[MUD-Dev] Mud governance

[coder at ibm.net]

On 20/10/97 at 09:53 AM, "Travis Casey" <efindel at polaris.net> said:
>Koster, Raph <rkoster at origin.ea.com> wrote:

>>Hi guys, I'm looking for documents on mud governance and
>>administration, and you're the best bunch to ask. Things like the
>>section of Javelin's PennMUSH document covering tips for mud admins,
>>or Amberyl's Wizard Ethics document (which I haven't been able to
>>locate, ftp.tinymush.org never seems to connect). This is for the
>>purpose of educating new admin staff... I also intend to salt 'em with
>>a few things like Dibbell's Village Voice article, Bartle's paper, and
>>the log of the Black Rose incident (as a negative example). Got any
>>other favorites?

I'd also reference Lorry's various polemics and musings on Wizardhood and
the early MIST days in particular.  He is one very non-stupid individual. 
Read with a large grain of salt, and then realise that he actually means
exactly and very literally, what he writes, and not what he appears to
imply and infer (thus JeffK's confusion and final rejection of him).

Other goodies might include some of the early discussion on MOO-Cows (I
think there's still an archive about somewhere -- I certainly don't have a
copy alas).  The recently Gods list has also had some extremely
RP/social-milleau based discussions on management styles and handling of
staff on MUSHes.  I can provide a full dump of the Gods traffic to date if
wished and let you sort out from there what you want.

Note: The Gods list also exeplifies many of the strengths and weaknesses
of the Black Rose log in a different venue, with some well articulated
arguments for and against.  Some good reading in there if you wade long
enough.

The Habitat papers are also very good reading (I posted them here), but
I'm sure you're familiar with these already.

Finally, the very very early days of this least (back in the CC days) had
fairly extensive debate on the deliniation between social/administrative
problems and technical solutions.  I, in particular, drew and still draw
that line very hard.  If wished I can send you a dump of that traffic
(unsorted, unthreaded, etc, you pick out the gems from the dreck).

>I've never heard of the Black Rose incident... anyone care to elaborate
>in email?

I posted the Black Rose incident here a short while ago.  Essentially it
was a long and rambling log of a discussion between members of the Black
Rose gang (a group of PK'ers on a MUSH) and an Admin on the validity of
their wish to PK and its effects on the game.

Mostly it was a strong proof of the ineffectualness of attempting to
govern by concensus.

>>ObDiscussionTopic: to what extent should mud governance be an issue in
>>server design? And related to that, what then needs to be implicit in
>>the server design to support governance by an administrative staff?

>I'd say it really depends on the people designing the mud.  Some on this
>list want their muds to have no administrative governance and want any
>player governance to be done through in-game means rather than external
>means (e.g., they don't want to grant any special powers to certain
>players to help them govern).

The Habitat papers, and in particular the discussions on money and guns
argue both sides of this case nicely.

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