Remove some questionable main menu tips (DONE!)
Sat, 2015-09-19 18:04
Hi!
I want to have some of the tips seen in the main menu removed or changed. Those tips are questionable in my opinion.
Here are the tips I will refer to, taken from Data/Locale/tips_en.xml:
- Line 10: “If you’d like to keep others from using your preferred nickname on the official server, register an account at http://www.hedgewars.org.”
- Line 14: “Hedgewars is free software (Open Source) we create in our spare time. If you like it, help us with a small donation or contribute your own work!”
- Line 22: “Create an account on http://www.hedgewars.org/ to keep others from using your most favourite nickname while playing on the official server.”
- Line 23: “While playing you should give yourself a short break at least once an hour.”
- Line 27: “Especially while playing online be polite and always remember there might be some minors playing with or against you as well!”
- Line 29: “You should never install Hedgewars on computers you don’t own (school, university, work, etc.). Please ask the responsible person instead!”
Please delete these “tips”:
- Line 22: This is a duplicate of line 10.
- Line 23: This sounds like complete nonsense to me.
- Line 27: This is too moralizing (“be polite”). And it doesn't really belong here IMO.
- Line 29: This is way too moralizing. The way it is written sounds almost like an order. Also it doesn't really belong here.
Please change this one:
- Line 14: I would almost suggest to delete it as too moralizing. But perhaps adding the word “please” may give a much better tone. So change the text to (new text underlined): “Hedgewars is free software (Open Source) we create in our spare time. If you like it, please help us with a small donation or contribute your own work!”
All other lines are okay.
Hi, I am a Hedgewars developer. 
You're over-thinking stuff IMO.
Line 14 doesn't sound moralizing to me at all.
It's a light-hearted suggestion that is only as serious as the reader takes it.
Adding "please" would make it sound like begging/urging IMO - which wouldn't be an improvement at all, but make it worse.
I guess the wording could be changed to "Feel free to ..." in order to make it more obvious to people that it's an option, not a command :P
Line 23 We care about the well-being of our players and suggest to them a simple way to help avoid possible negative effects on their health/life.
How is that complete nonsense?
Line 27 is a plea for a minimum of human decency and it is actually in the interest of the player not only for their online experience in general, but so that they don't get kicked/banned by surprise, because they didn't know that we believe in some minimum social standards on our server.
Sure, wording could and should be improved.
Line 29 actually reflects the state of laws in most countries. We do not want Hedgewars to be used for the inconvenience of others or to break the law and also we don't want it to become classified as PUP.
Be aware that some players are children and may not now what is appropriate and what isn't yet, so we take the liberty to tell/remind them every now and then with those tips.
I don't think we intend to order around or patronize adults with such random remarks.
However I do dream about the day when those tips are the biggest annoyances of the game to the community (because that'd mean the game's practically bug-free) ;p
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Thanks for your feedback, let me know what you think about this commit.
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It was just one of the List Of Wuzzy's Minor Annoyances.
Not really important. (Just compare to the huge amount of bug reports on Google Code :P)
Remarks on new tips:
Well, I doubt that playing for longer times (i.e. >1h) causes “strains” unless it is for an extremely long time, I guess.
Also, the number of 1 hour seems to be completely arbitrary to me.
My point is: Can you proof what this sentence implies? If not, the “tip” should probably be removed.
Also, I am not really sure if Hedgewars should be the place for medical advice.
Now that the official server is explicitly mentioned, I can guess the intention of the original tip. Anyways, I still think this one should be removed. Why not using the MOTD for stuff like that, it would also be faster to change.
I am not sure if this tip is better or worse. Or maybe I think of too much subtext and have just watched too many The Godfather movies.
I wanted the original tip to be removed because Hedgewars should not be the place of legal advice either.
Sorry, I don't get it, who would want that?
The Wikipedia defines PUP at software which was bundled with some other software for no useful reason. Usually this is crapware or adware, GIMP suffered from this. I don't see the connection to Hedgewars here, especially I can't recall any such case related to Hedgewars.
Other people installing stuff on some computer they are not supposed to install it to is a completely different issue.
Nobody with brain would classify, let's say, Counter-Strike, as PUP because some random kid installed it on some random computer in some random school without permission.
Whatever, if you decide to not make any more changes, I don't really mind. :P
Hi, I am a Hedgewars developer.
Um. It already IS in the MOTD... but we found that most people don't read the MOTD, even if it's extremely flashy (like the update notice for old versions).
The MOTD has said "Please keep language suitable for children within the public areas of the server. Thank you" every time you connected to official server for the last few years...
Well, PUP in the wider sense.
To a company/school/etc. online-capable software like Hedgewars does compromise security to some extent.
Also keep in mind that since we're FOSS there are many Hedgewars-Mirrors floating around that are not provided by us and that can be possibly be bundled with actual PUP or even malware.
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