Regarding RC3 and RC4

[SD-X]

To be fair, much of this discussion probably does belong in the rant topic, but in all fairness, that topic was needed. There was a serious lack of communication going on between the development team of SMF and its users, and many were losing hope that anything was going to happen. Understandably everyone now knows why, and the development team is making efforts to fix it, but the conversation needed to happen to keep the users from being in the dark and leaving.

Rants are not always counter-productive. In this case, much of it actually proved to be useful in bringing this community back to life. Unfortunately if everyone thinks this place is dead and no development is happening, no one is going to really want to step up and help out. That's why that communication is so important. The users demanding to hear updates doesn't mean they don't care. It means they do care and want to appreciate all the hard work. They just aren't seeing the work happen, and are getting concerned. This topic, as well as the rant one, proved to be extremely important in making the changes necessary to fix this.

While demanding updates and information in most cases could be seen as users being toxic and ungrateful, there are situations, like this one, where it is actually productive and necessary when things have gone quiet. If the SMF team is struggling, we all understand...but if they don't tell us, we have no way of knowing that. Communication is key, and with the marketing budget being absolutely nothing for SMF, (as stated by others, and not meant to be negative in any way here), that leaves personal interaction as the only way to get the word out. If no one makes the effort, no one knows what is going on. Since the SMF dev team was being quiet this time around, it was the community's turn to speak up and say something.

[marcosbr]

I believe that once again we are on the wrong path ...
We need to have "news" yes, but it is looking like a fight!
These days I reported a problem. I already knew that there would be no answer because of corporatism, and this is bad ...
There are times when it doesn't feel like a conversation. It seems more like a dispute between those who "know more or send more".
I believe that even because of the difficulty of "nationalities" (I want to believe that)
I think that's what d3vcho meant when he wrote: "No. This is toxic"
I don't think it's an offense to "people" and I hope to be right!
Many people here would be essential to the team. But I don't know what happens ... So I don't question it!
What is missing is the following:
Take this to the side of friendly conversation, not to a "war" of offenses and disputes!
Any offense, mistreatment or war ... It is toxic to me!
Human beings have to talk. Never fight!

[SD-X]

I believe that once again we are on the wrong path ...
We need to have "news" yes, but it is looking like a fight!
These days I reported a problem. I already knew that there would be no answer because of corporatism, and this is bad ...
There are times when it doesn't feel like a conversation. It seems more like a dispute between those who "know more or send more".
I believe that even because of the difficulty of "nationalities" (I want to believe that)
I think that's what d3vcho meant when he wrote: "No. This is toxic"
I don't think it's an offense to "people" and I hope to be right!
Many people here would be essential to the team. But I don't know what happens ... So I don't question it!
What is missing is the following:
Take this to the side of friendly conversation, not to a "war" of offenses and disputes!
Any offense, mistreatment or war ... It is toxic to me!
Human beings have to talk. Never fight!

I wouldn't really say anyone here is fighting. There have been some debates, but nothing really offensive. I'm not sure why nationality was brought into it. It has nothing to do with that. We're all here because we love SMF. Where we come from has no impact on that.

As far as RC3 goes, are there any developers available that can give us another update on how things are coming along with preparing RC3 for release? We're all excited to see it finally come to light!

[marcosbr]

If you are from a country and translate a "wrong word"
A hug can become a kick!
Just for that ...
SMF is not from "one country" is from the world!

[DenDen60]

Human beings have to talk. Never fight!

I would say that human beings need a clear, clean and precise goal so that they understand what needs to be achieved.
They also need clear, clean and precise objectives so that they know what needs to be done to achieve the goal. 
They also need to understand the means that they can use.
All these must be anchored in a vision and mission statement. These help create engagement.


The above is the responsibility of the management team, but to facilitate engagement, employees ( and or volunteers) need to feel that they played a small role in the process. 


Once this is done, then management and employees (and or volunteers) must work not only to achieve the goal and objectives they were set, but also to create an environment, or culture, that is conducive to get the work done. Unfortunately, it takes only a few persons not working with the others to make the car skid off the road. If this happens it is the responsibility of management to get these people back online. If they don't get back online, they unfortunately need to be dismissed. 


If this is done, then the level of engagement of management, employees, volunteers, clients, the clients of their clients, suppliers, in SMF case, those who develop themes, mods, offer hosting or services, etc. will increase. Which means it will be easier to attract new developers, new support specialists, more translators, more users, etc.


SMF is on solid grounds. It has a long history and it developed a great software. Hence, if the above directions are followed, it will stop the ranting and increase the level of engagement.


I think the next release can be used as an opportunity to recreate an environment that will make SMF great again ;-) . 


Good luck to all.

[LiroyvH]

As far as RC3 goes, are there any developers available that can give us another update on how things are coming along with preparing RC3 for release? We're all excited to see it finally come to light!

Since you already know preparations are being made, this comes across more like a request for an ETA to me. Which is always "it's ready when it's ready". Not a dev, but: the status is still the same. Preparations are being made for the release. Despite it being a beta version, we still follow the same internal release procedures including quality checks. Rushing it has proven to be counter-productive, so we're not doing that. (Not that it's always been absolutely flawless despite testing, but we're only human )

Anyway, as always we'll publish a release post when it's all done and you can rest assured the whole team (it doesn't depend on just the dev team!) are working very hard to release it as soon as possible and it's unlikely to take very much longer, but you're going to need some patience in the meantime all the same If you really can't wait though: you can essentially pull it from GitHub already, barring any potential last minute changes in the event we find something is (really) wrong during testing.

[Antechinus]

If you want extra testing help, just give me a yell and tell me what you want tested. I can't help with code for esoteric stuff, but I can click buttons and look at things.

[LiroyvH]

but I can click buttons and look at things.

Man, last I checked you couldn't even button your own shirt... -_-
Just kidding, just kidding. Not sure what the plans are on pre-release, if any - will ask the devs!

[Antechinus]

Ha! Why do you think I wear so many t shirts?

[LiroyvH]

Ha! Why do you think I wear so many t shirts?

If I were to guess, because nobody ever told you wearing only one at a time is sufficient unless it's very cold?
Maybe we'll do a round of SMF t-shirts sometime when 2.1 goes Gold. But first focus on RC3 and 4 now haha.

[Antechinus]

Something just occurred to me. I just checked my local 2.1 site and the default list of allowed extensions for attachments doesn't include .webp. Probably about time that it did, and it should be an easy change.

And before anyone asks: GitHub has decided it doesn't want to load anything with my favourite browser, and at this time on Sunday morning I'm having coffee and am too lazy to fire up a second browser just to pander to GitHub, so ain't opening a ticket (or checking for existing ones) right at the moment.

[Suki]

There is an issue for that on github already.