I've decided to go ahead and not allow incentives and rewards to be given to players for voting. Here is the new entry in the Rules section:

Obviously, the majority of the community here at TMS is against the idea of offering rewards for voting, and this site is here for what's best for everyone as a whole. While offering rewards might increase traffic to a degree, I think restricting rewards will also increase traffic as more muds will activately try to get a better ranking on the list.

Notice that I still allow awards to ALL players for a goal. For example, you can tell your players that if your mud is in the top 10 at reset time, you'll reward them by opening up a new area, giving them all 1000xp, having a festival day on the mud, etc. This reward must be given to ALL players on the mud - not just the ones that voted.

This rule will begin to be enforced starting Monday, January 16th. Please continue to discuss the issue, your thoughts on this rule change, suggestions, etc. Nothing is ever etched in stone.

Synozeer

It is mostly a zero-sum game, actually. From an economic standpoint, if we view players as units of wealth, the only creation of wealth comes from players new to MUDding. Now, let's say that TMS creates 50 new units of wealth (attracts 50 new people to MUDding) per month. The most any other given MUD can gain per month without drawing directly from another is the amount of wealth created every month. Even this can be viewed as denying income to other MUDs that would otherwise have gotten those players.

It's simple, really. New members to the list do not facilitate more creation of wealth (unless they start buying TMS adspace on mpogd or something), therefore unless they draw exactly 0 players, or run at a net loss, they are further dividing the resources of the site.

Wow.. Thanks Synozeer. I hope that enforcement doesn't place too much of a burden on you.

WOW!

This is excellent news. Thank you Synozeer for being so responsive to the users/readers here!

I can hardly put into words how PLEASANTLY surprised I was when I read this post!

The creation of new units would come by one of two ways:
1) A new player gets his start on a mud.
2) An existing player finds a mud that he likes and plays it in addition to his other muds.

These two factors are both influenced by the muds at which the player is currently playing. I don't know of any existing surveys that can quantify either of these factors enough to make a decision on this matter. While I would agree that there would be some "loss" (where loss is often defined in this case as failure to gain, which is usually something else entirely) to some people, I disagree that there is no benefit as well. I think that deciding either way without much quantitive evidence is unwise =).

This is still zero sum. A player that plays two MUDs is not worth as much as two players who each play one MUD. A player, or, mor specifically, a player's time is a finite resource that does not increase in value when spread across multiple recipients. If the hypothetical player allocates half of his resources to another MUD, the first MUD loses that amount of resources, and the net change is zero.

As for losing wealth vs. not gaining, I agree that they are significantly different. I was merely pointing out that unless Mihaly's MUD was running a net loss, it was having a negative impact on the rest of the list. The only way it could have a positive impact while running a net gain would be if his MUD listing generated more new wealth than it consumed. A new MUD listing, however, has no effect on the amount of new wealth generated by TMS, therefore his MUD listing was most definitely negatively impacting the rest of the list.

Just to preemptively clear up any possible confusion, please note that I'm not saying that a negative impact on the rest of the list is in any way out of line. It is, in fact, the whole point of putting your MUD on the list. I only had a problem with Mihaly trying to claim that his listing was somehow benefitting everyone else, and that his abuses were amplifying said claimed benefits.

I'd just like to thank Synozeer for making that change to the rules. I think it will add a great deal of integrity to the site.

While you are correct in stating that a player's time is a finite resource that does not increase, there is an important implication that does not follow from this fact. This implication is that a player's time allocation is fixed with regards to playing a mud. One can disprove of this fairly easily with a hypothetical situation: If I usually spend one hour a day reading a book, but I find a mud that I enjoy, I may spend that same hour playing the mud instead. In this case the net time allocation overall is zero, but the net time allocation spent playing muds has increased. The same logic applies to new players starting on a mud, only in a more exaggerated manner.

The underlined conditional is a key point, and the assertion following immediately after it is not correct without its truth. Like I said in my last post though, I know of no surveys that can answer this question.

That can be answered fairly easily, without any survey.

A new listing does not affect TMS's generation of wealth in any manner whatsoever, therefore the question of whether or not a new MUD making a net gain from a TMS listing negatively impacts the rest of the members of the list is easily answered by a simple yes. A new listing only affects the reallocation of existing resources, and/or the allocation of new wealth generated by TMS.

Players that come to TMS from a mud on the listing and end up playing another are a net zero change in wealth. Only players new to MUDding, and/or come from outside the list represent a net gain. As those players by definition do not come from listed members, whether or not a given MUD is on the list has no effect on the wealth generated by TMS.

I addressed this in my previous post ;). There would be a net gain if that player allocated time that was previously unallocated for mudding to a new mud found on the list.

That is the case for EVERY mud.

It always makes me chuckle when people trot out this argument, as if to say "our mud is MORE FUN that the muds ranked higher than us, because the players of those muds are only voting because they have so much free time due to their mud not being as much fun."

Considering the fact that voting takes about 5 seconds, I find it difficult to believe that any game of any type could be so incredibly amazing that one just couldn't bear to rip themself away for 5 seconds to vote.

Uhm...It's already January 17...

So do you mean January 20?


Or did you mean Monday, February 18?

Sorry, I accidently plugged in today's date. The correct date is January 20th.

-Synozeer

True, but I strongly suspect, based on statistics for MMORPGs, that show that players will spend around 75% of their time playing a single character*, that such a gain would be marginal at best.

*Note: 75% on a single character, when you have multiple characters in the same game. I suspect that the ratio of primary char time/secondary chars times is even higher when spread across multiple games, but, of course, that is just a plausible extrapolation based on anecdotal evidence.

I can't honestly say I enjoyed any of the top 50 MU*'s, much less the top 20. I agree with whoever said that most of them cheat. I really don't care that they cheat, however, and they are not bad MU*s (well, some aren't), but mainly, they just failed to catch my interest.

Its been awhile since I have had the opportunity to visit. I am both amused and saddened to find the same issue being tossed about.

What amuses me is that I read so many of Achaea's justifications for their reward system and assumed that its owner's arguments were opinions not contrary to facts. I admit my chagrin upon actually reading TMS rules and seeing this:

Apparently, Synozeer has no desire to enforce the rules he has put in place; I understand the tediousness of policing all the muds wishing to advertise here and it is, after all, his site.

Achaea has some very interesting features that are not standard; for this, I salute them. I will not mention what I feel are weaknesses in the mud and the way it promotes itself as there are plenty of posts on that subject.

It's simple. If you see a mud cheating by offering rewards for votes, report it to me with all the facts and I'll look right into it. I'm not going to log into every mud on a regular basis and hope to catch a reward emote.

-Synozeer