PermalinkToday PMC launches a traditional method of ranking game servers, the Top List. This will be the primary ranking system for the server section from now on.
You'll find a link to vote for your favorite server(s) on it's PMC server page. Server owners can begin sharing that link with their members. At first the list will look odd but it won't take long for servers to adapt to the new system and the list have more meaning.
Server owners now have the option to upload a graphic 468x60 banner to represent their server.
Top List FAQ:
Q. Do I need to be a member of PMC to vote?
A: No.
Q. How often can I vote for my favorite server?
A: Once every 24 hours.
Q. How is the score computed for the top list?
A: Score = 1.5 * votes + .05 * days since server posted to PMC. As system evolves so will the algorithm.
Q. When is the score reset?
A: Top list score is reset every month.
Q. What happens if a server cheats?
A: Report them to a moderator. We'll look into it and depending on the situation, votes may be reduced, reset, or server page removed.
Q. Can I pay my way to the top?
A: No.
The main goal is to make it easier to find the top servers on PMC and reward active and long standing servers.
Questions, comments, concerns? Post to this thread.
Edit: 4/3/12
I'm completely fine with the criticism of the system. I couldn't test it locally before launching because it's impossible to predict or simulate the live situation. I expect things feel off because of the abrupt change as well as issues in the system. The bugs will be fixed & things will be tweaked until it feels right including finding a balance between promoting new vs established servers. I appreciate & consider all of the suggestions to help reach that goal.
FAQ Update:
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Q: How are new servers supposed to get noticed now?
A: Setup, promote and maintain a quality server and PMC page. I will continue to tweak the vote system and servers page to funnel traffic more evenly between the established and new servers.
Today, I replaced the drop down that sorted by "Top List", "What's Hot", "Latest", etc was with a Tab style menu. This makes it extremely easy to see what you're browsing but more importantly the available alternatives. If someone wants to join a brand new server/community the list is one click away. Applied this change to all sections on PMC.
- Featured gallery continues to promote new servers that are rising in popularity as well as a 10% chance to promote the most popular. I will tweak that algorithm to pull from different time periods. I.E. Popular in last week, 2 weeks, month. This will give new servers that are running quality servers several chances to get an additional boost.
I do feel there should be more emphasis/reward on having an established server than being new. Many new servers don't last long, not because they don't get traffic, but because it takes some serious dedication to properly setup, maintain and promote their server. It's essentially a full-time job and takes a lot of organization and management skills to properly run a Minecraft server. Nothing is more frustrating than joining a server that disappears with your builds a few days later. Having PMC's default view of servers sorted by something as trivial as "last updated/posted" was a very poor recommendation to visitors. Now it's simply the visitors choice to browse by that method.
Q: Why are my votes / member votes blocked and claimed to be Spam?
A: I initially used the SORBS service to check IPs against their spam database. It apparently has half the Minecraft community flagged for spam. I disabled this check on 4/2/12. Today, I disabled another service that was blocking an unusually high amount of votes from sources of traffic that looked legitimate to me. The vote block methods will continue to evolve until a reasonable balance is found.
Q: Are you going to add support for Votifier?
A: Yes. Done.
Q: Are you going to add support for Minequery?
A: No, I'm gong to add Gamespy4 Protocol support. Provides same info but faster.
Q: Can you put our server banner on our server page?
A: Sure, good idea.
