[MUD-Dev] Wild west (was Guilds & Politics)

[Mike Sellers]

At 08:54 PM 12/21/97 PST8PDT, Ola Fosheim Gr=F8stad wrote:
>Mike Sellers <mike at online-alchemy.com> wrote:
>>At 12:56 PM 12/19/97 PST8PDT, Ola Fosheim Gr=F8stad wrote:
>>>>Finally, the job of administration will be greatly eased by knowing
>>>>exactly what happened in any given incident.  No more claims of 'But=
 _I'm_
>>>>the one who finished the quest first.  Boffo just spam-killed my link,
>>>>took the prize while I was reconnecting, and claimed to have won...'  A
>>>>simple, 'Well, lemme chack the logs...' will make even the most daring
>>>>trickster come clean if they know that you _do_ have the logs to back it
>>>>up.
>>>
>>>This is awful...  To me this is a movement towards virtual fascism.
>>
>>I don't see the problem here Ola -- and I certainly don't see any fascist
>>tendencies (admittedly, I haven't been following the discussion closely).
>>If you tell people up front that you will be logging everything that is
>>said, but that these logs will be kept confidential, what's the problem?
>
>The first problem is that he won't tell them directly. The second
>problem is that it isn't treated fully confidential (need to know is
>an important principle). The third problem is that he is logging more
>than can be defended from an administration POV. The fourth problem is
>that this is a supervision system where those with total power gain
>total control, which in turn has a bad impact on any society.  The
>fifth problem is that most users don't expect exessive logging, and
>that they think that this isn't common.

Hang on there!  You're talking about a whole bunch of system-specific
issues with one person's proposed design.  I can't speak to someone else's
design or design goals.  All I said was that I don't see anything fascist
about logging all in-system communications, particulary if you tell people
you're going to do so up front, and that all communications will be kept
confidential.  Of course if you *don't* follow these self-restrictions you
could buy all kinds of trouble. =20

>>I'm not interested in going over logs of others' private conversations or
>>cybersex, but I cannot tell you how valuable a complete log of any
>>contentious or harassing conversation would be.
>
>I think the proper way to handle this problem is to allow the
>_offended_ person to turn on logging of incoming harrasment.  A slip
>is ok, persistant repeated harrasment isn't.

That might work -- if this logging was uneditable by anyone.  But I think
that if people knew their communications were logged (maybe purged after a
week or something), there would be a lot less harassment in the first place.=
 =20

>Anyway, I don't see why more than 1 and only 1 person should have
>access to logs.  All systems have wizard "assholes" (from a user POV).

That's a matter of scale.  If you have several thousand people actively
using your system, you're going to need more than one set of eyes on
problem areas.  Anyway, the problem you're talking about is training
admins, not precisely how many people can view logs -- a single person with
access but who is a tyrant or bully is far worse than a dozen trained,
discreet, and fair-minded people with similar access. =20

As an aside, I heard recently that UO has now sold over 90,000 copies to
end-users.  If true, and if their churn is not incredibly high, this is a
good sign for our section of the industry -- if not for the mental health
of their support people. =20

>>Also, I think that just the knowledge that a conversation is being logged
>>will tend to keep harassment from happening without constraining any other
>>forms of speech.
>
>Actually, I don't believe in either assertion.  Logging constrain some
>forms of speech, especially critical comments towards admins... :-(

No, I don't think so, at least not in a commercial situation.  Say what you
like about me, about my game, my employees, my friends, whatever -- no
problem (people have never been shy about doing any of these things from
what I've seen :) ).  Talk about ways to exploit the game as written,
that's okay too.  However: if someone complains that you are harassing them
and the logs agree; or if there's evidence that you've been trying to hack
the game and the logs bear that out, well... that's a different story.  All
that logging does is give us a clear way to tell what people have been
saying within the game at least.  In cases of harassment or predation, such
logs could be crucial to understanding what has transpired. =20

>It's funny though, that logging and checking up on employees is rather
>common in the US, just as logging and chekcing up on individuals was
>common in old East Germany and Romania! :^) Do I have to mention FBI's
>concerns about not being able to monitor encrypted communication??

Hang on -- we're talking about *VERY* different things.  Logging and
checking up on employees in the US is, so far as I know, *extremely*
uncommon (the articles and such you see about this are vastly overblown).
Certainly in terms of our personal lives, people in the US enjoy more
anonymity and freedom of movement and association than just about anyone
else.  Any comparison there with Romania or East Germany is ludicrous (FBI
and NSA concerns notwithstanding). =20

However: we're talking about non-governmental logging of conversations
taking place within private, for-profit game-areas here.  In my case at
least, this is specifically for review in case of complaint.  If you don't
want to be logged, don't play, or don't harass anyone else at least --
there's no loss of civil rights there.  And if someone accuses you of
harassing them and you haven't done so, or it's been a misunderstanding,
you'll be mighty glad for the logs being there. =20

Mike Sellers                     mike at online-alchemy.com
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