Amending GM Approval Rules

[Wombat]

1. Part of the decision making will be given to your hands.
2. If you show that you cannot handle this, then this forum will be deleted.
3. Each member of the community can make a topic (poll) suggesting another person for a GM. You can't make a poll for yourself.
4. One topic per person, any duplicates will be removed and votes will be lost.
5. Each poll has to be done according to the schema (yes has to be first option and no the second):
"Do you agree for person X to become a GM?"
"Yes."
"No."
You are supposed to allow only one option per user and allow revoting.
You are supposed to pick "run for 0 days".
6. A person suggested has to collect at least 60 votes (or more) for yes, with minimum 75% for yes and maximum 25% for no (3:1 ratio).
7. A person suggested may request closing of the topic.
8. Only posts containing valid pros and cons are allowed in the threads, discussions however are not allowed. For discussions about particular case use Player Talk forums.
9. If a person collects the required votes, a supplied evidence will be analyzed by the other GMs and developers.
10. However, final decision is still our.
11. If many persons will gain required voices, voice count will matter.
12. The amount of GMs to pick in certain time line will be determined by GHP (Group Holding the Power - GMs and developers).
13. Persons rejected due lack of free positions will be put on hold till any position becomes available (according to vote count).
14. A person successfully passing this procedure will be given "Junior GM" rights for a certain period, and then will be granted full GM rights.
15. Usual GM choosing criteria and guidelines still apply, persons not meeting those criteria will be rejected and will have their thread closed.
16. Sockpuppeting will be detected and all accounts, including the master's one will be banned forever without warning. There is one vote per person, and a person means a human being not a forum account.
17. If this forum will turn into a flame war cave, people posting here will act unreasonably and will break the rules on massive scale, forum will be closed down. So use it wisely.
18. If you don't know a person suggested, it is better to find out who is s/he and what they do before voting, do not vote "no" just because you don't know someone.
19. State EXACT player name that clearly identify a person (in game or on forums - precise which one it is).
20. After a candidate receives required amount of votes, the poll is closed, a candidate reviewed by GHP and asked (or not - in case of valid objections) to become a GM.
21. You need to have at least 20 posts to participate in the polls.

Remove Unnecessary Rules 1 and 2 - These are more an opening statement and don't need to have a bullet.

Amend 6 - 20 vote minimum from 60. This would reflect the lack of active forum identities. Instead admins can take care and watch for sockpuppetry more closely. Because GMs and Developers can vote, I would assume a large percentage of the vote will belong to this category by default of who uses the forums regularly.

Amend 12 - Change GHP to TMWC.

Comments on 16 - This would need to have better enforcement as in the past this rule was often ignored because it was near impossible to have a GM approved according to old rules. With any amendment to the rules finalized, a public statement that this rule would be strictly enforced should be announced to avoid a repeat of past voting.

Amend 20 - Change GHP to TMWC

[Crush]

While I agree that the quorum of 60 votes is too high, 20 is too low in my opinion. It's far too easy to mobilize 20 people forum identities over night. In my opinion, 40 votes would be good.

Another change I would like to suggest is to reduce the number of posts a user has to make to get voting rights. The rule is to weed out sock puppets, and it works well for that, but in practice it keeps people out of the vote who only participate ingame but not on the forum. But the actual ingame players are those who are policed by the GMs, not the forum users (in a perfect world voting rights would be tied to ingame activity, but I understand that the technical implementation is far too complex to make it practicable). We had lots of people during past GM elections who made 20 hasty nonsense posts and then never posted again just to be able to vote. Forcing people to jump through these hoops is unnecessary and detrimental to the forum.

I agree with all of your other points.

On an unrelated note: To practice more transparency, I would suggest to carry this discussion into the public and let the players give their input.

Another discussion I would like to have at another time is about a formal GM impeachment process. When players have the power to elect game masters, they should also have a way to get rid of them when they don't behave to their expectations. But that's a completely different topic.

[o11c]

I second making this public.

40 votes sounds good. I'm wary of completely eliminating the 20 post thing ... perhaps 10 posts, but they must be done over, say, a month?

[Wombat]

I approve of this topic being made public on whichever forum found appropriate.

[Crush]

Moved from the private forum to the public Feedback forum.

Let's see what the player community thinks.

[Quinny]

I like this idea especially the ghp remove. I would say run with it.

[cinderweb]

I like this idea as well.

Cinderweb.

[Villain]

I second Crush's ideas: 40 'yes' votes minimum, reducing posts requirement, and an impeachment process. No objections removing rules 1 and 2 and changing GHP to TMWC.

Maybe the game login announcement window could alert players to "important" forum discussions like this one to increase topic participation instead of just in-game globals?

[Johanne Laliberté]

I would agree with the activity ingame to voting it will be with the "Main Char and level 60+" if it is applicable!

I would agree with 45 votes.

I would agree with the change GHP to TMWC.


Regards

[Chicka-Maria]

20 Is way to low, I think if we can't get enough people to vote for about 45-50 yes votes then there shouldn't be need for *more* GMs since there is not enough players in the game to even vote.

I have no objections to the 1-2 being taken out.

regards

[WildX]

Minimum should be 40 to 45 votes IMO, and it should be readily updated should the community grow/shrink.

[cinderweb]

40-45 votes is alot for as few people that use the forums. I wish there were an in game mailing system to vote that way ....hmmm wonder how much scripting that would take.

[o11c]

40-45 votes is alot for as few people that use the forums. I wish there were an in game mailing system to vote that way ....hmmm wonder how much scripting that would take.

Scripting a voting thing is easy. Making it hard to cheat is the hard part.

It's easy enough to get 40 votes for a GM ... that's typically where it start stagnating. We don't want to make *everyone* a GM.

Currently, Sango98's GM poll is stuck at just over 40 votes, but she's also less than 75%.

[tmwTroLL007]

i agree with the changes to the gm poll and the 40 to 45 votes need is a good idea

[straelyn]

10. However, final decision is still our.

Perhaps this could be clarified a bit more; who and how?