Triplea: Updating External download links

[ZjelcoP]

Hi,

I'll update the external download links, previously discussed in #3461 and #521 and on the post-Hard launch list.

1-Got access to https://www.freewarefiles.com/TripleA_program_56699.html

2-https://download.cnet.com/TripleA/3001-18516_4-75184098.html
3-https://www.moddb.com/games/triplea
Both are linked to [email protected], password reset request has been sent.
@ron-murhammer and @DanVanAtta please either give me access to [email protected] (no idea what else it's used for) or change the password to number 2 and 3 and give me that one.
I'll then start using [email protected] for account recovery.

4-https://games.softpedia.com/get/Freeware-Games/TripleA.shtml
Unknown account, making ticket to request access to update the links.

If there are no objections I'll add some more sites once stable is released.

Please advise me where you want to have all links documented. Wiki page?

[Cernelius]

If there are no objections I'll add some more sites once stable is released.

Hey, it's great that you are taking the initiative of taking care of all this abandoned stuff, but are you sure it would be wise to expand the matter? In my opinion, the problem with these things is that if someone, eventually, stops caring, it is hard to find a substitute (as hinted by the fact that one still offers TripleA 1.7.0.3, released in 2011). In this case, would you believe that outdated download links would be no worse than none?

[tvleavitt]

Can we tell how much traffic is being generated from each source?

Do we have info from end-users about how they found the game?

Do we have any information on which download sources are productive?

What's the requirement, for example, to make it onto the Windows (App)
Store, or the Apple App Store?

It's my sense that software distribution is going away from direct
downloads off third party sites, to centralized app stores... of course,
that likely triggers the requirement for an NPO and some kind of entity /
individual willing to sign off on an app and deal with legal requirements
like notarization. Have you thought about finding a non-profit umbrella
organization to handle these aspects, such as the Software Conservancy,
https://sfconservancy.org/ , (they sponsor a game engine, Godot)? Or
contacting the Software Freedom Law Center about the issues you're facing?
https://softwarefreedom.org/ - The Software Freedom Law Center provides
pro-bono legal services to developers of Free, Libre, and Open Source
Software.

Regards,
Thomas Leavitt

On Mon, May 11, 2020 at 4:35 PM Cernelius [e-mail] wrote:

If there are no objections I'll add some more sites once stable is
released.

Hey, it's great that you are taking the initiative of taking care of all
this abandoned stuff, but are you sure it would be wise to expand the
matter? In my opinion, the problem with these things is that if someone,
eventually, stops caring, it is hard to find a substitute (as hinted by the
fact that one still offers TripleA 1.7.0.3, released in 2011). In this
case, would you believe that outdated download links would be no worse than
none?

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[DanVanAtta]

@ZjelcoP we have only the password for moddb. I sent you a gist that contains the creds.

@Cernelius I think is probably right that perhaps we don't want to make the version update situation worse unless we can aim the download site to our download page.

There was talk about getting TripleA listed on Steam: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/issues/3434

@tvleavitt

Can we tell how much traffic is being generated from each source?

No

Do we have info from end-users about how they found the game?

None

Do we have any information on which download sources are productive?

None :disappointed:

What's the requirement, for example, to make it onto the Windows (App)
Store, or the Apple App Store?

Apple app store requires an app review, I'm not sure how often we really want to go through that. No knowledge here about windows app store requirements.

IMO Steam is a good goal, the app/windows app stores seem less intriguing to me off-the-bat, but then again it's hard to say how much discovery we would get from those sources (so can't be sure what we are really passing up vs the ROI of getting that listing).

[tvleavitt]

@ZjelcoP https://github.com/ZjelcoP You might check to see if there's any
reporting on these sites... if it indicates a trivial amount of downloads,
it might be less hassle to simply remove the listing than to update it
periodically (unless it can automatically pull updates).

@Dan Van Atta It might be worth embedding a link to a survey either on the
site or even in the app itself, and asking folks in the forums, etc. to
fill it out as well (existing users).

I think Steam would be a good platform (we might look at other stores as
well, such as the Epic Store). It looks like, again, with Steam, you need
either an individual willing to sign contracts on behalf of the project
(and such a person would require a lot of trust, as they'd essentially have
sole control on the platform) or a corporate entity (such as a non-profit).
Once that's done, there's a $100 fee per app to list your game, and then
some integration with the Steamworks API. I went and signed in to
Steamworks just to poke around.

The fundamental issue you're going to be dealing with, long term, is that
you need some kind of corporate entity, and that's fundamentally not cheap.
You've got incorporation fees and other costs ($500-1000, one time), state
and federal filing fees and taxes ($400/year in Delaware), paperwork and
accounting (possibly doable by a non-professional, but who's going to
volunteer for that) and tax preparation ($500/year), basic business
liability insurance ($500/year), etc. It's at least a couple thousand a
year in overhead, I'll wager... a listing on Steam might be able to
generate via a "Cup of Coffee for Developers" style donations, but I think
it is unrealistic to think it'd generate more than a few hundred. Might
also complicate accounting and taxation more than it's worth. There's also
bureaucracy, you'd need at a bare minimum a board (three members, minimum),
and an executive director (who could also be a board member), and a way of
choosing them, and replacements, etc.

The alternative is vesting a lot of power and responsibility in one
individual willling to be a stand in for the project as a whole.

On Mon, May 11, 2020 at 6:27 PM Dan Van Atta [e-mail]
wrote:

@ZjelcoP https://github.com/ZjelcoP we have only the password for
moddb. I sent you a gist that contains the creds.

@Cernelius https://github.com/Cernelius I think is probably right that
perhaps we don't want to make the version update situation worse unless we
can aim the download site to our download page.

There was talk about getting TripleA listed on Steam: #3434
https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/issues/3434

@tvleavitt https://github.com/tvleavitt

Can we tell how much traffic is being generated from each source?

No

Do we have info from end-users about how they found the game?

None

Do we have any information on which download sources are productive?

None 😞

What's the requirement, for example, to make it onto the Windows (App)
Store, or the Apple App Store?

Apple app store requires an app review, I'm not sure how often we really
want to go through that. No knowledge here about windows app store
requirements.

IMO Steam is a good goal, the app/windows app stores seem less intriguing
to me off-the-bat, but then again it's hard to say how much discovery we
would get from those sources (so can't be sure what we are really passing
up vs the ROI of getting that listing).

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[ZjelcoP]

1. https://www.freewarefiles.com/TripleA_program_56699.html
   I've been tracking https://www.freewarefiles.com/TripleA_program_56699.html ever since I took over the management of the links by contacting support.

-first upload around 2010
-16300 total downloads
-4439 since 2016-12-01 which equals about 110 downloads per month.

The links point directly to github, I just update those links.
There is also a link named "publisher" pointing to https://triplea-game.org/

1. https://download.cnet.com/TripleA/3001-18516_4-75184098.html
   Managed to log in today with the same credentials as for https://www.moddb.com/

-first upload around 2014
-14281 Windows downloads
-8459 Mac downloads
-184 Linux downloads

1. https://www.moddb.com/games/triplea

-some 2000 downloads though there may have been much more for previous versions
-severely outdated 1.7.0.3 > links dead, sourceforge
-Lots of text, pics and other stuff added = high maintenance
-will have to investigate overall trafic of the site to see if it is worthwile to update or best delete.

3,333,704 visitors a month...

1. https://games.softpedia.com/get/Freeware-Games/TripleA.shtml

-1,055 downloads
-links dead, sourceforge

[ZjelcoP]

As long as I document the necessary info it should be easy to take over or end the external downloadlinks, though I'm fine keeping it up. Really not that much work and it's in my TripleA field of marketing.
All these are free, pursuing the paid or heavy requirement options (apple/steam) are out of my scope and expertise.

I've long had a wish to see results of a survey or other numbers.
Can we track number of downloads through own site/github?
If you put up a survey then also include the Facebook page. Spent a few dimes seeding TripleA with adds.

What I'd be very interested to see is how many people actually play the game but you will never see online. Myself I've spent countless hours trashing the AI and I'm sure I'm not alone.
I rarely ever play vs player besides around a real table.
To get results from all sorts of players I think putting a survey in the app would get the best and most representative results.

[tvleavitt]

@ZjelcoP I would think GitHub would include download tracking, including
referral sources (would be interesting to see what they show).

If you type "triplea download" into DuckDuckGo; the

1 link is triplea-game.org/download

2 link is SourceForge. Might be interesting to see how much traffic comes

from there to the main web site.

3 link is Download.com

5 link is https://www.portalprogramas.com/en/triplea/ which has 1.8.07

listed (and 0 downloads last 7 days)

6 link is https://www.download.hr/download-triplea.html which has 1.5.07

and links to sourceforge.net

Further down is https://www.indiedb.com/games/triplea/ which has 1.7.0.3
and links to sourceforge.net (and has a high user rating of 8.6 with 137
votes submitted)

moddb is further down on the list

Further down (but with 11000 downloads) is
https://triplea.en.uptodown.com/windows with 1.8.0.9

and https://www.usitility.com/triplea/ with 1.8.0.3

Even further down, but with 20000 downloads, is MajorGeeks:
https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/triplea.html 1.9.0.0.13066 (which
indicates someone is paying attention to the stable release)

https://www.freewarefiles.com/TripleA_program_56699.html - 16306 downloads,
you reviewed it apparently :)

and while this links to our site, the info is out of date
https://www.techadvisor.co.uk/download/games/triplea-19003627-3249868/

Thomas

On Tue, May 12, 2020 at 1:02 PM ZjelcoP [e-mail] wrote:

As long as I document the necessary info it should be easy to take over or
end the external downloadlinks, though I'm fine keeping it up. Really not
that much work and it's in my TripleA field of marketing.
All these are free, pursuing the paid over heavy requirement options are
out of my scope and expertise.

I've long had a wish to see results of a survey or other numbers.
Can we track number of downloads through own site/github?
If you put up a survey then also include the Facebook page. Spent a few
dimes seeding TripleA with adds.

What I'd be very interested to see is how many people actually play the
game but you will never see online. Myself I've spent countless hours
trashing the AI and I'm sure I'm not alone.
I rarely ever play vs player besides around a real table.
To get results from all sorts of players I think putting a survey in the
app would get the best and most representative results.

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[tvleavitt]

More broadly, triplea-game.org's relatively low rank (second page) when I
search for "free axis and allies game" suggests some SEO might be
beneficial. Here's what shows up in DuckDuckGo as a summary. Observing what
shows up ahead of it, the most obvious aspects are the titles: every single
site ranking ahead of TripleA-game.org has "Axis & Allies" in the title;
they all also have it earlier in the first sentence (but I think the title
here is key).

Title: TripleA: The World's Foremost Open Source Grand Strategy Game

TripleA is a free online turn based strategy game and board game engine,
similar to such board games as Axis & Allies or Risk. TripleA comes with
multiple games and over 100 more maps can be downloaded from the user
community. Supports single player vs AI, hot-seat, play by email and forum,
and a hosted Online lobby for live play online.

The site ranks at the top of the second page for "Open Source Strategy
Game" and much further down for "open source turn based strategy game".

I'd recommend rewriting the title as "TripleA: An Open Source Turn Based
Grand Strategy Game" (which fits into the length Google truncates the title
below, exactly)

Also, looking at the description, I'd tune it thusly:

TripleA is a free open source turn based grand strategy game engine with
game play similar to Axis & Allies or Risk. Over a hundred different
scenario maps created by the community with a wide variety of themes (such
as WW1, WW2 and various science fiction and fantasy worlds) are available
for download. TripleA supports single player vs AI, hot-seat, play by email
and forum, and a hosted lobby for live online play.

Edits are because I'm not sure what "multiple games" means here, and I'm
not sure what "maps" means to an end user (vs. scenarios).

Tags that need updated are here:

---

Note: Google generally truncates meta description snippets to ~155-160
chars, here are the results of that policy:

A search in Google for "TripleA download" shows:

TripleA is a free online turn based strategy game and board game engine,
similar to such board games as Axis & Allies or Risk. TripleA comes with
multiple ... (154 chars)

---

My rewrite comes in at 155 characters (when truncated):

TripleA is a free open source turn based grand strategy game engine with
game play similar to Axis & Allies or Risk. Over a hundred different
scenario maps ...

---

Right below the result above is a link to the TripleA home page with this
extracted summary (that is shown instead of the meta description):

TripleA: The World's Foremost Open Source Grand Strategy

Community built maps, Axis and Allies game rules: Download TripleA. 100%
open source, community run, free to play game. Live lobby play, play by
email, play ..

---

In light of this, we should think about what text appears first on the home
page (the first 155 characters or so).

Thomas

On Tue, May 12, 2020 at 1:55 PM Thomas Leavitt [e-mail]
wrote:

@ZjelcoP I would think GitHub would include download tracking, including
referral sources (would be interesting to see what they show).

If you type "triplea download" into DuckDuckGo; the

1 link is triplea-game.org/download

2 link is SourceForge. Might be interesting to see how much traffic comes

from there to the main web site.

3 link is Download.com

5 link is https://www.portalprogramas.com/en/triplea/ which has 1.8.07

listed (and 0 downloads last 7 days)

6 link is https://www.download.hr/download-triplea.html which has 1.5.07

and links to sourceforge.net

Further down is https://www.indiedb.com/games/triplea/ which has 1.7.0.3
and links to sourceforge.net (and has a high user rating of 8.6 with 137
votes submitted)

moddb is further down on the list

Further down (but with 11000 downloads) is
https://triplea.en.uptodown.com/windows with 1.8.0.9

and https://www.usitility.com/triplea/ with 1.8.0.3

Even further down, but with 20000 downloads, is MajorGeeks:
https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/triplea.html 1.9.0.0.13066
(which indicates someone is paying attention to the stable release)

https://www.freewarefiles.com/TripleA_program_56699.html - 16306
downloads, you reviewed it apparently :)

and while this links to our site, the info is out of date
https://www.techadvisor.co.uk/download/games/triplea-19003627-3249868/

Thomas

On Tue, May 12, 2020 at 1:02 PM ZjelcoP [e-mail] wrote:

As long as I document the necessary info it should be easy to take over
or end the external downloadlinks, though I'm fine keeping it up. Really
not that much work and it's in my TripleA field of marketing.
All these are free, pursuing the paid over heavy requirement options are
out of my scope and expertise.

I've long had a wish to see results of a survey or other numbers.
Can we track number of downloads through own site/github?
If you put up a survey then also include the Facebook page. Spent a few
dimes seeding TripleA with adds.

What I'd be very interested to see is how many people actually play the
game but you will never see online. Myself I've spent countless hours
trashing the AI and I'm sure I'm not alone.
I rarely ever play vs player besides around a real table.
To get results from all sorts of players I think putting a survey in the
app would get the best and most representative results.

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[prastle]

@tvleavitt That sounds like an excellent rewrite to me. Just my, "Two Cents."

[tvleavitt]

I also edited the Wikipedia entry (in a minor way) to reflect that maps are
now downloaded from GitHub, not SourceForge; that page probably deserves a
closer look by someone more knowledgable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple

Also, I downloaded and installed this tool for querying GitHub's download
numbers:

https://pypi.org/project/github-download-count/#description

Here are the results for the latest stable release:

483 http-server-1.9.0.0.13066.zip
73 md5sum.txt
44 md5sum.txt.asc
56 migrations.zip
40 sha1sum.txt
33 sha1sum.txt.asc
70 sha256sum.txt
50 sha256sum.txt.asc
246 triplea-game-headed-1.9.0.0.13066.zip
105 triplea-game-headless-1.9.0.0.13066.zip
79 triplea-lobby-1.9.0.0.13066.zip
12889 TripleA_1.9.0.0.13066_macos.dmg
7371 TripleA_1.9.0.0.13066_unix.sh
7146 TripleA_1.9.0.0.13066_windows-32bit.exe
54282 TripleA_1.9.0.0.13066_windows-64bit.exe

Roughly 80,000 downloads, which suggests that third party sites actually do
represent a reasonable proportion of our overall download mix.

Thomas

On Tue, May 12, 2020 at 3:29 PM prastle [e-mail] wrote:

@tvleavitt https://github.com/tvleavitt That sounds like an excellent
rewrite to me. Just my, "Two Cents."

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[tvleavitt]

Information about how to query the API and list downloads for a particular
release (including, specifically, for the latest release, whatever that
is), is here:

On Tue, May 12, 2020 at 3:56 PM Thomas Leavitt [e-mail]
wrote:

I also edited the Wikipedia entry (in a minor way) to reflect that maps
are now downloaded from GitHub, not SourceForge; that page probably
deserves a closer look by someone more knowledgable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple

Also, I downloaded and installed this tool for querying GitHub's download
numbers:

https://pypi.org/project/github-download-count/#description

Here are the results for the latest stable release:

483 http-server-1.9.0.0.13066.zip
73 md5sum.txt
44 md5sum.txt.asc
56 migrations.zip
40 sha1sum.txt
33 sha1sum.txt.asc
70 sha256sum.txt
50 sha256sum.txt.asc
246 triplea-game-headed-1.9.0.0.13066.zip
105 triplea-game-headless-1.9.0.0.13066.zip
79 triplea-lobby-1.9.0.0.13066.zip
12889 TripleA_1.9.0.0.13066_macos.dmg
7371 TripleA_1.9.0.0.13066_unix.sh
7146 TripleA_1.9.0.0.13066_windows-32bit.exe
54282 TripleA_1.9.0.0.13066_windows-64bit.exe

Roughly 80,000 downloads, which suggests that third party sites actually
do represent a reasonable proportion of our overall download mix.

Thomas

On Tue, May 12, 2020 at 3:29 PM prastle [e-mail] wrote:

@tvleavitt https://github.com/tvleavitt That sounds like an excellent
rewrite to me. Just my, "Two Cents."

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[tvleavitt]

https://developer.github.com/v3/repos/releases/

On Tue, May 12, 2020 at 4:08 PM Thomas Leavitt [e-mail]
wrote:

Information about how to query the API and list downloads for a particular
release (including, specifically, for the latest release, whatever that
is), is here:

On Tue, May 12, 2020 at 3:56 PM Thomas Leavitt [e-mail]
wrote:

I also edited the Wikipedia entry (in a minor way) to reflect that maps
are now downloaded from GitHub, not SourceForge; that page probably
deserves a closer look by someone more knowledgable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple

Also, I downloaded and installed this tool for querying GitHub's download
numbers:

https://pypi.org/project/github-download-count/#description

Here are the results for the latest stable release:

483 http-server-1.9.0.0.13066.zip
73 md5sum.txt
44 md5sum.txt.asc
56 migrations.zip
40 sha1sum.txt
33 sha1sum.txt.asc
70 sha256sum.txt
50 sha256sum.txt.asc
246 triplea-game-headed-1.9.0.0.13066.zip
105 triplea-game-headless-1.9.0.0.13066.zip
79 triplea-lobby-1.9.0.0.13066.zip
12889 TripleA_1.9.0.0.13066_macos.dmg
7371 TripleA_1.9.0.0.13066_unix.sh
7146 TripleA_1.9.0.0.13066_windows-32bit.exe
54282 TripleA_1.9.0.0.13066_windows-64bit.exe

Roughly 80,000 downloads, which suggests that third party sites actually
do represent a reasonable proportion of our overall download mix.

Thomas

On Tue, May 12, 2020 at 3:29 PM prastle [e-mail] wrote:

@tvleavitt https://github.com/tvleavitt That sounds like an excellent
rewrite to me. Just my, "Two Cents."

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[Cernelius]

From not an English speaker, your rewording looks good to me (and quite overdue!), though I'm not sure how much we are drifting off topic right now.

Title: TripleA: The World's Foremost Open Source Grand Strategy Game

TripleA is a free online turn based strategy game and board game engine,
similar to such board games as Axis & Allies or Risk. TripleA comes with
multiple games and over 100 more maps can be downloaded from the user
community. Supports single player vs AI, hot-seat, play by email and forum,
and a hosted Online lobby for live play online.

The site ranks at the top of the second page for "Open Source Strategy
Game" and much further down for "open source turn based strategy game".

I'd recommend rewriting the title as "TripleA: An Open Source Turn Based
Grand Strategy Game" (which fits into the length Google truncates the title
below, exactly)

I agree your description is more correct, but saying "An Open Source...Game" doesn't sound as bold as saying "The World's Foremost...Game". Though I've wordered at times if TripleA is actually the foremost one, or at least who else says that.

Also, looking at the description, I'd tune it thusly:

TripleA is a free open source turn based grand strategy game engine with
game play similar to Axis & Allies or Risk. Over a hundred different

Is that an exclusive or? Meaning "similar to one of Axis & Allies or Risk (but not both)"?

Yeah, I know the "or" of the English language is not really logical and can be indifferently inclusive or exclusive (though I think in common speech it is usually intended as exclusive), and you are left guessing that based on context (so I get here has to be inclusive, unless the writer is intentionally playing tricks on the reader). I'm just wondering if maybe "similar to Axis & Allies and Risk" would be more correct (I'm not an English speaker)?

Saying it another way, starting from the certainly logically correct "similar to Axis & Allies and/or Risk" (which is likely the actual meaning of the present "or"), would you rather axe the "and" or the "or", out of it?

scenario maps created by the community with a wide variety of themes (such
as WW1, WW2 and various science fiction and fantasy worlds) are available

Maybe "scenarios", instead of "themes"?

for download. TripleA supports single player vs AI, hot-seat, play by email
and forum, and a hosted lobby for live online play.

It is missing the fact that you can play "live and online" also without the lobby (direct connection). That might be less trivial than one may think, as it might help people realize they don't actually need the lobby to play TripleA live and online. Or maybe it is actually preferred they always join the lobby, to do so...

Edits are because I'm not sure what "multiple games" means here, and I'm
not sure what "maps" means to an end user (vs. scenarios).

I assume you are referring to the original "TripleA comes with multiple games and over 100 more maps can be downloaded from the user community". That is actually a very outdated description, that is picturing the old times when TripleA had several maps preinstalled. Now, as we all know, TripleA actually comes with zero games and maps.

About maps and games, the distinction is pretty simple, actually. Looking at those zips you have in your "downloadedMaps" folder, each subfolder (normally, all zipped) is a map, except those having no games folder inside, that are mapskins, while each xml file inside the games folder within these subfolders is a game. So, beside mapskins, you can have 1 or more games for each map (you can also have a map having no games, but that would be pointless, and would equal not having the map, either, on the user's side). Also, the game files of a map don't actually need to be within the map, but they normally are. I just put it that way to keep it simpler.

So, that description (talking about preinstalled games and downloaded maps) made the most sense, since the preinstalled maps were (and would still be) offered you as games, while the ones to download are offered you as maps, when you have to download them.

Tags that need updated are here:

---

Note: Google generally truncates meta description snippets to ~155-160
chars, here are the results of that policy:

A search in Google for "TripleA download" shows:

TripleA is a free online turn based strategy game and board game engine,
similar to such board games as Axis & Allies or Risk. TripleA comes with
multiple ... (154 chars)

---

My rewrite comes in at 155 characters (when truncated):

TripleA is a free open source turn based grand strategy game engine with
game play similar to Axis & Allies or Risk. Over a hundred different
scenario maps ...

---

Right below the result above is a link to the TripleA home page with this
extracted summary (that is shown instead of the meta description):

TripleA: The World's Foremost Open Source Grand Strategy

Community built maps, Axis and Allies game rules: Download TripleA. 100%
open source, community run, free to play game. Live lobby play, play by
email, play ..

---

In light of this, we should think about what text appears first on the home
page (the first 155 characters or so).

Thomas

On Tue, May 12, 2020 at 1:55 PM Thomas Leavitt [e-mail]
wrote:
…

[Cernelius]

3 link is Download.com

5 link is https://www.portalprogramas.com/en/triplea/

6 link is https://www.download.hr/download-triplea.html

Further down is https://www.indiedb.com/games/triplea/ which has 1.7.0.3

https://triplea.en.uptodown.com/windows with 1.8.0.9

and https://www.usitility.com/triplea/ with 1.8.0.3

https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/triplea.html 1.9.0.0.13066 (which

I wondered this for a long time, so, can anyone let me know if all these sites are just going ahead themselves grabbing TripleA and offering it, and the 4 ones at the OP are actually the only 4 ones deliberately ever directly or indirectly managed by a TripleA member?

The other problem with this is that, as the years go by, the distinction between the two might be lost (if it is not, already). Does TripleA have a full list of all official partner sites anywhere, for tracking that?

and while this links to our site, the info is out of date
https://www.techadvisor.co.uk/download/games/triplea-19003627-3249868/

I understand this is actually merely a review of that version of TripleA, thus will never be actually outdated (and would make no sense to update, unless you review it again, which would be a new review).

[DanVanAtta]

@tvleavitt I like the rewrite / SEO suggestions. w.r.t SEO making the page more mobile friendly would be of big help, google gives a very decent penalty for mobile-unfriendly pages.

RE: download counts, one should keep in mind those are lifetime. The 1.9.0.0.3635 release was a very major one, it does not appear we have those download counts anymore regrettably. The 7xxx release was also significant (https://triplea-game.org/release_notes/); Sourceforge perhaps one of the best/longest running lists of DL counts: https://sourceforge.net/projects/triplea/files/stats/timeline?dates=2003-02-13+to+2018-05-13

I just want to call out that DL counts over all years vs the year+ that 13066 has been out are perhaps not necessarily directly comparable.

[DanVanAtta]

@Cernelius https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/wiki/Release-Steps#major-releases; freeware and download.cnet are marked as sites we should update. Hard to say about the others whether the distinction was lost or if they just picked TripleA for mirroring.

[Cernelius]

So, then, maybe it would be good fully to clarify in the opening post.

---

https://www.moddb.com/games/triplea
I believe this is a mirror (is it the only or main one or not would be the question?) of some sort of "Desura", that I have understood was supposed to be the main external download offered by TripleA. That would likely explain why the "Lots of text, pics and other stuff added".
According to Wikipedia, Desura is dead (offline) since September 2016.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desura
The question would be how much legal is this mirror, if it is an online copy of something owned and offline (I've no idea).
So, substantially, the question to be answered would be if this is some sort of official successor of Desura or some mirror made by someone having no ownership of or connection with the original.

---

https://games.softpedia.com/get/Freeware-Games/TripleA.shtml
@ZjelcoP Do you have any information about this having ever been any sort of "partner site" to TripleA?
If not, I think this should be just viewed in par with whatever else that went on its own to grab TripleA and offer it (it seems there are many other cases).
I mean, in this case, it can be made a partner site too, but this could be said of each of the ones linked by @tvleavitt.

---

Then, again, just some opinions from a bystander.

To sum up my opinion, the matter would be first sorting out if TripleA actually has 2, 3 or 4 partner sites. Then, if anyone volunteers about managing more, it would have to be decided which ones (probably not every single site on the internet that is currently offering any version of TripleA). Beside, if they just grabbed TripleA themselves to start with, they may just prefer going on their own.

[tvleavitt]

Where was 1.9.0.0.3635 built? I don't see it in Github's release listings...

On Tue, May 12, 2020 at 6:22 PM Dan Van Atta [e-mail]
wrote:

@tvleavitt https://github.com/tvleavitt I like the rewrite / SEO
suggestions. w.r.t SEO making the page more mobile friendly would be of big
help, google gives a very decent penalty for mobile-unfriendly pages.

RE: download counts, one should keep in mind those are lifetime. The
1.9.0.0.3635 release was a very major one, it does not appear we have those
download counts anymore regrettably. The 7xxx release was also significant (
https://triplea-game.org/release_notes/); Sourceforge perhaps one of the
best/longest running lists of DL counts:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/triplea/files/stats/timeline?dates=2003-02-13+to+2018-05-13

I just want to call out that DL counts over all years vs the year+ that
13066 has been out are perhaps not necessarily directly comparable.

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[tvleavitt]

One of the ways to relatively easily make the web site "mobile-friendly"
would be to put it into a CMS that generates a mobile site dynamically.
Unless I'm missing something, the site itself is pretty simple. We could
pick a CMS that has an API so that we can dynamically update it.

Except, I just checked... Google says it has no issues with the site, and
that it is mobile friendly by their definition. You can see what Google
thinks it looks like on a mobile device below.

https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly?id=MtJYZVcKJxaYsB75er4nRw

So, SEO from Google's perspective is just about editing the content and
leaving the current design in place.

I don't think I have access to edit the web site HTML, but I suggest, as
well, editing the meta tags on each of these pages to reflect the actual
content of each page (since Google appears to be using them as the
description).

Also, I think Google is dynamically conflating the content of the "Title"
and the "H1" tag, "Triplea" into the link label it creates for the
"Download" and "All Maps" and "User Guide" pages. Is that what we want?
(probably o.k.?)

On Tue, May 12, 2020 at 6:22 PM Dan Van Atta [e-mail]
wrote:

@tvleavitt https://github.com/tvleavitt I like the rewrite / SEO
suggestions. w.r.t SEO making the page more mobile friendly would be of big
help, google gives a very decent penalty for mobile-unfriendly pages.

RE: download counts, one should keep in mind those are lifetime. The
1.9.0.0.3635 release was a very major one, it does not appear we have those
download counts anymore regrettably. The 7xxx release was also significant (
https://triplea-game.org/release_notes/); Sourceforge perhaps one of the
best/longest running lists of DL counts:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/triplea/files/stats/timeline?dates=2003-02-13+to+2018-05-13

I just want to call out that DL counts over all years vs the year+ that
13066 has been out are perhaps not necessarily directly comparable.

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[DanVanAtta]

I think I may have kaboshed the 1.9.0.0.3635 tag when cleaning up tags :disappointed:

@tvleavitt the website source is at: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea-game.github.io/

Interesting there is no longer a mobile-not-friendly warning, I thought that was an issue but am happy to hear google currently no longer things so.

[RoiEXLab]

@DanVanAtta I spent some effort to make the site mobile friendlier some time ago, but I think there still are some pages that some tools consider as "too dense" for mobile

[ZjelcoP]

@tvleavitt That is a nice list you put together there.

Also found the Wikipediapage has a long list of links to other sites.
Total will be over 20, possibly by a lot.

Quite a few sites someone actually uploaded it at one point. Many others just grabbed it to create content.

My plan:

1-Update as many sites as possible. Some you can do it yourselves once taking over control.
Site admins can be willing to help out with that.
Others you can send a request to update or fill in a form for that.
2-I'll document all sites with current version and way to get them updated in a wikipage an put that under https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/wiki/Release-Steps. Unless someone has an other preference.

3-Even if this is a one time effort and I disappear (don't plan to) there will be more recent versions around to download and possibly some more sites linked to the download site for future proofing.
I think there is nothing to lose besides my time.

4-Access to [email protected] could be very helpful.
account is still controlled by Veqryn, he sent the password 5 Jan 2017:

@ZjelcoP I sent the pw to @ron-murhammer and @DanVanAtta
_Originally posted by @veqryn in https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/issues/521#issuecomment-270615410_

If no one has access can you provide an alternative currently used mail account (I don't need access) that I'll use for account recovery of a new to be made email address I'll use to contact and/or login to all sites.

5-Once 2.0 is released can I expect that stable version to stay for a reasonable period of time or might there be updates fairly quickly. What would strategically be the best time to update sites I can't directly control and will take more effort?

[prastle]

I would recommend all passwords and logins added to the secret page. Other than that GREAT STUFF!

[tvleavitt]

Yow. The amount of cognitive overhead required to make a simple textual
change to a 7 page web site here is quite extraordinary. I had to fire up a
Ubuntu VM (thankfully I had one lying around), install the prerequisites
for ruby and jekyll, understand git well enough to clone the site, everse
engineer where the Title and meta-description tag info was stored, back
track the git config (after making the edit) to create my own fork of the
site code on github and then change the remote origin to my fork,
understand git well enough to add the change and push it to my fork on
github, and then figure out the pull request process. Most of these steps
are undocumented. Good thing my job as a sysadmin is to have random
technical requirements dumped in my lap on a regular basis with a mandate
to figure it out and make it work.

Why do we need the overhead of a CMS for what amounts to a 7 page web site?

If we're going to use a CMS, why can't we use something like a wiki that
lets edits be made directly without git or modifying text files, and then
confirmed and published by an admin? The current process, I'd say,
eliminates 99.99% of potential contributors (not that you're going to be
making that many changes, admittedly).

Thomas

On Wed, May 13, 2020 at 2:48 PM prastle [e-mail] wrote:

I would recommend all passwords and logins added to the secret page. Other
than that GREAT STUFF!

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[veqryn]

@ZjelcoP what is your email, I'll either send you the password or we'll figure something out.

[DanVanAtta]

@veqryn I'm surprised to not find you on the forum: https://forums.triplea-game.org ; the chat feature there is a relatively easy way to trade email addresses.

@tvleavitt I feel the pain; I have not-so-fond memories of debugging mysterious Ruby dependency problems and spending the next 4 hours trying to re-install gems and get jekyll back into a working state.. :grimacing:

Re: wiki page, we are limited by github pages. They essentially host the site with jekyll, so to launch the site locally that is the ticket.
https://help.github.com/en/github/working-with-github-pages/about-github-pages-and-jekyll

FWIW, the pencil icon does work for single page edits, so there is a path where it is easier.

I'm surprised that jekyll did not run well on Mac OS, in theory an ubuntu VM should not be necessary.

I took a stab to help improve the 'how-to-contribute' instructions for website: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea-game.github.io/pull/340

Any quick suggestions or adding any details that you found helpful would be very welcome to have included.

[tvleavitt]

1. I'm reluctant to run unknown code on a work machine; putting into a VM
   limits the scope of any potential side effects.

2. I'll review the web site contribution documentation (at some point, on
   my todo list now). I went through and created a bunch of issues after an
   in-depth review of the site. I figured our process should reflect the way
   we handle code changes, so I was very granular in my approach, apologies if
   this comes off as spamming the issue queue.

3. Question: how does the "pencil" edit feature co-exist with deploying the
   site via "git"? Also, how do you access it? I'm not seeing it anywhere in
   my interface.

Thomas

On Fri, May 15, 2020 at 2:03 AM Dan Van Atta [e-mail]
wrote:

@veqryn https://github.com/veqryn I'm surprised to not find you on the
forum: https://forums.triplea-game.org ; the chat feature there is a
relatively easy way to trade email addresses.

@tvleavitt https://github.com/tvleavitt I feel the pain; I have
not-so-fond memories of debugging mysterious Ruby dependency problems and
spending the next 4 hours trying to re-install gems and get jekyll back
into a working state.. 😬

Re: wiki page, we are limited by github pages. They essentially host the
site with jekyll, so to launch the site locally that is the ticket.

https://help.github.com/en/github/working-with-github-pages/about-github-pages-and-jekyll

FWIW, the pencil icon does work for single page edits, so there is a path
where it is easier.

I'm surprised that jekyll did not run well on Mac OS, in theory an ubuntu
VM should not be necessary.

I took a stab to help improve the 'how-to-contribute' instructions for
website: triplea-game/triplea-game.github.io#340
https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea-game.github.io/pull/340

Any quick suggestions or adding any details that you found helpful would
be very welcome to have included.

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[DanVanAtta]

Re: pencil icon

Find a page you want to edit on github, eg: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea-game.github.io/blob/master/user-guide/rule-book/rule-book.md

Then click the 'pencil icon'

Github converts the page to an edittable text area, at the bottom is an area to create a commit on a branch/fork and submit for PR. The only downside you cannot preview the update readily and you can only update one page at a time this way. On the plus side you do not need anything other than an account and a web browser.

Github re-deploys updates on any commit, so the changes would be live shortly after a PR is merged.

[DanVanAtta]

@ZjelcoP do you have all the passwords you would want at this point? Are you missing any? Could you summarize the latest status? 2.0 can be soft-launched near imminently, meaning a "hard-launch" where we update all the download links could happen within the next week or two!

[ZjelcoP]

Got access to [email protected] thanks to Veqryn and at least 3 sites where I can manage the version myself. Most others I'll have to make a request with admins.
Making inventory of all other sites. Will contact those when 2.0 is out with request to update the version.
[email protected] might make this job easier as it was the same account used to submit and update to many sites in the first place. Also found some sites I hadn't seen yet by sorting old mail.

Will put a list of all sites, what version they're currently on and how to update in the wiki section.

Sidenote: Does TripleA currently have an update function?
If not prompting to upgrade when a new stable is released perhaps a button to check for updates?

[prastle]

@tvleavitt
Where was 1.9.0.0.3635 built? I don't see it in Github's release listings...

It is still listed if you manually scroll. But it is hot linked here
https://triplea-game.org/
https://triplea-game.org/download/

[DanVanAtta]

@ZjelcoP there is an update functionality. It has not been used for a long time though, in 3635 IIRC a bug was introduced where if the update were triggered then the game would freeze on startup. I think it was 7xxx that fixed that so we can use it going forward.

[DanVanAtta]

@ZjelcoP now is a good time to proceed updating partner sites, 2.0.20123 is the version. Please re-open as any new topics come up.

[ZjelcoP]

Working my way down the list of sites as planned and making progress.
Going through wikipedia I find this line:
_As TripleA is fully free and DFSG conform[20] in software and content, it is included in many Linux distributions, for instance Ubuntu OS, Gentoo, or Debian.[21][22][20]_

Is my interpretation correct that the game comes automatically with these distro's like minesweeper did with windows?

Anyways can anyone advise me or help me out on how to update those. Not so familiar with linux.
Pages are linked in the wikipedia page [21][22][20].
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TripleA

Think the biggest advantage of getting sites and people to version 2.2 is that from now on the game will report when there are updates (new stable). So if in the future people find an older version online and download it they will be prompted to get the latest stable.

PS: Can't seem to reopen issue

[DanVanAtta]

To be packaged with debian there needs to be a few patches to the code to meet licensing requirements. I'm not aware of the game being available with Ubuntu or Gentoo.

[tvleavitt]

I'd bet that once it is in Debian, getting it into Ubuntu would be
fairly easy.

It would be an ongoing task to get new versions into Debian and downstream
distributions. Someone would probably need to volunteer to be the official
"maintainer".

I'm not sure how you reconcile package based distribution processes with
individual app updates.

Thomas Leavitt

On Sat, Aug 29, 2020, 4:18 PM Dan Van Atta [e-mail] wrote:

To be packaged with debian there needs to be a few patches to the code to
meet licensing requirements. I'm not aware of the game being available with
Ubuntu or Gentoo.

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[ZjelcoP]

All three provide an emailadres to a maintainer. Contacting them with the request to update I can do as I do with the websites.
Just have no clue about this part:
_there needs to be a few patches to the code to meet licensing requirements._
I could ask of course but maybe you guys have an idea of what's needed.

[DanVanAtta]

You can read a little bit more @ZjelcoP @ https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/issues/4933

[ZjelcoP]

Thx for the read. Got to leave this one for someone else to take up, out of my league.

Other question:
Saved all info in an Excel sheet.
Only way I can find to put that on a wikipage https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/wiki seems to make a markdown table.
https://www.tablesgenerator.com/markdown_tables
Seems cumbersome especially to edit afterwards. Any good idea's on that?

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[ZjelcoP]

Most have been updated.
Will leave the linux stuff to someone else.