Grimm wrote:Definitely worth having a listen. It sounds like Crawl dev comms disorganization is a growing problem.
It's a problem but I don't see it as a
growing one. It's just part of how things change and progress. Each time a new medium of discussion is added, communication gets a little more... fragmented, I suppose. The tavern is the newest addition that gets significant dev discussion. So in a way, the creation of the tavern was the last time the problem truly grew (note: I think the tavern is a good thing). Dispite all this, there is some semblance of organization. Active developers tend to know what's going on, even when each one is off doing their own thing. Things are discussed, goals are set, and sometimes stuff even gets done (!)
One issue is that one previously active thing (the mailing list) is mostly unused now, in favour of irc (for actual discussion). For longer messages, the wiki or tavern tends to be used. Developers who used to rely on the mailing list are left out, unless they want to read through irc logs (which are publicly available). This has been the case for a while though. I suspect that newcomers like me aren't as bothered by this. But, dpeg joined the project 5 years ago, when communication was handled in an entirely different way.
This problem came up on IRC a while ago, and I thought a good way to help it would be to send summaries of on-topic ##crawl-dev discussion to the mailing list, every two weeks. I've been writing down notable things that have come up on IRC and have also included a few tavern things as well. I plan on sending out the first of these mails this weekend. I still don't have a concrete format, so it's just going to be a list of points. The mailing list is still used (rarely), and as far as I know it's the only medium of discussion that every developer reads. So, I hope these bi-weekly summaries will help keep everyone in the loop. It's not even an attempt to "revive" the mailing list, really. Just a way to keep everyone updated.