Dipsters.org Forum » Tag: GM

Dipsters.org Forum » Tag: GM - Recent Posts http://www.dipsters.org/forum/tags/gm First please read the post, "Welcome! Using the Forum". en-US Sun, 05 Sep 2010 04:02:27 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 <![CDATA[Search]]> q http://www.dipsters.org/forum/search.php Chris Babcock on "Dipsters - Revisited" http://www.dipsters.org/forum/topic/dipsters-revisited#post-219 Tue, 22 Jun 2010 19:53:07 +0000 Chris Babcock 219@http://www.dipsters.org/forum/ I think that installing the Wordpress Email Notification Plugin could go a long way towards settling the issue about returning to Yahoogroups. I have some experience also with the negativity of which the "old guard" judge hobby is no less capable than any other community. I can't speak for other judgekeepers, but I can confirm that I would be a poor choice to follow Alan Mennel as Dipsters leader. I am thoroughly overcommitted and actively pruning activities outside my core. Practically speaking that would mean I would set up a dedicated judge for Dipsters with automated creation of club games and tight integration with Dipsters accounts on floc.net... and the less I did after that, the better. I just wouldn't have the time to be both innovative and sensitive to the existing culture if I take any more on. I do agree that the nomination of Alan's replacement should be soonest. Although it would be good if there could be a transitional period, if Alan has health concerns then that need to be respected. Alan Mennel on "Dipsters - Revisited" http://www.dipsters.org/forum/topic/dipsters-revisited#post-215 Tue, 22 Jun 2010 16:35:06 +0000 Alan Mennel 215@http://www.dipsters.org/forum/ When I think of the many great games and the past camaraderie within this group, I have to say that Dipsters is a great group. Although most of our members are skilled in this game, virtually all of our members (whether skilled or not) are respectful of other members and just fun to play with. Still we do not seem to be as vibrant a group as we were. Is it the fault of switching to dipsters.org from YAHOO! Groups? I am not so sure. If you look at the number of messages on all the Diplomacy Groups on YAHOO Groups, you will see that the number of messages in every group is down dramatically from one and two years ago. In addition, the total number of games on all combined Ken Lowe judges has decreased as well. If you are looking for a reason why Dipsters is less vibrant than before, look at me. Unfortunately, the biggest negative about Dipsters is that it has and apparently still does rely upon me to move it along. Checking the hundreds of completed Dipsters games and Dipsters tournament games, you can see that I was the GM for probably 95% of all games: <a href="http://www.floc.net/observer.py?login=DipComplete&password=&other_public=&page=login" rel="nofollow">http://www.floc.net/observer.py?login=DipComplete&password=&other_public=&page=login</a> That's a problem because I have not had a good year. My mother had to enter an assisted living facility in August; my sister-in-law, with whom I was very close, suddenly lost her battle with cancer in November; and I have seen my own health problems become considerably worse this year. The bottom line is that I have had neither the time nor the inclination to work on this group as I had in the past. Only a few members have tried to help us out. Only a few have created or offered to Gm new games. And the one person who had offered to run our variant tournament has basically disappeared now that it is time to get the tournament running (I am ill and don't have time to do it myself so this will probably be a tournament that will never start). I admit that there are problems with the dipsters.org site because I have not had the time to work on it, but it still has advantages over YAHOO! groups. YAHOO! Groups is not really conducive to setting up: <ul> <li>showcase games</li> <li>tournament sites</li> <li>local F2F message boards</li> <li>game and tournament listings</li> <li>and more</li> </ul> We can certainly go back to YAHOO! Groups for our message board but I think that would be a backwards step and not really the right step to take. But if the majority of members want to do it, we will. I have to tell you that I was thoroughly disheartened by the response from some members when we switched from YAHOO! Groups to the dipsters.org message board. I had hoped that everyone would work with me during the transition. Some members actually gave me ultimatums about the change. That really took the wind out of my sails after devoting so many years to dipsters. The bottom line is that I am not going to be around as I had been in the past to push this group. Just switching back to YAHOO! Groups is not going to be the answer. The bottom line is that all members need to finally step up and do what is necessary to keep this group going. Asking everyone to GM just one game a year is not too much to ask...yet hardly anyone is doing it. And that is sad. I also think that it is time to select a new moderator, the sooner the better. If I were to pick a successor, it would be someone who is devoted to this hobby but who does not have a personal agenda. A few names pop into my mind but I am sure that this is not the complete list. People like Russ Blau, Yves Grosdidier, Ben Harris, Eric Hunter, Adam Lang, Martin Moore, Ken Navarro, and Jonathan Powles would all do a great job as the new moderator for Dipsters. Although any of our JKs (Alan, Chris, Millis, Sam, Todd) would also be excellent, I think that it is very important that the Dipsters Group treats all judges equally. Having a JK as the Group's Moderator would make that goal almost impossible to attain. Anyway I would like to get your reaction to these issues. All the Best! Alan Chris Babcock on "How to Create and GM Dipsters games" http://www.dipsters.org/forum/topic/how-to-create-and-gm-dipsters-games#post-211 Sat, 05 Jun 2010 22:48:28 +0000 Chris Babcock 211@http://www.dipsters.org/forum/ I really want to encourage GMs to use USAK.I know there's "How to GM" material out there still that tells people to contact Ken Lowe if the want to start a game, but that's not USAK. I will mentor, train, shadow... anything to get more GMs using the judge for their games as long as they fill and complete. The math is real simple. It costs just over $1000 a year to run the server. If there are 250 players, the average cost per user is $4 a year. If there were twice as many players the average cost per player would be half that. The only way to double the number of active players is to double the number of games. I run the USAK house games so that players can always find a forming game in the most popular configurations on USAK. That means USAK doesn't lose players because they can't find a game when they want to join one. Retaining players better and having a "go to" judge to find a forming game should make it easier for GMs to fill their games quickly. So the house games seed a positive spiral. It will work better for forming games once I have more game information on the listing page, but it's already been great for finding replacements. The average time to replace an opening in a novice game on USAK went from 10 days to 1 day when I placed the replacement positions on the USAK game list page. I think I can have a comparable improvement for forming games with the next improvement. Alan Mennel on "How to Create and GM Dipsters games" http://www.dipsters.org/forum/topic/how-to-create-and-gm-dipsters-games#post-208 Wed, 02 Jun 2010 12:15:11 +0000 Alan Mennel 208@http://www.dipsters.org/forum/ Hi Mark: It is very nice to contact the GMs prior to creating a game on their judges but I do not think that it is necessary. There are a number of JKs who run very reliable Ken Lowe judges and who are also members of Dipsters. USAL: Alan Lange USAK: Chris Babcock USAZ: Todd Lawson DEDO: Millis Miller Sam Tyler, who I believe subscribes to this list, currently runs USDP, which is probably the most popular judge but not a Ken Lowe type judge. There are also reliable Ken Lowe judges where the JKs are not members of the Dipsters Group: USOS: Nightshade (Dejan Milosavljevic) FROG: Philippe Lalande This is not a complete list by any means but it represents the judges I use most of the time. Best Regards, Alan Mennel Alan Lange on "How to Create and GM Dipsters games" http://www.dipsters.org/forum/topic/how-to-create-and-gm-dipsters-games#post-207 Wed, 02 Jun 2010 12:02:09 +0000 Alan Lange 207@http://www.dipsters.org/forum/ USDD judge has one game waiting to fill. If it hasn't filled by the time it has waited a year, it will be deleted, and the judge will be shut down. If it does fill, then the judge will be available until the game is complete (plus a little time for EOGs. USAL is open and available for new games: <a href="mailto:usal@dip.game-host.org">usal@dip.game-host.org</a> Alan Mark Gallagher on "How to Create and GM Dipsters games" http://www.dipsters.org/forum/topic/how-to-create-and-gm-dipsters-games#post-206 Wed, 02 Jun 2010 01:23:48 +0000 Mark Gallagher 206@http://www.dipsters.org/forum/ Back from a series of vacations and looking to GM my first game EVER. Haven't seen much in the way of Judge selection. Seem to recall reading awhile back that it was polite to ask a judgemaster for permission prior to setting up a game on their judge. Is there a shortlist of Dipster friendly JMs? What's the story on that USDD judge? Perhaps I'm over analyzing the situation. However, I don't want be guilty of any GM faux pas. Thanks and sorry about the noob question. Mark Jonathan Powles on "Where's Alan?! Thanks for your support! ...originally from Dipsters@yahoo" http://www.dipsters.org/forum/topic/wheres-alan-thanks-for-your-support-originally-from-dipstersyahoo#post-126 Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:25:41 +0000 Jonathan Powles 126@http://www.dipsters.org/forum/ > Perhaps we could have a shopping list of tasks on the forum (or, forgive me for saying this, a committee, rather than an individual)? What did I tell you? Carebears one and all! Committee my hat ... Actually, not a bad suggestion at all. Whatever you call it, to divide the tasks up ... clearly we need one or more people to pitch in on the tech front; a group of 2-3 people who are prepared to run tournaments (perhaps with Alan as senior advisor); maybe somebody to keep the membership up-to-date. It's starting to sound dangerously like an organisation, with a President (Alan), Secretary, 2-3 Tournament Directors (FP, NP, Variant?)and an IT guru (I know who I'd nominate :-) ...) Help Alan share the load while retaining the authority. I think one thing we all seem to share, that needs to be explicitly stated, is that we all respect and admire the energy, concept and culture of Dipsters that Alan has established, and would all want to see him continue to shape those as leader of the group, while at the same time helping him out with the grunt work Cheers Jonathan PS Btw John, you were clearly the most cut-throat player on the board. Why else did we prevent you from ever getting more than 4 SCs? :-) Alan Mennel on "Where's Alan?! Thanks for your support! ...originally from Dipsters@yahoo" http://www.dipsters.org/forum/topic/wheres-alan-thanks-for-your-support-originally-from-dipstersyahoo#post-125 Tue, 12 Jan 2010 21:50:05 +0000 Alan Mennel 125@http://www.dipsters.org/forum/ --- In <a href="mailto:Dipsters@yahoogroups.com">Dipsters@yahoogroups.com</a>, "Jinbish" <jinbish@...> wrote: > Guys, > > I think that the discussion about the migration of Dipsters from Yahoo (and the availability of email) has been a slight distraction from an underlying issue that you raise: > >I just need some help now in doing the things necessary to restore our group to its former and future level of enjoyment." > > I am probably not be up to speed so I might not be the right person to be asking these rhetorical questions, but: What needs to be done to keep Dipsters going? Do we need "volunteers" for jobs to do? > > Perhaps we could have a shopping list of tasks on the forum (or, forgive me for saying this, a committee, rather than an individual)? > > Any thoughts? Thanks, John. No committees please...we could just use some real help. 1) Anyone interested in starting a true Dipsters game would help. We have 125 listed members in Dipsters on YAHOO! If every so often you all could take turns in creating just one game during this year, we would all have plenty of available Dipsters games to play: <a href="http://www.dipsters.org/hosting.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.dipsters.org/hosting.html</a> 2) Rian Mitra has agreed to direct the Dipsters No-Press Variant Tournament which will start on May 1, 2010. I suppose it is not too early to show your interest in playing by signing on to the queue now: <a href="http://www.dipsters.org/dvt.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.dipsters.org/dvt.html</a> I think the Variant will be Open Build but Rian may decide to throw the question open to the membership again. If he does and if another variant is chosen, you can always opt out of the tournament if the new variant is not to your liking. 3) I wonder if someone wants to clean up my mess from the ill-fated Dipsters No-Press Tournament from last Fall? The tournament should have started on September 8, 2009, but I was unable to start it because of my personal problems. If anyone is interested now in resurrecting this tournament (which would include a tremendous amount of work in assigning games and contacting players), I still have a list of 74 potential competitors, most of whom would probably still play. I am inclined to let it die at this point because it's a great deal of work but, if anyone is interested, please contact me privately: <a href="mailto:alan.mennel@dipsters.org">alan.mennel@dipsters.org</a> Anyway, John, thank you for noticing that one line in my earlier post. And thank you all in advance for doing whatever you can to help us recover from my malaise. All the best! Alan Mennel Alan Mennel on "How to Create and GM Dipsters games" http://www.dipsters.org/forum/topic/how-to-create-and-gm-dipsters-games#post-124 Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:45:05 +0000 Alan Mennel 124@http://www.dipsters.org/forum/ Hi Everyone: Near the top of any page on the dipsters.org site, there is now a navigation tab that reads, "Hosting Games". This contains instructions on how to host Dipsters games along with a number of game templates which you may use and modify in creating your games. Enjoy! Alan