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Goonstation RP Survey
#1
Hi everyone! The admin team is running a survey regarding the RP server, and we'd love for you all to share your thoughts and feedback. You can access the survey here, and it'll be open for at least a week.
If you have any questions or concerns, please let either Azungar or me know queen greater domestic space-bee
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#2
Will the results be public? I'm curious about the responses.
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#3
(07-04-2019, 12:12 AM)polivilas Wrote: Will the results be public? I'm curious about the responses.

Yep, all the statistics will be made public, and we'll also summarize the responses to the rest of the questions and lay out the most important points!
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#4
This survey has officially closed. Please be patient with us as we go over the responses and write up an announcement with our findings and where we'd like to go from there.
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#5
Any news? It has been almost a month.
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#6
Two months, now. It's still being worked on, right? A little bit of reassurance would be nice.
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#7
Three months: Tabula rasa.
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#8
Survey from last decade: responses still not summed up.
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#9
That's a pretty funny joke Polivilas, have you considered signing up for clown?

Anyways, I sincerely apologize for the lack of communication on my part. There was a RP response doc shared on Discord, but not everyone has seen it or is on there, so I'll just post the main points here.

Overview

Hi everyone! A little while back, we invited players from our RP server to take a survey on their thoughts and feelings about the state of the server. This is going to be detailing the responses and what we’ve learned, and also how we as admins feel and want to do better on.

First, we’d like to share some key findings or points that we’ve observed from the responses. I’ll separate them into bullet points for easier reading, and include any accompanying graphics in spoiler tags.
  • We have lots of new players, but fewer longtime ones, indicating that we have a high turnover rate. This makes sense, given that we’ve experienced multiple “dead” periods where players leave or aren’t compelled to play (very likely as part of the self-perpetuating lowpop), until new players, brought by whatever external forces (the latest one being a Youtuber), populate the server again. 
  • We have a wide spread of casual and more invested players. There are many who play for just a couple hours a week, while there are many who play a lot more! 
  • A good proportion of our players aren’t satisfied with its current state. I think many of us may have already recognized this, but it’s great to have the data. 
  • Also unsurprisingly for many, new players can be somewhat divisive. More on this later.
  • As we all know, population matters. As mentioned earlier, there’s often a lowpop feedback loop, where there aren’t many players on, and so more players aren’t compelled to join, and so there aren’t many players on, and… You get the point. 
  • What players all across the board seem to like about the RP server include: the RP (unsurprisingly), the more relaxed server atmosphere, and the friendly welcoming players. Keep it up!
  • What players all across the board seem to dislike about the RP server include: those who break RP (or are low effort doing the bare minimum), powergamers, and low population and lack of things happening. This all is pretty expected.
  • What makes a fun player? Everyone seems to agree that fun players roleplay, are engaging, and are willing to play along. While this may seem obvious, it’s actually not super easy to be like this all the time! Add in the fact that much of roleplay and “fun” is often subjective, and you’ll get lots of different characterizations from  these same ideals. Personally, I’d add that fun players play in good faith and give things their best shot. 
  • What makes an unfun player? Everyone also seems to agree that unfun players don’t roleplay, engage in validhunting, or have a bad attitude in general. This isn’t a definitive list, but there does seem to be this general consensus. More on what a “bad attitude” is like later. 
  • People like silly and creative events that bring everyone together
  • Generally people are okay with the current rules, besides a few minor changes
  • Most important issues: not RP’ing and the lowpop
  • What would compel people to play more: higher pop and more sincere RP'ers
  • Players mainly just want admins to be present and to enforce the rules (and maybe do some interesting things)
  • People are very split on respawning after dying
Admin Responses 

Gerhazo Wrote:I have probably never played on the roleplay server prior to becoming an admin, whereas now I hop on it occasionally to resolve ahelps and/or monitor it. Of course, the server itself follows an extended ruleset and attempting to enforce rules on it without having an understanding of them or the server's culture would be nonsensical and I've spent a considerable amount of time reading through the ruleset, observing rounds and situations that were deemed in violation of the rules as well as the handling of them by the other staff. I've spent a considerable amount of time and effort to understand what's expected of the players on the server, however many people don't want to go through this tedious process, which shows itself in various levels of incidents from people who try to get the hang of the server's culture just through playing(which isn't a fully unreasonable approach if you are careful and avoid drastic actions), to those just blatantly disregarding the server's rules, culture and treating it like the regular non-rp server. At the same time, there's quite a few people who would be fully capable of following the rules, but their respectful mindset prevents them from joining the server as they feel pressured and afraid of causing trouble, despite probably being the perfect fit for the server.
I feel that despite the roleplay rules pop-up's existence, it either doesn't fully express the importance of the roleplay server's rules and the higher standard expected of players or a lot of these players knowingly choose to overlook it.
There's also a significant issue I've noticed of some specific players very consistently appearing in adminhelps. Although they technically aren't clearly breaking the rules in most of the investigated incidents, their manner of playing verges on rule-breaking and clearly detracts from other players' enjoyment and should probably be looked at and the offending players being spoken with(which I hope to execute from this point onwards).
In summary I feel that the importance of the roleplay rules should be, if possible without making them threatening, made more clear with the offer to join #2 for those who don't wish to appreciate them and the players who blatantly violate them should receive stricter punishment, especially if they were to be repeat offenders. Though that approach also bothers me because there's an amount of people who are uncomfortable/afraid of joining the server despite being a great fit for it because of the additional rules and this approach could perpetuate that issue. Additionally, notorious players with a negative reputation who are constantly pushing the boundaries of the rules should be thoroughly investigated when a pattern(such as repeated ahelps involving them) is noticed and have severe warnings or disciplinary actions issued against them.

Flourish Wrote:Honestly, I feel bad for neglecting the server, but there's only so much I can do as a single admin, and there's only so much time I have to allocate between playing/adminning/coding/etc. If I observe and respond to adminhelps for a few hours, that usually drains my motivation to play, especially on RP. One thing that many of you are asking for is more admins active on the RP server, and I think that's a very fair and reasonable request. Honestly, in general, we don't have that many administratively active admins, and out of the ones that are, only a handful are familiar or comfortable dealing with RP server issues, since they can be kinda foreign. Obviously, then, the two solutions are making admins more comfortable with and invested in the RP server, and also adding new admins.
I totally recognize and understand the issues with the server, but I don't really have a good solution to most of those things either. I think instead of expecting big changes all at once, we should work on small changes first, and slowly move towards our ideal of how things should be. Player culture and players themselves are definitely the two most important things to me; without those this server wouldn't exist. I know that there have been many players who disregard the rules or put in the least amount of effort possible, and I'm also frustrated. The thing is, though, we can't deal with those people if you don't report them. I've said this many times, but please adminhelp things even if you're not certain or aren't sure. No one should yell at you for "misleading reports" or "misusing adminhelp" if you're just using it out of good faith. There have been many times where I see people complaining in Discord about someone's behavior, but there aren't any ahelps, and it makes me sad that people either aren't comfortable enough reporting things, or simply don't care enough to. I know that this is a give and take relationship, though, so with asking you all to help keep the server fun and well, I'd also like to promise greater admin transparency and accountability. At the end of the day we're the ones making (or not making) executive decisions, and I know that sometimes we're disappointing or frustrating with what we do (or don't do). I'd like for us to be more open about our thoughts and plans and where we see this server going, and I'd also like you all holding us accountable. Again, our players are the most important part of the server, so we should definitely listen to what you have to say and be honest with you. This isn't to say that we'll do everything everyone wants, but we do want the development of this server to be communal. With more input, we can better shape our vision of how the server and its culture should be going forward, and better do the things that are necessary for that to happen.

Stats

Out of 78 responses...

"How satisfied are you with the current state of the RP server?"
Very satisfied: 7
Satisfied: 42
Neutral: 17
Dissatisfied: 10
Very dissatisfied: 2

"How do you think new players impact the existing RP community?"
Very positively: 16
Positively: 31
Neutral: 25
Negatively: 6
Very negatively: 0

"How much does the population of the RP server influence your decision to play?"
A little: 24
A fair amount: 40
A lot: 14

"How much does who's online influence your decision to play?"
A little: 48
A fair amount: 18
A lot: 12

Keep in mind that this write-up is a bit outdated, and that the culture on the RP server and how people might feel has changed. 

For me personally, I honestly didn't know what to do with this survey, or to what extent I could change things. It's nice getting feedback, and it's nice feeling heard, but it's difficult to focus on what's actually actionable and achievable. That had a lot to do with the delayed (and still kinda incomplete) results, and I'm sorry I let the players down like this. I think that for the future, it's worthwhile to focus on incremental improvements and communication + transparency, as opposed to ideas of wide-sweeping reforms or what have you. Though, even that is tough. A lot of what Zungy has been doing for the server has been great, and I guess I'll try my best to be like that!
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