Is ranking up unreasonable?

Age : 25 Posts : 1767

WTFlash wrote:

WTFlash wrote:: So my question is. . .

Who honestly wants to do all that work? Show of hands?

Anybody...? Plenty of people have posted since I asked, none have raised their hand so to speak.

Being only a few points off Chûnin myself, I wouldn't say it's such a huge amount of work. I'd have thought the idea of Roleplay is that it's supposed to be at least mildly entertaining, I wouldn't call it 'work' as such; if you're only Roleplaying to gain a higher rank, is there really much point?

Age : 29 Posts : 1797

WTFlash wrote:

WTFlash wrote:: So my question is. . .

Who honestly wants to do all that work? Show of hands?

Anybody...? Plenty of people have posted since I asked, none have raised their hand so to speak.

Enzo wrote:

WTFlash wrote:: So my question is. . .

Who honestly wants to do all that work? Show of hands?

Is ranking up unreasonable? - Page 3 Whywecanthavenice2

What would you prefer? That we give people a new rank every other week?

As for the whole idea that higher ranks will be more difficult to gain than lower ranks; that idea has already been taken into account and has been discussed among the staff for a couple weeks now.

Age : 34 Posts : 1209

I don't mind the needed points. Just wish that people on this site were more active so getting that many points wasn't such a mind-****...

Age : 49 Posts : 1036

Persy wrote:: People often mistake the fact that EXP or [RP] is needed for rank ups because of the fact that we want their character to be socially active in the forum. Social topics are important to a character's growth in a rank and it is something that everyone should do. Unfortunately, this isn't true. The inclusion of EXP in the entire process of ranking up is so that members are continuously active within the forum. We want to reward them for taking the initiative to post, and create a community that we all can be involved in. EXP are essential to RP because - let's face it - characters are not all one-sided. Everyone needs to grow emotionally as well as physically and skillfully in order to succeed in this narutoverse and rank is the only way to scale it.

True but not to the extent we're seeing. When someone needs to do three to four times as much "social growth" as practical experience to move up in personal power something is a little out of whack. Besides which, have the staff be actually looking at the content of most missions? They're mostly the very character development that would occur in RP threads. Does it really matter which type of thread the character development takes place in as long as it takes place? I certainly can't see a reason why. In fact I can make a case that combat situations develop someone much faster; classic example being the US war in Vietnam where card-carrying members of the KKK came back life-long friends with African-American soliders.

If anything I'm seeing in that response a pretty sound reason why character power (represented in rank C-S) and authority (represented by genin, chuunin, jonin, kage) should be separated. As things stand now, when the bulk of the "genin" do rank up (or quit) we're going to be faced with the very "not enough genin" situation that the pro-slow-ranking group fears. One extra downside is that very few will want to start over or make a new character because it took them so long to get to where they are on their current one. Splitting the two would delay that situation, and allowing a smoother progression in ranks would encourage people to at least temporarily retire an existing character to work on a new one.

Adam wrote:: They could be considered one big lump now, the only difference is we require you to do a few missions too. If we base it completely off missions, with the current system we have in place evaluators will find themselves reading people in the same scenarios because people will be doing the same missions. That's hardly going to motivate the staff to reread the same thread, sometimes time and time again. So this proposed change will have us have to decrease amounts, combine them into our category, change the way we evaluate topics, edit the entire missions system so there aren't any recyclable missions.

Persy wrote:: As Nuclear pointed out, all these amounts are when people score perfectly, or rather high. And when does that ever happen? Yes, it is incredibly hard to monitor how our topics are evaluated, but that is part of any sort of English course. Everything depends on the professor's opinion and what key aspects they look for. This is a natural thing and people need to recognize this. Moving forward, I believe these numbers are practical as well considering how long a mission or thread takes in general. People are busy in their lives and to reach a new rank takes commitment. Posting solidly to gain ranks is not something that people often do and for those that are the exception - I don't believe it is fair that we alter our system for them.

Natural? HELL NO! I'm going to pull the age card here. How many people here are, or have been, a teacher or teaching assistant in college? I was and part of that was the horror of grading undergraduate term papers for 50+ students. You know the funny thing? I had a whole mess of rules that determined how a paper was graded. A subjective evaluation of the content was a big part of it, but there were also points awarded for proper format (margins, font size, etc), citation form (MLA vs APA), proper length (not too many or too few pages), and other items. To get a high score a student needed to both follow the rules and make a sound case. So if that can be applied to a full-blown university, why can't something similar be applied here? If anything I would think not having to basically make things up as they go along would reduce the staffs load a tiny bit. It could be something as simple as setting aside 5 points (10 for RP topics) with 1 point (2 for RP topics) each for meeting minimum post length, post number, solid grammar, and passable spelling. It doesn't have to be perfect, but knowing they could gain "points" and how much might encourage some of our... less adept writers to pick up their game a bit.

Nuclear wrote:: Then there is the ever-present problem of another participant taking an announced leave due to burn out, change in schedule, etc in a topic, holding things up as the other players wait for a response or even causing it to never finish. I know other sites, in fact I would say the majority, have a rule that states you have so many days to respond or ask for an extension after which your character can be written out and/ or killed by other thread participants. All to prevent a single person to stalling an entire thread.

[quote=Adam]I thought we had a similar rule here, I'll do some searching and if we don't. Something will have to be implemented.[/quote]

Thank you.

PS

I had a much better written portion but the forum's minimum-length bit kicked and cut it off. So I'm just going to say I think that a BIG chunk of the problem now is lack of communication and timely interaction between staff and members. Just look at this thread - this was the first time we've even heard that some issues are being looked at and that is several weeks AFTER the fact. Just taking a look at MMORPG's shows things we could do. A thread that lists changes in the works and being considered that players can post their suggestions on would go a long ways to heading off situations of changes being made that adversely affect players without any warning. Staff getting the players involved in helping put together updates: during the course of discussing my clan I told Becky that if they wanted ideas or someone to give a third-party perspective on the upcoming rules for clan creation I was more than willing to help. The same with updating the list of weapons to keep them consistent with the reality of submissions and the rules. I am sure I am not the only who has offered to help take some of the load from the staff in the past but who doesn't want a staff position.

Age : 33 Posts : 308

What would I prefer Enzo?

Ranking up should be like applying for a job, not concerned with the amount of points that you have. People should be able to create a résumé for their characters, compile their characters story, topics, training, achievements, as well as their own achievements and experience as a role player. This should include their own reasons for wanting to apply for a rank up.

The résumé should include at least three referrals, basically three people that approve of a persons rank up. These three people should be people they have personally roleplayed with, and can be made up of anyone; friends, foe, mods and members alike.

Once the résumé is compiled, a staff member (an admin or a specified staff member) either approves or denies the characters ascension based on the quality of the résumé. A person can submit a résumé once a week if they like, until they are approved for the next rank. Thus, to have a high quality résumé, being active and having high quality work and experience are all essential.

However if a person wants to continue to improve their character or build their story, they simply don't do this process until they are ready.

If one successfully advances to the next level (for example, Genin -> Chunnin) then they cannot submit another ascension résumé for a month.

If one is rejected from this process, they can wait a week and submit it again with updates on whatever progress they have made. The staff can also supply their opinions on what is good and what is bad, helping direct a roleplayer toward better quality.

That takes points out of the equation completely, a staff member can check a characters roleplaying all at once instead of bit by bit, and a person can attempt to go to the next level as often or as little as they please. For those who are for the love of developing a character, they can neglect this process and do just that. For the more ambitious of us, this gives us an active-reactive way to personally pursuit our own goals.

THAT is how the real world works.

Age : 33 Posts : 428

WTFlash wrote:: What would I prefer Enzo?

Ranking up should be like applying for a job, not concerned with the amount of points that you have. People should be able to create a résumé for their characters, compile their characters story, topics, training, achievements, as well as their own achievements and experience as a role player. This should include their own reasons for wanting to apply for a rank up.

The résumé should include at least three referrals, basically three people that approve of a persons rank up. These three people should be people they have personally roleplayed with, and can be made up of anyone; friends, foe, mods and members alike.

Once the résumé is compiled, a staff member (an admin or a specified staff member) either approves or denies the characters ascension based on the quality of the résumé. A person can submit a résumé once a week if they like, until they are approved for the next rank. Thus, to have a high quality résumé, being active and having high quality work and experience are all essential.

However if a person wants to continue to improve their character or build their story, they simply don't do this process until they are ready.

If one successfully advances to the next level (for example, Genin -> Chunnin) then they cannot submit another ascension résumé for a month.

If one is rejected from this process, they can wait a week and submit it again with updates on whatever progress they have made. The staff can also supply their opinions on what is good and what is bad, helping direct a roleplayer toward better quality.

That takes points out of the equation completely, a staff member can check a characters roleplaying all at once instead of bit by bit, and a person can attempt to go to the next level as often or as little as they please. For those who are for the love of developing a character, they can neglect this process and do just that. For the more ambitious of us, this gives us an active-reactive way to personally pursuit our own goals.

THAT is how the real world works.

I actually saw this kind of a system on Bleach Gotei.

It actually works there. O:

Seems like a interesting proposal.

Age : 29 Posts : 3145

Mm I love this. The Staff are saying NO, everyone is saying YES, and guess who is going to win? This is a shit, corrupt system and what happens is that US always goes up high in activity, and goes down like crazy. People having logged on in the last 24 hours has already decreased by like a half, ever since the Revolution boom. Now what? How many times does the Staff think we can bounce back up, before eventually there will be no one to pick the Site up from the very bottom. I mean we almost crashed a few months ago for Christ's sake - nothing major has been changed since then!

It's simple. If things don't change, we will experience these ups and downs until people will disperse. If half of the Staff Team is AWOL itself, can you really speak for activity and willingness to work or RP? Seriously, we are inclined to Suggest things but when we do, they are declined by a minority. That's wrong. D<

Age : 29 Posts : 4301

Chris wrote:: Mm I love this. The Staff are saying NO, everyone is saying YES, and guess who is going to win? This is a shit, corrupt system and what happens is that US always goes up high in activity, and goes down like crazy. People having logged on in the last 24 hours has already decreased by like a half, ever since the Revolution boom. Now what? How many times does the Staff think we can bounce back up, before eventually there will be no one to pick the Site up from the very bottom. I mean we almost crashed a few months for Christ's sake - nothing major has been changed since then!

It's simple. If things don't change, we will experience these ups and downs until people will disperse. If half of the Staff Team is AWOL itself, can you really speak for activity and willingness to work or RP?

Is ranking up unreasonable? - Page 3 1332783608_sarkozy_laugh_www_fbgif_com

Age : 32 Posts : 787

The system flash speaks of actually works. It what we used on the old ninja nation line before the naming got changed and things went south. They were all actually really successful sites, that only switch URL's for different reasons. None of them were lack of activity. The first one had the provider get sold and was unexpectedly deleted. The second one had its story line run its course and needed a reboot. The third one the head admin went crazy out of no where and deleted the site and we had to pick up the pieces from there.

The only thing I disagree with, while idt mission points are needed, a certain number of missions of a certain rank or type etc. While it should be less I think, you can still keep a cap on how many you have of each rank by simply saying no you can not rank up at this time for whatever reason that maybe.

Age : 29 Posts : 3145

Cookie Monster wrote:

Rules wrote:: but other than that Spam will not be permitted, this should include double posting which should be avoided at all costs. This should be considering as an easily understood rule, don't do something that will warrant us to ban you, and you won't really be breaking it.

Three things that we can get out of that.

- What you did was spam and that is against the rules
- You can't understand easy things. Bit on the slow side, are we?
- Also, spam is punishable by Banning. Now let's count all the times you've spammed and be realistic - you should be long gone, senior. So let's just say Banning you has been added to the Staff's list of the things to do. Um. Give it a year, maybe?

Posts : 363

Three months to get to chunin is a perfectly decent amount of time in my experience. Now, 3 months of constant topic grinding though? Lil bit too much to ask.

Age : 29 Posts : 4301

Chris wrote:

Rules wrote:: but other than that Spam will not be permitted, this should include double posting which should be avoided at all costs. This should be considering as an easily understood rule, don't do something that will warrant us to ban you, and you won't really be breaking it.

Three things that we can get out of that.

- What you did was spam and that is against the rules
- You can't understand easy things. Bit on the slow side, are we?
- Also, spam is punishable by Banning. Now let's count all the times you've spammed and be realistic - you should be long gone, senior. So let's just say Banning you has been added to the Staff's list of the things to do. Um. Give it a year, maybe?

Is ranking up unreasonable? - Page 3 Tumblr_m3z5l60vSz1rqxldno1_250

Age : 29 Posts : 3145

Fuck you.

Age : 35 Posts : 1113

Enzo wrote:: Let me repeat. Your goal as an RPer shouldn't be to reach the highest possible rank; it should be to RP as often as you want, and accomplish what you feel is necessary for character development. If you stick to the idea that your purpose is to rank up, then of course you'll view it as a tedious chore. Anything between you and your goal, is a tedious chore; thus if you view your goal as anything else, it shouldn't be that big of an issue. You'll get there when you get there.

Absolutely. But since when have a collection of people all conformed to what they should do? Personally (though it has been a while since I had a lower-ranked character) I enjoy seeing incremental changes and working my way up. From the sounds of it, some others do too. But that doesn't mean to say everyone enjoys such a process - clearly.

TOPKite wrote:: I don't mind the needed points. Just wish that people on this site were more active so getting that many points wasn't such a mind-****...

Essentially, this is the real problem. If everyone posted really frequently and without fail, then I doubt we'd be having this discussion. And as far as I can tell, many members believe that making it slightly easier to rank up is the answer. Which makes some sense, as you are required to rely on fewer people to achieve progression. I don't know that this response actually addresses the real problem, but it's hard to see how activity can truly be ensured.

NuclearTreerat wrote:: Natural? HELL NO! I'm going to pull the age card here. How many people here are, or have been, a teacher or teaching assistant in college? I was and part of that was the horror of grading undergraduate term papers for 50+ students. You know the funny thing? I had a whole mess of rules that determined how a paper was graded. A subjective evaluation of the content was a big part of it, but there were also points awarded for proper format (margins, font size, etc), citation form (MLA vs APA), proper length (not too many or too few pages), and other items. To get a high score a student needed to both follow the rules and make a sound case. So if that can be applied to a full-blown university, why can't something similar be applied here? If anything I would think not having to basically make things up as they go along would reduce the staffs load a tiny bit. It could be something as simple as setting aside 5 points (10 for RP topics) with 1 point (2 for RP topics) each for meeting minimum post length, post number, solid grammar, and passable spelling. It doesn't have to be perfect, but knowing they could gain "points" and how much might encourage some of our... less adept writers to pick up their game a bit.

A fervently-made point, but not a bad idea. Breaking down the evaluation scores into smaller categories might help remedy the suggested imbalance between the long, detailed RPers and the quick-fire ones. As NT pointed out, it would also help pin-point areas of improvement with graded numerical references.

WTFlash wrote:: Ranking up should be like applying for a job, not concerned with the amount of points that you have. People should be able to create a résumé for their characters, compile their characters story, topics, training, achievements, as well as their own achievements and experience as a role player. This should include their own reasons for wanting to apply for a rank up.

The résumé should include at least three referrals, basically three people that approve of a persons rank up. These three people should be people they have personally roleplayed with, and can be made up of anyone; friends, foe, mods and members alike.

Once the résumé is compiled, a staff member (an admin or a specified staff member) either approves or denies the characters ascension based on the quality of the résumé. A person can submit a résumé once a week if they like, until they are approved for the next rank. Thus, to have a high quality résumé, being active and having high quality work and experience are all essential.

However if a person wants to continue to improve their character or build their story, they simply don't do this process until they are ready.

If one successfully advances to the next level (for example, Genin -> Chunnin) then they cannot submit another ascension résumé for a month.

If one is rejected from this process, they can wait a week and submit it again with updates on whatever progress they have made. The staff can also supply their opinions on what is good and what is bad, helping direct a roleplayer toward better quality.

That takes points out of the equation completely, a staff member can check a characters roleplaying all at once instead of bit by bit, and a person can attempt to go to the next level as often or as little as they please. For those who are for the love of developing a character, they can neglect this process and do just that. For the more ambitious of us, this gives us an active-reactive way to personally pursuit our own goals.

For the most part, I like this idea. Having three references (people they have roleplayed with) is my favourite. It encourages social RP (or forces it, if you want to rank up) without the need for a separate points tally. The 'cool off' period to go away, improve a little and come back is also promising. A week stops people from rushing a new submission, but doesn't bore them with waiting. However, the idea as a whole brings subjectivity into the ranking up process. While it means staff can allow the more deserving candidates through (rather than those who have shown no real improvement in post length, quality etc.), it also means that A) ranking up is subject to staff and opinion may not be unanimous (i.e. is this method really fair?) and B) more work for the staff. But some worthwhile suggestions here, so thank you.

WTFlash wrote:: THAT is how the real world works.

While I support some of your ideas, this isn't the real world.

Chris wrote:: Mm I love this. The Staff are saying NO, everyone is saying YES, and guess who is going to win? This is a shit, corrupt system and what happens is that US always goes up high in activity, and goes down like crazy. People having logged on in the last 24 hours has already decreased by like a half, ever since the Revolution boom. Now what? How many times does the Staff think we can bounce back up, before eventually there will be no one to pick the Site up from the very bottom. I mean we almost crashed a few months ago for Christ's sake - nothing major has been changed since then!

It's simple. If things don't change, we will experience these ups and downs until people will disperse. If half of the Staff Team is AWOL itself, can you really speak for activity and willingness to work or RP? Seriously, we are inclined to Suggest things but when we do, they are declined by a minority. That's wrong. D<

Don't forget that the staff are the ones who will have to sort through and bear the brunt of any work we lay on them here. Even if it was this black and white, one can understand a reflexive response to avoid considerable extra hassle. But it's not that simple and I don't think that's what this is. You have a point, Chris, in that there's clearly a trend between members calling for this specific change and staff opposing it. But the topic is not being locked and ignored and despite the confrontation, this is still up for discussion.

THE MOST IMPORTANT POINT...

Quote :: All the childish remarks, silly comments and posts designed to annoy.

Grow up, stop it.

Age : 29 Posts : 1797

Quote :: A fervently-made point, but not a bad idea. Breaking down the evaluation scores into smaller categories might help remedy the suggested imbalance between the long, detailed RPers and the quick-fire ones. As NT pointed out, it would also help pin-point areas of improvement with graded numerical references.

This is currently being implemented.

Quote :: For the most part, I like this idea. Having three references (people they have roleplayed with) is my favourite. It encourages social RP (or forces it, if you want to rank up) without the need for a separate points tally. The 'cool off' period to go away, improve a little and come back is also promising. A week stops people from rushing a new submission, but doesn't bore them with waiting. However, the idea as a whole brings subjectivity into the ranking up process. While it means staff can allow the more deserving candidates through (rather than those who have shown no real improvement in post length, quality etc.), it also means that A) ranking up is subject to staff and opinion may not be unanimous (i.e. is this method really fair?) and B) more work for the staff. But some worthwhile suggestions here, so thank you.

Sophie pretty much summed up my thoughts on it. It's a nice idea, but requires tons of work for staff members; not to mention that it doesn't go along with our almost-complete EXP system. It would not only be throwing two months of discussions and work on perfecting a system down the drain; but would also put us back to "writing endless amounts of RP to train for jutsu"; which puts unnecessary work for both the staff and the members. Though it works out in real life; changing to the system Flash mentioned would require revamping the whole system to go along with this new ranking system, which would mean changing the site entirely. To quote Sophie: "While I support some of your ideas, this isn't the real world."

Quote :: Don't forget that the staff are the ones who will have to sort through and bear the brunt of any work we lay on them here. Even if it was this black and white, one can understand a reflexive response to avoid considerable extra hassle. But it's not that simple and I don't think that's what this is. You have a point, Chris, in that there's clearly a trend between members calling for this specific change and staff opposing it. But the topic is not being locked and ignored and despite the confrontation, this is still up for discussion.

~~Marry me <3~~ Ahem, yes. She brings up valid points Aww yeah

Age : 32 Posts : 381

WTFlash wrote:

WTFlash wrote:: So my question is. . .

Who honestly wants to do all that work? Show of hands?

Anybody...? Plenty of people have posted since I asked, none have raised their hand so to speak.

Okay, I haven't read this entire thing, and I don't care to, but this stuck out. No one wants to do the work, if someone was given a free pass, most would take it no questions asked. However, this is unfair and not how ANY naruto site should work. If everyone was given the highest rank, this site would be boring, and wouldn't give the less experienced rpers a chance to get better, because it would basically be one murder after the next.

Age : 49 Posts : 1036

Enzo wrote:

Quote :: A fervently-made point, but not a bad idea. Breaking down the evaluation scores into smaller categories might help remedy the suggested imbalance between the long, detailed RPers and the quick-fire ones. As NT pointed out, it would also help pin-point areas of improvement with graded numerical references.

This is currently being implemented.

This is another problem I am seeing. Only because someone posted this thread and it's gone on this long, have we actually learned about this sort of change. If we had learned about it when the idea was first floated about and given serious consideration, a whole lot of this could have been avoided. To quote a movie line "what we have here is a failure to communicate". I am going to ruffle a lot of feathers saying this, but frankly the staff-to-member communication here stinks when it comes to passing along key information when it would actually make a difference. As in three day old dead skunk dragged in for necropsy stink. Changes to clans, jutsu, and even entire rules - all are things that just get landed on the players out of the blue with no warning. Yet the members are the ones who are most affected and find the glaring flaws at our own peril. I would say this is as bad a situation as Blizzards infamous "changes to Steady Shot will only affect one spec of hunter at one level" - only to find that it completely killed one spec and required hefty changes to undo the damage at the other. All because they didn't communicate properly with the players who were doing the tests and submitting tens of thousands of combat parses.

If the members had been informed about these changes in advance, a lot of things could have been avoided and some of the burden shifted to non-staff volunteers. If you want an example, check how any large-scale MMORPG run's it's website. Without fail there is a section dedicated to upcoming patches that include a listing of all changes being made (including those that are only being considered). My question is; why can't we have something similar? A single thread under the Announcement section that details the staffs current projects, things being considered, and other possible changes. With that players would have advanced warning of changes coming and be able to adjust submissions (characters, clans, jutsu, etc) to account for them. Heck if you really want to, you could even ask for members to help with ideas and proofreading - the more people checking something over the greater the chance of mistakes being found before everything goes to press as it were.

Age : 31 Posts : 299

^Strong this.

Overall, I have no problem with the way the site works how it is now, only how certain members come and go, (perhaps some sort of punishment IC could be given to them for these random dis-and re-appearances.) I understand people have things to do, but if you dont have time to make a post a day, why are you here man? The only thing you're doing is making it harder for the rest of us to play, and if you are going to be random in amount of time your going to be able to get on, perhaps you should let your comrades (or kage) know before they give you a team/start a topic. Get to know your player before you engage in character relations.

I'm on the staff side all the way for this one, because I don't see devoted Rpers, I see devoted gamers, for sure, but not devoted RPers on the other side.

Age : 34 Posts : 1209

As ~Fox~ said, there's really no way to ensure player activity but then again I'm sure there are things that could be done to motivate players to be more active. Small scale fighting tournaments, bonus point weekends, thread submission threads, interesting characters. Some of these are already done via Something-of-the-Month, but make these things a bit more frequent and award bonus points for them. People like to be rewarded. It makes them feel good.

Another issue I think is the death system here. I know it's already been mentioned in this thread but it is worth re-visiting as I believe that it is a valid concern. People won't be as prone to fighting and wandering about in fear of being killed. In fact the current way death is set up, people who are genin are more motivated to go out and risk their lives as they have little to nothing to lose. Someone who's a chuunin will be less likely to want to go into dangerous areas as it potentially means losing months of work only to start over. This problem only gets worse when we get into higher ranks. On this site, when you die there is really no silver lining other than making a new char. I understand that death should be punishing but on the same token, isn't losing your char punishing enough? I know that I'm not the first to come up with this idea but why not have a system in place that allows for people to not lose all their progress? A 25%-50% percent return rate on points could be a way. I'd also suggest offer bonuses for well played deaths. If you die in a fight there's no reason why you can't make it sound pretty and make it a well written death. This would let the killer feel satisfied and fulfilled with the death and offer the player of the dead character to get some points kicked their way for their new character. It would alleviate some of the grind associated with starting a new character. I might also propose that you only take one rank away from a person, meaning that if you die as a jounin you have the option to auto-start as a chuunin. You could even use your site's ranking system and make the gap be one or two places down. So if you die as a jounin you start off as experienced chuunin or if you died as experienced jounin you start off as regular jounin. You can adjust it any way you want.

Like Nuclear, I am also interested to see if there is a rule about inactivity during threads and the supposed time limit and what one can do when said time limit is breached. I don't recall that rule being here.

As Abilities pointed out, if you can't post 1/day you are being more of a burden than a help for others who can post 1/day. I wouldn't go so far as to punish these people though. Punishing people should only be reserved for severe circumstances. I find that communities respond better to rewards. Reward the behaviors you want. Offer activity bonuses, length bonuses, things of that nature. I mean it requires the staff to look at the time stamps of posts and see how quick a poster is throwing things up but in some threads it is rather easy to tell who is waiting on who when you look at the time stamp if there is one person holding things up. Reward activity, don't punish in activity. By rewarding activity you also prevent "burn out" situations where players get so frustrated they step out for a while because they are feeling like their work is netting them very little gain. It's always good to reward people because, as I said, people feel good when they get rewards.

All in all, the ranking pre-reqs seem reasonable to me. Ranking shouldn't be easy, it should be meaningful. I for one would find it very meaningful to earn my chuunin or jounin ranks by accumulating those points. But that being said, there are methods that can be taken to make it less of a mind-****. Rewards, bonuses, recognition for being someone active in RPs and for putting up well written posts. I know the evaluation system tries to do that but it never hurts to throw in bonuses here and there to speed the process along and to keep people active.

I don't know if any of this will make sense but this is me trying to find a happy medium between the two sides by offering my ideas. Take them or leave them. Kite's always here for you even if he's growling at you from the dark.

-Kite

Age : 28 Posts : 21

I haven't got much to say about the ranking up part, because to me.. it seemed relatively easy. Granted, I've been roleplaying on sites labeled "advanced" on invisionfree that had required word counts of 600 words+. So I'm used to long, sometimes, tedious posts to get what I want.

I do thing that the community itself is rather jumbled around. The staff seems to be kind of bare (hence the slow movement when it comes down to accepting characters and the like) and it's frustrating for members to see their staff just kinda disappear and when the actual staffing force is gone, it kinda stops motivation for them.

Meanwhile, if you're going to have an attitude when you post.. maybe you shouldn't post here. Being passive-aggressive is very frustrating when everyone has one goal: Making US better.

Pulling out the blame game and being overly hostile to the simplest of things gets us nowhere and people who do that need to take a time out, because in the process of reform, yes some people will have feathers plucked out - but overall, no one really has time to deal with people going back and forth like asinine children.

I understand timezones are a difference here, but perhaps clear out the old staff who are missing most of the time (and are unexcused) and start from there?

Age : 49 Posts : 1036

Abilities wrote:: ^Strong this.

Overall, I have no problem with the way the site works how it is now, only how certain members come and go, (perhaps some sort of punishment IC could be given to them for these random dis-and re-appearances.) I understand people have things to do, but if you dont have time to make a post a day, why are you here man? The only thing you're doing is making it harder for the rest of us to play, and if you are going to be random in amount of time your going to be able to get on, perhaps you should let your comrades (or kage) know before they give you a team/start a topic. Get to know your player before you engage in character relations.

I'm on the staff side all the way for this one, because I don't see devoted Rpers, I see devoted gamers, for sure, but not devoted RPers on the other side.

Given your prior history here Silver, you aren't one to talk about "dedication". First, your jonin didn't "earn" her rank - it was given on approval. Second, you left the site high and dry only to come crawling back under a new name. Given that, you really have no place to attack other people about not being "devoted RPers". I also suggest you keep the demeaning remarks to yourself. Even if the staff turns a blind eye to such things because you're "in" with them, you might find that others simply ignore you.

Age : 31 Posts : 299

No need to get rash Nuc, i'm not pointing fingers at anyone nor do I wish to. As for the remark about my jounin, as you can see I am no longer a Jounin, did i ask for it? No. Would staff of given it to me if I had asked? Probably not, given prior experience, this only shows that the staff is doing their job right with players who come and go. I had real life commitments where I was working pretty much everyday of the week to pay for the schooling i intend to attend. Secondly I did not come back "Hiding" behind a new name as you would put it. I changed my name, which is allowed I am Silver, Dreamslayer, Facade, Sterling for any of those who were not informed. Lol. Honestly these topics, and sorts of things are why I have left the site before, I'm not here for the Drama, and if you have a problem with that, you can go drop a PM in my box because I dont think this topic was made to point out how certain players have come and gone, but to help fix the "unreasonablity" of ranking up so keep the personal remarks to me and yourself from now on if you have them. The staff sought me out to rejoin the site and I like this site, that's why I came back, so instead of making accusations you should focus on what this topic is about.

Age : 35 Posts : 1113

Enzo wrote:

Quote :: Don't forget that the staff are the ones who will have to sort through and bear the brunt of any work we lay on them here. Even if it was this black and white, one can understand a reflexive response to avoid considerable extra hassle. But it's not that simple and I don't think that's what this is. You have a point, Chris, in that there's clearly a trend between members calling for this specific change and staff opposing it. But the topic is not being locked and ignored and despite the confrontation, this is still up for discussion.

~~Marry me <3~~ Ahem, yes. She brings up valid points Aww yeah

TOPKite wrote:: Another issue I think is the death system here. I know it's already been mentioned in this thread but it is worth re-visiting as I believe that it is a valid concern. People won't be as prone to fighting and wandering about in fear of being killed. In fact the current way death is set up, people who are genin are more motivated to go out and risk their lives as they have little to nothing to lose. Someone who's a chuunin will be less likely to want to go into dangerous areas as it potentially means losing months of work only to start over. This problem only gets worse when we get into higher ranks. On this site, when you die there is really no silver lining other than making a new char. I understand that death should be punishing but on the same token, isn't losing your char punishing enough? I know that I'm not the first to come up with this idea but why not have a system in place that allows for people to not lose all their progress? A 25%-50% percent return rate on points could be a way. I'd also suggest offer bonuses for well played deaths. If you die in a fight there's no reason why you can't make it sound pretty and make it a well written death. This would let the killer feel satisfied and fulfilled with the death and offer the player of the dead character to get some points kicked their way for their new character. It would alleviate some of the grind associated with starting a new character. I might also propose that you only take one rank away from a person, meaning that if you die as a jounin you have the option to auto-start as a chuunin. You could even use your site's ranking system and make the gap be one or two places down. So if you die as a jounin you start off as experienced chuunin or if you died as experienced jounin you start off as regular jounin. You can adjust it any way you want.

I agree that this could stand to be discussed a little more. With a little tweaking, the above suggestion is certainly worth consideration. Buuuuttt... it's a tough nut to crack, so perhaps one thing at a time.

Masasei wrote:: I do thing that the community itself is rather jumbled around. The staff seems to be kind of bare (hence the slow movement when it comes down to accepting characters and the like) and it's frustrating for members to see their staff just kinda disappear and when the actual staffing force is gone, it kinda stops motivation for them.

Though this has been known to happen for no significant reason, right now many of the staff are busy with exams in real life. Perhaps we need an announcement so that everyone can make allowances for this. Although, since we are discussing the ranking up and evaluation system, I feel I ought to point out that there are no fewer than six evaluation requests waiting to be checked (all have been 'tagged' by staff) and dating back to three weeks ago.

Age : 28 Posts : 21

~Fox~ wrote:: Though this has been known to happen for no significant reason, right now many of the staff are busy with exams in real life. Perhaps we need an announcement so that everyone can make allowances for this. Although, since we are discussing the ranking up and evaluation system, I feel I ought to point out that there are no fewer than six evaluation requests waiting to be checked (all have been 'tagged' by staff) and dating back to three weeks ago.

Well then, that's what needs to happen. As a new member, I SHOULD be informed of everything on the site and as someone was kind enough to mention before, communication is key. It's not really the member's job to scout around to figure out what the staff is doing - all we're able to see is the fact that they HAVE logged on and it can be frustrating when you see a handful of staff on, but no responses to things that require their input.

I understand that they are busy and that is very understandable, along with timezone differences. But taking 3 days to respond to an application is pushing it and the quickest way to lose members if to have them waiting far too long for their character to be evaluated. Do note that most people who have characters aren't going to get their first 1|2 acceptance right off the bat; chances are, something needs to be changed. Then it just becomes aggravating to sit around and do nothing.

Having been an admin of over 10 sites within my 3, nearly 4 years, of roleplaying I can definitely say that checking over an application isn't a chore and it does not take long. At all.

As I stated before, I understand the staff is busy - really. I'm a busy guy too. But don't expect people not to have an attitude or be annoyed over this when no one makes it publicly known. Dropping it in a random topic isn't known; be courteous to your members and make a fair announcement so no one feels as if they've joined a half-living site. A little off topic, but really guys, communication is key.

Age : 35 Posts : 1113

Masasei wrote:

~Fox~ wrote:: Though this has been known to happen for no significant reason, right now many of the staff are busy with exams in real life. Perhaps we need an announcement so that everyone can make allowances for this. Although, since we are discussing the ranking up and evaluation system, I feel I ought to point out that there are no fewer than six evaluation requests waiting to be checked (all have been 'tagged' by staff) and dating back to three weeks ago.

Well then, that's what needs to happen. As a new member, I SHOULD be informed of everything on the site and as someone was kind enough to mention before, communication is key. It's not really the member's job to scout around to figure out what the staff is doing - all we're able to see is the fact that they HAVE logged on and it can be frustrating when you see a handful of staff on, but no responses to things that require their input.

I understand that they are busy and that is very understandable, along with timezone differences. But taking 3 days to respond to an application is pushing it and the quickest way to lose members if to have them waiting far too long for their character to be evaluated. Do note that most people who have characters aren't going to get their first 1|2 acceptance right off the bat; chances are, something needs to be changed. Then it just becomes aggravating to sit around and do nothing.

Having been an admin of over 10 sites within my 3, nearly 4 years, of roleplaying I can definitely say that checking over an application isn't a chore and it does not take long. At all.

As I stated before, I understand the staff is busy - really. I'm a busy guy too. But don't expect people not to have an attitude or be annoyed over this when no one makes it publicly known. Dropping it in a random topic isn't known; be courteous to your members and make a fair announcement so no one feels as if they've joined a half-living site. A little off topic, but really guys, communication is key.

In their defense, a number of staff have posted individual messages detailing their absence under 'Departures'. But when staff are away en masse like this, an announcement would be prudent, for sure.