Alright, let's be honest here: the orders are entirely fucked. I mean, the Sages have more commendations than every other order combined. Fuck it, I personally have more commendations than the Marauders and the Wardens. The entire idea of competition kind of falls apart when one order is infinitely better than all the other ones. Hence, I have a few potential solutions to this.
Let me fuck right off and not be part of this
Really, one of the simplest solutions. It doesn't completely solve the issue, but it eliminates a big amount of the commendations the Sages have and puts them on more equal ground, and also eliminates the vast majority of complaints about the orders because they're all from me. I don't even need my own order. Just have a blank spot for me. Is that too much to ask?
Randomize it again
Alright, the dice didn't work out evenly this time, but another roll will probably make things a little more fair.
Have people pick teams
This idea's stupid, because everyone would just be changing teams and being little bitches. Don't do this. Why is it even one of the solutions I put forward? I needed to fill space.
Have Mods pick
This one I like, because it reminds me of picking people for dodgeball. Each mod gets an order, to be fair, and they get like, what, ten picks and the rest are randomized? This avoids the inevitable fuck up of randomness not working out, and adds a cruelty aspect I quite enjoy.
Really, I just want to bring up how badly this has worked out and start a discussion. I'm open to other opinions on it.
I didn't even notice that until you pointed it out. When did this Order thing start?
Just admit that you're currently going through a bout of special snowflake syndrome. Just accept that you're sage to you die. :D
Well, you are now if the orders aren't randomized again or something. But even then, you will always have been a sage first.
Forever and always.
The orders thing isn't really a faction war at this point. It's supposed to just give people community-based encouragement to earn points and contribute, other than mutual respect and all that bullshit we used to have, because that just seems too hard for some people, all things considered.
I think the idea was that "We've got to be better than all of them!" would factor into it, and therefore by getting points for yourself, it wouldn't matter that you aren't on top, because now everyone on the team has been inadvertantly helped. Personally, I think the sages being the permanent redlink masters of all gives the other, inferior factions better incentive to attempt to win their pyrrhic victories.
I really don't think the other orders are willing to pull a Vietnam (or try their hardest) just for an Internet title, as people don't tend to have a strong team mentality, rather choosing to do well for themselves. The orders do seem unbalanced, though the fact that they were picked at random is kinda how equality and justice differ from each other: you can pick balanced teams, but make some people mad, or choose at random, though if your team is better in this case then people don't get to complain because it "just happened". Many people don't care about orders, and it seems at times that only sages (the people "benefited" by them) care.
The order system seemed like an interesting proposal, but it seems to be wrongly executed. It was meant to be democratic, as it was supposed to allow everyone an equal chance of having their contributions amount to something, but it just didn't work, it only showed that some people were considered better contributors than others and those that do care from the orders other than the sages do not feel they are being represented fairly because the rest of their teams are pulling them down. It would be better perhaps, to have a top contributor each week, instead of relying on "one or two good writers" as Mizal put it, to "win" as the best order.
The amount of people who log on is much, much higher than the amount of people who go on and do things. There's still the same chance our writers, reviewers, and forummers all get lumped into the same team again and the others get stuck with more or less dormant figures.
That's why the picking teams approach works.
Then we have to pick again whenever people go dormant, or a bunch of new people join/come out of dormancy/stop lurking and make things disbalanced again. How many names do we put on the pick list? How do we determine what qualifies as "Active" and "Barely active" and "Inactive"?
Fuck it, let them pick of whoever they want. They'll hardly pick some random, dormant fuck face. You might need to pick again at some point, but eh, that's far enough into the future that we don't need to care. Plus, once people start joining and leaving and shifting things it's as likely to cancel it out as randomizing, but certain to even it out short term.
Just who decided to chop up onions at this time? :(
It's really more like complaining about how no one recycles while not recylcing. "But I'm just one guy! If no one else does it, which they won't, why does it matter?!"
Capitalism at its finest.
Story commendation points are based on how large the story is. Steve made a big ass story which is why Steve got a shitload of points for the Sages recently.
Eh, I still don't really see the big deal about commendations. Or rather I guess I understand why other people like them, but personally I just look at them like another version of points with a few more bells and whistles.
If anything the commendation system just makes the various admins more generous or stingier than others.
I'd probably be more inclined to give out commendations if I could take away commendation points away for various reasons. Since there are no take backsies, I'm sort of reluctant to go around commending people. A featured comment is just 3 points and automatic, so I've been mostly sticking with those.
I do wonder why I got 36 commendations (which translated into 13 points) for a single story, I assumed it was to try to make whatever group I belong to feel better about their performance
It was more to make YOU feel good about your performance, but hopefully, the group feels good about it too. 36 commendations is worth about 12 featured comments so it's not a crazy amount. The additional 13 points is almost half a month of daily points. You can see how contributing to the site can be a worthwhile endeavor, even if you're just trying to earn EXP.
I also was a little disappointed by the fact this order thing came in JUST AFTER I'd been getting comments featured for the last two months when suddenly they would have been worth three times as much and now pretty much all my comments that were going to get featured are featured.
That's fair, but there are still plenty of stories with sub-par or not enough featured comments.
Also I miss the free point thing and have no idea how to get points/commendations now there's no daily point. I think the great people who maintain site standards get the points they would have got anyway while most other site members who relied on the daily points are just ticking along on review points.
Yeah, now you need to get a commendation every three days in order to match the point number you would have received from the daily point. That seems fair to me. As mizal pointed out, there are plenty of ways to receive commendations.
@Will11
No, you should never nerf. Just buff the others. It's more fun that way.
Ford's complaining has changed my mind, please change nothing. Fuck it, if their inability to work keeps them down, then maybe they're just inferior. Sages are just better, it seems.
Obviously it's the fault of the other orders. For instance, you're part of the reason your order is shit and are a failure who should do better.
I have my suspicions that at least one person abandoned their regular handle for a new one that happened to be in the Sage Order, so some people are probably already trying to "pick" teams.
I mean I can't prove it, but I feel like B101 did that.
Picking teams though this way, sort of only works though if you're a relative noob or don't have much going on anyway. You just keep making alts until you get on the "winning team."
no plz ill miss u
You know what?
I'm fucking tired of all of the admin pets getting all of the commendations. Despite me doing absolutely nothing worthy of commending! It's time for a change around here...
We should all get commendations for simply logging in everyday. It can be called the "daily commendation."
That would truly bring order and equality around here.
You damn admin favorites and police dogs.
I'm sure Kumquat would appreciate a daily commendation system in place. Lol.
I know right? I'm sure that the enjoyment of a such a thing wouldn't be just exclusive to him, as well.
I tried to write an Architect Call to Arms kind of thread, but it only got two other people to post in it. So maybe it was trash writing, or maybe it drowned in the flood of new threads being made in Creative Corner. My heavy implying might have even been missed that it was a thread for others to put stuff in, but I have no idea. I just consider it like I went to help someone up from tripping and falling, only to fall myself. Even worse than that, I fell and only a couple people noticed I fell.
I have no idea about the whole new order thing though. The Sages do seem to have an odd amount of people that consistently help out, while the others don't have as much.
I don't think people really knew about it, I didn't know about it, and I consider myself a pretty active lurker around here (though that's a lame excuse). To be honest, I kinda consider that the Lounge and the story games are the main attraction of this place because of the things we can talk about there or play.
I don't really think that anybody apart from the serious-artists/writing-experts/people-who-take-this-place-as-a-serious-writing-site think much about the CC or the WW, and those seem like 1 out of 5 daily visitors. Most commendations seem to happen there too.
I think what I'm trying to say is, we don't really care enough around here, and, as an added bonus, we are pretty judgmental of what other people do and so we praise that, though some people consider it unappealing. We tried being serious, but only showed how casually we take this.
Sorry, I meant that whole "Architect call to arms" thingy.
Yes, despite being willing to waste a lot of your time on here, you don't say anything worthwhile enough to be commended, do anything that benefits anyone or don't write anything, terrific. Be proud of your contentment in your inadequacy.
Yes, actually, I'm pretty much a tumor here: I don't produce nor take away, just exist. But, just like any other tumor in real life, I exist and I can be here, although I use this place like a second Facebook, only checking some things that might interest me instead of trying to create something worthwhile.
If you think that I must care about what others do and criticize it, or that I must contribute some sort of masterpiece worthy of being mentioned in tvtropes in order to be here, then, I must inform you that I will do that if I want to, whenever I want to and if I can pull myself to bring something as good as a featured game. Otherwise, would I be contributing? Yes. Would it be worthwhile? No. As I mention in my profile, I'm only here for fun, not to become some master of the written word.
I'm only mentioning that most people (me included), don't really do much for our orders, and that some (including me), might not feel motivated to do much more than what we do now by the orders. I'm telling you that the orders brought the spotlight upon the people who do contribute to the site in meaningful ways, but might be dragged down by being in a team where nobody else cares.
Is the fact that you're content with your failure to contribute supposed to impress me or something? The fact that you're OK with creating nothing or worth while still wasting your time away here isn't some badge to be proud of, its evidence that you don't value your time and have no grand aspirations. Self-awareness is something that's usually valued, but here it almost seems wasted.
My aspirations don't include to become a valued member here, just to witness and sometimes interact with the community, which is the aspect that attracts me the most to the site. While I do consider I should be more active, or rather valuable in terms of contributions, I don't think that will happen in the near future, games take time to make. This place is a hobby, not my grand contribution to the human race, I like it, but I really don't take it that seriously.
It's an interesting skill to say exactly jack shit in so many words. If you're not going to do anything but repeat what you've already said, why post?
It feels good to be the last one to speak in an argument, and he wants to take that joy from you.
You know what? Fuck it. I'm making a game soon. I guess I was/am lazy, and that it matters to you because you seem to care a lot about this place, that's good, ambition and care keep you going. But it seems to be another skill of yours to care zero shits about what another person wants to do. I know it's a writing site and I should contribute, and I guess I'll do it just to prove a point? (not really sure about that) But I just made an outside observation, and I would rahtesalkfjslfjslfjslfjsf.
Yes, I do want to have the last word. But I'm going to sleep now, so it's yours if you want to. I will take what you said into consideration though, gotta be a part of something to talk about something.
God, it's almost shameful how quickly your "I don't really care" approach crumbles to "I guess you're right! I'll work harder because I care enough about your opinion to prove the point that I don't care! And I did care about the last word! But now I dont care!" Really, if you're going to go with the disinterested approach, at least keep it up for a few posts before revealing your insecurities.
It's really shameful how seriously you take the internet. I guess you just can't stand anyone who doesn't stand a firm ground, just like you can't stand anyone who wants to do his own thing. Jesus Christ you won't just shut up if you're pleased or displeased, so well, fuck me for giving an opinion, thinking you'd understand it and taking this so seriously. As you won't take the last word and stop bothering me, even if it means agreeing with you, well... this.
Yes, I'm the one taking the internet too serious, rather than the man who's bumbling over his words like a clutz on acid, rather than the man who's so "bothered" he's willing to fault on his opinion. Your opinion was that you should be proud and content in being a, as we both agreed, tumor. For that opinion, you're a dipshit.
I never said I was proud. I said that I had all the right to be here, yet I didn't contribute to anything.
Contented, then.
"You're a useless piece of shit, and you should improve!"
"Okay."
"That wasn't any fun! The first thing you should do to improve is resist improvement more often!"
Well, that makes it seem more fun than it was.
I mean in my defense, he lures me in for an argument, acts all tough and strong and then almost immediately breaks. I guess it's just disappointment. I mean, it's like if I said I'm a brutal killer who never loses a fight and you should give me your wallet, you tell me to fuck off and I actually do. It's both a let down and not the best show of the other guy's character.
Dude. You just relentlessly said that my arguments were invalid. I never tried to get into an argument (but I must admit I tried to get out of it the quickest way possible after the second post). I just said the orders only made the site's active contributors more notorious, and that it really didn't work as and incentive to the rest (speaking as the rest). Then you said all that was invalid because I don't actively try to post something worthwhile.
What arguments, exactly? The ones you almost immediately faulted on? Because it seems you pretty much agreed you were talking utter shite with them when you went from "I don't care" to "Fine, I'll work harder".
Perhaps another way to tackle this problem is to leave the Orders as they are but only count the top 3 people (or something) in the Order totals.
Nah.
But this way, people's efforts still count, the Orders are the same, and it's somewhat more even.
How does everyone's efforts count if you only take the top three members of each team into consideration?
Their continued efforts still count. For example, we have Steve. If he doesn't do shit for another month, then chances are, somebody will catch up to his commendations total and bump him down one. It also may stimulate more competitiveness within an Order instead of just allowing people who don't do anything for the Order to get credit for it.
No, this way only the top people's efforts count. So if you're on a team with three really good members, why even try?
Exactly.
I suppose I can't argue the first point because it's gods-damn true, but I tried to justify it above.
Why even try if you're on the best team anyway?
And at this point Crescentstar realized she was asking Steve about how to solve this issue in a thread he made to solve this issue.
xD Oops, I suppose. I'll leave it to you guys then if my suggestion is invalid/unreasonable. :/
If your retort is that it's not invalid/unreasonable, then I don't care to argue. Do what you want you guys want with the Orders. I'm not sure if anything's going to change anyway. :'(
To be the best of the best of course.
Good reply. One won't only be part of the best team, but also the best member of that team. Pure genius.
Yeah. I guess we never thought of that before. >->
Probably too much of a hassle to code (if even possible here) but another solution could be when one Order gets more points than all the others combined, that order splits into another order (Civil War!) and the new order gets half of the old Order's points along with half of its members.
That sounds terribly messy.
The Civilization video game was going through my mind, when you take a giant civilization's capital and it splits into another civilization.
If the Sages split right now, it would still put the Wardens and Architects on equal footing (or at least within their grasp of competing) with the Sages and whatever the new faction was. And you have to take into consideration that you still have members that are 10 times more active than an entire Order in some cases so it wouldn't be too unbalanced. Plus new people still join the site, so you’d get new members for Orders even after they lost half of their own.
I dunno,I still think it would work as balancer, though I guess there would have to be an Order limit at some point.
Maybe the lowest ranked Orders merge into each other or something.
Hah, nice King of Dragon Pass reference.
EDIT: The guy in the red shirt even looks as angry as Steve seems to be all the time.
Methinketh thou art a manne whomst dost necromance quite verily indeedfully.
This thread and Steve's single-handed crushing of the other orders may just be the pinnacle of this entire order system.
For now.
E: But then again, Ford's bitching was marvelous.
JJJ put in the Orders just to troll Steve.
Most likely.
Probably, but even though I may be a sage I truly wish to be a Maruder! :c
I cry myself to sleep every night of that very fact even.
Trans-order people are people too. :)
*Marauder
Please do not make light of my torment, Zaggy.
I thought the solution was that the total doesn't really matter because it's all based on what was earned the previous day.
The overall cumulative total of an order doesn't matter really.
Unless 3J throws a pizza party at the end of each year for the order who has the highest commendations. Just like how the students with the highest test scores in their class get to eat lunch with the teacher.
Something like that. I may ask him if there's pizza involved.
Given how many people in the Sage Order dislike Thara, I actually do consider her to be a Marauder double agent to some degree. Most people were overjoyed that Steve finally got enough points to get the number one spot just for the fact that they didn’t like seeing Thara carrying the Sages.
(Which of course I was getting a silent chuckle out of while it lasted)
Why don't people like Thara?
^
? :(
I'll tell you why I don't like Thara:
She's a filthy weeb.
That's not true!
I-I cannot believe this! :(
I mean, you aren't filthy.
Well, not in the physical sense.
*applause*
shes ben a naughty gril
I had a good run on top of my fellow Sage brethren.
But all good things must come to an end.
Now there's a new alpha dog of the Sage order. It's only fitting that it's Steve ;)
Steve is a true Sage at heart, even though he denies it with his every breath. The irony isn't lost on me.
Well 100 posts, tons of bitching and name calling and most likely nothing will change.
Another successful Lounge thread.
Do you get off to the community turning into a group of squabbling degenerates? You, sir, are a villain.
No, he's a necessary evil.
Maybe, but at least I don't place women beaters above whores. LOLZ
I don't know what you're talking about.
Of course you don't.
This thread was beneficial in finally making Steve answer his true calling as a Sage.
Maybe.
I most certainly agree.
Is anyone able to archive this thread? That needs to be done before the nukes hit.
Already taken care of.
Archiving is always a good idea, but I certainly had no intention of nuking this thread. I even went to the trouble sweeping up some of the more derailing conversations just to keep it more on topic.
If we're leaving up retarded stuff like Forks and Devil Worshipping, this one is fine.
Not to mention a couple of valid points about the Orders was still brought up.
Does NO ONE see the leviathan in the waters? While certain members of the sages are happily preening in glory and debating the most suiting color of drapes to match the opulent banquet table in their victory chamber, is no one paying attention to what lurks under the waves?
THE END IS COMING.
I mean it, EndMaster writes once a year or so, and with a gigantic whale of a story at that. Assuming Rogues is on its way to top out Eternal's 650k words or say atleast 500k, my blind guess is that it will score something in the range of 250 points for the Marauders. As of now the Sages have 270ish total (including Steve's 130k word work). This war is far from won, stop getting complacent. We'll need more writing to keep the Order cup with the Sages.
You heard it here first, THE END IS COMING, write for your lives!
Based on whatever I've seen right now, and would rather not want to discuss further to dissuade commendation-gaming, my best bet is 250 commendations for 500k.
Not to offend End, but I write faster than him. As long as I don't drop below the commendations level, we're golden.
To offend End, he's a little bitch boy faggot and I'm his superior.
I appreciate how you've covered both your bases with that post
And so, the blind sage was deemed the most sagey of all the sages.
No, I was speaking in response to the last line.
"You might not beat sages by yourself, true, but if you never try you won't know. Just compete with yourself, that's the most fun."
No, that'd cause the winners to snowball. Everyone would want to be on the winning team and have bragging rights.
What you could do is borrow an idea from the gaming industry: announce 'seasons' that last for say 6 months each. You get a medal for being in the winning faction for one season, the medal upgrades the number of times you're part of the winning team for that season. After each season, the Order members are re-rolled, with an equal spread of members amongst the factions, by points earned in the previous season. For example, total points earned from Jan to June = 1000 amongst all orders. Thereafter, each Order is dissolved, and the existing point earners are spread out so that their totals from the last season equal 250 in one house, people with no points are randomly reassigned (this very well could lead to Steve being alone in his new faction).
During my MBA, we had pre-fixed seating in our time (the equivalent of the current order system), the downside was that it limited your ability to learn things from people sitting away from where you were. In the past few years, they've switched to rotating the seating order every other month, so you meet and interact with new people regularly. I believe the new method is better, relevant both there and here.
The question is whether we want permanent orders, or flowing, fluid ones. I'm personally for fluid orders. We are a creative group, not a military one. Entrenchment does not suit us, while meeting people with new thoughts does.
I'm more of a supporter of seasons and redistribution, keep ideas flowing. However, for that ideas have to flow in the first place, hence my follow up points of Order bulletin boards and the like.
I'm strongly against anything that 'docks' commendations, as they're earned on literary merit, which takes time and effort (unlike EXP). Feel free to play poker with EXP points instead
Four things that would help this
An Order 'common room', a notice board type environment only accessible to members of the Order (to be honest, accessible to everyone with an alt) which provides a meeting ground for members of an Order
A Season tracker, showing which Order has the most points till date in that season, and who are the highest earners in that season
A medal tracker > showing the 10 people with the most part of winning team trophies (these trophies increase as time goes by, and people who actively contribute to their team should be winning this across seasons, so there's competition across longer time spans)
On the profile page: Total commendations, Commendations during current season
We are a creative group crafting our work behind the safety of iron borders patrolled by a crack team of Banishers, Berserkers, Killer Robots, and Necromancers. I for one, am comfortable with our hard fought peace (and the screams of alts dying in the background is music to the ears).
Someone somewhere has to take a call when things have to be done, here it's 3J. That's the nature of non-hivemind systems, one person takes the final call, I see no contradiction. And for what it's worth, in my time here I've rarely seen anything alarming in his decisions, rather I've seen him step up and make consistently impactful changes to the site.
(Pardon if I missed an active mod, edit yourself in)
It seems everyone spent so much time arguing about the Orders that nobody got any commendations today and as such everyone is RED.
Glory to Cystikia, comrades.
Cause no trouble.
I just gained so much respect for you Ford
COGristan is not a real country
This was a great read -- thank you all!
You are welcome.
