Problems with the Queues

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Post Post #25 (ISO) » Wed May 16, 2018 3:09 pm

Post by Lycanfire »

The Wiki group doesn't have direction beyond having a directive to improve the wiki overall. Very little has been done, but I don't find myself in a position to talk about doing little because I've backburnered wiki work. I'd say most of the work so far has been done by {myself, Mathdino, wgeurts} with honorable mention to TheGoldenParadox who wants to help but doesn't really know what to work on. There is a project and we could be doing better on.

I think in general there's antipathy to games hitting queues and games (especially a recent one) that are slow to fill or are cancelled. I would wager this is in part due to distrust of game balance in light of recent games that have been clusterfucks. To make Alisae feel better, we can call this the Virtuoso effect. I've been contacting everyone asking for a review that I'm qualified to go over to try to mitigate this.

Opposed to what Mathdino says I think it isn't just the NRG looking out for the NRG with the changes to Normal queue, it's that I think they're cutting out slack and removing a lot of unnecessary work by offering to make a set-up from scratch. Premade setups might be the spicy meme to come out of the changes, but that's legitimately a good change, opposed to say, the graylist removal which might be well intentioned/poorly executed or just lazy.

Right now all the parts that are failing are at risk of simply being replaced in the background by other people. There's already groups organising playerlists to join games and people doing reviews over Discord. If this reaches a critical mass the community gets close to being a few keystrokes from having current order supplanted by another one, or told to go somewhere else, like brassherald says.
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Post Post #26 (ISO) » Wed May 16, 2018 3:12 pm

Post by Alisae »

Also the work behind the scenes (the stuff we don’t see like with reports) Probably is handled extremely well due to the nature of it.

The way I see it, balance isn’t a major concern for the list mod.
Games that people actually want, isn’t a concern for the list mod. Games should be dropped within 8-14 days if they don’t fill, this already happens. If a gamethread hasn’t been made within the timeframe it was supposed to be, check in with the list mod for the queue.
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Post Post #27 (ISO) » Wed May 16, 2018 3:19 pm

Post by brassherald »

The Mafia roles on the wiki are easier to use, by the way. I'd like to commend the wiki team on that. Ease of use of it has gone up in the short time I've been using it.

I would also like to point out, I don't know that the Open Queue itself is the issue with the Open Queue, now that I think about it. 4 open games are running right now, and with the current state, we seem to be able to run just 4-6 games at a time there. I'm not sure there are enough players right now.
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Post Post #28 (ISO) » Wed May 16, 2018 3:23 pm

Post by Ankamius »

In post 27, brassherald wrote:The Mafia roles on the wiki are easier to use, by the way. I'd like to commend the wiki team on that. Ease of use of it has gone up in the short time I've been using it.

I would also like to point out, I don't know that the Open Queue itself is the issue with the Open Queue, now that I think about it. 4 open games are running right now, and with the current state, we seem to be able to run just 4-6 games at a time there. I'm not sure there are enough players right now.
The current open game in signups has been there for six days and only had two people sign up (one of which was me, later /outting).

Regardless of the current games ongoing, that's very worrying.
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Post Post #29 (ISO) » Wed May 16, 2018 3:45 pm

Post by Ircher »

I mean, May is final times and w/ the number of college students here, the forum tends to slow at this pt of the year.
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Post Post #30 (ISO) » Wed May 16, 2018 4:11 pm

Post by mastina »

In post 22, Mathdino wrote:Actually if I were to single someone out on a positive note, I found no flaws in how the Large Theme Queue is run, and have always gotten extremely prompt response regarding Large Themes.
I've heard some concerns actually that there might be too many Large Games currently in signups/running, if it means anything.

(I personally see that as a feature not a flaw, tho.)
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Post Post #31 (ISO) » Wed May 16, 2018 4:36 pm

Post by chamber »

Not to toot my own horn too much, but I honestly think a big issue has been the technical stagnation that happened when I stopped doing stuff. I can't stand working with zor (and it's not fair to put that entirely on him). So we just basically haven't gotten any major upgrades recently. The good news is that this is changing though, others -have- been working on things more recently, its just been paying back some tech debt from when nothing was being done (ie migrating to 3.2). Technical changes -should- be coming again.
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Post Post #32 (ISO) » Wed May 16, 2018 4:50 pm

Post by RadiantCowbells »

I owe this a serious response but I don't have one right now.
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Post Post #33 (ISO) » Wed May 16, 2018 5:15 pm

Post by Micc »

Bookmarked.

I've gone back and forth over the past couple of years about finding a way to be more involved and help improve the site. Every time I've decided to step forward on something it hasn't gone anywhere which has been discouraging. I've kinda resigned myself to doing what I can on my own by actively modding and playing the large majority of my games in the Newbie Queue.

There are good things happening right now. Psyche's modbot project looks promising despite me not actually understanding anything being talked about in that thread. A Scummies overhaul is encouraging and I love the idea of posting in completed games to raise awareness and promote more nominations. The improvements to the wiki over the last year or so have been incredible.

But I agree with the sentiment that improvements could be made at the queue/listmod level. I've certainly been frustrated with response speed or promptness from listmods on multiple occasions. Nothing is worse than seeing your game fill and waiting multiple days to have it announced by the listmod, only to have to wait another day because you don't have the necessary permissions to make your game thread. Or even welcoming a group of new players to the site only to have to explain to them that the reason they can't post in the game thread is because of a registration bug and that they have to PM someone else to get it fixed. Queue speed is incredibly important to retaining players and I think anything we can do to reduce time from signup to game start will be a huge improvement. I'm not quite as opinionated about the section where Mathdino discusses the types of games being queued, but some of the examples are pretty damning evidence that things could be better.

So yeah, I'll throw my hand up as being someone who is actively interested in helping improve the queues. I'm in a place now where I have the luxury of being to check into the site pretty consistently - even while at work. I'm happy to dedicate some of my free time even if it's just helping with busy work like archiving. I'd just like a little direction on the best way to help because my previous attempts to get involved haven't been successful.
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Post Post #34 (ISO) » Wed May 16, 2018 5:26 pm

Post by chamber »

In post 31, chamber wrote:Not to toot my own horn too much, but I honestly think a big issue has been the technical stagnation that happened when I stopped doing stuff. I can't stand working with zor (and it's not fair to put that entirely on him). So we just basically haven't gotten any major upgrades recently. The good news is that this is changing though, others -have- been working on things more recently, its just been paying back some tech debt from when nothing was being done (ie migrating to 3.2). Technical changes -should- be coming again.
Like a lot of your problems can be solved technically with something like this:

viewqueue.php

I know someone was working on a newer version.
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Post Post #35 (ISO) » Wed May 16, 2018 5:32 pm

Post by Alisae »

In post 2, Mathdino wrote:Assistants can be brought in to do the busywork of the queues, like tracking sign-ups and giving mod permissions. Or running NRG or Open Setups.
This is something I would ove to see btw and would solve most problems you seem to have and would make me extremely happy.

We already have the Game Moderator Access Usergroup, which is an open usergroup that anyone can contact a listmod to join and essentially get modding permissions for all of the sub forums.
Anyone can request to join this usergroup.

Have assistants keep track of sign-ups for queues and giving mod permissions to this global usergroup, sending out the pm saying this is your game please put this number in the title blah blah blah. Like this would be a good change.
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Post Post #36 (ISO) » Wed May 16, 2018 5:51 pm

Post by Micc »

In post 34, chamber wrote:viewqueue.php

I know someone was working on a newer version.
This looks super promising!
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Post Post #37 (ISO) » Wed May 16, 2018 5:54 pm

Post by Alisae »

In post 36, Micc wrote:
In post 34, chamber wrote:viewqueue.php

I know someone was working on a newer version.
This looks super promising!
In post 34, chamber wrote:
In post 31, chamber wrote:Not to toot my own horn too much, but I honestly think a big issue has been the technical stagnation that happened when I stopped doing stuff. I can't stand working with zor (and it's not fair to put that entirely on him). So we just basically haven't gotten any major upgrades recently. The good news is that this is changing though, others -have- been working on things more recently, its just been paying back some tech debt from when nothing was being done (ie migrating to 3.2). Technical changes -should- be coming again.
Like a lot of your problems can be solved technically with something like this:

viewqueue.php

I know someone was working on a newer version.
WTF IS THIS AND WHY HAVE PEOPLE NOT BEEN USING THIS/ADVERTISING THIS
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Post Post #38 (ISO) » Wed May 16, 2018 6:30 pm

Post by chamber »

Myself kison and kunkstar worked on it from 2013-14 on and off, then at the end of 14/beginning of 15 I did a big push to get it done, but got into an argument with zor so it sits at like 95% done and unused.

I believe the new guys started from scratch, so don't use this as a sign of what the new version would look like.
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Post Post #39 (ISO) » Wed May 16, 2018 11:08 pm

Post by Katyusha »

In post 25, Lycanfire wrote:we can call this the Virtuoso effect.
i support this
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Post Post #40 (ISO) » Wed May 16, 2018 11:42 pm

Post by callforjudgement »

I think one of the problems with games not filling is floods of overly similar games. The Open Rotation problems have been mentioned (this is something that I've been trying to solve by trying to create new Opens, but I mostly do it at Micro size), but both Micro and Mini Theme have, within the recent past, had gluts of very similar games in effect (crazy/bastard/role-madness Micros, and uPicks for Mini Theme). There's nothing wrong with those games in moderation; the problem is that if you have several similar games in a row, then players who like those sorts of games will be all tied up, and players who don't will have nothing to play.

Most of my modding recently has been an intentional attempt to balance the Micro queue, i.e. if I see a glut of some sort of game, I'll try to mod a different sort of game. I'm not sure there's enough of that going on, though.

I have a specific suggestion for the Open Queue: if an Open setup is run and no particular problems with balance or fun are noted, it automatically gets added to the rotation, and gets removed again if problems develop. This should help increase the amount of variety in the queue and doesn't seem to have much of a cost; in theory it might be a bit less balanced but I'm not sure that old setups are any better balanced on average than new ones anyway. (We could also do with looking at how Micro-sized Opens work; they're more appropriate for the Micro queue than the Open queue, but the Micro queue doesn't have an "Open rotation" so they aren't getting queued as often as they should be.)
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Post Post #41 (ISO) » Wed May 16, 2018 11:44 pm

Post by callforjudgement »

Oh, and a simple fix to mod permission issues: why not just give mods permission to start threads when their game enters signups? Not necessarily with the intent of the mod
using
it until the game fills, but simply as a way to remove one potential source of delay in the process.
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Post Post #42 (ISO) » Wed May 16, 2018 11:53 pm

Post by brassherald »

I think the Open Queue needs to expand more as well. I inned to mod watchmen wanted partially because I had an idea to make it interesting, but also because I looked and thought how many times can we run stack the deck until we get sick of it? I chose one which has not been run in a while. Also, everyone seems to know when a setup is town or scum sided.
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Post Post #43 (ISO) » Thu May 17, 2018 2:03 am

Post by Nero Cain »

BURN THIS MOTHERFUCKER DOWN!
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Post Post #44 (ISO) » Thu May 17, 2018 2:36 am

Post by brassherald »

In post 43, Nero Cain wrote:BURN THIS MOTHERFUCKER DOWN!
This isn't very nice.

I mean, controlled burns are hard to do. Let's figure out a safer way, my man.
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Post Post #45 (ISO) » Thu May 17, 2018 2:49 am

Post by profii »

Just to add my 2 cents.

I recently signed up for a load of games and over did it (work got busy and stuff as well)

So I decided once I clear the decks, I will just go for 1 at a time to keep it simple.

It took a bit of time for me to finish all the games, during which time, all the queues had changed and it was quite unclear where I needed to go as the new and old threads were co-existing and I couldn't tell if sign ups were overspilling from the old thread and likely to fire soon or if there was just a load of empty games.


I don't think the Newbie queue was in such need for SE/ICs at the time because I didn't see that setup firing any time soon and just avoided it - only when I came in this thread I thought to myself I like the Newbie matrix thingy, I'll put my name in as an SE



So in summary my points are:

Anything to keep the queues tidy and clear would be beneficial.
If the queues get into a position like needing the SE/IC slots - maybe a forum announcement would help - once I get into a game, I basically just go to the subscription bookmark and occasional speakeasy/maf dis topic so I miss a lot of the comms.
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Post Post #46 (ISO) » Thu May 17, 2018 4:29 am

Post by Aristophanes »

Hey, so, I have to apologize for the Micro Queue issues. All of the gripes were my doing and should not have happened. Leabing a game in for a monts was me being hopeful it would fill. The fact that it, and 2 other games, took long enough to get pulled would have had me instate a rule for maximum time in signups.maybe akin to the Large Themed one where games must get 2/3rds full in a week or get pulled, and have 1 extra week if they reach that marker.
I am not there to institute this though. All of my ruleset was based on experience and trying to make it better with community feedback.

As for the mod who was unqualified, I had let them mod based on external experience. They only have 1 micro's experience now so in the eyes of the site they still need to follow the New Mod rules and I'm sure they will be made to.

As for whether mods care or not, you areissing context. There are a lot of V/LAs occurring all at once and that really strains things. Just before I left a backend issue was resolved so the listmods can cover for each other more easily and I think it was a very important step! Losing Llama, my debacle, plus the V/LAs is really straining to everything on that end of things! And Zor really does care. I think he does a good job on the back end, which once again you wouldn't see! He greenlights projects and has a lot of interest in making things better here! Do you think him pulling out of things is because he doesnt care or because he cares enough to see that it needs to be in someone else's hands?

I'm not saying the site is perfect. We have a lot that needs to be done to get us back on track! Like, a hell of a lot! But it's not like things aren't in the works! Changes take time.
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Post Post #47 (ISO) » Thu May 17, 2018 4:37 am

Post by Alisae »

Oh ok Ari I’ll believe you
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Post Post #48 (ISO) » Thu May 17, 2018 4:42 am

Post by Aristophanes »

In post 47, Alisae wrote:Oh ok Ari I’ll believe you
I'll folliw this post up with some criticisms and things I do agree with from this thread, I'm just heading to work and don't have time atm.

As I say, change is needed. I kniw that. I was one who was working on that! Remember my "last words" post in SGB anout all the things I wamted to do?

There is a lit that needs to change. I think it looks different from outside and inside though so I want to see both sides presented.
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Post Post #49 (ISO) » Thu May 17, 2018 4:44 am

Post by AnonymousGhost »

In post 41, callforjudgement wrote:Oh, and a simple fix to mod permission issues: why not just give mods permission to start threads when their game enters signups? Not necessarily with the intent of the mod
using
it until the game fills, but simply as a way to remove one potential source of delay in the process.
I think this is a good fix to this particular problem. Alternatively, it could an automatic feature that clicks into place when the slots have been filled.
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