The Worlds of Kaomaris

The clan list in the Lobby now only sows clans with an active clan head, hopefully that will help new players as they come to our shores. I'd like to make sure it stays that way, so thought I'd bring up this old argument.

For new players (and those who've forgotten) one of the many rules which I've pretty much ignored over the last year regards how clan comes to be defined as active. Put simply a player is active if he/she/it is playing a game or has played a game in the last month. A clan is active if it has at least 4 active members and if a clan does not have 4 active members, it has one week to get them.

As you can imagine, with small numbers of players and games, this rule became silly and so it was ignored. We are now in a position to bring something like it back though. I would suggest the following.

Whenever you submit a form in the Lobby (update a commentary, enter orders, apply to a game, set up a game, etc.) our database makes a note of the time you did it in your profile. I suggest thatonce a month, the engine checks to see who hasn't done anything for that month and marks them as MIA. This will remove them from their clan's list and they will have to re-apply if they want to join the clan.

This way, we won't have to flag clans as inactive, new players will see by the number of members in the list. We could also mark the clan to make things even more user friendly, but I would suggest dropping the number of active members required to 2.


Thoughts? I'm happy to re-evaluate the numbers, also we need to consider what happens if a clan head goes MIA under this system.



Chris.

I was thinking that introducing your idea now would cause the clan structure to collapse sooner and more frequently than we think UNTIL I saw you suggested two active clan members per clan. With 2 per clan I think it's acceptable.

Still, I think it'd be best if the system didn't remove clan members automatically. There are players who will play a game every two or three months. Maybe the engine should notify Clan Heads about inactive members and we would use our sophisticated human minds to determine whether a player can be considered as MIA. This could motivate CHs to send out 'hi' messages to their less active players to see if they care.

When a CH becomes inactive, the engine could either notify the rest of the clan and/or some clan supervisor (let me see.... you, for now ).

I think a month is too short to be considered MIA. I'm not sure that a clan should be dumped if they end up only with one member. Rather it would be better to say that there can only be a set number of clans per amount of active players. Say one clan for every five players. If the number drops below that then no new clans are allowed to be formed.

Too complicated if you ask me.

Hmmm, but you're right about the last remaining active player in a clan. If there is still this last remaining player and his clan disappears from the boards then how will he revive his clan? By trying to convince people through e-mail or through the boards?

Maybe, this 'last active' thing you get when you click on a player's nick on a game page should display next to nicks on a clan page? That way a potential applicant could see and decide for himself which clan is active enough.

I can up the numbers so that players go MIA after 3 months, if it makes people feel better. It's not as though being MIA is a bad thing, it's just showing visitors who is actually around to support new players. I'd prefer not to display the last active outright. Here's the Scholars' current list.

• Egbert
  Saladin
  korexus
  Xarfei
  Brykovian
  Count Henri
  Grave Maker
  Skarn
  Kiesta
  bean
  Polymorphic
  Dragonette

Realistically Sal, Bykovian, Dragonette and I are the 'active' players meaning 2 thirds of the list would seem to be inactive. That would look worse than not showing them at all.

On the other hand, Egbert can't play any games right now, but is active on our clan email so removing him would do us a disservice. Maybe I'll add a "declare MIA" button to the clanheads' page. But you guys have to promise me you'll use it and someone will still have to police the mercs...


Chris.

I'm happy to keep clans with one member, the dumping was only a suggestion to keep things tidy. Dictating the number of clans is tricky. I'd prefer to do it by community feeling than by a rule. Overly prescriptive rules are what got us into this mess in the first place...


Chris.

korexus wrote: I'd prefer to do it by community feeling than by a rule.

Ditto. We're still small enough for such an approach to work.

'Declare MIA' button available to the CHs follows this approach. Would the CHs be automatically notified when a member has been gone for x months?

OK to displying only active members.

trewqh wrote:

korexus wrote: I'd prefer to do it by community feeling than by a rule.

Ditto. We're still small enough for such an approach to work.

'Declare MIA' button available to the CHs follows this approach. Would the CHs be automatically notified when a member has been gone for x months?

No reason why not. The script I was going to write to make them MIA just needs to mail the clan head instead. The spam would help encourage them to keep the clanlist up to date I guess.

Now, what about mercs?

korexus wrote:Now, what about mercs?

I think this can be automatic. If they were active within x months, they will be displayed on the Mercenaries page. Meaning once they return they will automatically appear on that page.

I keep going - 2 sentences for my thesis, 3 sentences on the WoK boards (oh, it's 4 now) and so on...

You could always bin the thesis and dedicate your existence to WOK until such time as the electricity company cuts you off for not paying your bill due to lack of real life income.

Well its either that or contract the thesis out. Surely someone could do it for you. And NO that is not an offer.

Look STOP READING THIS AND WRITE! I SAID WRITE

Stop replying to my posts then! I get those 'topic reply notifications' and there's nothing I can do but see what you guys came up with this time

Seriously, I'm almost done, I'm left with summaries, abstracts and such. And the deadline is on Monday.

trewqh wrote:Seriously, I'm almost done, I'm left with summaries, abstracts and such. And the deadline is on Monday.

You finished a thesis before the deadline?

Trewgh - its not my fault I swear it.

TheDragon wants to know in laymans (ow ...), I mean laypersons terms what your thesis is on. But look, a reply on Tuesday will do.

Done. Clan heads now have the ability to push any of their members into either the Merc or MIA pile. Note that the interface isn't spot on yet. - It appears that you can send away several users at once, but something goes wrong when you try that, so please fire people one at a time...

I've trimmed the obvous people from the Scholars and sent out a mail to hear from the others. - Feeling ruthless today. I'd encourage other clan heads to do the same...


korexus.

I already cleared out everyone that hasn't logged in since 2006. Ruthless indeed