Long term health of mafiascum

[Rathyr]

Lol you assholes... I quit this board a few years ago because I was modkilled for a fake claim.

Stop putting SJs in power positions and upgrade your forum theme... problem solved. When a board gets to the same 10 old farts parroting the same tired posts at each other in increasing self satisfaction, its time to get out the gasoline and move on.

[Rathyr]

also wtf is this pronoun thing under my name

[xRECKONERx]

Actually, I think a survey for newbie players after they complete a game would be good...

1) What attracted you to mafiascum?

2) Why do you like here?

3) What would you like to see changed?

These questions are just off the top of my head but you get the idea. Obviously if someone site-flakes midgame they won't answer but I have seen people complete one or two games and it looks like they never come back.

please no.

This kind of shit is obnoxious

[chamber]

They can be annoying but I don't know how else to get some of that data.

[Howl]

I personally love doing surveys. js.

[quadz08]

It's a bit obnoxious, but there's literally no other way to get that information. *shrug*

[Riddleton]

Lol you assholes... I quit this board a few years ago because I was modkilled for a fake claim.

Stop putting SJs in power positions and upgrade your forum theme... problem solved. When a board gets to the same 10 old farts parroting the same tired posts at each other in increasing self satisfaction, its time to get out the gasoline and move on.

"I quit this forum years ago", but you still visit regularly enough to spot this thread? Lol.

I think we've found our first scumbag, guys.

VOTE: Rathyr

[xRECKONERx]

Dropping a poll on someone after their first game here is going to result in more people fleeing.

[Riddleton]

Dropping a poll on someone after their first game here is going to result in more people fleeing.

How so?

[Riddleton]

I get nagged on sites with windows saying 'How was your service? Your opinion matters!' but I've not fled those sites. Sites like Godaddy and Amazon do this.

[Riddleton]

Another example: Wikipedia nags us for donations each year but it's still one of the top sites. You get my point.

[xRECKONERx]

Yes but Godaddy/Amazon, premium sites where you're paying for service, is a lot different than some random game forum on the internet.

[zoraster]

I don't think surveying people after they finish their game is a bad idea. There are only a small number of people like LF who have objected to the large theme surveys and I think I've gained a fair amount of insight from that plus provided imperfect feedback to the mods in my queue.

[Riddleton]

Another example: Wikipedia nags us for donations each year but it's still one of the top sites. You get my point.

Wikipedia is free

[Mina]

If they don't like optional surveys, all they have to do is not answer them. Who would leave the site as a protest against a PM nicely asking them if they want to share their thoughts on whether they liked the game? It's not like we're begging them for money.

(I can't start working on surveys until at least Friday, but I think newbies in fferyllt's and Micc's recently completed games can be the first guinea pigs. )

[Porochaz]

Dropping a poll on someone after their first game here is going to result in more people fleeing.

[saulres]

At least from personal experience, a poll after my first game ended would have been received significantly after I started my second and third games.

[Porochaz]

I would make it clear there is a survey but yeah sending PM's about surveys and stuff seems naggy and annoying and a little desperate and I would certainly see it as a negative. (and actually if I were sent a survey now, I'd still be a bit pissed off by it), having the mod post at the end of games etc. seems like the most sensible and least intrusive way of doing it. It also sets a tone on this website, which would A. almost certainly be false and B. not a good one, where we, as a site, just care a little too much about people's opinions.

At the point of a newbie finishing their first game, we want to try and maintain them. By sending a PM it's like an annoying puppy coming up to you and going "DIDYA LIKE IT?!!! DIDYA! DIDYA!!!" I'd be put off, at the end of my first newbie, I kinda wanted to explore a bit on my own and find my feet, and this feels, although not the intention, very big brother like.

[Porochaz]

I would also guess that you would actually have a better answer rate if you post it at the end of a game as well, rather than PMing it to people.

[saulres]

Posting it at the end of the game won't get any feedback from a newbie who's killed early on in the game and didn't enjoy the experience so left. They'll never see it.

It'd be interesting to see how the retention rates differ between newbies who make it to the end of the game vs. ones who are knocked out earlier on. (By end of game I mean real world date, not game day.)

[Porochaz]

xylbot for sitechat would be pretty cool.

Good jokes.

[Cheery Dog]

I'll make a comment about a possible survey at the end of the game when it's time for me to run my next newbie, see if anyone notices there so they're not caught by surprise.

[Porochaz]

Couple of things I'd identify, apologize if this is echoing others;
1) People don't "do" forums much anymore. People want instantaneous; one of the big draws for EpicMafia was the fact that it was real-time chat-based.

2) Seems to me that the first graph illustrates a potentially un-natural "boom", and the resulting drop down establishes a return to normal, healthy growth. A decline in and of itself is not necessarily a decline, per se. Check the history of stocks that have had un-natural booms.

3) Mafia-type live games seem to be growing amongst at least my generation (mid 20s). Particularly One Night Werewolf. If people have a local community to play face-to-face, they aren't going to seek online outlets very often.

None of these seem to be faults of MS or how it is run. It's just nature and the resulting environment.

This is a good post.

I agree with the idea that we need to get a wider variation of styles of mafia out there. Focusing on more instantaneous styles. Note: Focus not Change. I get the feeling that the posts describing how long it takes to play a game, let alone mod a game probably have some truth to them. If I look into joining a forum, particularly where I want to play a game, I want to actually get into the game as fast as possible. I'd be put off by the long wait.

That said, modding is a different kettle of fish and I think the system we have at the moment (barring some caveats - which I've gone into before) is a good one. It may have been chamber himself who suggested to me a long time ago that why we have such a long wait is that we generally get the keen people remaining who want to mod games, and generally do a better job because they have had to wait. Might have been Flay, actually. Overhauling the queue, in the way chamber suggests, makes me shudder, we are complaining about people not coming in enough, I dont think this helps. In my head all I can see is a huge mess, with too many games and not enough players. It's too bulky currently, yes. But to overhaul it completely I think is a mistake.

(the caveats are to do with the amount of hoops you have to jump through to run a game round here, then in what is somewhat related to the current discussion, the stuff at the end)

There are things that need to be fixed.

The wiki, which apparently was a main draw for people in the past, probably needs to be overhauled and have what more casual people are looking for front and centre. Make it the go to for the casual player on there own site and then hopefully they will be pulled here.

We need things like skype mafia and chat mafia in house. The fact that we are currently running skype mafia through a semi-rarely updated thread is not good. I agree that getting our own skype type thing is stupid. But we need to have these resources highlighted.

We need to use our social networking resources better and we probably need to create some more. Twitter, we need to be advertising games on there, we need to be repeating it on facebook, we need to be on page 1 of google when you type in mafia game. (I believe google should tailor results?, but currently the wiki is 11th on the list, under mafiawiki, No mention of mafiascum. Mafiascum is 26th, epicmafia is on the front page, other resources on how to play are on the front page.

I wasn't sure about the redesign but my first thought on the link reck put up was "that looks professional", and yes this meant to be a game site, but I don't think mafiascum has a "I want to look around" vibe anymore. I think that's going to take more than a new skin.

Anyway, my thoughts. If I had any programming know how, and I had even the slightest bit of time at the moment I would try and help but at current, I can't.

(also the site base is getting older and people are leaving cause they don't have time)

[Porochaz]

Posting it at the end of the game won't get any feedback from a newbie who's killed early on in the game and didn't enjoy the experience so left. They'll never see it.

If thats the case, then I don't see them answering anything anyway.

[Zachrulez]

On the surveys:

Not sure why anyone would object to someone collecting data. I don't think I'd do it in the form that it's done now via pm, but if Zor or whoever gave me specific data to collect, I would have no problem asking for it in the endgame and asking people to pm me their responses or what not. In that situation it's easy for those who want to give feedback to easily do so and for those who don't want to not to be annoyed by being pmed a survey or whatever. Seems like a good way to collect the survey data without the annoyance?