More Player Positions in TMWC?

[Wombat]

It has been brought up many times by various people that the players want more representation in the game beyond GMs. While I can agree they can bring forward an understanding of the game through player interaction and communicate that to the game developers, they are also enforcers of the rules and many are also friendly with the present TMWC. This isn't a bad thing, but sometimes people develop better trust with those that aren't charged in policing them.

I would like to see more GMs, but there are also several other things that players can do to participate in the project and so wanted to start this discussion here to bring forward if these things that players can do could be accepted as worthy of a TMWC position. Here area few ideas I'd like to see discussed:

Tester Delegate - This would be a position elected by the testers. By adding a delegate for the testers to TMWC, you grant responsibility and leadership to those that help keep the testers active, up to date and encouraged. They'd also be responsible for communicating with players at large to encourage testing activity from them and hold meetings/events to inform and raise morale in conjunction with the developers and/or GMs.

Game Leader - Blackrazor said something about the Project Leader being an electable position. As the "Game Leader" position was one created in my administration, it could become a democratically elected position. Currently TMWC is charged with this responsibility and a great deal of the recent problems could've used an active leader to mediate between the various roles and focus full time on helping settle disputes and come up with proposals to assist TMWC in resolving disputes. A full time player with the best interests of the community at heart could do this.

Player Representative - Someone that is elected to listen to the voice of the players and bring forward both ideas to help the game and help settle grievances. I feel the forums has a lot of players with grievances that need settled. Having a formal position on TMWC to do this could satisfy those critical of the committee.

All or none of these ideas may be accepted, obviously TMWC has final say, but I wanted to bring these up here to help figure out if perhaps some of these might be a help to a number of issues people feel need to be settled. A final note, I think "player positions" could benefit in being equal to "non-player positions" in count on TMWC.

What I don't support is meritocracy (content creation, programming, server administration), based leadership positions being electable. I think they can be removed or appointed by TMWC, but these positions need to be based on competence and not electability.

What do y'all think? Good ideas? Bad ideas? Other ideas?

[o11c]

If the players think their elected GMs are not doing enough, they should either talk to the current GMs or propose new ones.

If they are unwilling to do that, you know that they are only complaining for the same of complaining.

[Nard]

If the players think their elected GMs are not doing enough, they should either talk to the current GMs or propose new ones.

If they are unwilling to do that, you know that they are only complaining for the same of complaining.

GMs are not player representatives, they are cops, and a cop cannot be the player representant.
Once more a poll is not an election. it only gives, when not biased, an estimate of player's consideration regarding the cop job. Bias factors are numerous considering the procedure. Developers, have already understood this: when they want to know player's opinion, they make a meeting, they do not ask to GMs.
side remark: Gms are more game related than project and it's develoments related. They are over represented in TMWC.

Edit: meritocracy? lol! some former productive cotributors have never been asked to join GHPTMWC while people who haven't produced a single contribution for long time, even at least on this forum and are mostly ignorant of the recent improvements, or even publicly despised the project, are still around (member or advisor).

[Crush]

I still don't understand what value that "player representative" is supposed to add.

Report to the community what is currently happening in the TMWC? All communication channels used by the committee are either public anyway or confidential for a reason. When you think that it's wrong to keep certain channels confidential, make them public and let the players be responsible for getting the information they want.

Tell the TMWC about the opinion of the players? The problem is that there is no such thing as "the" opinion of the players. Every player has their own opinion. Those you hear are just those who shout the loudest. When there would be a player representative, that poor person would just get constant flag from those who think that their personal opinion isn't represented (and as you know, every opinion is stupid except your own).

[Wombat]

I still don't understand what value that "player representative" is supposed to add.

Report to the community what is currently happening in the TMWC? All communication channels used by the committee are either public anyway or confidential for a reason. When you think that it's wrong to keep certain channels confidential, make them public and let the players be responsible for getting the information they want.

Tell the TMWC about the opinion of the players? The problem is that there is no such thing as "the" opinion of the players. Every player has their own opinion. Those you hear are just those who shout the loudest. When there would be a player representative, that poor person would just get constant flag from those who think that their personal opinion isn't represented (and as you know, every opinion is stupid except your own).

I see your point here. There really is a great deal of open channels to hear the player's opinion, kind of the entire point of this forum even

[Nard]

I still don't understand what value that "player representative" is supposed to add.

Report to the community what is currently happening in the TMWC? All communication channels used by the committee are either public anyway or confidential for a reason. When you think that it's wrong to keep certain channels confidential, make them public and let the players be responsible for getting the information they want.

Tell the TMWC about the opinion of the players? The problem is that there is no such thing as "the" opinion of the players. Every player has their own opinion. Those you hear are just those who shout the loudest. When there would be a player representative, that poor person would just get constant flag from those who think that their personal opinion isn't represented (and as you know, every opinion is stupid except your own).

Who said that the players had a single opinion? who said the the role of a player representative should be only to report about the players feeling? Why do you see always the negative side of a new proposal? The role of such a representative as I see it would be to take care that there is as least significant differences of between the developers idea of the players and their real behaviour and feelings. A similar role is supposed to be taken by testers for new things. This warning role is also important when thinking about new rules. Professional game designer teams include gamers psychologists, as TMW will probably never include such a contributor, it seems to me important that this aspect of things is clear as soon as possible in the development process. Such representative is obviously not a warranty that no misunderstanding can occur, but it should avoid that develoment team focuses on things that differs too much from the players needs such as it occured 2 years ago.
Of course, developers and GMs were at some point, players. I will not teach anything to anyone while saying that the developer and GM jobs and the time it takes modify greatly the game vision, even of the wisest ones. This is I do think that a "Candide" is important at several stages of the processes (development and game administration). As you can see, Crush, once more my motivations to defend this idea are very far from those you think I have. There is no need to report what is happening in TMWC because TMWC members report it themselves, sometimes only by the tone they use, sometimes just by their silence, and also sadly, by leaving.

(and as you know, every opinion is stupid except your own)

You can believe that about me, I don't really care, it just shows once more how far you are from the players and thus justifies this proposition.
Edit

I see your point here. There really is a great deal of open channels to hear the player's opinion, kind of the entire point of this forum even

On the opposite, it is the perfect example of what happens too often on this forum and why a player representative is necessary: Instead of trying to see what a contribution could bring to the project, the author has a priori the feeling that it is an aggression or a will to acquire some power that the contributor(s) doesn't deserve, thus despises the idea and insinuates wrong things about him/her/them.

[Hello=)]

I still don't understand what value that "player representative" is supposed to add.

Sure, you don't. Probably because you don't play that game, isn't it? That's why you can't understand why players could dislike quite many devs actions. IMO such representatives could improve players <-> devs interaction and...
1) Reduce overall churn and aggravation.
2) Maybe improve testing of updates by players who actually PLAY this?
3) Devs could be able to get more impression about how it performs in real world.
4) Since most of devs almost never play TMW (except some personal test servers?), their views on many topics often differ wildly from how it would be seen by players. Unfortunately it could make game unpopular and/or no fun to play at all.

When it happens devs stopping to care about anything and just blindly code in the wild, ManaServ happens. Then it happens to be wasteland without art and players, abandoned up to a degree where 4144 ditched ManaServ protocol support from his client due to lack of demand and cooperation. It's not like if I want to see whole TMW project following same fate.

Also, let's challenge Nard on his views. I do think that while GMs are technically "cops", they're still elected by players, so they're supposed to be player representatives as well at same time and take part in "rules creation" and overall control of how it performs and make sure it stays pleasant place. Game masters should be masters of their game, aren't they? Keeping it working smoothly and pleasant for everyone (or at least, most of players). It's just too small world to afford law making and law enforcement as completely unrelated entities. And if players would be unhappy with that, it's their fault: they're responsible for promoting someone as candidate and voting.

[Wombat]

Since a couple people seem interested in seeing a player representative position, let's flesh out the qualities of a candidate. What should this person be good at? They'd have to have the time to talk to players in game or be approached by players who have grievances, as well as active on the forums, #themanaworld on irc and willing to receive messages public and private from players. They'd be a full player's advocate, which a GM can't be because they enforce rules on players, so that would be the different style of leadership that would make them more approachable. If they feel there is a system issue and not just a personal conflict, they will propose system solutions to the committee.

They'd also need to be able to communicate with TMWC with respect and be cool headed, diplomatic, but also be there to defend individual player's. I wouldn't think they'd speak for "the players" as if they were "the people" and impose a "we" perspective. That would be wrong. I would think they'd speak for players, say for example if Nard has a disagreement with a developer and doesn't feel comfortable with approaching the GMs, he'd go to the player rep. and request they advocate for them on a grievance.

[Nard]

Tester, the only thing that makes GMs somewhat representative of players, is that they are chosen among players and not developers. This holds for some time after they are polled nominated because they do not change from a day to the next. But the task erodes the persons, and the GHPTMWC belonging makes them administration representatives and obliges them to retain when speaking about it's decisions, at least towards the players.
Melkior's recent dismiss is a good example consequence of this, and also among the reasons why I proposed him again as a GM, which I said I would never do.

Wombat, If I suggested such a representative along with some other forum contribution, It was to reduce the distance between the development "team" or the game rulers (which are very different) and the ordinary players. The player representative's task would be to bring a better feedback, if possible, to the project leaders, on various topics. This could include of course some help but I don't see it as a requirement. I didn't even suggest that the representative is polled: there is no procedure in TMW, at this moment that looks like a fair election. It would be preferable though. A this particuliar moment and since this summer, TMWC would get a great advantage to have an image of player's opinions about itself. Only a few of its members have a good idea about it.

say for example if Nard has a disagreement with a developer and doesn't feel comfortable with approaching the GMs, he'd go to the player rep. and request they advocate for them on a grievance.

Btw I had a "disagreement" with an administrator and a moderator of this forum. I was contacted by an advisor , who was rather a good one, and made the first step, I regret it now. This because the day after, the administrator called me an idiot implicitely. I complained to 3 admins, 2 forum moderators and some GMs. Nothing has been done about it until now, no apologies either. At least one player has been banned a month for less than that... What a poor player representative could do about it?

[Crush]

1) Reduce overall churn and aggravation.
2) Maybe improve testing of updates by players who actually PLAY this?
3) Devs could be able to get more impression about how it performs in real world.
4) Since most of devs almost never play TMW (except some personal test servers?), their views on many topics often differ wildly from how it would be seen by players. Unfortunately it could make game unpopular and/or no fun to play at all.

These problems could be solved much better with a regular team of beta-testers. We used to have such a team, and I think it was a great thing to have. Unfortunately it seems to have died.

Would you like to reform the team? You already have the suitable nickname, after all

[Nard]

These problems could be solved much better with a regular team of beta-testers. We used to have such a team, and I think it was a great thing to have. Unfortunately it seems to have died.

another question is why did it die?

[Wombat]

Hmm...okay. I was thinking of "player representative" similar to IRL's union representative or perhaps a defense attorney or any other advocate style of position.

I don't know your issue Nard, but it sounds like the "Game Leader" position would've been a better one to issue your problem to, if it was a game contribution based grievance. This could have other names, like Game Moderator, Game Judge, Mediator, etc.

[o11c]

These problems could be solved much better with a regular team of beta-testers. We used to have such a team, and I think it was a great thing to have. Unfortunately it seems to have died.

another question is why did it die?

Everything fell apart during the manasource split in 2009.

[Crush]

These problems could be solved much better with a regular team of beta-testers. We used to have such a team, and I think it was a great thing to have. Unfortunately it seems to have died.

another question is why did it die?

Everything fell apart during the manasource split in 2009.

I am talking about the tmwAthena Testers team which was formed this year.

These are the people who should playtest every change before it goes productive and provide quality assurance.

[Nard]

I am talking about the tmwAthena Testers team which was formed this year.

These are the people who should playtest every change before it goes productive and provide quality assurance.

The TMWAthena testers group was not founded this year but two years ago by Jenalya. There was a long discussion about the testing group before it began it's activities, wombat was still active and should remind about it.
edit: This was suggested after Frost brought his server to TMW community for testing purposes.