Experience Points, Post Counts, and Levels

[Maerin]

I do think this topic needs to back up a step or two, as there are a couple fundamental-type questions whose answers might suggest reasonable courses of action.

The most obvious question is to ask what purpose or purposes does/will level serve on the forum? It is a question that should be answered in some detail (and has not as yet, since the loss of TotS). I know there are a lot of individual answers out there, but there is also a fair amount of dissent associated with many of those individual answers. It is NOT a good idea to assume any answer right now, until that answer has some level of commonality (if not necessarily agreement) with the people discussing this subject. It is NOT good enough to merely say something to the effect of "same as it was on TotS", because there have already been people here in the past month or so (including long-time participants in TotS) who clearly had some very strong issues with how things were set up on TotS, irrespective of the original theory/explanation behind it.

The reason (at least in the context of this topic) this is the most obvious question to define in detail first is it will tell us which sorts of participation metrics (i.e. number of posts, numbers of posts in specific topics, etc.) are the most "appropriate" for defining that level. Until that is determined in some common fashion in this topic, no one is going to agree on the smaller details associated with the greater decision.

[Beowuuf]

Can I suggest a simple solution to implement and regulate that allows for any form of participation to be rewarded, is not stuck to post count (one could even never post on the forums) and touches on many of the aspects.

Medals

Each medal = 1 level. If medals were more integral to member identity, it might also encourage and create responsibility for more medals being awarded by the classes. It might also encourage more participation if medals, as well as being a cool thank you, actually had a value to the forum.

It's much harder to power up in levels - even the easy medals to get in the old tots site allowed for osme basic interaction. You donated to the site, you showed us your face and where you lived, you contributed to the wiki, manual of the kai and perhaps a tournament or two.

It is less easy to be abused, even if it is abused then the class leaders and medal moderators can simple stop awarding that person for non-genuine contributions, and reflecs gaining levels solely on the quality of your participation, not the quantity nor direction of it

[Ghost Bear]

My concern there is that awarding of medals can be subjective. In the past, I've not received a medal when I feel I deserved one. Conversely, I've received several medals for the same thing.

Even amongst our community, mistakes/oversights can be made, so we would need a way to address that if medals were to be the way we do it.

I think the idea has merit though - I have to rush off now over to my friend's for a meal then beers (yey!) but I'll think some more on it, and hopefully post some ideas later or tomorrow.

-GB

[Beowuuf]

You still possessed over 40 I believe

Hopefully if there was more responsibilty to award medals due to it being seen as important to everyone, then the community would also take that seriously and be on the look out for these sort of mistakes.

And hopefully they wouldn't happen so often that it would balance out.

[eviltb]

Of course it begs the question, what level does everyone begin with? A Kai Supreme Master is "supposed" to be a lvl40 character, if you think about it in RPG terms. Indeed, as I think FP mentioned somewhere else, GrandMastery was thrust upon him when he started as a Kai, so it would seem odd that if/when the new forum comes back, evryone starts at lvl1.

[Maerin]

In an ideal world, maybe your idea might work Beowuuf; but I agree with Ghost Bear in that I doubt such would work in practice. There is too much inclination towards modesty as a default, and that excludes people speaking up for themselves when they are excluded (whether by accident, oversight or, yes, malice). And, unless one were part of a functional clique within the community (with all the problems THAT situation implies...), there is no mechanism to see others speak for the "deserving" person. There is too much likelihood of just what Ghost Bear was talking about occurring; a medel system is fine (though I do not like what it turned into on the old Tower; where there were just too many medals that were too exclusive and could never be earned again), but not as a metric of "distinction" participating in the site. Even if we somehow had the most objective medal admins we could ever find, the perception of subjectivity would be enough remove credibility.

[Maerin]

Apr 24, 2008 13:14:31 GMT -5 eviltb said:

Of course it begs the question, what level does everyone begin with? A Kai Supreme Master is "supposed" to be a lvl40 character, if you think about it in RPG terms. Indeed, as I think FP mentioned somewhere else, GrandMastery was thrust upon him when he started as a Kai, so it would seem odd that if/when the new forum comes back, evryone starts at lvl1.

As to that, we "get what we pay for" if we insist on trying to use the d20 (pardon, "OGL") model of "levels" and "classes". Its shakey enough with the Kai, but it's proven to be a downright square-peg-round-hole situation with everyone else.

[eviltb]

Maybe we shouldnt bother with a level system at all then, and just go for a "gold for posts" system....

[Beowuuf]

There is the major problem of WH not being part of this discussion. Whatever website he is building is what we'll get, when he has the time. For a fundamental change from the old site, we need to basically request it right now and it needs to be definitive, agreeable to him and easy to implement, otherwise I assume he will establish the same systems again

[Doomy]

I'm opposed to the reintroduction of such things. If old TotS had a problem it was the amount of clutter and cruft that built up over the years but didn't really serve any tangible function and generally got in the way.
Having 'levels' for members just creates unnecessary and illusionary hierarchies and deters newbies from getting involved. I understand that a lot of WW participants ignored the inflated levels they gained through post count, and tournaments are much fairer and more accessible if everyone is on a level footing, regardless of whether they've been hanging around for years or have just wandered in and thought "hey, that looks like fun, I think I'll give it a go."
Levels and player stats have their place, but only for play-by-forum RPGs (D20 stuff, Aguila Saber's challenges) and the like, and they can be contained there. We don't need to have them splattered everywhere.
I believe that the other roleplaying aspects of the site are best expressed through the words of the people involved, we don't need all that graphical junk creeping into every post on the forum.
Having said all that, I'll now wait and see if I get flamed or just banned from the site altogether.

[Al]

I doubt you will get flamed, because I think what you are saying fits into an overall pattern of discussion here. I think it appears there is a general consensus that thier was an issue with the rank system - problem comes from how to fix it... my political science training teaches me that no matter how horrible a system is, unless there is a general agreement on what to replace it with, nothing changes.

In saying that, I am not sure there is a way to fix it, but I think we should divorce rank (the shiny rank bars and stats on the left) with both rank and class stuff. At the time the site was being built up that was a great idea, but now we have a critical mass to start with and we can have a less hierarchical and more democratic system.

[Sarra]

I have to admit, I liked having the rank system. However, I agree that it should not have been based on post count. If he the system was based on medals, as Beowuuf suggested, it might feel better.

And of course we could just do away with it all together.

[Sarra]

And then an idea hits me. Lets say we had the same system we had before. However, set the level cap at level 20. This way your posting can only get you to level 20. Any additional levels would be gained by site participation only.

This way, post count really does become irreverent fairly early on. And any subsequent level gains would be because you actually did something important in the community.

[Agrarvyn]

While that's definitely fairer in an ideal world, it then has the twin demons of being post-related and being dependent on medal-related issues, with those problems too.

[Al]

Apr 24, 2008 18:59:52 GMT -5 Agrarvyn said:

While that's definitely fairer in an ideal world, it then has the twin demons of being post-related and being dependent on medal-related issues, with those problems too.

But at the same time minimizing both... I think it is a splendid idea! Anyways, even though above level 20 is canon for the Kai, that does not mean we have to go there in our version of Magnamund - afterall, does it not strike you that it was created to be able to sell gamebooks rather than as an integral part of the world?