[MUD-Dev] Administrative Responsibilities

[Jon A. Lambert]

On  3 Feb 98 at 12:41, Greg Munt wrote:
> 
> Some points of clarification:
> 
>   This mud outlawed playerkilling, although it was allowed by the server. 
>   Playerkillers were marked '(KILLER)' after their entry in the who 
>   listing, and were considered 'fair game' to anyone. Killers of 
>   playerkillers were not marked in the who list.
>

I'm familiar with the system.  It's one of those "stock" features. ;)
There is a large difference between not allowing killing and outlawing
it.  The philosophy of this implementation is to allow it, yet make
anyone executing it subject to in-game penalties. 
 
>   The mud's 'gossip' channel was frequently filled with discussions 
>   concerning the real life of players, and I was well-known for engaging in 
>   political discussions when online. I agree that in PK muds, everything 
>   is fair game, including harassment and victimisation. This is ok, because 
>   all players know the score before they start playing. Going by the use 
>   of the 'gossip' channel, I would not assume that everything was in-game.
>
>   The activities which I considered to be harassment and victimisation 
>   were NOT in-game activities. I had inadvertedly offended a female player. 
>   Her male friends sought to protect her, and 'punish' me for a crime that 
>   I was unaware of committing. They were not pursuing in-game PK fun, but 
>   instead were dealing out 'justice' to someone who had offended one of 
>   their number IN REAL LIFE.

This sounds more and more like a free speech issue, so along these 
philosophical lines I ponder...

If one desires an active policy, one should clearly define what constitutes 
harassment.  Surely tell-spamming, repeatedly killing, and otherwise 
rendering a particular character unplayable is, at the core, an attempt to 
suppress that persons ability to communicate within a social environment.  
Is suppression of speech harassment or victimization?  Or only in some
circumstances?  Or are some forms of speech harassment?  Had the 
administration been more active and had a clear policy, what form of 
punishment would you have suffered for your inadvertant offense?  Would 
you have been "gagged" or banned?  Is having your character rendered 
unplayable by an administrator more desireable than by a group of players?
Is repeated execution of an in game built-in social, like "fondle", a form 
of harassment?  Is this just speech?  Is calling someone a 'bitch', 
'dickhead', 'asshole', 'stupid' or 'faggot' harassment or free speech?   
Are some of these words considered RL harassment and some not?  Would your 
administration be more likely to intervene in a situation where a player 
complains of being called 'stupid' or complains of being called a 'faggot'? 
Are some victim's feelings more important than others?     

Some hypotheticals:

Suppose I log in to mud X and gossip, "Women should stay at home and raise 
babies."  A Wizard-like person arrives, tells me I've violated the 
mud's sexual harassment policy, calls me a bigot, slays me and banishes me. 

Suppose I log in to mud Y and say the same thing.  I am tell spammed by 
dozens of irritated users, hunted down and killed, and generally "harassed" 
as much as the server allows for my time there.  There is an uncaring or
absent administration.

Finally, suppose I log in to mud Z and say the same thing.  I'm 
tell-spammed and attacked by users, yet I complain and all the users who 
have committed these acts are "banned" from the server by the admins.

Then suppose I make certain individuals targets of these statements.

My own conclusions:

Harassment, within the boundaries of what can occur within a mud, is 
a merely a form of speech.  Mud X and Z above both suppress some forms of 
speech. Mud X supresses political speech and Mud Z suppresses heckling.  
Mud Y clearly does not suppress speech in any form.  All of these muds may
or may not have design flaws.  This depends on whether the capability 
of other users to render a particular user's character unplayable is or is 
not desired.

In my own project suppresion of speech by administration IS desired.  This 
is primarily because of the games RP nature.  In some areas innocent RL 
speech about any topic is considered disruptive and might be considered 
harassment if you wish.  There should be no mechanical means to disrupt a 
user (hopefully).  There are mechanisms available to prevent unwanted 
output being sent to a user.  Within the OOC rooms, there is little 
control on speech.  There is also strong user/character separation here. 


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