User:RaveRadbury/Guide/Outrage

New Thing Bad: A Guide to Navigating Outrage Cycles in the Community and Keeping Your Sanity, Even When You're Against It, Too

Hi there.

You're likely reading this because you're seeing your first Bad New Thing That Will Kill /tg/station in the community. I will assume that you're new but I'd hope that the advice here is helpful to any level of robustness.

You've been enjoying working on the station for quite some time now, and you've likely made some cool friends! In the light of Bad New Thing being announced, some of those friends are saying that they've had it with this place and are heading out. The change is going to ruin the game, the coders aren't listening, player opinions don't matter. People seem angry about it and when you go look into it you find that you're not much of a fan of the change either, and this whole thing seems like bullshit!!

Pretty intense!

You might think, "This is so crazy, everyone's talking about this, this has never happened before." Actually it's pretty commonplace. This is a community event that occurs less than once a year. Strap in and remember, the ride does stop at some point.

Before I go any further I want to do a quick simple thought experiment with you about opinions and having them and engaging them in the community. Imagine that your opinion is a hollow plastic novelty bat. Oversized, has a satisfying bonk to it. Separate from you, something that you can beat people over the head with, for fun. This is where you can be, this is the kind of discourse and banter you can have with people, people you disagree with even. This is the kind of attitude that has produced forum gimmicks and other fun, engaged, clever material that is great reading.

I get that you're likely not there right now and I'm not asking you to just "stop being mad", I just want you to have that in mind as I describe the organizational structures around you and their limits.

The coding team has several roles and there are (fewer) corresponding tags on github Head Coder (Member) 3 of them. They make the big decisions, like game direction. They were likely Maintainers and before that, contributors. They merge PRs. The head coders are meant to be the face of the codebase arm. Criticism and appeals will be directed to them because it is their job to engage it. You will find that many will refer you to them. This is the way it is.

Maintainer (Member) Contributors who have demonstrated programming ability and dedicated time to to project. Tend to be responsible for different parts of the code. They merge PRs. Helps the head coders realize their vision by merging PRs in-line with goals and sometimes coding it themselves.

Issue Manager (Member) Volunteers who go through the issues on github and tag and verify them. The role has no impact on merges or design.

Contributor (Github only) Community members who have had a PR merge into /tg/station. Not particularly difficult to achieve. Considered by many to be the barrier to entry on whether or not your opinion will get courtesy respect in PR comments.

Player (No badge on github) Community members who have never had a PR merge into /tg/station. Generally respected when they post respectfully and thoughtfully. If they barrel in malding and everyone can tell that they didn't read the PR body before posting they will find that their comment may get deleted/hidden, ignored, or laughed at (I will laugh).