RE: Should we heavily moderate IRPG access ?

As m3rcos1ty says... this is a good post as these ideas should always be discussed and all opinions considered. barton26, as I mentioned elsewhere, you have some good points to consider.

However, I'm not convinced that your points provide a strong enough argument to vote against moderation of IRPG players.

While I agree that the premise behind IRPG is a game where you win by doing nothing, the purpose of hosting such a game varies by the individual doing the hosting. In the case of Gridcoin IRPG only sEpuLchEr can tell us what his motivations were/are, but as with many IRC games, I believe it is hosted and kept alive in the spirit of fostering and growing the Gridcoin community. It does this by providing the entertainment of a game (of a different sort) with the additional lure of gaining some "real world" rewards. Entertainment is provided by not only watching what happens to your character but by also sharing some of those happenings with other community members.

With this in mind I suggest that one has to look at the question of what does "fostering and growing the Gridcoin community" mean? If the goal is simply to get good numbers during the next census of cryptocurrency users, then almost any means used to gain any type of user works towards this goal. But, is simply a large number of users either a good goal or a good measure of a "community"? I submit that in this case it is not.
When one talks of fostering a community it is with the ideals of making members feel included, developing active community leaders and champions, promoting positive contributions, enabling members to connect with each other, as well as maintaining the ideal of a non-zero-sum game; this last one is the idea that the community should be happy and the members gain something and do not feel like they lose anything by participating. On the other side of the coin, one attempts to limit trolling, leeching, negativity that impacts other members with no beneficial purpose, criminal, immoral, and unethical activities. Unless, of course, those are the purpose of said community.

As you correctly pointed out, the goal of IRPG is to participate in the game by doing nothing in the game... being "idle". However, being "idle" in the game does not necessarily map to being "inactive" in the community. If IRPG is hosted to foster the Gridcoin community then allowing persons to simply connect to IRPG and not interact with the Gridcoin IRC community is counter this goal.

When I look at what make me want to be part of the Gridcoin community I consider the following:

I want to feel like I'm contributing something positive, and that my contributions are worth something.
I want to help and assist others and see the positive feedback that such activity results in. This does not necessarily mean I want to be given a medal or be recognized by the community as a whole... positive feedback includes seeing the community grow, or seeing the people you assist pay it forward.
I want some entertainment value.
I want a break, not more "work" or "stress".
These reasons are why I participate in gridcoin IRC and IRPG, donate to GRCidle, rain and tip in the main channel, give GRC to new users on CryptoCoinTalk, etc.
If I feel that I am being used, abused, trolled, or otherwise generally unappreciated then I have better things to do with my leisure time and will simply reduce myself to being a miner and my only contribution will be to the census numbers of Gridcoin and not the Gridcoin community.

The above is why I support the idea of moderation within a community. But the implementation of the moderation is crucial to how the community will progress, or not. More on the implementation of IRPG moderation later...

Addressing some of the specific points you make:

Beyond the simple accounting of how efficient various means are to getting starter coins I also believe that promoting a non-interactive means, such as IRPG, as simply a way to gain starter coins does a disservice to both the Gridcoin community as well as to any host of such a service. Providing means of acquiring starter coins that involve new users interacting with existing community members not only gets the new users involved, giving them a positive feel for the community, it provides a reward and positive feedback to those existing community members who are given the chance to assist the new users. This then becomes, in most cases, a positive feedback loop... promoting similar actions by new users. I have seen a number of the new users that I have donated starter coins to become active participants and donors, thereby bolstering my reasons to continue such activities. With regard to your point about new users joining IRPG for building up GRC, I'm not convinced that IRPG is either effective nor targeted at this goal. Yes IRPG is somewhat like a faucet in that it trickles GRC out to participants but the amount over time is trivial compared to many real faucets as well as other means... such as asking for starter coins in https://cryptocointalk.com/topic/32833-starter-coins-for-beginners/. This is the forum where I got my initial stake and have since returned the favour many times over. Other GRC community members have also donated to new users via this and similar forums; I believe you may be one of those members as I know you have donated towards IRPG. I have seen, and responded to, new users asking for starter coins in both of the main channels.

With regard to your point(s) on the recent implementation of moderation within IRPG:
In general, I agree with your negative reviews of how this initial moderation (specifically, the weeding of inactive users) was handled. The idea was acceptable, and the spirit and intention was for the good of the community. For myself, I was surprised when I was kicked from IRPG as I had not heard that any such decision had been made. I had heard discussion in regard to the number of inactive members in the IRC channels as well as the potential for GRC leechers in IRPG, but nothing of specific actions that would be taken. However, I was not banned and by conversing in the main channel I quickly learned why the kick had occurred.

So like you, I have issues and concern the the method that the kicks and bans were handed out in IRPG but I do not have issues with the ideal motivating the actions.

I have not voted yet, although I do support the idea of moderation, even heavy active moderation. I would like the discussion and formulation of the implementation plans to progress further before committing my opinion to the vote.

I would like to see some discussion of ways that moderation, involving kicking/banning, could be implemented that would promote a positive message and more involvement within the community.
I have submitted ideas via pm's of ways that could not only achieve the goals of reducing the possibility of people joining IRPG with the sole deliberate intention of leeching, but also enhance the game overall as well as the Gridcoin IRC community.
If, as a group, we can come up with a good implementation plan then not only will new users benefit but so will all users benefit.

Finally, I most heartedly agree with you in that we need to always keep new users in mind and develop ways that we can foster their growth in our community. The implementation of a Yes vote is not solely about them, but very much impacts them as it will many members of the Gridcoin IRC community.