[MUD-Dev] Trouble Makers or Regular Citizens

[Justin Rogers]

[Compliments of JC Lawrence]
> Simply, and this harks right back to the old FIDO rules:
>=20
>   Being excessively annoying.
>=20
> fresh-logged-in-newbie?  Truth is, you annoyed someone a little too
> much and that person was able to do something about their annoyance.
    Average users don't have this power.  You don't have this power in
the real world.  So why have this power in an emulated real world.  Try
to do something about that black hating white supremist.  What would you
do?  You'd get together a group of mixed race and you'd proceed to beat
them in a mob style.  The point here is that you allow the normality to =
equal
out the extremists the way it is run IRL.  If someone becomes too =
annoying
then put them in jail.  If they are in jail for 3 weeks with nobody to =
talk to
they won't come back to your MUD.

> quite successful -- but they also rest on the fact that they can
> only be instantiated in the first place by an absolute dictator
> (which is ironically neat).
    Various systems could exist for the users themselves to perform the =
duty
rather than an absolute administrator.  How would a player who couldn't
talk, couldn't wield weapons, and could only walk around naked through =
the
MUD hurt your MUD in any adverse way.  I've heard the mention of
hackers and I ask where they are.  Hackers are busy working on crypto, =
like
they'd ever look twice at a free MUD.

> online at once to when you 4,000 players online at once, or when the
> average age of your player base moves from 25 years to 14 years or
> 40 years.
    Granted underage players sometimes tend to cause more problems than
the rest of the populace and I've had many friends who have been quite
annoying on a MUD or MOO that I've been an admin or wizard on.  But
the point is there are extremely easy ways to implement controls. IE-->
    #1 Someone repeats so only allow them one line per minute
    #2 Someone sends long messages so only allow 240 chars for them
    #3 Someone uses poor language so implement a filter applied to them
    These are all easy to do.  I do them all the time in many forms on =
many
different code bases.  So why is the all powerful ban used?

> Raph has observed in various indirect fashions without concentrating
> on this point, some of the problems they've confronted with Legend
> and UO as the population grew and old methods become inapplicable
    UO is a prime example.  The first 5 minutes in the game I manged to
get snared and killed right in front of a guard.  The guy didn't care at
all that the guard chased him into a dungeon.  This guy was very =
annoying
and probably would have been classified as an annoyance on most muds,
but on UO managed to proliferate like wild fire.

> the list.  For me, there's a certain sense of (regularly questioned
> and re-examined) integrity there.
    And that is something that can be validly applied to the MUD world.
You treat this list like the real world because in essence it is.  We =
are
all part of the list offering our advice and expertise on MUDs, so we
are staying on topic.  You let through all messages that are on topic =
and
filter out those that are not.  The same can be said for a MUD.  =
However,
you don't BAN people from the list.  This is a technique I advocate on =
the
MUD.  Hell, if Matthew Mihaly had implemented some measures to limit
that guys actions in his MUD while still maintaining him as a member =
then
he's just saved 30 more imp's the duty of having to ban them.  Always
keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

    - Justin Rogers, CEO DigiTec Web Consultants





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