New AC Poll

[on_your_nerves]

There are many, many variations possible with the Activity Check, and the mods have decided that we are definitely revising it.

Given the myriad of options, we tried to put together a good proposal AC to put by the playerbase, one based around the comments we got as well as what we'd be capable of keeping up with given all the other things we have to keep up with. Since a monthly AC would involve a mod being occupied with AC two weeks of every month, we decided to see if you guys would be okay with a bimonthly one.

This is the proposal AC we came up with:

---

AC would be bimonthly as it is now and follow the same schedule. Players wouldn't have to make AC with every character but would have an increased number they had to make it with if they played more characters. Someone with 1-2 characters has to make AC with only 1 of them. Someone with 3-4 characters has to make AC with 2. Someone with 5-6 characters has to make AC with 3 of them, and the rare few with 7-8 would have to make AC with 4 characters.

Players could make AC with the following options:

One open post

OR

Two threads of at least ten comments made by your character

OR

One open event/meeting that lets others mingle, such as a movie night or training session.

OR

One plot posted with open signups.

---

Now, this AC is only going to be put into place if it passes with a majority vote. If it doesn't, please offer up suggestions/comments/criticisms in the comments. We'll keep tweaking it based on player comments until it reaches a happy medium and gets a passing vote by the playerbase. The poll will be open until May 31st at midnight EST.

Poll #10623

This poll is closed.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 11

View Respondents

Do you approve of this proposed new AC?

View Answers

Yes
3 (27.3%)

No
8 (72.7%)

Comments

[elementofloyalty]

Can you clarify how position-required open posts will fit into this before I vote? Are they on top of, cojoined to, or no longer required under these AC requirements?

[on_your_nerves]

Since everything is geared more towards open posts, department heads will still require an open post per AC but that could count as making the AC.

Example: Let's pretend Sherlock was a department head. (Oh god the horror). I have three characters, Brainy, Sherlock, and Hiccup. I could make AC with stuff for Sherlock and Hiccup. But if I didn't have a Sherlock one up for that AC, and only had opens for Hiccup and Brainy, I'd have to do an additional Sherlock post since he's department head.

So the department one can be folded into making their usual AC, but it still has to happen.

[elementofloyalty]

Okay, good. That's what I was hoping would happen.

[bonnypiperlad]

While I have no issues on most of the AC as it is written, I would like to suggest that perhaps the number of comments required for people who are going with the two thread option be slightly lower than 10 per character. If there are threads with multiple people participating, sometimes it's going to be difficult to get that many comments for each individual. As an example, a fighting thread with more than two or three people often dies out before that particular number of comments is reached, so it couldn't be used for AC, even though people may be actively participating in it for quite some time. And for those of us who write more in our tags, threads can often be shorter because more is going on in the tag. You can have a complete log that doesn't reach that length, but still accomplishes what the players wanted to do.

A thread with ten comments per character may be more reasonable for a comment spam game, but as we are a primarily prosed based game, I would like to suggest making it 5 comments per character at least for now. It's a number that can always be adjusted to suit the flow of the game later on.

[cityship]

This is a good point.

Would the ten be acceptable if we continued to count channelposts though? We planned to accept channelposts towards AC as well because in between logs and channelposts, most people would make the AC we suggested.

[bonnypiperlad]

Hmm. Yes, that could be doable if the channelposts were accepted.

[forging_on]

I agree with all of this, and I don't know that the channelposts would make up for it to me. I don't know that I get 10 comments per thread in my commentspam game, much less in a slow game like this one.

[on_your_nerves]

Point. Though we'd be doing this to try to get it less slow. :|a

I think in this instance since we've had some people express they want a stricter AC and some not liking the post number, we're going to go by the vote, since it's hard to tell what people want in particular.

That said, thank you for posting. Anyone that's unhappy with it as it stands and want another option, like less posts necessary, vote no so then we know to revise it and try again with a revised version. If we have to revise it, we'll go back to these comments to try to figure out what post numbers to do.

Also do you have any suggestions as to what you'd like to see instead? Maybe ten comments for the whole thread or something, so like five for each character instead?

[forging_on]

Well, there's less slow and then there's something we should work up to, and I think that 10 comments might be in that range. 10 for the whole thread would definitely work, though, I think. That's a definite increase in necessary activity without going too over-the-top.

[elementofloyalty]

I think if 10 comments over the course of two months is going to be considered unreasonably high, then we might as well abandon the idea of AC altogether.

[on_your_nerves]

I think the issue here is not that people think it's unreasonably high but that some players might play out a lot of very goal-based threads where they get what they wanted to accomplish done in just five comments per player and want an alternative where they can count multiple short threads if possible, which is fair to ask for. Especially since some people actively participate in group threads and might have an overall thread that's like thirty comments, but they only tagged in 8 times but contributed significantly...

We have to look at it from the perspective of being a plotty game with a lot of group threads, too. I don't think doing that is seeing it as unreasonably high or necessitating abandoning the idea of AC and it's good they brought up their concerns.

[elementofloyalty]

Wouldn't a group thread count under the mingling thread? I read that as being IN one, but it occurs to me you might have meant "posting one".

I'm really concerned about AC being watered down to the point where it's still trivial to make it. (I went on a much longer rant lower down in the post on this.)

That being said, and admittedly tangentially... I'm worried about closed or semi-closed posts being used to meet AC. The more of those we see, the more shut-out everyone who doesn't plan or meet an arbitrary criteria thread in that post is. If we're really trying to get more open posting, then allowing people to just knock out a private two-person post for AC purposes defeats that point.

Uh, it's kind of awkward to be saying this directly considering your detective post is what got me thinking on this, so please don't think I'm trying to single you out.

[on_your_nerves]

No, a group thread wouldn't be, not for everyone. A group thread counts for the person organizing it, IE, you can make AC by providing a post to mingle. So the players bringing this up have a valid concern. Also, even in the case of mingling posts, the post would have to be open to count, so the detective post in my case wouldn't, but movie night, which was open to everyone, would be.

The terms for that are strict enough to encourage more open posts for them to count at all, but don't take into account folks tagging into a mingling thread rather than throwing it, so I can see the concern the players have with this.

[grimbiker]

I'm all right with this but I'd rather see the AC for number of characters go as follows: 1 for 1-3 characters, 2 for 4-6 characters, 3 for 7+.

I went over our stats and the bulk of players have 1-3 characters. To be specific, give or take a few digits because my math is terrible, 22 players have 1 character, 11 players have 2, and 8 players have 3. From there the numbers drop sharply to 3 players with 4 characters, and two each for 5, 6, and 7. Given that 1-3 characters is more common and still not very many, I think tweaking it like that makes more sense but YMMV. I honestly thinking asking people with 5-6 characters to be active with 3 of them in the same month is too strict.

It's not a huge disagreement. I'll be fine either way but it's just something I'd be more comfortable with.

[cityship]

This is another good point (everyone reading this should mind this when making their choice). If you'd like to see a different breakdown, vote no so we can do a revision.

[dragonspooker]

Changed to no in favor of following this breakdown.

[morphitudinous]

This one sounds perfect to me, yes. I'll change to no.

[badassfreakingoverlord]

It's bimonthly, so a person with five or six characters would have two months to come up with three posts, thirty tags, or some combination of that.

I really have to disagree that that's unreasonable. I think being unable to manage that really raises questions about what the person is doing with that many characters when they're not even playing in the game with half of them.

[grimbiker]

Oh wow I did some serious misreading. I guess because of the past discussion I thought it was moving to monthly.

But all in all, I think I still prefer my suggestion. I think the statistical breakdown supports it. And really, you can be active in a game with that many characters and not make AC consistently with enough of them. it doesn't mean you're not playing with them it just means your pacing is slower. We're not a fast game and a lot of players like to play things out slowly. It's not a bad thing and it doesn't mean they're not active.

[badassfreakingoverlord]

Well, by my count, 41 players would only need one post or twenty comments every two months, and only eight would be be required to make 2. (The contact list isn't up to date -- I dropped Orochimaru like a month ago, so the only person with seven is, I think, Al, who is so reliable about making and responding to posts it's certainly not an issue).

I don't think that's going to result in increased traffic to the comms, which is what we're trying to achieve here. What I think will most likely happen will be that people will continue to meet their ACs with closed, pre-planned posts or plots, rather than making to or posting to open posts. If there really are only 53 players-ish, and it's actually probably fewer now, the 8 people with 3 characters represent a sixth to a seventh of our playerbase, and increased participation from them could really make a difference.

Upping the spread like this feels like the AC has become a de facto "link us to any two threads you did this AC periods" instead of one, which, sure, is technically a doubling, but is still very low and still allows everyone to get by on pre-planned, closed, or otherwise uninteractive posts. Clearly I'm in the minority with my opinions, but I feel like people are looking at this not through the eyes of, "what is best for the game?" but "I hate AC, I don't want to do it." Taking that path is turning this into a purely symbolic vote, saying "we want the game to get better" but not actually taking a step strict enough to lead to that. (I caveat this with saying I'm against it being voted on to begin with, for exactly this reason.)

[grimbiker]

I'm honestly looking at it from a "what would be fair for everyone" perspective. I only have 3 characters at this point and I'm confident I'll be able to make AC without any real problems no matter what decision we go with. My concern is kicking up motivation to tag out and keep going- which I think this would give- while at the same time recognizing that we're not meant to be a super fast game, which could drive some people away.

[elementofloyalty]

My perspective, after being in various games, is that a light AC is "10 comments or one open post a month per character". So I still see our even the ones we're voting on as very lax. I'm definitely on the side of "not with every character" in this, but I really do think that if AC isn't effective;y increased for 2/3rds of our players (and four/fifths? I dunno, not doing the math right now, of our characters), we won't see any improvement.

(When the heck did I even switch accounts? I'm losing my memory.)

[bonnypiperlad]

Personally, I don't think anyone is saying 'I hate AC, I don't want to do it'. We're trying to come up with a reasonable compromise so we can have activity and still appeal to the people who are not fast taggers or have RL happen and still want to be able to participate in a game.

I also don't necessarily agree that upping the spread becomes a de facto 'link us to any two threads you did this AC period', because threads aren't the only options for making AC. It's only one of them, and if it's one that doesn't work it can be changed. You could just as easily make two open posts. And there's potential issues with that, too, but nothing's going to be perfect.

Unless I'm seriously misreading here, though, I don't see where anyone is arguing that the number of comments themselves are a problem - just that trying to fit them into one thread could be an issue.

Because as it stands up above, at least from what I got out of it when I read it, it's not twenty comments overall per two month period. It's two individual threads where the player has to make sure they comment at least ten times in that thread for the thread to even count. And that's trickier, imo, if you're not an uber-fast tagger, or if a lot of threads wind up getting dropped for whatever reason. Not necessarily something that's not doable, especially if you take channel posts into account, but trickier.

I would love it if all threads went long enough that I didn't think it would be an issue, but not all of them do. If there was something offered where you simply needed to meet the criteria of 'You must have 'x' number of comments' overall, that's a much different story. That said, I hadn't been aware it was going to include channel posts when I put up my argument originally, so it might be more workable than I had originally thought. We'll have to see.

[on_your_nerves]

You're right about it being two threads where they have to comment ten times, not a thread that's ten comments overall.

I just want to say that this is a very valid concern you and the other players who have brought it up have, so I encourage everyone who has this concern to vote "No," so we can come up with a revision. The mods would just revise it now, but we do need this as a measure of what kind of AC the players want, so the vote is meant to show us where the split lies. If it passes as is, it means the majority wanted it structured this way, if it doesn't pass, it means it has to be changed to something with more options, such as perhaps having an option of five comments a thread, but maybe having it be three threads rather than two, or having just an overall comment count.

A lot of games have a variety of ways to make AC, to compensate exactly for the problems you and Dove have pointed out, so I encourage players to keep pointing them out and offering alternatives here and definitely vote where your preference lies.

[elementofloyalty]

Then how about, "I want to make sure I always make AC without any particular effort?" The point of increasing AC is for people to have to post more, and yet now that it's come to a vote, it seems this proposal will fail... because people don't want to post more.

Selling me on the idea that two threads of ten comments each is going to be really hard for anyone who tries it, because I just don't see it. Everyone is going to be under the same strictures. Everyone will have impetus to post, to both make open posts and to not drop threads. And I don't believe that the mods will obey the letter of the law and ignore the spirit by booting someone who tried, but just had back luck with people dropping threads for two months straight. (Though it begs the question, why didn't they use any of the other options?)

I don't consider myself a fast tagger. I will generally hit a thread once a day, maybe 5 times a week depending. That's still two weeks out of eight. That's four threads I can get done if I do one thread at a time.

(And I'm interpreting the surge of support for people not needing to do 2 characters' worth for 3 characters as a protest against the number of comments required in general. I don't see how that's not.)

What I'm saying is that the lighter we make AC, the less we're addressing the problem. Sure, there are four different ways for people to make AC... but if they're only required to post for one character out of three, then we are going to continue to see a complete lack of open posts, or tags to open posts, because people will just make it up in their private, closed threads. It will solve nothing. People in danger of not meeting their thread will just plurk a friend, say "hey, help me make AC", and we'll see a closed thread that goes twenty comments long and does nothing for the game, and that will count for three separate characters.

To speak more generally, I'm really concerned, because this discussion (the whole AC discussion in general, mind) has carried a certain undercurrent of fear. People are afraid every single thread they make will be dropped and they'll fail AC. People are afraid to make open posts because they might get too many responses. Open posting, open tagging, open anything are suddenly anathema. Posting to plots people had to sign up for doesn't happen. Posting only happens in a controlled, preplanned environment.

You can see a perfect example of that on the comm right now, reading down: Open post, one respondent. Open post, one respondent. Closed post, at least four respondents. Your open post, eight respondents, but it was preplanned on Plurk. Sign up for a task force that has like twenty people in it: three respondents. Crematia's post: an exception to the rule. I admit this. (Unless it was preplanned and I don't know about it.) Kate's post: two respondents. Church's post: two respondents.

And these all came AFTER we had a big discussion about how the serious lack of open posts and respondents to them was killing the game! And yes, I admit, I'm not in most of those posts. I'm no better at putting my money where my mouth is than anyone else, except that I made one of those open posts (which I've been avoiding doing for ages because I didn't believe anyone would respond).

If that's not a giant bell tolling the end, I don't know what is.

We need an AC that's actually incentive. If that means it needs to take a little work on people's behalf, I say that's a good thing. If it pushes someone to make an open post when they otherwise wouldn't have, it's accomplishing its goal. If people start, and continue, threading with others where they might not have otherwise, then the AC is serving its purpose.

If we make it so it's a bookkeeping footnote, something you achieve automatically without effort and report back in later, it's pointless except to weed out people who just aren't playing at all any more and don't care enough to game the system. That's where it stands now, and we want to change it because it isn't working, right?

[grimbiker]

First of all uhm, no. I'm not actually worried about threads reaching ten comments, not that I'm saying it isn't a justified concern that shouldn't be brought up, it's just not one that I share. Not to mention people can have more than one concern with how this is laid out. I'd appreciate it if you took my, and others' concerns at face value. Simply because we're disagreeing doesn't mean the whole notion is being tabled. If we vote no on this the mods will go back, tweak the options, and put it to a new vote.

I think we're looking at AC differently. While AC can encourage posting- and that's mainly what we're trying to do- I think it principally makes people look at their characters and go "am I being active enough or do I really need to drop?" Increasing AC isn't going to fix our problems, we have to do that ourselves. If you increase it too much then it stops being incentive and starts to be more anxiety provoking.

I really don't think that most people are going to put up posts that are closed just to make AC. If you go back and look at the posts, most of the those up are opens. The ones that aren't are either plots, plot related, department related.

[bonnypiperlad]

Anna's right. I think everyone here is looking at AC differently - and we do all have different concerns. I'm focusing on comments, since I saw a potential issue with the way it was set up. She is focusing on AC as it's being proposed for multiple characters, which isn't something I'm as worried about - and, for the record, I think her proposal there is a viable one.

We're all expressing our thoughts in regards to this while we have the chance to, and if the proposal as it stands doesn't go through it'll get revised and put up again. If it does go through as it is then that's what the game wants, and then it's up to the players how they want to proceed with it.

I honestly do not see where you're seeing that there's this undercurrent of fear in this discussion, however. There's concern, certainly, but again, I really don't think anyone's going to be freaking out over making AC - or putting up a lot of closed posts to make the thread count. If that does happen, then I'm sure the mods can adjust what needs to be adjusted.

I do think you have some good points about people making more of an effort to do open things, but I don't necessarily agree with you on the methods of achieving it. Which I think is fine. We're approaching this from two different points of view, so we're not going to agree on everything.

As I said before, I'm definitely willing to see how it goes. And I'm certainly not worried about making AC at this point in time, even if the proposal stands as is. All I'm doing is pointing out what I see as a potential issue and expressing a wish for more flexibility, which I think is reasonable.

[on_your_nerves]

While I do think you have some good points in here in regards to people needing to make a concerted effort to do more open things, I need to ask you to please watch how you're wording it. Your posts in this discussion are starting to have an edge of hostility. Putting words in the mouths of other players, i.e. "I want to make sure I always make AC without any particular effort?" is unnecessary for the discussion and you can make your points without doing it. That is not what people are saying here and they've even said so, and it's discouraging to anyone trying to put their opinion out there if they get this sort of response.

So while I encourage you to express your opinions on this (they're just as valid as the other opinions) please refrain from doing that in your wording, as it's somewhat assumptive. As far as I can see it, all people are arguing is that there be flexibility if they're the types to have multiple smaller threads, which it is possible to have in open posts to the satisfaction of both players, especially in the channel.