Mafiascum.net

then if those people want to volunteer, the coding team is literally always looking for more people to help out.

presenting all these problems and going "this should totally be done" isn't really helping or proposing a solution

In post 74, Mathdino wrote:

In post 71, xRECKONERx wrote:okay are you volunteering to go ahead and whip up all those automation projects or are you just saying "hey someone else should do this very complicated and time consuming thing for free"

I've already volunteered for what's in my skillset. Wiki group, NRG, open setup review, etc. I have a role PM generator in the works that's on hold because I still don't know what "standard" role PMs should look like.

I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that a lot of volunteer skillsets onsite are being wasted due to mismanagement. If you compiled all the time KMo has ever spent updating her thread, I think it would be at least 10 times greater than the time it would take to code a bot that literally quotes posts without

tags. Those who have worked with forum bots can correct me if I'm wrong.

Like there's an incredible amount of human capital on this site. As Alisae's pointed out, the majority of people that want to help and change things rarely get any response from administration on that.

It's not a matter of "ugh why hasn't [person] done this yet".

It's "why continue putting out applications for someone to take over replacement requests, when you could literally just ask the forum to code a bot for you?" There are willing people. And this extrapolates to the position of listmod.

Edit: Do I have to personally have the skills to implement potential solutions to comment on the vision for the site?

I would point out this thread as a fantastic example of engagement with the community, transparency, and caring about the site going in the right direction.

I'm sure a lot of the critiques of my OP are spot-on: I don't actually know what's going on behind the scenes.

But... shouldn't we know where the site is heading?

I think the team just telling us what is in the works every couple of months would do loads for us. Quarterly reports are even bi-annual reports of what's going on would be great.

I think one major trend I've been seeing here lately is that a problem has to be brought up to the attention of the administration and other staff before anything actually happens for the better. Like for the scummies for instance; I highly doubt they would have gone to the trouble they ended up doing until Radiant made their thread.

the scummies were unfortunate because zor never really wanted to be in charge of them but then basically the entire SSC flaked on him and he was left holding the bag, so he slapped together a solution and got some awards out

the ssc bailed, the writers all bailed, it was a clusterfuck. he shouldn't have even been responsible for it.

so regardless of threads or whatever or alisae's nonstop assertion that zor isn't doing anything right and needs to quit, he's bending over backwards for the site

now, can some things change? sure.
i think long wait times in queue are bad and automated signups should be prioritized to fix that. if people want to volunteer to help code shit for free, Kison is always happy to have help.
i think a replacement request bot would be lovely. again: feel free to sign up to do that project.

People need to step forward if they want to help with projects imo
It's presumptuous of the admin team to go "oh, here's a problem that has a complicated solution none of us understand... let's pass the buck to the community or put the burden on someone else"

and plenty of things have been on the coding team's agenda: but, again, it's an unpaid volunteer position with no power that's basically asking people to come home from work and keep doing more work for free. the more people we can get helping out, the more projects that can be tackled. but until then, the pace at which things are turning over is understandable

i do think a state of the site report is great and would wholeheartedly support one

the admin team has semi-quarterly staff meetings and that could be put together following those meetings.

In post 31, chamber wrote:Not to toot my own horn too much, but I honestly think a big issue has been the technical stagnation that happened when I stopped doing stuff. I can't stand working with zor (and it's not fair to put that entirely on him). So we just basically haven't gotten any major upgrades recently. The good news is that this is changing though, others -have- been working on things more recently, its just been paying back some tech debt from when nothing was being done (ie migrating to 3.2). Technical changes -should- be coming again.

bless your heart

I don't really know how productive it would be to do a point by point analysis of what has been presented as problems, but I would say that as a general response

1. What users perceive as problems and what administrators perceive as problems are sometimes going to be different, and there is no way that we can get unison on that
2. While we do have similar concerns as the user base regarding queues, it is simply not productive to workshop the solutions in public. We're not ignoring you, but our initial discussions happen backstage. The changes to the Normal Queue started discussions months ago. Rolling them out with a new listmod was coincidence.
3. We already have people working with Kison's team to update the site and develop automation. They are all unpaid volunteers and these things take time. As with most things, they do this work behind the scenes and discuss it there.

I think one thing that needs to be done for all queues(other than newbie or normal) is that
1. games are supposed to be balanced( unless they are themed games with a warning upon signups)
2. all games should be reviewed by at least one suitable person who accepted the version as good
3. moderators AND reviewers get punished for games that objectively did not meet their promises or were unannouncedly imbalanced.

In post 84, Not Known 15 wrote:3. moderators AND reviewers get punished for games that objectively did not meet their promises or were unannouncedly imbalanced.

terrible.

Ya wanna know how you "punish" mods for not meeting promises or were unanouncedly imbalanced?
You blacklist them and never join any of their games.
Punishing a mod for that site wide is terrible and extreme and cruel and unusual.

I don't like punishing someone at all for imbalanced games, like don't join their games if you personally have a problem with them, but I'm a big believer in the fact that the site should not get involved when a person is just bad at things. I mean, if someone intentionally lies and claims that it was reviewed and approved for balance, then turns it on its head, then action is warranted, but I know there are people still allowed to in to mod games after they lied when they posted the games in queues, and if they do not have official action against them, then there is no way we should be searching out people who make unbalanced games and ban them for what was possibly just an error in judgment.

Yeah, that's a little extreme.

I have a few mods I refuse to play under, and I am better for it! Nut to enforce a balance rule is ridiculous.

In post 84, Not Known 15 wrote:I think one thing that needs to be done for all queues(other than newbie or normal) is that
1. games are supposed to be balanced( unless they are themed games with a warning upon signups)
2. all games should be reviewed by at least one suitable person who accepted the version as good
3. moderators AND reviewers get punished for games that objectively did not meet their promises or were unannouncedly imbalanced.

No, this is a bad suggestion.

1) Not all games are meant to be balanced. I can agree though that a public warning is probably a good thing though.
2) The Large Theme Queue already does this, but the number of reviewers that actually consider balance to a large extent probably isn't many. The Normal Queue also mandates balance and normalcy checks, which is good.
3) This is the part of the suggestion that is bad; how would you define "objectively did not meet their promises?" Have you balanced role madness games before? Have you balanced special mechanics before? Have you balanced bastard games before? Have you balanced large games before? Have you ever balanced a very swingy game before? Neither reviewers nor the moderators should be punished for having an unbalanced game, at least not on the moderation/administration side of things; players can punish the moderator or reviewer by not signing up for games by that mod or not signing up for games reviewed by that reviewer. Reviewers work on a volunteer basis, and as it is, there are not that many reviewers (especially good ones). If you make it where the reviewer can be punished for "doing a bad job" (which is really hard to define objectively, especially if the decision is in the hands of the players), potential reviewers are going to be less inclined to try for that very reason.

In post 89, Ircher wrote:3) This is the part of the suggestion that is bad; how would you define "objectively did not meet their promises?" Have you balanced role madness games before? Have you balanced special mechanics before? Have you balanced bastard games before? Have you balanced large games before? Have you ever balanced a very swingy game before? Have you ever played a swingy game before? Neither reviewers nor the moderators should be punished for having an unbalanced game, at least not on the moderation/administration side of things; players can punish the moderator or reviewer by not signing up for games by that mod or not signing up for games reviewed by that reviewer. Reviewers work on a volunteer basis, and as it is, there are not that many reviewers (especially good ones). If you make it where the reviewer can be punished for "doing a bad job" (which is really hard to define objectively, especially if the decision is in the hands of the players), potential reviewers are going to be less inclined to try for that very reason.

Yes, fair point, that is not what I wanted.

In post 75, xRECKONERx wrote:then if those people want to volunteer, the coding team is literally always looking for more people to help out.

presenting all these problems and going "this should totally be done" isn't really helping or proposing a solution

i think signaling demand for these sort of features do some good
there's a lot I'm more likely to work on for instance thanks to seeing interest in it from the community
but i wish there was some organized record of things people wanted coded and how much/how many want it;
it's still too hard to tell just what the community wants to see besides the big / especially difficult stuff

Basically, I agree with Reck. If people took half the time they spent bitching about the site’s problems and used that time to learn how to develop and implement actual solutions to said problems, the site wouldn’t be “dying” every few months.

I don't have the numbers, so I'm willing to be surprised, but my intuition is that activity and other health factors (active slots in games?, new registers) has been on decline for like 6-7 years.

It getting talked about every 6 months doesn't mean it's only a problem every 6 months.

It's also my intuition that the queues are actually now too numerous for the amount of players going through them. There aren't enough players being channeled into too many games so they don't fill properly. (Maybe there are just a lot of people tied up in games when I've been paying attention recently, anecdotes are of limited value ultimately).

With all of that said, UT pointed out a substantial problem to the solution you propose. The administration doesn't agree with any given user on the issues let alone the solutions, so peoples willingness to work on their projects gets the site no where on it's own.

make all public mechanics normal, merge the open and normal queues

In post 93, chamber wrote:I don't have the numbers, so I'm willing to be surprised, but my intuition is that activity and other health factors (active slots in games?, new registers) has been on decline for like 6-7 years.

It getting talked about every 6 months doesn't mean it's only a problem every 6 months.

It's also my intuition that the queues are actually now too numerous for the amount of players going through them. There aren't enough players being channeled into too many games so they don't fill properly. (Maybe there are just a lot of people tied up in games when I've been paying attention recently, anecdotes are of limited value ultimately).

With all of that said, UT pointed out a substantial problem to the solution you propose. The administration doesn't agree with any given user on the issues let alone the solutions, so peoples willingness to work on their projects gets the site no where on it's own.

All these years and the subtleties of rhetoric are still lost upon you.

I guess so because that hasn't helped clarify your position to me if it wasn't the one I was responding to.

edit: though if your point is that I'm ineffective at being convincing, I don't go into things with that intent.

Too many games in signups is definitely an issue. Just look at the current Large Theme mess. 4 in signups and none of them can fill. And there's already five large themes in progress (six if you count Varsoon's in limbo game).
Also I would think the advent of summer should bring in a new infusion of players (I hope).

In post 7, tn5421 wrote:I would like to add & chime in, because I know it will be brought up, other mafia sites are growing, not dying.

Curious what sites you're referring to here?

if we have to pay the price of a smaller user pool to tell white supremacists to go fuck themselves then i guess im fine with that tbh

In post 97, SirCakez wrote:Just look at the current Large Theme mess