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Update of interested playersProposalsIndex ->

posted at 2012-07-06 20:46 by ghp

I accidently posted this to the T50 forum initially. But it is a general issue. Over the past three teamleague rounds I wrote messages to a lot of "interested" players if they would like to join a new team. I haven't counted - but from the top of my head I guess only 20-30% at all replied! And some of those who replied were not interested. Since I have been doing this for three times now I have also realized that a lot of users (who have not replied or have not been interested) stayed on that list throughout that time.

My suggestion to improve the "value" of that list. Automatically remove the users after three months. Send them a short mail. If they are really interested they can register again for the list.

posted at 2012-07-07 18:25 by joshuar

Agreed.

posted at 2012-07-08 19:01 by jaberwock

I actually update the list periodically, culling out people who have not logged onto FICS for a while.
We might look at other ways to keep that list "fresh".
btw, if you know of uninterested players still on the list, please let me know.

posted at 2012-07-08 23:35 by PankracyRozumek

I absolutely agree with ghp. I have stats over the last 5 (or so) TL seasons: only 17 out of 41 players replied, and only 5 out of 17 were interested.

This is not working correctly. I support the idea of automatically removing (with notification though) all the players at some point, e.g. at the end of the 5th round of a TL season (this is when you cannot add new players anyway).

Another idea would be if team captains could "flag" unresponsive players on the waiting list i.e. if someone doesn't reply to me in 7 days, I flag him as unresponsive. When TL gathers feedback for a player from enough team captains (perhaps 3 team captains?...), they remove him from the list.

Even now I can see 7 players that I think they were there for a couple of months now, and I *guess* they might be not interested in new teams.

Half a year ago I notified two of my players that they were still on the waiting list and they should remove themselves from the list unless they really wanted to join a second team. I have got no answers from them. One of them is still on the list...

(I feel extremely lucky this season that I can set up a team with just my current players.)

posted at 2012-07-09 03:55 by pchesso

Excellent! Clearing the whole list 4x per year in one go, as suggested by Pankracy
    at the end of the 5th round of a TL season (this is when you cannot add new players anyway)

also means less work for you, jaberwock. No tidy track-keeping necessary then.

posted at 2013-01-18 07:59 by PankracyRozumek

So, the interested players list is clearly not working as it should.

But apart from the clean-up 4x per year which I suggested above, which can be done by TL admins, I would suggest that TL captains do take initiative to ask their own players if they are really looking for a second team. If they are, and it sometimes happens, there is nothing bad about, but this is rather minority of cases, I think.

Right now the interested players list consists of 38 names. I think at least 16 of these names have been there for a couple of TL seasons already. I know that two of them are my ex-players, who dropped TL, so this is when the 4x per year clean up would help.

Another 10 players are already on some team. Perhaps their team captains can ask them if they really want to remain there? I have been doing it for a couple of seasons, and most players do remove themselves from the interested players list, when asked. And for those, who don't, it quite often turns out that they are not communicative and lose interested in TL quite soon, so it is a good indicator for their captain, too.

So, if both TL admins and TL captain take actions, we could reduce the interested players list to about 40% of its size, and have mostly really interested players there.

posted at 2013-01-18 12:51 by kacperekpl

KACPEREKPL- I TRY TO FIND A TEAM

posted at 2013-01-18 21:06 by wmahan

I agree that the interested players list had some players who were not really interested anymore. We have cleared the list, and sent messages to the players who were on it to re-join if they are still interested.

kacperekpl, please see http://www.teamleague.org/interested.php.

posted at 2013-01-19 16:15 by KRMCHESS

Another suggestion that could potentially be useful is that if a player on interested players list is added to a team you could get following done.

1. Add player to new team
2. Remove player from interested players list
3. In e-mail sent saying "Your team [Insert team name here] was just entered for T53. etc" just add another line saying something like "If you looking to join an additional team you can place your name on interested player list again"

I would assume that around 90%+ players on interested player list once they have found a team generally are happy to play all their matches for that team and thus once they've got a team are no longer interested.

posted at 2013-01-20 02:16 by wmahan

It's not so simple to do that, because there is more than one way a player can get added to a team. Anyway, I think the problem with the interested players list has been social, not technical, so a technical fix is less likely to help.

People join the list with the best of intentions, but then they forget or lose interest. They may get busy and stop coming to FICS entirely. You can message such players and beg them to remove their names from the list if they aren't interested, but they might delete the message without reading it, or they might never see it at all. This inertia is a powerful and well documented phenomenon, and I don't think we can change it.

Recently jaberwock has been removing people from the list who haven't logged on to FICS in a while, but I think that isn't good enough, because the list was still full of players who weren't truly interested anymore.

By completely clearing the list periodically, we make the inertia work for us. To stay on the list, users simply have to log on to FICS and run one command. The complaints we got after clearing the list are evidence that it works: there are a lot fewer players on the list now. I suggest that users who won't run a FICS command to stay on the list may not have the commitment necessary to play in the league.

If we completely clear the list, that solves the problem of players who have found teams, with no need to change the code.

I think a shorter list is in accordance with the reality of the situation: friendly, reliable players don't join every day, and when they do, captains are well advised to grab them quickly.

posted at 2013-01-20 06:17 by PankracyRozumek

Hi,

Thanks, the list looks much more credible now! :)

posted at 2013-01-20 23:33 by jaberwock

Changes and improvements will probably always be an ongoing project, and we appreciate feedback, even if it seems like we are not doing anything with constructive suggestions.