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

[Toomai]

It however has to be noted that the town winrates of 5Nb-3SE-1IC and 6Nb-2SE-1IC are drastically different:

5-3-1	91-136	40.1%
6-2-1	106-96	52.5%

There might be some time-related bias since the commonality of 5-3-1/6-2-1 has changed over history, but there it is. (Z=-2.5699; p=0.01016)

Also, since this is an IC discussion, I felt like checking this too: there's no statistical significance between IC alignment and game result. (Z=-0.7193; p=0.47152)

[Toomai]

I'll update it today then. And the linked spreadhseet is always up-to-date within a day or two.

[Toomai]

I'm also not remotely opposed to a newbie game meta where there are fewer SE slots overall. IC slots exist to teach and set a good example; newbie slots are there to learn and grow. SE slots are mainly there to help fill up a game because there aren't enough IC's and/or newbies to make the game fire. SE players also have even less oversight than IC players (not that IC players currently have much in the way of oversight); as far as I can tell there is essentially nothing you can do as an SE to get banned from the newbie queue unless you're banned from the site and/or mafia games in general. So, for instance, all of the bad things listed above have, from what I can tell, no actual consequences beyond "toxicity that's so bad that you get banned".

SE slots are mostly to help fill up a game, yes, but they also have to provide counterpoint to whatever the IC is saying. A game with 1 IC and 8 newbies will be a bad game because there's not enough anchor for the amount of ships. A game with 2 ICs and 7 newbies could be a bad game because a disagreement on a supposedly objective viewpoint (i.e. game theory) will be a 1v1 and be likely to take up most of the discussion; in addition, the 2 ICs could in theory both roll scum and leave the town with no experienced players (there should be guaranteed at least 1 town non-newbie). Having 3 ICs in a game is too taxing on the volunteer system.

I happen to think there should be an additional block list for newbie games, maintained by the listmod, based on a stricter level of behaviour. Something like (all numbers picked out of a hat):

• Joining a newbie game as an SE or IC is a service to the site and to new players. You are expected to hold yourself to a higher standard. Actions and behaviour that may not necessarily deserve a ban in the greater queues might result in one from the newbie queue. For example, replacing out of multiple games, creating a toxic environment, or playing against win condition will be more harshly acted upon. Sufficiently negative behaviour may result in being banned while the game is still in progress.
  (should probably be a force-replace rather than a modkill)
  
  
• Players banned from playing all mafia games will be banned an additional 50% of time from newbie games. (Being banned from newbie games has no effect on other queues, though it may be considered in whether to apply further bans.)
  
• Players cannot apply to be IC until six months after a newbie game ban expires. Being banned revokes current IC status; re-applying afterward cannot include any references from before or during the ban.

[Toomai]

I agree with the above. With regards to the 2nd point I'd go ahead and just straight up double the ban time. With regards to revoking IC status I'm assuming that a revoked IC would need 5 games of experience post ban. I read that from that point but it doesn't seem completely clear from the language at the same time.

Yeah you read it right; I was just trying to throw an idea out there rather than work to provide airtight numbers and language.

Here's another way to put the general overall concept:

• The newbie queue is for introducing new players to the site in a controlled, welcoming environment. It is not for experienced players to use as a playground of weak opponents.

[Toomai]

Here's the thing with a "10th player" IC: they are always going to be inherently biased in some way.

• If they're as uninformed as a spectator, they're more likely to be game-solving and thus pro-town.
  
• If they know who PRs are, they're probably going to be subconsciously biased towards advice for those roles.
  
• If they know who the scum are, they're more likely to accidentally have advice for their exact situation that players can link.
  
• If they're as informed as the mod, might as well have the mod do the job, and it's generally considered that's not good.

If there's a desire to decouple IC advice from in-game players, I would say do it like this instead:

• Have a publicly-viewable document full of IC advice. Being an IC means you have the rights to edit this document.
  
• The mod, or a dedicated IC "hydra" account, reads the game and pastes/quotes/links to the IC document, in the game thread or the scum PT, at appropriate times.
  
• You could assign ICs to watch games, or have them free-float around at will.

Obviously this won't be as in-tune to the game as a player IC, and there's always going to be arguments over what to put in the repository.

Or, if the problem is just "ICs die too early", allow them to submit future posts to the mod, such as "post this if I die tonight" or "post this if I'm not alive at LyLo". The mod would make the post (as long as they approve that it is only IC advice and no reads or such) but very clearly attribute it to the IC. This obviously has its own problems (e.g. perception of being a treestump).

[Toomai]

The IC participant would be a non-player and blind to who is Scum/PR/et al

The role of the IC is to be familiar with the IC document and essentially copy+paste and then explain it


The Non-player-IC can always give advice in the scum PT to keep it private

I do agree there would have to be a way for the theoretical observer-IC to give scum advice that might be telling if town were to see it. But how would one post in the scum PT without knowing who the scum are? I guess telling the mod what to post would be one option but it's clunky.

wow it's almost like if we update the wiki 100% to the current year then it would be pretty easy to implement this

While that probably should be done anyway, the theoretical IC document probably shouldn't be publicly-editable. Viewable is fine. Not sure if wiki architechture could support that (you'd have to give ICs "edit protected pages", which isn't specific).

need to build a newbie system that doesn't rely on ICs or mods being especially good at their jobs

That would be ideal but it's probably impossible. You could update the wiki and just say "all newbies, if you have a question, look at the wiki" but no one will be very happy about that. Any more than that and you have to insert someone who 1. knows what they're doing and 2. needs to be trusted they know what they're doing.