The word you're looking for would be 'taxing'.

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"Censure acquits the Raven, but pursues the Dove." "So, that means i'm -always- innocent, right?"

That's actually the very word I was avoiding. But thanks for trying to help.

A taxman? Kill it? *Runs off to the moster submission tent. *

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A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a trombone; what else does a man need to be happy?

AAAAARGH! Beat me to it! Just came back to check replies and thought "Hmm, might work as a monster. Maybe if...". Then saw your comemnt. Haha. Brilliant.

Ok, looks like people aren't keen on taxman idea. And I did think it would just be a punishment for some people, instead of opening up the house for others.

How about this. An orphaned house becomes open to public. From what I understand, you can not destroy houses, so the worst thing a person would see after coming back after a long time would be a bigger house, with some rooms occupied, which s/he can still lock again after coming back. The only question is description, or "decorating", for which I don't really have a solution.

So, I would say, unless you have given out master keys to people and have been away for a long time, your house becomes open to public, from which you will not really be pained, because once you come back, you can still kick the squatters out (or at least lock the house again).

And perhaps open up a real-estate market so people could trade houses and perhaps even start up some RP construction companies. But have a transaction tax imposed, so it still makes it hard for people to transfer cigarettes to others. And then, some time down the line, watch the real-estate bubble collapse

This any better?

The continuing issue here is that if the owner can at some point come back to their account (i.e. they are alive and their account still exists) then the dwelling is not orphaned. Why would you implement a system like this, where houses are being taken from their owners or being controlled by non-owners when the owner is still around? You'd never consider it in real life, like if someone owned property in one place but lived somewhere else... just because they're not often on site at the property doesn't mean that it has been orphaned, and thus can't be given to someone else (or otherwise transferred without the owner's permission). So why consider it here? Especially since many people have paid real cash (i.e. legal tender) to produce and own these things (that is, legally own, enforceable by law).

In other words, the same considerations should be made for properties on Improbable Island as would be made in real life... which for now mostly means not yanking them away from living, if absent, owners.

I believe we're talking about the dwellings linked to non-permanent accounts. Absent players relinquish their claim to their characters as well as their virtual realty.

It's always a pleasure to point out the obvious

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"Censure acquits the Raven, but pursues the Dove." "So, that means i'm -always- innocent, right?"

Then they can't come back, can they? And that's the main deciding factor for whether or not to "repossess" a dwelling in the first place. The proposed tax systems all affect players that are still playing. In fact, blob's post specifically mentioned, twice, players coming back... which means that either their account is permanent or they are at least around enough to keep it from being deleted. In either case it would be poor government (and I do mean on CMJ's part, since the Island has no government) to start giving away dwellings, or even selling them, from nominally active players.

Speaking of government... if the Island has no government, who would implement taxes in the first place? And... why?

You can try as well. But surely bubbles never burst on Improbable Island.

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A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a trombone; what else does a man need to be happy?

At the moment, I can't afford a master key to give to Alternatecash, but I did buy a front door key for Nessa. If my account expired(it won't now, I bought the permanent thing unless it failed to acknowledge me), I'd want the house to go to Alt. If there are no Master keys assigned, would lower level keys be considered for possible inheritance, would keyholders outrank spouse for inheritance, and would it be hard to put an input box somewhere in the house where an owner could specify who the house should go to, in order, and be easily updateable?

I suppose I was thinking something like in the preferences menu, but then you'd need one for each house, so maybe one in each building, only accessable to the owner and visible to mods? You'd probably get some people putting in nonsense, but I think most would use it. You probably wouldn't need to set it up to be functional, just somewhere to put down an owners request for who'd inherit, to be viewed if necessary by someone with the power to transfer possession of a dwelling. You could put in like five spots, in case the next account(or three) was expired by the time the document became needed. Also, if the next inheritor expires before they change the Will, it'd go to the next person originally written down. Of course, each owner would have a chance to write in a new list, but they wouldn't need to. You could even write in a description about accessing a safe somewhere in the dwelling, with secret codes, and all sorts of sneakiness. Just an idea.

Also, in the case of permanent accounts, perhaps there'd be a spot to indicate after how long one would want care transferred over. I'd be horribly depressed to get a permanent account and have my house taken away from me after a month. Honestly, anything less than five months would probably make me sad. I'm very possessive of my lovely house, that I've sunk so much effort into. By the way, you should all stop by. First square Northwest of Kit.

Edit: Because he's too lazy to get his own forum account, Alt would like to suggest a bit about how if one inherited a dwelling, they'd get served papers about it next time they enter an outpost, with a header about "You got served!". He's ridiculous, but I heart him anyways. And mentioning that will annoy him. >^.^<

I still don't see what everyone's fascination with giving away still-owned dwellings is...

Nor do I.

And what's all this talk about taxes? This is a game. Games are supposed to be fun. Taxes are not fun. Why would anybody want there to be taxes?

Ok, I only read through the first page-and-a-half, so apologies if someone has suggested this before...

The possibility of leaving a dwelling (such as the Dumbernarding) to a clan?
'Ownership' would default to all officers and/or founders (so they could cut keys, pick the next development job, etc - don't have a house so I don't know the technicalities), and the property would only count as 'Abandoned' if there were no officers/founders left in the clan.

Any reaction to my suggestion about leaving a will, or a better method to formally suggest it? I'm really taken with the idea..