@Draug

Your game is not a problem. I was merely using it as an example because it happened most recently.

And I am still of the desire to see a TD role specifically created that would be granted per game by a mod at the beginning of that game.

@gold - running a tourney means endless streams of "I can't continue" or "I"m going on vacation" emails that must be dealt with, the occasional force pause, etc." Lets look at this from another point of view. Instead of saying "tournaments are a pain in the ass," lets say that "tournament PLAYERS are a pain in the ass." Maybe we should make it a little hard to actually get into a tourney. Certain number of games finished, certain limit on number or resigns, or something else. Something to weed out the people that cause most of the problems. And if they dump out on a tourney, they don't get back into another one. Maybe not ever. Maybe they have to do some sort of penance, like play in a newbie tourney with 2 week turns and play it to completion. Something. But lets think about limiting who joins the tourneys.

Honestly, I don't think the players are the problem at all. It's a combination of inexperienced TDs and the TDs' dependence on Mods.

Which brings us back to mods running tourneys or giving "licensed" TDs limited mod power.

No, its the players too. Life simply gets in the way sometimes, and when you're running the Masters (50 players) it's bound to happen to someone. And jim, I've filtered for this round (top 200 GR) and am having as much difficulty as I had last round.

I mean, if it were programmable to give someone special powers over a game (and have it clearly stated) then Mods wouldn't be needed at all for challenge games.

Crap. Just trying to help.

Limited mod power, or that power over only certain games, would be a great answer.

Hence my request to Kestas that I hope the mods will back me on. They need three basic powers. Boot, swap powers around, force pause/unpause. That's all they need. If someone violates a no press rule on the forum, they get booted from the tourney.

+1 Draug

When I get back, as time permits, I will put together a web-based tourney management system with signup and tracking capabilities so Kestas doesn't have to. It will, of course, be in ASP.Net, not PHP, but it will be a solid functioning one we can point TDs to on Draugnar.com so they can organize and run their tournaments.

I think we all agree that a TD account type would help a lot. I requested one several years ago, but we still don't have it. For the moment, I think we need to look at improvements that don't require code changes.

If TD inexperience is an issue, perhaps giving new TDs a primer would be helpful.

Honestly, I doubt that would help. What would be better, I think, is if they were required to assist in a current tournament before they can start their own.

@abge - "I don't think there should be a vigorous approval process for tournaments, but there should be a vigorous approval process for TDs." Now what brilliant person posted this very early on in this conversation? Hmmmmm?

@jim

Yes, that's certainly something to consider.

abge - "Honestly, I doubt that would help. What would be better, I think, is if they were required to assist in a current tournament before they can start their own. "

Well, but then you wouldn't have anyone foolish enough to be a TD! Partly joking, but also partly not joking.

My proposal would be a TD status that could be granted by mods/admins to players who qualify. A person with that status could turn on a special option when creating a new game. That option would mark them as the primary TD for the game, giving them the power to boot, swap, and force pause/unpause that game. (Note, to swap countries you also need to be able to adjust press type.) Such a game would require a password. Perhaps even allow the players names to be specified triggering automatic PM invites as well as setting their country if wanted.

Regarding getting programming done, I can't speak for Kestas, but we do seem to be at a point where new features are getting in. Specifically, he's added three of my changes this week, of which only half of one has been posted about so far. (Looking on github is cheating.)

Again, I agree that a TD account type with limited mid powers is a great idea. But, that will take a long time to design and implement. Exactly what powers they get has to be carefully considered.

In the meantime though, we need to revisit our policies based on the features we have.

I wonder how do other groups handle Tournaments. I would think other folks already figured it out and have a true and tried system. We just copy their ideas and avoid reinventing the wheels with a lot of ooh-ah.

I have never seen another website run like ours. But, if you can find out what others are doing, let us know and we'll see if it will work for us.

I am the paper-pencil type guy, and this is my second online games I play. So I don't know any system yet. Now, I have just did a quick google and found this:

http://play.tournamentgames.com/

Those guys claims:
"We have over 30,000 game entries each day, and over 1500 tournaments running 24/7. We also have Android Games, Facebook Tournaments and Online Web Games!"

How the heck do they manage 1500 tournaments 24/7?!? I bet they have a well greased system.

Yeah, that's a real company with ads and profits and employees. This site has 1-6 volunteers at any given time.

I know, but we can still copy their ideas. LoL. I don't think they have a hundred Mod to run those 1500 tournament. I probably have a very sleek set up to allow things to self-govern, like a "Laissez-Faire" system.

I doubt very much that site lets users create any type of tournament they want, which exactly the feature webDip currently offers. If the Mods just hosted a couple tournaments, there would be no problem, but I think it would be a shame to prevent motivated players from creating their own tournaments.

I'll be frank: I very much dislike how most gaming communities work. The reason I've been here so long is because webDip has something special. I think we can come up with our own solution that will suit us just fine.

On my first online game, I observed players organized raid-bots. You joined the raids, help to kill the big bad bosses, earn raid-points. Then you can used your accumulated points to bid for the loots from the bosses' corpses. Now what happen is when the raid-bot became crowded and with a lot of points accumulated, the raid-leaders became abusive. Your raid points, your work put in is now held hostage by some power monger.

I am so disdained at the saying, "Power corrupts". We need to think carefully to avoid such case. One bad instance happens would sow a sour taste for a long time.

Which is exactly why I love this site. The mods here are very powerful yet rather humble. Mods usually don't even ask for the job; they are picked. I've never seen a mod on this site abuse his power for personal pleasure, which is a common sight on the internet.

Even if you say so yourself ; )