Download Station Content Repair Group

Purpose

To act as stewards of Download Station (DLS) assets on behalf of the Trainz Community. This includes:

managing the maintenance and repair of assets over time;
taking community feedback, including that from non English speaking forums, on current problems;
working to promote the general health and usefulness of the DLS and the broader content creation community; and,
providing recommendations to N3V Games regarding how the DLS user experience and policies can be improved.

Goal

To ensure that a user of the current software version can download any content from the DLS and have it work.

Anonymity

The group will discuss operational matters relating to the DLS Repair Process via a private forum within the Trainz forum. Group membership, while not secret, will not normally be publicly available to the wider Trainz community. Members are encouraged to make their own membership known so they can get feedback from the community. The group administrator will be publicly available for contact by the community.

Principles

The intention of the group is to benefit the Trainz community as a whole. While it is expected that members will bring their own philosophy and opinions to the table, members should not join for purely selfish reasons and should be ready to participate in the larger group with the expectation that their opinions will sometimes be overruled by the group's decision-making process.
Members are not required to be continuously active within the group, but it is expected that members will take their membership seriously. There are a number of ways that a group member may contribute to the group. A member may participate in any of these roles but is expected to take an active role. Some examples are:
1. Asset repairer;
2. Asset tester;
3. Participation in discussion of an asset;
4. Engaging the wider Trainz community on DLS asset repair issues;
5. Group administration.
While the group is to respect the wishes of the community and other content creators as best possible, this should not be taken to such an extent that it undermines the capability of the group. As an example, if a commonly-used asset becomes broken but the author refuses to fix it, the group should still ensure that it is fixed or obsoleted in a meaningful fashion.
Each group member must be careful to respect the relevant laws (most typically copyright) and N3V policies. Group decision-making should take this into account. N3V Games has the right to enact technical measures to ensure that DLS content can continue to work with future versions of the game, and N3V extend this right to the DLS Content Repair Group who are acting as their agents in this regard. While licensing terms written in config.txt files should not be removed or altered by the repair group, it should be understood that such terms are not binding to N3V Games or its agents.
When in doubt about a repair decision, and in the absence of any policy or forum discussion on the matter, members should seek advice from the forum.
The asset author’s original intent is to be preserved. Repairs must not be carried out to “improve” an asset but rather make it compliant or error free with a particular build. In some instances additional meshes may be required to make an asset LOD compliant. In this case a minimal approach is preferred by providing the asset with an extra very low poly mesh. In other words, a full set of LOD meshes is not required.
Faults within encrypted scripts will require careful consideration and probably on a case by case basis. If an asset using an encrypted script has a critical fault then, after agreement by two members with TrainzScript experience, a request can be made to N3V who will decide if the script can be decrypted for repair purposes. The repaired script must be re-encrypted before uploading to the DLS. Repairing code library assets is especially dangerous given the potential to break many assets.
Decisions within the Repair Group will be a simple majority with a minimum of two members supporting the decision. In the event of an objection to the decision that cannot be resolved within the Repair Group, any member may take the issue to N3V who will have the final say. As a convention, the voting period should remain open for at least seven days and possibly longer when public holidays are involved.

How the group will operate

The existing DLS Cleanup System will change to allow the Repair Group exclusive access to those assets on the Repair List. The existing option for any Trainz member to repair another’s asset will be removed. The group will have access to the validation scans run by N3V on the DLS Asset Database. These scans are only carried out when N3V consider that validation rules have changed sufficiently that a recheck is necessary. The scan is manual and time consuming so the group cannot expect additional scans on demand without a good reason. It may be possible for N3V to include a more detailed report for an asset but the same effect can be achieved using the CM “View errors and reports” option. The existing notifications of faulty assets will continue to be sent to authors but the Repair Group will also be notified, probably via a consolidated report. If the author does not update their assets within the given time frame, the group will, where practical, make additional efforts to contact the author. If the author cannot be contacted, isn’t interested, or even does not want the asset updated, then the asset will be added to the Repair List. The Repair Group will:

Consider the assets in the repair list and decide what assets are worth repairing. Those assets not worth repairing will be tagged as locked for the purpose of repair.
Assign assets for repair to one or more group members. This will use a simple volunteer system. Assets for repair cannot be allocated to another Trainz member outside the group but the nominated group member can seek assistance separately if required. Responsibility for uploading of the repaired asset remains with the nominated member.
Provide advice to repairers and, if required, come to a decision about the repair of an asset. These might include assets where the intent of the author is unknown or unclear.
Report to the wider Trainz community via the forums about the status of repairs.

Technical information on asset repair will be a valuable resource for the group. The forum will have a separate thread for each type of asset to be repaired. Generally, this will be based on the asset KIND but it may be useful to have separate threads for different sub categories of splines.

A special thread will be created to contain link(s) to the current repair report or any other background information.

Repairing assets

Cleaning up the config.txt

Many assets requiring repair may simply require updates to config.txt tags. Tools such as AssetX and Ian Woodmore’s TARDIS can assist with this process. Repaired assets are to be noted as repaired by the DLS Repair Group and a very brief reason in the config.txt description tag. A suitable entry may look like this:

Description "(existing text, if any)

Repaired via DLS repair program. Corrected old or missing config.txt tags."

Build Numbers

Assets may be repaired to any build number providing:

The asset is tested and works in that build, and
The asset is tested and works in the current supported builds.

N3V are encouraging authors who have not previously uploaded assets to the DLS to do so. This may include assets with older build numbers. These assets will be directed to the CRG for checking and, in this case, the build numbers should not be altered. If there is a problem then the Group should be consulted for advice.

LOD

Assets requiring LOD should be updated to meet at least minimal LOD requirements and, in particular, the inclusion of a low poly mesh for the minimum mesh. N3V have said that they don’t have a problem with repairers obtaining mesh data through reverse engineering tools. Providing the use of this data is strictly within the context of repairing the asset then copyright should not be breached. Note that the process of uploading assets to the DLS requires the uploader to agree to N3V’s use of the asset. As the group is acting as an agent for N3V then there should be no problems. It is acceptable to create additional meshes to meet minimal LOD requirements providing the asset looks much like the author intended. It is considered preferable for an asset to LOD aggressively (ie. drop from the author-created mesh directly down to a low LOD) rather than be considered faulty for lack of LOD.

Testing

Repairers must test the repaired asset for the build number in the asset config.txt. Testing should include:

Free of errors;
Ideally free of warnings noting that warnings ignored may well become errors in future releases;
Visually correct in game;
Performs as would be expected for asset type. This would include animations, LOD changes, queue management for industries, etc.

It may be useful to share the asset with another of the group if a second opinion is deemed necessary.

Records

The group will keep records of:

Assets awaiting repair but not allocated;
Assets allocated for repair to group members;
Repaired assets with some details of repair including any decisions made by the Repair Group.;

It might be easier to combine the records into a simple spreadsheet perhaps in Google Docs. This will enable members to take a copy and filter contents for report purposes. The group will decide who is responsible for maintaining records. Initially, the Group Administrator will be responsible.

Reporting

The group, via the group administrator, will report the status of asset repair to the Trainz community on a frequency decided by the group.

The report will detail the number of assets awaiting repair, the number repaired and any other noteworthy events.

Community feedback

A DLS repair thread will be created in the Content Creators forum to solicit feedback:

Definitions

A locked asset: An asset that the group has determined cannot be repaired. This may be for a variety of reasons..

Backwards compatibility: Simply means ensuring that each asset is valid in the build that the config file claims. Problems with older builds inappropriately downloading incompatible content is not something that can be solved by the Repair Group and will not be considered.

Repair List: A list of assets that are either awaiting repair or have been repaired.

Silent Faulty Asset: An asset that is built in or otherwise is not considered faulty by Content Manager until it is cloned or otherwise edited. This might also include those assets who have dependencies that are faulty.

Structure and membership

The following is derived from the TrainzDev forum charter, and may be adapted to suit the requirements of this group:

Membership of this group shall be limited to 40 persons or to such other number as may be agreed between the group and N3V.
The group shall appoint a member to administer the processes set out in this document.
Admission of a new member will require a nomination by way of a forum post by any existing member. The nomination should include the username of the proposed member and a brief statement of their area of interest.
If, within 7 days of the first post, the proposal is seconded by at least two additional members posting in favour and there is no post or private forum message objecting to admission, the new member will be admitted subject to the limit on group membership.
If there are any objections to admission the process shall be extended by a further 7 days and the matter decided by a simple majority of votes in favour and against. Votes should be cast by way of a private forum message addressed to the administrator.
If the admission of a new member would result in membership exceeding the agreed maximum, voluntary retirement of existing members will be invited or, if necessary, members will be invited to nominate existing members for retirement.
Any other matter within the remit of the group, including changes to these rules, may be decided by a similar process.
Motions affecting the position of administrator or, at the discretion of the administrator and N3V, any other matters deemed unsuitable for this process will be administered or decided by N3V.
In the event of a tied poll, N3V will be asked to decide the matter by way of a casting vote.
None of the above rules shall take precedence over the general rules of the forum.

DLS Content Repair Group Charter

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