Mongrel wrote:

I'm for formalizing what's in place, and the list of suggestions in this thread look fine, but chances are low that in a few games one can detect all possible gambits and player workarounds to cheat a board. So the "playability" category, beyond basics, will be trickiest to quantify.

Mongrel, I'm for formalizing the criteria and all too, but I'm not sure what you're saying when you talk about cheating. I'm simply suggesting a mechanism that can support a larger consensus when borderline decisions need to be made.  I'm thinking that 90% of the time the only people passing/failing a board would be the reviewers who are actively playing the board.  But now that we have a good number of boards out there, members are becoming more and more concerned about quality control and "overlapping" boards.

Consider that someone submits a world map with classic borders. a couple of visual twists, a single bonus adjustment, and creative continent names.   Let's assume for argument's sake that the reviewers agree that it falls on the borderline where the guidelines are concerned.  One of the reviewers in this game could solicit the help of other board members by starting a thread or some other mechanism.   I suppose a consensus could be reached in the thread itself, but a vote with a reasonable majority formalizes it.

We may be semi-hijacking this thread with this discussion so I'm going to start a new thread for process.

I think I like Mongrel's idea with M57's adjustment (all games count, no games played equals retirement).  If the hard lines are low, then there is no scale issue.  I guarantee that there are boards currently which have no plays in the last month and if more boards avoid retirement because there are tons of members, then I still see no problem.  The board page will really take care of most of this (retired boards always come last in the sorting list).  Release a terrible board and no-one will play it.

I believe the "cheating" Mongrel was referring to was that after a few plays, there are players that figure out ways to break a board.  Most often this occurs because a designer has an idea for game-play, designs a board with this play, tests it explaining the desire and it is only after this process that players start playing to win, not playing as designed.

Thanks. Yeah, playing to win as opposed to playing as designer intended.

Apologies-- in my post rapture euphoria I semi-hijacked the thread.

M57 wrote:

Ozyman, The reason I was thinking the designer should have a vote (required for passage) is that sometimes in the course of the review process a reviewer makes a really good non-binding suggestion.  In these cases, it is not uncommon for the designer to request putting off release of the board while (s)he implements the idea.  In fact, there are times when the designer may want to consider pulling the board from the process as these ideas present themselves.

There is already a 'cancel submit' for designs, so if the designer decides their board has unexpected problems, they can just withdraw the board from consideration.  I think submitting a board, and not clicking 'cancel submit' is an implicit vote from the designer that the board is ready for publication.

Ozyman wrote:

M57 wrote:

Ozyman, The reason I was thinking the designer should have a vote (required for passage) is that sometimes in the course of the review process a reviewer makes a really good non-binding suggestion.  In these cases, it is not uncommon for the designer to request putting off release of the board while (s)he implements the idea.  In fact, there are times when the designer may want to consider pulling the board from the process as these ideas present themselves.

There is already a 'cancel submit' for designs, so if the designer decides their board has unexpected problems, they can just withdraw the board from consideration.  I think submitting a board, and not clicking 'cancel submit' is an implicit vote from the designer that the board is ready for publication.

Fair enough, though in my experience there are times during the process when a few minor adjustments are being discussed/made.  These are times when the designer might prefer the board temporarily not be passed even though a reviewer or two might have already passed it.