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Setting Submissions Process

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I've seen that when people get frustrated with the site, they're often frustrated because of the Setting Submissions process. I'm really interested in making this part of the site a more positive experience for creative SARPers who have graciously put their time and effort into expansion articles to Star Army's setting and lore.

So I've put together a plan to fix things:

Step 1: We're going to completely rewrite the rules for submission reviewers, with clear, thorough guides on how we expect them to conduct themselves. A key part of this will be positivity.

Step 2: Search for more active and positive moderators and aggressively streamline the overall process to make it faster with less frustrating wait times. Create forms for the submissions so articles and posts always have everything they need to succeed. You've already seen the start of this now that the forum asks for submission URLs and WIP URLs along with the post.

Step 3: Opening submission of new factions again - a date will be set soon. This is a very requested feature.

If you have specific suggestions I want to hear them.

EXAMPLE: Reviewers always should fix typos instead of posting about them in the thread.
 
@Zack I'm gonna have to disagree with you, the NTSE does not do more harm than good to the site. The reason right now the NTSE is going slow is the large number of articles that are being submitted compared to the number of NTSE. THere is quite a bit circulating through the NTSE board if you look through the accepted and rejected and pending for this month.

Some policies need to change but you're looking in the wrong direction. The reason we have the NTSE is for quality control purposes. That can't happen at all if we have GMs and FMs approving their own stuff. We'd have to go through and re-screen every GM and FM to make sure they can keep to the standard(cause I can tell you right now, we're not batting a thousand on that)

So many people can only handle so many articles though @Zack . 'Speed' does not mean 'efficiency' if you do a crappy job in order to go fast. Last I remember though you can make your stuff 'soft cannon' as a GM until the article is approved, though that runs the risk of everything being retconned if it ends up having to be scrapped cause it's not approvable, but that same risk is present if a GM self approves their stuff and then someone goes back over it and tells them it can't work.

Please spend your time doing somehting more productive than saying "We need to get rid of the NTSE", because even if GMs can approve stuff, it'd be a power given only to GMs who exhibt a knowledge of teh setting and are trusted not to abuse the power, and we'd just end up with what essentially is the NTSE anyway. And there is no way giving the power to approve things to everyone who's a GM without any screening or trust is gonna work.
 
The above toxicity is exactly why ‘terrible community’ is one of the top reasons for people going elsewhere for RP.
 
The above toxicity is exactly why ‘terrible community’ is one of the top reasons for people going elsewhere for RP.
@Zack the only one being Toxic is you. First off we're literally in a thread discussing how to Fix the NTSE and you said;


It seems so apparent that the NTSE is broke that it seems rediculous anyone is willing to say that it is working as intended.
You are blatantly ignoring the progress that is being made, and people's efforts in order to push your own agenda and try to take shots at people. Just because you don't call anyone out or don't use any mean words does not mean your behavior is not toxic. You are constantly undermining things, and hardly ever present constructive criticism, rather it's just cynicism. If that is not toxic, than noting is.

If you don't like the way SARP is operating and don't want to actually do anything to fix it the right way, then stop complaining, or leave dude. You mentioned all those people that left the site, well you can just as easily join them if you're not going to be part of the solution.

(And no outright removal of the NTSE is not the solution, you've been told on multiple occasions by multiple people why that's not the answer. And they say insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, so yeah.)
 
It seems to be the same group of people who say that isn’t the answer, they then suggest other solutions which clearly haven’t solved the problem.

And it’s not like I don’t know what I’m doing either, the faction I started is more than 40% of the activity on the site. I grew Nepleslia into a faction, ran the largest plotship in its history, Ran one of the first (and at its time largest) plotships for Yamatai. When people aren’t trying to stealth-edit my wiki pages, try to snipe plot elements when I mention I want to use them in the GM forum, or make up rules on the spot in a bid to reject submissions, the USO is also one of the most laid back factions.

The NTSE isn’t a hard problem to solve. Get the right people involved, have a good rules set, use inbox-zero principals to clear the NTSE forum itself. It shouldn’t take more than one person a few hours on the weekend to clear everything.

The fastest and best solution at this point is to let FMs and GMs handle the approval of stuff for their plot. They can already do this anyways and making it offical lets us remove the NTSE bottleneck completely. Players won’t get turned off by having to deal with toxic community members, approvals get handled at the speed that the GM is used to, and so long as the checklist is used there is quality control in place.

We already know this works, we use this system in the character approval area and there are no problems there.
 
If memory serves, @Zack, it was actually @Tom who grew Nepleslia into a faction, as he was its FM - I think - at the time of things like the Kennewes Offensive. I also know for certain that he was the one who created Nepleslian Arms and Munitions.
 
If memory serves, you weren’t on the site at the time.

There is a good reason why people still think I was FM of Nepleslia.
 
Oh good @Zack, you posted so I can post again without double posting.

First before I handle your new post. You have had at least 12 articles in the NTSE with some form of activity in the last 30 days, 2 of which have been approved, and 2 or 3 of them have not gotten some kind of NTSE mod response. That means for activity sake you are at over 75%. That's a pretty good level of efficiency. But if you want articles to be approved faster stop flooding the NTSE.

Now as for your post...
It seems to be the same group of people who say that isn’t the answer, they then suggest other solutions which clearly haven’t solved the problem.

And it’s not like I don’t know what I’m doing either, the faction I started is more than 40% of the activity on the site. I grew Nepleslia into a faction, ran the largest plotship in its history, Ran one of the first (and at its time largest) plotships for Yamatai. When people aren’t trying to stealth-edit my wiki pages, try to snipe plot elements when I mention I want to use them in the GM forum, or make up rules on the spot in a bid to reject submissions, the USO is also one of the most laid back factions.

The NTSE isn’t a hard problem to solve. Get the right people involved, have a good rules set, use inbox-zero principals to clear the NTSE forum itself. It shouldn’t take more than one person a few hours on the weekend to clear everything.

The fastest and best solution at this point is to let FMs and GMs handle the approval of stuff for their plot. They can already do this anyways and making it offical lets us remove the NTSE bottleneck completely. Players won’t get turned off by having to deal with toxic community members, approvals get handled at the speed that the GM is used to, and so long as the checklist is used there is quality control in place.

We already know this works, we use this system in the character approval area and there are no problems there.
Our suggestions haven't really been implemented because every time we get close people like you show up to muddle the conversation with post like this and things devolve and nothing gets done.

You were part of a good faction, okay cool. But you've also been banned before, so saying "I know what I'm doing" doesn't carry much weight. Also even if -you- know what you're doing, that's one person, that does not constitute every GM on the site.

Your third paragraph, if your Ego wasn't so big you'd have noticed, that is literally the topic we're on right now, behavior and rules. So yeah, if you weren't whinning, maybe we'd be a step closer to getting "The right people" and "the right rules". Good job on that one.

Fourth paragraph, fastest solution, but by no means the best one. And GMs can not make things hard cannon. Only soft cannon. Giving them official power opens up the approval process to people who might not be qualified. (Just because you know how to run a plot doesn't mean you know how to manage a whole setting and keep it balanced)

Character approval is rather different from NTSE work, as a character design can only have so much impact, and the lines that should not be crossed are much clearer and easier to explain. You're essentially saying "Well you can drive go-karts without a license and it works out, so it should with cars too." You need to think about scale.
 
I'm dubious anyone can unpick this thread now given how topsy-turvy it's become. If anyone actually posted any solutions it looks like (from my perspective, at least) they've been lost in a sea of debate.

Can someone sum those up in one post? I heard about the soft-canon-first solution but we need to make sure Wes can see the options easily.
 
* go inbox-zero and setup a separate area for submissions to be moved to once a reviewer is ready to take them.

* Let FMs/GMs handle approval for stuff in their own plots

I didn’t see any other proposed fixes
 
>go inbox-zero and setup a separate area for submissions to be moved to once a reviewer is ready to take them.

I think this is a workable idea.

>Let FMs/GMs handle approval for stuff in their own plots

This is a horrible idea that needs to die in a fire. I agree with the majority that letting a FM/GM handle their own material is only inviting abuse.
 
I still think letting GMs and FMs handle their own approvals is the way forward.

Clearing the NTSE backlog at the FMs own speed is the first benifit. But the major benifit is how rules changes will take place afterward. Since rules would now have to be made with the intent of being used like a rule book, they are going to have to be reworded very clearly with measureable goals. This turns SARP’s wiki into more of a setting guide book rather than a ball of people all arguing over trivial details. I would expect the whole of NTSE problems to be cleared up within 3-6 months based on what I’ve seen on other sites, and what I’ve seen from the character approvals area.
 
>Since rules would now have to be made with the intent of being used like a rule book

So your goal is what we want to avoid?
 
Allowing FM's and GM's to approve their *own* tech is a recipe for disaster, just because the process works for the char forum, doesn't mean it'll also work for the tech forums.

The reason this procedure ultimately won't work is because of a trust issue: there have been times in the past (won't name anyone) where certain individuals have knowingly put forth overpowered (or broken) tech, in which it's been pointed out, but have refused to fix it or even gone so far as to argue with the mods about it and then not change it (and then end up getting their tech rejected). At one point, this involved an FM. So, how we can possibly trust this particular FM with this kind of power, if they have caused issues in the NTSE forums already? Where they've argued with mods, accused them of being biased, accused them of being against them, etc.. etc.. etc..?

This is only one example, but it is not the only one. However, right now, this is one of the reasons why I can't support this idea - because there is too much of a possibility that certain individuals will knowingly allow tech that is broken or OP into the setting, knowing themselves that it is against our rules but have also had a history of arguing and creating problems for our current mods.

People here are also against this idea, so please come up with another solution - one that doesn't toss our NTSE mods to the side.

Also, just a heads up; but after talking with Wes, any submission that is deemed as abandoned do *not* need a checklist when it is listed as abandoned.
 
The NTSE in its current state doesn’t work, and adding more mods clearly doesn’t solve the problem because the mods are the problem. People worried about OP tech and ‘balance’ are only thinking about how they can put their faction on a footing to beat other factions.

If you treat everyone with the same rules, everyone gets to have the same stuff as everyone else so the rules are inherently balanced. If you think something is OP or shouldn’t be allowed in the setting then that should be clearly explained in the checklist. Everyone is going to have different ideas of what is acceptable, and everyone is going to think everyone else’s ideas are dumb, which is why this stuff should be agreed upon ahead of time.

Forcing the rules to be designed around having other people interprete them is basically enforced good rule making.
 
Let's assume that the idea of Gms and FMs approving their own stuff is put into practice. Someone's going to break those rules eventually - what should be done?
 
@Wes @Ametheliana @Kyle can I ask that Zack just not be allowed to post here more? He's literally running the discussion in circles. He's posted like 4 seperate post in 2 days suggesting the same thing with no new reasoning as to why it'll work, and he gets shot down every time. This isn't constructive it's just beating your head against the wall and hoping it breaks.

And going 'inbox-zero' or whatever is not a solution. Moving submissions that are being approved to a seperate place does nothing for speading things up, it just makes things 'look' cleaner which means it's also harder to identify when there is a problem.

Let's get back to the actually productive conversation and talk about the ideas on changes to the rules dictating acceptable behavior, as well as ways on how we can improve the quantity and quality of NTSE mods.
 
Anyone should be able to check a submission against the review checklist.

If a style guide problem is found, then it should be easy for the person who found it to fix it or request that it be fixed.

If some other rule problem is found then it can be brought up in the NTSE to be fixed.
 
Anyone should be able to check a submission against the review checklist.

If a style guide problem is found, then it should be easy for the person who found it to fix it or request that it be fixed.

If some other rule problem is found then it can be brought up in the NTSE to be fixed.

In order:

-Okay, that's fine.

-This will almost certainly cause "edit wars" and arguments - remember, the person that made the article in this case isn't listening to rules.

-What NTSE? The NTSE moderators that uh... Wouldn't exist in this very situation?
 
I'm locking this thread.

1. The discussion is going in circles, and no solutions are truly being presented. Members have posted concerns about the current solutions, but instead of those concerns being addressed, assumptiosn are being made.
2. There is a growing level of hostility, largely due to people whose concerns are not being addressed and thus are getting quite frustrated.
3. We have NTSE mods, that is something that won't change, and they are not being taken into consideration for this process.
 
In the interest of reducing the workload on our submission reviewers, I am going to start allowing sub-articles to be bundled with submissions. I will add a new text field for this TONIGHT in the setting submissions forum
 
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