[MUD-Dev] Wild west (was Guilds & Politics)

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

Greg Munt <greg at uni-corn.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>I don't accept this. People connect to a particular system by choice. You 
>might make an analogy to employees of a business:

Not quite.

>  The company has an owner. The owner has the ultimate authority in all 
>  matters relating to the company.

Not quite.  The owner has the ultimate responsibility though, even if
he had nothing to do with whatever happend "personally".

>  Employees work for the company by choice. They may, at any time, cease 
>  employment for the company. (Ignoring the economic concerns of the 
>  employee.)

Not quite. You usually have a two-sided contract that regulate this in
a very strict fashion.  If not, then I bet a standard contract
applies. (in my country)

>  The owner of the company has "every right to do with it as they please" 
>  (within the boundaries of the law) - if the employee does not accept 
>  this, they may leave the company.

Not quite. You have unions and organizations.  They negotiate and
construct the framework that employers and employees have to operate
within.  In my country there are lots of laws that regulate the
employer/employee relationship.  For instance, the employee has a
right to participate in the design of his own workplace!  A very good
thing (but probably violated), if you ask me!  (This view has gained a
lot of ground in the human computer interaction society.
Participatory design is also refered to as the "scandinavian school".)

OT: I just want to point out that UK is using a lack of employee
rights (compared to other european countries) as a "business
strategy".  If all countries had done this... Welcome to the dark
ages.

Nice attempt Greg, but even if you were right: I will never accept
that something is right "because everybody is doing it".

>However, the same does not apply to the owner of a mud. If I own the mud, 
>I can ban any user I please - hell, I don't even have to ban them, I can 
>harass them, abuse them and ridicule them, until they leave of their own 
>volition.
>
>You should not confuse legal rights with moral rights. All users of a mud 
>have no legal rights, on the mud.

Of course they have.  That's up to those who enforce the law. Whether
the laws applies or not will not be known until they are tried in one
or more trials.

In a democracy legal rights and duties (laws) are more or less a
subset of the (majority) norms in a society (which makes it a lot
easier to avoid commiting crimes, at least for the native puplation
which are familiar with the norms).

(I was refering to moral rights in the post though, I usually write
"legal" explicitly if I mean "legal rights").

Ola.