Number of votes?

[Cat1981England]

Some people were asking about this tonight, i thought i would give it a bump

[[P]etya]

Now I know how somebody can get 20 votes... It is scary.

[Wormbo]

In general, I'm all for improving the server step by step, especially when there's a skilled coder providing a piece of his/her work to run it here. But I don't consider the cons of the accu-mode being that severe and still see its advantages. When there's a coder willing to work for the server, I'd rather have him/her work on other issues e.g. improving the balancer, ONSPlus, AntiCheat, delayed bots at match starts, minimising lags and so on. If there's one sending me an improved accu-mode-mutator, great! I'll up it. But if I was a coder I'd work on the other things first TBH. There's a lot to improve ;-)

Believe it or not, but coders are just people. They have just as much a hard time reading minds as most other people.
How about making a dedicated list what needs to be improved and how "improvement" would be defined for those things? (Ideally with an indication of how urgent such a change would be.)

Ok, a new anti-cheat tool, for example, may be quite unlikely. But for example ONSPlus - I wouldn't immediately know what you'd like to see improved. There's an old thread about balancer ideas in the creative corner, but I don't see any mention of the other things you mentioned here. It's hard to fix things nobody capable of fixing them knows about, so maybe it's a good idea to start collecting them in a publicly accessible place.

[Pegasus]

Believe it or not, but coders are just people. They have just as much a hard time reading minds as most other people.
How about making a dedicated list what needs to be improved and how "improvement" would be defined for those things? (Ideally with an indication of how urgent such a change would be.)[...]

True, but I'd say the chief calculation going on in ppl's heads (ours anyway) in terms of requesting stuff from experienced Uscript devs like you isn't as much to offer a ranked wishlist and expect fulfillment, but more to know in the first place whether you have an opening for a new UT scripting project and what scope you'd want the project you're willing to get into to have. Ideally, I suppose you could have some generic Creative Corner thread which you'd update whenever you'd be looking for ideas for a next project, which ppl would subsequently pitch/point to you. For example, one month you could state something like "anyone got any small-scale project idea they'd like to see happen?", expecting pitches like, say, a 4-class damage popup mutator or help with a minor addition to a near-ready map edit (:p); another time you might look for a challenge that would likely take you a few days (or 1-2 weeks tops) to pull off, which you'd solicit input for to the tune of "now accepting requests for a mid-sized scripting/mapping project" and ppl might come back to you with suggestions such as mass-editing a popular map (OmahaBeach ) or giving another push to some other, incomplete pursuit (like a heatmap tool ); incredibly infrequently, lastly, your hobby schedule might be entirely devoid of any kinda Uscripting activity and you might inquire as to ideas about some vast, albeit useful down the road, creation for ONS, and you can pretty much imagine that stuff like updating ONSPlus would probably be the only things that would fall on your lap then.
So yeah, roundabout manner of suggesting laying out a framework based on your convenience here (since it's your time and effort we're talking about) of a msg board thread nature, I guess.

[...]But for example [improving] ONSPlus - I wouldn't immediately know what you'd like to see improved. [...] I don't see any mention of [that] here. It's hard to fix things nobody capable of fixing them knows about, so maybe it's a good idea to start collecting them in a publicly accessible place.

It may be too far back for anyone else to remember and I may be kinda hesitant to share it for a few reasons, buuuut... remember this old rant ? Maybe that's one place to start. Just, umm, don't pay too much mind to the part where I whined about the raptor's collision hull; not my best idea in retrospect and given everything I've learned about the game since then :/. The "vehicle unstuck part" seems largely pie in the sky even now as well, come to think of it, but other than that, I think several of those improvements would help improve everyday ONS even from today's standpoint. Also missing from that wishlist are a toggleable avril kickback option and (this one I found in my notes) an alternate, ONS-obj-based scoreboard where player pts take a backseat to node builds/busts (still displayed, just in smaller font), AS style.

Working towards a revised and updated ONSPlus may be a massive, months-long, undertaking paved with plenty of intermediate WIPs, but IMO it's one of three fundamental, unavoidable pillars the extended UT community would need to work on if there's ever any hope of reaching some kind of ONS 2.0 and finally breathing some actual, new life to the gametype. But one step at a time of course .

[[P]etya]

I think everybody should have only 1 vote for a map, because sometimes somebody can place 20 vote for a map, and it is kinda unfair when an individual chooses the next map.

[Wormbo]

Nah, I think accumulation mode is fine. The only problem with it is potential abuse as outlined above: You should only accumulate unused votes if you are actually allowed to participate in the vote. In other words, spectators should not accumulate votes. If you played on the server long enough and always accepted others' opinions on what map to play next, you have a right to have others accept your opinion on that at least once per session.

[Pegasus]

True; IMO, it's the "switch to spec and still amass them beans!!1" part that breaks the camel's back for most accu-mode critics, myself included. Of course, it needs to be reminded here that even if custom code was introduced that specifically removed this "feature", the prospect of increased voting power would still be motive enough for some ppl to keep trying to game the system - i.e., just join for a few secs per match, then switch back to spec - as ppl will always do with any system. Trying to apply a tech solution to a social problem n' all that tropey jazz. That's why, in the end, I've always found that nothing short of returning to the standard voting method would ensure true voting equity over time and different scenarios.

[Wormbo]

And another buzzword for you: adequate means. How often do people really abuse this loophole? It requires a lot of preparations for just a single affected round of voting.
I played the entire evening yesterday and it never happened. In fact, I needed to spectate for a bit and left the PC. When I came back only very few minutes later, I had been auto-kicked for idling. (as spectator... o_O) Heinz already explained how much effort you need to put into such a single vote. You need to skip voting for a long time to accumulate enough voting power to definitely win on your own. As a result I still think it's a non-issue, although preventing accumulation in spectator mode definitely is a good idea.
There are other, IMHO worse, "social problems" on UT2004 servers. For example people sabotaging the game by wasting strong vehicles (last night on MagicIsle our Kraken was taken to a locked node and it stayed there even though we only briefly managed to unlock and - thanks to the Kraken - capture it) or distracting others, both usually because the offender didn't like the voting results. (Speaking of that, where could I report such things if there's no admin around?)

[Pegasus]

Cycling back to this at a breakneck worm snail's pace, while it may indeed take anywhere up to a few hours for someone to accrue a significant enough voting power that they alone can determine a map selection's outcome (or nearly enough anyway), that still remains the POV analysis for just a single, determined actor. My examination of the accu-mode's (de)merits tends to focus a lot more on the effects it has on the majority of the playing crowd, say, at the moment of a big-ass, half-server-strong choice by just one person and how that affects the experience for all the rest. To my mind, that's the best way to determine whether it benefits a server or not.
In that regard, what often makes the power inequity even more blatant and egregious during voting is when the big bomb is left to drop only during the final few seconds of the process, typically referred to as vote sniping (akin to the synonymous eBay last-second bid-raising practice). Despite still within their rights to act like that of course, when "high rollers" opt to vote late, while also being the only ones who know what their influence is and how it would lock in the process their way, according to the little Game Theory I still recall, the achieved result isn't singularly in their favour (get the map you put your weight on), but also manages to get all dissenters to have had their votes wasted too. In a system where every bean not wasted in a process can have actual, added worth in a following one, the conscious choice to vote snipe unavoidably takes on a negative moral hue, then, that's not dissimilar to wealth incumbency, i.e. kicking the ladder so nobody else can follow after you've climbed up; put in more web-tropey lingo, this borders on Lawful Evil. Obviously they're not the same since one can only reasonably do so once per daily gaming session instead of in perpetuity, and everyone has the same chances to do so, but the reasoning and the self-serving agenda of negating potential competition are the same.
While I still maintain that accu-mode does more harm than good overall, as well as that the oft-repeated claim stating it can promote unpopular maps has been repeatedly debunked in action by high rollers just pushing some other, non-currently-leading popular map instead of any true underdog, perhaps this is one aspect of the mechanic where tech can help. One could use a custom variant of the accumulative vote handler that would force the stronger vote holders to choose earlier than the rest; obviously not provide a window shorter than it would be reasonable for someone to peruse the whole list at a normal pace, but no more than past the first ~50-60% of the total voting time either. Additionally, everyone could be made aware from the first second of the crowd's total voting power. Those two changes combined, the average voter would be much better informed about the whole situation and have a higher chance of getting more value out of their votes, amassed or not.

Btw, yes, there is indeed a maximum idle time autokick feature set to 2mins on CEONSS, but that's hardly a deterring factor, since those seeking to build a stronger voting power are already determined to spec through multiple matches, and you can hardly do so without providing even a single valid input for as long as 120secs; other than ppl actually away on a piss break or whatever, serial speccers aren't likely to be cut short by the idling kicker.

Lastly,

[...]For example people sabotaging the game by wasting strong vehicles (last night on MagicIsle our Kraken was taken to a locked node and it stayed there even though we only briefly managed to unlock and - thanks to the Kraken - capture it) or distracting others, both usually because the offender didn't like the voting results. (Speaking of that, where could I report such things if there's no admin around?)

Situations like that is exactly why we have 3 ingame admins, whom ppl witnessing disruptive behaviour by other players are always encouraged to approach and seek help from. Still, you raise a good point in the case where there's no deputy present on the server during someone's particularly annoying laming session. We do have the Bans, Unbans & Appeals subforum, but nowhere in that description is room provided for plain old reports, which is why ppl have either been doing it in any other thread active and kinda relevant at the time, or just simply piling on in an offender's existing thread in BU&A - both imperfect (if not problematic) solutions for different reasons. Probably high time that oversight got amended, I suppose, along with establishing some ground rules specifically for posting in BUA&R .

[Cheese_it!]

</rant on>
Why the hell would you actually want to allow people to accumulate votes?
The answer must surely be "So they can have multiple votes". But why??

I think everyone should get ONE vote and if they don't use it, the vote is lost.

Eg a couple of evenings ago, ... we were all voting as usual at the and of a game, it looked like a good map (Urban) was going to win but BLAM along comes HD Viice with 9 votes for MasterBath.
So, we all had to play this fucking crappy retarded kiddy map just because HDViice wanted, even though only one player wanted it. Result: Everyone gets pissed off (apart from Viice who is now laughing)

Democracy? i think not. Do the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many? Maybe we should apply this to real life too.
Let's see --- I haven't voted in the previous two general elections in the UK - does that mean I get THREE votes next year?
Would that be fair to the people who vote every time? (hint: NO it wouldn't!)

</rant off>