[MUD-Dev] [Adm] BBSs, Access restrictions...was Logical MUD Areas

[Jon Lambert]

Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:
>

Aside: Speaking of BBSs....(yeah that did come up)
history of online games - Note to Raph Koster:
------
1989 - 'Legends of the Red Dragon' written by Seth Robinson in
TurboPascal - This was a multiplayer hack n slash adventure game
that scaled up to a eight to ten users.  It ran as a BBS door game.
It accomplished this on DOS through some kludgy software interrupt
time-slicing.  Anyways I recall it had both PvP and PvCritter
action.  This game was wildly popular from it's inception until
the decline of BBSs.  I remember redialing and waiting for hours
to get into a slot on the BBSs that ran it.

???? - MajorMUD ... a mud that originated on BBSs (MajorBBS?)
...this one seems important though I've never played it.  I just
_know_ someone on this list has.

198? - Tradewars/Star Traders - Another BBS door game.  This is such
an influential game, at least to me.  This was a multiplayer turn
based space trading game with a bit of combat thrown it.  You couldn't
actually play this at the same time as another player.  You had X
amount of moves per day.  When your moves ran out, somebody else got
a turn.  Yes it was persistent as your merchant and fleet were left
in the game for other players to destroy or destroy them if they
found you.
Some more historical info at:
  http://www.classic-games.com/tradewars/history.html
Greg Miller's page, I do believe.  Sadly there are no hard dates.
--------

Back from the aside....

> It's the right idea, but the wrong argument.
>
> I think it's far more disturbing when people lock intelligent and
> rational human beings out of a forum solely on the basis of age.

I ran two BBSs myself back starting in '85 for about 5 years.  The
first one was a short lived C64 BBS, then an RBBS one running under
IBM's TopView/PC-DOS (anybody remember that).  My actual introduction
to the real internet (as opposed to CServe and QuantumLink) came
around 1993 via another BBS that had a shared gateway.

The BBS world was in many ways completely different than the internet.
Anonymity between you and the sysop was not the rule, rather the
exception.  It was also a more localized community.   IIRC more than
90% of my subscribers were in the same area code if not exchange...
for some pretty obvious reasons of economy (LD phone charges).  Many
of the users I knew personally and many other BBSs at the time were
basically the logical outgrowth of computer clubs.  I ran a lot of
door games, a CB chat channel, a message board, FidoNet feeds, and
various PD/shareware downloadables.

I didn't serve up any content that I considered adult-oriented.
However CB chat was often in that territory.  Nevertheless I required
my users to register under real names and addresses along with a
photocopy of their drivers license in order to get access.  Even then
I required a parent's signature for those under 18.  Each user then
got a handle to use.  The information remained private known only to
me.  This sort of arrangement was not at all uncommon then.

I still consider a mud server that I am running to be analogous to
an invitation to a game in my living room (proprietorship and the
corner shop is also a convenient analogy).   I also hold to the notion
that the general internet space in it's entirety is public space.
So on one hand, I reserve the right to deny access to a mud I run
based on any arbitrary criteria I think are appropriate.  However the
complement, the right to allow access to anyone, specifically minors,
to activities that are considered harmful to them according to community
standards is not inviolable.  It never has been.  Not in the public
spaces of the real world.  Should we be suprised and shocked to find
that the "majority" will also reject that in the public spaces of the
virtual world?

So my position is that the BBS access restrictions that I described
were indeed reasonable then and were in fact in harmony with community
standards.  Not so the internet.  Unfortunately, because of that and in
response to its freedoms being "abused to licentiousness", we have
something called the Child Online Protective Act of 1998 which requires
commercial providers to implement reasonable access restrictions to
minors.

 <quote>
  It is an affirmative defense to prosecution under this section that
  the defendant,  in good faith, has restricted access by minors to
  material that is harmful to minors---
  (A) by requiring use of a credit card, debit account, adult access
  code, or adult  personal identification number;
  (B) by accepting a digital certificate that verifies age; or
  (C) by any other reasonable measures that are feasible under available
  technology.
 <endquote>

These are certainly less imposing than what I and many others
required for BBS access.

In light of that I would like to clarify my position a little though.
First.  I am not at all opposed at all to violence in games, nor am I
opposed to your "intellectual pursuits" argument.  However I do agree that
COPA provides a definition that is fully consistent with most state and
local laws that BBSs found themselves subjected to, albeit at the
federal level.

  <quote>
   (6) MATERIAL THAT IS HARMFUL TO MINORS.---The term 'material that is
   harmful to minors' means any communication, picture, image, graphic
   image file, article, recording, writing, or other matter of any kind
   that is ob-scene or that---
     (A) the average person, applying contemporary community standards,
     would find, taking the material as a whole and with respect to minors,
     is designed to appeal to, or is designed to pander to, the prurient
     interest;
     (B) depicts, describes, or represents, in a manner patently offensive
     with respect to minors, an actual or simulated sexual act or sexual
     contact, an actual or simulated normal or perverted sexual act, or
     a lewd exhibition of the genitals or post-pubescent female breast;
     and
     (C) taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political,
     or scientific value for minors.
   <endquote>

I'd like to point out that this particular law is currently under
judicial review.

> One
> of the most brilliant and thought-provoking speakers on Crimson Tide,
> my old BBS, was TWELVE. There was a significant contingent of people
> in that very 10-17 age range who were smart, well-spoken, and capable
> of very mature intellectual and philosophical discourse. As the SysOp,
> I conspired with these individuals (and others less deserving of the
> consideration) to conceal their ages -- precisely because the *adult*
> members of the various fora would never take them seriously if those
> ages were known.

I'd just like to point out that concealing the ages of minors for one
purpose (philosophical discourse), can have unintended social side-effects
and possibly criminal consequences.  :-(

For example, there was an individual arguing last year in Usenet that it
was his intention to use his mud for the purposes of luring minors into
online sexual activities (i.e. TinySex).  As well as for the further
purposes of meeting them offline.  Conspiring to conceal ages was
certainly a big part of this.  One of the arguments this individual
used for such is in my ObAside below[*]

> While we may point to the graphics and complain about violence and the
> sanctity of human life, all of the above are important lessons, many
> of which would also be learned in the military -- which is widely
> recognised as an excellent place for our young adults to learn the
> skills they need to succeed in their careers! Aren't they the same
> skills? Won't they have the same effect?

Restricting access to minors viewing violent entertainment or violence
in the public space is a fairly recent phenomenon.  I cannot find very
much in the way of cultural tradition that supports it.  I mean prior
to television and the computer.  In short, I'm saying that I agree
with you here on violence, however this is only one half of the argument.

> Why do we have to continue to
> restrict our children to the lessons *we* think are appropriate?

[*]ObAside:
It's my opinion that when that question has been answered...
  "You may _not_ restrict your children to the lessons *you* think are
  appropriate".
That that answer has been one of the greatest contributing factors to
human misery in the last century, and is likely to be repeated again
this century because history isn't being taught at _all_.

> And the increasing danger of the world
> requires us to restrict their activities and their play areas more and
> more every day.

I think the world is far far less dangerous today than it was before.
Oddly enough it's far easier, because of the speed, saturation and
motivation of mass media to whip up mass hysteria that the world _is_
a far more dangerous place.  It's really not.

> Extending your "adult" game to everyone 12 or older will probably
> not bother anyone except their parents... who aren't looking anyway.

I always assume parents are looking.  The easy way out is to assume
they are not then looking.  Should that be an excuse to not provide
the information or access restrictions?  I don't think so.

--
--* Jon A. Lambert - TychoMUD        Email:jlsysinc at ix.netcom.com *--
--* Mud Server Developer's Page <http://tychomud.home.netcom.com> *--
--* If I had known it was harmless, I would have killed it myself.*--


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