I know I said "No, I won't add another Rights for Residents' thread" after Wallstreet protests went ahead in a campaign that took flight so harmlessly and went on to ban the supporters, and may I clarify this is a thread based on a completely different basis with different suggestions involved. But I'm afraid I've had no choice recently if not to stare at the injustice that Town Mayors are bringing. They are abusing their residents - not just "residents", but any plot-owners - whether they're builders, presidents, mayors, ambassadors or whatever.

So Mayors pay $85,000 to have their own town. They can do whatever they like in that town: build, sell plots, make money, store furniture, start a fire. But bullying shouldn't be on that list. No mayor should have the right to abuse their citizens.

At the end of the day, it's a scam.

A friend bought a 10x10 plot from a Mayor for $1,000* a few months ago. The Mayor passed a rule in his town: "If you are inactive for over ten days, your plot will get removed, unless you tell me beforehand." Now, just this Sunday, my friend's plot was removed for him being inactive for eleven days due to a damaged hand. And he did get onto ECC anyway. He did tell the Mayor, "I will be off." But he got no money back, and at the end of the day, he lost $1,000. For what? For him to build a fantastic house, 100 blocks high and 100 blocks low, so that one day the Mayor could suddenly say "Get out" even though he didn't break any rules, and all his possessions went to the Mayor of the town, and the Mayor of the town only. This isn't "town authority". This is a scam, plain and simple: a cold, cruel scam.

If you think that scamming others in trades in a scam, what's the difference here? You pay $1,000 for one plot forever, and in a while your plot gets removed for absolutely nothing that the town rules specify. You ask for a refund, but the Mayor says "no". You lost a minimum of $1,000 in the course of two months because a Mayor scammed you, maybe more depending on what you were storing in the plot, or maybe more because of the price you paid. Anyhow, it's in the region of $750 - $50,000 at best.

What am I suggesting? That such cases are made against the rules and that plots can only be removed after a longer period of time, a minimum of fifteen days rather than the current three. Some mayors are starting to become eager to destruct and resell plots, and thus abusing the rights of the residents. There are rules against this that declare that the player should be given time to destroy the plot, but most Mayors fight this seizure of property law under the argument that they "didn't know if they would come back." Even if the time is given for the removal of items, you're not necessarily refunded the amount of money you spent for that plot, and it can come to a hefty loss if the plot was large. It's also inconvenient for any player that must remove what could possibly be tonnes of valuable items for a silly rule as the Mayor had just figured out how to make tonnes of money.

That is not the only point I am trying to make in this suggestion. A town rule should not be placed into effect any time before 14 days of warning the player of the consequences that this could have over their lifestyle and property, otherwise it's yet again a scam: You place cobblestone and the next day the rules is "no cobblestone", and you're asked to leave the town. How would you feel if you had hours of work being taken away because the Mayor selfishly wanted more money?

What good is this? If you've been given no warning prior, it's as though the Mayor is personally setting a trap against you. Some Mayors change their ideas about towns and decide to evict everyone out - this shouldn't be over the course of 24 hours because you cannot be bothered to wait until at least 10% of the players are warned of it: this should be in the course of two to three weeks. Whilst most Mayors are starting to believe the theorem that "this is my land, I bought it, I can do what I like", certainly it is better if we encourage them to believe, "this was my land, I bought it and I sold it to someone else with a set of agreements that I still had about 20% authority over it, it's not my land any more."

I am not suggesting, as I was in my last Rights for Residents thread, that Mayors get no rights over their towns, only that they cannot evict players for sudden changes to the rules, and that abusive mayors do not abuse their powers and invade the space of others. Also, any case deemed as "unfair" by the Moderators should have a result of a ban on the Mayor himself and any party involved. I'm stating a different suggestion on similar topics. I'm not going to give you a long list of what I'm suggesting - because I have proof that that over complicated itself last time I attempted.

Furthermore, I believe that an essential part in my plan is to allow more options than property seizure to any town rules broken. Often, warnings or kicks from the town are given, and I find these an adequate substitute to what can be a harsh ban. I do believe these subsitutes should be mentioned in the rules as "allowed", alongside fines (or threatening to destroy the property for money, whichever way you look at it). I have worked, as a Co-Mayor of Cookietown, on an interesting form of public execution, approved by the Moderators, that can be taken instead of warnings or kicks, providing public amusement and profitable business. These should all be outlined as allowed substitutes to the seizure of property.

Seizure of property should really be the last resort in a punishment (exception to serious offences), and shouldn't be abused. If constantly abused, I believe that the player should be encouraged in the rules to refer the Mayor to the Moderators privately or through complaints, and here again I have a separate suggestion.

If a Mayor is being denounced for abusing his rights or his land, again I suggest that the Mayor is given 24 hours to destroy his town before all the grief protection is removed. This should again happen after a warning and only as a last resort for serious cases, though it does help over-populated maps and is a healthier solution to buying towns.

As I stated, this is not a copy of my previous suggestion, neither word-for-word nor in content. It's a suggestion for different settings on a similar subject of my last suggestion.

I'd be grateful to hear your responses, and as always, I don't intend for this suggestion escalate into Wallstreet protests and bans, as was seen last time.

*NOT A COPIED POST, NOR A RE-SUGGESTED POST*​

* = My apologies, my friend was not charged $1,000 as the standard 10x10 plot would've been in the town, but the Mayor specifically said, and I quote, "It's $1,000, but as it's you, it's $3,000, thank you." SURELY, SURELY this deserves a ban?

 

No, because of course, it's REALLY hard to forget not to delete someone's plot when they tell you by in-game mail and in real life not to delete it with a valid reason, isn't it? Although I do quite like your system...mm, quite good. The /seen command works just as well, but that's much easier to check by on your daily stroll. Nice scheme.

Yes, I am quite biased, but if we weren't biased, there'd be no point in this suggestions forums. I understand it's your town, but it doesn't mean you can happily scam people and break the rules anyway.

 

I was talking to a friend just now. He spent $6,000 on a plot and was offline for a week. The town rules stated that this was against the rules, and without being given a chance to collect his stuff, he had his plot removed.

That's $6,000 he lost, and now he's in poverty.

 

Thank you, D0rc. Winner x1.

I will advise my friend to see what he can do, but this rule isn't being enforced when it should be. It's little warning given, and it's a scam. You have outlined your points to an exceptional standard, and I am glad that someone, at least, has some belief in more limits for Mayorship abilities.

 

Even if there is no problem, and even though I am basing this purely on my experience, what damage can be done from ensuring that everyone has a fun and fair time on ECC?

​

Abusive mayors = Unhappy plot-owners = complaining plot-owners = leaving plot-owners = a lower ECC population.​

That's what I'm afraid the effect will be in the long-term, and a lowered ECC population could mean less players joining, meaning less donors for the server to run and thus the server will inevitably have to shut down.

 

If I was Mayor, I would still agree to these rules anyhow, whether they were in place officially or not. It would just be plain selfish of me to remove plots at absolutely no warning for no reason because I want to resell the plot for more money, but the rules don't state anything that would stop me from doing that. Welikeike22 could just raze the whole of Wallstreet and Berlin and resell plots and absolutely nothing could be done, because the rules state nothing against those actions, just to "warn players first". How unfair would it be? And as MoofinK rightly said, you're still a resident too, and your plots in other towns can still be destroyed. I mention "residents" as any plot-owner regardless of their rank in any town.

If you haven't been unfairly treated, as MoofinK said, you haven't been a resident. If you haven't even seen anyone maltreated, whether you have even played ECC can be questioned. I've seen it several times, acted by selfish and cruel Mayors who are only willing to sell and resell plots, or by Mayors who think they can get away with scamming...and they do. That's why I've suggested this - to stop them from scamming.

Also, MoofinK, brilliant post. +1

 

I'm not suggesting that evicting for being inactive is against the rules, I'm suggesting that more time is given amongst other things.

 

There is, but not enough time is being given and this rule is not being enforced neither by the Mayors nor by the wider Ecocitycraftian community.

Added.

 

There we go, it's a common case and thus action should be taken.