[MUD-Dev] Community Relations

[J C Lawrence]

On Thu, 27 Jan 2000 16:31:49 -0800 
Lovecraft  <dave at darkages.com> wrote:

[empowering players with political power] 

> Dark Ages gives players limited administrative power in in-game
> context.  Some players enter a hierarchy of political positions.
> There are no other direct administrators; although there is a
> method of owner control, which I'll state last.
> http://www.darkages.com/play/s_politics.html

I've not done it, but I proposed a system I called "Rank Points"
here on the list a while back.  Its somewhat similar to your
approach <puff chest>:

--<cut>--
A simple model:

  Player characters can award each other "rank points" (RP).

  Each player character is given (free) 1RP per day.

  A player character with sufficient RPs can be automagically 
  promoted to a high status position.

  Maintaining a high status position costs a player character 
  XXX RPs per day (automatic debit).

  A player caharacter can promote other player characters to other
  (lower) status positions.  

  Such a promotion costs the appointing player a one time cost of 
  YYY RPs.

  The promoted player has his own daily RP cost for his position.

  Should the high ranking player lose his position thru lack of 
  RP's, all appointees will also lose their position as it they 
  had failed to acquire enough RPs to maintain their own position.

  A junior ranked player can still appoint sub-juniours with the 
  same mapping as above.

Ergo: To survive a high ranking player must persaude many many other
players to give him their daily RPs so he can keep his position.  A
high ranking player may appoint juniours who are then also in the same
position, but can be required to funnel some portion of their
collections to their appointer.  
--<cut>--

This idea has been raised here on list at various times, with one
thread around:

  http://www.kanga.nu/archives/MUD-Dev-L/1997Q2/msg01504.html

> Dark Ages mechanics of politics are a game within the game.
> Players "vote" every day to support or to attack someone
> attempting political power.  Each vote adds political power
> points, called "Clout."  Enough clout allows one to attain office
> for a term.  (details are well summarized by a player in the Dark
> Ages Library: http://www.darkages.com/atavism/lore/ -> Click
> "Politica Dominca").

Oooo, player involvement and churn prevention.  

Have you had any voter disaffection, or voter apathy to a
significant/noticable extent?  Is the voting game effectively played
by only a small (and mostly constant) minority of the players vieing
among themselves, or do most players partake fairly regularly
proving a more general game of politiking?

> This displays a previous issue far back in this thread: partial
> voting.  One can vote every day.  Technically, every twelve hours.
> A citizen can vote for multiple persons, or for the same person
> several times.  A citizen can also use the mechanics to vote more
> than once, by spending Clout.

ObNote: I rather like Australian voting system, where one my cast
several simultaneous votes for candidates.  It makes for a somehwat
flatter playing field which is less prone to fracturing.

From: 

  http://plato.itsc.adfa.edu.au/apr/ARTICLES/hrepvote.html

Which is under The Australian Politics Resource at:

  http://plato.itsc.adfa.edu.au/apr/

--<cut>--
A preferential voting system is used in Australian Federal and State
elections. Under this system each voter not only indicates his or
her candidate of first preference, but goes on to indicate who is
their second choice and so on until all their preferences have been
indicated.

In a House of Representatives election, only one representative is
elected in each electoral division. In order to be elected a
candidate must recieve an absolute majority of the formal votes cast
in the electoral division. This means the successful candidate must
recieve at least 50% + 1 of the formal votes.

When counting commences all the first preference votes are counted
for each candidate. If any candidate recieves more than 50% of the
first preference votes then that candidate is duly elected.

If no candidate has more than half the first preference votes, then
the candidate with the fewest votes is excluded. This candidate's
votes are transferred to the remaining candidates on the basis of
the second preference shown on these ballot papers.

If still no candidate has more than 50% of the votes the candidate
who now has the fewest votes is excluded and these votes are
transferred to the the other candidates according to the next
preference indicated on the ballot papers.

This process continues until one candidate has more than half of the
formal votes cast in the and is duly elected.

Ballots are exhausted only when there are no further preferences
indicated, at which point they are set aside from the count.

A full distribution of preferences takes place in every division,
even those in which a candidate has an absolute majority of first
preference votes. The result of this full distribution is used to
calculate the two party preferred statistics.
--<cut>--

> What is an example system that is less corrupt than the tyranny of
> the majority?

At various times I've toyed with the idea of doing a voting system
where the value of a vote was not constant, and in fact was
inversely proportional to the size of the population one
represented.  I've not managed to work out a system that I felt was
not too obviously abusable however.  The intent was promote a fine
grained fracturing of the political system.

I continue to feel the idea is achievable, just that my base
assumptions in approaching the problem are very wrong.

--
J C Lawrence                                 Home: claw at kanga.nu
----------(*)                              Other: coder at kanga.nu
--=| A man is as sane as he is dangerous to his environment |=--


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