Placement of Social Networking (and other) Icons on MegaGlest.org

[ultifd]

I believe the reason since MG is open source/free, everything directly related to it has to be like that too...or free just has to mean free in that way, I guess. IMO its just icons, but whatever...

[Omega]

I believe the reason since MG is open source/free, everything directly related to it has to be like that too...or free just has to mean free in that way, I guess. IMO its just icons, but whatever...

Only in your mind, as long as they are used within their license, images on the website can be completely separate from the engine itself. Since MG is not commercial, and is unlikely to ever be (oh, god, no), you can use the icons on the website perfectly fine. Looking at the page closer, it's not even CC-BY-NC-SA, but simply "Free for non-commercial use", with no official license declared, thus, you don't have to even credit the author.

One thing of note, though, is that many, many sites, both commercial and non-commercial, have an instance of the exact facebook, twitter, digg it, etc sites available (to better publicize the page, not quite the same as we're doing, though it would be a great idea to do that), so there must be some official icons available for use.

[ultifd]

Yes, I know that's true, but that's just why I think tomreyn said that...

[tomreyn]

'Freeware' is an ambigious term which usually refers to proprietary content, available at no cost (certain conditions usually apply, though). So this is free as in beer but not libre. You are not allowed to create modifications of such work, nor to republish modified work, often you are not even allowed to republish/distribute the original, unmodified work.

My intention is to check the website code and artwork into subversion at some point. If such images are amongst it, then it means that restrictions apply which would possibly/most likely prevent this, and I don't want this to happen, so please let's use only libre artwort (within the boundaries of what Wikimedia commons accepts, as described in an earlier posting). Wikimedia Commons also has some or all of the logos you need available, so the easiest way is probably to go with those.

[Omega]

My intention is to check the website code and artwork into subversion at some point.

Erm, why?

[tomreyn]

When you have a Free Software line of thought then the right question to ask is actually "Why should I not share this and make this accessible?". And I can't currently think of any reason not to do so.
I can, however, think of several reasons why it can make sense to do it: accessibility, reuse, to create and provide (to us) patches to improve the web application and website contents, to maintain patchsets / diffs against the CMS (admin backend SSL support), creating derivative / arbitrary work.

[Omega]

When you have a Free Software line of thought then the right question to ask is actually "Why should I not share this and make this accessible?". And I can't currently think of any reason not to do so.
I can, however, think of several reasons why it can make sense to do it: accessibility, reuse, to create and provide (to us) patches to improve the web application and website contents, to maintain patchsets / diffs against the CMS (admin backend SSL support), creating derivative / arbitrary work.

Except the website is open source. HTML is rendered client side, and the full code is available by simply viewing the source. The only exception is server side code, which is done by the server and only what the code tells to output will be seen by the client, which is generally the desired behavior, as PHP code can often be very delicate, and leaving it open to others can allow someone to easily hack the site.

With the exception of the automatically generated techtree documentation and pages meant only for the masterserver, there's only 11 pages, which share many of the same resources. I'm not against subversioning the site, just don't see a reason to bother with such a small site, and an open SVN is a bad idea, since it only allows people to see the more delicate PHP code which should generally remain hidden...

On another topic, there's a slight typo on line 136 of index.html, where it contains the term "andattackenemies" without the proper spacing.

[tomreyn]

I've considered all of this, Omega, but come to different conclusions. Please don't be affronted that I won't explain or discuss my reasoning in more detail, it just takes more time than I think is worth spending on this discussion. At some point decisions need to be taken, and currently, and so far, for the MegaGlest website, it's me who needs to take them.

[ultifd]

http://www.komodomedia.com/download/ (Scroll down a bit.)

Free for use with a link back to komodomedia.com.
Social Network Icon Pack by Komodo Media, Rogie King is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.komodomedia.com.

OR

http://www.iconspedia.com/icon/facebook-hand-drawn-10264.html
(DL: http://www.iconspedia.com/dload.php?up_id=56319)
http://www.iconspedia.com/icon/twitter-hand-drawn-1025-.html
(DL: http://www.iconspedia.com/dload.php?up_id=56294)
http://www.iconspedia.com/icon/youtube-144-4.html
(DL: http://www.iconspedia.com/dload.php?up_id=78956)

[tomreyn]

Both options look good to me in license terms.

[ultifd]

Well, I think the first pack will fit the website a bit better than the hand drawn ones...

[ultifd]

So, when is this happening?

[tomreyn]

We need good looking images which are all the same file format (preferrably JPEG or PNG), are optimized to small file sizes, have all the same dimensions of no more than 32x32 pixels. A proof of them being free content should be provided (web link to their origin web page which states so is sufficent). We also need, for each of these images, the location where they are to link to.

I guess I can help with this. So we have Twitter, Facebook and Youtube:

Twitter:
http://twitter.com/megaglest

Facebook:
Can you help there, ultifd?

Youtube:
I guess this is currently your account, ultifd? Can we have a 'megaglest' account for this instead? This would, in my opinion, be better because of:
* The name matches the software, it just seems logical to me.
* Search engine optimisation
 * Provide people with assurance that this is indeed an 'official' channel

I guess moving the videos around would involve quite a bit of work for you, which is probably undesirable. So I just registered the 'megaglest' account on Youtube and I think we can just use this to link to the videos on your account. What do you think?

Anything else?

[John.d.h]

I guess moving the videos around would involve quite a bit of work for you, which is probably undesirable. So I just registered the 'megaglest' account on Youtube and I think we can just use this to link to the videos on your account. What do you think?

The channel should be able to show videos that Megaglest has "favorited", as well as ones uploaded to that account.

[tomreyn]

I was trying to do this yesterday, but then I really don't want to mess around with Youtube. Is anyone else interested in doing this, preferrably Ultifd, who has been doing a great job in the video area in the past?

[tomreyn]

I spent some more time on setting up the 'megaglest' account on youtube yesterday. Videos aren't my hobby, so if anyone else would like to manage this account I'd appreciate it. I'll happily setup a personal e-mail address on megaglest.org and one for videos[at]megaglest.org.

[ultifd]

Oh right, that's a good idea. I'll work on the youtube channel later on, just email me the password.
FB? Simple https://www.facebook.com/megaglest

What about the ModDB Icon?

[tomreyn]

Oh right, that's a good idea. I'll work on the youtube channel later on, just email me the password.

Sure, can you tell me your e-mail address then?

If you later want to move (or copy) videos from your existing account to the new one, I tried to find out how to do this, and came up with this:
https://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=97380
https://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=1057297
https://www.google.com/support/forum/p/youtube/thread?tid=2828394279c8176b
It seems to be a mostly manual process, but it might be better than just linking to the existing videos - or not - I'm sure you'll find a good solution.

FB? Simple https://www.facebook.com/megaglest

Oops. So far I always saw URLs with numbers in them, so I expected it would be one like that.

What about the ModDB Icon?

Do we need ModDB? After all, we have our own, just without a web interface so far. (Providing a web interface which feeds into the in-game mod DB would be nice.)
So if we need it, why? And did you find a libre icon for it - I think you tried to find one before and said there is none, isn't it? I've just contacted Desura to inquire whether they can make one available - just in case we end up advertising their product.

[Omega]

Oh right, that's a good idea. I'll work on the youtube channel later on, just email me the password.

Sure, can you tell me your e-mail address then?

See the mail icon in Ultifd's posts (and profile)? Click dat.

What about the ModDB Icon?

Do we need ModDB? After all, we have our own, just without a web interface so far. (Providing a web interface which feeds into the in-game mod DB would be nice.)
So if we need it, why? And did you find a libre icon for it - I think you tried to find one before and said there is none, isn't it? I've just contacted Desura to inquire whether they can make one available - just in case we end up advertising their product.

I don't see why not to include them. We can't expect everything to be ultra-mega free, and the more something appears on the web, the better.

[tomreyn]

Sure, can you tell me your e-mail address then?

See the mail icon in Ultifd's posts (and profile)? Click dat.

This doesn't provide me with ultifd's e-mail address, though. It just makes the board send an email and those tend to end up in peoples' spam folders. Plus, when I send a password by e-mail (which I don't normally do anyways because it's like sending passwords on a postcard, but there's no other option here) I want to ensure that (at least) the outbound environment is one that I know I can trust.

Do we need ModDB?

I don't see why not to include them. We can't expect everything to be ultra-mega free, and the more something appears on the web, the better.

You are just negating the question, but not really explaining why it would be needed. When we consider to place free advertisements for a commercial endeavour on every single page of the MegaGlest website then I think it is valid to ask question "why should we, and what do we get in return?"

I guess there are somewhat acceptable answers for the other icons: Facebook is something so widespread  these days - and so excluding - that not using it might mean that some people miss MegaGlest, and Twitter and Youtube provide functionality we are not currently able to provide ourselves, namely a newsfeed and video hosting. So what are the reasons we depend on ModDB? What's our benefit of advertising them?

Don't get me wrong there, it's not that I dislike them, it's just that I don't make decisions without being clear about the underlying facts and proper reasoning. So if we come up with reasons to advertise them then we can surely add them.

One such reason would be an even link exchange: we place their icon and link on every single web page, and they do the same. Something tells me this is not going to happen, though.

[John.d.h]

Wasn't MegaGlest featured on the front page of ModDB once?  It seems reasonable to promote their project if they promote(d) yours.

[Omega]

This doesn't provide me with ultifd's e-mail address, though. It just makes the board send an email and those tend to end up in peoples' spam folders. Plus, when I send a password by e-mail (which I don't normally do anyways because it's like sending passwords on a postcard, but there's no other option here) I want to ensure that (at least) the outbound environment is one that I know I can trust.

I can't be certain, since I haven't tested on a non-admin account, but clicking that button for me opens a form which also happens to display their email on that form, as a (mailto) link. Even if not, you can rest assured that the folks at SMF put plenty of security into the email system. Even admins cannot read personal messages or emails (though they can see a PM if the reciever(s) report it).

You are just negating the question, but not really explaining why it would be needed. When we consider to place free advertisements for a commercial endeavour on every single page of the MegaGlest website then I think it is valid to ask question "why should we, and what do we get in return?"

I guess there are somewhat acceptable answers for the other icons: Facebook is something so widespread  these days - and so excluding - that not using it might mean that some people miss MegaGlest, and Twitter and Youtube provide functionality we are not currently able to provide ourselves, namely a newsfeed and video hosting. So what are the reasons we depend on ModDB? What's our benefit of advertising them?

Don't get me wrong there, it's not that I dislike them, it's just that I don't make decisions without being clear about the underlying facts and proper reasoning. So if we come up with reasons to advertise them then we can surely add them.

One such reason would be an even link exchange: we place their icon and link on every single web page, and they do the same. Something tells me this is not going to happen, though.

Firstly, SEO logic pops in: more places something is linked from, the better (it's entirely possible, of course, that ModDB has stated all external links be no-follow, but doubt it). Then there's John's point. Not to mention that it provides a fast mirror for downloads, and allows users who are purely searching ModDB to find the game.

[tomreyn]

I can't be certain, since I haven't tested on a non-admin account, but clicking that button for me opens a form which also happens to display their email on that form, as a (mailto) link.

It doesn't provide the e-mail address to mere mortals, nor is it anywhere in the HTML source code.

Even if not, you can rest assured that the folks at SMF put plenty of security into the email system. Even admins cannot read personal messages or emails (though they can see a PM if the reciever(s) report it).

I'm pretty sure the server admin has access to the database contents. And I think that's even the case for the SMF admin role.

Thanks for providing some reasons to link to ModDB. I'm not fully convinced it does much good but it may make sense since some mods have started using them. So be it, I've now installed all the icons on the website. Currently it looks a little silly, it would be nicer if they would be properly centered, but I'm not sure how to achieve this. If anyone knows, please shout.

I've updated the Credits page to properly attribute the authors of these and to point out the permissions/license grants we have received.

We're also part of the Free Game Alliance now, an effort to support and promote Free Software games, which has just been given life to, so there's another logo for this project on the site now.