ZLib -- Zarqon's useful function library

Veracity said:

It appears to be a general defect in your affect.

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This is rich coming from someone who goes on a tirade about one word in a short bug report.

Yeah, "annoying" wasn't really the right word, but I am only trying to put a bug on record. I don't have permissions to zarqon's SVN or I would fix it myself. I'm sorry I didn't use flowery enough language in my previous bug reports either.

My thoughts were roughly the same as Veracity's in this case.

lostcalpolydude said:

My thoughts were roughly the same as Veracity's in this case.

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Well I just don't understand that. I have seen the warning for days and just wanted to notify zarqon. So I quickly copied and pasted the warbing, knowing that he knew how to fix it. I was in a hurry and leaving my house so I just typed a few words. I don't see how anyone could interpret a two-word bug report about sonething "annoying" as a personal attack on their software. I'm sure I am not the only person here whose job is programming, I know zarqon is a good programmer and would readily know how to fix it. I am curious what you would expect instead.

And I don't understand why Veracity went into a long tirade about how her work is being criticized whenever I make a bug report or feature request. Should I make sure to prepend all of my future bug reports with "I love KoLmafia, but..."? Or is it implied by the fact that I have made over a dozen scripts? I challenge anyone to find a single post where I have insulted the quality of any script here, or that of KoLmafia. Find me one. I think you are reading too much into a simple post about a simple bug. Maybe next time I shouldn't report any issue at all? That way nobody's feelings can be hurt that their software isn't working as expected.

Sorry, that was a bit of a vent. But I still don't know what is wrong with my original post. Like I said, maybe "annoying" wasn't the right word. But I just don't see how anyone could find it insulting. And Veracity did not provide examples.

The main point here is that the word "annoying" is deemed as very inappropriate in this forum. This can be difficult to know, but avoiding it will lead to a lot less problems.

That said: you can fix it in your own copy by editing the zlib.ash in /svn/zlib/scripts/ and then running "svn sync" in the cli.

Winterbay said:

The main point here is that the word "annoying" is deemed as very inappropriate in this forum. This can be difficult to know, but avoiding it will lead to a lot less problems.

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I have changed the offending text and apologize to zarqon if it would have sounded insulting. I still believe Veracity's response to be unwarranted.

EDIT: I personally would not have been offended if someone had posted such a bug on any of my scripts. I do not think zarqon would have thought so either. I also think that people are making a big deal of nothing. But apologies to anyone who I inadvertently insulted nonetheless.

rlbond86 said:

I still believe Veracity's response to be unwarranted

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If you have been around long enough to accumulate 200+ posts then you should be smart enough to realize exactly what kind of response you were going to garner from your original post. Whether the response is unwarranted or not, it was still predictable. You are entitled to your opinion but don't expect folks to agree with you.

We're all cranky because of Crimbo 2013.

As I already said, I was on my way out the door. And, for the record, I have never seen people be so thin-skinned about a bug report that isn't even about their own work - not just here, but in my entire professional career. So no, I didn't expect any response at all, it was a quick two-word bug report about an easily-fixed issue. I certainly didn't expect people is this community to get angry because I said that a bug was "annoying". And I definitely did not expect to end up on the developer's ignore list because I used an adjective she didn't like to describe a one-line fixer - behavior that I find to be unprofessional. I have noticed the message for many days and all of you must have seen it as well. At least I took the time to report it.

I expect that zarqon will see and fix the message within 30 minutes of logging in next time without anyone pointing it out.

For the record, that message is more informational than a bug.

lostcalpolydude said:

I expect that zarqon will see and fix the message within 30 minutes of logging in next time without anyone pointing it out.

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That's exactly how it happened. 2 minutes, probably, since my login script imports ZLib.

@rlbond86: That warning message is mildly irksome at best, but I understand that when a script author is absent for a while and you keep seeing the message, the irksomeness could accumulate over time and become annoyance. The fact that it's easily fixable could even make it more annoying. The fact that the absent script author was HIMSELF THE VERY PERSON WHO REQUESTED THOSE MESSAGES could intensify it further. So I understand that your report was made in the interest of improving the user experience and am not offended. The responses you got -- the severity of which surprised you -- are because you used a certain trigger word which is verboten 'round these parts, and which I hope you will be careful to avoid in future, as there are some who are understandably sensitized to that word. I'm happy, however, that the conversation about this stopped escalating and now that the constant name has been fixed, I also hope there are no further annoyances either experienced or uncarefully voiced.

Also, hello everyone. For some reason my forum notifications stopped working a while back, which is part of the reason for my very incomplete participation on the forums in recent weeks/months. It's rather frustrating to come back after a break and have to try to hunt down everything I was participating in. Anyone know how this might have happened, or how to reactivate it? I've checked in my email Junk folder just to be sure they're not getting inadvertently spamfiltered.

Also, anyone try the now-mostly-functional WOSSMAN since the last update included it? It works with items and monsters and such now.

zarqon said:

...a certain trigger word which is verboten 'round these parts...

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I've been curious, what is the story with that word? Since I've been here, I've picked up on the fact that people don't like it but not the reason why.

Describing it as annoying when it did nothing to interfere with using any script or interface, and as a bug when it wasn't one (I see that the post has been edited, but that part is still wrong), as the entire non-copy-pasted part of the message was a bit much. "I keep seeing this:" would have been fast enough to type.

I'm not that bothered by the word, but generally when reporting issues it's best to concentrate on facts rather than emotions.

"The bug stops me doing X, or makes it harder to do Y" is much more useful that "X is annoying".

When Z has coded X, deliberately or accidentally, the implication is then "Z is annoying me", which isn't usually a good way to get unpaid volunteer Z to help you by fixing your problem.

If the bug reporting was more hard form, like fields with "what were you doing", "what went wrong", "what did you expect", I think it'd go a long way to removing unneeded adjectives and let the actual problem shine through. At least, if there is one. I mean, let's face it, those three things are what the devs need to analyze and fix bugs. (That and debug logs, but that's another story ^^)

Actually, is that feasible with these message boards?

Fluxxdog said:

If the bug reporting was more hard form, like fields with "what were you doing", "what went wrong", "what did you expect", I think it'd go a long way to removing unneeded adjectives and let the actual problem shine through. At least, if there is one. I mean, let's face it, those three things are what the devs need to analyze and fix bugs. (That and debug logs, but that's another story ^^)

Actually, is that feasible with these message boards?

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There used to be an actual bug-tracking system here. I expect there was a good reason it was removed (though I don't remember why), since removing it also removed the history of those bug reports.

lostcalpolydude said:

There used to be an actual bug-tracking system here. I expect there was a good reason it was removed (though I don't remember why), since removing it also removed the history of those bug reports.

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There is a truly excellent reason why it was removed! The forum software got updated and the plugin didn't work with the update. fewyn spend a few days trying to sort that out, but it proved to be a lot more trouble than it was worth, especially when one considers that the software will probably be updated again someday. Software updates suck.

Oy. Sounds like the sort of thing that needs a lockdown. Ah well, life goes on.

zarqon said:

Also, anyone try the now-mostly-functional WOSSMAN since the last update included it? It works with items and monsters and such now.

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My biggest feedback is that, based on the name, I wondered why a script connected with getting a wossname was included with zlib. Other than that, it took me a bit of guessing to figure out that I needed to press Enter to save a change, while simply clicking out of the text field reverts the value.

lostcalpolydude said:

Describing it as annoying when it did nothing to interfere with using any script or interface, and as a bug when it wasn't one (I see that the post has been edited, but that part is still wrong), as the entire non-copy-pasted part of the message was a bit much. "I keep seeing this:" would have been fast enough to type.

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That's fine but nobody told me that, all I got was a very insulting post from the main developer. I apologized already, and stated that I didn't realize that the word "annoying" apparently strikes a nerve with people here. But I don't think it warranted the response it got, or continues to get (apparently), considering nobody tells you these things. It's not like you sign up for the forums and they hand you a guide of things not to say. We communicate only through text on the internet, nobody can be expected to read minds. I don't know what more you want from me. All it would have taken was a simple post explaining that it could be interpreted as offensive. Instead Veracity decides it's OK to explode and then block me.

Pro tip. It won't help reporting anything anywhere to use emotive language.