Whose Running Things? Need Help!


skeezix

Internal Development
Joined
Mar 11, 2003
Messages
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www.codejedi.com
It'd be cool if things could just run themselves, but its a lot of work to get 'there'. (ie: for score submission and keeping a database and all that,m would need lots of CGI coding doing, and since it'd be hard to tie it into the forum, it'd need a login session manage retc, so a big drag. So not going to happen at least for a long time :)

As such, I think theres a few 'roles' at play, and anyone can do those roles; certainly I've tried to kick things off, but I'm totally welcome to hanging everything over to anyone who wants to run with it, if they and folks think they can do whats needed. But whats needed?

Each role could be mutiple couple of people, as long as they coordinate to not step on each others feet

- Scorekeep; for each game-round (such as Season 1 Game 1) there should be a post, that folks can reply to to enter their submission. Hopefully people will just edit their post if they want to update their score to avoid duplication, but Scorekeep will have to.. so the Score keep is to manage the scores and calculations, but not manage the posting/threading otherwise.

i) create the biweekly score post (before the round ideally), so that folks can reply during that round. Ideally, a mod or admin can pin the post for awhile and then unpin it sometime after the round is over : example http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/58385-rot-season-1-game-1-submit-scores-here-deadline-feb-12-2011/
ii) troll through the previous biweekly score post and build up the list of .. game-round-# / player / game / score - and achievements
iii) order the scores into the buckets and update the score post with the final round-tally -- player and how many league points they get that round, then hand the info over to league admin to update the master leaderboard post

- League Admin
Job is just to own the master leaderboard and FAQ posts, and be final say during disputes.
i) given the score post update from Scorekeep, update the running league tally in the main post for the season -- the leaderboard is probably what everyone is watching here.
ii) at season end, determine and announce winner, brag rights, etc.
iii) along with mods (pickle? prometheus?) pin and unpin the game round posts to keep relevent posts near the top?

- Gamekeep
This is the guy doing a lot of the posting to keep things moving, so the Admin and Scorekeep don't have to, and Gamekeep owns the game decision making process
i) Post and troll the current rounds nomination post and figure out what the top requests are, to be voted on. Example: http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/58386-rot-season-1-game-2-nominate-games-to-play/
ii) Post the Vote, given the nominations, and after a few days, declare the winning 2 games that will be for the next round
iii) Post and troll the next round discussion thread for scoring ideas, so that the scoring method can be determined for the games than won the vote
iv) Start and maintain the current game round thread, announcing the games, scoring style, screenshots. ie: This is the post that would be titled like http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/58384-rot-season-1-feb-through-april-2011-games-leaderboard-scoring/

Anything else?

Given this division of labour, it should pretty easy to run everything.

So, nominate yourself.. who wants to be Scorekeep, and who wants to be Gamekeep, and anyone want to be Admin?

I can define the Scoring in precise steps based on the stuff in the FAQ; I've been tempted to write up an app for it, but thats a bit of a ways off :p

jeff
 
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This might be a good way for Blue Protoman to use up his Super Fusion Generator Posting Powah :)

jeff

edit: or heck, Prometheus .. you seem to have boundless energy as well, you want to take over any of this? I know, you're a mod, so already busy, but hey, you're also pretty fair handed and clever as well :)
 
skeezix said:
This might be a good way for Blue Protoman to use up his Super Fusion Generator Posting Powah :)

jeff

you want to be able to find anything :p

Im planning on being pretty active in this so I can help with managing threads.

For scores I think each player should reply with scores, if they need to update scores then edit the one post with the latest info. This would keep one copy of the latest information for those doing the trolling. Also scores should only be posted no discussions, make a separate thread for that i.e talk about the game or whatnot.
 
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I think I spelled it out pretty well in the post above and in the threads so far .. you're right on the money.

I'm just thinking that instead of me creating and maintaining threads, we appoint a Scorekeep, and for someoen to do the votes and nominations etc, we appint a Gamekeep, etc.

This is another one of those things where it'd be awesome for someone who wants to help out in the community, but doesn't code or whatever, could really help out. *shrug*

Pickle -- you want to be Scorekeep? ;) *the finger points!*

jeff
 
Erk, gamekeep sounds like quite a lot of work - handling nominations, voting and sorting out scoring methods. Arguments, arguments and more arguments! Although looking at the FAQ, I reckon sorting out 'fair' scoring is going to cause the most arguments.
 
Scoring is pretty easy I think and timelines are wide so not too bad.. Its achievement games that would be more eork.

You up? ;)

Or even take the hat but corral others to help, but hoping to get one guy to do the postings for season one :)

Jeffphone
 
I'd like to help in some way, but I don't know if I would have time to do a dedicated position. Also, I feel that Gamekeep might be an easier position if it was a small group of gamekeeps. There could maybe be a dedicated head or maybe the admin could head the group. That just seems to me to make the position a little more flexible for users who might want to help.

-God Ginrai
 
Okay, let me see how this works:

Week 1,day 1 (Wed): Post the current round thread, formally announcing the games to play (and how).
Also week 1, day 1: Post the next round game nominations thread
Week 1, day 5 (Mon): Finish off the nominations thread
Also week 1, day 5: Post the vote thread
Week 2, day 3 (Sat): Count up the votes.
Also week 2, day 3: Initiate scoring discussion (possibly in new thread)
Week 3, day 1 (Wed): Rinse and repeat

I had to only allow 4/5 days for each activity to fit in nominations, voting and deciding on scoring in sequence - although I guess often deciding on scoring shouldn't take long since the nominations include scoring suggestions.

I guess I could manage that. God Ginrai, if you'd like to help out with the workload and trolling the threads that'd be cool.
 
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Ah, interesting. I'd not been following that thread after voting in the poll, but I did consider an idea to do the three required tasks (shortlisting, voting, score setting) over two cycles, but that leaves the problem of bootstrapping the coming second game given we should have started discussing what games to play in it before now in that case.

The solution I came up with is designed to allow weekend and weekday users to have a chance to get involved in all three stages, although it has the downside that I'll definitely need to put it down in my calendar if I'm going to remember to do it. I'd have preferred a simpler 'this week do this, this week do that' type thing more like your proposal, but unless we combine two of the steps three into two doesn't go cleanly.
 
levi said:
I'd have preferred a simpler 'this week do this, this week do that' type thing more like your proposal, but unless we combine two of the steps three into two doesn't go cleanly.
I already assumed people would get confused by that. For simplification, here's a graphical representation of the current approach:


Code:
------------------------ Thread sliding mechanism for gp32x             
retro gaming league - graphical representation. ------------------------
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
Game suggestion and game voting threads for games played                
---------------     -----------      during these two weeks ---         
    |                    |                                    |         
    |       --------------              -----------------------         
    |       |                           |                               
    |       |                           |                               
    |       |                           |                               
    |       |                           |                               
    |       |                           |                               
 ------- -------                 ---------------                        
                                                                        
|-------'-------|-------'-------|-------'-------|                       
                                                                        
 --------------- ---------------                                        
       |                |                                               
       |                |                                               
       |                |                                               
       |                |                                               
       |                |                                               
       |                -----------------------------------------       
--------------                                                  |       
Scoring system thread for games played during these two weeks ---       
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
------------------------------------------------------------------------

edit-30jan2011-0733GMT+1: I misunderstood you because the league's FAQ clearly states that we're using the sliding system that is graphically represented above. Yes, we should have started a discussion first. But I'm not the initiator of this gaming league, so I refrained from taking over responsibility for implementing the idea.

Anyway, the actual discussion is now out-of-sync with the sliding mechanism, so we either need a way to correct it or find a new system. I'd suggest doing the former by opening a thread as soon as possible about discussing the games for weeks 5 and 6, and for weeks 3 and 4 continue as you said. That way, we could get the system in sync with the weekends again.
 
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Not had time to read much but.. I rather gigured game2 would be rushed and we'd get on track for game 3? ie: pick easy to score games as I did for game1?

Jeffphone
 
Christoph.Krn said:
I misunderstood you because the league's FAQ clearly states that we're using the sliding system that is graphically represented above. Yes, we should have started a discussion first. But I'm not the initiator of this gaming league, so I refrained from taking over responsibility for implementing the idea.

Ah, you're quite right. I hadn't understood your proposal by the time I first read that, so I must have glossed over it. I must say I'm slightly concerned about having a whole two weeks to discuss scoring mechanisms for the two games. All that needs is for everyone involved to have played the game enough (or have read up about it) to have an idea how it could be scored. Having announced the games two weeks early, people with more spare time have a whole two weeks to practice the game, putting everyone else at a disadvantage and starting a sort of arms race.

However, we can tweak the system as we go. Jeff's happy with your original proposal, as he states it in the FAQ.

Anyway, the actual discussion is now out-of-sync with the sliding mechanism, so we either need a way to correct it or find a new system. I'd suggest doing the former by opening a thread as soon as possible about discussing the games for weeks 5 and 6, and for weeks 3 and 4 continue as you said. That way, we could get the system in sync with the weekends again.

Okay, I'll put up the 'nominate for game 3' thread in a mo, and I'll see if I can put up the 'vote for game 2' thread tomorrow. We seem to have a reasonable number of suggestions already.

Edit: Arg, I can't really do that. I'd expect a lot of people to want to renominate the games they nominated for before that didn't make it through to the vote. Okay, I'll try to do the 'vote for game 2' thread today to try to get that moving along, and play it by ear from there.

Can we lock the 'nominate for game 2' thread? Would we want to?
 
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levi said:
I must say I'm slightly concerned about having a whole two weeks to discuss scoring mechanisms for the two games. [...] Having announced the games two weeks early, people with more spare time have a whole two weeks to practice the game, putting everyone else at a disadvantage and starting a sort of arms race.
When looking at the fairness of the league for people with much free time compared to people with less free time, I doubt that 4 weeks compared to ~2.5 weeks would make a big difference for much-timers. In both cases it would probably be enough time for them to reach a pretty high percentage of the score they were able to achieve when given endless time, while for less-timers (especially for those who can only play at the weekends), a duration of 4 weeks compared to ~2.5 weeks may make a much more significant difference. This way, it /might/ actually be more fair, especially when considering that we're talking about the upcoming games, not the current ones, which would also have to be played and thus taken into consideration.

I guess we'll just have to see how well it goes and adjust the system when it becomes clear that it's a good idea to do so.

With the current "fair scoring mechanism", we can't get high accuracy anyway, so this might be a good way to go. Then again, I would also like to have a more precise system, but given the restriction that this league is meant to be enjoyable by less-timers as much as it can be by much-timers, the idea of having high precision seems to be out of reach - at least currently.


levi said:
Can we lock the 'nominate for game 2' thread? Would we want to?
I don't think that's a solution to anything.
What I'd do would probably be to pick games out of the game-2 voting thread for game-3 on my own so we can skip a whole discussion series.
 
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Christoph.Krn said:
This way, it /might/ actually be more fair, especially when considering that we're talking about the upcoming games, not the current ones, which would also have to be played and thus taken into consideration.
That's a good point, and one I hadn't considered.

Christoph.Krn said:
I guess we'll just have to see how well it goes and adjust the system when it becomes clear that it's a good idea to do so.
I agree entirely, which is why I've kicked off the vote. I'm sure we can fine tune the system as we go, so we may as well get started and have this sort of discussion when we've got more of a feel for what works and what doesn't. For now I'll try to swing the schedule round till it matches what you discussed on the other forum.

Christoph.Krn said:
With the current "fair scoring mechanism", we can't get high accuracy anyway, so this might be a good way to go. Then again, I would also like to have a more precise system, but given the restriction that this league is meant to be enjoyable by less-timers as much as it can be by much-timers, the idea of having high precision seems to be out of reach - at least currently.
For me this is as much about finding out who's best as it is about getting to enjoy all the games I used to, which is more about having a goal to aim for and having a bit of banter about it with your mates.

Christoph.Krn said:
levi said:
Can we lock the 'nominate for game 2' thread? Would we want to?
I don't think that's a solution to anything.
What I'd do would probably be to pick games out of the game-2 voting thread for game-3 on my own so we can skip a whole discussion series.
Well, the nominations are over - there's no point posting in there since we're no longer taking nominations for the next game (or the one after that as it will be). As it is, I've just put a posting in there to that effect. There probably isn't any need to lock it though, just let it sink naturally.

One thing that did occur to me as I wrote that thread closer is it might be nice to always have a nominations thread open - as one closes the next one opens so that whenever an idea occurs to someone they can post it there. But that's just an idea and I won't act on it now - just see how it works once we're running the one week nominate, one week vote system properly.

Speaking of which, we'll probably have to start the game 3 scoring late. If we were to be fully up to speed by the start of game 2 we'd need to have voted and score set game 2 (which we need to do anyway) and nominate and vote game 3 so that we can spend game 2 score setting game 3 (while nominating on the first week and voting on the second for game 4). That's four threads (finish vote 2, do score set 2, do nominate 3, do vote 3) in 10 days. No biggy, just might be a few days late starting the score setting for game 4, fyi. Just planning aloud really.
Scratch that. We can run the score setting (really need a better name for that) at the same time as the round 3 nominations. After all, when we're running to plan, we'll be nominating and voting at the same time as score setting so we can consider this more of a trial run - just with three days for nominate and vote 3 each rather than seven. So on Thursday I close the vote, declare the winners, kick off the score setting and at the same time open the nominate round 3 thread to run until Sunday.
 
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Should we just make it a 'monthly nominate' thread, instead of 'for game X' thread?

ie: Obviously, if a nomination is good for one batch it'd be good for the next; so one big thread that lasts forever could work too, but I coudl see it getting 'tired and long', so maybe just repost a nomination thread every month or two, to let old nominations fall off?

As to vote and bootstreapping the first season, its a little gofy right now, but you got it .. lets just move as fast as we have to go get on 'schedule', and then easy-pleasy :) (Or we change the schedule as we see what fits.)

Alright -- I guess Levi and Christoh.Krn are stepping up as Gamekeeps! :) Thanks!

jeff
 
It would make my life easier if the nominate threads were reset each round, at least if people are going to nominate so many games! I'm also going to have to go through the nominate and vote threads again when starting the score setting thread, since I want to include the suggestions people have already made. So I vote for keeping them short (and having new ones for each game).
 
or just pick a smaller set that can be voted on with a traditional poll. easy cheesy, Japanesey

My offer still stands to manage a master nominee list thread that is pulled from for each round. We would have one thread that all nominations were posted to, I would gather them and list them in the first post sorted by genre and also subtract off games once we've played them. Seems to me like that should make life easier for levi, and that's just about the level of commitment I could put towards this. I wanted to help but all of the 'keeps sounded like they required more time than I had. This would be very doable for me.
 
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