[RFC|Rejected] Removal of subsilver2

[bolverk]

It is still possible to have a prosilver based style that looks very close to subsilver2 with only modifying the CSS.

That is not really addressing the main issue though. I believe that ease of customization is the largest reason SS is still so popular and why more custom styles are built on it. Creating a PS based style that on the surface looks like SS but still has PS "guts" so to speak does not really help in that regard.

Additional development work is one part of the problem of two styles,

As I pointed out previously when I quoted naderman's points, however I am still waiting for a quantifiable answer to my question of "how much development work/time?" It seems to me that if you don't have an existing LOE for that task it is pretty hard to use that unknown variable as justification for anything.

another big part being that many mods do not support both and as such a large audience is potentially left to figuring out how to edit their style by modifying the given instructions to fit their own style (which most are unable to do).

While I have already gone on record as stating that MOD's should have no bearing on this particular discussion as they are already irrelevant to SS as far as support is concerned, I will address this point again because I am very confused as to why you(and others) think that justifies dropping SS.

Here is my understanding of how MOD's work today over @ .com:

You offer MOD's to the end user community via a db
You provide no official support for the MOD's you offer for download, all support is provided by volunteers (including the authors)
You do not require .com submitted MOD's to provide/include SS style support, only PS.
MOD authors can choose to support SS in addition to PS or just PS, it is their prerogative

Are the above statements correct? If so then...

MOD's have no relevance to SS's existing or continued existence. Even though phpBB is OSS and not commercial the philosophy with third party addons such as MOD's/Styles/FX is "caveat emptor" <- no warranty and the user assumes the risk. A user downloads a MOD from .com, they are not guaranteed warranty or support for the MOD functionality itself let alone style support for SS or even third party custom styles. Free will is all that is at work here. Users have free will to download and use a MOD, or not. MOD authors have free will to release and support a MOD, or not. Users who exercise free will by using a MOD in an unsupported style should have to figure it out on their own or ask for help. <- There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. No one is forced to answer them, unless they exercise free will and choose to do so. No one is being forced to do anything on either side of this scenario. It's all good.

[FeyFre]

Then I guess you don't have any MODs in the MODDB that require style edits since we require prosilver edits, when needed, to be included in the MODX of all submitted and approved MODs

You are right, I do not.

In other words you are in the minority.

Here on phpbb.com I do, but not on boards I installed/support.

And, for the most part and from what I've seen in the MODs in Development forum, subsilver2 is usually the style that is brushed aside.

I think you should understand not all modification of phpbb was submitted into MODDB, and some of them will never be submitted. So You(I meant phpBB team) will never see real statistics.
Most modifications in MODDB are tiny, general-purpose snippets. What about really large modification? For large non general-purpose modifications based on easy to modify/extend styles, which is subsilver2(IMHO), not prosilver(I have one such modification: 18 tables, 47 new scripts, 6 langs, 7 ACP modules, 22 templates(+js,css) based on SS2)? I think it will be mistake to destroy SS2 when somebody really needs it. They will never be submitted into MODDB because of prosilver requirement.

[DavidIQ]

I don't think you actually look through every MOD that attempts to get validated and even some that are in development. We do. I have not seen any MOD, small or large, that only has subsilver2 and that large MODs are not on phpbb.com either in development or otherwise is flat out wrong. Bottom line is that your argument for keeping subsilver2 for MODs because some only support subsilver2 is pretty weak at best. I would say that the availability of many styles that are subsilver2 based is much more convincing.

[bolverk]

I would say that the availability of many styles that are subsilver2 based is much more convincing.

Did that hurt when you wrote that? I'll take it anyway, as the first and only acknowledgement that perhaps decisions like this shouldn't be based on personal bias but instead on facts.

I did just read another reply that was disturbing on so many levels..... I'm honestly not sure what offends me more about this post, the fact that there is this pervasive attitude around here from community members that their particular opinion is the only possible valid one and as such they need not bother with pesky little details like actually supporting it, or the fact that people feel entitled to such an extent they can dictate what all other users should do and when they should do it. When did intolerance become the norm? When did holding different opinions make you enemies and sanction such dismissive comments? <-rhetorical, just bemoaning the loss of the civility I remember from my youth when you could have spirited discussions with people and not have them resort to attacking you out of frustration should you not come around to their pov. Ah the good old days.

[DarkBeing]

Honestly said I am not so sure what is so offensive about that post. SS2 is past lets move on. Input from the users of the software is important, but in the end the team has to make the decision. Either you like it or not. Personally I never really cared much for SS2 and am happy to hear that it gets finally dropped. In my opinion it was a huge mistake to include it in the phpBB3 package in the first place. As my fears came true, visible in the unnecessary discussion we have now here and over at phpBB.com. Instead of concentrating on improving prosilver they have to waste time on arguing why SS2 is being dropped. The beauty with SS2 is that you can take it, update it and support it when it has been dropped from the official package. After all, in your opinion it does not take hardly any time to do that.

[marian0810]

Well I'm certainly not going to use prosilver while it still takes 40 seconds to load each page and I can easily get myself a cup of coffee from the kitchen between opening a page and being able to read it...
We have over 20 subsilverbased styles in use, so I really hope this decision will be reconsidered. After reading this thread a few times I haven't been able to find any solid arguments for dropping it, so far everything that was said in favour of keeping only prosilver was based on peoples personal tastes and opinions alone
I actually planned to say a lot more, but bolverk already said it all and a lot better than I could I totally, totally agree with everything he or she said, especially the fact that MODs should not be an argument or even part of this discussion at all. They have nothing to do with it.

[bolverk]

Honestly said I am not so sure what is so offensive about that post. SS2 is past lets move on.

I am not surprised you do not understand what I found offensive, you just did the exact same thing. When you make comments like "SS2 is past lets move on." you are assuming that you have the right to tell other people they should move on. You don't. SS2 may be in the past for you, you may have moved on and that's great. You don't have any right to tell other people how they should feel or what they should do, by doing so you are dismissing their right to have their own opinions simply because they are not the same as yours. Your opinion is simply your opinion, other people are entitled to have differing ones. The problem with opinions like yours however is as I said before, you think that yours is the only "right" one and you do not support it with a valid argument. Now I am going to tell you why all the "SS2 is in the past lets move on" type opinions actually do not have a leg to stand on when it comes to this discussion, they are simply opinions based on feelings rather than factual evidence. The inclusion of SS2 in phpBB was just that, an inclusion. It is not the default style, it was not even installed by default. Admins were never "forced" to use it and it's existence in the package has no negative direct consequences for anyone who does not wish to avail themselves of the style. For people who do not like or use SS2 today, its existence has no impact just as its continued existence would have no impact. SS2 is in your past, you've moved on. That's great and you get to make that choice for yourself, but you don't get to make that choice for everybody else.

As my fears came true, visible in the unnecessary discussion we have now here and over at phpBB.com.

That "unnecessary discussion" as you put it is what triggered the discussion on prosilver's deficiencies so without this discussion there would be very little attention given to improving prosilver for 3.1. You should be thanking people like marian0810 who unlike you, gave solid reasons to support their opinions as to why they were opposed to dropping subsilver.

To reiterate:

decisions like this shouldn't be based on personal bias but instead on facts.

Impact Analysis lesson of the day:

Proposal: Drop subsilver from 3.1

Boards affected: All current boards using SS/SS based styles
Boards not affected: All current boards not using SS/SS based styles

Is there any information stored to show the ratio of SS/PS actually installed across the entire user base: No
Is a discussion topic on a low traffic niche board a substitute for gathering accurate representative data on your user base? No
Do you have any other data points available to try and gauge SS/PS usage? Yes
Were those data points factored into the decision: No

The reason that this decision was not sound is because you based the decision on boards that would not be affected by the proposal instead of boards that would be. You gave the voice that should have the least weight in such a decision the most power. You need to use the other data points to assess the true impact of the decision, which will be much larger than I suspect Chris ever realized when he put this out there.

*edit* Just to add even more data points to those I've already listed:

• SS based custom third party style downloads outnumber PS based custom third party style downloads on .com by ~100,000
  On phpBB third party resource site phpbb3stylesdotnet, of the top ten most downloaded styles nine are SS-based styles. They are #1-#8 & #10.

While personal opinions are valid for the person(s) holding them, clearly the facts are what matters here and so far the facts are telling a much different story regarding SS's usage and popularity than the one people here expected to see.

[Oleg]

So, after the news spilled onto the user forums and a number of users (i.e., not developers) became outraged at the decision that affects them yet they didn't even know was made, would the management consider discussing decisions affecting users on forums that users actually visit?

Hiding behind excuses like "You all should have been watching development board in case we decide to do something that will royally screw you over" is, at best, unprofessional.

Hiding behind excuses like "Feel free to make a mod out of it" is also unprofessional. If you genuinely wanted to support subsilver but did not have resources to do so you could have sought a maintainer specifically for subsilver instead of relegating it to a mod which any developer can break at any time for any reason or none at all.

[EXreaction]

Just because subsilver2 is not included in the default package does not mean that suddenly subsilver2 will disappear forever and nobody can use it.

I find it very likely that someone (possibly from on the teams) will release the subsilver2 style as it is (only updated) in the customisation database. Those who want to use subsilver2 will still be able to get it where the other custom styles are listed.

[marian0810]

I find it very likely that someone (possibly from on the teams) will release the subsilver2 style as it is (only updated) in the customisation database. Those who want to use subsilver2 will still be able to get it where the other custom styles are listed.

As great as that would be, it's not really the point. Lots and lots of board owners will get in trouble without the automatic updater or being able to ask questions about their style on phpbb.com that will actually get an answer.