Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

Do you think it's worth writing out the others as well? I.e.,:

Note that I've also swapped the order of the second and third options, so that it scales from one extreme to the other.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

KaVir wrote:
Sounds like a winner to me.

-Crat

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

I'm still pushing this one:

[ ] Payment and/or donations required to play.
[ ] Payment and/or donations accepted and rewarded in-game; rewards exist that are accessible only with payment/donation
[ ] Payment and/or donations accepted and rewarded in-game; all rewards are accessible without payment/donation from the original recipient or any other
[ ] Payment and/or donations accepted but not rewarded in-game.
[ ] Neither payment nor donations accepted.

Dropped one level of distinction in the pay-for-perks space for the sake of eliminating complexity and subjectivity, and closed the "it's 100% free because non-paying players can have items transferred from paying players" loophole, which is nonsense.

Happy with the way it provides a very clear gradient of "freeness" for admins considering where they want to position themselves in that space.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

I can see the pros and cons of both lists being presented here. I would like another minor change to the last box just for readability and consistency. That is:

Old Words: [ ] Neither payment nor donations accepted.

Perhaps: [ ] Payment and/or donations not accepted.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

I don't think that'd work out well. There's an implied choice in "and/or", which is what the "neither - nor" language is meant to remove. We'd wind up with someone saying "oh, I don't accept payments, but I do accept donations, so that check box applies" -- or even the other way around.

I prefer the "neither - nor" because it's very inarguable, but "Payment/donations not accepted" would probably work.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

I think this is about as clear as one can make it.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

In addition to your list being more complex than the 4 choice one, I think "accessible only with payment/donation" may have a different meaning to someone who muds 8 hours a month compared to one who muds 8 hours a day.

In general, I prefer fewer choices to many and I like checkboxes instead of radio buttons, otherwise I'll have to run multiple searches.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

The Sword of One Thousand Lies could be available
for an online paypal payment of $50, or 2,147,483,647 platinum
coins in-game (which would take you 67 years to collect).

In such a case, a game would not be lying, in a strict sense, if
they said that the SOOTL was a perk available without having
to pay money....despite the fact that for all practical purposes,
it isn't really available except through the exchange of real
world funds.

For this reason I've accepted dropping this sort
of qualification from the payment types list. I'm not
that happy about it, because it's really useful
information, but it can be fudged so easily as to
be meaningless in practice...like "free".

-Crat

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

Yeah. I'd still like to see that go in, but I won't yell and scream about it.

Won't argue with fewer choices being generally good. Nothing about any of this would need to mean you wouldn't get checkboxes, though. Even if it were a radio button in the MUD admin interface to select the option*, it'd still be more sensible for the options to be searchable using checkboxes.

* Which, as has been discussed, isn't a given; possibly we may want people to be able to specify the case where you're required to pay to play and you can pay more for in-game rewards, for example, though I think pay-to-play subsumes pay-for-perks nicely.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

Just FYI, the line above was not moderated, it is code built into vBulletin that was not working (more accurately, not properly turned on).

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

Oy gewalt. I've triggered the engagement of an auto-censorship setting. I can't decide whether I should hang my head in shame or put it down as a lifetime achievement.

The conversation I've had with the person who dinged my reputation for that has been interesting. (I love the fact that another post I made involves far more obscene and offensive concepts, but because it doesn't use certain specific words, it's okay.) But I'm still kinda boggling at the culture shock of running into people who seriously believe that certain combinations of letters are bad and others should be punished for using them until they learn to stop.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

I wouldn't do either, the feature was turned on and wasn't working, so hand yourself a "found a bug" cookie.

You are? Then let me be the first to officially welcome you to the internet :)

Uhoh, maybe I shouldn't have added the first post, now we're off on a tangent. You did remind me of another discussion I need to start though..

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

Mmm. Cookie.

Thanks! A/S/L?

I've just been sheltered by my long disengagement from forums like these, I suppose. I'm used to just, y'know, talking. Intelligent people speaking freely and all that. Obviously I'm not utterly committed to profanity as a way of life, but it is a pretty ordinary part of my vocabulary and it's odd to think of conceivably being tarred and feathered for it, as if that were a valid and rational thing to do.

It's okay. The thread was creaking under its own weight, far too bloody serious, and badly in need of a rest. We'll be back to our regularly scheduled self-serving rationalization and marginally polite acrimony by teatime, never fear.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

You don't commit to the profane lifestyle, mate. It's not a choice.
We were born that way. Oops, outed!


What I found really really interesting was how cleanly the camps
split between people who were associated with commercial mud
activity and those who were not. There was one person in
200+ posts that self-identified with non-commercial mud but
spoke up for the commercialers...and even that person seemed
to be more outraged by characterizations than the actual
reasoning in the posts.

I suppose you could say that speaks to the callow self-serving
instincts of the commercial types, or you could say it speaks to
the reactionary communism of the freemers. I like to think that
we're *all*, on both sides, at best true believers in conflicting
viewpoints...at worst self-deluded but well-meaning.

Whatever the case, it seems that the objections to the
modified Lasher checkboxes are waning, and I suggest it's
a good time to start talking about whether it really will be implemented.


I wouldn't wory about it. Something tells me that your levity-oriented
offtopic digressions in this thread will not be deleted...unlike mine.

-Crat

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

You go, *****. See you at the ******* ****** ***** Pride March next week?

I don't really know where I fit, there. I think of LS as non-commercial, but it's definitely tainted if you apply sufficiently communistic standards. I don't have any sympathy for commercial MUD operators who want a system where people who specifically want MUDs with no money involved will wind up funneled to their MUDs despite their preferences; I also have no patience for systems that work to indiscriminately ghettoize all MUDs with a revenue stream.

Hmm. Could be, wabbit. Lasher? Whatcha think?

That's what you get for being a laughing pirate. Some people are deeply offended by laughing pirates, you know. Religious convictions, bad experiences with laughing pirates who killed their parents, that sort of thing.

Oh, that's awesome. I'm honored. :)

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

Finally.

The previously mentioned 4 select options plus an optional text box isn't anyone's perfect solution but seems to be a reasonable compromise most can live with.

Players who absolutely don't want a mud with any payment involved period can select that. Players who don't care will leave it as "ANY" on the search page or browse and read comments.

Would display similar to the way codebase displays when someone has entered additional "codebase notes". Example:

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

Ninjas, usually.

-Crat

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

Interesting.

So "Buy 1 Get 1 Free" deals are scams now, is that it? Wow, that's rich. You and Miss Teen South Carolina are possibly the only people who would say this and believe it.

Man, the mental gymnastics some people have to engage in to try and justify their arguments. Only the most paranoid and cynical consumer advocate would call "Buy 1 Get 1 Free" a scam. Normal people just consider it a good deal. Compared to you, Ralph Nader is P.T. Barnum.

If there was ever any doubt about the questionable motives of people who feel they should be able to tell other muds how they label their costs, this post removes them all.

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

So.. is this where we get to the part where Logos threatens to pull back all IRE adds? :)

Re: What does "Free" Mean?
 

I think that The Gentleman That Runs IRE has already done the math on
this and dropped his objections.

While I strongly and vehemently disagree with the wanton, arbitrary,
and unappealable posthosings that occur around here, Lasher's
willingness to consider the "free" issue with reason foremost rather than naked
greed is a very promising sign.

-Crat