wankgate | 251: back in my day wank meant something

minimum ac is 20 comments in 2-3 threads.

only one of these threads can be an inbox/closed log thread, and if you use an inbox/closed log thread for ac one month then you can't use one for ac the next month.

you can't submit a thread with the same character for ac more than two months in a row.

at least one thread every three months must be a thread on an event/plot-related thing.

if you show a consistent pattern of only submitting the bare minimum number of comments for ac per month and/or dropping threads once they have met ac length or ac has ended, the mods reserve the right to talk to you about your activity.

decide how many more comments they need to go above the minimum not to get a "talking to"

make that the minimum

nah. the purpose of a minimum is to be the absolute lowest amount of activity you need to be able to stay in the game for that month. it's no problem if someone only submits exactly five comments every so often if they're otherwise demonstrating consistent activity, or if they've tagged into multiple things that month but the other players were slow tagging back so they may have six threads but only one that made it to ac length.

it becomes a problem when someone is routinely submitting exactly five comments and has no other activity to show that month. they're obeying the letter of the law but not the spirit and so the mods have a right to ask them straight up why they're in the game when they're not playing in it.

why are you checking on whether people have more threads that they aren't submitting for ac

what mod has that kind of spare time for their whole playerbase

Did they hit a nerve anon?

lol no, im wondering if they've ever actually modded before. doing ac is a pain in the ass and trying to go looking for what activity players have had over and above their submitted ac would make it ten times worse.

i've modded before and i don't need to go hunting, i always had a general idea of who was active and who was always barely scraping by, because i actively look at the communities? because i was a mod?

you do realize that's the point of having character tags for the comm, right

then why even have a minimum if it's not actually a minimum

just tell people submit what you got, we'll tell you if we feel like it's enough

why are you so obsessed with being allowed to repeatedly make only the bare minimum ac

can't speak for other anons, but what gets my goat is the "we're telling you this is the expectation, but actually we have a secret expectation that is higher and meeting the expectation we told you isn't good enough" aspect.

in pretty much any other scenario, we'd recognize that telling someone one goal then secretly judging them for not reaching a higher goal you never communicated would be incredibly shitty behavior, but drop the word "squatting" and suddenly anons are all for it here.

who says it's a secret expectation? there's nothing stopping the mods from making explicit in the rules that repeatedly hitting only the minimum will result in consequences. the "problem" isn't that the AC rules are secret, but that they're flexible. but as a mod you want to filter out the kind of people who can only function under extremely rigid direction because those people are fucking annoying to deal with.

then what is the actual expectation that will not get people a talking to from the mods? this is my problem. even if you say openly that people need to do more than the stated number, you've now left it vague what you're actually looking for. if you just say 'ac is 15 comments but you actually have to have more than 15' what is the actual number of comments that consitutes acceptable activity? 16? 20? 30? 15 but they gotta be with the mod's buttbuddies?

of course, this is wankgate where we want to be able to talk shit about people regardless, so ambiguous and inconsistent expectations are the norm, but it's a shitty thing to actually do in a game.

the expectation is to engage with the game.

that's it. that's the 'secret' expectation.

5 comments and ONLY 5 comments boomeranged the last day of EVERY month is not engaging with the game. just let yourself be swept or drop.

acceptable: sometimes only 15 comments, sometimes more than that. ac is more often than not made incidentally through engaging with the game and enjoying rping than trying to "make ac".

not acceptable: only 15 comments every time, threads are always dropped after reaching AC length, ac is always made purposefully by tagging with the sole intent of making ac rather than having fun with the game.

there is no way to 100% quantify this behavior, it's a "you know it when you see it" situation.

Re: Tell me wankgate...

(Anonymous) - 2024-06-28 23:12 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Tell me wankgate...

(Anonymous) - 2024-06-29 00:44 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Tell me wankgate...

(Anonymous) - 2024-06-29 04:46 (UTC) - Expand

+1

(Anonymous) - 2024-06-29 10:55 (UTC) - Expand

Re: +1

(Anonymous) - 2024-06-29 16:25 (UTC) - Expand

okay, let's give a real-world example here.

my job allows you to clock in up to ten minutes after the time your shift is scheduled to start. the entire point is that they recognize that sometimes shit happens and they don't want people panicking if they get stuck in traffic or whatever. that doesn't mean you can clock in ten minutes late every single day without getting called in to talk to management.

as an anxious different anon who has totally struggled with wrapping my head around the fact that the expectation isn't actually the expectation... this is a really good example that clarifies it.

but that's completely not the case. i have yet to be in a game that doesn't describe the AC requirement as the minimum to remain in game at one given time and that instances of repeatedly making just AC for a string of months will be taken up by the mods. you need to accept that the AC requirement is a bureaucratic measure for mods to ensure you still have a pulse during one single month.

making you AC will let you stay in short term. it's not enough to keep you in game over the long term as a sustained practice.

there is no secret expectation. it is very public that this is a minimum requirement, decided at a low level for your and the mods' tallying convenience, to give you a pass for one month of shit happening — not to encourage a habit of effective squatting.

i don't even know who you play where but you need to drop so somebody who doesn't consider participating in the hobby a gross imposition can app instead.

"this number of comments, with these limitations" *is* a minimum

you don't have to app into the imaginary game anons are making if it bothers you

Let me do you a solid and tell it to you straight. The point of ac is to make sure people are still engaging with the game and if there's no response they're swept. It shows a willingness of participation and there's also the understanding that some months people get busy. On those months a low ac is a safety net for otherwise active players. In the long run though, the purpose of being in a game is to actually PLAY in it. If you're scraping by every month with just 5 comments and never finish a thread, you're not really in the game. You can't establish CR with that low of a commitment. You'll end up frustrating everyone who's trying to play with you, because ultimately the purpose is to create a shared story together. This can't happen if you're just not playing often enough.

Yes it's sad that as adults we don't all have time for a game anymore where we need to be present to keep things moving. If that's the case for you though, stick to psls. Games just aren't for you anymore or at this time. If you're forever handwaving what happens in a thread or only plotting things out and never playing them through to their conclusion, you're not really playing in the game. It's just that simple. If you're aiming to only make ac each month, you're not really in the game. You're just trying to skate by and for anyone who actually wants to create a shared story write it out? That's incredibly frustrating. Please if this is you just take the L and realise that a game environment in a collaborative hobby is not the place for you right now.

da but i gotta be honest, this sounds more like a problem for the player and whoever is enabling that behavior and not the mods. Mods already stated what the minimum they allow in a game, and if the player wants to obey that to the letter, then they are allowed to do so.

If castmates or friends are the ones enabling this behavior by feeding them tags just enough to pass each time, they're the bigger problem imo. I had castmates like that and I just never tagged them again because they were constantly only tagging to pass AC I'd just ignore them when they tagged me near the end of the month and only tag back after AC rolls over so they know not to rely on me for pity tags.

you can't submit a thread with the same character for ac more than two months in a row.

a friend was in a game that implemented this. the mods would throw strikes at active players who submitted ac threads that had multiple characters in them, if one person out of the five or so was a "repeat". even if that character contributed only a couple tags, and the player would have obviously still made ac without them. it was so needlessly stringent.

the mod team also let their biggest squatters break this rule and other ac rules all the time, so there were larger issues at play.

At times like these I always remember the person in DDD who would do threads with themselves between two characters from the same canon that were the only ones that were long enough to count for AC, which was somehow a situation not covered by the AC rules.

At least they were characters no one else had heard of, let alone wanted to app.

that doesn't sound like a problem with the idea, it sounds like a problem with the mods being assholes