[John]

Originally Posted by (the_logos @ June 13 2004,03:05) The entire impact of this proposed rule change would seem to be that EVERY player will have to get a message every X hours to vote rather than just some players getting said message. Whose experience are you trying to preserve?

I'm not talking about Achaea here, but the rules stop you from treating those who vote and those who don't vote differently.

Treating the two groups differently is seen as rewarding one group over another. A reward is something someone sees value in. XP bonuses for voting aren't a problem if there is no value in them. Some people consider getting a message because they haven't voted (regardless of how often it is shown) as spam. If only people who don't vote get the spam, those who vote before logging in are rewarded by not being spammed.

You could say "being in #1 is considered a reward" but everyone in the mud gains that reward regardless of if they vote, so therefore those who vote aren't being the only ones who are rewarded. The rules target rewarding those who vote. Reaching goals (such as reaching the position of #4) isn't (as far as I know) punished in the rules.

[Rundvelt]

Originally Posted by (Jazuela @ June 13 2004,00:25) Runvelt, Achaea is a -commercial- enterprise. It pays serious money for advertising. In the real world where people do this kind of thing, they need to keep track of what their paid -and- unpaid advertisements are doing.

I fail to see what data they could not derive from the lack of player names. Votes per hour, best voting day, worst voting day etc can be extracted by a script that monitors such things.
####, even the IP can be logged to see where the player is from (I think this works, not sure though), without cross refrencing it to the player character.

I think you'll find that most market research is actually anonymous. Focus groups are a great example of this, same with volume purchace comparisons. Coke looks at all the cases they sold. Wal-Mart the Volume of Products (in &#036. They don't really care that the Johnson family purchased 4000 worth of goods and the Petersons didn't buy anything.

[Jazuela]

Heh - you're naive if you actually believe that Runveldt. They want to know the demographics. They also want to know who all these people are, who have suddenly stopped buying Bic shavers and switched to Gilette. They want to know their names, addresses, family size, how much money they're earning. They want to know what OTHER kinds of things they're buying as well. They want to know if the Johnsons are buying these shavers on a tuesday or a sunday, and what time of day.

And they most certainly want to know that it's the Johnsons, because that is how Bic will know to target them for their next ad campaign, to try and win their patronage back when they send out free Bic razors next year - or even during the devopment process so they can see what it is about the Gilette razors that made them switch in the first place.

Knowing -who- your audience is has a very significant impact on your product promotion. Knowing how to get in touch with them is equally as important.

Now, you -could- just stop using savings cards and insist to the cashier that she use one of the store cards. But then you won't get to write checks - because that's how the store identifies your checking account these days.

And you -could- just stop playing Achaea - but then you won't be able to play Achaea anymore.

Just because they have info about you doesn't mean they will use it to harm you. And for what it's worth, your naivete combined with Logos's check on 100,000 lines of text because he was genuinely concerned that his staff might be cheating - tells me that - you're just making stuff up to prove a point. And that wouldn't be such a bad thing if you weren't attempting to cause doubt against the staff of Achaea.

But you are, and it is. So cut it out.

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by Synozeer wrote: You also cannot require a player to vote to continue playing the game or to prevent requests to vote by the mud or its staff.

That sounds good... Or perhaps it could be put in even more simple terms - that you cannot differentiate in any way between those who vote and those who do not, and that gameplay cannot be changed based on the overall mud ranking.

Another thing you might want to consider is how the website comes into play. For example a site providing players with discussion forums, hints and tips, news, and so on could also be associated with the voting - should the website be allowed to send an automatic vote when the players logs their account on? Should it be allowed that players may only access certain sections only after clicking the "vote" button?

Originally Posted by the_logos wrote: The entire impact of this proposed rule change would seem to be that EVERY player will have to get a message every X hours to vote rather than just some players getting said message.

However as Jazuela pointed out, "A game that spams non-voters with requests/nudges/demands to vote -is- offering a game incentive and/or reward". Players will click the vote just to get rid of the spam, the result being that the mud will receive far more votes than muds which don't employ such tactics.

[Fifi]

Because I play none of the muds in question, I followed this thread with amused detachment. However, the idea that some muds make your vote automatic when you log in is is fairly shocking and repugnant. If someone is going to change a rule, that's where it should be changed. Afterall, by definition isn't a vote a voluntary choice?

[Terloch]

Fifi,

It's not that the vote becomes automatic, it's that there is a script that keeps track of who votes and who does not based on their IP address, and then there's a bit of code so when you log on to the game there's a message displayed to you if your IP logging in doesn't match one of the IP's in the log created by the voting proxy page.

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by (Terloch @ June 13 2004,17:27) It's not that the vote becomes automatic

No, but that would certainly be a possibility - and one which isn't covered by the rules as they stand.

[Tocamat]

I've seen the Achaea banners, description and trophy a thousand times. Never once has it tempted me to log into their mud and check it out. What has driven me to look at Achaea are the countless multi page threads started to flame or comment on something they've done or something someone has claimed they've done. These threads are definately great advertising. Having said that, I spent at least an hour on Achaea the other day. Not once was I approached or asked to vote. Nor did I see anyone mention anything about voting.

I find it interesting that a commercial site (TMS) who's very lively hood is dependant on traffic, seeks to tie the hands of mud admins on how they send that traffic. Synozeer has no moral obligation to ensure players from any mud are not being rewarded or asked to vote. Lets face it, we all know the TOP 100 is by no means a reflection of the Top 100 best muds. It is a measure of the muds that are able to send the most traffic. That traffic, no matter what mud sends it, is good for all of us.

It would appear to me that the day is being ruled by the vocal minority. Ranting in these forums seems to carry more weight than ones advertising dollars.

[the_logos]

Originally Posted by (Rundvelt @ June 13 2004,08:02) I think you'll find that most market research is actually anonymous.  Focus groups are a great example of this, same with volume purchace comparisons.  Coke looks at all the cases they sold.  Wal-Mart the Volume of Products (in &#036.  They don't really care that the Johnson family purchased 4000 worth of goods and the Petersons didn't buy anything.

I don't see this as relevant to the discussion really, but since you brought it up....Wal-Mart and every other retailer on earth would LOVE to know that the Johnson family bought 4000 worth of X good, so that the next iteration of X good can be marketed directly to them. Why do you think Safeway and other companies like that have their 'rewards' cards? It's so that they can track what YOU as an individual are buying.

--matt

[the_logos]

Originally Posted by It would appear to me that the day is being ruled by the vocal minority. Ranting in these forums seems to carry more weight than ones advertising dollars.

I agree. I don't understand why the blatantly false rantings of one guy seems to cause any consideration of changes in the site, particularly when they will change -nothing-. Achaea and Aardwolf will continue to do our little dance at the top of the rankings. The site will get slightly less traffic, causing the site to be worth slightly less to both Synozeer and the listed muds.

Synozeer: There are thousands (I don't know how many, but I assume it's thousands) of people who come here every day to vote or read the forums or whatever. So far there seem to be almost nobody that has piped up saying they think the rules need changing. Why does a rant, particularly one that is based on completely false accusations, carry any weight whatosever?

I just fail to see the motivation in changing the site's rules I guess when the impact will be negligible. And really, if there IS a mud out there that is spamming people every 30 seconds with reminders to vote until they do, I'd say it's a pretty #### good mud if they can manage to retain a single player in the face of that kind of irritation.

I think you should decide whether the site is supposed to be a traffic exchange (which is how its set up) or whether it's genuinely supposed to rate muds (in which case I wish you the best of luck in such a quixotic enterprise.) Assuming it's the former (and all signs certainly point to that), to whose benefit is it to make increasingly restrictive rules on voting practices? Traffic is traffic and the only people I ever see complaining about voting practices are an insignificant percentage (far less than 1%) of the site's users.

Again, I don't really care personally about this rule change as it's not going to change the placement of our muds. It just seems like the more rules you have, the more time someone has to spend listening to accusations that mud X is breaking rule Y, and then investigating such. *shrug*

--matt

[Yui Unifex]

Originally Posted by (the_logos @ June 13 2004,14:51) I just fail to see the motivation in changing the site's rules I guess when the impact will be negligible.

Please go back and read Synozeer's post. The rules have not been changed, just clarified. Most of your post is under this misconception.

Originally Posted by ("the_logos" @ foo) It just seems like the more rules you have, the more time someone has to spend listening to accusations that mud X is breaking rule Y, and then investigating such. *shrug*

Originally Posted by ("the_logos" @ foo) Why does a rant, particularly one that is based on completely false accusations, carry any weight whatosever?

Because then we don't need to worry about incorrect interpretations of the rules when someone accuses mud X of breaking rule Y.

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by (Tocamat @ June 13 2004,19:16) It would appear to me that the day is being ruled by the vocal minority. Ranting in these forums seems to carry more weight than ones advertising dollars.

Apparently you've not thought this issue out very clearly.

First and formost, what is being asked here is for the rules to be clarified. It's entirely up to Adam to decide the voting rules, but as they stand among mud admin there is obviously some disagreement concerning the definition of "incentive". I'm not sure how clarification of this issue can be considered a bad thing, unless you happen to be one of the people exploiting a loophole in the wording.

Now this basically leaves Adam with two choices: He could say "it's okay to spam people until they vote", or he could do as he has done and say "you can't do that". If he had gone for the former option, then any mud that wanted to be near the top of the listing would simply have to spam its players, while those who didn't want to pressure their players would fall a long way down the listings. This would certainly give TMS more hits, but would make the listings as much an indicator of how much they spam their players as how popular they are.

Personally I'm sick enough of web-based adverts as it is, without having to suffer them on muds as well, and so I applaud Adam's decision.

Regarding people leaving because of spam: Of course only an idiot would spam complete newbies with voting requests - but do it to players that have invested a few dozens hours and I doubt any of them would leave.

Note: I believe that TMS crashed after one of the really popular commercial muds asked all its players to vote - so to be honest I'm not entirely sure how well the site would hold up if so many muds started pressuring their players to vote, anyway.

[Traithe]

KaVir,

I think the main issue I'm having with it is that the proposed changes will punish those of us who have been ethical and responsible about this sort of thing as well.

I don't consider, and doubt you would either, a simple two-line reminder to check the helpfile if you're interested in voting that pops up once immediately after you log in, "harassment". The only reason we track votes is that so we can even further minimize the impact of these reminders by not displaying them to people who've voted recently, and therefore don't need to be reminded. That's it, really - there are no forum "VOTE!!!" posts, no game-wide announcements from staff begging for votes, etc. Just a single, discreet, two-line reminder once per session to invite those who haven't voted to obtain information on how to do so.

I'm almost tempted to have the code capture statistics on how many lines of scroll are passed in the average gaming session on our MUD, so I have an exact figure on how insignifcant those two added lines of scroll are - but I imagine we can both agree that they're pretty insignificant even without the figures, heh. So, yes, strictly speaking, you could say that we are somehow "harrassing" those who haven't voted, or providing incentives (the lack of those two extra lines of scroll) to those who do vote... but at this point I'm appealing to common sense, I think, because I feel pretty strongly that we're playing "fair" here and that a change to the rules to broadly preclude ANY vote tracking due to the possibilities of abuse by other MUDs will bar our current system as well.


T.

Edit: Sheesh, I've got some run-on sentences in there that would make the Pope jealous. Sorry, folks -- too lazy to fix them, so I think I'll just hang my head in shame and get back to the housework. <g>

[Rundvelt]

You know, apparently "blatent" is the only word people seem to be using these days...

Now, I wasn't as clear as I should have been in my note. I figured people here would know enough to see what I was saying... silly me.

Companies do want to know all about you, but not for marketing directly at you, but to flush out and have a more complete and accurate set of statistical predictions about their business.

It's less of a "These people did this" scenario and more of a "We're very confident with the information we have here"

As for Logos, a couple things...

1) It did happen. You want to say it didn't and call me a liar, I could care less. If you want to check I believe it was around the Jan - Feb timeframe when there was the thread about Achaea offering rewards to people (I think it was after christmas, definitly winter time)

2) If it's not going to do anything, what's the problem? Let the Admin descide what is worth his time or not.

3) Bonus cards are so you spend money in their stores. The information is only a side benefit. This is also why stores have their own credit cards. They don't pay usage fees and get interest on the sales amount, when they are only minus the wholesale price.

[Tocamat]

I was thinking very clearly on the matter. I think back to when the rule was changed regarding giving out incentives as reward for voting. I'd like to know how many of the Top Ten muds here, that pay for advertising, were doing the complaining about incentives. The number is likely zero. Sites as good as this one are possible due to the advertising dollars of games like Aardwolf and Achaea. I think you all need to give a little more credit where credit it due and be more appreciative of just what they can do for your games indirectly.

Why should Synozeer care what goes on in someone elses mud. This need for a rule clarification is just another attempt to hinder the efforts of the big muds. Each muds players are their players to win or lose, **** off and/or make happy. There is only 1 rule needed here...no one person may vote more than once during any given 12 hour period. Plain and simple and leaves no room for arguement. How that vote gets here isn't really anyones concerns other than the individual mud admins.

[Wik]

I really don't see why there's so much of a fuss about a rule clarification. If you're punishing or harassing someone for not voting, it's the just the other side of the coin from giving them gifts for voting. Frankly, it really scares me to know that there's even the possibility of reprecussions in-mud for not voting.

This is where the letter of the law interpretations fall apart. Sure, an admin might not punish your character for not voting. But the fact that he knows that it's you, specifically, who aren't voting, can possibly affect the way he treats you. He may not even mean to. I think that's incentive enough to vote.

Pure and simple: I wish that mud owners didn't have access to this information. But as Jazuela talked about earlier, I also despise having to swipe a card before I can buy groceries. Why wouldn't you want one less big brother to watch you, if you could?

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by Traithe wrote: I think the main issue I'm having with it is that the proposed changes will punish those of us who have been ethical and responsible about this sort of thing as well.

Then why not propose an alternative solution to Adam? He seems to be trying to do his best to create a fair compromise, but you need to make your suggestions known.

Originally Posted by I don't consider, and doubt you would either, a simple two-line reminder to check the helpfile if you're interested in voting that pops up once immediately after you log in, "harassment".

No, that seems fair enough.

Originally Posted by The only reason we track votes is that so we can even further minimize the impact of these reminders by not displaying them to people who've voted recently, and therefore don't need to be reminded.

If it's just a two-line reminder then I don't really see how your mud would be "punished" by the proposed clarifications.

The problem is that as they stand, the rules are highly abusable. It wouldn't take much effort for a mud to gather votes from the vast majority of its players through trickery and coercion.

Originally Posted by Tocamat wrote: Why should Synozeer care what goes on in someone elses mud.

It's not about what goes on in someone else's mud - it's about where the votes come from. If mud X gives players double exp for voting and half exp if they don't, while mud Y makes no changes, then a far higher percentage of mud X's players are going to vote. That result is a very skewed set of listings.