I was re-reading scumchat from TF Mafia, and I just remembered that I wanted to bring this up post-game after Dastrn commented on my post on inactivity. Inactivity has reached embarrassing new heights in DGamesia, and if we continue to let inactivity go unpunished for much longer, our Mafia community may fall apart. Town has been completely obliterating itself over the fact that half of participants refuse to participate, and lot of the players who would be active under normal circumstances are either screwed over by real-life garbage or disheartened by others' inactivity.
Inactivity went controlled fairly well in the past because a majority of the game's players would put a good amount of time and effort in and the few inactives would get replaced by active replacements, but in TF Mafia, we had 5 people (almost half the game) post under 100 times in-game. Of those 5 people, 2 posted under 50 times in game. Additionally, we had someone who replaced out after a phase of posting very little, and to top it off there were prod dodges 'til kingdom come.
I propose that we either make a short-term blacklist, actually enforce modkills (unless there are announced V/LAs, but those who will be away for an entire phase should probably just replace out), or have a required number of replacements (2 is probably a good number) before a game may begin. The blacklist could be made for players who didn't achieve a certain number of posts in a game (counter per phase so that people killed D1 won't be treated harsher than those killed last phase), as that would encourage activity.The blacklist post number should be lower for scum, however, because coasting is a legit strat. It's a garbage strat, but I wouldn't ban it because it's an actual tactic that could be crippling to one side or another if removed.
In addition, we probably shouldn't blacklist anyone for super long periods of time (and probably shouldn't blackmail players in minis at all since they're supposed to be oriented towards new players.) We should give them enough time to think about the their lack of action, have them make sure they can afford to spend time playing Mafia before signing up again, and help them to get their lives back together before allowing them to give Mafia another shot. I was thinking a month after a game ends for severe inactivity, half a month after the game ends for moderate inactivity, and until the game ends for replacing out. These time periods are all up for debate, though.
The replacement requirement would be good because if people in-game don't think they can handle a game of Mafia at any point in time or have been very inactive and the mod deems it appropriate for their slot to be passed on to someone else, they could just pass the torch and the replacement would already be there, waiting. If there are no replacements available, we should actually bother implementing modkills. I've only seen a couple of modkills before, once in Kingmaker (bad example) and once in Gheb's JR (good example). Most games I've played in have mods that don't comply to their own modkill rules and while it's true that flexibility is good for a mod, that flexibility should only go so far. There is a point at which a certain number of prods should require replacement or modkilling in order to discourage inactivity, and if you never act upon your own rules for disciplining inactivity, your rules will never be taken seriously.
So proceeding from this point on, we have a few options. We could:
1) Create a short-term blacklist
2) Enforcing Modkills
3) Required Number of Replacements, Forced Replacements
4) A mixture of the above
5) None of the above
Speak, debate, and hopefully you guys think long and hard about this. There is no right answer to solve inactivity and while it's completely based in human non-commitment and suckiness or real-life garbage that happens and we have no control over, there are steps we can take to minimize the damage. I'm pretty sick right now so I hope this post makes sense, I hope I clearly conveyed my points, and I hope this gets people thinking about ways to improve this community we have all come to know and love.
Inactivity went controlled fairly well in the past because a majority of the game's players would put a good amount of time and effort in and the few inactives would get replaced by active replacements, but in TF Mafia, we had 5 people (almost half the game) post under 100 times in-game. Of those 5 people, 2 posted under 50 times in game. Additionally, we had someone who replaced out after a phase of posting very little, and to top it off there were prod dodges 'til kingdom come.
I propose that we either make a short-term blacklist, actually enforce modkills (unless there are announced V/LAs, but those who will be away for an entire phase should probably just replace out), or have a required number of replacements (2 is probably a good number) before a game may begin. The blacklist could be made for players who didn't achieve a certain number of posts in a game (counter per phase so that people killed D1 won't be treated harsher than those killed last phase), as that would encourage activity.The blacklist post number should be lower for scum, however, because coasting is a legit strat. It's a garbage strat, but I wouldn't ban it because it's an actual tactic that could be crippling to one side or another if removed.
In addition, we probably shouldn't blacklist anyone for super long periods of time (and probably shouldn't blackmail players in minis at all since they're supposed to be oriented towards new players.) We should give them enough time to think about the their lack of action, have them make sure they can afford to spend time playing Mafia before signing up again, and help them to get their lives back together before allowing them to give Mafia another shot. I was thinking a month after a game ends for severe inactivity, half a month after the game ends for moderate inactivity, and until the game ends for replacing out. These time periods are all up for debate, though.
The replacement requirement would be good because if people in-game don't think they can handle a game of Mafia at any point in time or have been very inactive and the mod deems it appropriate for their slot to be passed on to someone else, they could just pass the torch and the replacement would already be there, waiting. If there are no replacements available, we should actually bother implementing modkills. I've only seen a couple of modkills before, once in Kingmaker (bad example) and once in Gheb's JR (good example). Most games I've played in have mods that don't comply to their own modkill rules and while it's true that flexibility is good for a mod, that flexibility should only go so far. There is a point at which a certain number of prods should require replacement or modkilling in order to discourage inactivity, and if you never act upon your own rules for disciplining inactivity, your rules will never be taken seriously.
So proceeding from this point on, we have a few options. We could:
1) Create a short-term blacklist
2) Enforcing Modkills
3) Required Number of Replacements, Forced Replacements
4) A mixture of the above
5) None of the above
Speak, debate, and hopefully you guys think long and hard about this. There is no right answer to solve inactivity and while it's completely based in human non-commitment and suckiness or real-life garbage that happens and we have no control over, there are steps we can take to minimize the damage. I'm pretty sick right now so I hope this post makes sense, I hope I clearly conveyed my points, and I hope this gets people thinking about ways to improve this community we have all come to know and love.
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