From: kinsman@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca (Aphoriel/Kinsman)
Subject: Re: God Conference on Player's Rights
Organization: University of New Brunswick
Distribution: rec.games.mud, rec.games.mud.lp, rec.games.mud.misc
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 02:57:25 GMT

In article <C0GHpJ.M5M@ais.org> jgm@ais.org (jim miller) writes:
>
>kinsman@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca (Aphoriel/Kinsman) writes:
>
>>In article <C0G1wF.74M@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu> msjle@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (Joi L. Ellis) writes:
>>>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.  
>>>
>>>I hope I never find  myself on one of your muds!
>
>>As creators and administrators of their MUD, they are the ones in charge and
>>do in fact have the right to determine the rights of players. (I believe 
>    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>Raistlin of Darker Realms has some good points about this a few days ago.)
>
>
>The underlined text is ridiculous.  "Gods", self-gratifyingly named to
>begin with, are no more ethically gifted than any other mud user.  They
>are just the people who maintain the mud.  If you're not arguing from
>this standpoint, and instead claiming that because they are the maintainers,
>their opinions and decisions have more weight in drafting this so-called
>players' bill of rights....this devolves into the "it's my mud, you will
>follow my rules here" axiom that we have been oh so blessed with
>reading in this fine forum many a time.  It would take great pomposity
>to apply that argument to this project.
>



D
John Martin recently posted a message clarifying what he meant by 'rights',
the basic human rights we appreciate in RL but do not necesscarily
appreciate in MUD worlds.  The rights I spoke of (erringly) were the rights
as players in a game i.e.) teleporting players to the shop as a command,
the penalties of resurrection in LP/DIKU, and so forth.  In these cases,
creators/administrators (I did not *use* the term Gods) will have their
opinions, and create a MUD idyllic or cruel, as to their preference.
What I meant (which now is a moot point with John Martin's clarification)
was that creators/admins, with the access to resources that players do
not, should be the ones with the *priveliged* say (not the sole one)
in determining what MUD practices were grossly unfair, and so forth.
---
But anyhow, just ignore everything I said before this point.  This is mostly
about human rights, and I agree that talking about rights as players is
silly and flippant.

>This is supposed to be a universal statement of ethical policy?  Everyone
>who wants to must have an equal voice.  Mud maintainers have not been
>endowed with the right to be our delegates in this matter, just because
>they ftp'ed some files and let us access some ports on their machines.
>

Dd
Someone needs to be delegates, otherwise this conference would become
unwieldly.  A whole slew of people with an equal voice becomes chaos
in they are all put in the same place.  This conference needs to be organized
to be effective, and to be organized authority is required.  Mud maintainers
seem to have been selected as default authority figures.  I think it is a
reasonable choice: they do perform a good deal of work to produce and maintain
a MUD (you are glossing over their efforts with your remark about ftp and 
port access) and would be in the best position to note and deal with matters
of human rights enforcment and violation.

I suppose that this would be a universal statement of political policy,
not ethical policy...

C
D
>>of players, go to the gods and wizards of your specific mud, as he suggests.
>>
>>Your comments seem to imply you consider MUD players to be somehow 'oppressed'.
>>This is not quite true.  The conference is not here to semi-liberate chained
>>players, but rather to take the priveliges (sp?) players have been given and
>>make rulings to lock and secure them so that players can claim that their
>>vr characters are being violated without fear of being merely dismissed.
>>
>>I do have a suggestion, though.  Points may come up during the conference
>>which I might wish to comment on, those points not having been made during
>>personal conversations with my own gods and wizards.  Would it not be
>>simple and inobtrusive programming to give each of the (likely numerous)
>>spectators a like/dislike buzzer?  This would likely give the conference    
>>at atmosphere similar to the French Revolution (angry roaring crowds drowning
>>out the elegant positings of the aristocracy and all that) but this archaic
>>from of democracy would likely be better that sitting in the spectator room
>>and hoping to God the wizards aren't really going to go through with what
>>they're chatting about in there...
>
>
>I have a better suggestion.  Let the Usenet mud* groups be the forum
>in which these issues are discussed.  No one is accorded any more
>power than anyone else, everyone can be heard, and eventually, through
>a process similar to the formation of a new newsgroup, some statement
>can be drawn up and discussed.
>

Hmm.. we seem to be doing this right now... :)
The conference will allow people to speak in realtime and in large groups,
and will allow us to speak without misinterpretation or confusion.

>-jim
>
>-- 
>* My 3 rules for meeting women *
>1.  Seek simple women with common sense and a capacity for commitment.
>2.  Stay away from women entangled in *any* way with another man.  Apply
>    the word "entangle" broadly, and don't let them fool you.

[Sorry if my editor seems to be chewing this message up.]
-Aphoriel/Kinsman
-Sean Givan
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.misc