OK -- first, quick apology to Skald. You're right, I hadn't quite caught the shift of focus.
This take on this idea really started with the idea of the system somehow analyzing people and kind of
enforcing their posting rate. Yours (and Vinny's) is just to create a place for a GM to show what they're expecting somewhere, and I agree, most of what I said just doesn't apply to that.
Except, as BBR brought back up, the more realistic variability I see in almost
all games, and the fact that while there isn't a window anywhere that says, "Posting Rate:", there already are several places for a GM to include this in whatever detail they want without us having to pre-define anything for anybody.
Also... posting rates change. Game system and genre rarely change. But posting rates... I mean, not only are they fluid in that, `except on the holidays' kind of way, but a
lot of GMs, when setting up their games, expect to move much faster than ends up happening. It's an exciting time, you know? But will they update it in the second month when things slow down? A few, of course, but not most. Most people will set that when they're creating the game, and then forget about it.
Granted, that's equally true whether they've put it in a searchable field or just written, "And I'll be updating every three minutes!" in their Game Info field. But a frequently-inaccurate searchable field sounds like more trouble to me.
jase:
I'm not convinced that posting rate is so desperately wanted and needs to be searchable.
I will agree with Vinny that posting rate is pretty much the
second thing I think about. That's not exactly what he said. I will say all for myself that posting rate is pretty much the second thing I think about, and agree with Vinny that an unclear posting rate is probably the biggest potential problem that can knock single players out of a game, in either direction.
Yes, system is absolutely first. Who the GM is might be first-and-a-half -- I mean, if I happen to recognize the GM as one I've played with before, then whether they were good or bad totally trumps posting rate. But that's rare and... coincidental, really. But once I've found a game that looks interesting, posting rate is next.
...But then, of course, I want fields for How Long Is This Game Going To Last (1 year, 2 years, 5 years, Until The Stars Dim), Grammar Skills (Y/N), and No, Seriously, How Long Will It Really Last (2 days, 1 week, 1 month, 1 year, Until The Stars Come And Pry It From Our Cold Dead Hands).
..And seeing the three posts that came in since I started writing this, it kind of doesn't apply anymore, but it amuses the heck out of me that Vinny and I were talking about stars at the same time, so I'm going to post anyway.