From: whale@leland.Stanford.EDU (Stephen Schmidt)
Subject: Re: Transcript of the "God Conference on Players' Rights"
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 09:38:59 GMT

My thoughts on the Ethics Conference: I attended about 1/3 of it, and
read through the transcript. (Yes, someone read the whole thing. ;)

Disclaimer: I'm an LP person, never connected to anything else before
tonight. So I'm biased in the direction of what that technology can do,
though by ignorance rather than by preference.

Disclaimer 2: These opinions are my own and do not reflect policy of
TMI-2, where I am an admin.

1. The absolute most that this group could hope to do is to present a list
of suggestions (or several lists) of guidelines for ethical conduct. This
list would have absolutely no authority on any MUD whatsoever unless that
MUD chose to adopt those guidelines. Several people seemed to be forgetting
that. Unless the group is kept as inclusive as possible, with free expression
of opinion by anyone, those suggestions will carry little weight, if any.

2. The responsibility for what happens on a MUD is ultimately on the head
of the person on whose account the MUD runs. That being the case, that person
must have the right to set guidelines for MUD behavior and the right to
exclude from the MUD any player who willfully violates them.

3. Each MUD should carefully state its rules, or guidelines, in a place which
can be immediately accessed by any player at any time. I say "should" rather
than "must" because no one has the authority to force a MUD God to do so if
he doesn't want to. I put this forward as a suggestion to all MUD Gods based
on the collective experience of former Gods. I think all other specific
policy recommendations (on snooping, logging, whatever) need to be recognized
as the same: suggestions based on past experience, rather than as Rights or
Laws or what have you.

4. That said, the responsibility for knowing the guidelines of ethics is
with each individual player. Ignorance of the rules is not an excuse. Even
if the rules are NOT publicly posted, responsibility STILL lies on the player
rather than on the MUD God. If you don't know, ask; if you aren't certain,
don't do it.

5. The analogy between the rights of a MUD player and the rights of a shopper
in a mall is flawed, because the laws of the US (and I presume other countries)
are not the same in the two cases. Anything that happens on a MUD that doesn't
violate the law is at least potentially acceptable, if the MUD God decrees it
so. I don't think any of the proposed "Rights violations" actually violate
existing laws, although I am not a lawyer and may be wrong on this. Anything
that doesn't violate the law is just between the MUD God and the players.

6. With all respect to my colleague Buddha, I see no reason why the same
ethical guidelines would not serve on a MUCK and a MOO and a Diku and an
LP. The two things that would differ are 1) the software needed to implement
those guidelines and 2) the expectations of players about what will constitute
ethical behavior in the environment. That too has to be left up to the
individual MUD Gods. Gods that set unpopular guidelines will find themselves
without players; I see no reason not to let the market speak for itself. (I
am an economist by trade, so now you see my bias creep in. :)

7. I think that the general flow of discussion should take place in the most
public forum possible, which I believe is this newsgroup. I agree with Buddha
that smaller groups should meet to discuss specific issues, but I would like
to see those meetings open to the public and announced beforehand on this
newsgroup.

8. I have no comments at this time on snooping, logging, etc. as I think
those issues should properly be left up to the God of each MUD. If anyone
wants my personal opinions, they are welcome to ask, but I warn you that
they aren't worth very much.  :)

-- 
Steve Schmidt			<><		   whale@leland.stanford.edu
I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist
indoctrination, Communist subversion, and the international Communist
conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids!
Xref: sparky rec.games.mud.admin:1071 news.admin.policy:1103 alt.fan.furry:2636