[MUD-Dev] dealing with foul language

[Kristen L. Koster]

on 4/9/2000 9:32 AM, Ola Fosheim Gr=F8stad wrote:

> "Kristen L. Koster" wrote:
>> on 4/8/2000 6:13 AM, Ola Fosheim Gr=F8stad wrote:
>> The norms are clearer in a technically oriented forum, of course. There =
is a
>> narrowly defined topic, with a high barrier to entry; most participants =
are
>> educated; and the process of social norming is accelerated by the clarit=
y of
>> the topic. Typical problems such as miscommunication, obfuscation,
>> misdirection, etc, are less likely to occur.
>=20
> Which suggests that creating an access-for-all environment is not a good
> idea?

It certainly is, if a certain level of civility and clear social norms is
your principal goal. But your goal may give something else primacy making
obstreperous behavior something you take on as a burden for the sake of
meeting your primary goal.

> Whether it is MUDs or mailings lists or newsgroups, a major source of
> "unpleasantness" is the tendency to provide definitions of other people
> rather than topics, issues, policies etc. In order to create a good
> constructive environment I really think one should strive towards making
> attempts at such definitions irrelevant. One way to achieve this is to
> create a strong focus on something that matters for most users (thus
> marginalizing those that are concerned with more trivial matters).  Or
> so I believe.

Ola's New Law: the broader the focus of your virtual environment, the more
ill-mannered behavior you will see.

>> That completely depends on factors like barrier to entry, focus of the
>> construction, etc. Plenty of MOOs suffer from huge problems with social
>> norming, foul language, etc. The more restrictive they are about topic, =
the
>> higher technical level required, and the smaller audience they appeal to=
,
>> the less problems they have.
>=20
> I think one of the issues is whether the environment has something
> substantial and unique to offer to the participants. If it was THE ONLY
> MOO and THE Tolkien environment (requiring detailed knowledge about the
> books), then your system will more likely matter to those that
> participates.

Given a choice of multiple virtual environments in which to participate
(including IRC, email lists, etc etc here) I think it is safe to say that
whichever one a person chooses and sticks with does, in fact, offer
something substantial and unique to them, and likely matters to them.

> If there is no direction whatsoever to your environment, then you are
> asking for plurality, plurality in the same space is basically trouble.
> Then you need even stronger norms for behaviour and politeness, because
> the potential for escalating conflicts is much greater (which US culture
> is one example of) and you have less context for interpretation (which
> result in a worst case interpretation of what other people say).  I
> guess this means less (valuable) communication and more segregation
> within the environment.

Unless what interests you is communication across subcommunities, in which
case this is a desirable state that fosters things you want to see. If you
were into comparative literature, or group psychology, or other fields like
that, then it would be desirable thing.

>>> The problem with EA is that they try to (re)invent TV.  TV is generally
>>> low quality, even when heavily moderated. >;-}
>>=20
>> Any fairly small group is going to remain fairly civil, because the
>> individual correctly perceives that their future welfare within the grou=
p
>> depends on that. Any larger group is going to have to wrestle with the
>> greater difficulty of establishing social norms. To dismiss the larger
>> groups as intrinsically being of lower quality is foolish, to my mind; t=
here
>> are areas of endeavor (both on the admin AND the players' sides) which
>> require large groups.
>=20
> Examples would be good.

Timothy's research, for example, would be harmed by always dealing with a
small, homogeneous sample. Any area of endeavour that relied on small sampl=
e
size.

>  Will the net impact of such endeavours provide
> users with anything that matters which they cannot get in a more
> "directed" environment?

It may not be about the users' needs in the first place. :) EG, in Timothy'=
s
case, it's not.

As far as whether it's something that matters to the users, well, that
depends on whether diversity (as Jon points out), and all the concomitant
issues and benefits, are something that matter to the users.

> I am not complaining about group size per se, I
> am complaining about MUDs that provide stuff that doesn't matter (beyond
> short-term escapism).  You get the same problems in smaller spaces (like
> an IRC channel), if being there does not matter.

Short-term escapism can be pretty damn important... I'd guess that there in
itself we're going to run into a conflict in both core values and areas of
interest. Short-term escapism is one of the most powerful tools for social
bonding there is--it's what we do to get to know people better, what we do
when courting, what we do when a group needs its ties reforged after period=
s
of stress. So in itself, short-term escapism can indeed matter, a lot.

Beyond that, there's a more fundamental issue here: you're presuming to
judge what "matters" to other people. I am not going to presume to judge
that.

> Clearly if you widen the scope in order to get a larger audience then
> there is more risk for loosing direction.

Naturally. The inverse is also true: narrowing scope costs you audience,
until too narrow a scope may leave you with no audience. This is elementary=
 .
The additional complexity comes into consideration when you consider that
the scope and stated direction is actually subservient to the REAL directio=
n
and goals of the creator of the space.

Ex:

- Stated scope: a tightly focused, heavily moderated public forum about uh,
some form of research. Actual goal: to create a think tank that you can
exploit for commercial benefit. (not suggesting that this is the case, of
course. :) My point is that it easily COULD be)
- Stated scope: a mud that explicitly caters to two radically different
player types that you know will be in conflict. Actual goal: to study their
interactions.
- Stated scope: a mud that caters to as broad an audience as possible.
Actual goal: a preliminary step on the road to world domination a la 1984,
using entertainment media in the way Orwell did, which requires a thorough
understanding of the exact sort of pablum the public wants.

Stated scope and actual goals can vary pretty widely. The above three are
all far more Machiavellian than the norm, but I can give you one which
certainly applies to the commercial MMORPGs: making the game bigger and mor=
e
inclusive because it allows more boasting and thus can push up company
reputationand/or stock price--even if it would be easier to manage and who
knows, maybe more profitable per capita at a smaller size (as Matthew
argues).

>  Most things that target the
> general public and are infected with commercial interests, without a
> hard-core of idealists, eventually turn into producing shallow content
> and slumber. Most good things are created by idealists with a somewhat
> narrow scope.

This in itself is an aesthetic judgement. I'm not going to debate it as I
think it's off topic for the list, but it's a "vision" thing. Many things
that meet your definition of a "good thing" have gone on to trememdous
commercial success.
=20
>> Our perception of "quality" (artistic or otherwise) is often determined =
by
>> whether the preoccupations of the piece are those shared by our
>> subcommunity.
>=20
> Hmm... It is certainly one aspect of it. I would largely attribute that
> to fashion though (being similar to the current in your social sphere,
> but sufficiently different from the previous to be fresh).

That happens to be one of the current fashions. But studying past aesthetic
currents will show that there are numrous cultures and even moments in the
main Western tradition where being sufficiently different to be fresh was
"bad art." We, in our curren cycle and in our prevailing aesthetic, regard
those as stagnant. But boy, we still love Celtic knotwork and Japanese
brushwork and many other such "static" artistic traditions. This is a way
more complex issue than we're going to tackle on this list, and the
complexities are why I said "often" in my sentence. :)

[snip lengthy debate on aesthetics]

> You
> cannot aim for a wide scope in the commercial sense and still make
> things that matters.

To bring this back to mud-dum, do you feel that the commercial muds
therefore matter less, innovate less, or are somehow less significant than
the text muds? I'd say that history thus far is proving you wrong on this
front. I wouldn't say they matter MORE, either, mind you.

>>> My theory is that gender will be less pronounced, and that the role-pla=
y
>>> environment would suffer. "I'm not a fucking woman, it's just those
>>> clueless Origin faggots..".  People will no longer have a reason to
>>> expect a female-presenting character to be a woman?
>>=20
>> Nobody expects that NOW. :)
>=20
> If you are talking about naive players, then I think this is wrong.
> (depending on the environment, maybe)

No, actually, I am talking about a player past the basic naive stage. Any
reasonably aware player of GoP forms of muds (as well as many other Interne=
t
activities) knows that the audience is predominantly male.

>> However, it's been documented both formally(*)
>> and anecdotally that people in muds tend to take the presentation at fac=
e
>> value.
>=20
> Granted, I haven't used MUDs much lately, and don't really find gender
> stuff all that interesting.   Still, I think there is much to be said
> about the usefulness and validity of current MUD research...
>=20
> My own experience is that naive players take things at face value while
> experienced players are influenced, assuming there is nothing else to
> _disqualify_ the interpretation. If everybody are forced to taking on
> female characters then I expect that the invalidity of the surface
> becomes much more pronounced.

I would agree there. That's why it'd be a worthwhile experiment: to find
out!

>> copious study on this topic. Cross-gender roleplaying is an extremely co=
mmon
>> phenomenon--the figure I've seen is as high as 40% of males attempting i=
t.
>=20
> What you suggested was forcing people to take on a female surface. I am
> not convinced that this will remove stereotypical male reasoning and
> behaviour.  I suspect that this could invite to more erotic
> explicitness.=20

I agree with that too. However, eroticism as opposed to rape) also depends
on a high degree of civility. So if this is what players are going to get
into, then I suspect we'd see complex social conventions forming rather
quickly. Furry muds and even some sections of Dibbell's "My Tiny Life"
attest to this.

>  If you get the player to fully accept the female
> _identity_ then maybe.  I am not sure how you are to achieve this with
> the remaining 60% which may find that threatening to their identity.

Of those 40%, only a much smaller percentage "fully accept the female
identity." Many more do it because of perceived social or gameplay
advantage. However, the reports are still that in terms of how they are
viewed as other players, they are considered female and treated as females
even if they make no pretense about it, by enough people to modify the
"locker room" atmopshere into something with more social conventions and
proprieties.

> What happens if you make the female presenting character the only
> option?

Damn good question. Someone got a mud to try it on?

> Ola.
>=20
> (I silently note that the mud-dev populace is primarly concerned with
> traditional game content, and seldom discuss how to empower users.  A
> view the current kanga.nu polls support...)

A lot depends on your definition of empowerment. Providing the perfect hack
n slash environment is something very empowering to a hack n slash player.
:)

-Raph




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