Re: Mayors kicking all residents from towns. This a bad tre

I think the biggest argument here is the terminology.

Buy = paid for, ownership transferred to buyer
Rent = paid for, ownership retained by landlord

I understand all the arguments of "I worked hard for the money, bought this town, and it's MINE to do with as I wish, just like it CLEARLY states in the rules!"... however, If you want to own it, you should not be SELLING plots, you should be RENTING plots to other players.

Removal of a player for his/her behavior, no problem (sell or rent) They forfeit rights for their actions. However, removal of an entire population because "I want to start over, so get out" is TECHNICALLY within the rules of ECC... but is that how you would like to be treated in a Builder's / Resident's situation?

I completely agree with @laff80's sentiment. We shouldn't call it "selling a plot" if they don't get to keep it forever or until we reimburse them. We should call it renting.

 

Re: Mayors kicking all residents from towns. This a bad tre

Not exactly....
They`re not exactly renting because they`re not paying month by month week by week etc...
they pay one fee and then they own it but they must follow the rules that the mayor has set
and do what they say

 

Re: Mayors kicking all residents from towns. This a bad tre

ok lets all just put "renting" then. No big problem.

 

Re: Mayors kicking all residents from towns. This a bad tre

I would say renting is month by month, leasing is longer term, and buying is permanant

 

Re: Mayors kicking all residents from towns. This a bad tre

If in real life the city wants land they use their power to get it. You can appeal, but mainly loss. Still, maybe since we a re such a big community we need to start thinking about a type of court system with appeals and co, run by respected players or something similar.

 

Re: Mayors kicking all residents from towns. This a bad tre

True, we do need to just think about how real life renting/buying works....

 

Re: Mayors kicking all residents from towns. This a bad tre

What all of you keep missing by comparing the server to real life examples is the fact that while the state retains the ability to take your property on a whim, you are also entitled to just compensation. Except perhaps in places like the Congo Republic. But do we really want to be looking at central Africa for our legal models? [Never mind the fact that we live under a strict dictatorship!]

And that's really all this thread is about - compensation. Mayors ought to have every right to their town, but it's misleading at best and scamming in practice to "sell" plots of land when they can be taken away without compensation. If you're going to bring real life examples into this, you're going to have to start offering your residents just compensation for the land you take away. You can't pick and choose convenient parts of an example in order to justify your argument, especially when the bits you skip over invalidate the argument entirely.

I'm glad to see Laff take a stand on this, and I hope that server administration will stand behind what is a patently excellent call: if you sell a plot of land and then take it away without compensation, it's no different from scamming. I don't give a damn if it's a rule or your right or whatever, rules and rights are not always right. There's a lot of rules in the world, and people have enjoyed a lot of 'rights' through history -- does that fact alone make them just or something to be kept? There is nothing sacred about a bad rule or right; many of the most heinous acts in history have been entirely legal.

 

Re: Mayors kicking all residents from towns. This a bad tre

In all honesty though, there is nothing stopping any of you from making a contract of compensation if and when the mayor decides to kick you out (provided you are not kicked for causing trouble). The rules don't state anything against making a contract. In fact, I have a similar contract set up with some people in my town. Should I have reason to remove them from the city or myself from the server (I hope not), they are entitled compensation and their materials provided I have it. If not, I pay in materials.

The problem isnt the rules or lack thereof, it's that you as mayors and you as residents to their towns are not taking the extra initiative to protect yourself from these sometimes inevitable situations.

 

Re: Mayors kicking all residents from towns. This a bad tre

A valid point, rikari, and definitely something prospective residents should consider. However, it doesn't help the vast majority of new players who join the server and are looking at purchasing their first plots. As has been pointed out again and again, when one "buys" a plot one expects to own it. Even if it were to be taken away, as should be the mayor's right, one should still expect a certain level of compensation. It leaves more than a bad taste in one's mouth to lose a plot upon which great effort was expended only to be told "mayors may do whatever they please for any reason they please whatsoever." It's akin to selling someone a tool only to demand it back a few days later because "you feel like it." Of course any of us would call the person an idiot, as sales clearly don't work that way. And yet mayors "sell" plots every day. New players should definitely be expected to read the rules, but the rule in this case flies in the face of common sense to such a degree that confusion is to be expected. All that said, as rikari points out, it's still possible to protect yourself within the current system--no matter how flawed that system may be.

 

Re: Mayors kicking all residents from towns. This a bad tre

It's the resident/builder's job to pay attention and make sure that who they buy a plot from is trustworthy and has clear rules set up.

For starters, make sure you buy from a mayor who has proven to be trustworthy and/or has clear rules and/or disclaimer.
Do some research on the mayor before you buy a plot, do the same as you would do in real life, make sure you don't get screwed over.
If a mayor doesn't have a written agreement, make one, take matters into your own hands.

Take my town Nox for example, I clearly explained how you can lose your plot and I have a disclaimer to make sure that people know their rights.

Just don't go complaining when a mayor kicks you out of your town for no reason, it's like buying a broken tv, you could've known it was broken but you didn't bother to find out when you bought it.

 

Re: Mayors kicking all residents from towns. This a bad tre

lawl you started a new revolution about buys plots :D

 

Re: Mayors kicking all residents from towns. This a bad tre

The problem with this is that, if the buyer had read the rules, it states that mayors are allowed to remove people for whatever reason or no reason at all. When you bought a plot on the server, it's assumed that you read and understood the rules specifically regarding this situation.

Thus, as stated above, you should set something up with the mayor to protect yourself. It's not the mayors problem if any user doesn't follow or understand those rules.

I say this with sympathy to those who lost their plots due to situations like this. Below is a quote displaying the rule indicating that mayors can remove people for whatever reason.

 

Re: Mayors kicking all residents from towns. This a bad tre

if the resident can provide proof of the trade for the purchase of the plot, why shouldn't they be fully refunded if the mayor retracts the land? yes mayors can do what ever they want with their land, but they still need to respect the trades that are in place.

 

Re: Mayors kicking all residents from towns. This a bad tre

I think people have the wrong mindset on this problem. Towns on ECC don’t work like modern towns and cities were you have laws governing how and if your land can be taken. Towns on ECC work more like medieval towns. In medieval towns the ruler owned all the land, and would allow people to live on his/her land in exchange for a favor. (Back then that usually meant taxes and/or working the land.) The ruler though was sovereign of the land. He/she was the law (After all it was there land) they got to make the laws, be the judge of the laws, and decide what laws to enforce. So the ruler could remove anyone working and/or living on the ruler's land for no reason. The ruler didn’t have to provide any refunds or other returns for loss of property, it was never anyone’s but the ruler’s land, even if the ruler allowed others to live there. That’s how ECC works. Towns are there owners land and no one else’s ever, even if the owner allows others to live there for a price.

 

Re: Mayors kicking all residents from towns. This a bad tre

Nobody is disagreeing with your characterization of ECC as being rather medieval when it comes to land rights. What we're asking is whether or not the manner of organization you outlined is right.

 

Re: Mayors kicking all residents from towns. This a bad tre

That isn't how it is on ECC. If it was, that means town owners were above even Andrew himself, as town owners were be "the law," despite the fact that they must also follow many, many "laws" above them. And even still, if that was how ECC town's and town ownership was, where are the taxes, or the field/land work, etc? Very few towns do that, because I'm sure it is a hassle. Your example, in my honest opinion, is just as 'flawed' as the modern-day examples the rest of us are using.


And I'm wondering... Why are you town owners so upset about maybe giving compensation to one or two people once in a while? You should be getting many new town people, and repaying - even just partially - one or two every now-and-then should not be a huge deal. And if a lot of people are asking for compensation and leaving? You must not be doing a good job with your town. :/ Don't make enough money; not enough new people "buying" plots of land? Do more work on your town - work harder and spend more time on the the thing you "took so long to acquire from farming/mining/lottery (-cough-.-cough-)/etc."

Also... This thread, in some senses, has gone off-topic and to irrelevancy? A major part of it was about mass-removal of town residents for no logical, proper, moral, or good reason. You all kinda freaked out at minor parts and started a huge debate of other stuff... Though, some good points/ideas were brought up. :/

Even if this is a game and things are done differently than any real life example being used, there still needs to be structure. That is why we have rules; we add rules, we change rules, sometimes we remove rules, we add guidelines, give notices, give warnings, give out punishments. Without structure, there is mayhem. Users (real people, you know) get upset, when a game is supposed to be fun. You can't completely make a game "fun and safe," but if you don't try at all, no one will play. -- Without the rambling, my point is, there needs to be some work/discussions/action by the ECC Staff on what to do about "town-wide scamming" ... or anything similar. It's clearly causing a debate, so something should be done about it. :/

 

Re: Mayors kicking all residents from towns. This a bad tre

Okay, let's break down the rule here into exactly what it means instead of individual parts of it.

Alright, now let's take the parts that rikari88 and laff80 quoted in their recent posts.

Now, let's start with rikari's quote.
It states that mayors are allowed to remove anybody from their town for any reason... But read the next part that wasn't quoted.

This here is what states what they are not allowed to do without reimbursing them.

Now let's look at what laff quoted.
It states "Scamming and taking advantage of those who live within your town is strictly prohibited and will be punished."

Now, what do we classify as "scamming and taking advantage" of users?

Let's look back at the part of the quote rikari left out.

Here, it gives more specific information about what is a problem. We can do it for any reason, given we give them back their items. So what is taking advantage of users/scamming them? Not following this part of the rule is just that.

We can know for a fact that this rule only refers to other parts of this rule for a "mayor scam" or anything like that because it specifically states:

One can assume by looking at this that it will refer only to itself because it seems redundant to making it a rule to follow a specific universal rule when it already states to follow all of them. Because of this, I do not believe that evidence through screenshots of a trade for the plot are sufficient in getting the mayor in trouble for scamming - I think this scamming is an entirely different kind of scamming that it is trying to refer to.

But wait... Is not giving them back their items really the thing that is classified as scamming or taking advantage of them? And also, does this rule about universal rules applying mean that the normal scamming rule applies? Well, we could refer to some other rules to see if we can find out a few things, even though we shouldn't have to.

Let's refer to part of the universal living laws rule. This part specifically.

One can assume that "not having any common morals" is pretty much determines the scam because of this, meaning likely more of if they removed you from the town for no reason the day after they added you. However, based on the statement "If you would like the land wiped, or remade you should use your best discretion at assisting previous inhabitants in getting their stuff back - however not necessary.", which conflicts with the statement "the Mayor must give them a chance to retrieve their building materials and items from the town.", we can assume that the rule is slightly outdated. We should also note that if we are looking at other rules, maybe the scamming rule comes into play, thus meaning scamming may indeed refer to the universal scamming rule. So what should we believe?


I guess it's not exactly clear here (Or maybe I'm missing something or not being clear myself. :p). We could go look through every rule, the disclaimer, etc... However, the fact that we have to do that to find the answer means that the rule is already not clear enough as it is and could use some revising. For the most part, I am sided with rikari and the others here. We shouldn't have to pay them back, we do technically own the land. I think it should just be common sense what to do and what not to do in your town, and as long as you follow the rules, you shouldn't be forced to do any refunding to anyone.

(And yes, I know that last paragraph was biased, unlike the rest of my post. >.>) (I also should make a side note here: The scamming rule under "theft" in the wiki says no refunds will be given for anything lost in a scam. This would include money lost in a scam for plots in a town. No refunds would be given if it was referred to as scamming.)

To be honest, I think we should wait to debate any rules until the wiki gets it's rules revised. I recently heard that someone was working on a major overhaul of the rules to make them a lot more friendly and easy to understand, (Don't quote me on that, I'm not sure it's going to happen.) maybe that'll happen soon.

This has gone very off topic, yes. To be honest I have no idea what the topic was originally about, I just saw that people were arguing about this rule I'm posting about now and I thought I'd barge in. :D?

 

Re: Mayors kicking all residents from towns. This a bad tre

Yea your right I did entirely forget about Andrew in my example. So let me fix it to say that mayors and Presidents are counts (or something similar) and Andrew is the king. The king while having some rules for the entire kingdom (ECC) has granted the land to his “counts” to own and rule as they see fit. Also to make it more clear, while people don’t pay taxes or work the land on ECC for the privilege to live on protected land they do “buy” the privilege. (Buying a plot) And why I’m against this idea is because it makes my land not mine anymore. If I ever wanted to use Panem for something besides a town I would have to shell out around 40 to 50k. That’s no small amount for me (In fact right now that would be all I have.) I bought the land to use it for what I want to use it for, not to have to shell out 50k for the right to change how I use my land.

Just to make it clear I’m happy to buy back a plot from a user for half price if they ask about it. I just want to have the ability to change what I use my land/town for without having to shell out a bunch of money first in full refunds to people who haven’t asked about it.

And Dorc I think this is about mayors/presidents having to provide refunds if they do a mass removal. (At least that's what I got out of it.)