As with City and Interest Communities, there comes a time when we have to look at each feature and decide on whether a particular thing fits with the vision for where Empire Avenue is and where it's going. Many months ago, maybe a year ago, we deprecated Indexes. In a couple of days, we will remove them entirely from the system. Many of you have likely forgotten that Indexes even existed so this should not come too much as a surprise. To those unfamiliar with Indexes: Indexes allowed you to choose one subject and allow you to rise to a rank of CEO or otherwise.
Why are we removing indexes? It's nice and all to say it "doesn't fit", but why?!
1. Indexes were based on a flawed and too weird algorithm. Anyone could rise in any given Index whether it was really topical to them or not and hence was of limited value in judging why someone would be good or not. The algorithm itself was way too hard to explain on why you rose and why you fell and frankly wasn't very good.
2. Indexes showed no basis for reputation in any given subject. Yes they were fun, but not where we want to be with that aspect of Empire Avenue.
What's replacing them?
We do have a plan to replace Indexes or at least what we wanted them to represent in the first place. The replacement will come in due course, but first we need to go about removing what isn't working. Indexes will be fully removed from the system by Friday morning, March 8, 2013.