Realistic Cards: The Dilemma, The Solution, The Community.

[.Rai]

[b][i]Thank you, Mikhail, for allowing me to post an essay on the issue.[/i][/b]

It's come to my attention that I was considered a candidate for moderator of Custom Cards. As honoured as I am, I feel the job is too time-consuming. That said, I'm perfectly happy to help out make the section a thriving place. This is a mission statement / essay (although I have little power at all), to help the section out. I highly recommend that veteran members read this.

Realistic Cards is a tricky issue. It's noticeably in need of help yet, every time a person offers an idea, it seems to inevitably fall into disuse. Is something being done wrong? I'm not sure.

First, identify the issues. It's a dysfunctional community. While the moderators are offering help, the members are mostly oblivious to it (especially those who are new and don't know much about the rules). Secondly, there is a negligence in commenting and negligence in making helpful comments importantly. While the Advanced Clause has helped with the latter, it's certainly not helped with the former. The best way to speak to the members is via a few ways. Tutorials have always been a great help, and always will. Most of them lie in Questions & Help > Tutorials, obviously (but I personally feel they should just all be stickied in Realistic Cards, or at least have an index thread of helpful links in Realistic Cards).

In what way should we fix the issues? We can approach it from various angles. One is to inherently improve the quality of the cards themselves. Providing that people actually know how to do the basics, the details can be explained by commenters, and the cardmaker is able to make changes because of their knowledge. Too often are comments posted and the topic creator is confused because of complexity issues with TCG lingo. The solutions lie in tutorials and workshops. Providing we have an FAQ or 'Helpful Threads Index' stickied, and people actually read them, the initial issues are partially solved. Secondly is the idea of a Tutor/Student relationship. This has been done in Showcase before (to partial success, but I expect CC to take it to a better level because of more people with this interest. People with either TCG, design or aesthetics expertise can offer critique via PM in individual sessions or in group workshops. It'll be fairly independent, but it means that various individuals can be helped and guided through their card-creating experience. Tutors will have to be located and they should have different areas of expertise. I can name people like -Griffin as perfect people to consider for design (he already has an article on the issue in question in Written Cards).

Another place to start working from is to actually help commenters too. You want a two-way relationship with cardmakers and commenters. Much of the information that applies to cardmakers applies to the commenters too (although I'd like to break the barrier between people who make cards and those who comment on them). If commenters are helped with identifying what problems there are with the card itself, they become less burdened by the Advanced Clause, the cardmaker naturally appreciates the feedback and everyone is happy. The answer here, I think, lies in two distinct places: Written Cards and Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG. Now, I'm sure people are aware of Written Cards, but it's a surprisingly healthy place, albeit quite reserved and quiet. An exchange is in order. Encouraging those who comment in Written Cards to comment in Realistic Cards occasionally is healthy, and bringing people in Realistic Cards to make cards in Written Cards too will help (it brings full focus away from pictures, fully to effects). This probably isn't that good on a section-wide scale, but bringing members who need it is helpful. Rewarding them for it is good too (I'm sure Showcase can figure something out. We need the activity too). Obviously, to do this, it requires the assistance of mods or veteran members basically PMing people or having recruitment threads. Something of that sort.

Now, TCG. It's a challenging and scary place to start. As much as I'd like to say bring RC members to TCG or vice versa, this'll only end in chaos. But, despite TCG being full of insane egos and personalities, it's the most intelligent place for knowledge of the game. You can highlight threads in TCG, and repost them in RC with intelligent comments about either design, usability or any other feature that would be useful to the standard RC-goer. Basically, we treat real cards as cards that have been designed by someone in RC and let the people of TCG comment on them. Obviously, to them, they're just doing what they usually do. Till we get to a point where you can safely export those from TCG to RC without trouble, of course.

Then, there's the power of Dueling Network. I think it's an important teaching tool actually. Dueling is fundamentally why this TCG even exists, and you need a good knowledge of it (but not necessarily knowing how to play) in order to even make cards about it. It functions as a powerful card search for those who want to compare effects to real cards, you can catch up with fellow YCMers on DN for advice, watch duels to know the psych of a normal player and, if ambitious, actually play some duels. Watching duels will be the main attraction that RC wants. This also leads to some interesting implications with TCG. Whenever TCG hosts a tourney, if they're particularly…desperate for entries, you can always come to RC for those extra members. At the moment, I can't think of a way to implement this without conscious advertising, but if you can, it's a great way to add more connections. Then there's the possibility of actual Custom Cards-only tournaments where skill is levelled and everyone feels like they're having casual fun.

Now. Clubs & Organizations. I believe this is another gold mine for help. Providing we have a 'helpful links' thread, there's probably no harm linking to various clubs that can help: the "YCM Undermeta Agency", "YCM Revival Project" and the "Newb Defense League IV". I'd like to suggest actually making a club dedicated to either helping the members of CC, or simply a club for card-making. Very simple, and it should get members. Inter-club tourneys? Pleas from the club owners to try something new (i.e. make a card in RC for fun)? There's a lot to be done here because it's the biggest community place on the forum.

And, finally, um, Introductions. If there is at least one person who's willing basically to give people non-intimidating introductions with some links to the Helpful Threads Index and other normal standard intro stuff, it should help with the flow from now on.

RC doesn't deserve to die feverishly. And Mikhail has done a great job maintaining it, but one can't help but think that it's a massive job to take on with all the moderators gone. It must be a community effort. If not, help becomes impossible. The related issue is simply getting new members to YCM itself, but that's a whole new thing to cover (notable solutions include inter-forum relationships and YouTube channel advertisement. I'd personally include making a trillion memes on the website to increase coverage).

[Mehmani]

Bumping this for a reason. To all: discuss and expand on this proposal.

[Nathanael D. Striker]

I've talked to Opal a bit on this matter when this came out, so I wasn't oblivious to this threads existance. The two issues that really need to be addressed are kinda obvious: how are we going to convince TCG to come to RC and how are we going to make a lasting card help club? You addressed the TCG aspect in your essay, but their attitude towards RC needs to be taken into consideration a bit more. Why do you think they go to WC? Now, cardmaking clubs have been made before with some success. That success has been linked to the success of RC. NDL was the prominent club for card help in 2009 and 2010, yet that changed as activity in RC decreased. Then, the Cardmaker Academy came along in 2011. This lasted a while, I give you that. However, it too eventually died because of lack of interest within the second thread. I am not against having a card help club, I'm for it. I'm just saying that we need to think this through a bit.

[Aix]

We should encourage people to give Reps to people who write a nice, maybe big, proper review for more commenters. Reps make people feel about themselves and are free to give.
As for RC clubs, I'm not sure if we have enough people. Let me list everyone who comments in RC at all (in no particular order):[list]
[*]Me (AixDivadis)
[*]Archlord Sora
[*]Zaziuma
[*]S-Jam
[*]SynchroTuner
[*]A Background Character
[*]Nathanael Darius Striker
[*]Dante
[*]Donvermicelli
[*]newhat
[*]Neo
[*]D.A. Siegfried
[*]Chance Furlong
[*]Mihails
[*]Tama the Chibi Sage
[/list]
That's about all I can think of. That's not exactly a lot as many of the people I mentioned don't comment very often.

[Northern Sage]

[quote name='AixDivadis' timestamp='1354387638' post='6082419']
We should encourage people to give Reps to people who write a nice, maybe big, proper review for more commenters. Reps make people feel about themselves and are free to give.
As for RC clubs, I'm not sure if we have enough people. Let me list everyone who comments in RC at all (in no particular order):[list]
[*]Me (AixDivadis)
[*]Archlord Sora
[*]Zaziuma
[*]S-Jam
[*]SynchroTuner
[*]A Background Character
[*]Nathanael Darius Striker
[*]Dante
[*]Donvermicelli
[*]newhat
[*]Neo
[*]D.A. Siegfried
[*]Chance Furlong
[*]Mihails
[/list]
That's about all I can think of. That's not exactly a lot as many of the people I mentioned don't comment very often.
[/quote]
I come on from time to time.
Also, from the stickied AC thread:
[quote]Now, for something more interesting. If you see a member posting a review that has more than 100 words, like it. It's good for the whole community. Once you have amassed fifteen likes in your review posts, post here and link to the liked post(s). Then, I offer you a fantastic, exclusive reward: the next card you post will be stickied for a day. After this, the like counter is reset.[/quote]
It has been right there all this time, but seemingly unknown.

[Aix]

Yeah I saw that, I couldn't find it again though, so I just wrote what I did. But, yeah. No one pays attention to it and mostly everyone just writes a review of the bare minimum length

[Kazooie]

I really want to be more active in RC. I really do, but human nature is to be lazy. I see these huge sets people post all at once, and it deters me from posting. If people post maybe ~3 cards to start with, and slowly add on after that I feel much more likely to post myself.

The biggest problem to me is that RC is that it is incredibly underwhelming in the TCG department, so a good majority of the comments aren't always useful, even if they fit the AC. I think we could maybe make a thread of people who are willing to duel with various members of RC watching, using various decks that are anywhere from Tier 3 to absolutely broken. If we do that, and we can get people in RC to watch, maybe we could show them how things work and what the meta is at the time. From undermeta to YCS material decks, we can elaborate on various decks and how they work.

Generally, once you understand how something works, it becomes easier to make cards around playing against or for it. I'm not saying RC needs to focus on meta, but we need to get some semblance of understanding it in. I feel like it would help to improve the overall quality of the cards in general.

[Catterjune]

I came to this topic because I heard it was an "excellently worded proposal".

Sure, it's "excellently worded", but what it is proposing is extrodinarily lackluster.

I don't think it's really fair to be too critical on this, since it was posted on September 30th, before we got another admin so I'll attempt to keep that in mind.

You begin by saying that moderators offer help, but most members seem to not realize this. You elaborate further, that they need help making better cards and making better comments. The advance clause takes care of comments, but how to make better cards?

Your solution to making better cards is to make better cards.

And we make better cards by long boring tutorials?

Look, I don't know why this forum seems to think that writing a lot and writing something worth reading are one and the same. I've learned much easier by reading bite size chunks of advice then by hearing a hundred word essay.

"Check your blind spot."

"While I can see that you have skills in parallel parking, which actually is quite laudable mind you, and you are mindful to use your turn signals, I must say that it's a bit disconcerting how you avoid turning your head to look out for oncoming traffic. The mirrors are helpful in some regard, however because of the way they are positioned you never quite get the full image. You must turn completely to make sure there is no one next to you."

Keep it short and simple. This is a children's card game forum populated by 10-13 year olds, not the House of Lords.

[Sora1499]

@Hatcher
Your proposal is idealistic, but not practical. What's there to deter people from posting mediocre reviews? Quality is completely arbitrary. I think a mentorship program would do justice for RC, because it gives new members an enjoyable way of easing them into good-card-maker-ship.

[Nathanael D. Striker]

And I've been advocating for a mentorship program for how long now? I learned through a mentor and slowly became the cardmaker I am today. Still how are we going to make a small scale thing into a large scale thing? I have an idea in mind, but this is something best saved for the community to create since it'll be something benefitting the community as a whole.

[Sora1499]

@Striker
Make it official. Give it a thread, sign-up board, determine who will mentor whom, organize it. Organization -> Progress

[Nathanael D. Striker]

Looks like I know what I'm doing tomorrow; starting on an actual design for my idea. Gotta write it down first and go from there.