[MUD-Dev] Declaration of the Rights of Avatars
Raph Koster
rkoster at austin.rr.com
Mon Apr 17 00:53:47 CEST 2000
> -----Original Message-----
> From: mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu [mailto:mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu]On Behalf Of
> Geoffrey A. MacDougall
> Sent: Sunday, April 16, 2000 10:39 AM
> To: 'mud-dev at kanga.nu'
> Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Declaration of the Rights of Avatars
>
> So, working from this defintion, I would argue that the only rights that
> exist within the virtual world are those that are granted to the players
> by the players - assuming the admin considers themselves to be part of
> the community - as you address further on. If admins see themselves as
> above the community, then this whole exercise is for naught.
The logic followed in the declaration is founded on exactly the notion of
rights that yuo describe.
Many admins do see themselves as above the community. Should they see
themselves as above the community?
One of the most cogent arguments I have heard against the existence of this
document is that it places these rights in primacy above the real world
right to property (defining the mud and its dataset as the property of the
admins).
If admins see themselves as above the community, do they have any
responsibilities towards the community whatsoever?
If they do, can they be articulated?
If they can be articulated and generally agreed upon, are they players'
rights or are they merely good ethics on the part of a mud administrator?
> >in order
> >that the forms of administration of a virtual space may be at any time
> >compared to that of other virtual spaces;
>
> This is destined for failure - because rl governments do not have the
> power to control physical reality, metaphysics, and spiritulity in the
> stroke of a button. So the administration of a vw is never going to be
> comparable to that of the rw - and any conclusions based upon this
> assumption are going to be inherently invalid.
The quote is virtual spaces as compared to other virtual spaces. Seems to me
to be something we engage in on this list every darn day. :) And something
of intense interest to every player, as well. Do you not feel that
administrative methods on different muds should be compared?
> I think that this amounts to
> little more that wishful thinking, because it will always be up to the
> admins to choose what rules they must follow.
Kinda like it's up to governments which human rights they respect. ;)
Is it of any value whatsoever to have such a list of rules? If you had to
put together said list of rules, would you then avoid muds you saw as not
sticking to those rules? (Presumably as a player, it would be in your favor
to avoid them.)
> But, to avoid being
> repetitive, for the rest of this post, I'm going to leave this argument
> aside, and work within the confines of your hypothesis.
Yes, everyone please remember that this entire document is a conversation
piece, not a declaration. :) It is all hypothetical.
> What about worlds where the AI plays a major and fundamental role? Are
> they too to be considered manifestations of people?
No. (For the sake of simplicity in the thought experiment). Not until they
pass a Turing Test. :)
> If I have to respect a PCs rights, and not an NPCs, does
> this not break the immersion, by constantly highlighting the difference
> between the beings with which I'm interacting?
Radically off topic for the thread, but I don't know any players completely
immersed by conversing with any NPC on any mud. :) Sure, the immersion is
broken. The presence of those NPCs likely broke it in the first place.
> May I suggest the United Nations Charter of Rights and Freedoms as a
> more contemporary, and cross-culturally minded guideline from which to
> continue this rather cool exercise.
Sure, I expect your draft by the end of the week. :) (This document took me
about 4 hours to write using the US Constitution and the French Rights of
Man docs as sources. The tortuous language is ripped verbatim, btw).
> > saving only the aspects of said
> >rights that do not pertain in a virtual space or which must be abrogated
> >in order to ensure the continued existence of the space in question.
>
> By leaving this ill-defined, you've opened the door for years of
> constitutional trials and arguments about what is and is not required to
> sustain the space - and, arguably, defeated the entire point of trying
> to clarify and illustrate what rights _are_ guaranteed.
Yes. This is of course the crux of the document as a whole.
The admin has his finger on the power button. Therefore he has ultimate
power. The odds of him being a teapot despot who enjoys playing with other
people's lives is therefore high. ;)
One camp is going to argue that it's their mud, by god, and therefore they
have the right to do whatever they want with it (and with the people in it).
Some might temper this by saying that they don't have the right to violate
RL law in the process, but I think a sizable faction would argue that even
that doesn't curtail their power in any way.
Another camp is going to argue that with great power comes great
responsibility, a la Spiderman. And that clear guidelines and the rule of
law is the only way to handle a responsibility of such magnitude.
Both sides will agree that they still have their finger on the power button,
and that this changes the landscape of "rights" considerably. And if you do
feel that you are ethically bound to act responsibly, then you may have to
violate some of your ethical principles in order to keep the mud running.
> >That by the act of affirming membership in the community within the
virtual
> >space,
>
> How? What constitutes an affirment, vs an interaction, vs a friendly
> social call? Participation in real life is affirmed by the inability to
> withdraw physical presence. The same inability does not exist in the
> vw.
Damn good question. What do you think constitutes affirmation?
Many muds use hours played or levels reached to make of a player a "full
citizen" eg, give them access to all the features (playerkilling in
particular comes to mind).
Commercial systems can of course simply count from the payment.
If there is a code of conduct, perhaps logging in (and thereby agreeing to
the code) is sufficient.
> "must" - What if the purpose of the community is to reject rights?
> Should they not be able to do whatever they want to do? And, yes, this
> ability is, in itself, a kind of right which would violate the founding
> principle of the community at question - but let's leave that aside for
> now. :)
Rights aren't laws. Of coruse a community can reject them. Happens all the
time, right? They exist more as an ideal guideline than as anything actually
observed in practical terms. :)
> > there must, by physical law, always be a higher power or
> >administrator
> >who maintains the space
>
> Forgive my technical ignorance, but aren't there some MOO models where
> this isn't valid? Hosted by more than one server, etc... I'm not sure
> of this one, however...
Somebody out there pays the power bill on those boxes. :) An interesting
issue arises in that said person may not, in fact, be considered a member of
the community by any stretch of the imagination (the university which allows
players to run muds on their public servers, the ISP who donated space to
some employee or bunch of eager schoolkids to run a mud, etc). And by the
light of this document, that means they are not ethically bound to do
anything whatsoever (because it asserts that rights are inherent in the
community). They have the final power, and nothing in this document bars
them from wiping out that community with the flick of a pen, power cord, or
keyboard.
Do people feel comfortable with that? As admins? As players?
As a player, it would make ME waaaaay nervous. How about you?
> Ahem... I would like to believe this true - but I'm sure many on this
> list would not view themselves as a part of the community they oversee -
> and therefore immune to any kind of player-mandated action.
Yep.
Are they kidding themselves?
If commercial:
Is it bad business to be a part of the community?
Is it bad business NOT to be?
> >and who must
> >therefore take action in accord with that which benefits the space as
> >well as the participants,
>
> Commercial MUDs are forced into this to maintain financial viability,
> and hobby MUDs can choose to just benefit their friends.
Presumably hobby muds intended only for a few friends are still trying to
benefit the space and the participants.
Does public or private access to the mud affect aspects of this document? By
opening a mud to the public, are you formingany sort of social contract?
(Apologies to those who find the notion of social contracts repellent).
> Again, "other rights as well" permanently opens the door to the very
> authoritarian regimes I think you're trying to prevent.
I'm not trying to prevent anything. :) I'm trying to start a shouting match!
[snip "transience and impernance does not reduce social investment"
argument]
> I like this one - IMHO, it's well worded. It also serves it's purpose
> well, which, if I'm to interpret it correctly, is to head-off any
> critics who might view the fleeting nature of the virtual world as a
> factor undermining its validity.
"It's just a game!" "It's not real!"
Perhaps one reason why this one in particular is well worded is because I
strongly believe in it (unlike a lot of other parts in the document, which
are logical extrapolations rather than gut feelings).
> > 2. The aim of virtual communities is the common good of its
> >citizenry, from
> >which arise the rights of avatars.
>
> I think the beauty of virtual communities is their ability to be
> whatever we want them to be, for any purpose. Even if the purpose is to
> piss upon everyone who tries to join. I think Article 2, by defining
> the aim of virtual communities, is limiting, as opposed to liberating.
The common good of the Newbie Pissing MUD is exactly what you describe,
presumably. But you're right int hat
This does raise the question of what a mud is for, and what lifecycle it
has. Common wisdom has it that "a mud must grow, or stagnate and die." If
so, then the common good means anything that works against increasing the
population of a mud. However, a mud that grows into something which all of
its members despise is not developing towards the common good. So a better
definition might be, the common good is that which increases the population
of a mud without surrendering core social tenets or mores. But that word
"stagnate" is in that bit o' common wisdom too. So it may be good for a mud
to evolve its core social tenets in order to adapt to the changing
population. Free immigration means that this will be accelerated--note that
nowhere does the document say that you can't simply not accept people into
the mud who aren't aligned with the mud's key social tenets.
Then there are the mud admins who don't give a flip about population growth.
:)
> >Foremost among these rights is the right
> >to be treated as people and not as disembodied, meaningless, soulless
> >puppets.
>
> What if I want to be treated as a dog? Or a Volarian?
Then we're treating you as people with uh, interesting delusions. :)
Seriously, though... what this gets at is that you don't cease being a
person when you log into a mud. You have the right to be treated as a human
being, particularly in terms of interaction with the game administration.
Most muds implicitly concede this by having rules against harassment and
other such violations of personal space. Presumably as a Volarian or a dog,
if some other player comes up and spams you offline, repeatedly harasses
you, or threatens to kill you in RL, you want your avatar to be considered
an extension of yourself, and not an independent entity with no rights or
recourse.
> >Inherent in this right are therefore the natural and inalienable
> >rights of man.
>
> What about women & its? (A little inclusive language jab. *g*)
Blame the old docs I used as sources. :)
> These are very Western rights. Not all societies grant the right to
> property. Not all societies grant the right to freedom from oppression.
> Are we founding an arguably international treatise of rights upon
> western values? Isn't this a little arrogant?
Er, not for a thougth experiment, I hope. :) Now, if you want to develop
this into a real declaration, please do go ahead and use as many sources as
you can. :)
> Part of the wonder of the vw is the ability to explore alterior paths of
> existence without doing significant damage to rw persons. By imposing
> rw values on the vw, we limit the exploratory nature of the vw.
An excellent point. We should allow spamming offlink, murder threats, and
sexual harassment online forthwith. After all, they are viable explorations
of self-expression, all the more important to permit in a virtual setting
because they cannot be expressed in the real world. There may even be
therapeutic value in allowing these expressions.
> >However, the
> >body populace has the right to know and demand the enforcement of the
> >standards by which this individual uses this power over the community,
> >as authority must proceed from the community;
>
> So unenforcable as to be meaningless - but I promised not to bring this
> point up again. :)
In the real world, this is dubiously enforceable, but nonetheless widely
upheld. You can translate it as "The user gets to read the code of conduct
before he signs up." I think I'll answer one of the other posts by
translating all these into plain English. :)
> >a community that does not know
> >the standards by which the administrators use their power is a community
> >which permits its administrators to have no standards, and is therefore
> >a community abetting in tyranny.
>
> What if the people in the community want tyranny?
Then presumably they knew before signing up. Which means the right (which is
just the right to know what they are getting into) was upheld. Now, if they
join a mud with no posted code of conduct and no posted rules, then they
know they are getting into tyranny--especially as soon as Rule 4f subsection
III gets used to playerdelete them.
> I've posted before
> about contrary perceptions and definitions of freedom. There is the
> freedom from choice, as well as the freedom to choose. Many argue that
> having other people make decisions for you is more liberating. Are we
> correct to strip people of this privilege?
I am not sure how this article does that. Can you clarify?
> There are many other ways of determining rights than by arbitrary and
> imposed rule sets. Also, I don't think we're going to be able to solve
> the freedom from vs freedom to debate on this list. :) Does my right to
> walk with my sword extended trump your right not to be impaled? Does my
> right to freedom of speech trump your right for privacy? I don't think
> we're going to be able to answer this one...
The way in which we solve that in the real world is with laws. They often
contradict one another, in which case we have judges. And even in societies
where there was no law, there were judges. :)
The question at hand is, should the judges have a rulebook to follow, or do
they get to make each call in a vacuum with no regard to precedent,
established custom, or law?
To extend it to muds, should admins be judging players on the fly, or should
they have some sort of code of conduct that establishes standards?
> > 5. The code of conduct can only prohibit those actions and
> >utterances that are hurtful to society,
>
> By whose definition? What's hurtful?
I fall back on that old chestnut, "community standards." :)
> >inclusive of the harm that may be done to the fabric
> >of the virtual space via hurt done to the hardware, software, or data;
> >and likewise inclusive of the harm that may be done to the individual who
> >maintains said hardware, software, or data, in that harm done to this
> >individual may result in direct harm done to the community.
>
> You've just granted admins the freedom from harm, which contradicts your
> previous assertion that they are an inherent member of the community,
> subject to the same dangers as everyone else.
Yes, this is one of the self-contradictions I built into the document. The
logic goes like this:
- Of paramount importance is the survival of the community.
- Somebody who has his finger on the power switch can make the community go
poof.
- Ergo, keeping this guy happy is of paramount importance.
- But if keeping him happy means letting him psychologically torture you,
well, that means the community isn't likely to survive.
- And survival of the community is of paramount importance.
The logical answer is for the community to move wholesale--in essence,
picking another guy with a power switch who hopefully is made happy by other
sorts of pleasures. Virtual communities often do this, as we have seen. And
they always seem to feel that they were betrayed by the previous
admin--which indicates the self-assignation of a right by the community.
[ Article 6: community members get a say in the evolution of the code]
> Can guests contribute?
Have they affirmed their membership? (Whatever we decide that is!)
> Basically - all this does is tell the admin that they have to listen to
> their players. But listening to and acting upon are two different
> things - as made obvious by majority governments, who do what they want
> regardless of the comments made by the official opposition. The
> government listens, says thanks, and then does what they want anyway...
I don't know ANY governments where this isn't the case. They are put in
their positions of responsibility (be it via elections, inheritance, or
expertise at naked bungee jumping) under the premise that once in power,
they will know better what to do than the rest of the community will.
(Whereupon we refuse to trust them, which is the wise course of action. :)
> >As a member of the community himself, the administrator would
> >be damaging the community itself if he failed in this responsibility,
>
> This is an opinion - not a certainty.
- Admin fails to listen.
- People leave, community scatters to the four winds.
- Community is gone. Admin failed to maintain it.
Surely we've all seen this happen?
The uncertainty lies in where the breaking point is, not whether it will
happen. It will happen, eventually.
[Article 7: no punishing people unless the offense is in the code of
conduct]
> Sure - but these are no longer rights. These are laws.
That is because at this point, I am cribbing from the US Bill of Rights,
which yes, are more like laws (or metalaws) than rights.
> Rights would be
> trumps against laws like the code of conduct. So, in essence, what
> you're saying is that people have the right not to be banned unless the
> law says they have to be banned. Which, is kind of like the League of
> Arab States' guaranteed right of Freedom of Religion - so long as the
> religion is state approved. In otherwords, window dressing - not a
> right at all.
I dunno. I think it's something that many players would ecstatic to get
guaranteed as a right.
> Rights are trumps against the tyranny of the majority. (ala Dworkin)
> If every member of the community always agreed upon what course of
> action should be taken, there would never be a need for rights, because
> they would never be exercised. So, since the code of conduct is
> established by the majority, the rights, as you're beginning to compose
> them, are useless - because the majority has the ability to strip away
> any power granted to the individual by a right by amending the code of
> conduct.
Correct; this article basically says, "even if the majority votes to get rid
of a code of conduct, then that vote has to be on public record and stand in
stead of the code of conduct."
> > 10. No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions,
> What if that was a key part of the world's storyline? What if the whole
> point of the game was to overcome oppression? Doesn't this limit a
> designer's ability to create hurdles and barriers for the player base to
> overcome?
We don't care about roleplayed opinions, we care about their actual
opinions. Usually. But there is a case to be made for disallowing, say, the
fervent child pornographer roleplayer from playing that role. Of course,
that role might be disallowed via the code of conduct. Thoughts?
> Otherwise, the rights have no teeth.
We already established that the rights have no teeth PERIOD, they all exist
at the whim of the guy whose finger is on the power switch. That is why this
whole thing is hypothetical. The only power the rights have is if the admin
signs up to them and self-polices.
> Who removes them? Who grants them? [admin powers]
Whoever can. :) Isn't this a good place for your bit about alternative
social structures? :)
> <<snipped Articles 13 & 14, as they fall within previous arguments>>
>
> > 15. A virtual community in which the observance of the code
> >of conduct is
> >not assured and universal, nor the separation of powers defined, has no
> >constitution at all.
>
> Who are we to determine what is and is not a constitution? In order not
> to render this exercise completely invalid, we have to abstain from
> making value statements. The UN Charter of R&F is only even remotely
> applicable because it does not condemn. It only contains positive, not
> negative statements. Therefore, everyone can claim to be respecting the
> Charter, even if others don't think they actually are.
Of course, a charter everyone claims to observe but nobody does basically
doesn't exist. And I think that's what this archaic use of the word
constitution means: that the code of conduct "constitutes" empty words on
paper unless the code applies to everyone.
> I think we have to acknowledge that any participation in this kind of
> Charter would be strictly voluntary. Therefore, in the interests of
> diplomacy, we shouldn't include statements that are going to alienate
> people from signing on to the document.
Are you actually suggesting that this document be signed to? Save your
energies for the plain English version. :) THAT, I'd be willing to sign to.
> > 16. Since property is an inviolable and sacred right, and
> >the virtual
> >equivalent is integrity and persistence of data, no one shall be
> >deprived
> >thereof except where public necessity, legally determined per the code
> >of
> >conduct, shall clearly demand it, and then only on condition that the
> >avatar
> >shall have been previously and equitably indemnified, saving only cases
> >wherein the continued existence of the space is jeopardized by the
> >existence
> >or integrity of said data.
>
> I would argue this has too many exceptions to bother stating in the
> first place. You're only arming people with the ability to complain and
> be pissed off, while giving the admin the power to ignore the
> complaints.
A rephrase: "don't delete someone's character unless you have to (and it's
permitted by the code of conduct). If you do delete them, make it up to them
somehow." Kristen just phrased it to me as "don't delete someone unless they
deserve it." Where deserve implies that it's the appropriate punishment,
presumably already defined as such in the code of conduct.
Only time you don't have to apologize is if the mud was gonna go boom if you
didn't take action.
> > 17. The administrators of the virtual space shall not abridge the
freedom
> >of assembly, save to preserve the performance and continued viability of
> >the virtual space.
>
> Unless its part of the storyline? Wouldn't Lord British bringing in his
> guards to dispell an angry mob have been a cool way of generating
> community-reinforcing conflict? Although this activity could be covered
> by the latter sub-phrase of the Article.
We had to dispel angry mobs in UO all the time. We didn't do it unless there
were bad slowdowns, spamming, harassment, or other sort os service
disruptions. If they weren't causing problems for other players, we actually
thought it was kinda cool.
[Article 18: right to privacy]
> Here we will get into trouble with RL laws. Not every country grants
> their citizens the ability to communicate freely and in private across
> the Internet. How would you rectify these discrepancies?
We don't deal with what we can't control. We simply say that WE won't snoop
unless we need to.
> > 19. The enumeration in this document of rights shall not be construed to
> >deny or disparage others retained by avatars.
>
> So then what is it supposed to do? :)
Got me, it's in there because it hedges bets. Language ripped straight from
one of the aforementioned historical documents.
> Despite my remarks above, I think you've done quite a good job of
> identifying the areas that we, as designers, need to explore and
> understand. No one is ever going to agree on a singular course of
> action, and no one is ever going to let the other signatories to the
> Charter force them into compliance, but the Charter can be used as a
> educational guide by which well-minded admins and designers can judge
> their actions. And, it is in this latter, and sole respect, that I
> think a document such as this one has tremendous merit.
And here I thought that I wrote it in order to generate mud-dev traffic and
start arguments. :)
My personal suspicion is that once people read the plain English version,
they'll agree with 99% of it--not necessarily as "rights" but as good admin
and business practice--even for publicly held companies. ;) The reluctance
is to term them "rights" or "inalienable" because it so severely curtails
the freedom of the admin.
Take-home question:
- why do you want freedom to do things that are BAD admin or business
practice? (even considering that "freedom" and so on are total mirages in
this whole situation...)
-Raph
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