[MUD-Dev] Free Speech

[J C Lawrence]

On Mon, 22 May 2000 20:36:18 -0500 
Jeff Freeman <SkeptAck at antisocial.com> wrote:

> All fairly bizarre, and about the best argument I've come up with
> is "Er...  no, you're completely wrong, even though you're a
> lawyer and I'm not.  Uh...  trust me."

I suspect that you lawyer friend is considering you MUD, to some
extent, in the manner of a common or public carrier, or at least a
public venue (all of which have very extensive and exacting legal
definitions and implications).  Ask him.  Then ask him, "Were the
MUD instead your living room and the people there your guests at a
party, would the same strictures and controls exist, and if not, why
not?"  I'm interested in his answer.

Remember, free speech does not mean free printing presses (in the
US).

It is for these reasons, and a host related that chunks of the
verbiage at the list page (see URL below in the list signature) are
there.  All the stuff about my living room, it being a private list,
etc line up in this regard as do some of the policies.  Its a matter
of setting expectations.  Its also a matter of defining what a
player's (or in this case list member's) "rights" are, or at least
their "reasonable expectations" (which under US law can be very
close to a "right").

Character and group morality.  What is the character of your MUD?
What sorts of activities do people consider "acceptable" there as
versus "unacceptable"?  Why?  What makes those things considered
"acceptable" there, and other things "unacceptable"?  And more
importantly, how did you create and define that, or fail to?

What are their expectations?  What is the sense of group and group
expectation?  Where did it come from?

Given a fully established the character for a game, and therefore a
basic group morality of its players (which tends to get picked up by
osmosis in monkey-see-monkey-do), this sort of things doesn't tend
to happen for the simple reason that those players would have been
embarrassed to do such in your games and/or would never have thought
of it in the first place (even if they did it elsewhere).

Were they in a church would they have done the same thing?  Were
they in your living room?  On this list?  Why?

--
J C Lawrence                              Internet: claw at kanga.nu
----------(*)                            Internet: coder at kanga.nu
...Honorary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...


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