August announcement

News and such

Moderator: Co-Administrators

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Finland KaniZ
AQtion Aficionado
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Apr 06, 2022 5:21 pm

August announcement

Post by KaniZ »

Hey quakers,

In the light of recent events we wanted to clarify a few items to make sure that we’re being transparent and helpful toward our communities' health and growth in regard to our greatly successful pickup games in the European scene. Games which have always been driven by - and for! - the competing players themselves.

With the release of AQtion on Steam we wanted to prepare for the possible influx of new players and thus decided to form a set of rules for pickup games which would ensure a pleasant, stable and fair experience for everyone participating.

On the 1st of June we started discussing the rules between all mods and four days later we unanimously agreed to release and enforce them.

Rules were put in the #pickup topic and the message was pinned in the channel (direct link is: here). Those rules have been in effect for over two months now and are always open to discussion, suggestions and possible change from community feedback.

About strikes
"Strikes" exist as a method to ensure that there is appropriate counterbalance for player absences, in-match AFKs and disruptions. We understand that emergencies and other disruptions can occur in life and we would like to reaffirm our pledge to always be ready to listen and react understandably and accordingly to these circumstances.


Moderator selection and issue resolution
We have set out to revisit our moderator selection criteria, we currently do this meritoriously but need to take steps to ensure that our environment - including AQ2 servers and AQ2 code - are protected for the good of the open community that uses them and that they enjoy the longevity that we all desire. We expect that a series of expanded guidelines will further improve our selection process and anticipate posting openings for future mod positions that take these new guidelines under consideration.

Furthermore, we have also launched a new ticket system to help handle your concerns and issues in an organized and timely manner. You can create tickets with /tickets open or -ticket open reason command.

Appealing strikes and changing rules
If you have a proposal to alter rules, or would like to appeal an action by one of our administrators we would like to remind you that you are welcome to do so while keeping the following in mind:

• Our rule changing process is designed to be democratically altered; a supermajority vote (>66%) is ultimately required to pass a change
• We are unable to go back in time to rewrite rules, we have to consider your proposal for rules going forward rather than upset their integrity by arbitrarily overruling them in retrospect
• Personal attacks, abuse and threatening attacks are not useful or appreciated for this process and are subject to strikes in and of themselves
• You can appeal strikes, bans, etc. by using the ticketing system described above.

Mod team actions from this summer
• During the summer we lowered the default pickup ELO score from 1500 to 1300 and then from 1300 to 1000. We did this to tackle the issue where new players (or old but rusty) have too low an impact on the game based on their rank. For us it seems that a starting rank of 1000 is the sweet spot with the current player base.
• We added a new ticket system which can be used for strike appeals etc.
• We hosted a google form vote to determine the 3rd strike ban length.
There were 67 votes with the following results:
• 41,8% - 2 days
• 37,3% - 7 days
• 9% - 3 days
Based on this result we will be keeping the current 7 days for the length of the 3rd strike. Going forward we will require upcoming form votes results to carry a ‘supermajority’ of at least 66% of votes to pass.
• We have removed the ability to start pickup games by everyone in Discord so as to ensure that there is no additional misuse of the commands that we entrusted the community to use. We have instead created a new "pickup mod" role which is given to active and trustworthy players. Players with that role can start the pickup games.

We would like to thank you again for your continued support and understanding and remind you all that your feedback is of immense value to all of us and ensures that we can continue to enjoy this amazing environment together!

- The AQ2World mod team
aq2.fi | pelitutka | aq2world
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