New Years Resolution: Newbie Farming is not Cool.

[owenshooter]

We have taken the following measures to stop Newbie Farming:

• For New Recruits, we filtered out game options from the join page if they reduce the chance of new players reaching their 1st promotion (see here here and here).
  
• We shut down any usergroups with a focus on Newbie Farming.
  
• We are sending individual warnings to the Farmers Guild and select other users who have practiced farming in the past. These should be arriving soon.

If you don't officially receive a warning, consider this it...we may have overlooked you once, but we won't do it again.

Thanks and have a nice day

great first steps lack, this is a wonderful start to resolving a very difficult situation.
thank you for taking the time to poll an actual sample of current and former players to find out how farming truly affected your amazing site, and then taking the measures to begin to snuff it out!! thanks again!! wonderful start to resolving all this!!-0

[porkenbeans]

73% from a sample size of 40 people out of a population of 22,449 has a maximum of +/- 15% margin of error, given 95% confidence level.

Math need not conform to common sense. It conforms to mathematical reasoning. If you don't have it, you cannot disprove a mathematical argument.

Calculate it yourselves if you don't believe me. http://www.isixsigma.com/offsite.asp?A=Fr&Url=http://www.raosoft.com/samplesize.html

Check this table: http://www.isixsigma.com/library/content/c040607a.asp

Accept it and move on. Find something else to rail on.

2. You claim that this isn't about you, when it clearly is about you. What you don't seem to understand is that, when someone makes a suggestion that would directly benefit him/her, people will naturally be suspicious.

This is my favorite. That I am a bogeyman for wanting a scoring system where you cannot farm to get to the top. That this is somehow selfish and I'm the only one who wants this or will benefit.

Ever check out Sugs and Bugs? There are tons of people and mods working together to solve this problem. And there are plenty of other ways to do it than by restricting maps and game types between unskilled vs skilled players. I said the whole time that this was just a bandaid to a failed scoring system anyway.

I am actively contributing to many different sugs and bugs. I currently advocate another method but I'm afraid to mention it for fear of drawing out trolls from under their bridges, so I'll let it be.

In short, find something different to disagree with me about because I'm not beholden to any one solution. There are many possible ways to solve the problem.

I agree with everything you said, but it has all been said before. The powers that be have heard every word. They are going to do what they think is best. So I would advise you, my friend, to give up the crusade. ...I have.

The snarling cat is dead. Now I'm just "LOST".

[Incandenza]

I am actively contributing to many different sugs and bugs. I currently advocate another method but I'm afraid to mention it for fear of drawing out trolls from under their bridges, so I'll let it be.

If you're unable to discern between logical rebuttals of your various arguments and trolling, then I fear that no common ground can be found. It's a shame, because you raise some good points, but your lack of rhetorical prowess and your inability to even soften your ludicrous "73% of CC agrees with me and anyone who doesn't is in the substantial minority" statement tend to overshadow them.

I wish you good luck in your future endeavors, inasmuch as they do not conflict with mine.

[FarangDemon]

I am actively contributing to many different sugs and bugs. I currently advocate another method but I'm afraid to mention it for fear of drawing out trolls from under their bridges, so I'll let it be.

If you're unable to discern between logical rebuttals of your various arguments and trolling, then I fear that no common ground can be found. It's a shame, because you raise some good points, but your lack of rhetorical prowess and your inability to even soften your ludicrous "73% of CC agrees with me and anyone who doesn't is in the substantial minority" statement tend to overshadow them.

I wish you good luck in your future endeavors, inasmuch as they do not conflict with mine.

I don't mean everybody who disagrees with me is a troll. But you must admit that most of my posts, even mundane non-farming ones, attract them.

Do you still disagree with the margin of error calculation? It indicates that it is in fact the majority opinion, to a 95% level of confidence. I don't expect everybody to know how to calculate this. I had to look it up myself because it had been a long time.

Actually, when I conducted that poll, I thought it would lose because so many people had been flaming my posts. But I went through with it anyway because deep down I hoped that there must be others who agree.

I tried my best to explain the math behind it. If people can't figure out stuff for themselves then they will just go for whatever sounds the best. Perhaps my silver tongue will not win them over. That's ok.

Thanks and good luck to you, too.

[demonfork]

I am actively contributing to many different sugs and bugs. I currently advocate another method but I'm afraid to mention it for fear of drawing out trolls from under their bridges, so I'll let it be.

If you're unable to discern between logical rebuttals of your various arguments and trolling, then I fear that no common ground can be found. It's a shame, because you raise some good points, but your lack of rhetorical prowess and your inability to even soften your ludicrous "73% of CC agrees with me and anyone who doesn't is in the substantial minority" statement tend to overshadow them.

I wish you good luck in your future endeavors, inasmuch as they do not conflict with mine.

I don't mean everybody who disagrees with me is a troll. But you must admit that most of my posts, even mundane non-farming ones, attract them.

Do you still disagree with the margin of error calculation? It indicates that it is in fact the majority opinion, to a 95% level of confidence. I don't expect everybody to know how to calculate this. I had to look it up myself because it had been a long time.

Actually, when I conducted that poll, I thought it would lose because so many people had been flaming my posts. But I went through with it anyway because deep down I hoped that there must be others who agree.

I tried my best to explain the math behind it. If people can't figure out stuff for themselves then they will just go for whatever sounds the best. Perhaps my silver tongue will not win them over. That's ok.

Thanks and good luck to you, too.

Big problem with your calculation guy.

taken from the link you provided....

"How many people are there to choose your random sample from? The sample size doesn't change much for populations larger than 20,000."

I put in bold the important words here!

RANDOM SAMPLE!!!!

I would 100% agree with your calculation had you randomly picked 40 CC members from a pool of 20,000 and then polled those members.

I would like to further point out that a +/- 15% margin of error is quite high, If you wanted to achieve a typical +/- 5% margin of error then your random lot sampling should be in the neighborhood of 375 people out of 20,000

[FarangDemon]

I am actively contributing to many different sugs and bugs. I currently advocate another method but I'm afraid to mention it for fear of drawing out trolls from under their bridges, so I'll let it be.

If you're unable to discern between logical rebuttals of your various arguments and trolling, then I fear that no common ground can be found. It's a shame, because you raise some good points, but your lack of rhetorical prowess and your inability to even soften your ludicrous "73% of CC agrees with me and anyone who doesn't is in the substantial minority" statement tend to overshadow them.

I wish you good luck in your future endeavors, inasmuch as they do not conflict with mine.

I don't mean everybody who disagrees with me is a troll. But you must admit that most of my posts, even mundane non-farming ones, attract them.

Do you still disagree with the margin of error calculation? It indicates that it is in fact the majority opinion, to a 95% level of confidence. I don't expect everybody to know how to calculate this. I had to look it up myself because it had been a long time.

Actually, when I conducted that poll, I thought it would lose because so many people had been flaming my posts. But I went through with it anyway because deep down I hoped that there must be others who agree.

I tried my best to explain the math behind it. If people can't figure out stuff for themselves then they will just go for whatever sounds the best. Perhaps my silver tongue will not win them over. That's ok.

Thanks and good luck to you, too.

Big problem with your calculation guy.

taken from the link you provided....

"How many people are there to choose your random sample from? The sample size doesn't change much for populations larger than 20,000."

I put in bold the important words here!

RANDOM SAMPLE!!!!

I would 100% agree with your calculation had you randomly picked 40 CC members from a pool of 20,000 and then polled those members.

I would like to further point out that a +/- 15% margin of error is quite high, If you wanted to achieve a typical +/- 5% margin of error then your random lot sampling should be in the neighborhood of 375 people out of 20,000

I am not able to compel anyone to vote in any poll, so the best I can do is create a poll and hope people vote. That is as random as any poll can reasonably get here. And in practice, randomness of sampling is assumed as long as there is no evidence of bias in the method of selection.

If you understand margin of error, then you will know that the true opinion will fall inside the margins of error 95% of the time, given a confidence level of 95%, which is what I used. So there is a 95% chance that the true opinion is between 58% and 88% in favor. The margin of error is higher than most polls, but the proportion in favor is so high that the results are still conclusive.

That being said, I believe this poll was conducted before the restrictions on New Recruits were announced. If so, that might suggest that current support would not be as high. Now that would be the kind of argument that I cannot refute. But please don't try to pretend that the results of this poll are somehow inconclusive when it is clearly not the case.

[scottp]

reading only the last three or so posts, i'm compelled to make a comment on the value of any poll here.

a "random sample" cannot be "compiled" by putting a poll on a forum.

there are X members of CC.

some % of X members actually ever visit the forums, call that group Y.

only some % of Y ever actually POSTS or VOTES in the forums. call that group Z.

Z is not representative of X. Z is a specialized subset of X.

the results of a random sampling of Z would not scale up to be representative of X.

That doesn't even take into account the inherent uncertainty in any particular poll question due to possible self-selection bias (either pros or cons may hold their feelings more strongly and thus be more likely to vote than the other side).

ACCURATE polling is a very complex of a subject.

Your results are indisputable. What they actually mean is anybody's guess.

[lackattack]

[list][*] For New Recruits, we filtered out game options from the join page if they reduce the chance of new players reaching their 1st promotion.

New Recruits must earn a promotion to join Assassin games, Terminator games, team games, large games (6 or more players) and games on complex maps (they will be hidden from Join A Game and Game Finder listings). These restrictions do not apply to private games.

(emphasis added)