by ICECLIMBERS » Wed Jun 13, 2018 9:05 pm
I'm not fond of one-size-fits-all prodding rules. The first issue is the "quantity vs. quality" one that people have alluded towards in the thread. If the limit is 15/day and somebody has 12 insightful, readable, lengthy posts and somebody else has 25 posts that are mostly fluff, does the mod strictly adhere to the activity rule? If so then the low poster will be begrudged over being shut out of a game that they put considerable effort into, but for some reason were unable to reach the designated limit (other commitments, work, etc.) You can of course argue that they could've posted a bit more to reach the limit, but that begs another question. If two people have the same activity and post the same net amount of content in a day, but one does it in 12 posts and another in 20, why should there be a distinction? Now going back to our original example, if you decide that the fluffposter should get the boot, then they will rightly argue that they were not told that there was a quality limit. Again you can write in that the posts have to have content, but you have better things to do than to go through every players' ISOs to count how many posts you deem sufficient.
It's not like hour prod timers are flawless either. Both them and the x/day rules run into an issue- how much should a player be punished for temporary inactivity? If a game lasts for three weeks I fail to see how a 3-day period of having shaky access to the game should get you the boot. Granted with hour rules you can time your posts, but with x/day you need to artificially inflate your post count.
My experiences modding with one-size-fits-all policies have been unrewarding. For reference, this is for hour prod rules. Either I have players squeak by, or I find myself bending the inactivity rules midway through the game when I'd rather have them be consistent. There were also players who were regularly active but got prodded over a small period of inactivity. This is also why I transitioned from 24 hour prod timers to 30 hour prod timers. 36 can work well in a CL-type game or a larger game, but in a good number of games it can produce long periods of silence from a slot. With 30 hours those who usually get to post during a certain window of time each day have more flexibility.
I think the best way to deal with inactivity isn't to do it by the numbers as this thread suggests, but instead to have a blanket rule that catches those who have vanished from the game and to have mods deal with prodgers on a case-by-case basis. The former deals with those who are just inactive while the latter can take care of prodgers. Easier said than done though.
The problem rests in prodgers and not those who "go afk." Flakers are almost always caught by the system. I could write more on this but it's late and it'd mostly be rambling that becomes unrelated to the topic at hand. I think that if somebody hasn't visited the forums for a certain period of time and they haven't picked up any PMs to them that the mod should be able to bypass prod timers and outright kick them from the game. Sometimes siteflakers last too long, especially towards the ends of games when days can be shorter.
I can't speak too much about what's happening in games right now. A general lack of games that catch my interest, combined with frequent periods of times when I am too occupied with something to play FM have limited me for several months now (you could argue that this has lasted for >=a year). But, to the best of my knowledge, the site's serial prodgers aren't as active anymore.
Also, hyperposting is annoying too.