[MUD-Dev] Declaration of the Rights of Avatars

[Travis Casey]

On Tuesday, April 18, 2000, Raph Koster wrote:

> - the reasons offered for not granting them seem to boil down to:

>   - this is a game, there's a bunch of oddities that mess with rights in a
> game.

As someone who's reiterated several times that most muds are games,
I'd like to say one thing:

I agree that these are a good idea, as suggestions for people running
gaming muds, and I agree that they're more than just a good idea for
a mud that wants to become a virtual community or has other ambitions
beyond simple entertainment.

I don't agree with one of your bases that you're resting these rights
on *in the specific case of muds meant as entertainment*.  However,
since that is not the sole basis of the rights, that doesn't mean that
I think none of them apply -- only that I don't agree that that
particular basis applies.  This weakens the case for some rights, but
not others.

In other words, I'm not saying that "it's a game, so you have no
rights."  I'm saying, "it's a game, so I don't think there's as much
of a need for some of these rights."

To put it another way, I think it's certainly not right for a landlord
to up and tell everyone "You have to move out of the building today"
for no good reason.  However, I do think it's all right for someone
running a free game to say "I don't enjoy running this game any more,
so I'm going to shut it down."  Losing a particular source of
entertainment is no big deal; losing a place to live is.

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





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