two more
"partial" sites.

From there, figure out what everyone already has (in the form of
existing sites and resources) and what anyone is willing to offer.
Intelligently linking to parts of existing sites would reduce the
amount of initial work, for example. And by intelligently linking, I
don't mean just putting a list of Angband-related sites on a "Links"
page.

Hopefully from there, the various information would be incorporated
into a coherent whole. A decent central site would be something
both informative and easy to navigate to find particular info.


So what should a central site have?
A web forum that covers Angband, Angband variants, and general
community outside of Angband and Roguelikes?
Possibly a web-based access to the newsgroup as well, at least until
it was phased out?
Downloads or links to all vanilla and variant sources and
executables? Particularly organized in an easy to understand and
consistent manner, where a person doesn't have to wonder just
whether or not he wants a particular file.
Detailed and up-to-date descriptions of all variants? Possibly
with a brief history that includes things like relevance or what
it offered to Angband as a whole.
Promotion of the central site (and its status as the central site)
through various other pages, like variant home pages and even perhaps
mention in game documentation (if the site is planned to stay at the
same address.) Cross-promotion on sites for other Roguelikes would
be an extra bonus.
A general history of Roguelikes, with links to various major other
sites would be useful to some. Tell about Nethack. Link to things
like the Roguelike Graveyard and the Rogue archive. Promote
Roguelikes in general, even if the main focus of the site is Angband.

What else? What else needs or at least should be on a central
site? What needs to be there first, and what can be delayed? What
needs be hosted there, and what may be left on other sites?

And who would be willing and able to maintain the whole? A good
central site should likely require a decent amount of maintanence,
and a lot of work up front.

[Pav Lucistnik]

Post by Billy Bissette
So what should a central site have?
A web forum that covers Angband, Angband variants, and general
community outside of Angband and Roguelikes?

Check.

Post by Billy Bissette
Possibly a web-based access to the newsgroup as well, at least until
it was phased out?

Check.

Post by Billy Bissette
Downloads or links to all vanilla and variant sources and
executables? Particularly organized in an easy to understand and
consistent manner, where a person doesn't have to wonder just whether or
not he wants a particular file.

Downloads to Vanilla files - check.

Direct links to variant files - don't think it's necessary. Link to
variant website should do.

Post by Billy Bissette
Detailed and up-to-date descriptions of all variants? Possibly
with a brief history that includes things like relevance or what it
offered to Angband as a whole.

I'm willing to code up an engine for this, if someone would be willing to
fill it up with data.

Post by Billy Bissette
Promotion of the central site (and its status as the central site)
through various other pages, like variant home pages and even perhaps
mention in game documentation (if the site is planned to stay at the
same address.) Cross-promotion on sites for other Roguelikes would be
an extra bonus.

I wish - it's in the hands of the Maintainers.

Post by Billy Bissette
A general history of Roguelikes, with links to various major other
sites would be useful to some. Tell about Nethack. Link to things like
the Roguelike Graveyard and the Rogue archive. Promote Roguelikes in
general, even if the main focus of the site is Angband.

You're willing to write up such a material? I have no idea where to
begin, but I know I would be enjoying reading it.

And no, copy and paste from Wikipedia is not good enough.

[Billy Bissette]

Post by Pav Lucistnik

Post by Billy Bissette
A general history of Roguelikes, with links to various major other
sites would be useful to some. Tell about Nethack. Link to things
like the Roguelike Graveyard and the Rogue archive. Promote
Roguelikes in general, even if the main focus of the site is Angband.

You're willing to write up such a material? I have no idea where to
begin, but I know I would be enjoying reading it.
And no, copy and paste from Wikipedia is not good enough.

I wouldn't know where to begin, either. But it is something that
would give additional worth to a central site, and cross-promotion
helps not just other sites but also your own. Even if someone didn't
find Angband to their tastes, if the site helped them find something
that they did like, then they might remember to recommend the site to
others. As well, people who work on their own versions of Angband
may benefit from seeing just what has been done before.

The Roguelike Restoration Project is after a fashion a history of
Rogue itself, in the form of source code and playable versions of
various incarnations of Rogue.
http://rogue.rogueforge.net/

The Roguelike Graveyard archives various games that otherwise would
have faded into history.
http://www.graveyard.uni.cc/

I'd guess it wouldn't be too hard to find someone who could write a
history of Nethack. Heck, the Roguelike column at GameSetWatch.com
spends most of its time talking about Nethack. Adom might not be
so bad either. People have written about Rogue in the past. More
obscure or ancient games, and perhaps Angband itself, would be a bit
harder to find either information about or a person willing to write
about them. Some of those obscure games do still have a web presence
though, and a few may even still have fans.

[Timo Pietilä]

Post by Pav Lucistnik

Post by Billy Bissette
So what should a central site have?
Downloads or links to all vanilla and variant sources and
executables? Particularly organized in an easy to understand and
consistent manner, where a person doesn't have to wonder just whether or
not he wants a particular file.

Downloads to Vanilla files - check.
Direct links to variant files - don't think it's necessary. Link to
variant website should do.

If there is any. Also compiles for more exotic machines have to be
there. Even if outdated.

Timo Pietilä

[Timo Pietilä]

Post by copx
Angband needs a central web presence. Right now, the game appears to be dead
/ in a messy state to the outside/casual observer. The central web presence
should be the home of V and provide links to and info about all variants
(like http://www.thangorodrim.net/ did). It should also feature a web forum,
and whatever else the community might need. It most certainly needs a new
central FTP server..
I would like to suggest that "angband.oook.cz" becomes the new central site
if its owner agrees. The site already hosts the popular "ladder" which
should really be part of the central web presence. To clean things up the
old Angband sites must finally be taken down, because they only serve to
confuse people.

Oook has everything it needs to to become official site.

Post by copx
http://www.phial.com/angband/ contains VERY outdated and because of this
plain out WRONG information, yet it shows up among the first google hits for
"Angband". Someone should ask BH to take down the site. The historical
information can be integrated into the new central site.

Phial is old site. BH could be asked to add statement about it being
outdated in main page, but to me that site has some historical value.
Ben did more than other maintainers did (with exception to people that
actually created this wonderful game).

Post by copx
http://www.thangorodrim.net/ is just another dead website. RR should finally
kill it. Just like phial it contains an oudated/wrong statement about who
the current maintainer is.

But Thang is still one of the best sites around if not best. We should
ask RR to correct maintainer-statement, but it still holds more
information than other sites around. For example its help-section is
better than any other site has. And there is news-section that goes on
to 1997. If you want to look what has happened and when that is good
place to look. And if you have some exotic computer like silicon
graphics Thang is only place that contains compiled version of the game
(even that it is version 2.8.3).

Actually I don't find it very outdated. If you don't count
maintainer-statement and lack of new version (3.0.7) released all info
it has is pretty much still correct.

And Robert said that he will stay in contact to rest of us, but just not
quite as regulary as he used to be. So that site might get updated at
some point.

angband.oook.cz is good site, but IHMO not good enough to replace Thang.
Not yet anyway. angband.oook.cz have to integrate most of the Thang
before that can be driven down.

Timo Pietilä

[Andrew Doull]

Post by Timo Pietilä

Post by copx
Angband needs a central web presence. Right now, the game appears to be dead
/ in a messy state to the outside/casual observer. The central web presence
should be the home of V and provide links to and info about all variants
(like http://www.thangorodrim.net/ did). It should also feature a web forum,
and whatever else the community might need. It most certainly needs a new
central FTP server..
I would like to suggest that "angband.oook.cz" becomes the new central site
if its owner agrees. The site already hosts the popular "ladder" which
should really be part of the central web presence. To clean things up the
old Angband sites must finally be taken down, because they only serve to
confuse people.

Oook has everything it needs to to become official site.

Except the consent of the site maintainer. I know Pav did a visual refresh
recently, but until he actually comes out and agrees to something like this,
this might be a moot discussion.

Can I suggest that until that occurs, that we use Fury's web forums here (for
Angband)
http://www.furytech.net/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=46&sid=bc4b5419f6232afa0d28839d23ea850b
and here (for Angband variants)
http://www.furytech.net/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=47&sid=bc4b5419f6232afa0d28839d23ea850b


I note however, that they have no forum posts, and the above links are not the
most hygenic and easy to read. Also, off the top of my head, the science fiction
theme is not the most appropriate. However, rather than people volunteering a
non-existent web forum, the above actually exists.

Can we also use the Fury tech wiki to at least collaboratively update the
Angband documentation? That might be a nice first 'community activity' - at
least if we get a hyper linked set of documentation, it might be easy to port
back to a hyper link based help system within Angband.

The Fury tech wiki link is here.
http://www.furytech.net/dosgames/index.php?title=Angband_and_Rogue-likes

I'd also like people to submit reviews of variants, but that's perhaps just a
nice wish.

Andrew

[Timo Pietilä]

Post by Andrew Doull

Post by Timo Pietilä

Post by copx
Angband needs a central web presence. Right now, the game appears to be dead
/ in a messy state to the outside/casual observer. The central web presence
should be the home of V and provide links to and info about all variants
(like http://www.thangorodrim.net/ did). It should also feature a web forum,
and whatever else the community might need. It most certainly needs a new
central FTP server..
I would like to suggest that "angband.oook.cz" becomes the new central site
if its owner agrees. The site already hosts the popular "ladder" which
should really be part of the central web presence. To clean things up the
old Angband sites must finally be taken down, because they only serve to
confuse people.

Oook has everything it needs to to become official site.

Except the consent of the site maintainer. I know Pav did a visual refresh
recently, but until he actually comes out and agrees to something like this,
this might be a moot discussion.

I think Pav already accepted, but Andrew Sidwell haven't said comment
about this.

Post by Andrew Doull
Can I suggest that until that occurs, that we use Fury's web forums here (for
Angband)

I couldn't care less for web-forums as long as I have usenet news
access. IMO they are far inferior to news. I haven't yet seen any
web-interface that can become even close to decent newsreader.

Timo Pietilä

[Pav Lucistnik]

Post by Timo Pietilä
I couldn't care less for web-forums as long as I have usenet news
access. IMO they are far inferior to news. I haven't yet seen any
web-interface that can become even close to decent newsreader.

I feel it would be useful to have in parallel both the webforum and the
newsgroup. The communities does not have to overlap, with the exception
of Andrew and the variant maintainers, perhaps.

[Jack Bogonomy]

Post by Timo Pietilä
I couldn't care less for web-forums as long as I have usenet news
access. IMO they are far inferior to news. I haven't yet seen any
web-interface that can become even close to decent newsreader.

Seconded. We don't need no steenkin' web forum! OTOH, putting a *wiki*
on oook might be a good idea. People could directly contribute
information about variants and such. It would become the "faq", with
discussion occurring here, of course. The wiki could include "talk
pages" for wiki-editing-specific discourse if necessary (as Wikipedia
does). It should allow anonymous contributions (with an anti-spam
captcha or similar safeguard to stop or inconvenience automated post
bots). Of course, an "official faq wiki" would be nice; this could be a
clone of the first wiki that only Pav could edit, or someone he
appointed. It would be periodically updated with the best changes from
the other wiki. People needing accurate/"officially sanctioned"
information that didn't trust the editable wiki would have this one's
distillation that had Pav's imprimatur of approval.

[Pav Lucistnik]

Post by Jack Bogonomy
Seconded. We don't need no steenkin' web forum!

I will be happy to NOT have you on the forums, Neo.

[Jack Bogonomy]

Post by Pav Lucistnik

Post by Jack Bogonomy
Seconded. We don't need no steenkin' web forum!

I will be happy to NOT have you on the forums, Neo.

Eh. Neo = Twisted, or at least I think so. I'm someone else. The history
seems to indicate he's won Angband half a dozen times or more, and
Oangband(!) once, while I've got one win under my belt, in vanilla. He
also seems to use google groups; I'm using a real newsserver. :P

[magnate]

Post by Jack Bogonomy

Post by Pav Lucistnik

Post by Jack Bogonomy
Seconded. We don't need no steenkin' web forum!

I will be happy to NOT have you on the forums, Neo.

Eh. Neo = Twisted, or at least I think so. I'm someone else. The history
seems to indicate he's won Angband half a dozen times or more, and
Oangband(!) once, while I've got one win under my belt, in vanilla. He
also seems to use google groups; I'm using a real newsserver. :P

[yawn, stretch] I was so hoping this wasn't going to happen.

CC

[pete m]

Post by Jack Bogonomy

Post by Pav Lucistnik

Post by Jack Bogonomy
Seconded. We don't need no steenkin' web forum!

I will be happy to NOT have you on the forums, Neo.

Eh. Neo = Twisted, or at least I think so. I'm someone else. The history
seems to indicate he's won Angband half a dozen times or more, and
Oangband(!) once, while I've got one win under my belt, in vanilla. He
also seems to use google groups; I'm using a real newsserver. :P

So Jack Bogonomy is a pseudonym for Mary Losh?

[Jack Bogonomy]

Post by pete m

Post by Jack Bogonomy

Post by Pav Lucistnik

Post by Jack Bogonomy
Seconded. We don't need no steenkin' web forum!

I will be happy to NOT have you on the forums, Neo.

Eh. Neo = Twisted, or at least I think so. I'm someone else. The history
seems to indicate he's won Angband half a dozen times or more, and
Oangband(!) once, while I've got one win under my belt, in vanilla. He
also seems to use google groups; I'm using a real newsserver. :P

So Jack Bogonomy is a pseudonym for Mary Losh?

It isn't a pseudonym for anything -- it's my actual name. Sheesh.

[Nick McConnell]

Post by Jack Bogonomy

Post by pete m
So Jack Bogonomy is a pseudonym for Mary Losh?

It isn't a pseudonym for anything -- it's my actual name. Sheesh.

Allow me to share with you something interesting I found out about your
surname.

A Google search reveals remarkably few hits on it - in fact, only one apart from
newsgroup posts dating March 2007 or later. This one is

http://homes.cerias.purdue.edu/~spaf/Yucks/V7/msg00012.html

For those who do not like to follow links, this is a collection of humorous
articles, including one which is a list of dictionary definitions of words
supposedly derived from 'bogus' (the list is titled 'A tribute to Bill and
Ted'...).

Your surname appears with the definition "List or survey of bogus items", and
lies between
bogorrhea, n. Excessive and uncontrolled spewing of lies.
and
bognacious, adj. Obstinately and resolutely bogus.

Amusing, huh.

Nick.

[Chris Wesling]

Post by Nick McConnell

Post by Jack Bogonomy

Post by pete m
So Jack Bogonomy is a pseudonym for Mary Losh?

It isn't a pseudonym for anything -- it's my actual name. Sheesh.

Allow me to share with you something interesting I found out about your
surname.
A Google search reveals remarkably few hits on it - in fact, only one apart from
newsgroup posts dating March 2007 or later. This one is
http://homes.cerias.purdue.edu/~spaf/Yucks/V7/msg00012.html
For those who do not like to follow links, this is a collection of humorous
articles, including one which is a list of dictionary definitions of words
supposedly derived from 'bogus' (the list is titled 'A tribute to Bill and
Ted'...).
Your surname appears with the definition "List or survey of bogus items", and
lies between
bogorrhea, n. Excessive and uncontrolled spewing of lies.
and
bognacious, adj. Obstinately and resolutely bogus.
Amusing, huh.

Dude, that was totally AWESOME research. We're not worthy, we're not worthy!

Chris W.

[magnate]

Post by Nick McConnell

Post by Jack Bogonomy

Post by pete m
So Jack Bogonomy is a pseudonym for Mary Losh?

It isn't a pseudonym for anything -- it's my actual name. Sheesh.

Allow me to share with you something interesting I found out about your
surname.
A Google search reveals remarkably few hits on it - in fact, only one apart from
newsgroup posts dating March 2007 or later. This one is
http://homes.cerias.purdue.edu/~spaf/Yucks/V7/msg00012.html
For those who do not like to follow links, this is a collection of humorous
articles, including one which is a list of dictionary definitions of words
supposedly derived from 'bogus' (the list is titled 'A tribute to Bill and
Ted'...).
Your surname appears with the definition "List or survey of bogus items", and
lies between
bogorrhea, n. Excessive and uncontrolled spewing of lies.
and
bognacious, adj. Obstinately and resolutely bogus.
Amusing, huh.

Very. The thing I don't get is why Neo thinks we're all stupid.

Still, it doesn't bug me like it used to, which is a good thing.

CC

[Joseph William Dixon]

Post by Pav Lucistnik

Post by Jack Bogonomy
Seconded. We don't need no steenkin' web forum!

I will be happy to NOT have you on the forums, Neo.

That would be the only benefit to a Web-based forum.

[R. Dan Henry]

On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 10:09:03 -0300, Joseph William Dixon

Post by Joseph William Dixon

Post by Pav Lucistnik
I will be happy to NOT have you on the forums, Neo.

That would be the only benefit to a Web-based forum.

Of course, we wouldn't actually be without him on a permanent basis.
He's shown a willingness to repeatedly invent new identities hoping to
shed his past, but a lack of self-awareness to realize that the problem
is himself and he doesn't change. So expect to see him explode and have
his account deleted every... oh, six months or so?

Although given his problems with Google Groups, he might find a Web
forum too difficult to work at all. So, a benefit to the clumsy
interface.

[Robert Nesius]

Post by Timo Pietilä

Post by Andrew Doull
Can I suggest that until that occurs, that we use Fury's web forums here (for
Angband)

I couldn't care less for web-forums as long as I have usenet news
access. IMO they are far inferior to news. I haven't yet seen any
web-interface that can become even close to decent newsreader.

Agreed.

Web forums make me want to reach for an ice pick and kill myself.

Bumps. Stickies. Blah. Angband discussions moving into webforums is a
regression.

-Rob

[R. Dan Henry]

Post by Robert Nesius
Web forums make me want to reach for an ice pick and kill myself.

That's crazy talk. You should want to reach for an ice pick and kill a
web forum designer.

[Robert Nesius]

Post by R. Dan Henry

Post by Robert Nesius
Web forums make me want to reach for an ice pick and kill myself.

That's crazy talk. You should want to reach for an ice pick and kill a
web forum designer.

I could go to jail for that, though.

:(

-Rob

[Sherm Pendley]

Post by Robert Nesius

Post by R. Dan Henry

Post by Robert Nesius
Web forums make me want to reach for an ice pick and kill myself.

That's crazy talk. You should want to reach for an ice pick and kill a
web forum designer.

I could go to jail for that, though.

Get yourself a good lawyer. Killing web forum designers and spammers are
both justifiable self-defense.

sherm--

[Andrew Sidwell]

Andrew Doull wrote:
<snip>

Post by Andrew Doull
Can I suggest that until that occurs, that we use Fury's web forums here (for
Angband)
http://www.furytech.net/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=46&sid=bc4b5419f6232afa0d28839d23ea850b
and here (for Angband variants)
http://www.furytech.net/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=47&sid=bc4b5419f6232afa0d28839d23ea850b
I note however, that they have no forum posts, and the above links are not the
most hygenic and easy to read. Also, off the top of my head, the science fiction
theme is not the most appropriate. However, rather than people volunteering a
non-existent web forum, the above actually exists.

My favourite kind of non-existent web forum would be one where the forum
shares a posts database with a news server and a mailing list gateway.
The job of collecting all the feedback from the recent massive thread
would just not have been possible without the use of a dedicated news
client, the ability to mark posts as "do something with this", and good
tracking of read/unread status.

That said, it looks like "the future" is in web forums.

Post by Andrew Doull
Can we also use the Fury tech wiki to at least collaboratively update the
Angband documentation? That might be a nice first 'community activity' - at
least if we get a hyper linked set of documentation, it might be easy to port
back to a hyper link based help system within Angband.
The Fury tech wiki link is here.
http://www.furytech.net/dosgames/index.php?title=Angband_and_Rogue-likes

I'm already working on converting the docs (Leon's version, no less) to
HTML format for a future release -- if anyone wants to give me a hand,
please volunteer. :) I'd use wiki syntax, but wikis don't output
particularly readable HTML and I would want to be able to hand-edit the
help files.

Andrew Sidwell

[Pav Lucistnik]

Post by Andrew Sidwell
<snip>

Post by Andrew Doull
Can I suggest that until that occurs, that we use Fury's web forums
here (for Angband)
http://www.furytech.net/phpBB2/viewforum.php?

f=46&sid=bc4b5419f6232afa0d28839d23ea850b

Post by Andrew Sidwell

Post by Andrew Doull
and here (for Angband variants)
http://www.furytech.net/phpBB2/viewforum.php?

f=47&sid=bc4b5419f6232afa0d28839d23ea850b

Post by Andrew Sidwell

Post by Andrew Doull
I note however, that they have no forum posts, and the above links are
not the most hygenic and easy to read. Also, off the top of my head,
the science fiction theme is not the most appropriate. However, rather
than people volunteering a non-existent web forum, the above actually
exists.

My favourite kind of non-existent web forum would be one where the forum
shares a posts database with a news server and a mailing list gateway.

That would not work well, socially.

The forums tend to me much more informal then newsgroup. Idle chatter,
AOL posts, a rapid exchange of short replies spanning dozens of posts,
that's all normal on forums, but would be impossible on newsgroup.

Newsgroup is more equivalent to mailing lists.

[Jack Bogonomy]

Post by Pav Lucistnik
That would not work well, socially.
The forums tend to me much more informal then newsgroup. Idle chatter,
AOL posts, a rapid exchange of short replies spanning dozens of posts,
that's all normal on forums, but would be impossible on newsgroup.
Newsgroup is more equivalent to mailing lists.

Another reason to stick with a newsgroup; switching to a forum would
change things drastically in the social dynamics, even leaving aside
that we'd no longer have a freewheeling unmoderated group.

[Chris Kern]

On Sun, 22 Apr 2007 22:01:45 -0400, Jack Bogonomy

Post by Jack Bogonomy

Post by Pav Lucistnik
That would not work well, socially.
The forums tend to me much more informal then newsgroup. Idle chatter,
AOL posts, a rapid exchange of short replies spanning dozens of posts,
that's all normal on forums, but would be impossible on newsgroup.
Newsgroup is more equivalent to mailing lists.

Another reason to stick with a newsgroup; switching to a forum would
change things drastically in the social dynamics, even leaving aside
that we'd no longer have a freewheeling unmoderated group.

This isn't really an either/or thing. The newsgroup will be around no
matter what; it's not like it will suddenly get shut down if a web
forum gets created. It's also not as if the consent of the entire
Angband community is necessary to create a forum on a website. If you
don't like it, you don't have to visit it.

-Chris

[Twisted]

Post by Andrew Sidwell
My favourite kind of non-existent web forum would be one where the forum
shares a posts database with a news server and a mailing list gateway.

This already exists and it's called "Google Groups".

Creating Web forum software that uses Usenet as a storage medium might
be interesting though. You'd create a moderated group; only posts via
the forum would have approval headers. Usenet servers would
nonetheless provide a) backup storage and b) read-only access. Posts
from news servers might be accepted via the usual moderation
procedures as well.

At least this would be a forum that wouldn't lose its entire history
at the drop of a hard drive read head, although it would still be a
fascist dictatorship. :P

[Jack Bogonomy]

Post by Twisted
At least this would be a forum that wouldn't lose its entire history
at the drop of a hard drive read head, although it would still be a
fascist dictatorship. :P

Bitter much? Me thinks Twisted here has been banned a time or two from
web forums, somehow, and maybe had favorites crash or get hacked too?

[Sherm Pendley]

Post by Twisted

Post by Andrew Sidwell
My favourite kind of non-existent web forum would be one where the forum
shares a posts database with a news server and a mailing list gateway.

This already exists and it's called "Google Groups".
Creating Web forum software that uses Usenet as a storage medium might
be interesting though.

It's also worth noting that a news group doesn't necessarily imply usenet.
Nor does usenet necessarily imply carrying *every* usenet group. A news
server can be configured to carry whatever usenet groups the admin wants,
or even to carry only private groups and no usenet feed at all.

O'Reilly & Associates published a very good book on the subject of using
web and email "gateway" interfaces over top of a news back-end: "Practical
Internet Groupware" by Jon Udell.

sherm--

[Jack Bogonomy]

Post by Sherm Pendley

Post by Twisted

Post by Andrew Sidwell
My favourite kind of non-existent web forum would be one where the forum
shares a posts database with a news server and a mailing list gateway.

This already exists and it's called "Google Groups".
Creating Web forum software that uses Usenet as a storage medium might
be interesting though.

It's also worth noting that a news group doesn't necessarily imply usenet.
Nor does usenet necessarily imply carrying *every* usenet group. A news
server can be configured to carry whatever usenet groups the admin wants,
or even to carry only private groups and no usenet feed at all.

Of course, you lose much of the robustness by using an unpropagated
group on a single server. If the server goes down, it's inaccessible to
everybody; if the server loses data, it's gone forever; if the server
admins don't like someone, they can't shop someplace else. Many more
single points of failure, both in the engineering and human-factors.

[Robert Nesius]

Post by Andrew Sidwell
<snip>

Post by Andrew Doull
Can I suggest that until that occurs, that we use Fury's web forums here (for
Angband)
http://www.furytech.net/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=46&sid=bc4b5419f6232afa0d28839d23ea850b
and here (for Angband variants)
http://www.furytech.net/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=47&sid=bc4b5419f6232afa0d28839d23ea850b
The Fury tech wiki link is here.
http://www.furytech.net/dosgames/index.php?title=Angband_and_Rogue-likes

I'm already working on converting the docs (Leon's version, no less) to
HTML format for a future release -- if anyone wants to give me a hand,
please volunteer. :) I'd use wiki syntax, but wikis don't output
particularly readable HTML and I would want to be able to hand-edit the
help files.
Andrew Sidwell

Good call on staying with HTML.

WIKI syntaxes are not standardized. If you write your docs against one
syntax and then want to change engines, you're facing a very big job of
rewriting or translating. Automatic converters won't be guarenteed to
not screw up. :(

-Rob

[Pav Lucistnik]

Post by Timo Pietilä

Post by copx
I would like to suggest that "angband.oook.cz" becomes the new central
site if its owner agrees. The site already hosts the popular "ladder"
which should really be part of the central web presence. To clean
things up the old Angband sites must finally be taken down, because
they only serve to confuse people.

I don't mind becoming the new central web presence for Angband.
On the contrary, it would be an honor.

Post by Timo Pietilä

Post by copx
http://www.phial.com/angband/ contains VERY outdated and because of

I think you can't reasonably expect Phial being taken down, now when the
person in charge is gone. High Google rank of it bothers me a little, too.

Post by Timo Pietilä

Post by copx
http://www.thangorodrim.net/ is just another dead website. RR should
finally kill it. Just like phial it contains an oudated/wrong statement
about who the current maintainer is.

But Thang is still one of the best sites around if not best. We should

It should be kept online, for the historical reference.

Post by Timo Pietilä
angband.oook.cz is good site, but IHMO not good enough to replace Thang.
Not yet anyway. angband.oook.cz have to integrate most of the Thang
before that can be driven down.

Agreed.

I'm hesitant to invest that much labor into variants list, now in 2007,
when every active variant have an extensive website of it's own.
I abused the Links page on my site as a basic variants list so far.
Perhaps that needs to be expanded to a standalone page, but I don't feel
need to link all downloads for every variant or track their latest
releases.

The Help section would be useful to take over and update.

[Christer Nyfalt]

Post by Pav Lucistnik
I'm hesitant to invest that much labor into variants list, now in 2007,
when every active variant have an extensive website of it's own.

Except Gumband.

[Andrew Doull]

Post by Christer Nyfalt

Post by Pav Lucistnik
I'm hesitant to invest that much labor into variants list, now in 2007,
when every active variant have an extensive website of it's own.

Except Gumband.

The following variants don't have active forums as far as I can tell:

FAAngband, Oangband, Unangband, Entroband, Sangband, Eyangband, Zangband,
Posband.

That's just from a quick check of the homepages.

So including variant forums is probably worthwhile.

Andrew

[Pav Lucistnik]

Post by Andrew Doull

Post by Christer Nyfalt

Post by Pav Lucistnik
I'm hesitant to invest that much labor into variants list, now in
2007, when every active variant have an extensive website of it's
own.

Except Gumband.

Which is pretty much dead.

Post by Andrew Doull
FAAngband, Oangband, Unangband, Entroband, Sangband, Eyangband,
Zangband, Posband.

From top of my head, I recall Un, S, Ey and Z have fully adequate
websites.

Post by Andrew Doull
So including variant forums is probably worthwhile.

Now variant forums are totally different bag of peanuts. I can dedicate
them a section on (now coming) Angband Forums.

All depends on if people will flock to the forums or not. Kinda hard to
predict :)

[R. Dan Henry]

Post by Pav Lucistnik

Post by Andrew Doull

Post by Christer Nyfalt

Post by Pav Lucistnik
I'm hesitant to invest that much labor into variants list, now in
2007, when every active variant have an extensive website of it's
own.

Except Gumband.

Which is pretty much dead.

Well, last time I released, it sunk with the barest ripple of response,
so my focus when I've had time has mainly been on getting Dangband into
0.0.1 shape. I *am* nearing the end of my current read-and-take-notes
cycle and should manage a release sometime this summer. As busy as I am
and trying to develop two variants, I think shooting for a release
annually of each would be reasonable.

I want to redo mutation as well as thematic content adds for the next
release. The only "vacation" I had this year that wasn't totally eaten
up by family or real life complications involved a break from my
computer, so it has all been a few minutes here, a few minutes there.
And as I say, the bulk of that has gone to Dangband, which only has
revision of spells/classes to go before it reaches the point where I can
start thinking about getting it all balanced enough to be really
playable.

So it isn't so much dead as sleeping. Like Cthulhu. When the stars are
right it shall rise and consume you. Or at least someone's spare time.

Post by Pav Lucistnik

Post by Andrew Doull
FAAngband, Oangband, Unangband, Entroband, Sangband, Eyangband,
Zangband, Posband.

But the lack of either a Gumband website (I wouldn't use a web forum. I
don't hide my e-mail address, so it's not like I can't be contacted
without one. I like mailing lists and news, and even those eat more time
than I really should allow.) or a central Angband site has also
contributed to my lack of a push to release. Last time I ended up
putting it on Fury's site and got almost no response. And I know I tried
more variants back when I could get all the latest stuff in one spot.

I don't have time to set up a website for Gumband, even if I had a place
for it. I'd need time to brush up on my HTML to produce something that
wasn't so ugly it'd scare people away. I'd like to just have a nice ftp
server to put my files on where everyone knew where to look, like in the
old days. If oook can't manage that, it can't really replace Thang.
Which doesn't mean it can't become the new main site, just that it won't
be what was reborn. Aragorn's Gondor waxed, but it wasn't any Numenor;
that doesn't mean he didn't do good.

Barring a central, (pseudo-)official *band depository, any suggestions
from anyone on a reasonably visible home for Gumband (and later
Dangband)? Don't want to be *too* visible given the IP problems Gumband
could potentially have (although unlike the Tolkien properties, the
Moorcock gaming rights are in fairly cool hands). Not to mention there
are Daleks in Dangband, so it isn't completely pure, either.

[Jack Bogonomy]

Post by Pav Lucistnik
I think you can't reasonably expect Phial being taken down, now when the
person in charge is gone. High Google rank of it bothers me a little, too.

That just means oook's profile needs to be raised. Link to it from lots
of blog postings mentioning Angband; that usually suffices. :)

[Chris Kern]

On Sun, 22 Apr 2007 11:02:16 +0300, Timo Pietilä

Post by Timo Pietilä
Phial is old site. BH could be asked to add statement about it being
outdated in main page, but to me that site has some historical value.

The main page already has this:

"This Angband Home Page is maintained by Ben Harrison, the maintainer
of the game Angband until 2000, the author of Angband 2.7.0 through
Angband 2.8.5, and the designer of the Angband Borg.

Note that in 2000, Robert Ruhlmann became the Angband maintainer, and
is not only the author of Angband 2.9.0 and beyond, but is also the
maintainer of the http://www.thangorodrim.net website, which is by far
the most useful, and important, Angband site in existence.

Unless you are looking for historical information pre-dating the year
2000, go to http://www.thangorodrim.net, and you will probably find
what you are looking for. "

That sounds pretty good to me.

-Chris

[copx]

Post by Chris Kern
On Sun, 22 Apr 2007 11:02:16 +0300, Timo Pietilä

Post by Timo Pietilä
Phial is old site. BH could be asked to add statement about it being
outdated in main page, but to me that site has some historical value.

"This Angband Home Page is maintained by Ben Harrison, the maintainer
of the game Angband until 2000, the author of Angband 2.7.0 through
Angband 2.8.5, and the designer of the Angband Borg.
Note that in 2000, Robert Ruhlmann became the Angband maintainer, and
is not only the author of Angband 2.9.0 and beyond, but is also the
maintainer of the http://www.thangorodrim.net website, which is by far
the most useful, and important, Angband site in existence.
Unless you are looking for historical information pre-dating the year
2000, go to http://www.thangorodrim.net, and you will probably find
what you are looking for. "
That sounds pretty good to me.

Not to me. RR is no longer the maintainer, and Thang is dead. One could
argue that there is nothing better than Thang yet, but that is the whole
issue!

[Jack Bogonomy]

Post by Chris Kern
"This Angband Home Page is maintained by Ben Harrison, the maintainer
of the game Angband until 2000, the author of Angband 2.7.0 through
Angband 2.8.5, and the designer of the Angband Borg.
Note that in 2000, Robert Ruhlmann became the Angband maintainer, and
is not only the author of Angband 2.9.0 and beyond, but is also the
maintainer of the http://www.thangorodrim.net website, which is by far
the most useful, and important, Angband site in existence.
Unless you are looking for historical information pre-dating the year
2000, go to http://www.thangorodrim.net, and you will probably find
what you are looking for. "
That sounds pretty good to me.

Great.

Now Thang just needs a note like this one pointing to oook. :)

[Jonathan Ellis]

Post by Jack Bogonomy

Post by Chris Kern
"This Angband Home Page is maintained by Ben Harrison, the
maintainer
of the game Angband until 2000, the author of Angband 2.7.0 through
Angband 2.8.5, and the designer of the Angband Borg.
Note that in 2000, Robert Ruhlmann became the Angband maintainer, and
is not only the author of Angband 2.9.0 and beyond, but is also the
maintainer of the http://www.thangorodrim.net website, which is by far
the most useful, and important, Angband site in existence.
Unless you are looking for historical information pre-dating the year
2000, go to http://www.thangorodrim.net, and you will probably find
what you are looking for. "
That sounds pretty good to me.

Great.
Now Thang just needs a note like this one pointing to oook. :)

Just to say I actually think Thangorodrim is actually one of the
best-designed *sites* out there, and if it were possible to take it
over wholesale (possibly by consultation with Robert) - or even port
its contents to another site and make that the main site... because I
think it's actually a better site than oook, when maintained.

On the other hand, oook's as good as anywhere.

Jonathan.

[Jack Bogonomy]

Post by Jonathan Ellis
Just to say I actually think Thangorodrim is actually one of the
best-designed *sites* out there, and if it were possible to take it
over wholesale (possibly by consultation with Robert) - or even port
its contents to another site and make that the main site... because I
think it's actually a better site than oook, when maintained.

This suggests something else -- a central Angband site, whether revamped
or completely new, may be best off not "belonging" to any one person,
and instead passed on to someone new when the current admin loses
interest; rather like Angband's maintainership itself, though they don't
have to be the same person or team and maybe shouldn't be.

Then instead of a trail of defunct formerly-central Angband sites being
created over time, there'd be just one, though it might change ownership
from time to time. No more outdated-site or
old-site-comes-up-highest-in-Google problems after a while.

[copx]

"Timo Pietil�" <***@helsinki.fi> schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:***@mid.individual.net...
[snip]

Post by copx
http://www.thangorodrim.net/ is just another dead website. RR should
finally kill it. Just like phial it contains an oudated/wrong statement
about who the current maintainer is.

But Thang is still one of the best sites around if not best. We should ask
RR to correct maintainer-statement, but it still holds more information
than other sites around. For example its help-section is better than any
other site has. And there is news-section that goes on to 1997. If you
want to look what has happened and when that is good place to look. And if
you have some exotic computer like silicon graphics Thang is only place
that contains compiled version of the game (even that it is version
2.8.3).
Actually I don't find it very outdated. If you don't count
maintainer-statement and lack of new version (3.0.7) released all info it
has is pretty much still correct.
And Robert said that he will stay in contact to rest of us, but just not
quite as regulary as he used to be. So that site might get updated at some
point.
angband.oook.cz is good site, but IHMO not good enough to replace Thang.
Not yet anyway. angband.oook.cz have to integrate most of the Thang before
that can be driven down.

That was the idea (I admit I was not very clear about this). I agree that
Thang is still a very good *band site. IMO it's actually the best. What I am
dreaming of is basically Thang - just active again. RR may decide one day
that he wants to update the site again, but we should not wait for this
moment which might never come. All the valuable content from phial and thang
should be transfered to oook.cz IMO.

[magnate]

Post by copx
I cannot stress enough that some kind of centralised organisation IS
important to keep any kind of community or project healthy. For new / casual
players (i.e. the vast majority!) this is especially important. Only the
"inner circle" (people who follow this newsgroup) even know that Angband is
maintained again! To 90% of the people it looks like a dead game!

Just one minor irritation to throw into the oook discussion: Oook has
sadly got itself listed as a website in the "games" category of
certain evil censoring software such as that used by my employer. It
wasn't included until a few months ago, but now it is.

If I'm the only one who does most of his browsing from work, it's not
a problem. But if most of the interesting discussion moves from rgra
to a web forum, it would be a shame not to be able to read it from
work.

CC

[R. Dan Henry]

Post by magnate
Just one minor irritation to throw into the oook discussion: Oook has
sadly got itself listed as a website in the "games" category of
certain evil censoring software such as that used by my employer. It
wasn't included until a few months ago, but now it is.
If I'm the only one who does most of his browsing from work, it's not
a problem. But if most of the interesting discussion moves from rgra
to a web forum, it would be a shame not to be able to read it from
work.

Curse your evil employers and their schemes to make you use their
computers for actual work! Perhaps you could show them Angband (ASCII,
no tiles!) and argue that it can't possibly be a game, because it hasn't
got any pictures.

[magnate]

Post by R. Dan Henry

Post by magnate
Just one minor irritation to throw into the oook discussion: Oook has
sadly got itself listed as a website in the "games" category of
certain evil censoring software such as that used by my employer. It
wasn't included until a few months ago, but now it is.
If I'm the only one who does most of his browsing from work, it's not
a problem. But if most of the interesting discussion moves from rgra
to a web forum, it would be a shame not to be able to read it from
work.

Curse your evil employers and their schemes to make you use their
computers for actual work! Perhaps you could show them Angband (ASCII,
no tiles!) and argue that it can't possibly be a game, because it hasn't
got any pictures.

They give me a laptop so that I can work from anywhere, at any time.
In return I expect to be able to browse where I want (without breaking
any laws of course), since it may well be on my own time when I do
it.

I had more sympathy with my previous employer, the UK government: if
you can only use the machine between 9am and 5pm, it's fair enough
that you don't browse gaming sites during those hours (you ought to
get out for some fresh air at lunch in any case).

Ironically the private sector is far more draconian and invasive than
the government.

CC