[MUD-Dev] Mud governance

[coder at ibm.net]

On 21/10/97 at 09:34 AM, "Koster, Raph" <rkoster at origin.ea.com> said: >On
Monday, October 20, 1997 4:23 PM, coder at ibm.net wrote:

>> I'd also reference Lorry's various polemics and musings on 
>> Wizardhood and the early MIST days in particular...

>Hmm, I'd like to see these musings and polemics. Where might I be able 
>to find them?

Ungh.  I just started a new contract at SunSoft which has got me buried
under inches of manual reading and no net connection (yet)..  I know its
one of the URL's under my MUD/Resources folder, but it will take a while
to find.  I'll get back to you.

>>...The recent Gods list has also had some extremely
>> RP/social-milleau based discussions on management styles and 
>> handling of staff on MUSHes.  I can provide a full dump of the Gods 
>> traffic to date if wished and let you sort out from there what you want.

>Absolutely. You've got my email address, or if it is large enough, we 
>can set up an ftp dump someplace...

I'll send it out in just a moment.

>> The Habitat papers are also very good reading (I posted them here), but
>> I'm sure you're familiar with these already.

>Yes. IMHO, anyone seriously doing "this" (vague term for all this  stuff
>we're doing) needs to have read them.

Yup, that's one of the reasons I posted them, rather than references to
them, here.

>> Finally, the very very early days of this least (back in the CC 
>> days) had fairly extensive debate on the deliniation between 
>> social/administrative problems and technical solutions.  I, in 
>> particular, drew and still draw that line very hard.  If wished 
>> I can send you a dump of that traffic
>> (unsorted, unthreaded, etc, you pick out the gems from the dreck).

>Hmm, sure. 

This will take a little longer.  Need to find where I stashed it...

> Does that mean you'd prefer not to open the topic on the  list
> again?

Absolutely not.  Its definitely a valid topic for the list, and one that
has suffered very little examination.  I'd love to see a good thread on
it.

Re: Back Rose

>I'd also add that it is a great example of why exactly the people who 
>are in contact with the players need to be expert manipulators, smooth 
>talking politicians, and in general, well, the sort of people you put  in
>contact with the public in any other discipline. 

True, which is a oft ignored point with hobbiest games.  All too often the
publicly connected admins are selected on the basis of being bad coders,
or not in the clique with the owners.  The other problem of course are the
soapy sams.

>Sometimes  ruthlessness is
>called for, and sometimes so is manipulation for the  greater good (my,
>how machiavellian I grow in my old age...).

There is great value in putting a head on a pike, no matter whose it is. 
A little Heinlienian, but it does work and is well proven.

>It's also interesting to look at the log from the perspective of later 
>discussions, such as Bartle's paper, and realize that this was the tip 
>of a much larger iceberg about which the admins knew absolutely  nothing.
>And had they known more, it might well have drastically  affeted their
>perceptions of the problem and thus their solution (or  lack thereof).

One thing that was apparent to me on reading it was that each participant
was attempting to shoehorn the other's play styles and viewpoints of the
game into a variation of their own play style and viewpoint, rather than
as possibly something differently founded.  Thus their ability to assume
the other's viewpoints was severely limited in this regard, which made any
conflict resolution nigh impossible.  The continuopus confusion and
surprise registered through out the log shows this well.  No side ever
really understands the other's position.  As the base camps were actually
differently founded, this doomed the attempt to reach concensus before it
started,  

In align with this, Bartle's paper would have indicated that there were
play styles which had fundamentally different foundations.  As you say, if
the admins had read/known this, they would have had a chance of at least
realising that there was a different basis and that thereby a
fundamentally different game was being played (as vs a variation of the
"expected" game), even if they didn't understand it.  

--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
----------(*)                              Internet: coder at ibm.net
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...