What's happening in here?

[Trumpet63]

Yeah, so... You're still just stating what I said.. so I don't know if I need to clarify still. I was defending MinaciousGrace.

FFR gets criticized by the Stepmania community all the time by not having good enough variety, and sometimes crappy files are still fun to play and make you better at the game. If we don't host the files people want to play, they'll find them elsewhere, or, in the case of FFRmania, mod the game so that those files can be played.

[DossarLX ODI]

You're going into OWA's idea of increasing the difficulty spectrum. He is aware of players moving on to games like osumania or playing harder songs in Stepmania. Look back at this post he made.

There's also a very serious issue that has been brought up to me that I'm looking into.

[MinaciousGrace]

Originally Posted by DossarLX ODI

The bookkeeping is necessary to monitor what users have submitted, monitor permissions on submitted files, and look at files accordingly for issues.

shit you got me dude it's definitely not possible to do this without the current system

[DossarLX ODI]

Originally Posted by MinaciousGrace

shit you got me dude it's definitely not possible to do this without the current system

What are some suggestions you have? You've stated in three posts that the batch system is inefficient but still haven't proposed a direction to take it. This was never a competition, I'm just trying to see what you wanted to add.

[noname219]

About the batch/queue being stuck, here's the idea :
1. Create a new small engine that any users can upload their simfiles (make someone review them before to check if they have permission - or create an automatic system if you have the courage to)
2. Only veterans will have access to this engine, they can play each files and give a note on the files they like (or add comments if they see something that can be improved), scores are not counted
3. Take the 3-4 best files every week or keep the best ones for tournaments

What this will do...
-No limit on batches anymore
-A larger variety of files
-Give a meaning to the veteran title and involve them into the batch process
-Encourage people to actually be interested in getting the veteran title
-Plus a lot more I'm not thinking right now...

Also, people won't be able to create 50 accounts to upvote their submissions because of the veteran title thing.

[Trumpet63]

Originally Posted by DossarLX ODI

You're going into OWA's idea of increasing the difficulty spectrum. He is aware of players moving on to games like osumania or playing harder songs in Stepmania.

Yep, I mean, if he really wants to do all that, go ahead. It sounds like a lot of work, and I STILL don't think that's a solution, because we'll probably just have to make all those files ourselves, if past behavior is any indication. Or if we don't make them ourselves, with the batch team already being taxed to its limit, I think that's hard to look at as anything but wishful thinking. You want brand new files in the game AND we're like a year behind in the batch. I don't think those ideas are compatible.

Also, it's kind of unfair you're the only one left to talk Dossar, I really don't expect you to have all the answers.

EDIT: not bad noname, although the whole creating a new engine thing is iffy

[Crazyjayde]

Originally Posted by noname219

Plus a lot more I'm not thinking right now.

Community involvement

[Frank Munoz]

Originally Posted by noname219

About the batch/queue being stuck, here's the idea :
1. Create a new small engine that any users can upload their simfiles (make someone review them before to check if they have permission - or create an automatic system if you have the courage to)
2. Only veterans will have access to this engine, they can play each files and give a note on the files they like (or add comments if they see something that can be improved), scores are not counted
3. Take the 3-4 best files every week or keep the best ones for tournaments

What this will do...
-No limit on batches anymore
-A larger variety of files
-Give a meaning to the veteran title and involve them into the batch process
-Encourage people to actually be interested in getting the veteran title
-Plus a lot more I'm not thinking right now...

Also, people won't be able to create 50 accounts to upvote their submissions because of the veteran title thing.

Interesting. It'd be nice if we could put a rating system in the engine itself (4/5 arrows) to see who likes what.
only downside to it is
-some vets may not take it so seriously
-might be too much privilege for vets to be able to play files before others
(though it's not like we release the charts a week after getting votes in)
(we can also have the testing open for a week, every week. So it'll be two songs added in game. And two new songs to test or something)

edit: It doesnt have to be a final say in what gets in the game, but it can help wash out the bad files from the good. making the workload for the advanced judging team easier.
So, as you said, it gets the community more involved and feel just that much more needed/important in the future of FFR WITHOUT the added pressure of being an admin.

[hi19hi19]

What you are describing is more or less the Osu system, with the alternate engine being for "unranked" files which are then "ranked" by certain privileged users before being put into the main game and having scoreboards associated with them, etc.

This system is not without its own drawbacks.

[noname219]

Originally Posted by Crazyjayde

I'll step up for Noname (my brother) to say he's done tremendous work handling and gathering song and in-game data information (corrections, permissions, wiki etc.) but have felt no impact for doing so since the start. I've personally dropped in to help when I could even though it's hard to keep up with him and generally felt the same. A handful (bmah, prawn, hi19, goldstinger, eze) were also keen to help push the thing forward. The wiki was built basically to showcase the changes that could be implemented. It's basically ghost-maintenance and kind of a statement to our involvement and interest with the site.

I understand what you're feeling towards the work we're doing, but I'm sure it will just take my approval that things are in order to implement the changes in the system. The reason isn't because people in power (you name them) are not willing to change stuff in the song list, but because they are unsure of the status of the project (is it complete? what songs are corrected? etc.)

I mean sure, I have put hundred of hours into this, probably more than the total amount of time I've actually played FFR, but believe me, I would have stop as soon as I knew that things would never change. The only thing that bothers me will be the moment to implement those corrections; from my point of view, I'm the best qualified here to modify the song list because I know more than anyone what changes needs to be done in the song list. I just need a few more inputs for missing information, I'll list those when I get to it (will drop them in the song corrections thread) and ask to a few users/musicians directly.

[hi19hi19]

The FFR Wiki is, ironically, probably the best-run part of the site.

[noname219]

Originally Posted by Frank Munoz

Interesting. It'd be nice if we could put a rating system in the engine itself (4/5 arrows) to see who likes what.
only downside to it is
-some vets may not take it so seriously
-might be too much privilege for vets to be able to play files before others
(though it's not like we release the charts a week after getting votes in)
(we can also have the testing open for a week, every week. So it'll be two songs added in game. And two new songs to test or something)

edit: It doesnt have to be a final say in what gets in the game, but it can help wash out the bad files from the good. making the workload for the advanced judging team easier.
So, as you said, it gets the community more involved and feel just that much more needed/important in the future of FFR WITHOUT the added pressure of being an admin.

If you remember a few years ago, being veteran gave you the opportunity to play one song/week in advance. We scrapped that feature but I don't remember why. The difference with the proposal is that without the scoreboard, it won't be possible to rank yourself in advance.

Originally Posted by hi19hi19

What you are describing is more or less the Osu system, with the alternate engine being for "unranked" files which are then "ranked" by certain privileged users before being put into the main game and having scoreboards associated with them, etc.

This system is not without its own drawbacks.

Can you elaborate on the drawbacks of the Osu system ?

edit:

Originally Posted by hi19hi19

The FFR Wiki is, ironically, probably the best-run part of the site.

It isn't technically part of the site, that's why it runs well.

[sickufully]

After reading every post here, this is what I've gathered. This is just coming from a regular user who has no idea about any admin/staffing info. I've probably missed a few things but these seem to be the main topics.

PROBLEMS
- Lack of communication between staff (this one is huge).
- Lack of communication to the community as a whole.
- Staff not listening to idea's/projects/feedback from other staff (most of lower ranks).
- No staff taking initiative.
- Population of the site slowly diminishing.
- New users either come and go within a few sessions of playing or just don't come around at all.
- FFRs legal standings towards song permissions.
- Non-staff users becoming increasingly frustrated at the way the site is being handled and the direction of FFR.
- No new content as of lately.
- Songs/files needing extensive inspection before they are released causing major delays for files in the queue.
- Staff not knowing what stage current projects are at.
- No OT (for the first time in 10 years?)

POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS
- "Fire" all staff and reassign all staff positions via staff applications.
- "Fire" inactive/lazy/unmotivated staff and reassign the missing positions via staff applications.
- Interchange staff positions between a select number of users who are available at only certain times of the year.
- Shared roles of leadership, if possible, people in different time zones.
- Hire new (active) staff on top of the existing staff.
- Pay staff members to do their job.
- Pay ONLY head roles of staffing area's to keep everyone else in line.
- Look outside of the FFR community for devs/admins/mods to help with the progress of the site.
- Someone steps up and takes on the role of lead supervisor (who will look over all staffing roles and make sure all area's are up to date and keeping communication between these groups active).
- Create a communication method for all staff members to EASILY access and leave messages or feedback to one another. This SLACK program clearly isn't working. What was wrong with Skype?
- Release FFR to steam/kongregate/other free game hosting sites.
- Bring back micro-transactions for skins/songs/events/merchandise. Nothing that gives you an advantage in-game towards scores.
- Hold fundraiser events.
- Advertising (Don't know where and with what money).
- An osu-like system for trialing new songs (personally, I think this is great). Or a new genre in the game that's only available to Vets+.
- Bring back the changelog or something similar.


I think the most important question was asked by HeZe on the second page:

Originally Posted by HeZe

As long as there isn't anyone to coordinate the site, nothing good is going to happen. Synth is not going to commit in this dilemma, nor does Tass, so who will?

Also, since the site is run 100% off volunteer staff, there needs to be some system that allows staff to have a FFR to life balance. What I mean by this is that staff can keep their position, even if they are inactive for a month or two at a time (because of irl situations), and are allowed to come back to help finish off whatever they were doing or continue someone else's work. There should also be a staff only area on the forums (invisible to non-staff users). There should be sub-forums within this area that allow staff to post things like:
- When they need to become inactive
- Discuss projects
- Important messages to all staff
- An area which regular users can post to but only staff can see all posts (such as suspicious scores or bots or other questionable things)

I dunno if I'm making much sense, I'm just gathering idea's from various other sites I've used over the years and how they worked. Most seems to work much better than what's currently in place here.

[Frank Munoz]

Originally Posted by noname219

If you remember a few years ago, being veteran gave you the opportunity to play one song/week in advance. We scrapped that feature but I don't remember why. The difference with the proposal is that without the scoreboard, it won't be possible to rank yourself in advance.

Sorry, I can't recall that very well... I do remember Veterans had exclusive thread posting though. So if it's okay to bring those things back we can have


[Veteran Testing Engine] - probably just gonna be the same as the current engine but doesn't record anything, only showcases pending batch charts. I know there are plenty "personal" FFR engines some members and "Teams" use already so we can just make another one of those to display the charts.

[Veteran Testing Thread (Only accessible to Veterans)] - to post comments/complaints/likes/etc just like the usual weekly threads we have already.


we'll prolly think of some other things along the way.
and if it dont work out then it's easy to scrap i believe.

I do really want a voting system implemented for every chart. So instead of only having "FFR's TOP PLAYED SONGS" it will have "HIGHEST RATED SONGS" as well. And we can also use it in-game to sort charts from low-high ratings. But that would mean more work to do for our coders.
this is ofcourse AFTER we smooth out the 'communication/leadership/who takes charge/ volunteer dilemma and all the other small problems we got

[-JiZ53-]

I want to preface this post by saying that I do not wish to start a debate about downvotes in this thread. My question is directed towards anybody who was involved in the decision process which led to the removal of the downvote. I know this is off topic and not a priority for most people, but I am curious how the decision to remove downvotes from profiles was reached. Apparently, Synthlight wasnt aware that they were even removed. I am curious who made this decision, and why the code was changed to remove downvotes. I would suggest bringing downvotes back. If anybody who was a part of that decision could come forth and provide some answers, I would be appreciative.

[hi19hi19]

Originally Posted by noname219

Can you elaborate on the drawbacks of the Osu system ?

Favoritism of certain stepping styles/difficulties/stepartists among the veterans (BAT/BNG team on osu), where the opinions are not necessarily shared by the rest of the userbase.

The sheer number of submissions relative to how many get reviewed.

And, finally, somewhat ironically, the volunteer aspect itself. Osu has similar same issues as FFR motivating people to give a fuck about reviewing files.
Inactive reviewers get cycled through just the same as FFR.

[noname219]

Originally Posted by Frank Munoz

I do really want a voting system implemented for every chart. So instead of only having "FFR's TOP PLAYED SONGS" it will have "HIGHEST RATED SONGS" as well. And we can also use it in-game to sort charts from low-high ratings. But that would mean more work to do for our coders.
this is ofcourse AFTER we smooth out the 'communication/leadership/who takes charge/ volunteer dilemma and all the other small problems we got

Basically this but automated.

Originally Posted by hi19hi19

Favoritism of certain stepping styles/difficulties/stepartists among the veterans (BAT/BNG team on osu), where the opinions are not necessarily shared by the rest of the userbase.

The sheer number of submissions relative to how many get reviewed.

And, finally, somewhat ironically, the volunteer aspect itself. Osu has similar same issues as FFR motivating people to give a fuck about reviewing files.
Inactive reviewers get cycled through just the same as FFR.

Those are all legitimate complain. One thing I'm less worried about is the size of the community. There has to be about ~3,000 veterans here compared to the huge size of osu, which means less submissions. One thing we could do is to have a cap system where the submitter cannot send more than 1 file/day.

[Crazyjayde]

Originally Posted by Frank Munoz

[Veteran Testing Engine] - probably just gonna be the same as the current engine but doesn't record anything, only showcases pending batch charts. I know there are plenty "personal" FFR engines some members and "Teams" use already so we can just make another one of those to display the charts.

[Veteran Testing Thread (Only accessible to Veterans)] - to post comments/complaints/likes/etc just like the usual weekly threads we have already.

Implement the first under FFR Game on the home page as soon as the Veteran requirement is hit. Implement the second under the pre-existing veteran sub-section. Batch maintenance personnel is considerably reduced that way.

Originally Posted by hi19hi19

Favoritism of certain stepping styles/difficulties/stepartists among the veterans (BAT/BNG team on osu), where the opinions are not necessarily shared by the rest of the userbase.

By FFR standards, the rest of the active community might as well be veterans.

Originally Posted by hi19hi19

The sheer number of submissions relative to how many get reviewed.

And, finally, somewhat ironically, the volunteer aspect itself. Osu has similar same issues as FFR motivating people to give a fuck about reviewing files.
Inactive reviewers get cycled through just the same as FFR.

Limited selection of songs get cycled every X period. Open and close submissions to avoid overflow. It keeps the batch fresh and gives everyone a chance to submit. If possible, expand the "review your file" functionality to the original engine as to not devalue the newcomer's experience and keep diversity.

I want to stress that this system is perfectly feasible and can be perfected from previous knowledge and tested experience of the Osu platform.

Edit: Excuse my rudeness, it's coming from my enthusiasm.

[Frank Munoz]

Originally Posted by hi19hi19

Favoritism of certain stepping styles/difficulties/stepartists among the veterans (BAT/BNG team on osu), where the opinions are not necessarily shared by the rest of the userbase.

The sheer number of submissions relative to how many get reviewed.

And, finally, somewhat ironically, the volunteer aspect itself. Osu has similar same issues as FFR motivating people to give a fuck about reviewing files.
Inactive reviewers get cycled through just the same as FFR.

We can review the charts anonymously by not providing who stepped what during testing and what the ratings are as well so there won't be a gowiththecrowd aspect for grading files(the only people who would know that information would be the lead simfile judges i.e. OWA and top administration). Though the testing thread my reveal others inputs i do not believe it will influence others immensely. The community itself consist of players with various stepping style favoritism (some like jacks, others like jumpstream, some like burst/ jumps/ staircases/ offbeatsyaddayadada), so not everyone will like the same things, and it'll give all charts a fair chance due to simply everyone being different.
If there is a way to lock the testing thread though, and to have prerequisites of completing and rating the weekly/daily/monthly/whgatever testing files to access the thread so there is no influence then that's another solution to the bias ratings. if it's at all possible and if we even need to.

I'll edit this or just make another reply to show my thoughts on the other concerns

@Noname. yes
@crazy. also yes

[hi19hi19]

I'm seeing a lot of healthy speculation in this thread.

Who is going to code it? Ideas are cheap.