Update Featured policy

[rubenwardy]

• Note about spotlight vs in-client featured
• Purposes:
  • Featured: Things that are good for new players, fairly stable, game selection. Ie: Exile, Glitch, Alter, Minetest Game (unforuntately)
  • Spotlight: Stuff editors have chosen to highlight, changes frequently, the carousel on ContentDB's page
• Maybe separate showing things in the client/carousel and whether something is a good experience/interesting

[Wuzzy2]

I like the idea of separating featured and spotlight because currently, featured games are too much in flux which is missing the point a bit. I think spotlight should have a limited number of spots. But for featured games there should be no upper bound as long the quality is good. I think becoming featured should not be a competition.

Also, I proposed this before, featured games need more formalized criteria as well as some kind of process to determine featured status. I wrote it down before, but can't find it anymore. :-(

Quality, polish and completion should play a big role in this, but in theory, any game should have a shot, including unpopular ones. I would not make alpha/beta state featured unless the game is close to being finished. Additionally, stability is very important, but it should not be the only criteria. Just because you don't crash shouldn't win you prizes. :D

In general, I think the goal of featured games is that Minetest has something to show new players on the opening screen to suggest, so the player has a high chance of having a good game as their first experience. This is very important because this will be the first impression and if the first impression blows, we lose a player.

Minetest Game is something special and I'm not sure if it should be featured. On the one hand, it's bad for new players, it's a very bad introduction due to lack of content; you're basically forced to install mods to make it interesting (which is already advanced use for most players). But on the other hand, MTG is a dependency for a large number of mods. Not sure about making it featured, but I can see arguments that go both direction. MTG should definitely not be treated as the top or number 1 game, since we specifically want to move away from that.

Finally, I propose to add a rule that all proprietary games are automatically disqualified from being featured or spotlighted (if it's not already in place). It's about sending a message. :P

This discussion is kinda difficult because it's not just about ContentDB (the website) but also how it is being visually presented, kinda tricky stuff. Also the minetest.net website should be considered. In general, I want the high-quality games to shine and have high visibility through Minetest, this should be the goal of featured games; players must not be forced to wade through low-quality stuff first before they find the games, this will frustrate new players quickly.

The Solarus website is a fantastic example on how to showcase games correctly: https://solarus-games.org/games/

[rubenwardy]

Also, I proposed this before, featured games need more formalized criteria as well as some kind of process to determine featured status. I wrote it down before, but can't find it anymore. :-(

The current featured policy is here, based on your process: https://content.minetest.net/help/featured/

[ryvnf]

I notice the current description of featured packages is very outdated:

Featured Packages are shown at the top of the ContentDB homepage. In the future, featured packages may be shown inside the Minetest client.

Both these sentences are incorrect. Spotlighted (and not featured) are shown at the top of the homepage. And featured are nowadays shown inside the Minetest client. Maybe its worth quickly correcting that.