Dipsters.org Forum » Topic: Question for Chris

Dipsters.org Forum » Topic: Question for Chris http://www.dipsters.org/forum/topic/question-for-chris First please read the post, "Welcome! Using the Forum". en-US Sun, 05 Sep 2010 04:18:46 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 <![CDATA[Search]]> q http://www.dipsters.org/forum/search.php Chris Babcock on "Question for Chris" http://www.dipsters.org/forum/topic/question-for-chris#post-132 Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:34:54 +0000 Chris Babcock 132@http://www.dipsters.org/forum/ You're welcome... for some value that might also mean "I'm sorry." I think I would rather have had a discussion. Chris Alan Mennel on "Question for Chris" http://www.dipsters.org/forum/topic/question-for-chris#post-122 Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:41:31 +0000 Alan Mennel 122@http://www.dipsters.org/forum/ Thanks for this comprehensive reply. Alan Chris Babcock on "Question for Chris" http://www.dipsters.org/forum/topic/question-for-chris#post-107 Sat, 09 Jan 2010 01:55:25 +0000 Chris Babcock 107@http://www.dipsters.org/forum/ Infrastructure needs to be maintained and protected. The expenses for USAK right now are between $1100 and $1200 a year, but even if I had a million dollars in the bank (and I don't) then it would be offline by the middle of the next month if I was dead or hospitalize because the bill wouldn't get paid. That's 250 active players affected in 60 or so games that would stop in 2 - 6 weeks. I'm not saying that Dipsters needs an organization to pay the bills, but the issues that affect you as benevolent dictator for life of the Dipsters group do mean that, if Dipsters is important to players then there needs to be a plan to perpetuate that beyond your life in the hobby. It doesn't need to be a corporation, but a clear second-in-command is a start and provision for the assets and liabilities of the group is recommended. When Doug Massey retired from the hobby, he left David Norman in charge of Vermont Group and Rob Farley in charge of the JDPR. Both of those people are very capable, but it wasn't enough to provide for the continuity and vitality of those services. David K sent me the physical server that had been running USVG and USIN. I was able to set up a new USVG as a result without loosing any member data and I could still relaunch USIN if it would be worthwhile. The judge transfer went well for two reasons -- I was able to secure the assets involved and I already had relevant leadership experience. The physical assets for Dipsters are the domain name and the data on the web site. In addition to preparing continuity of leadership, it is also important to secure these assets. That means trusting either a person or a process to transfer ownership of the domain and the contents of the site. Obviously, a designated heir comes first. For myself, I can only say that I plan to provide for continuity with the judge experience. I have done what I can to extend the life span of the nJudge and I plan to implement an nJudge syntax email interface on the structure that I am building. More importantly, I am planning for cultural continuity. I'm looking at email interfaces, interactive web forms, Wave or Wave-like interfaces and DAIDE clients accessing the same set of games. That means judge players in the same games with web players and with others using natural language or a DAIDE client. This kind of flexibility isn't easy to implement and fortunately I'm not doing it alone. I'm using Open Source software from all over the world and there are dozens of people doing seemingly small things in their own corner of the hobby with different levels of awareness of a bigger picture. What I'm doing is encouraging people to start coding their big dreams then helping them by sharing ideas (and eventually code) from all parts of the hobby. An example of this is an idea for using XML to communicate Diplomacy archive data that originated in the postal hobby 18 months ago. Now webDiplomacy and NADF members are together in a Wave talking details. Other cross-sector projects include map generation. Right now floc.net, USAK, DPjudge, jDip, the DAIDE client and Real Politik use a common process to generate maps that uses a map description format from nJudge, PostScript templates and a version of Mappit supplied by Manus Hand. This was tech-forward in the 80's, but today we need Scalable Vector Graphics for interactive maps over the web. DipTool, metapaw-dip and Game2Relax have implemented SVG maps using 3 different scripting languages, but none of them use an SVG templating system in a way that can be used as a stand alone replacement for Mappit to produce SVG maps with other software. That's what I'm looking for to build an order entry wizard for USAK. DPjudge was great when it written and it still has many good ideas, but a lot has changed in programming since then. Today's software is better organized -- easier to maintain and share the work. UI design is better, too. These days it's considered poor form to spread functions across multiple interfaces, so both the web and email interfaces on USAK were designed to be feature complete. When I build an order wizard or a game creation wizard, it will use a webform to create a message that can be manually edited before submission or saved for later use so that players and GMs don't have to remember all the GUI steps for a complicated set of orders to hold a stalemate line or start a game in a specific format. There is also one serious hole in nJudge that I cannot patch externally. This is a play by email application that does not process text encodings. String handling routines inside and out are built for ASCII text and that is not how email is transmitted anymore. Fixing that issue will make current judge files incompatible with existing judges because the judge stores its data as ASCII text. There's a good start already on utilities that export judge data to XML and SQL. The master file can be exported already, but there is more work needed to export game histories. The Diplomacy hobby has its own chat protocol (DAIDE), but it is rarely used because it isn't federated with any mainstream chat protocols. I'm working with a group on finalizing a chat server that is extensible and already supports XMPP, IRC, SMTP and several other network protocols and the EPCC article in DipWorld has already made me a contact that might be able to help me add a DAIDE interface to this server. SMTP is email. XMPP is an open chat protocol that is used by GoogleTalk and most social networking sites that have added chat to their service recently, as well as Wave. I'm openly campaigning for Wave support on this server, too, but the main idea here is that I already have an infrastructure on which to build this dream -- dream that involves feature complete Diplomacy and social networking user interfaces over email, web, and at least 4 different chat protocol (with content overflow going to the web and email remaining a backup push medium). I'm talking about something that is doable with today's technology and practical to do with emerging technologies. Things like this don't get built, however, without some degree of security for the infrastructure. People need to feel that their efforts will be preserved even if something happens to an important person on the project. Supplying that security means different things for me and USAK than it does for Alan and Dipsters, but the issue is still relevant. Find help, be help, provide continuity for the organization and there will be others doing the same. Alan Mennel on "Question for Chris" http://www.dipsters.org/forum/topic/question-for-chris#post-106 Fri, 08 Jan 2010 20:29:50 +0000 Alan Mennel 106@http://www.dipsters.org/forum/ Hi Chris: I know that you give much more thought to this hobby than I do and I admire you for it. At this point, I realize that dipsters.org will give us much more flexibility than the YAHOO! gaming site will. (Hell! I cannot even put the url for our open games on the YAHOO! home page because the url conflicts with the format that YAHOO! requires for the listing.) If anyone reads our home page on dipsters.org, he should realize that there are many more things that we may accomplish with our own site than we could have ever done at YAHOO!...and I am sure that our members will think of more things to add to the list that will improve our group than I could ever imagine. > This -- and everything that I clipped -- is exactly why my master plan > for asciiking.com includes a non-profit corporation. I'm not going to > last forever physically or mentally... none of us in this hobby will. I am willing to absorb whatever small amount of costs are created by having our own site at dipsters.org. Although you likely have much higher expenses than I do, I do not understand your call for a non-profit corporation at this time...at least in how it might apply to me at this stage. My interests at this time are just to see a little more involvement from the members of the group so that we can provide all the services and run all the tournaments which our members want to see. I have to admit, Chris, that all the discussion about new platforms is somewhat beyond me. I know that new technology can and will change our existing world dramatically. In this group, I am interested in looking into new platforms or formats for playing...and I would be interested in supporting the good ones...but I don't see the demise of the judges just yet...at least not while there are folks like me and the rest of our group enjoy enjoy judge play. Anyway, I am interested in hearing what everyone (including Chris) has to say about these issues. Feel free to add your voice to the discussion. All the Best! Alan