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See June 19th emails.

Are you talking about e-mails sent to the community? Cause I've never received any CYS emails...
 

Nope. Don't worry :)

Only people who are deemed worthy enough received emails...

Yeah. Just one person, actually.

Hey tell me what this e-mail iz!!! Pleezz!

Just check the title, it's pretty obvious :P

But what's with the June 19th emailz?

I'm opposed to this, and totally  not just because I would probably lose my glory top poster trophy.

I'm sure Delta and Claw are against it too. The poster trophy is supposed to be a proxy for site involvement. When it was conceived, the forum game subforum didn't even exist. Now, though, there are members with top poster trophies that really haven't contributed anything to the site in general, and only contribute to forum games which don't really actually have anything to do with CYS.

I will also lose a lot of posts. Go look up Continent 1 or Arc, Fieldball or the most recent continent.

Then, shouldn't reading corner and lounge posts be discounted too? They aren't any more related to the site than forum games.

No, they shouldn't because they are more related to the site than Forum Games are.

Forum Games are microcosmic entities where only a select set of users who are playing in the game will actually read what's going on. The Lounge and Reading Corner are not at all similar. Not everyone will post in every thread, but the expectation is that everyone will glance at every thread. Most people won't read forum game threads that they aren't participating in.

Oh, okay, the way you word it, it sounds like only things related to the site should count—in " really haven't contributed anything to the site in general, and only contribute to forum games which don't really actually have anything to do with CYS," I thought you meant by "CYS" the actual site, not "users of CYS".

Gotcha.

I think the forum games are beneficial to the site -- they give people another reason to stick around.

But, should they count towards the number of forum posts attributed to a member? That is the issue here, not whether or not forum games should be allowed.

I get that. But the argument against counting forum game posts seems to be 'forum games don't contribute the the site,' and I'd argue that they do.

They give reason for sticking around, sure. But So does smoking weed. That doesnt make it useful for the site though. There are many people who 'stick around' for the forum games but have done NOTHING for the site at all. 

nate

Well, I'd argue that the forums games ARE part of the site...

Some do, the problem is the many that don't. A lot of the forum games are simply there to spam whatever comes to mind - and although there are long complex games that do contribute to the writing advancements and intelligence of the members of the website, there are an almost equal amount that do not. It is also a problem of unfairness - since forum games seem to be the easiest place to post replies, it's likely no one that does not involve themselves with forum games is going to be able to have a top poster trophy; and so small complaints are filed, but it's to the point where a new member could never hope to be a top poster with years of posting without joining the forum games. They don't like forum games though, so what do they do? They just post into other forums with no hope of ever achieving the top poster trophy (albeit, fairly useless - since trophies don't do anything) but the competitive spirit will drive people to go against their comfort, and we don't want new members to say "I'll never be able to amount to this or that."

I vote nay. I doubt anyone plays the forum games just for post count, so it's not likely to dip in popularity even with the change. Overall, not counting the forum games posts shouldn't have a very big effect - and so it comes down to who wants a trophy and who doesn't care; if they want a trophy for posting then they'll have to post useful stuff in the other sub forums. Which is a good thing, however I'm unsure of the statistics. Who posts in the forum games sub forum just to have a trophy? It might be a lot of people for all I know. If it is a surplus of people going for a top poster trophy, then the lounge is likely to get a popularity boost and may become more like a place to spam than to post. If it's a small amount of people, or no people - then the forums won't change at all, only post count will change and no one is going to care. So, I agree that posts in the forum-games section should not be attributed to the post count of members.

Whether or not they do it for the trophy is not relevant. The posts are counted either way, and they make it harder for those who do not play forum games to get recognition for their contributions. 

It is relevant, because that's the way many people are. So I have to take into account competitive personalities and personas that would like useless glory in the form of an icon.

Well, there are people who play an assload of forum games without the intention of getting the trophy. Like 3J said, Forum games are an isolated environment that only certain people take part in. The purpose of the trophy is to recognize those who have contributed the most through forum posts. Therefore, posts shouldn't count forum games.

I agree that they shouldn't, but when addressing a group of people we should take each type of person into account. That includes what will bother them and what won't with this certain topic. The trophy won't bother most people, and trophies are useless to many as well, but there is still a small group that care about trophies - so we must count there interests into the equation before deciding the outcome.

I'd also vouch that they (RPs, at least) help with writing skills.

However, many forum games are practically just spam. And hose threads are I my not deleted because they are games (make a bad wish, etc.)

Another note, people should probably not be on a writing site just for playing.

^^^^^^^last sentence sums it up perfectly. 

nate

This is a site for playing...storygames. IMHO, forum games detract from the purpose of the site. Still, I do not feel that we should banish them; they do keep people from just up and leaving. But, forum game posts should not count towards the total posts count.

You know what else helps with writing skills? Millions of things! Forum posts are meant to be a proxy for total site activeness and too many users have huge post counts due to very narrow activeness and that's what I'm trying to prevent.

Yes.

Even if rps help with writing skills, most of threads I've glanced at there that are roleplays tend to have more short posts. Perhaps I'm judging harshly from my days in forum rps on other sites with one paragraph mininums for posting and long orignal post detailing the world/location of the rp, but it doesn't seem that one or two sentences post would really help one's writing skills improve.

Current top ten Lounge posts:

Supervillian match-ups?

How To Forget Someone You Loved But Never Got?

[Point Rewards] Draw My Attention 2 ...

I'm such a flake. How are you guys? XD

EVOLVE the Game

What is "Nationstate?"

Your favorite (non-video) games?

What is wrong with sharks????

Another addition for getting my trophy

Boroke a thousand

Where's my trophy?

 

With one obvious exception, I would argue that none of these threads 'contribute' any more than forum game posts do. And as Tan points out, at least the RP-oriented games contribute to people's writing skills, which they may end up applying to a storygame.

Hi Morgan. As I explained up above:

I'm sure Delta and Claw are against it too. The poster trophy is supposed to be a proxy for site involvement. When it was conceived, the forum game subforum didn't even exist. Now, though, there are members with top poster trophies that really haven't contributed anything to the site in general, and only contribute to forum games which don't really actually have anything to do with CYS.

It's not just about adding to the site, it's about interacting with more than just the members in your forum games. When a post goes in the lounge, even if it's a dumb thread, everyone reads it. That's not true of forum games. Take, you, for example. We've talked, maybe once. Maybe twice. You have 6000 posts. I've never ONCE talked to Claw. Not once.

I agree. People who spend a moderate amount of time on the forums should at least have seen a post or two by the top posters. Aside from Forum Games, it also marks that they have participated in all the areas of the Forums as well, or at least most of them. You couldn't get Top Poster for posting in only one singular forum section except Forum Games, you'd have to participate in a few areas.

Having the lounge count makes far more sense than Forum Games, because the posts you make there build up the community. Forum games aren't very inclusive. That's my problem with it.

Yep. Exactly.

I think my trophy count vouches for my lack of any personal interest in the gamification of posting. :P

It's just... I like this site. I feel like I'm actually a member of a community here, which is more than I can say for the rest of the internet. And if you'd asked me what I contributed to the site, I would have said 'the Tavern.'

But... you're right. It doesn't actually have anything to do with CYS.

You've contributed by informing others about writing competitions too!

I actually agree with this, mainly for 3J's reasoning. The forum games community is a gated one. Most of the poster there only post there.

but not only that, but us RPers are a fickle bunch. As you can see, Drak and I are part of the highest posters (mwhahahaha). But, both Drak and I are not posting nearly as often. I'm slowly leaving the site's presence, and that's true of Drak as well. We both migrated to greener RP forums, with better (in our opinion) role players and such.

But we look like the most prevalent posters. That's a problem.

Od suggest having a trophy for outside the forum games and in them (if possible)

No need to reward forum game RPers with a poster, IMO, but agreed otherwise.

Yeah, but it avoids all the problems Killa brings up about making a rift between members. Everyone would be happy with it.

I'm not too worried about a rift, to be honest. We're not banning forum games.

Reading the posts made...

So if you try to make a 'community event' game (like madglee did at one point) where everyone could be included, it should go to the lounge?

It should go in Forum Games because it's a forum game. I'm not overly concerned over the few posts that are lost to those (very rare) situations.

On the one hand, I can see why you'd want this. Those who post in forum games tend to have many more posts because that's the nature of forum games, especially with RPs. Many people who play forums games stick solely to those forums games, and as such sort of become a niche member of the community, thus making the top poster trophies not accurately portray the prominent members of the community (like it's supposed to).

On the other hand, I really don't think the poster trophy is that big a deal, and as it stands the trophy itself is only stated to reflect number of posts made by a member, not their quality or involvement in the community. We created the forum game sub-forum because there was an obvious demand for it. Even if it doesn't pertain to what the site was originally about, it's a big part of it now.

At the end of the day I don't really care either way lol. I do think it could be the start of a rift in the community if we try and shrug off the forum games as pointless posts with no value to the community though.

It's not that they have no value to the community. The only reason we track forum posts is because it's supposed to be a proxy for community involvement. When you're positing nearly exclusively in small, isolated communities which aren't viewed by most of the site, you're not really involved in the community. We're not talking about removing the forum games section, just that users who post there nearly-exclusively, aren't really involved in the community overall.

I agree. Overall they aren't involved in the community as a whole, but they're still a part of it. Discounting posts made there is the same as saying what they do has nothing to do with the community, which just isn't true.

On a tangential note, someone really needs to start up a Continent type game again.

Discouting forum game posts just means that posts will once again be a good metric for community involvement, there's no grandiose statement about forum game players.

I agree! If I could digitize the whole process (rather than just most of it, like last time), I'd do it.

I'm sort of like Killa in that it doesn't bother me either way, but I can't see any real fault in JJJ's argument for implementing this along with some of the other reasons in favor of it. 

It's not like the forum games are being done away with, and I would think that the post count increase for participation wouldn't be the primary reason for playing in them. Presumably your goal is to play for fun so no longer being able to increase your post count and then gaining trophies for that shouldn't matter to you.

Some people's post count will literally drop from 20k to less than 1k if that happens.

That's not true. Only one user even has 20k posts.

I was kind of exaggerating...

lol

Lol, it didn't sound that way when you said that they would literally drop from 20k to less than 1. 

Okay, but now you know. xD

Haha, you work on fact checking and I'll work on figuring out what the word literally means.

Like literally I go fact checking, and you go figure out what the word 'literally' mean?

As a top poster trophy holding fool with quite a few post from the forum games, I think that not counting forum games posts for the top poster trophy is a fine idea. I have no problem with it.

That, or just regularly prune old forum games that are deemed 'fluff' (which will have the same effect in the end, as deleted posts are removed from your total post count on daily system updates).

Im all for 'pruning'. its less work in the end and yes, same result. 

nate

I think it's more work and I think looking at old forum games is kinda cool.

^got to agree here - some old forum games are quite entertaining to read through!

Assasin in The Palace, for example.

Indeed.