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[webadict]

There aren't any S-ranks now, so the point is moot.

We do, however, need some games so people can be on the board.

[Vector]

All right.  Let's take that to the threshold list.

[Mr.Person]

I hated it then and I hate it now: I don't want the fucking S-ranks.

What purpose do they serve? Making S-rankers feel good about themselves. Nothing else. I suppose they do encourage A-rankers to try to do better, but I still think they're superfluous. The reward for kicking the town into action should be a fun game, not a useless rank.

In fact, if I was hosting, I would actually refuse to allow S-ranks in if I could and pack the game with B- and A- ranks. Reasoning: S-ranks are more likely to replace in than A-ranks, so save them in case I need a replacement or five.

I just would prefer to read into the system in a quick and efficient manner.

"Checking Vector's Grade... A+, good"
"Checking Archangel's Grade... F, bad"

It's easy to search through and find. Plus, making series of categories is STILL a grading system.

In case I didn't make this clear, I'm very much in favor of a grading system, I just felt that the current "B-rank" and "S-rank" were unnecessary and couldn't think of a way to cut them and keep the letter-grade system. If that's all you care about, just call them A, C, D, and F and be done with it.

In other words, I really only want to punish failure, not reward success. When it comes to attendance, it's pass-fail only. You either show up or you don't. It's very black and white. There's no super-showing-up, so why is there a super-showing-up rank?

Thinking about it some more, with such a small number of players, it might be best to just list everything for every player and not bother with specific ranks at all. For instance, unless you show why player X got a C rank, the rank is meaningless because it's not related to anything. And if you do show the reasoning behind it, the rank once again becomes meaningless because there's no reason for it to be there.

Why is getting information at a glance useful at all? Mods (the people the ranking system is FOR!) have a very precise list of player they need information on. They have a roster of sign-ups. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect mods to look through the attendance board at all their players, and they want exact information in this case since anything less is useless. An F-rank tells you nothing. "Flaked 5 games, 10 prods" tells the whole story and lets a mod decide for themself if a player's attendance issues are bad enough to justify disallowing them from playing in that particular game.

[Vector]

An F-rank tells you nothing. "Flaked 5 games, 10 prods" tells the whole story and lets a mod decide for themself if a player's attendance issues are bad enough to justify disallowing them from playing in that particular game.

Traditionally, we list both reasons and ranks, so that no one feels their rank is arbitrary and can see the history of it.


I think you may be right about the S ranks, but in reality there is such a thing as super-attendance.  There are some people who are simply ... belligerently active, I guess, and the previous point was that from time to time one could have a really, really, really active game.

Or something.

Sorry, flu.  But in any case, my disease-addled mind thinks you may have a point.

[ToonyMan]

I haven't been town in a while. 

I'm dead in all my games right now anyway I think, waiting for Vengeful (and Cybrid) to start.

[IronyOwl]

I'm somewhat inclined to agree with Mr.Person on this. If A-C are all the same for most purposes, how much benefit are we getting out of that degree of granularity? At the point where you simply must have all players who haven't been prodded more than twice in the last six months, I'm thinking you can just specify only certain people you know can join.

Similarly, I'm all for giving people crowns and all that, but if the point of the system is to track attendance, and A means no real problems, what is S actually accomplishing? "Rank A plus we love you?" At that point, I'd assume, again, their reputation would be good enough to not need some sort of special star next to their name.

[Vector]

If A-C are all the same for most purposes, how much benefit are we getting out of that degree of granularity? At the point where you simply must have all players who haven't been prodded more than twice in the last six months, I'm thinking you can just specify only certain people you know can join.

Because once we instated this thing last time, most people started playing an A game--and yes, there is a pretty large difference between A, B, and C qualitatively.  With the low number of games we have running, two prods is quite meaningful.

Something like 50% of the players were A-rank.

[Jokerman-EXE]

You guys have valid points, but I don't see how they correlate with taking out the S-rank entirely. "S-rank just allows people to feel better about themselves without serving the game!" Well, yeah. It's a ranking system that someone made online. Just because it doesn't impact the game itself doesn't mean that it's useless. Why not have a system to make players feel ever better about themselves? At the same time, it encourages A-ranks to do even better in the hopes of gaining that same recognition.

What effort is it to you to have it in, anyway? The way I see it, if the mod running the Ranking System doesn't mind, then you can just ignore it and pretend it's not there and doesn't apply to you. I wouldn't mind seeing it, as it gives me something beyond the game to strive for.

Just sayin'. You guys can do what you want, I'll just be around.

[Mr.Person]

An F-rank tells you nothing. "Flaked 5 games, 10 prods" tells the whole story and lets a mod decide for themself if a player's attendance issues are bad enough to justify disallowing them from playing in that particular game.

Traditionally, we list both reasons and ranks, so that no one feels their rank is arbitrary and can see the history of it.


I think you may be right about the S ranks, but in reality there is such a thing as super-attendance.  There are some people who are simply ... belligerently active, I guess, and the previous point was that from time to time one could have a really, really, really active game.

Then why do we need the ranks at all? The "reasoning" is what matters, the rank is irrelevant.

Maybe, but that kind of activity is impossible to quantify. Last I checked, this whole system was supposed to be quantifiable. Having an elite rank that only an elite group of players can join seems like it would cause elitism, doubly so if the whole thing is actually a popularity contest.


I do like tracking replacing in, however, so if we do keep the ranks, keep the Letter+ system.

If A-C are all the same for most purposes, how much benefit are we getting out of that degree of granularity? At the point where you simply must have all players who haven't been prodded more than twice in the last six months, I'm thinking you can just specify only certain people you know can join.

Because once we instated this thing last time, most people started playing an A game--and yes, there is a pretty large difference between A, B, and C qualitatively.  With the low number of games we have running, two prods is quite meaningful.

Something like 50% of the players were A-rank.

That wasn't how I remember it. I can't remember a single game that didn't allow B-ranks in, so why was there a split between B-rank and A-rank at all? You're either doing what you're supposed to be doing or you're not. Dealing with the bad players is why D-rank, F-rank, and C-rank are all seperate. You start screwing up, you lose access to the exclusive games but also the wierdest and craziest stuff that requires perfect attendance. You continue screwing up, you can only join Mountainous and similar setups as a punishment. Continue screwing up and you get banned from all games. Because of the way it's set up if you hit B-rank, you can't really work back up to A-rank without waiting awhile. I suppose you could replace in a bunch which was nice, but giving the plus for replacing in I thought was more than nice enough.

Yes, F-rank should mean no games at all for at LEAST a semester. Not even Mountainous, not even NSBM, nothing. You're beyond repair if you get that far. If you were really serious, you wouldn't let your attendance get that bad in the first place.

[IronyOwl]

Well, yeah. It's a ranking system that someone made online. Just because it doesn't impact the game itself doesn't mean that it's useless. Why not have a system to make players feel ever better about themselves? At the same time, it encourages A-ranks to do even better in the hopes of gaining that same recognition.

The supposed point of the system is to track attendance, though. You could easily make arguments about rewarding good play or proper spelling too, but it wouldn't really fit into the system's supposed purpose.

What effort is it to you to have it in, anyway? The way I see it, if the mod running the Ranking System doesn't mind, then you can just ignore it and pretend it's not there and doesn't apply to you. I wouldn't mind seeing it, as it gives me something beyond the game to strive for.

The whole thing is voluntary, but it's still a thing. If an idea or feature is bad, it's bad and probably shouldn't be included, and the fact that it's not absolutely mandatory for everyone doesn't do a whole lot to change that.

[Vector]

Then why do we need the ranks at all? The "reasoning" is what matters, the rank is irrelevant.

Because it gives an easy metric for the mod to consider, so that he can just say "All right, A and above" rather than "well, better go look up every single blasted player.  It also gives clear-cut incentives to the players ("I need to do at least this well if I want to play x, y, or z").

Maybe, but that kind of activity is impossible to quantify. Last I checked, this whole system was supposed to be quantifiable. Having an elite rank that only an elite group of players can join seems like it would cause elitism, doubly so if the whole thing is actually a popularity contest.

Did it cause elitism last time?

That wasn't how I remember it. I can't remember a single game that didn't allow B-ranks in, so why was there a split between B-rank and A-rank at all?

A lot of Dakarian and Webadict's games were A and N-ranks only.  Later, some games opened to the possibility of B-ranks with promised reliability.

[Mr.Person]

Then why do we need the ranks at all? The "reasoning" is what matters, the rank is irrelevant.

Because it gives an easy metric for the mod to consider, so that he can just say "All right, A and above" rather than "well, better go look up every single blasted player.  It also gives clear-cut incentives to the players ("I need to do at least this well if I want to play x, y, or z").

I suppose when activity picks up and the list gets bigger, the ranks will help simplify things. Still, not everyone is going to agree with the arbitrary lines drawn by the ranks. Even back when we did use the ranks there were exceptions being made all the time.

The inventive to do better is there rank or no rank. Keeping track of the attendance, scrutinizing players who flake/need prods, and keeping low ranked players out of the "funnest" games (role-heavy stuff, bastard mods, weird stuff, ect) should do more than enough. In fact, I doubt that most players knew or cared about there rank at all. The only ones who did were S-ranks. AFAIK, players aren't even supposed to care about their rank. The attendance tracking was so mods knew which players were problomatic.

Maybe, but that kind of activity is impossible to quantify. Last I checked, this whole system was supposed to be quantifiable. Having an elite rank that only an elite group of players can join seems like it would cause elitism, doubly so if the whole thing is actually a popularity contest.

Did it cause elitism last time?

It caused a ton of arguing about who should be S-rank and who shouldn't. It caused some elitism. Ultimately, it didn't help anyone. It was a colossal waste of time.

That wasn't how I remember it. I can't remember a single game that didn't allow B-ranks in, so why was there a split between B-rank and A-rank at all?

A lot of Dakarian and Webadict's games were A and N-ranks only.  Later, some games opened to the possibility of B-ranks with promised reliability.

I don't remember those at all. That sounds really fucking stupid, though. They would of been better served just making the games invite only. If they want to be exclusive, that's fine, but they should exclude based on their own criteria. I can't condone a rank line being drawn when I know that the only thing that'll come from crossing that line is losing access to a game they probably wouldn't of tried to enter in the first place nor would be allowed into even if they tried and there was no rank system.

[webadict]

Then why do we need the ranks at all? The "reasoning" is what matters, the rank is irrelevant.

Because it gives an easy metric for the mod to consider, so that he can just say "All right, A and above" rather than "well, better go look up every single blasted player.  It also gives clear-cut incentives to the players ("I need to do at least this well if I want to play x, y, or z").

I suppose when activity picks up and the list gets bigger, the ranks will help simplify things. Still, not everyone is going to agree with the arbitrary lines drawn by the ranks. Even back when we did use the ranks there were exceptions being made all the time.

The inventive to do better is there rank or no rank. Keeping track of the attendance, scrutinizing players who flake/need prods, and keeping low ranked players out of the "funnest" games (role-heavy stuff, bastard mods, weird stuff, ect) should do more than enough. In fact, I doubt that most players knew or cared about there rank at all. The only ones who did were S-ranks. AFAIK, players aren't even supposed to care about their rank. The attendance tracking was so mods knew which players were problomatic.

Then what is the problem with having the board? It's still doing its job, isn't it? Mods want to know without having to trudge through an entire list. Plus, listing only the bad isn't good. A long list could still have someone with an A, but a short list might be someone with an F. With just marking the bad, the bigger a list gets implies the worse their rank is. Hence, with a grading system, there is an intuitive, well-grasped understanding of the rank of the player, plus an explanation why that grade is given.

Maybe, but that kind of activity is impossible to quantify. Last I checked, this whole system was supposed to be quantifiable. Having an elite rank that only an elite group of players can join seems like it would cause elitism, doubly so if the whole thing is actually a popularity contest.

Did it cause elitism last time?

It caused a ton of arguing about who should be S-rank and who shouldn't. It caused some elitism. Ultimately, it didn't help anyone. It was a colossal waste of time.

Only among the S-rankers. And since you don't care about your rank anyway, it shouldn't be that big of a deal to you. But, you're acting like it's going to kill everyone. No one is going to lose from an S-rank. Plus, we don't HAVE any S-ranks right now, so you can argue about it later, if you truly do care about the rank.

That wasn't how I remember it. I can't remember a single game that didn't allow B-ranks in, so why was there a split between B-rank and A-rank at all?

A lot of Dakarian and Webadict's games were A and N-ranks only.  Later, some games opened to the possibility of B-ranks with promised reliability.

I don't remember those at all. That sounds really fucking stupid, though. They would of been better served just making the games invite only. If they want to be exclusive, that's fine, but they should exclude based on their own criteria. I can't condone a rank line being drawn when I know that the only thing that'll come from crossing that line is losing access to a game they probably wouldn't of tried to enter in the first place nor would be allowed into even if they tried and there was no rank system.

Almost every Vote Mafia was A rank. Seeing as how you were in those games, I really don't see the point of complaining. Almost NO ONE uses them for determining minimum ranks. It is usually for excluding certain people (D or lower). However, some people want expert attendance. If that's their choice because it's their game. You don't have to follow the the rules, this thread, or any of the grades, but it's set here so that our subforum has something to look at before letting people into the game.

And if someone decides that they'll break a rule, knowing full well what the consequences are, then they deserve the rank, don't they? They're listed out right here, at the start of every game, and they're told it to them by every player. Heck, they're usually given a warning first!

We're not elite. We're just orderly.

[Mr.Person]

I had a big post here but it got confusing and I need to rewrite it. Here's the short version while I collect my thoughts.

I hate to break this to you Webadict, but you're very elitist. We all are. Bay12 is a very elitist place, mafia is a very elitist game, and skilled people are elitist over less skilled people. Add it all together and we have an elitist group of players playing an elitist game on an elitist site. We've tried pretty hard to be more inclusive but honestly, I don't think we're doing enough. Attendance rankings are not going to magically improve the player counts, NSBM and other segue-way games will. The attendance board will reduce flaking, so it is important. It's just not enough, that's all.

Elitism causes either a decrease in new players or a big rush of new players thinking the elite place is... well, for the elite and cool and they want to be elite and cool. Let's just say that the B12 Mafia forum is not particularly cool. So logically if we want to attract new players, we need to be less elitist and do more stuff to encourage new players to stay by helping new players to start playing and making them feel welcome. Having a super-harsh ranking system that severely punishes minor mistakes is the pinnacle of exclusive. New players don't care about their rank but they won't be happy to find they've been rejected from the game they wanted to play because of a prod or two. So logically the ranking system should be very generous, particularly about prods and other warnings.

Here's the craziest part, however. I want somebody planning on modding a game besides Webadict who plans on excluding B-rankers from their game. Anybody at all? Nobody but Webadict excludes B-rankers? Then why are we even drawing a line there? It just divides the community and makes B-rankers feel bad about things that may not even be in their control. We should take this to a vote. All in favor of abolishing the B-rank, speak up. All in favor of keeping the B-rank, also speak up. If you're neutral, continue having no strong feelings one way or the other but do speak up that you don't care.


One major problem with the old system was that forced replaces were very harshly punished, yet if you came up with an excuse you basically got a free pass. How about three kinds of absence? Planned absence (you told the mod beforehand, no punishment if at least 12 hours in advance, warning if 11 hours in advance or less), complete absence (not logging into B12 at all, minor punishment independent of # of games taking part in), and selective absence (logging into B12 but not posting in the mafia game(s) the player's in. Major punishment per game).

[Vector]

I'm all right with removing the B rank so long as you rename the letters below it.