Bachelot wrote:Okay, so apparently there are
two discussions going on about the rankings. The public one, which is here. And a private one somewhere else involving
thirteen RP Committee members, where non-members have no opportunity either to see the points that are made or to respond to them.
Is anyone else finding this whole set-up
bizarre, given the comparatively small size of our forum RPing community?
In my view, the rankings process should be as transparent as reasonably possible, with everybody able to see what is going on and participate. At some point, of course, somebody is going to have to made a decision about what the outcome is going to be, but I really feel the main discussion should be on the public forum and that the decisions should be made through a process that is as consensual as it can reasonably be. This has been done previously.
I am already concerned that in other parts of the game, the transparency we have had in the past has been undermined. Only a few days ago, I raised an
innocuous and perfectly legitimate query about a Cultural Protocol update being accepted that actually broke the conditions set out in the rules. In response, I received an officious pm in my inbox from Moderation, insisting it is not allowed to raise such queries on the thread and threatening sanctions if it happens again. Was the RP Committee involved in formulating this response? I honestly don't know what the RP Committee is involved in and what it isn't, because it hasn't been made clear and there has not been great communication. What this seemed to demonstrate, though, was quite a worrying over-defensiveness and opposition to reasonable transparency.
So to be frank, my worry is that we are going to get to a point where the rankings update process goes the same way as the Cultural Protocol approvals process, with the key discussions taking place between a small group of people in private, the rest of the community effectively shut out and folk who raise questions getting jumped upon.
Again I shall respond to a number of points here.
Firstly, I feel you misunderstand the “two discussions” here, no offence intended. There is one discussion, which is between the GRC and the community at large, this thread, in which anyone and everyone is free to contribute. This is the only discussion per se. Prior to their first publication here we look over the rankings internally, but only to limit the amount of reviewing we need to do afterwards. This then stops once we publish our ideas here.
At this point, there is only one discussion. There are internal reviews conducted by the relevant CRCs — however if a CRC is still in disagreement in with a specific complaint or feels it would be better to decide on this issue as a group, the other CRCs may review it themselves. This is then the only other “discussion”, and we will then present our views. This is what CCP posted earlier. But this isn’t a discussion per se and isn’t an ongoing debate either, this is a singular joint review by the GRC. We could conduct this publicly, but this would be much more confusing to follow as we debate and change ideas, so prefer just to formulate a single response in private.
I think to characterise this as two discussions would be absurd, there are not two discussions taking place. There is an internal discussion BEFORE release, a public consultation and, if necessary, some CRCs may review any ideas put forward here in exceptional circumstances.
The idea that players cannot respond to these ‘private’ points is also unequivocally false, as we have published or thoughts in detail here and players are welcome to respond.
I respect your opinion, but I think that your characterisation of two discussions is incorrect or misinformed — such a system would be entirely bizarre and have no discernible purpose —, and that ultimately this is the only efficient way of doing things, without it getting very confusing, long and drawn out, and we are as transparent as possible here. The alternative would be to have the entire community make the rankings together, which is not exactly efficient. I don’t see the issue with the current system to be entirely honest with you, and it doesn’t seem dissimilar from the systems used historically in rankings processes.
Second, I would like to respond again to the issue of the “thirteen” Committee members. Not all members contribute to every debate and every decision. If anything, it’s five members assisted by deputies in some cases and RP Masters for specific things in specific relevant cases. I won’t repeat my points from my previous post, but I genuinely do feel that you have misinterpreted the interior structure of the GRC in this case and therefore disagree.
Third, I would like to clarify that the GRC has
no knowledge of or role in moderation’s actions unless it is specifically relating to a task concerned with the GRC where we may advise or inform, so in the Cultural Protocol example cited we had no involvement in or knowledge of the act. I would suggest that you follow up this query through another channel, as we are completely unrelated to that incident.
So to conclude, I completely disagree with the interpretation of the rankings process as a private debate — we merely begin the discussion with our thoughts and then try our best to discuss this with the community at large and come up with a consensus. This is what we have done. There isn’t a second private discussion once the rankings are published.
I also disagree that the thirteen members are in some way inefficient or that this is too bloated, and while you’re free to make this critique, I do feel it comes from a lack of involvement in the internal runnings of the GRC. As I said, it’s really give smaller teams sometimes working together, and I think the structure is fundamentally different to the way you think ist works.
And finally, I completely disagree with your characterisation of the way the future of the rankings process is heading, and I don’t think this is in any large degree a different or new system compared with the historical way of doing things.
Again, we have no involvement in the cultural protocol message incident you cited and I would propose that you query this through other means.
Thanks for the feedback
I go by Ashley now and use she/her pronouns. This is a really old account, I don’t play now.
I was a mod in classic for a bit, then I helped make Marcapada and WM there for a while. As of 2020 I’m co-ordinating Pachapay’s development.