Minetest People
Introduction
This page discusses a few past and present Minetest people.
Celeron55
Type: Real person. Not anonymous.
Celeron55 aka Perttu Ahola was a young developer in Finland who was the lead in late 2010 in creating what would become Minetest. He largely left the project by 2012 though he maintained control of some of its infrastructure.
Perttu played no significant role as, for example, a BDFL. In later years, he pleaded lack of authority when he was asked to try to move the project in new directions.
He and OldCoder did agree in 2016 on a new direction and that was a success for a year. However, in Spring 2017, the project as it had been failed. The details are expected to be the subject of a book related to FOSS projects and the role that anonymity plays in Internet behavior.
VanessaE
Type: Real person. Not anonymous.
VanessaE [aka Vanessa Ezekowitz aka Vanessa Dannenberg] and Maciej Kasatkin [aka a dozen other names] are two of the most important of the very early Minetest figures. They should be assessed as more significant than Perttu Ahola.
In short, Vanessa and Maciej invested massive time in the project as a host [Vanessa] and as modders [both of them] and contributed as much as anybody else to making the project come alive.
For most of the 2010s, Vanessa indicated that she believed herself to be dying due to the after-effects of an industrial accident. It was true that Vanessa seemed to have lost some of her ability to retain memories but it didn't rise to the level of dementia.
To be added: Vanessa's mods and hosting. The weight issue. Abe's death.
Real Bad Angel
Type: Pretend identity.
Maciej Kasatkin aka Real Bad Angel is believed to be one of a group of names used by a single young man [young in 2012] who might have been born in the mid-to-late 1990s. However, he claimed to be about 20 years older than his likely age and it might have been true.
Maciej's other names in the Minetest project included Jordach, Octupus, and Landmine aka Misael Roman. They may have included Fixer, Mati, Mijyn, Nekogloop, Sokomine, and/or others as well.
Maciej was a dedicated and skilled Minetest modder. The project was his home. He explained the use of multiple names to OldCoder once. The explanation will be added here.
In 2015, Maciej became disillusioned with Minetest. He asked Vanessa to start a fork with him. Vanessa refused and Maciej responded by pretending to die.
That period was humorous. Maciej came back in another identity after his purported death to ask for money for a grieving girlfriend. One problem with this was that he'd claimed to be happily married not long before. But there were other issues related to the report of Maciej's demise.
In 2017, the deceased Maciej instructed OldCoder to turn OldCoder's branch of Minetest into a hard fork. Starting year later, from Fall 2018 to mid-2019, somebody who may or may not have been Maciej worked with OldCoder, Poikilos, Edgy McEdge, and others to refine the fork and create Final Minetest.
The last definite communication from Maciej to OldCoder, offered using the Jordach name, was at Christmas 2017.
OldCoder
Type: Real person. Not anonymous.
In Spring 2012, OldCoder aka Robert Kiraly ended up in the Minetest project by accident. By December 2012, he was voted #3 out of the 100 most respected project figures.
OldCoder served for 5 years as IRC admin, world host, and modder for the original Minetest project. He invested more time and had a broader range of accomplishments than any other non-anonymous figure other than Vanessa Ezekowitz.
The only other non-anonymous figure who was at a comparable level was Andrew Ward aka Rubenwardy.
Editors: Add the story of 2017 to 2023 here.
Calinou
Type: Real person. Not anonymous.
Hugo Locurcio aka Calinou was a significant early Minetest person. Like many people in the first generation of Minetest, he was born in the 2nd half of the 1990s.
Self description as 2018: "I'm an open source developer from France currently studying computer engineering at the Troyes University of Technology."
CoRNeRNoTe
Type: Real person. Not anonymous.
Brett O'Donnell aka CoRNeRNoTe aka Mr. PHP was an early Minetest figure notable for the creation of SkyBlock. Brett designed the template that was used for the minetest.org home page from the mid-2010s into the 2020s.
Edgy McEdge
Type: Real person. Not anonymous.
James Tobin aka Edgy McEdge aka Stella Tobin will be added here. Edgy joined Minetest circa 2017 and evolved in the 2020s into a major world host. He took over some of VanessaE's worlds after she retired.
Edgy McEdge is one of several significant LGBTQ figures in Minetest.
Jordach
Type: Pretend identity. See Real Bad Angel.
Jordach was a well-known figure in the original Minetest project. His involvement seems to have declined after the original project failed in 2017.
Jordach worked both as a core dev and as a modder. He is believed to have had an understanding of 3D models as well. He was tangentially involved with the first 3D player model. However, if he released original 3D models, it was probably under the aegis of his other identities.
Jordach once told OldCoder that he [Jordach] had "never talked to another human being" until he was age 14. This is consistent with what is known of Jordach's neurology.
Landmine
Type: Pretend identity. See Real Bad Angel. Landmine was a pretend troll in 2012 who sometimes fought publicly with his own other identities.
Maksym Hamarnyk
Type: Real person but IRL name is unconfirmed.
Maksym Hamarnyk will be added here.
McKaygerhard
Type: Real person. IRL name is unconfirmed.
McKaygerhard and Minenux will be added here.
Nathan Salapat
Type: Real person. Not anonymous.
Nathan Salapat will be added here. Short version: This was one of Minetest's Blender people.
Nekogloop
Type: Pretend person. See Real Bad Angel.
Nekogloop was involved in Minetest for part of 2012. He described himself as "a man pretending to be a boy pretending to be a cat".
Nekogloop spoke more directly than most of Maciej Kasatkin's identities did about what it was like to try to be different people. He put it like this: "You're diving under water. The surface is far above you. But you know that it's there."
Octupus
Type: Pretend person. See Real Bad Angel.
Octupus was a transitional identity for Jordach / Maciej Kasatkin.. He primarily did builds though he worked on at least one mod. Octupus was active from 2012 to 2013. His pretend age varied from age 7 to 18 over the course of a year.
Paramat
Type: Real person but semi-anonymous. IRL name is unconfirmed.
Matt (or Mat) Gregory aka Paramat was a Minetest modder from the early 2010s on. He had a special interest in mapgens and created or contributed to a number of them.
Matt had high hopes for Minetest. He believed, in particular, that a Patreon account might produce cash donations that would help him to pay his rent. However, his Minetest and Github activities, both, seem to have largely stopped in 2021. He's also deleted his Patreon account.
As a related note, as of 2023, Rubenwardy still had a Patreon account. At the time, it seemed to be producing $8.97 per month. This approach probably isn't the royal road to riches.
Pentium44
Type: Real person. Not anonymous.
Chris Dorman aka Pentium44 was only involved occasionally in Minetest. However, he visited intermittently for 10 years, from ages 15 to 25, to try out new code that he'd thought of. Note: Like many people in the first generation of Minetest, Pentium44 was born in the late 1990s.
In 2021, Pentium44 researched the state of FOSS voxel software and concluded that Minetest, despite poor design decisions, remained the best option for FOSS voxel gamedev work.
Pentium44 is one of several significant LGBTQ figures in Minetest.
Poikilos
Type: Real person. Not anonymous.
In the 2010s, Jake was both a teacher and an IT person. From 2015 to late 2018, he ran Minetest 0.4.X servers for students. From 2018 into the 2020s, Jake worked with OldCoder, Slopsbucket, and a few others to create Final Minetest.
You can read more about Jake at the following link:
https://overcomers.group/doku/start
Rubenwardy
Type: Real person. Not anonymous.
Andrew Ward aka Rubenwardy will be added here.
Shara RedCat
Type: Pretend identity. Female name but biological and/or psychological gender unknown.
Shara RedCat aka Ezhh aka Tommy Treasure will be added here. Note: Shara RedCat may not have been Tommy Treasure. However, in the early 2020s, statements by Tommy Treasure suggested that he either was Shara or had known her closely.
Slopsbucket
Type: Unknown. There is reason to believe that Slopsbucket is a pretend identity but as of 2023 this hadn't been confirmed.
From 2018 to 2020, Andrew Walton aka Slopsbucket was one of the driving forces behind the creation of Final Minetest.
Sofar
Type: Real person. Not anonymous.
Auke-Jan Kok aka Sofar was a Trolltest figure from 2015 into the 2020s. Activity contained after 2020 but seems to have declined.
Auke-Jan was a developer IRL for Intel Corporation. He claimed to have been the primary architect of systemd but this was an exaggeration.
Variations of Auke-Jan's name included Auke Kok, Auke-Jan Kok, and Auke-Jan Hendrik Kok. He was born circa 1973. So he was one of the older people in Minetest. Businesses IRL included Fierce Fibers and Thoroughly Thwacked in addition to Intel Corporation.
Sokomine
Type: Pretend person. See Real Bad Angel.
Sokomine was a long-term Minetest modder and technically one of the originators of Final Minetest. Note: Little is known about Sokomine but she claimed a gender identity of female.
Ten Plus One
Type: Anonymous but believed to be a real person.
Ten Plus One aka Troll Plus One will be added here. Short version: This is a long-term anonymous modder.
