RP grading methods (slightly ranty)

Okay, this is only partially a suggestion, so that's why I put it here. It's also going to be a tad ranty, so warning. I'm not going to candy wrap this, I'm getting a bit annoyed by the Grading process here. It's the kind of process that can only be neutral or bad. At best, you get your reward as you've planned for. At worst, you're given an "I don't like it, redo it."

Personally, due to a mental problem or ten, I find myself almost completely incapable of redoing things to a certain degree. But in an RP when I get to the end and feel good about it and it gets graded with "You didn't RP it how I thought you should have. Redo all these parts." I actually start to feel resentment. It makes me lose interest in the RPs and by connection, the forum. We don't have enough RPers that we can start alienating them by saying "Your grammar and spelling were off in a few posts. Go back and fix those or else you get nothing." (That's actually happened to me for my Fire temple run, mind you)

There's a certain line between hobby and class. This is starting to move itself into being class. A project is fun and everything, but you start to really get pissed at the teacher when they force you to redo things for nitpicky, stupid reasons. RPing is about story writing. Not "Who has the best grammar and spelling of them all?" 

An alternative I would suggest is actually being graded and given rupees based on how good the RPing is. (mind you, this isn't English skills, it's based on the RPing. Acting in character, realistic, etc) If someone spits out extremely short posts with zero grammar skills, their punishment is that people won't want to RP with them. 

Now, I fully realize everyone's going to be pissed at me for posting this, but whatever. I think it needs to be a bit changed, because at this point the forum is becoming just another English classroom.

I'm not staff, and therefore anything I say has no sort of authority, but you raise an important point, and, since I may, I'd like to add a bit to the discussion. I'd like to make a point, though, in saying that while I think the staff may have made an error in your particular incident, I do not speak for them and am happy to concede points they may bring up.

Okay, so the meat of the issue. I think you made a very strong point:

I think pretty much 90% of all issues right now can be defaulted back to this point: roleplay should be supported and not hindered when possible. The unfortunate case, though, is that since HC was birthed out of a larger site with a lot more people trying to... push the limits, some rules were instated (or some systems made) that haven't translated as well as would be preferred. That is, of course, why the suggestion box is here, so I'm glad you brought this up, because I agree with you.

However, in your case with the Fire Temple, I believe the rules were applied perhaps a bit erroneously. The rule in question is, of course:

Okay, so the rule itself put the most emphasis on the very last sentence, and rightly so, and I think in your case a little too much focus was made by the staff on the "Was written decently enough" aspect. I agree with the way the rule is written (and consequently with you yourself) about the focus of the grading process, and I'm incredibly appreciative you endured through it anyway.

I would, though, like to take a very brief moment to talk about the mod in question. (As a bit of an aside, so I'll spoiler it because it's not 100% related to the general issue)

Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler

Quill is HC's most recent mod, and he's been put into a bit of a tough spot at an interesting time for the site. Since taking the role he's done a ton of the manual work (grading, accepting, and so forth) and so I feel like the site is absolutely indebted to him for his awesome work so far. But let it be understood, though: being a mod is a hard job, especially when you don't have a very authoritative admin (in our instance, Guy or Toko) easily on hand to ask how to address an issue.

It's possible some skin gets rubbed because of that, but if possible I'd ask you continue to (as you have already) extend him the benefit of the doubt, because he certainly takes the best interests of the site very seriously and with the best measures he can offer. It's in Quill's nature to be "nitpicky" and very thorough, and I can see why he would've felt obligated to do a bit of "quality control" via grammar and punctuation and such. In most situations, though, this has helped him (and us) a lot, and it's vital to the daily operations of the site.

On a more personal note, as someone who has modded before, I absolutely hated having to go "You've gotta fix this" and then when they do that you realize it hasn't been fully taken care of and you have to ask them to go back to it. It really sucks, and no one enjoys it. This happens a lot, especially in the character creation aspect, but the mods are still obligated to have to make sure everything lines up all right.

Alright, so the question is definitely, then: what do we do?

I think it's important to note that the frustration you're describing hasn't happened very often, at least with roleplaying threads. Most RP threads don't get finished on HC in the first place, but when they do it usually goes by without the incident that happened to you. (If you have more examples though, I think they'd definitely be valuable to bring up)

However, in the case of a potential recurrence, you brought up the possibility of grading based on quality of the RP, not on grammar/punctuation. This is a really awesome idea, and I've actually brought it up personally with some of the staff before.

The issue with it right now, though, is that that sort of evaluation could range all across the board. An analysis Toko gave of a thread might be completely different than say one Eev did. More importantly, though, it would probably differ largely with what the roleplayer thought about the thread. While it's frustrating to be told to go back and fix your grammar or spelling, I feel like it could get even crazier if you finished a thread and someone told you "You weren't in character enough, *try* and fix it or better luck next time."

RP is definitely a process that if you want to be bettered in it, you need to seek that yourself, and a mandatory totally subjective opinion that decides if your 2 months of RP means anything could be bad... I would love to see a system where people could opt-in to being graded that way, though.

So here's my very, very personal opinion about how I think it should (and I feel like it has historically been done this way, for the most part) handled. Referring to the original rule:

"Above anything, it should be clear that the role-players put some effort into it and the thread was not a headlong rush towards the rewards."

That is the focus, and I personally don't think the clause about how-well-written it is, as was originally intended, really applies to anyone currently roleplaying here. I think it's main purpose is to guard us from completely thoughtless RP, not to make everyone here live up to the standard of individual staff opinions in every aspect.

So anyway, coming full circle, I think your point about hindering roleplay vs. supporting it is the most important thing. We want good roleplay, yeah, but that's really hard to gauge and it needs to be done on a member-by-member basis -- it's not the current responsibility of the staff.

Tl;dr

As far as RP threads go, I think it'll be all right. Mistakes were made (yada yada yada) but it's an important thing to bring up. Also sorry for the length ;_;

I actually agree with Tsu here. We're an international group RPing- not a bunch of native speakers writing a novel meant for public release. Personally I'm more nitpicky with my own grammar when writing for my novel than when RPing, since it's supposed to be casual. And while I agree that atrocious grammar can be a bother when you're reading an RP, it doesn't determine the quality of an RP (or character) all by itself.

For example, an Asian friend of mine is an experienced RPer who comes up with good plots for both characters and separate RPs, and is in fact so good we want him as a beta-er for an ongoing project, but due to his non-native speaker status, his English can be horrible. If someone like him gets told to 'do it over' because of something he can't help, that doesn't sit well with some people for understandable reasons.

Grading and rewards based on performance already happens, just not on HC, and works just fine. The only problem is that it can take a while if done by a slow mod, but it's better than having to stomach bad criticism (which personally makes me want to 'close the chapter' as I say it) and then having to go back and fix things. If the criticism is actually something substantial (like me slacking off on the White Wolfos fight in Canine Cold, which I admit had me worried as well), I can eventually set myself to getting over myself and do something about that.

When it's my grammar, which you can't EXPECT to be perfect because, well, I've spoken Dutch for nineteen years and not English, it kinda rubs me the wrong way and makes me go, forgive the choice of words, 'screw this.'

First off, thank you for posting this, Tsu. We need to hear things like this, otherwise the problem's never going to be fixed. Also, thanks for the nice words, Rib. :)

Yes, Tsu, grading should be about effort and the RP, not about grammar. But we can't say that grammar is unimportant. When I point something out, it's because if I don't the problem will continue. I guess I'm hoping that by pointing it out, the recipient will improve. If you'll remember, I put a huge spoiler tag in one of your characters, nitpicking everything. I even called it Really Picky Stuff (or something similar). This isn't because I thought your thread was bad; it was because I thought that your character was good, and I didn't want the simple grammatical mistakes to mar it. I stated, directly after the spoiler tag, that I wouldn't withhold acceptance because of anything in the tag. If I did withhold acceptance of the Fire Temple because of grammar, well, that was wrong of me. I should of said, "here's how you can improve. It's not necessary, it's your choice if you want to listen, but if you want help, it's here." I'm trying to grade based on effort and "heart," not "zomg their grammar is ATROCIOUS." My point, then, is that grading is not, and never should be, centered on grammar. It should be an afterthought, a normal "you have a problem here, here's how you can fix it."

Your point about "you didn't write this the way I thought you should have." When has this ever happened? In Canine Cold, I said that because the quest criteria firmly stated something that wasn't followed. In the Fire Temple, I said that the thread would have fit better into a normal RP than a Classic Dungeon. I do not grade by saying, "this is what I thought it should be. This is what you did. They're too different, go change it." I don't think anyone has done this, nor has anyone ever done this. If they have, then we were wrong, and I apologize profusely on our behalf.

Finally, the idea of rewards based on the quality of the RP. Frankly, I think this is an awful idea. Not only would it create hostility between roleplayers, but it would also make people feel horrible about themselves when they don't get a super-awesome reward. It would be, as you said, about as far from encouraging as you can get. I think that the reward system is fine the way it is. And, how would one even go about making a grading system, for a site so diverse as this? It would end up being a vague goodness scale, which would be both awful to grade and even worse to receive. You put months of effort into something, and receive a "meh, this was a fine RP" review. I don't want to write it, and no-one wants to read it. If you do have a better system, then please put it forward. I would love to hear any and all suggestions that you might have.

I think I addressed everything. There was a lot of stuff in your three posts, and I'm not sure if I missed anything. If I did leave any of your points unaddressed, or if anything I said was confusing, then please tell me. Thank you. :)

Oh, and if there ever is any negative, non-constructive criticism, then that's not the system's fault, that's the mod's fault. If I, or anyone else, ever gives anything but constructive criticism, then we need to be told ASAP so we can improve our methods. Thanks!

Thanks for the quick responses guys; I’m pretty sure you nailed all the points given. Now, with regards to any ideas, I’ve always got an idea or two kicking around. For example, on the forum that BP and I hail from, the grading process is like… Wait, it’s faster to just link you, actually. http://forums.feplanet.net/index.php?showtopic=47699

Pretty much what this is saying is that the rupees earned would be impacted by how well you RP. As a decent example, what if the set reward was lowered to say… 30. And then have the grading points go up to a max of 30 more rupees. Only ten rupees higher than usual, but it also rewards good rping. That way, there’s thirty rupees you can bank on, along with whatever extra reward from the last thread.

Also, I’m not saying use that exact rubric, as it’s more suited to 3-5 person rps, which there aren’t too many of here. Making a rubric though wouldn’t be TOO hard and I could help if wanted. I’m kinda leaning towards that possibility, but I’m probably biased, having used the system before.

Might as well throw my hat in the ring here, so on topic: for Tsu's idea that grading should be tiered based on quality of RP, there's two things, first: to a degree it already is, members receive an extra PWC point for each of their characters, the ability to have an extra major treasure for each character, access to more races, et cetera (while this isn't a case-by-case basis, it still rewards good RPing); second: doing so could alienate roleplayers as well, imagine if a person new to rollplaying, especially if they also had a poor grasp of the English language (kinda BP's point), were to join and be subjected to that system: he/she would see the other RPers being rewarded more for equal or less effort, because of their experience in RPing and English; this would likely cause the person to lose interest and quit.

As for grammar, it's not really that important. Really, it should be a side suggestion unless it actually makes the writing difficult to understand. For example, take my first paragraph, it has 147 words, 4 colons, 2 semi-colons, 12 commas... and only one period. The entire first paragraph is a run-on of extreme proportions, and most English classes would fail a paper with such sentence in it. Yet, most people on here could probably understand it first read through, and so should be accepted. Hell, I even left a misspelling of "roleplaying" in it (rollplayers*), I doubt anyone would get confused on that. Many might not even notice the massive grammatical, punctual, and spelling mistakes because it still gets the point across well.

As a final point, the reason grammar may have seemed so important was a specific active mod *coughQuill* may have come across as demanding improvement or not passing was because it threw all demands and criticisms together, such as asking us to RP getting the rewards in the quest and pointing out grammatical errors in the same sentence. Thus, it`s likely just a misunderstanding.

Waitwut? when did I say it would have mostly a basis in use of English language? If anything the thing I've been pushing for the whole time has been making it LESS based about English mastery. With that system I mentioned, BP and my Asian friend has been able to get levels just as effective as everyone else, if not faster because he's a very good RPer. I don't see how this alienates people >.>

I'm confused on this as well Raz. Our poorly English-speaking friend is on a completely different PLANET when it comes to levelling. The system we're used to only punishes poor English if you're a hopeless case.

Eev, Quill: I understand your point about grading based on performance possibly making people feel bad if someone gets a better grading than them, but really, I dread gradings regardless of the used system. Actually with 'fix it or you get nothing' I dread gradings a little more because like I said, if I get bad comments on an RP I can just let it rest without having to remind myself of my own retardation by seeing the errors again.

Just me though. If others gave their two cents maybe we could get a better idea of the general consensus.