05 Jun, 2010, Katiara wrote in the 1st comment:
Votes: 0
I am not a computer programmer. I do not know how code works and in general avoid MudBytes because I know I can not give any intelligent input. Simply put, most of my commentary would be a waste of time and space for most users.

I have however been around for a long time. I have seen many changes, for good and bad, and watched the general evolution of the mud community. I am well versed in how to actually play MUDS and think I do a decent job of running my MUD (I guess you would have to ask my staff to get the truth.)

I have met a few people in the community and I am married to Kayle, as most of you already know. Although Kayle is very active in the coding aspect of things, he and I do not often share the same opinion just as most married couples. I dont blindly back his actions and I assure you, I am the first one to disagree if I feel it is warranted.

All of that being said, I felt it might be time to stop by MudBytes and give a different point of view. One that many of you, especially the Admins, overlook. A point of view from an average person working on a MUD, learning when she can.

The old adage power leads to corruption is what I see at MudBytes and have seen since I married into the coding community so to speak. The Admins themselves are nice, decent people. At some point though, they decide the site now belongs to them, a person, and not a community.

This site is intended for the civil use of our members. This is the first line from the rules listed on MudBytes. Ironically, I think this is the one thing violated most often. Admins and often Moderators decide that someone or thing shouldnt be posted based on his/her own beliefs of what is best and right, not taking a moment to think about the members.

The current Admins of MudBytes and the IMC2 Network have gone down the path of all past great leaders. The site and network now belong to them, not the community, not the users. As I tried to raise this very idea last night, I was asked what my point was. My point is that the site and network belong to the users and is intended for the users. The Admins can ban, and change rules for personal benefit, and even delete posts but eventually, the community will move on with or without you.

It is a known fact, throughout history, prominent people take verbal abuse. In this case, the Admins, Crat, David Haley, Kayle, Samson, the list goes on. Anyone that has a true voice in the community is often going to have bad and disrespectful things said about him or her. If you dont want these things said about you, get out of the spot light.

On to the most disturbing topic at hand. A user was banned from the IMC2 network by saying the Admins werent competent. This shouldnt be a believable statement. If someone told me David Haley wasnt competent, I would not believe it. Why not? Because as I pointed out before, bad things are always said about people in a prominent position. The problem here is I DO believe his statement. The correct reaction here would have been for the Admins to realize this upsets them, not because it is mean, but because it is true and fix it as soon as possible. Instead, it provoked a response proving the statement to be true, the response being to ban the person so that no one else hears such statements and believes them.

So where does this leave us, the users? We have Admins that arent competent and afraid some one may find out. We have Admins that are not willing to look at themselves and do what is right for the users and the community. We are given forums and a network to talk on that belong to the users yet must follow the strict personal beliefs of the not so competent Admins.
05 Jun, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 2nd comment:
Votes: 0
Forums, like muds, come and go over the years. I think the biggest problem with MudBytes is that the admin have allowed themselves to be pushed around too much, which has resulted in rules that keep changing. This often makes it difficult to know where you stand, and irritates people who are used to the way things worked before - try changing the rules on your mud every few months (particularly when you're making the rules stricter) and you'll see similar problems.

Of course there are a number of posters who actually enjoy the drama, so for them the situation is ideal. But speaking as someone who is more interested in technical discussions, I would rather see more consistency - and if that means laying the smack down on a few posters, well, such is life. You can't please everyone.

You suggest that the MudBytes admin have been corrupted by power? I suggest the opposite - they've tried so hard to avoid stepping on toes that a few people have started pushing to see just how much they can get away with. It's like watching teenagers trying to test the rules to see how much freedom their parents will give them.
05 Jun, 2010, Asylumius wrote in the 3rd comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
Forums, like muds, come and go over the years. I think the biggest problem with MudBytes is that the admin have allowed themselves to be pushed around too much, which has resulted in rules that keep changing. This often makes it difficult to know where you stand, and irritates people who are used to the way things worked before - try changing the rules on your mud every few months (particularly when you're making the rules stricter) and you'll see similar problems.

Of course there are a number of posters who actually enjoy the drama, so for them the situation is ideal. But speaking as someone who is more interested in technical discussions, I would rather see more consistency - and if that means laying the smack down on a few posters, well, such is life. You can't please everyone.

You suggest that the MudBytes admin have been corrupted by power? I suggest the opposite - they've tried so hard to avoid stepping on toes that a few people have started pushing to see just how much they can get away with. It's like watching teenagers trying to test the rules to see how much freedom their parents will give them.


I agree with this. It's one of the primary reasons I quit. I never figured out how to properly deal with the people who enjoy pushing boundaries just to see what will happen. Unfortunately, almost every time an administrator does something to "police" the site, a massive argument ensues. This must mean that either no MudBytes Admin has EVER made a correct call in the history of the site, or at least a FEW people here are just out to light fires for the sake of watching things burn.

I don't think Davion and Kiasyn are drunk with power or tyrannical, but that is exactly the kind of provocative jab that becomes harder and harder to avoid making a knee-jerk reaction to after being down this road so many times, regardless of why or whose fault it is/was.

FWIW, MudBytes is the only community portal / forum I frequent these days, MUD related or otherwise, that is so open about it's rules and how they are applied. No other site I belong to has ever been so open about letting feedback appear on their forums in the first place and then actually taking it under consideration and making changes. For better or worse, the community has essentially written the rules, one way or another. It's also the community who often posts to demand action before any is taken, or question a rule before any Admin feels one has been broken in the first place. In that sense, the community has trained the Admins, however unintentionally, to been hyper-vigilant and trigger happy to some degree.

At the end of the day, I do think Davion and Kiasyn are simply doing the best job they can right now. I don't think they're out to get anyone, even if their patience with certain people is thinner at times.

I can't say how things work currently, but a year or so ago, I would say one thing that might have helped us do a better job is more communication between the Admins. I don't know if Davion and Kiasyn talk before making calls on some of the less black and white, blatant rule violations, but oftentimes hearing yourself explain it to someone else and getting their feedback is enough dialog to flush out the cases that end up leading to, "I probably should have let that go." If the Admins and Mods can agree on a decision, then the user base's reaction to that decision can at least rest on the shoulders of the site and it's policies in general, and not a single person, which is preferable I think.
05 Jun, 2010, flumpy wrote in the 4th comment:
Votes: 0
Someone else needs to resign too I think.. It's the only honourable thing to do now, that, and lift the ban immediately.
05 Jun, 2010, Cratylus wrote in the 5th comment:
Votes: 0
Quote
Of course there are a number of posters who actually enjoy the drama, so for them the situation is ideal.


On the off-chance you're referring to me, I'll just mention that I much
prefer the few months of peace that pass between my bannings, to the drama.

It might be hard to believe, but I don't particularly enjoy the time drain.

Quote
Forums, like muds, come and go over the years. I think the biggest problem with MudBytes is that the admin have allowed themselves to be pushed around too much, which has resulted in rules that keep changing.


Forgive me but I think this discounts the very real possibility that the
admins generate drama with petty and heavy-handed overreactions that disregard
the concern expressed by the folks who make up the community.

I tend to look at the very practical and long-run positive changes around here,
such as new mods, as a good thing that help lower drama. Rather than a
"problem" caused by admins allowing themselves to be "pushed around", it's a
common sense recognition that when it comes to moderating in a way that
doesn't piss people off, they're just not that good at it.

This IMC2 is a pretty good example of it. A rule that was meant to protect
newbies was changed to cover pretty much anything but polite conversation…
quite a change from the status quo! Upon being faced with adverse opinion,
the choice to ban was made, ostensibly out of personal pique.

Before folks come out of the woodwork to proclaim "they're the admins, they
can do as they please", the point I'm making is not about whther they have
the right to admin the servers under their control as they see fit.

The point is that it is an error to blame the drama on just drama llamas
in this case. There is a legitimate claim to rather sorry adminship, and
handwaving it away as teenage angst doesn't do that much to help resolve
the conflict.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net

PS And if you're tempted to say that complaining doesn't help either, note
that part of the outrage provoked recently on MB by admin actions is because
we'd spent so much time making things better precisely through that
adversarial dialectic, and folks despaired at the backsliding. Things
can indeed improve by not shying away from debate about policy.
05 Jun, 2010, Scandum wrote in the 6th comment:
Votes: 0
Katiara said:
It is a known fact, throughout history, prominent people take verbal abuse. In this case, the Admins, Crat, David Haley, Kayle, Samson, the list goes on. Anyone that has a true voice in the community is often going to have bad and disrespectful things said about him or her. If you dont want these things said about you, get out of the spot light.

Non commercial hobbyist communities replace money with respect, and as in the real world there are always people who begrudge others, and those who have a craving for respect. People with a shortcoming like this (typically of mediocre ability) tend to band together in little groups to praise each other (much like a circle jerk) and violently lash out at anyone who is threatening to them.

Regarding MudBytes and most of the people here, I stopped caring a long time ago. I suggest to create a special forum for this crap and remove whatever is in it from the front page.
05 Jun, 2010, flumpy wrote in the 7th comment:
Votes: 0
Well, it's hard to circle jerk when there's only one of you, eh scandum?
05 Jun, 2010, Scandum wrote in the 8th comment:
Votes: 0
whatever
05 Jun, 2010, Koron wrote in the 9th comment:
Votes: 0
Katiara said:
At some point though, they decide the site now belongs to them, a person, and not a community. . . . The site and network now belong to them, not the community, not the users. . . . My point is that the site and network belong to the users and is intended for the users.

Well, the site belongs to the person who pays the bills. We as users don't pay the bills, so we don't own it in any legal sense. Your point about community reactions is probably more relevant to the current case because we know that we're a bunch of opinionated people who don't plan on putting up with anything that crosses a line.
Katiara said:
It is a known fact, throughout history, prominent people take verbal abuse. In this case, the Admins, Crat, David Haley, Kayle, Samson, the list goes on. Anyone that has a true voice in the community is often going to have bad and disrespectful things said about him or her. If you dont want these things said about you, get out of the spot light.

Meh. This premise boils down to "You're special so you should be able to put up with more abuse" and I don't like that. I wouldn't be willing to put up with any more abuse if I were in their shoes. If we're truly a community, I expect to be treated like a member of the community; the fact that I pay the bills wouldn't change my stance on this.
KaVir said:
Words

+1 to this.
flumpy said:
Someone else needs to resign too I think.. It's the only honourable thing to do now, that, and lift the ban immediately.

Haha, wow.
Cratylus said:
Forgive me but I think this discounts the very real possibility that the admins generate drama with petty and heavy-handed overreactions that disregard the concern expressed by the folks who make up the community.

It takes two to tango. Drama comes not just from the initial (bad) decision but also from community reaction to it. Everyone who's contributed to the hyperbole-fest is complicit. :wink:
Cratylus said:
Before folks come out of the woodwork to proclaim "they're the admins, they can do as they please", the point I'm making is not about whther they have the right to admin the servers under their control as they see fit.

The point is that it is an error to blame the drama on just drama llamas in this case. There is a legitimate claim to rather sorry adminship, and handwaving it away as teenage angst doesn't do that much to help resolve the conflict.

I think Kat covered the whole "they can do as they please" thing pretty well. Of course they can, but they're smart grown-ups who already understand that their actions have consequences without the need for us to remind them of it. Handwaving anything here is unlikely to do much other than contribute to the poster's post count. Woo woo.
Scandum said:
People with a shortcoming like this (typically of mediocre ability) tend to band together in little groups to praise each other (much like a circle jerk) and violently lash out at anyone who is threatening to them.

This made me giggle. If he hadn't been so purposefully condescending, you (my dear reader) would probably have agreed with him. Tact is awesome. :biggrin:
05 Jun, 2010, flumpy wrote in the 10th comment:
Votes: 0
Koron said:
flumpy said:
Someone else needs to resign too I think.. It's the only honourable thing to do now, that, and lift the ban immediately.

Haha, wow.


I am utterly serious, and I don't take to being laughed at either. This is outrageous, and further more whoever it was has acted like some insecure dictator rather than a member of the community.

Edit: who actually did the banning? I don't want to offend.

Edit2 Ah it /was/ Kayle. I generally like the dude, wonder why he's being like this? Has he even got anything to resign as? Hmhn.
05 Jun, 2010, Kline wrote in the 11th comment:
Votes: 0
Kayle has no IMC admin power. Try another person with a 'K' name for $500, please?
05 Jun, 2010, Cratylus wrote in the 12th comment:
Votes: 0
http://dead-souls.net/kiasyn.txt

My logs split and renew when the file gets a certain size. I don't think I missed
anything there where it says "end of log", but I'm sure folks will let me know if I did :)

-Crat
06 Jun, 2010, quixadhal wrote in the 13th comment:
Votes: 0
The point about the ownership….

While it is true that the folks who pay the bills might technically "own" the hardware and software used to build the site, they do NOT own the site. This site is built up by the folks in this community. Every helpful scrap of code, every snide remark, every OMGWTFBBQ exclaimation… they are ALL part of what makes this site MudBytes.

The same goes for the IMC2 network. It doesn't matter that a single person "owns" the server that allows all our muds to connect and interact, they are absolutely NOTHING without all of us to actually do the interacting.

I know. I have an old MUD which sits idle 99.9% of the time with no players, and it doesn't really matter how stable it is, how well balanced it is, or how much *I* happen to like it. No players == no MUD.

So, think about that. Anyone with a little bit of resources can rent server space and start up a new IMC2 server. Anyone with an apache server can fire up a forums and launch a new MUD community site. But without all of us to make use of it, to show up and abuse things, it doesn't matter.

The recent banning of Cratylus is stupid. It's stupid because he wasn't being overly disruptive (this time), but was expressing an opinion. That, however, isn't what pissed me off. What pissed me off was that it wasn't just Crat that got banned, it was his entire MUD. Banning an entire MUD for the actions of a single user is wrong on so many levels…

Every packet that goes across the routers has both the mud AND user it originated from. If IMC lacks the ability to filter specific user's packets, then I'd suggest the people running said servers take a short break from profanity filters and comment tagging, and fix that very critical oversight in the IMC server design. If it already *HAS* that ability, why wasn't it used?

If you really think you need a way to stop unwelcome or "disruptive" conversations, don't block the MUD. Filter the user at the server so their packets don't go anywhere. That way they are welcome to see people continue to talk, but they can't participate and (presumably) cause further damage.

I'm not in charge of anything outside my own home, so this is just the viewpoint of one user who has probably annoyed people as often as contributing anything useful. Yet, it is mine, and so I'm putting it here in the hopes that it might be useful.
06 Jun, 2010, kiasyn wrote in the 14th comment:
Votes: 0
quixadhal said:
If you really think you need a way to stop unwelcome or "disruptive" conversations, don't block the MUD. Filter the user at the server so their packets don't go anywhere. That way they are welcome to see people continue to talk, but they can't participate and (presumably) cause further damage.


k, done
06 Jun, 2010, Cratylus wrote in the 15th comment:
Votes: 0
kiasyn said:
quixadhal said:
If you really think you need a way to stop unwelcome or "disruptive" conversations, don't block the MUD. Filter the user at the server so their packets don't go anywhere. That way they are welcome to see people continue to talk, but they can't participate and (presumably) cause further damage.


k, done


Doesn't seem to be in effect for the Dead Souls Dev ban.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net
06 Jun, 2010, Kayle wrote in the 16th comment:
Votes: 0
flumpy said:
Edit: who actually did the banning? I don't want to offend.

Kiasyn.

flumpy said:
Edit2 Ah it /was/ Kayle. I generally like the dude, wonder why he's being like this? Has he even got anything to resign as? Hmhn.

I guess I could resign from my position at SmaugMUDs.org, but that wouldn't really solve this. I have no control over IMC. I'm just a regular user. Although I've been avoiding it for the most part since this unpleasant business and hanging out on I3 where rules aren't randomly enforced for personal reasons.
06 Jun, 2010, Katiara wrote in the 17th comment:
Votes: 0
Koron said:
Meh. This premise boils down to "You're special so you should be able to put up with more abuse" and I don't like that. I wouldn't be willing to put up with any more abuse if I were in their shoes. If we're truly a community, I expect to be treated like a member of the community; the fact that I pay the bills wouldn't change my stance on this.


You may not like it but this is the way the world works. This is the same reason an actor or politician can't sue for libel most of the time. I suggest you never run for any kind of office.
06 Jun, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 18th comment:
Votes: 0
Katiara said:
Koron said:
Meh. This premise boils down to "You're special so you should be able to put up with more abuse" and I don't like that. I wouldn't be willing to put up with any more abuse if I were in their shoes. If we're truly a community, I expect to be treated like a member of the community; the fact that I pay the bills wouldn't change my stance on this.


You may not like it but this is the way the world works. This is the same reason an actor or politician can't sue for libel most of the time. I suggest you never run for any kind of office.

Admins are not normal members, whether they like it or not. Paying the bills is not the same as being an administrator. I won't say that admins should have to like putting up with abuse (and neither was Kat saying this), but I agree with her that being in the spotlight means getting the good and the bad, and that's pretty much how things are.

But the point Kat was making was that you need to learn to welcome constructive criticism, and shrug off non-constructive criticism. Purging people who criticize you is not the most efficient way of convincing people that you are beyond criticism.
06 Jun, 2010, flumpy wrote in the 19th comment:
Votes: 0
Kayle said:
flumpy said:
Edit: who actually did the banning? I don't want to offend.

Kiasyn.

flumpy said:
Edit2 Ah it /was/ Kayle. I generally like the dude, wonder why he's being like this? Has he even got anything to resign as? Hmhn.

I guess I could resign from my position at SmaugMUDs.org, but that wouldn't really solve this. I have no control over IMC. I'm just a regular user. Although I've been avoiding it for the most part since this unpleasant business and hanging out on I3 where rules aren't randomly enforced for personal reasons.


Gah sorry dude.
06 Jun, 2010, Koron wrote in the 20th comment:
Votes: 0
David Haley said:
Purging people who criticize you is not the most efficient way of convincing people that you are beyond criticism.

I'm not sure a three-day ban is much of a purge, but I get your point. It's valid. :devil:
David Haley said:
But the point Kat was making was that you need to learn to welcome constructive criticism, and shrug off non-constructive criticism.

Definitely. I'm a big fan of constructive criticism, which is why I was getting short with people when the initial reactions were hostile. If IMC is going to begin to be more directly moderated, there ought to be a clear system. Cratylus has been regularly abusive to the IMC admins, and there is no reason to be surprised by their reaction. The problem as I see it is the apparent (sudden) arbitrariness of his banning. As far as I'm aware, none of us were aware of the increased moderation attempts on IMC. Because of how quickly he was banned, this seems to the user base like a first-offense ban, which is excessive. Clearer communication between the admins and the community would be awesomely helpful.
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