Wilderness and Free Trade Vote

The Wilderness and Free Trade Vote was a petition created by Jagex in order to gauge the popularity of reverting the updates which removed the old style of player killing and instituted the trade limit. Jagex cited an increase in their ability to combat bots and account stealing as the reason behind the interest in reverting the updates.

The petition is set up so that players who want the updates to be reverted must provide their account name and place a vote. There is no option to vote against reverting the updates, though Jagex states that players can oppose by simply not voting.. The poll is open to all RuneScape players and will close on 14 January 2011. Players who have not yet voted can do so on the petition page.

Reaction
The decision to remove the Wilderness and free trade is viewed as one of the most controversial updates to this day. Well over a million players who disagree with the removal of these features have already voted. When the poll was first revealed, so many players accessed the website that it caused server instability and website down-time. There was also a spike in related discussion on the RuneScape Forums with many players debating the merits of both sides of the argument.

Immediately after the poll was unvelied, several hundred votes were being cast per second. Throughout the night, this gradually slowed to about 3 or 4 votes per second. The voting rate has now risen back to a steady 13-17 votes per second.

Criticism
Initially, the petition page had a footer mentioning the Guinness World Records. This led players to believe that the poll was not genuine and was only an attempt to set a world record for number of votes cast in a given time. A Jagex moderator stated that it was included for promotional purposes, and has been removed to avoid further confusion.

Many players also note that, since there is no publicly stated threshold of votes which would make this motion successful, no matter what the results of the poll, Jagex could decide to take whichever action they see fit. A number of players take this as Jagex eschewing any commitment, regardless of how the community feels. Jagex has noted that even 1,000,000 votes will probably not be enough, however this number has already been surpassed.

Perhaps the most widely criticized aspect of the poll is the inability to vote against reverting the changes. Critics argue that the system places disproportional burden on the supporters of the petition, since any person who doesn't vote has their vote counted as opposition, whether they truly oppose or not. For instance, someone who does not vote because they are neutral, or even because they did not know a vote was going on at all, will have their abstinence counted as an opposing vote.

Another criticism is the inability to vote for either the Wilderness or free trade. If a player chooses to vote for the petition, their vote is counted as support for both, when they may only support one. In some cases a player may feel forced to oppose both changes, despite strongly supporting one, because of strong opposition to the other.

Because the poll does not require an account's password, there is strong potential for abuse. Any player could place votes using their friends' names or the names of banned players, complete strangers, or players who have publicly stated their opposition to the proposed changes. Players also have the ability to vote numerous times, but not with the same username. Once a username is registered by the petition, it will no longer count as a vote if entered again.

The possibility of reintroducing the old wilderness concerned some players due to the fact that it could potentially interfere with quests which took place in the wilderness, such as Spirit of Summer and Defender of Varrock, as well as some activities which mandate trips to the wilderness, like Treasure Trails and All Fired Up. However in his clan chat, a Jagex moderator confirmed that were the Wilderness to be released, they would move certain elements out of the wilderness to avoid them becoming too dangerous. Concerns have also been raised about how free trade would impact new features such as the Grand Exchange.

A screenshot of Mod Osbourne posting on the Jagex moderator subforum that the vote is fake has been circulating, although it itself has been proven fake.

Trivia

 * People who supported free trade and wilderness to go back to the way it was wore pink skirts. They soon became known as 'Pink Skirt' supporters.
 * On the 22nd of December World 1 crashed. Some believe that Jagex temporarily closed it to stop the riots that were happening on it but it's most likely that it crashed due to the vast number of 'Pink Skirt' supporters rioting on it.
 * Around 17 hours after the petition was released, the amount of people who voted hit the 1 million mark (at 12:54 GMT).