development by democracy (in Debates)

some of the recent threads have gotten me to thinking about this topic. i wanted to start a discussion on whether people truly believe this could work or not? not so much in relation to cb but just in general could such a thing even be possible?

i do not see how it could ever work because even when, as a community, we agree that there is an issue, there is rarely agreement on how to remedy said issue. this also is just taking into account a vocal minority, i believe that most of the people in any community have an opinion while only a few declare their opinion.

i think the only way a game can do well is the way cb was done for years. we pretty much had to trust jon's vision. he didn't ever really state that vision but we could see, with each change what direction that vision would lead us.

now that we have a bit larger of a team we aren't really sure whose vision is actually driving the game (part of the frustration perhaps?) i have come to the conclusion that it doesn't really matter if it is jon or others, it all ends up the same as we just have to pick up hints of the overall vision through changes.

i still trust the vision driving the game. my pet peeve hasn't been addressed (uc) but hopefully it will in the future.

what is your opinion?

Before I begin discussion/debate, are we talking direct democracy, representative democracies, democracies combined with some ruler like a president? Can we tease out "democracy" a little more?

user poll I assume

defining a specific type of democracy would likely take care of some of the issues, but let's start with the most simplistic basis, should a game be developed by users or some fixed development team?

a team could be one person or a dozen. we can all likely agree that any dev team should listen to its users but i am speaking more of an active development role.

if you propose that the inmates can run the asylum as i have often joked, you can certainly get more specific on the type of democracy you envision as being necessary to be successful.

Dev team, more reasons to come.

Even if you decide what level of majority (51%, 66%, etc) you want to have to make a decision you still won't make everyone happy, including the people who vote for the changes.
The fact is that the vast majority of CBers do not sufficiently understand the complex interactions of the game components in order to make informed technical decisions.

There is no harm (and possibly a reasonable amount of good) that comes from making a well thought out suggestion. We should, however, bear in mind we do not have all the information that others do in this situation and may be unaware of the consequences of what we suggest.

I trust that the people who make decisions here do so with the long term wellness of the game in mind. I have to. The alternative would be the anxious hand wringing and stress over things I cannot control, and to be honest, would probably screw up if I did.

To quote Oscar Wilde:
"In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."

...and perhaps we will suggest a cure worse than the disease...

CB needs a suggestion box that some problem solving people can read and compile ways to solve the most pressing issues. When there are some potential fixes then they should be presented to the community, or to whoever makes the final decision (NS I'm guessing, and his board of advisors) and possibly the community too.

I like this revolutionary thinking =)

I like the idea of checks and balances. Evolution put them in place in the human brain, communities put them in place in governments...
CB should make use of them in our post-revolutionary govt.

Done it, announcing this however been identified as problematic.
So far we've created enough work that those able to do development are quite busy...

One of my reasons, good call Loch. Secondly I'm assuming that Loch is referring to the vast complexity of CB as a game. While this is a simple text based game, the amount of repercussions for small changes in balance are vast. So, I will cover some of the other reasons why small dev teams are better:

1) Speed, as with government, one of the reasons for having one ruler is quick and easy decision making. This was one of the reasons the United States has a president, also, empires in the past often favored kings because in times of war, it benefited to have a single cohesive mind planning out the attacks.

2) Understanding, often people who are not developers don't comprehend what is possible or is not possible in this type of field. Some things they believe would be nearly possible to implement are actually really easy, and vice versa. Developers, however, especially those who wrote the source code and have an overall idea of how the game runs can understand how difficult/long items to be implemented will take.

3) Agreeableness, Loch alluded to this slightly, but CB as a whole will never agree. Maybe 50-60% could come to an agreement, but very few topics will CB ever get a collective agreement of anywhere near 90%. If decisions were past through and implement democratically, it would create a vast schism in CB, and work against the community building we have worked hard for.

4) Finally, I can't think of a word for this, but I'm going to go with Responsibility/Stakeholder. The owners of this game have the most stake in it by far. Any profit that is made, good/bad reputation, all goes toward them. As such, they should be an integral part of the decision making. Secondly, the dev team, speaking strictly about CB here, is responsible for all the changes. Until CB come together and collectively collects a few thousand dollars to higher a coder, and convinces Nightstrike to agree to it, this will continue. As such, they too should be a big part of the decision making. If you anger the developers and owners, CB will take a hit. It would lose a lot of its financial support as well as the coders it depends on.

This is pretty CB specific, but I think it could be applied to most games/companies. Take Blizzard, and Starcraft 2. A lot of the people that play SC2 are tards (sorry b.net users), and cry for nerfs 24/7. If blizzard tried to run as a pure democracy, it would be a lot slower than it already is getting out updates, also, the game would be significantly worse ( I know that's hard to believe Pit ).

For the most part, I agree with Titan.

I say a fixed dev team. The best reason of which has the ba increase thread for an example. Fighting like that over every design decision is just going to destroy the community.

I say down with users! Inasmuch as participation here is a choice: You want it some other way, create one for yourself. Your membership in the community is entirely voluntary: Play or go away! If this isn't the game you want to play, don't!

Plus, they never know what they're talking about and are always offering transparently self-interested "suggestions" -- usually in the form of strident demands complete with threats.

I'd kiss you Bast, but I've tasted bitter insanity before. Terrible stuff.

Supporters have a right to vote sound good?
I think the community should have a say in some of the major community implementations while the majority of the game-breaking information is held up top and such. I'm sleepwalking trolling now.

The development-by-democracy thing has been tried before; in fact, it's most of the whole point of the MMO "A Tale in the Desert".

http://atitd.com/

Players can petition for an implementation or rule change; the petition is voted on game-wide, and the developers implement it.

Of course there are a few ground rules, but less than you'd think. It makes for some interesting social dynamics.

hi frod! ; )