What's happening in here?

[hi19hi19]

Re: What's happening in here?

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

[noname219]

Re: What's happening in here?

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.

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:

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]

Re: What's happening in here?

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:

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]

Re: What's happening in here?

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-]

Re: What's happening in here?

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]

Re: What's happening in here?

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]

Re: What's happening in here?

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.

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]

Re: What's happening in here?

[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.

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.

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]

Re: What's happening in here?

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]

Re: What's happening in here?

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

Who is going to code it? Ideas are cheap.

[Synthlight]

Re: What's happening in here?

Feel free to correct me if you think I am wrong here but you guys seem WAY tooo focused on the smallest possible demographic here and because of that you are over complicating everything. You are taking the 80/20 business rule and have squeezed that into a 99/1 rule. 99% of your planning and effort appeals to 1% of the general visitors of the site. Continuing to obsess over song ratings, steps and selections has absolutely nothing to do with the health of the site. It's like being rich and thinking that if we only had more yacht races, more people would come to a polluted beach. In the process you are making a shitload of work for yourselves with a constantly diminishing return. Based upon what I am seeing, this is elitism and feels like a private club.

Would you guys disagree? I don't mean to sound so harsh but what kind of effort has gone into making new visitors or players comfortable? Are there specific examples? If I come to this site new to the game, new to the community. Why would I stay? If everyone that volunteers spent their time welcoming new visitors or drawing them to the site, it would be way more beneficial than everything else going on.

Everything else needs to be put on the backburner. Through this we can significantly drop all the overhead. The more I learn about what is going on, the clearer it is that this is self sabotage in many ways.

Both of my kids (one of them in highschool now) look at this site in confusion and want nothing to do with it. That's an important queue and we should be doing everything we can to change that.

[Synthlight]

Re: What's happening in here?

I wish I had the heart to explain how utterly laughable FFR's legal standing is. The amount of ways and number of people who could sue this site or forcibly get content removed is astronomical.

(Take this for what it is.. discussion and not an argument.)

You tend to have a tremendous amount of criticism and gloom talk or mention of a "full business plan" in tow but you don't seem providing that plan or to be providing solutions. I think you are ignoring the fact that this site was up against far superior code with Stepmania not to mention hordes of commercial console releases but somehow flourished without paid employees for many many years before going commercial and many afterwards. Success is possible down either of these paths. My last post in this thread touches on what I believe to be a serious misconception on what is important. It warrants serious consideration. If you are serious about helping, then talk to me about helping. I would love to be part of that discussion.

If you doubt my credentials for thinking this way, consider that I sat in NY and turned down a $5mil offer for FFR. That I convinced Konami to let us use specific songs from DDR and fed them all kinds of ideas for their own projects. That I sat at every major record label in the country and convinced them to open their libraries to us. Beyond that I moved on and joined a new company which I brought to Inc500 status.. I continued this success by again moving to another company which I am helping to restructure and finding tremendous success as their COO.

Also, if artists that we sought permission from properly would like to get content removed, so be it. They would submit a DMCA to get the ball rolling or just flat out ask. It would be utterly foolish on their part but it's not going to break the game or the site. Think about why Thirdstyle (the site) isn't doing well. You are still missing the larger picture if you think think the number of songs holds the site back.

[Crazyjayde]

Re: What's happening in here?

The batch is part of what generates new content for the site and impacts its inner workings as well as the interaction between staff and the community - all problems that have said needs to be tackled in this discussion. This type of judgment process should alleviate efforts given by the staff in the long term. Not to mention rewarding the whole playerbase for their active gameplay and gives a sense of it mutating. This is a tangible suggestion that doesn't need much manpower and can be done with already developed/implemented tools. Could be done even without integration.

Tackling it head on isn't going to make much difference for a community that's been dwindling to their own devices between each years. Most of us reach and push for the same ambition you have, but the reality is for the recent years we've been feeling just like your kids.

Edit: "Focusing on the smallest possible demographic" doesn't hold a lick of sense. Our strategy is basically expanding the batch process to a larger demographic. "[...] what kind of effort has gone into making new visitors or players comfortable?" is also going to get Velocity on your bad side. Think of raw scoring implementation: the event that rallied the whole site into an unrecorded score hunting extravaganza? The lobby and the forum interface even? That kind of shut down thinking is unnecessary.

[Synthlight]

Re: What's happening in here?

Most of us reach and push for the same ambition you have, but the reality is for the recent years we've been feeling just like your kids.

Yeah, I agree. I think this all comes back to a leadership issue. It's sort of this floating raft and we are just kind of finding what we can at sea to eat. This is a great chance for us to all be vocal and real. We know how to crack that coconut when we get to the island, we just have to figure out how to get there.

[Crazyjayde]

Re: What's happening in here?

Then Synth, I think if you could provide input on what/how issues can be prioritized, it would gladly relieve everyone as well as the state of the discussion.