Badges Awarded.

[Buster's Uncle]

Alpha Centauri Bear was good enough last week to ask me about a couple forum contribution badges he'd qualified for - finally awarded.

He also pointed out Induktio, Nevill, Mercantile Interest, EmpathCrawler, dino and Tayta Malikai as deserving.  Are we missing anyone for something badge-worthy?  Are we missing any badges?

-I've also laid only the third AC2 Hall of Fame badge ever awarded on bvanevery.  He gives me more of a pain than anyone ever un-perma'd here - and works harder to promote/build/support AC2 than anyone but me and sisko; it is deeply appreciated, and he really rated another badge while I was in there...

[bvanevery]

Ha!  I only just noticed the badge today.  I was trying to figure out what it meant, especially since there are only 3 of us.  I was trying to figure out if it had something to do with a posts per day threshold.  I came here to ask, if I'm really that long winded?   

Thanks!

And thanks for specifically noticing a promotional contribution.  I just had exactly the opposite experience with the moderator of r/alphacentauri and will not be setting foot there again.  I've spent years trying to boost up the traffic of that sad little sub, and arguably with some success.  When the "real center", r/4Xgaming, has 20x the membership and is so much better run, by people who have really given blood, sweat, and tears for the genre.

I think the r/alphacentauri mod is just some part timer, moderating a bunch of different subs.  They have treated me pretty much like I'm some kind of troll or problem child, because I have strong opinions about the game and will voice them.  Comments that nobody even bats an eyelash about in r/4Xgaming, because it's expected that people will debate these games.  No acknowledgement or even memory of all the things I've done to Make SMAC Great Again.  Like any time I interact with that mod, we're starting over from zero.  "Who are you?"  Not even the slightest basic respect, just "do I what I say or I'll ban you".

r/alphacentauri can get its promotional boosting from somewhere else now.  If there's now a critical mass of people to carry that ball, fine, whatever.  Don't care.  Won't shock me if it gets quieter over time, not louder.  It doesn't have the leadership needed to thrive, and I'm not real convinced that "community organics on Reddit" will carry such things alone.  We'll see.  I'll be interested to see what the sub's health is a year from now.

I'd seize power if there was a way to do that, but AFAICT there isn't.  I don't think making a competing group like r/SMACmods is productive at this time.  I'll stick to r/4Xgaming, with the somewhat respectable 20k membership and a constant influx of "new blood" that will try SMAC.

Anyways, thanks again.  This is the long explanation of why that means something to me.  I'm actually starting feel like there's something like community growth on AC2.  It feels a bit different than a few years ago.  More energy.

[Buster's Uncle]

This is how community building works, of course; job one is to keep generating content, anything relevant to look at and/or read.  -Then you gotta do a little promoting.  Tends to take a few years patient work to amount to something.

Incidentally, we've got a link to our mirror of the defunct official site in the Wikipedia AC article - if we had substantial back-linked YouTube content and I stepped up our Facebook presence, we'd have hit the triple crown of SEO...

[bvanevery]

I'm a bit baffled by YouTube for 4X, particularly for an older game.  I just can't imagine sitting still for someone's "straight play" of SMAC.  There are people on YouTube doing this sort of thing, but the only ones I've noticed with a lot of audience, are "game reviewers / Let's Players" who are doing many games, not just SMAC.  I don't think that's going to result in any traffic direction here.

[Tayta Malikai]

Ah, I didn't realize Tim was the one who brought up the subject. Much appreciated!

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

You are welcome!
Sorry if I missed anybody. Feel free to expand the list.

I just noticed badges are clickable but lead nowhere. Should they lead to their description or something?

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Regarding reddit I think it is not the discussion platform. It is more of advertising or shout and forget platform if you will. Only probably 10 recent posts are monitored by auditory. Anything older than a week is abandoned. Still good for announcements.

I usually consider posting there for mynew releases only if I have something exciting to say about them. Not every bug fix I made.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

While we are on a topic I think it worth to organize the humongous content this site has into some dedicated and easy to browse directory. Forum and wiki do not serve this purpose. It is pretty difficult to find anything there unless one knows where to go already. I am thinking more of organizing resources directory. Not for the search specifically but for browsing. Like if someone like to learn more about this or any other game the whole directory is there sorted and organized in neat manner. The directory could lead to forum topics and wiki articles as well but it should be top level organized by itself.

Why do I think this is important? Because it opens up the whole ecosystem of this game to everybody and increases awareness. Currently, we have pretty little traffic of old guys and not much new people are coming. So this portal could be like an extended guide/manual/introduction to everybody in nice and concise manner. Currently there are some lists of subcontent like mods, art, factions, stories, wiki pages, etc. but they are scattered across different sites and different media. So this portal would serve like an entry point to all possible aspects of the game. Structure wise I am thinking something like this: http://shrines.rpgclassics.com/pc/mm7/. However, it should include not only original game content and description but also all community contribution, etc.

Keep in mind I am not proposing to to write all content there right away. It would be a huge work. More of creating skeleton navigation system where everybody would post their material and link and updates, etc. I don't want to duplicate content either. So linking out existing content is fine.

And if you think something like that already exists but I just wasn't aware - let me know.

[bvanevery]

I don't really understand the example site as being an "improvement".  Frankly it is ugly.  There's a left sidebar with some categories, and as someone who isn't invested in M&M7, I don't know why I'm supposed to care.  The print of the sidebar is small and hard to read.  The visual contrast is poor.  Meanwhile the main part of the page wastes incredible amounts of space without saying anything, providing useful information, or being aesthetically appealing.  This is some hand rolled 1990s style amateur hour.

What we've got here is way better than that.  Even if it has flaws in your view, that site you linked, is simply not a working example of "what would need to change".

Did you mean to link the toplevel site, rather than the M&M7 page?  It is slightly better, but I am still not impressed.  Sidebar is cleaner, better readability and contrast.  Categories are not crazy.  Main viewing area is a bad use of space, just boring big text.  Art direction is substandard compared to AC2.

Now I will contemplate AC2, trying to have the eyes of a beginner, rather than someone who is used to it.  I'll await your reply before commenting further.

Bear in mind that SMAC is an old game and there's only so much audience growing you can do.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I didn't mean this example to be exemplary, pardon the wording. 😂
This was just an example of a top level directory organizational approach I meant. This site does not need an improvement. I was talking about an additional feature that helps people navigate over the whole AC world.

[bvanevery]

Details fullscreen experience

fullscreen experience

Here's what the toplevel site looks like to me.  I don't see any problem with this at all.  It is aesthetically pleasing.  It maximizes content to suck you in.  It has a nav bar that's simple enough to be useful and not intimidating.

I do think that the various sub-areas of the site, lack aesthetic unity, and to a noob may feel "disjoint".  However I don't see that as a dealbreaker for getting info about the game.  I don't know to what degree mere feelings are going to put anyone off to digging around, or locating what they want.  I do have my own cognitive biases as a mostly self-taught computer programmer.  However, it is the 4X genre, so I'm not sure we should assume squeamishness on the part of new players.

The web forum format is old school, and pre social media, but that's fine for me personally.  I don't really need or even want all that "big icon touchpad dumbed down" stuff.  I'm not a moron who doesn't know how to use a computer.  I'm a 4X gamer.

Wikis, well funky art direction and disorganization, are tradeoffs against others being able to add and change stuff freely.  I've not typically seen a wiki that's as organized as a curated website.  They sprawl.  If you want to get stuff out of them, you have to swim.  And if someone wants an experience that's more curated, that's "better than a wiki", well someone has to actually do the work.  Usually someone doesn't, hence wikis.  It's a form of public outsourcing.

I think some anecdotes from people who have actually objected to the AC2 site in some way, would be in order.  Perhaps the many denizens of r/4Xgaming would be willing to comment.  I don't think asking in r/alphacentauri is fruitful, because they don't represent much in the way of new blood.

[Buster's Uncle]

Hmm.

-If members compiled a list w/ links, I could make a .hmtl page and add it to the Resources category at the top of the page...

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Never mind. I think this one servers the purpose. I just have never been there.
http://alphacentauri2.info/ResourceCenter/

[BU Admin]

Dunno - that's a project of mine, and I was thinking of it --- maybe worth it to add a page w/ hyperlinked list of AC2-hosted .exe patches, .txt mods, custom factions and whatever other goodies that might draw people to this community?

I just noticed badges are clickable but lead nowhere. Should they lead to their description or something?

I busted this account to regular member to check, and they still take me to a page with a list of recipients, at least while browsing in Chrome...

[Buster's Uncle]

Mind you, we could just make an AC Wiki page - but I'll be dipped if I can find anything on our wiki in a hurry...