[Tavish]

You felt mislead in what way?  If you thought that the list was a ranking of the which muds are the "best" muds then you were mislead before you even started.  It is a listing of which muds send the most people to this site.

People seem to be under the romantic notion that, before it was common knowledge that people used incentives to garner votes, the listing allowed small muds to get the same attention that the larger muds did, through dedication and the will of the players.  It is somewhat true, but the uprising of muds using incentives has done nothing to change it. It is the case that more larger pbased muds are using the list now which leaves fewer spots that the small muds can sneak into.  

Things that would really skew the results would be when A) players found ways around the 1 vote per 12 hours or B) if the mud recruited votes from outside of the playerbase.

[Valg]

The inherent problem with classifying this site as a device for determining what websites direct the most traffic here is that such a site isn't useful to anyone.  For TMS to thrive and expand its reach, it has to fulfill a purpose.  A site that has a useful ranking system has more content to deliver- people would come here when they want to find a new place to play, and TMS could build a reputation for being the best place to find such recommendations.  On the other hand, if TMS's reputation becomes "a list of MUDs with the most aggressive botting/bribing schemes", then the ranking list is not a draw.  You can whore the rankings out to the best briber for a short term increase in quantity, but you can't let that be your bread and butter, or it will eventually poison you.

(Disclaimer: I think the forums here are an equally important draw, but they're a separate topic, independent from how the ranking list's policies effect site quality.)

As an analogy, think of how search engines like Google have climbed to the top and thrived.  Google isn't kickass because it gets you the most links.  Google is kickass because it is reasonably good at finding the links you want most.

[Tavish]

But the site is very useful to basically everyone who wants to be involved  the way it is setup right now.
Players looking for muds get a diverse listing of some of the most popular muds out.
Admins receive a free avenue to advertise their mud.
Players can boast about their favorite mud and increase it's ranking.
Synozeer has an excellent way to draw new people to the website.

If by more content you mean listing in order of how good the games are then it can not be done.  I'm not exactly sure how much content you can put into a ranking system.

Between the listings and the database I still believe that TMS has the most eye-pleasing and user-friendly searching routines compared to any other site.  The number of muds that choose to list here is very comparable as well.  Player reviews, forum advertising, website links, pretty much everything you could want from a site if you were looking for a new place to play.  I fail to see how the order in which the muds are ranked on the list at all takes away from these features.

Unless you have 50 different ranking lists for the various models of muds players look for, the list will NEVER be a good way to find exactly what you want, only a list of some available.   A refined database search would be the equivalent of a Google search and that is readily available to anyone.

[thelenian]

No, it is not. People coming here through a voting gateway are the demographic that's least likely to actually use the list. The vast majority of people using the list are those who are coming in from an outside source (TMC, google, etc), or those dissatisfied by their current MUD.

[snip straw man/troll]

Please try to stay on-topic. And no, TMS is not a banner exchange, as I pointed out at length in another post that I'm not about to dig up. In summary, a banner exchange can only occur between sites where shared traffic is beneficial to all. A banner exchange can occur between TMS, TMC, and Kyndig, for instance, but not between TMS and many MUDs, because MUDs supply a service that is not compatible with a banner exchange. MUDs gain the most by monopolizing a person's attention, and nothing by sharing a person's attention with another MUD.

[Threshold]

Of course you find it funny. You're the one abusing the system. Since you're getting away with it and benefiting from it financially, I imagine you find it downright hilarious.

[crymerci]

[Molly]

I think we are all well aware of what your primary motivation is, matt.

[KaVir]

This keeps getting discussed, and I think almost all of us dislike the whole concept of rewarding voters - but the unfortunate fact is, as Synozeer has said in the past, it is very difficult to actually try and prevent such activity.

The reason I object to such tactics is because they severely unbalance the results (by dramatically increasing the percentage of the playerbase who will vote).  However my personal concern at this point is the venom of all the other posters towards this approach - because it's obviously not going to sway Achaea in the slightest, but it is going to discourage other people from following suit.

While I would love to see voting rewards banned, the result of the many length debates on TMS (and my own discussions with Synozeer) has shown that it's simply not feasible.  But I would rather at least see the other muds use the same approach - and thus put them on the same playing field - than let Achaea monopolise such an unfair advantage and make itself look much more popular than it really is in relation to the other muds in the rankings.

[the_logos]

We currently send (by far) the most traffic to the list of any MUD on the list. Yet, despite this, we have been gaining a not-insignificant number of players (and customers) who came to us from Top Mud Sites. If we can get a noticeable benefit from the traffic supplied by MUDs that are supplying no more than 20% as much traffic as we are, then the proportional increase that a smaller MUD can get is even greater.

As for your claims, I'd be curious to know where you get those statistics from. Are they facts, or conclusions derived from anecdotal evidence?

--matt

[the_logos]

Not really. It's a simple relationship. We bring the most traffic, so we get the most traffic back. Seems fair to me.

--matt

[the_logos]

Just in case there is any confusion, it's twofold: making money while making the sort of game I like. Either of them without the other is insufficient. I can't imagine too many careers I'd like better than making games, and while I'm hardly a religious man, I'm quite thankful to live in an age where I can do it.

--matt

[the_logos]

Some of you are really great, and I'll probably lose out by not participating, but one of my personal weaknesses is a chronic inability to avoid silly arguments, of which there are many on any unmoderated board. Thus, I'm out of the boards and will stick to the rankings list. Here's hoping some of you wise the heck up and start bringing some decent traffic here. I'd love to see someone else bring more traffic than us.

--matt

[thelenian]

Conclusions derived from logs as well as anecdotal evidence gathered by surveying a random sampling of new players.

Of those who come to our MUD through TMS, the majority are people either new to MUDs, dissatisfied with their old MUD, or actively searching for a new MUD for some other reason (e.g., old MUD closed). Many noticed our new banner ad on TMS, but did not come until convinced by word-of-mouth. Very few, if any, came through our site by way of a voting gateway.

Based on my observations and experimentations, it has been most effective to target the demographics of dissatisfied players, and those new to MUDding. This is most likely why TMC is able to generate the amount of banner traffic that it does. Its services are catered quite specifically towards those demographics with which MUD-related advertising is most effective.

Your data does not support that conclusion. Your conclusion relies on the implicit unsupported assumption, that the traffic you're gaining from TMS comes by way of the voting gateways of other MUDs.

As for your numerous attempts to imply that you are benefitting other members of the list by bribing players to vote, let me be the first of those members to say that it's quite insulting. Unless you've been running a net loss of players since becoming a member of the list, your listing has caused a net loss to the rest of the members. We're all here competing for players, no big bad secret there, but I draw the line when someone finds a way to further devalue the system and then tries to tell me that it's good for me everyone else.

[Molly]

the_logos 1:
It figures. When the discussion gets a bit embarrassing, he withdraws from the arena. He never yet gave a straight answer to an embarrassing question – like for instance why he uses those phoney adverts, claiming unexisting awards.
I guess it also illustrates what his only interest in this site is.

the_logos 2:
Not quite. There is a distinct difference between REAL traffic – people who come here to actually view the list and to take active part in the site, and those who just click a vote button to get some extra experience points in a mud. The latter don’t contribute to discussion threads or submit articles. Like the owner of Achaea, they are only interested in one thing – to get immediate advantages for themselves.

This site used to be a great place, with interesting discussions and articles to read. It used to be fun watching the struggle on the list, even if it reflected more the size of the playerbase than the quality of the mud. Now one mud has made a total mockery out of the list. And I think, that regardless of how many hits the site may get from their bloated votes, it still harms it a lot more than it ‘helps’, because it alienates the good people that used to hang out here and make contributions to the community.

I find myself gradually losing interest in the site, and I think the same thing has happened to others. When was the last time there was an interesting thread on the Advanced Mud Concept or Builders’ Forum? How many new articles have been posted in the last months? Coincidence? Maybe, but my personal opinion is that there is a connection.

I respect Synozeer’s assessment that the list cannot be ‘policed’ in any effective way. He is probably right about that.
Still, I don’t think that a mud that so blatantly abuses a system as Achaea should be allowed to continue with it. In this case there is absolutely no doubt about what is going on.

I also respect Synozeer's generosity and civil courage to allow this discussion to go on openly. Free speech is always a good thing.
So now I’ll exercise that freedom of speech and respectfully make a suggestion:

My suggestion would be to post a policy on the boards, that setting up a jumping ip-address and then bribing the players to click the vote button as often as possible is not acceptable. I would then suggest that he politely ask Achaea to stop what they are doing, and if they fail to comply, that he remove the mud from the list for a suitable length of time. Perhaps that would send a message to the owner, who otherwise seems remarkably devoid of shame and deaf to public opinion. Maybe it would also send a message to the rest of the Community.

[Dulan]

Gotta agree with Molly here.

Even I've been disappearing from these boards, and the reasoning is not unrelated to Mihaly's little shennanigans.

In fact, Mihaly's a direct cause of my reluctance to add toa ny serious discussion on these boards - TMS used to be a site worth my time. Ever since Mihaly's crap started, however, TMS seems like nothing more than a way for some people to make some cash, and that's it. No community, nothin'.

-D

[Yui Unifex]

I'm not so sure that it's a zero-sum game like that =). For a mud on the list to benefit the other muds on this list, I think we can all agree that a player needs to come from that mud and find another mud here. Since some players get their start on a specific mud, players are exposed to other muds through the voting mechanism. One could argue that these players would get their start somewhere else, but this simply isn't true in all cases, and we can't measure every player in existence to prove it as such.

Such a struggle does still exist. It may not be for the #1 spot, and it would be silly of me not to acknowledge that there are less slots to view, but the struggle is very much alive. That is, if you're not hung up about any specific placement.

[shadowfyr]

Just a comment, but unless the rankings where weighted based on the 'real' size of the player base like 'This site has recieved 50 votes from its 500 players' the list will never be accurate. If no muds gave incentives then basic human nature would be for maybe 10% of the players to actively play and 20% of them actually voting at all. The result is the biggest player bases at the top of the list, which makes the whole process sort of pointless, since you could just post the actually number of total players that are over some level and get the same result.

As for the one I play at.. We are under new admin and the results of attempting to get us to vote has been less than impressive. lol Most on AoD are frankly more interested in the next new areas being added, the new changes to the battle arena and the occational invading army that we have to fight off. And frankly.. even if they did give us something like a 200% exp rate for a day, the result would be more like 120% due to all the extra people wandering around trying to kill stuff instead of doing other things. I am sure bribery works in some places, but prior to the server rearrangement that temporarily lost all the links to vote sites (and still isn't completely fixed), we where roughly the same place as now without any promised incentives. However, what I think that means relative to our actual active player base is as good a guess as yours...

[Threshold]

I understand that Synozeer doesn't want to mire himself in policing duties, but surely it is not difficult to ban a mud who so BLATANTLY and BRAZENLY abuses the system.

I think Molly makes an excellent point regarding the long term "psychological" effects of Achaea's gross abuse of the system. When people see someone "get away with murder" long enough, eventually they just throw up their hands in disgust and give up.

Lately, there have been numerous threads expressing disgust at what Achaea does. That is indicative of a very serious problem. But the indicator of whem the problem is even worse is when you STOP seeing threads about this. Why? Because that will mean people will no longer care, and when they don't care, they'll just abandon the site entirely.

The lack of quality, substantive discussions in the forums is a very good indicator of this. I hate to see it because I have always enjoyed the TMS forums. The software is vastly superior to what I have seen on other "mud" sites, and Synozeer doesn't allow disgruntled gamers to use the forums as a way to destroy the muds they got kicked from. That combination of factors makes for a good environment.

I think we are nearing the point where despite everything Synozeer has said about policing, he is going to have to make a choice. I think if he doesn't do something about Achaea soon, he will be jeopardizing the long term viability of the entire site as people simply give up.

I would hate to see that because I think Synozeer is a good guy. a good site admin, and deserves to have his site succeed.

[Terloch]

As I am sure you all have seen, I have been voicing my displeasure at the monopoly of the top spot here in my latest banner ad for Feudal Realms.  We pay $100 a month to be the sponsor of the site, which I honestly don't mind doing (my wife is another story).  Does it bug the #### out of me, sure.  Did the fake stupid ads on TMC bother me to the point where I blew my own money to call and verify that they weren't true, sure.

I have to agree with a lot of people, my interest (and my players interest) in here is waining.  People don't care as much to vote knowing that there's no way in bloody #### they can compete with large commercial muds with huge playerbases which give in-character incentives for clicking on a few links.  As for added traffic from here, sure we get quite a bit, but we also pay for it.  I don't see ads popping up for all the big ptp muds, I just see them leeching off the traffic here.  And yes, there were veiled comments made months ago about "oh, we're talking about advertising possibilities" and so on, well, I've seen no result of that, just the same folks (and some newer small muds as well) throwing their banners up to try to get something out of the site.

I seriously think Synozeer should just allocate the top spot to Achaea and we just ignore them and have a ranking for "all the rest"...but hey, people have been bitching about this for months now and nothing has changed, so I don't expect anything to happen...

Terloch

[Mason]

I would like to echo the sentiments of those who suggest the community is disappearing.  I always liked this place as a resource and as a vehicle for interesting debates about MUDs.  However, once this place became a mere "banner exchange," I lost most of my respect for this site.

If this place is just a banner exchange, then all Achaea's traffic does is raise the advertising rate for other muds.  But, these is no evidence that the voters from Achaea are actually checking out any other muds.  As such, Muds will see their advertising rate increase but see no noticeable difference.  Eventually, people will stop advertising and the whole house of cards will come tumbling down.

Also important to consider is the_logos' continued denial and resistance to other people's opinions demonstrates that he is only concerned with his own mud - not TMS or anyone else.  And, as Terloch mentioned, I too am still awaiting Achaea's adverts.  

Unless things change, I think we can all expect to see fewer and fewer people actually interested in this site.  And, as a personal note, notwithstanding Synorzeer's inability to police the boards, I"m a liitle disappointed in his failure to address this in a manner that responds to people's concerns.  Though in the short term it may benefit him to have Achaea at the top of the list, in the long term I think it can only do irreparable harm.