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in reply to On the serious issue of XP devaluation and other tangentially related or unrelated passing thoughts
My apologies'n'condolences to those of us who cannot handle the dead-pan Leslie-Nielsen-serious?. And I do admit, the idea of having BUK discover his nodes losing rep made me giggle a bit. But! Tongue-in-cheek and serious aren't mutually exclusive.
Part of the reason that gave me this writing impulse is having been witness to some disheartening events on certain other forum(s). Growing organically for more than a decade, they must've had the right stuff going on. And yet, I see the ham-handed approaches of the administrator: where a thread becomes unpalatable, the response is to lock it down. Something based on ancient phpBB; there's no XP, no thumbs, no voting there. Which lead me to a premise...
It's 2016 now, and I think any sizable open forum needs a smart method for tension management. Personalities will always collide; trolling and counter-trolling will happen. To shut them off is to preclude conflict resolution, preclude any meaningful outcome (other than frustration).
But what better way to handle this than to employ a game framework. The usual usual: a resource that holds a meaning, moves one can play, victory conditions. Trophies, Top20, you name it. Perlmonks already has this XP minigame (and to great advantage too), but it's about as complicated as a broom simulator.
Want it simple yet complex? Well, probably the easiest is to bring in some poker elements...
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Re^2: On the serious issue of XP devaluation and other tangentially related or unrelated passing thoughts
by shmem (Chancellor) on May 23, 2016 at 23:06 UTC
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And yet, I see the ham-handed approaches of the administrator
No such thing as the administrator here. Plenty of cabals, though... but checks and balances are working pretty well imho.
It's 2016 now, and I think any sizable open forum needs a smart method for tension management.
Didn't you realize yet that the smartest method of tension management is the peaceful and considerate interaction of the PerlMonks regulars? In your lifetime you couldn't program a better tension management framework involving agents, methods, charts, roles, delegation and whatnot but what already is established.
But what better way to handle this than to employ a game framework. The usual usual: a resource that holds a meaning, moves one can play, victory conditions. Trophies, Top20, you name it.
This would go against the Camel's hair and against PerlMonks Zen-Sation. People are here to learn, and teach. No such thing as victory conditions, for victory on one side means defeat on the other. Whilst I have seen strife and battle here with arguments to make a point, I rarely sensed that these were carried out to boost ones ego, rather these were struggles to nail down and get some enlightenment.
Game framework - really? My neck hair - and my beard and eyebrows - bristle, hearing of that idea. What's next? Game theory cast into PerlMonks engine code, that old blunder inherited from the cold war which made its way into economy via neoliberalism, into society as a whole via Thatcherism, into working conditions via ISO-9001, ISO-127001, into coding via scrum and agile, into schooling via PISA and whatnot? Please.
Perlmonks already has this XP minigame (and to great advantage too), but it's about as complicated as a broom simulator.
PerlMonks is the minigame, and XP is nothing but a bit of spice spread over it. Nothing more. Don't let us overestimate the pepper and foster spice wars. PerlMonks is a wonderful game, and we all are the game, the players, the rules, the gaming delight and the game's bounty.
perl -le'print map{pack c,($-++?1:13)+ord}split//,ESEL'
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No such thing as ''the administrator'' here.
Well, I wouldn't stretch that too far; we do have 'an administrator', it's just not a single person. We have the gods, and the janitors and power users to whom aisle clean-up and troll squelching have been delegated (respectively); but in general, each member of these groups is free to act alone -- even ham-handedly. You're right about checks and balances, though, because any cabalist (including gods!) can find himself defrocked if he's deemed to have abused his power.
In your lifetime you couldn't program a better tension management framework involving agents, methods, charts, roles, delegation and whatnot but what already is established.
It almost sounds like you're saying our system is perfect. Do you simply mean a better system couldn't be programmed?
I rarely sensed that these were carried out to boost ones ego
Not nearly rarely enough, imho. "Our chief weapon is hubris! Hubris, and impatience. Our two weapons are..."
Game framework - really?
No such thing as victory conditions, for victory on one side means defeat on the other.
PerlMonks is already gamified. The XP system we have now is a stereotypical example of gamification.
I don't think having "victory conditions" in a gamified system requires that victory (and defeat) occur as they do in an actual game because, among other things, there is no end. It really just sets the definition of what the users are striving for (e.g. high XP). As the doco says: XP is just game. And it is.
PerlMonks is the minigame
That may be true, in a broader, more abstract sense... much as we might say life is just a game. But that's different from how the site experience has been gamified using XP.
I reckon we are the only monastery ever to have a dungeon stuffed with 16 ,000 zombies.
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Basically, you're saying that PerlMonks is a small, tight-knit family, and that is the way you like it. Fair enough.
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No. PerlMonks regulars are in no way a family, and far from tight-knit. The most productive regular here is Anonymous Monk, featuring a whopping count of 89949 nodes (24.05.2016 01:15:23 GMT-1 +2h). And a decade ago the "family" of regulars was different.
You missed my point, which is: battling for something
a resource that holds a meaning, moves one can play, victory conditions
is not a good way to mitigate conflicts
Personalities will always collide; trolling and counter-trolling will happen. To shut them off is to preclude conflict resolution, preclude any meaningful outcome (other than frustration)
since a battle merely overshadows the underlying conflict, ever so. And who would be those engaged in the battle? The current PerlMonks regulars, of course. What for? There.
perl -le'print map{pack c,($-++?1:13)+ord}split//,ESEL'
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Re^2: On the serious issue of XP devaluation and other tangentially related or unrelated passing thoughts
by mr_mischief (Monsignor) on May 23, 2016 at 17:08 UTC
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Poker elements? XP already has the luck of the draw (wighted random chance) and a consideration of what's in the hands of others ($NORM).
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Poker is just one game where simple elements engender deep complexity. It doesn't have to be XP, we can leave that well alone.
To give another example: let's say anyone casting a vote can also submit a number (\d+). A purely optional choice, zero by default means to ignore it. One or two of the smallest unique bids are the winners and will go on to perform an action. The action is just a CSS selector: node highlight for +rep, comic sans for -rep?
The idea is not to arbitrarily gamify everything, it is to provide depth where there is room for contention. One may need to spend a little thought to effect their verdict. The hope is that intelligence might win.
Edit. It suddenly occurred to me that use of the word "intelligence" might have upset someone. Refer back to the previous sentence please: in order to play, one would need two resources: (1) a vote, the price of admission; (2) "a little thought"; meaning a barrier to unthinking participation. That is all. It's just a lottery anyway. Also, let it be noted that the example as such would not work. Too... fidgety, too obscure. But it could serve as a basis. (And if you don't like lottery, maybe some other game. Remember, voting is a game too with its own rules, moves to play, victory conditions.)
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Trying to take you serious,
I enjoy reading daily bests and having threads sorted by reps.
The phrase "it's only a game" was phrased for people overreacting by thinking it's a serious measure of competence.
(And we all know nothing was better distributed over mankind than intelligence, everybody thinks he got enough. ..)
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