Event Attendance: No Shows and Bails, discussion.

[DeathSniper]

Well...the big issue for me is people who continually post confirmed, and keep backing out. I've noticed it's becoming a trend more and more - someone should probably start taking notes.

Just to be clear, it's quite understandable that things come up in life. Your ride fell through, your gun broke, your daughter's sick, etc... However, the simple fact is that you posted that you were confirmed for the game, and you're counted on to show. Not doing so, as people have previously stated, causes certain problems for many people.

If you bail out at the last second on a game or two - it's no big deal, shit happens. Just PM the host and explain and I'm sure it won't be a problem. It's when it becomes a habit that it becomes a serious problem. If you're not sure if you can make it or not, post a tenative. If the host only wants confirmed - then don't post at all or PM the host. Seriously, it's not a hard concept folks.

Personally, I'd prefer public tabs on how many games people have bailed on. If someone's confirmed for 15 games and bailed on 1...understandable...if another person confirms for 10 and bails on 6...you get the point.

[Lord Jebus]

What about adding an attendance rating to our profiles here on ASC? We have Trader ratings why not attendance ratings? but it could be a 0/- scale...

Start with zero and if you attend when you say you were it stays at zero...
but if you say you're in and don't show, the game organizer/host can give you a negative rating for being a noshow.
And then maybe after 3 straight games of showing up you can get that point back...

Kinda like the demerit point system for your drivers licence...

And that way you're not actually making a list of no shows... but you can see if someone is or not... if they have alot of points for not showing up then you can consider them as noshows even before they ARE noshows...

That's just my idea...

[666]

Lord Jebus, I think that's what Gabe was talking about when he mentioned public tabs.
It's pretty good idea. With some soft of public raiting hosts can make their calls to accept/reject attendees.
If lets say a person bails has 7 no shows out of 10 games, oh well... Can't blame a host for rejecting that person right away.

[Scarecrow]

I've been thinking of writing a game management/attendance management system in PHP. It would have to manage people's sign ups individually and then allow the 'host' to provide an attendance list at the end of the event. We use this technique in medical scheduling to determine statistically a patient's reliability for showing for an appointment. When you reach a 35% no show, it automatically double-books patients into the same slot. Anyways, I am familiar with this issue. I just simply have not had the time or PHP programming resources to write it.

[Mantelope]

Jay, I have some free time and rather extensive PHP/MySQL experience. I'd be happy to prototype some sort of system like that... PM me or something.

As for attendance to games: if I had a car of my own, I'd be coming to at least a game every two weeks. The only time I've pulled out of games is because transportation was unavailable, or because I had a previous engagement that I didn't realize conflicted.

[Catbert]

I think that each club should handle its own sign ups. I dont think it is the responsibility of ASC to police every aspect of airsoft.

My suggestion is using temporary bans. I know BCAC had an issue with people signing up for bootcamps and then bailing out without word. This resulted in bootcamps being cancelled and people who travelled long distances to be left hanging. They issued temporary bans and bootcamp attendance picked up.

Depending on the clubs descression, they should require that no one signup before they are 100% confirmed. Once you sign up, if you bail out, you would not be permitted to signup for X number of games.

I think that is a little less complicated.

[lt_poncho]

I used a PHP sign up system for OP CT2 - big deal. It doesn't mean that a player will attend regardless of posting, sign up or otherwise.

Face it - Airsoft is volutary, not conscription. If you plan a big game and dump a lot of resouces into it - make players prepay - $25 in advance, $35~40 at the gate. No refunds if you don't show up. Parks Ontario did the same thing after getting screwed by their own retal policies. Otherwise you as the game organizer/administrator will be the one left hanging. The reality is that a lot who sign up do not feel obliged to show up as there's no reprocussion.

I admit that I myself have often signed up for games only to bail at some point, for many reasons. I have no problem paying a field fee even if I don't show up.

I see a need to start drawing the line between the casualness of show up and shoot games to actual games that have more planned than just who's showing up and who's not. It's contribution from everyone, not just the game host.

[spleen]

I think the idea of prepaying a non-refundable price, and having a much higher price at the gate is about all we as organizers can do to combat the problem. Encourage people to sign up early, and make them lose their fee if they don't show up.

I usually design my games around a 40% non-attendance rate. That seems to be about the worst case scenario, unless you end up with bad weahter for game day. If you plan for the worst case and the best, your game will not be too screwed up by people not showing up. I mean it's obvious from the existance of this thread as well as what people are saying that this isn't a NEW problem, everyone who has organized a game has seen it and so you just need to accept some amount of it and plan accordingly.

[Scarecrow]

Originally Posted by Catbert

I think that each club should handle its own sign ups. I dont think it is the responsibility of ASC to police every aspect of airsoft.

I'm not asking ASC to police it. ASC is just where we are having this conversation. I intend to formulate a policy that at least I will follow. Whether others adopt it or not is entirely up to them.

Originally Posted by lt_poncho

I used a PHP sign up system for OP CT2 - big deal. It doesn't mean that a player will attend regardless of posting, sign up or otherwise...It's contribution from everyone, not just the game host.

If player attendance on non-casual games is recorded and people have ratings just like they have trader ratings, it would influence people's behaviour because they would want to maintain a good rep. I firmly believe if it were not for buyer feedback there would be a LOT more rip offs. People care about maintaining a good rep and will protect it with good socially acceptable behaviour.

I would not do the rating system through ASC, but a parallel sign up system so that anyone has access to a game and dboard bans don't preclude signups for games. It would also have to be a resource that works across multiple dboards too.

Its precisely because the contribution is bi-directional that I am calling attention to player responsibilities insofar as showups are concerned, however, the game host has a lot more at stake with the work and resources put forth, so he has a lot more to lose than a no show player. Imagine how everyone would feel if hosts were just as casual about showing up as some players are about showing? There are similarities, but you can't compare the two at all.

[Scarecrow]

Originally Posted by spleen

I mean it's obvious from the existance of this thread as well as what people are saying that this isn't a NEW problem, everyone who has organized a game has seen it and so you just need to accept some amount of it and plan accordingly.

Poncho taught me a new phrase... "Toleration is a form of consent.". I use it a lot lately. It seems to apply to a lot of situations in airsoft.

I firmly believe that we are consenting to a behavior that we should not encourage. I'd rather try and find some kind of fix or at least consequence rather than allow it to perpetuate... If we accepted this philosophy in the Buy and Sell, business would grind to a halt.

[lt_poncho]

I totally agree, it's consent. You see it a lot lately - guys posting here talking shit about how they play in their backyard, couldn't care less about what we try to uphold cause it's not their values - why the fuck are their accounts still active? I'd have deleted it before the end of this thread;

http://www.airsoftcanada.com/showthr...2&page=1&pp=15

I think there's an impression that no one takes notice - I mentioned that at the Plantation this weekend - we who host DO keep tabs on who shows and who bails. It will get to the point where your registration will continually get 'lost in the mail' if you know what I mean.

[Scarecrow]

I hear you... my thinking is rather than silently on the QT persecute those who are chronics, we should make our intentions crystal clear, very public and be up front about what our expectations are. I think generally if people are shown that we do take it seriously and that they could come under scrutiny from host(s) for 'conduct unbecoming' ie: attendance, that they risk their privledge to play with us as a result, that it could obviate this particular problem.

I don't want this to be seen as a power play of some kind or lording over people, because its not. In fact, I hate the fact that I even have to discuss this - I don't get a charge out of trying to control people's behaviour, so please, nobody take it that way. But in this case we do have an issue that is of public interest, so we should all be prepared to make some decisions about it. I can only speak for myself as a host and a participant in running a public field that at least in my case, I will be making changes. I am hoping this improves attendence and attending reliability or at least hosts can expect an honest accounting of attending players so they aren't left holding the bag at the end of the day...

An "Attendance Rating" would be a wonderful thing, for so many reasons. For one, it would clearly illustrate who plays and who doesnt, significantly reducing the signal to noise ration from the chairsofting elite. Why should anyone take advise on the sport from someone who's never shown up at a game but has 1k plus posts on a dboard...

Anyway, that's something for a different discussion. The bottom line is this:



confirmed:

adj 1: of persons; not subject to change; "a confirmed bachelor"; "a confirmed invalid" 2: having been established or made firm or received the rite of confirmation; "confirmed reservations"; "received confirmed reports of casualties"; "a confirmed Catholic" [ant: unconfirmed] 3: having a habit of long standing; "a chronic smoker" [syn: chronic, habitual, inveterate(a)]

People have a tendancy to misuse the word.

Confirmed for a game? Show up. You wouldn't have confirmed otherwise, and pending some emergency you're positive you can attend. If you're not sure, you don't confirm. Fucking simple.

As for the chronics, publish the list. We all know who they are anyway, so why not let them know we know who they are.

I'm all for a rating system...

[Scarecrow]

Actually harleyb and I have been hashing this out all day.. two rating systems, one for player ratings and one for show ratings. Then if players have a dispute or a problem they can post a negative with an explanation as well as have a dispute resolution system in there - but it would show the transaction process just like what we have come to expect on eBay or the vBulletin rating systems.

Hosts would record their attendances after the game.

If you want to get really strict about it you could set your game up so that only players with ratings above a certain level need apply. I can see people posting their player ratings in their sigs the way they do their trader/buy and sell ratings now.

[Duckman]

could that not have a negative effect as well? new mature players might interpret that as a certain amount of exclusivity in that you have to attend x number of games before you qualify for this particular one.

i like the idea of the rating system but not so much to the point that we'd end up being perseived as snobs which require certain qualifications to play.

as well, given that publicity tends to be bad as it is for airsoft, could this sort of ranking system, if taken to the extreme, be taken as almost militia like???

dont get me wrong. i like the idea of a publicly posted list of repeat offenders/chairsofters. i'm just wondering how it might be seen if taken to an extreme.