Celestia Forums

Hi folks,

I just have seen a few posts going like this:

'Wow - I came along Celestia by complete accident and I'm absolutely hooked...'

Then I realized there ought to be a way to spread the news about Celestia further out. To be honest me and a friend had the same prob a wile ago with OpenUniverse.Org and we solved it by sending mails to each and every magazine or download site we could reach.
The quality of that simulation was extraordinary at the time and ppl loved it once they saw it.

So shall we promote Celestia and how?
Your opinion?

CU,Axel

I believe that many people who enjoy computer simulations (as opposed to pure "games") enjoy simulations in general. With that in mind, I have made a couple of "off topic" posts in flight sim boards; giving the Celestia URL, and a real short overview.
I'm sure there are many other ways to "spread the word". Everyone only need try one or two ways to have a big effect.
Ron A

Axel wrote:Hi folks,
...
Then I realized there ought to be a way to spread the news about Celestia further out. To be honest me and a friend had the same prob a wile ago with OpenUniverse.Org and we solved it by sending mails to each and every magazine or download site we could reach.
...
So shall we promote Celestia and how?
Your opinion?

CU,Axel

Axel would certainly make an excellent promotor;-)

My personal problem is that I tend to develop acute symptoms of allergy when I am confronted with unsolicited "promotion"...

Every night my nice, big letter box is jammed with trash from people
who "want to spread the news". My email is overflowing with SPAM...

Since it is Friday afternoon, let me make for a change some more
"philosophical" remarks about this issue of promoting Celestia.

1) Celestia is fortunately NOT a commercial product. Hence the /generic/ reason for its promotion is definitely lacking: MONEY.

2) By "spreading the news" about Celestia we could help making Chris famous;-). That's certainly fine with me; he deserves it and it may be good for his future jobs...;-)

3) Last not least: We could help those people, who have not yet heard about Celestia, to enter "Paradise". Hmmm... But where should this end? We cannot possibly want everyone on this globe to play
with Celestia day and night, right?

Personally, I much prefer a rather smaller /dedicated|motivated/
"Celestia family" to a much larger crowd that automatically will
include a significant number of mere "software suckers" and related
types. Those who are seriously interested in this kind of software, will automatically come across Celestia, soon or a little later...

Finally, a more practical remark concerning Linux. As soon as Celestia has made its way into the major Linux distributions, any further discussion on this issue becomes superfluous for Linux, at least.

Bye Fridger

Hi,

A suggestion would be to have Chris write to the folks at Sky and Telesccope. They routinely run mini-reviews in a software and new product section every month. I recall seeing shareware and freeware there... not just commercial products (those usually get full reviews in the magazine).

It would definitely announce the presence of and increase the visibility of Celestia to a group of people who would really enjoy it! I also suspect that there are a number of readers there with the savvy to help out in its development as well.

Marshead

I always post my creations on other Sci-Fi boards...and generate links on websites I create and other boards I promote...Generates interest there...Its simple really...Make some screenshots and post at some Sci-Fi or Astonomy forums that you go to...Hell do it at any forum...

I think everyone should experience Celestia atleast once in thier boring and dull lives on this mundane rock we call Earth

marshead wrote:Hi,

A suggestion would be to have Chris write to the folks at Sky and Telesccope. They routinely run mini-reviews in a software and new product section every month. I recall seeing shareware and freeware there... not just commercial products (those usually get full reviews in the magazine).

It would definitely announce the presence of and increase the visibility of Celestia to a group of people who would really enjoy it! I also suspect that there are a number of readers there with the savvy to help out in its development as well.

Marshead

Actually, Celestia did appear in Sky & Telescope in the July 2001 issue. It was just a third of page in their software showcase section. It'd be great to see a full article in there eventually, but that's not likely to happen until Celestia's a bit more mature (i.e. has a manual )

--Chris

Astronomy mag has a whole page every issue devoted just to software
tools and astronomy web sites. Celestia should definitely be in there.

Vic

I just posted a link to the Celestia site on a newsgroup where I frequently hang out, and got a followup from a fellow denizen who said it made his whole week. This is a guy who's had a rough time lately, getting his apartment repeatedly burgled (apparently they didn't take his computer) and having other problems, so I suppose he needed it.

Of course, spamming and context-free promotion are no good; to get someone to pay attention to something like this you need to have built up a lot of trust, and your "evangelism" can't be an abuse of that trust.

Hello Folks,

I'm really happy about the ammount of replies showing the will to share Celestia. As Fridger has put it, we actually made a nice success in promoting OpenUniverse.Org. It got 281684 page views since 2. June 2000
http://v1.nedstatbasic.net/s?tab=1&link ... enuniverse
It got several nice reviews (e.g. german C't magazine, japanese e-cine), ended up in several Linux-distros (Suse) and books about OpenGL.

That was aprx 5 times as many ppl as it's unpromoted predecessor Solar System Simulator. We indeed got a lot of mail and posts from happy ppl enjoing it and willing to help as much as they could, incl. several developers and a lot of ppl who support Celestia now. We were however able to bring these ppl into the according forum, so our mail accounts were safe again. Unfortunately Raul, the author was hit by RealLife(TM) and has brought it to a (hopefully temporaryly) halt.


I disagree (again) with Fridger that we ought to keep Celestia for a close circle of adepts to prevent 'ordinary people' to jamm our mail accounts. This point of view I simply can't share. It's not an OpenSource point of view and in itself a consumer thought.

We give visitors of OpenUniverse a BIG and frindly link to the Celestia site, I have sent Celestia to some magazines some time ago and I thank you for willing to spread the news as well

How about listing the sites you have sent a mail about Celestia to?

I did http://www.heise.de/ct , http://www.suse.de, http://www.download.com and some minor sites.

Thanks and CU,
Axel

Axel wrote:
I disagree (again) with Fridger that we ought to keep Celestia for a close circle of adepts to prevent 'ordinary people' to jamm our mail accounts. This point of view I simply can't share. It's not an OpenSource point of view and in itself a consumer thought.

Fortunately, people can judge by themselves above what I said and what I did /NOT/ say...

I have never advocated to /keep/ Celestia for a /close circle/ of adepts. I have never talked about 'ordinary people'; this uneducated phrase is not part of my vocabulary!

The OpenSource idea is in no way tied to /promotion/ of the code.
It is about /sharing/ code.
What my above arguments should have to do with "a consumer point of view", somebody else will have to explain to me...

Axel, should at least read the letters carefully, while others do the work...

Bye Fridger

Hello Fridger,

I'm sorry, but I got my view about your opinion on 'sharing Celestia' in these statements of yours:

>We could help those people, who have not yet heard about Celestia, to enter "Paradise". Hmmm... But where should this end? We cannot possibly want everyone on this globe to play with Celestia day and night, right?

>I much prefer a rather smaller /dedicated|motivated/
"Celestia family" to a much larger crowd that automatically will
include a significant number of mere "software suckers" and related
types.

I'm really sorry if I missunderstood your point but right now I can only judge on what you have written above. You don't want everybody to know Celestia, you don't want 'software suckers', you don't want 'related types'. You just prefer elite-in-your-eyes guys like yourself in the paradise.

That's not a problem, but I'm not like you as well. Do you want me?

Axel

Axel wrote:Hello Fridger,

I'm sorry, but I got my view about your opinion on 'sharing Celestia' in these statements of yours:

>We could help those people, who have not yet heard about Celestia, to enter "Paradise". Hmmm... But where should this end? We cannot possibly want everyone on this globe to play with Celestia day and night, right?

>I much prefer a rather smaller /dedicated|motivated/
"Celestia family" to a much larger crowd that automatically will
include a significant number of mere "software suckers" and related
types.

I'm really sorry if I missunderstood your point but right now I can only judge on what you have written above. You don't want everybody to know Celestia, you don't want 'software suckers', you don't want 'related types'. You just prefer elite-in-your-eyes guys like yourself in the paradise.

That's not a problem, but I'm not like you as well. Do you want me? :roll:

Axel

Axel:
-------

The first quotation is in no way meant elitary but simply
pragmatic.

If someone wants to /sell/ some product, then clearly
he/she nowadays dreams of huge "global markets", i.e. selling that product to a
maximum number of people, because this maximizes his/her earnings.
Here, promotion is of paramount importance.

On the other hand, Celestia is a quite /specialized, non-commercial/
product. It is common-sense that Celestia is /by conception/ not suited
for everyone and it is a legitimate question why -- as a
non-commercial product-- it should be promoted in the
/SuperMarket/ type manner that you have advocated:

Axel:> "To be honest me and a friend had the same prob a wile ago with
OpenUniverse.Org and we solved it by sending mails to each and every
magazine or download site we could reach."

OpenUniverse is sort of dead meanwhile. For a change, you now offer
"mass-promotion" of Celestia. Fine, as long as I am not involved in any way;-).

On the other hand, I perfectly agree with previous mails that proposed
to let Sky & Telescope and other specialized astronomy magazines know
about Celestia. This makes a lot of sense, since they address mainly people
/interested/ in what Celestia has to offer.

This is an /essential/ difference to your proposal.

The interpretation of the second quotation should also be obvious.

Celestia's is still in an early stage of development. What is needed
/now/, are people who volonteer to //share//;-)) some of the large amount
of /work/ ahead. That's all I am trying to do, as you may have noticed.

If Celestia is "mass-promoted" /now/, as you propose, there will be a much
larger number of (unexperienced) people e.g. in this Forum, who do not
manage to get Celestia running, etc., since there a no manuals yet and
there are bugs etc...It takes a substantial amount of time and energy
for those, who are involved in Celestia's further development, to
answer all such questions.

This was my main reason for pleaing for a somewhat "compact"
and devoted Celestia family at this time...

Was it clear this time??

So my proposal: Get registered and do some /voluntary/ IT-consultant's
work, so we can spend more time to improve Celestia;-)

Bye Fridger

I can see what your saying but on a whole...i feel people who truly want to see what Celestia has to offer are the ones who belong most...

Rassilon wrote:I can see what your saying but on a whole...i feel people who truly want to see what Celestia has to offer are the ones who belong most...

Rassilon, this discussion is exclusively on the issue of "mass-promotion" of Celestia, not about somebody not being welcome.

The latter is not of my concern anyway...
People who want to know will find their way.

Bye Fridger

I've got some people that I know at school that really like this program. Of course,I told them to tell others that would like this program. They told me to tell you that it was really well made.


By the way, I found this program on a TV show called "Call For Help" on TechTV. Just thought you would want to know.

So I'm sure the user count for Celestia increased by a lot that day.

Hmmmm,

regarding the 'promotion'. Fidger seems to think more about the annoying mass brochures and flyers he get's in his snail-mail every day.

I'm also unhappy about these and simply hate spam in the net. So I'll make myself more precise in one regard. I don't intend to send one unrelated mail about Celestia to anybody. Even more I don't intend to send ads to anybody. I'd hate that, too.

What I have done before for OU was to send *related* astronomy, OpenGL, Sci-Fi, texture, 3D-model, or planetary 3D data ppl or sites and magazines a suggestion about it. They were the ones to decide if they followed my single suggestion.

A lot of ppl has done so. In two years I have never received one angry mail back, so I must have done it in a helpful and honest way. On the other hand I have received tons of 'thank-you' mails from ppl who simply loved it.

I can't see anything even remotely bad in giving intersted people the suggestion about Celestia's existance instead of hiding in the ebony tower.
And this point of view seems to be shared by most ppl here. As it seems they have done so as well if situation permits.

Hi Fridger You commented your statements but you didn't answered my question.
Further you couldn't see why I mentioned the 'consumer thought in itself'. Please bear with me while I try to explain.

You take the Celestia code base or resources and expand and modify it. That's perfectly ok and the thing everyoine wants (thanks!). But once you state your modifications on the net and don't make them fully available in a short period of time to the interested public I'd say you have not followed it's spirit. You used it and kept it. Hence the consumer thought.

Once again far away from the mass-advertising you understood in 'promoting', I think it's in the Celestia spirit to spread the news to the interested ppl. Without whatsoever artificial limits.

Thanks,
Axel

Axel wrote:Further you couldn't see why I mentioned the 'consumer thought in itself'. Please bear with me while I try to explain.

You take the Celestia code base or resources and expand and modify it. That's perfectly ok and the thing everyoine wants (thanks!). But once you state your modifications on the net and don't make them fully available in a short period of time to the interested public I'd say you have not followed it's spirit. You used it and kept it. Hence the consumer thought.

I think you misunderstand some essential rules of OpenSource development.

Everyone is welcome to take a snapshot of the code at /any/ time from the CVS tree.
There are explicit instructions of how to do this at the SourceForge development site.

However, upgrades are distributed only in certain time intervals. Typically, this happens when a certain amount of testing of the new code has been successfully passed etc.

Otherwise the developers would spend virtually all their available time in getting people going with these basically untested snapshots...

I think this should make sense to you.

Bye Fridger

I think it's very important (if not crucial) for an OpenSource project to reach critical mass. I don't mean there should be 100 developers, in fact i think a small team is far more efficient (but small doesn't mean just two, 5-8 would be ok). But not only true developers are important for the project, skilled users are almost as important (sometimes even more). In Celestia world they will create mods, textures, scripts, hints, tips, suggestions, bug-repots, ....

I'm with Axel, the more people we can get to know Celestia the better. I know, i know, there will be some "can't-get-it-running-this-prog-sucks" users but that's the price to pay.

Promoting Celestia doesn't mean flooding everyone you know and his mother with mail telling how cool Celestia is. Smart promotion is the key, get the people who can help Celestia grow to know it. Yeah, sure, that's a very difficult task


Grow, baby, grow

Axel wrote:Further you couldn't see why I mentioned the 'consumer thought in itself'. Please bear with me while I try to explain.

You take the Celestia code base or resources and expand and modify it. That's perfectly ok and the thing everyoine wants (thanks!). But once you state your modifications on the net and don't make them fully available in a short period of time to the interested public I'd say you have not followed it's spirit. You used it and kept it. Hence the consumer thought.

Sorry, there was a telephone call in between, the mail box forgot my username over it;-) and I forgot some important final remark:

The changes to the Celestia source code I have made and sometimes discussed here (Linux GUI, old and new key functions, bugs, constellation figures ...), I enter into the CVS tree as usual. So /everything is made available/ in the standard OpenSource way as I described above. Chris and the other developers follow the same procedure.


We went through the generic up/download problem with /large/ texture files already. I think this special issue should be clear by now.

Bye Fridger

Hi,

thanks folks. I think we all made clear our points. I think Celestia can withstand a few more people of all kinds, but we can all agree on the fact that they should give something back to the community, not just download and go.

Wether this giving back is a discussion topic, a new feature suggestion, a new texture set or a complete printed high glossy manual (Hi Chris! ) is up to each individual's capabilities. I have seen lots of helpful and hintful people in the forum and this will surely spread further.

Please bear in mind you were a newbie at one point of time even if you don't quite recall it, that you didn't even knew about Celestia. Then the rest will come.

Uhmmm, and yes: If you have a nice long day, not quite sure what to do... Then pick your old trusty browser and point it back to http://www.openuniverse.org for a sec. You won't be dissapointed, it's completely save and on topic The texture handling and transition mode are well done. And it's /NOT/ dead. It's just sleeping

Take care,
Axel

Hi Raul,
what happend to the 325i? My mail-account works again