Motherlode Peer Group Review

[Chuft-Captain]

Hi Bob,

I don't want to make extra work for you, but I have a suggestion:

[EDITED for bad grammar:
Seeing as what you're effectively doing is a huge audit, why don't you (as well as reporting the candidates for deletion in this thread), put a piece of standardized text on each addon as you audit it (including the ones NOT deleted), so that everyone can see it's status. ]

This could be something like:

Code: Select all

LAST AUDITED (BDB): 25 Jan 2008

for ones you've OK'd
and

Code: Select all

LAST AUDITED (BDB): 25 Jan 2008 (DELETED/ARCHIVED)

for ones you've deleted.

Ideally, this would have it's own column (Audit-column), but in the absence of that, it could just be added to the short description (Info-column) on the catalog listings, and/or in the long description (on the details page).

This would leave a nice audit trail of your actions for future reference. At the moment (at least to me) it's not obvious which addons you've audited and kept, and this would make it really obvious on the catalog listings which ones have been audited and which have not, (and would also DATE them for future audits.... that's assuming you're ever going to want to do this process again ).

Anyway, I think this would make it easier for people to see what's been checked and when, and would also make it easy for you to keep track of where you've been.



Anyway,
If you want it to look pretty like above, it would require a bit of layout work by Adirondack, but that's just a suggestion.

.. keep up the good work.

CC

[Chuft-Captain]

PS. Don't take it personally Selden... just an example.

[selden]

cc,

And here I had been thinking about creating a sequel.

I'm hurt. *sob*

[BobHegwood]

I've got an even easier way to do what you suggest...

I'm finished with everything under the SolarSystem and Spacecraft
categories, and I have only STARS left to do within Extrasolar.

How that for brevity and clarity. Anything NEW gets reviewed
automatically now, prior to being added.

[BobHegwood]

Latest potential deletion candidate is now DELETED..

These were the Aztec calendar Star textures. Now, this may not be a
popular decision from me, but I simply cannot stand the fact that this
thing is listed in the Extrasolar: Stars category. This is obviously a
fictional texture, and I don't where we should put it.

Any ideas? Comments?

Thanks, Bob

No discussion, no interest. Goodbye.

[BobHegwood]

Next deletion candidate is now GONE.

This was Grant's Nearby Stars add-on. Is no longer necessary if you
have 1.4.1 or later.

In fact, it has confused many downloaders who have not bothered to
investigate the fact that Selden has a very nice description of the
add-on located on his linked page.

No interest, no comments beyond one. Now Gone.

Thoughts?

[Johaen]

Maybe change the link to the add-on, so that it is more descriptive? Rather than just "Near-by Stars", something more like "Near-by Stars (ONLY 1.3.1 or 2)" or something like that. Just an idea. Something that lets the user know that it's not for him w/o reading the Add-on's Homepage.

[BobHegwood]

Does anyone have a problem with me if I DELETE the following
add-on from the MotherLode? This is a Star Trek HTML page which
is supposed to simulate the Warp Drive effects, but I have been
unable to get to the referenced site for over one week now.
The add-on is located HERE.

Ulrich? Anyone else?

Thanks, Bob

[John Van Vliet]

the page is gone
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:5n ... nt=mozilla
--------
This is G o o g l e's cache of http://sfe.sitesled.com/sfe/warpdrive.html as retrieved on Feb 8, 2008 06:32:37 GMT.

[BobHegwood]

Thanks John... Anyone else?

[Chuft-Captain]

BDB,

That's simply a temporarily broken URL.
You should not delete an addon just because of a broken URL.
URL's sometimes don't work for a variety of reasons.

I've just been having this discussion with Cartrite about the fact that the whole of SITESLED.COM has been down for a week.
eg. Try this: http://www.siitesled.com/
This happens periodically with SITESLED, but invariably it will be back in service sooner or later, at which time the URL will work again.
It's not the addon creators fault if the host service is poor.

You should also note that this addon has been rated as: Good.
( Just what are your criteria for deletion of an addon? )
I know for a fact that a lot of trekkies will be very upset if you delete this addon.

CC

[cartrite]

Does anyone have a problem with me if I DELETE the following
add-on from the MotherLode? This is a Star Trek HTML page which
is supposed to simulate the Warp Drive effects, but I have been
unable to get to the referenced site for over one week now.
The add-on is located HERE.

Ulrich? Anyone else?

Thanks, Bob

Bob,
Have another look. It looks like the sitesled host just got up and running again. When this site goes down it affects a number of people. My site was also down for a few days. That's why I found another. I'm going to keep both for now. But the new one has much more space. So, who knows...........
cartrite

[BobHegwood]

Okay, I'll leave it on the site then.

I'm really not trying to piss anyone off here. It's just that I have
little patience for sloppy, or non-working add-ons. As I said, I tried
the thing for over a week, and had just thought that it was gone.

BTW, the criteria for uploads are already listed on the ML.
Please view the upload page HERE.

Also, ANY add-on should always work don't you think? Too,
I have added a note to the file stating that this add-on may not
work correctly in versions of Celestia after 1.4.1.

Thanks all for your input.

[starfleetengineer]

I'm really not trying to piss anyone off here. It's just that I have little patience for sloppy, or non-working add-ons.

Sloppy? ... OK, now you ARE pissing me off!
I actually went to quite a lot of trouble to make sure that it had comprehensive installation and usage instructions, and installs automatically from a ZIP file. It certainly installs with less sloppiness than most virtual texture addons.
IMO (although I am biased ) it satisfies the criteria for a good addon, and I've had thousands of downloads with few complaints since it was first posted.

Also, ANY add-on should always work don't you think?

I think you're setting the bar a little high here. To expect ALL addons to work on ALL versions of the software at ALL times simply not a realistic expectation. IMO, you're setting yourself an impossible goal to achieve.
Celestia (thanks to the developers and everyone else) is a constant work-in-progress. This is a good thing! , but the price to be paid for progress, is that occasionally earlier addons will be incompatible with later versions of the software for a period of time (until the problem is identified and fixed).
Potentially, every time a single line of code is changed an earlier addon (or many addons) could be broken.
Although I'm sure the developers do their best to avoid side-effects, it's not possible or realistic to expect them to guarantee 100% backward compatibility with all addons.
Furthermore, it would be wrong to commit addons to the dustbin, just because they may not work with a specific version of the code on a given date that you happen to check them.
IMO, in an open-source environment such as this, the best policy is not to be too hasty with throwing things out. This allows the opportunity for temporarily broken addons to be brought in line again with later versions of the software, even if it's not the original author who does so.

I have added a note to the file stating that this add-on does not work correctly in versions of Celestia after 1.4.1.

I've just checked, and it DOES work in 1.5.0, so I'd appreciate it if you would amend or delete that comment.

Does not work at all on my machine.

I can't see any reason why it wouldn't work for you if you followed the instructions in the README. (I note however that you are using VISTA, so perhaps that's the issue)

Please would you describe the installation steps you followed and the procedure you followed to run it, as well as the symptoms of the failure, and I'll try to help.

Hope my comments are helpful
SFE

[BobHegwood]

Sloppy? ... OK, now you ARE pissing me off!
I actually went to quite a lot of trouble to make sure that it had comprehensive installation and usage instructions, and installs automatically from a ZIP file. It certainly installs with less sloppiness than most virtual texture addons.
IMO (although I am biased ) it satisfies the criteria for a good addon, and I've had thousands of downloads with few complaints since it was first posted.

I am VERY sorry here. I really did NOT mean to start this mess.
What I meant was that the URL itself was not working, thus I
could not get to the add-on.

I've just checked, and it DOES work in 1.5.0, so I'd appreciate it if you would amend or delete that comment.

I said that it MAY not work correctly. I edited my post, but I guess
you saw it before I had changed it. Sorry again. I found that it
did not work on my machine because of the sub-directory
structure under the scripts folder. If I place it in the scripts
folder by itself, then it DOES work fine as you stated.

Again, please accept my apologies here. I really am trying to help,
but I'm not perfect by ANY means. A note for you though...

Would it be possible to upload the add-on zip file to the ML
itself? That way, the problem which got me going on this topic
originally would go away.

Many thanks for your input, and I again apologize.

Thanks, Brain-Dead

[BobHegwood]

I have also removed the offending text from the ML description
and left a simple note concerning the placement of the CELX script.
I'm using Vista, and I don't know if that makes any difference or
not, but I left the note just in case others have problems.

Thanks, Brain-Dead

P.S. - Anyone ELSE want this job?

[Adirondack]

Bob,

FYI:
SFE asked me once upon a time to not host the archive on the CML since it's easier for SFE to keep his add-on up-to-date on his own site.
I don't know whether he will think it over. SFE?

Adirondack

[starfleetengineer]

I am VERY sorry here. I really did NOT mean to start this mess.
What I meant was that the URL itself was not working, thus I
could not get to the add-on.

That's quite alright. I was actually just giving you a hard time about calling it "sloppy".

I've just checked, and it DOES work in 1.5.0, so I'd appreciate it if you would amend or delete that comment.

I said that it MAY not work correctly. I edited my post, but I guess
you saw it before I had changed it. Sorry again. I found that it
did not work on my machine because of the sub-directory
structure under the scripts folder. If I place it in the scripts
folder by itself, then it DOES work fine as you stated.

Again, please accept my apologies here. I really am trying to help,
but I'm not perfect by ANY means.

Were you trying to run it from the Scripts Menu? -- This is a new feature in 1.5.0.
I've had problems running any scripts (including the 2 supplied scripts) using the new scripts menu feature.
Firstly, they only appear in the scripts menu if they're in the top-level folder (which sounds like the problem you had).
Secondly, if I run scripts (any scripts) from the menu, it doesn't work, but seems to perform different tasks altogether.
If however, I browse to them using File->Open Script, or use the "D" key remapping technique described in the readme for the warpdrive, scripts seem to run perfectly OK.
Maybe there's actually a bug in Celestia in the new Script Menu code causing it to behave erratically.

...you may have to extract the celx script directly to your Celestia\scripts directory in order to enable its use.

If as I suspect this comment was made in response to you running the script from the Scripts Menu, then this should be clarified, to avoid confusing 1.4.x users.
-- The Warpdrive pre-dated this feature, so was only ever designed to be used from the File->Open Script or directly by re-mapping the "D" key.
NOTE that the README doesn't instruct users to use the Scripts Menu, (How could it?... This feature didn't exist prior to 1.5.0 ) so the instructions in the README (if followed exactly) should work in ALL versions of Celestia.

Would it be possible to upload the add-on zip file to the ML itself? That way, the problem which got me going on this topic
originally would go away.

It's definitely possible, but I don't think this is nescessary at this stage. As Adirondack mentioned, I prefer to host it at sitesled, mainly so that I can see statistics on downloads (which the ML doesn't have). If SITESLED doesn't get their act together however, I may reconsider at some point. The ML is definitely more reliable than sitesled, but no stats.

Hope this makes sense.

Thanks
SFE

PS. I DON'T want your job!

[BobHegwood]

Were you trying to run it from the Scripts Menu? -- This is a new feature in 1.5.0.
I've had problems running any scripts (including the 2 supplied scripts) using the new scripts menu feature.
Firstly, they only appear in the scripts menu if they're in the top-level folder (which sounds like the problem you had).
Secondly, if I run scripts (any scripts) from the menu, it doesn't work, but seems to perform different tasks altogether.

Yes, I did try first to run it from the scripts menu, and then I tried
it by simply clicking on the celx script in Windows Explorer itself.
That did not work either. When Celestia started, it got hung up
at the Sun during (I believe) the start.cel process initiated when
Celestia started.

Would it be possible to upload the add-on zip file to the ML itself? That way, the problem which got me going on this topic
originally would go away.

It's definitely possible, but I don't think this is nescessary at this stage. As Adirondack mentioned, I prefer to host it at sitesled, mainly so that I can see statistics on downloads (which the ML doesn't have). If SITESLED doesn't get their act together however, I may reconsider at some point. The ML is definitely more reliable than sitesled, but no stats.

Hope this makes sense.

Thanks
SFE

PS. I DON'T want your job!

Okay, well thanks very much for the information, I'll look at the
ML description one more time to see if I can improve it a bit
more.

Again, sorry for my ignorance here, but I am trying. You SURE
you don't want the job?

[BobHegwood]

Just curious, and responses will not dictate any actions on my part...

Is anyone still using a version of Celestia prior to 1.4.1?
If so, why?

Thanks, Bob