Top Mud Sites Forum - View Single Post

dentin · 07-17-2014, 12:19 PM

My biggest objection to voting is seeing servers like Abandoned Realms in the top ten (they're #11 now). That server has 340 votes so far, and the server itself has an average userload of 4 (5.0 votes per player average per day). Meanwhile, Aardwolf only has 1450 votes with an average userload of 310 (0.27 votes per player average per day). Similarly, Achaea has 752 votes with a userload of around 180 (0.25 votes per player average per day). How a game can have 19 times the voting ratio of known good servers and not get flagged is beyond me.

With blatant cheating like that on the front page, I didn't even bother asking people to vote until I felt we could get enough to at least make front page. Speaking of which:

There's no point in traffic exchanging via the voting system unless you're at the top. If you're a small server and you're looking to get larger, focus your efforts elsewhere until you're sure you can get in the top 20. If you can't make first page, don't even bother. You'll just be wasting your players' time.

This is because much like Google, the only entries that get any real amount of traffic are the ones that are displayed in the browser window when the page comes up; if the user has to scroll down to see more entries, or go to the next page, your entry will see virtually no traffic (compared to the entries at the top of the list.)

There are some pretty easy fixes for this unfairness problem, if the TMS owners want to actually make TMS a fair traffic exchange. For example, it would be more fair to display a randomly selected list using the votes as the selection weight. Change the list once daily so that servers stay at the top long enough to be noticed and for people to hit low-load servers en-masse. The highly voted servers will still get a lot of air time, but smaller servers will also occasionally see the light of day as well.

That said, I understand that TMS is associated with some of the top ranked servers, so it seems unlikely that this sort of thing will change. Certainly if AA was in the top ten, I wouldn't want the ranking system to change either.

-dentin

Alter Aeon MUD

07-17-2014, 12:19 PM	#9
dentin Member Join Date: Apr 2008 Home MUD: Alter Aeon Posts: 245	Re: MUDs Don't Have To Die My biggest objection to voting is seeing servers like Abandoned Realms in the top ten (they're #11 now). That server has 340 votes so far, and the server itself has an average userload of 4 (5.0 votes per player average per day). Meanwhile, Aardwolf only has 1450 votes with an average userload of 310 (0.27 votes per player average per day). Similarly, Achaea has 752 votes with a userload of around 180 (0.25 votes per player average per day). How a game can have 19 times the voting ratio of known good servers and not get flagged is beyond me. With blatant cheating like that on the front page, I didn't even bother asking people to vote until I felt we could get enough to at least make front page. Speaking of which: There's no point in traffic exchanging via the voting system unless you're at the top. If you're a small server and you're looking to get larger, focus your efforts elsewhere until you're sure you can get in the top 20. If you can't make first page, don't even bother. You'll just be wasting your players' time. This is because much like Google, the only entries that get any real amount of traffic are the ones that are displayed in the browser window when the page comes up; if the user has to scroll down to see more entries, or go to the next page, your entry will see virtually no traffic (compared to the entries at the top of the list.) There are some pretty easy fixes for this unfairness problem, if the TMS owners want to actually make TMS a fair traffic exchange. For example, it would be more fair to display a randomly selected list using the votes as the selection weight. Change the list once daily so that servers stay at the top long enough to be noticed and for people to hit low-load servers en-masse. The highly voted servers will still get a lot of air time, but smaller servers will also occasionally see the light of day as well. That said, I understand that TMS is associated with some of the top ranked servers, so it seems unlikely that this sort of thing will change. Certainly if AA was in the top ten, I wouldn't want the ranking system to change either. -dentin Alter Aeon MUD