In Thorin's defense...

[Heero]

Haha. When did the optimism turn to cynicism?!?! There was a time when Id happily roll a new PC every 3 days, ready to set out and conquer the world. Que dang.

[Darkmystic]

Well any LA who plans to ruin 2 PCs wont get my vote, thats for certain.

[Swift]

Well any LA who plans to ruin 2 PCs wont get my vote, thats for certain.

LA has no say over the whether the policy stays or goes unless they want to use a Veto, which is designed to be used extremely rarely. The outgoing LA determined 2 PCs to be a policy that sits entirely with the Player Admin.

There is nothing wrong with an LA having a dissenting opinion. They cannot actually implement anything that affects the game itself. That is for the PA and DMA.

[FoamBats4All]

Up until the turn of the year, we were in an 8 month downwards trend. Now we are not. Is 2 PCs to blame? Probably not, or not in full. Statistics are hard, and we don't have a super clear picture of every variable (our charter doesn't allow us to put snoopware in your brains/houses/IM clients).

We aren't? Your own numbers clearly show that there are less unique, active players now than there were at the turn of the year.

Hours played is a meaningless number in isolation for supporting this argument. Less players playing more hours still means we have less players.That is not growing the community like people have been saying we need to do for the last 6 months. That is feel-good padding. Would it still be considered good if we dropped to 70 players playing 60 hours a month from 79 playing 50 (which was 84 playing 40). I do not think it would be.

Additionally, there were 22 people who signed the manifesto that was sent to admin, largely regarding the direction of ALFA and consisting almost entirely of 'veteren' players which succinctly laid out some of the issues that many veterans now have with ALFA. 22 of 79 does not seem like a vast minority to me. Classifying those players as a "vast minority" is exactly that kind of talk from an Admin like yourself that contributes to driving older members away and, I presume, would be one of the reasons some do not return. The attitude toward older community members and what they want from ALFA is increasingly the reason that I am so apathetic toward ALFA and why my enthusiasm has so rapidly waned in the time leading up to my current vacation.

If the Admin actually have any interest in luring those players back, finding a compromise between the old and the new is vital and not something to simply be ignored as the complaining of a few old hacks.

Oh boy oh boy oh boy...

All right, first off, more numbers. My fault for not giving you the whole picture I guess. You see, our time spent in game was in a downward spiral. That means that we have less time spent actually in-game, which is where my statement came from. So, you can make the assumption that because we have have a net change of -5 from 2013-01 to 2013-03, that that's a drop, right? Well, you can. But statistics are a bit more complicated than that. Why did I use hours spent in game to explain a downward spiral? Well, as it turns out, trying to draw conclusions from our unique player count is kind of difficult, and you should be careful while doing so. For example, using your logic, I can say "Hey, well we may have changed -5 players in the past 2 months, but you know what? We've -gained- 12 players in the past 3 months! So I mean, like, that means in six months we'll have another 24 players! Right?"

No, wrong. The graph has too much deviation to draw any core information from, but it does become useful when linked to dates, hours played, and other information.

Anyway, if you want a more full picture, here are all the graphs I have. They all go back two years, and come from information provided by Hialmer's tool to all the admins. A lot of you have probably seen these, or graphs like these from Zelk or I in the past.

• Applications
• Forum Activity
• Hours Played
• Forum Posters v. Active GSIDs (A-Game v. B-Game)
• Unique GSIDs (players/DMs active)

Aaand, now for your 'manifesto'. You see, we looked into that, and checked with the people that signed it. Some were legitimate. When we first looked into it, we got "More than a few have stated surprise their name was on this petition and openly object to various points of the document." We discussed the issues, and we'll continue to look into them. However, the manifesto had 22 signatures and 7 components. It drew absolutely no relationship between the votes and which measures they support. So when we go to change things, we'll do a global poll (I hope), and get the entire community's viewpoint on each individual component -- rather than polling a select few and banding their names together to try to push change that not even all the signers support, let alone the community at large. For example, I supported about half of what was in the manifesto. But I wasn't going to suggest we put all 7 in just because it has 22 players of 'weight' behind it -- because again, that's flawed logic, drawn from the assumption that every person signed actually gave their full support, and when they did, that it was to every issue.

In the end the only thing I personally could draw from the manifesto was "okay well this is kind of useless for any core pushes for legislation, but it does give some points we can bring up with the community in the future".

[Stormbring3r]

Who is in charge of accepting or turning down applications? There was a huge rise in denials this year :/

[FoamBats4All]

Who is in charge of accepting or turning down applications? There was a huge rise in denials this year :/

There's a committee, I think? And be careful about misreading graphs, the application one is kind of insane. Applications are another thing that's kind of hard to peg down any real trend. If we instead make a graph of the percent of applications accepted we can't really draw any meaningful line of best fit -- so we can't do too much to peg down increases or decreases over a trend.

[Stormbring3r]

Who is in charge of accepting or turning down applications? There was a huge rise in denials this year :/

There's a committee, I think? And be careful about misreading graphs, the application one is kind of insane. Applications are another thing that's kind of hard to peg down any real trend. If we instead make a graph of the percent of applications accepted we can't really draw any meaningful line of best fit -- so we can't do too much to peg down increases or decreases over a trend.

kk.. I was just curious is all

[Castano]

Can I get a copy of this manifesto - seems as HDM and lead builder of one of our servers I was not deemed "need to know"? Also I'd like some clarity from the submitters about who signed onto what, and an explanation of why signatures who did not support the document were added... Secret petitions to change what I assume are core features of ALFA are not a good way to do business. ALFA is a more transparent gaming community now.

[FoamBats4All]

Can I get a copy of this manifesto - seems as HDM and lead builder of one of our servers I was not deemed "need to know"? Also I'd like some clarity from the submitters about who signed onto what, and an explanation of why signatures who did not support the document were added... Secret petitions to change what I assume are core features of ALFA are not a good way to do business. ALFA is a more transparent gaming community now.

The thing in its entirety should probably be posted publicly, but not sure why its writer decided to make it so hidden. Anyway, you're an admin, you can read it in full in the relevant admin-only thread.

[Castano]

Many of these are positions I have supported over the years. The PrC issue I am working on next week, expect a position from DMA that hopefully gets the ball rolling on how people can properly gain a Prc without the need to hunt DMs down for RP sessions (no they will not be handed out like candy, there shall be a price I shall exact from ye).

[Witchdoctor]

I do not normally comment on the drama that some alfans seem hell bent on creating but I really would like to see this manifesto and who really endorses it. Maybe I would endorse it as well but then I wouldn't know because we have secret forums. Want a hint? get rid of them. The only "top secret forum" should be the dm section and even then we are trusting our dm population not to use the in game meta info collected there when they play their pc(s) on another server. Why do we have forums protecting the alfa community from real life meta about the direction this community is leaning?

At the end of the day I would like to remind everyone this is still just a game, a game that alot of good hardworked folks have contributed time and energy into making.

in the immortal words of Rodney King: "Can't we all just get along?"

[Regas]

Just a quick note on player apps,

A number of the apps we receive are not real, but rather Bots.

Likewise, some of the apps, while real, lack any info or are not very well filled out.

When we reject an app, we do let the rejected know why and encourage they re-submit.

We can of course discuss dropping a formal application process and will be modifying the process to work with the new open live server. Probably something for a discussion to be held in a different venue.

The petition was not posted because after discussing it with many listed on the document it became clear to me that many of those whose name was on it had no knowledge nor agreed with it. Some of the folks on the list are gone from Alfa, some were never here as well. A few of the points were things we were or are working on, a few are not really likely to be a good fit for the community, and some are on the margins. We can certainly look at posting the ideas setting aside the names.

[FoamBats4All]

I do not normally comment on the drama that some alfans seem hell bent on creating but I really would like to see this manifesto and who really endorses it. Maybe I would endorse it as well but then I wouldn't know because we have secret forums. Want a hint? get rid of them. The only "top secret forum" should be the dm section and even then we are trusting our dm population not to use the in game meta info collected there when they play their pc(s) on another server. Why do we have forums protecting the alfa community from real life meta about the direction this community is leaning?

At the end of the day I would like to remind everyone this is still just a game, a game that alot of good hardworked folks have contributed time and energy into making.

in the immortal words of Rodney King: "Can't we all just get along?"

This is actually one of the major things I'd like to see changed about ALFA: Less hiding things from members. We're supposed to be a community, and our elected leaders should be expected to be transparent. That and opening the elections to allow all members in good standing to vote would be great -- perhaps something that can be brought up to the LA candidates. I hear that paazin once did some election reform as LA, but it has since been reverted.

[Mikayla]

Ithidur wrote:

A LOT of alfan's left over the years, not because of elite or PG rulesets, but because of some people's inability to get along. Last thing we'd want is to have folks come back after getting the emails to check us out again, to see more of the same going on between 'elites' and 'noobs'.

The irony is only exceeded by the timing. You wrote that, what, yesterday, and today for the first time in a long time, I just happen to cruise the boards looking for an old library post?!? Ha.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Manifestos? Elite vs. noob? Majority vs. minority?

Well, I have to say I had a good laugh skimming through this thread. This has been a nostalgic couple of days - I ran into Vixisyn and Ebonith and others through Facebook and then looked through the Menzo forums, which prompted me (courtesy of Ebonith) to come here looking for an old IC library post (which I found - many thanks to y'all for not deleting anything from the library - that is awesome).

Anyway, I don't know if I am saddened or comforted to see that ALFA has not changed (2 PC rule not withstanding - its the character of the place I am referring to of course, not the substance of the rules). That said, I can't say I'm sad that the old girl is still kicking - gives me hope for ... something. I dunno. Its fun to see ALFA still running though. Ciao.

Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn't say something in drow - so - vendui bitches.

Mikayla

[SwordSaintMusashi]

Ithidur wrote:

A LOT of alfan's left over the years, not because of elite or PG rulesets, but because of some people's inability to get along. Last thing we'd want is to have folks come back after getting the emails to check us out again, to see more of the same going on between 'elites' and 'noobs'.

The irony is only exceeded by the timing. You wrote that, what, yesterday, and today for the first time in a long time, I just happen to cruise the boards looking for an old library post?!? Ha.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Manifestos? Elite vs. noob? Majority vs. minority?

Well, I have to say I had a good laugh skimming through this thread. This has been a nostalgic couple of days - I ran into Vixisyn and Ebonith and others through Facebook and then looked through the Menzo forums, which prompted me (courtesy of Ebonith) to come here looking for an old IC library post (which I found - many thanks to y'all for not deleting anything from the library - that is awesome).

Anyway, I don't know if I am saddened or comforted to see that ALFA has not changed (2 PC rule not withstanding - its the character of the place I am referring to of course, not the substance of the rules). That said, I can't say I'm sad that the old girl is still kicking - gives me hope for ... something. I dunno. Its fun to see ALFA still running though. Ciao.

Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn't say something in drow - so - vendui bitches.

Mikayla

Its really good to hear from you again, if only briefly, Mikayla.