by OldCoder » Mon Jun 01, 2015 23:01
Diamond knight, Hi. I'm sorry to hear that you've had difficulty finding admins to speak with in Moontest.
I don't presently have regular admins for most of my worlds. Most players are kids. Some kids decide that they like particular worlds and settle in as admins, but most do not. Sparky, by the way, thank you for your assistance.
As far as adults go, the community is too small to provide many adults who are willing and able to look after worlds other than their own.
Some of the adults that I've known here weren't even real. Long-time community members, those who have been here for years, may understand what I mean. I don't mind that part, but it's difficult to get to know people and then to watch the identities evaporate.
The community size issue is due partly to a principle that I refer to as "Chicken or the Egg". It's a common problem for startups. In short, if Minetest were larger and included more reliable people, it would be growing larger still and so would the number of reliable people.
This is the hurdle that needs to be overcome. The transition point, where momentum starts to build, is known as critical mass.
Part of the issue lies in problems at the heart of Minetest. This is a FOSS project that has not reached critical mass. Until it does so, it will be highly dependent on common goals and perceptions. Most importantly, on a sense of community. And on an understanding that everybody involved, from designers to administrators and users, is significant and deserves respect.
Most FOSS projects are dependent on these things, but they're critical in the early stages. Without them, a project's trajectory will fall short of critical mass and it will fade away.
I've spent three years with the project, and I'd like to see it succeed, but I'm not sure that it's going to make it. There are decent, hard-working people involved, but there is, and always has been, a lack of understanding that community matters.
Due to this lack of understanding, we've lost people that we didn't necessarily need to lose. If I was the "rage quit" type, I'd have left forever myself a week or two ago. Calinou told me that my own contributions weren't needed or even wanted. It wasn't a positive moment.
I'm thinking about building my own sub-community, something that I call AdultTest or Minebest. I've even got the Freenode ##minebest channel and the minebest.org domain set up. But there isn't much of an upstream community to draw upon.
For now, if you need interact or assistance in my worlds, for most of them, you'll need to call me from in-game and wait. I'm not here every day. I do have IRL things to deal with such as finding work and getting to keep my car and a place to sleep.
I've been criticized for talking about the fact that I'm preoccupied by such matters. As though deciding to continue with this project despite difficulties is a bad thing. I'd rather hear a thank-you, but I'll be here while I can be.
As a side note, which I'll announce elsewhere as well, my worlds may be down for two days soon because my octocore, which has been traveling across the U.S. on a truck, has reached its destination. I need to set up the octocore again and move the worlds back from an alternate server to their original home.
I don't get funding or donations, by the way, to maintain the hardware or run the worlds.