Abandoned games

[Cadmium]

There seem to be more and more mods who just don't understand the commitment that comes with modding a mafia game. They sign up to moderate a game and when they're up (they've been around long enough by this time, so that's not the issue), they start the game, only to either completely abandon it without any notification whatsoever or to put it on hold because they are too busy at the moment.

In the New York forum, out of the five games running at the moment, there's one game currently on hold and one was abandoned without any notification. If it wasn't for one or two paladins, the latter would never have continued if you ask me. In the Little Italy forum, only last month, one abandoned game and one game on hold. In the Theme Park forum, another abandoned game this month.

Now, this may just be me, but I feel that if you start moderating a game, you need to do everything in your power to keep the game moving. Abandoning a game without any notification is just plain wrong, there must be no doubt about that. I agree that there may be situations where the mod is forced to leave his game, but these are sporadic IMO. Most of the time, this is just not the case. Mods abandon games God knows why and leave the players out in the cold.

Then there are the games that are put on hold. Again, things may occur that forces the mod to put the game on hold for a short (or maybe longer) time. But what I see most of the time, are mods who could very well have anticipated that they're not able to commit to the game for a longer period of time. If this is the case, I feel they should have waited with starting the game (or not starting at all) in the first place. If you know that you will have exams (or whatever) in two months and will be swamped with activities for at least a month, why on earth would you start moderating a mafia game?

Now to the actual question. Is there anything we can come up with to prevent any of this from happening? I know it's impossible to completely get rid of the problem, but the way it's going now, I think we need to at least try to come up with something. Maybe we need to be more specific what responsibilities come with moderating a mafia game? Maybe we need to put some kind of "penalty" on leaving your game without a very good reason? Maybe making stricter rules for qualifying to moderate? Just some wild propositions.

Or am I the only one who's annoyed by this? If so, I'll start another topic: Replacements .

[Cadmium]

Maybe we need to put some kind of "penalty" on leaving your game without a very good reason?

That would be my choice but we're not in highschool here

Yeah, I know. But tell that to the people who are "skipping class" !!

Maybe the list mod could give a pass or fail grade for the modding of each game? If someone gets a 'fail' they need to have a co-mod until they get 3 consecutive 'pass' grades or something?

Interesting.
Theoretically, only an abandonment or forced halt would need a "fail" grade. So this could work as an automatic mechanism.

But you'd still need someone to judge when the abandonment or forced halt is valid or not.

Or maybe instead of a co-mod, maybe there should be a 'Mod co-ordinator', and all mods are required to submit a full set-up of the game to this person. If the mod then goes missing, it would be easier for another mod to pick up the game.

Probably the most feasible.
All current mods to send their setups in either a word or notepad document to the list mod. In case of mod disappearance, the list mod can solicit a replacement mod.
The setup should not be in the main body of the email lest the list mod wants to play.
And it should also indicate mod notes giving cop quirks, individual percentages of success and role bias where applicable.

While this is very good for the players concerned, it leaves the mod free to disappear without being liable and still have a fallback mechanism in place. This needs to be addressed.

I like the idea of a "Mod co-ordinator". Indeed, the mods sending in their game set-ups should not forget to include all the "behind the scene"-scenarios. The downside to this idea is that the co-ordinator can't play in any of the games. I don't think it is wise to just assume that the set-up is complete without looking at it. And even if we're willing to take that risk, it might bring up discussions that there was inside knowledge in certain games. I really don't feel like having that discussion again.

We could have multiple co-ordinators. For instance, the last mini I played in was Minvitational 4 and before that in Mini 83. So I could keep record of all mini games (although I'd have to think about this first, that's a lot of games ). Maybe others just play in mini games. I think we can work something out.