I'm sure you could rate all the games in a week by devoting an hour of two of your time.
Actually, I'm on an average of twice that daily. And it still took me that long.
top 100
#1: Firetail_Madness
Joined January 2008
55,729 AP
912 games rated (1,824 AP from games rated)
#2: Ernie15
Joined November 2008
45,807 AP
1,111 games rated (2,222 AP from games rated)
et cetera.
You were saying?
There are less than thirty forumers, and only a fraction of that actively post.
Can you back this up? It certainly seems that there are more names than that posting. And I'm not referring to the dumpy stuff, I mean the good threads.
more like an alley dumpster.
WERP, AWP and Cen's famous Tavern thread are dumpster scum. Got it.
Now really, I think you're seriously undercutting the forums here. Sure, there's a certain amount of carp present, but the Mods do a good job of catching and frying it so the rest of us can feast on the intelligent (or at least non-stupid) goodness that is more abundant.
Their number one source of income are games and the people that play them.
ArmorGames wouldn't lose a significant amount of money if they decided to delete the forums.
How is it that they're making money? I don't recall having to fork over money to sign up or pay a forum toll to post. And the few games that have "
ay-to-get-bonus-stuff" material send their profits to the games' creator. The forums have no affect on AG finances.
That's chatting.
A form. Another is the pointless "how are you" "what's up" etc. conversations. I've read a lot of conversations on this site. Most of the comments in a conversation like that are only a few words long. That's the chatting I'm talking about. The people that usually make fifty comments a day asking generic questions. That's the kind of chatting that the rule is talking about. It even says more than a few messages between users a day can be considered spam. It says if you want to carry long conversations use a chat service.
And that's also the stuff that gets *ahem* dealt with. Most of the generic type stuff in the Tavern for example has been and is being removed, and the bulk of the "question threads" that remain are things with some meat on their bones, like "Your Most Painful Physical Experience" for example.
And I'm inclined to doubt that the "more than a few" messages we've exchanged in our three-thread duel/debate will be marked as spammish.
I don't think you're giving the forums and the Mods who patrol them enough credit here. However, this is starting to go off-topic.
My point about this is that points can be abused through chat-spam and nobody cares about that, even though it's stated in the rules. Changing from this very flawed system will be better. The only way achievements will be abused is if people hack, and that is unlikely. A lot of people here don't possess the knowledge for that and I'm sure they'll have security.
And your point is taken, even if it is more than a little cynical. Any system can be abused. However, the Mods and other support staff do what the can to control and remove the spammish content that arises.
As to achievements, what makes you think people won't find a way to abuse them? At the rate that people are becoming more and more technologically saturated these days, there's probably quite a few people with the technical chops to hack in and make a mess. And someone will probably also find a way to cheat without hacking. No matter what system you use, sooner or later someone will find a way to abuse it. (Guess I'm the one being cynical now. But the fact remains that changing systems won't change that some people will always abuse it.)
Respect isn't earned from the amount of AP you have.
I'm not saying that it is. What I mean is that AP can act as a barometer for the length and quality of your tenure here and therefore can indicate who is worthy of being looked to for guidance on the site and credible,or at least well-put opinions in debate. Of course it's not foolproof, but it can help.
It's an indicator of how active you've been. Nothing more. There are users with 4k AP that have been here for four years, there are users with 15k+ AP that have been here for a few months, etc.
I've been here a year and I only have 3,250 and some change.
There are always the extremes of the issue; without that you'd have no middle ground.
A good case for the point I'm making here and above would be who I sought out for help earlier in my presence on AG. I looked for someone who had been here awhile, was frequently active in the forums, and had a good level of experience. I used the choices' levels of AP, juxtaposed against how often they cropped up in the forums, to help make those determinations, and I ended up going to Cenere for assistance. That turned out to be a good choice. My point is that AP can be more than a useless number.
what we have now is better
How?
I suppose that once boiled down to the basics, this is all highly subjective. However, I, and I'm sure many others, find that the current system is less complicated and more straightforward than the proposed replacement. With what we have now, you know that if you make a post, you get one point, if you rate a game, you get two points, and if your post was spam, you're going to lose that point sometime soon. It's more definite in its cause and effect that arbitrarily being awarded "karma" or whatever they're calling it now just for showing up and playing a game or two. Also, the AP system seems like it would be easier to use when meting out punishment. The offender, let's say a spammer, loses APs for his spammish posts. It's a very definite cause and effect, and it punishes based directly on the offense. How would that same situation be dealt with if everyone is being ranked based on how long their logged in? How do you meter "karma" equivalent to X number of spam posts or other offenses that fall short of a ban?
It just seems like the AGv3 replacement is more obfuscated and complicated than the current system, which despite any faults is still well-established and reasonably well-liked.
_____
I must say, Ghost, our three-thread debate has been most interesting, and your points have been well-played. The kind of discussion we've been having is the heart and soul of the forums.
