[MUD-Dev] Declaration of the Rights of Avatars

[Travis S. Casey]

On Mon, 17 Apr 2000, Raph Koster wrote:

> > From: mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu [mailto:mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu]On Behalf Of
> > Travis Casey

> > On Sunday, April 16, 2000, Raph Koster wrote:

> > Ridiculous point 2:  The entire document fails to recognize that many
> > virtual communities are *games*, and that the violation of people's
> > rights may occur within the game, even though the mud itself assures
> > those rights in out-of-character contexts.  I'll point to specific
> > examples as I go through.
> 
> The document largely addresses OOC matters, not IC matters, and the "game"
> thing mostly points to IC things. The nasty supposition is that there's no
> way to make a game that keeps OOC matters out of the game entirely, and that
> you shouldn't try.

I understand that -- the point I was trying to make (and didn't do a good
job of) is that any such document needs to recognize that there is a
distinction, especially if muds are actually going to use it as a set of
guidelines.  I would think one or two paragraphs near the start would be
enough to point out the distinction and that this is meant to apply only
to OOC.

> > I don't buy this.  Why should the creator of an online community --
> > especially one which is created explicitly for the purpose of
> > entertainment -- be bound to do certain things simply because others
> > have chosen to make an emotional or social investment in his/her
> > construct?
> 
> A sense of responsibility?
> 
> A coworker and I got into a argument over this. Let's say you publicly say,
> "Hey, my empty lot is now open to the public, anyone can squat there!" In
> the real world, you can actually get in trouble for not providing adequate
> sanitation. You'd certainly be reviled as an insensitive slob for kicking
> the squatters off. The sense here is that by making the invitation, you are
> entering into a social contract with the people who may or may not come by
> and use the empty lot.
>
> We can argue endlessly whether this is fair or not. It's not, IMHO. But it's
> still the case. If I personally invite people to squat in my empty lot and
> then some of them die because I failed to cover the open mineshaft, well,
> I'd feel a sense of responsibility. It'd sure be nice not to, but I will
> because I have developed a certain level of personal ethics that entail
> feeling that way.

This is an extremely bad analogy -- muds do not offer physical dangers to
their users the way a real meeting place can, and giving people a place
to live is far from giving them a place to meet and be entertained. Let's
try this:

  I decide to start up a D&D campaign.  I put up flyers around town, 
  recruit players, and start running it.  We have fun, but eventually
  the campaign runs out of steam, and I decide to end it.  One of the
  players, though, doesn't like this -- he says he's become attached to
  his character and doesn't want to stop playing it.  And, what's more,
  he's made friends with people in the group, and is afraid they'll 
  drift apart now that they don't have the game to center around.

Now, I might feel sorry for him, but I see no reason why I should feel
responsible.  Campaigns end or change; it's a fact of life for gamers.  In
the same way, muds end or change.

It's also possible that you want to establish your mud as a permanent
"home" for people, in which case, your analogy makes a lot more sense.
But why should what you want your mud to be have anything to do with how I
should run my mud, given that I have very different goals for my mud?

> I WOULD argue that if your goal is to have a thriving empty lot that
> develops into a small town, then you probably WANT to feel this sense of
> responsibility, because the squatters are not likely to thrive unless
> someone with authority over the lot does have that personal ethic.

I don't want to establish a town -- I want to run a game.  That's a very
fundamental difference, and I think a set of "rights" that make sense for
someone trying to establish a "virtual community" may not make sense for
someone who just wants to run a game.

Muds are used in many ways.  Another example is that some muds have been
used as virtual "meeting places" for people working together on a project
for a university or company.  Should the same rights apply in this
situation as well?  For example, should privacy be applicable when you're
supposed to be using the mud only for reasons related to the project?

What I'm trying to get at is that while your declaration of rights may
make sense for what you're trying to do with a mud, it may not make sense
for what another person is trying to do with one.  If it were phrased as
suggestions, that wouldn't be a problem (and I understand that you *mean*
it as suggestions, but that wasn't the way the original was phrased).
Stating these as "rights of avatars", however, implies that they should
apply in all situations where avatars exist.

I actually like the colloquial version a lot more in that respect -- it
seemed to phrase things more as suggestions, rather than as "rights".

> > Analogies are inevitably not quite right, but I'm going to give some
> > anyways:  Should the author of a series of books be required to keep
> > writing them simply because people who have read them want him/her to?
> 
> Depends who you ask. If you ask the public, the answer is yes, of course!
> Plenty of examples in literary history. :)
> 
> The key issue is, when the author decides that they don't want to keep
> writing the books anymore, do they get to make all extant copies
> spontaneously combust without regard to the integrity of people's libraries?

There's a difference between a book and a game -- as I said, analogies are
never exact.  Should I have to keep running a campaign forever because
some of the players still want me to?  Should I have to turn over my maps,
notes, etc. to the players because they enjoyed the game?  I'd say no to
both of these.

Note that I'm speaking in terms of "have to", not "be willing to."
Calling something a "right" implies that if someone doesn't respect it,
they're committing a wrong.  I see nothing wrong in my ending a campaign
and refusing to give the notes and maps to the players.  If I'm willing to
hand the notes and maps over to someone else so they can continue with
their version of my world, that would be nice of me -- but I don't think
it's something I should be *expected* to do.

> [ Article 4 snipped]
> 
> > This makes no sense.  Taken as it is written, this means that if two
> > virtual communities run on the same server, the participants in one
> > community can do whatever they want without regard for how it might
> > affect the other community -- e.g., cause their communities
> > process(es) to use most of the CPU.
> 
> Heh, that scenario sounds like warfare between two countries to me. The
> greater good of both communities (eg, of the economic participants in
> exploiting a limited natural resource) would require cooperation, of course.
> Otherwise, the most effective consumer of the resource is going to drive the
> other out. It's beyond the scope of this document, though.

Is it?  You're taking the Declaration of the Rights of Man as your model
-- do you think the writers of that document intended for it not to apply
during wars?

Perhaps you intended it to be beyond the scope, but it didn't seem to me
that it was from the way it was written.  If you do intend for it only to
apply within a single mud, you might want to make that clearer.

> [ Article 13, the payment article]
> 
> > This last part makes no sense, and doesn't recognize that virtual
> > communities also have an existence in the real world.  I can't
> > discontinue someone's account because they don't pay their bill?  In
> > combination with #16, I can't erase someone's account for not
> > paying their bill unless I pay them for the inconvenience!  (Since it
> > would destroy their "property".)
> 
> As I read it, you can. The bill goes directly towards maintaining that bit
> of data. No money, no data, presto. It's pretty clear that just accumulating
> data endlessly is detrimental to the survivability of the mud, and that's
> the single exception to the "must compensate" article.

I'm not sure that it is clear.  What if the mud currently has much more
disk space available than it needs?  Is it all right to destroy someone's
data now because it *may* cause a problem in the future?

> > The middle part (about "special rights and privileges shall never
> > pertain to the avatar who contributes more...") would prevent a
> > community from selectively appointing administrator/coders/whatever,
> 
> *based on whether they PAID to become a wiz*

I didn't see anything specifying that contributions had to be monetary in
that article.  I was thinking in broader terms -- e.g., that an admin is
given special privileges in return for his/her contributions of time and
effort.  If you mean for it only to apply to monetary contributions, you
may want to specify that.
 
> Of course, one of the other articles says that being a wiz isn't something
> you can get just by paying for it.

Which one is that?  And that raises the issue of what should be done
when/if two articles seem to contradict each other.

--
       |\      _,,,---,,_        Travis S. Casey  <efindel at io.com>
 ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_   No one agrees with me.  Not even me.
      |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-'
     '---''(_/--'  `-'_) 




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