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Organization Levels section - and what can be posted there

Discussion in 'General (Issues, Help, Discussions)' started by nGord, Feb 18, 2019.

Should we continue restricting only playable levels to the Levels section?

  1. Yes, let's stick with the status quo

    9 vote(s)
    69.2%

  2. No, I think a change is in order

    4 vote(s)
    30.8%
  1. Feb 18, 2019 #1
    nGord

    nGord Standby Administrator, Retired Moderator Staff Member

    Messages:
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    Joined:
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    I noticed some banter recently again regarding what should or should not be uploaded into the Levels section of this website. As the Ombudsman I thought to try and clear the air.

    I realize that rules of any kind are hard to enforce when there is no official oversight. And the fact that "playable level" is somewhat subjective and hard to define further complicates the matter. I can also see how the average person can see thousands of cards uploaded to the Levels section and easily come to the conclusion that any and all cards can be uploaded there.

    The decision, none-the-less, was that only playable levels be uploaded to the Levels section of the site. This decision predates my joining the site in July 2016 and since joining the volunteer staff in September 2016, I've raised this issue a few times and was voted down each time in favour of the status quo.

    I suspect that the origins of this rule came from trying to keep some decorum and organization to the site and allow focus on the one most important aspect of Mekorama: that of playing the game. Not only do we have quite the number of members on the site, there are many multiple more people just browsing the site anonymously most likely looking for more levels to play.

    Failing any ability to qualify and/or categorize a card, I think we've done a pretty good job policing ourselves to this objective. Currently much of our documentation in the form of guides, forum posts, profile and level comments, and even scripted warning emails point to keeping only playable levels in the Levels section.

    The principle argument against this policy is that one could simply overlook anything posted to the Levels section that is not a level with gameplay. There is a big problem with this though as it puts the burden on the many vice the few. A player would have to go through the effort of downloading a card, launching it, and playing it with the best intentions only to find out that perhaps it is not a level and instead it is only a demo, just some art, only a mechanism, or worse: a prank on the player. Since we have a fully featured forum section to this website, I can see why it would not be much to ask those few uploaders to post their cards there instead.

    Thoughts?
     
    Last edited: Dec 30, 2019
    nGord, Feb 18, 2019
    nGord, Feb 18, 2019
    #1
    laurence.gr likes this.
  3. Mar 10, 2019 #2
    Makaroni

    Makaroni Member

    Messages:
    24
    Levels:
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    Joined:
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    Running such a forum and creating a Mekorama level have something in common. You cannot really predict the way the players are playing your levels, the users are using the forum. As a level creator you have a certain understanding of the game and some vision for new levels. As a player you have certain experiences to see the path and some knowledge to reach the win block. Players and creators are all individuals with different strengths and abilities. In some cases the player encounters exact the level that suits him or her perfectly. In most other cases player and level would not fit and all are disapointed.

    Is the objective of the forum to create clones of the original 50 levels? To repeat the same level experience all over again and again with similar blocks at different positions? In this case there is some effort needed to avoid shortcutting the forum. Or is the forum dedicated to the joy of playing the game, the joy of keeping the mind busy and surprising it once in a while? Dedicated to inlvolve more people? Trying new things implies, of course, to fail. Should there be some creator's license that needs to be obtained before uploading levels?

    I do not know any usages statistics on the forum, but I assume the Levels section has much more clicks that the Forums section. Levels belong to levels, this is probably why such problematic levels are more frequently uploaded to the Levels sections than to Forums section. As a new forum member I have not, of course not, read all the threads created over the past years. I'm a newby in all regards. Creating levels is original part of the game, this is the reason why there is some upload pressure to the Levels section. Why not just having some additional category "Beyond traditional gameplay", or "Not in the way of the original gameplay", or something like this. By the way, are tricks original gameplay? On the otherside, one could say, that gameplay is what the app renders and runs.

    Another idea could be to have some periode of time filtering on the "Most" / "Hightest" tabs in the levels section. Or to make the statistics "Most popular Levels <in a month>" an own category (the opposite is already available: from within the Forum there is a link to uploading levels). This might be also changing the balance of happy and disapointed players to some degree:
    promoting the Froum section over the Levels section. How would most people answer this question: wanna start a new thread or wanna upload a level?
     
    Makaroni, Mar 10, 2019
    Makaroni, Mar 10, 2019
    #2
    nGord likes this.

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