A Matter of Principle
Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 11:12 pm
Well, I'm not going to lie - this is the first time I've actually combed through this forum, and I figured this would be an apt place to post this. Over the past few weeks, I have had increasingly pressing concerns regarding this league, which I figured I would voice in the hope of any deviation from, based on the newly infamous Riker thread, what seems to be some sort of jaded status quo. I will be posing a few questions, suggestions, and issues here that pertain to a multitude of topics within GU, so I couldn't really figure out a subject for this post other than what it is. Because everything I write from this moment forward stems from what I believe to be a matter of principle. And that principle is that the GU League should be first and foremost, a player's league.
And so, here I find myself amidst that infamous argument of players vs admins and what not from the Riker thread. I do not know what all this debate will culminate in and what the final verdict will be, but let us start with a very simple observation. The observation that there is a seemingly monumental rift between GU players and admins. How did this happen? Why did this happen? Could it have been prevented? My opinion - yes, it absolutely could have been prevented. While the people behind the @ have personalities that we have all come to love (or not love - your opinion is your own), the idea of the collective GU Admins as a council seems to be a concept quite distant from us. In fact, it seems that said rift between players and admins is akin to the infamous Iron Curtain separating Europe from the Soviet Union. Fine, that was hyperbole, but the fact remains that this rift exists and could have been prevented.
The GU Admin Council makes decisions along with the input from hosters. However, is there formal input from a non-GU admin? The Council exists of 8 voting members, which SillySir I believe already noted, meaning that if everyone votes, there is a very real possibility for a tie. Given that this is a players' league, the players should at the very least have input on what goes on during meetings and the final vote. Would anyone disagree with that? And yet, admins are not chosen by the players, but rather by admins. I won't argue with that process - only admins have access to logs, and rightly so, so they know the true characteristics of each person better than any of us would. However, when it comes to decision-making, there should be an individual on the council who represents the players and only the players. The 9th voice that may end up having to break that tie. The argument against this, of course, is that the Council, since it is in fact made of real people, is able to gauge players' opinion and it tries to do the best job to represent the masses. While this is admirable and noble to a certain extent, this is so much work for our admins that it borders on foolhardy. Let me compare the system we have right now to a political system. Each registered GU player on the spawn list is a citizen. Thus, all players and admins are citizens. The players are the people and the admins are Congress. However, in this legislature, Congress makes decisions the people have to follow while the people have no check or balance on Congress. Not quite the society I would like to live in. In an ideal world, we would hope that the admins act in our best interest, and I'm sure 99.9% of the time, they do. However, I'm a realist and I recognize the fact that in order for the players and admins to co-exist peacefully and for business to run effectively, there should be as much player-admin contact and player representation as possible. The best way to do this would be to have a non-GU admin, chosen by the players, to represent them during these councils. This way, every voice - that of the admins who have experience with running the league and that of the players - is given a formal vote.
The following are a few examples of ways to better improve the efficiency of this league and the representation of the players that stem from the above issue.
Firstly, the idea of reporting matches. If the autoreport bugs are fixed, this issue will become all but obsolete, but the way that matches were reported in the first place concerns me. I do not know the full history here as I only joined the league in 2008, but it is my understanding that at first admins were the ones who could enter matches. Why was this the policy in the first place? Well, the easy answer is that not everyone is trustworthy so naturally admins should be the ones in charge of entering these matches. Yet, how many times have you finished a match, realized there are no admins to report to, and then either joined another server where an admin is and told them to report it or mailed them the details of the match via the GU site? Let me pose another question. Do you believe that every time you report a match, an admin goes to the replay server or checks the server log to make sure you are not being deliberately deceptive? Yes, that was rhetorical. It is no more difficult to fraudulently enter a match than it is to fraudulently report it. Every registered player on the GU League's spawn list should be able to enter a match. Best case scenario, the league becomes much more efficient and admins have less work to do. Upon reflection, it is in fact in their best interest to share this "power". So, I ask again, why was this, this...power, for lack of a better word, to enter matches reserved solely for admins? I keep trying to answer this question logically, but the only logical answer is that it is a "power" that admins enjoy. Which is in and of itself absurd! This is, after all, about entering matches. If a match is entered erroneously, then players from the opposite team will notice and will report it. The result: a ban of predetermined length. Decisive and rapid punishments deter undesirable acts - that is the basis of criminology. This issues of finding an admin to report to and mailing an admin because none are online, both of which are unnecessary hassles, now become non-issues. Entering matches is a right, not a privilege.
Next, enter the referee. The post of a referee was made presumably because admins realized that there are a lot of matches to report and they needed help doing this. Perfectly reasonable. The admins looked for high-character individuals to whom they could bestow this "power". Unfortunately, by separating these individuals from the rest of the players, the admins directly created a culture where referees had to conduct themselves in a professional and nearly flawless manner, much like admins had to. Thus, becoming a ref meant that you had the characteristics of an admin and you were on your way to becoming one. However, this is a problem. It not only limits the number of people you can make referees, which exacerbates the problem you were trying to fix in the first place, but it also bastardizes the post. Thus, if a referee breaks a rule and is banned for bad language, for example, then their referee-ship must be revoked. How absurd! The job of a referee is to enter matches, and being banned for bad language in no way impedes one's ability to do so. Being a referee should in no way be considered a stepping stone to becoming a GU admin. This directly conflicts with the purpose of the position - to have as many people report matches as possible. Hopefully, we will not have to deal with this, but if the autoreport bugs prove to be more difficult to fix than expected, this idea/issue should be on the forefront of the Council's agenda.
From referees, we move on to the last issue, The Riker Cup. Now, there is ample debate regarding whether this is supposed to be North America vs. Europe or not, so we shall steer clear of that. I would like to again point out that this is a players' league, and that Riker's is indeed, for the players. Thus, why should a select group of admins choose the captains on both sides? The admins choose the captains, the captains choose the players. To me, this does not seem to demonstrate an adequate form of representation for the teams to be labeled Team North America and Team Europe. The constituents of the regions themselves should, via poll, be the ones who decide who their captains are. Then and only then will these teams truly represent the two sides for which they stand. Until then, The Riker Cup is a glorified match between two teams that four people made. If this were to occur, would the teams be the same? Maybe. Maybe not. But in the end, it all comes down to a matter of principle.
-hj
And so, here I find myself amidst that infamous argument of players vs admins and what not from the Riker thread. I do not know what all this debate will culminate in and what the final verdict will be, but let us start with a very simple observation. The observation that there is a seemingly monumental rift between GU players and admins. How did this happen? Why did this happen? Could it have been prevented? My opinion - yes, it absolutely could have been prevented. While the people behind the @ have personalities that we have all come to love (or not love - your opinion is your own), the idea of the collective GU Admins as a council seems to be a concept quite distant from us. In fact, it seems that said rift between players and admins is akin to the infamous Iron Curtain separating Europe from the Soviet Union. Fine, that was hyperbole, but the fact remains that this rift exists and could have been prevented.
The GU Admin Council makes decisions along with the input from hosters. However, is there formal input from a non-GU admin? The Council exists of 8 voting members, which SillySir I believe already noted, meaning that if everyone votes, there is a very real possibility for a tie. Given that this is a players' league, the players should at the very least have input on what goes on during meetings and the final vote. Would anyone disagree with that? And yet, admins are not chosen by the players, but rather by admins. I won't argue with that process - only admins have access to logs, and rightly so, so they know the true characteristics of each person better than any of us would. However, when it comes to decision-making, there should be an individual on the council who represents the players and only the players. The 9th voice that may end up having to break that tie. The argument against this, of course, is that the Council, since it is in fact made of real people, is able to gauge players' opinion and it tries to do the best job to represent the masses. While this is admirable and noble to a certain extent, this is so much work for our admins that it borders on foolhardy. Let me compare the system we have right now to a political system. Each registered GU player on the spawn list is a citizen. Thus, all players and admins are citizens. The players are the people and the admins are Congress. However, in this legislature, Congress makes decisions the people have to follow while the people have no check or balance on Congress. Not quite the society I would like to live in. In an ideal world, we would hope that the admins act in our best interest, and I'm sure 99.9% of the time, they do. However, I'm a realist and I recognize the fact that in order for the players and admins to co-exist peacefully and for business to run effectively, there should be as much player-admin contact and player representation as possible. The best way to do this would be to have a non-GU admin, chosen by the players, to represent them during these councils. This way, every voice - that of the admins who have experience with running the league and that of the players - is given a formal vote.
The following are a few examples of ways to better improve the efficiency of this league and the representation of the players that stem from the above issue.
Firstly, the idea of reporting matches. If the autoreport bugs are fixed, this issue will become all but obsolete, but the way that matches were reported in the first place concerns me. I do not know the full history here as I only joined the league in 2008, but it is my understanding that at first admins were the ones who could enter matches. Why was this the policy in the first place? Well, the easy answer is that not everyone is trustworthy so naturally admins should be the ones in charge of entering these matches. Yet, how many times have you finished a match, realized there are no admins to report to, and then either joined another server where an admin is and told them to report it or mailed them the details of the match via the GU site? Let me pose another question. Do you believe that every time you report a match, an admin goes to the replay server or checks the server log to make sure you are not being deliberately deceptive? Yes, that was rhetorical. It is no more difficult to fraudulently enter a match than it is to fraudulently report it. Every registered player on the GU League's spawn list should be able to enter a match. Best case scenario, the league becomes much more efficient and admins have less work to do. Upon reflection, it is in fact in their best interest to share this "power". So, I ask again, why was this, this...power, for lack of a better word, to enter matches reserved solely for admins? I keep trying to answer this question logically, but the only logical answer is that it is a "power" that admins enjoy. Which is in and of itself absurd! This is, after all, about entering matches. If a match is entered erroneously, then players from the opposite team will notice and will report it. The result: a ban of predetermined length. Decisive and rapid punishments deter undesirable acts - that is the basis of criminology. This issues of finding an admin to report to and mailing an admin because none are online, both of which are unnecessary hassles, now become non-issues. Entering matches is a right, not a privilege.
Next, enter the referee. The post of a referee was made presumably because admins realized that there are a lot of matches to report and they needed help doing this. Perfectly reasonable. The admins looked for high-character individuals to whom they could bestow this "power". Unfortunately, by separating these individuals from the rest of the players, the admins directly created a culture where referees had to conduct themselves in a professional and nearly flawless manner, much like admins had to. Thus, becoming a ref meant that you had the characteristics of an admin and you were on your way to becoming one. However, this is a problem. It not only limits the number of people you can make referees, which exacerbates the problem you were trying to fix in the first place, but it also bastardizes the post. Thus, if a referee breaks a rule and is banned for bad language, for example, then their referee-ship must be revoked. How absurd! The job of a referee is to enter matches, and being banned for bad language in no way impedes one's ability to do so. Being a referee should in no way be considered a stepping stone to becoming a GU admin. This directly conflicts with the purpose of the position - to have as many people report matches as possible. Hopefully, we will not have to deal with this, but if the autoreport bugs prove to be more difficult to fix than expected, this idea/issue should be on the forefront of the Council's agenda.
From referees, we move on to the last issue, The Riker Cup. Now, there is ample debate regarding whether this is supposed to be North America vs. Europe or not, so we shall steer clear of that. I would like to again point out that this is a players' league, and that Riker's is indeed, for the players. Thus, why should a select group of admins choose the captains on both sides? The admins choose the captains, the captains choose the players. To me, this does not seem to demonstrate an adequate form of representation for the teams to be labeled Team North America and Team Europe. The constituents of the regions themselves should, via poll, be the ones who decide who their captains are. Then and only then will these teams truly represent the two sides for which they stand. Until then, The Riker Cup is a glorified match between two teams that four people made. If this were to occur, would the teams be the same? Maybe. Maybe not. But in the end, it all comes down to a matter of principle.
-hj