A Petition For The Game ModStars

since I pushed hard for this game over in the YJCC and provided many of the ideas, I supposed I will add my name to the list. even though I don't think it will do any good. no matter how many names we get. If the administration doesn't like it, it won't happen. and they don't like it. oh well...

Current name list:

Darth_Weirdo
TheBoogieMan
JediJeffro
DarthBane420
padawanskywalker
Raincloud
Padawan_Jess_Kenobi
KrystalBlaze
Anakin_Sleepwalker
Sara_Kenobi
yodahs-daddy
mrslush50

 

Every game should be allowed VIP colors for winning teams/player, or none at all.[/i]

Every game is played differently. Every game has its own rewards and rules. That doesn't mean this one shouldn't have colors and/or title though.

For example, The Gauntlet is a game that wouldn't give the winners any colors and/or titles. Just bannings for the losers. Now that's fun.

 

"Is it because it's based on what Moderators do here that you don't want the winning persons to have colors like you?"

It's because the game itself is entirely too subjective. It's not a trivia game or the Gauntlet or the Mafia where there's a clearcut winner. As near as I can tell, the winner would be chosen from a panel of mod judges based on how the players say they'd handle a given modding situation. There's too much subjectivity there.

I'm all for games and giving out colors. But colors are the ultimate prize at the JC. That's the major reason why people participate in games here and why so many people want to be mods. But this game doesn't seem to be at all fleshed out, other than it needs a forum (which it doesn't, it just needs a thread), mod judges, and there'd be modding situations. If a game winner is going to be awarded colors, the game should at least be fully thoughtout. Otherwise, we might run into problems along the way.

Amazing.

 

Signs list

 

Me: And if the winner gets colors/VIP-ship or whatever, I'm all for it.
DarthAttorney: But would you be equally as enthusastic if there were no colours awarded? Would people be playing this game because it's fun or because they think they'll be noticed and mentioned as a candidate for the next JCC promotion?

Honestly, I would just like to play the game for the heck of it. I think it would be neat to see what might happen in a mod's regular day, or how they handle some of the more extreme/sensitive issues. I don't care a whole bunch about wether or not I'd get colors if I won, I was just saying that that's what I'd prefer if I had a choice.

 

may i suggest that we allow the users to vote on whether the game way of doing things is better than the actual moderator way of doing things? that way not only can it be a fun game for the masses, it can also serve as both an educational tool for the moderators, and as a public consultative assembly, hoorah!

oh, but notwithstanding that i shall be joining DDH's anti tittle-tattle club

 

Where are you getting that I'm anti-tittle? I'm very pro-tittle.

 

But this game doesn't seem to be at all fleshed out

I fleshed it out in great detail in the other thread. Nothing was definate. And things were certainly open to change. But to say that the game hasn't been fleshed out is incorrect. All it really needs is a mod/admin or two to realize that it's a worthy idea and jump on board. That won't happen. I have no hopes that it will happen. But the game is fleshed out.

 

uhhh, mrslush50, you didnt really flesh anything out in great detail. Here is a repost of your big 'fleshing out':

Pick 20 participants.

Then set up a forum.

Give the first five participants mod powers over the forum. Then have all the other mods/admins post in the forum. Use it as their social forum or whatever, it doesn't really matter. (Maybe even allow regular users access to the forum. This may be a problem though, since people would tend to cause problems for the "mods" on purpose.) Then occasionally have an actually mod/adim create some sort of problem or test for the "mods". The first five get a week. Then the next five and so on for four weeks. A winner is picked from each group and the four finalist are given a week together to battle it out for the championship.


The winner should receive brevet-mod powers. Meaning he/she becomes an actual mod, but is on some sort of probation period which means he/she can be demoted at any time should it be deemed necessary.

The four finalists should all receive colors and a title for a certain amount of time.

Thats really light on the details. You've said we make people mods up front, and then whittle down the numbers. People simply wont be made mod up front, nor at any time during or after the game.

You havent mentioned having an idea of the situations being presented to participants, what criteria to judge them on, if there are any penalties for doing poorly (eg you can be banned in the Mafia game), how to avoid having subjective judgement by mods, etc etc etc.

You've simply put an idea out there that the administration makes people mods, and then whittles down the field.

If you want to run a game, fine. Run it. You might even get us to VIP the winner. You might even get 3 mod judges. But you're giving us a vague outline, and then telling us to run everything.
I dont know about the others, but I have enough on my plate between work and modding, to not have the time to run every facet of this game.

 

"Where are you getting that I'm anti-tittle? I'm very pro-tittle"

But what's your stance on tattle, DDH?

 

thanks for proving my point dagsy.

i really can't flesh the game out any more than i have. i have no clue what sort of problem mods/admins have to deal with. i don't know what the game would actually consist of. for those details, we need actually mod input. which won't happen. mods, despite their claims to the contrary, are very proud (and rightfully so) or their colors and special super powers. they don't want to see someone get a "fast lane to modome" so to speak. i don't blame them. but i think that this game (done right) would be very entertaining. and like it or not, it is the administrations job to not only keep this place safe from flaming and trolls, but also to make sure it stays entertaining, fun and enjoyable.

But you're giving us a vague outline, and then telling us to run everything.

i said it before, and i'll say it again, i know that this game will never happen. at least not in the way that it should. i don't really care all that much anymore. but the excuse that the game doesn't have enough details to be moved forward is bogus. the posting public has provided as much detail as they can. now, for the game to continue, admins/mods would have to take over. and sice none of them seems willing to put in the effort (I wouldn't be either) this game is pretty much doa. the only way it would have happened was for a mod to see, really like it, and decide that they wanted to put in the effort. that didn't happen. fine, like i said, i certainly wouldn't want to do it.

 

Strange how all regular users who have commented are for, all but one mod/admin is against?

Look, I just want to see a game where the Mods/Adims could give a problem to a group of regular users.
These users would have 24hours to come up with there solution. There would be 5-10 situations that different mods could suggest.
The winner might get colours or something snazy but that's it. That's not really even necessary.

Now relax, no one here wants to play this to become a mod. As I said if your running around the forum campaiging to be a mod, you have serious social handicaps. This game isn't going to give anyone the "god" or "mod" complex if you will anymore than they are already going to have.

 

you are what i call the "unwilling figurehead" of our movement DDH, enjoy the ride

 

As I've said earlier, I like the idea, and support it.
Even if the winner won't get anything. It's supposed to be fun, ne?

 

Wow! Good points everyone! Atleast we will have a debate of somekind with this. If the ModStars -game won't be reality, still we will create basis on the future of this kind of games.

Current name list:

Darth_Weirdo
TheBoogieMan
JediJeffro
DarthBane420
padawanskywalker
Raincloud
Padawan_Jess_Kenobi
KrystalBlaze
Anakin_Sleepwalker
Sara_Kenobi
yodahs-daddy
mrslush50
-Lord-Vader-
ISD_Devastator

 

Strange how all regular users who have commented are for, all but one mod/admin is against?

Apart from selective counting, there is a large issue wrapped up in this statement. What is being asked here is basically for the moderators to set up, plan, run and decide on an entire game that they might have no wish at all to take part in. So of course "regular" users are going to be for it, there is no way they have to do the hard work, and they are the ones that face a reward of whatever kind. On the other hand, you are asking the moderators to do the entire work-load, and you wonder why some are against it.




Something else that people seem to be jumping over rather quickly is exactly what DDH is bringing up. If you think that people won't start giving other people flak because they are doing something like this, then I have to say, and mean it in the nicest of ways, but you are deluding yourself to the reality that is this message board. You can't seem to be trying to help the moderators genuinely without people labelling you as a brown-noser or trying to work yourself into a mod position. It's been like this ever since the move to Snowboards, and it isn't changing any time soon.




The typical segment could be,
You have just received a PM from user ____ and he wants to know what we can do about _____.

Yes, why not have them like this? You could have something like the following:

"RegularSWFan" PMs you regarding user "DarkLordWoW" stating that she has been harrassed by him in several threads across the three forums they both happen to post in. At no point has any flaming occurred, but she just knows that this guy has it in for her.

What would you do?

It's not like this would be a hard thing to judge, right?

Wrong. I can think of over 50 different ways to handle this situation. Depending on the circumstances (ie, the user histories of both users, and the combinations of those all matter; the threads this 'harrassment' has occurred in; what exactly is said in such posts; the PMs that both users have traded) any one of them could be correct. But 49 of them would be wrong, and at least a few in each case would actually make the problem worse.

For those not convinced yet, let's try this one pulled directly from the JC's moderating archives:

User X comes to you privately regarding a major issue. After serious talks involving members of a group of friends here on the forums, he has the admittance from User Y (a 20-something male user from Nowhereville, USA) that he has been hitting on and starting relationships that have involved certain amounts of 'intimacy' with other users under the age of 16 here on the forums. This has been confirmed by one such female poster, User Z, and independantly corroborated by respectible members A, B and C.

How do you begin to solve this?

Anyone even wish to take a stab in anything that remotely does not resemble a 10 page essay?

Something people seem to continually miss both here, and across the net at every single messageboard that I see. You can not teach someone to be a moderator. You can't even look at a person and say that have all the skills currently to deal with the situations that are going to be presented to them. All you can do is look at a person and their history, and recognise the potential in them to be able to learn from their experiences and be able to observe the way the entire community moves so that they do the best job possible while not being seen doing it. Some people go on and do this, becoming those moderators that most people here can name off the top of their head consistently. Others can not fulfill this potential, and go on to burn out, or get thrown out.

It is not something that you can rate based on a 200 word answer to a "situation" that doesn't even have enough detail to offer even a brief glimpse into the major course in dealing with said situation. All you would be doing is getting someone who knew how to read between the lines of a written piece and

 

Dingo, that was an incredible post and I'm so glad to see you here.

 

Strange how all regular users who have commented are for, all but one mod/admin is against?
let me change that trend. Honestly speaking, you guys look like a bunch of wanna-be mods or those want desperately to become mods. This idea is ridiculous, why would you want this anyway?

 

why are you laughing at my statment Dingo? Do you agree or disagree? I suspect you disagree, since it seems many people do not understand the true nature of this and many other message boards. The fact is that this message board is really not here for informational purposes. It here for entertainment. And since the mods/admins are in charge, it's there job to make sure that this place stays entertaining. Usually this simply means making sure that regular users don't have to deal with flames and trolls and other such problems. But it also means doing other things to make the posting public happy. (i.e. big brother) 'cause if we aren't happy, then the mods are out of a job and the boards will die. (so obviously the mods are doing a pretty good job on the whole, even though it seems that many of them don't realize what they're doing.)

 

Strange how all regular users who have commented are for, all but one mod/admin is against?

I guess I need to post to say I am also against the idea.

Oh, and I agree with Dingo on this issue.


?Eaglet

 

Hmm.

After reading Dingo's post, I must say that he has point on that. But it's good that this has started a great debate on games generally and you are talking about this game more than in the original thread. Somehow I think this will (even if this game won't happen, which is most likely at this point) help the future of the games in the JC. By discussing about matters on this game, in the same time we are discussing about games in general here in the JC. Nice turn of events.

 

mrslush50...
"The fact is that this message board is really not here for informational purposes. It here for entertainment."

It is a fact that you are wrong in this statement. I can name a number of my Lit. forum regulars who come here to these forums solely for informational purposes - in a sense for scholarly/academic reasons. Some do so as preparation for their own personal projects like a website or personal fan file. Others do it because they are in effect "Star Wars scholars" and do wish to interact for informational purposes.

They post and communicate about the fictional Star Wars universe the same way a "Harley Davidson" message board compares motorcycle specs or NASA astrophysicists may debate how time passes or how a theologan or clergy message board may discuss higher powers.

So, you are clearly wrong in your assessment.

 

Apart from selective counting, there is a large issue wrapped up in this statement. What is being asked here is basically for the moderators to set up, plan, run and decide on an entire game that they might have no wish at all to take part in. So of course "regular" users are going to be for it, there is no way they have to do the hard work, and they are the ones that face a reward of whatever kind. On the other hand, you are asking the moderators to do the entire work-load, and you wonder why some are against it.
Obviously you haven't read the previous posts. All we would need the mods to do is put forth questions. Possible they could judge the responses, as they do in half the other games in the YJCC. No one is asking the mods to do the entire workload, that's false and meritless.

Something else that people seem to be jumping over rather quickly is exactly what DDH is bringing up. If you think that people won't start giving other people flak because they are doing something like this, then I have to say, and mean it in the nicest of ways, but you are deluding yourself to the reality that is this message board. You can't seem to be trying to help the moderators genuinely without people labelling you as a brown-noser or trying to work yourself into a mod position. It's been like this ever since the move to Snowboards, and it isn't changing any time soon.

If people can't act appropriately on the boards, they won't if this game exists or not. Do you have an example of where this has been tried and failed? If this did happen what would be so hard to shut down the game? Are there really gangs of people looking to flame anyone who wants to be a mod, or is this from something that happened to you personally? I ask this because I have never seen it. Perhaps I am naive.
The AOE, a 3SA group, goes out of our way to help the mods and promote the TOS, I have to this date never received any flak for this.
I am sorry to do this to you, but on this point PPOR.

Yes, why not have them like this? You could have something like the following:

"RegularSWFan" PMs you regarding user "DarkLordWoW" stating that she has been harrassed by him in several threads across the three forums they both happen to post in. At no point has any flaming occurred, but she just knows that this guy has it in for her.

What would you do?
It's not like this would be a hard thing to judge, right?

Wrong. I can think of over 50 different ways to handle this situation. Depending on the circumstances (ie, the user histories of both users, and the combinations of those all matter; the threads this 'harrassment' has occurred in; what exactly is said in such posts; the PMs that both users have traded) any one of them could be correct. But 49 of them would be wrong, and at least a few in each case would actually make the problem worse.

For someone against this you seem to know exactly what the mods would do and how many incorrect answears there would be??? How can you be sure, oh wait, now your thinking like a mod, your gettiing the game.
The trick is there is no right answear, it's the quality of comedy of the response that would win the game.

Something people seem to continually miss both here, and across the net at every single messageboard that I see. You can not teach someone to be a moderator. You can't even look at a person and say that have all the skills currently to deal with the situations that are going to be presented to them. All you can do is look at a person and their history, and recognise the potential in them to be able to learn from their experiences and be able to observe the way the entire community moves so that they do the best job possible while not being seen doing it. Some people go on and do this, becoming those moderators that most people here can name off the top of their head consistently. Others can not fulfill this potential, and go on to burn out, or get thrown out.
Sadly you have once again demonstrated that you read nothing of the issue, and are speaking from opinions that c

 

right. ok genghis. so the YJCC exists for informational purposes. tell that to Porkins in a Speedo. the EUC is for information. great tell that to the WJFC. SWC is all about exchanging information. Who Would Win in a fight between Darth Maul and Mr. T is information? (Mr. T would win btw)

see my point?

entertainment is the name of the game, and anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling himself.

Star Wars Saga and Lit. may be exceptions to the rule (although not all the time) but for the most part, by it's very nature (Star Wars, a movie made for the entertainment of the masses) this board is entertainment.

 

have to this date never received any flak for this.
I am sorry to do this to you, but on this point PPOR.


The AC, Sapient before and after he became a mod, YodaJeff (I think) in the AOTC forum before he became a mod. I think all of them at one point had threads in here that, in a roundabout way, called them suck ups and told them they were doing bad things.