I have ardently supported the idea that PPSC should be eliminated but seeing the strong support for it by people who have been a part of the community for a long time makes me wonder if it wouldn't be prudent to take care of our own somewhat. The pros of keeping it around doesn't really outweigh alienating people who have helped make this place great, IMHO.

Windycityweasels.org not windycityweasels.com.

Also, mathematicians in the hobby consider the ManorCon system to be an improvement on Sum of Squares. I've never played it, but I believe it attempts to address the scaling issues mentioned above. But flaws and all, we'll be using SoS at WDC in June (June 24-26). You're all invited, and you now have the opportunity to figure out the system in advance.

this was wasn't --> this wasn't

I've played ManorCon at two tournaments here in Australia (PoppyCon in November, you should all come). In general, I like it, but it's annoying in that you can't easily calculate your score on the fly. I guess some players would see that as a plus (it encourages keeping decisions restricted to the game you're currently playing).

"The pros of keeping it around doesn't really outweigh alienating people who have helped make this place great, IMHO."

I think this is a strong argument. So far it seems to be a vocal minority who are upset with the change, but if it turns out to be a larger group then obviously we'll reconsider.

What's wrong with supporting minorities?

It's not about not supporting people. The intention is to replace the PPSC system with two viable (and widely accepted!) alternatives.

People are often change resistant - look at the vitriol that Facebook gets whenever they change part of their design. They don't leave options to change back, because not doing that allows them the flexibility to continue improving the site.

We're just saying that (if this change sticks) PPSC is no longer going to be part of the scoring and ranking systems that the site provides. This shouldn't be contentious - nobody has been interested in PPSC competitively for a long time. No tournaments have used it.

Unranked games allow people to play Diplomacy with whatever incentives they like. The support is still there - we've just taken it out of the official scoring.

It alsomeans i can remove the reference in my profile to the WTA vs PPSC deabte.

Once it has finally been won i don't need to jeep talking about it.

So Yay! :)

Using Facebook as an example is really bad for your credibility. Facebook regularly makes changes that are unwanted by users, though possibly desired by advertisers. They get away with this for one reason: The site is basically ubiquitous and has functionality that is irreplaceable because of that. Plenty (probably the majority) would leave if there was a viable option that everyone else would move to. Huge numbers of users depend on browser add-ons (Social Fixer, FB Purity, etc) to overcome some of the worst of their ever-increasing design flaws, resulting in Facebook being one of the sites most hated by its users. I'm not just saying that. The 2014 American Consumer Satisfaction Index ranked Facebook 212th out of 229 companies. Pretty much the only ones more hated were cable companies and airlines. If you want to be hated by users, acting like Facebook is exactly the way to go about it.

Facebook probably is a bad example. But Apple does the same thing - albeit with a fair bit more care than Facebook because their profit *is* direct from their end users. Feature minimisation *is* a sensible thing to do.

Personally I don't care enough about PPSC to campaign for it, but I'm far from against it. I think it has benefits if you value getting replacement players - there is plenty of incentive to join as replacement in many PPSC games.

It's totally true that there is a delicate balance in supporting minorities on one side, and having a streamlined and professional experience for the larger part of the site population. It reminds me a bit of the famous parable in economics of a trainline. Init, there's a line from Paris to Marseille. The mayor of Avignon then suggests to add a stop to boost the local economy. Then other mayors soon add to that request. As a response, a satirical columnist in the paper suggested an inverse trainline with only stops, as it would logically be the most maximal economic benefit.

Obviously we're a community site and we want to do right. But for now this is the course we've chosen. Even for people who don't agree with this particular policy, I hope you understand we need to see how this works out before we change course midstream. SoS really does use some of the SWS advantages while addressing some weaknesses. I'm glad to read that at least some of the SWS fans are going to give SoS a fair shot to see if it addresses their needs.

I do really appreciate the vocal feedback. It's hugely useful. Please keep sending us mails with your thoughts too so we can accurately gauge the effects. We'll need to revisit the effectiveness a few months from now.

@ A_Tin_Can:

"PPSC is a variant- it's not described in the rulebook"

"This is about how the games are scored for the purpose of competitive ranking"

Please tell me, on which page of the original Diplomacy rulebook is there a description of a point-based ranking system?

Your whole points system is "a variant".


"We canvassed opinion before and after making the change, and we will continue to do so."

I did not see any formal survey or consultation before the removal of PPSC. Where / when did this take place?

As for "we will continue to do so", take a look at this thread, in which you've got dirge, Major Mitchell, Kremmen, JECE, and myself - no less than a formerly outstanding member of the community (until I ruined Christmas) - all lobbying you to keep PPSC. If you are serious about responding to the opinion of your player base, I urge you to reconsider the complete removal of PPSC.

Also, I would urge you to make SoS, and not WTA, the new "default" option.

Oh the irony of it, on the sane* side of the argument as Jamiet!
*My best typo of the year

A_Tin_Can: I would appreciate a reply when you get the chance to the concerns and suggestion in my post on the previous page.

Yet if the quotes Jamiet99uk just attributed to you are real, I must add a bit more:
1. SoS is a variant because the rules expressly specify (on their first page) that "all players who still have pieces on the game board share equally in a draw." PPSC and WTA are not variants because the rules do not specify to what degree a player wins the game; PPSC sets this degree to ½ while WTA sets this degree to 100%.
2. I thought that GR was introduced for the purpose of competitive ranking.
3. I hadn't noticed any canvassing of opinion either. As with when PPSC was stripped of its default status, the decision appears sudden and behind the scenes.

Where in the rules does it state that a 2WD is better than a 3WD is better than a 4WD, etc.?

I'm not really sure what kind of a reply you're looking for- your suggestion is interesting, but would result in a lot of different possible scoring systems. We're making a conscious choice to keep the options simple (vDip, for example, allows setting fine control over various RR stats as a gate at game creation. To keep it simple, we intend to have only one number).

To your comments in this post:

1) I agree SoS is a divergence from the rulebook. As a variant it is very common, though, and is well-known outside webdip.

As I said above, I also think claiming that PPSC is described in the rulebook by omission is tenuous at best.

2) Yes. GR follows the points system though- in ranking players there are two concepts:

Score: what a particular result is worth from a game
Ranking: what a particular score is worth given the player and the opponents

GR is the latter, DSS/SoS/PPSC etc are the former. GR ignores pot size, but the incentives are the same- maximise your points from a game to maximise your GR. The alternative is to keep PPSC but remove it from GR, which I think is unnecessarily confusing when we have unranked games.

3) we paid close attention and asked questions every time the PPSC/WTA debate came up. I think you and I have even spoken about it before- and I remember you being in favour of PPSC then too.

The change to default WTA was following the same change on vDip, which had been very successful.

As TMOW said, please give this change a while to settle and see how it is in a few months. We've heard the feedback, and for now this is still the direction we would like to take.

In the meantime, no one is stopping you playing PPSC in unranked games. They're just no longer directly supported by the site ranking system.

Kremmen says Facebook is a bad example. Goes to cite statistics about Facebook.

Talk about bad for credibility.

As an aside, want to know how I know you aren't involved in user interface design in any capacity?

Jeff, personal attacks add nothing to this important debate.

@ A_Tin_Can: "we paid close attention and asked questions every time the PPSC/WTA debate came up"

In no meaningful way does this represent actively canvassing or consulting the site membership. I absolutely acknowledge that a majority of regular forum contributors prefer WTA to PPSC and were in favour of making WTA the default. However, at no point was the membership actively consulted on the proposal to *completely* delete PPSC as a scoring option. I would suggest that if this had officially been mooted, even some of the WTA camp would have been opposed to removing PPSC as an option, even where it wasn't an option they made any use of. This is actually clear in this thread, where more than one WTA advocate has voiced their support for retaining PPSC as an option for those who still like it.

Now, I know this site is *not* a democracy. It's Kestas and Zultar's site and they can run it how they please. That's fine. However to present the removal of PPSC as some kind of democratically-driven process based on genuine consultation with the player base? That's a mis-representation of what happened.

"In no meaningful way does this represent actively canvassing or consulting the site membership."

ATC didn't say that. We are users, not members.

@ Jeff: What he said was:

""We canvassed opinion before and after making the change, and we will continue to do so."

This clearly implies there was some form of active consultation, rather than "we noticed people talking about PPSC and WTA and quietly listened in"...

Also for what it's worth, both ATC and TMOW have referred to site "members" in this very thread.

As for personal attacks, go re-read Kremmen's posts if you want to see what real personal attacks look like.

ATC talked about the "member bar" and then used that word once when responding to someone else.

That doesn't change the fact that we are all users here and not "members" in any meaningful sense. "Members" of a community of players perhaps, but that doesn't confer any special rights or privileges.

We're not some bunch of evil dictators. We care about our community - ALL of our community. We made this change knowing it would not be popular with everyone... but very few things are. And sometimes difficult decisions have to be made to advance the site forward, as we are continually striving to do.

As has been stated above; vDip has a lot of choices when creating games, and that isn't something we really want to add. We try to make for a simple and cleaner experience here, focusing mainly on Classic and competitive Diplomacy. Lots of different scoring systems does not really tie into this.

Jamie above listed the main opposition to this change... but that's exactly the point. The opposition *can* be listed, making them a vocal minority of what is already a vocal minority (the forum). Now, this does not mean that we don't value your opinions, but it does mean that we need to look at the silent and vast majority of users who never go near the forums. There are a few key metrics we can look at to see how they have reacted to these changes, and we will continue to monitor feedback as well. So once SoS and Unranked games start ending and people are used to them and understand them, we can compare metrics such as unique users in games, games created, the ratios between WTA:Other games, and many other things; and only then will we have a clear idea of how the *whole* community has reacted to this change.

ATC stated in the original post that this change might not be permanent, but we're not ending a trial after less than a week. Have some patience, give the others a try, and see what you think of them. Personally, I have never enjoyed DSS/WTA very much, because I find people group against a solo without thinking of themselves far too easily, and very much look forward to playing some SoS games in the New Year to see whether that changes when SC count matters. Unranked games allow for even more possibilities; and Valis' upcoming Local Tournament allows you to experience a rank-based scoring system in Carnage, too.

@ Hellenic Riot: How can you measure and compare the metrics of players who would still choose PPSC, when that option has been denied to them?

We can measure whether total games creates drop, we can measure whether unique users playing games drops too (so it isn't just a few people playing more games to test the new systems), and we also do a before and after on WTA:PPSC and WTA:SoS/Unranked to see if they're more popular than PPSC was. All of which will add up to a pretty clear picture.

If the point is to have the purest for of Diplomacy, and the scoring that goes with it, why does this site offer any variants at all. All variants should be on vdip. So, that brings up, why can't all scoring systems be a part of this site? I hate PPSC, but if some want to play the it, let them. A possible solution, is allow PPSC scoring but take it out for calculations for GR.

@ssorenn: see te inverse train line example above. Adding every imaginable score and variant will make the site unusable. It's about striking a balance between options and clarity. How do we do that? Like somebody said, according to the agile principles: try something out, adjust where needed. This new approach is webdip trying stuff out. Is everyone going to like it? Rarely the case. Is it final? Rarely the case (typically, one instance of finality in a lifetime).

Like I said, we'll revisit - later - to see if it needs adjustments on the basis of usage data.