[Scummvm-devel] GOG-Affiliate program, recent additions to website

[Max Horn]

Clem,

I understand that you are upset about the addition of GOG.com banners  
not having been announced before on scummvm-devel. I can also  
understand that you are upset about your post having been removed by  
the forum by Eugene. I do not (yet?) agree with many of your other  
points, but that's OK and no reason not to debate :).

As for the lack of communication, I regret that and apologize for it.  
It was a mistake, and one I should have known not to make, considering  
how often I preach that good communication is key. Again, sorry. Alas,  
I cannot undo what has happened, I can only try to continue as  
positively and constructively as possible. So, let's try to keep  
personal issues separate from the content & design issues. In  
particular, let's try to be constructive. Saying "I hate XYZ" is of  
course allowed, but it's usually much more helpful to add "and I think  
you could improve it by doing ABC", or even "and I am willing to  
help" :-). Considering this whole project is based on volunteer's  
effort, that usually gives much better results ;-).


Now, there is one point that really stuck out to me in your posts: You  
referred several times to the forum design being "yours",. I feel I  
have to make one thing absolutely clear: Independent of the content  
and/or potential outcome of the current debate, in my eyes it is not  
acceptable for our forum design to be "owned" by a single person.  
Period. I just checked, and sadly we put forum template under a clear  
license :/. Bad for all involved parties, IMHO.

However, it is my deep conviction that we cannot continue in a  
situation where a single individual (no matter whether it is you, me,  
Eugene, whoever) can dictate what we do by claiming exclusive  
ownership to part of the project. Our code is under the GPL for that  
reason. Likewise, I am convinced that we must have also a website /  
forum / wiki design which is under a free license.

In conclusion, I see only two alternatives: Either all people part of  
the creation of our current Forum template agree to putting it under a  
suitable license (GFDL, Creative Commons, whatever -- and of course  
credits & copyright are not affected by that). Or we immediately  
revert to some default layout and build a fresh forum layout, this  
time under an appropriate license from the start.



That fundamental issue made clear, I want to go into some more factual  
points. As I understand you bring up roughly the following subjects:

(I) Criticism of the affiliate program with GOG.

(II) Criticism of design changes made to the forum template: Adding  
contact & gog links.

(III) Criticism of design changes made to the main website.



Regarding (I): While you say that the forum template changes are the  
most important to you, IMO this one is actually the core issue: If we  
were not affiliate with GOG, we would not have the discussion, after  
all. The whole discussion is completely different depending on whether  
one argues based on the assumption that (a) the GOG affiliation is  
here to stay, or (b) it has to go away ASAP.

In case of (a), one has to accept that'll place banners/links to GOG  
on the forums and website and then proceeds to discuss how to make  
that look best, constructively.
In case of (b) one can just revert to the previous state.

So, we probably should as a project full of individuals first  
determine whether to go on with (a) or (b) (something we should have  
done *before* entering the program, indeed). Although, no, I don't  
think that Sev and me *have* to discuss such things. We are not run by  
consensus but rather are a meritocracy. But yeah, we *should* discuss  
such things, and heed what people want, because otherwise people might  
feel unhappy and leave the project. Not good.

So, I'd like everybody here who is opposed to entering an affiliate  
program to GOG.com to speak up now. To remind everybody once more, an  
affiliate program only makes sense if we place banners and links to  
them in prominent places. If one disagrees with that, one disagree  
with the affiliation :-).


You ask why we are not affiliate with ebay or amazon. E.g. you wrote  
"As far as I know, Amazon also does sell Broken Sword.", or "Amazon  
also does have an affiliate program for all I know". True. Now while I  
consider most of your remarks in that regard as purely rhetorical, the  
main point was already answered: Because GOG focuses on classic games  
and in particular *uses* ScummVM. While ebay and amazon satisfy  
neither. Also, they got in personal touch with us and apparently  
appreciate ScummVM and DOSBox a lot. To Ebay and amazon, we are  
nothing more than insects.




Regarding (II):

We don't have to lead this discussion if we don't agree to go on with  
the affiliate program: In that case, we'd just revert. Hence, the  
following is written under the assumption that we go on with it.

First, "no other websites does X" or "almost all other phpBB templates  
do Y" are not arguments in themselves. They are at most pretext to  
actual arguments, as in "No other template places a 'Contact us' link  
there *because* XYZ". Without the "XYZ" part, it's an empty rhetoric  
statement.

All in all I extracted the following factual arguments from your mails:

1) "From a logical point of view, neither "contact us" nor an  
advertisement make sense in this line: they are not related to using  
the forum, they are not two "large entities" like scummvm website VS  
forum. "

-> This is only "logical" if one accepts the postulate / axiom that  
the top line of our forum may only be used as you say. Well, I don't  
"believe" in this axiom, at least not until gives me sufficient reason  
as to why it makes sense (i.e., derives it from other axioms which I  
do accept, such as usability etc. ;-).

2) The top bar of the forum is now very wide (too wide?). If the  
screen resolution is not wide enough, that has unpleasant side effects.
3) The GOG.com link is in bold and sticks out in an unpleasant way.

-> While 3) is a somewhat subjective one, I still tend to agree with  
both points. Let's think of a solution, then, not the problem :-). As  
for the "contact us": It was added because we had the problem that  
people didn't figure out how to contact staff properly. I think giving  
people the opportunity to find out how to do that is very important.

Some ideas on how to resolve the crowded space issue:
* Use a small banner image for the "Buy games" part
* Use two rows of text (probably doesn't mesh nicely with the layout,  
though)
* Get rid of the "Forum Index" link -- it is not needed that much, as  
most pages have a much bigger "Forum Index" link a bit below. Notable  
exceptions are the search, profile and PM pages, but we could find  
separate solutions for them. Or just turn the ScummVM logo into a link  
back to the forum index after all -- I don't see what we loose by  
doing that. IMO it's a mistake to believe that website could be built  
upon purely "logical" reasoning, given that at some point the human  
factor has to enter the picture, rendering most of the carefully  
crafted logical arguments invalid :-).



Regarding (III)

The current placement of the banner looks ugly, period. We already  
asked them for a smaller button to be placed there. I hope that  
resolves that issue with the main website.


Bye,
Max