I feel like this would be really hard to measure.

You could have a person who sends a few really well worded and thoughtful messages throughout a game be scored below the person who spams nonsense.

DO you must be my soulmate or something. This is second thread we've spoke of similar thing near simultaneously

Lol, that must be it.

I posted the suggestion because I saw two recent threads discussing the lack of communication for Full Press games. I have heard this frustration about uncommunicative players before at other times.

While programmatically measuring quality of communication can be hard, we are not talking about quality really. We are talking about communicating at all or at least at some bare minimum level.

Tossing out a simple approach for addressing this pain point, set some criteria for communication level. Track the data and record it for players. Then use that level criteria for a game option.

For instance, have three levels Mute, Attache, Diplomat. Set corresponding message levels like averaging one message per orders phase, three messages per orders phase, and five messages per orders phase.

If you don't care who you play with comm-wise, set the game to minimum = mute. If you want Chatty Kathy players set minimum = Diplomat.

Again, making a suggestion based of current thread gripes about communication. Don't like it, fine. Just tossing an idea out there.

Would be nice if it could actually be implemented in like a way that wouldn't have it be abused but I highly doubt that. Also, webdip has many other functions to prioritize.

@Carebear - it's just very hard to measure in a way that makes benchmarks meaningful. The site doesn't have the tools to track messages/phase alive. And even then, it's not all that meaningful of a statistic. Someone could just send out three extremely detailed messages each phase due to time limitations, while others could send out 50. And then you have to take into account gunboats and public press, not to mention how variants of different sizes affect the number. What if someone mostly plays 1v1s?

It would just take a very large amount of work to conceptualize, let alone implement. If it were a perfectly predictable metric, then yes I think it has some limited benefit.

@DO, Certainly priority is important. First question is the amount of pain people are experiencing? Low, bin it. Medium to High, consider it. Next is effort, compared to a lot of other features I saw discussed on the development thread, this is actually pretty trivial to implement. Its low effort should put it on a quick hit list.

As for abuse, anything can be abused. However, to what extent? The concept is to provide players an easy mechanism to screen non-communicators out of games where they want lots of negotiation. For a player to artificially raise their score, they would actually have to send messages. Only reason for that would be to intentionally ruin games. Seems like anyone could do that anyhow if they really wanted anyways.

@gf, in a game, messages are sent. each one sent by England would be EnglandMsg++ on the game record. When the player is eliminated or game ends, EnglandMsg / phases = game average for that player. Average that with one on the player record. It is a little bookkeeping. Pretty trivial really.

As for 1v1, keep the metric only for full press games. Seems pretty straight forward. No point in tracking others.

As for meaningful... Again, not trying to prove quality. Trying to enable players to create games that weeds out non-communicators. People who just don't send messages at all.

I have my own comments on that, but how much of an improvement over looking at a players profile, dividing messages sent by number of games played, and judging them that way. Because people can already do that. Just not set it up as a screen in game creation, like RR

@gf, Saw gripe threads about non-comm players in Full Press games. Heard similar in past elsewhere. Yes, passwd'ing a game can solve it with more effort. Automating it via system booking is a bit easier for players and what computers do best.

Gripers only minority and not worth assuaging. Bin the idea. No problem.

I'm not saying that, but rather than a whole new set of bells and whistles, how functionally different would said bells and whistles be instead of using metrics already available on each profile, and maybe creating a tool to set that ratio as a game setting in creation.

@gf, would not set that ratio as part of game creation (GC). Keep GC simple. Instead, establish two or three levels based on ratios and give them names. based on ratio each player is in one of those levels. At GC, have dropdown or radio with the two or three levels listed. Ratio for each level is system setting that site admin determines makes the most statistical sense.

Apart from NMRs and sore losers, most folk will respond to a message sent, even if it's not immediately.

The answer to lack of press is probably then to talk more.

@ Carebear: Doesn't PlayDip have something along these line? If so, how does it work?

I've also noticed that you've never tried out our system. You should play a game. :)

@PF - Yes and No. We have a player class system that is effectively broken down into two groups. Diplomat and Ambassador. This is based on surrenders (CD) and NMRs. If you have a surrender in your last three games, you are a Diplomat. If your NMR rate is above 3% you are a Diplomat. No recent surrenders and less than 3% NMR, you are an Ambassador. The added feature that is related to this topic, if you Ambassador AND you message at least 5 times per phase, you are a Star Ambassador. http://www.playdiplomacy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=657&t=43283

So, it actually combines a couple of things. AND, while you can make Ambassador only games, you cannot make Star Ambassador only games. :(

Yeah, I plan to get a game up here sometime in the next month.

Carebear, i think you arent really grasping the problem. No matter how you measure the metric it will not be able to truly define the communication level of a player. When people gripe over low communication they don'y nessecarily want 100 meaningless messages each game. They just want a reasonable amount of meaningful messages. A metric would fail to truly capture that.

Let's say you take the time to write 1 very well written message to each player in classic each season; and since they are so well written and so agreeable you have no need to add subsequent material. That means you send 7 messages per season; but they are 7 really good messages.

meanwhile a noob gets on and sends 8 contradictory / meangingless messages to their closest neighbor only. Ignores the other 6 countries. they technically have a better score than you. no matter how you define the metric i can find an example where a player with poor communication will score higher than one with good communication. any metric that allows that if flawed and not adding anything except another entry gate.

What i can see working, maybe, would be defining the metric based on (average words per message / 100 ) + (average messages per season / 100) x 100

So in theory you can kinda get an idea of how a person communicates. but i still don't really think any metric will work

There are, imho, already too many settings in game setup. It is becoming increasingly hard to get people to agree on what parameters to play a game. Adding more, especially for something that can already be easily addressed, won't help.

@CmdrB - I grasp the problem completely. YOU are failing to grasp what I am saying.

For the sake of argument, let's segment the population of players into three broad categories, people who barely communicate, people who communicate poorly, and people who communicate well. The metric I am proposing makes no distinction between people who communicate, albeit poorly, and people who communicate well. A single threshold value could be used simply to determine that at some reasonable level players are communicating. Essentially, weeding out only the non-communicators from games where people desire good discourse.

Players are not getting scored by quantity. In fact, I would not advise that any numerical value be published. Establish a pretty low but reasonable threshold of say five messages per phase and give players one of two (or three) designations, like Mute and Diplomat. WebDip currently gives name definitions for peoples rank. So, it is not unheard of.

This is not about the quality of the player, but their willingness to communicate. One can deal with a noob who at least talks. A black hole is no fun to play with, as shown by at least two recent gripe threads I came across.

@abge - Based on my recent review of the webDip game creation page, I would humbly disagree about number of settings already being too large. PlayDip has a lot more.

But, I know some people prefer minimalist interfaces. To each their own.

Again, you don't want it, that is fine. But, I would also disagree that it is already fully addressed. If it were, people would not be complaining about it.

Sure, one can setup a password on a game. But, if someone they don't know wants to play. How can they tell if they are communicative in a game? Perhaps you want a truly anonymous game, how do you do that and ensure good comms???

I agree with abge.

To me there are already two solutions to this problem.

1) Password games and play with players with good reputations
.
2) If you want to play new players or truly anonymous games, create games with high bets. Players who refuse to communicate usually don't have 300 points to bet for example.

@Carebear

You've been on this site for 3 years and have yet to play a game, so I don't think your "recent review" of the game creation page is really at all a good indication of whether or not this is a problem. How about actually trying to start a game and find out if the bigger issue is getting people to agree on parameters or someone who doesn't communicate enough.

You keep referencing this as an issue, but there have only been 2 complaints in recent memory, and one of those complaints was just about one player.

@Tom - What do you mean by new players? New to the site or not played before? 300 points is more than new players get to start. Also, looking at one player referenced in one of the complaints found he had over a 1000 points.

Regarding players who don't communicate not having the points, do you have any data to backup that assertion? I do not immediately see how to get that data myself to validate the claim. A person mentioned in one of the gripe threads has over 1000 points, so clearly that would not necessarily exclude him from playing.

@abgemacht - My creating a game here is a spurious argument at best and ad hominem at worst. Whether or not I create a game here (which I plan to do in the near future) has nothing to do with whether or not there are already too many parameters. There are 500+ games going, so getting games up doesn't seem that arduous. Further, there are many more selectable setting for game creation at PD and they had 600+ games the last time I checked. So, claiming too much complexity seems more like a personal preference (which is fine) than a really valid reason.

I will concede that you could have a point about severity of the concern. I have not monitored this board until recently. I saw to recent complaints and offered a suggestion. I can get 100% behind a reason that the problem is not big enough to be concerning and needing to be addressed. Heck, I don't even care about it getting implemented. I just offered an idea to address an issue that was being griped about. But, I will push back on faulty arguments.

I don't have that data - but I think its a logical conclusion to make. The people with the most points generally have a reputation of having quality of press. That is for the most part how they ended up with so many points. ( I know there are point giveaways which is how certain players ended up with so many points, but I still believe that creating games with high pots leads to quality games and press).

If you are a new player and have good press, you shouldn't have trouble amassing points to get into the higher quality games.

I only see problems with measuring someone's press levels. First, that number could easily be manipulated. Second, it can be legitimate strategy to not send press - that should not be punished. Third, I don't see why someone would really complain if someone is not sending press - they seem like an easy target. If you can't handle it, you are being a very good diplomat.

If a player refuses to communicate, that is part of the game. Not against the rules.

@Tom - Like the name BTW. It was a shame his story was cut out of the movies. Have you ever eaten at the Xochimilco on Bagley? Used to be one of the best Mexican restaurants in town.

I agree that not communicating is not illegal. Further, I can see that it makes them a target. But, it does IMO bring down the game. So, I can understand the gripes other people posted. I would certainly prefer not to play with a player who refuses to communicate.

There is a way to game the metric. Someone could send every player gibberish once a turn and nothing else. The only reason for taking such action is to move from the hypothetical Mute to Diplomat categories. The only reason to do that would be to abuse the other participants that wanted communicative opponents. I should think that would get a player ostracized.

^^not the only reason to game the metric.

If there is a gate to play. Even if only 25% of games get restricted to "diplomat" playeres. I would (as a mute) purposely send messages that would make available the other 25% of games.

RR works because they've done a really good job at making it near impossible to ever improve (another conversation for another day) which makes it impossible to game the system.

^^ thus completely negating any positive impact the feature had. Thus negating any work put into it. This wasting money.

I think the only mildly accurate way would be to let players rate other players.... but that's a slippery slope. What if we play together when you eventually decide to actually play diplomacy and I hate you after the game for a stab so I rate you terribly out of spite. There really isn't any way to really seriously measure this .

@CmdrB - I would say they are the same thing. If I were a mute and there is a gate, the gate is there to prevent my style (as a mute) of play from detracting from the game as others want to play, so circumventing the gate to play in those games is an act of abuse towards the other players. At least, that is how I would read it.

RR is good. PD has something similar - I mentioned earlier in this thread.

Wasn't meant to be spurious or ad hominem. Just seems like a lot of time is spent agreeing on parameters. If a parameter is added to solve something, then great, but shouldn't add more options just for the sake of having more options.

@abgemacht - Cool. I agree, more options does add complexity and serious discussion is reasonable and necessary before enhancements are made.

@carebear: "Players are not getting scored by quantity. In fact, I would not advise that any numerical value be published. Establish a pretty low but reasonable threshold of say five messages per phase and give players one of two (or three) designations, like Mute and Diplomat."

so players who don't want to communicate would simply send five empty messages per phase. i don't think that system would solve anything.

@Kasimax - They don't want to message in the first place. I would be willing to bet they wouldn't take the time to send empty messages either.

@carebear - "They don't want to message in the first place. I would be willing to bet they wouldn't take the time to send empty messages either."

If it meant they'd get access to X% more games... i can bet a few would... a few is too many when you are talking about meaningful change.

your problem is minimal at best
has adequate solutions currently available (Password games)
and your solution doesn't solve your problem.

try again.

@CmdrB - It's not my problem, I did not post the original gripes. Though, I do admit that I too would be frustrated. I see what you are doing there. Don't personalize it.

You may say that the problem is minimal at best, I do not have the data, so I could not possibly say. Again, I was merely posting a suggestion to address the gripe threads I saw. Not a severe problem? No problem, don't do anything about it.

I would agree that passwording games is an approach. But, it certainly doesn't fit all cases, otherwise there would be no gripes about it at all. Since there have been gripes, there is nothing wrong with looking for additional solutions.

Yes, a messaging metric and game creation limitation would address the gripe. In nearly all cases, the problem would be solved.

While I contend that most of the non-comms wouldn't waste their time, I do admit that there are some sociopaths out there with little consideration for other players. However, I further posit that group is very small.

This small group of sociopaths might indeed attempt to send empty messages in order to get access to games where people don't want to play with them. I would certainly put this behaviour in the same category as stalking or abuse. I do believe I have seen players punished on this site for other transgressions. It would seem easy enough for players to spot and report someone that is clearly sending empty or nonsensical messages to the other players in order to game the system.

I feel that there are some points we will not agree. Which is fine. Discussion has perhaps run its course.

I can't say this isn't completely without merit.

I've always been a 'play-the-player' kinda person so i regularly try to get familiar with those i'm up against and do look at things statistics like amount of messages sent. There's a lot of qualitative considerations to put in to such a thing, since crappy players don't last as long and don't have as much messages or if they have a lot of gunboat games or 1v1 games in there it's going to dampen then results. Factors that i consider when judging a player, but if my simple mind can wrap around it i'm sure there's some way to compute those considerations.

The reason i look at these statistics is because it's absolutely true, players who message more (in Full Press games) are nine times out of ten better players and lead to higher quality games. If you tell me a player statistically sends an average of at least four messages every single round before their elimination i would feel quite confident they are a better and more interesting a player then somebody who doesn't. Sure they can still be crappy, there's many long-winded or over-emotional players who talk a lot as a negative, but i'd still roll the dice on trying to take a game full of talkative players over gunboaters who seem to have accidentally clicked on the wrong game.

So yeah, maybe has merit, i could see how something like this could both satisfy players who crave these sorts of games and provide an overall value-added motivator to up-and-coming players to improve their in-game communication skills. If new players see the road to better quality games is to talk more, they're going to talk more.

Now, that said...

The challenge i see to this approach, and i've seen it in a tonne of other different suggestions of level-segregation features, is that it's tough for new players having to climb a ladder where they're programmatically going to be relegated to a period of shitty games before they get anywhere near a reasonably satisfying game. It can be quite de-motivational for newcomers and counter-productive towards growing the membership. There's some degree of value in blending different levels of player quality.

Furthermore I don't know if it's necessarily a fit with this culture. At PlayDip you see a lot of high quality games coming together as a result of these sorts of automation and option features while at WebDip there tends to be more hands-on organization towards invitational games related to GR or similar criteria where if you're a decent enough player the decent games will come to you.

Good points all round, VI.

I think a simple measure like "percentage of phases where no press at all was sent" might be a good one.

I would support putting a statistic like that on the profile page.