The morality of logfiles [was 'Wild west']

[s001gmu at nova.wright.edu]

On Mon, 29 Dec 1997, Ola Fosheim [UNKNOWN] Gr=F8stad wrote:

> Greg Munt <greg at uni-corn.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >You seem to be assuming in your posts that all mud administrators are=20
> >corrupted by their power. This is not true. You also assume that any and=
=20
> >all information held on a person, will be used against that person, by=
=20
> >those in power. This is not true, either.
>=20
> "corrupt"... It is hard to tell what being "corrupt" is.  I guess
> being "corrupt" is to break the buraucratic rules because of external
> motivation/personal gains.  You may end up with an undesirable
> situation without "corruption".

if it is undesireable in the sense that it is a use of the powers
granted/assumed by the admin that goes outside the original spirit of the
system, then it may as well be corruption.
=20
> Humans are likely to stretch rules as far as they can according to
> their own norms... :-/ I don't see any reason why MUD admins should be
> different.  Anyway, the main issue here was what kind of rules the MUD
> should have in the first place.
>=20
> An admin can't erase knowledge he has gained about other people from
> his brain just like that.  The fact that he has gained some knowledge
> about a person without that person as an active information provider
> is a problem.  It is easy to come up with embarresing situation.  It
> is easy to picture situations where that knowledge is sifting out..

You seem to be assuming that because the system auto-logs conversations,
the admin automatically knows everything that happened.  The admin has to
READ the log before they know it.  the reading of logs for any purpose
outside that of correcting a harassment situation falls under what I call
corruption.

I suppose you could say my #1 rule for admin is, do not read logs, unless
handling harassment situations.
=20
-Greg