[MUD-Dev] Re: pet peeves

[diablo at best.com]

On Fri, 12 Feb 1999, Brandon A Downey wrote:

> 
> I don't think this is appropriate at all. Even if the person who logged in wasn't
> the immortal, he wasn't their to roleplay, and it strikes me you should have
> taken the time to tell him the matter had been dealt with.

Why? It was none of his business. I don't care if the troublemaker is an
immortal on his mud or not. It's irrelevent to me, just as it is
irrelevent to me if the guy's sunday school teacher shows up and asks if
the fellow has been causing trouble. 

 
> I've never been in a situation where one of my own immortals has been in a
> situation of causing a ruckus on other people's mud, but I have had a
> recalcitrant player or two who felt the need to spam advertisements on someone
> else's mud. One of the admins from that mud showed up, and we were able to deal
> with the culprit. Now, obviously, the other guy didn't show up and start
> interacting with me IC, even though we require roleplaying on Pantheon as well --
> he prayed there was a problem with a player from my mud, and was there something
> we could do about it.

None of my Gods are immature enough to do this sort of thing, but I
suppose if one did I'd ask him to quit. However, if he was causing trouble
unrelated to Achaea in another mud, I don't care. It's none of my business
as the Creator of Achaea. In any case, in the situation I originally laid
out, I didn't even know the troublemaker was an immortal on another mud
until the supposed admin logged in. 

 
> Bottom line: The person at least seemed legitimate, and interacting with him in
> character just served to be irritating at best, and infuriating at worst (if an
> imm, this other problem does probably want to know --
> professional courtesy and all). He's in a vastly different class than someone who
> shows up and insists/demand on a job as admin.

Sorry, as I pointed out before, simply being an admin isn't legitimate to
me and doesn't put them in the same class as me. Again, this is
arrogant, but I'm absolutely not interested in most mud admins. 99%
are hacks...the equivalent of someone who does paint-by-numbers
claiming to be an artist. They have nothing to offer me, or anyone else
with any sort of taste. (I should note that this list seems to be heavily
populated with that 1% that knows more than I do.) Thus, I don't consider
the statement "Hi, I am an admin on another mud" to be a statement that
requires an out-of-the-ordinary response.


> Certainly in general you shouldn't, but there a few cases you should, such as an
> intra-mud disciplinary problem.

I guess the only time I would even recognize a problem as an inter-mud 
disciplinary problem would be if one of my Gods was on another mud
shouting advertisements for Achaea. The solution would just be that he or
she wouldn't be a God anymore in Achaea (All my Gods either have a
financial interest in Achaea or are people I know personally anyhow, so
they are unlikely to do something they know I wouldn't like) If someone
from another mud is doing that in my game, I just either take away the
person's voice or, most likely, delete him. Creating a character takes
time, so after a couple of deletions, people always just give up. I don't
think I'd ever bother going to the admin of said mud, as I'd just assume
it is a random player that the admin has no real control over.

> He probably wanted a quick response on who/what had been causing problems for
> you. Rather than waiting for a tedious exchange of emails, he just logged in.
> It's often a lot more convenient, quicker, and more 'face to face' than just
> exchanging email. What's disconcerting is that his query was a lot more
> legitimate than the other guys, and you didn't bother to give him the scoop on
> what happened -- instead, you gave him a RP blowoff.

See above. 

I actually didn't mean to cause all this discussion over a single incident
on a world (mine) that none of you probably play anyhow. I don't mind
discussing it, but I can't help but feeling we're wasting the time and
bandwidth of most people on this list.

--matt