[MUD-Dev] The morality of logfiles [was 'Wild west']

[JC Lawrence]

On Wed, 31 Dec 1997 10:10:38 PST8PDT Ola wrote:
> "Jon A. Lambert" <jlsysinc at ix.netcom.com> wrote:

>> I think there is greater _danger_ (perhaps not a good word choice)
>> of personal information being used in an offensive, vindictive or
>> harassing nature by another player rather than a benevolent, just
>> and dictatorial big-brother administrator, like myself. :P

> The difference is a huge one.  Players are on the same level.  You
> see other players, you are aware.  (Depending on the system design,
> I don't accept bad designs..)

Which would seem to make cameras, recorders, and other remote
surveillance/fly-on-the-wall objects "bad design"?

  I'll note one peculiar case I have in my game: partial body
ownership.  When a character steals a body, the previous owner is left
as a "partial" owner of the body, and is able to see and hear
everything his old body does, but is not able to influence the body
otherwise unless he steals it back (currently control is binary and
absolute).  It is possible for a new owner of a body to oust all
previous partial ownerships, but it is difficult and expensive.
Partial owners are also actively encouraged by the game to release or
resolve their partial ownerships (the muliple ownerships are
debilitating and a potential source of attack).  

  Getting back to the point, the result is that unless a given
character investigates the ownership state of every body in his
environment he can not be sure who is watching what.  This can get
especially nasty given that names are assigned to bodies no matter who
owns them...

The general problem I'm having is that you are using an unstated and I
suspect largely undefined set of criteria to define "bad design".  I
expect that we'd have a much easier time in this thread if we knew and
could evauluate the rules by which the judgements are made.

Too often these things at some level fall into the, "I don't like it.
I don't know exactly why I don't like it, but I don't like it and
therefore it is a Bad Thing".  Such views are impossible to debate.
The usual challenge is to reduce the definition to a set of base
principles which are supported by a stated set of (hopefully) atomic
and logically consistent assumptions.

--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
                                           Internet: coder at ibm.net
----------(*)                        Internet: jc.lawrence at sun.com
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...