[MUD-Dev] Mud governance

[coder at ibm.net]

On 21/10/97 at 09:28 AM, Mike Sellers <mike at online-alchemy.com> said:

>However, I believe we can begin to approximate the same sort of power we
>have in the physical world in MUDs by enabling "special powers" in the
>form of executive, judicial, and police/military forces under _some_ form
>of popular control (somewhere from post-Magna Carta monarchy to
>democracy). 

The Habitat papers and others suggest the value of handling such in-game. 
It certainly reflects on player value when you do.  I'd question the
requirement for "popular control".  It is almost tantamount to a
requirement for democracy; an experiment for which I don't see much sign
of success.

> It'll be a heck of an experiment anyway.  

Many MUSHes and MOO's would seem to be doing this now, with the LambdaMOO
rape case and its handling and after effects being a specific case in
point.

Are you familiar with Island's justice system?

In a fit of spoof I proposed a mock system here a while back:

--<cut>--

Were I to do a legal system I suspect it would be something as follows:

  "Crimes" would be deliberately vaguely defined.

  The system would erraticly and unpredictably cycle between
ultra-strict enforcement and ultra-relaxed enforcement of crime detection.

  An increased percentage of guilty verdicts would tend to sway the system
towards stricter enforcement.

  Users can report crimes to the system.  

  Depending on the above, not all reports would be acted upon.

  The system would internally detect crimes.  This would take place via
mobiles or other similar coded systems viewing a crime in progress or the
results of a crime.

  Again, not all would be acted upon.

  All crimes would be recorded and tagged against the assumed perp (DB
rollbacks are wonderful).

  Upon a crime handling being started, the assumed perpetrator would be
charged with all the unresolved and unhandled crimes against his name.

  Crime handling would be specific to various societies. 

  Societies would be user defined, but system administered (membership
primarily).  

  Upon a criminal handling commencing, a random selection of the currently
logged in members of the society in question would be tagged as jurors.  

  The jurors would be told that the system will teleport them to a court
room at a pre-defined time (30 RL mins later) in the future to stand
judgement.

  The juror list is openly published at the same time.

  The accused is informed that he is accused and when the trial will be.

  Jurors may sell or transfer their juror position to any other society
member, including the accused, prior to the trial.

  Death or non-attendance of all jurors prior to a trial defaults to a
not-guilty verdict.

  The case of all the jurors being the accused defaults to a
non-guilty verdict.

  Non-attending jurors are tagged with the crime of non-attendance, and
may or may not be called to stand trial for that crime.

  The courtroom consists of a room containing four areas:

    1) An exitless pen which contains the accused, suitably immobilised
(ie he has no control over his character other than speech).

    2) An open pen marked "Guilty".  

    3) An open pen marked "Innocent".

    4) A free space surrounding the guilty/innocent pens.

  The guilty and innocent pens each contain a single button marked,
"Verdict".

  The courtroom has no entrances and no exits.  There is no possiblity to
view an in-progress court case unless one of the jurors brings in a remote
camera object.

  Shortly before the trial commences all jurors are so warned.

  Upon the trial commencement all jurors are teleported to the open free
area of the courtroom, and the accused is immobilised and put in the pen.

  Jurors are teleported with everything they happen to be carrying at that
time.

  There are no controls and no supervision of what happens in the
courtroom.  

  Crimes in the courtroom are not recorded.
    
  The verdict is determined by all surviving jurors gathering in a single
pen, guilty or innocent, and the verdict button being pushed.

  If the verdict is innocent, the accused is freed, and the jurors
returned to the locations they were summoned from.  Any dead/injured
jurors remain dead/injured etc.  EQ is left where it was at the instant
the button was pushed.

  Any EQ left in the courtroom is given to the accused.

  If the verdict is guilty the innocent pen dissappears, and the guilt pen
is renamed "penalised".  The accused's EQ is made available to the jurors
to do with as they wish (ie everything he is carrying or in a location he
controls).  If one of the crimes is deemed suitably serious, the accused
stats are made available to the jurors for editing as they wish.

  Guilty processing terminates when all surviving jurors enter the
penalised pen and the button is pressed.

  Any EQ left in the courtroom when the button is pressed and all jurors
teleported back is given to the accused.

............................................

It should be amusing at the least, wonderfully chaotic at best, and
intensely unfair and primitive at its ideal scene.

--<cut>--

Very Gilbert&Sullivan of course.  This does not handle of course the
definition of your executive and judicial branch above.  Most specifically
it does not even attempt to handle the definition of what is and what is
not a "crime".

I've wondered about the advantages of having an in-game quest trial, which
players could embark on, and if successful, could add or remove one
law/rule/crime from the justice system,  There would of course be a
magnitude stat, to limit the size and scope of the rule added or removed. 
This could be paired against any in-game definition of level, as well as
derived from performance on the trial to that point.  I could also see
adding in a concept of a sin stat, or possibly reputation to limit the
character of the law added or removed, in addition to the other rules
limiting its scope.

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