[MUD-Dev] Trouble Makers or Regular Citizens

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

Jon Lambert wrote:
> I've always thought that diversity is antithetical to community building.
> Strong communities form because of commonly held values.

I mostly agree, but don't you think that a common and highly valued
purpose can be enough?  Resistance during a war for instance.  I also
think one should open up for thinking about multiple layers. You may
have diversity on one level, but common social mores on another. For
instance, you may create a liberal anti racist flower-power MUD, but
allow a lot of cultural diversity. Maintaining borders towards the rest
of the world (that which exists outside the MUD) may be just as
important. This MUD is THE place for exchanging liberal flower-power
thoughts.

> The less value individuals place
> in a community, the less productive that community becomes.
> 'Productive' being defined as the rate a community produces anything
> of value.  As diversity increases and commonly held values decrease a
> community will reach a point where the only commonly held value is
> diversity.  At that point it ceases to function as a tool of production,
> it just exists.

To some extent this can be offset by a sense of duty...

The more diversity, the less _cooperative_ productivity you get. 
Defines mud-dev and most mailing lists pretty well.  We don't share a
common vision/values to the extent that we cooperate on one platform,
but we "all" face the gross challenges presented by design,
implementation and maintenance. So we stick together for social comfort
because of a common enemy, not because of common values.

This is, I guess, what I dislike about MUDs as well, people stick
together because of the common enemy (anxiety, boredom, the larger
society) not because of a vision about something good. To a large extent
this can be attributed to the unsustainable goals of the designer/admin
which doesn't address what matters to users... or fail communicating the
vision...

Of course, if diversity is something that should be controlled then
there is little reason to go for JCL's fertilizer vision. My opinion is
that you need at least one strong vision, then you can have diversity
spinning around that axis.

I've been fascinated with the idea about the virtual church for several
years.  Of course, by now, this is happening at least in chat groups. 
Read a paper on online ceremonies some time back...

--
Ola  ...I love mankind, it's just people I can't stand...



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