From: irilyth@fenris.claremont.edu (Josh Smith)
Subject: Some thoughts on changes to the Adjudicator
Originator: irilyth@fenris
Organization: HMC Academic Computing Services
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 19:46:11 GMT

Various folks have suggested policy changes to the judge; here are some
comments.

More GM control: I agree with Rick's comments about using dedication and
NOLIST to control a game; however, sometimes folks lose a mail connection
for a few days, and find their dedication score plummeting. While folks with
chronically flaky mail feeds probably shouldn't be trying to play games that
require huge amounts of e-mail communication, even a one-time speeze can
smash a newcomer's dedication score if said newcomer has signed up for a few
high-speed games.

What I'd prefer is a modification to the game startup procedures, which
someone suggested recently: rewrite the judge code such that a seventh
player signing on triggers the judge to send a letter to the moderator,
rather than starting the game immediately. The moderator would then check
out the player list, and send a 'start' command to the judge to actually
start the game. I don't know how hard this would be to code, but I can't
imagine that it would be too difficult.

Setting a maximum number of concurrent games: I give this idea two thumbs
down, if implemented as a simple count of games. First, there needs to be
some way to account for "mercy killings", positions players take over simply
to get a game running again. It could be argued that even a small power
deserves a lot of attention, but it really is true that you have less to
worry about when you're small. Additionally, gunboat/no-press games take a
_LOT_ less time to play in successfully than a full-communication standard
game. I've been involved in over a dozen g/np games simultaneously at times
without having trouble keeping up with any of them. I would be willing to
place a cap on standard games, and maybe even on gunboat/no-partial games
(white or grey) (though I'd argue that these should only count as maybe half
or 1/3 as much as a full game), but that g/np games shouldn't be restricted.

On the other hand, one could argue that g/np games are stupid, and shouldn't
exist in any event; this is a position I'm starting to sympathize with,
having discovered the joy of white-press/no partial recently. Creating two
separate judges, one no-press and one for everything else, could alleviate
some of the load generated by the no-press games.

No unmoderated games: Not a bad idea. It's probably a lot easier to find
replacement players for moderated games, since the moderator can beat the
bushes looking for players. This would probably reduce the number of games
forming at any given time, and would leave players who want to play a
particular type of game out in the cold--if I want to play a grey press, no
partial, crowded game with 3-day turns, I would have to go find someone
willing to GM such a thing. It would probably help if a list of GMs were
maintained on the judge--people who were generally willing to moderate a
game and who players could contact if they were looking for one of a
particular type. This mechanism might already exist on the judge; I'm not
really sure.

No press in standard games: I'm not thrilled by this one, but I think it
would help reduce the load on the judge. I think it's more cool in some ways
to be able to communicate entirely with players' personae via the judge, but
it definitely increases the amount of traffic the judge has to deal with.
Perhaps setting standard games to use no press by default, but allowing the
GM to allow press if he or she thought it would be appropriate?

Let's see, I think that's about all I had to say. Comments?
-- 
Josh Smith, User Support Coordinator  ::  irilyth@fenris.claremont.edu
Harvey Mudd College, Claremont CA     ::  consult(std-disclaimer.pl).
"Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why
several of us died of tuberculosis." -Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts