eat cat you butt

what are we going to do?

we (@mikey and @gregkan of Root Systems) will develop an app to play Telephone Pictionary (also known as Eat Poop You Cat on Scuttlebutt.

not just a butt-load of fun, the app would be the first game to represent and embody the philosophy and paradigms of Scuttlebutt and solarpunk. we hope it can act as a significant cultural touchstone and asset for the community, as well as a bit of a teaser and welcoming gesture for those beginning to explore the scuttleverse.

what is Telephone Pictionary?

we played Telephone Pictionary a heap over our retreat last week - it's an incredibly simple and elegant social game to play with friends. prepare to have your creativity and imagination enjoyably and painlessly invoked.

Telephone Pictionary is game which combines:

• "Telephone": you pass a phrase around a circle of people to see how it changes with each lossy transmission
• "Pictionary": you draw a phrase and try to get people to guess the phrase

1. every player starts with a stack of papers equal to the number of players
2. each player writes a word or phrase on the top of their stack
3. next, everyone passes their stack (as a single unit) either clockwise or counter-clockwise
4. then, on receiving someone else's word/phrase, you move that sheet of paper to the back of the stack, and draw your interpretation of that word/phrase on the fresh sheet
5. with your drawing on top, pass your stack to the next person
6. then, on receiving someone eles's drawing, you move that paper to the back of the stack, and write your interpretation of the drawing, as you wish!
7. repeat the drawing -> writing -> drawing -> writing stages until you receive your stack (whether it's a drawing or phrase depends on whether your group is odd or even)
8. last, take turns sharing your stacks, have a laugh on how the original word or phrase was transformed or not over time!

how will this benefit the Scuttlebutt community?

embodying Scuttlebutt's philosophical and operational paradigms

since the game involves passing private messages around until their culmination in an ultimate reveal, it could stand as an accessible way to both communicate and embody the fundamental paradigms that underlie Scuttlebutt.

gossip drives this game, a chain of dissemination and transformation. interpretation, the possibility of multiple truths, and their convergence and divergence all contribute to the ensuing ecstatic hilarity and also the occasional somber moment of reflection.

the game is entirely dependent on social and collaborative behaviour. the nature of the game is such that individualistic competition is incoherent, and joy is found between and across the individuals - that is, as a group! no matter how good or how terrible you think you are individually as an artist or wordsmith, you are guaranteed to enjoy your output, especially in the context of everyone else's.

a best practice example app for Scuttlebutt

by choosing to develop a simple and clearly scoped game for Scuttlebutt, we can prioritize app development quality, which we can feed back into the ecosystem as a best practice example app with friendly documentation and clear code.

how are we going to spend our 1 month of work?

Greg will play the lead developer, Mikey will play the technical coach.

at the end of the grant, we plan to deliver a desktop app that allows a group of people to play a game of Telephone Pictionary using Scuttlebutt.

to reduce our scope (and choose our battles wisely!), we will try to reinvent as few wheels as possible, instead using popular tools (like Electron and React) that are most comfortable for us.

roadmap (draft)

1. design: wireframes
2. design: message schemas
3. design: (stretch) acceptance tests
4. dev: scaffold stack
5. dev: start a game
6. dev: pass first word or phrase
7. dev: (stretch) draw using canvas
8. dev: pass subsequent drawing
9. dev: take turns until cycle completes
10. dev: share at the end
11. docs: how we use ssb messages
12. docs: how we use patchcore
13. docs: how we use flume
14. docs: project retrospective

why are we motivated to do this?

Root Systems is a team of full-stack JavaScript app developers. we are motivated to do this because we want to share our skills with Scuttlebutt!

when thinking at our retreat about what grant we could propose, we struggled to see our team (except for Mikey) being able to make low-level protocol improvements, or write documentation in areas we didn't already have experience in, making this app for Scuttlebutt hits a sweet spot in our team's existing skills and potential upskills.

Greg is keen to learn how to build apps on Scuttlebutt.

Mikey is keen to learn how to support app developers on Scuttlebutt.

(scan is missing audience in bottom left corner)

Sounds like a cool proposal. Can I suggest that being a "best practice app" includes best practice documentation, aka, learning out loud, aka over investing in documenting the journey in a way that motivates others to follow similar paths? I am available to help with that bit if you like.

We've already played various parlour games over ssb, just using ordinary threads.
What is special about this application apart from posting messages with pictures?

I'm also skeptical about the whole idea of "best practices" why are your practices better than the other applications that have been built?

note: seems like quite a bit of overlap here with "scuttlegram" ssb photo app proposal

Can I suggest that being a "best practice app" includes best practice documentation, aka, learning out loud, aka over investing in documenting the journey in a way that motivates others to follow similar paths?

@rich yes that's a better way to describe the idea!

I'm also skeptical about the whole idea of "best practices" why are your practices better than the other applications that have been built?

i'd expect to learn the best practices from the existing applications that have been built!

i'm trying to use this project to fulfill your request for more app developer docs.

@dinosaur ah, we funded @jolyon to do that in feburary.

I'm keen to support documentation grants, but I feel that @nichoth proposal made a far clearer pitch in that respect:

A community benefit is I'd like to write about the process in a tutorial style, to add to the documentation world. Also I will be asking the ssbc humans for clarification and probably making pull requests on readmes to the lower level parts of ssb. We would get a new developer's eyes on all the stuff.

sorry, I'm gonna stop being negative about this. I think I was just triggered by this "best practice" language.

@dominic one day maybe i'll play eat cat you butt, start with "best practice" and pass to you!

@dinosaur I just remembered that last time we ate together I instructed you (to put it gently) in the best practice for eating pancakes.

@Dominic fwiw I read your contributions as sharpening rather than negative

Perhaps 'exemplary' is more suited than 'best practice'.

I'm not sure how I feel about this game versus something like a shared LETS-TODO app for example (like a scuttled-trello) - I would prefer something like that but I'm a bit of a boring pragmatist sometimes.

The part that most interests me about this proposal is GREG, sorry @gregkan. Greg getting time to learn the way of the butt, and working with @mikey, the fantastic teacher.

Dominic has some intense rules and norms on his boat. I once put a cup in the wrong place and it was a big deal. To be fair shit can get pretty intense when your stuff isn't stowed and is flying everywhere. I don't think stowing pancakes is really so safety related thing tho...?

@mix i don't disagree that this is fun and games, not the usual coordination systems i actually care more about. the reason i'm pitching a scuttled-telephone-pictionary over a scuttled-trello is that the former is well-scoped and i'm confident we can deliver something that works within the given budget. i'm not at all confident that a LETS-TODO app is well-scoped, leaving us only with an expectation of working overtime without pay to deliver anything that works.

I would much rather support something that is we actually need (even if it might end up buggy and unfinished) than something we don't need but may be finished.

ssb only got to the point that we even got to this whole grant thing is because of a number of people (not just me) building things we needed, for free. Well, I'd like to improve ssb to the point were it can provide (somehow) income to people who are needed to develop it further.

There are lots of other things we actually need (another example is bookmarks/curation). I'm sure there are many things that would still be useful with half the features.

I would much rather support something that is we actually need (even if it might end up buggy and unfinished) than something we don't need but may be finished.

i'm happy to continue contributing unpaid labor for buggy and unfinished systems that have purely functional applications, but in this proposal i'm trying a new strategy: what if we tried to appeal to the next wave of contributors (beyond innovators and initiators) with an exemplary game that is fully complete, uses patterns that are easy to understand and copy, and has our cultural values baked into the medium.

this proposal is our best effort to do the best job we can, given what we know at this moment, our available skills and abilities, the resources available to us, and the situation we're in. (see prime directive.) it feels strange to be vulnerable in proposing this idea, then to be met with responses that feel uncharitable by you both @dominic and @mix, where i get the impression that you both assume this idea doesn't come from a place of shared values, despite how we've been collaborating together for many years. or maybe i'm in a clash between my ego and the messages afforded by the grant proposal medium.

that being said, i don't have a problem if y'all don't want to support this proposal this month, given the other really really really excellent proposals at hand this month, we're happy to re-propose this idea next month. and maybe a better idea will come, but this is the best we've come up with since the grant process began.

as a follow up to %U4Z/7Zn..., i also want to recognize @dominic and @mix's feedback as you both doing your best to support our shared values. i shared how i was feeling in response because i value our collaboration and want us to succeed together. i don't expect healthy collaboration to mean we never disagree. i hope it didn't come across as punishing you for giving critical feedback. i wonder if i'm being extra sensitive because i'm associating my identity with ideas that have my name on them, where it feels like a lack of support for my idea is a lack of support for me.

thanks @mikey. this month I'm trying to be honest and just myself and not take on too much responsibility, or worry about complicated power dynamics too much. I was trying to speak as myself, and talk about what I'm excited by. As this thread has proceeded I'm seeing more value as I grok more of your perspective.

Namely, this feels like it could be furthering the ecosystem by not only being a learning opportunity for greg, but also a learning opportunity for people more generally. So if I think of this more like a kata - an excercise which is mainly about the craft and build, and my focus away from asking "do I want to play that game", then I get a much different impression.

We know each other well enough to know we share many values. I think assuming other people are asusming things about you rather than asking a question feels like an ego related thing. It's a really interesting challenge with this whole grant thing. How an we be ok enough to poke at each others ideas in an 'exploring together' way.
I think that's the point of trying to have drafts up for a week before the March 1st deadline. That gives you enough flexibility to do things like realise people really dig the idea of learning and exemplars, and maybe the game itself could be slightly different, or not. Could run multiple proposals to just kick ideas around. Dunno, tension with how much energy making a clear proposal takes as well ...

(apologies - the more tired I am the less concise and clear I am)

@dinosaur I am not questioning your values! what I'm questioning is just wether this is the most effective thing you could be doing.

I have a different effectiveness simulation algorithm, I guess. But you don't need to think like me to gain my support - you just need to propose something that also happens to appeal to me.

To flip things around, when I first wrote patchbay, I was thinking about how to make everything about it pluggable. My intuitions tell me this is important. That aspect didn't excite you the same way, and you told me that. I didn't interpret this as you not liking me though, I just thought that I'll have to try harder or be more convincing, or build it anyway and thus prove it's a good idea, to win you over.

so it seems to me the following aspects of the situation, separated, are:

1. we need a really good example app for people to learn from.
2. you want to make a new app to be that example
3. that app should be a fun game
4. the effort should be clearly scoped and timeboxed.

my reactions:

1. this sounds nice, I'm not against this, but skeptical whether a new app is gonna be better than the apps we already have. +-0
2. I see this as a cost (but there are apps that we do need)
3. this is the aspect I am negative on. I feel if we are gonna be putting effort into developing something, it should be something the aims to solve other problems too.
4. completely fair, of course. but by itself not a reason to fund something.

I feel there are other adjacent proposals that hit several aspects, but would also ap
peal to me, such as

• if the proposal was for something more useful: eg, bookmarks, todos, etc. you could still have your "best practice" example app. You would constrain the scope about what you are not building, of course.
• instead of a new app, just put this improving effort into an already existing app?

hey @mix and @dominic, thanks for listening to my burst of feelings and reaffirming our shared values!

i have a stream of thoughts that came from this, hopefully moving beyond any interpersonal tensions into systematic tensions, and all of this is me rambling half-baked thoughts aloud not expecting anything to make sense or anyone to respond. even i question what i'm saying most of the time.

the question keeps coming up in my mind: are we choosing which grants to support based on people or task?

i still have some concerns about the implications of choosing grants based on tasks.

i'm concerned that this will lean towards only supporting the union of all our opinions, which are the "safe projects".

said another way, if a requirement of a grant proposal is that the value of the idea must be obvious to everyone, then it's required that a grant proposal be for something that we all understand.

i think this goes directly against the culture of mad science, where we support each other with our radical ideas, even when we don't understand them.

Dominic, i'm glad you still made patchbay even though i gave you negative feedback!

different to unpaid mad science, in the grant process our feedback controls money for whether or not our project-that-our-intuitions-tell-us-is-important is funded. for some of us, we're in a situation where we need to earn income with the majority of our available time, so whether or not a project is funded by the grant will directly impact whether or not we have capacity to follow our intuitions.

by only supporting the "safe projects", i think we might be missing out on the "radical projects" that lead to radical innovation.

i'm not expecting everyone to understand why i think making a simple game that is clear to understand and embeds our culture is valuable, it's an understanding that is subjective!

i do want to play Telephone Pictionary with you all though, so we can together explore subjective meaning, interpersonal communication, and abundant fun!

oh, is %w1IWVoC... really trying to say:

• yes this project is risky because the end result doesn't have obvious value!
• is the grant process inherently risk adverse?

I'm opposed to binary opposition like Person OR Task.
I think the awkward to talk about truth is that it's both. By talking with people or having existing contribution in this space you establish a degree of yes-ness on the Person front. Not everyone needs to know you, I think this one starts out pretty neutral and you can burn into negative by not listening and aggrivating people, or build into the positive by helping grow the ecosystem (social/code).

I have heard you present the "I think you don't like this because it's risky, but radical is important" argument before. I don't think you're using it as a crowbar to argue whatever you want, but there's a part of me that is finding it hard to let go that this argument could be used that way.
I think I'd rather pivot into "an invitation to explore the radical possibility that could be hidden in this voyage". That's way less coercive feeling to me! Oh got it, there's an ego hook in your argument that's catching me, it's the subtext "if you don't like my idea you're neither radical nor open minded".
This is some hang up from our conversations about coop strategy. sigh

I don't think we're risk averse, I think there is a weighted analysis going on though.

I reckon a simple hack might be to include a w*ldcard choice each month.
God, I can't think about a good way to decide who decides that and how though.

hey @gregkan I'd love to hear your voice here. I've hung out with you a bit, but don't have a sense of your orientation re: scuttlebutt. i.e. I've not seen you around here that much - is there any particular background to that?

There is obviously an element of Person as well as Task. That @Zach! proposed "non-technical docs" was a big factor in supporting it, because I knew he'd do great. Also, if a relative newcomer proposes something, they tend to have built up less of this knowing. So maybe it's not about the Person, but the Relationship?

Anyway, as it currently stands, the grant process is explicitly about Task, but with an defacto implicit aspect of person. If it was the other way around, a person oriented grant - I think task would still be a factor but become implicit.

on risk: I don't think that taking enough risks is the big challenge we have here. What we need to do is execute well. Adding more crazy ideas would be spreading our selves too thin! We need to make the crazy great ideas we've already have work really well. When you find the gold (risky fun) start digging it! (safe work). Searching for the gold is the fun part, but now we have to do the work of getting it out. It's the benefit of the results of the safe work that makes the risk worthwhile.

That said, if you find your own source of funding, you can administer your own grant process, you can make it as risky and person oriented as you like! I'm not against this in principle, I just think it's not what we need right now.

oh, @dinosaur other thing that occured to me: I'd be much more inclined to undertake a more risky process for distributing funds, if the source of funds was more secure. As it is, we have this much to work with, I want to make sure it gets to us to a place were we can get more flowing through the community.