TDM IRC Channel?

[LinuxDonald]

Give it an The Dark Mod IRC Channel?

[Crispy]

There was one, ages ago (before I joined the mod). Apparently it didn't get much use.

[New Horizon]

There was one, ages ago (before I joined the mod). Apparently it didn't get much use.

 

It got used too much. We spend more time hanging out on IRC chatting than doing any real work. lol

[Vadrosaul]

You guys have a development forum us lowly members don't see. I'm sure it gets used like a chat.

 

Oh the horror stories we here

[New Horizon]

You guys have a development forum us lowly members don't see. I'm sure it gets used like a chat.

 

Oh the horror stories we here

 

Gets used as a chat, but for Mod related discussions.

 

What horror stories? Take anything you hear with a grain of salt. If team members are sharing internal disagreements outside the mod, well...that's too bad, as I think it gives an imbalanced view of the team. People disagree all the time, in life and on forums...nothing new....we can't all run around holding hands and giving each other flowers all the time. Nobody hates anyone...at least not to my knowledge. In any case...that's just how some personalities mix. So turn that frown upside down.

[Tels]

we can't all run around holding hands and giving each other flowers all the time.

 

Well, why actually not? Especially if some of us are women, and naked, I could see this whole "running around holding hands and giving each other flowers" getting wildly popular

[Vadrosaul]

Thanks Dad! I was so very ignorant of the birds & bees of the Dark Mod team dynamics, but now my eyes are wide open

[Skaruts]

Sorry to necro a dead thread, but I was about to create a thread about this, so it doesn't make much difference, I guess.

 

So... is there still no IRC channel? From my point of view it might be a great way of speaking with other mappers about all the little questions I don't think justify a new thread on the forums, among other things. Might be a good thing for new people.

[nbohr1more]

There is an IRC Channel

 

freenode.net

 

#thedarkmod

 

The primary participants are Taaaki and Serpentine

[Skaruts]

Oh nice. Thanks.

[Lux]

Only issue I see with "it might be a great way of speaking with other mappers about all the little questions I don't think justify a new thread on the forums" is that, its hard for us individually to know what constitutes, "a little question that doesn't justify a thread".

 

Many, if not all the questions we come up with, others including myself also have to address, and with IRC there is no searchable written record of the information, and we can't all search chat logs.

 

The forums offer this functionality so those of us that do use the search feature on the forums can usually find what we're looking for, without having to ask the same questions again and again.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love IRC and I'm on arstechnica's IRC channel 24/7 and its great for general conversation however there's a reason corporate email is a good thing and the forums are a good thing.

 

A paper trail.

Edited February 14, 2014 by Lux

[Skaruts]

Questions like "what's this special texture for" or "is there a hotkey for...", or "what keyword should I google for to find this and that". That sort of things are the sort of things I tend to not create threads about. Though, I understand your point, and sometimes I wonder if creating the thread might be a good thing anyway.

 

But when I was learning to use Hammer I was coming across a million situations I didn't know how to deal with (part of it Hammer's own shenanigans that the wiki didn't talk about), and the already quite extensive and in depth wiki still wasn't perfect, and the forums were a good way of getting answers but took a lot of waiting, or a lot of time searching, and sometimes I made a thread only to find the solution to my problem 30 seconds later by myself, or only to find that I had been overlooking something and the thread was moot.

 

I noticed that the time when I actually started making real progress in my learning and started getting my projects moving forward (and my motivation going up), was when I met a german dude who had a lot of experience with Hammer and was always happy to help. He taught me more in like 3 months than I had learned in almost a year with wikis and forums. And some time later I was helping him (and other people) solving rather advanced or very specific problems.

 

The thing is, even though the community around Valve games was already gigantic, the wiki still neglected things, and this will always happen. Not everything ends up being documented. There is always some singular occurrence it will neglect and someone needs help with. On the other hand as the community grows more people may end up documenting such things. On yet another hand (how many hands do I have? lol) if someone gets answers and finishes their map, that map is also an addition to the resources that are available for research.

 

The good thing here is that these forums do actually store information, as opposed to Steam forums that delete many months-old threads.

[RJFerret]

We have the Newbie Editor thread for exactly those types of questions.

 

I do wish I'd noted things I was trying to learn when new that the wiki glossed over, so I could write those articles now.

 

...the wiki still neglected things, and this will always happen. Not everything ends up being documented.

 

But if those things are lost to a non-recorded resource, the wiki development and knowledge base never grows, that's when you see that effect. It's only when there's a unity of information dissemination that permits completing documentation and someone noticing the disconnect.

 

That's how the Editing FAQ developed.