[MUD-Dev] Re: Affordances and social method (Was: Re: Wire d Magazine...)

[J C Lawrence]

On Mon, 13 Jul 1998 13:35:27 -0700 
S Patrick Gallaty<pgallaty at acclaim.com> wrote:

> 1) Haven Players have to apply to create characters here.  Their
> characters are only accepted if the reviewer likes the name and
> role-play character that the biography suggests.  If players
> complain about other players on this shard, the players risk being
> suspended pending review - and role playing is enforced.

I would imagine that liability is a huge and overriding concern.

The following is written from a layman's viewpoint.  I don't pretend
to know this area, just to have noted a few rocks in the channel.  A
legal friend (he does criminal case law) I asked about this area about
a year ago said something to the effect of, "I know several high
faluting lawyers heading into there as fast as they can.  They see
money to be made in the confusion and possibly a way to get their
names down in the history books.  Its going to get really nasty for a
while."

If Origin said that they were going to "enforce" or even to do an
"individual best effort" or some other statement of their level of
commitment to the controls on the game, if something legally
questionable (sexual harassment for instance) happens on the game and
Origin is not instantly all over it like the wrath of God, then, as I
understand the US legal system, Origin can quickly find itself
complicit with the harassment as they "allowed it to occur and
continue despite their monitoring and therefore responsibility for
activities which occurred in the game world."

I made this same point to Dr Cat a while back regarding his "safe
system".  There's a very treacherous and slippery slope there.  Its
all to easy for a philadelphia lawyer to get up in front of the court
and claim and support that because the game operators attempted *ANY*
control or monitoring that they are thereby inherently complicit if
not direct accomplices to any misdoings.  

Related sexual harassment suits currently being decided upon in the US
are deciding the question of whether a company should be legally
liable for the sexually harassing actions of one of their employees
(specifically a manager in the case in question) even if the
harassment was no known about or reported to the internal control
structures/HR of the company.

Heck, I'd be pretty touchy with even the very light hand UOL appears
to be taking with administrating player disputes.  

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