Seeking a Coordinator for the Credits Screen

[Jeru]

We get a lot of people asking if there is any way for them to contribute to 0 A.D. without having existing background in C++ programming, 3D modeling, web design etc. So here's your shot: We are looking for a new team member who will be in charge of overseeing the credits screen and compiling the list that will show up on it.

Credits page coordinator: Help the 0 A.D. development team document who did what for the project since its inception. You should devise a format for the 0 A.D. credits screen befitting the project's collaborative nature and put it up for internal team review. You should thoroughly mine various sources of information to generate a credits list that fellow development team members can agree with. You should reach out to people who may have contributed to 0 A.D. in the past and are unlisted in the credits. Also, you should help devise a system for people who believe they should be listed to ask to be included and have their request evaluated. Good people skills, good written English skills, and attention to detail are a must.

This is an important role because as 0 A.D. is a non-profit initiative, the people who have contribute to it receive literally no compensation other than recognition of their works. We want to give each contributor proper recognition, with as few false positives (freeloaders) and false negatives (unsung heroes) as possible.

This role is for hardworking people who are undaunted by the prospect of going back to records from 2003 or even 2001 and compiling lists of names and nicks of people they have probably never met online, but may have been pivotal to 0 A.D.'s development. The person who gets this volunteer position will have to work with existing partial lists, ask old-timers to bring up memories, mine SVN logs, run forum searches, etc.

Interested parties are invited to apply as detailed in the application form. Thanks in advance!

[gudo]

Not committing to it just yet, but I figure I can help whoever decides to tackle this. Main focus right now is the people who have done few things. If anyone wants something added to the list, either PM it to me, or post here ;P

[EDIT]

You can view my latest compilation of credits here.

[/EDIT]

Edited January 13, 2012 by gudo

[feneur]

I think the best structure for a credits screen would be to list according to department (art, programming, etc), and before that list a few special people. Jason (Long time project lead, was important in RaW, contributed art, design), Ken (design lead, passed away a couple of years ago, but was incredibly influential and important to the projects early years), Department Leads, Philip, perhaps a few others from the old years whom I don't remember/know about.

I don't think the in-game credits screen should mention exactly what everyone did/list people based on how many commits they have etc. Apart from the few mentioned above I don't think we should make any difference on whether someone has made a hundred commits or 2, it might be a good idea not to list the people who joined the team, but left before they had started doing any work (unfortunately there has been a few of those =) a lot fewer now since we went open source and have started making the application process more open as well, having people showing that they can contribute before we go through the work of setting things up etc). I'd say rather include than exclude though, otherwise it's too easy to miss someone who for example contributed a lot of models, but had e.g. Michael adding them into the game and committing them and thus doesn't show up in the commit logs. Also, if someone did some work that is no longer used we shouldn't exclude them.

If you or someone else really wants to go through and list every commit feel free to, but it's absolutely not necessary. And likely to get outdated soon unless the person maintaining it is constantly updating the lists.

[gudo]

Thanks for answering my questions. I'm liking the listing by Dept. idea. I wonder if there should also be a separate credit listing for donators in game as well... Anyways, how's this for a dept listing

Engine/Programming

Dept Heads and Major Contributors

AI (General, Jubot, any other bots included in default)

Engine

Misc

Art/Content

Dept Heads and Major Contributors

Art (2d, 3d, concept)

Mapping (Handmade maps, RMS module, RMS rulesets)

Sounds (Effects, Music)

Misc

Other

Hosting

Misc

Donators (if included)

Pledgie Drive 1

Pledgie Drive 2

Flattr

If you or someone else really wants to go through and list every commit feel free to...

Dear God, no. I was just doing it because I found myself with some spare time and thought that we might want to list completed tickets (ie: "Jubal - 6 patches.") Now that I know I don't have to, I'll stop (and pull them from the list above.) Still gonna have to go through them though, see who belongs in what category >_>

[Ykkrosh]

As Erik said, there's been some people who've been official members but haven't actually done anything (for various reasons), and I think it seems fairer to only list people who've contributed usefully, so it may be good to record pointers to at least one significant commit from each person (or patches committed on their behalf) (or forum posts etc for designers and concept artists etc who haven't committed stuff) to verify that. ("significant" is kind of a judgement call - I probably wouldn't count r10494 but would count e.g. r10531.) But I don't think we should try to differentiate based on exactly how much work each person has done (since it's generally impossible to quantify and not particularly important) so we don't need to record that much more detail.

I believe contributors.txt was accurate as of the time it was last updated, but is somewhat outdated now, and it only counts source/ (not programming in JS, or any non-programming work). Also it only records real names, not nicknames, since WFG originally had a real-names policy for members (to encourage a more professional and less impersonal community, I guess), but that doesn't work well with open source contributors so I'm not sure of the best approach.

Listing donators in the credits seems good, where people have said they're happy to be non-anonymous.

[gudo]

I've been making some progress on this. Listing at least one contribution by each member was getting pretty cluttered, so I removed it. You'll just have to trust that I found a contribution for each of the above I came across the Team Profiles page which is looking like it'll make things a whole lot easier. Sadly, looks like it was only kept updated to Nov '09.

Does anyone know how accurate that was? If I could just pull names off that and skip 5 years of commits, I'd be ecstatic.

Also, when did the project go open source? I wanna know when I have to start really keeping an eye out for contributions by people that may not be credited elsewhere.

Isn't "root" an auto-generated user on trac? If so, then who did this commit?

[feneur]

If you want to do this seriously I suggest we make you an official team member so you have access to the staff forums and archives, that will make your job a lot easier The team profiles page is really not a good source =) We tried to keep it updated, but people were lacking in adding the information needed, and a lot of people joined and then disappeared without getting much done so they had to be removed etc etc.

[Ykkrosh]

Also, when did the project go open source?

10 July 2009.

Isn't "root" an auto-generated user on trac? If so, then who did this commit?

I believe it was MarkT logged in as root on his CVS server.

[gudo]

If you want to do this seriously I suggest we make you an official team member so you have access to the staff forums and archives, that will make your job a lot easier The team profiles page is really not a good source =) We tried to keep it updated, but people were lacking in adding the information needed, and a lot of people joined and then disappeared without getting much done so they had to be removed etc etc.

I certainly wasn't going to the profiles as my only source Just as a source. Adding everybody from them would help me blast through the trac commits I think. I was under the impression that all that was needed for credits was a user name + real name (if available.) All the profiles have that much info at least. And the people who disappeared without doing much doesn't seem to be a problem. If their profile go deleted, then no biggie. If it didn't... Well, safe to include rather than exclude.

If you want to make me a team member, I'd be fine with that, but it'll be a while before I get around to digging through the staff archives. I still need to dig through 10k commits, and then double check every ticket with [patch] before I start looking elsewhere.

[feneur]

There could be a profile or two for someone who had their profile put up but then that was about the extent of their contribution to 0 A.D. But yeah, in general it should be safe to add the people in the profiles

Ok, then I say let's see your going through the commit log as your evaluation period and then you can join the team officially

[gudo]

A few days ago, I reached a milestone with the credits. I've sorted through all the contributors.txt and team profiles! Just a few questions before I post my list so far to the apps/contribs sub forum:

Where should I put Kimball? Profiles says he's retired dept head, but his forum group is for active dept heads.

Do you like how the contributors are divided? Should they be more or less subdivided in the various depts?

Any other comments?

[Kimball]

If I'm on the credits list at all, don't put me as an active department head. That doesn't make sense.

I just help keep the forum clean every once in a while.

[majapahit]

How about make the credit linked to a webpage or the game can download text files from the web that can be changed or updated later.

Cos maybe later this game can have sponsors or supporters that want to put some pictures, etc.

Edited June 6, 2012 by majapahit

[bstempi]

Don't forget us web-critters!

[MishFTW]

Don't forget us web-critters!

The new website will have a humans.txt included so no worries