From: beeman@cats.ucsc.edu (Adam Beeman)
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.misc,rec.games.mud.tiny
Subject: Re: God Conference on Player's Rights
Date: 6 Jan 1993 19:42:09 GMT
Organization: University of California; Santa Cruz
NNTP-Posting-Host: am.ucsc.edu


In article <C0G1wF.74M@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu> msjle@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (Joi L. Ellis) writes:
>johnm@cajal.uoregon.edu (John Martin) writes:

>[snip]
>>The goal of the conference will be to draft a general "player's bill of
>>rights" of sorts. This document would be developed by the attendees and will
>>be posted in these newsgroups, along with the names of the gods (and their
>>muds) who agree to implement the document in their worlds.
>[snip]
>>Players are also welcome. When the time and date are set, a notice will be
>>posted here to that effect. The conference will be open to spectators.
>>However, due to the expected number of people, players will be non-participant
>>observers and will watch from a spectators' room.  It is hoped that players
>>will provide more specific feedback to the gods and wizards of their own
>>worlds.
>
>Why are you EXCLUDING the PLAYERS!?  THEY are the ones who are directly
>affected by any policy decisions you make.  Who do you think you are to
>exlude the very people you are directly affecting?  This is like a bunch
>of whites getting together to dicide what rights they're going to allow
>the minorities to have.  
>

Not only is there the fact that with 100 people in a room shouting to be heard,
it will be chaotic, but to include the players is sort of like asking an 
entire college's student population what rules you, the administration,
ought to enforce.  I can see the cries for "the right to the admin's home
phone number" and "the right to never be banished" and "the right to annoy"
and so on... basically people who have never run a mud are more likely to 
propose things that are difficult to implement, take control of the mud away
from the administration, etc.  

This sort of ties into the obligations of the admins, and there was a brief
reprise of that issue just recently, over on rec.games.mud.misc, in
which Raistlin of Darker Realms posted a viewpoint I am often inclined to
agree with: 

(from john@stat.tamu.edu)
   "Muds are not a players right, and administrators are in no way obliged
   to do or give ANYTHING for or to a player.  If you feel otherwise,
   then you're gravely mistaken.  Muds are not the property of the
   players.  It is not a player's RIGHT to play ANY mud in the world, it
   is their privilege.  Also, players have NO rights WHAT SO EVER on ANY
   mud, other than those given to them by the rules and laws of the game.
   Sadly, players tend to forget this, and scream and holler and post to
   NetNews when they feel they have been "wronged" for being banished for
   breaking the rules of the game, or getting into an argument with, in
   their opinion, a "rude" administrator."

This viewpoint is strongly biased towards the admin who owns the mud account,
etc., and in this case, the admin has no obligation to give the players any
rights at all!  However, there may be, in the future, more "community-owned"
muds, where the "one admin who owns the mud and has the final say" isn't the
case.  Also there is the fact that a set of "rights" can make the mud much
more appealing to players.

As an admin, I would be very apprehensive about such a "bill of rights" until
I know how hard to support it will be.  If it dictates a million ways to
take up my time enforcing these rights, etc, then I am inclined to say no to
it.  However, I am interested in what sort of document will be drafted, in
a way it reminds me of a virtual Constitutional Convention, so I may attend...



>I hope I never find  myself on one of your muds!

You probably will.  Worse yet, you will probably find yourself on a mud run
by someone who does whatever he damn well pleases... like me... although 
while players have no rights on most muds, this doesn't mean us admins go
around imprisoning and banishing folks to soothe our egos...

>
>>                -Zalcor@Singlenesia
>>                 singlenesia@cajal.uoregon.edu
>>-- 
>>John Martin                                        johnm@cajal.uoregon.edu
>>Institute of Neuroscience,   University of Oregon,    Eugene, OR,    97402
>-- 
>Joi Ellis                      msjle@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu
>Student Residential Programs   Western Illinois University

-Adam Beeman / Buddha@tmi-2

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