We'll be opening reports later this month but before we do so I'd like to ask for feedback on the current report format. Chiefly the issue of anonymity of report comments and current discouragement of open report discussions. We could make comments visible after reports close but perhaps still keep them anonymous. We could also once again encourage collaboration. There are also other report variables we could adjust, like length of phases, etc.
This upcoming cycle will feature both combat and QoL reports but we will lower the amount of reports from 3 to 2 per person to make them more manageable for review and implementation.
This announce post will auto-generate a forum post, please leave your feedback there or message me personally if you would like to do so in a more private manner. I know how much you all dislike posting on forums instead of Discord, but for something like this, we need focused feedback and a more structured debate that won't have anyone miss out on the arguments being made, or require them to read through a week's worth of chatter to get caught up. We'll make a decision after March 10th.
0
Comments
I say the same for discussion of reports on the discord. I assume the reason was to cut down flaming and personal wars and attacks, but also it is through discussion and debate and collaboration usually that the best ideas and outcomes can be found. So I'd maybe suggest allowing them in the discord. Maybe their own channel. Maybe slowmode. It also means people could get some feedback before even submitting a report.
phase length probably should be shorten too. Voting doesn't need to be 15 days. Having month before even the admin start judging feels too long with how important some things are. I might be go as far to admin review is too long as well. Lusternia is at the point that waiting that long does more harm than good. Again, I know you want to be careful and admin sign-in time varies, but this goes back to the more frequent updates rather than having combat updates once a year and basically never looked at again.
I support whatever you have to do to make reading the comments chains easier and also having more report cycles throughout the year.
I think we could also have different times of the year where do do special reports. To give an example: I have collected a large portion of the active player base and we have been discussing what we would like to see changed with Timequakes/Revolts/Wildnodes. As it stands we have 6 reports open for debate from the player base which means some of us are going to have to sacrifice report slots for a collective conflict report list.
I suggest making comments pseudonymous, rather than plain anonymous. Assign every commenter a random ID or name, like the Vengeance personas... and for all the same reasons Vengeance has that option.
Have those IDs/names persist across reports. Often times several reports will reference each other, and in my experience a broader discussion about the group of reports can have specific threads in more than one report. Having "Foo" and "Bar" on report #1 be the same Foo and Bar on report #2 will help make it all make sense.
Numbers are fine, but probably a pool of random names would work better. It's just easier to tell names apart versus numbers, I think it'd probably be a lot less confusing.
I will be able to comment on frequency, size, and shape of future reports only once this cycle is complete. We need to see how it goes first with me spearheading them and MCs handling the coding.
If you have so many of them ready, however, here's what we'll do. Once they are finalised, please post them here or send to me (support@lusternia.com) and I will be able to say upfront if this is something we can do this cycle. If so, I will file the reports myself so nobody has to sacrifice their slots for this. Things like small tweaks (numbers, frequency, rewards, etc)? Sure. Way bigger changes though? More difficult but will consider.
The amount of work, in terms of discussions, design, and implementation on our end that conflict, as a whole, would involve is massive compared to combat/QoL. Those are small, incremental changes, while conflict was selected as an overhaul topic for a reason. Of course, nothing has moved on that front and it would be better to do small changes than no changes at all in the meantime, hence my proposal above.