Problems with the Queues

[northsidegal]

Queues will always suck because you get your turn in queue based on what you want to mod, and whether it fills quickly is based on whether you want to play. It's the Electoral College of forum mafia

Could you elaborate?

I can restate myself. Tomorrow I can make an alt named Rhodesy and one named Isla-chan and claim the main account is Ras but somehow the listmod is kewl with this. Rhodesy can join the open queue to run 11v2 Mountainous, Isla-chan will join the open queue to run 4p Dethy as a forum mafia game. It will be decided they both get 2 weeks to fill. On day 11, when no one has joined either game except that Isla-chan is in for Rhodesy's game and vice versa, Jingle will post that Cultist Recruiter or any of his other popular setups will be in queue next, 7 people will post pre-/ins in the thread instead of PMing him, and they will be hushed as we keep repose and meditate on Rhodesy and Isla's game for another 3 days. The system works perfectly to serve who it is intended to serve, Rhodesy and Isla, not Jinglefornia

Okay, I believe I understand what you're saying now. I think that to fully solve that problem in every single scenario would require turning the open queue into something more like the large-theme queue, where it's not really a "queue" at all. I went a lot more into that idea before deleting a lot of it in my original post, but basically I think that retaining a queue structure is still valuable. I think that eliminating it entirely increases "splintering" too much and is very disincentivizing towards new moderators as well as untested setups.

Okay. What do you think of my suggestions regarding changing the Open queue?

I think having three open slots could theoretically alleviate some issues with the Open Queue because what it does is it results in more "shots" at creating a game that meets demand.

But also the Open Queue is the least popular queue and I don't think it has a consistent enough playerbase to even generate consistent demand so fracturing might just be the death blow to the queue.

Having three signups doesn't necessitate a removal of stagnation in the queue, you have three games unable to meet demand, they sit there and block the queue. I guess on the positive side is you cycle through setups faster.

Basically the point I'm trying to make is that to implement your change is a massive risk by the list mods and administrators who I assume don't want to just kill the open queue while its still barely breathing in favor of a change that may or may not improve it.

The open queue wasn't always the least popular queue. Once upon a time it was somewhat thriving and had a fairly consistent group of players who played a lot of opens. It doesn't

have

to be the case that it's the least popular, and the fact that it is now is, I think, a product of the queue rather than the cause of the queue being stagnant. Basically, I think you have your causation backwards: you think that opens are unpopular and so the queue is slow, and I think that the queue is slow and so opens are unpopular.

It's true that having three signups doesn't necessitate a removal of stagnation. That being said, I think that my specific proposals all do work to help eliminate stagnation. Micro games are inherently anti-stagnant with their lower player size: we can even see that

right now

there are two micro opens in the Micro queue that could theoretically be in the open queue. In fact, you're the one modding one of them! It's thus a little surprising to see you say that there isn't a consistent enough playerbase to generate demand. Experimental setups have an inherent draw to them, I think, by the nature of the monthly setup challenges as well as people who work together on theorycrafting a setup. I think the recent popularity of Undertale Semi-open speaks to this, although that's obviously only one example.

I don't mean to be accusatory towards T-Bone, but I think that the decision to make the queue "self-automated" has done far more to kill the open queue than this change could possibly do. I think the impact of that decision is still being felt today, actually.

[OkaPoka]

i agree open queue was thriving once

its just i don't even check open queue thread unless to remove the red marker thing in ego posts anymore whereas once i did actively monitor the queue

i assume im not a special

thus i assume that if open queue continues to stagnate less people will check the open queue thread

[northsidegal]

1 would be the setup of the month. Something that players can reliably play, similar to how the Newbie queue functions.

This has been proposed before. I don't think that there are enough games played in a singular month to really justify it, and games that do attain a certain level of popularity where players just keep wanting to play the same setup just get put into the queue over and over without any need for a dedicated slot for them (the time that Coalition was ran a few times in a row comes to mind). With that in mind, it seems like this is just asking for an unpopular setup to make it into the monthly rotation. I think that a dedicated experimental slot instead would do more to increase open game popularity.

i agree open queue was thriving once

its just i don't even check open queue thread unless to remove the red marker thing in ego posts anymore whereas once i did actively monitor the queue

i assume im not a special

thus i assume that if open queue continues to stagnate less people will check the open queue thread

I'm not quite sure what you're arguing here. The existence of some kind of negative feedback loop of popularity? I think we can both agree that the open queue, as it is right now, is stagnant. You say yourself that if it continues to stagnate that even less people will check the thread. I believe that it is likely that if things continue as they are now, the open queue will not gain popularity. As I understand it, you seem to disagree, and think that a change would be more of a risk of stagnation than keeping things the same?

[popsofctown]

It's not intuitive to me that a demand driven queue would "splinter" more. Could you explain why you'd expect that result?

[Alisae]

This has been proposed before. I don't think that there are enough games played in a singular month to really justify it, and games that do attain a certain level of popularity where players just keep wanting to play the same setup just get put into the queue over and over without any need for a dedicated slot for them (the time that Coalition was ran a few times in a row comes to mind). With that in mind, it seems like this is just asking for an unpopular setup to make it into the monthly rotation. I think that a dedicated experimental slot instead would do more to increase open game popularity.

it wouldn't be like 1 setup every month but maybe like 1 setup every 3 months.

[OkaPoka]

oh im just arguing for the possible reason why the admins/list mods would be hesitant to change the structure of the open queue to yours even though personally i think your changes would probably make it better

[northsidegal]

It's not intuitive to me that a demand driven queue would "splinter" more. Could you explain why you'd expect that result?

I don't consider it an eventuality, but it seems more likely to me given that kind of structure.

Let's say that the normal queue went like the large theme queue, and you could sign up for any mod in line's game. Certainly we would expect a similar behavior as things already are to remain, where people simply sign up for whichever game is the closest to filling, or whoever's game is at the top of whatever list there may be of games. That being said, we might also expect some players to sign up for only mods that they like: for example, if I really like schadd's normal game design, I might only sign up for his games, even if other games are closer to filling. Of course, we might expect this behavior as things are now, where I would only sign up for a normal game if it were modded by schadd. However, I believe there's a subset of people who would only sign up for schadd's games if they could that otherwise (as in, right now) sign up for whatever normal games are in queue. A similar behavior might exist for certain playercount games, not just moderators.

And thus I would expect the total rate at which games fill to go down, even if only slightly. Of course, this analysis is for normal games, for which setup information doesn't really exist before you sign up.

[OkaPoka]

i have an idea

BURN DOWN ALL THE QUEUES and just create signup threads for everything

except for normal and newbie queues, those can stay

and over time if we see that there is consistency in certain game structures being run, we create queues for those type of games as to soft cap them from taking away from the rest of the site

[Alisae]

the ability to put a game into sign-ups immediately and have it fill immedaitely without waiting for other games to fill?
Sign me up!

[OkaPoka]

of course admins won't implement my idea but its food for thought because that would be the radical way of making sure demand isn't inhibited really

we can work our way back to the middle

[popsofctown]

It's not intuitive to me that a demand driven queue would "splinter" more. Could you explain why you'd expect that result?

I don't consider it an eventuality, but it seems more likely to me given that kind of structure.

Let's say that the normal queue went like the large theme queue, and you could sign up for any mod in line's game. Certainly we would expect a similar behavior as things already are to remain, where people simply sign up for whichever game is the closest to filling, or whoever's game is at the top of whatever list there may be of games. That being said, we might also expect some players to sign up for only mods that they like: for example, if I really like schadd's normal game design, I might only sign up for his games, even if other games are closer to filling. Of course, we might expect this behavior as things are now, where I would only sign up for a normal game if it were modded by schadd. However, I believe there's a subset of people who would only sign up for schadd's games if they could that otherwise (as in, right now) sign up for whatever normal games are in queue. A similar behavior might exist for certain playercount games, not just moderators.

And thus I would expect the total rate at which games fill to go down, even if only slightly. Of course, this analysis is for normal games, for which setup information doesn't really exist before you sign up.

This doesn't come up as much if you let people "/in - unless one of my other /ins in this category fires, then /out". That seems like a logical step of implementing a free market queue. If the mere presence of schadd's game makes people not even make that level of commitment to both schadd's game and another in queue, it's not really the structure of the queue itself but that schadd's spot in the queue is functioning too much like schadd tweeting "feelin like moddin another next week, don't commit to anything you guys" and I'm a hard sell on anything that's supposed to be better than something else by depriving users of information just because lack of information creates a desired side effect.

[OkaPoka]

Go full authoritarian and force people to play games to fill up the queue

[Alisae]

Go full authoritarian and force people to play games to fill up the queue

Play in my Hydra only upick or else

[northsidegal]

This doesn't come up as much if you let people "/in - unless one of my other /ins in this category fires, then /out". That seems like a logical step of implementing a free market queue. If the mere presence of schadd's game makes people not even make that level of commitment to both schadd's game and another in queue, it's not really the structure of the queue itself but that schadd's spot in the queue is functioning too much like schadd tweeting "feelin like moddin another next week, don't commit to anything you guys" and I'm a hard sell on anything that's supposed to be better than something else by depriving users of information just because lack of information creates a desired side effect.

I'm not quite sure we're understanding each other. At the very least, I'm not sure I'm understanding you. The scenario I mentioned doesn't consider someone who would say "/in unless the other game fires first, then /out". It considers someone who, if given the choice, would only sign up for schadd's games, but otherwise just signs up for whichever normal game is first in queue.

I don't really understand your tweet analogy at all.

I don't think that a queue structure deprives users of information at all. You know who's coming up to mod things in the Normal queue, it's always listed in the first post. I agree that even I feel something unintuitive about arguing for less choices at once. It seems to run contrary to what I would argue in a more real life scenario. I think that the goals that I would be trying to achieve are different though. If I were to make a market analogy, in mafiascum I care about being fair to newer moderators and untested setups, whereas in real life I might say that if people only want to buy their favorite products (as opposed to "newer or untested products") then they should absolutely be able to.

[OkaPoka]

pops - libright

alisae - authright

nsg - centerleft

[popsofctown]

This doesn't come up as much if you let people "/in - unless one of my other /ins in this category fires, then /out". That seems like a logical step of implementing a free market queue. If the mere presence of schadd's game makes people not even make that level of commitment to both schadd's game and another in queue, it's not really the structure of the queue itself but that schadd's spot in the queue is functioning too much like schadd tweeting "feelin like moddin another next week, don't commit to anything you guys" and I'm a hard sell on anything that's supposed to be better than something else by depriving users of information just because lack of information creates a desired side effect.

I'm not quite sure we're understanding each other. At the very least, I'm not sure I'm understanding you. The scenario I mentioned doesn't consider someone who would say "/in unless the other game fires first, then /out". It considers someone who, if given the choice, would only sign up for schadd's games, but otherwise just signs up for whichever normal game is first in queue.

I don't really understand your tweet analogy at all.

I don't think that a queue structure deprives users of information at all. You know who's coming up to mod things in the Normal queue, it's always listed in the first post. I agree that even I feel something unintuitive about arguing for less choices at once. It seems to run contrary to what I would argue in a more real life scenario. I think that the goals that I would be trying to achieve are different though. If I were to make a market analogy, in mafiascum I care about being fair to newer moderators and untested setups, whereas in real life I might say that if people only want to buy their favorite products (as opposed to "newer or untested products") then they should absolutely be able to.

There's some kind of terminological or technical disparity here I'm missing the plot on I think.
I don't know if it's worth the posts to work it out since it's an auxiliary point.
I was trying really hard to state my extreme position and bounce, because I am 100% that person that thinks new mods should get brickwalled out of modding indefinitely because games are constantly filling with reputable mods because I think of the players as the customer. The current system treats the mods as the customer. Isla-chan got her name for a reason. I know Isla-chan wants to mod her first game but I don't want 9 players to pay any amount of setup preference to give her that.

[northsidegal]

The market analogy also breaks down when you consider that games of mafia are inherently social, community-based experiences in a way that buying a product isn't. In mafia, if 5 people only want to play micro A given the choice and 4 only want to play micro B, neither will ever play a game. In real life, if 5 people want to buy product A and 4 want to buy product B, their lack of coordination isn't

preventing

them from buying the product.

I think that some kind of queue structure is actually really important because on some level it forces people together when, if they were given more options, they would be apart. That seems fairly important for keeping a community alive to me.

[OkaPoka]

nsg is auth left actually

ms.net political compass when

[northsidegal]

I was trying really hard to state my extreme position and bounce, because I am 100% that person that thinks new mods should get brickwalled out of modding indefinitely because games are constantly filling with reputable mods because I think of the players as the customer. The current system treats the mods as the customer. Isla-chan got her name for a reason. I know Isla-chan wants to mod her first game but I don't want 9 players to pay any amount of setup preference to give her that.

-shrug-

I would probably agree with you in different contexts, but in the context of mafiascum as a community that we want to keep alive and see grow with the influx of new players, I don't think this is a good position to hold. New members need to be given a chance so that eventually

they

can become the old members, the reputable mods. Mafiascum isn't a service, there aren't customers. It's a community.

[northsidegal]

i am remiss at the fact that i have not yet worked choice overload ("the paradox of choice") into any of these posts yet about eliminating queues so i'm just gonna awkwardly bring it up here

[popsofctown]

I want mafiascum to be as large a site as possible, which is why I want cutthroat queue logic. I have never seen a player contemplate running their first game during a point in their career where they were a retention risk as a player and it was a key determinator in whether they stay on site. I tend to see them start to think about it after they become pretty deeply integrated. OTOH I have seen offsite players who jump the newbie queue have various bad experiences in Open or Minithemes and leave site in cases where the site may have failed to give them the best we had to offer in that moment.

[northsidegal]

That's fairly compelling, actually.

[northsidegal]

That being said, that seems more like an argument for either stricter punishments for moderator errors, or stricter oversight for newer moderators (or both, any of which I could easily be convinced on depending upon the specifics) rather than having to do with queue reform. Would you agree?

[popsofctown]

Both have the incidental effect of making cyrus62 type events less likely in their respective queues. Those games are major siteflake risks. Direct handholdy measures do seem even more on point than letting experienced mods get edges and hope the "market" does it, especially since Cyrus as an example was in the normal queue.
Both ideas are from a "right to moderate is small, right to play is big" sentiment but the quality control thing is definitely way more important

[northsidegal]

Currently 0 ongoing open games with the conclusion of Open 776.