[MUD-Dev] NEWS: Why Virtual Worlds are Designed By Newbies -No, Really! (By R. Bartle)

[Ted L. Chen]

Ola Fosheim Grostad wrote:

> It isn't primarily for leisure. If one are to write something
> formal about MUD-like systems I think one should say something
> about what characteristics one are talking about and what fields
> one are making a contribution to. It is also important to provide
> clear non-bloated definitions so people in a related field can
> read your report without being left in a haze of unclear
> terminology.

In that case "Virtual World" does as well as most umbrella terms
having anything to do with computers.

As a case in point, I did a search for "Computer Optimization" not
too long ago.  This is a comparatively well established field.  Of
all book/papers I came across, 10% dealt with analog computers... a
far cry from any preconceptions I might have had about that field.
However, despite the fact that the term was so broad that it brought
up ancillary research fields, I still view it as a valid one - for
it gave me the largest number of valid hits with the fewest number
of terms.

Attempting to prefix it with say "digital" would obviously reduce
the noise ratio, but more importantly, it would also drastically
reduce the number of valid hits.  So, with regard to the term
"virtual world", it's rather appropriate as I'm rather optimistic
that any such papers about MUD-like systems would refer to one, if
not both of those words somewhere in the body text.

The level of detail that you have been advocating exists at the
sub-discipline level, where we may then discuss and refer to
specific techniques by more strict names such as "Simplex",
"Simulated Annealing", "Markov", etc.  Or similarly Everquest,
Text-MUD, and Graphical-MUD.

Umbrella terms are purposely designed to be vague.  This is how they
can confidently encompass the majority of topics for any given
field.  Whether this jives with your focused subset of that field is
irrelevant.

Ted
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