2020 M&M Election

@Resistance Well Yes and No, First off you start purging maps you get a riot. Riots ain't helpful for anybody and not to mention the amount of effort it takes to clean the entire what? 10 Years of Maps on the vault, like that's insane. I support biass because biass will actually do the work and isn't going to bang his head on the wall as he said. He'll come up with good ideas to deal with these existing problems. The last Few M&M Councilors have been banging their heads for a long time so seeing something new is really what we need. I don't think we should have a full-on election because people don't really know what they are voting for, because nobody likes to read the forums or anything.

I know people like to rage and rant about Dual Gap and Astro Crater and I have my times where I do it too but on a serious note, its really not helpful and everyone how does it is literally just banging their head on this 20m thick wall of brick. This community has a massive majority who plays Dual Gap and Astro Crater. What are we going to? Remove 30% of the player base, because we personally don't like a certain map. We should leave our opinions out of this and look straight forward to improving the mapping ability, and etc. We let our opinions get the best of us when we should look at this not from our own perspective but from the perspective of "How we can improve FAF overall?" Removing Maps, Creating Riots, and Hating on a certain group of players who play these maps will not improve FAF, stop saying that it just doesn't. I do believe that listening to the community is a good thing but also a bad thing. There's a whole lot of bad ideas and some good ideas. I believe that Biass will at least ATTEMPT to listen to us even if we have horrific ideas at least he'll listen. I won't ask for anything else.

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Morax said in 2020 M&M Election:

rewrite my post

Doing this is cheating.

@Resistance said in 2020 M&M Election:

70% of maps are awful and should be purged

In my opinion:

If you're talking about maps that are broken or have some other issues like bad versioning, they'll still be removed because they're still breaking the rules that remain in the system.

If you're talking about maps that are "bad" because of their low quality;

You want users to make "better content" which mostly entails devoting more and more hours into contributing to a client they may or may not be invested in. Doing so is ultimately thankless at this stage and they don't benefit from putting in those hours.

With that in mind, is it really such a mystery why people don't try and make their maps good? It's like when you used to ask devs to program new features for the client and they asked for money or made jokes about wanting a full time salary.

As I stated, It's up to the councilor role to motivate people into making better content. That's what I plan to do with it.

Are we still waiting for Moraxs' response/post??

Thanks

Yeah, it's pretty ResidentSleeper

nine2 said in 2020 M&M Election:

Morax is this your application?

That post is not the application.

Let me be very clear here.

We both have platforms written in advance to post here.
FtX was already given both of those to read over and approve.
FtX had approved both of the documents before making the thread.
These are the terms that we had both agreed upon.

If Morax has:

  • Waited for me to post first,
  • And then rewrote his platform in an attempt to hardcounter mine.

Then he has cheated on this election process.

I don't care about needing to back up the statements i've made. I'm confident that I can do that.

I only care about a fair election process. This method of counterplay is inherently cheating the system and doesn't count as fair process.

Deal is off the table with the pre written proposals.

You screwed up and you know it. Blocking me on discord to disallow resolving matters privately proved to me you're not really willing to work things out.

I was never told you were going to post up, and ftx screwed up by not taking our proposals and sharing.

Just to keep honest, I wrote this up, so you will see something similar when I can actually finish it off:

Morax’s Maps & Modifications Councilor Application for 2020

FAF Community,

If you have not heard, it was requested that the vote for M&M councilor take place now. I have been the M&M councilor for the past years and for those who have not been here since the start, and are looking for some background, here is my original application back in late April / early May of 2019: https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=17394&hilit=morax+councilor&start=50

The only reason I can think of why the election did not take place at the annual mark is due to the pandemic disrupting schedule, my lease ended and bought a home (was busy moving), and maybe because of a lack of interest in others having the vote? Regardless, it is taking place now.

For the most part, I am unchanged in most of my views, except in that I believe one major issue is at hand: the management of the vault showrooms. This includes both the mapping and modification ones, so pay attention to what I would like to do going forward:

Vault Management for Maps

Facts ( numbers are from Downlord Client as of 09/01/2020 😞

There are 248 pages of maps in the vault at the moment of writing
This amounts to approximately 20 (number of maps shown on each page) by 98 pages for a total of 4,900+ uploads.
The first map uploads were not possible until 2.5 years into the existence of FAF (typical “Soon [™]” slow development capability!)

Part of the responsibility of the FAF map and mod council is to decide how the community sees and has access to contributions from map and modification authors, and it is hardly ever a fun process: there are plenty of people that have no regard for others, they take others’ work without permission (call it their own), and in general a lot of quite unfinished work goes in.

Let us start by taking a look at the latter vault page:

https://i.imgur.com/fGwpUGD.png

Now let us look at the listings on what is currently page 1 in the client:

https://i.imgur.com/nNkweWj.png
In my observation, the average quality has not really improved by much, and therefore that is a problem. Per many requests, authors that spend a greater deal of time making something more interesting see their content “buried” by new uploads, and spare their creation ending up in the ladder pool, or advertised by the promotions council, they average # plays is abysmal: a low 10 or less. That is, not really, helping anyone get their work out to the community.

To help demo maps that really show off what the game can do, we created the “M&M Top Picks” showroom that permanently keeps content created by authors who pour their heart into creations:

https://i.imgur.com/u89yg4Z.png

You can read about why it was made here to better understand its history: https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=17820

Still, this did not really do much, and a lot of the community has still voiced - in my research - disdain for the level of content one finds in the vault. I don’t have good data here on this as it never was something I did, so your vote for myself or whomever runs against me will have to be based on whether you agree with me or not.

Long story short, I gave up on managing the vault recently after others did as well. With so little people managing FAF, it became apparent it is not the best focus; yet, we still do want to try and boost the quality of the additions. There are good maps and mods in the vaults, but one has to sift through pages upon pages to really find anything.

That is why, I would like to present the following idea to FAF:

First, see my original post here - https://forum.faforever.com/topic/3/m-m-map-vault-plans-for-fall-2020-and-on

Whitelist Vault System 2020 (and on) for Forged Alliance Forever:

The main showroom, what is known as “Most Recent” will become a whitelist showroomwhere authors are given permission, and unlimited access will be given.

CARE must be taken to keep to the vault rules and regulations as a author can be removed for multiple violations

One can become a whitelist author by applying for it, and show a few maps, with demos, to the M&M team to show they can at least grasp the basic rules.

Authors who ARE NOT on the whitelist STILL can upload to the vault!
A person who hosts their uploaded map can expect players that join to be able to see information and download the map
There is no blocking of content: anything will be allowed, regardless of whether it follows the rules (maybe spare egregiously broken ones, hacked)

M&M team can work on other valuable pieces of content like tutorials, video reviews, learning new things themselves, and best of all: be a lot less stressed by people.

Will the author permission system be as strict as the M&M top picks list? Not even close… I simply want to dodge having entirely low-effort maps go into the vault and have to spend so much time chasing people around.

For reference (and this is not complete), here is a running list of authors I believe should be a part of the whitelist vault without question, starting Day 1:

Farmsletje
Mozart
biass
FTXCommando
Petric
svenni_badbwoi
Robustness
lilsidlil
Size
borgcubejanitor
MadMax
Jip
speed2
Exotic_Retard
keyser
Chosen
Saske_Kaske
Mikkz
This_Guy
CurrySmuggler
Box-
Lionhardt
Blodir
Tokyto_
Blue_Owl
CookieNoob
Krapougnak
Molotov
Marlo
lextoc
DesertWolf216
Raymorend
F-Odin
Sandokan
SoviertPride
Arhurt
MichaelRosen
Plasma_Wolf
Gingerbreadman
AchievedCheetah8
barmaleushko
StrangePotion
seero
Winged_Mind
Ajack
DeathWolf99
deGRONDDateNoob
MadCat
iBeaver
TheBestUsername
Hell
eptaceps
Snoop
Kiliax
Hellgich
Freedom
BRNKOINSANITY
Picco
silly_noob
Degulum
TheBlackWolf
EvanGalea
SiwaonaDaphnewen
Pl4t_
GrunttiNoob
seraw
Chipi
H-Master
Capricious
Wifi_
Montana
Warner-Valholl
Evildrew
Nequilich
Hawkei
ika_m
Bodabubdub
Aware

It is my hope that, if you take a look at the maps created by those people above, you will see it is not overly strict, nor condemning.

Other Thoughts:

It really blew my mind away how much time was spent being a “vault policeman” over other things as the FAF M&M councilor. I do realize, as I am getting more and more busy with work, that is more difficult to produce content and run the council. But I will remind people that, as a FAF council member, you only need to commit to a minimum time a week, which is believe it or not, 2 hours.

My goal with this proposal and application, is to get some headway on the project, and begin working on more advanced content assistance. The community does not have a lot of modifications nor authors, so that needs attention next. We work at the availability of software development time, so things are planned and often not executed for months, maybe a year or more.

If anyone has any questions about other matters not discussed here, or in my original application, feel free to inquire and I will respond in this post.

Morax

That isn't really my "official" reply to biass since he decided to basically take my idea and one up it... This is a complete mess since no one said "okay go post" and you put me on the clock when I'm not really available to finalize my post.

That's a real fair election in that no one said when we would do what.

I find it absurd to be reading "Morax is delaying" when both of you messed up:

Yup... https://imgur.com/gallery/dEeko3u

I'm not trying to start a war and cast stones at biass, but I'm also not going to let him ridicule my ideas and then get hasty with me. I took a long time to write my first m&m application for 2019 to now, and it made for a much clearer, and more in depth review of want I want to say.

@Morax said in 2020 M&M Election:

Deal is off the table with the pre written proposals.

You do not decide how this election works. You cannot change the plan at random to suit your needs and expect to get away with it.

@Morax said in 2020 M&M Election:

Blocking me on discord to disallow resolving matters privately proved to me you're not really willing to work things out.

You've spent the past couple of weeks, since the start of this scenario, flooding my private messages with abuse and vitriol. There is no attempts to resolve matters. You've been attempting to make it seem like I didn't have a chance, and trying to scare me away by threating to "expose" my "bs." This is not acceptable for a councilor or even for an adult. As I said to you when I finally - after weeks of getting pm'd with unsavory comments almost every single day - I don't have to deal with your abuse.

@Morax said in 2020 M&M Election:

I was never told you were going to post up, and ftx screwed up by not taking our proposals and sharing.

FtX messed up by not taking the finished proposals that you already sent to him, and agreed that it was finished by sending it to him and saying it was and posting them both at the same time.

I don't care if you post your thing and then reply to mine (as you post your proposal while I write this) but don't cheat.

You broke the boundary as shown in the chat I had with him, so good luck saying it's "cheating."

@Morax said in 2020 M&M Election:

You broke the boundary as shown in the chat I had with him, so good luck saying it's "cheating."

My proposal went through mutiple people - with some of those having relevant qualifications - peer review with no issues, and it also passed through FtX's approval and was allowed to post here. It was only decided that the comments made were not acceptable when you tried used that as rationale to destroy the process of election.

You already had more time to work on your stance, and I've had to temper what I say while you attack me in your proposal with no reprimand.

The users of FAF are relying on this election to dicate how they can enjoy the game and the client. I would ask that you took this process with more dignity.

Yeah, and I'm going to ensure they get full honesty instead of sugar-coated statements.

I have no problem stating that the quality control I think is good is what is best to improve a product.

No product ever improved by allowing people to do as they please.

Folks, both biass and I want to work hard and get things done. Both of us want a level of differing control, and openness to keep things fun.

Either one, you're going to get a tough , experienced person to talk to.

You make the pick on who you think is better, but ask for honesty rather some run of the mill soap box speech that's basically like listening to a professional politician read off a teleprompter.

@Morax said in 2020 M&M Election:

Then let's have an open election instead of this closed off one

As I said:

@biass said in 2020 M&M Election:

you tried used that as rationale to destroy the process of election.

You can see past iterations of a users posts with the small box above a users profile image.

Feel free to post a followup and thank you for finally abiding to the correct procedure of finally posting your - prewritten - stance. You can understand why I needed to call attention to cheating like this, because cheating isn't something befitting a leadership role.

FtX has already posted why this election is closed off and nobody else has appeared to discuss their proposals with me like I suggested they did. I have nothing else to do here besides allow the userbase the make their desicion. good day to you.

That's not my final post, so you're going to have to wait a little longer.

Wouldn't it have been better to have two different threads for discussion about each proposal?

This thread is already hard to follow and half of it, not that constructive. Maybe keep the discussion about the actual election to discord...

@scytale said in 2020 M&M Election:

Wouldn't it have been better to have two different threads for discussion about each proposal?

I'm okay with making a seperate thread. I had written my post in such a way so that I could hide most of it in spoiler tags, reducing the absolutely asinine size when posted. This forum doesnt allow spoilers for some reason.

I'll let other peopls weigh in on that first, however.

I just wanted to note for those reading this that the list of map authors that Morax said he would day-1 approve for his whitelist is a small minority of mappers with a clearly biased list (I don't want to name names here out of concern that that could start tangential flamewars, but feel free to pm me if you want to ask). Even if he doubled or tripled that list, it would still be a small minority of mappers. So, Morax's plan to remove the regular 'most recent' maps list would make it harder to find/discover the large majority of maps on FAF. It would also disincentivize many potential new mappers from getting started with map-making.
I also wanted to point out that Morax's claim that the average not hidden or removed map on the vault that isn't showcased gets "10 or less" plays is just blatantly wrong. (I don't know where he got such a baseless claim. I've looked over the play-counts of thousands of maps on the vault, and the average is much higher.) However, if the 'most recent' maps list is removed like Morax wants, I could easily imagine his claim of most maps getting 10 or fewer plays becoming true, unfortunately....

pfp credit to gieb

Why is there a 46 post thread just for two people to post their applications? I don't want to read all this shit.

I think posting your ideas in simple bullet points would be easier at this rate. Going back and reading this from top to bottom would take an hour best case scenario. So if possible please clean this up and make it easier to read.