[MUD-Dev] Re: pet peeves

[diablo at best.com]

On Fri, 12 Feb 1999, Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Apocalypse <apocalypse at pipeline.com>
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
> Date: Friday, February 12, 1999 2:32 PM
> Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: pet peeves
> 
> 
> >New ideas come in a lot of packages, and a good number of
> >them come from people with no clue at all, they have no notion of
> >"that was tried already".
> 
> I would actually go so far as to say that clueful people cannot advance the
> state of the art without the input and assistance of the clueless.

I'd have to say I disagree with this. I am going to make a generalized
statement here which pretty much guarantees I'll think of an exception as
soon as I send the e-mail, but in no thought-based field in the world do
the clueless advance the state of the art, whether it be literature, hard
sciences, social sciences, art, music, etc. Those who are not recognized
as experts or who are not respected by the establishment in that field
certainly make contributions, and sometimes very major ones (Einstein for
instance), but in no cases that I can think of (and that of course is a
fairly limited data set) do clueless people advance the state of the art.
I don't see why it should be any different with muds, although I can see
why it would take less experience to advance the state of the art in muds,
as it is not a particularly well-developed field. 

--matt