We're trying to let the Specialty queue play out, not prevent it from ever finishing.
If the playerbase is interested in different game-types isn't that more important than letting the game host run his game on the queue it was initially designed for?
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.
My intent when designing the current queue system was to have a signup for each type of game running simultaneously, and let the larger games be damned if they couldn't fill up anymore. So yeah, I'd endorse Proph's original suggestion.
Let market forces decide. Seems like there's a huge demand for the minis, and the large games are just getting in the way. Even some of the large games that have fired don't seem to have been terribly well-received by the players.
If we can't run many large games anymore, but we have 5 or 6 or 7 minis running at a time, that's a perfectly fine direction for us to evolve in. I think we might just be surprised by how many more players would like to play, if only we let them sign up for the minis that they wanted in the first place. Don't those things fill up literally 30x faster than the large games do these days? A single day?
If people get a large game itch they want to scratch now and again, we've always got the PCQ or FTQ to step in and fill that gap from time to time.
I am more than free to ask that this be made public.
By making a public call out you have made it in the public view. There were many ways for you to make this private if you wanted to but you choose to make this public.
DV, there is no reciprocal right for you to force anyone to make a complaint public that they wish to make in private.
Now, at the point that the council was considering taking any action involving you, we would reach out to you ourselves and ask for your input on the process prior to making any decision. That's only fair. However, we feel this is a situation that is best handled by the site's moderation, and have said as much. This would only fall under council jurisdiction if it represented a systemic or repeated issue.
I'd recommend that all concerned take some deep breaths and consider whether or not they're handling this situation well.
I have a complaint about Proph and D_V that I would like to bring before the council. Please advise the best way to go about that. Whether that be to present my information here or elsewhere. Thank you.
I'll leave the venue to your discretion. Sometimes, players prefer to get everything out in the open air, at other times, they prefer to keep things more private. Whatever you think is necessary to reach a resolution.
I don't know whether or not there have been some reported posts flying behind the scenes in Mind Screw, but I was a bit surprised that there hasn't been at least mod reminder text given some of the things that were said. Maybe it was in private? I really haven't looked very hard to parse who said what; that just would have been my first expectation on how things would be dealt with.
I feel like the ignore list tends to perpetuate rather than alleviate flaming problems in-game, so I don't oppose ridding ourselves of that particular option.
Half the time, it seems like it's used more as an obnoxious insult to the player being ignored than as a legitimate attempt to reduce conflict.
As my participation in Tare's active game comes to a closing, I wanted to advise you all that I am stepping down as an MTGS Moderator.
I love this community and I love helping you guys in every way I can, but I need a major break from Mafia; I've been burnt out since before the game over on 2+2 and I've barely been chugging along since. Most of the games I've joined have been to help them fill, but there's a lot that I'd like to be dedicating my extra time to. I want to start work on my YouTube channel, I want to start making music again, I want to grow hot peppers on my windowsill, and I want to spend more time on Magic.
I'm still going to host and review games, and I'm definitely staying on as a Council member. But I might not be checking MTGS every day like I used to, and I'm trying to avoid signing up for any games for a while. In the meantime, Cythare and Proph will take good care of you guys.
It's been a pleasure.
I'm calling a special meeting of the council to veto Iso's life choices.
Hmm. The new announcement font size and alert graphic are a lot more noticeable than I recall them being in times past, so I think we'll probably be ok relying on the newbies to look up far enough to see it, or failing that, to see one of our active signup threads.
1. That blurb was always devoid of names. It can be updated as necessary. I was under the impression that mentors were requested in sign-up threads, as has been the case since I started Mafia here. Additionally, nobody ever actually posted there, and even from my beginnings, I was under the impression that one should not do so. We always have the Hosting thread, the Council thread, and the Theory thread for newbies to ask what's up.
2. Yes, that was something that was mentioned specifically in the discussion regarding how Mafia should handle the restructuring and part of why I strongly objected to the transition as it pertained to our area. They felt that an announcement would make this more visible (I disagree, but that's because I'm used to ignoring announcements at the top of our forums being that they usually don't apply to me). Old browsing habits die hard, I guess?
3. See: 2.
What exactly are you suggesting we shuffle around?
My thought was, leave the single paragraph on MTGS rules as the "announcement" and either merge the content from that thread into something that already exists, or just bring back our old info thread sans the MTGS rules.
Original thread was sans names bc people could post in that thread, and the Secretaries would contact them instead of the other way around. If we wind up having to keep their format, we will have to add names in, is what I was trying to bring across.
I was about to just thumbsup and move on with life, but then I noticed a few unforeseen implications of that move:
1. The Secretary signup/mentoring/Q&A system just got blown up.
At minimum, we need to fix this blurb: "Our friendly neighborhood Mafia Secretaries would be happy to answer any questions you have and point you in the right direction, and will be in touch with you shortly." Which doesn't inform you who the secretaries are, and is useless since people aren't able to post there.
2. Did the powers that be realize that the "rules" thread wasn't MTGS subforum rules so much as "how the game actually plays"? The entirety of the MTGS rules portion was like, one paragraph out of nine. We can easily shove that para somewhere (anywhere) else if we want.
3. It's a bit harder to see the thread as is, and we want to make sure new players can find that info. Pretty imperative, really.
Can we shuffle things around a bit so our new player info/welcoming mat is still front and center?
I don't recall ever actually enforcing it. Mostly because not having the reviewed completed setup was irrelevent since we just bumped them down the line anyway. It didn't effect the speed of the list, but as long as I was caught up on where a person was in how reviewed/completed their game was the line would move just fine. So, yeah. A month too late I know but now I'm pretty much back to stay. I can continue to assist with Sec duties, although I'm a bit out of the loop as to what games are ready to go.
That would have been helpful to discuss with us directly.
The idea behind our previous queue revamp was to have signups for each game type available, always, so that new players (and older returning veterans) would always have a desired game to jump into. We did not want to turn away new players for lack of anywhere to sign up. It was less about speed, and more about recruitment and publicity.
Instead, we wound up firing one signup at a time when games finished, but without any place for new players to sign up in the meantime, the worst of both worlds. For however long that was in place, the better part of this past year IIRC, our recruiting for the mafia sub was crippled as a result. I was led to believe, based on my questions to you about why the system was not working as planned, that this was due to a problem with our hosts being non-compliant, I was not aware that it was a decision on your part to alter the system we had devised, without fully understanding the consequences of that choice. We've been on thin ice for some time in terms of player population- we could ill afford the loss of all our recruiting potential for the past year, when we needed fresh players more than we ever have before.
Does that explain the purpose we intended a little more clearly?
* Drop Specialty queue; let it play out until empty.
* Run a constant PCQ, and supplement this with a 2nd PCQ game once the Specialty queue is emptied. Refresh the queue as needed. This will encourage hosts to churn out competitive and interesting designs.
* Open a Micro queue, strongly recommending either open setups or those of lesser complexity. It'll give newer players a good place to jump in, and quell the thirst for people who want smaller games but have time commitment issues.
* Drop the League, keep Normals at 14-18 players (though I strongly recommend we drop the recommended cap to 16 to accommodate our waning playerbase), and encourage hosts to explore design space within the current restraints of the Normal restrictions
* Keep the Mini queue open as-is and run 1 or 2 at a time - whatever the playerbase can support.
If the playerbase is interested in different game-types isn't that more important than letting the game host run his game on the queue it was initially designed for?
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.
Let market forces decide. Seems like there's a huge demand for the minis, and the large games are just getting in the way. Even some of the large games that have fired don't seem to have been terribly well-received by the players.
If we can't run many large games anymore, but we have 5 or 6 or 7 minis running at a time, that's a perfectly fine direction for us to evolve in. I think we might just be surprised by how many more players would like to play, if only we let them sign up for the minis that they wanted in the first place. Don't those things fill up literally 30x faster than the large games do these days? A single day?
If people get a large game itch they want to scratch now and again, we've always got the PCQ or FTQ to step in and fill that gap from time to time.
DV, there is no reciprocal right for you to force anyone to make a complaint public that they wish to make in private.
Now, at the point that the council was considering taking any action involving you, we would reach out to you ourselves and ask for your input on the process prior to making any decision. That's only fair. However, we feel this is a situation that is best handled by the site's moderation, and have said as much. This would only fall under council jurisdiction if it represented a systemic or repeated issue.
I'd recommend that all concerned take some deep breaths and consider whether or not they're handling this situation well.
I'll leave the venue to your discretion. Sometimes, players prefer to get everything out in the open air, at other times, they prefer to keep things more private. Whatever you think is necessary to reach a resolution.
I don't know whether or not there have been some reported posts flying behind the scenes in Mind Screw, but I was a bit surprised that there hasn't been at least mod reminder text given some of the things that were said. Maybe it was in private? I really haven't looked very hard to parse who said what; that just would have been my first expectation on how things would be dealt with.
Half the time, it seems like it's used more as an obnoxious insult to the player being ignored than as a legitimate attempt to reduce conflict.
I'm calling a special meeting of the council to veto Iso's life choices.
My thought was, leave the single paragraph on MTGS rules as the "announcement" and either merge the content from that thread into something that already exists, or just bring back our old info thread sans the MTGS rules.
Original thread was sans names bc people could post in that thread, and the Secretaries would contact them instead of the other way around. If we wind up having to keep their format, we will have to add names in, is what I was trying to bring across.
1. The Secretary signup/mentoring/Q&A system just got blown up.
At minimum, we need to fix this blurb: "Our friendly neighborhood Mafia Secretaries would be happy to answer any questions you have and point you in the right direction, and will be in touch with you shortly." Which doesn't inform you who the secretaries are, and is useless since people aren't able to post there.
2. Did the powers that be realize that the "rules" thread wasn't MTGS subforum rules so much as "how the game actually plays"? The entirety of the MTGS rules portion was like, one paragraph out of nine. We can easily shove that para somewhere (anywhere) else if we want.
3. It's a bit harder to see the thread as is, and we want to make sure new players can find that info. Pretty imperative, really.
Can we shuffle things around a bit so our new player info/welcoming mat is still front and center?
That would have been helpful to discuss with us directly.
The idea behind our previous queue revamp was to have signups for each game type available, always, so that new players (and older returning veterans) would always have a desired game to jump into. We did not want to turn away new players for lack of anywhere to sign up. It was less about speed, and more about recruitment and publicity.
Instead, we wound up firing one signup at a time when games finished, but without any place for new players to sign up in the meantime, the worst of both worlds. For however long that was in place, the better part of this past year IIRC, our recruiting for the mafia sub was crippled as a result. I was led to believe, based on my questions to you about why the system was not working as planned, that this was due to a problem with our hosts being non-compliant, I was not aware that it was a decision on your part to alter the system we had devised, without fully understanding the consequences of that choice. We've been on thin ice for some time in terms of player population- we could ill afford the loss of all our recruiting potential for the past year, when we needed fresh players more than we ever have before.
Does that explain the purpose we intended a little more clearly?
Agreed.