Posts made by faraday

@ganymede said in Which canon property/setting would be good for a MU* ?:

I'm almost certain that folks using FS3's new system, via Ares, can attest to the absence of PvP on their games.

PvP has nothing to do with system and everything to do with the way your game/setting is created.

There was a GoT game using FS3 that had PvP for important duels and stuff. 100 had some PvP elements with Grounders vs Arkers but they weren't (usually) trying to kill each other. Y'know, except the one who shot my archer in the head

But FS3 is not designed for PvP games or for magical games, so I agree it's not a good fit for FF.

@wizz Yeah, and moving those to an "Old Ads" section could clean that up considerably.

@wizz Depends how you read the guidelines I guess because several players have read them and thought that it said "no criticism" aka nothing negative. Which is a different yardstick from the "criticize the idea not the person" guidelines in Mildly Constructive.

@three-eyed-crow Right. "Nobody but the owner can post" is very clear and easy to legislate. "Anybody can post good or the bad" is easy to understand too, because anything that's not hog-pit worthy is valid. The middle ground sounds problematic to me (both from a poster perspective and imagining a moderator's perspective) but @Arkandel is aware of it so -- we'll see how it goes.

@arkandel Agreeing that it's good to have a place for Q&A. But are you only going to allow the game staff to answer? Or only positive answers? Because otherwise I can see the "answers" veering into criticism, and that's where the problem comes in.

"Is this L&L game or grimdark"

Enthusiastic player A: "It's totally grimdark. I love it. The players are so helpful."

Less enthusiastic player B: "Well it says it is grimdark but mostly what I see is just nobles playing house."

Are these reviews? Criticism? Is B's answer somehow less valid than A's just because he's not as positive about the game?

By all means, try it out and see how it goes. Just giving my opinion because, y'know, this is MSB, we like to debate things endlessly

@ixokai said in FCs on Comic MUs:

@faraday Yeah if you're reading "Meeting only minimum over time is not sufficient" and interpreting, that as what "the minimum was", we're not successfully agreeing on the fundamental meaning of the words we're using.

I'm not quibbling over the definition of 'minimum/sufficient'. What I meant was that it seems to an impartial observer here that there is 1) a minimum log posting requirement and 2) some additional minimum activity requirement because doing "just the minimum #1" is not sufficient. You asked what was unclear - I'm saying #2 is unclear based on your comments in this thread. #2 doesn't have to be a hard formula if it's just based on staff's discretion. That's fine. It's just not clearly stated.

@thenomain Especially when you split it three ways -- positive stuff here, criticism here, really bad hog pit criticism over there. That's just weird.

@ixokai said in FCs on Comic MUs:

Minimum is 1. That's the line: minimum.

I thought you said the minimum was:

Meeting only minimum over time is not sufficient. Like, its fine if it happens one month, everyone has trouble from time to time. But if you've had 1/mo for three months you're not active.

So is it 1/mo with a 1-time pass if I miss a month? Is it 1/mo with a grace period if I tell you my cat got sick and my house is broke and I need some time off? Is it 1/mo unless I'm Squirrel Girl and nobody cares that I'm missing? Or is it entirely at staff's whim? That's the part that I think isn't clear from your comments in this thread. Maybe it's clear from your policies. I'm too lazy to go and look for myself.

Instead of harping on one game's policy though, I think the overall theme (not directed at ixokai specifically, but the generic game-runner "you") is:

1. Make sure your idle policy is clear - whether it's subjective or objective is less important than everyone being on the same page.

2. Make sure it achieves your desired goals. A minimum log/login threshold is very easy to 'camp'. If you're cool with that, it's your game.

@ixokai said in FCs on Comic MUs:

The log-per-month policy was designed when the game opened before they had a coder that could do cool stuff (err, no offense, I know you provided the initial code. I mean before they had a coder who had the time to commit to be a full codewiz)

None taken I was never their coder - I just spent an hour setting up my starter database for them. I'm glad they've got someone to build what they need now.

@ixokai said in FCs on Comic MUs:

I know it can be done; but I do find it pretty out there a suggestion for 94 FC's

I'm seriously not trying to beat a dead horse but just to be helpful...

I know you guys have some sort of automated scene code right? Just have the players flag the type of log. For example: social/plot-related/event. Participating in an event scene is worth 3 points, plot-related 2, social 1 (or however you want to weight them). Then the idle policy could be X minimum logs, Y minimum points... or tiered by FC type... or whatever.

Sure, it's imperfect. There's some subjectiveness about what people consider "plot related". But it's also 100% automated with no staff intervention beyond some casual oversight of "Hey wait that log looks like it's mis-tagged". And as @Ganymede said, the players can help flag those kind of things.

Again, I'm not saying you should do this. That's your business. I just don't think it needs to be some kind of crazy burden.

@ixokai said in FCs on Comic MUs:

I didn't say impossible, I said I don't have the time to do it. That's me making a value judgement of my time verses the benefit of my time spent doing that verses doing something else for the game.

As I said - your game / your policy. I am not criticizing your value judgment, I was responding to your "completely crazy/snickering/this is completely unreasonable" comment to @Tempest when they suggested using logs to monitor activity. It can be done. It can even be done quasi-objectively if you want to assign more weight to "event" logs than to "social" logs (an easy thing to automate and tally code-wise). But if you don't want to do it, that's your business.

@ixokai said in FCs on Comic MUs:

Yesterday, there were twelve scenes that were logged and posted (could have been more that weren't logged). We don't have time to read that much content, man.

I don't see though why you can't just read the log summaries. That takes 5 minutes, and it's pretty easy to tell from a summary: "Oh, it's just Batman having coffee again" versus "Oh, look, Batman foiled a bank robbery, cool."

I mean, if you don't want to make a qualitative assessment part of your idle policy, that's your business. I don't care. But the idea that it's somehow impossible for staff to gauge a player's activity through logs doesn't fly with me. I do it. Granted my games are smaller, but I'm also only one staffer. It scales.

@ganymede said in FCs on Comic MUs:

Fairness isn't the issue.

I think the issue (which could be a miscommunication) is that @ixokai said the rule was "one log every X days" because that was fair and objective but then in the same breath said re: people who do one log every X-1 days to camp the character:

@ixokai said in FCs on Comic MUs:

People who just bare-bones it get caught and poked in the eye.

That seems like an unspoken and incredibly subjective rule behind the rule, which goes against the stated goal of being "fair and objective".

And hey, I have no problem with a subjective idle rule. That's what I use. If your absence is causing problems for the game, I deal with you how I see fit. But the subjectiveness of that policy is made clear from the outset so everyone's on the same page. Making a "fair and objective" rule and then coming at people who are fulfilling the rule as written seems a bit cheesy.

ETA: Yeah it sounds like there was some misunderstanding. But since the existing policy is subjective anyway, so I'm not sure what the big deal is making it more subjective.

@thatguythere said in Make MSB great again!:

Except a section when criticism is not allowed as the current rules of the ad thread state is not discourse civil or otherwise it is a commercial followed by a pep rally.

That wasn't at all what I was talking about, if you read my comment again.

And if you read my other comments about the ad thread, you'll see that I agree with you. I suggested having just one "Game" thread for civil ad/q&a/reviews/feedback all together.

@arkandel said in Make MSB great again!:

But everyone gets flamed on MSB.

I don't disagree. The fact that you (and most of the people here) don't see that as a problem is kinda my point.

@arkandel said in Make MSB great again!:

Why would this thread exist if that was either acceptable or appropriate?

Why would the behavior have persisted for months if the behavior was neither acceptable nor appropriate? The community not only tolerates it, it encourages it. GIFs of popcorn being eaten as the flames are tossed around. (And I'm not even in the Hog Pit.)

I remember the last time a thread like this was posted, I was ridiculed for suggesting that discussions should be less negative. Because apparently "civil discourse" equates to "singing kumbaya" in many peoples' minds. "Enforcing community standards" equates to "cruel censorship".

The community has proven time and again what it wants this place to be, by what it is. Expecting that same community to suddenly change its tune seems beyond optimistic. But I would love it if it happened.

@ganymede said in Make MSB great again!:

But this also bars posters from posing questions to the advertisers, and permitting the advertisers to respond to the same.

While I would support @Three-Eyed-Crow's suggestion of a locked ad thread, this is what I was getting at with the idea of a single 'Game' thread. I mean, does BSGU really need two different threads? One for "Ads/Questions" and one for "Reviews"? No. Just combine them and have ad / updates / q&a / feedback all on the same thread (minus anything that belongs in the hog pit).

What bothers me more (and I'm guilty of it too) is everyone derailing a game's thread with stuff that really has nothing to do with the game itself. But there's no real cure for that other than moderation.

@thenomain said in Make MSB great again!:

Fracturing the discussion diminishes it.

So we have the ad thread, for the ad. Then if folks want to discuss the game, good and bad, that can go into a review thread. Unless of course it gets so hateful that it gets split off into the hog pit. Now there's three threads for one game... sounds like fun (not).

Or we could just say that this notion of a sacrosanct "ad" thread is silly and just have "Game Reviews" where folks can start the review with "Look how awesome my game is" or someone else can start a review with "Worst steak ever" and let the discussion proceed.

ETA: I'd be fine with what @Three-Eyed-Crow said about the ad thread just being for an ad, but I didn't think this forum s/w could do that easily.

@arkandel said in Make MSB great again!:

It's impossible to objectively separate the two, that's the thing. Someone has to make the call whether an idea is being criticized properly or if the poster is going too far, which can be shortform for censorship.

Yep. And I'm okay with that. I'd prefer censorship to every single thread turning into a flame war. It's exhausting. It's not fun. It's the reason I have "quit" this place several times. (Obviously I keep coming back like an idiot because it's the only game in town but that's a separate issue.)

Discourse is the forum software I used for the AresMUSH forums. It has very robust tools for community moderation, including fine-grained trust levels, etc. It also has great guidelines for what constitutes "Civil Discourse" including things like always trying to improve the conversation and be agreable even when you disagree.

I realize I am in a decided minority in this opinion, and that you don't want to play moderator. Both of those things are fine. But you asked what I would do differently and I answered.

@arkandel said in Make MSB great again!:

Just remember - the constructive section basically means we can say an idea is dumb, but not that the person is dumb.

That, though, is the basic problem I have with MSB. Every single discussion boils down to people telling each other "your idea is dumb" (which is a very short trip to "you're dumb for not realizing that your idea is dumb") when most of it is actually just different perspectives/preferences/opinions. It's the vitriol. The vehemence. The "this is what's wrong with MUSHing" or "this is what's ruining our hobby" of "these players are the worst". People are entitled to those opinions, of course, but I fail to see how it resembles anything approximating "Constructive".