[MUD-Dev] Wild west (was Guilds & Politics)

[coder at ibm.net]

On 24/12/97 at 10:13 PM, Stephen Zepp <zoran at enid.com> said:
>JC Lawrence wrote:

>> Seeing as you give no attributions for the relevant quotes its
>> difficult to determine if you are referring to my implemenation or
>> Woolcock's.  ...

>Jeez, man, whatever.  You have some incredible ideas, this list has been
>interesting and somewhat informative, but rather too anal about
>"ownership" of ideas/attribution.  

Writing as list owner:

  You're about to see me on the other side of a bottle of damned find
Cab/Shiraz, a couple pints of the best Belgian ale, and a Muscat that was
to die for.  That, and the advokaat diappeared entirely too quickly.  (My
first and only alcohol in 1997)  So minor apologies for incoherence in
advance.  Aside from that the turkey was totally sozzled after having been
marinating in burgundy for the last couple days...(hey, its a purple
turkey and we don't care).

  I have a variety of reasons for requiring attributions.  As the area has
come under question before and appears to be a slightly surprising thing
to some, some explanation:

  Professionalism and courtesy are probably the biggest drivers.  While
realising that this is predominately a hobbiest medium, its not entirely
amateur.  I also come from a background where amateurs (who religously
deny and refuse any tawdry labelling as "professionals") are often far
more competant and knowledgeable than the working professionals in the
field (ie the British Amateur).  Such professionalism carries with it
characters of accuracy, respect, and precision.  

  Additionally, adding that touch of formality appears to increase the
signal strength as well as promoting greater signal depth.  More chatty
structures seem to lead to lighter, thinner, less incisive signal, which
is counter to the list's charter and purposes.

  Courtesy is a big button with me.  Those without manners are shunned. 
I'd rather not have members shunning other members, to whatever degree
(which has happened on the list a couple times to date).  I'll freely
admit I don't have the best manners, and picked up far to much of the
English studied rudeness.  I'll also admit that this is largely a specious
point in the days of software automated attribution.  

  However, acknowledging the source of an item, acknowledging who said
what, and other such attention to details (see professionalism above)
indicates that you respect the others enough to not only track who said
what, but to care to know what each person did say and that it is them who
said that, not someone else.  It essentially comes down to granting
importance and respect to the other posters.

  I do realise that some members have to manually attribute all their
posts, and that this requires occassionally not insignificant extra work
for them.  They have my respect for sticking with the attributions anyway.

  Another reason for requiring attributions is to make individual postings
a better historical record.  

  This list is archived, and those archives are commonly and regularly
requested.  Many members also maintain their own edited archives of posts
they find interesting.  I regularly wander thru old postings and
ressurrect threads that I felt deserved better treatment.  As has recently
been shown, other members do that as well.  Occassionally those
resurrections are more than a year old.  At such ages many members don't
have the messages which made up those threads as they were before their
time.

  The result is that context for the text in a particular posting becomes
unusually important.  Why did say what?  Who did come up with that idea or
comment in that quoted piece that I now want to comment on?  Where can I
reach them?  To a certain extent this is simple discussion/debate form in
making audits of text/idea sources and ownership possible: You said XXX,
but what about YYY?   

>I for one don't _like_ 5 indents of
>quoted text, and once an idea/mention has been repeated to the list 4
>times, I don't feel it needs to be posted again.  

  Actually, neither do I, and I don't require or request such.  Correct
attribution however has nothing to do with quoting level or the volume of
quotes used.  One could quote and attribute a single sentence fragment and
thoroughly within the rules.  Attributing merely means stating the source
of your quotes, not having to put the quotes in there in the first place. 


  We occassionally get members over quoting in their posts.  We also get
under-quoting.  Both are very validly arguable points.  Until it becomes
actively annoying on either side I'm not going to worry about it.  Much
more would stand to be gained by getting people to change their Subject:
headers with topic changes (I'm a prime offender), and I'm not about to
grandstand on that one either.

>Obviously, you differ
>in your thoughts, but maybe you have nothing better to do than to read
>the same quote 15 times as a thread progresses.  

  I go through about 1,500 emails a day.  I'll let you figure the rest.

>Hell, if I don't
>understand a reference, I look it up in the thread.  Sorta like a
>database that stores info for the last week or something.  

  A mentioned above, regularly quoted material is far older than that.  I
also commonly quote from old postings in answer to current postings. 
Sometimes those older postings are two years old.  I would like those
members with minimal email resources, such as no space to store old
threads, to still be able to function fully within the list.  Such
threading is not always possible, or desirable.  

>I enjoyed it
>while it lasted, got one or two good ideas, thought a couple were way to
>intense for me, but I definately don't have 2 hours a day to match quotes
>against names, or ideas against originators. Unsubscribe me if you like,
>I'll lurk if not.

  The effort required is actually not large on a per-post basis.  As the
other members attribute their quotes. as you reply to their postings their
quotes will have their attributions quoted as well.  All you need do is
merely ensure that there is an attribution line for the new text in the
message you are replying to, essentially a single "Bubba said:...", and
you are done as the other attributions are there already.

  Note: I don't require that you attribute every idea and piece in your
new text, merely what you quote.  It seems there may be some confusion
there.

> Merry Christmas! 

  ...and a happy new year to all!

--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
----------(*)                              Internet: coder at ibm.net
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...