[MUD-Dev] Community Relations

[Matthew Mihaly]

On Tue, 18 Jan 2000, Jon A. Lambert wrote:

> Do such policies introduce a "class" system into a muds social
> structure regardless of whether the administration is faceless or not?

Yes.

> 
> Don't such obtuse policies essentially boil down to 
>     "You can be banned at our whim"?

Yes.

> 
> What is it about administration personnel that makes them so much
> more delicate and important when it comes to being insulted or 
> offended?

The exact same reason why judges can sentence you to jail on grounds of
contempt of court for pretty much anything they choose. I'm not really
interested in getting into a lengthy debate about whether judges should be
shot or not, but considering that some of the same functions of admins are
often dealing with player disputes, I wouldn't be so quick to throw out a
way of dealing with things that has survived the test of time for quite
awhile.

Further, some games (Achaea and Avalon for instance) have an admin
structure where the admins are mainly Gods in the polytheistic sense. They
help drive the action within the game, and, because they are Gods, they
must be treated with respect, or they will cease to be Godly in the eyes
of the players. You can't have your God of Evil being spit upon and just
standing there taking it. A good divine smiting is in order. Having said
that, unless players go really really over the line, and persistently do
it, we don't ban people or give any permanent punishments for insults to
the Gods/admins. Players will die, or suffer other punishments for
insulting a God though, and sometimes the punishments may weaken the
player significantly until he has apologized, often publically, and/or
performed some difficult or tedious task that the God sets for him. 

--matt




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