The New Evaluation Rules

Age : 34 Posts : 1209

So I recently found out about a new rule that pertains to evaluations (or rather two rules) in the midst of a Skype conversation I was having with a friend on the site. Why I failed to see this update that was clearly posted two days ago is beyond me but now that I've seen it I can't help but feel compelled to comment about it and ask why the staff of US felt the need to make such a drastic and in my opinion, painful change.

Cookie Monster wrote:: Monday 14, April 2014: A couple of rules and reforms have been made to the Evaluations section with the inclusion of the new Evaluation Guide. Two new rules have been introduced in relation with topic spamming to boost through the ranks and the grading system has been changed to match numerical grades to newly made alphabetical ones. We've also included a small guide of sorts detailing what is usually looked for within an evaluation to help you all when submitting future topics.

The reasoning given here is that this is to either deter or minimize the effect of "topic spamming" (as to which reason, I'm unsure as it's left ambiguous). Now I can appreciate as to why this might seem like a problem in some people's eyes, but I would like to ask an important question.

"Is this really such a bad thing?"

For the majority of members on US who would opt to limit their topics, and thus opportunities to gain points, solely to topics done with others, the time it would take to rank is can sometimes be excessive. Now I am not saying that the requirements for ranking up are difficult by any means, but for busy individuals it can take quite a bit of time, especially when one opts not to push out a few solo topics. The fact that now this method is being crippled and stuck with an arguably arbitrary number pertaining to the amount of posts made makes yet another obstacle to be surpassed for one to progress their character. I ask "Why?" It's an unneeded requirement.

In all honesty, the desire to speed through ranks is something that I feel most people have as I doubt there are many who want to be stuck as a genin or chuunin for several IRL months on end. With the advent of the ageing system, this desire is most probably increased for a vast majority of members as well (20 year old genin, anyone?). The decision to cut the points one can gain based on whether they made three posts or not is something that prolongs this ranking grind. Ranking up is already a rather time and energy consuming process and writing quality solo topics is arguably harder than RPing with others in terms of getting the same payout as one is essentially RPing with themselves, which in my opinion, is a much harder and boring task than doing so with others. The advantage of solo topics though, or rather the tradeoff for the less engaging experience is the fact that the only limiter to the rate at which they can be done is one's mental fortitude. The beauty is that one can, if they so choose, solo a majority of their rank and not have to deal with the inevitable topic delays that come with RPing with partners.

This is important for those who perhaps wish to have their character reach a certain point in their character's professional life in a quick manner. While there may be those who would argue that this isn't how RPing should be, and that one should embrace the experience of RPing and interacting with other characters, I would contest that those views are being shoved down the throats of those who perhaps would rather reach a higher rank before doing so. Everyone has different reasons for RPing and everyone views the experience differently. By creating this new set of rules, people are now being needlessly slowed from progressing and in a way that hurts those who may not be "spamming" but rather developing solo threads for the purpose of character development. Basically, there are people who's goal may be character progression through either ranking or doing solo threads who are now being penalized.

The other issue I have with this new set of rules is the idea it seemingly promotes: Quantity is better than quality. If one person were to write three poorly constructed posts while another wrote out two well written and well thought out posts guess who's going to get more points? The fact is that by writing one less post, Person B is automatically slotted into a position with a lower pool of potential points. This may not seem like a problem at first glance due to the idea that Person A, if he wrote poorly constructed posts, would get less points regardless but the real trap here is that a perfect score is obscenely rare on this site. I have seen very few perfect scores given out by the evaluation mods on this site. By slotting Person B into a pool of only 10 points the most they could reasonably expect to see is probably an 8 or 9 out of 10 which would put them into the A category in the new evaluations page.

Person A, however, could probably expect to see 13-15 depending on how generous the grader of his topic is which puts him around the C to B category. While by letter definition, Person B did better, they ended up with less points than Person A. This promotes the idea that because Person A wrote out 3 posts, they will receive more in terms of reward.

Now I know the argument could be posed that one could simply write out a third post, and I agree that that is a simple solution to all of this, but the idea is still in effect and the principle that I feel we should all embrace as writers and RPers that quality should always trump quantity is slowly being lost. That is honestly very troubling, more so than the creeping feeling that the grind to rank progression has been made just that much more time consuming.

I don't know if there are others out there who would agree with me in my thinking, but I felt the need to say something. I just want to clarify that this was not posted in the interest of being malicious or in an angry tone, rather it is one of concern and bewilderment. I can understand why this rule, at first glance, may seem beneficial and necessary but in all honesty it does more harm than good and only works to hinder the member base. Anyway, if you took the time to read all this nonsense then sincerely thank you. Take care everyone.

-Kite

Age : 29 Posts : 3145

Very well argued.

I don't remember anyone ever petitioning to change how evaluation works. The addition of a 'guide' is nice, but I feel like the idea of giving letter grades is unnecessary and the new out of 10 rule for short topics will only encourage poor, rushed third posts.

To elaborate on the letters, it might be a personal opinion, but I feel like getting a 14/20 means a lot less than getting a C. Due to their use in schools, I think letters carry more 'weight'. They can be more rewarding, but also more degrading.

P.S pun intended xD

Posts : 1729

Who's bloody idea was this? Quality over quantity you tossers The New Evaluation Rules 287405

If someone can write a bloody fucking good topic across a single post, they shouldn't be fucking shafted up the arse just because they couldn't stretch it across two posts. Less is more.

Another thing, word count. Using Eric's example, if person A and B both write 3000 words, person B is going to get shafted for no other reason than he didn't split his post up and chose to keep it a single post.

Honestly, what does the number of posts fecking matter unless it's a mission? So what if a single-post topic was given a 17 or 18? Maybe the post was just that fecking good? Did quality writing become an extinct species while I wasn't looking?

Age : 30 Posts : 614

I too find the new grading system to be overly elitist and academic. Yes, I understand the principle behind it, but I do not think it necessary to slap a grade on it like it's a paper I'm submitting. I am just fine thinking of it as plain numbers. I didn't quite understand the update either.

I just think that we've been given 3 months per character year, and some short topics are to be expected from some people. It is a part of the learning experience. If it were continual, then I would understand a reasonable point deduction over the span of the short and inadequate posts.

Age : 32 Posts : 1912

Brett wrote:: I too find the new grading system to be overly elitist and academic. Yes, I understand the principle behind it, but I do not think it necessary to slap a grade on it like it's a paper I'm submitting. I am just fine thinking of it as plain numbers. I didn't quite understand the update either.

I just think that we've been given 3 months per character year, and some short topics are to be expected from some people. It is a part of the learning experience. If it were continual, then I would understand a reasonable point deduction over the span of the short and inadequate posts.

Meh, I don't think people should be given rewards for length. There was a time when I was told that if I made one long post, I would not get graded. If I split that one big post up into three short posts, I would get graded. To me, that made no sense at the time, because I would rather have one big flowing post than three where I need to scroll over the signature and all that crap two or three times.

Yes, I am that lazy, I dislike scrolling intensively.

What I am trying to ask is, is the above stated stuff still a thing, or can we just make one large post as opposed to splitting it into several posts for the sake of post-count or whatever, because this kind of grading seems to differ in regard of which Mod is grading the stuff.

Age : 34 Posts : 1209

Captain Konoha wrote:: What I am trying to ask is, is the above stated stuff still a thing, or can we just make one large post as opposed to splitting it into several posts for the sake of post-count or whatever, because this kind of grading seems to differ in regard of which Mod is grading the stuff.

As far as I know this grading system is still in effect. I do not know if this is being addressed in the staff lounge or not and if it is if my point is being agreed upon or being refuted, but as of now I've heard nothing regarding this subject. Hopefully someone on staff can get back to us soon to clear up the matter or give their opinion as I don't like having a one sided argument like this.

Age : 29 Posts : 1585

To answer the last question, according to the new evaluation rules, three posts per social topic are required in order for the said topic to be evaluated normally. The new guide is currently being discussed by the staff and I hope there will be an outcome. There have been some suggestions, but nothing has been decided to change yet. I guess there will be an announcement if any progress is made on the matter. Members are free to discuss the guide, and I have to admit that I agree with a number of points made up to now in this thread.

Age : 34 Posts : 1209

Panda wrote:: To answer the last question, according to the new evaluation rules, three posts per social topic are required in order for the said topic to be evaluated normally. The new guide is currently being discussed by the staff and I hope there will be an outcome. There have been some suggestions, but nothing has been decided to change yet. I guess there will be an announcement if any progress is made on the matter. Members are free to discuss the guide, and I have to admit that I agree with a number of points made up to now in this thread.

Thank you for keeping us informed.

Posts : 1729

TOPKite wrote:

Panda wrote:: To answer the last question, according to the new evaluation rules, three posts per social topic are required in order for the said topic to be evaluated normally. The new guide is currently being discussed by the staff and I hope there will be an outcome. There have been some suggestions, but nothing has been decided to change yet. I guess there will be an announcement if any progress is made on the matter. Members are free to discuss the guide, and I have to admit that I agree with a number of points made up to now in this thread.

Thank you for keeping us informed.

Two weeks after the topic was posted. Oh, cough cough.

Age : 34 Posts : 1209

BK-201 wrote:

TOPKite wrote:

Panda wrote:: To answer the last question, according to the new evaluation rules, three posts per social topic are required in order for the said topic to be evaluated normally. The new guide is currently being discussed by the staff and I hope there will be an outcome. There have been some suggestions, but nothing has been decided to change yet. I guess there will be an announcement if any progress is made on the matter. Members are free to discuss the guide, and I have to admit that I agree with a number of points made up to now in this thread.

Thank you for keeping us informed.

Two weeks after the topic was posted. Oh, cough cough.

Don't be like that. Yes it was a rather late response but at least we got one, no need to be prickly about it. I didn't start this topic to kick up dust or start a riot. I made the topic out of concern so I'd appreciate it if tempers and attitudes could be kept to a minimum. Thank you.

Posts : 1729

Age : 30 Posts : 1012

Can this be solved?

Age : 29 Posts : 3145

No. The system wasn't changed like we asked nor any staff member properly addressed the issue. Learn to read please.

Age : 31 Posts : 1637

No need to be so snippy and rude, Chris. A simple "No, not yet" would have sufficed. That was completely unnecessary.

Now as far as changing the system goes, as of now there will likely not be any changes for the most part, but there will likely be some changes regarding the way missions are handled as there seems to be some confusion about how the criteria apply.

However, due to the stunt in activity the discussion has not moved forward in quite some time, so it was never properly concluded. I will bring it up so that we can hopefully get a solid decision on this.

Age : 29 Posts : 488

Kite wrote:: Now I know the argument could be posed that one could simply write out a third post, and I agree that that is a simple solution to all of this, but the idea is still in effect and the principle that I feel we should all embrace as writers and RPers that quality should always trump quantity is slowly being lost. That is honestly very troubling, more so than the creeping feeling that the grind to rank progression has been made just that much more time consuming.

I agree with all of your points, especially with the quoted part. I also agree with everything Travis said, especially the word count part.

Age : 31 Posts : 1637

I think you're all missing the point. The system is not designed to punish those that prefer quality over quantity directly. If two people write the same amount, but one person's quality isn't quite as high as the other's, they're going to get a lower score. Period.

Even so, if you want to emphasize quality, let's say you write a single 1k post of great quality. How much progression is present in that 1k words? Or even the 3k word post? The point of requiring more posts is to have more character progression, which is what the EXP and MP are supposed to represent. Even if you write a great post of decent length, if there isn't much progression, you shouldn't get as many points as somebody whose thread contains more progression, since that's the whole point of roleplaying and the entire point of having the separate point pools as well. Not to mention the fact that for those that can't write to your standard of quality, they need to have some way of getting a decent amount of points. Not everybody can write like a bestselling author, but should that mean the effort they put in should only get them shit rewards just because they're not at that skill level? Hardly.

Another thing I'd like to mention is that the only time you'd be writing a single post topic is if you're going solo. Going solo is fine, and in particular it can't really be helped if you're the type of nukenin to wander around and aren't a huge fan of people, but you should really be interacting with other people otherwise. This is an RP ~~(Unless you're Ulkira, then it's a practice novel)~~, and part of the point of that is interacting with other people. By interacting with other people, you can get 3 posts easily because you're being forced to interact. In turn you're more likely to have a good amount of character progression, so you're earning your character that experience. I don't really understand why you all feel this is such an issue.

Age : 30 Posts : 311

So, I just saw this topic and figured I would go ahead and give my two cents.

In regards to this new addition to the evaluation system, I am going to personally say I disagree with it. From what my understanding of it is, I believe that we are hindering writers that prefer to not post multiple times in solo topics, but would rather keep their entire post together, like a chapter of a novel. If this is the case, I do not think it's fair that we get to decide how someone would like to format their creativity. It is one thing if someone's post is long and simply a block of text, but I think it's another thing if it is completely formatted correctly with paragraphs.

I also seemed to note that we still have kept the word count per post, so perhaps to fix this problem, we can offer the solution that for solo topics, their is a word count per topic. To expand, let's first look at a B-Rank Shinobi for a moment. They need to write a minimum of 400 words per post [Please refer to Ultimate Shinobi's Law].

400 words per post x 3 posts per thread = 1200 words

So, in order to achieve the maximum grade possible, they need to write a minimum of 1200 words. Can we not say that for solo threads, one at B level needs to write a minimum of 1200 words in order to gain the opportunity for maximum points?

Personally, I find this a fair alternative that still allows the new system to be in affect, but it does not hinder or upset your writers and members. We often need to compromise and I don't think it's fair to force people into multi-person topics just so they can gain their necessary points to rank up.

Age : 31 Posts : 1637

Just as a side note, this is currently being discussed.

Age : 31 Posts : 1637

Solved on account of the evaluation guide being updated. If there are any other issues or questions regarding the new one, a new thread can be made.