Star Ambassador Data Questions

[Carebear]

Before moving into the body of this post, I have short preamble to thank everyone involved in bringing us this enhancement.

Before moving into the preamble of this post, this short preface to the preamble is to apologize for any omissions in the preamble.

I want to thank the site owner, all the developers, all the moderators, all the support personnel, and all the sponsors for their time and money in helping bring us this great new enhancement (as well as the continued maintenance and existence of this site). This appreciation (like improvement suggestions) should in no way be construed as a slight against the prior state of the site. Additionally, I want to thank all of the players that spend their time here making this a large community where games are always starting. Plus, ABC (MHRIP) for inventing Diplomacy. Also, Edi for his 50 years in the hobby. Therefore, you all rock!

Though a lot of discussion I have heard around reliability focused on surrenders and NMRs, it is awesome that messaging activity was able to be included as it is a fundamental part of the game. A couple of quick questions:

1. The announcements mentioned 20% of the membership met the Ambassador class criteria, what is the percentage for Star Ambassadors?
2. In the Q&A regarding the new player classes, it was mentioned that the messaging data was modeled. If the data has been kept, would it be possible to post whatever meta-data is available? It would be interesting to see such things like range, mode, mean, median, and correlation to ratings, length of membership, and such.

Of course you knew it was coming (I couldn't help myself)...

I noticed that the player statistics page has been updated as part of this enhancement. I assume as part of this enhancement there was some discussion in the back room about adding an accumulator display for messaging, like there is for NMRs, to this page. If this was discussed and since this was not done, would it be possible to post the reasons against including this feature in the enhancement?

I ask this question as when trying to fill games with Star Ambassadors, there may not be enough ready to play a new game to get a new game going in a timely manner. But with access to the messaging rate, players who are near to that criteria could be included into games.

Again, thank you all for bringing this wonderful enhancement.

[bindlestiff]

I heartily second Carebear's thanks, and would like to add that I am constantly impressed (too tame a word actually) by the dedication and imagination of the folks whose efforts make playing Diplomacy on this site such a pleasure.

The feature Carebear has suggested would certainly be nice to have. Another nice feature would be the ability to generate a list, on demand, of Star Ambassador players and Ambassador players. This would serve a purpose identical to the list of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Classical members, i.e., one could quickly identify who has achieved these exalted ranks. Unlike the Classicist rankings, however, which do not change frequently, the Ambassador/Star Ambassador classifications would probably be more fluid, thus the idea of being able to generate a list upon request, rather than publishing a static list from time to time.

Regardless of whether this feature is implemented or not, kudos once again to all involved in adding yet another enhancement to what is already an outstanding user experience.

[super_dipsy]

Star Ambassador percentage is small. There are around 100 in total. Hence we do not at this time plan to make Star Ambassadors a formal class - 100 is not enought o have people able to find games easily.

The messaging stuff is rather hairy. Without some fairly major re-indexing (or a much more sensible data structure) we can't risk opening it up to statistics usage. I know you want to be able to slice and dice data in true BI fashion, but it is just not something we can do. Site performance would suffer unless we made extensive changes with things like regular ETL staging and/or mirrored databases.

This is one of the key factors also in not providing this info in the Statistics display. But I think you misunderstand the purpose of Star Ambassador. A Star Ambassador is not someone who struggles to achieve the desired level of messaging to get the Star. A Star Ambassador is a Diplomacy player who as a matter of course uses a lot of communications in the way they play the game. In a a sense, providing people with an indicator to help them cross the boundary would actually be counter-productive. It would encourage people who are NOT natural Diplomacy communicators to masquerade as such.

Yes the current number of Star Amnbassadors means it will be difficult to get a game of Stars. That is why it is not a class. But if people wish to do it, then a forum post to gather interested parties will quickly determine whether a game can be got running or not.

However, please feel free to raise the idea in Suggestions

[super_dipsy]

I am not sure what purpose a list serves. If you are an Ambassador and want to play a game with other Ambassadors, just create an Ambassadors only game. The whole point is that you do NOT have to work from a list. Instead you can use the same mechanisms we sue for normal games. More than a thousand Ambassadors is enough (I believe) to fill games without needing lists

I can see perhaps you might want a list of Star Ambassadors, but I don't really see why if you are a Star Ambassador and want to play with others you would not advertise it as you normally would, on the forum.

But it could be added I suppose. As I said to Carebear, if people want enhancements then raise them in Suggestions

[Carebear]

Thank you super_dipsy for all the work and quick response!

Star Ambassador percentage is small. There are around 100 in total. Hence we do not at this time plan to make Star Ambassadors a formal class - 100 is not enough to have people able to find games easily.

[...]

Yes the current number of Star Ambassadors means it will be difficult to get a game of Stars. That is why it is not a class. But if people wish to do it, then a forum post to gather interested parties will quickly determine whether a game can be got running or not.

Oh wow, that is small. Makes perfect sense.

The messaging stuff is rather hairy. Without some fairly major re-indexing (or a much more sensible data structure) we can't risk opening it up to statistics usage. I know you want to be able to slice and dice data in true BI fashion, but it is just not something we can do. Site performance would suffer unless we made extensive changes with things like regular ETL staging and/or mirrored databases.

BI, ETL, you are speaking my language! I see, too bad. If you already have a dataset that you did extract and from which you already generated some graphs and metadata for your analysis, could some of it be posted?

But I think you misunderstand the purpose of Star Ambassador. A Star Ambassador is not someone who struggles to achieve the desired level of messaging to get the Star. A Star Ambassador is a Diplomacy player who as a matter of course uses a lot of communications in the way they play the game.

I completely understood. Of course, now that it is out there some may see it as something to achieve regardless. If communication does correlate well with ratings success, then still others might seek to improve their communication (which would not be a bad thing). Though, increased communication is not necessarily better communication.

In a a sense, providing people with an indicator to help them cross the boundary would actually be counter-productive. It would encourage people who are NOT natural Diplomacy communicators to masquerade as such.

I thought perhaps that might be one of the reasons.

Thanks again for the response!

[bindlestiff]

Yup, makes perfect sense.

[donaldworrell]

Ok I need to ask a question.

Star ambassador need to send 5 messages per turn.

Question : what is a turn ?

Spring and fall ?

Or
Spring ,retreat,build,fall,retreat,build ?

[super_dipsy]

I posted earlier in the thread the following in response to a similar question from Carebear.

But I think you misunderstand the purpose of Star Ambassador. A Star Ambassador is not someone who struggles to achieve the desired level of messaging to get the Star. A Star Ambassador is a Diplomacy player who as a matter of course uses a lot of communications in the way they play the game. In a a sense, providing people with an indicator to help them cross the boundary would actually be counter-productive. It would encourage people who are NOT natural Diplomacy communicators to masquerade as such.

To be perfectly honest, I cannot remember exactly which turns are included in the code - I suspect it will be Spring and Fall Orders only, but I may be wrong . But as the quote implies, I actually feel it is best if the 'line' is vague . Star Ambassadorship is not something you manage to achieve; it is simply a crude reflection of people who communicate a lot. A true Star Ambassador will have no problem at all reaching the limit and indeed exceeding it; that was one reason the limit was chosen to be what it is.

An interesting observation seems to confirm that we have this right. We have had about a 20% increase in the number of Ambassadors since we started this; this is good news for all players because it means more players are not surrendering or NMRing much. But the number of Star Ambassadors has only increased by the odd one or two new players, showing that it is something inherent in the way the person plays rather than a target to be achieved.