MTG Salvation

If you don't mind

Quote from Rhand »

If you don't mind

Done. I've deleted the old redirect but left it in this forum so Iso doesn't get confused and yell at me for sending the clan thread to the archive...

@Kah: Honestly, I think the "Official" prefix works just fine for the Awards, but I'll wait for Killjoy's input on this.

I didn't see an "Official". That would work. We probably need more League/Blah ones still though if we're branching out from normals.

Star Trek MU3 (FTQ) has ended. Tammy and iRebel were both forcibly replaced for inactivity; requesting probation for both.

Has this been a frequent occurrence for the both of them?

They don't have any onsite recorded history of it, but given the relative difficulty of filling a game, I felt that it might be worthwhile to take some action to ensure that it doesn't happen again. People who disappear take up slots that could've been given to active players at the beginning of the game.

Quote from Annorax »

They don't have any onsite recorded history of it, but given the relative difficulty of filling a game, I felt that it might be worthwhile to take some action to ensure that it doesn't happen again. People who disappear take up slots that could've been given to active players at the beginning of the game.

If games are hard to fill, wouldn't putting players on probation just exacerbate that problem? Not allowing potential players to fill the slots in the first place seems weird.

Random thought with no real ideas as to how to do this: Maybe rewards to players who are chronic good players? IDK how that would even work but still.

I recall that Tammy seems to alternate between high activity and inactivity from my time playing with her. iRebel has been a consistent lurker for as long as I can remember. I would authorize adding iRebel to the probation list, and wait to see how Tammy pans out.

Reposting some calculations from Mafia Awards because it might merit discussion here:

Quote from Taredas »

(Mind you... do we even have thirty active players on site right now? You/Plowshares/TCM/Killjoy/Huntzilla/Sepiriel/KA/Rodemy?/Cythare/Seppel/Bur/Puddle Jumper?/ITF?/Tanarin?/Karn/hans/Wheat/g_d/Wildfire/LnGrrrR/Hunger/Sir Chris/dkingsland/emo/Cyan/Deathjoey?, question marks are players who may or may not be back for any duration. Axel/Zionite/Az/AE are definitely in the sometimes pool, I'm not sure whether I'm in the active list or the sometimes pool at the moment. Rhand plays but is V/LA awfully often, Antny has been V/LA a bit. TMCT is probably too busy to play right now, Voxx definitely is, Hawk had his phone explode, CitricBase may have gone back to his home sites, Scarbo's been MIA since Wu-Tang, Arian just lost his job, Generic's having RL issues, Void I think is having RL issues, Cantrip almost certainly is, godot flaked I think, fulcrum is MIA and probably went home. HookerPunch, Prophylaxis, and DCIII are on hiatus; so is Megiddo I think?

That's 22 definitely active players (counting myself for now), plus four "are they actually sticking around?" types, plus four players who will join the occasional game and two who play but may be overtaxing themselves. Four hiatus players I know of (Proph might be better classed in the occasional game pool, and I'm not sure HP will play on MTGS again), plus 11 people who are too busy in RL to play, of whom I think only one or two are safe bets to come back and play in the near future.

That's pretty startling really - I'm not sure we have to playerbase to support more than two simultaneous larges anymore, and will have trouble running even 18p let alone 20 unless some of the occasional game types are interested? (We're starting to dig really deep on the League, for what it's worth.) Which would be sad, and not just because I think that kind of playerbase decline may preclude running Mind Screw Salvation here.

We've definitely got far more than 22 players to work with. I can name several players just from my current game who aren't listed there, and I could probably add at least a couple dozen more if I started digging around.

I think we could always be doing more to bring in newcomers. If you're not growing, you're stagnating. I've mentioned a few ideas on making this happen, but lack the available time to make the commitment myself.
Cross promotions with other entities, internally and externally, has proven to be effective in the past.
Some incentive for playing would be good to drive new people to try the game, like a winner prize or survival prize. Could be booster packs, a hat, etc.

Hmm. Potentially, we could set up a newcomer mentor position(s): someone whose specific responsibility is to be available or reach out to new players and answer questions. Help people feel welcome, and pick up the game faster.

I wouldn't mind getting around to Cross-town again, either.

I am always asking my IRL friends to come play Mafia with me. We might have a newcomer soon, as a matter of fact.

This new forum software just sucks. It's so tedious to try and write the complex and well thought out replies that mafia requires with only the quick reply box and no full tab. Like I would be playing here if we had the old forum softwware.

You're not the only one who feels that way.

Quote from Iso »

Just as a general thing...

DO NOT REFERENCE ON-GOING GAMES.

You are not fooling anybody when you refer to a game and redact the title of it because anyone can look at the currently active games and determine what's going on from vague references.

It's not clever, and at worst, it's a dishonest and flagrant violation of the game host's rules.

Show some respect.

That is all.

Just reposting this.

I'm going to post it here because it makes more sense here than the league thread.

Iso is going to take a break, Generic is going to take a break, and now Rhand and I are going to be taking breaks from mafia.

I can't speak for Generic but I'm pretty sure I know why Iso and Rhand want out for a bit, and it's the same reason I want out:

This sub has forgotten how to have fun. Meanness and nastiness are on the rise, and it doesn't feel like good-natured ribbing anymore. It used to be that in 2.5 years of playing there was only one player that ever hit my "do not play with" list (a list I didn't even start for like 2 years to begin with). Every game in the past 6 feels like I've added someone to that list, but there's not many people here so I have to anyway.

A few months ago I actually got warned for spam for making jokes. It was the same level of jokes I usually make, and if anyone really knows me they know I'm making jokes all the time. But just because I hadn't posted content with it necessarily, people reported it. This is despite having a large post coming within a few hours of that, and made me disinclined to make off the cuff jokes. I had to always make sure that I was saying something just so I wouldn't get reported, even if it was just as vapid as saying nothing at all. All because a little fun isn't allowed like it used to be.

There's just no more emphasis on fun, and it turns it into a game where tempers flare all the time. I know my temper is flaring like crazy, and far more than it used to.

That's why mafia is dying on this sub. It's dying because we're killing it.

Discuss.

Without naming names, do you feel like the players making the game unfun are existing players whose attitudes have changed, or newer players with a behaviour that rubs you the wrong way? Do you feel that moderation is insufficient or over-zealous? Do you think that the games and/or the game mods could have induced this? Could it be related to a smaller playerbase resulting in more frequently having to interact with the same player sets? Could you be feeling burned out and jaded, resulting in an overreaction?

Of course it goes without saying that games here being enjoyable is of paramount importance, and if a number of established players are enjoying it less in a structural way (rather than in a "I am getting tired of Mafia" way) then we need to try and unearth the cause and rectify it.

I repeat though, I'd rather not have names thrown around, as I don't want flaming or personal attacks. If a specific individual is negatively affecting your experience, you should involve the Council in a PM for discussion.

Eco.

Quote from Ecophagy »

Without naming names, do you feel like the players making the game unfun are existing players whose attitudes have changed, or newer players with a behaviour that rubs you the wrong way?

At first I wanted to say the latter but overall I feel like it's a pretty even split between both categories.

Do you feel that moderation is insufficient or over-zealous?

I've rarely felt it was insufficient. I've felt it was overzealous a few times recently. Then again, I'm on the more lenient side of the spectrum.

Do you think that the games and/or the game mods could have induced this?

Not at all. I feel most game mods are pretty good. More variety in games certainly wouldn't hurt, per se, but I don't think that's the source of the problem.

Could it be related to a smaller playerbase resulting in more frequently having to interact with the same player sets?

Sort of, but that frames it the wrong way. A lot of the people I've loved playing with the most play rarely or not at all anymore. It's been months since I've looked at a list of players in a game and thought "This list has a large number of people I really look forward to playing with." Meanwhile, there's a lot more players who I'd rather not play with and it's been impossible to ignore them like was possible in the past, so it is certainly a contributing factor.

Could you be feeling burned out and jaded, resulting in an overreaction?

Could I? Yes. But with several players going along the same path, I doubt it's that much of an overreaction.

I repeat though, I'd rather not have names thrown around, as I don't want flaming or personal attacks. If a specific individual is negatively affecting your experience, you should involve the Council in a PM for discussion.

I'm not doing any of these, nor do I plan to.

wheat it's ok there's still some good in the world

no there's not it's been so many months since i've played with you

I'll probably come back soon and try not be such a dbag this time.

I left and then started complaining about how MTGS mafia is becoming, but then I realized that you have to be the change you want to see in the subforum.

We need some interesting games to run though.

Quote from Wheat_Grinder »

A few months ago I actually got warned for spam for making jokes. It was the same level of jokes I usually make, and if anyone really knows me they know I'm making jokes all the time. But just because I hadn't posted content with it necessarily, people reported it. This is despite having a large post coming within a few hours of that, and made me disinclined to make off the cuff jokes. I had to always make sure that I was saying something just so I wouldn't get reported, even if it was just as vapid as saying nothing at all. All because a little fun isn't allowed like it used to be.

While a general atmosphere of toxicity is something that's difficult to come to grips with, and has come and gone a few different times in our history, a spam violation is something we should very much be able to address directly.

Without getting into the specifics of the incident in public (feel free to give me some additional details in private), spam violations are something that we have a long tradition of keeping out of this sub in all but the most unusual circumstances. In the very distant past, we fought some hard battles to make it that way, and to keep it that way. This is a game - nobody wants to play a game with somebody rapping your knuckles to make sure your every post is on point. Up to this point, every moderator we've had here has been carefully nurtured to understand and respect that the vision of the sub.

How would anyone feel about a mass migration to another site? Like just a bunch of us playing a game together there. I don't object to the players here, I object to the forum software. Also, a new place would be an injection of new blood into our group and us as an injection into their group.

If a bunch of MTGS players wanted to sign up to a Scum game together or something, I would enjoy joining you.

Quote from Asenion »

How would anyone feel about a mass migration to another site? Like just a bunch of us playing a game together there. I don't object to the players here, I object to the forum software. Also, a new place would be an injection of new blood into our group and us as an injection into their group.

If a bunch of MTGS players wanted to sign up to a Scum game together or something, I would enjoy joining you.

Well, that was tried at one point; diestoremoval.com I think it was called. It didn't really work.

And if we go somewhere that's already established, the problem we end up with is a meta difference; MTGS favors long days; AFAIK longer than anywhere else.

it was tried twice in fact. There was some other site that didn't work out in addition.

Quote from Wheat_Grinder »

Well, that was tried at one point; diestoremoval.com I think it was called. It didn't really work.

And if we go somewhere that's already established, the problem we end up with is a meta difference; MTGS favors long days; AFAIK longer than anywhere else.

The mafia sub itself has never tried to move itself to DTR. There were one or two people on DTR who suggested that I lead an exodus at one point, but I adamantly refused, and the rest of the folks over there respected that choice. I regard moving the site as a nuclear option. I don't want to risk fracturing the sub into two disparate groups split across two different sites. Too much of our history is here, MTGS has a much stronger population and recruiting base than most alternative sites we could try, and our older players know where to find us here. It's a last resort. If we move elsewhere, we're probably never going to be quite the same, and we most likely slowly burn out from lack of recruitment and attrition of older members.

But if there are people who simply can't stand the forum software who we are going to lose regardless, or if we want to designate an alternate site as a backup, then I think we have a few options.

Option 1.) We continue organizing and administrating games on this site to maintain as much continuity as possible, but we offer hosts the option of deciding whether to host their games here on the Curse software, or elsewhere, on another board's software. That allows us to maintain our presence and recruiting here, we keep our history, our older players can still find us, but the people who hate the software no longer are forced to deal with it. In the event we ever have to transition to another site permanently, we'll already have the alternative site established as a known quantity and a backup.

Option 2.) We launch a campaign to roll back the clock on the forum software. Gather opinions from as many prominent members of the site as we can, compile a voluminous testimony, back it up with numbers on traffic, and make our case to Curse that they're killing the golden goose. In the past, there have been only two groups on this site outside of the staff itself vocal enough and organized enough to speak for ordinary members. Mafia, and the gutter. The gutter is no longer here, but we are, and our track record is actually a good deal more respected and more effective than the gutter's ever was. We also have better relationships with the staff, by far.

Of those options, I much prefer option 1. Option 2 is a long-shot. Could be worth trying, but I think option 1 gives us a nice balance between maintaining the remaining advantages of an MTGS relationship (recruitment and ties to older players and historical infrastructure), but minimizes the amount that people have to deal with the forum software going forward.

If we choose to pursue option 1, I think we have a number of considerations. First off, is the staff going to be cool with option 1? To my mind, if we pursue option 2, give the staff and Curse a chance to address these issues, make it clear that we're trying to maintain ties here as much as possible, but that at this point the software is posing an existential threat to our community (and to the site itself to an extent), I think the reasonable minds on the staff may be able to see where we're coming from and continue working with us.

At that point, we'd need to decide where to base our game operations. The most feasible options, in my mind, are mafiascum, DTR, possibly Goodgamery, or potentially a new site.

At mafiascum, I have some concerns about whether our culutural identity would remain intact. We'd have to interface with an existing hierarchy, and I don't know that we'd be able to maintain our independence or avoid some of the more annoying traits of 'scum play.

DTR and Goodgamery offer fairly similar advantages. Both sites have small but active mafia communities in their own right which are compatible with our style. I have ties to both site's admin (full disclosure: I've got admin powers on DTR already), and would foresee both of them welcoming our presence and being fully hospitable to our maintaining our own administrative systems intact. Between the two, I'd argue goodgamery's playerbase is considerably more mature, although they have been inactive for several years now, I imagine an influx of fresh blood would rekindle them quite handily. DTR has the advantage of having some of our former MTGS mafia members already active there, and thanks to Mandershex has already ported/stolen/copied a good deal of our infrastructure over there. With admin powers and no preset overarching rules structure, we might be able to give our mods more tools and flexibility in dealing with toxicity issues. That probably goes for any relatively smaller site that would allow us to move in and self-govern.

I'd rather not try a new site altogether for game operations. It might be better politics with staff - that's the primary advantage I see. If we do option 1, I'm pretty sure that MTGS staff are going to question if I'm trying to push a private agenda, instead of reacting to a genuine community problem. An unrelated site with high traffic, or a site we create for this express purpose, could assuage those fears.

I'm fairly intrigued by option 1, the more I consider it though. If it works well, we'll not only keep our existing strengths here at MTGS, but we'll also actually GROW our community significantly by melding with an existing playerbase, and gain a second base for recruitment.

The problem with that is being able to see whether or not there's new posts; I've forgotten to look at QTs before for the same reason, but that's far less dire.

You'd have to check two sites regularly instead of one. Seems like a reasonable cost.

Quote from Azrael »

I'm pretty sure that MTGS staff are going to question if I'm trying to push a private agenda, instead of reacting to a genuine community problem.

topkek

Quote from Megiddo »

topkek

*shrugs* I've been making a strong effort to keep my nose out of forum politics for the past several years, and it's been a nice change. The site's staff have been on a reasonable trajectory, and we've worked well together since then. I'd like to keep that going, but I don't have much insight into how far the temperature of the staff has cooled down since then. There used to be a faction who wouldn't have minded if I disappeared off the face of the site, and I'd imagine some of those people still may not know me well enough to know how I operate.

Quote from Wheat_Grinder »

Well, that was tried at one point; diestoremoval.com I think it was called. It didn't really work.

Ahem. Just because you never came back doesn't mean everyone else stopped playing!

DTR has never not had at least one active game going, and though we've only got about a dozen players, it's the only place I've found where I can actually play mafia like I want to play. I grew to love this game here on MTGS and would still be playing here if it weren't for the site change blocking me. DTR really has been a decent second choice, though. At least for mafia.

I support your option 1, Az. I think it would open up even more flexibility for creative hosts who want to try new ideas with the game.

I'll have more to say sometime when I get to a computer, but for now, I will say that I issued the spam infraction to Wheat based on the fact that more than one person took issue with it and that it was completely out of context to the game. The spam infractions I have received in the past in the Mafia sub were when I posted something that had absolutely nothing to do with the game and was in a similar vein to sinply making a joke post. I believe you were the one who gave me that infraction, Az.

That said, I can't tell you how many spam and flaming reports I DO let slide simply "because Mafia" and the fact that we toe the line a lot and have a more lax view on spam and flaming in general due to the nature of the game.

Like I said, I'll have more later.

Quote from Iso »

I'll have more to say sometime when I get to a computer, but for now, I will say that I issued the spam infraction to Wheat based on the fact that more than one person took issue with it and that it was completely out of context to the game. The spam infractions I have received in the past in the Mafia sub were when I posted something that had absolutely nothing to do with the game and was in a similar vein to sinply making a joke post. I believe you were the one who gave me that infraction, Az.

That said, I can't tell you how many spam and flaming reports I DO let slide simply "because Mafia" and the fact that we toe the line a lot and have a more lax view on spam and flaming in general due to the nature of the game.

Like I said, I'll have more later.

I probably shot my mouth off too quick. I don't have any details and I've never had any problems with your modding, Iso.

But WG, if you'd still like me to take a look at it and give you a 2nd opinion from another mafia ex-mod, feel free to send me said details.

I will say that mafia modding is a much tougher position than a lot of other subs on the site. As Iso said, you have to use a lot more discretion on when to wade in with a verbal, or infract, or leave things be. Too light a hand, and you hear complaints about toxicity. Too heavy, and you hear complaints on that score pretty fast. It can be a very tough line to walk. We've been fortunate to have staff who are capable of that, and it's appreciated.

EDIT: I gave a spam infraction out in the mafia forum? Probably a tyrannical overreach.

Quote from Azrael »

Quote from Iso »

I'll have more to say sometime when I get to a computer, but for now, I will say that I issued the spam infraction to Wheat based on the fact that more than one person took issue with it and that it was completely out of context to the game. The spam infractions I have received in the past in the Mafia sub were when I posted something that had absolutely nothing to do with the game and was in a similar vein to sinply making a joke post. I believe you were the one who gave me that infraction, Az.

That said, I can't tell you how many spam and flaming reports I DO let slide simply "because Mafia" and the fact that we toe the line a lot and have a more lax view on spam and flaming in general due to the nature of the game.

Like I said, I'll have more later.

I probably shot my mouth off too quick. I don't have any details and I've never had any problems with your modding, Iso.

But WG, if you'd still like me to take a look at it and give you a 2nd opinion from another mafia ex-mod, feel free to send me said details.

I will say that mafia modding is a much tougher position than a lot of other subs on the site. As Iso said, you have to use a lot more discretion on when to wade in with a verbal, or infract, or leave things be. Too light a hand, and you hear complaints about toxicity. Too heavy, and you hear complaints on that score pretty fast. It can be a very tough line to walk. We've been fortunate to have staff who are capable of that, and it's appreciated.

EDIT: I gave a spam infraction out in the mafia forum? Probably a tyrannical overreach.

I don't care about the warning itself. IIRC it didn't even stick in the end or if it did it hasn't negatively affected me on its own. And I don't think that the mod was in the wrong to give it; multiple people reported me and he followed the will of the players, which is exactly what I would expect from a mod. I generally think that the mafia mods do a good job both now and historically, and any perceived overzealousness from me is mostly just because I'm on a different end of the spectrum.

That wasn't the point though, the point was that more than one person felt that fun had no place in mafia by reporting my post. Granted the post was off-topic, but it's the sort of post I make often when I'm about to make a larger more content-filled post, which is exactly what happened in that case. Over the years I've seen many posts about people taking a short interlude to talk about the latest prerelease, for example. So long as the game doesn't get ground down to a halt over it and it's not being done maliciously, it's just harmless fun.

And I feel that not having fun is a far more harmful position.

I don't know. Maybe I'm overexaggerating some things a little, but there are definitely times that I feel people are taking things too seriously considering this is a game and therefore should have fun as its core virtue. Granted it's fairly serious on the spectrum of games due to the logic emphasis, but having fun should still be a cornerstone, and I feel that many players on this subforum today don't believe that on some level.

I think perhaps the best thing we could do to solve that is to take a few moments to simply say that, when we see things going off the rails in games. I've done that a little bit recently, but perhaps it wouldn't hurt to draw a little bit more notice and attention to the issue when I see a genuine problem.

Our community itself, the etiquette we ask other players to use, is our best means of arriving at and enforcing a standard of good sportsmanship and courtesy to others. Instead of counting on hosts and mods to shoulder that burden, we as players probably need to step up and be more active participants in how that plays out.

I think Megiddo has the issue correctly: we are all part of the problem we are experiencing. I know my own posts can become toxic because for some reason I started caring too much and taking things personal instead of just having fun.
Too many of us are playing like that, and I think it affects the newcomers too: they'll play like we show them how the game is played.

The forum software is bothersome, but I am not convinced that that is what causes this.

If we're really attached to having mafia here, would attempting Option 2, then reverting to Option 1 if that doesn't work be a good plan? I think I suggested something similar to Option 1 a while ago.

I stand corrected, Az - it was a spam infraction handed to me by Manders who said that she consulted with you and you agreed that it was spam. (Guilty by proxy? ) But that's neither here nor there. I will state that I think moving to another site (we did try that with MTGDarkness, which I believe was the one some others here were referencing) is a poor idea because of the differences in meta and because if it's on a site as prolific as, say, MafiaScum, we'll have a hard time seeing our users get a chance to push their games through hosting lists...simply due to quantity, if for no other reason. I'm also not sure how how their review system works, and I personally think that we have a pretty solid grasp on how game balance should be over here. Another reason a mass migration is bad is because of the users who are primarily here for Magic/MTGS but happen to play in our area of the site. Plus...MTGS has thousands of users. Who's to say we won't get a sudden influx of players that happen to stumble outside of their comfort zones to see what else the site has to offer? Hell, I've posted in non-mod, non-Mafia places here, myself, and I don't even play Magic that often.

I don't see petitioning Curse to rollback to vBulletin as something entirely feasible, seeing as Cobalt is universal across all Curse sites. In fact, we're actually the progenitor for a lot of changes to Cobalt, as the changes we are recommending are what are getting implemented globally across the Curse network. If there are some issues anyone has with the software, I suggest posting a suggestion in the general forum software feedback thread. There's a big list of things that Curse is working on and trying to implement, and we definitely have a strong voice in the MTGS community - think of all of the things we've already gotten them to fix just for us.

Oh, another issue with migration that's just come to me - what of our old players returning for brief spiels? We'd lose a lot of great players who poke their heads in for a game once every year or two (or five).

While there are issues with Cobalt (the biggest I can see being the inability to see when new posts have occurred before your own, random software malfunctions that occur as they change things, and the lack of bigger post box for previewing posts - though hitting the "Preview" button will at least come close to a fix for that latter issue), Curse is constantly updating and improving the software, and it's certainly come a long way from when it started (though I'll be the first to admit that mobile browsing here still majorly blows, even if not as badly as before).

I do agree that we, as players, could be more, hmm...open? I guess open is close enough to the word I'm looking for - to styles not necessarily analogous to our own, including those of newbies. While I agree that "tough love" is the best way to learn Mafia (i.e. let a player get lynched a few times so they can start to figure out what they're doing wrong), it is somewhat discouraging to come into an unfamiliar game, be told you suck, and have no sway in the overall voting influence.

If I joined my first game now, compared to when I did 4 years ago, I would find the atmosphere to be a bit elitist and unfriendly, frankly, and am not sure I would come back. I grew to love this community and game through insane amounts of time and effort spent here, and have held literally every Mafia position we have (Head Judge, Secretary, Councillor, Moderator, Host, Player) in an effort to keep things here together, and while some would argue that I have not changed our sub for the better, our system is certainly a lot more streamlined and intuitive than when I took things over. That said, I haven't been the friendliest player by any means, and have even been something of an ******** at times. When I was in elementary school, my teachers would always write "does not work well with others" on my report cards. When my parents questioned why, I told them that I would always get frustrated that I either had to do group projects for my entire group or that if anyone else contributed that they did so in a way that was not to my standards. Hell, even when I play Scotland Yard with my family and I'm one of the detectives, I'm always trying to get them to move where I want them to because "I have a plan". I'll be the first to admit that I have a rather large ego, but I also feel I have the track record to back it up and having to repeat myself or not being listened to when I have something important to say has always been a great source of frustration to me, even before Mafia. So on that note, I could be a lot more patient and a lot less ragey when I have to go through the motions of actually putting forth the effort of playing a Mafia game, like in the days before everyone here knew who I was.

One issue I've noticed with my particular playstyle is that I generally read emotion very well, so I tend to push players into "tilt mode" when I'm trying to get a read on them, which in turn, makes them angry and scum read me for the rest of the game, much to the detriment of the town. It's the easiest thing for me to do to get a gauge on someone, and is a great way to push a townie into a genuine, town-looking spot for the rest of the game, but it also has the aforementioned side effect and has been a polarizing tactic in the past - but if they're scum, I want them dead, y'know? Does anyone think I should stop this, or does it seem like a reasonable strategy to employ? It's easy to hide behind as scum, too, because it makes townies implode and, if I don't back off of them, it demotivates them and makes them an easy lynch. Is this too dirty a tactic for the environment we're trying to create, here, with this discussion?

So, come on, guys - let's have a heart-to-heart. Spill it - what could you do to improve yourself as a member of our community and as a Mafia player to make the game more enjoyable for everyone here?

I'm going to trust you guys not to turn this into a flame-fest - if you respond to somebody else's self-critique, please keep it constructive. Remember, we're trying to cultivate character growth and community rebuilding, here. And obviously nobody's obligated to respond to this, so don't feel pressured if you think you won't be comfortable with sharing.

@ Iso - I think your critique of all the reasons moving the site wholesale would be a disaster are spot-on. But what about Option 1, maintaining our administrative and signups presence here, while letting game hosts have the option of running the actual games elsewhere?

I imagine you're right about Curse not rolling back its software. The beefs that I hear most from people are posts getting eaten and the lack of a full editor, and I think perhaps some people just dislike the look of it? Are those the extent of our problems?

I'd imagine I've got a similar behavioral issue. I think I used to be more mindful of trying to be courteous and modest in my interactions, and I think lately I've submerged those good habits under attempts to prod reactions out of people by being mildly irritating. Which is misguided not only because it's bad sportsmanship, but because it's not very effective either.

I think that will have the unfortunate side effect of dividing the playerbase, as I stated.

Mobile browsing is a big impediment as well.

Quote from Iso »

I think that will have the unfortunate side effect of dividing the playerbase, as I stated.

How so?

Old players can still find us by going where they've always gone to find us. New players can still continue to find us on MTGS as well. All signups would stay on MTGS.

The only downside I can see is if we run into people who prefer the MTGS platform to whatever platform we may try to utilize for games. However, I think that giving hosts the ability to decide whether to host the game on MTGS or on another platform should alleviate most of our difficulties. If there is a strong sentiment among most players to play the game on one platform rather than another, the game host can take that into consideration.

Or if Curse eventually gets their forum software fully tuned up, we're not bound to keep using our backup site, either.

If a site such as DTR or mafiascum specifically has political or cultural baggage that makes it an unattractive option for a segment of the userbase, I'd have no qualms about encouraging users to opt for a different platform entirely to run the game. All we really need is a decent board - additional recruitment possibilities are just gravy.

My point is that having to go to another site to play even a few games may be a very polarizing idea to a lot of players.

it's definitely hard to remember to check multiple sites.

I personally give up playing mafia here because of the forum software. Everytime I try I give uo about the time I get a hige post eaten. The site is also impossible to navigate from mobile devices and makes my ipod was to throw up. Basically I dont matter but the forum software is legit why i dissapeared from mtgs despite spending 3 months teying to get unbanned.

If some of you cant remember to check multiple sites though I really hope you never have bills in your name.

Edit: to prove my point, it took me 5+ minutes to edit this post for typos and add this one line of text from my ipad.

Checking multiple sites for bills is an entirely different proposition from checking multiple sites for fun.

Not doing the former carries large penalties. Not doing the latter merely means you get replaced out of a game. It's not even on the same order of magnitude.

FWIW: I agree with Meg: It's hard to check another site.

Hell, I don't even remember to go to my clan's thread.