MafiEra Season 14 Review |OT| No, really. Can anyone name this character?

Fanto · Sep 17, 2019

turmoil7 said:
The thing with a extra time vote is, why would someone in eastern timezones ever vote for it if its considerably less than 12 hours?

And I can't think of any circumstance where extending a day that much is worth it tbf

True. I think, as Mao said, it is kind of a fact though that most lunches in this community are decided in the last couple hours, at least in recent games. This mainly, in my opinion, is due to too many people holding on to their votes for entire phases like it's a weapon that they need to keep sheathed, but that's another topic I guess.

Maybe now that I won't be playing as often, I'll just go rant about how everyone should always be voting and not worry about accidental early turbos in the Strategy thread on OM lol. :P

Maolfunction · Sep 17, 2019

Fantomas said:
What's wrong with that? 👀

But no, you do make a good point here, and I think I remember you talking about how your old community required everyone to vote for the same person to get them lunched at EoD, or something like that right?

This would be an interesting system to see someone try sometime. If enough people want extra time, then they could just put a vote for "Extra Time" or whatever instead of having to swap votes to another player to cause a tie.

Yes, on the old community we required a player majority vote to get a lunch through. This was our solution to dealing with lurkers who spent most of the game coasting around ever being on a wagon. When you need 12 players to get a lunch through, it pushes people to act against lurkers quicker and earlier. It also forced mafians to be on town wagons and they couldn't spend the game simply bussing themselves or random wagons while relying on a few active players to lead the kill every day.

But I like the system here too. It does require a different set of strategies and thinking regarding EoD. I don't think it needs to go away completely if people are having fun with it.

And yeah, I think if there is a DE, the time should be more than thirty minutes, but at that point, you're extending the game by days if you go 12 hours.

weemadarthur · Sep 17, 2019

Fantomas said:
I would like to hear more about what you have in mind.

In my actual pretyped post, I had this idea written down:
1. Gentle corrections
2. Private warning if it happens again
3. Public warning in the game thread to all players if there are frequent corrections in a single day or multiple players being privately warned
4. Replace/modkill anyone if they do it again after their private warning or a public warning

Basically, it would leave room for the gamerunner to just make a gentle correction in the thread without officially warning anyone, which would cover simple mistakes/typos or whatever, and hopefully also catch everyone else's attention in the process.

This is pretty how it has been, unofficially, and it hasn't worked. That's why it needs to be stepped up already.

And to Monkey's point of teaching, using different sorts of negative reinforcements? We tried those too. None of the gentler methods have worked. It needs to be controlled strictly and consistently.

Fanto · Sep 17, 2019

weemadarthur said:
This is pretty how it has been, unofficially, and it hasn't worked. That's why it needs to be stepped up already.

And to Monkey's point of teaching, using different sorts of negative reinforcements? We tried those too. None of the gentler methods have worked. It needs to be controlled strictly and consistently.

So would you say to just skip straight to serious warnings right away? I wouldn't mind that, it just leaves less room for simple mistakes, but even simple mistakes can hurt. I definitely think that if someone does it after being warned privately they should be out, and/or if there is a high volume of occurrences then a public warning to everyone and replacing/modkilling any subsequent offenses would make sense.

weemadarthur · Sep 17, 2019

Fantomas said:
So would you say to just skip straight to serious warnings right away? I wouldn't mind that, it just leaves less room for simple mistakes, but even simple mistakes can hurt. I definitely think that if someone does it after being warned privately they should be out, and/or if there is a high volume of occurrences then a public warning to everyone and replacing/modkilling any subsequent offenses would make sense.

Personally I think, public warning first offense, replace on second. Or modkill, but definitely removal from the game.

So far, the people who have been comfortable are the ones who don't care about about pronoun usage. Lets reverse that.

(I'm pretty sure I've been arguing this since season SIX. And this is season FOURTEEN).

Dr. Monkey · Sep 17, 2019

I do think three warnings, or even two, is too many. One rare reminder should be enough.

I'm getting settled here so I'll try to post a bit more soon.

Fanto · Sep 17, 2019

I definitely think there should be more of a strict system in place that can be followed by all gamerunners, with help from the modchat, players, or spec chat even if need be. If we look at how the activity rule works, if someone doesn't make the minimum amount of posts for 2 days in a row, then they are replaced. This is basically giving one warning and then replacing. So I don't really see a reason why the pronoun rule can't work in a similar way, I think we just need actual guidelines on it for gamerunners to follow, and probably spell it out in the official rules that are posted in every game too.

Stantastic · Sep 17, 2019

Yeah agreed on the one warning then action.

Like going by HvV2 as the hypithetical example i dont think anything more lienient would have actually had an impact on that game right?

Sorian · Sep 18, 2019

I'm also fine with the one warning and actual measure (whatever that ends up being) method as well. That said, the gamerunner or someone on their team needs to be the one issuing this warning. Players can remind each other but the actual gamerunner needs to be putting that actual warning down too. It's not enough for random player X to call it out and then expect a modkill next because backseat modding has been an issue on the fringes for a couple seasons now and that wouldn't help it. I also echo the sentiment to make sure that what someone signs up with is what they get. I've been defaulted from any to they/them randomly in a couple games now and the whole point is I don't mind either way so it ends up not mattering on my end but people also get called out on my behalf for no reason because of it.

Also I really like that permanent or season long replacement list idea. If we did that, I would also say anyone on that list should get curtesy notifications whenever new games start so they can be following along ahead of fine if that's what they like to do.

TheChuggernaut · Sep 18, 2019

I would be all about a permanent replacement list. The replacement list is where I live.

Sawneeks · Sep 18, 2019

I was one of the people that ended up misgendering others a lot in HvV2 and I do apologize about that, I feel terrible about it. It's something I need to work on more and the suggestions on how to do so have been excellent. Another tab, screenshot, sticky note, etc. as a way to remember is helpful. As a lot of people have already said we don't want to alienate people from this community.

We could always also combine several of these ideas into one. A person would be warned X amount of times before they are officially booted from the game. From there they could have a priority penalty on top of this. The spot they vacate gets replaced or, if no replacements are left, the spot is Modkilled. Does that seem reasonable?

Sorian does have a point in regards to backseat modding but in the cases of misgendering people I don't think it would be much of an issue. I do agree that if someone does see something in the thread and they aren't a player that they should PM the gamerunner and let them know. In the case of misgendering others it's a simple case of looking at the player list and seeing that yes, they did use the wrong pronouns there. When it comes to things that are harder to quantify, like aggressive behavior, that backseat modding can become a problem and things become far more difficult. But with misgendering I think people should still call it out in PM if they see it.

Ketkat said:
I think that this idea is okay on paper on giving everyone a three strike rule, but I feel that this assumes a lot of things are happening that in reality aren't. There were many, many times in HvV2 that people were misgendered in the game thread, and they were rarely warned about it by the gamerunners and it fell on the players to correct people. This was shown further when I read through the scum and private chats after the game where a lot of this misgendering continued consistently without any correction at all. I think that some of us understand the proper use of pronouns and the impact that it can have on someone, but I don't feel that everyone is actually valuing how important it is to get this right.

A three strike rule in the last game would have honestly led to no one being replaced or modkilled at all despite it being such a large problem. We have this large list of rules at the start of every game, but they're never actually enforced unless someone posts a Role PM. The concept of the balance of the game is weighed more heavily than how aggression or misgendering impacts the players in the game, and that's something that needs to be further addressed as these issues consistently come up due to this.

I strongly disagree with moving further away from punishments that are already underused and instead using both. If someone can not correct their behavior after three chances, then I'm not sure why we should realistically expect them to turn it around throughout the rest of the game with a priority penalty for the next. They should be replaced out, and if there aren't any replacements, then just modkill the spot. I know that no one wants to actually utilize modkills as it does not feel good for a design that you've poured an immense amount of time and effort to be hurt by the actions of one player, but I think the health of the community has to take precedence until people actually learn how important this is.

These are all great points, thank you Ket.

I feel like you are right in regards to the priority punishment and the low number of sign ups/replacements for games. Doing so as a punishment by itself with no other consequence wouldn't be effective given the reality of what we are going through currently.

I also agree on needed to be stricter on the more harsher punishments and rule violations. I know aggressive behavior was a topic in past Review Threads and it's one of the more difficult issues to parse since it's hard to really quantify what is aggressive and what is not. Being shy on what to warn or not warn is a difficult thing to decide in the moment given that issue. Like I said above when it comes to misgendering that's a far more simpler issue to moderate on since it does boil down to 'did they follow the person's given pronoun? Yes or no?' and action is taken from there.

But I do agree on you with the shyness of warnings/harsher actions and the problems around it. It's something we need to be better on and it's figuring out how to quantify that better.

Aeleus said:
Firstly that's a very good banner

1. The misgendering got pretty bad last game so I'd definitely welcome a punishment, while a lack of replacements makes the idea of priority penalties attractive I think the three strikes it takes is too lax, I'd suggest a priority penalty if they misgender after a warning and if they continue then replacement/modkilling should start to be considered (ideally I'd like the person whose been misgendered to be brought into that decision but I can understand how that might cause some issues).

I can only speak for myself but I was privately contacted by Geno regarding people misgendering me pretty early on.

4. I really enjoyed the extension mechanic in HvV 2 and if possible would like it to be implemented in the game I'm running this season, if only to test it out on more normal games.
--------

How stressful/terrifying was running the game? Not that I'm worrying or anything...
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Finally I'd be extremely grateful if anyone was willing to create a banner for the game I'm co-running this season, it would be really helpful.

Scooby-Doo

Aeleus also brings up a good option for punishment that escalates over time. Warning -> 2nd Warning with priority punishment -> 3rd Warning is when you are removed.

Just to throw it out there should we make not using lynch an official rule? I think we forgot to bring it up again.

I have no problem with the warning system for misgendering

I wasn't here for this initial discussion of lynch/lunch but what was everyone's thoughts on this? Yes, no, leave it ambiguous?

empressdonna said:
Oh yeah forgot to say, the game me and Stu were working on is still being done, it is something we need to get back to doing haha :(.

We also have an idea for a mini if there's space for one ^^ which I believe stu talked about to someone this season? at least saying we'd be willing to co-run one together that is not what it is.

(smol thing but we may be contacting you two about that sooner than later)

weemadarthur said:
For lack of replacements, perhaps a bit more patience during signups is in order. Instead of jumping to thread creation when there are barely-adequate replacement quantity, wait a few more days and get a proper list.

Vincent Alexander said:
In regards to replacement lists: do we have a list of people out there who have played a decent amount of Mafia games here so we could build a replacement list to use in emergencies? The reason I ask is because I completely missed signup for 4 of the 7 games this season. That's my fault for not paying enough attention on Reset, and for never hanging out in Discord, but my overall point is that if a replacement was needed in those games, I gladly would've subbed in if a gamerunner reached out, even though I didn't actually signup for replacement list. I would hate for a game to be in a position where it runs out of players and I could have helped out. So, kind of a "permanent" emergency replacement list to use in case those who actually signed up for replacement run out?

There was a list about 2 - 3 Seasons ago that a few of us in the Mod Squad would use to contact players in order to find sign-ups and replacements when times were slow. Unfortunately a lot of the time it was not very fruitful and simply took up too much time with no actual benefit.

But if there was a strong following of people that wanted to throw their hat into the 'forever replacement' list I'd be able to draft something up. It would be similar to the Mentor list we keep but this one would be labeled 'break in case of emergency'.

Dr. Monkey · Sep 18, 2019

The reason I suggested priority penalties (because it was me) is this - so that you have context and can consider and then discuss or reject, whatever. I'm not married to it. But my thinking was:

Even if we modkill in a particular game*, a priority penalty recognizes that someone is having trouble following the rules and maybe needs to sit with that for a game or two. It's not just "you broke a rule and you're out," but it's an extended time in the penalty box. That largely impacts one player, who now may miss games they wanted to play in also, whereas a modkill can impact the entire game.

Which leads to my * above - I do think we're all a little cautious about the modkill unless absolutely necessary because a modkill can really ruin a whole game in the right (wrong?) circumstance.

I'm so tired, y'all. I finished a dissertation chapter this week, released the final survey for my third year of my ongoing (other, separate) study, and worked on my job stuff along with everything else so I hope this was coherent.

I also think Sorian raises a really good point about backseat modding. I absolutely think players should remind each other but we need to do that without backseat modding about actions or sniping at the gamerunner. I do think maybe they should also contact the gamerunner in case it gets missed though. Maybe this is why it should be a public warning?

I'm all for rule-ifying lunch or other alternatives though I think that should be a soft penalty for a while as an adjustment. I noticed that for a while we really avoided lynch a LOT and then it sorta faded back in.

Dr. Monkey · Sep 18, 2019

And I wanna say that I KNOW this community and I know people who fuck up aren't doing it on purpose. This community is full of good, kind, caring people. Maybe everyone doesn't always get along or have the same play philosophies but we care about each other as people. Which is part of why it's really important that we get this right.

Geno · Sep 18, 2019

I forgot something, I want to say 2 things.
1. When you say you will review a game, then you commit, don't go afk for a month without warning, respect the person who wants to run the game.
2. If someone wants to label their game as bastard let them have fun with it, don't start removing stuff you wouldn't personally find fun. Fun is subjective and as such you might be alone on that. Of course to a certain point, no scum turned something else or Kings.

lokiduck · Sep 18, 2019

Yeah I can agree with those points Geno >>

Stantastic · Sep 18, 2019

Dr. Monkey said:
I also think Sorian raises a really good point about backseat modding. I absolutely think players should remind each other but we need to do that without backseat modding about actions or sniping at the gamerunner. I do think maybe they should also contact the gamerunner in case it gets missed though. Maybe this is why it should be a public warning?

i definitely think it should be public, not to shame the person or anything but just to serve as a reminder to the whole game that its something to keep on top of, as well as to show that the particular instance has been addressed.

malus · Sep 18, 2019

I was also going to suggest the 3 strikes and you're out regarding misgendering. I also like Saws suggestion of Warning -> 2nd Warning with priority punishment -> 3rd Warning with replacement/modkill. But I would also be okay with only one warning and combine the replacement with a priority punishment.
Regarding backseat modding on this I think people reminding each other in the thread is okay but they should also contact the gamerunner privately about it so they can take official action. I can only imagine how hard it must be to manage the game thread plus who knows how many private chats especially with large rosters like in HvV2, so it can't be expected that the gamerunner catches all instances of misgendering. But once it has been brought to attention the consequences need to be clear and consistent. This should definitely be possible since it is an objective question whether someone was misgendered or not as opposed to say aggressive behaviour which can be quite subjective.

Not sure how I feel about the 30 minute extension. It would really only benefit those that are actually around at day end and would exclude people from certain time zones. Also I don't know what really can be gained from the extension, it would be the same situation if you had a tie 30 minutes before EoD.
On the other hand I found Maols point about needing a player majority for a lunch to happen quite interesting. I would definitely be interested in seeing that system in action even if it does not become the standard.

Aeleus · Sep 18, 2019

Fantomas said:
It was stressful for sure, and although some of it may have been due to where I was mentally at the time, I definitely felt really bad at times about the decisions I had to make. I tried to do my best to stay on top of everything and be fair, but I definitely fucked up on at least one thing (replacing melon). I shouldn't have done that, but I did, and I still feel bad about it.

Thanks for the honesty, though I was hoping the answer would be it was a breeze :P

Fantomas said:
I can do this if no one else has offered to help yet.

It would be amazing if you'd do it, thanks
----

Interested by the criticism towards the extension system, I loved it on D2 but can understand it'd be much less popular from a scum perspective. Thinking about it it's more of a bandaid solution for the EOD panic while town should really be attempting to fit that stuff into the previous 46 hours. Maol's idea of players voting for the extension seems interesting (maybe it should be in secret?).

Stuart444 · Sep 18, 2019

Just want to say, the biggest thing I want is for rules to be enforced CONSISTENTLY. I absolutely hate it when things aren't consistent.

Just saying.

Also, I guess this might fall under misgendering but is using they/them considered as such? I know some sign up with they/them but I always considered those to be pretty gender neutral and just tend to use them without thinking about it too much.

Dr. Monkey · Sep 18, 2019

Defaulting to they for everyone can itself be a form of erasure. For some, who have fought to be recognized for their whole selves - and a variety of factors can lead to fighting for personhood, especially in online spaces - that can feel like just another form of misgendering. That's not universal but at the same time, it's just replacing one default for another without looking at the individual.

Honestly, I wish Era listed pronouns under the avatar. MU does, and Waypoint. It's nice to have it right there.

Fanto · Sep 18, 2019

I think doing the priority penalty would be a good idea for an added punishment, yeah.

Dr. Monkey said:
Honestly, I wish Era listed pronouns under the avatar. MU does, and Waypoint. It's nice to have it right there.

I was thinking the same thing. Since there's like 20 Mods and Admins in this community, perhaps thats something y'all can bring up to someone in charge of those types of site-related things?

Alexem · Sep 18, 2019

Fully agreed that we need to be pro-active in addressing misgendering in some way or another. I'd be inclined go along with something along the lines of 'Polite reminder to all > Formal reminder to all > Don't say we didn't warn you', but having a consistent approach is the most important thing. Obviously there needs to be some consideration for genuine brainfarts or mis-types - not noticing the 's' button didn't fire when you meant to type 'she', for instance - but generally people seem to be fairly good at making immediate retractions and apologising when they noticed they've made an error like that. (By extension, of course, a line does need to be drawn between making genuine mistakes and being careless - you can't just keep going 'whoops, my bad' without bothering to take more care with your posts.) I also agree with the point that there's a difference between pointing out an un-acknowledged error and trying to do the mods' job - it wouldn't help if people let themselves become bystanders for fear of being accused of backseat modding.

On the subject of time extensions in the event of ties, while it's not a bad idea in principle - it suited HvV2 - it's probably something that should be put to the vote on a per-game basis rather than being made a blanket rule. As others have pointed out, it could put players in different time zones at a disadvantage (say if they need to leave for work or school immediately after day end, for example) or it could conceivably be mis-used by a scum team to game the outcome of a vote (beyond the usualy tie=no lunch rule). In a game where its use is proposed, there should certainly be some kind of consensus between players about it before the game starts.

Ketkat · Sep 18, 2019

Dr. Monkey said:
Defaulting to they for everyone can itself be a form of erasure. For some, who have fought to be recognized for their whole selves - and a variety of factors can lead to fighting for personhood, especially in online spaces - that can feel like just another form of misgendering. That's not universal but at the same time, it's just replacing one default for another without looking at the individual.

Honestly, I wish Era listed pronouns under the avatar. MU does, and Waypoint. It's nice to have it right there.

I did a lot of digging into Xenforos capabilities surrounding this back during the transition to 2.0, and it would require a lot of custom work if it's possible at all. While we managed to push for nonbinary to be added to the list of genders, there were concerns surrounding which pronouns to add. I feel like we only briefly discussed this at the time as 2.0 had a million other things to sort out, but I would love it if at the very least we can add it to profile previews when you click on someone's name, as that should be the same amount of effort as creating the gender field for 2.0

Ketkat · Sep 18, 2019

Dr. Monkey said:
The reason I suggested priority penalties (because it was me) is this - so that you have context and can consider and then discuss or reject, whatever. I'm not married to it. But my thinking was:

Even if we modkill in a particular game*, a priority penalty recognizes that someone is having trouble following the rules and maybe needs to sit with that for a game or two. It's not just "you broke a rule and you're out," but it's an extended time in the penalty box. That largely impacts one player, who now may miss games they wanted to play in also, whereas a modkill can impact the entire game.

Which leads to my * above - I do think we're all a little cautious about the modkill unless absolutely necessary because a modkill can really ruin a whole game in the right (wrong?) circumstance.

The issue surrounding this line of thinking for me isn't that it's a bad idea to have a lesser punishment that doesn't impact the balance of the game, but that this punishment doesn't necessarily resolve the problem in the current game. If someone receives a penalty in the next game, and then continue to misgender people throughout the game, we'll likely need to have something a little stronger in line. I think that going for an escalating system is the right call, where we give the amount of warnings that we want, then something smaller like this, and then replace them out if they still can't follow the rules. But, we do need to keep that option of removing someone from the game for this available as an option as people deserve to be shown respect while playing a game

We're honestly a group of like the same 50 odd people with a couple new people coming in and out, it shouldn't be this hard to get a handle on pronouns. Whatever we decide on for a punishment in these situations, I don't imagine that this is going to consistently happen over and over again. Some people just need a shove in the right direction because somehow multiple warnings in the same game aren't getting them to just look at the pronouns listed at the start of the thread

Also, I will say. I'm not always following every game, but if you all really need replacements to sign up for a game or you're running low or something, you all should send out a ping in the Discord. I'm not always super active in there, but I do pay attention for notifications for when game sign ups and things start.

Natiko · Sep 18, 2019

I'm still out of town (and wiped - god I can't believe I have two more days of this) so I probably will miss some stuff (and I'm not quoting anything so apologies). In no particular order:

I like the idea of either ramping towards various punishments for misgendering, it's an important issue
I understand the desire to strike hard and fast when punishing for these mistakes - but to put it in perspective, seeing as we ran out of replacements in HvV2 and that there were at least a few mistakes on this from past that point the game would've likely ended unceremoniously with a series of modkills. If there's anything we can do to find a firm punishment without instantly jumping to something that can literally end a game would be good. In general we need to strike some sort of balance because...
We simply do not have as large of a player base as we have had in the past, anyone and everyone that's willing to serve as replacements I would encourage to do so. As to the idea that we would simply have more if we didn't rush to make the game thread...
We actually do a lot to even get the signups we get. Members of the mod team very frequently have to start privately messaging people to see if they'll sign up, to the point that it has to be tracked when we last nudged someone so as to not be a bother (and that's on top of the discord announcements). It's not like there's this large swathe of our community that aren't being encouraged to signup

Edit: What if the second occurrence instead of being just a priority reduction is both a priority reduction of a full game and they explicitly cannot signup for the next game at all? That's a strong punishment that's less apt to torpedo a game. Then if they still can't get it after that then go for the nuclear option.

turmoil7 · Sep 18, 2019

(Regarding finding replacements)

Have games always been this big?

When I began playing (when Era started) for some time 19 players games seemed relatively big games, and >21 games unusually large, but now, admittedly without paying much attention, I feel like if the new normal are ~25 players games

My personal theory here is that there was a high demand of games and they became bigger (I remember monkey adding some extra slots to Buffy at last moment because of the huge signs up)

At that time we didn't have the pre approved mini mafia setups, that could had been an alternative, probably

In the end, it depends on the designer/gamerunner, if they want their game to be a big one we have our the gamerunner is boss of their game principle, but when designing and or scheduling I think there shouldn't be a worry about having a single less than 20 players custom game at a given time as we can have as many minis as needed if the demand is high

Sawneeks · Sep 18, 2019

Geno said:
I forgot something, I want to say 2 things.
1. When you say you will review a game, then you commit, don't go afk for a month without warning, respect the person who wants to run the game.
2. If someone wants to label their game as bastard let them have fun with it, don't start removing stuff you wouldn't personally find fun. Fun is subjective and as such you might be alone on that. Of course to a certain point, no scum turned something else or Kings.

Agreed here.

malus said:
Not sure how I feel about the 30 minute extension. It would really only benefit those that are actually around at day end and would exclude people from certain time zones. Also I don't know what really can be gained from the extension, it would be the same situation if you had a tie 30 minutes before EoD.
On the other hand I found Maols point about needing a player majority for a lunch to happen quite interesting. I would definitely be interested in seeing that system in action even if it does not become the standard.

Agreed on this too. The strategy perspective of it wasn't something I'd thought of so Maol brings up a really good point with that. Not sure if a private vote would work or even a majority vote (since we know how those go here) but I'd still be willing to test the extension out if a gamerunner wants it. See how that changes gameplay/strategy and go from there.

Ketkat said:
I did a lot of digging into Xenforos capabilities surrounding this back during the transition to 2.0, and it would require a lot of custom work if it's possible at all. While we managed to push for nonbinary to be added to the list of genders, there were concerns surrounding which pronouns to add. I feel like we only briefly discussed this at the time as 2.0 had a million other things to sort out, but I would love it if at the very least we can add it to profile previews when you click on someone's name, as that should be the same amount of effort as creating the gender field for 2.0

TIL a person's gender is in their account preview when you hover over it. Hopefully on Era's end they could add pronouns to that in the future.

turmoil7 said:
Have games always been this big?

When I began playing (when Era started) for some time 19 players games seemed relatively big games, and >21 games unusually large, but now, admittedly without paying much attention, I feel like if the new normal are ~25 players games

My personal theory here is that there was a high demand of games and they became bigger (I remember monkey adding some extra slots to Buffy at last moment because of the huge signs up)

At that time we didn't have the pre approved mini mafia setups, that could had been an alternative, probably

In the end, it depends on the designer/gamerunner, if they want their game to be a big one we have our the gamerunner is boss of their game principle, but when designing and or scheduling I think there shouldn't be a worry about having a single less than 20 players custom game at a given time as we can have as many minis as needed if the demand is high

It's really up to the gamerunner on what they want in their game. We have been trying to encourage smaller games in the design process but it's ultimately not up to us. We have been trying to schedule around the large games and not bunch up games as much though to help this.

Natiko · Sep 18, 2019

turmoil7 said:
(Regarding finding replacements)

Have games always been this big?

When I began playing (when Era started) for some time 19 players games seemed relatively big games, and >21 games unusually large, but now, admittedly without paying much attention, I feel like if the new normal are ~25 players games

My personal theory here is that there was a high demand of games and they became bigger (I remember monkey adding some extra slots to Buffy at last moment because of the huge signs up)

At that time we didn't have the pre approved mini mafia setups, that could had been an alternative, probably

In the end, it depends on the designer/gamerunner, if they want their game to be a big one we have our the gamerunner is boss of their game principle, but when designing and or scheduling I think there shouldn't be a worry about having a single less than 20 players custom game at a given time as we can have as many minis as needed if the demand is high

I think we've actually been encouraging smaller games where possible, but big games are not a new concept. We used to be able to fill and run three games simultaneously for instance.

CaptainNuevo · Sep 18, 2019

Geno said:
I forgot something, I want to say 2 things.
1. When you say you will review a game, then you commit, don't go afk for a month without warning, respect the person who wants to run the game.
2. If someone wants to label their game as bastard let them have fun with it, don't start removing stuff you wouldn't personally find fun. Fun is subjective and as such you might be alone on that. Of course to a certain point, no scum turned something else or Kings.

1) Agreed, but there also has to be some discussion involved. I've personally been reviewer in some cases where the reviewers bring up a point, and then nothing happens by the game runner for a few weeks. Similarly, I've been guilty of being the one who neglected to keep up or offer feedback for a few weeks. Agreeing to review a game, and putting your game up for review, requires an amount of effort and time put into it from both sides, and a willingness to discuss and listen to both points of view.

2) There's a limit to bastard games and what they entail, so I think this is always going to be a grey line. The point of classification of games is as much for the player expectation as it is for reviews. There's an extent to mechanics which would work well/be balanced even in bastard games, and the point of the review is to keep the quality of games as high as possible and try to provide a fun balanced experience.

Roytheone · Sep 18, 2019

Geno said:
I forgot something, I want to say 2 things.
1. When you say you will review a game, then you commit, don't go afk for a month without warning, respect the person who wants to run the game.
2. If someone wants to label their game as bastard let them have fun with it, don't start removing stuff you wouldn't personally find fun. Fun is subjective and as such you might be alone on that. Of course to a certain point, no scum turned something else or Kings.

1. Very true, going low activity for a while is fine, but that has to be communicated to the designer and the other reviewer.

2. The issue with this is that the certain point where a not fun rule will become an issue is vague. We can't have strong, clear rules for this. That's why we have 2 reviewers. If 1 reviewer thinks it's unfun enough to be a problem, but the other not there should be a discussion between all three about it. If both reviewers think something is problematicly unfun though, I think it is pretty safe to assume it is better to get rid of it.

Reki · Sep 19, 2019

Late as usual, sorry for the notifications!

I've been guilty of misgendering this season and still regret it. Mostly because it's such an easy thing to avoid but that makes a world of difference for the player in question. Ever since I adopted Ms. Bird's advice of keeping a tab open with the player list. That being said, I do think replacing should be the punishment after three infractions - like Aeleus, Sawneeks and malus said - and maybe even add a formal number of collective infractions before it becomes an insta-modkill, as has happened with plenty of warnings in games. That could introduce some excessive bureaucracy, but right now this is a recurrent issue and as such should be treated accordingly.

It feels like only a priority penalty is... not "tangible" enough, if that makes any sense. KetKat said it better; it doesn't solve the immediate problem.

In terms of warnings, Monkey already expanded on it, but I believe the last review thread had a bit of talk about formalizing those. With some discussion about gamerunners reaching via PM or publicly, but it looks like there was no official decision on the matter. Private warnings can mud the perception of gamerunners properly dealing with the situation. My suggestion would be to make all warnings public, which could help with
- Reassuring members that rules are being enforced.
- Suggesting to the rest of the players to be more careful with that particular rule.
- Consistency, as both Stuart and Alexem have asked for.
- Gaining a bit more of transparency when modding.

I've received private warnings and although they're more... "friendly", so to speak, than a public message, I believe posting in the thread is a better choice for the mentioned advantages. As Stan said, it's never about shaming the infractor, and I believe that should be clear considering the way the members of this community usually treat each other.

EDIT: Misread your post Aeleus, disregard the quote.

Fantomas said:
I was doing it in HvV2 while I was still around, and no one ever told me to stop, so I don't think this is necessarily against the rules. If it is though, let me know, I can just send a PM to the gamerunner instead

I hate to bring up the last review thread again, but there was some discussion about players reaching via PM to ask for moderation too. Unsure about this one to be honest, but shouldn't it be better to do it all publicly in the game thread? I'd be inclined to believe that transparency should triumph everything else when dealing with moderation affairs.

Sawneeks said:
The 30-minute extension on a tied vote seemed to be well received in HvV2. As always the gamerunner has the final say on game-specific rules such as this but we are considering letting this be an open option for gamerunners in the future. It likely would never be the default in our games considering the time required but it would be there for any gamerunner who wishes to use it. Does this seem like a good idea?

Whether this gets an "official" endorsement or not, I believe this is a chance to open another conversation. As far as I know there's no set of optional, custom and tried rules in the community. It could be interesting to discuss and make a small list of these - with links to games in which they were used - for gamerunners to easily reference the behavior of players under unusual conditions. For example post restriction-related rules - sans GIF Mafia - are not really well-received as far as I understand, and that may be handy info to have when designing. Would anyone be interested in something like this?

Vincent Alexander said:
In regards to replacement lists: do we have a list of people out there who have played a decent amount of Mafia games here so we could build a replacement list to use in emergencies? The reason I ask is because I completely missed signup for 4 of the 7 games this season.

Add another vote for this! I suppose PMs can yield better results, but a permanent list could work more efficiently just by pinging in the OT/Discord. The team already does this in some way though.

weemadarthur said:
For lack of replacements, perhaps a bit more patience during signups is in order. Instead of jumping to thread creation when there are barely-adequate replacement quantity, wait a few more days and get a proper list.

This sounds good too. The desire to keep the rhythm of the season going is understandable, and most members probably want to start playing as soon as possible, but I do think extending the sign-ups period a bit could help reduce both the lack of replacements and the "I'd had loved to play this!" posts.

The team probably needs to get a few things scheduled and confirmed before sign-ups begin, but would it be possible to start when the current game reaches MyLo/LyLo? That way you can extend the timeframe without affecting the current game ends/next game starts break. Although that could get messy?

Natiko said:
We actually do a lot to even get the signups we get. Members of the mod team very frequently have to start privately messaging people to see if they'll sign up, to the point that it has to be tracked when we last nudged someone so as to not be a bother (and that's on top of the discord announcements). It's not like there's this large swathe of our community that aren't being encouraged to signup

Just curious about this. There're, let's say, "spontaneous" players that are attracted by particular stuff. Unsure about the circumstances in that case, but someone like Queen Kong seemed to join due to the flavor employed in a game. I ask from ignorance - as this has probably happened and I just don't know - but have there been any efforts to invite particular communities to play when there's a setup with that specific flavor?

Finally, an unrelated suggestion. It's probably a non-problem for most here but I thought it could be far easier to understand activity differences by using standardized time zones. This;

Makes it way easier to interpret at a glance. What do you think?

Fanto · Sep 19, 2019

Reki said:
I hate to bring up the last review thread again, but there was some discussion about players reaching via PM to ask for moderation too. Unsure about this one to be honest, but shouldn't it be better to do it all publicly in the game thread? I'd be inclined to believe that transparency should triumph everything else when dealing with moderation affairs.

Right, I was more referring to a case where perhaps the gamerunner didnt see someone using incorrect pronouns to refer to someone, so they could then give a public warning. It is probably best left to modchat to deal with though, but if say like 12 hours have gone by and no warning was issued, I would think it would be ok to point out the offending post in a PM since this isn't like "aggresive behavior" concerns where things can be a bit more subjective.

Reki said:
I ask from ignorance - as this has probably happened and I just don't know - but have there been any efforts to invite particular communities to play when there's a setup with that specific flavor?

I considered hitting up the LiS community thread when I was running that game, but I also didn't want any normal community members to be bumped out if they wanted to play just because I went and got like 5 newbies to play just based on the flavor. I think of signups are stalled though, this wouldn't be a terrible idea necessarily.

Also, good call on normalizing the timezones, that is much more readable for sure.

Pedro · Sep 19, 2019

Reki said:
Finally, an unrelated suggestion. It's probably a non-problem for most here but I thought it could be far easier to understand activity differences by using standardized time zones. This;

Makes it way easier to interpret at a glance. What do you think?

This is something we talked about internally once. We could start asking people to sign up to games using the UTC standard instead of their local time zones.

On inviting people from other places, I have tried bringing many friends to Mafia but they either didn't like the idea or played a game here once and never returned :c It's because of this experience that I don't try doing that again, because long-term/weeks-long Mafia doesn't seem to be a very attractive game unless you're already interested in it, I think.

But I know people had more successes than me, I think Persona Mafia brought a lot of people from the Persona community thanks to Sophia, because she was already a member of that community and I assume that helped with selling the idea to them. I think if I, a stranger, went to a community thread and asked people there to play a forum game it would be a little awkward :x

Natiko · Sep 19, 2019

Reki said:
Late as usual, sorry for the notifications!

I've been guilty of misgendering this season and still regret it. Mostly because it's such an easy thing to avoid but that makes a world of difference for the player in question. Ever since I adopted Ms. Bird's advice of keeping a tab open with the player list. That being said, I do think replacing should be the punishment after three infractions - like Aeleus, Sawneeks and malus said - and maybe even add a formal number of collective infractions before it becomes an insta-modkill, as has happened with plenty of warnings in games. That could introduce some excessive bureaucracy, but right now this is a recurrent issue and as such should be treated accordingly.

It feels like only a priority penalty is... not "tangible" enough, if that makes any sense. KetKat said it better; it doesn't solve the immediate problem.

In terms of warnings, Monkey already expanded on it, but I believe the last review thread had a bit of talk about formalizing those. With some discussion about gamerunners reaching via PM or publicly, but it looks like there was no official decision on the matter. I mean this;

Can mud the perception of gamerunners properly dealing with the situation. My suggestion would be to make all warnings public, which could help with
- Reassuring members that rules are being enforced.
- Suggesting to the rest of the players to be more careful with that particular rule.
- Consistency, as both Stuart and Alexem have asked for.
- Gaining a bit more of transparency when modding.

I've received private warnings and although they're more... "friendly", so to speak, than a public message, I believe posting in the thread is a better choice for the mentioned advantages. As Stan said, it's never about shaming the infractor, and I believe that should be clear considering the way the members of this community usually treat each other.

I hate to bring up the last review thread again, but there was some discussion about players reaching via PM to ask for moderation too. Unsure about this one to be honest, but shouldn't it be better to do it all publicly in the game thread? I'd be inclined to believe that transparency should triumph everything else when dealing with moderation affairs.

Whether this gets an "official" endorsement or not, I believe this is a chance to open another conversation. As far as I know there's no set of optional, custom and tried rules in the community. It could be interesting to discuss and make a small list of these - with links to games in which they were used - for gamerunners to easily reference the behavior of players under unusual conditions. For example post restriction-related rules - sans GIF Mafia - are not really well-received as far as I understand, and that may be handy info to have when designing. Would anyone be interested in something like this?

Add another vote for this! I suppose PMs can yield better results, but a permanent list could work more efficiently just by pinging in the OT/Discord. The team already does this in some way though.

This sounds good too. The desire to keep the rhythm of the season going is understandable, and most members probably want to start playing as soon as possible, but I do think extending the sign-ups period a bit could help reduce both the lack of replacements and the "I'd had loved to play this!" posts.

The team probably needs to get a few things scheduled and confirmed before sign-ups begin, but would it be possible to start when the current game reaches MyLo/LyLo? That way you can extend the timeframe without affecting the current game ends/next game starts break. Although that could get messy?

Just curious about this. There're, let's say, "spontaneous" players that are attracted by particular stuff. Unsure about the circumstances in that case, but someone like Queen Kong seemed to join due to the flavor employed in a game. I ask from ignorance - as this has probably happened and I just don't know - but have there been any efforts to invite particular communities to play when there's a setup with that specific flavor?

Finally, an unrelated suggestion. It's probably a non-problem for most here but I thought it could be far easier to understand activity differences by using standardized time zones. This;

Makes it way easier to interpret at a glance. What do you think?

I believe some have reached out, but it's usually gamerunner's discretion. Typically they're a bit hands off with signups and we need to do the extra recruiting to get rosters filled up. That's not always the case, especially for season openers for instance. Those usually fill up fine.

I do want to address the topic of consistency and when topics are addressed privately vs publicly. I'll be honest - I feel like some of the things being said are very..perfect world views. It assumes the things being addressed are sensible to just put out an in thread warning about. That's not always the case. You can't expect all gamerunner communication to be done publicly when so often the players themselves will take to PMs to try and persuade the gamerunner to moderate to their desired outcome, especially when there are disagreements on approach. Litigating all of these in the public eye wouldn't help anyone. I agree public announcements for misgendering make sense, but it's not a one size fits all.

Reki · Sep 19, 2019

Natiko said:
I do want to address the topic of consistency and when topics are addressed privately vs publicly. I'll be honest - I feel like some of the things being said are very..perfect world views. It assumes the things being addressed are sensible to just put out an in thread warning about. That's not always the case. You can't expect all gamerunner communication to be done publicly when so often the players themselves will take to PMs to try and persuade the gamerunner to moderate to their desired outcome, especially when there are disagreements on approach. Litigating all of these in the public eye wouldn't help anyone. I agree public announcements for misgendering make sense, but it's not a one size fits all.

I see. Honestly didn't know these PM-bound arguments were frequent. In that case trying to normalize all warnings can have undesired effects, as pointed out, but maybe it could be done at least for misgendering, as you say? Unsure on what to do with the rest of situations to be honest.

Pedro said:
On inviting people from other places, I have tried bringing many friends to Mafia but they either didn't like the idea or played a game here once and never returned :c It's because of this experience that I don't try doing that again, because long-term/weeks-long Mafia doesn't seem to be a very attractive game unless you're already interested in it, I think.

But I know people had more successes than me, I think Persona Mafia brought a lot of people from the Persona community thanks to Sophia, because she was already a member of that community and I assume that helped with selling the idea to them. I think if I, a stranger, went to a community thread and asked people there to play a forum game it would be a little awkward :x

I see what you mean, but since the majority of members here are also members of other communities I still believe it could be worth a shot! We have players in communities that love long-form discussion - like RPGEra, for example - and I've thought of promoting this way myself too when the time comes, so I'm happy to read that it's usually up to the gamerunner.

In regards to mafia as an attractive game for newbies, I believe I've read somewhere you had a setup specifically for new players? Was that up for adoption?

Fantomas said:
I considered hitting up the LiS community thread when I was running that game, but I also didn't want any normal community members to be bumped out if they wanted to play just because I went and got like 5 newbies to play just based on the flavor. I think of signups are stalled though, this wouldn't be a terrible idea necessarily.

You're right. Especially because this could be a bit volatile in terms of results, but it could be a nice alternative for stalled sign-ups and bigger setups.

Aeleus · Sep 19, 2019

Reki said:
In regards to mafia as an attractive game for newbies, I believe I've read somewhere you had a setup specifically for new players? Was that up for adoption?

I think that was super mario mafia, being run this season

Pedro · Sep 19, 2019

Reki said:
In regards to mafia as an attractive game for newbies, I believe I've read somewhere you had a setup specifically for new players? Was that up for adoption?

Yeah, what Aeleus said, haha. But even if a game is mechanically simple, the commitment to post tens/hundreds of times in a game, to look at a thread multiples times per day, is something that I found that very few can accept. Even other forum games like pbp rpgs are more casual in terms of activity.

But that's only my experience, I don't mean to discourage anyone from inviting friends or reaching out to communities to see if anyone's interested in playing with us; in fact, I'd appreciate if people did that! Since so many of our games are themed, might as well invite people we think would like them~

edit: I have a little more to say on this but I'm in class so don't tell my prof I'm on my phone

edit 2: done. nat you a snitch

Natiko · Sep 19, 2019

Pedro said:
Yeah, what Aeleus said, haha. But even if a game is mechanically simple, the commitment to post tens/hundreds of times in a game, to look at a thread multiples times per day, is something that I found that very few can accept. Even other forum games like pbp rpgs are more casual in terms of activity.

Buuuut, ymmv. Maybe the people you talk with could be super into this idea :p

edit: I have a little more to say on this but I'm in class so don't tell my prof I'm on my phone

I'm reporting you to the dean.

Ketkat · Sep 19, 2019

Natiko said:
I believe some have reached out, but it's usually gamerunner's discretion. Typically they're a bit hands off with signups and we need to do the extra recruiting to get rosters filled up. That's not always the case, especially for season openers for instance. Those usually fill up fine.

I do want to address the topic of consistency and when topics are addressed privately vs publicly. I'll be honest - I feel like some of the things being said are very..perfect world views. It assumes the things being addressed are sensible to just put out an in thread warning about. That's not always the case. You can't expect all gamerunner communication to be done publicly when so often the players themselves will take to PMs to try and persuade the gamerunner to moderate to their desired outcome, especially when there are disagreements on approach. Litigating all of these in the public eye wouldn't help anyone. I agree public announcements for misgendering make sense, but it's not a one size fits all.

I don't really know much about these PM based conversations that are happening surrounding these issues, but when the majority of warnings are handed out entirely in private, it gives the impression that not much is really happening. Especially in the case of a game like last time where misgendering continued all the way to the very end of the game. I'm not really sure which rules being broken would require to be private and which wouldn't as all of them seem okay to talk about openly when someone steps over the line.

If we're going to have punishments on the table that lead up to a replacement/modkill, I think it would be best if they were public so that everyone is aware of how serious it's being taken and so that they aren't blindsided when it actually happens.

Sorian · Sep 19, 2019

Ketkat said:
I don't really know much about these PM based conversations that are happening surrounding these issues, but when the majority of warnings are handed out entirely in private, it gives the impression that not much is really happening. Especially in the case of a game like last time where misgendering continued all the way to the very end of the game. I'm not really sure which rules being broken would require to be private and which wouldn't as all of them seem okay to talk about openly when someone steps over the line.

If we're going to have punishments on the table that lead up to a replacement/modkill, I think it would be best if they were public so that everyone is aware of how serious it's being taken and so that they aren't blindsided when it actually happens.

Misgendering and things like post requirements should absolutely be warned publicly but in the game with secret roles and chats, I can't imagine it's too hard to imagine what types of things can't be publicly warned.

Ketkat · Sep 19, 2019

Sorian said:
Misgendering and things like post requirements should absolutely be warned publicly but in the game with secret roles and chats, I can't imagine it's too hard to imagine what types of things can't be publicly warned.

Well, in relation to most secret roles and chats, as long as people aren't posting their whole role PM in the game, it's really up to the player when to reveal things most of the time. And in the case of the last game with the Illuminati chat, alluding to the chat existing in any way was said to be an instant mod kill which would have been public in some way as well.

I dunno, I just feel that out of most of the games that I've played only this 1 has had these hidden aspects that have to stay hidden or else the gamerunner will have to step in, so I do struggle to understand why most of the time warnings are in private, whether it's surrounding hostility or misgendering. I feel like the standard for rulebreaking should be public, so that everyone knows it happened and so that they can do better as well, and then have these extreme outliers for games like HvV2.

Fanto · Sep 19, 2019

I suppose if someone broke a rule in Scum Chat or a Mason Chat or something, but not in the game thread, then it would be kind of difficult to publicly warn a specific person in the game thread for that offense. That's really the only example I can think of though.

Ketkat · Sep 19, 2019

Fantomas said:
I suppose if someone broke a rule in Scum Chat or a Mason Chat or something, but not in the game thread, then it would be kind of difficult to publicly warn a specific person in the game thread for that offense. That's really the only example I can think of though.

Well, then they would be publicly warned in that chat if that was the only place possible. The point that I'm talking about is that it doesn't really need to be in PM's and only in PM's

Sorian · Sep 19, 2019

Ketkat said:
Well, in relation to most secret roles and chats, as long as people aren't posting their whole role PM in the game, it's really up to the player when to reveal things most of the time. And in the case of the last game with the Illuminati chat, alluding to the chat existing in any way was said to be an instant mod kill which would have been public in some way as well.

I dunno, I just feel that out of most of the games that I've played only this 1 has had these hidden aspects that have to stay hidden or else the gamerunner will have to step in, so I do struggle to understand why most of the time warnings are in private, whether it's surrounding hostility or misgendering. I feel like the standard for rulebreaking should be public, so that everyone knows it happened and so that they can do better as well, and then have these extreme outliers for games like HvV2.

Things happening in scum chat is a super simple example that comes up often. That can't be a public warning ever for obvious reasons. HvV 2 did have restrictive things (that all affected Chuggs) that I believe even did get a private warning and yes, HvV is weird but we've had weird post restrictive roles in a lot more vanilla games too.

Hostility is another great example as well where a more private nudge will go out as opposed to a normal warning. Hostility comes in a lot of different flavors and the impartial mod is going to usually be a better judge of what's crossing a line than the person feeling attacked. There have been cases where we've seen behavior that we read as fine in the confines of a mafia game but since the target of the aggression asked us to do something, we've erred on just giving the aggressor an unofficial "tone it down" in PMs as opposed to disrupting the flow of the game.

Ketkat · Sep 19, 2019

Sorian said:
Things happening in scum chat is a super simple example that comes up often. That can't be a public warning ever for obvious reasons. HvV 2 did have restrictive things (that all affected Chuggs) that I believe even did get a private warning and yes, HvV is weird but we've had weird post restrictive roles in a lot more vanilla games too.

Hostility is another great example as well where a more private nudge will go out as opposed to a normal warning. Hostility comes in a lot of different flavors and the impartial mod is going to usually be a better judge of what's crossing a line than the person feeling attacked. There have been cases where we've seen behavior that we read as fine in the confines of a mafia game but since the target of the aggression asked us to do something, we've erred on just giving the aggressor an unofficial "tone it down" in PMs as opposed to disrupting the flow of the game.

I think the idea that an impartial mod knows better about what's crossing a line than the person who feels attacked is kind of the problem. The last game had a ton of aggression when Stuart was pushing his theory that Muffin was lying about being confirmed town, and that was something that every player felt and were asking in the game for people to tone it down as it was getting uncomfortable. The people who felt uncomfortable never saw any of those warnings, and Stuart ended up subbing out of the game out of frustration. People were straight up telling him things like this for an insane amount of time :

"so nah, id rather tell you to shut the fuck up until you have anything to add beyond this fucking whining, your acting like a petulant child, stop it. "

"People can't learn from mistakes and try to steer others away from those same mistakes. I'm sorry you live like that Stu. "

Like, I've never been warned for aggression in games and I've very rarely seen public warnings for it despite it continuing and coming up in these review threads literally every season. I've often thought of playing these mafia games like playing a MOBA if I'm being honest. I enjoy the game's that are designed and I enjoy the puzzle of trying to figure out who is scum within the confines of the roles that we have just as I enjoy the gameplay of MOBA's. But the aggression or toxic nature of the games is just seen as part of the experience or "fine in the confines of a mafia game" and it left a bad taste in my mouth enough times in MOBA's that I eventually just stopped playing the entire genre.

The hostility in these games often cross lines, and there have been many people who have sub'd out or stopped playing because of it, or lost motivation for playing for a while so I know I'm not alone on this.

We can't sit here and pretend that the current system has been working when these issues have been here for years. Weemadarthur mentioned that the pronoun issue has been a thing since season 6, and the hostility has been brought up since I've started playing in Season 11. People need reassurance that something is actually being done within the current games to alleviate their concerns, as these private warnings for hostility and misgendering are not working.

I'm sorry if this comes off a bit annoyed, but I'm pretty tired of just how often these issues keep popping up, small discussions on them happen, and then we just try to move on with no real changes implemented.

Fanto · Sep 19, 2019

Just to add an anecdote about hostility in these games:

I have a friend who was at least somewhat interested in playing LiS Mafia, but her main concern wasn't the posting requirements or the time commitment, it was that she didn't like the amount of hostility and/or anger that the games she's checked out here seemed to bring about in some people.

I know we usually all make up post-game if there ever were any hard feelings, but in the heat of the moment things can get really intense and I don't blame anyone for not wanting to sign up, deciding to sub out, or stepping away from the community, either temporarily or permanently, due to it.

Obviously I have exploded in rage in the past due to these games, I'm sure everyone that's been around the past few seasons is familiar with my many meltdowns in the first few games I played, but I have since learned from that and tried my best to not get so emotionally involved.

I'm not sure what my point is here, other than to say that if we want to open up the can of worms about the hostility rule again, then we should lay it all out there and try to figure out a real solution instead of just paying it the usual review thread lip-service and then moving on to the new season.

Is it possible for us to lay down some ground rules about what is crossing the line and what is not? I agree with Ketkat about the many posts directed at Stu in HvV2 that felt way too hostile, some of them were basically personal attacks against Stu rather than his opinion. I think it would be perfectly fine if someone were to tell someone why they thought their opinion was wrong, even if they were being a bit aggressive about it, but to step in to name-calling and other gross behavior like that is really pushing it in my opinion at least.

Sorian · Sep 19, 2019

Ketkat said:
I think the idea that an impartial mod knows better about what's crossing a line than the person who feels attacked is kind of the problem. The last game had a ton of aggression when Stuart was pushing his theory that Muffin was lying about being confirmed town, and that was something that every player felt and were asking in the game for people to tone it down as it was getting uncomfortable. The people who felt uncomfortable never saw any of those warnings, and Stuart ended up subbing out of the game out of frustration. People were straight up telling him things like this for an insane amount of time :

"so nah, id rather tell you to shut the fuck up until you have anything to add beyond this fucking whining, your acting like a petulant child, stop it. "

"People can't learn from mistakes and try to steer others away from those same mistakes. I'm sorry you live like that Stu. "

Like, I've never been warned for aggression in games and I've very rarely seen public warnings for it despite it continuing and coming up in these review threads literally every season. I've often thought of playing these mafia games like playing a MOBA if I'm being honest. I enjoy the game's that are designed and I enjoy the puzzle of trying to figure out who is scum within the confines of the roles that we have just as I enjoy the gameplay of MOBA's. But the aggression or toxic nature of the games is just seen as part of the experience or "fine in the confines of a mafia game" and it left a bad taste in my mouth enough times in MOBA's that I eventually just stopped playing the entire genre.

The hostility in these games often cross lines, and there have been many people who have sub'd out or stopped playing because of it, or lost motivation for playing for a while so I know I'm not alone on this.

We can't sit here and pretend that the current system has been working when these issues have been here for years. Weemadarthur mentioned that the pronoun issue has been a thing since season 6, and the hostility has been brought up since I've started playing in Season 11. People need reassurance that something is actually being done within the current games to alleviate their concerns, as these private warnings for hostility and misgendering are not working.

I'm sorry if this comes off a bit annoyed, but I'm pretty tired of just how often these issues keep popping up, small discussions on them happen, and then we just try to move on with no real changes implemented.

You and I agree on the misgendering thing and that's because it's an easy black and white. Was the pronoun correct? Yes/no and done. It should be enforced publicly and have a more strict punishment scale that is actually consistent and followed. The hostility isn't as easy. How do you start to quantify it? It's a game where gaslighting is literally one of the expected strategies, there is going to be a level of emotional manipulation in there. Like yes, calling people names is an easy no to point at and and it probably should have gotten warned above but do you really warn for the second quote there (yes, I know I'm the one who said it so I'm not exactly impartial)?

Absolutely we should look at a more consistent and public structure for warnings and penalties but the flip side of that is the rules that are more discretion based and where the line is between the person actually running the game and the people getting attacked in the game. Sometimes people are getting attacked and it's fine, other times it's not. What's the difference and how do we actually out it down into a hard rule?

Sawneeks · Sep 20, 2019

Reki said:
Late as usual, sorry for the notifications!

I've been guilty of misgendering this season and still regret it. Mostly because it's such an easy thing to avoid but that makes a world of difference for the player in question. Ever since I adopted Ms. Bird's advice of keeping a tab open with the player list. That being said, I do think replacing should be the punishment after three infractions - like Aeleus, Sawneeks and malus said - and maybe even add a formal number of collective infractions before it becomes an insta-modkill, as has happened with plenty of warnings in games. That could introduce some excessive bureaucracy, but right now this is a recurrent issue and as such should be treated accordingly.

It feels like only a priority penalty is... not "tangible" enough, if that makes any sense. KetKat said it better; it doesn't solve the immediate problem.

In terms of warnings, Monkey already expanded on it, but I believe the last review thread had a bit of talk about formalizing those. With some discussion about gamerunners reaching via PM or publicly, but it looks like there was no official decision on the matter. Private warnings can mud the perception of gamerunners properly dealing with the situation. My suggestion would be to make all warnings public, which could help with
- Reassuring members that rules are being enforced.
- Suggesting to the rest of the players to be more careful with that particular rule.
- Consistency, as both Stuart and Alexem have asked for.
- Gaining a bit more of transparency when modding.

I've received private warnings and although they're more... "friendly", so to speak, than a public message, I believe posting in the thread is a better choice for the mentioned advantages. As Stan said, it's never about shaming the infractor, and I believe that should be clear considering the way the members of this community usually treat each other.

EDIT: Misread your post Aeleus, disregard the quote.

I hate to bring up the last review thread again, but there was some discussion about players reaching via PM to ask for moderation too. Unsure about this one to be honest, but shouldn't it be better to do it all publicly in the game thread? I'd be inclined to believe that transparency should triumph everything else when dealing with moderation affairs.

Whether this gets an "official" endorsement or not, I believe this is a chance to open another conversation. As far as I know there's no set of optional, custom and tried rules in the community. It could be interesting to discuss and make a small list of these - with links to games in which they were used - for gamerunners to easily reference the behavior of players under unusual conditions. For example post restriction-related rules - sans GIF Mafia - are not really well-received as far as I understand, and that may be handy info to have when designing. Would anyone be interested in something like this?

Add another vote for this! I suppose PMs can yield better results, but a permanent list could work more efficiently just by pinging in the OT/Discord. The team already does this in some way though.

This sounds good too. The desire to keep the rhythm of the season going is understandable, and most members probably want to start playing as soon as possible, but I do think extending the sign-ups period a bit could help reduce both the lack of replacements and the "I'd had loved to play this!" posts.

The team probably needs to get a few things scheduled and confirmed before sign-ups begin, but would it be possible to start when the current game reaches MyLo/LyLo? That way you can extend the timeframe without affecting the current game ends/next game starts break. Although that could get messy?

Just curious about this. There're, let's say, "spontaneous" players that are attracted by particular stuff. Unsure about the circumstances in that case, but someone like Queen Kong seemed to join due to the flavor employed in a game. I ask from ignorance - as this has probably happened and I just don't know - but have there been any efforts to invite particular communities to play when there's a setup with that specific flavor?

Finally, an unrelated suggestion. It's probably a non-problem for most here but I thought it could be far easier to understand activity differences by using standardized time zones. This;

Makes it way easier to interpret at a glance. What do you think?

Definitely agree on what you said here, Reki. I'll chat with the others but pretty sure we can change the sign up to make it include the UTC for timezone as the default here for ease.

Also agree with your thoughts on having the warnings for misgendering be public. It reinforces not only the rule itself but serves as an extra reminder to other's that it is something we will be taking seriously.

Ketkat said:
I think the idea that an impartial mod knows better about what's crossing a line than the person who feels attacked is kind of the problem. The last game had a ton of aggression when Stuart was pushing his theory that Muffin was lying about being confirmed town, and that was something that every player felt and were asking in the game for people to tone it down as it was getting uncomfortable. The people who felt uncomfortable never saw any of those warnings, and Stuart ended up subbing out of the game out of frustration. People were straight up telling him things like this for an insane amount of time :

"so nah, id rather tell you to shut the fuck up until you have anything to add beyond this fucking whining, your acting like a petulant child, stop it. "

"People can't learn from mistakes and try to steer others away from those same mistakes. I'm sorry you live like that Stu. "

Like, I've never been warned for aggression in games and I've very rarely seen public warnings for it despite it continuing and coming up in these review threads literally every season. I've often thought of playing these mafia games like playing a MOBA if I'm being honest. I enjoy the game's that are designed and I enjoy the puzzle of trying to figure out who is scum within the confines of the roles that we have just as I enjoy the gameplay of MOBA's. But the aggression or toxic nature of the games is just seen as part of the experience or "fine in the confines of a mafia game" and it left a bad taste in my mouth enough times in MOBA's that I eventually just stopped playing the entire genre.

The hostility in these games often cross lines, and there have been many people who have sub'd out or stopped playing because of it, or lost motivation for playing for a while so I know I'm not alone on this.

We can't sit here and pretend that the current system has been working when these issues have been here for years. Weemadarthur mentioned that the pronoun issue has been a thing since season 6, and the hostility has been brought up since I've started playing in Season 11. People need reassurance that something is actually being done within the current games to alleviate their concerns, as these private warnings for hostility and misgendering are not working.

I'm sorry if this comes off a bit annoyed, but I'm pretty tired of just how often these issues keep popping up, small discussions on them happen, and then we just try to move on with no real changes implemented.

Fantomas said:
Is it possible for us to lay down some ground rules about what is crossing the line and what is not? I agree with Ketkat about the many posts directed at Stu in HvV2 that felt way too hostile, some of them were basically personal attacks against Stu rather than his opinion. I think it would be perfectly fine if someone were to tell someone why they thought their opinion was wrong, even if they were being a bit aggressive about it, but to step in to name-calling and other gross behavior like that is really pushing it in my opinion at least.

This is something I've similarly brought up in other review threads and we've never been able to find an answer. Sorian put it better than I could but with misgendering it's a simple yes/no question to decide whether or not a warning is needed. Aggression is not as easy considering it's highly subjective.

If we find a line we all agree on I'm more than happy to push to have it implemented and followed. Like other's have said the aggression problem has been around for multiple Seasons and I've seen people I consider friends be driven away because of it. I want a solution to this as well but I've not been able to find a good answer, hence why I always bring it up.

Ketkat · Sep 20, 2019

Sorian said:
You and I agree on the misgendering thing and that's because it's an easy black and white. Was the pronoun correct? Yes/no and done. It should be enforced publicly and have a more strict punishment scale that is actually consistent and followed. The hostility isn't as easy. How do you start to quantify it? It's a game where gaslighting is literally one of the expected strategies, there is going to be a level of emotional manipulation in there. Like yes, calling people names is an easy no to point at and and it probably should have gotten warned above but do you really warn for the second quote there (yes, I know I'm the one who said it so I'm not exactly impartial)?

Absolutely we should look at a more consistent and public structure for warnings and penalties but the flip side of that is the rules that are more discretion based and where the line is between the person actually running the game and the people getting attacked in the game. Sometimes people are getting attacked and it's fine, other times it's not. What's the difference and how do we actually out it down into a hard rule?

Yes, I would have warned you at some point for the long string of posts that you had there. You were poking and prodding at Stuart for hours and hours, escalating over time to the point that he just didn't want to respond to you further, and then you poked and prodded more. While some manipulation is going to be part of a game that centers around deceit and lies, it is possible to take it too far and upsetting people to the point that they sub out of a game is too far.

Sorian said:
Stu, you're ridiculous and really bad at this

Sorian said:
No one cares about you suiciding, I just want you to wear a dunce cap with these takes.

Sorian said:
Oh, so you won't do anything else in the game then? So just a repeat of the first half of the game?

Sorian said:
Ah right, he is psychic and knew on N1 that instead of getting such a strong power right away, he should wait for robots and chips to show up. All according to keikaku etc etc

Fuck 👏 outta 👏 here

Sorian said:
I don't really care about your little pissing contest, your ego is bruised enough already on this Muffin thing.

Sorian said:
"Town does not benefit from green checks." -Stuart444, August 29th, 2019

Sorian said:
He'll kill himself! Except he won't be able to any more because he probably does lose his powers, it would be too OP to have all of that AND be a SK. This is pointless and is an ego trying to justify itself instead of actually playing the game.

Sorian said:
I was ignoring you before Geno's green check. This argument was bad yesterday, it didn't change with what Geno said.

Sorian said:
Your arguments on his vote are "sleep walked into day 1 lynch, probably bussed on day 2 /shrug, look at him calling out his own OMGUS!!!! on day 3"

You get the fuck out of here, your "vote record argument" boils down to

Sorian said:
It is, there is no hustle here, you are just bad at this.

Sorian said:
Doesn't matter, I've exactly fucked this up in the past, why wouldn't I point it out if I see it elsewhere. Or should I let you ruin a game too because I have before?

Sorian said:
I still assume the hacker can read hacker chat so they'd know that I was also claiming last night to have the sword. Also, why in the world would I claim to have the sword if I killed someone for it? I can just let tweedle dum lynch tweedle dee over here and call it a day, no protecting Stuart required.

Sorian said:
You were tweedle dee in this case, it's fine.

These are just some of them in a short time that were all directed at Stuart, and he even says during the game that he snapped because of the way that he was talked to the previous day by multiple people. If it was only a few comments like this, it might not get under people's skin as much. But, when it continues like this for multiple real life days, it's going way too far. And even after Stuart sub'd out, there were still people taking shots at him throughout the game.

Aggression might not be as straight forward as misgendering, but the level of hostility in these games has genuinely been brought up time and time again and I'm not sure we've ever taken any real concrete steps towards resolving this. I think that most aggression issues are a little more straightforward than they're given credit, and to add onto this, I don't really feel that Stan's aggressiveness is as endearing as some of you. It just leads to situations like that first line I quoted in my last post that just exacerbate things and are completely uncalled for.

I'll also second what Fantomas said above where I'll talk about mafia games to my girlfriend plenty when I'm in them, but I always tell her not to join as the hostility tends to suck the fun out at a certain point.

Sawneeks · Sep 20, 2019

In terms of rules regarding misgendering how does this look so far? Not final of course considering we are still discussing type of punishment, number of warnings before removal, etc.

WIP Updated:

X. Please respect all of your fellow players. We ask that you be aware of accessibility when using non-default text and to respect a player's personal pronoun. Failure to adhere to a player's personal pronoun will result in a public warning. On the second offense another public warning will be given and a penalty will be applied to the offender's game priority. On a third offense that player will be removed from the game.
X. Please do not refer to, or discuss, player activity outside of this thread, for the sake of the game's integrity.

Current formatting of the rule:

X. Please respect all of your fellow players. We ask that you respect a player's personal pronouns and be aware of accessibility when using non-default text formatting. Please do not refer to, or discuss, player activity outside of this thread, for the sake of the game's integrity.

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