Inactivity Penalties

Not quite my point, amazon.

My point was she had a nice fat cushion to fall on/use as necessary. One that she doesn't really need to wait on threads to finish to claim. It's rather different to say "I don't claim/I sit on gp" and "I'm someone starting out who has to wait potentially weeks *likely more* to claim gp". And as far as the comment as far as your large posts, it was that your perspective is slightly different because when you do claim you claim a significant amount, as opposed to what someone else might. It affects you less because of that.

I'd be more concerned with, if it didn't act as a detriment to interest in the first place, that it would encourage unnecessary fluff to make those pauses between claims less drastic for the regular player.

1. She also earned that right by finishing her character up. You cannot punish her, nor anyone else, for using the rewards she's rightfully earned by posting and working her ass off in the creative sense as one of the most active posters of that character's time any more than you can for Jian or Takua or myself for doing the exact same thing. We choose to spend our time writing our collective asses off, so naturally, we're going to reap the benefits and the rewards of it more so than someone who is here just to kill some time/have a little fun here and there.

2. I wait months to do GP claims; several, at that. If one looks at my initial page and prestige, they'll see the pattern usually goes on an average of 3-5 months before I do the thing. I've turned my attention more towards the recommended course of action here because it's easier to keep track of and I don't have to sit there going, "Shit. Did I count this up right?" or "...did I claim some of this thread already?" That's why I like that idea; it makes it simpler and does, in some regard, motivate people to make sure their threads are finished.

I don't see how it's going to act as a detriment to any but those who end up pissed off/frustrated because they're not progressing/jumping ahead as fast as they want to be. Things like that are often rectified by continuing to post/write and thus up to the player to further their own story with their own two hands and that of the many willing and able players here on BG.

I never said anything about punishing her. Nor am I suggesting she's in the wrong for having it. I'm saying there's a very real difference between x and y.

And again, your perspective is based entirely on your own output that most people do not or cannot keep up with. Your standards are not theirs nor should a major change to anything be made based on the assumption that they will be able to keep up/advance at the same pace just because you, tak, or insert a name here can.

Also, you math bad. Doing claims that way because you math bad is not the same thing.

I use the "claim when finished" thing with Miyuki and Anastasia who both have absolutely NO retirement GP invested in them. My point is completely valid.

You said you never had the problem with everyone's favorite succubus. Thus my responses were based towards that, sunshine.

I said I've been doing it SINCE I made her, not that I was only doing it with her.

Just in case it was skipped over, I would like to make sure my idea is in the pot for consideration. I suggest this because the flat rate can either hurt greatly, or be ignored, depending on one's posting ability. If you can get large amounts of gp in one post, you can ignore the flat gp penalty. If you can't, then you're losing a fair bit of gp outside of that thread that may or may not already be spent elsewhere.

By being able to only claim half, you're not losing more gp than you can afford to pay out. You can't end up in gp debt, which I doubt is a fun condition to write threads in. And even if you write a lot, you can't blow off the penalty.

I also don't believe this method would add any more work for staff. If someone goes to claim, then the number checking staff already does when handling those claims will verify whether or not the thread was inactive due to the actions of the claimer.

Its not perfect because without the "can't claim until finished/inactive" rule, someone could just grab the gp from the thread and let it rot and I'm not sure if adding something like "can't claim from an unfinished thread unless you have the last post" rule would go over well. It would incentivize posting in/finishing a thread if you really want as much gp as possible, but it could also could be seen as forced.

That I didn't make an assumption at the time doesn't mean I don't take your point for being more valid now that I know that. Not sure what else it adds to drive that point into the ground.

My perspective comes from a very solid concept that we've seen proven time and time again here on BG: Time + Effort + Dedication = Growth and Advancement.

However much time an individual chooses to actively write on this site is going to decide their progress.

Not inactivity penalties. Not claims that can be done per post or per completed thread. Those two things are supposed to help those who are getting shafted by people suddenly up and disappearing, outright abandoning threads because something didn't go the way they liked/wanted to/someone pissed off someone else OOC so screw them, or who take more than 3 weeks to reply to a thread that may be preventing someone from moving forward. I got popped in the ass for this myself when I left abruptly last year and I deserved every bit of the GP penalty and the social stink eye I received because of it.

Do these things happen often? Not as far as I know, but I've been pretty lucky in that regard and I manage my own shit as best I can. To other people? This can be a major issue particularly with new players who don't have the vested time and 'clout' that us old people of the forum do and thus may be struggling for thread partners/threads as a whole.



The difference between GP claiming when a thread is done and GP claiming every post is the amount of work both staff and player have to do in order to make sure no one is double/triple claiming/screwing themselves out of GP. The former means a ctrl + f on "GP" and counting the numbers to make sure they match. The latter requires date and number checking, as well as doubling back to make sure it's not been claimed before; an issue we have had here on BG in the past.

If the solutions offered/ideas offered above aren't sitting well? Sit down, brainstorm, and offer something that'll help resolve the issue and post it rather than tear apart everyone else's ideas/theories of what may work/won't work and offer that up for discussion-- like Dew, like Panda, like Shun, Jian, Tokiyo, etc. Be part of the solution.

I'm voicing concerns about a thing people are leaning towards. Done so civilly, I thought. I can spit out ideas but let's not muddy the waters more than need be; that never gets us anywhere, particularly not at the pace these discussions go. This is the thing being pushed for and deserves consideration for both the positives and negatives involved. That's a part of discourse too. Don't have to be thrilled about it, but being a forum discussion, and being among members it can affect, I'm pretty sure I have as much right to voice those concerns as I do those sitting there pushing for that particular change.

Clearly define what the negatives/positives are. Offer some solutions to help counter those/be part of the process to help instead of just... pointing out shit that has nothing to do with the topic at hand. (Retirement GP, post length, being bad at numbers, etc.)

Offer solutions if you're genuinely that concerned about it and have an idea that can help; that's why this subject is up for negotiation/discussion in the first place.

It kinda does have to do with the topic at hand. This isn't mutually exclusive. Making that change isn't going to affect solely what it was intended to. We went from "lets remove inactivity penalties" to "let's implement this thing that will affect various other things due to a change to the system." So yes you have to account for those sort of things, not immediately dismiss them. Ripple effects. And yes, viewpoint has alot to do with why you may believe it better or not. Trying to sort through any bias there might be is ultimately better than simply nodding and going along.

Here's the problem as I've seen it so far? Ok?

Our current method of dealing with it is a joke. It's no deterrent to anything. And there's a bit too much leniency via social aspects to it. It just gets forgiven or its such a minor inconvenience for most of the forum that it doesn't matter.

The replacement that has any steam behind it is requiring a change to other rules that will affect players who are active, not just the players who flounce off and come back 3 months later like "who cares, its just some gp". Dew's is sort of a derivative of the old system and Tova's. Either is definitely more severe, and I'm rather in favor of that actually, but I don't generally support things that requires changing several other rules and aspects to get the result you want. It's far too roundabout. Yet you can't really do it without that. And I just don't see it having the effect on people who do bounce every little bit like you would want from a purely practical standpoint. People continue to follow habits.

And being honest? I don't see many arrangements of rules trying to punish behaviors like that being more than impotent attempts at it.

And lets set that aside for a moment. Assume someone does leave, comes back, whatever. They can't finish they thing, won't, whatever variable you wanna use. Is saying "the time you spent on those posts no longer matter, you get no GP for it" really going to be motivation for them to bother continuing? And assuming it doesn't make them immediately "meh" at it, then as seems to be the case sometimes, what prevents them from just circumventing it with a new character. Particularly if they ARE the type the rule was supposed to deal with? How about people that have abandoned multiple characters that kicked the feet from out under someone else? Doesn't seem to bother them regardless either. Or the one person that comes back and their thread partner quit themselves? How much do you tell someone their time and effort is devalued because of x time away? It gets tricky, real quick.

In this case I don't feel adding or changing more rules will get the effect desired. And I really, really have no clue what would. The problem it is supposed to correct relies heavily upon the person and their habits and those are not things you can alter like this or would impact, in a way I think. would be healthy for the forum itself or active members. It's reactionary.

If you could show up and stick a hot needle in someone's eye every time they fucked off it might make a difference. But this is not that. It might be that the only effective means of dealing with that sort of issue rely on social aspects of the forum, let the reputation for their floundering bite them in the ass. But even that gets bypassed more often than it should.

Not really happy with that idea but the alternative is to start thinking outside the box, past gp. If it hasn't made an impact before, what will? What is a big enough slap it gets attention without
A: Drive them skittering back off,
B: Bypassed with a new character because they simply don't care
C: Becoming such a roadblock/hindrance that it prevents them from being able to use the character.

Hmm. So...

I don't know if this is my bias talking here, or what... but I really really hate the idea of penalizing people who go inactive by making them unable to claim inactive threads.

I'm talking about that idea that if a thread isn't posted in, the active person waits 14 days (or whatever), exits the thread, claims GP, and the inactive person is left unable to claim anything for that thread.

Is going inactive bad? Yes. Do we want to discourage it, yes. But is it really THAT bad? (As in so bad that the other person can no longer take advantage of what they wrote, use it to continue their character, etc.) Sure, for a few threads here or there which are plot intensive and you just totally dropped the ball. But for most inactive threads? I feel like that sort of punishment, to my mindset at least, is kind of... painful? Painful in the sense that you're now embarrassed, you're upset too probably, BG doesn't exactly fill you with warm butterflies right now. That makes it twice as hard to come back. Not to mention it makes it hard to roleplay from there. You're in a written-box sort of. 

I dunno... I think what we're weighing here is kind of what Tova's talking about. The issue of why we're punishing people, and what that actually achieves. Does it really make the person who got dropped feel better about the inactive person? Or does it just breed animosity? Does it help the inactive person come back? Does it help BG attract players and keep them?

I'm not sure about the other recommendations so I'll let you all with better heads argue those points. I just... have a feeling that the above policy would make BG way less welcoming to a lot of people. Because honestly, it's true that you get the most out of BG if you can commit the time, but many of us have periodic breaks and times of inactivity. There should be a punishment for flaking out on people and not telling them what's up, but I don't really feel comfortable with that being a potentially character-ending/site-hating sort of penal system. It should be the sort of punishment that encourages improvement.

(Which is personally why I think the whole BG social-selection system is the best sort of punishment. You burn someone, you'll find that your potential thread partners start to dwindle. And the only way to improve that is to actually fix what you did wrong, and start doing better. It's incentive to improve. And it's something that doesn't feel handed down or imposed on you. This is how people get better, I think at least. It's the strength of BG, our interpersonal ties and the fact that we're a community, not just a collection of GP and word counts.)

So uh, question here: If we HAVE Inactivity Penalties already on our character, are they now removed by this or are they still in effect?

I would assume this only takes into account people returning after the date.

Past inactivity penalties are not being removed, no.