[MUD-Dev] Is mud research real?

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad <olag@ifi.uio.no>]

"Koster, Raph" <rkoster at origin.ea.com> wrote:
>The Julian Dibbell article on the LambdaMOO virtual rape. Sorry, I 

Hmmm. I skimmed through most of the Xerox Parc stuff a couple of years
ago, but I usually find these types of reports to be either
system-specific, user-profile specific or unreliable.  In my opinion
most mud-research articles should be considered as subjective
descriptions of case examples of what might happen.  So, I am in
general very sceptical.  This is again motivated by the shortcomings
of social research in the Real World.  The results obtained for muds
should in general be a lot worse, simply because they are all
different, artificial and people are likely to have even more
distorted views of the realm than in Real Life!  I personally question
the suitability of LambdaMOO as a research object, simply because it's
population must be skewed towards those with a strong media-interest
due to it's reputation.  (And sometimes I get a feeling that quite a
few mud researchers are looking for the truly spectacular happenings,
and the truly spectacular explanations, as well as the truly
spectacular judgements of intentions!)  I'll look into the Dibbell
article again and see if it proves me wrong, if it tells me something
less than obvious.

I'm not saying that all reports are like this, I find the Habitat
papers particularly useful. (And, of course, general reserach on human
computer interaction and psychology)

Ola.