[MUD-Dev] AW: [MUD-Dev] Censorship

[Matthew Mihaly]

On Fri, 30 Apr 1999, Hofbauer Heinz wrote:

> 
> 
> 30 Apr 1999, Matt wrote:
> 
> >I'm not a fan of censorship, but freedom of speech issues don't come into
> >play here in legal terms. Just as in my house I can toss you out for
> >whatever I want, in my game, I can toss you out for whatever I want, or
> >gag you in whatever way I want. Players don't own their characters, the
> >owners of the game do, and whatever they choose to do to that character is
> >up to them (I'm speaking of free games here. A pay game would probably be
> >considered a bit differently in terms of character ownership, but not in
> >terms of the freedom of speech issue).

> How this is handled in my fav mud (Legend of the Darkstone):
> When a player starts to be anoying (be it by overusing dirty words or 
> repeating a question over and over again (where it is obvious he
> won't get an answer)) the other  players tell him to shut up, if
> he continues most probably he get's killed, or the imms tell him
> to shut up, if he still continues, he get's kicked(never happened
> up to now) and if he still continues ( after reconnecting ) he
> gets banned( up to now we never went even close to that).
> The worst player stoped when the imms told him too.

I have instituted all sorts of methods for punishing annoying players,
from temporarily dampening the power of their abilities, to the most
drastic aside from deletion: shrubbing. I turn them into a lovely little
shrub that really spruces up the landscape. I mean, if you've got a sort
of 'blah' Imperial Garden or whatnot, and you have an annoying player, why
not take care of two birds with one stone, and turn the player into a
hedgerow or a shrub, or maybe even a selection of water lillies (I suggest
mostly green, with a couple white ones floating about). While a shrub,
everything the player does results in him or her simply rustling his or
her branches a bit. I find that after a day or so as foliage, most players
are happy to reform. You should try it!

> 
> I however don't like censorship, and would really dislike it when it
> happens on any mud.
> IMHO the using of shit or damn is not really the problem, the overuse
> of such words is though.

Yeah, I agree I suppose. I don't mind the occasional f*ck or c*nt, but
when you get these 13 year olds with horrid potty mouths, it's a problem.
--matt



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