Dealing with Chronic Lurkers

[Mr. Flay]

I've got a short list of players I've had to replace, most of which have never come back but some of whom I'll require some sort of email or contact info so I can poke them with sticks should they do it again...

Have I mentioned how much I hate replacements???

[Mr. Flay]

I agree that banning is uncalled for; in most cases, I think your hardcore "lurkers" end up being newbies who never come back to the site, so it'd be a pointless bit of procedure. And your actual scummers who lurk/flake out on a game can be redeemed/beat with sticks until they repent of their evil ways, so there's no sense kicking them to the curb.

And if they do gain a reputation as an unhelpful lurker, then the towns they're involved in should help take care of it themselves by lynching them.

[Mr. Flay]

I often enjoy living to day 2 and 3 as those days imho have the most interesting discussion, if this means lurking and staying under the radar most of day 1, I'll do it occasionally.

Have you considered replacing into games that are at day 2 or 3?

replacing and a pain in the butt, especially if you already have plenty of mafia games going.

I think what Thok is saying is, don't come in D1 of games, but maintain your current number of overall games, just starting on D2 or D3 of some. You're happier because you don't have to suffer through interminable D1s, everyone else is happier because you get to play at your more highly-skilled portion of the game. Everybody wins, right? (and this comes from someone who usually hates replacements).

I "lurk" in the sense that I don't post every time I read a thread. That'd be just madness; when I'm not superbusy, I tend to read the site 2-3 times a day. But if nothing new has been said in a particular thread, there's no sense in responding to it, AND I don't want to start dominating the thread with my posts/spam/pet theories. Hence why I'm always invisible on the site, so I don't get the "but you were here and you didn't post!"

As for the "don't sign up for games if you can't be there, or don't mind being replaced", I only generally sign up for games I'm interested in (players/theme/mod), or newbies. They deserve my attention, but even when I got swamped at work in April and May, I kept going in Himalayan and Clue and the rest as best I could (even if it was at a lower activity level than usual). Did I mention I hate replacements?

[Mr. Flay]

IAWTC.

[Mr. Flay]

The problem I have with players prodding players is it inherently facilitates out-of-thread communication; even if a player doesn't mean to let something slip, they're not accountable to the rest of the players if they accidentally say "lol, get back here and post or I'm gonna vig you". Even if it's a joke/lie, it's information two players now have that no one else has, and that's not acceptable in most games/setups.