In General...

[Qgqqqqq]

Personally I would say that.
(Purely Civ4 related of course)

[Ceiliazul]

It is well known that any group of people gets dumber as it grows. If we appear to be smarter it's at least in part because our mob is a fraction of their size. As of this writing, the CFC thread has 467 voters.

We're more of a gentlemen's club compared to that!

[pindicator]

Oooh, are we getting into Emergence? Time to link to Radio Lab

The part I had in mind starts around 28:30, but it's all good to listen to

[spacetyrantxenu]

Oooh, are we getting into Emergence? Time to link to Radio Lab

The part I had in mind starts around 28:30, but it's all good to listen to

Ha that's the first thing i thought of when this conversation started. Fascinating stuff, really. On average we're not so bad after all!

[Cyneheard]

The IQ of a mob...

The wisdom of crowds breaks down under propaganda.

What sort of propaganda dost thou speaketh on?

Having thought about it a bit, propaganda is a bit of a harsher word than is appropriate - perhaps lobbying? The rest of this is going to be a long tangent about the wisdom (or lack therof) of crowds, and is therefore spoilered.

As I have been taught, the idea of the wisdom of crowds has its genesis (or at least its current popular incarnation) comes from an effect observed on a game show (I forget the name of it - perhaps who wants to be a millionaire) where you could throw the question to the crowd. The effect observed, was that the crowd was beating random chance by a not-insignificant margin (75%+). After analysis, what they found was that the people who didn't know the answer were being evenly distributed among all the options, while the people who did know the answer were clustering on the right one, giving it the majority. Obviously, this doesn't work if you can't meet the conditions, including: Independence between answers of the people who don't know the correct answer and a objectively correct answer for "experts" to converge onto. The CFC poll lacks these two.

Short version of "Propaganda Breaks It" - if a Millionaire contestant talked about an answer before asking the audience, they got significantly poorer results. The contestant's now given the "clueless" voters something to vote on. Anyone posting or voting on CFC has done the same thing - they've read a non-zero number of posts on the website, including some from rather narrow-minded players (e.g., the "How to Beat Deity AI but not know that Slavery is the power civic early-game.")

[teleh]

It is well known that any group of people gets dumber as it grows.

Now that's a nice signature

Having a total of 20-something posts here it behooves me (well - I almost feel prompted) to ask some questions. The merit of which are questionable, as the answers could likely be found elsewhere. Nevertheless... if any mental giants see fit (oh hang on, I'm paraphrasing, that's the Civ6 multiplayer engine)

What's the done thing with PBEM at RB? Not having played it before but having read a couple of things, I'm wondering if it's 'all in the interface' or if the standard is to save separately and send on.

Are dedlurkers usually afforded the opportunity to get a 'look but don't touch' copy of a save in PBEM, to have a look around at progress and potentially help with screenshotting and analysis?

When is it officially acceptable to use the diablo smiley? And has anyone ever used it as an avatar?

[BRickAstley]

What's the done thing with PBEM at RB? Not having played it before but having read a couple of things, I'm wondering if it's 'all in the interface' or if the standard is to save separately and send on.

The common practice is to just save and email, we don't have any sort of automated process for sending saves along.

Are dedlurkers usually afforded the opportunity to get a 'look but don't touch' copy of a save in PBEM, to have a look around at progress and potentially help with screenshotting and analysis?

Usually if they ask for it yes; that's always up to the desires of the player in question though.

When is it officially acceptable to use the diablo smiley? And has anyone ever used it as an avatar?

Whenever you find a good use for it. I don't think so, I don't remember anyone having big obnoxious avatars, and the number of animated ones is very few anyways.

[Qgqqqqq]

Dedlurkers (under the current rb model) are basically considered teamplayers, with the right to say what they please, and even play turns.
For example, in pb9 I'm basically a dedlurker, but (when I have time) I playturns and micro stuff.
Of course its down to what the player decides, but normally your welcome to log in.

[Ceiliazul]

I wouldn't assume any turn playing duties (or even pitboss login privileges) without talking to the player(s)!

[spellman]

What's the done thing with PBEM at RB? Not having played it before but having read a couple of things, I'm wondering if it's 'all in the interface' or if the standard is to save separately and send on.

The common practice is to just save and email, we don't have any sort of automated process for sending saves along.

That being said, the PBEM system built into Civ4 (in case you're unfamiliar) does have some handy additions to help facilitate the process. Auto-saves, password protect next player, etc. We also have Trackers that can get setup to help others know where the save is and help with the e-mailing to the next person process.