Replacement Queue Stats (of sorts!)

[the worst]

Hi Mafia Discussion!
I've gradually been compiling a list of all people who've replaced in & out of games over the last year now (sans ongoing games).

I'm not particularly interested in publishing rates by alignment, or analysing alignments through replacements. I'd actually strongly prefer if this thread didn't follow that path. From a cursory awareness, I don't think tendency to replace is a remotely reliable indicator of alignment. And at a much more important level, I don't think it's a dialogue which it's appropriate for us to have. I think MS has a great culture of seamless replacement, and I think we do a good job of being grateful as a community for people who are willing to pick up slots in a pinch.

This actually segues pretty nicely into what I wanted to talk about. First and foremost, I wanted to say a thank-you to everyone who has done their bit to keep the replacement queue flowing. And I'd like to say a

gigantic

thank-you to some members of the community who have really done a whole lot to keep games moving!

• In January: Ruby Red & Slaxx took on three slots each.
  
• In February: Vedith took on eight (!!) slots within the month. Slaxx again took on three.
  
• In March: insomnia took on six slots, Creature took on three.
  
• In April: Flavor Leaf took on three slots, as did I.
  
• In May: Skygazer took on four slots, Almost50 took on three.
  
• In June: pisskop took on 5 slots; Creature & Gamma Emerald took on three each.
  
• In July: Creature & Oversoul took on three slots each.
  
• In August: Almost50 took on five slots; Chemist & Gobbledygook took on three each.
  
• In September: Gobbledygook took on four slots; Chemist1422 & Titus took on three each.
  
• In October: Creature took on three slots.
  
• In November: Almost50 took on three slots.

I have been lagging a month behind for obvious reasons... Please don't discuss ongoing games.


Just for some truly tremendous highlights. Over the course of Jan-Nov 2019:-
Creature took on 20 slots (there were only 22 requests withdrawn due to players returning!).
Almost50 took on 19 slots.
pisskop & Vedith took on 13 slots - the same as the number of requests withdrawn due to the slot's death.
Titus & I took on 11 slots.
Chemist1422 & Flavor Leaf took on 10 slots.



There are 212 people who have replaced into games over the course of these 11 months, so needless to say I won't name everyone. But I just wanted to reach back out. As a community we handle replacements really well, and you guys make my job really easy. Whether you've taken one slot over the year, or a dozen, you are wonderful. Thank you for replacing. Myself, your game mods & your fellow players appreciated it.

Spoiler: Totals of Replacements by Queue by Month, just for interest!

Queue	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Grand Total
Large Normal		2	3	2	4	9		6	14	2	7	49
Large Theme	12	15	12	16	12	8	16	5	8	9	13	126
Micro	10	5	6	3	11	8	10	6	16	8	6	89
Mini Normal	12	6	12	11	9	18	8	10	4	2	9	101
Mini Theme	10	4	23	4	8	9	7	5	2	4	3	78
Open	10	6	11	11	7	4	13	2	4	7	5	80
Grand Total	54	38	67	47	51	56	54	34	48	32	43	524

[Amrun]

Thanks to all replacements!

[chennisden]

How do you guys play so many games at a time

[mastina]

How do you guys play so many games at a time

Easy; no life.

Pretty much the only reason I didn't make the list above is that I was beaten to the punch repeatedly (by the time I logged in, the request was withdrawn or if not, if it wasn't listed, the mod told me that either someone else asked first or it wasn't needed), but I can attest to the ease of playing multiple games. It's really not that hard, especially when you're posting at times nobody else is! (Sadly, it is the aforementioned, posting when nobody else does, which is why I never get to replace in despite constantly monitoring the thread )

The less shit you've got in real life, the more time you have available to play.

[Flavor Leaf]

Does this count alts as well, because A50, myself, and Insomnia all use a bunch of alts. I imagine it does, though, those are high number of replace ins.

[Doctor Drew]

Wait, only one mini theme replacement all year?

[the worst]

*facepalm*
i missed a space bar in one of them. this is all very manual.
just add it to the tally above. i'll fix it later.

[the worst]

Does this count alts as well, because A50, myself, and Insomnia all use a bunch of alts. I imagine it does, though, those are high number of replace ins.

I've tried to handle alts as separate entities to stay as clean/professional as possible.

That said I didn't necessarily integrity-check edits in the replacement queue thread; if someone said "thanks boon!" as a method of thanking you for example, i would have just put boonskiies in my list.

But off the top of my head I believe those numbers are basically from mains.

[AaronFrost]

This doesn't even count Newbie Queue replacements right? That would probably bump the number up significantly

[the worst]

it doesn't, no - that data is really really difficult to compile. the replacement queue was hard enough to parse but all newbie replacements go through the newbie queue so it's a bigggg task assembling them all.

it would bump the numbers up a lot, yes. and i'm actively aware there are people out there who literally rescue newbie games from stalling out.

[skitter30]

how did you compile the data?

[the worst]

going through each request posted, and updating a spreadsheet manually.

11/5/2019 -

Micro 897

Moderator:

skitter30

Status:

day3, page 15

Replacing:

ofrhz

speedily filled by aaronfrost!

date: 6/11/2019
queue: micro
outgoing: ofrhz
incoming: aaronfrost

where updates were posted thru strikeout and thanks notes, i have taken these at face value. where an update wasn't posted, i've manually checked the mod iso in the thread to find the replacement (on one occasion the mod forgot to post the replacement, so i checked player ISOs until i found it......). if the queue is unclear from the replacement request, i checked which subforum the game thread is in.

very much went for the slow/reliable method

[skitter30]

oh no :/
there's gotta be a better way to compile that

[the worst]

in theory, definitely.

i'm not particularly good at writing scripts and only so-many mods actually use the templates, plus there isn't currently an uniform way of stating replacements. i really couldn't think of a reliable way to automatically parse replacements in the current format.

i am also obviously fallible because i'm human/duck and also Compiling 500+ Pieces of Data Argh. I used the replacement queue post number as a control (though it did need to be duplicated when multiple replacements fell into one post). i basically didn't allow a piece of data in until I was satisfied with it. needless to say i chipped away at this bit by bit over a fair while.

i think it's as good as i can get it with my skillset. especially without really **insisting** on a more uniform approach to posting & updating requests.

what do you think?

[skitter30]

i think it sounds like you did a great job manually and were super thorough
there's gotta be a way to at least quasi-automate it tho because that must have taken an insane amount of time to do

maybe i should teach myself to use psyche's bot thingy

(i wouldn't object to **insisting** on a more uniform approach to posting and updating requests tho)

[the worst]

it did take quite a while.

i'll have more of a think about it. i'd like to see a more uniform thread from an aesthetic perspective but i'm loath to insist on uniformity of {date, queue, game name, outgoing player, please list the replacement once complete} if it means mods feel they are doing more work for the same outcome.

i'm super grateful to moderators who reliably update their postings, though. that makes the process a lot easier.

[AaronFrost]

i'm super grateful to moderators who reliably update their postings, though. that makes the process a lot easier.

I try my best

[skitter30]

i guess i'm secretly a fan of uniformity because it would make webscraping data about a billion times easier than it currently is
and it's kinda daunting and been preventing me from collecting all the really cool stats i want to study :/

[skitter30]

(sorry i'm a data analyst and watching you collect data this way lowkey pains me :/ )

[the worst]

It's ok, I can definitely understand that with your experience and skillset.
I kinda do things like this to unwind when I'm a bit too exhausted to e.g. play mafia, piano, anything particularly invested.

Would definitely be pretty interested if there was a realistic way to automate the process. I always keep half an eye on e.g. forum software & bot projects. Automation is really cool.

[Chemist1422]

How do you guys play so many games at a time

lurk, apparently

least I’m helping sort of

[Equinox]

How do you guys play so many games at a time

tidbit from a conversation in site chat in 2016:

RadiantCowbells (18:08) I bet I had the most concurrent games record ever.
Antihero (18:09) that's like having the record for eating the most cockroaches

for the record, i had this saved for a signature.

[the worst]

[Creature]

I think I already once had 11 games at once

[Alisae]

The sheer fact you replaced into 28 games warrants a nom.

Actually, something like this would be a decent community contrib nom, imo. Finding replacements can be hard, and someone who did that much to help game integrity deserves the recognition.

shouldn't a certain duckling be keep track of
how many times someone replaces in
how many times someone replaces out
etc etc

I'm saying that as if Duckling will read this thread and think "wow, thats a great idea, I should be doing that"