Why I'm cancelling my Premium Sub

[nik592]

If you have suggestions, feel free to raise them. Bear in mind, there's a cost-benefit equation to be considered in making any changes, and I highly doubt any solution will suit everyone and cover all situations. I'm not saying there aren't improvements to be made, but stating to make it "not bad", as if there's just a switch they need to flick and it's all better is oversimplification and not helpful.

[Suoivax]

I had a significant health event which took me away from BGA for a number of weeks. During this time, obviously all my games ran out of time, and so the opponents expelled me from the game. I get that.

What this means though is that my reputation goes to 0%. And when I am below 50% so many of the important features of the site are limited (no chat, only 5 games max). I cannot easily get back above 50% either because I am limited to 5 games, and each game can only boost my reputation by 1% or 3%. This means if I am playing asynchronously 1-2 moves per day, it will be probably multiple months before I can recover enough of my reputation to unlock these features.

That's my TED talk, I don't care if you don't care, but I didn't have any other way to share this information, which I think is too restrictive especially on Premium members.

As the other two posts said, there are some very short games you can use to rebuild your karma quickly if you are willing to play real-time. You don't have to like the game. It's just a tool to get your karma back. You're farming karma like you farm resources in some video games. The only question is how badly do you want your karma back? Are you willing to endure an hour or two of real-time games you may not like to get it back up? Or hey, you might actually like one of those quick games. Then it won't be as much of a chore.

i mean, either that, or we could make the system not *

1. You're gonna get moderated for swearing. Should check out the forum rules.

2. What would you suggest?

[Vydder]

Generally speaking:
Playing multiple (eg. 100) turnbased games simultaneously, means taking the risk of annoying 100 to 400 opponents when not beeing able to play (due to whatever reason).
Losing Karma is fair.
If its too easy and cheap to regain karma, the system does not work.
1. One could implement a way of asking the opponents for forgiveness. - Probably not applicable, and people would lie or think the other person lies...
2. One could make it possible to pay for karma, but only few times per year, or only after a moderator gave permission. (If one can aford a premium subscription, they should be able to aford a few bucks if they are sorry.) - Opening a new account should not be the way of least resistance. I think.

[OPSEC IS CLEAN]

As the other two posts said, there are some very short games you can use to rebuild your karma quickly if you are willing to play real-time. You don't have to like the game. It's just a tool to get your karma back. You're farming karma like you farm resources in some video games. The only question is how badly do you want your karma back? Are you willing to endure an hour or two of real-time games you may not like to get it back up? Or hey, you might actually like one of those quick games. Then it won't be as much of a chore.

i mean, either that, or we could make the system not shit

1. You're gonna get moderated for swearing. Should check out the forum rules.

2. What would you suggest?

i said the word "*"? oh, *. whatever will the children do now?? won't somebody please think of the children

literally any system that doesn't result in the "solution" wasting hours of your life playing some * you aren't interested in playing. seems bad for everyone, and dumb. then again, so am i

*Moderator edit: please refrain from swearing on BGA, this is a family-friendly platform.

[Meeplelowda]

1. You're gonna get moderated for swearing. Should check out the forum rules.

This undermines my hypothesis that there is a script running that automatically flags posts with swearing in them, because this particular person seems to have it in every other post they make.

So where is that mod with the hair trigger who edits every post within 10 milliseconds of it going up without regard to context?

[FrankJones]

1. You're gonna get moderated for swearing. Should check out the forum rules.

This undermines my hypothesis that there is a script running that automatically flags posts with swearing in them, because this particular person seems to have it in every other post they make.

So where is that mod with the hair trigger who edits every post within 10 milliseconds of it going up without regard to context?

I think it depends on two things:

1) Whether anyone "reports" the post, and
2) Which moderator reviews it.

Personally, I am not going to report anyone for using the 4-letter S-word in a non-insulting manner, but merely using it as a synonym for "nonsense". That seems a bit outdated to me, but whatever the rules are, it's best to follow them.

[OPSEC IS CLEAN]

1. You're gonna get moderated for swearing. Should check out the forum rules.

This undermines my hypothesis that there is a script running that automatically flags posts with swearing in them, because this particular person seems to have it in every other post they make.

So where is that mod with the hair trigger who edits every post within 10 milliseconds of it going up without regard to context?

i only posted like twice, to be fair. there's a genocide being enjoyed by 90% of westerners; what kind of person gives a * about the most harmless of words?

*Moderator edit: please refrain from swearing on BGA, this is a family-friendly platform.

[OPSEC IS CLEAN]

1. You're gonna get moderated for swearing. Should check out the forum rules.

This undermines my hypothesis that there is a script running that automatically flags posts with swearing in them, because this particular person seems to have it in every other post they make.

So where is that mod with the hair trigger who edits every post within 10 milliseconds of it going up without regard to context?

I think it depends on two things:

1) Whether anyone "reports" the post, and
2) Which moderator reviews it.

Personally, I am not going to report anyone for using the 4-letter S-word in a non-insulting manner, but merely using it as a synonym for "nonsense". That seems a bit outdated to me, but whatever the rules are, it's best to follow them.

befehl ist befehl ig (or, to quote rage against they machine: ♪they say "jump!", you say "how high?"♫

[nik592]

literally any system that doesn't result in the "solution" wasting hours of your life playing some * you aren't interested in playing. seems bad for everyone, and dumb. then again, so am i

Hmmm, let's see then.

How about no karma at all? People are just allowed to quit games whenever they want but still play whatever they want. No penalties, just in case someone had a really good reason.

Or how about they just put in a button where people can say, "I had a really good reason for quitting those games", and if you click that, then all your penalties get wiped, because surely we can trust people to only use it when they really had a good reason.

How about every game you finish knocks off a whole penalty's worth of karma - so 10 for the first one, then 20, etc. That should help people who lost lots of karma unfairly get theirs back more quickly.

No? What's that you say? These ideas would be too open to abuse? Ah, yes, so I suppose "any system" apart from the current one probably isn't a fair statement?

I get that it seems rough when you do have a genuine reason, especially if that involves you losing lots of karma at once. But how on earth do BGA admin make a determination whether a person had a good reason - even if they tell BGA, "Look, I had a good reason for quitting all those games". If you look at the times where people quit a whole bunch of games, I'd be willing to bet that most of the time it's because the person either maliciously or carelessly did so - they didn't have any reason, they just didn't want to play anymore for whatever reason and who cares about the time wasted by their opponents? Very occasionally, someone with a good reason takes a big karma hit. Unfortunately, they are the casualties in having a system that doesn't just allow people to quit games whenever.

Seriously, if there are so many options for a different system that would work better, suggest just one.

1. One could implement a way of asking the opponents for forgiveness. - Probably not applicable, and people would lie or think the other person lies...
2. One could make it possible to pay for karma, but only few times per year, or only after a moderator gave permission. (If one can aford a premium subscription, they should be able to aford a few bucks if they are sorry.) - Opening a new account should not be the way of least resistance. I think.

While I appreciate you making some suggestions, people already complain about the fact that opponents have control over whether someone is booted (ie. that booting is not automated), so I can't imagine how forgiveness would be seen. Add to the fact that if you were booted, at least one of your opponents isn't likely to be in a forgiving mood.

As far as paying, well, you could, but I doubt anyone would. Those with small karma penalties would just earn it back through gaming (assuming that was still an option) and those with large ones would likely start a new account. And then let's also add in all those who would complain that they "had a really good reason for quitting all those games, and it's extortionist to expect people to pay to get their karma back"...

[Meeplelowda]

I think it depends on two things:

1) Whether anyone "reports" the post, and
2) Which moderator reviews it.

Personally, I am not going to report anyone for using the 4-letter S-word in a non-insulting manner, but merely using it as a synonym for "nonsense". That seems a bit outdated to me, but whatever the rules are, it's best to follow them.

I know there is an option to manually report, but that's not what I was talking about. There are some instances of a mod swooping in to edit profanity even when in the context the person wasn't swearing because the word is not a swear word in their language and it wasn't been used in the profane sense in the post. And it happened pretty quickly. This led me to hypothesize that in addition to human reporting there was automatic reporting that someone was just blindly following because they do whatever the Swear Bot tells them to.