How's My Driving | March 2015

[ironwood]

HELLO CHELONAUTS! It's been a while since we've had a game-wide HMD post, so here's the first one of our new arc!

How's My Driving?
While each and every character must have an HMD page available, we offer a game-wide HMD once every calendar quarter. This is an opportunity to get together and discuss IC interpretations and portrayals in a respectful, beneficial fashion. In a nutshell, it's a chance to see how we're doing in the grand scheme of things.

There are a few ground rules to cover off before we can start:

• Participation in the quarterly HMD is 100% optional.
  
• Be respectful, anon or not. It's a lot easier to give and receive crit if all parties are making it a discussion of it rather than an argument.
  
• IP logging is off and anonymous commenting is on. You can offer crit signed in if you like, but the option's there.
  
• We ask that each concrit provided consist of one positive and one constructive bit of feedback. Bring up something that you like about that player, and in the same comment provide something that you feel they could work on. This is to help round out the feedback and provide a better experience all around.

To make things easier, here's a handy-dandy code box:

<big><b><i>Player Name</i></b></big> <i>Character Name:</i> <i>Canon:</i> <i>User Name:</i> <user name=""> <I>Focus:</i> Optional. Do you have particular concerns about your portrayal that you'd like to be the focus of crit? You can link any threads you'd like a second opinion on here. If you're looking for structural feedback, or would prefer things like grammar not be mentioned, put it here.

Comments

Re: MODS

[raavashing]

I'd like to bring up something about how AC is currently done that I was reminded of during this last AC round and which I find to be needlessly rigid within the AC system.

Currently, the rule is that if you have a thread going in a log that was posted in the previous month, you may continue to tag it into the new month and have any tags from that count for AC. But you cannot create a new thread within the new month in a log (essentially a top level or responding to a top level) and have that count toward AC EVEN IF the log in question is supposed to cover time that takes place in both months.

The differences between continuing a thread and starting a new top level in a log that is dated for the correct month ICly is minimal. I don't see the point to having this rule. So long as the same thread is not presented as AC proof in both months, and no one is trying to start a top level in a log that's not part of the 'current' game state (a log that takes place across the previous month and the current month is still part of the 'current' game state), there really shouldn't be a need for such a rigid rule to be in place.

Posting to a log that bridges the previous month and the current month (or current month and upcoming month) should be allowed to count for AC so long as the tags fall within the AC period in question. It allows for better organization and grouping of logs and events without spamming the comm with what is essentially a repeat of the original group log just to ensure you can count it for AC if you want it to.

If it's a worry about someone abusing the system, simply put in a 'common sense' ruling - IE, it's common sense that you can't tag into a log from December with a new top level and thread things out and have it count for AC because you aren't actually being active in the current game state - to cover any concerns on that end.

Otherwise, I find the AC system to be perfectly acceptable. This one part of it just makes no real sense to be so hard-lined on in my opinion.

Thank you

[sonjaofyellowcomet]

I had a thread that was exempted from AC because the top post was on the last day of january and the rest went into february, and I find that kind of rules-lawyering to be overly restrictive, so agreed ^

[ironwood]

Please see our response here, thanks.

[ironwood]

Thank you for the feedback on the Activity Check. After discussing the issue you've brought up between the mods, we feel that the "post month" approach that's in place right now is the one that accomodates the largest majority of players.

The reasoning here that we are using is that Tushanshu allowing a week's grace period to finish tagging existing threads, rather than cutting the qualifiers off at the rollover of the date, is unique among many DW games right now. In order to prevent the AC from becoming unwieldly and unfair to those who do manage their tags within the alloted time, allowing multiple month posts and logs would mean taking that aspect away, and we feel that the grace period gives more benefit to players than being able to post to a log from last month.

We don't forsee a huge influx of additional logs going into the Logs comm as a result of our decision to keep the AC rules this way, since most players adopt the "catch all" log style, which we encourage. For example, in February, there were over 1500 comments spread across just 21 logs. Even if we picked up one or two extra logs during the month, it's not going to be significant.

Your suggestion about having a "common sense" rule, to us, seems to be opening us more to misunderstanding than clarity; what's "common" to someone isn't to others. If something is common sense, then it should be just fine to also spell it out in the rules. We would much rather have redundancy than to leave AC stipulations vague.

For special logs like the Evidet landfall, the mods did make the decision to allow it to count for AC in both January and February, and clearly communicated that. But we'd prefer to leave this infrequent exceptions to be just that, and keep the "post month" for general logging.