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<H1>RE: [MUD-Dev] Trouble Makers or Regular Citizens</H1>
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<LI><em>To</em>: <<A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A>></LI>
<LI><em>Subject</em>: RE: [MUD-Dev] Trouble Makers or Regular Citizens</LI>
<LI><em>From</em>: "Zak Jarvis" <<A HREF="mailto:zak#voidmonster,com">zak#voidmonster,com</A>></LI>
<LI><em>Date</em>: Mon, 10 Apr 2000 02:16:58 -0700</LI>
<LI><em>Importance</em>: Normal</LI>
<LI><em>Reply-To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI>
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<PRE>
> From: mud-dev-admin#kanga,nu [<A HREF="mailto:mud-dev-admin#kanga,nu]On">mailto:mud-dev-admin#kanga,nu]On</A> Behalf Of
> Jon Lambert
> Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2000 10:34 PM
> I've always thought that diversity is antithetical to community building.
> Strong communities form because of commonly held values. The more
> diverse a community is the less commonly held values it has. The less
I could easily go off on any number of tangents about the semantics of Community, Value, Productivity and Diversity. One of my failings is an excessive tendency towards precise language, and in actively thwarting my tendency to do that, I might occasionally be less precise than I'd like. So if I tend to spiral off into word meanings, it's not necessarily anyone's fault but my own. But I digress.
While I do believe the quoted argument can be made successfully, it strikes me that the utility of it is less in understanding the overarching social group of a MUD than understanding individual groups within it. I've seen very few places where people congregate in groups larger than 3 where more than one community didn't form.
Most functioning communities have specialized organs for specific tasks that face it and often those organs can be quite separate. Chimney sweeps, shamen, clothes washers, sociologists, game designers, fishermen, teachers, mummers, troubadours -- each often represents its own micro-community, yet is still linked to the larger community, which in turn is perhaps linked to a larger one still. The chain can become fascinatingly long and eventually encompass radically diverse groups.
As Ola pointed out, as a species, we're not fond of change, and diversity, change and the sense of 'other' are inextricably bound up together. The flipside of that, however, is that change has talismanic power over us and we have an innate interest -- regardless how sublimated -- in seeing change. We protect ourselves against it by making ourselves voyeurs to change. Disaster movies, car wrecks, Fox specials (sorry non-Americans, you're not missing much in that reference, trust me), they're all popular because they let us see choices, decisions or happenstance that we didn't take part in -- to vicariously experience them. Car wreck psychology has (I'm sure) been discussed elsewhere and no doubt a good deal more informatively and eloquently than I am now, but it's illustrative of a point I've been wending my way towards.
Very often, MUDs (and I use that in the broadest, most general sense) play host to vicarious entertainment. There is a fundamental crisis of structure, cohesion and social harmony because the environment is *virtual*. My sense is that trying ever harder to impose order is going to push the designer more and more towards the role of despot. Sure, he's a local folk-hero to this day, but history has painted Vlad Tepes as something of a monster, regardless of how effectively he governed his country. A better approach is to recognize, augment and direct the natural processes that happen in virtual environments.
Ehh. I've probably rambled well and truly enough for one night. Hopefully I got to what I meant to say.
-Zak Jarvis
<A HREF="http://www.voidmonster.com">http://www.voidmonster.com</A>
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<li><strong><A NAME="00556" HREF="msg00556.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Trouble Makers or Regular Citizens</A></strong>
<ul compact><li><em>From:</em> J C Lawrence <claw@cp.net></li></ul>
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<LI><STRONG><A NAME="00104" HREF="msg00104.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Trouble Makers or Regular Citizens</A></STRONG>
<UL><LI><EM>From:</EM> "Jon Lambert" <jlsysinc@ix.netcom.com></LI></UL></LI>
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<LI><STRONG>RE: [MUD-Dev] Trouble Makers or Regular Citizens</STRONG>, <EM>(continued)</EM>
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<LI><strong><A NAME="00170" HREF="msg00170.html">RE: [MUD-Dev] Trouble Makers or Regular Citizens</A></strong>,
David Bennett <a href="mailto:ddt@discworld.imaginary.com">ddt@discworld.imaginary.com</a>, Tue 11 Apr 2000, 18:46 GMT
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<LI><strong><A NAME="00173" HREF="msg00173.html">RE: [MUD-Dev] Trouble Makers or Regular Citizens</A></strong>,
Matthew Mihaly <a href="mailto:the_logos@achaea.com">the_logos@achaea.com</a>, Tue 11 Apr 2000, 18:49 GMT
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<LI><strong><A NAME="00190" HREF="msg00190.html">RE: [MUD-Dev] Trouble Makers or Regular Citizens</A></strong>,
Chris Lloyd <a href="mailto:crl199@soton.ac.uk">crl199@soton.ac.uk</a>, Wed 12 Apr 2000, 01:09 GMT
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<LI><strong><A NAME="00111" HREF="msg00111.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Trouble Makers or Regular Citizens</A></strong>,
Par Winzell <a href="mailto:zell@alyx.com">zell@alyx.com</a>, Mon 10 Apr 2000, 06:50 GMT
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00122" HREF="msg00122.html">RE: [MUD-Dev] Trouble Makers or Regular Citizens</A></strong>,
Zak Jarvis <a href="mailto:zak@voidmonster.com">zak@voidmonster.com</a>, Mon 10 Apr 2000, 17:27 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00556" HREF="msg00556.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Trouble Makers or Regular Citizens</A></strong>,
J C Lawrence <a href="mailto:claw@cp.net">claw@cp.net</a>, Mon 24 Apr 2000, 22:02 GMT
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<LI><strong><A NAME="00139" HREF="msg00139.html">RE: [MUD-Dev] Trouble Makers or Regular Citizens</A></strong>,
Koster, Raph <a href="mailto:rkoster@origin.ea.com">rkoster@origin.ea.com</a>, Mon 10 Apr 2000, 23:23 GMT
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00147" HREF="msg00147.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Trouble Makers or Regular Citizens</A></strong>,
Jon Lambert <a href="mailto:jlsysinc@ix.netcom.com">jlsysinc@ix.netcom.com</a>, Tue 11 Apr 2000, 05:08 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00223" HREF="msg00223.html">RE: [MUD-Dev] Trouble Makers or Regular Citizens</A></strong>,
Tess Lowe <a href="mailto:tess@havensong.com">tess@havensong.com</a>, Wed 12 Apr 2000, 14:22 GMT
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