🚀 go-pugleaf

=====================================================================
 The Net PC Games Top 100                       Document - Version 3
=====================================================================

THE CHART...

The Net PC Games Top 100 is a weekly chart for PC games, compiled from
votes that are sent by e-mail. Every game player in the world, having
an e-mail account, is allowed to send his or her votes. The chart is
published every Monday on Usenet in the comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.announce
newsgroup. It is also uploaded to the risc.ua.edu ftp-site and can be
found in the pc/games/solutions directory.

THE VOTES...

When you send me your votes, you are allowed to spread a total of
20 points over several games. Different games may get a different
amount of points, but not more than 5 points may be given to one game.
As a result, at least 4 games should get points when all 20 points are
used. (It is allowed, of course, to use less than 20 points.) Try to
concentrate on the games you play now, and not the ones you played a
long time ago. The chart is not an all-time favourites list. It
reflects the popularity of games that people are currently playing.

The chart is compiled automatically by a program that reads and
processes e-mail messages. When sending your votes, be sure to have
the word "votes" (or "vote") in the subject of your message. Only
points should be given in messages having this subject header. Send
comments and questions in different messages using different subjects.

It is likely that your votes will not change much over the weeks and
that it may be tiresome to send a new message every week. Therefore,
everyone's votes are used for 4 weeks in a row. So, when your list of
favourite games does not change, you only have to send a new message
after 4 weeks. You will be notified when these 4 weeks have gone by,
if you haven't sent new votes yet. New votes can be sent anytime. Your
previous votes will automatically be discarded.

THE SYNTAX...

The message holding the votes should have one game on every line. The
first thing to appear on the line is the number of points, second the
title of the game, third the publisher(s). The line has to be ended
with the ID (a 4-digit number) of the game, which can be found in the
chart between brackets []. This ID is quite important, for it is the
number used by the program that compiles the chart. Only for new
games, that are not yet in the chart, the ID-number may be left out.

Here's an example of a message:

Subject: votes

> 3          Ultima underworld            Origin/Mindscape [1019]
> 4          Wolfenstein 3D                      ID/Apogee [1013]
> 5          Push-over                               Ocean [1030]
> 5          Lure of the temptress                  Virgin [1046]
> 2          An American tail                     Capstone  
> 1          Comanche: Maximum overkill          Novalogic [1101]

Be sure to have the ID-number in square brackets []. A character at
the beginning of the line, like '>', is allowed. Try to avoid having
lines with unnecessary information, like disclaimers and remarks.

The easiest thing to do is to reply to the message containing the
latest chart. Copy the chart and delete all lines, except the ones
containing your favourite games. Delete the numbers that hold this
weeks and last weeks position and the number of weeks, and put in your
points instead. This way you don't have to worry about titles,
publishers and ID-numbers.

THE RESTRICTIONS...

It is not allowed to give more than 20 points to the games or more
than 5 points to one game. Extra points are automatically discarded by
the program (at random).

You may send more than one message a week, but only the latest one
will be used. (This can be useful when people change their mind.)

Do not forget to mention the publisher when giving points to a game
that is not already in the chart. There are some games around that
even I have never heard of.

THE DEADLINE...

The deadline for every chart is on Friday, around 1.00 pm (GMT).
Messages that come in after the deadline are used for the next week.
New charts are compiled in the weekend and published on Monday.

THE SENDING...

The new chart is sent to each person that has mailed me new votes.
Although the votes are automatically used for 4 weeks, only the first
next edition is sent to the voter. This way I can get people to vote
more than only once a month, when they want to receive every edition
of the list. This is an advantage for the actuality of the chart. When
I send voters all four editions for which their votes are used, they
will only report new games they are playing after the fourth week. By
sending them only one edition for one mail with votes, they will
report new games sooner.

THE COMPILATION...

For compiling the chart, the Top 100 from the previous week is used.
The games get points corresponding to their position in this chart.
These points are exponential. This means that the difference between
the points of high positioned games is bigger than the difference
between those in the lower regions of the chart. This assures that
games can climb and drop rapidly in the lower regions, but have to
fight a much tougher battle in the top of the chart.

After allocating these initial points, the points sent by mail in the
last 4 weeks are normalized. This means they are multiplied equally,
in such a way that the total of all these points is a constant number,
used every week. This asserts that the number of votes received in a
week has no influence on how much changes there are in the chart. More
votes results in a more accurate chart, but not in a chart with more
movement.

After the normalization, the resulting relative points of the voters
are added to the initial points. This results in movement in the
chart. When a game gets few or no points from voters, it will
automatically drop in the new chart. When it gets many points by
votes, it will climb. For the final touch, it is measured how much
traffic there is for every game in the comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.*
newsgroups. This results in extra points, which are also normalized
and added to the rest. The benefit of this is the support for new
games, since new games receive a lot of attention in the newsgroup.
This helps keeping the chart fresh.

As you should have noticed, it is not the case that the game that gets
the most points from our voters, will automatically be number one.
Only when it already has a very high position it could be number one
in the new chart. Otherwise it will have to do serious climbing first,
which will automatically be the case when it got many points. This
compilation system introduces a chart that is robust. Games can only
reach the top when they get many points for several weeks in a row.
The more usual "most points is highest position" system would cause
very strange things to happen, when the number of voters is limited,
like in this case. Another advantage of the adopted system is that it
is more exciting. Voters can carefully watch the movements of their
favourite games, and influence the movements by balancing their votes.
Of course, the influence of a single person on the chart decreases,
when the number of voters increases.

THE BULLETS...

In the Top 100 bullets are earned by games that climb very fast. Each
game earns a bullet if...

it is on number 1 to 5 and has climbed at least 5 places
it is on number 6 to 10 and has climbed at least 6 places
it is on number 11 to 15 and has climbed at least 7 places
it is on number 16 to 20 and has climbed at least 8 places
etc...

New entries are considered as coming from number 101. I have
experimented with a few different policies in the first ten weeks, but
this one is now the one I'll stick with.

THE TIP 20...

Together with the Top 100 another list is published every week. It is
called the Tip 20. This list contains games that people have voted
for, but which did not get enough points to enter the Top 100. It is
useful for detecting new games that some other voters came up with and
that you want to support too, to get them in the Top 100. The
compilation system assures that all games will enter the Tip 20 first,
before entering the Top 100. Also, in the Tip 20 games will only go
up, because they are removed from the list when the support for them
drops.

THE TOP 50...

At the end of every month a Top 50 is compiled with the games that got
the most points by voters only. No other information is used for this
list. It is made to show exactly how much support the games got from
the voters. Unlike the Top 100, this monthy Top 50 is compiled using
the "most points is highest position" system. Since it is an addition
of four weeks, four times as much points are used for this chart than
for the Top 100. Still this list shows some unusual dropping and
climbing of the games, due to the small number of voters. It upholds
the choice for a different compilation method for the weekly Top 100.

THE TOP 10...

Once in a while a Top 10 is published that shows which games are most
talked about on the net. Only the newsgroups starting at
comp.sys.ibm.pc.games are used for this. Some games have their own
newsgroup, but these are not included in the measurements. This seems
unfair to these games, but including these specialistic newsgroups
would be unfair to all other games. When a game has it's own newsgroup
it is very likely that people are invited to chat much more about it
than when this has to take place in a common newsgroup. For this
reason the specialistic newsgroups are not included in the
measurements. The way the newsgroups are inspected is not revealed, to
prevent deliberate influence.

THE PUBLICATION...

I don't have the intention to make money with the publication of the
Top 100. All the work is done at no charge. Publication of this chart
by others, in magazines and on bulletin boards, is allowed. There is
nothing I ask for in return, except that the file is not altered and
that I will be notified.

THE PUBLISHER...

Jojo Productions
Weena 41a
3013 CD Rotterdam
Tel: +31 10 4114510
The Netherlands

correspondent: Jurgen Appelo
app...@dutiag.twi.tudelft.nl


------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  If you've got a hot lead on a new  |       For information e-mail:
|  PC game, call the announce line at |       js...@polaris.async.vt.edu
|  csi...@polaris.async.vt.edu        |