[MUD-Dev] Censorship, Virtual v Artificial Worlds, Python

[Matthew Mihaly]

On Sun, 2 May 1999, Dan wrote:

> Matthew Mihaly <diablo at best.com> wrote:
> 
> >You think censorship is a positive thing? It's always struck me as being
> >one of the bad things. Another of the bad things are uptight people who
> >freak out at hearing a combination of sounds strung together.
> 
> I think you are missing the main point about censorship. Censorship is
> about restricting freedom of information. This is bad because decisions
> depend on accurate information in order for them to be correctly reasoned
> out, so that the correct decision can be made.

Actually, I think you are missing the point about censorship. Censorship
is about removing someone's freedom, which is inherently annoying to
players. It also is a very 'unnatural' feeling thing to do on a mud, and
it makes it less immersive. 
--matt


> 
> Saying "you cannot use the word 'fuck' on a chat channel on
> my mud" may be censorship by the technical dictionary definition but 
> it's hardly a problem. Big Bad Censorship is "you may not criticise the 
> government" or "you may not reveal the truth about UFOs" or "you may not 
> reveal how to build a nuclear device."
> 
> Preventing people using a few offensive (to some) words does not prevent
> them passing on any information they wish, assuming of course they are
> sufficiently intelligent to be able to rephrase their sentence, and that
> there is some semantic content to the sentence beyond a desire to offend
> and/or harass.
> 
> -- 
> Scatter ///\oo/\\\
> 
> 
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