I was driving for 5 hours straight and then it hit me! No, not a truck, the idea! Okay, guys, listen.... what if...

What if the players were allowed to read/approve other players in chargen, so that the staffers wouldn't have to deal with it (=more staff time toward plotting) and that the chargen wait line blues would be less painful?

Oh, but wait, gentle reader! I hear a disturbance in the force - are you trying to tell me that it would be a situation rapidly spinning out of control? Where's the checks and balances? It's going to get abused!

Hang on... so long as we are agreed that staffers spend too much time reading backgrounds and players spend too much time waiting to be approved, let's try and design a system which would be safe, fun and quick for everyone?

Enter peer-approved backgrounds!

The player writes a background. Submits it to the queue, as it works now. Another player, whose background was commended by the system (see below) grabs it, reads it, and either rejects it, approves it or commends it. Players don't see each other's names during this, it's completely anonymous. The queue is two-way blindfold - you don't know whose background you're reading, you don't know who's reading your background.

If the application is rejected (the reader explains why) the player gets to work on it and submit it into the queue again, but attached to it is the rejecter's commentary, so that the next reader can see it.

If the application is approved once, the application enters the queue again, so that another reviewer can check it. The same reviewer can not approve an application twice. It takes two approvals (from two different people) to get the character on the grid.

If the application is commended, it counts as 1 "approval" and sends it into two queues: into the regular queue for a second approval (if it needs it) and into the special "staff-only" queue where staffers can read it, give the writer some kind of reward or throw a plot their way.

The background readers would get 0.xx karma per background read, whether they approved it, rejected it, or commended it. If they commend a crappy background, they get penalized by staffer for wasting staffer's time as seems appropriate to the staffer.

Only those players whose backgrounds got commended (and rewarded by staff) get to read and approve others' backgrounds.

I appreciate what you're trying to accomplish.? And don't take this as me shooting your idea down, by any stretch.? But, players don't need to have access to other player's backgrounds.? That's IC information they don't need access to.? Besides, if backgrounds were peer review, what would we need Player Helper Staffers for?

We -need- to have a psuedo staff function that acrues karma, but doesn't run plots.? Your proposed solution would totally eliminate that.

Not to mention that Seattle needs to join the 21st century and get off the background system, and into the Background -Question- system, w/ optional prose for those unpublished overachievers out there.

-CM

Uhm...  It's a nifty idea, but I just don't see a point in it. Sorry.

1. PHStaffers read the background, not the staffers who create the plots. They read the backgrounds if they want to create a plot based on someone's background.  And with your system, they'd still need to read the background anyway.

2.  Maybe the reviewer can't see the name on the application... But a background is going to have names in it. Like a real name, and whatever alias is used.  So the background itself defeats the whole purpose of anonymous backgrounds.

3.  You're having at least three people read this background.  Two peers and one staffer.  The way I read it, two peers would recommend the background and then pass it to the staffer.  That seems to add time to me rather than make it quicker, and you still have the staffer reading it. 

The idea is kinda like communism.  It sounds wonderful on paper, but the reality is that human nature will find a way to completely mess it up.

Actually, to address your concerns:

Yes, backgrounds are supposed to be anonymous. If a player is having trouble keeping IC and OOC separate, he shouldn't be reading people's backgrounds. It's a voluntary thing. If you are caught abusing that, consequences are "as usual".

I agree with Background Question system, this can apply to that as well.

I'm aware of the difference between PHstaff and RPstaff. The system is used to filtrate the backgrounds. Only the best of the best get to be read by staff, whereas regular boring stuff gets filtered out and approved or rejected without staffer's time spent on it. So you could be out on the grid playing for a week before a staffer looks at your "Commended" background. Not every background will be commended.

What I would do is allow people to submit backgrounds once they're on the grid, instead of while in chargen, and put this system in place as "voluntary". If you get an "approved" background, you'd get (oh I dunno) X karma, if you get a "commended" background you get something more, per staffer's call.

See, I have a wife who likes roleplaying, online games, etc. But I can't fathom making her write two pages of prose to play a character in a text-only game when World of Warcrack is so much more readily available and we don't have all that much time to begin with.

Dude.


How can it be stated any simpler than that.? What good would those staffers be if they couldn't be the sole gatekeepers between Chargen and the game?

Anyway.? The system is totally subjective to the flavour of the month.? Better to just scrap the whole notion.? Hell, even open chargen w/ -optional- backgrounds might be good idea.? The jackasses inevitably end up filtering themselves out, anyway.? And a background does little in the way of proving anything other than that they can write paragraphs in english.

-CM

Right. The proposed system eliminates need to have phstaff. Essentially, phstaff become players with "commended" backgrounds.

Am I missing anything else?

And yes, I agree with what you said about jackasses, paragraphs of English and optional backgrounds.

Since there are no more orgs, gangs, and restricted slots all one needs is to have a few people that say "Yes you made your +sheet correctly, welcome to the grid". For, when reading over this thread, I only see something that will add elitism and cliques to the game.

How would you propose that would happen?

Dreamer gets cookies for having the same opinions as me. (I like feeling loved.)

Tear brings out a big rubber stamp.

Tear stamps a big red [DENIED] on this idea.

Tear sips her drink.

Nah.  Not really.  And I was mostly busting your balls.  If they drop PHS, then this is definitely a plausable solution/alternative.  And one that I'm not all together opposed to, except that I think an even more practical solution would be to just drop PHS staff completely, and make RPstaff do character approval in the cases that character approval is required.

-CM

RPstaff doing character approvals? Bad idea. I don't need to explain why, do I?

We really need to get away from the "must be approved to hit the grid" mentality. So I'm all for lowering barriers of entry as a means of removing the "eliticism, cliques, low mush population, etc".

Having to be approved to play is not the only reason for a low mush population.

Oh, I agree.

So what do you all think needs to be changed, policy-wise, to avoid the errors of the past?

I know what I proposed isn't the best solution to one of the problems we've had, but let's brainstorm and come up with something better?

RPStaff doing character approvals is about the same as PHStaff doing character approvals.? It's not like RPStaff sit around and are constantly running plots, or are really prevented from contributing elsewhere to the game if they have to go through the trouble and toil of approving a character.? The character approval process should be pretty straight forward, anyway.

+sheet Playern00b

RPStaff:? Hrm.? Looks good there.

+bgview Playern00b

RPStaff: Yes, these lengthy paragraphs are written in english.? Good.

+sheet Playern00b

RPStaff: Ok, well, nothing has changed since the last time I checked out this +sheet.

@mail/playernoob=Approval

-You're approved.

@send

+approve playern00b


I'm still sitting the fence on the notion of open chargen.? On one hand, you do get the periodic n00bstick running around.? On the other hand, you force people to jump through hoops hoping that in the process of doing so, the n00bsticks will be dissuaded, and find somewhere else to n00bstick around.

I like the idea of a faster chargen system.? Perhaps only applications that fall into 'X' catergory need to have RPStaff approval?

But then, I'm not really sure what 'X' would be...

...Actually, maybe open chargen would be best with an 'optional' reward for the monkey's that write up a background?

-CM