From: jfurr@polaris.async.vt.edu (J. Furr)
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.misc,rec.games.mud.tiny
Subject: Re: Conference on Admin Ethics (WAS: Conf. on Player's Rights)
Keywords: n
Date: 9 Jan 93 03:08:31 GMT
Organization: Virginia Center for Lemur Fandom, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA (subscribe to alt.fan.lemurs TODAY)

In article <1993Jan8.232754.24969@leland.Stanford.EDU>
snarflrd@leland.Stanford.EDU (traumapuppy) writes:
>In article <1ikr9dINN8rk@pith.uoregon.edu> johnm@cajal.uoregon.edu (John Martin) writes:
>>In article <1993Jan8.193733.16033@leland.Stanford.EDU>, snarflrd@leland.Stanford.EDU (NM156) writes:
>>Your interpretation is correct. The issues and statements made *are*
>>meant to be applied to the population in general, not just to admins
>>and such.
>
>i agree with you 100 percent with that revision, but a statement by the
>administrators to act ethically has no teeth in it to prevent player abuses.
>
>>>the fact is:  wizards are only very rarely the source of rights violations
>>>[it's very pragmatic:  they have other things to do with their time, usually]
>>
>>Well, as an admin, and as a player on a number of muds, my experience
>>does not bear this up. I think that power abuses by wizards are actually
>>rather common.
>
>i was speaking from experience as well ... i retired as wizard on a MU*
>because i found myself chasing after players who were spying on each other,
>stealing privileges, etc... i had no consistent guidelines to point to when
>i caught them to show them that i wasn't the ONLY one who thinks certain
>behaviors are wrong.

To add to what traumapuppy is saying, on the MUCK in question, NewDay, the
head wizard had established a MUCKER_ALL policy.  As a result, traumapuppy
and myself spent most of our time chasing after a few users who had gone
around to every room on the MUCK they could get into and set up dark
spycam objects to record and report what people said and did there.  When
we caught them doing this, they pointed to the "MUCKER policy" which said
"have fun, do what you want, try not to bother others" and rather
self-righteously minced off announcing their intent to go right on doing
what they were doing.  *Then* one of them started posting to USENET
accusing the _wizards_ of doing the spying.  Never mind that we were
generally going around helping people with building and opening up links
and stuff.  Never mind that we couldn't have cared less what the players
did in in their sordid little tinylives.  We were up against three problems:

1) no real policy of any sort telling players what the rules and limits
   really were
2) the belief of the players that they had every _right_ to do everything
   they could not actually be stopped from doing
3) the pervasive belief that all wizards, everywhere, have nothing better
   to do than set ourselves dark and listen to players having tinysex.

It was a hellish little situation.  Lack of firm rules made it ten times
worse than it might otherwise have been. Ditto for the belief that players
have _rights_ and the wizards, even the head wizard, have no _right_ to
interfere with them so long as the players are not explicitly violating
publicly posted rules.  

I've never understood the mentality that the "right to use MUF to spy on
fellow players" somehow has a higher standing than the "right to privacy".

Sigh.