On 05/29/2017 04:08 PM, Aris Merchant wrote:
We have a serious deregistration problem. Two of our experienced
players, and one of our new players have deregistered. I'd like to
open this up as a central thread about what we've done wrong. I'd
appreciate if the former players would consider joining in the
discussion, so that we might work together to improve Agora. Right now
things are getting kind of unsustainable.
-Aris
I've thought about this all day (on top of the thoughts that lead to my
decision) and I'm just going to say what I feel.
I love Agora, and until this month I've enjoyed the company of every
person involved with Agora. It's a community that exists only to build a
community, a history of building history. People have dedicated a lot of
time and resources into making this a successful and enjoyable
experience for each other, and never asked for anything but basic
respect and appreciation in return.
First, I want to talk about the symptom that ultimately made the game
unfun to me. Here's some numbers:
Current player count: ~23 players
Votes on the last round of proposals: 7
Votes on the last round of elections: 6
Comments on the Assets v4 proto: 5, from 4 players
Comments on Assets and Deregistration proto: 1, from 1 player
Comments on 'humble agoran farmer is a humble agoran farmer': 22, from 9
players
Number of current Agencies: 10? How many have been used? 3?
Number of organizations: 5. How many have been used recently? 0?
In 2 weeks, we've had 29 CFJs. Every CFJ created by 1 person _requires_
the time of ais523 and the judge. How many of these facilitated
gameplay? How many were presented alongside thought-out arguments, and
how many were posed without a thought?
To me, this reads like a game up its own ass. Gameplay is in all realms
overshadowed by asides and busywork. I want to be clear here: Everyone
is responsible for this, including myself. And everyone is entitled to
frivolity and play and creating busywork, to some extent. This was not
previously regulated because 1) we usually take turns and 2) we
respected the boundaries of each other. I hope this will remain
unregulated, but I hope that's accomplished by going back to respecting
each others' time and interests and making it clear to people when they
have failed to do so.
In pursuit of the former, I'm sorry for the trouble I've caused. I'm
sorry for frustrating G., through my actions or my words, enough that e
quit. I'm sorry for being snarky when I was disatisfied with others,
instead of being more constructive. I'm sorry for deregistering before
resolving the votes, because I only realized afterwards how troublesome
that might be.
In pursuit of the latter, I have some specific comments:
P.S.S.:
I've been snarky with you, but I actually think you're becoming a model
Agoran. Don't think I'm upset with you. That said, try to sit on your
emails more. Write them, save them, and come back and edit them before
publishing. This'll save everyone some headache, especially for official
business.
CuddleBeam:
If the way you responded to grok's deregistration - both the first
response and the reply - was your attempt at a sincere and thought-out
response to someone being upset, then you need to _seriously_
re-evaluate your treatment of other people. If it is either not sincere
or not thought-out, those are self evident problems.
Most of the time when you attempt - and fail - to do something, it's
caught by people doing a keyword search in the rules. Be more prudent
before creating work for others. Most of the time when people respond to
your arguments, you only respond to the ones that either reinforce your
views or that you think you have a good response to. This is another
example of not respecting other people's time and effort.
Also: Learn what an ad hominem is, and learn that your fucking word
choice affects how people view your fucking words. That last sentence
sounds really offensive, to make a point. I don't have any ill-will
towards you, but I really think you need to think a bit more about your
actions. Think more about the thousands of CFJs, hundreds of rules, 20
years of gameplay, and years of experience some players have. Most
importantly, think about the person on the other end of the message
before you hit send.
To the rest of Agora:
I understand being patient with new players; I was new only a few years
ago. But if the bar is set so low that every easily avoidable faux pas
is forgiven without a thought, that treating Agora Right Good Forever
amounts to only not being explicitly malicious, or that we assume
someone is acting 'in good faith' when they've clearly not bothered to
put in a semblance of the work they're making for other people, then I'm
just not interested in putting my own time in.
