[MUD-Dev] The morality of logfiles [was 'Wild west']

[Greg Munt]

On Sat, 27 Dec 1997, Ola Fosheim Grstad wrote:

> Greg Munt <greg at uni-corn.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >What this all comes down to is the trustworthiness of the administration. 
> >There is a simple answer to this. If you don't trust the admin, either 
> >live with it, or stop playing.
> >
> >It's that simple.
> 
> Well, not quite so simple.  You won't know if you can trust the admin
> until it is too late.  Actually, in a commercial setting you would
> expect to have no reason to not trust the admin... :(
> 
> As in other sensitive areas, the only viable solution is to "enforce"
> widely acknowledged norms/principles for systems design among
> professionals... This requires debates, maybe legal responsibility,
> probably some bad example cases...

You seem to be assuming in your posts that all mud administrators are 
corrupted by their power. This is not true. You also assume that any and 
all information held on a person, will be used against that person, by 
those in power. This is not true, either.

Personal background: I was systematically abused, harassed, hurt, etc, 
etc by administrators of a particular mud. This was partly vengeance for 
my proclamations of their corruption, in a public forum - and also a way 
to 'get back' at their former superior. (I used to run the game, and was 
brought down by backstabbing politics, including a vicious smear 
campaign, which involved a secret email list set up by those jealous of 
my position.)

I am no stranger to corrupt administrators. The emotional trauma required 
counselling, and caused me to fail my degree, one year after the event. Does 
this mean I have less trust in mud administrators, generally? 

No, it does not. 

I am curious as to why you feel this way. And I find the idea of 
commercial mud administrators being made legally responsible for their 
actions quite abhorrent. Frequently, problems between users and admin 
have no witnesses, and it is simply the admin's word against the user's.

--
Greg Munt, greg at uni-corn.demon.co.uk
SysAdmins! Protect the innoccent! Remove rec.games.mud.admin from your servers!