[Icehouse] Publishing only a winner and a runner up

Mon Feb 25 09:31:28 EST 2008

Been a crazy week, ending in a great weekend of Icehouse games at NonCon.

I'll get feedback to all game designers in the next week or so, but I do want to respond briefly to Jorge.

Discussion of what to do going forward to legitimate.  However, changing the rules mid-game (or in this case after the game is over!) is not.  This IGDC was run using the CRP method, resulting in rankings of first through eighth.  If that's not how we want to proceed in future, fine, but let's leave this finished contest alone.

More coherent thoughts at a late date - 35 games played (including 3 tournaments) and one tournament run over the past 72 hours, means I haven't slept much . . .

a
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jorge Arroyo 
  To: Icehouse Discussion List 
  Sent: Saturday, February 23, 2008 3:53 PM
  Subject: Re: [Icehouse] Publishing only a winner and a runner up

  On Sat, Feb 23, 2008 at 7:01 PM, David Artman <david at davidartman.com> wrote:

    Sorry so long to reply....

    > From: "Jorge Arroyo" <trozo at makasoft.net>

    > say we officially get only a winner and a runner up from those
    ballots,
    > unless in a future competition, we really get many more voters.

    This suggestion is merely a weak obfuscation--it's trivially easy to
    check the ranks and glean the same information you'd "hide" by modifying
    the InfoBox.

  To say we've used the voter data to get just a winner and two runner ups is not to hide data. It's just using the data in a way that is more useful, given that there are too few voters.

    > I wouldn't be proud of a 4th place that I know could have easily been
    a 7th
    > or a 2nd. There's too much power placed on any single voter with the
    number
    > voters we got this time.

    Then the answer is to acquire more voters.

  That's a good answer for next contest. What about this one?

    > In a competition, people will assume the rankings go from best game to
    > worst, and that is clearly not the case in this competition.

    Wow. I'd smile when I say that (though I'd never say that). You presume
    much, if you'd (a) cast dispersions upon the rankings made by our judges
    or (b) ask a winner to step off the podium position which he has earned.

  I only say that one voter has too much power to change the final ratings (from first to last). I'm not asking the winner to step off. Never said that. In fact, if one thing is totally clear from the votings is that M12 is the winner and MG is the looser. As it has been stated before (not by me) the rest was very close. I just say we cannot make a reliable order from first to last because a small difference in one or two votes would change it dramatically. (as proven).

    > there. In the contest page you can put all the info, but then explain
    how
    > the results are not reliable.

    It doesn't strike me as effective promotion of the IGDC or encouragement
    for judging, to have a statement that the rank tallying method is not
    reliable. It's also generally not true. The CRP method is reliable if we
    have enough votes. Ergo, gaining votes--not tearing down the comp--is
    the correct angle of attack.

  To say we need more voters to get reliable results is not tearing down the competition. We just admit we didn't get enough data to be able to reliably rank the games from first to last.

    > My perception is that as long as we get few voters in the contest, the
    > results will be mostly random. I'm not going to throw my designs into
    a
    > lottery draw to see if I'm lucky enough to get a nice rating. Sorry.
    If

    It's not mandatory. No one is required to participate. Stop doing so, if
    it brings you pain.

  Not exaclt pain, but disappointment. yes.

    I think you've kinda lost sight of the point of the comp: to get
    playtesters, refine rules and presentation, and make more good games
    which "fill out" IHG.org. "Winning" is incidental, as is "losing." In
    fact, if you really thought about it, you'd see that a lower-ranked game
    is going to draw more feedback and refinement than a higher-ranked
    (presumably "finished") game. Rejoice!

  Ok, I'll tell how happyI'm with results once we've got all the feedback in. It's too soon to judge the results as not many people have given feedback yet. Right now, all I know is we've got a ranking from 1st to 8th that is not totally reliable. I'm not happy about that. It's not that I'm not happy about winning, but I don't think VF deserves a 7th place (that's ofcourse my subjective opinion).

    > we're going to continue getting an unjustified hall of fame/shame each
    > contest, count me out. There are other ways to promote and get people
    to
    > play your games, and I'd rather find those other ways. Even just
    uploading
    > the games to the wiki seems a better idea right now...

    I repeat what I posted in the other thread: look at how many IGDC games
    are refined, versus how many "tossed up" games are half-baked, confused,
    or not even really started (I am guilty of having all three of those
    levels of incompletion at this very moment).

    Again, leave if you want to do so; but don't expect those of us enjoying
    IGDC participation to pack up when you've gone.

  Each person will do whatever they want. Don't assume I'm expecting people to leave, or that I'm leaving the icehouse community. For now I'll just think of other ways to get feedback for games. Look at the piecepack competition I just started ( http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/294818 ). It's about writting reviews. If that works out fine, then maybe we could do something similar for the icehouse system.

    -----

    As for the IGDC InfoBox: make your own "Top Three" box, or remove the
    existing one from your game's page. Do not presume to change the
    existing one--a thing of tradition which I, for one am glad to display
    on my 6th- and 4th-place games. Why would I be happy about such a
    "disparagement" as 6th? Well, that box shows that I hung it out there
    and tried, when scores of others sat and watched. I don't want to be
    listed as some kind of "also ran," hiding the fact that I happened to
    get 4th or 6th for any one of a bajillion reasons (number of ballots,
    common preferences of the types of gamers drawn to Icehouse, game type,
    difficulty to master, whatever).

    If you change the {{IGDCsssYYYY}} templates, I'll change them back; so
    just drop that crusade, please, for both of our sakes. You just can't
    tell others what to display on their pages....

  Wow!!!!! what a divisive attitude. I'm trying to get the community to agree on something and look at you with your "I'll do what I want and change them back" attitude. You must really hate this thing called democracy...

  If the community decides to change the infobox, it will be changed. If you want to display a different infobox on your game no one will force you not to, but then it's you that are going against the wishes of the community.

  -Jorge

    Thanks;

    David

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