I've been looking at the voting board for some time and have begun to wonder about a few muds with their sudden "climb" in the voting tables.
The one that comes to mind is Achaea.
Now, I'm not attacking them directly, but I would like to use them as an example for the point I'm trying to make.
When I logged on to Achaea, I was playing not for more then 5 mins when the helpers asked me if I had voted yet. I found this really odd and told them that I had when I created (which I hadn't). They told me that I needed to vote while I was online. However, as time passed more and more tells of the nature "why haven't you voted" "you need to vote" came to me.
The spam was ridiculous. I couldn't even move without being told to reaid their helpfile of "your patriotic duty" which outlines how you are to vote.
I started to read the helpfile here on topmudsites and noticed that muds cannot offer rewards to players for voting. When I was reading this, I thougt, well, doesn't that make sense for the opposite as well? Can a mud in fact give a player disadvantages for NOT voting for them? Because if you do that then the people who are voting are in fact recieving a benefit (the benefit of not being penalized)
Muds are like societies in many ways, and I think that having a 'negative' status for not voting is a very real and signifigant disadvantage assigned by the mud.
Personally, I think the 'spirit' of the rules here is to have an atmosphere where players aren't pressured to vote in the hopes that their votes will be of their own will and not forced.
I personally think that a new set of rules should be put in by the webmaster here. Those being...
1) Muds cannot monitor who is voting.
2) Muds can ask for people to vote and bring up reminders, but not pressure them to do so.
I feel this will provide a much better "voting" atmosphere.
Rundvelt
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