In post 99, Plotinus wrote:If we get into weighing whether a replaceout was legit or not and only replacements that aren't for good enough reasons are punished, then that leaks some information about the nature of the replacements. For example, in the last game I modded, two players were replaced because one posted their role PM and the other saw it before it was hidden. One of the players was banned -- but this wasn't announced until after the game, of course. The other player was allowed to start a new newbie game right away because he shouldn't be punished for his honesty. If we had a strict rule about replacing out that was enforced, then the fact that the other player is allowed to join a new game without punishment reveals something about the nature of the replacement.
If we expand the definition of legit to allow for stuff like sudden illness or whatever then players are forced to disclose something they may consider private or we have to figure out where we draw the line -- sudden serious illness is ok but not sudden headcold? sudden grounding from the internet by angry parents? final exams coming up, which couldn't have been anticipated because how was any student supposed to remember at the beginning of May that finals would come at the end of May?
In the last game I modded, a newbie replaced out because they were bored. It was kind of a lame reason because boredom is transient and is an easy problem to solve: just do stuff to make stuff happen, interact with other people more, start a conversation, suddenly you're not bored anymore yay. Also, with 2 week deadlines, if you're bored you can go do something else for a day and come back and find something has happened. But on the other hand, part of trying a new activity is figuring out if you like it or not, and sometimes you realise a few days into it that you don't. You tried a new thing but it's not your thing. You only have 24 hours each day, no more and no less. You only have so much free time. Should you spend your free time doing something you have realised isn't fun? Why? And, furthermore, suppose we have a system that punishes people for replacing out. The person who has realised mafia isn't fun and replaces out of their newbie game, closes the browser tab and never comes back, do they notice that they have been punished? Do they care? Does it have any deterrence? This is like telling a child who doesn't want to eat his broccoli, "if you don't eat your broccoli, you can't have any more broccoli tomorrow!" The child is going to say "uh, okay, great!"
We already have a system in place to punish people who only replace out of scum slots or whatever. We already have a system in place to punish people who excessively join and replace out of games. If you read the ban thread you'll see the listmods do that when it gets egregious. I don't think we need a system to punish ordinary levels of flaking, especially in the population of people we're trying to retain.
I don't think replace-outs or judgement about their legitimacy should ever be alignment indicative. Maybe a rule enforcing that would help to make that a non-issue? The "don't talk about replacements" rule is a thing on nearly every other site I've played on and I really like it.
I don't think that punishing replace-outs is for the newbies in the queue, it's for the SEs mostly. And I feel like you might be heading towards territory where the listmod is making personal judgements about the people or their character. In my mind, none of that is really part of it. I don't think the listmod or mod should have to consider personal reasons. That's really not something that someone in an anonymous game environment should have to evaluate and it's not something that the player should have to reveal or talk about. If someone replaces out for personal reasons, I think they should just be aware that they may have to sit things out until the game ends and they can join a new one again. (And if they're unwell then the restriction I suggested shouldn't affect them I don't think? What do you think?)
But if someone replaces out for reasons that are related to the game itself, the listmod or mods can evaluate that, and I don't think toxicity is related to alignment, so I don't know if that will really be a big issue? It's a little bit problematic, yeah, but everything is always going to be problematic in some way and I think the current situation is more problematic than that.
I hope you don't think this is about demonizing replacing out as a thing. For me it's just making sure that people know that they are expected not to replace out haphazardly or thoughtless or excessively and to make sure they don't over-commit themselves. When I first started on this site, I replaced out of a ton of games for bad reasons (sometimes for good reasons) and I think it would have been good for me as a player to have rules pushing me to not do that the way that I did.
Replacing out is an important thing to be able to do, sometimes you're not enjoying a game and it's driving you mad and you just can't deal with it anymore, sometimes life gets too much and you can't give what the game needs anymore, there are lots of reasons to replace out of a game, but at the moment I think there's a bit of a culture where replacing out is something you can do kind of flippantly and I don't think that's good. I think putting restrictions in place to counteract that is a good thing, even if it might be inconvenient for some people who aren't part of the problem. I don't really know, though. It's hard to think about this stuff and it's really hard to balance it all.
Sorry if I'm misunderstanding anything that you were trying to say, or talking past you, or just being stupid or ignorant about something. Please let me know if you don't feel understood, or try to convince me of your opinion more if you just think I'm wrong.
