Proposal: Splitting the forums into Fact and Fiction?

Slalomsk8er · Post #21by **Slalomsk8er** » 24.01.2005, 09:44

t00fri,

I can do it.

We simply are short of menpower!

I think not, we simply are short of coder menpower (minimum for mac)!

I we really would impose some further regulations about which textures have to appear in which department

Add-ons are more needed to devide as textures. IMHO the texture forum is more about the craft of making textures, as the Add-ons forum is more about look my new Add-on :wink:

Greetings, Dominik

maxim · Post #22by **maxim** » 24.01.2005, 14:58

Fridger,

I can't see any 'law and order'.
It's just a proposal for a better organization of stuff. And of course we don't track and punish someone for doing it wrong. The forum members are self-responsible enough to let them do - if structures are provided.

maxim

Cham · Post #23by **Cham** » 24.01.2005, 17:53

I'm seeing a bad future for Celestia :

Because of all the SF and fantasy addons (and I admit I'm contributing to this), more and more new Celestia users will see the fantasy and SF as the PRIMARY reason to use the software. The pedagogical aspects and the real interpretation of our universe will be eclipsed by the fantasy stuff, because fantasy may look more appealing and is easier to understand (!). There's a crittical point well shall not pass here.

So in my opinion, WE URGENTLY need to separate clearly all the real and the fantasy stuff, on the forum, and on the Motherlode, and everywhere else. Or else, the fantasy stuff WILL ECLIPSE THE REAL STUFF ! That's a prediction of things to come and I'm ready to put some money on the table to bet.

Please guys, do something fast ! Separate NOW before it's too late !

Post #24by **t00fri** » 24.01.2005, 18:18

maxim wrote:Fridger,

I can't see any 'law and order'.
It's just a proposal for a better organization of stuff. And of course we don't track and punish someone for doing it wrong. The forum members are self-responsible enough to let them do - if structures are provided.

maxim

Maxim,

if you do not recall what I was alluding to, just ignore my post above ;-)

In any case, personally I do not care too much about improved organization of the forum. Chris does neither I am afraid ;-)

. I always judge from people's names and subjects whether I'll have "a look".

Many of my very popular posts happen to be located in the wrong department. Despite their mislocation, many people have apparently found them. Clearly, there is some cleaning up work to be done for an orderly minded "Moderator" person.... ;-)

Bye Fridger

Michael Kilderry · Post #25by **Michael Kilderry** » 25.01.2005, 02:52

Cham wrote::evil: I'm seeing a bad future for Celestia :

Because of all the SF and fantasy addons (and I admit I'm contributing to this), more and more new Celestia users will see the fantasy and SF as the PRIMARY reason to use the software. The pedagogical aspects and the real interpretation of our universe will be eclipsed by the fantasy stuff, because fantasy may look more appealing and is easier to understand (!). There's a crittical point well shall not pass here.

So in my opinion, WE URGENTLY need to separate clearly all the real and the fantasy stuff, on the forum, and on the Motherlode, and everywhere else. Or else, the fantasy stuff WILL ECLIPSE THE REAL STUFF ! That's a prediction of things to come and I'm ready to put some money on the table to bet.

Please guys, do something fast ! Separate NOW before it's too late !

It depends on the viewpoint whether this is bad or not. More and more people are making fanatsy addons these days, and if people find the fantasy more appealing than real stuff, then they have the right to get the fantasy stuff instead. I wouldn't worry so much, there will always be some interest in factual addons even if fantasy addons do eclipse them

Michael Kilderry

Cham · Post #26by **Cham** » 25.01.2005, 03:02

Michael Kilderry wrote:
Cham wrote::evil: I'm seeing a bad future for Celestia :

Because of all the SF and fantasy addons (and I admit I'm contributing to this), more and more new Celestia users will see the fantasy and SF as the PRIMARY reason to use the software. The pedagogical aspects and the real interpretation of our universe will be eclipsed by the fantasy stuff, because fantasy may look more appealing and is easier to understand (!). There's a crittical point well shall not pass here.

So in my opinion, WE URGENTLY need to separate clearly all the real and the fantasy stuff, on the forum, and on the Motherlode, and everywhere else. Or else, the fantasy stuff WILL ECLIPSE THE REAL STUFF ! That's a prediction of things to come and I'm ready to put some money on the table to bet.

Please guys, do something fast ! Separate NOW before it's too late !

It depends on the viewpoint whether this is bad or not. More and more people are making fanatsy addons these days, and if people find the fantasy more appealing than real stuff, then they have the right to get the fantasy stuff instead. I wouldn't worry so much, there will always be some interest in factual addons even if fantasy addons do eclipse them

Michael Kilderry

See guys ? That's exactly what I was talking about.

Celestia is primarily a scientific piece of software. It's real goal is to show REAL space, REAL stuff, REAL data. Fantasy is just an aside.

If too much fantasy stuff comes, it will make the real stuff to completely disappear under the fantasy shadow.

So we need to protect the first interest of Celestia by making a clear separation on the forum. It's no wonder to me why many scientists have quit the board.

Michael Kilderry · Post #27by **Michael Kilderry** » 25.01.2005, 03:40

Cham!

The post of mine you quoted you obviously didn't read properly, particularly this line:

I wouldn't worry so much, there will always be some interest in factual addons even if fantasy addons do eclipse them.

It's true, people like you are interested in making factual addons, and as long as you are, you'll most likely be interested in the factual addons of others, so you shouldn't worry so much about interest lacking in your addons.

It's not like you could do much anyway if people really do prefer fantasy addons over factual addons. If they've got their own copy of Celestia they can add any addon they want to it.

And you shouldn't blame fantasy addons for people leaving Celestia, it happens, and there are many more new people coming in than people leaving, although we maybe going through a bit of a lowpoint now with more members leaving than coming.

I'm not sure about Celestia's realism is it's first interest. If you couldn't put fictional planets and stuff on sites like the Celestia Motherlode because it's fantasy I wouldn't be on these forums today. Why can't we just say something like Celestia's first interest is that it is fun and easy to use instead of trying to say one type of addon is "more suited to Celestia's purpose" that the other.

Michael Kilderry

Evil Dr Ganymede · Post #28by **Evil Dr Ganymede** » 25.01.2005, 06:02

Actually, Cham's reasoning is kinda why I started this thread in the first place.

I remember that Fridger was ranting a long while back about being sick of the fictional add-ons and the new people coming in who weren't interested in realism. ISTR that he wanted to actively discourage people from writing the fictional stuff so that development would remain focussed on the factual material. I also remember arguing strongly against that, because it was inevitable that people would want to use the program for other purposes, and nothing really would be gained by stopping them from doing so.

I'm certainly not suggesting here that people stop making fictional addons and textures for Celestia. But that said, fictional material is swamping the boards somewhat nowadays. Hence my suggestion that we split the forums into fictional and realistic sections. That makes it a lot easier to track down and discuss the latest realistic addons and features, while also keeping the fictional developers happy. Both can co-exist that way without one side thinking the other has to go.

Heck, I even wonder if it might be worth setting things up so that the Motherlode forums are for talking about and presenting fictional additions, and the Celestia forums are for talking about and presenting the realistic ones and developing the program itself. That'd depend on what the respective board owners think though.

But either way, Celestia was designed to be a realistic universe simulator, that could be added to by users. And I think the growing dominance of fictional add-ons rather than realistic development is causing people to lose interest in it. We need a way to highlight the realistic development so that people realise that this is the most important part and the primary purpose of the program. It's an educational tool first and foremost - a fun one, that you can do a lot with - but an educational one nonetheless. Fictional add-ons - particularly those that simply aren't remotely realistic - aren't part of that primary purpose. Remember that Chris isn't developing this program so that it can be used primarily for fictional universes - and if HE gets bored with it because of that then the whole thing is toast.

Michael Kilderry · Post #29by **Michael Kilderry** » 25.01.2005, 07:20

Fictional material is swamping the boards somewhat nowadays.

To help combat this, we could put in the "Purpose Of This Board" announcement a message loudly saying only one thread per addon so people don't make the same mistake I did with my Lera system.

Hence my suggestion that we split the forums into fictional and realistic sections. That makes it a lot easier to track down and discuss the latest realistic addons and features, while also keeping the fictional developers happy. Both can co-exist that way without one side thinking the other has to go.

That sound sensible, and I would actually like a section just for fictional addons to put my stuff and look at other similar, similar to what most of the factual and science addon people want.

Heck, I even wonder if it might be worth setting things up so that the Motherlode forums are for talking about and presenting fictional additions, and the Celestia forums are for talking about and presenting the realistic ones and developing the program itself. That'd depend on what the respective board owners think though.

This doesn't sound as good, fictional addon makers shouldn't be kicked off shatters.net, then again it might be fun to have our own little board somewhere else. If it comes this far, I wouldn't mind even making a completely new board for fictional addons (not the Lera forum though, as it's emphasis on one addon on the most of the boards would discrimate against others.) What does everyone think?

And I think the growing dominance of fictional add-ons rather than realistic development is causing people to lose interest in it.

Don't know about this, the fictional addons are what got me interested in Celestia.

Remember that Chris isn't developing this program so that it can be used primarily for fictional universes - and if HE gets bored with it because of that then the whole thing is toast.

I don't think he minds that much, he hasn't said anything on this thread yet about splitting the boards and I don't rememeber him complaining about the fictional addons, most likely still thinking about the board splitting before he makes a decision.

Bob Hegwood · Post #30by **Bob Hegwood** » 25.01.2005, 07:37

Michael Kilderry wrote:Why can't we just say something like Celestia's first interest is that it is fun and easy to use instead of trying to say one type of addon is "more suited to Celestia's purpose" than the other.

Right on, Michael...

Whether you get yer jollies from realistic add-ons or from fictional add-ons,
the point is that you should be able to enjoy this fantastic resource
regardless of your preferences. As I have mentioned before, I personally
like the realism provided by Celestia in so far as it is possible to represent
realism.

However, just because lot of people like fictional stuff is no reason for me to
stay away from Celestia. Can't we all just get along? :lol:

If the real vs fictional add-ons are really such a problem for people here,
then I'm with The Evil Doctor if I have to choose a side. Let's make it easy
for everyone to use the forum. Can't be THAT hard to separate the
real? from the fictional can it?

At any rate, I'll be here whether we're all mixed in together or not. I
certainly don't have any trouble selecting add-ons from the broad range
presented on this forum. As far as I'm concerned, the more add-ons we
have, the better for everyone. I've seen a few techniques which have
been used in the fictional categories, which can easily be applied to the
real world too.

So what's the big deal?

Thanks, Bob

Michael Kilderry · Post #31by **Michael Kilderry** » 25.01.2005, 07:48

Bob Hegwood wrote:So what's the big deal?

I don't have any problem, I'm on your side when you say we should all get along.

I think the problem might be that people don't want Celestia's image to change from the factual educational program it is, and they seem to be getting worried that all the fictional addons are starting to change that.

In my opinion Celestia was always both an eductional and fantasy planet making program and I don't think that'll ever change.

Michael Kilderry

Evil Dr Ganymede · Post #32by **Evil Dr Ganymede** » 25.01.2005, 09:26

Michael Kilderry wrote:I don't have any problem, I'm on your side when you say we should all get along.

It's not a case of people not getting along. I'm simply suggesting that a split would make it easier for people to find stuff they're interested in without having to wade through things that don't interest them, or things that might even put them off.

If you're happy with things as they are, fine - but I'll point out that you don't use Celestia primarily as an educational tool anyway, so it's hardly surprising that you prefer the status quo. But I know I've lost track of things like the status of the latest extrasolar planets/asteroid belt/small moons/comets/near stars addons. Not necessarily because there are too many fictional addons, but because they don't seem to get much attention. And also, development appears to have stalled lately since Chris added support for multiple star illumination. I don't know if Fridger is still developing his multiple stars addon either. I think we need to consolidate what we've got, where we're at, and where we're going with Celestia's development and realism. And it'd be easier to do that if we had a separate forum for realism where we can do so without being distracted by fictional material.

I think the problem might be that people don't want Celestia's image to change from the factual educational program it is, and they seem to be getting worried that all the fictional addons are starting to change that.

And it's a perfectly valid reason to worry. If simulating sci-fi universes starts to dominate then Celestia won't be taken as seriously as an educational tool. Celestia was reviewed in Astronomy magazine because it was an educational visualisation tool, not because it could be used for fictional purposes. Maybe you don't care about that, but I and others do, and I'm sure Chris does as well. I think the fact that people are coming into the program specifically NOT to use it for education or realism is slightly worrying.

In my opinion Celestia was always both an eductional and fantasy planet making program and I don't think that'll ever change.

It can be used for both, but its main focus is still supposed to be on education and realism.

Michael Kilderry · Post #33by **Michael Kilderry** » 25.01.2005, 11:15

Evil Dr Ganymede wrote:It's not a case of people not getting along.

When I mean people getting along I'm not talking about people being friendly with eachother or not, I'm talking about people getting along by not being annoyed by the amount of fictional addons being announced in the addons forum.

If you're happy with things as they are, fine - but I'll point out that you don't use Celestia primarily as an educational tool anyway, so it's hardly surprising that you prefer the status quo.

Prefer? I don't prefer anything, I don't really care that much whether the addon forum gets split up or not or even fictional addon announcements being moved to another place altogether, just as long as they exist.

But I know I've lost track of things like the status of the latest extrasolar planets/asteroid belt/small moons/comets/near stars addons. Not necessarily because there are too many fictional addons, but because they don't seem to get much attention. And also, development appears to have stalled lately since Chris added support for multiple star illumination. I don't know if Fridger is still developing his multiple stars addon either. I think we need to consolidate what we've got, where we're at, and where we're going with Celestia's development and realism. And it'd be easier to do that if we had a separate forum for realism where we can do so without being distracted by fictional material.

But these seem to me more like things that would be discussed in the Celestia Development forum, and those people probably aren't doing too much with the addons that you mentioned so that's why they are pretty quiet. Fridger, for example is probbaly not talking about his multiple stars stuff because he is working on his improved Titan texture, which is something factual that is getting around the forum.

And it's a perfectly valid reason to worry. If simulating sci-fi universes starts to dominate then Celestia won't be taken as seriously as an educational tool. Celestia was reviewed in Astronomy magazine because it was an educational visualisation tool, not because it could be used for fictional purposes. Maybe you don't care about that, but I and others do, and I'm sure Chris does as well. I think the fact that people are coming into the program specifically NOT to use it for education or realism is slightly worrying.

Why not use Celestia for things other than education? People can, and they think it's fun doing this, I don't see the worry because as long as people like you are interested in eductaional stuff, Celestia will always have a factual use. If things started sliding the other way it would be a bit worrying too and would probably cause the fictional addon people not to be as interested in Celestia because noone else is. The fact is that Celestia is going to be used for both purposes and that is going to be very hard to change.

It can be used for both, but its main focus is still supposed to be on education and realism.

Don't forget using it for fun! Even if Celestia isn't especially made for fictional addons, I think if you like making them, do it.

Michael Kilderry

Harry · Post #34by **Harry** » 25.01.2005, 11:37

Time to throw in some numbers. The logfiles for the Celestia Motherlode for the last 5 days show this result. The number is the number of accessing IPs. The number of real downloads is lower, sometimes - for big addons - significantly, but in any case this is the best indicator for interest (i.e. someone wanted to download):

211: rthorvald/rthorvalds_sun.zip
114: jestr/JMII_DDS_Level0-4_32K.zip (Earth VT)
101: jestr/JMII_DDS_Level5_Full.zip
89: jestr/Cassini_Huygens_Landed_CMOD.zip
86: fsgregs/UsersGuide_1.3.2.zip
85: reinhard_f/ESO510G13.zip
74: jestr/DeepImpact.zip
72: jromer/cassini_scripts12.zip
71: jackhiggins/atlantis.zip
70: johnvanvliet/4kJupiter.zip
67: fsgregs/Sun.zip
65: adirondack/Celestia_Deutsch-1.3.2.zip
64: jestr/BigHubbleCMOD_V3.zip
60: fsgregs/jackhiggins_spacecraft/voyager-full.zip
58: reinhard_f/NGC6543%20cats%20eye.zip
58: h-schmidt/earth-unshaded-hs.zip
54: guilpan/DeathStar2.zip (first truly fictional one in this list)
...

So obviously there is much more interest in realistic addons than in fictional ones. The forum here may not reflect this, but this is what users care about.

BTW, I don't like the idea to make the forum on the CML only for discussion of fictional addons. The CML is for all (and most importantly non-fictional, see above) addons, and it doesn't make sense to split the discussion to different servers.

Harald

Cham · Post #35by **Cham** » 25.01.2005, 11:40

How Celestia will be, in say three to five years ? I'm predicting this (well, is it really a prediction ? It's so clear) :

- On the Motherlode, 70 to 80% of the addons will be about SF, fictional and fantasy worlds. Planets, spaceships, fake civilisations, ...

- On the forum here, most people will talk about fictional ideas, speculations, TV shows and movies, and they'll present pictures of their new systems, their new SF 3D models, etc. Realism will be degenerated to a shadow of itself.

Most users will lose their interest in the representation of reality. Fantasy is easier and more personal. People interested in science facts will turn their back and go elswhere to look for other things on the internet.

Because of the ocean of fantasy, Celestia will sink.

I hope I'm wrong.

Michael Kilderry · Post #36by **Michael Kilderry** » 25.01.2005, 11:56

That's all just predictions Cham, it doesn't mean it's going to happen.

But if that is what Celestia is turning into, it means that more new people like it that way, and so it wouldn't sink, it may just go back to factual addons and we're back to square one. :wink:

Has anybody ever thought of this rise of interest in fictional addons a short-lived fad that isn't going to ruin Celestia? :wink:

On more offtopic matters...

Harry, would it be not too hard to include a weekly chart of the most downloaded addon somewhere on the motherlode? I think it would be a cool idea and a valuable meter to addon developers to see if people like their work. You don't have to go the whole way just the Top 20 or Top 50 even.

What does the Lera Solar System rank in the list and how many downloads? I had to ask.

Michael Kilderry

Slalomsk8er · Post #37by **Slalomsk8er** » 25.01.2005, 11:56

Apart from spliting the add-ons section, I think some new features for the science crowd wold to the job.

http://www.shatters.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6054, look at this, IMHO the features there would make celestia a superbe visualisation tool for sciencedata and this could boost the science content here as I know there are terabytes on real data (IR, UV, RADAR, X-Ray), witch the fantasy crowd need to invent and imagine first :wink:

Greetings, Dominik

Harry · Post #38by **Harry** » 25.01.2005, 12:26

Michael Kilderry wrote:Harry, would it be not too hard to include a weekly chart of the most downloaded addon somewhere on the motherlode? I think it would be a cool idea and a valuable meter to addon developers to see if people like their work. You don't have to go the whole way just the Top 20 or Top 50 even.

Possibly. We already have something similar for internal use, but there is a big difference between a quick and dirty analysis, and something which can be reliably put online for the general public. One problem for instance is that the logfiles on ibiblio are sometimes missing, so you have to deal with these problems too.

What does the Lera Solar System rank in the list and how many downloads? I had to ask.

Can't say the rank, but it has been downloaded seven times.

Harald

Michael Kilderry · Post #39by **Michael Kilderry** » 25.01.2005, 12:32

Can you say the ranking going up from the least downloaded addon? Has the Lera System been downloaded seven times this week or seven times since it has been uploaded?

If the charts sometimes have problems or are a bit inaccurate, they would still be good as a guide. I think it would be one of the best of the nice improvements to the Motherlode lately.

PS: Sorry everyone if this is a bit off topic, if it bugs you, you can just make a post yourself that's back on topic.

Michael Kilderry

Post #40by **t00fri** » 25.01.2005, 12:41

Slalomsk8er wrote:Apart from spliting the add-ons section, I think some new features for the science crowd wold to the job.

http://www.shatters.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6054, look at this, IMHO the features there would make celestia a superbe visualisation tool for sciencedata and this could boost the science content here as I know there are terabytes on real data (IR, UV, RADAR, X-Ray), witch the fantasy crowd need to invent and imagine first

Greetings, Dominik

The problem is certainly not with lacking ideas for scientifically accurate rendering within Celestia!

I have exhausted myself in the past in this forum with various major proposals that largely also include what you wrote much more recently.

Let me just remind people of my proposal of rendering within different bands of wavelengths, i.e. the general 'filter' idea. Or the Cosmo-Celestia mode, i.e. the idea to simulate the universe on cosmological scales, extending all the way back to the CosmicMicrowave Background (CMB) regime, where the universe was only 300000 years old and the vision ceases, because the cosmic plasma becomes untransparent for photons. Notably the idea was to include and cleverly display the vast Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data in a clever conformal display. And so on...

A realization of these exciting posibilities would have really made Celestia unique from the educational, the scientific realization and the pure fun perspective.

Clearly, Cosmo-Celestia would have to be realized within Einsteins general relativity framework, with stunning 3d graphics added, due to special relativity effects for close to light-speed travel!

To correctly incorporate such large extensions, a thorough insight and know-how in physics, astrophysics and cosmology is required beyond pure coding skills. Hence it is much harder for competitors to keep up along these scientific 'main stream' directions. Not long ago we still had a uniquely qualified developer team for such a challenging task. Now things tend to be "flowing apart", so it seems...

The general problematics resides in the fact that all the developers that would have the competence to contribute (including myself) have unfortunately serious professional committments at different times.

Therefore it turned out that a real synchronization of intensive dialogs about such plans did not materialize.

So I gave up, rather frustrated, I must admit...

We also have an extensive longstanding shopping list of issues related to scientific accuracy that should urgently be incorporated. Here is a selection of such missing features that particularly frustrated Grant and myself:

1) Lacking precession of the equinoxes.
2) Stars with the same coordinates in stars.dat and in an stc do not plot in the same position.
3) The Earth is 200AU from the coordinate origin, which introduces huge parallax effects for nearby stars, but this has not been rectified because it would "break cel URLs".
4) A number of custom orbits are still quite badly in error.
5) We have no custom orbits for a number of major moons for which suitable formulae are available.
6) Node and pericentre precession is not implemented.
7) We can't select a view by sky coordinates in any useful frame.
8 A truely flexible and accurate coordinate and grid readout for various standard coordinate systems is lacking.
9) My proposed multiple star browser extension and the modified GOTO feature for multiple star systems is lacking.

Now Grant has gone and I am feeling rather lonely on the scientific front...

Here is a note why my work on binary orbits entered (temporary?) stagnation:
http://www.shatters.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6312&start=17

A clearcut discussion about Celestia's very purpose, notably among the developers seems to be unavoidable.

One distinguished strategy would be to produce a moderately realistic, eye-catching space simulator. A key aspect would be to spread its popularity as much as possible, notably also by including plenty of 3d "eye-candy". The other alternative would rather focus on unprecedented scientific accuracy combined with unprecedented 3d graphics rather than popularity. Compromises between the two cited extreme strategies are thinkable.

This post summarizes some general thoughts that are with me since quite some time ;-)

Bye Fridger