@ElizaWy: Re UX redesign: yeah, that's what I was thinking; It can really get some attention and encourage an influx of support, though it seems there is a divide on that. A lot of people feel the current layout is good. I agree, and I don't intend to dedicate a bunch of resources to UX redesign if it takes away resources from site migration. Fortunately, it shouldn't actually draw much more resources. It's like flushing the transmission while you have the engine pulled out for an overhaul. Normally, a transmission flush takes a lot of effort, but almost all of that effort has already been done just getting the engine out of the car. We might as well do the transmission too while it's easy.
Why stay away from Drupal and PHP? What is a better alternative?
@withthelove: Re patreon bar: so it is just the progress bar that needs to go? Or don't mention patreon at all? Replace patreon stuff with kickstarter or whatever? or patreon is fine, but we should have a reworked patreon page first?
"patreon goals ... actually make a lot of sense"
What's the difference between those and 'option #2'? Just to clarify, my concept of 'option #2' has no "exclusive content" involved. It is contributors commissioning (non-exclusive) art that is immediately released to the public as soon as the goal is met and/or commission is complete. Rather, it is artists donating commissions for the sake of migration funding, and contributors paying for that commission on behalf of OGA.
"...goals and the FAQ bit, I take them as an implicit promise that no one is going to get rich off OGA donations,..
That is how I take it as well. Even with this funding we're talking about, I plan to take zero dollars for any of this, even if I incur expenses of my own. The funds would be for services that I cannot do myself, not to recoup out-of-pocket expenses, and certainly not for personal profit.
...The issue is a lack of any onboarding process for volunteers... people have energy and want to help out but there's no way for them to channel that energy into the site itself...
HAHAHAHA! Definitely not. Here is a more translator-friendly version of the same text:
Effective communication is important. I found those images using archaic techniques. This gave me an approximation of the source of the images. It is not necessary to abandon those images, but if you prefer to proceed to new art searches, we can leave those behind and recruit people to help you find useful art. I am confident it will progress quickly.
P.S. Great idea about replacing IRC link with Discord link. If people still want the IRC stuff, we can keep doing both, but IRC seems pretty inactive to me. Discord link has been put on the "Chat with us!" sidebar.
@WithTheLove: The patreon link is not actually back. You can see it because you're a challenge moderator. This is so I can ask you "How does it look? What should we change going forward?"
"Free and open might be a slight issue, best license may be OGA-by or CC-by license types. its open but not so open where someone could buy it or receive as exclusive content, only to sell or upload for free elsewhere which would defeat the purpose of the thing..."
Eh, I was already leaning more toward a "contributors give, but everyone benefits" style of things. That's why I mentioned option #2: "The exclusive content becomes available under one of our typical open licenses as funding goals are met." This may mean some people don't bother to contribute because they know the special donated content will become available eventually, but it may also help encourage people who are unable to contribute (or only able to contribute a small amount) to spread the word so that their friends will jump in and fill in the gaps.
"...before we go down the drupal road, have we considered other options? Man power: is OGA more likely to get more volunteers to work on the site if a different development tool is used. there could be 100+ members here that are more fluent in say Java, CSS & HTML etc then there are in Drupal."
It's possible using some other framework may open up more volunteers. It's definitely worth considering. I haven't heard many other suggestions besides HTML+CSS, though. Which is a bit like suggesting programming a game in assembly as an alternative to Unity or Godot. Yes, Drupal/Unity is large and more niche than HTML+CSS/Assembly, but they do a huge amount of the work for you compared to the alternative. I'm not a big fan of Drupal myself, but if there's a more robust content management alternative, it needs to be more ubiquitous than Drupal AND it can't make the migration of Drupal content to a non-drupal platform prohibitively complicated/expensive. The main reason to go from Drupal to new-Drupal is because, as complicated as data migration would be, it's still lightyears simpler than a data migration from Drupal to something-else. The increase in contributions and volunteers needs to do more than offset that additional complexity.
"...I can't stress enough what an awful, awful idea introducing any kind of exclusive, pay-walled, or otherwise paid for art is. It violates the very first principal of OpenGameArt which is that all this art is meant to be free and shared publicly...."
I don't disagree, but OGA creating commissioned art in exchange for contributions was baked into the site from the beginning: https://opengameart.org/content/faq#q-notanartist"From time to time, we commission artists to create free art. If you're interested in donating money to the cause, you can donate to our PayPal account." However, the very next line is "All donations will go directly toward art commissions (as opposed to, say, hosting costs)" So it is true this is a slightly different situation. Never the less, it is still a component of the original (currently outdated) Patreon: Rewards for tiers 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 are all about custom exclusive assets in exchange for contributions. As chasersgaming has said, any sort of 'paid for' assets would be separate from OGA and created specifically for the fund raising campaign, not taken from free assets nor put behind a paywall on OGA. This is also why I'm more in favor of option #2: Yes, the assets are being commissioned for contributions, but once done, everyone benefits from more free assets, not just the people who contributed. As bart has said "Please note note that OpenGameArt.org is, and always will be, free for everyone. I do not expect anyone to donate in exchange for using the site, as that would defeat the purpose. This page is here for people who would like to contribute."
"The idea of dust-binning years worth of accumulated art work is insane."
I agree. Here is the reality: OGA is heading for a point where the choices we will face are A] OGA is gone (Yes, just gone. Only Archive.org will remember the site), or B] A new OGA is made and submissions are manually resubmitted to the new OGA.
The whole purpose of this fundraising idea is to change our fate before it reaches that point. Creating a new OGA with no plan for a full migration is (relatively) easy. We don't need funding or (as much) help for that. But that's also the last-ditch worst-case scenario. That is what happens if we can't get the funding to power a full site migration where all asset submissions are preserved.
Why not combine them into one submission? A cohesive set of pixel-art monsters. one submission with many items tends to get a lot more attention and favorites than multiple submissions with one item each.
@chasersgaming: Exclusive assets for fundraising. That is a cool idea. So long as it doesn't seem to undermine the 'free and open' nature of OGA, artists can donate some exclusive content to reward others for donating some exclusive funds. I see more than one way to handle that:
Those who become tier-whatever patreons get access to the exclusive content.
The exclusive content becomes available under one of our typical open licenses as funding goals are met.
Exclusive assets are sold or auctioned off. Buyer gets to decide if they want to maintain exclusivity or share openly (with artists pre-approval, of course)
Good point about separating patreon from kickstarter-esque campaigns. Patreon is for recurring sustained donations. Paypal is for one-off contributions. But a campaign to achieve specific (non-recurring) funding goals would probably work very well.
@2DPIXX: we'd love to have your contribution of exclusive content showcased with this! Incidentally, the patreon does have something like the 'official contributor' status, albeit small: "OGA supporter". That or something similar seems like a good fit for this campaign.
...motivation for art donations by highlighting the 5 to 10 latest donators on the front page for more visibility...
Users self-promoting is not against the rules on OGA. That is a bit like ads, but I don't think that would be an issue. "Thank you to our top contributors! Check out their profile/webpage and return the love!"
Regarding 'new version already in the works': We have begun hunting for the best upgrade path and researching how we will migrate data. We're pretty sure the framework will be Drupal, (the site's current framework) but an up-to-date version of it (currently OGA is several years behind the latest stuff... 2016, I think?). We have not settled on any sort of UX or layout and are still open to contributions and suggestions. There have been several design layouts suggested, all of which are fantastic and worthy of consideration. The more ideas we have to work with, the better product we'll end up with. By all means, we'd love to have your take on a UI/UX site layout. It also promotes collaboration when we can all look at each other's concepts for this.
Clarity is key. I found the image using some old school techniques to get a ballpark idea of their origins. You don't need to give up on them cold turkey, but if you feel like tabling the item, we can blow this pop sickle stand and get others to jump on the bandwagon to find you some replacement goods faster than you can say bob's your uncle.
Can you show where the hydra slayer assets are released CC-BY-SA? Otherwise these derivatives should be licensed GPL, shouldn't they?
@ElizaWy: Re UX redesign: yeah, that's what I was thinking; It can really get some attention and encourage an influx of support, though it seems there is a divide on that. A lot of people feel the current layout is good. I agree, and I don't intend to dedicate a bunch of resources to UX redesign if it takes away resources from site migration. Fortunately, it shouldn't actually draw much more resources. It's like flushing the transmission while you have the engine pulled out for an overhaul. Normally, a transmission flush takes a lot of effort, but almost all of that effort has already been done just getting the engine out of the car. We might as well do the transmission too while it's easy.
Why stay away from Drupal and PHP? What is a better alternative?
@withthelove: Re patreon bar: so it is just the progress bar that needs to go? Or don't mention patreon at all? Replace patreon stuff with kickstarter or whatever? or patreon is fine, but we should have a reworked patreon page first?
What's the difference between those and 'option #2'? Just to clarify, my concept of 'option #2' has no "exclusive content" involved. It is contributors commissioning (non-exclusive) art that is immediately released to the public as soon as the goal is met and/or commission is complete. Rather, it is artists donating commissions for the sake of migration funding, and contributors paying for that commission on behalf of OGA.
That is how I take it as well. Even with this funding we're talking about, I plan to take zero dollars for any of this, even if I incur expenses of my own. The funds would be for services that I cannot do myself, not to recoup out-of-pocket expenses, and certainly not for personal profit.
Good point. How do we address that?
HAHAHAHA! Definitely not. Here is a more translator-friendly version of the same text:
P.S. Great idea about replacing IRC link with Discord link. If people still want the IRC stuff, we can keep doing both, but IRC seems pretty inactive to me. Discord link has been put on the "Chat with us!" sidebar.
@WithTheLove: The patreon link is not actually back. You can see it because you're a challenge moderator. This is so I can ask you "How does it look? What should we change going forward?"
Eh, I was already leaning more toward a "contributors give, but everyone benefits" style of things. That's why I mentioned option #2: "The exclusive content becomes available under one of our typical open licenses as funding goals are met." This may mean some people don't bother to contribute because they know the special donated content will become available eventually, but it may also help encourage people who are unable to contribute (or only able to contribute a small amount) to spread the word so that their friends will jump in and fill in the gaps.
It's possible using some other framework may open up more volunteers. It's definitely worth considering. I haven't heard many other suggestions besides HTML+CSS, though. Which is a bit like suggesting programming a game in assembly as an alternative to Unity or Godot. Yes, Drupal/Unity is large and more niche than HTML+CSS/Assembly, but they do a huge amount of the work for you compared to the alternative. I'm not a big fan of Drupal myself, but if there's a more robust content management alternative, it needs to be more ubiquitous than Drupal AND it can't make the migration of Drupal content to a non-drupal platform prohibitively complicated/expensive. The main reason to go from Drupal to new-Drupal is because, as complicated as data migration would be, it's still lightyears simpler than a data migration from Drupal to something-else. The increase in contributions and volunteers needs to do more than offset that additional complexity.
I don't disagree, but OGA creating commissioned art in exchange for contributions was baked into the site from the beginning: https://opengameart.org/content/faq#q-notanartist "From time to time, we commission artists to create free art. If you're interested in donating money to the cause, you can donate to our PayPal account." However, the very next line is "All donations will go directly toward art commissions (as opposed to, say, hosting costs)" So it is true this is a slightly different situation. Never the less, it is still a component of the original (currently outdated) Patreon: Rewards for tiers 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 are all about custom exclusive assets in exchange for contributions. As chasersgaming has said, any sort of 'paid for' assets would be separate from OGA and created specifically for the fund raising campaign, not taken from free assets nor put behind a paywall on OGA. This is also why I'm more in favor of option #2: Yes, the assets are being commissioned for contributions, but once done, everyone benefits from more free assets, not just the people who contributed. As bart has said "Please note note that OpenGameArt.org is, and always will be, free for everyone. I do not expect anyone to donate in exchange for using the site, as that would defeat the purpose. This page is here for people who would like to contribute."
I agree. Here is the reality: OGA is heading for a point where the choices we will face are A] OGA is gone (Yes, just gone. Only Archive.org will remember the site), or B] A new OGA is made and submissions are manually resubmitted to the new OGA.
The whole purpose of this fundraising idea is to change our fate before it reaches that point. Creating a new OGA with no plan for a full migration is (relatively) easy. We don't need funding or (as much) help for that. But that's also the last-ditch worst-case scenario. That is what happens if we can't get the funding to power a full site migration where all asset submissions are preserved.
That sounds great! Your RPG sprite pack has TONS of stuff, so I'm looking forward to seeing these new collections.
I'm liking these.
Why not combine them into one submission? A cohesive set of pixel-art monsters. one submission with many items tends to get a lot more attention and favorites than multiple submissions with one item each.
@chasersgaming: Exclusive assets for fundraising. That is a cool idea. So long as it doesn't seem to undermine the 'free and open' nature of OGA, artists can donate some exclusive content to reward others for donating some
exclusivefunds. I see more than one way to handle that:Good point about separating patreon from kickstarter-esque campaigns. Patreon is for recurring sustained donations. Paypal is for one-off contributions. But a campaign to achieve specific (non-recurring) funding goals would probably work very well.
@2DPIXX: we'd love to have your contribution of exclusive content showcased with this! Incidentally, the patreon does have something like the 'official contributor' status, albeit small: "OGA supporter". That or something similar seems like a good fit for this campaign.
Users self-promoting is not against the rules on OGA. That is a bit like ads, but I don't think that would be an issue. "Thank you to our top contributors! Check out their profile/webpage and return the love!"
Regarding 'new version already in the works': We have begun hunting for the best upgrade path and researching how we will migrate data. We're pretty sure the framework will be Drupal, (the site's current framework) but an up-to-date version of it (currently OGA is several years behind the latest stuff... 2016, I think?). We have not settled on any sort of UX or layout and are still open to contributions and suggestions. There have been several design layouts suggested, all of which are fantastic and worthy of consideration. The more ideas we have to work with, the better product we'll end up with. By all means, we'd love to have your take on a UI/UX site layout. It also promotes collaboration when we can all look at each other's concepts for this.
Haha! Ok. Now I understand.
Let me know how the translator does with that. :D
You said "when I did a google image search for the lens, they wrote to me about it." What does that mean? Who wrote to you about it?
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