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

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad <olag@ifi.uio.no>]

Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:
[...]
> I ran something very MUDlike on my BBS back in the early 90's -- with no
[...]

Then I guess your view is contaminated by years of exposure to spamming
induced by unregistered offline-readers. Such readers used to, maybe still
do, add a tag to each message sent so the author of the software could
monitor unauthorized usage of his product as well as promoting it. I
personally see this as a very self centered approach to tool making, in
which the needs of the machinery is considered more valuable than the needs
of the humans. I am in principle against any editing of original
communication which is not consciously invoked by the originator. I am even
annoyed by the appended "MUD-dev advancin..." tag, simply because it alters
and enforces content to the body of my communication. (although I accept it
as fairly reasonable).  In general, machines should take load off human
beings not add load. Information overload, including saturated marketing, is
generally working against human consciousness. I would even go so far as to
say that flaming, hacking, spamming, cracking etc sources of such overload
is acceptable.  I once even wrote a wrapper which stripped tags off one
Amiga offlinereader (which was rather low quality compared to the asked
price, the same author later charged for NComm which he did not even hold
the full Copyright to), and was awarded with being added to a list of people
which he considered to be nasty. :) Later another guy in the same community
wrote an offline-reader (in assembly) which was better and free only to get
rid of the tags (and I bet to annoy authors of shareware offline-readers, he
later wrote Abbs, a BBS system for Amiga, again in ugh assembly, because he
didn't know C yet :-)).

The point is, tampering with content has been an issue in messaging systems
for a long time, and some people, like me, are willing to spend a couple of
days to exterminate the source. It's a matter of principles, especially in
systems in which information is mass replicated, such as mailinglists.

> 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 don't have trouble with the persons, although I would make them
responsible for whatever content they bring to my mailbox. Advertisements
inclusive. What I am having trouble with is machines that forces others to
keep up with crap. It is an immoral freewheeling "you can't prevent my noise
without spending time and attention on me" approach to life.  Besides I have
yet to see anything connected to saturated advertisement which has been
anywhere near useful.  That stuff is generally connected to stuff which
people don't find valuable enough to pay for, but which they will keep up
with if they feel that they get it for free, unfortunately the receivers of
such emails don't even get to decide (although they have the opportunity to
flame).

> 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 agree that people are altogether too concerned about advertising on the
internet :^>.

All intrusion on my private sphere and it's immediate conceptual
surroundings is immoral.  Any machine which requests my attention is evil,
unless it does so on my command.  Many people don't like voicemail... It's
not because they are afraid of technology, it's because it puts the human
one down, and the machine one up.  In general, it is a matter of
principles.  If I ran a mailinglist and got that type of crap then I would
simply put up a fee for advertising, and send the bill to yahoo or whoever.
It's only fair isn't it, if they choose to advertise in an exclusive media
like this? :-)

(I guess it goes without saying that I don't like being interrupted by
machines at all, that I expect obedience from them, and that I whip them to
silence if they are disobedient.)

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."

--
Ola Fosheim Groestad,Norway      http://www.stud.ifi.uio.no/~olag/worlds/