[MUD-Dev] dealing with foul language

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad <olag@ifi.uio.no>]

"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 clari=
ty of
> the topic. Typical problems such as miscommunication, obfuscation,
> misdirection, etc, are less likely to occur.

Which suggests that creating an access-for-all environment is not a good
idea?

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.

> 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 t=
o,
> the less problems they have.

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.  If participating in your world means programming in a
PROLOG like language then there would be a large cost to leaving that
world, as there would be nowhere else to go with your creations and
skills.

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.

> > The problem with EA is that they try to (re)invent TV.  TV is general=
ly
> > 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 gro=
up
> 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; =
there
> are areas of endeavor (both on the admin AND the players' sides) which
> require large groups.

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

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

> Our perception of "quality" (artistic or otherwise) is often determined=
 by
> whether the preoccupations of the piece are those shared by our
> subcommunity.

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).

To me aesthetic quality is largely about transcending the expected but
being almost within reach (hope of comprehension).  Artistic quality is
about making you see things in new ways which have some potential for
creating a drive towards change in the audience.

When it comes to judging information, quality largely means potential
knowledge, empowering the individual, something to build upon etc.

> Broader forms of entertainment are those which manage to
> appeal across subcommunities and therefore touch on social habits and n=
orms
> held in common. For example, one sitcom may be about fart jokes and ano=
ther
> about wit, but you can bet that both are probably simple morality plays.
> That's because the morality play is what can cut across the different
> subgroups within the larger society. Broader forms of entertainment mus=
t
> seek that lowest common denominator. When they fail to do it engagingly=
, we
> call it pablum; when they succeed, we call it tapping into myth.

Entertainment as provided by TV is largely about escapism (filling your
brain with non-personal non-threatening stuff that is capable of keeping
your brain busy, thus preventing it from thinking about self-esteem,
guilt, and issues that matters) and creating the illusion of being
included (which I assume to be the function of humour in a tribe, in
addition to challenging norms and releasing tension). I would thus claim
that TV is largely a parasitically substitute, and not really living in
symbiosis with the humans (same could be said for tobacco and alcohol).
You may of course consider capitalism and national concerns as more
important than the ability to form your own life (which requires
insight), thus defining the human to be a component rather than an
individual.

Humans generally dislike thinking about new stuff, especially things
that challenge their beliefs and requires effort. New stuff has the
potential for creating instability, making insecurities more pronounced,
and worse; it could define your past efforts as a waste of time.  You
cannot aim for a wide scope in the commercial sense and still make
things that matters. Things that matters often requires taking on a new
world view, I think.  How many people are capable of taking on multiple
viewpoints? By lowering yourself to the lowest common denominator you
don't really leave much room for new world views.

If the customer don't get most of it right away then you are basically
telling the viewer that he is not "in", that he is sub par, below
average.  So TV compensate by going way below average, thus making all
the viewers "in" with no (mental) effort whatsoever.

> > My theory is that gender will be less pronounced, and that the role-p=
lay
> > 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)

> However, it's been documented both formally(*)
> and anecdotally that people in muds tend to take the presentation at fa=
ce
> value.

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...

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.

> copious study on this topic. Cross-gender roleplaying is an extremely c=
ommon
> phenomenon--the figure I've seen is as high as 40% of males attempting =
it.

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.  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.

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

Ola.

(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...)





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