[MUD-Dev] Criminalize Community Volunteers?

[Greg Underwood]

Resending this from a couple days ago.  Forgot Eudora didn't do the
attributions correctly (bouncy messages!).  Sorry about the delay.  :P

At 09:37 AM 9/7/00 -0700, Brian 'Psychochild' Green wrote:
>Greg Underwood wrote:
> 
>> How do you think the Linux movement gets things done?  Sure, some people
>> get paid for their work, but the vast majority of the code distributed by
>> Red Hat was not paid for by Red Hat.  Is their model non-viable?
>
>Oops, shot yourself in the foot on this one.  Red Hat does not sell the
>code.  It's business plan is based on selling everything related to the
>code.  They sell a convenient packaging of a version of the Linux
>operating system.  They sell printed manuals.  They sell customer
>service to help you with your problems.  They don't sell the code/OS
>itself; in fact, that would be stupid since any yahoo can find and
>download all the code online.

True.  Let me re-phrase.  Red Hat relies heavily on volunteer work to
produce a significant portion of what they make money off of.  They don't
sell the donated code, but the donated code allows them to make money.  My
understanding is that the AOL suit is worded similarly.  AOL didn't sell
the content of their chat forums, but they made money off the volunteer's
contributing it.  I don't see a difference.

Please correct me if I misunderstand the nature of the suit.

>To quote one of the Laws:
>
>"Is it a game?  It's a SERVICE. Not a game. It's a WORLD. Not a game.
>It's a COMMUNITY. Not a game. [...]"
>
>Notice that MUDs are not games, they are services.  People pay to play
>our games because they expect service.  Volutneers are providing a large
>part of that service for us.  And we've done worse than take advantage
>of them, we've come to rely on them and even take them for granted.

True, but if we are, in fact, creating a community, we can not be the sole
providers of content.  A community is, by definition, of the people, by the
people and for the people (to quote some paper I read somewhere).  I feel
that creating a community necessitates volunteerism at some level.  Our
local communities (neighborhoods, etc) would not function without the
dedicated efforts of volunteers.

The mistake AOL, Verant, UO, and etc. made was to attempt to compensate
their volunteers with any real-world money.  I agree with the law suit...
but I disagree that it means the end of volunteerism.  It just means the
end of partially real-world compensated volunteerism.  As long as in-game
items (powers granted, eq given, etc) have no real world value, reward the
volunteers with that.  Or reward them with some way to truely affect the
virtual community you have created.  Allow them to be city planners,
building designers, etc.  Yes, it's a risk, but again, with a real
community, there is always risk.  Creating the opportunity for risk is what
I feel Muds and their ilk is all about.  Creating a place for people to
explore what makes us people.

>(As a side note, I'll also
>point out that Red Hat set aside some shares from its IPO for those
>involved in the Linux community.  When's the last time we offered any of
>our volunteers stock options?)

Maybe not a bad idea?

>The people who work on Linux also get something tangible out of it. 
>They get a working OS that at least partially meets their expectations. 
>They get the ability to share ideas with other people to improve the
>OS.  They get the ability to fix bugs that affect them, and submit them
>for approval into the next update.

True, and volunteers with the power to change their world get the same
sense of accomplishment when their city opens, and the players flock to
marvel at one of them has created.

>  Tell me, what do the Meridian 59
>volunteers who gave 3+ years to the game have to show for their efforts
>now?  Name me anything beyond "customer service experience" they
>couldn't have gotten if they had just a player on the game.

I can't comment on that.  Never played M59, and really don't know anything
about it's current status.  Probably a gaping hole in my Mud experience,
but there it is.

However, the question I think you are asking is, what does a virtual
community volunteer have to show for his/her work after the Mud comes down?
 *shrug*  what does anyone have to show when their world ends.  That's
life.  That's what the game is all about.  It's not the end result, but the
journey there.  To be able to even capture the tiniest part of the essence
of real life, and transmit it to the rest of humanity is the nature of Art
itself.  The thought of moving computer games into the realm of accepted
art is part of why I'm interested in this field.

guess I got on a bit of a rant there.  Oh well.  :)

-Greg




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