Problems with the Queues

[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.

[Micc]

viewqueue.php

I know someone was working on a newer version.

This looks super promising!

[Micc]

I had full intentions on applying to the next listmod opening...and then an opening got filled without an application process. Theres currently a listmod who has been doing double duty for months, and there still hasn’t been an application process.

I’d like to help, but I don’t have coding any knowledge. What I do have is a decent amount of free time that I’d be willing to deticate to improving the site. I think there’s a pretty good sized group of people in my position. The problem is that many of us have become discouraged because our attempts to get involved in the past have fallen on deaf ears. Personally I can say that I’ve been told the NRG wasn’t in need of more members when I offered to help. I’ve had my involvement as a Team Mafia moderator fall apart before my eyes only to find out that a different group of people had taken over the event without me even knowing. I’ve had an offer to help judge scummies be completely ignored.

So I’ll ask again, how does someone with no coding experience get involved with improving this site? I’ve got about 30 minutes a day that I’d love to deticate to something, I’m just waiting for someone to ask for the help.

[Micc]

I’d even be happy to collaborate with game mods whose strengths are in game design but who struggle at running games because I am very much the other way around. This goes more towards improving the quality of games on site, but it’s an improvement nonetheless.

But yeah...archiving, updating queues, fixing registration issues, and probably a whole lot more are all busy work that ends up in the hands of the listmods that I, and many other members of the community, would be willing to help with.

[Micc]

Well, for what it’s worth that was a year or two back not this most recent spring.

[Micc]

Theoretically, if the micro queue offered a slot for queued marathon games, would the community take interest in that? Say someone wants to /in to mod a micro at X:XX time on a given day with 30 minute deadlines. Would players sign up?

What if the mod is offering this at a consistent time every week? Would a community of players form that habitually plays mafia when available at that time?

[Micc]

That's the biggest question I have for the community - would a queue help to fix problems such as not knowing how many people are going to show up for a marathon game?

If the game mod says they have a 9 player setup they want to run at X:XX on 3/30, will 9 players make time in their schedule to signup for and play that game?

Sometimes there might not be enough players so the game mod has to reschedule a different time, but if a few of these games fire a week would the community latch onto that? Would there be enough interest that it makes sense to formalize this idea as a part of the micro queue?

Pushing the micro queue towards small, quick games all the way down to marathon speed is an idea that popped up in our discussion behind the scenes as something that might makes sense in conjunction with pushing non-marathon speed 9 player opens back to the Open queue. I think this idea ties together solutions to a lot of the things people are expressing concern over: gives more purpose to the Open queue, allows for T-bone to establish a process for design & test of new setups, opens up the site to players who want more marathon style games, gives the micro queue a purpose beyond allowing mods to shortcut other queues.

So I'm here asking for feedback. Would you sign up to play a marathon game if you knew when it would start ~1 week in advance?

[Micc]

The logistical issues of someone being late or missing entirely will definitely still exist. Perhaps a queue presents an opportunity to plan for those issues in a way that our traditional marathon system doesn't? Something like a designated replacement, and eventual WotM of habitual no-show players. I don't know if it would work. It's possible that someone just has to give it a try to find out.

Also, you don't have to sign up a week in advance, you're just liable to missing out on a spot if you wait until ~48 hours before. Possible that creates a situation where people are signing up for games before knowing that they can play just so they don't miss out. but also at that point its been proven that demand is there for games like this which is probably good for the site.

[Micc]

We're going to give the queued marathons thing a try on a trial basis. Check out the Micro Queue for details.