The top-helper voting setup doesnt make any sense. the suggestion i made, which u as admin responded well to may have been misunderstood. what i was suggesting was that brand new players have the option of voting for the people who helped them once a week for their first month of play. this would encourage old players to put serious effort into helping new players in exchange for Swag in terms of credits or whatever. this would encourage new player retention.
what was set-up doesnt encourage this. since any player can vote for any other player, what you've actually set up is a rigged lottery. the player with the most Obedient entourage/followers will win automatically. most of the guilds here do not participate in pyramid scheme play styles, as a result sincere help will be discouraged... keep in mind how few players stick around in comparison with how many people sign up to the game. higher up in this chat Sparrow mentioned he found one, i've found a couple, so have a few other players... this is what should be encouraged. however, until players really get a hang of how to convince brand newbies to stick around, the number of players retained by a weekly winner will be rather low. a blanket popularity contest like this, where everyone can vote for everyone doesn't encourage helping new players, it encourages manipulating people into voting for you.
obviously its ur game, but the idea i suggested was something guaranteed to encourage player retention. the new system does the opposite, so u should expect no gains in player retention, while also benefiting the most manipulative play styles.