Please could we have access to the full PA code

[Eol]

Originally Posted by Desse

GREAT!!!!!

More PA-teams and Commitees controlled by PA-team.

You just don't get it do you ?

You'd think that with some four thousand years of political experience to help us tag along ... you'd figure some people might just have noticed that this idea of the "masses" electing their representatives has had a certain, well, popularity, shall we say? But no.

And yet another comittee... *sigh* Well. It's just a poor, crippled substitute for the real thing. If you want participation, don't pick out an arbitrary comittee. Open up for participation, and just stop pretending you are already.

[Eol]

Originally Posted by Kal

People have also again failed to understand what I mean by the core manual - i do not mean a guide on how to play the game, I mean things like "what happens when i click this cutton on the page" - the things that are defined directly by the code.

I don't think we have. I don't get why on earth you think that people have some desire to vandalize the "core manual". Why would your average player wish to do such a thing?

If anything I believe you'd find the "core manual" would likely have a higher degree of fidelity as to the behaviour of the game if it had more people actively participating in maintaining it. This thread (and a previous one) was sparked by the inability of PA team of doing this with an issue that was supposedly known over rounds (though me, having joined in r12 would have had no way of knowing this because of aforementioned inability). And even when this created discussion it certainly wasn't without some resentment that the manual actually was updated.

While I do believe that most people do appreciate you putting your time in for free for this game, I also believe that you could benefit a great deal from acknowledging that you are, when your own experience and capabilities isn't enough, in fact, capable of drawing on the vast experience and time of a large number of genuinely helpful players that would be more than willing to help out if it was easier to do so, and less of a chance to be "shot down" in the attempt.

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Eol

While I do believe that most people do appreciate you putting your time in for free for this game, I also believe that you could benefit a great deal from acknowledging that you are, when your own experience and capabilities isn't enough, in fact, capable of drawing on the vast experience and time of a large number of genuinely helpful players that would be more than willing to help out if it was easier to do so, and less of a chance to be "shot down" in the attempt.

I think PATeam will freely admit that some in the community are better at some things than we are. for example we asked sid to do the stats for roudn 11, then people complained they were biased, that is the problem we are faced with. For next round there will probably be a group of people from the community working on stats who have in the past given useful feedback on them.

The development commitee will be selected from people who have given constructive comments on forums - not comments I agree with, or pateam agrees with, but ones that are nto just flaming and other things. The purpose of this commitee is not so that the community can be ignored and so that the commitee can decide the direction of the game, it is to give some additonal none pateam influence to things which currently take a long time to get decided. the idea is simply to get ideas approved and declined, and start community discussions on more complex issues. In the end Spinner and jolt get the final word on things, but I hope the Development Discussions forums and the suggestions forums have shown that we are listneing and allowing the community to have increased say in the games direction.

[mist]

Originally Posted by Eol

You'd think that with some four thousand years of political experience to help us tag along ... you'd figure some people might just have noticed that this idea of the "masses" electing their representatives has had a certain, well, popularity, shall we say? But no.

i can't really see this working in the case of pa. obviously, you'd have to go with one paid account one vote, and then allow people to stand. but i suspect that quite a lot of paid people wouldn't have heard of quite a lot of the candidates, which would be a problem, and i can see there being a fair amount of apathy.

the way i see this committee going is that an idea will be suggested, people will then point out pros and cons of it, and these will then be passed on to the decision makers so that they can make a more informed decision. Ideally, this process could be open to all commers. however, having tried to host that kind of thing in the past, people tend to go off on a rant about whatever's pissed them off most recently, rather than sticking to an agenda that allows useful things to get done. this leaves two possible alternatives really, sticking up forums threads and then sifting the crap out, or getting together an invited group who'll get something done. the prior is already being done so i don't see a huge loss in doing the latter as well.

of course, the problem is in how to select those on the committee. Some names kinda stand out, as they regularly give high quality comment on here, however i don't think this is really enough. so, possible a 'core' group, plus your idea of an elected set in some way - be this alliance based or player based. realistically, anyone who gets elected would be an alliance figure of some veriety anyway. problem is that you don't really want too large a group, as dicsussion then seems to wander, but you need to include enough people to get a broad overview, significantly, enough different people. this means that you can't really just go for a rep of the top 5 alliances, as then you'd just have the top end of the game, and you can't really go for a rep from the top 20 (are there 'real' alliances below that?) 'cus that'd make for a rather large committee. perhaps choose 5 alliances from the top 20 to submit a rep for each issue? perhaps ask if anyone's got any strong views on it and give them a place - then select randoms to make up numbers. i don't know.

anyway, that said. pa is far from perfect, but if they're making an attempt to improve, i don't think we should criticise them *too* much, lessed they decide it's not worth it

-mist

[jerome]

Originally Posted by Kal

For next round there will probably be a group of people from the community working on stats who have in the past given useful feedback on them.

I assume these will be the very same people you(Phil) listened to during the betas of r12, and made wonderful changes without looking at the "bigger picture" huh?

Hicks made great points in this thread. I think by now, it must surely be obvious "who has a clue" & "who doesn`" therefore, giving the people who do have a clue and are oviously responsible enough access & control over some work they want to do & can do better than the PA Team, is obviously not a bad move.


PS Regarding the PA Team not accepting or asking for too much control over the community`s tools, Elysium`s EADS comes to mind, I believe Ely HC offered the code for in-game AH to be turned into an EADS sort of thing but was rejected? Can I ask please why that was so?

[Kal]

Originally Posted by _ryzekiel_

I assume these will be the very same people you(Phil) listened to during the betas of r12, and made wonderful changes without looking at the "bigger picture" huh?

Hicks made great points in this thread. I think by now, it must surely be obvious "who has a clue" & "who doesn`" therefore, giving the people who do have a clue and are oviously responsible enough access & control over some work they want to do & can do better than the PA Team, is obviously not a bad move.


PS Regarding the PA Team not accepting or asking for too much control over the community`s tools, Elysium`s EADS comes to mind, I believe Ely HC offered the code for in-game AH to be turned into an EADS sort of thing but was rejected? Can I ask please why that was so?

with regards to stats - it will not be the people who made this roudns stats crap.

2nd point about giving people access to things, people are wlecome to come and talk to us and say thy could help with things, depending on what the particular thing would be the answer would vary. but for example I have uploaded ltos of community suggested manual changes over this round and last.

with regards to EADS i'll try to find out for you

[xontas]

may i point out that the code for PA is a private owned code that is the property of jolt.
making it public destroys the value of it

so i doubt its gonna happen
onlyone in PAteam that has acces to the full code is spinner(who wrote it) and thats that

so sharing it is no option

[Eol]

Originally Posted by xontas

may i point out that the code for PA is a private owned code that is the property of jolt.
making it public destroys the value of it

I'm forwarding this to MySQL AB & Sun Microsystems at once, so they can realize their mistake!

Someone should put the proverbial digital fist to your avatar.

[Banned]

Originally Posted by xontas

may i point out that the code for PA is a private owned code that is the property of jolt.
making it public destroys the value of it

Your continued attempts at defying logic have left me dumbfounded. This is me, lacking for words. Could you please explain how opening source code removes value?

I mean, it's not like Jolt's actually paying anyone to produce the code, is it?

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Banned

I mean, it's not like Jolt's actually paying anyone to produce the code, is it?

spinner?

[jerome]

Originally Posted by Kal

with regards to EADS i'll try to find out for you

take your time.


Also, who are the people who will be "making the stats" ?

[Banned]

Originally Posted by Kal

spinner?

I was under the impression he was back as an unpaid volunteer.

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Banned

I was under the impression he was back as an unpaid volunteer.

spinner is still paid, just part time

[Ramihyn]

Originally Posted by Kal

its possible more formulae would be published in the future, but never the full code. But there is also the ssue that even if we publish things they may not allways be uptodate, it takes a lot fo time to keep the manual up todate and thngs are bound to get missed from time to time.

Certain lazy people who had the same problem with a clone, simply cutted out the handfull of relevant codelines which included the formulas and let other people from the community explain them.

[Ramihyn]

Originally Posted by Kal

People also have to undertsand that jolt is a business and thus wants to look after its possessions - this includes all official things connected to the game. For people to be able to donate code to the game or indeed core manual components they would have to in essence have access to the current code which is not something jolt will ever allow unless people sign NDAs and a lot of people are not willing to do this.

There is hardly need for full source access just because somebody wants to add one or two functions or rewrite an existing part. It just takes a bit planning and organisation to modularise your software and define interfaces. That has a lot of advantages and quickly pays off anyway.

It is even possible without any source access and without sending out DLLs or OBJs. For a commercial project for example i wrote a api where the whole api is replaced through the URL scheme of the browser. As you know to process a URL you dissect it into different parts, i used the location to identify the api/module and the parameters had the parameters in encodet form (like "/pa/bot/group/addmember.html?name=Susi&type=pod&location=1.1.2").

You just need 3 functions for each language to extract the data, to build an own data string and to destroy/free one of those objects. Afterwards anybody can use the language they like to contribute to the project, they dont need any access to others source or even the server(s) - just the main server op needs to be told which modules (URLs) are on which machine.