The Minetest Pantheon

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Do you believe in the Minetest Pantheon?

Yes - Minetest could not exist if someone didn't created it. (Please specify which is your favorite deity.)
2
33%
No - Minetest comes from the Natural Evolution. (Darwin was right.)
2
33%
Unsure - Perhaps we will know after death.
2
33%
 
Total votes: 6

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Hamlet
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The Minetest Pantheon

by Hamlet » Post

Take this thread easy and have a laugh.

I was reading "Vote for games to be bundled with Minetest", which became "Is this thread still relevant?" before being locked without an answer.

So I thought I ought to share my experience with you, possibly to learn from your own experiences with The Minetest Pantheon, or the Minetest's Goddesses and Gods.

If you know a working prayer, a spell, a sacrifice, let everyone know!

It seems that most of our prayers begin with something like:

"I would like to hear an official statement regarding..."

And suddenly The Wall of Cobblestone closes the discussion.

So, WE must be doing it wrong. WE are not summoning Our Deities in the correct manner.

Thus I've contacted:

a Shintoist priest,
a Buddhist priest,
an Induist brahmin,
a Siberian shaman,
a British druid,
an Asatru gothi,
a Jewish Rabbi,
several Christian priest,
a couple of Muslim imams,
a Muslim Sufi,
a Vodoo sorcerer,
an Inuit shaman,
a First Nation shaman,
several Native American shamans,
a Native Hawaiian shaman,
several Australian Aboriginal shamans.

I haven't found any ancient Sumerian/Babylonian/Egyptian/Greek/Roman 's religion priests, unfortunately - else I would have tried with those as well.

They all tried to contact the Minetest Pantheon (Goddesses and Gods) to have an answer about many questions, some of which were mine.

None of them succeeded in the task. The established contact was interrupted quite soon.

Some suggested that maybe some kind of sacrifice could help to establish a contact.
The best would be your own beating heart, ripped off your chest.
But that would be unconvenient because you would not be able to listen to the answer, so you could sacrifice something else:
e.g. your first born, or a virgin maiden, or a bull, or gold, diamonds, etc.

Some even hinted to try some of the Necronomicon's formulas, but none of them was willing to do it.

Some other even said that they do not answer because they do not actually exist.
This is called "Atheist Minetestism", they say that actually the Minetest Engine/Game is being developed by an A.I. that pretends being this or that developer.

Personally I am for the "Agnostic Minetestism": the fact that you have never seen the goddesses/gods or the fact that they do not speak with you does not mean that they don't exist.

I have never seen an elephant with my own eyes, but I am pretty sure that they do exist.

Probably they are just ignoring us because they are busy preventing the land from opening to swallow us, the sea from rising to drown us, and the sky from falling upon us.

Or maybe they are arguing with the Giants,
or maybe they are fighting against the Dragon that dwells between the roots of the World-Tree,

or maybe we should draw a pentagram on the floor when it's midnight and chant the Minetest Engine's source code - backwards - while performing a counter clockwise dance - naked - to summon one of them and then...
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Chiantos
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Re: The Minetest Pantheon

by Chiantos » Post

Deleted message
Last edited by Chiantos on Mon Sep 30, 2019 04:54, edited 1 time in total.

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Hamlet
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Re: The Minetest Pantheon

by Hamlet » Post

"Offtopic"?

Board index ‹ General ‹ General Discussion < The Minetest Pantheon

Board Index = Minetest Forum
General = Minetest Discussion
General Discussion = General Topics
The Minetest Pantheon = The Minetest Developers
or "communication between the Minetest Developers and the Minetest community".

"Troll"?

Putting the whole thing as if the Minetest Developers are Deities and the Minetest users are mortals trying to contact their deities is just humor.

The very first line states: "Take this thread easy and have a laugh."

Take it easy, let's have some fun pretending that Celeron55 is the All Father, Paramat is the Lands God, and so on.

To sum up:
"Communication between the Minetest Developers and the Minetest community, taking it easy and with some humor."

If such thing is considered insulting, oh well *rolls eyes*...
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Re: The Minetest Pantheon

by twoelk » Post

Chiantos wrote:Offtopic ? Category Troll ?
nope

eternally ontopic for every game development
anywhere
anytime
frome the rise of the first games
to the day all times will end

and sadly
analog to any complicated organization
be it a large company,
a religion large enough to need an hierarchical structure,
the organization of a community that is larger than a few dozen,
especially on government scale.

it is always and will always be

"those up there don't understand or listen to us down here"

and strangely enough
whenever somebody from the grass roots rises to those in charge
they are changed and become one of those up there ...
either because they suddenly see the bigger picture
and start to understand
why things are done the way they are done
or
because the get detached, distracted and ...

oh well
study history
it has always been such
at all times

sooo
be strong,
be brave
and prepare for a long battle
to see your suggestion
being at least noticed

minetest is not exceptionally harsh in this respect,
rather the opposite.
devs often do listen,
often respond
and even do explain the issues of suggestions .
don't get annoyed.
study the info,
rework the suggestion and
start again.
be prepared that somethings may indeed take years.
such is the world,
not only minetest

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Hamlet
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Re: The Minetest Pantheon

by Hamlet » Post

twoelk wrote: [...]
"those up there don't understand or listen to us down here"
[...]
such is the world,
not only minetest
Also sprach ein weiser Mann.
So spoke a wise man.

I bow to you, brilliant explanation and wise suggestions. I will keep them in mind forever.
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Re: The Minetest Pantheon

by TumeniNodes » Post

A sacrifice is required..., choose wisely
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Re: The Minetest Pantheon

by duane » Post

I know you're joking here, but complaining (even humorously) about the handling of a project that a small group of people are devoting large amounts of their personal time to, when you aren't doing the same, sounds kind of unreasonable to me. You asked someone for an official position, which is a bit odd considering this isn't a government or a business -- it's a few people programming for fun, doing almost all of the work, and occasionally getting badgered for more work by others who, for whatever reason, aren't doing the work.

I'm not trying to brow-beat anyone here, and I get the joke, but this reflects a real problem -- not in communication between the deities and the people, but in the fact that anyone here doesn't consider themself capable of doing the same magic that the deities do. The very idea of a programming priesthood is a mistaken assumption. Anyone here can learn to program in exactly the same way they did and start adding to the project themselves. So my response would be, "Stop trying to summon the deities. Work the magic yourself and become a god." (Which also happens to be my philosophy about the real universe, but that's another story.)
Believe in people and you don't need to believe anything else.

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TumeniNodes
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Re: The Minetest Pantheon

by TumeniNodes » Post

duane nailed it...
I'm still hoping for a sacrifice though :P

People need to realize, even the smallest of contributions are appreciated.
Not all can or will be accepted but, never let that cause you to become disgruntled or disenchanted..., keep at it.

Scour the issues and find items you can work on. Don't just keep adding issues (especially ones which have already been put up) as this takes up even more time for devs, because they end up putting time into looking at them.
And always keep up with any requests for changes, etc. from devs, don't get put off by them, no matter how many come. That goes a long way, and shows commitment, and something which devs love to see.

The more existing issues, which are resolved, the more space opens up to looking into adding new features/possibilities.
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Re: The Minetest Pantheon

by Shara » Post

Hamlet wrote: If you know a working prayer, a spell, a sacrifice, let everyone know!
I heard the legends say there is a path through the mythical land of IRC, via which you may commune with those you seek. However, be warned; it is possible your heart may be weighed at the gate against the feather of un-trollish tendencies, and if it does not prove pure enough... well, the legends grow less specific on this point, but I doubt it's the thing you were looking for.

More seriously, read tumeninodes and duane's replies, then realise just how many communication methods there actually are (forum, Github, IRC). We don't even demand sacrificial victims... (does that mean we're doing it wrong?)

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Re: The Minetest Pantheon

by twoelk » Post

Shara wrote:...
We don't even demand sacrificial victims...
oh, quite wrong!
you may be blinded by the beauty of the universe of minetest worlds and the rewards they offer
but
you do have to make a sacrifice,
be it player
or dev

you may not notice
and you may not be aware of the price
but
you do have to sacrifice a very
very large
amount of
time!
... every player,
every dev
sacrifies ridiculous amounts of time
for our favorite game.

Be it a building project
or programming a mod ...
minetest devours time ...
time of your life!

so you better enjoy the ride
or else there is no refund

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Re: The Minetest Pantheon

by Hamlet » Post

TumeniNodes, Duane, Shara, thanks for your replies. :)
You say the truth, and I agree with what you said.

But, your reasoning is no longer valid when it comes to the example that I have reported in my first post: someone asks something reasonable and they don't even get an answer, unless we want to consider silence itself an acceptable answer.

"The Great Wall of Cobblestone" or "no answer", "silence", "stonewalling".

Time ago I've pointed out that the Dev-Wiki is outdated and suggested to add it a statement advicing to always refer to the current "lua_api.txt".
Not long ago another user opened a similar thread.
Nothing happened, despite the users are being directed there from the Minetest's homepage.

Another example is the ".po Vs .tr" debate, after a long time I've learned that the .tr format has been chosen because the former doesn't allow to unload the translated strings; if this had been stated since the beginning it would have saved a lot of arguing - a big part of it being mine. I, for example, would have said "ok, it sucks, but if this is the reason behind it then I'll swallow it for the sake of internationalization".

And again another example is the fact that the Minetest Engine's v0.4.16 GUI translations on Weblate which have been completed (100% translated) haven't been included into v0.4.17.x which is still using years old templates.
I have offered to open a pull request with the updated translations, my offer has been refused. Period.

So, granted that I agree with:
"It's Open Source baby, do it yourself!"
"We are doing it on our spare time, we are not paid for it."
And so on, all things that I know because I myself am contributing - or so I hope - to the community with my 2cents, a.k.a. translations, mods and stuff (all of which require time, as Twoelk pointed out).

It seems to me that even when people points out issues, suggests solutions, even offers fixing them by themselves - if and when they can - they are just ignored.

Now let's be honest to the bone, it's not a matter of siding with the developers team or with the userbase, it's a matter of common sense; it's not like Wuzzy's questions about the games to be included with the engine or my examples rank as requests of adding or stripping features.

Second Life's servers in the 2007 reached peaks of 48.000 (fourty-eight-thousand) simultaneously connected users daily, then the Lindens (the local Deities) started to... guess what? And now Second Life is in a coma.
There is a thread on our forums pointing out that the servers aren't as healthy as they used to be. I fear it's not because people aren't on vacancy anymore.

Please Shara do weigh my heart against the Feather Of Untrollish Tendencies, then tell me if it's true or if it's false that there is a fracture between the Pantheon and the mortals.

I do know that Mediums do use IRC for channelling with the Deities, but I am old fashioned: I prefer writing letters to the Deities instead of using Minecromancy.
I need some time to read and write in a language that isn't mine, time that the forums allow me to take both for thinking and writing, whereas IRC would not.
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Re: The Minetest Pantheon

by twoelk » Post

Hamlet wrote:...
Time ago I've pointed out that the Dev-Wiki is outdated and suggested to add it a statement advicing to always refer to the current "lua_api.txt".
Not long ago another user opened a similar thread.
Nothing happened, despite the users are being directed there from the Minetest's homepage.
...
/me runs and hides behind some office work instead of spending more time editing the wikis

actually poke me in ... er .... 4 weeks.
if still nothing happened I might volanteer to spend some time on the wikis again.

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Re: The Minetest Pantheon

by Shara » Post

Please Shara do weigh my heart against the Feather Of Untrollish Tendencies, then tell me if it's true or if it's false that there is a fracture between the Pantheon and the mortals.
It was difficult to tell which way the scales would tip from your first post alone, which is why I tried a light reply to see which way you'd take it from there.

To give an answer - of course there is a fracture of sorts. Seeing and experiencing this was a huge part of why I stepped up to try and become more involved with the development. I wanted to understand the issues, and hopefully at least address them in the small ways I can, and on IRC at least, I've seen a much more healthy dialog build up between the developers and various contributors.

But there are still gaps, and questions that don't get answered, as you point out. I hate to repeat things that have already been said so many times, but a big part of the reason for this is that there are only so many people involved, they only have a certain amount of time, and they need to have interest in and ability in an area to be able to help with it.

But on to some specific points:
(And note that these are just my thoughts, and certainly aren't intended as either excuses or explanations in all cases, but I hope they will help a bit.)
someone asks something reasonable and they don't even get an answer
Different people have different definitions of reasonable - something that might seem like a simple question could need a lot of time to answer well. It's also possible a general question goes unanswered because no one is sure who is being asked or who has responsibility for answering. The person being asked also might not know the answer, or, if something is posted on the forum, might not even know they have been asked.There are a lot of ifs here of course, but as you point out, you do not tend to use IRC. There's nothing wrong with that choice, but communication is two ways and if you don't want to use the main method of communication, you need to accept getting answers might be a bit more work.
the games to be included with the engine
I'm very much in favour of seeing more official games, and it's not something that's been ignored. The issue is that when you dig into what's available, very little measures up. Now I can't give you an official list of exactly what's needed for a game to be accepted - it's not my place to decide - but let's take one point to start seeing why this isn't easy...

Official MT repos are not run by one person. I'm an MTG dev, but I can't just go and merge anything I feel like into MTG. Another dev needs to approve it. When someone outside the team makes a PR, at least two devs need to approve that. (This is important to control quality.) This tells us that official parts of MT depend on a team. If we give official status to a game that is managed by one single person... who handles PR approvals with them? Worse still, what happens if they quit MT involvement tomorrow? Expecting the current team to suddenly pick up the workload of maintaining a whole new game that they didn't make and may or may not be interested in isn't automatically reasonable.

I think just the requirement of a game having a team reduces the number of games that can be realistically considered. And there are of course other things to think about (but that's not a debate for here, and I certainly can't make the decisions for this alone, so ... on to the next point).
Time ago I've pointed out that the Dev-Wiki is outdated and suggested to add it a statement advicing to always refer to the current "lua_api.txt".
Yup - this is bad. However, it's not managed by the devs. If you want to make the wiki better check the topic on how to get a wiki account and whoever sorts out accounts might be able to help more with things like this as well.
<stuff about translations>
Sadly I can't help here. I know very little about how the translations work. (This is an example of not being able to give you a reply due to lack of knowledge, not due to ignoring the question). I'm also not sure who rejected your offer of help or why, so I can't reply to this.
I need some time to read and write in a language that isn't mine, time that the forums allow me to take both for thinking and writing, whereas IRC would not.
That's understandable, but please know that there are those of us who will give time and patience on IRC for you to write what you need.

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Re: The Minetest Pantheon

by ChimneySwift » Post

Lol. That was a good laugh, but I can't say. I think duane hit the nail on the head, if we're not contributing, it's hardly fair to be asking for the devs to do abc and and answer xyz already.
Shara wrote:
Time ago I've pointed out that the Dev-Wiki is outdated and suggested to add it a statement advicing to always refer to the current "lua_api.txt".
Yup - this is bad. However, it's not managed by the devs. If you want to make the wiki better check the topic on how to get a wiki account and whoever sorts out accounts might be able to help more with things like this as well.
I was wanting to take a stab at some contributing. I requested an account ~3.5 months ago but I haven't gotten one yet :P

It would be really cool if more people could get on board, adding things like code examples and things that go beyond the lua_api.txt. I've made a markdown parser which makes it look pretty so the api is easier to read, but I don't think that's the point of the dev wiki. It should be more than just a raw API documentation, but also include some usage examples, etc.
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Re: The Minetest Pantheon

by TumeniNodes » Post

As far as I recall, someone made a bit of a push to get #minetest-doc going again, for such work to be done/discussed (I think it was Wuzzy?) but not much has happened there.

But, it would be a good place for those wishing to work on documentation.
I think again..., maybe it is Calinou who people can ask for a wiki acct (but double check that) I have been wrong once before in my life..., it could , theoretically happen again
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Re: The Minetest Pantheon

by Shara » Post

maybe it is Calinou who people can ask for a wiki acct
As far as I'm aware, it is. I will see if I can follow up on why requests have been left sitting.
someone made a bit of a push to get #minetest-doc going again, for such work to be done/discussed
I stopped joining the channel because I am in too many channels and nothing was happening. If it's active again, I'd be happy to be involved.

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Re: The Minetest Pantheon

by Hamlet » Post

Well, I consider my prayer satisfied:

a Goddess actually answered to my questions - thanks Shara :)
a constructive dialogue has been started amongst other users - thanks to you all
someone actually had fun with my jokes - thanks ChimneySwift

I couldn't ask for more. *sniff*
Even Yorick's skull is moved. *wink*
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Re: The Minetest Pantheon

by Dokimi » Post

Oh dear. This talk of pantheons sounds familiar...

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=19894

Something has finally inspired me to update it (with a little bonus based on this episode)!

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