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Time Overhaul


Bandeth

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Hi folks, old retiree here.

 

For the longest time JAWA has had a slow reapply phase for applicants. If an applicant fails their trial, they're told they must reapply in 3 months. It always seemed a little harsh to me, since 3 months is 1/4 of a year. That's a long time to wait around and try to establish a reputation. Well, over a decade has passed and this policy is still the same. I wonder if anyone has thought about revisiting this and shortening it? I honestly feel like 1 month is plenty of time for somebody to be hanging around trying to join. 3 months is a bit discouraging.

 

On the subject of time, based on the Ranks page it still take the same amount of time to go through the ranks as it did over a decade ago (apart from the removal of the Adept rank, which was a change in the right direction imo). Has anyone considered shortening the time it takes to pass through the ranks? The game is getting older and older and I think ranking up faster would be a nice incentive that doesn't hurt anyone. 

 

Thoughts? 

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Just some preliminary thoughts—this is not speaking on behalf of the council, by any means!

 

I could have sworn we lowered the reapplication period to two months ages ago—I can't prove it, but I thought we did that ten years ago or more.  I think lowering it from three months is a good idea for the reason you said, Bandeth.  I'm not sure if one month is too soon, but my first thought is that we could try it—maybe on reflection or if someone else has a different take, I'll reconsider. 

 

I do think that three months would be appropriate if someone was involved in serious rule-breaking, i.e. being intentionally disruptive or hurtful toward others—not in the sense of losing one's temper and being rude, but really trying to cause damage—or certain other things like casual racism (again, I don't mean merely misjudging which word might be acceptable in some situations, or uttering a stereotype out of ignorance, but words intended to offend).

 

I also note that the waiting period has never applied to applicants who were denied due to inactivity.  For that we just need someone to become active again.

 

I see your point with ranks—and I agree to some extent, but I also think that for people who aren't expecting to join the council, running out of ranks after a short time in the clan and sitting at the same rank forever wouldn't be any fun either.  That's why I would prefer possibly increasing the number of ranks again—then it would make more sense for promotions to come faster, since there would still be more to earn in the time ahead.

 

Again, this isn't the council's opinion—I'm only speaking for myself, and I'm willing to listen to others whose opinions differ.

 

Helena

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I like the thought process. I'll give my initial thoughts in two bullet points, one for each suggestion:

 

  • For the first pointer about re-applying taking 3 months, I'd like to echo Helena's thoughts a little, with regards to the reasoning for an application being denied, to begin with. For starters, a trialist could very well have an application denied for reasons such as showing they're not a good fit i.e. heavy rule breaking, racism etc and I reckon in these cases, 3 months is ample amount of time for the trialist to better get to know who we are and show that they're ready to join our community, should they decide they still want to do so in the future. On the other hand, I agree, 3 months is quite a long time in the grand scheme of things, if you consider that someone could get denied membership because of something as simple as just their activity, which is something that may be out of their control. However, we already have a way to combat the activity side of things during a trial, first introduced as a role called Engagement Managers by Nightwing, with which I further expanded the definition for. These specific Councillors will reach out to said members with low activity during their trial and their trials are usually extended, to avoid any unnecessary re-applications in this instance (should they even respond). To that end, there may seem like loopholes where people may be caught in the 3 month waiting period without good reason. For example, someone goes inactive during a trial and doesn't respond to the Councillor when checking in with them. In this instance, we would usually discuss internally and upon finding out the trial's denial was due to inactivity, we'd allow them to simple reapply without unnecessary delays (assuming there's no other reason for the trial's denial). With that said, as a side note, if someone has attained membership at any point and then decided to leave the clan, they are free to reapply at any time, unless otherwise stated by the Council e.g. they were removed for rule breaking.

    Perhaps there are ways that this could be improved upon, as you suggested with lowering it all to 1 month wait time, irregardless of reasoning and then simpy discussing internally if we want to extend the wait time before reapplying, should the reasoning for being denied be justified, however I feel we can and are already doing that in essence already, by lowering re-application timeframes to those who don't need the 3 month wait period.


     
  • On to the second suggestion, as someone who hasn't progressed in rank for a long time now, my opinion is probably one that shouldn't really matter and this is something that may be better voted on by active members of the clan, rather than discussed by the Council alone i.e. asking questions such as "How do you feel about the current rank structure?" "Is there enough progression?" "Do you want more skill based ranks, other than the return of Elite/ Master? If so, what?" Afterwards, finding some way to implement people's suggestions for a way for them to better represent themselves and/ or progress through the ranking structure in a way that 1.) Doesn't create too much confusion to the ranking structure, 2.) Doesn't favour specific individuals and 3.) Doesn't lock anyone out of a specific avenue of progression. e.g. Nightwing's light and dark side Master ranks idea from the 'Pathways' restructure to the Elite trials.

    I'd like to think that more and faster promotions would encourage people to work their way up, to feel like they earned something, similar to ranking up in older Halo games compared to Halo Infinite's w/e they're doing now system is :L On the other hand, I like ranks that show long term loyalty as well, such as Lord, which would take 2 years to obtain and so once again, echoing Helena, I'd personally think if people really wanted this, more ranks would be in order to progress through as well.



    TL;DR To summarise everything, I know this seems like I'm just going a long and roundabout way of saying no to your suggestions, reading back up at what I've written, which isn't my intention. For the first suggestion, I personally think we already have a workaround that works well for the 3 month waiting period in a fair way by keeping communication open to new members and discussing individual cases internally. As for the second suggestion, I'd like to get more feedback from the clan regarding the current ranking structure and where people sit with it at the current moment. Perhaps this would make good homework for you, to make a poll topic in Central, perhaps @Bandeth?
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- To the first: Has anyone actually reapplied the past 2 years? I'm also personally indifferent to whatever is decided on this matter.

 

- To the second: I think adding filler ranks just to shorten the time between seems silly, but I'm not opposed to trimming a little bit of time somewhere. If someone want to test the idea I'll gladly accept the master rank. 😜

 

Also who's Bandeth? Can I ban him? 👀

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I would like to raise my hand and suggest something I have been thinking about in regards to the ranking structure. As nicely designed as it is - I am missing a Dark Path/Side ranking structure. My short suggestion is that we look into the availability for a member's choice of path upon entering the clan. This is something my old clan used, alongside assigning masters/instructors to their padawans/initiates. I won't write a bible to make it easier for folks to get my point but I endorse @Bandeth's idea of shortening the time in between rankups as well as @Helena Revan's suggestion to revisit the possibility of adding more ranks.

 

My suggestion to the cyan ranking structure overhaul is hence the following ( Light - Dark )

 

Padawan - Initiate (given upon entering)

Adept - Acolyte (given one month after receiving Pad/Ini, +- activity as per usual)

Jedi - Sith (given 2 months after receiving Adept/Acolyte, +- activity as per usual)

Knight - Knight (given 2 months after receiving Jedi/Sith, +- activity as per usual, no adjustments to rank names but still 2 pathways)

Duelist Duelist  (given 2 months after receiving Knight, +- activity as per usual, no adjustments to rank names but still 2 pathways)

Guardian - Guardian (given 3 months after receiving Knight, +- activity as per usual, no adjustments to rank names but still 2 pathways)

Should a member display extraordinary attitude, activity and participation in clubs and general duties as a member - said member should be able to pass the blue ranks within 8-12 months depending on leadership/councillor input/votes.

 

I am a big fan of structure and I therefore understand conservative voices from senior members of this clan would rather look away and stick to "what we are used to" and "why fix something that is not broken". But returning to the initial discussion here, and agreeing with what has been mentioned by you guys - this is my shot at suggesting a more effective system where people feel like promotions are coming a bit faster while also adding 2 ranks to the cyan board to balance things out a bit. Looking into timelines, I would also wish that Councillors really considers activity and participation when looking into early or late promotions (something that I belive is already in order, but more leniance towards structure depending on high activity and perfect attitude maybe?).

 

Will possibly return with a structure for Yellow ranks when I have good ideas.

Hope you all had a great weekend! ❤️

Edited by Rodiz
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I'd be down to make a poll sometime soon. I appreciate the clarification. 

 

I do want to point out that there are several threads where inactivity is the primary reason listed for the denial, yet they are still told "reapply in a few months" or 3 months. 

 

Examples:

 

 

 

I'm hearing from you all that the policy is to lessen the amount of months required to reapply if it's an inactivity thing, but if the applicants are being told in their thread that they have to wait a few months, that could lessen their interest in reapplying from the future. They don't know the exception exists.

 

 

 

 

As for ranks, keep the special ranks (like Lord) special, but lessening each of the cyan ranks by 1 month across the board is more so what I was thinking.

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As far as denials are concerned, I think that's just a matter of people forgetting to write something different when activity is the cause.  Having forms that populate automatically or that you can cut and paste into a message is a big time-saver, but it also makes it easy to overlook little details.  Maybe we just need to take a little more time to personalize each message.  There's no minimum time to reapply if you were inactive, but become active again—activity can be reassessed during the trial.  But for the time being, I'm on board with trying a shorter wait for those denied for other reasons.

 

Helena

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13 hours ago, Bandeth said:

I'm hearing from you all that the policy is to lessen the amount of months required to reapply if it's an inactivity thing, but if the applicants are being told in their thread that they have to wait a few months, that could lessen their interest in reapplying from the future. They don't know the exception exists.

 

You raise a good point about this loophole; I often skim past those pesky pre-filled boxes 🤡

 

Thanks for the heads up on that part

 

Apparently there is no pre-filled box for denials (I hate denying folks so I never do it myself and was about to edit it lmao). I shall pass on the feedback, instead ^^^

Edited by TheDoctor
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  • 1 month later...
2 hours ago, Deadrat said:

People rank up? I'm pushin' a year as padawan 😂. That being said I'm not as active as I was last year 

 

Listen you're just lucky I haven't just ban you for no particular reason.

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3 hours ago, Deadrat said:

People rank up? I'm pushin' a year as padawan 😂. That being said I'm not as active as I was last year 

 

We're aware

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Simple solutions could work better, for example the reapplication period bring UP TO a certain number of months, which can be at the discretion of whoever denied the application (like a range), which can be higher or lower depending on the circumstances of the denial.

 

A trial could also be given the possibility of being extended or paused, again given certain conditions which could be decided later.

 

Things like rulebreaking, declared inactivity and overall behavior could be factored in, as well as the number of reapplications in the past.

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