Announcement: Tank, Lucifer, Z-Man declared Evil Triumvirate

What do you want to see in Armagetron soon? Any new feature ideas? Let's ponder these ground breaking ideas...
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Z-Man
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Announcement: Tank, Lucifer, Z-Man declared Evil Triumvirate

Post by Z-Man »

So far, our current, completely anarchic, approach to development has worked rather well. But as the team gradually grows, which of course is what we hope it will do, we need an efficient way to make general direction decisions. If everyone is involved in those, a tremendeous amout of time is wasted in discussions, and there is the risk that not the best solution wins, but the solution whose proponents have the most time and energy to defend it in the discussions.

Of course, Tank and me are de facto administrators and for important decisions, it appears that we've had the final word in the past. That, of course, only works well as long as we agree. Sooner or later, there will be a disagreement between us, and if it is left unmediated, there is a risk of breakup.

To avoid these two problems, Tank and me decided we should declare a third administrator. We'll be equal peers. Every administrator is the mediator in fights between the other two; whatever two administrators agree to decide as an administrative order will be accepted by the third administrator. The rest of the team is advised to also accept admin decisions as what shall be done even though it is bloody stupid. A single administrator does not, on his own, have any power.

Although the total power of the three admins together will be absolute, there will be very little difference for you in day to day operations. We won't micromanage. You won't have to ask us for permission to scratch your back. Can't speak for the others here, but I'm lazy and don't want to be bothered with every small detail. Only big scope decisions are reserved to the administrators, like
- What platforms the client or server should officially support
- What libraries we depend on
- Strategic partnerships with other projects (buy Armagetron and get Supertux for free!)
- Whether an official global league shall be set up
- Whether to hold back the next release to add a certain feature
- Whether to include a mandatory client identification from a hardware hash value so players on dynamic IP can be banned
We usually won't decide on "How" questions. That's the job of the developers who execute the plan. We won't assign jobs by admin order; we'll make suggestions that usually will be obvious choices, like letting Wrtl handle the unicode font rendering. If you don't do a job we suggest you do, either someone else takes it over or it won't get done at all. Our goal will be to make development fun for everyone involved and to keep the project going into the right direction. We'll spring into admin action when a discussion about one of those important topics has gone on long enough that all important facts have been stated, and of course whenever developers have a dispute one of them explicitly wants to have settled by admin order.

We also decided that Lucifer would be our most favorite man for the third admin job, and he accepted the position.
That pick doesn't mean we don't like the whole rest of you or we think you'd be lousy administrators. We just had to make a decision. We won't tell you who would be second or third favorite or why you weren't selected, so don't ask.

We take the legitimation for this all by assuming that not too may of you have serious objections. If you do have objections, state them here and now, we won't hold them against you. Tank will simply use his forum admin power to spin them around :wink:

Should there be an oath? If yes, here's mine:
I, Z-Man (Manuel Moos), hereby declare that I will use my administrative powers only for the good of the project. I will aim to keep our players and developers as happy as possible. I will do my best to keep Armagetron Advanced Free Software.
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2020
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heheh

Post by 2020 »

long live the triumvirate!
hold the line
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Post by philippeqc »

Hail the triumvirate,
May all of my base belong to thee.


Lucifer is an excellent choice. He has proven himself in the past, and I am confident of his future lead.

-ph
Canis meus id comedit.
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Post by Luke-Jr »

I object. Lucifer hasn't shown to be too much concerned with the right solutions, and has problems with anything I say by default, even in cases where once the matter has been explained he agrees with me. He also often has problems when comments are given as-is on past discussions my scrollback doesn't reach the full extent of. Not to mention /ignoring me without any good justification (and when I'm done talking on topics, even-- which makes no logical sense). Overall, not qualities of an administrative person, IMO.
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Post by Z-Man »

Yes, your objection was predictable.

philippe and 2020: thanks for the support.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone remember what happened to the last Triumvirate?
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Post by Lucifer »

there was a last Triumvirate?

I must admit I accepted with some trepidation and was a little slow to respond here partially to see what people would say (but also because I've spent the last couple of weeks catching up around the house on all the chores that didn't get done during the semester). I'll do my best! And I'm feeling pretty honored being offered the job in the first place. :)

I tried to come up with an oath that was personalized, but failed. Z-man's seemed to cover it, so don't take repition as laziness on my part. :) Here's my oath: (I was specifically asked to promise something :) )
I, Lucifer (Dave Fancella), hereby declare that I will use my administrative powers only for the good of the project. I will aim to keep our players and developers as happy as possible. I will do my best to keep Armagetron Advanced Free Software. And I won't eat any developers.
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Tank Program
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Post by Tank Program »

I, Guru3 (Fred), swear to uphold the values of cooperation and collaboration throughout the project, that we may work in as much harmony as is reasonable. For as long as I can, to keep Armagetron Advanced one of the best Free and Open Source Games available. To try to not to screw anything up too bad, and use my priveleges for good and justice.

I remeber (essentially) starting this project, and I am ever amazed at how well it's going. Wouldn't want to mess that up :).
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nice to see

Post by 2020 »

you guys are legit

i trust you
and if there is ever any whiff of money coming out of a competition
i am happy that it goes to you
your dedication
and intention

8)
hold the line
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Post by Lucifer »

I started the government page. It includes the QA team discussion from the other thread. I guess we flesh it out to the extent that's needed (probably not much), sign it, and lock it. Like any good constitution, we should leave implementation details to someone else. :) So the QA team will have a different page to put their task list on and stuff like that. Also, the lists of people belong on a different page than this one.

http://wiki.armagetronad.net/index.php/Government
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Post by Z-Man »

Turns out there was more than one last triumvirate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumvirate
Whoops. I only knew about the first. Won't happen here, because we'll generally keep out of the way and have little incentive to fight for power, right?

I'm almost sure the government page can get my signature the way it is right now. I neither have the talent nor the motivation to make it lawyer-proof.
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Post by Lucifer »

Well, I think there's a strong difference here. We've declared ourselves Evil from the get-go, those others tried to think they existed for the good of mankind or somesuch.

I edited the page, I realized I forgot to put the 2 vote thing in there. Then it occured to me that we all talk enough and participate a lot, I'd hate to see conversations stopped short just because two of us agreed early on where to eat lunch or something like that. I didn't add any crazy rigorous stuff like "and then the decision gets stuck on a queue and we have to vote 2 of 3 just to discuss it" like they have in real government constitutions.

Finally, I noticed we're trying to come up with a cool acronym for the qa guys, and we have the Evil Triumvirate. We need a cool name for the development team. :)
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Post by Z-Man »

Can't speak for the others, but really, all I ever wanted to be is... is...
A Lightcycle Repairman!
Or, failing that, a lumberjack.
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Post by Lucifer »

Do you want to put on women's clothing and hang around in bars?
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- Iron Maiden
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Post by Z-Man »

Yes. Right after next Wednesday's shopping trip, I'm going to start the "Swamplords in Drag" server.

Now, seriously, AADevTeam or just AA-Team always was enough for me. Especially AA-Team, as it implies we kick more ass than the A-Team.
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Post by gnorty »

I dunno. Mr T is rumoured to be an awesome C++ coder.
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