[MUD-Dev] Community Relations

[Eli Stevens {Grey}]

As always, that which I state as fact in the following are just MHO.  :)

From: Jon A. Lambert <jlsysinc at ix.netcom.com>
> Dundee wrote:
> > The player was banned for being insulting to me.
>
> I understand that these are very common policies throughout the
> "mudding" universe.
>
> "Thy shall not insult or offend any member of the administration"
> and
> "Thy shall not insult or offend any player"
>
> Note that the former is usually enforced with great enthusiasm, while
> enforcement of the latter is haphazard and oftentimes explicitly
> non-existent.
>
> Any thoughts as to why this is so?

An administrator can usually judge for themselves, immediatly, if they have
been insulted.  Assuming a competent admin staff, there is little question
IF an infraction has occured.  With players, this can be much more elusive,
as players can lie, etc.  If people who were accused of being insulting were
regularly banned, then you can bet that players would invent situations to
extract revenge on those they did not like.

> Do such policies introduce a "class" system into a muds social
> structure regardless of whether the administration is faceless or not?
>
> Don't such obtuse policies essentially boil down to
>     "You can be banned at our whim"?
>
> What is it about administration personnel that makes them so much
> more delicate and important when it comes to being insulted or
> offended?

I know that I would want a player to at least make a token acknowledgement
of the favor I was doing them - offering them a place to have fun.  While I
would not expect fawning or fake, suck-up type attitudes, some respect is
appropriate.  If you cannot appriciate the gift, why should you have it?
(Flamebait?)

The other players, however, are not explicitly providing the environment,
and so are not as deserving of respect _in that sense_.

Silence is respect
Eli - mailto:ens017 at mizzou.edu





_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev maillist  -  MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev