Dance of the Title Fairy: Accepting Applications

[animorpherv1]

As someone who wishes to never have to look at his won scummiebagain, I don't want this at all.

[vonflare]

well you already have a title so you wouldn't be affected. This proposed change would only serve to give titles to people who are sadly title-less

[animorpherv1]

That was more at GL's suggestion than yours tbf.

[Elbirn]

What if you're so useless that you don't have a scummy victory OR a title? *thinking emoji*

[Varsoon]

What if you're so useless that you don't have a scummy victory OR a title? *thinking emoji*

You build that setup you keep teasing me over and win the titles out from Alisae's coffers.

[Alchemist21]

What if you're so useless that you don't have a scummy victory OR a title? *thinking emoji*

Let me know when you figure it out.

[Alisae]

Ya wanna know what would be harder?
Awarding past Open Design Contest winners
TM winners
Etc

[Aristophanes]

Ya wanna know what would be harder?
Awarding past Open Design Contest winners
TM winners
Etc

Past mods and their years of service
SUPP winners

The list goes on

[animorpherv1]

Aristophanes 2018 - 2018

[Aristophanes]

Aristophanes 2018 - 2018

Lol

On second thought...

[Alisae]

Ari got listmod in 2017 lol

[Psyche]

so, titlebot is just about ready, and thus we're on the edge of a major reorganization of how this subforum (and shortly perhaps even some mafia games) works
i'd like to discuss with you guys some ideas about what this reorganization will look like

the centerpiece of titlebot should be its automated assembly and regular presentation of detailed votecounts
these should help everyone track explicit support and opposition for different noms, even when discussion get longwinded, divided, distracted, etc
i expect that these regular votecounts will help discussion stay title-oriented and also reduce the costs of temporary disorientation

included in these votecounts will be links to each nom/nth/antinom/etc related to each title
this'll help people track discussion of titles in the short run, and in the long run could serve important historical purposes in an archive in the thread OP or the site wiki:
anyone who wants to know what a title is about will be able to quickly jump to where discussion of the title happened and observe why
so yeah, from detailed votecounts, we'll also have detailed (and ever-up-to-date) OPs and wikis!

a side-effect of this process will be easier filtering of joke noms/etc
noms/nths/antinoms that fail to follow a very simple (i promise!) structure specified in the OP just won't be counted, and so can be made and ignored freely

a con of all this will in turn be that users will have to make the deliberately small effort required to structure their nominations et al in the specified way for them to count
i considered designing titlebot to be really flexible about what to count as nominations, as that is the ideal configuration of a votecounter in mafia games (it's really dangerous and messy to not officially count votes that other users might mistake as votes!),
but i think it serves the seriousness of this thread (it's not GD!) and improves readability for current and future readers to require clear structure
this is similar to how the scummies nomination thread worked when it was thread-based, and i think i kind of want to go for a more light version of that thread's culture for our title discussion
still, i will handle the burden myself when users make mistakes structuring their noms, either by editting their posts or by telling titlebot to interpret your post as a nom or whatever

i'll also start using a special font/style for all thread moderating activities to distinguish official acts from casual participation in title discussion
as many of you know, lately i've turned against the idea that this place should be the fairy unilaterally deciding which titles should be approved or rejected
i favor community deliberation with the fairy focused on facilitating and implementing the outcome of that deliberation,
and the titlebot should be thought as part of the expression of this stance; it moves us one step closer to the dissolution of the fairy diktat

anyway, i posted this here not just to see your reactions to all this, but to field some feedback on these particular issues:

1.

What should be counted as a nomination/nth/etc?

My initial thoughts are that the vast majority of title noms should be of the form "nominate X for Y", all on their own line and with one of those 4 bolded. If a user or title or poster preference would make trouble with these requirements (some examples of this would be multiline titles, usernames with " for " in them, or when someone wants a line to include more than the nomination), they can wrap X or Y in " "s or ' 's (depending on preference or whether the name/title itself includes "s or 's). This seems to very nearly match how it's usually done (which is very important!), and I'll manually handle cases where it's impossible and edit posts where it

is

possible but not done as required.

Nths and antinoms shouldn't have to mention the user that the title is for. In fact, I should be able to accept bolded "nth"s and "antinoms" that quote a nomination or nth or are posted immediately afterward, but don't mention the title explicitly.

2.

How long should a nomination that doesn't get above-threshold support stay in the votecount?

I'm thinking 7 days since the last nth.

3.

When should votecounts be posted?

I'm thinking at the start of every new page, after events that reset the votecount (eg title implementation), when a nom reaches threshold, and if i want one

Does all this sound alright? Lemme hear your bs now instead of later.

[Kublai Khan]

Worst Title Fairy ever.

[Psyche]

that's not constructive, and it wasn't constructive last time either
you're being a dick

[Aristophanes]

Yo Psyche, this actually sounds great!

[vonflare]

gud

[Kublai Khan]

that's not constructive, and it wasn't constructive last time either
you're being a dick

I like you, Psyche. But this is bad. This goes against the whole spirit of the position and the history of every title fairy that came before you. It's just a lazy popularity contest now.

If you dislike putting the time into the position or you don't want to be disliked for making unpopular judgement calls, then step down.

Otherwise petition Zor and Kison to let everybody edit their own titles instead of implementing this populist clique-promoting monstrosity.

[Aristophanes]

that's not constructive, and it wasn't constructive last time either
you're being a dick

I like you, Psyche. But this is bad. This goes against the whole spirit of the position and the history of every title fairy that came before you. It's just a lazy popularity contest now.

If you dislike putting the time into the position or you don't want to be disliked for making unpopular judgement calls, then step down.

Otherwise petition Zor and Kison to let everybody edit their own titles instead of implementing this populist clique-promoting monstrosity.

Was titling not always popularity?

How do you get nommed? By friends.
How do you get Nths? By friends and those swayed by the story presented. Mostly friends.

The title bot isn't stopping discussion and it's noy stopping Psyche declining noms even if they get the support!

Hiw is this any different than manual tracking?

[Pine]

Okay, I've stayed away from this because I don't want to step on your toes, Psyche. But if implementation is coming, here goes.

If all we're talking about is a vote counter for this thread, great! No objections, stop reading here.

But at other times it has been discussed about automating the system entirely, to the point of eliminating or greatly reducing the need for a title fairy. I do NOT support that. There have been a lot of shit titles over the years which got enough "lolsure" nths to merit consideration. Usually, a human title fairy shot them down because they didn't pass the sniff test. We need that. An adult in the room with the authority and willpower to say no.

So if you're just making a tool for tracking opinions, go for it. But if you're talking about making the job obsolete, just hand it off to someone who wants to do it.

[Psyche]

first of all, i think the mere existence of this conversation and many conversations like it itt proves that i'm totally comfortable making judgment calls people dislike

[Centipede Syndrome]

Humans are soon going to be obsolete kek.
I, for one, welcome our coming AI overlords.

[BTD6_maker]

This seems like it should work in principle but it may be harder to implement in practice.
For instance, if nths do not need to mention the user, that causes issues when multiple users are nominated for the same title.
Obviously there will be issues with typos etc. but in most cases these will be trivial to fix by asking you to edit the post.
It may not be possible to implement certain unique types of titles, like the blank banner suggested for Spiffeh, using the Title Bot. Those would probably have to be reviewed by you.

PEdit: I agree with Pine in that we need a human to detect joke titles (because now people may try to push through joke titles with correct formatting) and unless there are somehow enough advances in AI for a bot to be able to detect joke titles you (or a future Title Fairy) will have to.
What I do think would be the best implementation is for any titles which pass the threshold on the bot to then be passed to you to review. This would allow you to detect any obvious joke titles that got through, although if you want it to be more community-based rather than unilateral you would probably be accepting the vast majority of titles that aren't obvious jokes.

[McMenno]

Humans are soon going to be obsolete kek.
I, for one, welcome our coming AI overlords.

Nth

[SleepyKrew]

it moves us one step closer to the dissolution of the fairy diktat

This makes me sad.

I don't really get what the bot is going to do that an easy manual count wouldn't.

[Psyche]

Whether a title nom goes through or not will never be the result of a simple count of nths and anti-noms, or of any automated process. Titlebot just keeps track of the state of the thread and posts/pms/changes titles when told to. The stuff it does is more thorough than what game moderators normally do, including linking to votes within votecounts and updating several posts simultaneously, in all enabling a more cohesive title nomination experience than would be possible under a typical Title Fairy.

***

My biggest beef with the "adult in the room" idea is that it's dishonest, either to the reader or to yourself. Just from your description of what the "adult in the room" is supposed to do, it's clear that what you're looking for isn't an "adult in the room"; you want someone to enforce your personal tastes over those of people who don't share them, even when they outnumber. You're using the "adult in the room" idiom and stuff like it because you're trying to vaunt said personal tastes to the level of objective truth as justification for prioritizing them over those of everyone else. I'm not going to be party to that, and I disagree that it's the role of the Title Fairy to be party to that. In fact, I'd say that every time a Title Fairy has been party to that, they've been bad in that moment at their job.

At the same time, though, I completely agree that a Title Fairy needs to shoot down nominations that fail to meet certain standards. However, imo this isn't because otherwise titles will get through that I personally or you personally won't like (as fairies have done before tbh), but because the noms and nths people post in the thread aren't complete windows into whether a potential title is accessible/appreciable to the broader community. When I say I want to kill the Fairy diktat, I'm not saying that the Fairy will abdicate this role, I'm saying that the Fairy will avoid imposing or privileging their own personal tastes and instead base the evaluation of whether to allow a title nom through mainly on expectations about how the community will receive it. The titlebot advances this by facilitating the demarcation between the fairy's exercise of administrative authority determining whether a title lives or dies, and the user's casual input as a community member about how they like a title.

If you don't like a title, it's very straightforward to make a post saying so, and even more helpful to explain why. There's a very long waiting period between when a title get nominated and implemented for you to do stuff like that. I've basically never allowed through a title unless it had

vastly

more support than opposition. If you happen to always be part of the opposition in these cases of overwhelming support for a title nomination, consider the possibility that instead of the title process being broken, you're just out of touch with the broader community's tastes.