We're #2 on mudconnect now.

[Alberich]

Myself personally... I'm a stubborn bastard, and dislike being told what to do. I stopped voting BECAUSE jake and others where constantly harping on it. Since that has stopped, I've started voting again.

[Krok]

I totally, totally, TOTALLY agree with Leaf and Alb.

[Weasel]

hey, if we always remember to vote, Jake wont need to remind us

[blackmore]

[quote="Alberich":1klu8oro]Myself personally... I'm a stubborn bastard, and dislike being told what to do. I stopped voting BECAUSE jake and others where constantly harping on it.[/quote:1klu8oro]

While I completely respect this opinion, and in a some respects, agree with it, obviously jake's efforts worked. Whether you agreed with him doing it or not, it got votes. Jake's begging/harping/whatever was never something I really liked, but I couldn't argue with the results, so I was willing to accept it.

As for newbies, I'm not sure it's even worth responding to those posts. At one time, I'd log on when I got into work and there'd be < 20 people. It's now where it's rarely under 30. Sloth doesn't exist solely for the entertainment of those of us who played 5 years ago. To claim you think sloth should fade into oblivion just because you don't like newbies who are either stupid, obnoxious or just plain clueless is having too high of an opinion of your own importance to the existance of sloth.

[Avatar]

Blackmore's right, Jake's efforts were effective. I was one of the people that typically only voted when Jake (or someone else) mentioned it in-game. I don't know why that is, really, it just is.

So, I agree with 12345 (or whatever his char name is these days). I like Jake, and have a lot of respect for him (and the other imms). When he asked in-game I definitely make it a point to pause what I was doing and switch windows to vote.

I also get frustrated at times with changes / decisions / actions whatever. Still, I think Sloth is the best mud around, it's still #1 in my opinion. No other mud has this combination of features, fun, and cool people.

Charles

PS. I haven't been voting (or online) for the past several weeks. It may be another couple before I'm around again.

[12345]

I certainly agree with Avatar since I make it a point to vote when reminded as well. I certainly appreciate Jake's efforts as well. It's not easy reminding everyone every day for what? A year straight now? More? As it stands now, the first thing everyone thinks of when they see Jake's name is voting, and he kinda needs to get out of the vote whore spotlight.

If we're going to devote this kind of time to voting, I'd almost say someone needs to build a feature for it. Most games would use the MOTD at login, but I can't remember the last time I looked at Sloth's. Overall, it seems very few mind voting, we just get frustrated with Jake's efforts to squeeze out every last vote.

[PvtDeth]

Of course newbies are a pain, but does it even need to be said that everybody was one once? I've heard people say that they don't like children and wish there were none. This is the same logic. Eventually attrition eats away at the numbers (as was said: new job, baby, marriage, school) and if the membership isn't replensihed, the mud will dwindle. How much fun would it be if there were only five or six players on at a time?

I see both sides, however. Players can't be expected to vote simply because they are told to. The point of the voting process is that peole vote for their [u:on9jxqy7]favorite[/u:on9jxqy7] Mud or the one they [u:on9jxqy7]like most.[/u:on9jxqy7] If people no longer think Sloth is the best, they shouldn't vote. Perhaps we should try to find out why people are not voting rather than accusing everyone who doesn't of "blackmail." Holding out for a single issue is petty and in my opinion falls under the definition of vote blackmail. Saying you no longer vote because you don't like the mud anymore does not.

By the way, I (like everyone) think that the constant reminders are an annoyance, but I would hardly say I've been made to vote. I understand not doing something simply because you're forced to but no one has [i:on9jxqy7]forced[/i:on9jxqy7] anyone to vote. I think Jake has been quite polite despite his ridiculous incessance. Think for a minute, though. If it were [i:on9jxqy7]your[/i:on9jxqy7] responsibility to promote the Mud, what would [i:on9jxqy7]you[/i:on9jxqy7] do?

The immorts should listen to whatever answers are given to that question

[*Splork*]

I must admit, it irks me when I hear people have stopped voting over this or that. But then again what doesnt irk me

SlothMUD should mean much more to all of us then a recent change that people dislike etc. We have survived for almost 15 years and yet, we still continue to grow.

I vote for Sloth for two reasons 1) Jake-if he wants me to vote, I am voting(he has earned that respect) 2) voting for SlothMUD is a vote to keep the game alive and to have continued success( sorry, but when we were avg less than 25-20 players a day-we were close to closing).

Enjoy,
Splork

[Shadis]

2 things

I think i have mostly stopped mudding on Sloth for 2 reasons
1 is party poker dot com ..enough said
the other is with my mudding time a low as it was i found i simply could not keep up with the changes anymore ... i mean .. wtf is a nightmare and how do you send it after someone??? and now you have to find liars to pop eq now? no just kill the mob? while some of these changes sound cool and otheres stupid, i just do not have the time or desire to learn them anymore ..if i need to satisfy my mudding fixation, i'd rather just start a newbie and play to lvl 20 or so


Voting
i have to agree with Alberich the more someone persters me to do something, the less likely i am to do it. No offense meant to Jake but his vote drives come across like unwanted spam mail or anoying telemarketer calls after a short time
Maybe KJ can code a toggle flag to gag vote promos

[Krok]

What I meant about newbies..
1) Of course, we all were silly noobs once. But most of us didn't have newbie school, newbie channel, helpful mobs in Valkyre who can guide you through and all that stuff. But from what I see now, people just don't like to use the help or think a little. Seems like that easy life removed someone's ability to use brains. Shrugs. Damn, and if any other 3x40 asks where to buy recalls on Lyme...
2) Another point. Our playerbase grows a looot, but some of the old skilful players quit playing because of changes, for example, yes, it's silly, but they still do. And 5 newbs can't substitute us 1 good tard.

Anyways, I help newbies. I make crs, explain them some stuff, hoping someday they will grow in someone, who we call power player. I just don't like some of the newbies' helplessness.

PS Splork appealed to my conscience, I gotta vote.

[**Jake**]

[quote="13":1c6jhngt]I hate to say this, and I know it won't matter a hill of beans,
but I believe a lot of people stopped voting right around the same
time that the alignment was 'fixed' as well.[/quote:1c6jhngt]

Because I kept extremely good statistics on voting, I can answer this definitively.

When we made the changes you mentioned which affected the two supplicant forms, we had a short-term drop in voting (we're talking 10-15%). It didn't register that much in the totals, especially when the voting could already fluctuate over 30% by itself on a daily basis.

The biggest drop is when I'm not able to remind everyone. When I am not around for a few days reminding people to vote, we lose about 80% of our votes.

The biggest increase we've ever had was when we had other muds posting here, harassing us. It was kinda cool to see everyone taking pride in this place. We could hit 80 votes/day around that time.

Shadis: No offense taken. From a vote reminder perspective, I had [b:1c6jhngt]mostly[/b:1c6jhngt] changed to using tells to keep from annoying people (I did use other means at times, like near the end of the day). Those that expressed a dislike towards me reminding them to vote would go onto a "no-remind" list and wouldn't be sent tells. My intention wasn't to annoy people.

When I had people say: "I already voted. or I remember to vote every day" I'd ask them if they wanted me to stop reminding them. I don't think I had a single one in this category who said "Yes, please stop reminding me". The vast majority of the people I asked about it said they actually liked the reminders because sometimes they forget. And many enjoyed chatting too (I know I did).

I ended up with 3 people on my "no-remind" list after many months of reminding people to vote.

--
Jake

[Pete]

Since I share Grue with someone I work with I just wanted to post my own opinions on this so people don't think Grue's post was mine. (BTW I share Grue and most of my other chars with another Pete (Peter Byrd) and my son Ben. If you see them on don't assume they are me, the only one I don't share is Riurik).

1) Player bases will increase and wain, that's the nature of them. I had noticed the decrease, although we have been back up to 55 or 60 lately. It's the start of a new term, some students are back in dorm and don't have access yet, others are too busy. I suspect that's what that is and the reason is I see all the older names there still.
2) I must confess I don't vote much (blush) but the site is blocked by Internet filtering at work, and frankly if Jake (or someone) does not remind me when I log on from home I simply forget. Don't offended by the reminders, just assume Jake suspects others are like me.
3) If you have genuine complaints or concerns voice them to admin privately first. Every immort has an email, and there is always mudmail. Open discussion is one thing, but think of this like work. If I get an email sent to God and country at work about my performance without first talking with me I tend to get pissed off. At least give admin that courtesy and get their opinions. If after that you still think you have a valid point you want discussed publicly I would be the last to censor, but at least give that courtesy.
Pete

[12345]

[quote="**Jake**":2kqgput5]Shadis: No offense taken. From a vote reminder perspective, I had [b:2kqgput5]mostly[/b:2kqgput5] changed to using tells to keep from annoying people (I did use other means at times, like near the end of the day). Those that expressed a dislike towards me reminding them to vote would go onto a "no-remind" list and wouldn't be sent tells. My intention wasn't to annoy people.[/quote:2kqgput5]
It's a shitty job, I'm surprised you've done as well with it as you have. I just don't see anyone running around the mud saying 'I hope Jake asks me to vote!' In fact, the only way I could see people doing that is if you did it with a god-rain. Before you get into the whole "I can't reward people for voting" thing, you wouldn't be. They'd get the benefit if they voted or not. Remember, you can get a lot farther with a kind word and a godsanc than a kind word alone.

And for a change of pace, people might actually start ASKING you to remind them to vote.

[Blastem]

Ok here's my perspective on voting.... I vote before I log on as I haven't been playing much lately do to work constraints I haven't been voting as regularly as usual. Yes I've been ticked off about a lot of the changes implemented some less than others mostly I think they are heading in the right direction just need to be tweaked a bit (slow down alignment swings). But holding back your votes as a strong arm tactic is just plain wrong if the immortals were to give into this type of tactic pretty soon it would be a mud where everyone runs with 3000 HP's and -27 AC. If you really want to picket a change stop playing ... obviously if you enjoy playing the mud enough to continue when things have pissed you off this much then it's worth voting for no?

As for the excuse of the floods of noobs that are running around the mud. I can count on one hand all the ones that have really been a problem (most are gone now) and quite a few that I have enjoyed talking with. As for the rest just #gag em.... a mud really needs fresh blood and the only way to get this is to advertise and what better way than being #1 on one of the biggest mud lists out there. With out this new blood sloth with shrivel up and die trust me I coded on a mud that ran for 4 yrs had a solid 30-40 players but didn't do anything to bring in new blood.. over the course of a year through standard attrition there were under 10 of us logging in and then poof gone and a very fun mud was no more. If you want to help aliviate some of these problems just make a valk char and greet the noobies and explain a few thing to them if more people would take an hour or so a week out of their mudding lives to do this we would have a lot more informed bunch of lowbies.

And lastly the main reason for me to vote is respect for the immortals and admins who have asked us to.
If you don't like Jake asking you to vote he usually uses the same lines when asking people to vote so you can #gag them if you don't like it or even easier vote and he wouldn't have to ask .


Blastem

[Malison]

While refusing to vote is probably not an effective tactic to use to get things that you may want, I don't think you should call it childish. Most people that do that have been doing it (I believe) are trying to get modifications on recent changes, which isn't "godsanc me or I won't vote," it's "listen to my input or I won't recognize this as the best mud."

In regards to me, I took a week off on vacation back in July. When I returned, I found that what I had tried to do to fix my alignment and supplication issues was compounded by the addition of lairs and several other foreign ideas. I tested them for a few days, and it was frustrating that I couldn't play the mud that I've enjoyed for several years. With that, I stopped playing until the mud stabilizes, and I don't think that it deserves my vote as the best mud. Once huge changes stop in favor of tweakings I'll probably return, but it's just really annoying to have the things that you work towards thrown in your face and desecrated on when they aren't just ripped to shreds.