[MUD-Dev] Community Relations

[Dundee]

Jon A. Lambert" <jlsysinc at ix.netcom.com> wrote:

> Note that the former is usually enforced with great enthusiasm, while
> enforcement of the latter is haphazard and oftentimes explicitly=20
> non-existent.

In our case, the attitude was very much "This is not a public park, this =
is
my backyard.  If you don't like me, then get off my swingset and go play
somewhere else."

We had no mud hierarchy, no admin policy, no code of conduct (beyond =
"don't
be a jerk").  We're only now starting to put that stuff together (only =
been
up for six months, so maybe that's normal ... or maybe we've just been
stupid).

> Any thoughts as to why this is so? =20

We spend the time and money to make the mud for other people to enjoy. To=
 be
insulted on top of that...  Eh.

> Don't such obtuse policies essentially boil down to=20
>     "You can be banned at our whim"?

'Can't say for most muds, but I think in our case, our demographic is a =
bit
different.  We're running a UO emulator.  We have a handful of players =
that
never played UO, a handful for whom EQ's expansion "Caverns of Camping" =
was
not sufficiently appealing to make them stick with that, and all the rest=
 of
our users (90% or so) come from OSI.

All of those (the 90%) fall into two categories:  1.  People who quit =
OSI's
servers due to the antisocial element. and 2. People that OSI banned =
(which
is to say, the very worst of the antisocial element).

That day a while back that OSI banned massive numbers of people, we had =
20
applicants in one day.  People with names like PsyKoBarf and Buttpirate.

So... we're very aggressive in trying to identify which group a person is=
 in.
The players want us to ban early and ban often.  It's a feature.

On top of that, there aren't very many UO Emulators running 24/7.  It's a
very different thing than with text muds, where there seem to be about 3 =
muds
per player and if you want players, maybe you have to be a little more
diplomatic, tolerant and even manipulative.

I wish I had been more involved in MUDs 15 or 20 years ago.  I wonder how=
 our
growing pains compare to the MUDs at that time.  We're in a very =
different
situation than text muds today, but similar to where text muds were years=
 and
years ago, maybe.
=20
> What is it about administration personnel that makes them so much
> more delicate and important when it comes to being insulted or=20
> offended?

That's a good question.

--=20
http://dundee.uong.com/



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