[chaosprime]

Originally Posted by Newworlds I'm sure Valg can answer for himself.

My post was nothing to do with Valg. It's to do with a point you keep harping on that's entirely ad hominem: "this is just admins, not players". Even if it were true, it's out of bounds, and you've been getting a free pass on it. That's over.

[Newworlds]

Originally Posted by chaosprime My post was nothing to do with Valg. It's to do with a point you keep harping on that's entirely ad hominem: "this is just admins, not players". Even if it were true, it's out of bounds, and you've been getting a free pass on it. That's over.

Dude,

I seriously wonder if you actually read before you post. No one got a "free pass". You act like this is some poor dramatic scene in a badly roleplayed mud. Read my posts and the reasons for my replies. Each reply has been in direct response to my research and statements being challenged. They aren't offensive, they aren't dramatic, they are simple facts based on information at hand. When I'm wrong, I'm happy to be clear on it. When someone says "nothing has been proven" I'm happy to provide information to the contrary. If you make another wild dramatic post like "You will get no more free passes on it. It's Over man!!!". I will be happy to respond. And hopefully with some factual basis.

[chaosprime]

Originally Posted by Newworlds They aren't offensive, they aren't dramatic, they are simple facts based on information at hand.

Do you even know what ad hominem means? It's not a description based on whether something is offensive or dramatic. It means addressing the people making the arguments, not the arguments themselves. Your two big hobby horses right now, "it's admins not players" and "onoz sock puppets", are both pure ad hominem.

[Newworlds]

Originally Posted by chaosprime Do you even know what ad hominem means? It's not a description based on whether something is offensive or dramatic. It means addressing the people making the arguments, not the arguments themselves. Your two big hobby horses right now, "it's admins not players" and "onoz sock puppets", are both pure ad hominem.

I can't believe I actually have to repeat my own post to show you what I was refering to when I said you were being dramatic: "You've been getting a free pass. That's over." There, is that clear enough for you what I was referring to?

As for what I stated before. I was responding to direct challenges to my posts that were incorrect. What part of "responding to posts" are you having trouble with? Pointing the finger of "ad hominem" as if you are some director of a high school debate team is irrellevant when the argument is about a response to a post and the value in that post and argument. The fact remains that the "controllers" (call them admin, call them players, call them puppets, call them robots) of several muds who have a certain view on what "Free" means, are arguing against "controllers" of commercial muds that view it differently. The line is very clear in the sand. The reasons for each side are also clear. The supposed "guise" that this is about what "players" want is a complete farce. THAT is the point I'm making. It is relevant, it has value, it is not an argument to take away from the thread. It is an argument that has merit.

Why is it that you cannot even address that perhaps there are motivations to this thread? I clearly see them. I'm not against stating my motivations clearly: my motivation is to be against a set of boxes that are being proported as "wanted by players" when there is zero proof of that, but rather are being toted as a device for gain by some muds and loss by others. My motivation is to give a more clear better choice for all "controllers" not just the ones that have their mud set to the most advantage position in such a search. I wish to be fair to both free and commercial muds. I think that IRE and Threshold are very clear about their commercial costs associated to players. And both sets of games are free to play. I posted early on to glean more motivation clarity when I asked which button each mud would check. Very few answered this post.

You yourself have come out and said the following:

Originally Posted by chaosprime Why in the world is it SO important to stop people from having easy access to this information? Really, it's disgusting. I've lost so much respect for commercial MUD operation, throughout this, because of the way it apparently compels one to fight tooth and nail against anything that interferes with the ability to perform misleading advertising.

I mean, please. You can make this statement, but poo poo on anyone who disagrees and makes a similar statement against you? If you feel that everyone posting here is altruistic, I think you need to re-read this thread.

[chaosprime]

Originally Posted by Newworlds Why is it that you cannot even address that perhaps there are motivations to this thread?

Because when I speak to people's motivations, I get told by moderators to stick to arguments, not people's motivations.

The question of why I'm the only one who will call you on the same behavior is left as an exercise for the interested student.

[Newworlds]

Just for clarification I would like to post a recant on my alledgement of Arabis' motivations in posting. Sorry about that Arabis if I used your posts as an example of possible foul play. I have sent Arabis a pm, but thought it fair to help clear that up openly.

[shasarak]

Originally Posted by Newworlds The fact remains that the "controllers" (call them admin, call them players, call them puppets, call them robots) of several muds who have a certain view on what "Free" means, are arguing against "controllers" of commercial muds that view it differently. The line is very clear in the sand. The reasons for each side are also clear. The supposed "guise" that this is about what "players" want is a complete farce. THAT is the point I'm making. It is relevant, it has value, it is not an argument to take away from the thread. It is an argument that has merit. Why is it that you cannot even address that perhaps there are motivations to this thread? I clearly see them. I'm not against stating my motivations clearly: my motivation is to be against a set of boxes that are being proported as "wanted by players" when there is zero proof of that, but rather are being toted as a device for gain by some muds and loss by others.

We've had quite a large number of non-admins post to this thread, now, all of whom have been in favour of expanding to a 4- or 5-option system, with the exception of Emil who has yet to express an opinion but clearly has significant issues with MUDs that advertise themselves as free but aren't. No player has yet posted to this thread requesting that players not be permitted to choose whether to search for commercial MUDs or non-commercial ones.

Are you really trying to claim that this is "zero proof"? What exactly is your evidence that players would be actively harmed by being given a search option they do not currently possess?

You and Threshold can harp on as much as you like about the alleged agenda of non-commercial MUD admins, but unfortunately the more you do, the more it rebounds on you. Let us suppose that it really is true that preventing admins from advertising MUDs as "free" when they aren't would provide a marketing advantage to the admins of MUDs that actually are free. If that is the case then, by your own logic, admins of pay-for-perks MUDs would retain an existing marketing advantage by retaining the status quo. Therefore, by your own logic, we should ignore the opinion of anyone who is the admin of a pay-for-perks MUD, because they are simply advocating a position which benefits them financially rather than thinking of what is good for the players.

I'm afraid you can't have it both ways: you're either right or you're wrong, and if you're right then you disqualify yourself from the thread by the same argument.

[the_logos]

Originally Posted by Valg 1) That's no more or less verifiable than "RP required" or "G-rated". The admin could be off having OOC conversations or mudsex with some players, and unless they did it in front of you, you wouldn't know.

If you don't see OOC, it doesn't affect you, so it doesn't matter whether you know it happened or not. If I, as an admin, am chatting OOCly with my fellow admins or, in private with a player (in order to resolve a customer service issue or something), it has absolutely zero effect on your experience. Presumably the idea here is, after all, to provide information that impacts a player's experience (not sure what the point is otherwise).

Further, it IS possible for an admin to actually enforce these rules 100%. It IS possible to monitor all communication in-game and enforce a policy that bans certain types of communication (OOC, x-rated, whatever).

That's not the case for RMT/first-party sales. An admin can never honestly say it doesn't happen in his MUD because it doesn't happen in his MUD. It happens outside of it - outside of both his control and knowledge.

2) That applies equally to the two-box system. So what you're arguing for is a zero-box system, where TMS throws up its hands and the only thing you're allowed to search for is MUD name, or connection protocols.

Again, whether violations of RP or a G-rating affect your experience as a player are verifiable. It makes zero difference whether the admins of an RP-enforced MUD chat privately OOCly. If you don't see it, it doesn't affect you.

I'd argue that real-money transactions are basically the same in that they don't directly affect you if you don't see it, but I suspect I'm in a minority there. The argument being implicitly put forth by many posters is that it does affect you even if you don't see it.

Allowing a MUD to check a box that says that something completely outside of the scope of their knowledge and control (since it happens out of the game) is not happening is a little bit...off. Taking a cue from another current discussion on TMS about IM in RP enforced games, it would be completely dishonest for a MUD to claim that players aren't sharing IC information via IM. The admins have no way of detecting it or knowing it.

This would essentially disable the search feature, leaving TMS's primary utility for finding MUDs the ranking list.

Well, that's not actually different from now. As Lasher has said, the primary way people find MUDs now IS the ranking list, not the search feature. That's not to say the now situation is preferable to other situations. Just pointing it out.

It's pure obfuscation, and it's the only thing you or Threshold have offered so far-- confuse the issue with unproven hypotheticals.

Perhaps you should review the title of this thread. "What does Free mean?" The entire thread is hypothetical given that language has no objective meaning.

Discussing the facts behind the reality of running online games is not "confusing" the issue. You may be uncomfortable with those facts (such as that it is not possible to honestly claim that money doesn't affect gameplay) but that doesn't change them.

You may feel it's convenient to discard some facts or avoiding certain lines of questioning because it makes arriving at a conclusion more difficult (or maybe I'm misreading what you're saying), but I don't really believe it's in anyone's best interest to arrive at a legitimate conclusion that way.

--matt

[Newworlds]

Originally Posted by shasarak We've had quite a large number of non-admins post to this thread, now, all of whom have been in favour of expanding to a 4- or 5-option system,

Um. No. Large number is not 5 or 6 in a Forum that boasts 1000's of members. Also, which of these 5 or 6 have been in favour? As I posted earlier only a few were, maybe 3 or 4. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Originally Posted by shasarak No player has yet posted to this thread requesting that players not be permitted to choose whether to search for commercial MUDs or non-commercial ones.

This is a classic railsplit argument. No one has made such a claim.

Originally Posted by shasarak Are you really trying to claim that this is "zero proof"? What exactly is your evidence that players would be actively harmed by being given a search option they do not currently possess?

Again, who said anything about players being harmed. What are you talking about Shasarak?

[the_logos]

Originally Posted by Emil I didn't remember seeing anything about all this on the website, so now I went back to check it again. Being a bit more observant this time, after having heard the word in the mud, I clicked on the credits link at the bottom, which I earlier had dismissed as the place where you pay homage to all the people who have contributed to creating the mud. This was actually a rather easy mistake to make, because that is what the word 'credits' is used for in all Diku based muds, which is what I have mainly been playing. Did I feel decived? Sure I did.

It's right there on the front page. *shrug*

Did I feel that I had wasted my time? Sure I did.

Well, that's unavoidable really. I generally feel I've wasted my time when trying games given that I tend to only like about 10% of the ones I try.

--matt

[Xerihae]

Originally Posted by Newworlds Um. No. Large number is not 5 or 6 in a Forum that boasts 1000's of members.

Just out of curiosity I went and looked at the member list.

Since the change to the new forum software on 1st July, of the 3671 members we have listed 3122 have never used the forum. You can tell because their "Last Visit" time is displayed as 01-01-1970.

So I think it's fairly safe to count them out, leaving us with 549 members.

Of those, only 97 have posted somewhere on the forum since this topic started on the 22nd August.

Why did I do this? I was bored!

Then you have to take out people who only joined to post adverts for their MUD or to ask for staff, or to ask a question or two, and haven't taken part in any discussions. I have no idea how to work that out save by going through all 549 and seeing what they've posted. I'm not THAT bored!

It does mean that your 5 or 6 is 0.11% of 549 rather than 0.016% of 3671 There's also been 35 participants in this thread and I'm sure more than 5 or 6 spoke up for the 5 option system... If you're feeling generous and will grant me that half have spoken in favour of it, that's 17 which is 17.5% of the 97 people who've posted on the forum since this topic appeared.

General Elections in the UK at the moment seem to have around a 65% turnout rate, which means 35% of the people don't really care or think their opinion won't change anything. If we use this as a our number of posters who only came here to post adverts etc, 97 becomes 58 (rounded up).

So of a possible 58 participants, 17 who said yes constitute 29%! Not a majority, but not a small number either...

What does all this go to show? Statistics are a pile of crap which shouldn't be believed and I'm one bored moderator

Disclaimer: This post was mainly meant as a joke. Since my attempt at warning you all from attacking each other didn't work I thought I'd try distraction! If that doesn't work it's the NERFHAMMER for you lot

[the_logos]

Originally Posted by Xerihae Just out of curiosity I went and looked at the member list. Since the change to the new forum software on 1st July, of the 3671 members we have listed 3122 have never visited the site. You can tell because their "Last Visit" time is displayed as 01-01-1970.

I know you're mainly kidding but keep in mind that we're not talking about the forums. We're talking about a feature regarding TMS at large, which has far more users than 3671. The forum users are a small minority of the entire site traffic. By definition, in fact, they're not representative of the TMS user base.

--matt

[Threshold]

Originally Posted by chaosprime And I see you are still unwilling to stop going ad hominem.

"Going ad hominem" ... *chuckle*

Originally Posted by chaosprime Do you even know what ad hominem means?

I love irony.

[Molly]

Originally Posted by Xerihae Since the change to the new forum software on 1st July, of the 3671 members we have listed 3122 have never used the forum. You can tell because their "Last Visit" time is displayed as 01-01-1970.

Your post may have been made mainly as a joke, but it still provides some very interesting statistics. I suspected that the percentage might look a bit like that, but it was actually a bit worse than expected, unless there is something that I'm missing.

When you say 'members', do you mean 'registered members' or just 'visitors'?

So only 549 'members' out of 3671 have ever used the Forum?
Does that mean that they never even entered the Forums to read the discussions, or that they just never posted there?

And are there any statistics over how many of the visitors that actually use the other utilities provided by the website, and how many that just click the vote button and then leave?

There are way too many Mud-related sites on the net to keep track of, and most of them have voting lists, obviously to attract 'traffic'. Most of those Top lists look completely different, which in turn makes their value very disputable. And is a 'traffic' that never gets further than the voting button really a traffic that counts?

To me the Discussion Boards have always been what makes me come back to - or leave - a Website. Apart from some very specialized sites - (like for instance Mudlab and CWG) - so far TMC and TMS are the only ones that have discussions interesting enough to attract my attention for any length of time. True, the quality of the discussions varies over time. TMS was pretty dead for several years, but seems to have been successfully revived, while TMC, who always has had - and still has - very lively discussions, seems to have degenerated a bit, since most of the threads there have a low signal to noise ratio lately. Still, this could - and probably will - swing again.

If you feel bored again, it would be interesting to see some more statistics.

[Xerihae]

Originally Posted by Molly When you say 'members', do you mean 'registered members' or just 'visitors'? So only 549 'members' out of 3671 have ever used the Forum? Does that mean that they never even entered the Forums to read the discussions, or that they just never posted there? And are there any statistics over how many of the visitors that actually use the other utilities provided