Messages

1

Front Page News / Re: ROM Hacks: New Hacks Added to the Database

« on: Today at 01:45:35 pm »

It is automated, but these days it is set so staff is able to choose when to run the RHDNBot News and it actually gets sent to the submission queue for edit/approval before it goes to front page. One of the staff decided to add the images. It seems like a nice touch. I may have RHDNBot choose two random images in the future for Hack and Translation round-up news.

2

Site Talk / Re: What's up with these Genesis Screenshots?

« on: Today at 08:16:27 am »

The images are all 256 width though. They're not even 320x240...

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Site Talk / Re: What's up with these Genesis Screenshots?

« on: June 18, 2013, 09:44:40 am »

Right. I think both the normal and split screen images are all wrong then. The normal images should be 320x224, and the split screen should be 320x480.

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Site Talk / Re: Community Database Release Labels, People, and Credits

« on: June 14, 2013, 12:05:42 pm »

Yes, that's normal. It's not duplication.

There's the 'Released by' field for the entity or label for the release. Then, there's the credits which list the actual people and specific contributions to the project under said release label.

So, KingMike's Translations is the release label for the translations you've released. KingMike is you, the person. Such as here:
http://www.romhacking.net/translations/388/

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Site Talk / Re: Public Flagging of Items for Deletion

« on: June 14, 2013, 09:47:24 am »

The other thing that we need to do somehow is make users aware that before you flag anything as defunct, duplicate, or noncompliant, you should address the problem if applicable.

For instance, these were recently brought to our attention:
http://www.romhacking.net/community/1821/
http://www.romhacking.net/community/2532/

What you should be doing is editing the effected entries to point to the correct (or best entry if both are equally correct) community profile, and then flag the now defunct one for removal.

What we don't want is reporting one or both of them and now staff has to figure it out and edit all the entries to point to the other before one can be removed. That's counter-productive and I really want to avoid that behavior.

I'm afraid if we're not careful we're going to create a situation of more staff work because we inadvertently created an avenue for people to report any old problem and not handle it in full capacity themselves. The intention is the opposite, more control to the public to handle nearly every possible scenario on the site! This is just a public maintenance removal control mechanism.

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Site Talk / Re: Staff Crisis

« on: June 14, 2013, 09:28:15 am »

That's a cop-out. I thought you had serious candidates. The post list is a poor list. 7 haven't been here in months (or even years), 6 more have 0 submissions, 14 people we either currently employ or have employed in the past, and most of the remaining ones visit sporadically, and by that I mean often go up to some weeks without visiting. The entire page could be employed and we'd have a productivity increase of 5%. The submission list is just as bad for similar reasons. A number of people there don't visit very often, some have many submissions but are known for poor quality submissions, and many are already employed with us or have been in the past.

We've already gone through these lists and currently have or have previously tried most suitable candidates. I'm sure there are a few that may have alluded us or circumstances changed since we tried, but this topic is open invitation to bring them back out. Also, quite a number of suitable people simply didn't have any desire to handle submissions, staff inquiries, and what not when asked in the past.

In summary this pretty much tells us that we need to open it up to anyone who is willing if we wish to return to an unlimited queue again. Otherwise, so long as we keep a traditional staff as we know it, limitations must remain.

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Site Talk / Re: What's up with these Genesis Screenshots?

« on: June 13, 2013, 01:33:37 pm »

Looks like they were already replaced now.

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Site Talk / Re: Public Flagging of Items for Deletion

« on: June 13, 2013, 01:31:14 pm »

How about 'Mark Defunct' or 'Report as Defunct'? That might be more suitable here for the maintenance reasons one would be using it.

Wording is a bit tricky as we don't want to encourage newcomers to think staff handles any edits or mistakes and they report them that way. It's amazing how many people don't even know you can edit entries here. We get quite a few Contact Staff edit/add requests. It's gotten much better with the new more visible site buttons and layout, but we still get them from time to time.

9

Site Talk / Re: Submission Questions

« on: June 13, 2013, 01:24:01 pm »

Ok, I will let Sin and Punishment stay. I still do not think it belongs here by principle of scope (I really don't want open door policy for all N64 texture packs), but it does appear to be the only one of its kind and it's not hurting anything to leave it. Enough points were made. We'll let it go for now until/if we ever see another translation like this.

10

Site Talk / Re: Staff Crisis

« on: June 13, 2013, 09:21:08 am »

If the problem is finding people to help out full-time, why not add a bunch of part-time staff? I mean, I can think of at least 20-30 members who I think are trustworthy enough to approve submissions. I think lack of ability to commit to time is common in the ROM hacking community, especially with the more mature or discerning people you'd actually want doing staff work. 

This also nicely handles the case of people who might not be able to make a daily commitment, but at on certain days may be able to put a lot of time in - I think there's a lot of us who fall into that category.

While I am open to the idea of a semi-public nomination pool like this, I am skeptical. Please list. I will look at the visitation and submission stats. I imagine many will not have visits frequently enough to make a difference nor have many (if any) submissions to the site to justify being put in such position.

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Site Talk / What's up with these Genesis Screenshots?

« on: June 13, 2013, 09:02:07 am »

What is up with these Sonic Hack screenshots?

http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/1348/
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/1350/
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/1351/

While 320x480 is a valid Genesis resolution according to our system rules, they would appear to be obviously incorrect aspect ratio visually. I know on some consoles, there can be a technical reasons, due to the way the hardware works, why a clean image would be skewed, but the final output would not be. I'm not a Genesis guy though, so I don't have knowledge of 320x480 mode.

Are these screenshots acceptable? Or should these entries be removed (or fixed if anyone volunteers to do so)?

12

Gaming Discussion / Re: E3 Topic

« on: June 12, 2013, 09:43:11 am »

I've always thought it would be a cool idea if they did a beat 'em up game with the Super Smash Bros. teaming up as all playable characters (or perhaps split into good vs. bad groups). There's just so much you can do with an All-Star type franchise like that. They haven't even scratched the surface!

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Site Talk / Re: Staff Crisis

« on: June 11, 2013, 06:26:47 pm »

It means any single user can only have up to 10 unapproved items sitting in the queue at any given time. As soon as any are approved, you can submit more. The same goes for the global limit.

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Newcomer's Board / Re: When's the best time to submit a file?

« on: June 11, 2013, 11:08:01 am »

The queue is open again with a per user max limit of 10 unapproved submissions, and a global limit of 50 total unapproved submissions.

I've thought about removing those old dead Whirlpool patches for games that have subsequently been translated by someone else. But there's just no real policy for that. Why remove them? Because they're useless? As soon as you start labeling things 'useless' and removing, that's a dangerous slope where we all are bound to heavily disagree on.

The only grounds for a sound policy change would be if we only allow complete translations. That was an unpopular idea in the past. Many find much value in partial patches (especially if no full patch exists). Then there's that huge grey area of what constitutes 'complete', which we have debating some in past years. Eh, no thank you to that.

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Site Talk / Re: Staff Crisis

« on: June 11, 2013, 11:00:31 am »

The queue is open again with a per user max limit of 10 unapproved submissions, and a global limit of 50 total unapproved submissions. We will tweak accordingly if necessary. We've also recruited all suitable volunteers from this thread to increase man power.

This should get us by for awhile as we continue to work toward eliminating staff. Plenty of good points and thoughts were brought up in this thread. As with many things there is no easy answer. I think all ideas presented here had some valid criticism. I usually go for for a balanced approach in such cases.

I will probably offer a file rollback limited to a time frame that works reasonably with our resources. Then, the groups able to approve/reject and rollback (perhaps a different group has rollback privileges) need to be limited by some mechanism. I'm uncertain yet what that mechanism should be. We have seen ideas like post count, nomination, and submission count. How about length of time being registered? We definitely want a mechanism that would not facilitate factions or other abusive group situations. That probably means karma, polling, and similar are out.

stahl:

User education is definitely a huge part of it. Poor submissions from uneducated users require heavy time consuming scrutiny, while some of our top quality guys could be approved near blindly in seconds. We could really use someone to write up more educational passages, continue to rewrite and clarify policy, or work with submitters to improve their quality, and items like that. There's often good ideas, but nobody wants to do them. Any interest?

People these days use the magic tools in our database and don't understand how to identify a ROM, what a header is, or any of that. Others can't successfully use Zebucket Dropbox of fileden for a direct links. Some people don't know you can edit entries on the site and try to submit edits as new. Some don't bother reading the guidelines at all!!

Then, there's the language barrier. Some users simply don't understand anything we say let alone the guidelines! No hope there. We sadly have to ban such users at times because we can't communicate effectively.

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Gaming Discussion / Re: XBOX ONE

« on: June 11, 2013, 10:46:18 am »

Sony gave Microsoft such a spanking E3. I saw this image and have to join in the fun:
http://imgur.com/9w26TlD

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Newcomer's Board / Re: Koryu no Mimi

« on: June 11, 2013, 09:57:15 am »

There actually is a readme, and it does state "no header."

Then, the 'Patching Information' field should be marked as such, and the ROM Information added.

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Newcomer's Board / Re: Koryu no Mimi

« on: June 11, 2013, 09:27:45 am »

When/if you sort this out, please edit the entry with the patching and ROM information so it is clear for benefit of all. It will prevent the next guy who comes along from having the same problems as the information will be clearly there.

19

Site Talk / Re: Staff Crisis

« on: June 10, 2013, 09:52:34 am »

You have not been contacted because staff has informed me that you have had a high number of lesser quality submissions. You have to work on the quality of your own submissions before you can be put in charge of handling other submissions. For further details, contact Azkadellia, Zynk Oxhyde, I.S.T., or KaioShin whom are familiar with your submissions.

That's another piece of it. Not everyone whom may have some time may be suitable for the job. I think we would all agree that to be placed in charge of handling submissions, one should have a good understanding of the guidelines here, and have some history of good submissions demonstrating as such.

20

Site Talk / Re: Staff Crisis

« on: June 09, 2013, 08:37:22 pm »

Yes, it's been up somewhere around 250 submissions before. Gideon's got it. It takes anywhere from 1 to 5 minutes for an average submission depending on the submission quality, your knowledge of said items, and things to check over for that type. That doesn't count any that are pending and need questions answered or staff discussion, rejections where you need to explain or educate someone with limited English, and then there's the regular Contact Staff inquires, and any business outside of that. At peak times there have been many hours of work for all. Regardless, a bottleneck exists.

Wouldn't a solution to the problem with staff just be, get better staff? This isn't some kind of job for life, you know? And if a person can't put in the time that's needed, then someone else should.

Of course, but where do you get this better staff? Who's going to put in the time needed? We've tried adding staff members many times. There's few volunteers when asked. Of those, most candidates are not willing to commit daily time. We've taken whomever we could. Part timers haven't been much use. Without having daily workers, once the queue gets a substantial jolt of submissions, the continued daily volume makes it so the staff can never get ahead of it again without tremendous assault by all. That's the point of eliminating the staff. No one wants to put in such time. And we know keeping reliance on staff will inevitably suffer the same ill-fate that those that have come before us faced. It's always been a goal since day one to eliminate the age-old staff bottleneck.