[MUD-Dev] Re: ADMIN: Advertising on MUD-Dev

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

On 01:36 PM 8/8/98 -0600, I personally witnessed Chris Gray jumping up to say:
>[J C Lawrence:]
>
>[On allowing posting rights to those whose ISP's force inclusion of
>advertising material.]
>
> >  Comments?  Thoughts?  Discussion welcome.  Please discuss this only
> >under the above subject heading.  I'll post a formal decision by
> >before the 15th, at which time the thread will be dead.
>
>I don't 100% hold this view, but I'm going to suggest a very right-wing
>approach here. If people are seriously interested in MUDs, then they
>pretty well have to have some kind of reasonable net access. Otherwise
>they can't play them (do folks like Yahoo allow telnets out?), and
>they certainly can't run one. 

I ran something very MUDlike on my BBS back in the early 90's -- with no
requirement for net access at all. (Whether I *had* access isn't the point,
I didn't need it and could probably have lived without it.) I think
expecting MUDs to be run on the internet, and ONLY on the internet, is an
overly restrictive view -- but no more so than the expectation that all
MUDs are available to the public in source code form free of charge with
some amount of technical support from the developer. Sometimes that isn't a
reasonable expectation. You certainly can't demand UOL's server source code
so you can modify it into your own competitive service and expect them to
help you with it when you have problems.

>People can have PC's at home, but that
>doesn't allow them to do much more than play around locally on their
>machine, or do artwork, design documents, off-line programming, etc.

I don't think that's entirely fair. I didn't think it was required that in
order to participate in the list, you had to have the *means* to develop or
operate or even play MUDs... just an interest in it. I can also imagine
several reasons someone might not want to use the net access they're using
to develop or operate a MUD; among them anonymity and corporate internet
access policies (which, you must admit, there are probably a FEW people
respecting). 

My take on this is that while a user shouldn't be permitted to throw up MLM
schemes on the list, if he's selected a service that appends advertisements
to his messages -- well, that's life. Provided he's adding useful content
to the list, I don't have a problem with people who happen to get e-mail
access through a provider that supports itself through advertising. I think
people are altogether too concerned with advertising on the internet, and
that instead of concerning ourselves with getting ALL of it banned or
otherwise stopped, we should probably limit our efforts to illicit and
unethical advertising practices. I don't think appended advertising on mail
qualifies as either.

I'm a lot closer to the opposite end of the scale, obviously, but I
wouldn't agree that we're justified in selecting an extreme viewpoint just
because that makes it easier to enforce. It would be a lot easier on a lot
of levels if we just gave every convicted felon the death penalty instead
of putting them in prison, but that doesn't make it right. 

I'd like to say that I really appreciate JC's opening the issue to
discussion, rather than just instituting a policy and saying "here it is,
deal with it, if you don't like it unsubscribe". I've seen that happen on a
lot of mailing lists, and it's refreshing to have some subscriber input on
the matter. However it goes in the end.

---
=+[ caliban at darklock.com ]=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=[ http://www.darklock.com/ ]+=
"It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more 
doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a 
new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by 
the preservation of the old institution, and merely lukewarm defenders in 
those who would gain by the new one."              -- Niccolo Machiavelli
=+=+[ FREE KEVIN * http://www.kevinmitnick.com/ * IT COULD BE YOU ]+=+=+=