[MUD-Dev] Reach out and bitch at someone

[Chris Jacobson]

On 6/29/00 2:10 AM, Brian Green (brian at psychochild.org) stated:

>Admittedly, the vocal rude people are in the minority in MUDs, but they
>seem to be a bit more common than in other areas of entertainment. 
>Wondering what other people think.

We have a policy - staff will not listen to private bitching.  All 
complaints must be made in a public forum such as the in-game "Usenet" 
terminals (we're a sci-fi MUD), the public mailing list, or public chat 
channels.

Thus the rude minority often get an equally rude (or ruder) backlash from 
their peers - and quickly hush up.

We have a policy that we treat all people fairly, so long as they can be 
respectful to the staff.  Disrespect towards our staff is usually met 
with removal of most communications facilities for the player; in extreme 
cases we have done more (including having an administrator talk to the 
player - if that doesn't resolve the issue, we will take further 
measures).  We do, however, understand that frustrated or upset people 
often act far more illogically than calm people, so we take that into 
consideration.  Almost all the staff have had to learn from examples I've 
set forth of dealing with people (having been one of those "frustrated" 
and "lashing out" users in the past, I know how to deal with them better 
than most who have never had such experiences).  And its by examples that 
we and other game administrators set that the staff learn, and the 
players learn, and peace is kept.

- Chris Jacobson



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