[MUD-Dev] Criminalize Community Volunteers?

[Matthew Mihaly]

On Wed, 6 Sep 2000, Zak Jarvis wrote:

> So, there's no way Verant could possibly afford to pay customer service
> representatives what they're worth, but they're perfectly willing to use
> them as volunteers at the absolute front-line of player dissatisfaction and
> hostility?

The nature of true volunteerism (and as there appears to be no coercion,
in any sense of the word, by Verant towards the volunteers) is that it is
a two-way street. The volunteers get _something_ out of it, whether you
choose to recognize it as compensation or not: an ego-stroking by way of
the power involved or bragging to their friends, etc. This is a perfectly
legitimate form of compensation. Do you seriously think that someone like
Bill Clinton (or indeed, most 'leaders') for any reason other than
the power and prestige involved? The income he gets from being President
is really not an issue, and I'm sure some Presidents (such as Dubya if he
wins) would happily just forfeit the measly $250k/year the President gets,
pay rent to stay in the whitehouse, and pay for Air Force I, etc.

Look, the volunteers aren't stupid. They aren't blinding joining some
sweatshop out of necessity. These are, by definition, rich, privileged
people with enough wealth to have regular access to a computer and the
internet, and enough free time to donate their time to an enterprise such
as this. The only thing the AOL volunteers did blindly was let themselves
be consumed by their own greed. They knew what they were getting into.

--matt




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