Proposal: Splitting the forums into Fact and Fiction?

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

I was wondering, might it be worth splitting the forums up a bit so that discussion of fictional add-ons are split into their own board separate from discussion of factual add-ons and features? I'm certainly not against people writing fictional add-ons, but I think it would make it a little easier to keep track of things if fact was separated from fiction - especially for people who aren't interested in fictional addons.

Thoughts?

[Cham]

I agree with this.

But then, what is fiction ? What is reality ? Isn't fiction the mirror of reality ? Just joking...

[Rassilon]

Reality is but a projection of the iris...as we see what we think is real...

[Guest]

It's not so simple....

For example, are (wondefull) black holes addons threads posted in reality or fiction forum ? In the motherlode, there're in the fictional page. In fact, it's a fictional interpretation of a real phenomenom, and Cham worked hard to make its black holes as 'real' as possible. And the result is amazing by the way...

I think Celestia is really a wonderfull tradeoff between a real, an artistic and and fictional view of the universe...

@+
Vincent

[t00fri]

It's not so simple....

...
@+
Vincent

The separation is well defined and thus clearcut.

Any displayed object that is not based entirely on published scientific data is ficticious, since in principle it could appear differently in reality. For any scientific measurements we must allow for reasonable uncertainties in the used data. Good measurements take great efforts to estimate their uncertainties. This often constitutes most of the scientific work...

/The rendering/ of a black hole within an add-on is clearly ficticious. The rendering of stars in Celestia is not ficticious, since their positions, colors and other properties are directly transcribed from the published Hipparcos catalog (modulo typos & other errors). Similarly with planetary textures. We specially have introduced the "limit of knowledge" concept for displaying objects in Celestia...

But personally I am definitely against introducing more "law and order" in this forum! I am concerned much more whether a contribution has some potential of being interesting for others rather than whether it is in the right place...

Bye Fridger

[maxim]

I have no final opinion to a splitting of forums, but I'd like to comment that there are in fact three parts to consider (and that's the way I divide my addons for some time now):

Real ones (obvious)
Fictional ones (Sientific fictionals like dark matter, black holes, protodisks, ...)
Fantasy ones (Star Trek, Babylon5, Alien, Space Odysee, ...)

Perhaps you'll find this a better distribution

maxim

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

Well, I split them as follows - never mind philosophical waffle about "what is real and what isn't".

"Fact" are add-ons/discussions related to what we know about the real universe. This would include things like texture maps derived from known data for real bodies, orbital data for asteroids and comets (usually newly discovered ones), as-accurate-as-is-known orbital/mass data for extrasolar bodies, nebula/galaxy catalogues, locations and types of nearby stars, orbits/masses/star types for binaries and multiple systems derived from real data, orbits and models for real spacecraft like cassini, voyager, LEO craft etc. In other words, the crunchy stuff that is at the core of Celestia as a realistic universe simulator. Things like black holes, protodisks and whatever else are fine here, as long as they're REAL objects (so discussion of a model/location etc for the Cygnus X-1 black hole is "fact" by this definition, not fiction).

"Fiction" is everything else. TV series add-ons, systems made of fictional planets/stars, anything that doesn't have hard physical data to back it up or does not conform to what is known about the real universe. Futuristic stuff, spaceships, alien planets, impossible systems etc would be lumped in this category.

I know people have complained in the past about the fictional stuff starting to take over, and I think splitting off the factual stuff from the fictional material would help focus the people who were more interested in developing a simulation of the real universe, while still letting the people interested in fictional development to continue to do that.

[maxim]

Well, I split them as follows ...

So this combines in fact my 'real' and 'fiction' into 'real, and my 'fantasy' into 'fiction' as I understand it.

Well, I now some phpBB forums that distribute the boards into different sections. You needn't to split the forum totally I think. Create two sections, and two new boards called 'fantasy addons' and 'fantasy textures' would do the thing.

maxim

[jestr]

How about another one for interpretive textures also-ie largely based on fact but filling in a few missing bits?

[Michael Kilderry]

Maybe we could replan the forums like this:

Celestia Users
Celestia Bugs
Celestia Development
Factual Addons and Textures
Fictional Addons and Textures
Celestia Scripting
Physics and Astronomy
Purgatory

Here, the addons and textures boards have been changed into two new forums, one for factual addons and textures, the ohter ffor fictional addons and textures.

I think this is a good idea, not only for the people who think that the fictional addons are taking over, but for the fictional addon people like me who like looking at the amazing imaginary worlds that people have done.

Michael Kilderry

[rthorvald]

I was wondering, might it be worth splitting the forums up a bit so that discussion of fictional add-ons are split into their own board

After seeing the different opinions on this, it strikes me that the simplest, and probably best way to deal with this, might be to:
!) leave all the forums as they are
2) Create an additional forum for "Celestia reality purism".
This would solve everything without having to change peoples habits, and would give us a dedicated resource for strictly "real" enhancements of Celestia.

-rthorvald

[Guckytos]

I don't think that this would be a real good idea Micheal,

Factual Addons and Textures
Fictional Addons and Textures

I think that the Textures should stay in one place, because the newbie and other questions will be in most cases the same. And if it would be split up it would take longer to find anything. And the theme of the thread is:

Tips for creating and manipulating planet textures for Celestia.

This goes for both fictional and factual. Perhaps there could be subforums for fictional and faction textures and the general tipps could stay in the main forum. How about that idea?

Splitting the Addon section would work, i think.

But that are only my 5 cents.

Regards,

Guckytos

[Bob Hegwood]

Just a suggestion from the Brain-Dead...

Why can't the authors of the various textures, add-ons, scripts, etc. simply
title their creations as REAL or FICTIONAL?

In any case, it's not really that big of a deal anyway is it? I mean, if you're
into realism, then you'll probably know when a particular add-on or
texture is fictional won't you?

If you continue to run into fictional textures when you're looking for REAL
textures (whatever THAT means), then you can simply ignore whatever
strikes you as being too un-realistic can you not?

Take care, Bob

[Michael Kilderry]

Bob, I'm starting to think you are right,

It's not really that bigger deal really if fact and fiction are mixed together, it doesn't bother me, in my opinion whethere a planet is fictional or not doesn't take away from it whatsoever, just as long as it's interesting to look at and imagine.

Guckytos,

The reason I suggested putting the addons and textures forum together and then splitting them up into fact and fiction was because I thought that it would be a bit confusing if too many forums and built up, and some of the stuff talked about in textures is about textures for addons and stuff.

Michael Kilderry

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

It's not really that bigger deal really if fact and fiction are mixed together, it doesn't bother me, in my opinion whethere a planet is fictional or not doesn't take away from it whatsoever, just as long as it's interesting to look at and imagine.

It does if you have to wade through tons of fictional addons to find the latest realistic extrasolar ones

Bob does have a point with this thread-labelling suggestion, but I think splitting the forums would make things a little easier to keep track of. It might also bring back some of the folks that have left too if there is a forum dedicated to realism in Celestia - I'm sure I've heard some people say that the rise in fictional addons is putting them off a program that they got into because it was a realistic universe simulator. At least separating fact from fiction can mean that those who enjoy one or the other can have a forum without distractions.

[Harry]

Bob does have a point with this thread-labelling suggestion, but I think splitting the forums would make things a little easier to keep track of.

And separate forums forces people to decide which one is appropriate. I expect that not everybody would label new threads - noteably newcomers are rarely aware of such conventions.

But IMHO it's more important to make the forums match the descriptions (or the other way around). Judging from the description for "Celestia Development" everything which has to do with creating addons should be posted there, but not surprsingly much of it is posted in "Celestia Addons". And a distinction between addons and textures isn't always possible either...

Harald

[Tetzauh]

... separate forums forces people to decide which one is appropriate. I expect that not everybody would label new threads - noteably newcomers are rarely aware of such conventions.

Yo know what? I agree. I browswed trough the post and did't really read it all. Imagine a newcomer (not unlike me) having to read all the stuff? I hadn't evend finished reading Frank Gregorio's wonderful users gude until I started translating it.... because it takes time from you day in which you could be using celestia instead. My guess is that even if you split the forums into fictional/nonfictional (or whatever you may call them) you'll get enough gray topics or not-sufficently-informed users to have some amout of mayhem. Is the order you'll get worth the fuzz?

I personally like the idea of organizing the stuff, but I sense that there would arise new, uncesary problems. Perps the result of the present discussion could be used to get a standard criteria for the motherlode and its arranging of add ons (I didn't know black woles were in fictional.... )

And just to add to the discussion: how would you classify a texture foir titan with the poles showing and and the detailed areas from cassini included?

[eburacum45]

I am quite keen to separate the factual add-ons from the fictional ones; it seems likely that there could be many people who would be interested in creating fictional worlds, and spacecraft/habitats; (some of whom are relatively inexperienced, like me)

there is a lot of interest in the fictional systems, but the factual addons are really the most important part of Celestia, and should remain so.

People who are attracted by the fictional material may well become interested in the factual material, and perhaps occassionally vice versa; but these topics are probably best separated.

[Slalomsk8er]

Celestia Textures
Celestia Scripting
Celestia Add-ons
- Science Add-ons
- Fiction Add-ons
- Fantasy Add-ons

What about subs of Celestia Add-ons?

Greetings, Dominik

[t00fri]

Hi all,

think for a moment: I we really would impose some further regulations about which textures have to appear in which department, we would subsequently need an attentive moderator to watch out whether everyone does things right etc.

Most of us know anyhow, who of us is involved in facts and who in fiction.

We simply are short of menpower! So...

Feel free & be creative...

No more "Law and Order"!

Bye Fridger