[Meta] Newbie Experience (Formerly IC replace rate thread)

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[Meta] Newbie Experience (Formerly IC replace rate thread)

Post Post #0 (ISO) » Tue Jul 11, 2017 10:58 am

Post by Cabd »

There's been a metric fuckton of replacements of IC slots in the newbie queue recently. And the IC queue itself is bone dry. Do we need to be advertising the virtues of being an IC? Rewarding it somehow? Making sure ICs don't flake? Because it ruins games. Newbies count on the IC player, at least initially, to be there and provide analysis and act as a teaching tool for both mafia norms and site norms.

I won't get into specific examples but the fact I can immediately think of at least three IC slots that were replaced this month sucks.
Last edited by Cabd on Thu Jul 27, 2017 7:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post Post #1 (ISO) » Tue Jul 11, 2017 11:05 am

Post by Creature »

I thought ICs were reviewed every game, but I don't see that happening.
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Post Post #2 (ISO) » Tue Jul 11, 2017 11:06 am

Post by Cabd »

In post 1, Creature wrote:I thought ICs were reviewed every game, but I don't see that happening.
I ~think~ this will be fixed once zor hires a new skittle but yeah, I don't think they currently are either.
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Post Post #3 (ISO) » Tue Jul 11, 2017 11:07 am

Post by fferyllt »

My initial reaction is that someone replacing out as an IC without a hell of a good real life reason should be disqualified from being an IC for some period of time. Maybe make them requalify from scratch.

Having an empty IC queue would make that kind of penalty hard on future games.

What kind of rewards are you thinking about?
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Post Post #4 (ISO) » Tue Jul 11, 2017 11:08 am

Post by Cabd »

In post 3, fferyllt wrote:What kind of rewards are you thinking about?
I mean, I don't actually know what the ideal sort of reward would be. Maybe make it so you can't actually go see the title fairy until you've IC'd in addition to the account longevity requirement?
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Post Post #5 (ISO) » Tue Jul 11, 2017 11:09 am

Post by mastina »

In post 1, Creature wrote:I thought ICs were reviewed every game, but I don't see that happening.
Only new ICs.
And we do have a queue, it just...
...Moves slowly.

Part of that is this: Subject: Listmod Applications (Closes Tuesday)
zoraster wrote:We are looking for a new newbie list mod.
Unfortunately, UTL has to step down from her duties.
The listmod for doing that process is stepping down, so the person who would normally handle that process is unable to do so.

When we get a new listmod, I imagine that this issue will be addressed. It might take a little time to resolve, but it'd be one of the first things on the agenda.
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Post Post #6 (ISO) » Tue Jul 11, 2017 11:09 am

Post by Creature »

In post 5, mastina wrote:Only new ICs.
I never saw me being reviewed as an IC...
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Post Post #7 (ISO) » Tue Jul 11, 2017 11:10 am

Post by Cabd »

I think so too. However; the underlying issue of the IC queue itself being drier than a Central California summer remains.
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Post Post #8 (ISO) » Tue Jul 11, 2017 11:10 am

Post by RadiantCowbells »

In post 4, Cabd wrote:
In post 3, fferyllt wrote:What kind of rewards are you thinking about?
I mean, I don't actually know what the ideal sort of reward would be. Maybe make it so you can't actually go see the title fairy until you've IC'd in addition to the account longevity requirement?
I don't think we should be requiring people who shouldn't be ICs to try to IC.
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Post Post #9 (ISO) » Tue Jul 11, 2017 11:13 am

Post by mastina »

In post 4, Cabd wrote:I don't actually know what the ideal sort of reward would be.
To be honest I think rewarding people for just being an IC is a Really Bad Idea. Then you're encouraging literally everyone no matter how ill-suited for the position they may be to be an IC once, in order to get the reward, and then only doing it again if they get more of a reward.

This sounds like a recipe for disaster, making people IC for an agenda and not really care about the core of what ICing
should
be about: teaching the next generation of players how to play and just as importantly,
making them want to play on here
. It's one thing to teach players how to play. (Most newbies already do on other sites.) It's quite another to keep them interested in playing on the site.

Any IC who isn't interested in that shouldn't be an IC. Because the best reward FROM being a teacher is to watch the players you taught make a career, growing in the future.
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Post Post #10 (ISO) » Tue Jul 11, 2017 11:14 am

Post by mastina »

In post 6, Creature wrote:
In post 5, mastina wrote:Only new ICs.
I never saw me being reviewed as an IC...
In post 5, mastina wrote:And we do have a queue, it just...
...Moves slowly.

Part of that is this: Subject: Listmod Applications (Closes Tuesday)
zoraster wrote:We are looking for a new newbie list mod.
Unfortunately, UTL has to step down from her duties.
The listmod for doing that process is stepping down, so the person who would normally handle that process is unable to do so.

When we get a new listmod, I imagine that this issue will be addressed. It might take a little time to resolve, but it'd be one of the first things on the agenda.
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Post Post #11 (ISO) » Tue Jul 11, 2017 11:15 am

Post by Cabd »

Mastina/RC, do you have alternate suggestions on how to keep the IC queue healthy? It's bone dry and there's a replacement request active for it right now.
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Post Post #12 (ISO) » Tue Jul 11, 2017 11:18 am

Post by RadiantCowbells »

I said a great deal on the matter to UTL actually.
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Post Post #13 (ISO) » Tue Jul 11, 2017 11:25 am

Post by Lycanfire »

How is it out of ICs when it's been "Needs ICs" for almost two months? I thought so many people kept queuing as IC that it ran out of SEs.

I don't think reviews are being done. I haven't heard anything about my IC game. I'm assuming no review has been done.
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Post Post #14 (ISO) » Tue Jul 11, 2017 11:26 am

Post by Cabd »

In post 13, Lycanfire wrote:How is it out of ICs when it's been "Needs ICs" for almost two months? I thought so many people kept queuing as IC that it ran out of SEs.

I don't think reviews are being done. I haven't heard anything about my IC game. I'm assuming no review has been done.
Both trays (IC and SE) are bone dry right now actually. It gets a few signups, then goes back to nothing when a game or two launches. I WISH enough people would sign up as IC but nope.
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Post Post #15 (ISO) » Tue Jul 11, 2017 11:27 am

Post by mastina »

In post 11, Cabd wrote:Mastina/RC, do you have alternate suggestions on how to keep the IC queue healthy? It's bone dry and there's a replacement request active for it right now.
It'd be a greater workload, but one thing which might help is having the IC review group review not just new ICs but offer feedback to any IC who wants feedback on their play (probably as an opt-in thing for non-new ICs): what they did well, what they could use improvement on, but always having it be positive reinforcement.

If you're putting things down and if you're placing blame on the IC for faults in the game, it very strongly discourages someone from ICing again. The IC should have just as much of a positive experience as the players they are teaching, and if that is not the case, if the IC feels like a failure, feels like they are unjustly being called out or whatever negative emotion dominates them, that's simply a situation which is not fun for them.

There's a bit of a dilemma when it comes to an IC.
On the one hand, we want to hold our ICs to a certain standard, which encourages newbies to stick around on-site and grow into healthy behaviors. An IC not doing that is not doing their job.
On the other hand, we want to encourage people TO IC, and if they feel like they're going to receive that level of harsh criticism that can discourage them from doing the job: if they think they'll fail, they simply won't try. If they think they're ill-suited for the job, they won't try. If they think they'll receive too much hate, they won't try.

And that deprives us of the people we need.

This might not give an immediate solution but might in the long-term offer a little extra help, since positive reinforcement will encourage ICs to keep ICing and go.

Another thing which could be done is encouraging players in certain queues once they get more experience after a game has ended to if they want, share their knowledge with the world by ICing.

But I'm honestly not sure.
To get ICs, you need to make people WANT to IC.
To make people WANT to IC, you have to make them want to also fulfill the objectives OF an IC.
And that revolves kicking up interest in improving the quality of play across the site, encouraging people to teach good habits in the new generation, sharing knowledge with the next generation, and so on and so forth. I don't quite know how that can be accomplished.
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Post Post #16 (ISO) » Tue Jul 11, 2017 11:33 am

Post by fferyllt »

I think that can be accomplished, but I think it's a longer term goal. Getting the newbie queue back up to strength really needs to happen quickly and both IC and SE players need to commit as best they can to completing their games.
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Post Post #17 (ISO) » Tue Jul 11, 2017 11:35 am

Post by RadiantCowbells »

I do my best to fill vacancies. For the record I think the 24 hour rule on newbie slots rule is counterproductive since it's mostly just causing newbie games to be short a slot for 24 hours more, and that's something that should change.
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Post Post #18 (ISO) » Tue Jul 11, 2017 11:38 am

Post by Lycanfire »

I think an IC support group is a better idea than rewards.
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Post Post #19 (ISO) » Tue Jul 11, 2017 12:04 pm

Post by mastina »

In post 18, Lycanfire wrote:I think an IC support group is a better idea than rewards.
The closest we have is the review group for ICs, which could be retooled to serve this purpose.
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Post Post #20 (ISO) » Tue Jul 11, 2017 12:32 pm

Post by singersigner »

In post 6, Creature wrote:
In post 5, mastina wrote:Only new ICs.
I never saw me being reviewed as an IC...
This is quite possibly my fault since I just assumed anyone signing for for the queue had already been approved since there was only one post with games to review.

One of the recent ICs is on a game restrictment so hopefully that'll help. Another one...well, might have to be with newbie games in particular.

But anyway, yes, hopefully this will get resolved once there's a new mod since they will be able to devote more time to rectifying the issue than I could.
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Post Post #21 (ISO) » Tue Jul 11, 2017 12:38 pm

Post by Alisae »

singer you're atleast doing a good job with what you were given! :]
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Post Post #22 (ISO) » Tue Jul 11, 2017 12:45 pm

Post by Flubbernugget »

I tried to IC once. It turned out really poor because the activity level tends to have to be a lot higher than a typical game, and overall, I don't play mafia well. I would be willing to IC for the sake of helping the numbers in the queue (I have a fairly decent replacement record), but I still assume this to do more good than harm.
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Post Post #23 (ISO) » Tue Jul 11, 2017 1:15 pm

Post by singersigner »

To be honest, ICs don't need to be good. They just need to be able to answer questions and set some sort of minimal standard for posting and activity (i.e. one post per day that says literally anything substantial blah blah blah). Somehow it seems like ICing has turned into a crazy standard of excellence when it should really just be "this is how not to suck as a person...hopefully you don't suck as a player either."
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Post Post #24 (ISO) » Tue Jul 11, 2017 1:31 pm

Post by hiplop »

Getting IC's isn't hard. Make the games worth playing. Lotta people have problems with the current newbie setup. A lot of people find newbie games too dry, don't realize the problem, etc.

Make IC a position worth taking, show people the benefit it brings to the community and people will do it.

Say what you will about scummers, but we really care about this site. When they see the future bleeding they step up. Push that more. The queue needs leadership, really.
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