Should the Mayor get a salary?

We have not received permission from Chime to share the quoted post.

That's Kings/Queens. You don't get a flying mount for being a node mayor, you need to rule a castle (or metropolis?).

That said: You don't want the sort of mayor who's there for the salary. There's a ton of benefit to building a strong node (particularly to your personal specifications). Use that incentive. You want the mayor's incentives to be aligned with the citizens, or things will go terribly wrong.

You get a a chance to have a flying mount. So there is that perk at minimum. No guarantees one though.

I do think it would be interesting to come with a performance based economic benefit (idk if it should be a salary per say) given that I expect it to take a decent amount of your time playing to both achieve and maintain. And as I always say, if it costs you time to do in game you could otherwise be farming mats, you probably need compensation if it facilitates other players fun for you to take that economic risk. After all even gankers will get paid for their time via mats from their prey. I'd hope mayor Janice does as well.

On the one hand, I totally agree with you ButtercupClover. On the other hand it seems pretty counter to Ashes over all dev philosophy to me to not compensate some reward for the risks involved in both time, notoriety, and opportunity to gain resources.

We have not received permission from ButtercupClover to share the quoted post.

Ah, that's why I personally suggest it be a performance based incentive rather than a flat salary. And yeah, you are right, there is definitely a lot we don't know.