[KaVir]

No doubt one of them would rat you out - but they would have no proof, it would simply be their word against yours.  And it's not that difficult to make someone out to be a disgruntled player, particularly as you'd be able to plan ahead.

Post a couple of really nasty reviews for your mud which claim things you can disprove, then email Synozeer requesting the reviews be removed, politely explaining that the user was deleted for cheating and has been causing all sorts of problems recently - but that because he connects from lots of IP addresses you've not found any permanent way to get rid of him.

Then inform a handful of the players about a "secret" for loyal players, and wait for the rumours to start.  Make the benefits more noticable for the first couple of hours, then tone them down a bit to make sure that they're no longer visible by the time Synozeer comes along to check.  The players will still believe they're there though...

And when one of the players emails Synozeer?  Apologise again for the "troublemaker" and his friends.  Then wait for the inevitable flamewar to start up on the forums, and take the opportunity to get some free advertising as well.

And when someone points out that your votes have shot up, point out that that's probably because your players read the forums.

[Rundvelt]

As always, a couple points to make you aware of Logos...

1) I never included a date in my notes. The reason being is that I didn't know you were going to trace the logs. So I don't know how you can conclude that now I'm "claiming" something else.

2) You assumed a scenario and set forth to prove it based off information you didn't have. That makes a lot of sense.

It's sorta funny that the logs don't go back that far. After you use your "proof" which doesn't apply I provide a more specific range and it's now "not there". Yeah, I'm the one who's full of crap.

Rundvelt, who says "When you assume, you make an ass out of u and me."

[Molly]

the_logos:
Just remember, that is YOUR interpretation, not what I said.

[Stilton]

KaVir:
If the accuser was someone not respected in the forums, I agree that the admin's word would probably be accepted if there were only one accuser.  For the incentives to be effective, however, they would have to be offered to many players.  How long do you think it would take for the next few "Hey, that happened to me too" posts to start flowing in?

We're talking about public servers here- anyone is free to conduct an audit at any time.  The auditor will be quite anonymous if the cheating is effective: the whole point of being high in the rankings is to draw in new users that you don't know.

Stilton

[KaVir]

But it wouldn't have to be offered directly - the smart approach would be to make the offer to only a handful of players, and specifically select those who are fantatically loyal (except for one who is known for being a troublemaker). Those players would then let their friends know, and it would spread around so that most players had only heard it from another player.

You could even create an alternative imm character just for the task - list them as a new apprentice coder or something, and if everything does backfire you could publically apologise, claim that the coder had added the code without the rest of the imms realising, and that he had now been removed from the staff. You'd still get the free publicity of a huge flame war, and you'd have the benefit of making yourself look both innocent and professional about it.

That depends - and even if it did, how many of those would be players who had just heard it second or third hand? And even then, how can the players prove it - particularly if there's no obvious way to tell the difference? How could you tell that those players hadn't just jumped on the bandwagon, having read one of those negative reviews? Reviews, I might add, which you (the admin) had written yourself, and which contained other points that could be disproved (ie, it could be shown that the "reviewer" had lied about other points).

In particular, what if there aren't even any bonuses - what if it was just a temporary thing, which has been removed? Many players seem to place a lot of stock in rumours, particularly those they think are secret.

I remember many years ago some players complaining to me that the Crab fighting stance on my mud was far too powerful, and that it needed to be downgraded because certain players were using it to win all their fights. They wouldn't believe me when I truthfully told them that that stance hadn't been coded yet - that it was in fact the same as having no fighting stance at all, and put the user at a serious disadvantage. Circulating such a rumour for voting would be easier than that, as it wouldn't even be something they could disprove (and in a competitive mud, many of them wouldn't consider it worth the chance - better to vote just to be safe).

Yet speaking as someone who has audited many muds, I can tell you that the scenario I describe would be extremely difficult and time consuming to deal with.

[Stilton]

[Kenjar]

I only read the first 2 pages of this topic, so who knows where the conversation has gone, but I used to play Achaea quite a bit and I never was once told either though tells or a public channel to vote. The only times were the little messages that pop up every 20 minutes or so "Don't forget to vote! Read "Help Blessings" for more info", or something like that. And the blessing system is long gone, even then, so don't try and pull that on 'em.

[the_logos]

Dude, you provided -no- proof, and don't even have the name of your character right. I'm under no onus to "prove" anything.

Regardless, you're lying. Our Guides don't pester people to vote.

--matt

[the_logos]

What is this? 10th grade? Give me a break, you were OBVIOUSLY referring to our muds. I'd return the favour and attack yours but after checking on your mud and finding 6 people online, I figured that about said it all and logged off.

--matt

[Davairus]

So anyway.. For the rule/policy change, I suggest change the word "voting" to "visiting topmudsites.com and/or voting" if it is desired to plug that loophole.  May also wish to add a message to the vote confirm page, along the lines of "If you feel you have been tricked or forced into visiting this page, please email 'here'", so that the unsuspecting players might report that sort of thing.

[Terloch]

No reason to even make it that complicated of a rule change.

Simply require that all voting links to TMS and/or the voting portal page are DIRECT links and not through any kind of proxy or tracking page.

It's that simple.

[Davairus]

Yeah, that's nice too.  As long as they don't come up with some way of concealing the evidence of recording the link click (i.e. destroying proof of cheating), that would be sufficient.

[KaVir]

Well if you do something as obvious as that, then sure it'll be easier to spot, but it could be made much more subtle - for example the slightly-fudged dice rolls thing I mentioned in a previous post, or a slightly increased chance of skills increasing when used, or a slightly better chance of a decent magical item popping, or a slightly greater chance to flee, or slightly slower responding mob AI...or a combination of many such small factors.

But even in the case of something like landing attacks, it can be very difficult to take into account outside factors (even assuming both characters fight in exactly the same way each time). For example, perhaps you were playing a vampire who gains bonuses at night and penalties during the day, and that's why more of your attacks hit. Or maybe you simply got unlucky at the beginning of the fight and took a wound which reduced your fighting ability...

For a PK mud the difference would only have to be "he seems to win more fights even though X, Y and Z" - and you get that so much anyway that it could be pretty much dismissed as any sort of evidence.

True - but they're already high ranked, and most probably wouldn't risk it. It's the muds which covet a high rank yet are not getting sufficient votes that would be more likely to be a problem.

[surviv0r]

Then

To which you replied

Ok, you didn't include an EXACT date. You did mention, however, that is was in January or February which would support the_logos' claim that it happened in the winter

[Yui Unifex]

I think your response here pretty much says it all about your level of maturity. You are quite the hypocrite to be attacking Molly on this basis.

Edit: Looks like he kept this portion from his initial response, so I changed my post to reflect that.

Now for the on-topic portion of my post:
I can't see a problem with a single reminder message that a player needs to vote again. I understand that this is a form of treating voting and non-voting players differently, but it seems useful enough that it could be an exception. At least, that's the only argument I've heard against the rule clarification other than the_logos' humorous miscomprehensions, so perhaps we could put this to rest with its inclusion.

[Traithe]

[KaVir]

I believe the point Rundvelt is making is that he never claimed otherwise - that he never specified a date originally, and it was only later that he clarified winter.  Thus his response seems to be to counter the implication that he'd changed his story.

Having said that, I have to wonder why he waited 4-5 months before bringing the subject up.

[Rundvelt]

[the_logos]

No, I'm just not going to be a child about slinging insults. Molly can hide her slander behind vague wordings. I prefer to be direct. If she's not implying Iron Realms is cheating, who is she implying is cheating? Is she accusing Aardwolf or Threshold? Perhaps Armaggedon or Aabahran? She was attacking somebody, after all, and those are the top 7 muds right now.

Everyone reading her posts is well aware of who she is attacking, so why dissemble about it?

--matt
Edit: In retrospect, I do realize I shouldn't have responded to her attacks with an attack of my own. I apologize to the forum readers for doing that.

[Fifi]

I didn't think she was attacking anyone. I thought she was adding an anedotal comment on the discussion.