|
|
|
|
Chris Bailey
Wizard
Group: Members
Posts: 602
Joined: Sep 13, 2008
|
#48 id:12914 Posted Sep 28, 2008, 12:01 am
|
Zeno is right. It might be nice to be able to prevent thread hijacking and unnecessary flaming but it would certainly be abused by someone, probably sooner than later. That does bring to my attention what I see as the biggest potential drawback to opening up to more promotion, more required moderation. I don't know how much extra time the local admins have to spend on digging through posts but I'm sure nobody wants to spend all day moderating flame wars. Most of what I've seen on TMC's promotion area has been constant flaming of new promotions and just a whole bunch of bickering. That is exactly what led me away from TMC and brought me to this community.
|
|
.........................
If what Proust says is true, that happiness is the absence of fever, then I will never know happiness. For I am possessed by a fever for knowledge, experience, and creation.
|
|
Cratylus
Wizard
Group: Members
Posts: 1,490
Joined: May 22, 2006
|
#49 id:12915 Posted Sep 28, 2008, 1:05 am
|
Quote:The closing of MR has left a fair void and MB has been soaking up some of it. To me it has seemed to be the only site to have any noticeable growth from the close. TMS seems to me to be the most player centric and its only getting 5 to 10 posts a day and sometimes that seems like a week and TMC would seem to have mostly advertising and flames about general subjects. So enhancing the promotional side of this site is not going to give any paradigm shift in its code business, its not even going to lead to a flood of new postings. But what it will do, is bring some more traffic to this site. It will further benefit advertisers who can post knowing their post is not going to be utterly derailed because they "Insert Any Old Reason Here"
I'm frankly alarmed at how frequently I have to take The_Fury/Eldhamud/Tommi
seriously lately. Hopefully he reverts soon to a form I can dismiss as a loon.
That said, this is a good point and I think it should also be taken
seriously by the MB admins. If this is a "mud community" site, then
I think this is a good time to start putting real time and discussion
into listings, reviews, voting, and the like.
On the other hand, if this is a "mud developers community" site, then
this would be a really good time to just come out and say so, and
make clear that further debate about listings, reviews, voting, and
the like is pointless.
It looks to me like the reality here is the latter, and that there
just isn't will or desire on the part of the admins to take up any
of the slack left by the collapse of MR/MM. If so, I understand that.
It's my opinion that if you want to leave a real mark, you find the
one thing you do well and do the hell out of it. Diversifying
into player interests here might be good in a number of ways, but
if the admins don't have the heart for it, who can blame them?
Let's just hear one way or another, so we know whether time in these
discussions is being spent or is being wasted.
-Crat
http://lpmuds.net
|
|
|
Guest
Unregistered
|
#50 id:12916 Posted Sep 28, 2008, 1:15 am
|
Cratylus said:I think this is a good time to start putting real time and discussion
into listings, reviews, voting, and the like.
On the other hand, if this is a "mud developers community" site, then
this would be a really good time to just come out and say so, and
make clear that further debate about listings, reviews, voting, and
the like is pointless.
I thought we'd made this clear already. Perhaps we did not. Or perhaps people would like to pretend we haven't said so already. So I'll say so now.
We are *NOT* going to institute voting, period. That is not going to happen. Ever. Voting serves no useful purpose other than to cause bickering and flamewars.
We are not opposed to people posting reviews of MUDs they've played, whether they liked them or not, but I don't see any real need for a more formal process than that. If you have something you want to say about a game, post it. Just don't expect us to open a dedicated section of the site for that purpose.
We will also not give people the ability to lock their own topics in the promotional forum because that would lead to abuse of the intent.
We already have listings. They provide a space for the admins running the game to describe their MUD in whatever method they choose, subject to approval. They are permitted to supply with that a website address, telnet listing, and an ad banner to go in the rotation. We don't even charge them to put that banner up, and I think we're the only community site with something like that setup. There's not much more to it than that. If this particular portion of the site needs refinement, then present some options. So long as they don't include voting or formal reviews.
Hopefully we don't need to explain this again? :)
|
|
|
The_Fury
Sorcerer
Group: Banned
Posts: 485
Joined: Jun 1, 2008
|
#51 id:12918 Posted Sep 28, 2008, 7:39 am
|
Cratylus said:
I'm frankly alarmed at how frequently I have to take The_Fury/Eldhamud/Tommi
seriously lately. Hopefully he reverts soon to a form I can dismiss as a loon.
-Crat
http://lpmuds.net
Nothing wrong in keeping you on your toes Cratylus/Cratylus/Cratylus,*giggle*. The good thing is that you don't dismiss everything i say just because i have been a loon, but rather judge things on merit.
|
......................... bMUD: Custom server written in Ruby.
The Oriental Dojo Mud
The_Fury: Coder and Designer.
|
|
Sandi
Wizard
Group: Members
Posts: 628
Joined: Jun 17, 2006
|
#52 id:12919 Posted Sep 28, 2008, 8:52 am
|
Orrin said:That's pretty emotive language to use without any kind of explanation. In what way do you think commercial games are sponging off of hobbyists? Well, the idea that the free games are losing players to commercial games is statistically supported about as well as the idea that junk MUDs scare off possible players. However, there is a major difference. I can advertise anywhere a junk MUD can. What I can't do is have a banner on the front page of TMC.
For a long time, no one except a deranged psychopath ever thought of competing with TMC. One big, complete listing has always been a goal of the community, and TMC served that purpose well. Now there are several alternate sites. Why? Could it be people don't want to list their games on the far side of a gauntlet of banners for commercial games?
Maybe it's just my age, but I feel there's something wrong with charging money for what most people do from love. There's even a word for it. The idea that someone would look at a group of amateurs having fun and think, "Wow, I bet I could make money from that!" really irks me.
|
......................... The Witch of Tir na nOg
www.tnnmud.com
tnnmud.com 6789
|
|
Fizban
Wizard
Group: Members
Posts: 619
Joined: Jan 8, 2007
|
#53 id:12920 Posted Sep 28, 2008, 9:39 am
|
Quote:We are *NOT* going to institute voting, period. That is not going to happen. Ever. Voting serves no useful purpose other than to cause bickering and flamewars.
That's bull####. I know it, and I'm willing to bet you do too. I'm not suggesting voting be added, because I'm not sure the gains outweigh the costs, but to say their are no gains is utter rubbish.
Gains:
Increased traffic for MUDs ranked high on the list.
Increased Traffic for the site as a whole.
|
|
|
|
|
Zeno
Wizard
Group: Moderators
Posts: 1,206
Joined: May 15, 2006
|
#55 id:12923 Posted Sep 28, 2008, 12:11 pm
|
Fizban said:Quote:We are *NOT* going to institute voting, period. That is not going to happen. Ever. Voting serves no useful purpose other than to cause bickering and flamewars.
That's bull####. I know it, and I'm willing to bet you do too. I'm not suggesting voting be added, because I'm not sure the gains outweigh the costs, but to say their are no gains is utter rubbish.
Gains:
Increased traffic for MUDs ranked high on the list.
Increased Traffic for the site as a whole.
I agree. It can cause flamewars and the like, but saying it serves no useful purpose seems like you're the one trolling now.
|
|
|
Orrin
Sorcerer
Group: Moderators
Posts: 371
Joined: Aug 26, 2008
|
#56 id:12924 Posted Sep 28, 2008, 12:46 pm
|
Sandi said:Well, the idea that the free games are losing players to commercial games is statistically supported about as well as the idea that junk MUDs scare off possible players. However, there is a major difference. I can advertise anywhere a junk MUD can. What I can't do is have a banner on the front page of TMC.
For a long time, no one except a deranged psychopath ever thought of competing with TMC. One big, complete listing has always been a goal of the community, and TMC served that purpose well. Now there are several alternate sites. Why? Could it be people don't want to list their games on the far side of a gauntlet of banners for commercial games?
The companies that advertise on sites such as TMC presumably pay to do so, so how is that in any way sponging? A large site like TMC is going to have monthly hosting and bandwidth costs and if you want to draw in players from outside the MUD community things like advertising and Google adwords all cost money too. Any free MUD that lists on TMC can benefit from this exposure without paying anything towards it, so how is that a bad thing?
Sandi said:Maybe it's just my age, but I feel there's something wrong with charging money for what most people do from love. There's even a word for it. The idea that someone would look at a group of amateurs having fun and think, "Wow, I bet I could make money from that!" really irks me.
You are aware that there have been commercial MUDs around since the 1980s? There are even some still running that predate DIKU, lpmud, Tiny and their descendants. Regardless of whether trying to make money from an amateur hobby is wrong or not, it's just not true to characterize commercial MUDs in that way.
|
|
|
Fizban
Wizard
Group: Members
Posts: 619
Joined: Jan 8, 2007
|
#57 id:12927 Posted Sep 28, 2008, 2:28 pm
|
Quote:You are aware that there have been commercial MUDs around since the 1980s? There are even some still running that predate DIKU, lpmud, Tiny and their descendants
GemStone definitely fits that qualification, and I 'think' Avalon does as well.
EDIT:
Yes they both Definitely do:
GemStone: 1988
Avalon: 1989
DIKU: 1990
|
Last edited Sep 28, 2008, 2:31 pm by Fizban
|
|
Fizban
Wizard
Group: Members
Posts: 619
Joined: Jan 8, 2007
|
#58 id:12928 Posted Sep 28, 2008, 2:32 pm
|
Quote:A large site like TMC is going to have monthly hosting and bandwidth costs and if you want to draw in players from outside the MUD community things like advertising and Google adwords all cost money too.
To the best of my knowledge Dale hosts TMC for free.
|
|
|
Guest
Unregistered
|
#59 id:12929 Posted Sep 28, 2008, 2:46 pm
|
Fizban said:That's bull####. I know it, and I'm willing to bet you do too. I'm not suggesting voting be added, because I'm not sure the gains outweigh the costs, but to say their are no gains is utter rubbish.
Gains:
Increased traffic for MUDs ranked high on the list.
Increased Traffic for the site as a whole.
Zeno said:I agree. It can cause flamewars and the like, but saying it serves no useful purpose seems like you're the one trolling now.
I rest my case. It's already causing bickering and flamewars and calling people trolls for merely pointing out that that's exactly what would happen and we don't even have voting. Continue to argue about it if you like but it's not happening. No useful purpose was chosen for a reason. Yes, it would increase traffic, but that's not the kind of people we want to bring in as traffic. Vote stuffers are bane, not a boon. The people who then follow to #### about how their rankings are being "rigged" by negative voters generate more of the same kind of traffic. That type of traffic would only be useful to us if we were making money off of Google ads or paid banner rotations and needed more raw visitor count to leverage a higher return.
|
Last edited Sep 28, 2008, 4:14 pm by Samson
|
|
Fizban
Wizard
Group: Members
Posts: 619
Joined: Jan 8, 2007
|
#60 id:12931 Posted Sep 28, 2008, 3:39 pm
|
Quote:No [useful purpose was chosen for a reason.
[sarcasm]My bad, I didn't realize attracting players to MUDs wasn't useful.[/sarcasm]
|
|
|
