[MUD-Dev] Re: Adventurer Groups [was Affecting the World]

[Jon A. Lambert]

On  1 Dec 97 at 21:11, coder at ibm.net wrote:
> On 01/12/97 at 10:40 PM, s001gmu at nova.wright.edu said:
> 
> >First off, what's with all the repeats of the original of this message?
> >List admin?
> 

'Twas my mistake.  The list server, however, failed to catch my error 
and propagated it to your mailbox.  This should be corrected. :P  

>   Greg's comment above, "First off, what's with all the repeats of the
> original of this message?" is absolutely fasinating if looked at from a
> viewpoint of being an example of a member of a micro-society attemping to
> police its own micro-society.
> 
>   If you look at it, the membership of this list in many ways functions
> similarly to the membership of a MUD, and as such, has similarly evolved
> various social structures and forms in line with and supporting that. 
> Some of them of course have been drummed in or imported from outside, such
> as my requirement for attributions, or this example of quoting.  A few are
> homegrown, such as the somewhat overly genteel civility used in debate on
> the list (not that I'm knocking it, I think its quite wonderful and
> something to be actively encouraged).  
> 
>   FWLIW Jon Lambert noticed this parallel in jest many months back (bet
> he's forgotten).

I remember.  I was partially serious.  This goes back to the roots of the 
"What is a mud?" arguments.  

>   In this light, Greg's comment really becomes a piece of public rebuke,
> of public censure, much are a pedestrian might rebuke another who justled
> them while walking down the street: "Hey bozo!  Watch where ya goin, ya
> dickhead!"  Tho done with better grammar.

While the general gist is similar, the level of civility is quite 
different.
 
>   Where the true fascination of this enters in in how this society formed,
> and what were the formative items were in that formation.  What function
> did I play for instance as list owner, and how did my activities as a
> member (given that you all knew I was also list owner) affect that?  What
> were the real social repurcussions of the various events that have occured
> on list (Jeff K's type rate, the rape thread, the commercial posturing
> dictum, my heavy encouragement of scenario based discussion, Nathan's ever
> subtle sotto voice comments, Jon's ever present satire, etc).  
> 
>   We have a micro-cosm, an artificial one admittedly, of a MUD society
> here.  Worth study.
 
Certainly there are similarities between this List, IRC and Muds in 
general.  Can such a micro-cosm of a society study itself?   
More importantly, if one were to point out and study the dynamics of this 
little micro-cosm would it alter the micro-cosm itself?

--
Jon A. Lambert
"Everything that deceives may be said to enchant" - Plato