HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: peacock5293@iscsvax.uni.edu (Greywolf)
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.misc
Subject: Re: God Conference on Player's Rights
Date: 7 Jan 93 12:40:46 -0600
Followup-To: rec.games.mud.misc
Organization: University of Northern Iowa

In article <103897@netnews.upenn.edu>, lwl@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Lydia Leong) writes:
> 4. I have a tendency to dismiss player complaints about "rights" as
>    paranoia. Some players just don't seem to understand that wizards
>    really don't get any sadistic pleasure from dealing with problem
>    players. Others know that the admins of certain places are
>    untrustworthy, and continue to play there. I find that the players
>    who complain the most about "rights" frequently becomes administrators
>    with little regard for such "rights".
> 
> 5. Under the present system, players have no rights. They have whatever
>    courtesies the administrators of the game choose to extend them; on
>    certain MU*s this is codified into a stated  set of rules. The courtesies
>    which are given vary so widely that I wonder if any conference could
>    come up with a uniform set of guidelines.

Hear, hear!  I've gotten into some rather unpleasant arguments with various
folk before about what "rights" they should have on a MUCK, frequently they
make calls to "freedom of speech" and such, insisting they should be able to do
such things as, say, having TinySex in a public place because it's protected
under "freedom of expression".

NOT!

In a previous message, someone who seemd to differ with the idea that the
wizards/gods are really in charge said that the wizards are merely the ones who
manage the MUCK.  Heh.  It sounds like all they have to do is log on and push a
few buttons and punch their card when it's time to leave or something.  The way
I see it is that players on MUCKs, as far as I know, are getting a free ride. 
Do any of these MU*s charge admission?  The wizzes have a right to set up
whatever rules they want, and kick out anybody who violates them.  Simple as
that.  Of course, there are matters of privacy, alteration of data, and all
that ... but I think a lot of that is already covered by law.
-- 
-Jordan            ..      PEACOCK5293@iscsvax.uni.edu
                  .OO.     Jordan Peacock (Jordan Greywolf)
                  O/\O     (New Address):  1610 Parker
                   --                      Cedar Falls, IA  50613
Xref: sparky rec.games.mud.misc:1781 rec.games.mud.tiny:1209
From: johnm@cajal.uoregon.edu (John Martin)
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.misc,rec.games.mud.tiny
Subject: Re: God Conference on Player's Rights
Date: 6 Jan 1993 18:38:05 GMT
Organization: Institute of Neuroscience, University of Oregon
NNTP-Posting-Host: cajal.uoregon.edu
Keywords: n

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.  

Hmmm... That's a bit extreme....

The reason for this decision was simply because of the sheer number of 
people who are interested. In a group of 100+ people, nothing would
get done at all, and there would be no point to the meeting.

Therefore, the policy-makers of the worlds are invited to actively
participate, and all others are invited to came and watch. I sincerely hope
that you would make your concerns known to your admins, so you can
be represented adequately.

If you have any thoughts on how everyone could be included, and remain
productive, I'd be VERY interested in hearing them. I don't like
excluding *anyone*...

-- 
John Martin                                        johnm@cajal.uoregon.edu
Institute of Neuroscience,   University of Oregon,    Eugene, OR,    97402
Xref: sparky rec.games.mud.misc:1834 rec.games.mud.tiny:1255
From: johnm@cajal.uoregon.edu (John Martin)
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.misc,rec.games.mud.tiny
Subject: Re: Conference on Admin Ethics (WAS: Conf. on Player's Rights)
Keywords: n
Date: 8 Jan 93 21:21:49 GMT
Organization: Institute of Neuroscience, University of Oregon
NNTP-Posting-Host: cajal.uoregon.edu

In article <1993Jan8.193733.16033@leland.Stanford.EDU>, snarflrd@leland.Stanford.EDU (NM156) writes:

>i suppose this would be enough if all "rights" violations on MU*s were
>from wizards who don't KNOW what considerations should be extended to players.
>
>unfortunately, player 'rights' are infringed on by other PLAYERS about ten
>times as often as by wizards.  The reason i was excited about this conference
>initially was that i assumed it would codify that such behavior as spying,
>sexual harrassment, etc... by ANYONE is 'wrong'.

*sigh* This is what I get from too much editing :)

I think my posting alluded to this, but I will clarify the clarification here.
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 concentrated on admins in the posting, because admins/wizards/etc have
a larger amount of ability and opportunity to act in an unethical
fashion.

If a set of ethical rules were made, just from the player's perspective,
it would leave large, important areas uncovered when applied to admins.
Players simply don't have the same abilities. However, if these
statements were made from an admin's perspective, they would apply
equally well to players, without leaving gaps.

>the hard 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.

>basically, i'm looking for something that will CHANGE things, not just allow
>a few "gods"(lower case) to sanctimoniously stroke their own egos.

As am I.

-- 
John Martin                                        johnm@cajal.uoregon.edu
Institute of Neuroscience,   University of Oregon,    Eugene, OR,    97402
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.misc,rec.games.mud.tiny
From: durrell@pinball.arcade.uiowa.edu (Bryant Durrell)
Subject: Re: God Conference on Player's Rights
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 19:17:03 GMT
Organization: University of Iowa

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.  

A few other people pointed out good reasons to exclude players,
mostly cause of the size of such a gathering.  I won't go over
that ground again.

I will recommend that you consider inviting ex-administrators,
since there are certainly some people out there with a good bit
of experience who aren't running a MUD at the moment.  (He said,
none too bashfully.  Heh.)

-- 
Bryant Durrell					   durrell@chop.isca.uiowa.edu
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 I feed on the flesh of the living, and I vote.
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.misc,rec.games.mud.tiny
From: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee)
Subject: Re: Conference on Admin Ethics (WAS: Conf. on Player's Rights)
Keywords: n
Organization: Johns Hopkins University CS Dept.
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 21:32:58 GMT

In article <C0KGq8.4xx@polaris.async.vt.edu> jfurr@polaris.async.vt.edu (J. Furr) writes:
>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.

Um, this might be more due to the policy of letting players set objects dark
than anything else....
--
"On the first day after Christmas my truelove served to me...  Leftover Turkey!
On the second day after Christmas my truelove served to me...  Turkey Casserole
    that she made from Leftover Turkey.
[days 3-4 deleted] ...  Flaming Turkey Wings! ...
   -- Pizza Hut commercial (and M*tlu/A*gic bait)

Ken Arromdee (arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu, arromdee@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu)
From: addey@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (Adam Armstrong)
Subject: Re: Enchilada....?
Organization: /etc/organization
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 22:18:02 GMT

In article <C0pBuy.2Go@acsu.buffalo.edu> wmm@acsu.buffalo.edu (William M. Maciejewski) writes:
>Newsgroups: rec.games.mud
>Subject: Enchilada...?
>Summary: 
>Followup-To: 
>Distribution: world
>Organization: UB
>Keywords: 
>
>I was wondering... what is wrong with the mud at
>enchilada.engr.ucdavis.edu 3000
>when I try to telnet to it i get the message
>"Telnet: connection refused."
>can somebody help me by email? is this a problem with my system or theirs?
>thanks
>-Bill

The mud is down permanently until we find a new site.
One of the old gods who was local to the mud moved to San Fransisco and when
he left, so too did his account.
We did have an agreement with the Sysadmin to run the mud on another account
but we ran into problems with a former god who was denied access to mud
(sharing accounts) after some personal problems arose on the mud itself.
I do not know the full story as to why the mud has been refused, but
I was *told* from another person who lives at the site that this former god
told a few things to the Sysadmin things to go against the muds existance.
So, the mud is as good as dead unless someone can offer a site for the mud.

Addey (Ex-admin of Chrome Blood)
From: bombman@diku.dk (Hans-Henrik St{rfeldt)
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.misc
Subject: Re: Note to any fellow DikuMUD coders...
Date: 4 Jan 93 15:44:12 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, U of Copenhagen

matthew@cs.mun.ca (Matthew J. Newhook) writes:

>stine@handel.psu.edu (Jeffrey Stine) writes:
>> And as I believe was more or less pointed out earlier, programming practices
>>are much a matter of opinion and have less to do with being "good" or "bad".

>Well, I certainly disagree with this.  There is a significant
>difference between bad code and good code. And most of this is _not_
>subjective.  If the code is spaghetti code then it is very hard to work
>with, let alone alter.  All you have to do is work with some terrible
>code for a while and you will get irritated and start cursing this
>'terrible' code.  Of course you do work with the diku code don't you :)

"good" vs "bad" code discussions on news should be forbidden!
It's the never ending story!

For the ones for "good" code:
  Let the idiots who make bad code figure it out for themselves...

For the ones for "bad" code:
  Let the idiots who niffle with the correct indent waste their time...

So that all we other coders can start code!

--Hans Henrik Staerfeldt
-- 
 ___________________________________________________
|            Bombman the mad bomber                 |
|               Bombman@diku.dk                     |
|___________________________________________________|
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.misc
From: dm0@agora.rain.com (Jerry Sievert)
Subject: Admin Conference
Summary: eh?
Keywords: huh?
Organization: Open Communications Forum
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 03:40:14 GMT

Welp, I TRIED to make it back to the admin conference, but I kept getting
"Connection Timed Out."... all I can say is leave it to Oregonians to try
to regulate everything... not only do we have the 4th highest taxes in the
nation, but a stupid governor who's trying to add more taxes, and not only
are there people advocating for the rights of mudders, but we have people
almost litterally fighting it out in the streets over human rights as well.
(anyone remember measure 9?)... anyways, I regret that this Oregonian and
god of muds is really tired and going to bed... could someone send me a
summary?

-DM AKA Jerry

-- 

---

Life - Eh?  Anyways, just to let you know, everything I've said is my own
From: bombman@diku.dk (Hans-Henrik St{rfeldt)
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.misc
Subject: Bill of ???
Keywords: rights priveleges mud gods
Date: 7 Jan 93 16:56:37 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, U of Copenhagen

I have an idear.
Since most of what is to be stated in the document to be, is
a standart set of priveleges that Admins/Gods/whomever agree 
to exend to their users, i propose to rename it ;

               "Players Bill of Priveleges" 

As this is in fact what it will be.

There is no way (in the near future) that what we are going
to make a set of "rights", so lets call it by its real name.

-------------------------------------------------------------

There have been talk about right to prevent other from seeing
the things you create as wiz/area-builder etc.
I will take the example with the company (and the dresscodes) 
up. Is it not the company's right to look at the work you do 
for them ? Hmm?

Anoher issue is the right to areas :)

--HHS

ps. excuse my writing he 't' key i bad!
-- 
 ___________________________________________________
|            Bombman the mad bomber                 |
|               Bombman@diku.dk                     |
|___________________________________________________|
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.misc
From: brumleve@iboga (Dan Brumleve)
Subject: Re: God Conference on Player's Rights
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 23:48:29 GMT

arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee) writes:

>In article <1993Jan12.004812.13264@wixer.cactus.org> rhodesia@wixer.cactus.org (Felix S. Gallo) writes:
>>You're utterly wrong.  No country exists where someone cannot be expelled
>>from private property by the owner of that property.

>>Ever heard of "bouncers"?  Or "mall cops"?  Get out of the house much?

>Ironically, the courts have made some rulings about malls that I gather you
>would not much like.

>And if I own and run a restaurant, and try to expel someone whose skin color I
>dislike, I will find myself in a lot of hot water.  I can decide to close the
>restaurant down entirely, but I cannot legally choose to selectively admit
>whites but not blacks.

If I run a tavern in the Kakhrali merchants' district, I can damn well not
serve rotten, thieving elves if I please.  But of course, since no
MUD administrator can possibly know anything about the player to begin
with (other than his/her name/description)), this analogy doesn't hold
up.  I do think that a player shouldn't be refused from a MUD (or any
Internet service, or any service at all for that matter) on the basis of
his/her real life race.  The problem with giving players "rights" like
is that it would be impossible to prove, and there would be complains like
"The Administrator of MUD X wouldn't let me in because he KNOWS I'm
Chinese in real life".  Not that Congress would pass such a bill anyway,
assuming they were aware of anything about the Internet other than its
existence.  

>--
>"On the first day after Christmas my truelove served to me...  Leftover Turkey!
>On the second day after Christmas my truelove served to me...  Turkey Casserole
>    that she made from Leftover Turkey.
>[days 3-4 deleted] ...  Flaming Turkey Wings! ...
>   -- Pizza Hut commercial (and M*tlu/A*gic bait)

>Ken Arromdee (arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu, arromdee@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu)

-Dan
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud,rec.games.mud.tiny,rec.games.mud.misc
From: rhodesia@wixer.cactus.org (Felix S. Gallo)
Subject: Re: God Conference on Player's Rights
Followup-To: rec.games.mud,rec.games.mud.tiny,rec.games.mud.misc
Organization: Real/Time Communications
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 05:59:45 GMT

fihsu@athena.mit.edu (Hsu I-wei) writes:

>Worst that could happen? Several hours of arguing and getting nowhere. And on
>the other side of the spectrum, drafting a "bill of rights" that eventually
>gains acceptance to the point where it becomes a part of mud FAQ. (Though if
>I'm not mistaken the person who writes up the FAQ is also a wizard of
>Dreamscape, in which case the most the proponents could hope for is general
>acceptance by mud admins ;) 

I wrote quite a bit of the FAQ, including all the little bits about what
one should expect and what one should or should not do.  I can speak
definitively when I say that a "bill of players' rights" won't ever make
it into the FAQ, because it would be extremely subjective and not
universally accepted.

It wouldn't fail to make it into the FAQ due to cliqueishness or the
like; heck, we *do* mention LP briefly, don't we?

>;) 'course the quickest thing would be just to tell the players they have no
>rights, but I'd imagine it would be hard to get your mud popular that way.
>(Dreamscape being the exception to this. :)

You have all sorts of rights when you arrive on Space Madness (DreamScape
doesn't exist any more).  For instance, you have the right to type
'QUIT', the right to whine to Random, and the right to act like a human
being.  Nobody's ever gone wrong doing #1 or #3, and #2 has worked
on occasion.

>
>Francis
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Felix Sebastian Gallo                              rhodesia@wixer.cactus.org
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud,rec.games.mud.tiny
From: rick@eaglet.rain.com (Rick Lindsley)
Subject: Re: Conference on Player's Rights
Organization: Quagmire Annex
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 09:43:00 GMT

Players have one basic right: to know what to expect on the mud they
play on. If a mud makes an explicitly claim to privacy, then they
certainly should expect that. If a mud specifically disavows privacy,
then they should know that too.

On Ragnarok, we've set down some rules which we feel balance the needs
between players/guests and gods/administrators. The rules are even tougher
for wizards. Justice is not blind, but when needed, punishment is swift
and to the point. And I've heard several comments from players that
they generally like the clique-less-ness and even-handed approach.

And oddly enough, justice and punishment have only rarely been needed.
I guess it is true that people live up or down to the expectations you
have of them.

Rodolf
God of Who, Ragnarok
Final Arbiter of Player and Wizard Disputes
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud,rec.games.mud.tiny,rec.games.mud.misc
From: gregb@wombat.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Snooze)
Subject: Re: God Conference on Player's Rights
Organization: /home/fsg/gregb/.organization
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 18:07:18 GMT

*laughs*
Players have rights? Since when?

Snooze
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud,rec.games.mud.tiny,rec.games.mud.misc
From: jmorrill@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (John M Morrill)
Subject: Re: God Conference on Player's Rights
Organization: The Ohio State University
 writes:
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 15:38:54 GMT

Very well put!!!! Thank you. I had on my word process an article that used
three pages to say the same thing. Players do have ETHICAL rights.
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Strange problems call for strange solutions.
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud,rec.games.mud.tiny,rec.games.mud.misc
From: durrell@pinball.arcade.uiowa.edu (Bryant Durrell)
Subject: Re: God Conference on Player's Rights
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 00:18:52 GMT
Organization: University of Iowa

In article <C0HxFy.Lz3@math.okstate.edu> russ@math.okstate.edu (R. Nomad) writes:
>In <1993Jan7.163218.27028@athena.mit.edu> fihsu@athena.mit.edu (Hsu I-wei) writes:
>>Dreamscape, in which case the most the proponents could hope for is general
> ^^^^^^^^^^
>doesn't exist

>>(Dreamscape being the exception to this. :)
>  ^^^^^^^^^^
>doesn't exist

Just goes to show how influential we dinos are these days.  <grin>
At least we still make Jim Miller paranoid...

(oh yeah?  well, i remember when dirque wasn't a studmuffin!)

-- 
Bryant Durrell					   durrell@chop.isca.uiowa.edu
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 I feed on the flesh of the living, and I vote.
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud,rec.games.mud.tiny,rec.games.mud.misc
From: rhodesia@wixer.cactus.org (Felix S. Gallo)
Subject: Re: God Conference on Player's Rights
Followup-To: rec.games.mud,rec.games.mud.tiny,rec.games.mud.misc
Organization: Real/Time Communications
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 06:05:10 GMT

snarflrd@leland.Stanford.EDU (NM156) writes:

>1)  A Player on this MU* has the right to private communication with another
>    player.  Players have the right to know when others are receiving what
>    they type, either explicitly (a message like:  'trauma is listening to
>    you') or implicitly (a sign saying: 'Public broadcast room')
>      Penalty for violation:
>        by players:  MIN:  informing all parties involved, if incident was
>                           accidental/from ignorance
>                     MAX:  removal from MU* [permanent], posting name to net.
>        by wizards:  MIN:  de-wizzing.
>                     MAX:  same as for players.

Quite a large number of newbies are posting on this issue, and I'd like
to make something absolutely clear.

1) There is no Commissioner of Mudding.  Muds do not undergo peer review, and
there are no mudder's courts or league officials which exist to provide
for matters such as this.  If I bring up a mud and spy on you, then you're
SOL.  Nobody can "de-wiz" me, nobody can "remove me from the mud," and
posting my name to the net is not exactly going to worry me much.

2) There is almost no way on earth to find out if someone has been spying
on someone else.  This applies especially to wizards, who, if they're bright
and somewhat inclined, can edit the source code of the server to tell them
whatever they want.

>2)  A Player on this MU* has the same rights and potential as any other player.
>    Any player should be able to rise to the level of any other given time
>    and effort.  Nepotism is bad.
>      Penalty for violation:
>...etc...

Clearly, you live in a completely different universe.

>i'm sure the specifics above are going to be controvercial, but the concept
>is sound:  a base level of treatment that one can expect from the MU*, if
>it publicly claims to subscribe to the convention.
>May i suggest that someone draw up such a prelimnary draft BEFORE the meeting,
>so we can debate the specifics there?  (writing something from scratch in a
>committee is a logical impossibility.)
>
>traumahound.
>-- 
>Ingredients: chopped pork shoulder with ham, salt, water, sugar, sodium
>             nitrate, snarflrd@leland.stanford.edu


-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Felix Sebastian Gallo                              rhodesia@wixer.cactus.org
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud,rec.games.mud.tiny,rec.games.mud.misc