Policy Discussion: Invitationals

[mith]

I've been meaning to do something on this topic for a while... I guess now is as good a time as any.

We haven't had any true invitationals in a while (nearly a year). Partly this was due to the queue changes, with invitationals being classified under (the still loosely defined) "Special Games", and of course there are other reasons too.

I have been thinking about them, though, and would like to get some sort of system in place for having regular invitationals (but without oversaturation). Minvitationals in particular I feel do have the potential to be special events for the participants and great learning tools for readers of the games, if they are done well.

So, here are a few ideas regarding this, followed by some questions.

a. All invitationals will be run by proven moderators. Currently, the Special Games requirement is 5 completed games to

request

permission. I haven't actually checked to see how many moderators even have that many games, so that may be adjusted. The important thing here is not the number, it is that the moderators have a reputation of high quality setups, writing, and game-management.

b. The most common thought for choosing players for invitationals is to choose the "best" players (whether from the entire site, or some subset of the site)... whatever "best" means. So, my current inclination is to have a yearly Minvitational of the best players on the site. However, I'm not sure what the best way to go about choosing the players would be.

c. jeep suggested that other criteria could also be used to select players. For example, one suggestion which I liked was an invitational for the Scummies winners. We wouldn't want to get too ridiculous with the criteria (as it would defeat the point of having invitationals at all), but I'm sure there are a handful of criteria out there aside from "best players" which we could use on occasion.

d. In addition to a couple Minvitationals a year, there is occasionally a special occasion for a larger invitational. The two I've run were both milestones (Mafia 40 on the GL, and the Five Year Anniversary Invitational cross-site). As it happens, we have another anniversary (this time 5 years for mafiascum.net) coming soon, and I've had a couple ideas for something special to do for that.

Questions:

1. Do you think we should have invitationals at all?
2. About how many invitationals per year is a good number?
3. What type of game should invitationals be (basic normal, themed)?
4. How should the "best" players be chosen?

Other thoughts are of course welcome.

[mith]

I think public nominations are a horrible idea; it wasn't my intention for the FYA invitational, and I'm sorry I wasn't more clear when I started the thread, and that I didn't step in sooner when people did start putting them in the thread.

I do think public input would be fine, PMed or whatever. Just counting nominations would be a poor way of determining anything, however.

[mith]

I don't think I understand why invitationals need specific handling under the rules... Is it just that a single mod is likely to have a hard time hand-picking 20-some players who all want to play that game?

I'm not sure if this is what you're asking, but I just realized I haven't addressed it, so I'll do that now...

It's not really explicitly stated anywhere, but the general queueing policy is that all games sign up on a first-come-first-served basis. Maybe it wouldn't be an issue anyway, but if any mod could decide to make their game invitational, I think it might become far too common and cliquish. So, that's why they're handled differently under the rules, rather than just falling under one of the ordinary categories - this is just an extension of our past treatment of invitationals, which got the "rubber stamp" from me before they started.

[mith]

mith, didn't Verbose have a vetted player list though? I didn't think it was classified as an Invitational, and it didn't precisely follow the "first-come-first-lynched" strategy you outlined above. Also, I know some mods have a minimum time-on-site requirement, and there are a few players that have been refused from regular games.

I was going to mention these as exceptions, or as examples of "pseudo-invitationals" even... but I don't really see them the same way.

Some games do have prerequisites. And I don't have a problem with that. That isn't to say I think most (or even many) games should do so - and the Mini and Open games signups are out of the hands of the mods anyway.

Verbose was like that to some extent; in the end, the application process was more a hoop to jump through. I knew anyone that wasn't up to playing that style of game would never both with an application in the first place, and we ended up getting the same number of applications as we had spots to fill. (It also started well before the new queue rules; so I wasn't necessarily being consistent with how I feel about things now anyway.)

As for "banned" players, that's a bit more of a touchy subject. What I don't want to see if mods refusing players they just don't like, or have some personal grudge against. We've had problems with that in the past.

This is really a discussion for another thread. I stand by what I said, that it is the general policy, but there are certainly some grey areas that could be looked at more closely.