Talk:Suggestions/22nd-Mar-2007

Further Discussion

This is for any further discussion concerning the suggestions page that doesn't fall into the previous categories.

Is the Suggestion System wrongheaded?

What's wrong with this suggestion system? Indicate if you agree or not below

1. It's overstructured. People play the game to kill zombies or eat the brains of those who dare to defy zombies, they don't have the patience necessarily to learn a complex peer review system. Why all this paranoia about "troll-based" voting and votes? all users are trolls anyway, from the perspective of the operator/developer. Find a way to get suggestions on brainstorming pages without worrying about structure, then copy them over to this more formal suggestion system
   1. agree 6LowPAN
2. It's not well integrated with the game. A "suggest" button in the game could add a comment to the brainstorming page, assuming the character name could be the wiki name.
   1. agree 6LowPAN
   2. disagree - No, otherwise there will be all sorts of people suggesting crap without ever going to the wiki and seeing what has already been suggested. I'm sure Kevan gets loads of crap as well (No no no no! not another car suggestion!!!). --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 05:42, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
      1. counter-argument - This wiki is mostly incomprehensible. There are a lot of instructions all over the place and no easy way to find them all and avoid being harassed by various people calling you a "troll" (not that anyone intelligent minds that, wiki troll culture exists for a reason). There's no good reason not to have a single unfiltered suggestion log that assigns each suggestion a unique identifier, with a few people (or "trolls") devoting a few hours a week to classifying them, say by adding direct links to each individual log entry from the summaries on this page. It also really helps find all the scope and guidance information if this wiki and on this page go to pages that back-link to track all the reflexive pages discussing themselves, this is wiki best pracice at least for troll-friendly wiki. 6LowPAN

There certainly are a lot of rules for this page. I went back to read them all, and I felt like I'd opened a bank account there were that many. The large number of rules is not entirely a bad thing though: each of those rules is there for a reason, and combined they make it more difficult to submit a suggestion, which stops people from submitting throwaway suggestions. That's why I wouldn't want the suggestions process to be too closely implemented into the game- people would throw up any old junk without thinking it through because it was so easy to submit stuff.

Having said all that, I think there are benefits to making things simpler for newbies. Newbies make good voters, perhaps friendlier ones, and it's useful to get fresh perspectives on things. --Toejam 23:41, 22 March 2007 (UTC) Edit- Thanks for the link, that wiki looks like it could be interesting.

99% of everything is shit. So, this entire system is just a shit filter. Filtering out 99% of everything is a difficult task, and requires lots of rules. Even then, some shit still makes it into Peer Reviewed. Simplifying or streamlining the process will just allow more shit through. For example, you're saying that there's nowhere to just hash out ideas. Except that there is. Right here on this page. And there aren't any rules on this page (except for the over-arching wiki rules). So, right there, I think you can see, you're wrong. I do agree that there are a lot of rules, but 9 times out of 10, if someone doesn't take the time to read them, and goes ahead and makes a suggestion - it's a totally shit one that's been knocked out of the park more times than I've had hot dinners. "Hey - a sniper rifle! I bet nobody's thought that up before - I don't need to read no stinking rules, I'll just go right ahead and suggest it. Hey! Why's everyone spamming my suggestion?" Because, arsegike, you didn't read the effing rules / dos and donts and dead in the water sections. So, again, I think you're wrong. --Funt Solo 12:41, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

It seems you're suggesting that things work better just because it's hard to make suggestions. This is silly, rather than get into arguments, it's much less bother to simply categorize an individual suggestion as "already rejected" or "violates basic principles" and have that response/category show up with an explanation at the suggesting user's interface. If they can click from there to see the process going on, they'll be far more likely to learn how the whole thing works. Wikipedia for instance tends to encourage its admins to add notes to talk pages to explain to users why their edit was rejected. 6LowPAN

So then should we do a really big renaming of everything and call it "rules" instead of "does and don'ts" and "Guidelines". Make it a lot easier to whack people over the head, instead of them muttering, ' oh, it's only a guideline '.--_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 01:39, 26 March 2007 (BST)

That's the whole point of this setup though, isn't it? Why stifle someone's creativity as, ultimately, it is up to Kevan to decide what he want in HIS game. By suggesting stuff we are hoping our own ideas mesh with those Kevan has for Urban Dead. That is not always the case as things like Ankle Grab died here but made it into the game while most Peer Reviewed suggestions have yet to see the light of day (in game). A quality suggestion that "breaks" the guidelines should not be destroyed BECAUSE it breaks the guidelines. Binoculars is a good example. If it is a steaming pile of crap, it will be voted on thusly, regardless of "guidelines."--Pesatyel 06:08, 26 March 2007 (BST)

I've got to agree with Pesatyel, there. Guidelines are good - they give a general overview. Making them into concrete rules will stifle creativity, and add even more to the wrong-headedness of voting Kill on something just because it cracks open a guideline. Take each suggestion on it's own merit. Surely we can put up with the occasional "GPA Laser-Guided Death Missile" or "Sniper Rifle - This Time It's Not Spam!" if we also get something as cool as Binoculars (aka the big no-no, X-Ray Vision) once in a while. --Funt Solo 13:22, 26 March 2007 (BST)