Make all development channels visible on the discord

[S34N]

29 minutes ago, Bmon said:

Saying they prefer another PR but not stating why is not an explanation.

I don't think a single day really changes my point much. I picked those examples based on the day they got judged by the design teams.

Also, why are we trying to fit these into an arbitrary timeframe?

Yeah, this conversation is clearly going nowhere. Every point you make has a valid counterpoint but you don't even stop to consider it. Mira took time out of her day to provide us with a large-enough sample size for 2 months of data, and you do nothing but complain about it and provide strawman arguments while slinging vague accusations.

Your PRs got closed, it sucks, but that doesn't mean everyone is out to get you and are silently plotting to smother your ideas.

Could communication have been better? Yes, I think this has been established. You started a very reasonable discussion and pointed out, rightly, that there is always room for improvement. Don't ruin it and leave a sour taste in everyone's mouth by arguing for the sake of it. I am personally done with this thread because of your attitude.

Let the cogs turn and the improvements that follow from this be set in motion.

[Bmon]

17 hours ago, S34N said:

Your PRs got closed, it sucks, but that doesn't mean everyone is out to get you and are silently plotting to smother your ideas.

Could communication have been better? Yes, I think this has been established. You started a very reasonable discussion and pointed out, rightly, that there is always room for improvement. Don't ruin it and leave a sour taste in everyone's mouth by arguing for the sake of it. I am personally done with this thread because of your attitude.

Let the cogs turn and the improvements that follow from this be set in motion.

Woah there, I don't think anyone is out to get me nor do I think there is a conspiracy against me, that would be silly. I am usually upfront and blunt with people so I am sorry if you feel as if I was being argumentive, it was not my intentions

 

edit: Probably best to leave it here. I am going to shut up now.

Edited March 17, 2023 by Bmon
above

[Sirryan2002]

@Bmon

I'll try and address what I perceive to be the presented concerns:

• Lack of Transparency / Communication on the Git
• Hidden Dev Channels
• Slipping back into past bad practicies

I'll give my 2 cents on this as someone who has served in most roles on the Dev team (excluding -headcoder & -balance team) as well as general staff leadership. This has little to do with the development team's commitment to being open and honest and everything to do with time and energy.

Lack of Transparency / Communication

Back in January/December, contributors were opening PRs at around 10-15 PRs A DAY, we had 2 active headcoders, 2 review team members, and 2 commit access members all with varying availability (some with almost none), it was impossible to keep up with the rate of these PRs and also provide the kind of communication you want, this rate of PRs decreased into the second semester of schooling for most of us but did not largely stop until late February; Furthermore, most people on the design team (such as myself) also serve in other roles and have to balance responsibilities. It is exhausting to keep up with it and I'm not always going to sacrifice 15 minutes of my day sometimes to leave reasoning behind a PR objection every time I have one (especially if I'm leaving 3-4 a week). It's not because I don't want to be transparent it's because I'm doing other important things like a) talking to my girlfriend b) doing my homework c) dealing with a dumpster fire in staffcoord as a HOS or d) simply doing code reviews / merges to get our PR count down.

Making our dev-channel public will not fix this and will make it worse, it wont make me be more transparent, I will be less transparent and here's why:

Hidden Dev Channels

Players and contributors will likely never truly understand the perspective/experience/needs of the development team or staff team until they serve on them or a similar team. This isn't a jab at our contributors' empathy or behavior, it's just a simply a matter of having that collection of micro-experiences that changes the lens in which you look at things. The single hidden dev channel we have on the public discord is the only channel that is exclusive to development team members (it even excludes most GA's) minus a single headcoder-leadership channel we have on the staff discord.

Why is this important?

The obvious points have been covered, exploit discussion and GitHub disciplinary action discussion. Here's what's not necessarily been talked about

• I need a space where I can talk freely and privately with dev people I trust 100%
• It shields certain dev/staff politics from public view, all of us do not agree on everything and it can get to the point where we have fights behind closed doors. I do not want contributors or any player for that matter to be privy to what is said or to take it as an opportunity to butt in on a conversation they do not have a share in. Sometimes things that are said that are not necessarily true in the heat of the moment and has to be approached very cautiously and tenderly. This may even be the reason why certain controversial objections are not written out thoroughly, its a difficult choice for multiple dev team members to be openly in contradiction with each other on a PR because it reflects poorly on our collective vision and its invites all of us to participate in a potentially energy-draining drawn-out discussion, so we often work it out in this channel.
• Privacy is important to everyone, it's hard enough to find people who will invest the amount of time they do in our development team + are nearly completely in-line with leadership + we're able to work with them.

I realize that we can look as if we're slipping back into bad past practices and its certainly always a concern that is on the back of my mind, I'm glad you bring this up because its always an important topic to revisit. I certainly don't think you have any bad intentions in mind either. More communication could always be better and our dev team needs to work on coming together to establish a central design vision. At this moment, most of our dev team is in the busiest moments of their year (school, works, life, etc) and have to balance it all with their responsibilites in a volunteer organization (i.g. paradise). We're going to be committed to being better about justifying objections in the future, however.

[Sirryan2002]

https://discord.com/channels/145533722026967040/499000353312735233/1088431380842684476