[Proposal] The Universal Unified Opinion Normalisation Protocol (UUONP) v0.7 (Consultation Draft)

Right, since board game forums are currently a wild west where Uncle Gary’s one play of ‘Ticket to Ride’ in 2008 carries the same textual weight as a 3,000-word post from someone who speedruns 18xx before breakfast, I propose we equalise everything. Not by being chill, obviously, but via a strictly administered, needlessly baroque bureaucracy.

Phase 1: Enrolment & Identity Verification

• Create a ‘Meeple Identity’ (MID) by submitting: a passport-style photo of you frowning at a rulebook, your BGG handle, and a short video of you saying ‘point-salad’ without flinching.
• Sign Form BG-14.3 (‘Declaration of No Secret House Rules’). Counter-signing by a notary public or your group’s rules lawyer required.

Phase 2: Calibration Weekend (compulsory)

• Sit the Boardgame Aptitude Test (BAT): 200 multiple-choice questions on edge cases, including whether the word ‘may’ is permissive or mandatory when preceded by an asterisk and a sigh.
• Practical exam: demonstrate a clean teach of ‘The Crew’ to three hostile botanists in under five minutes.
• Endurance: endure a 2-hour rules video where the audio is 0.25s out of sync. No pausing.
• At the end you’ll be assigned your Meeple Proficiency Index (MPI) and Analysis Paralysis Half-Life (AP-½).

Phase 3: Multiaxial Rating Suite
You’ll be scored along the following axes (0–9 scale, tenths permitted, rounding to nearest awkward):

• Rulebook Literacy (RL) – can you interpret diagrams that look like IKEA furniture instructions for emotions?
• Euro-to-Ameritrash Tolerance Ratio (EATR) – how many dice before you make that face.
• Fiddliness Acceptance Threshold (FAT) – measured in ‘micro-chits per minute’.
• Kingmaking Ethical Index (KEI) – your propensity to write 700 words on whether passing is collusion.
• Solitaire Sanctity Quotient (SSQ) – do you get cross if someone breathes near your tableau.
• Sleeving Dogma Coefficient (SDC) – yes, you do need to declare your stance.
• Teach Clarity Score (TCS) – words per minute divided by number of times you say ‘basically’.
• Neglected Expansion Regret (NER) – number of sealed expansions haunting your Kallax.

Phase 4: Opinion ELO (O-ELO)

• Every published opinion (‘X is overhyped’, ‘Y sings at three’, ‘Z is a lifestyle game’) enters a ranked queue.
• Other users challenge your opinion with a counter-opinion; both O-ELOs adjust based on outcome (as determined by a panel of three randoms and one cat).
• Repeated use of ‘it depends’ results in provisional status until you specify precisely what it depends on (humidity, table size, presence of Steve).

Phase 5: Normalisation Algorithm
All comments must begin with a metadata header for proper cross-referencing:

[MPI 6.4 | RL 8.1 | EATR 3.7 | FAT 2.2 | KEI 9.0 | SSQ 4.9 | SDC: Unsleeved Extremist | TCS 7.3 | NER 5 | O-ELO 1512]

Your raw take is then transformed into a Quantified Ludology Unit (QLU):

QLU = (Sentiment × RL × TCS) ÷ (FAT + AP-½) × log10(O-ELO / 1200) ± EATR drift

Where ‘Sentiment’ is determined by how many times you write ‘tight’, ‘swingy’, or ‘elegant’, and ‘EATR drift’ accounts for dice-induced mood volatility.

Phase 6: Peer Review & Compliance

• Before posting, submit your comment to the Office for Ludicrous Opinion Governance (OfLOG) for a 7–14 minute review.
• Two rubber-stamped approvals required: one from a Euro player called Alex, and one from an Ameritrash enjoyer also called Alex (different Alex).
• Non-compliant posts are redirected to a 37-page Google Doc labelled ‘Thoughts’.

Phase 7: Cross-Forum Harmonisation

• Reddit, BGG, Mastodon and that bloke at the club who only communicates via laminated flowcharts will adopt the Common Opinion Header (COH) so we can finally compare ‘7/10 would play again’ with ‘3.5✽ on my patented smile-to-grimace continuum’.
• Legacy campaigns must file an Ongoing Take Variance (OTV) every three sessions, or whenever someone rage-drafts the last blue card.

Edge Cases (because of course)

• If you’ve played fewer than three times, your views are ‘Pre-Calibration Murmurs’ and must be whispered into a jam jar.
• If you only play at two player, all your numbers are divided by π until you’ve experienced a table talker who says ‘what are you going to do about it’ every turn.
• If you’ve ever said ‘this would be better at five’, your KEI is audited.

Benefits

• At last, a way to meaningfully compare ‘I bounced off it’ with ‘opens up on play six’ without anyone feeling anything.
• Rich new arguments about whether AP-½ should be harmonic mean or median, which will be settled by a subcommittee using coin flips they insist are deterministic.

I await your constructive, rigorously formatted feedback.