Continuation of Official Comments on New Karma

[Ranif88]

All - would offer that the locking of this topic in the official comments forum (thus denying ongoing thoughts) should be rethought - any flaming comments from offenders could be excised/taken out of forum (my view) to continue the thread there.

In lieu of this:

Re: karma comments ongoing, would again point to several pre-discussions contributed to this board exploring variations of metrics for evaluating gamer play and philosophies for same:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5024
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9973&start=20
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9973&start=30

My point in re-referencing the above is that (while appreciating the effort) two key elements are still not being addressed in the new karma system.

The first is that, like most ELO-based systems, the overall metric is more heavily sensitised to generic player presence (on time, doesnt leave...) which is good but does not fully provide a picture of the player regarding other objective and subjective impressions of good sportsmanship and play which thumbs in effect do (did). Additionally, while a contribution of red thumbs received are still used to provided warnings and to cap limits to karma, this is a negative effector approach vs number of green thumbs accrued to number of red thumbs received (which would be more in the "spirit" of the karma approach btw...). The end effect is that a presence-set of metrics has dominated the impression of reputation to a player.

The second is (mentioned in earlier posts) that the current karma lacks visibility to any player's positive contributions to the community (assignment of green thumbs) and still does not address individual player's interest in the "give ratio" (greens awarded to reds by an opposing player) which has been a key metric of interest regarding reputation. Note that even with the new karma system, we are still asked to provide green and red thumbing but while reds incur limits to the karma, greens are now....unknown. This undermines the positive element of fostering good play (unless I have totally missed a greens-accrued contributor within the karma system) and again limits a player's impression of "good to play" by diluting through over-weighted presence metrics.

A green/red ratio metric PLUS a karmic element of player presence remains a better approach to addressing the concerns of most of the players here.

I would finally mention that the system approach continues to not address a primary negative which is any redress towards any red thumbs awarded to a player without courtesy of a text note (the "drive by"). As reds still contribute negatively in the new karma system, an address system to allow counter or appeal should exist with the easiest being who gave what to whom. This continues to be a sore point and often muddled and lost in these discussions about "thumbs" or "karma".

[sourisdudesert]

Thanks for your message.

Some "admin" point of view :

We recently measure the effect of the new Karma system (+ all associate changes, like emailing penalties) on BGA statistics. Basically, the number of games with a leaving player has decreased by -40% (September has been compared to November). If you exclude games that did not end because players decided it, we increase the % of finished games from 95% to 97.5%.

At the same time, we re-work how the moderation works, and at now 100% of player's reports are judged in less than 4 weeks - and most of them are judged in less than 1 week. It has slightly decreased the number of reports, as "bad" players knows now that they cannot stay in this website more than few days before having their accounts suspended.

Finally, as you know you have now to give a reason when you give a red thumb, which allows us to distinguish between the "I just dont want to play with this player, please do not hurt his reputation" and the "everyone should avoid this player". Players with too many red thumbs gets an explicit message with a statistic showing why they received red thumb to make sure they can improve their attitude.

I know changes are difficult, but as long as the system is more simple, more tolerant for beginners, and if metrics show us that it is going in the right direction, there is no reason to take a step back.

[Zoorp]

Finally, as you know you have now to give a reason when you give a red thumb, which allows us to distinguish between the "I just dont want to play with this player, please do not hurt his reputation" and the "everyone should avoid this player". Players with too many red thumbs gets an explicit message with a statistic showing why they received red thumb to make sure they can improve their attitude.

I know changes are difficult, but as long as the system is more simple, more tolerant for beginners, and if metrics show us that it is going in the right direction, there is no reason to take a step back.

Hello. I have aa question about this. In th past, players already had the choice to separate personal disagree with a player and justified general red thumb. It was called "personal note". Personal note was supposed to avoid subjective red thumb. But, as you know (because you changed the system at the end), almost nobody used it.

So my point is: what will prevent abusive red-thumb givers to automatically select the "general reputation " option when they give red thumbs? Using the "personal red thumb" option is like writing a personal note in the old system. And we know that almost nobody did...

[sourisdudesert]

Well, you may have the impression that players are misusing the system, but we did statistics on real database and it appears that :

• Players are actually using the personal note system, so that's why we kept it.
• Approximately 60% of of the red thumb given are given for "personal reason". It means that the players explicitly decide not to hurt their opponent reputation.

According to this number, we see no reason to worry : players are using the system the way it should be used

[demiurgsage]

Karma force people to finish their games but also it makes them unhappy.
I wrote before about two situations when you want to quit.
1. You lost chances in multi-player game. So you have no interest to continue it. The best solution would be to allow player to quit game honorably like in TTA or to replace player by bot. Now the player should remain at the computer to not lose his karma.
2. You play tournament game. I don't know why but you can't concede tournament game. So you should end your tournament game even if you have no chances or no interest to do it.

Also I think this system punishes players too much for random quits.

[sourisdudesert]

1. You lost chances in multi-player game. So you have no interest to continue it. The best solution would be to allow player to quit game honorably like in TTA or to replace player by bot. Now the player should remain at the computer to not lose his karma.

No. This is unacceptable to quit a game if you are losing, and a sore loser attitude. When you are with your friends and losing a game, you don't quit. This is the same on BGA.

2. You play tournament game. I don't know why but you can't concede tournament game. So you should end your tournament game even if you have no chances or no interest to do it.

Conceding caused issues with tournament tie-breaking system based on points. I agree we could authorize it depending on tournament system used, but this is not a major issue.

Also I think this system punishes players too much for random quits.

Again, this does not reflect the real stats : 55% of players with at least 2 recent games have a karma over 90%. 95% have a karma >70%, which is very acceptable.

[demiurgsage]

1. You lost chances in multi-player game. So you have no interest to continue it. The best solution would be to allow player to quit game honorably like in TTA or to replace player by bot. Now the player should remain at the computer to not lose his karma.

No. This is unacceptable to quit a game if you are losing, and a sore loser attitude. When you are with your friends and losing a game, you don't quit. This is the same on BGA.

IRL usually there is an option to change rules and to allow others to play without you. And this makes a lot of sense because if you stay in the game with no chances you will probably help another player to win. I don't think that last player should decide who should win. Kingmaking is worse than to quit and allow others to determine the winner.

Again, this does not reflect the real stats : 55% of players with at least 2 recent games have a karma over 90%. 95% have a karma >70%, which is very acceptable.

Maybe you are right. Can you tell how many good players ( <10% of red thumbs, low quit percent) have low karma (<70%)?

[sourisdudesert]

IRL usually there is an option to change rules and to allow others to play without you.

Well, then we should agree to disagree, because BGA will never be a place where we change rules of games to allow player to leave in the middle of a game.

Can you tell how many good players ( <10% of red thumbs, low quit percent) have low karma (<70%)?

100% of players with >=10% of red thumbs have a karma <= 60%, this is the Karma rules.

If you have a low quit percent on your recent games, and no red thumb issue, mathematically there is no reason you can be below 70%. For example, if every 3 months you are playing 20 games and leave 1, you get +19 points and lose 10.

[yoyote]

1. You lost chances in multi-player game. So you have no interest to continue it. The best solution would be to allow player to quit game honorably like in TTA or to replace player by bot. Now the player should remain at the computer to not lose his karma.

If you want to quit all games you lose/are losing, what about the pleasure of others player ? And what if all other players think in the same way ?
To start a multi-player game is to accept to finish it even if you're not well placed.
At last and not least, even if you can't win a multi-player game, you can do everything to not to finish last.

[demiurgsage]

IRL usually there is an option to change rules and to allow others to play without you.

Well, then we should agree to disagree, because BGA will never be a place where we change rules of games to allow player to leave in the middle of a game.

Does it mean that kingmaking is actually allowed on BGA and when you can't win you can choose the player and help him to win?

If you have a low quit percent on your recent games, and no red thumb issue, mathematically there is no reason you can be below 70%. For example, if every 3 months you are playing 20 games and leave 1, you get +19 points and lose 10.

The distibution of quits isn't uniform. Even with 5% chance to quit the game you may have 3 quits in a row. This is the nature of randomness.