Alright.
This isn't an update. This is me, as the author and director of this ride, making a request, and throwing a topic open for discussion.
Don't worry, I'm not abandoning PMAS.
So this is why I'm bringing this up: I'm tired.
I'm tired of the shitflinging and the sniping and the passive aggressive grudges. The Discord divide thing is a recent thing, but I'm not happy with the derision thrown from both sides, either. The sheer toxicity scares off new people, and people have been driven away. This isn't tenable in the long run, or even really in the short run. Something has to change.
The Discord is easy. The server is being shut down. It's a lovely community, but it's bad for the health of the Quest. It does edge out newcomers and people who can't spare the time.
The thread, and the nature of this Quest, results in people racing to push their agenda over others. Everyone has a laundry list of things they want to do, and if I'm honest, I encourage that. Sabrina needs to manage her time, because with great power comes great responsibility and such. But it creates animosity, because it drives the stake of each vote higher, and it generates division between blocs of broadly aligned people. That division carries over even to the most inconsequential and fluffiest of votes.
I'm going to try and tighten up the pacing. I know I've said it before, but I'm making it a firm declaration for myself this time. It's necessary.
I've put heart and soul and three years of my life into PMAS, and I want to see this through to the end. I want to see Sabrina through to the end of her story, with the rest of the cast, and I hope you do too. The next update's still coming - but I want this talked out first.
So now I put it to you, my readers: Is there anything more I can do? Is there anything you can do? Should I limit vote options for write-ins, should I start offering vote options again?
I think there are a few things that can be done to alleviate (most of) these problems.
1) Have a section in the opening post detailing Sabrina's schedule, commitments, goals (and their deadlines, if applicable), current concerns (such as the risk of Madoka contracting, and the current consensus on how pressing it is--perhaps with QM hints in this regard, for the sake of preventing player paranoia from spiraling out of control), and ideas for solutions (whether or not they're good ideas would be left explicitly ambiguous, but so long as the ideas were supported by at least one or two other posters, it would qualify for the list). This would serve as a reference for players to use whenever needed, as well as a convenient way for players who are aware of everything in it to refer players who aren't to.
2) Divide up the voting period into two distinct sections. The first: players discuss what to do, create votes/plans and refine them, as well as give some kind of reasoning for the choices in said plans (in the same post). The second: Firn makes another post in the thread which includes each of the plans proposed (and, if reasonable, the reasoning behind his/her plan), and then opens up the actual voting. For the ease of access for those not coming into the voting period immediately, the latest "voting selection" post by Firn would be threadmarked, and that threadmark would be deleted when the vote is closed (or when the next chapter is posted). For clarity's sake, an explanation of this process and its rules should be posted in the informational posts at the beginning of the thread, and players who break these rules or ask about how it works would simply be directed to this part with a link.
3) What would be very helpful is including some context/info for the players at the end of each story post, explaining what the current vote would actually cover. This way, players wouldn't have to worry that anything not included in the vote would be a lost opportunity (like assuming that the current conversation with someone will end in the next story post). This would prevent some of the tendency for people to throw in a lot of things to a given plan (or ask/demand that something be included). If players express the desire to simply "skip ahead" or something (let's say a vote is explained to cover activities from 10AM-11AM, but voters feel like they should be able to just vote for the activities from 10AM-5PM), then it could be solved by simply having a particularly short new chapter covering the previously-designated events (in the previous example, the events from 10AM-11AM), and the designated time period to be covered in the next vote would cover the time period desired by the voters (11AM-5PM).
4) This suggestion is hampered more by technical difficulties than anything, making me hesitant to suggest it. But First Past The Post voting systems are terrible and very much encourage a lot of the negative practices you express frustration with. FPTP voting
strongly encourages bandwagoning and building momentum as early and quickly as possible. It also
strongly encourages forming into voting blocs (as few blocs as possible, at that), as well as hostile behavior towards other voting blocs in attempts to convince independent and/or undecided voters to side with them. Frankly, FPTP is probably the worst voting system there is in all criteria but simplicity. Ranked voting is just one example of a much better voting system. As I said before, though, this suggestion is the one most hampered by technical difficulties. I don't know if the vote-tallying program can handle anything but FPTP functionality. There may be a way to utilize it to facilitate ranked voting, however: by having each of the proposed voting plans have a name, and having voters cast votes based on just those names, and voting for their top two plans in order of preference, you could then effectively do a ranked voting system. For example:
[X] Plan Hug The 'Doka
[X] Plan Blue
Number of voters: 8
[X] Plan Green
[X] Plan Blue
Number of voters: 5
[X] Plan Pink
[X] Plan Green
Number of voters: 9
You'd tally the number of votes in the top-preference-spot for each plan; if none win a majority of the votes, then you select the plan with the fewest number of top-ranked votes and...well, to quote Wikipedia:
If no candidate is the first choice of more than half of the voters, then all votes cast for the candidate with the lowest number of first choices are redistributed to the remaining candidates based on who is ranked next on each ballot.
[7] If this does not result in any candidate receiving a majority, further rounds of redistribution occur.
[7] Or, in other words, "[...] voters would rank their first, second and subsequent choices on the ballot. The candidate with the fewest votes would be dropped and his or her supporters' second choices would be counted and so on until one candidate emerged with more than 50 per cent."
[8]
Is that a lot of work? Yes. Probably too much work. But it would definitely have a major impact, curbing the bandwagoning tendencies and the need to build voting blocs that compete with each other. Whether or not that's worth the effort expended is up to you.
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Oh yeah, and I forgot: the whole "thread discussion affects Sabrina's thoughts/feelings/behavior" aspect--it might be best to get rid of the negative impact of that mechanic, to prevent situations in which some players go after other players for simply expressing their views or posting negative reactions (or just venting), due to the effects of said posting on Sabrina herself.
It's difficult to tell where to draw the line, here; a highly conflicted discussion and voting period being reflected by Sabrina feeling conflicted about her choices/actions might be good for characterization. An example of where this was a good thing was during the long timestop during the night we hunted Oriko and Kirika--being in timestop for a prolonged period of time would definitely have serious psychological effects/concerns on anyone, and it makes complete sense for both Sabrina and the players to feel fatigue in prolonged timestop. As a result, the players feel that prolonged timestop should be avoided unless it is truly necessary, and Sabrina feels the same way. However, I think heated discussion/debate between players over things that are
not about the immediate vote should not be included in the bits reflected in Sabrina's mental state--so, heated debates about the merits of SCIENCE shouldn't be reflected in Sabrina unless the immediate vote is actually about whether or not to conduct SCIENCE.
