hey're hosted on the same hosting service
http://www.jazz2online.com/j3f
http://www.jazz2online.com/jcsref
http://www.jazz2online.com/tilesets
http://www.jazz2online.com/jdc
Much like nagcentral once did, the Jazz 2 Online webserver hosts a number of other sites, presumably in part to lessen the chances of their going down without warning when their maintainers abandon them.
they're run by mostly the same people for over nine years now
http://www.jazz2online.com/jcf/showgroups.php
http://www.jazz2online.com/user/index.php?accessLevel=5&lastVisit=30000000000&contains=
There are a lot of different names in those lists. And you know, the ones that are the same? Not very active anymore.
the rules are identical (common sense)
http://www.jazz2online.com/jcf/forumdisplay.php?f=37
http://www.jazz2online.com/node.php?title=j2oRules
Granted, there's a lot of similarity. But note also that many of these rules are direct extensions of the policies of the hosting company, and that the same would apply to JCSref, JDC, Haze's Hideout, and many other sites that allow user interactivity in some form.
quality control levels are the same.
J2O has a strict (last I tried to remove it) no-betas-or-demos rule. The JCF absolutely does not.
Everything on J2O that warrants discussion is discussed here, in threads such as this, the recent layout discussion thread, and in the two J2O admin subforums as you know.
Once upon a time, until we noticed that it didn't play a role in the community anymore, everything on Lori Central that warranted discussion was discussed here (and previously the JMMB). Are they the same site? No. If any sort of news ever comes out of a site other than J2O, one assumes that that will be discussed on the JCF as well.
Seeing J2O and JCF as split, separate entities makes no sense, because even if they don't necessarily attract the same people, they still stand <strong>united</strong> the main hub of the Jazz Jackrabbit community.
Indeed they do not attract the same people. For one, there are different users. If they were the same site, wouldn't they have the same memberlist, with the same names, the same administrators, and so on and so forth? Shouldn't our fancy new reputation scores be connected to our reviewing ranks?
Your analogy may as well say that "Firefox is not, nor never has been, Netscape".
I don't remember the connection between the two very well anymore, but I seem to recall I wouldn't say that Firefox "never has been" Netscape. I don't think the JCF grew out of the code of J2O, either -- it's a standard forum script, added quickly to a domain that people already associated with JJ2 to make sure the community survived when the JMMB stopped running. The list of forums was, at the time, completely or almost completely identical. That's what it grew out of if anything.
If the guidelines to removing a level's password haven't been removed from the JCF for four years now, and it's unlikely that they will be removed in the future, it makes little sense to prohibit WhiteBlaster from uploading his program to J2O once it's ready.
Finding stuff on the JCF is a lot more obscure than downloading a utility from the J2O list, I should think, and I will say again, lots of people shy away from the thought of even using a hex editor. I have no evidence to support this, but I would not be surprised if there are various people who download from J2O quite happily while having no JCF account whatsoever and little participation in the part of the Jazz Jackrabbit community housed on either of these two websites. I personally would be more content to trust a JCF user than an anonymous J2O downloader.
The same way Blur removed the functionality of IPX/SPX Direct Play on jj2.
Off-topic, but I have always been a skeptic of the JJ2+ project, particularly its narrow focus and lack of community basing or mistake control. Removing functionality like that is <em>not</em> a good thing and I don't understand how anyone could support it. Making something better should not involve removing things that are perfectly functional and/or some people may rely on.
We're opening up one door at a time. And yes, reworder is a decent program. However it's just one brick. Or would you like to just create a monopoly? Not let any other programmers in. Blur did that too when he implemented music downloading, ruined the whole purpose of JJM. idgaf about my reputation because my point stands clear that we need to encourage these types of coders and this form of pro-creating or we're not going to go ANYWHERE, clear? In fact, it would just piss off members and cause us to LOSE people.
I have no interest in creating a monopoly. Reworder is and was advertised as a stepping stone while we wait for someone to add it and other features to a full-bodied level editor. If AtomicFeline wanted to improve JCS94 so that it could compete with J1E (most importantly, didn't lose information when saving), I'd be fine with that, but right now there's no reason to use it. Jerrythabest is doing incredible work with BCCS and that's a <em>good</em> thing. These are all different directions I'm citing, of course, and there's no way any of them could interfere with each other, but that's because there's only so much you could do to improve JCS (even assuming you had its source code like blur magically seems to with JJ2), since ultimately any information you find a way to encode into a .j2l file still needs to be read by JJ2. The list of things that JJ2 can read that JCS won't let you save, as far as we know, just isn't very long... alternate word pairings, longer (and more numerous, sort of) text strings, higher-than-100 Start and Min ambient lighting settings, speeds for layer 4, and that's about it. We don't have tools for the latter two simply because they're not very useful. There are a few useful things to be done in .j2t files that someone should get to eventually, though.
To the point that discouraging this program will discourage people in general from wanting to make tools: nonsense. Earlier in this thread I suggested a modification to the proposed program, one which would even make it (very slightly) more personally challenging to code: have it only display alternate passwords for the level if you can first prove that you know <em>one</em> of them. That's still just as much of a challenge for WhiteBlaster to code, has the same basic purpose, and it completely gets rid of the possibility of breaking into other people's levels without their consent. <a href="http://www.jazz2online.com/downloads/6280/jj2-tileset-viewer/#review-31774">Here's</a> a review I wrote recently in which I again encourage someone to add more functionality in order to make a more useful program. More programmers is good, but their programs should be useful ones that give us new powers, rather than taking away old ones. I would much rather support someone who edited the Home Cooked Levels episode to include more than 256 files than someone who just removed it entirely.
If he does a decent job on this, perhaps he could play a part in the next version of reworder, or whichever other program you have in mind. If you keep his program off J2O anyways, is there any assurance whatsoever that community members won't get a hold of it? Or why not just upload it to JCF since it's a separate entity and keep it off J2O?
Again, see alternate suggestion for program. No, there is no assurance that community members couldn't get a program that's on neither J2O nor JCF, both of whose rulebases, in writing and traditional implementation/interpretation, based on my personal understanding of them, are against such a thing. It would presumably end up on digiex or jazzjackrabbit.net or craccoclan or some other place entirely. However, I'm also of the opinion that the proposed program is a Bad Thing generally. As for Reworder or other programs, I would fully support WhiteBlaster in any other <strong>non-destructive</strong> projects he(?) might want to pursue, and could even offer some ideas for stuff that should get done, even though I'm guessing we don't share a coding language for actual collaboration.
Look, here's what I don't get about this discussion. Everyone who's supporting the program seems basically to be making one point (and if someone's made a different point and I missed it, I apologize): it wouldn't be too much of a bad thing, because it's already possible to get around passwords. First, it seems to me that this argument <em>admits</em> that getting around passwords is inherently a bad thing, but argues that it's a war that's already been lost. Second, no one has pointed out any actual good (rather than limited bad) that would come out of this program. Third, just because it's already possible, doesn't mean it's the easiest thing in the world, either to do or to find. And the very fact that it's somewhat difficult suggests that some people probably won't end up doing it. If it's made easier, then not improbably, <em>more</em> people would do it than would otherwise. And for the JCS user who wants to use a password to protect their level, a possible world hosting a smaller number of people who may potentially ignore their wishes is preferable to a world hosting a larger such number. And since there are still other programming challenges available for WhiteBlaster and the rest of the community, it seems to me that making the world better -- or at least, not making it <em>worse</em> -- for that poor JCS user is the right thing to do.
Look, the main question is wether the admins will allow the program on j2o. Now, I don't quite understand what their opinion is (mixed, it seems). For that matter, I haven't really noticed who is an admin on j2o and who isn't. There hasn't been an agreed answer to the question yet, as far as I'm concerned. I agree with dermo that they'll just get a hold of the program anyway, but in the end it's up to the admins.
There is indeed disagreement, but <a href="http://www.jazz2online.com/user/index.php?accessLevel=5&lastVisit=30000000000&contains=">here's the link to the admin list again</a>. I might add that I don't think that J2O <em>should</em> be the main question.