General Bot Discussions Forums...

[Rick]

Originally Posted by Ancient

But aren't we doing that already in Half-life and Half-life Mods?

This is specific for HL and not specific for bots, so sometimes we do and sometimes not.

Also General discussions would be like birthday stuff, and about other bots in general.
Like the Offtopic Forum?

No, birthday stuff belongs to OT, while general bot talk currently belongs to OT or get its own section as this poll is about.

[KWo]

Originally Posted by Rick

This is specific for HL and not specific for bots, so sometimes we do and sometimes not.

After reading the tittle of topics here I can say - the majority - unfortunatelly yes, and sometimes no.
Maybe that forum (HL1) wasn't supposed to be like it is right now, but in fact the people haven't had any better place to post their questions, they used that forum instead. If someone would clean up that forum and move all topics which such questions bots related to that new forum the poll is about (and leave only these related whole to HL1), I don't think it's worth...
But yes - some bots aren't supported anymore - so there should be something done with this - some kind of info and some prevention of posting there or just moving their forums to some area as "Bots no longer supported" - maybe is not a bad idea...

[Ancient]

Originally Posted by KWo

"Bots no longer supported"

An area like this might be okay, but mostlikely the bots already have their own forum, if not here, its' probably on their website.

Many bots that are not here at BU are discontinued anyway.

[CT Ken]

Hmm... It seems we need to make a decision about BU future here, which I did not realize posting this question..

Some specific examples:

#1) A user wants to post that sturmbot (or xbot) not hosted at BU is being redevloped, has a new website, has a new release, etc.
where does he post it?

Choice #1: "Offtopic" - But it's not offtopic, it's about a bot!

Choice #2: "bot coding" - But it's not about bot coding- wrong audience.

Choice #3: "half-life mods" - But what if the bot is not a half-life bot?
(For example, another bot like fritzbot, for castle wolfenstein...)
also, half-life "mods" section is not really supposed to be about bot discussions. People use these forums because there is no other place to
post about general bot discussions.

I think BU should be about more than just half-life bots-
http://forums.bots-united.com/showthread.php?t=3034
Developers can post in coding section.
But what about bot users?
What about general bot discussions not related to coding, and not
necessarily about half-life bots?

[CT Ken]

Originally Posted by Ancient

Many bots that are not here at BU are discontinued anyway.

Which does not mean that people will not talk about them again.

Search the forums for

"poxbot" and "plbot" These are discussions occuring even though these bots do not officially *exist* in BU and (arguably) more discussions would occur if there was a dedicated general bot discussion forum for them to occur in. They do not belong in "half-life mods" section either; poxbot is not a modification of half-life. If it was, BU would not have a reason to exit. It would be "mods united" not "bots united". OK, so you rename the forums to "Half-Life Mods and Bots"

But that still leaves out non-half-life bots!
No dedicated forums to post (non-coding stuff) in
= no posts about other (non-half-life) bots
= no new (non-half-life) users
= BU remains essentially "Half-Life bots united"

I didn't even know there were sources available for plbot until I stumbled on this thread today, buried in "agora" section:
http://forums.bots-united.com/showth...ghlight=poxbot

Which makes me wonder *again* why there is not an "other bots" section in the filebase, as (apparently?) approved in this discussion & poll:
http://forums.bots-united.com/showth...=poll+filebase

*This is important source code which should not be hidden away in an old, obscure forum posting which new developers are not likely to read !!!! It should be in the filebase, in a logical section.

PS, sorry to be very explicit about it, but reading the rest of this discussion, makes me believe only 2 people (kwo & rick) understand what the poll is really about.

[mirv]

Don't get uptight. Everyone does understand what the poll is about. They just don't agree. The majority of bots here are for half-life and related mods, true, but that's mainly due to most of the bots being made are for half-life and related mods. Fritzbot and cubebot are not I might point out.
The bot sections are where they are because they are hosted on bots-united. If something becomes very popular and people want it, there's nothing to prevent other bots finding their own sections.
The other bots section in the file base was probably simply forgotten about during a time of moving the server or something. Again, if people bring it up it would probably motivate the server admin to do something - but I can tell you that getting agro won't do a thing. It'll motivate the server admin not to do it.
My view (and I stress that this is my opinion): bots-united is about making bots. The goal is development. That's my view, and why I voted no - a bot is usually quite customised to a specific game, and there's offtopic and general bot coding for anything general about a bot (search algorithms, etc).