Reputation verse Ranking

[X-baby longshot]

I keep thinking about this, My prior post was ill received due to concern people would be able to make invalid marks that could harm the ability of a GM or player to be able to join games.
I know and understand there is a reputation system built in, however I believe this is used within the forums, and is intended to add reputation if someone posting something you believe is a good idea or just a valid point. Because of that I can’t see anyone using the current reputation feature to decide on what players and GM’s to play with, as valid forum entry isn’t a valid measurement for being a good role-player or GM.
So I would like to suggest a new different type of ranking system, not the same ranking system I previously recommended. I can see how the prior ranking system I recommended, may have some immature usage possibilities.
That said if the concern is that people will just negatively mark people down for their poor performance, I would now like to suggest a compromise. How about a game based ranking system that that is similar to the forums reputation system. A system that allows players and GM’s alike that are consistent, gain rewarded reputation for in game actions. I suggest a reputation system based on the following traits:
Punctuality
Creativity
Group Cohesion

[Mask_of_winter]

While punctuality is a good criteria, Creativity is subjective and Group Cohesion depends as much on the players as the GM.
I see you've been here for less than a year. Over time you get to know the people. You hear from this guy that this GM isn't reliable, that player is a trouble maker or that you really want to get in on this GM's campaign. It may take a while to find the perfect group for you. Just like in real life groups life happens. I've dropped campaigns because I didn't have any chemistry with the players, I've been a no-show because my internet was down or because of a family emergency and on some nights I feel uninspired. It would suck the fun out of the whole GM experience if I had to get a bad mark from a bitter player. I have a tough skin having been a GM for over 25 years but if I were brand new (and we all know this community needs more GMs) I may not want to run games anymore if someone didn't think I was creative enough or couldn't get a group to gel (and as I pointed out that isn't solely the GM's responsibility). I can see you are a committed player and as a GM, this is highly valued and touted so my advice to you, just be patient.

[X-baby longshot]

Mask of Winter, Perhaps I didn’t do a good enough job of my intent. The whole point of my current post was to remove the idea of giving bad marks and just being able to add to reputation, much to the same system that is already being used, but would also pertain to in game vice just being used within the forum.. IE you think a GM/player is always on time, you can increase their reputation in the Punctuality category, you think they came up with a really cool creative idea, you increase their reputation within the Creativity category, you think they are great at keeping the group focus or work to remove group conflicts, you increase their reputation in the Group Cohesion category. The point was to build a system that can be used to positively reward each other and also give players and GM’s an idea of a players prior performance.

[Mask_of_winter]

Okay, not a bad idea. The reputation system is hardly used here. You would only join a game if someone has received good marks?

A couple years ago at one of the FG Con Smiteworks offered a reward to GMs if the players would send an email to them confirming the game took place. I run four games that con with over 20 players in attendance. By the rewards I received I can say only 2 people took the time to send the email. When I run a one-shot or con game on here if I don't thank the players for coming at the end of the game I rarely get a simple "thank you for running this game", yet when I post an add for a game people line up to play in my games and it isn't unusual for it to be booked within a few hours. All that while running a game that isn't D&D or Pathfinder.

My point is, I doubt many would take the time to reward a GM. But it wouldn't hurt to implement it if Doug could take time from his busy schedule to set it up. Or you could start your own "review" website where you would encourage players to come give props to our amazing GMs here.

[dulux-oz]

Let me see if I can put this into words:

It's a good idea, there is no doubt about that, and I for one welcome new ideas from both old and new members of the Community: it means that the Community is growing and "healthy". But like all good ideas coming from a subjective basis (and this is - I'll explain in detail in a moment) its open to "abuse", "misrepresentation", "whatever you want to call it".

For starters, for any such system (including the Forum Reputation System, for eg) to be of any worth it must be recognized by the (larger) majority as worth-ful. To be recognized as worth-ful by the majority it must both be fair and consistent - that is, consistently applied, or at least consistently applied enough. And here is the problem: of the three criteria that have been mentioned only one comes close to being an objective measure, that of punctuality. The other two are subjective: in particular Group Cohesion is a subjective measure, as one person's cohesive group is another's dictatorial group and a third's dissident group: it all depends on style - the style of the GM, the style(s) of the Player(s), the desired style of the group as a whole, and the style of the RPG itself. As for Creativity, well...

So I might not find a particular Player a good "fit" and so mark him down (or not mark him up - its effectively the same thing) and he could do the same to me - and neither one of us is necessarily doing/has done anything wrong, its just that we didn't "fit". With other people and other RPGs we each could be perfect matches, but we'd be no better off discovering this with such as system then as we are right now. Hence, no benefit to using such a system - its not worth-ful.

As a sort-of practical example, there are already Community Members who disregard the current Forum Rep System because they see it as unfair/a popularity contest/an old-boys network/whatever, or because someone once gave them a negative rep point so they "boycott" the system - for them it has no worth. And it has been mis-used as all of those things in the past. Luckily, the majority of people do find it useful, but I suspect that they do what I do: use a Member's Rep only as an initial guide as to how much weight they should place on that Member's posts - but after the initial "first impression" they rely more on their own experience of how a Member reacts/posts/whatever to gauge the Member's posts - something they get from their experience with that Member.

Now, add to all of the above those individual's that occur in every community who are, quite frankly, @rseholes! Those who deliberately mis-use such a system because they're bullies, because they like causing trouble, because they're trolls... any number of reasons. Or maybe they abuse the system by getting their friends to "up vote" them or something similar. All of this means that such a system has its worth diminished - and diminish it enough and soon the majority will find it worth-less.

Finally, let me pass on something I've learned over the years from working/business: be careful what you measure and reward, you always end up encouraging the measured/rewarded behavior, not the behavior you wanted to encourage. Eg if the KPI is number of Job's closed in a call centre then the workers will end up closing jobs as fast as they can, instead of actually solving the issues that the customers were calling about (the actual desired behavior) - and believe me, its not the same thing!

So while I applaud you desires and you persistence, in MNSHO I don't think its the solution to the perceived problem.

Cheers

[leozelig]

It's a good suggestion, but I don't think it's enough of a priority to pull the devs away from other projects. I am also skeptical that it would provide an accurate measure of a good GM. For instance, the GM who tends to run smaller groups through long campaigns would have very few rep points relative to a higher volume GM who runs mostly one-shots or short adventures.

Sometimes you can get a feel for someone by viewing their forum posts. The user profile should have a link for that. There are often forum posts by players or the GM if a scheduled game fell through before the first session. Some players will post interest in several games in a short time, which I have found to be a red flag, since they are highly unlikely to remain committed to all (or sometimes any) of them. On the other hand, many game threads have players leaving positive feedback. Some GMs will post occasionally looking for 1-2 replacement players - these are often dedicated GMs running long-term campaigns. This way requires a little more research and some reading between the lines, but I have found it to be fairly reliable. I could get philosophical about the psychology of ratings systems, but I will just say that I try not to pay too much attention to them.

[X-baby longshot]

I'm really surprise that once again there is negative feedback to this suggestion. This suggestion, if implemented would only make it possible to leave positive feedback on players and GM’s alike, to allow people to see what areas players or GM’s do well in. Yet every post against it is of the idea that the community would find a way to exploit it, miss use it or that it wouldn’t accurately provide feedback on true performance. Which I then find myself thinking that I am both wasting my time by trying to develop ideas that would benefit this community and then asking myself if I should want to be a part of community that its own community would list as exploitive?
I hate to write it, but many of the post I have read had strong opinions against any kind of ranking system because the poster was afraid they would receive bad critiques and it would be likely to push the that GM away from FG. Most of those poster admitted to having real life issues that prevented them from showing up to their games or informing their players of their inability to do so. But ask yourself how many new players have become discourage and been pushed away from the use of a VTT just because their first two or three experiences they had a flakey GM. Also ask yourself how easy is it to write an email or post a cancelation with today’s technology at hand. Is it truly a better idea to shield a bad GM and risk the loss of new member to the community then to hold a GM accountable?
What truly amazes and disappoints me, is that I am able to perceive an issue, take time and effort to suggest a solution, and that those suggestions are under constant attack and criticism with no suggest solution other than accept it as they way things are, or ignore the issue and you will learn who is good and who is bad over time.
In other words the essence I am receiving from this post and my last post regarding implementing a ranking system is that the FG community would rather have a flaky GM’s able to push players away from the VTT then risk having positive feedback for a GM that could be exploited by someone one abusing the system.

[dulux-oz]

Look, its not that we don't like the idea, etc - most of the posts in this thread and the other one have said its a good idea in principle - its just a matter of practicalities. Several replies have pointed out some of the issues and impracticalities due to human nature, not just in the Community but in general, not in an attempt to be negative but to put forward what people's views are and to suggest while some things sound good in theory there are real-world issues which make them not so good in practice.

Its certainly not meant as a personal attack (not that I think you or anyone else is taking it that way).

And the Community is like every other: there are good, there are bad, and there are ugly - its just this Community is overly blessed with the good and there are few of the bad - the ugly, well... :p

The real issue is not whether there are "flaky" GM's out there (and there are - there are flaky people in every endeavor) but that there are never enough GM's around in the first place. That's in RL as well as VTT. Personally, I wouldn't be ranking the GM's at all, but the Players, because in my over 30 years of GMing and talking to fellow GMs and Players its the Players who are by far and wide the ones who are more flaky - but that's OK because you can simply find fresh Players if necessary. But I digress.

If you think its a great idea and want to devote the time and effort to it then go ahead - if its good then others will join you and it'll be a success - but based on the random sample that has been these posts if it went to a vote then the evidence suggests that it would not succeed - but again, I could be wrong.

Give it a go, set something up, see what happens, and if I've got to eat my hat I will.

In the meantime, I hope you find a GM and Group you're comfortable with (if you haven't found one already).

And don't loose heart because some people don't think an idea's worth it - I've had plenty of what I consider good ideas shot down over the years, but the main thing is to continue to enjoy a hobby that we love.

Cheers

[Zacchaeus]

I think the problem here might be that there's no-one that can really define what a "good" DM actually is (or a good player for that matter). It is entirely possible that a group of players will find that their DM is excellent because he plays the game the way they want it to be played. He might, for example, completely ignore many rules such as encumbrance or components for spells. If his players are of a similar mind then they'll be very happy. If, however you, as a player, think that encumbrance and spell components are central features of the game then you are not going to like that DM or group very much. So, as has been said the quality or otherwise, of the DM is a fairly subjective affair and does not really lend itself to any kind of objective criteria.

The same can be said of players. If you are of a mind to do a lot of role-playing and join in with a DM or a group of players who don't pay a lot of attention to that then no-one is going to have a lot of fun. that doesn't make the player or the group bad.

Any kind of reputation system is open to abuse. Largely, I think because people tend only to make comments or mark reputation or whatever when they have a negative experience. Thus a perfectly good DM or player could find themselves out in the cold because one or two people out of maybe 10 times that number made critical comments, just because they had a bad experience.

This is a difficult one to get right and this is, I feel, the reason that you're suggestion isn't getting a lot of support.

[Griogre]

@x-baby longshot: I would encourage you to follow though if you think the idea is worthwhile. It would have the most impact in GMs who run open table games, one shots and organized play. I know right now under your system I would not get many ratings simply because I run long running games with the same players (many who have never come to these boards). This isn't something that bothers me one way or another. I would echo Dulux-Oz in that it would be a good idea to be careful about the incentives in your rating system.

[leozelig]

Yeah, go for it! I think it's worth pursuing if you can make it work.

In the meantime, keep looking for a group. I know it took me awhile to find what I wanted. Actually, I took up DMing, which led to other gaming opportunities.