From: dacc@cmp-rt.music.uiuc.edu (Andrew C. Crowell)
Subject: Re: God Conference on Player's Rights
Organization: University of Illinois School of Music
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 20:08:01 GMT

In article <1ierchINN1ib@pith.uoregon.edu> johnm@cajal.uoregon.edu writes:
>As the god of Singlenesia, I have given much thought to the subject of
>players' rights.  I have spoken with other gods who share my concerns.  The
>recent postings concerning the Quicksilver virus on Furry reinforce my belief
>that this is a topic of urgent concern for us all.
>
>Although I do not mud on Furry, I am naturally troubled by the virus itself,
>and the sociopath who released it. I am more troubled, however, by the posting
>of the log generated by the virus, with players' names intact.  This is
>obviously a gross invasion of the players' privacies and rights, an issue that
>has been debated more than once in users' groups.
>
>The posting of the Quicksilver log generated considerable dicussion on
>Singlenesia. As god, I have from Sing's earliest days endeavored to protect
>players' rights to expression, freedom from harrassment, and privacy, in their
>dealing with other players, and with myself and the wizards on Sing.
>
>I think most muds have at least a brief statement regarding this subject, and
>any experienced mudder knows that privacy and rights are tenuous things in vr,
>at best. This is an important issue, however, and becomes more important as vr
>grows and matures. The time has come for gods to speak in a unified voice on
>this topic.
>
>My advisor on Singlenesia proposed that a conference be held to gather the
>gods of other muds, and their wizards, to discuss these issues. I believe such
>a conference would be very beneficial, and hereby invite all gods, wizards,
>and other persons who have an effect on the policies of their worlds to attend
>one I am organizing.

HURRAH!!! While I myself am not a wiz, I can only greet this idea with the
utmost delight. I have argued for some time that MU*s, in many ways, do _not_
resemble games, but are frequently more like small VR communities, and 
have distinct resemblances to societal models, rather than being some sort
of game with rules, objects, and goals.
	You are 100% correct, in my opinion; there needs to be a broad-based
set of standards which social MU*s can draw on, things which govern player
relations, system tampering, programming ethics for the MU*s, and so on. If
it were merely simple games we were dealing with, I'd say this would be quite
superfluous. But places like Furrymuck, Singlenesia, Tapestries, and other
socially-based MU*s I've been on more closely resemble some sort of VR
small town, in which most everyone knows most everyone else, and everyone's
up to something with most everyone else. And, without a goal to this activity,
the end result is that you have something which more resembles RL than, say,
a hack-'n'-slash DIKU, where there are goals and point-tallies.
	I can only wish you the best of luck in this. I've spoken to several
wizzes who've said that "Well, you have whatever rights we choose". I think
that after the Yozduk attack, and with some _serious_ sitting down and looking
at the MU* situation we're in, it's time that that attitude toward player
rights undergo some distinct changes.

D.A.C. Crowell/IvoAttauzh@Furrymuck
Computer Music Project/School of Music
University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
(dacc@cmp-rt.music.uiuc.edu)



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