[MUD-Dev] Interesting EQ rant (very long quote)

[the_logos at www.achaea.com]

On Fri, 23 Feb 2001, John Buehler wrote:

> Ananda Dawnsinger writes:
 
>> The thing is, the "grief player" phenomenon is by no means unique
>> to GoP MUDs.  You find 'em in MUSHes and MOOs.  You find 'em in
>> talkers.  You find 'em in graphical chat services like the Palace.
>> You find 'em in IRC.  You find 'em on Usenet and message boards.
>> Long before the 'Net was opened up to commercial traffic, you could
>> find 'em in places like CompuServe, GEnie, and QuantumLink.
 
> Yes, I *know*.  I've been doing network stuff since 1983 and I've
> *seen* it.  Now please stop citing examples and speak to the topic:
> why do grief players do what they do and can they be actively
> dissuaded?  Sneakily dissuaded?  Stopped outright?  Does it take
> elimination of anonymity?  Some clever application of psychology?  A
> cultural change?  Ignore the fact that you don't believe any of
> these things can happen.  Speculate.  Please.

I've been holding out posting in response to this, John, because I'm
not sure how much or little I agree with you. I think it was Dave
Rickey who posted that the only ways to get rid of grief players was
via "hard" methods (banning, deletion, etc). I completely disagree
with that. Those methods are the most extreme, but certainly there are
"soft" methods of reducing grief players. I don't believe it's
possible to ever stop them outright, but there's no question in my
mind that social engineering can reduce the number of outbursts from
grief players.

These methods might include establishing a culture that reduces
outbursts from grief players due to boredom. It might killing the
grief players with kindness (a surprisingly effective strategy. We had
a grief player once who cheated and irritated everybody constantly,
and instead of banning him I just had a chat with him and explained
why it'd be better for everybody, including him, if he'd behave, and
lo and behold, we seriously never had another problem with him.)

So while I think getting rid of grief players altogether is fighting
against the tide, I think that your goal of reducing them through
'soft' methods is laudable and is not only a possible goal but one
that already has been achieved in some MUDs.

>> If grief playing were a MUD phenomenon, or even a gaming
>> phenomenon, there might well be compelling reason to believe that
>> there's a solution that nobody's found yet.  It's not.  "Grief
>> players" are a feature of online communities and groups in general.
>> Actually, they're a component of all communities and groups -- it's
>> just that restraining orders don't work too well online.
 
> Why, and what has to change to address it?

John Suler, one of The Sapience Group's advisory board members, and a
professor of psychology at Rider has a lot to say on grief
players. His opinions, of course, have the bonus of coming from
someone who has studied psychology intensely.

Check out The Bad Boys of Cyberspace at: 

  http://www.rider.edu/users/suler/psycyber/badboys.html

Part of what he talks about is managing grief players through 'soft'
methods.

--matt



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