Bytube - Representative of the People

[Bytube]

Hello, I'm Bytube. I'm a player of /tg/ Station and very passionate about the game.

I've been playing the game for about 5 years now, and have enjoyed the game ever since. While I wouldn't call myself a veteran player, I believe I've been well versed in the game and its community.

Why should I vote for you? What do you bring to the table?

As headmin, I wish to represent the general playerbase. I think it is important for the community to take the game in the direction it wants, and I hope to help the community achieve that.

What will you do as headmin?

There are a few things I'd like to do that I believe will help the game and community.

Helping the community grow and be welcoming to newer players is something I view as important. I understand that quite a few people don't enjoy when "tides" happen, so I'd like to address that without alienating new players. Toxicity in general is a problem that needs tackling and I'd be happy to help scrub it out. I don't intend on policing what people say and do, rather I want to have less toxic players.

Another thing is player input. Feedback from players is vital for the game; I'd like to give players good ways to give admins and coders/maintainers their thoughts and opinions on things like new features, rules, admin conduct, and events.

I'd also like to see more focus on maintaining the wiki. As of now many pages are out of date and with new content always being added, more of it follows suit. The wiki is an invaluable source of information and is great for both new and old players alike, so keeping it as up-to-date as possible is needed.

Of course, there are many more problems that headmins will need to help solve, and I plan on working with the community to resolve them.

In conclusion

I love this game and its community, so I want to help out the community and bring the game to new heights, that's why I'm applying for headmin.





thanks for coming to my TED talk

[Jaredfogle]

Another thing is player input. Feedback from players is vital for the game; I'd like to give players good ways to give admins and coders/maintainers their thoughts and opinions on things like new features, rules, admin conduct, and events.

How do you plan on doing this? As a headmin, you have no more influence over the code repo. We already let players give their thoughts on new features, all our communication is done on GitHub and public Discord channels.

[Malkraz]

Can you elaborate on what you consider "toxicity" and how you distinguish it from words and actions?

[Omega_DarkPotato]

He thinks PC-98 touhou games are better than Windows touhou games get him hes a nerd

Another thing is player input. Feedback from players is vital for the game; I'd like to give players good ways to give admins and coders/maintainers their thoughts and opinions on things like new features, rules, admin conduct, and events.

we already have both the discord and the forums for player input - what more are you proposing and why?

Helping the wiki/maintaining it is something that can be done as a non-admin, so I'm not exactly sure why it's listed here without some more concrete points given for it.

What do you mean when you say you'd like to "scrub out toxicity"? How do you plan on going about this? What do you define as toxic? Can you give examples of what you currently see for toxicity?

[Bytube]

Another thing is player input. Feedback from players is vital for the game; I'd like to give players good ways to give admins and coders/maintainers their thoughts and opinions on things like new features, rules, admin conduct, and events.

How do you plan on doing this? As a headmin, you have no more influence over the code repo. We already let players give their thoughts on new features, all our communication is done on GitHub and public Discord channels.

Player polls is one way I'd do it. As fellow candidate Dezupher said, player polls are underutilized, and I agree with them on using it to collect feedback.

Not every player is on Github or our discord, so player polls will also help with getting feedback from those players too.

[Jaredfogle]

Player polls is one way I'd do it. As fellow candidate Dezupher said, player polls are underutilized, and I agree with them on using it to collect feedback.

I'm skeptical on their requesting of player polls as well (I posted in their thread earlier about this).

Would you make player polls for features without maintainer's request? I would very much not recommend that, as it is not guaranteed to leave a big enough impact on us at best, and at worst would lead to a "the maintainers polled us and completely ignored our feedback" mentality. This also doesn't let players provide *detailed* feedback--just a choice of a few options. We already don't really care about the emoji (👍/👎) reactions that people give on posts for precisely this reason--we not only need concrete feedback but also a dialogue with the commenter.

[EOBGames]

So, lets say you collect feedback on a new code change from an ingame poll. What do you plan to actually do with it, given that you won't have the ability to block PRs or mandate reverts of controversial features?

[Bytube]

Can you elaborate on what you consider "toxicity" and how you distinguish it from words and actions?

What do you mean when you say you'd like to "scrub out toxicity"? How do you plan on going about this? What do you define as toxic? Can you give examples of what you currently see for toxicity?

Harassment, bigotry, and hostility between players is what I'd consider toxic. Someone doing these with the intent to belittle others and/or continuously doing these is how I'd distinguish it. As I said before I don't intend on policing what people say and do; giving a warning to those who are showing toxic behavior is what I'd do, giving them the chance to stop. If they don't stop, they'll be given a punishment of increasing severity.

I'm skeptical on their requesting of player polls as well (I posted in their thread earlier about this).

Would you make player polls for features without maintainer's request? I would very much not recommend that, as it is not guaranteed to leave a big enough impact on us at best, and at worst would lead to a "the maintainers polled us and completely ignored our feedback" mentality. This also doesn't let players provide *detailed* feedback--just a choice of a few options. We already don't really care about the emoji (👍/👎) reactions that people give on posts for precisely this reason--we not only need concrete feedback but also a dialogue with the commenter.

I think that it's up to the maintainers to request for polls for features, as it benefits them and the coders more.

You do make a good point with polls not letting players give detailed feedback. Giving the players an option to give maintainers more detailed feedback is something I'd like to look into. As I said before not everyone who plays is on github and/or our discord server, so finding a way to get detailed feedback from those players will likely help get a more general opinion on new features.

So, lets say you collect feedback on a new code change from an ingame poll. What do you plan to actually do with it, given that you won't have the ability to block PRs or mandate reverts of controversial features?

Feedback will be given to the maintainers and the coder/s of the feature. As I said before, it benefits them more.

He thinks PC-98 touhou games are better than Windows touhou games get him hes a nerd

Not only did I not say that, but I also doubt people would care much about my opinion on touhou games

[TheFinalPotato]

To be as clear as possible:

I (I'm dragging the other two maintainers in this thread down with me here) don't want more direct feedback in the manner you're describing from the playerbase. For a multitude of reasons, partially because players tend to know what they don't like, but are very bad at identifying solutions past removal, partially because direct contact with the playerbase tends to burn out both coders and maintainers, and partially because polls are a poor format for getting feedback in the first place.

Are you suggesting something in the same vein as Dezu? The "If they ask they'll get one" sort of thing? Or are you planning on forcing this on us.

One of these things would be fine if perhaps a bit ineffectual, the other one will be met with a lack of engagement and a general distrust for the administration by at least me. I don't want to be in a position where we are taking votes on prs or merges, or where the playerbase thinks we are

[Bytube]

To be as clear as possible:

I (I'm dragging the other two maintainers in this thread down with me here) don't want more direct feedback in the manner you're describing from the playerbase. For a multitude of reasons, partially because players tend to know what they don't like, but are very bad at identifying solutions past removal, partially because direct contact with the playerbase tends to burn out both coders and maintainers, and partially because polls are a poor format for getting feedback in the first place.

A fair point. As someone who frequents the subreddit I understand that some players like to act like they know more than they do, so your concerns on that are completely justified. I'd like to work with the maintainers to find out a way to get the feedback you want, the way you want.

As for the poll format itself, I get that it doesn't give detailed feedback, rather I used it more as an example of something we could try. Again, working with maintainers to come up with and experiment with ways to get detailed feedback is something I think is important in that regard.

Are you suggesting something in the same vein as Dezu? The "If they ask they'll get one" sort of thing? Or are you planning on forcing this on us.

I don't plan to force it on the maintainers and coders. Rather I'd like it to be up to them if they want the feedback.

[TheFinalPotato]

Thank you for clarifying. While I am personally not interested in gathering further feedback from the playerbase, I am glad it's not being forced on us.

[Bytube]

Thank you for clarifying. While I am personally not interested in gathering further feedback from the playerbase, I am glad it's not being forced on us.

No worries, forcing things onto someone that they don't want ain't my shtick.

[Indie-ana Jones]

Being open to letting cooders get feedback from players would be a nice change of pace, since it feels like a good deal of us end up in a specific bubble and we don't always get a full picture of how something's working out. I like it.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

What, in your opinion, makes you a better representative of the players to the admins than any other choice?

[Bytube]

What, in your opinion, makes you a better representative of the players to the admins than any other choice?

I'm better cuz I'm based as fuck lmao up top

In seriousness, I think that my wanting to help the community shape the game to what they want it to be is what would give me appeal. Cooperation and transparency between the playerbase, admin team, and coding/maintainer teams is something that I strive for to do this.

However I wouldn't really say I'm "better" than other candidates; everyone here has made good points and I feel that they would be competent in the role of headmin. Rather than say I'm better I'd say I have have some propositions that I think would interest the community that I haven't seen other candidates talk about doing.

[Arianya]

Pardon if I come off as blunt, but this thread seems a bit light on specifics and a bit heavy on broad strokes - You're a player of 5 years - presumably you have some specific gripes and things you dislike that you would like to see changed (everyone does, at some point or another) - but I don't see much that I could say to someone else is "Bytube's Platform"

- You want to represent the playerbase, and ensure the game heads in the direction the playerbase wants.

• But I'm not clear on what you think that direction is - I get it, you want to be flexible to suit the desires of the playerbase, but what direction or playerbase desire do you feel isn't being fulfilled as is?

- "Helping the community grow and be welcoming to newer players"

• I think very few people are ignorant of the need for new players, but you don't specify how you're going to help it grow. Tides are largely out of our control (unless you're a medium-size Youtuber/content creator on the side), and be more welcoming is something we try to do anyway with the wiki, guide pages, etc. So what do YOU want to do specifically?

- "Toxicity in general is a problem that needs tackling and I'd be happy to help scrub it out."

• I realize this topic is always pointy to deal with since no one wants "I would ban [person]" style discussions, but could you specify in what way you believe toxicity is not currently tackled?

- You mention in a follow up post that "Harassment, bigotry, and hostility between players is what I'd consider toxic."

• The first is already against the rules (and has been for a long time), the second is currently against the rules under the
  relatively recent but none the less extant Forum Rule 12/Discord Rule 12/In-game Rule 11 - the third is very much a subjective mire that I would like to hear specifics on. You want to be a headmin, a role that tends to attract no small amount of negative attention from within the community and outside it too, so knowing where your meter lies for "hostility" is important for electors.

- The coders have covered the player feedback aspect, though I also note that you've not specified how the non-code feedback will differ - we have Admin Feedback, Policy Discussion, Events Workshop areas with varying levels of use - what parts of these do you feel are lacking?

- "I'd also like to see more focus on maintaining the wiki."

• Another user pointed this out before me, but could you specify what you mean by this? Editing the wiki is something already available to most users (barring a very small number of protected pages). So what's your plan for focus? Incentives to edit the wiki? Stonewalling the coders on new features that don't have sufficient documentation? A solid idea here would be very nice.

Thanks for your time, and good luck with the election!