[MUD-Dev] Re: META: list "peerage"

[Dominic J. Eidson]

On Wed, 20 Jan 1999, Koster, Raph wrote:

> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Caliban Tiresias Darklock [mailto:caliban at darklock.com]
> > Sent: Wednesday, January 20, 1999 3:02 PM
> > To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> > Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: Levels versus Skills, who uses them and when. 

> > >People resist change, and familiarity breeds
> > >contempt: so the ideas must be fresh enough to interest, yet not so
> > >different that they become uncomfortably radical. I could spend weeks
> > >composing mail like that.

Side note: I like radical ideas :)

> The problem with NOT being a teaching institution is that the list is
> devoted to advancing the state of the art. And it's not going to advance
> unless the general caliber of endeavor improves as a result of the
> discussions here. At some point, somebody has to turn around and say to the
> general mud community, "Hey, you know what? We like, completely LICKED the
> problem of <insert topic here--uh, say, proper database backends for muds>
> and here's a detailed spec and what's more, you can use it in ANY mud
> codebase, check it out!" or else the general mud community will continue to
> develop at the current (slow) pace.

I have noticed that often, the slow evolution of the current MUD community
is (partly) due to people not wanting to change... I currently am working
on changing a diku-derivative to do what I want it to do.... (DB
backending, event handler, I've also thought of implementing the mage2mage
system) Several times when I have posted ideas/suggestions for doing
things better, I am greeted with a slew of messages saying "Why do it this
way, when the old way works fine?"

This, it seems is what is holding things back - novice mud admins/coders
often don't know a huge amount of C, and even less about design. This
IMHO is why you don't see too many "new and radical" ideas (at least not
on any mailing list but this one :)

> If it is any consolation, I have repeatedly heard from "peerage" people that
> they feel the same way. I feel that way regularly (the database discussion
> went miles over my head in many places). Then again, here's a separate
> dilemma: the peerage right now also seems to be the most active posters. I'd
> count YOU as one of said peers, in fact. So even this discussion about how
> the peerage dominates the list via intimidation & posting volume is
> happening only among the peerage. Maybe the rest of the list doesn't think
> it's a problem at all. Lurkers, what do you think?

As one of the lurkers on here, my reasons for lurking are a) The topic at
hand is outside my area of knowledge, b) any ideas/suggestions I might
have had, were already posted by the time I got around to reading the
post(s) (and I hate it when one reads a thread where 3-4 people post the
(exact) same, only because they did not yet finish reading the thread so
far)...) The above doesn't apply to everything that's discussed here, it
depends on the topic. On those topics where I know what I'm talking about,
and have something worthwhile contributing, I'll (most of the time) try to
post it.


--
Dominic J. Eidson
                                         "Baruk Khazad! Khazad ai-menu!" - Gimli
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