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

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

Sometime at or around 07:39 AM 1/6/98 +0000, I personally witnessed Mike
Sellers jumping up to shout:
>
>The problem I see is that you're misapplying principles of privacy that
>*do* make sense in the physical world to a world which necessarily operates
>by different rules.=A0=20

I don't have anything very profound to add here other than a nod of assent=
 in
this matter. The online world presents a large number of different=
 situations
and different necessities; for example, when I send private mail on a MUD,
that
mail can be read by anyone with read access to the MUD's directory on the
server, and I'll never know. It's not like sending mail in the real world,
where there is a sealed envelope to let the recipient know if it's been
opened.
There is always the possibility of using some sort of standard encryption
method to conceal the contents of MUDmail, much as the author of PGP=
 suggested
doing for all e-mail in order to set the standard that encryption is a=
 privacy
envelope, not an indication of illicit content... but it's not hard to
recognise that this presents other problems unless the administrators can=
 open
and read that mail (a Clipper chip analogy would be appropriate here).
However,
if the administrators can open and read your mail, how do you know they're
trustworthy?

This is the same thing BBS sysops like myself faced for a long time;
particularly if we ran questionably-targeted boards with hacker forums or
virus
libraries or S&M dating services or porn downloads or drug legalisation
initiatives. There's got to be some sort of trade-off; in the BBS heyday, we
all pretty much accepted as normal that the sysop could (and occasionally=
 did)
spy on our logins, read our personal mail, and otherwise track our activity
online, for both entertainment and system maintenance purposes. This has now
become completely unacceptable in the name of privacy. I don't necessarily
think that privacy should be completely denied, but I also don't feel it
should
be unequivocally guaranteed.=20

>>>doing something hurtful to someone else.=A0 If they are falsely accused,=
 no
>>>problem -- the log helps them out, and no suspicion lingers as it might
>>>otherwise.=A0 If they are rightly accused, then we have the ability to=
 better
>>
>>Guilty unless logged? That's pretty horrible.=A0=20

I think a more accurate phrase is "Guilty as logged". However, there are=
 many
occasions in which the log does not accurately reflect reality:

 Bob enters from the North.=20
 (Bob lags.)
 Green troll leaves East.=20
 (Bob types 'attack green', still lagging.)
 Green Bill enters from the South.=20
 (Lag breaks. Bob sees troll's departure message=20
 and damns. Server receives 'attack green'. Bob=20
 receives Green Bill's arrival message and uh-oh's.)
 Bob's slice decimates Green Bill!
 (Bob screams and beats on his monitor.)
 Green Bill runs away!

When Green Bill subsequently goes and tells staff that Bob attacked him
without
provocation in the forest, this is the absolute truth. However, Bob's=
 actions
were completely innocent. Green Bill, however, has no indication of this --
remember, all Bill had to go on was:

 Green Bill enters from the South.
 Bob's slice decimates Green Bill!
 Green Bill runs away!

The log, in turn, shows:=20

 Bob enters from the North.=20
 Green troll leaves East.=20

Which COULD vindicate Bob -- since Green Bill's name is close enough to the
green troll's. But with the addition of client macros, this becomes
significantly more complex; I have a macro which snips out the contents
list of
a room, classifies the contents based on color (and therefore type, on the
server I log into), and attacks the first available target. This macro=
 relies
on the server's sorting algorithm for contents, which always places players=
 at
the bottom of the list; if this algorithm were changed in such a way that it
placed them at the top of the list, or in any other order at all, then I=
 could
conceivably attack a fellow player in total innocence even without lag. If I
walk into a room that has one mob and some players in it, and the mob leaves
before I get the attack to the server, then I can *still* accidentally
attack a
fellow player.=20

Basically, the logs are an excellent resource, but they also require some
recognition on the part of the administration that while the logs reflect=
 the
game activity -- such as speech, etc. -- they do not accurately reflect the
real world, and they cannot do so unless a larger amount of detail is=
 logged.
For example, you could have the log show the transmission times on all=
 packets
received, but this could cause difficulty in reading the logs. The logs do,
however, provide an incontrovertible record of someone who said something
rude... provided, of course, you can show that this person did that. If I=
 log
into my machine, then get up to go to the bathroom, someone else could come=
 up
and maliciously say horrid things as my character. The indications of=
 reality
that are gained from the logs are not perfect. They *are*, however,
significantly better than nothing.

>BUT:=A0 In an online world, we have no fingerprints, hairs, cloth fibers,
>etc.=A0 There is *NO* forensic evidence, unless we make it ourselves.=A0=
 The
>easiest and best "evidence" like this is to log events and statements as
>the occur, in case they're needed later.=A0=20

Fantastic point. Well said. :)

>Right.=A0 Call me when we all live in Star Trek-style holodecks, complete
>with jails in which we might actually languish.=A0 Until then, I'm not=
 going
>to worry _too_ much about muds being mistaken for actual governments.=A0=20

In most medieval societies, it was pretty common for women to be married in
their very early teens to much older men; if someone actually played this=
 out,
even if they never went down to the real sexual level, even if it was just
playful bantering about, it could be logged by a third party and used to
seriously impact someone's reputation. If I quite rightly courted and
married a
fourteen year old girl on a medieval fantasy MUD, which is completely in
keeping with the morals and customs of the time, then roleplaying as though=
 we
actually *were* a married couple on that MUD could inspire someone to log
conversations and forward them to authorities. And with the public=
 sensitivity
to these matters at present, it could cause me a lot of problems. God help=
 me
if it was an arranged marriage to which the bride objected, as is=
 historically
common.=20

I have a brother-in-law who was falsely accused of child abuse in the Real
World(TM). The stigma never diminished, even after his accuser recanted. He
was
literally *forced* to move. We're not talking about going to a different
server. We're talking about a real impact on someone's life. We all know=
 some
hypersensitive jerk who would raise hell if they saw anything that they
considered questionable. Some of them run MUDs.=20

>>Yeah, the trouble is that I am on a mailinglist with admins that are
>>designing systems to fit their own bill... I am concerned about the
>>individual, the user, good design, moral, philosphy etc.
>
>Are you implying that you are the lone keeper of such high-minded ideals,
>surrounded by the squalor of egotistical or megalomaniacal admins?=A0 I=
 hope
>you're not really that foolish.

I, too, find the majority of MUD developers I've spoken with to be
egotistical,
inexperienced, narcissistic, and completely ignorant of what MUD players=
 want.
I have been told dozens (if not hundreds) of times by server designers that
they are developing a game THEY want to play, that fits THEIR desires and
THEIR
preferences, that uses an interface THEY find acceptable, that is
documented to
THEIR satisfaction, and they honestly don't care if anyone else likes or=
 plays
their game at all.=20

I don't have the time to devote to building a server. If I did, I'd be=
 asking
questions. A lot of questions. I wouldn't expect to answer all of them=
 myself,
to my own satisfaction, and then have everyone fall at my feet and adore my
work. I greatly respect anyone who can build a MUD server. I greatly admire
anyone who can do it singlehandedly. I literally *detest* anyone who builds=
 a
MUD server and thinks it makes him GOD. It doesn't. It makes him another
server
designer. Yes, I think that's a nice group to be in. Yes, it's a group I'd
like
to join someday. But I'll join it with a product that's built around the=
 needs
and desires of players, not just ME.

I agree wholeheartedly that not ALL designers fit this mold, but far too=
 many
of them do. It's educational and revealing to look at how few server=
 designers
and staff members actually *play* MUDs in the first place. It's also useful=
 to
look at their goals. Many of them seem to view the idea of people actually
*playing* the MUD as an odd artifact of the process which has no real=
 benefit
in the design and implementation of the server.

+-[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-[caliban at darklock.com]-+
| Darklock Communications                     http://www.darklock.com/ |
| The Darklock Sound                http://www.darklock.com/darksound/ |
| Making Waves Unofficial Music Site    http://www.darklock.com/mwave/ |
|     "We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."    |
| Send e-mail for PGP public key in response: caliban-pgp at darklock.com |
+-[PGP fingerprint 9145 99B1 9AAE 9911 10AF  503B 55D9 6E8D 8F8C 1519]-+