Area Administration and Zoning proposals

#1

(I mean Zoning in a vague ‘city planning’ sense)

I ran this past Acci because I’m always a little shy with ideas. Turned out while I was writing it he posted in the Park ideas thread which echo my own (the genericization of ‘teleport’ and the desire for a bit of walking traffic in particular). Putting it in General for wider comment than Staff. :slight_smile:

Mucks follow a pattern. They build, they proliferate, they slow, they lose a lot of area leadership - the owners of areas leave - and they become little islands of activity amongst a sea of deadwood.

Some of this is natural - the hangouts become the hangouts, really. But how can it be improved?

First concept: If one wants to have a walked-through trafficked city, keep the teleport number low. I know there’s been talk about a bunch more to reduce walking spam. But the better option may be to keep teleports to the zone level and make enter/leave messages optionally quiet on rooms that need it due to traffic. We have pretty good diversity now in hangout spots, I’d like to keep it.

Second Concept: Embrace the ‘fractured’, flotsam nature of Sinder. Abandoned and/or unpopulated areas can go away. Eliminate the ‘expanding donut’ effect of expanding building with an unpopulated core by eliminating some areas if they’re not used and re-administrating some areas that have gone without a leader. The ‘unstable rift’ signs nailed up by Sinder Public Services before disconnecting an area would be funny too.

I myself have been part of this. I now run the Nude Beach on Furrymuck, which fell to me some years ago because of an absent landlord (an old furry artist who came up with the world it was set in who’s now a personal friend). The leadership of FM didn’t know what to do so they put it up to a vote, and I barely won. The whole process was icky and toxic. Instead, if an active area has an absent owner (for some extended period of time) and it remains a spot, a moderator should be assigned to it. If the absence continues, and the area is popular, it should be assigned to a ‘local’ with a good ticket record after a request for nominations.

tl;dr: Keep Wolfery walkable (within reason) and prune unused builds from the grid to prevent the petrification effect of classical mucks.

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#2

I definitely agree with the sentiment. Small walkable zones, connected by train station/teleport?

Unfortunately, designating zone leaders might always be icky and toxic. Even if left to a moderation and some democratic vote.

To add onto this petrification sentiment. I do feel like apartment buildings add a lot of this. It is sad to walk through a room with people’s long abandoned houses. Walking through mucks feels like a lot of this ghost town housing. New zones should be more ‘Sinder’ themed then personal visions. To live past the owner’s moving on.

#3

I strongly feel that we need to embrace this idea of reclaiming anything written by people should they essentially abandon their creations in places that are more central to overall world traffic. If it doesn’t already, our terms of service should include provisions for this to make sure that people understand we have usage and editing rights to utilize any creations they link into the overall public grid. ( Even if we simply reclaim ownership and a re write the descriptions as ruins or something similar)

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#4

I can say that I firmly back this idea, especially considering that it was something I had brought to the attention of at least one staff member as a possibility (If the owner of an area abandons it or no longer participates in the server for a certain period of time, it should be taken by staff to be modified/maintained or trimmed as needed). Iirc it was Acci I brought this up to, while I was thinking of the Cape Theia situation.

Another suggestion that could assist in minimizing regional abandonment, would be to offer up signs in highly trafficked locations which hint at, or grant vague directions to these areas. If I’m being completely honest, I didn’t even know that Cape Theia actually existed in the game, even after players mentioning it to me IC, until I accidentally encountered it while I was testing the teleport feature.

#5

We have area and room owners by default now. I agree with your sentiment but the part I left out is ‘uncontrolled’ areas do become problems. Or at least they tend to. On the Beach on FM it was threatened with deletion for being a problem, a social order was worked out, and it was left alone until they couldn’t hold off purging the owner anymore. A not-entirely cooperative succession policy might be needed.

It’s kind of a corner case. “Place that is very popular and yet abandoned.” But it’s happened before.

Personal building should be kept to zones like the Forest that minimize that effect. That’s another point of agreement.

@Jagrabbit Yes that’s what I wanted to get across exactly. :slight_smile:

@Myk Oooh. True. Counterpoint: I’m not sure how much more advertising Cape Theia can have than a platform at the train station, its own teleport, and being on the map…

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#7

I’ve seen it happen a lot. And the lack of a forethought succession plans, communication, and transparency has always left tons of people bitter and popular zones deleted. It is definitely something to address now.

#8

I agree that trying to do a succession is kind of fraught. There’s always a chance that there’s two people with good track records but very different ideas of what “their” zone should be.

If an area is at risk of that sort of thing, maybe deletion is the answer. On Taps, when the Lining went away, two or three new places opened up to replace it, and eventually, people gravitated to one over the other(s). Maybe the new place will seem like the old one (it kinda does on the Lining’s replacement sometimes), but maybe someone will come up with a new spin on something, or a different take that satisfies the same need, and that can help keep Wolfery feeling fresh.