btw


50!

This has been made into a MUCH bigger deal then it should have been. There are rules now that govern the channels. Get over it. WoW has rules, Realms of Despair has rules, Mudbytes has rules, IMC has rules, The United States of America has rules.

It's a lot easier to change things now to make a better future then to wait until all hell breaks loose.

It really isn't that big of a deal. As stated only two muds have ever been banned, one of which has since been able to be back on. I think this is just blown WAYYYY out of proportion.

North Korea has free speech zones as well, in the closet with the door shut, and some US Universities have them as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech...

I've seen many attempts at creating anything goes channels, but in practice they're dead zones. This discussion isn't going much further though, so I'll drop it.

The sad thing is. These guidelines don't change anything. They're just a documented set of guidelines that we've used to govern the channels amongst ourselves since the networks conception. The only difference between the Guidelines I just posted, and the way the IMC community acted, is that these are actually written down. But see, Scandum, You'd know that if you'd ever actually used IMC in the first place.

And really… did you seriously just compare IMC to North Korea because there's a channel that doesn't get monitored for crude language?

Again, you're comparing the actions of a government with the actions of private individuals. They are not the same. In fact, the very notion of free speech (which you seem to value so highly) protects the rights of private individuals to control what happens in their own homes and places of business.

That is why you can say whatever you want on a public street (provided it isn't slander), but if you come to my house, I can tell you to STFU. The IMC2 network is not a public entity, because it's not provided by nor maintained by any government agency. It is a private network, and the folks running it can impose whatever restrictions they see fit.

The right to free speech guarentees you a public venue, it does not give you total freedom to impose your will on every citizen, anywhere you happen to be.

I feel obliged to repeat myself… I could add that I'm not sure why North Korea is relevant, etc.

My internet provider can impose whatever restrictions it sees fit as well, but fortunately it has the sensibility to not impose any ridiculous regulations on my internet activities. IMC's only job, in my opinion, should be to hook up muds to each other, but apparently it feels that simply providing that service isn't good enough, and that it must play big mother while at it.

It's like hanging a 'no hate speech - violators will be disconnected' sign on a public telephone booth. Certainly the phone company has the right as a private company, but apparently only in the world of mudding will people defend it with a straight face. The whole 'inter mud' thing is misleading, it's just a chat box with a bunch of guys playing benevolent dictator. I don't see the appeal in that.

Are there any inter mud servers that don't regulate speech or play the middle man?

Scandum, this is the last thing I'm going to say on the issue with you. Because you're merely arguing for the sake of arguing.

You not only lack context and proportion, you lack history.

What I have seen with my own eyes is that left to its own devices,
i3 devolved into such a decrepit hive of scum and villainy that
it actually discouraged new membership and provided an active
impediment to newbies seeking help.

I happen to like mudding. I think my hobby would do better if
intermud were a place where new blood can participate without
fear of being consumed. With this in mind, when the old i3
finally collapsed I provided a new one that had enforced rules
and an active fuehrer to ensure that those who prey on the
weak feel pain in equal measure.

Works great. I think it's an overall asset to the community.

You are coming in from no experience I'm aware of in this area,
and have decided that political concepts of oppression and censorship
apply in this fragile garden. Those are terms of jocularity in
this context. Only someone making a joke would use them, or
someone who truly does not understand.




Servers? Not that I know of. You could pick up a copy of Dead Souls
and run your own i3 router, or a copy of Liberty and run your own IMC server,
and have whatever policies suit you. Fascist.

Networks? Yes. Zebedee. It's udp and distributed, iirc, so centralized
"fascism" is not feasible to implement. I suspect you'll find, however,
that people route around filth damage there too.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net

*chuckle*

Expanding on what Crat said, there's a rather infamous phrase that's come about from World of Warcraft. The Barrens Chat. The Barrens is one of the first big zones you encounter on the horde side of the game, when exiting the newbie areas. It's a very large zone, connecting to both alliance and horde higher level zones, and it also features a neutral port city. That means there are LOTS of people from both sides traveling through it.

Well, even though Blizzard clearly states guidelines which are similar to (and probably a bit more strict than) the ones we have on IMC/I3, the chat channel for this zone has become infamous for childish prattle, name calling, swearing, all kinds of offensive jokes, direct abuse, and the most henious of all…. Chuck Norris jokes.

Personally, I don't mind the barrens chat. I ignore it most of the time, and toss out an insult or two when someone says something particularly stupid (most common, "WTS Working CAPS LOCK key."). There are people who can't stand it, and there are people who go out of their way to sit there and absorb it.

It works, because it's limited to that one zone. That's probably why Blizzard hasn't clamped down and banned a good share of the kids abusing it, because it keeps them in one place where they aren't bothering everyone else. IMC and I3 channels are typically not limited to one area (although the local channel *could* be), and so the kiddies who want to spew tend to take over the channel and make it worthless for any other purpose.

As Kayle said, the guidlines that you (who don't use the system, and are thus unaffected by it) hate so much have always been in place. It just hasn't been necessary to spell them out in writing before, because there just haven't been enough twits that won't learn to behave after being slapped on the wrist a couple of times.

Anarchy sounds good, in principle, until you realize that you are NOT going to be at the top of the food chain.

I too, am done with this thread. I just wanted to pass along the image of the Barrens Chat, and remind those who ARE using IMC/I3 that we haven't devolved that far yet. :)

The All Father willing, we never will either.

Actually, I remember now there *is* one. Way back during the i3 anschluss
some folks freaked the hell out and decided to use the Dead Souls router
software to make their own unmoderated router.

Feel free to connect there.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net

I think this serves as final summation. Close this thread, please.

Scandum, what do you do in game about things like people going 'postal' (no offense to post men heh) on global channels etc?

I personally don't like censorship, but, I do have words that trigger on the player. They go off and it does damage to them in game (and lag them depending on how much they go off). I had a censor before that simply did <censored> in place of the word and charged them, but that came from one of the original coders in 96.

I did have the censor/slapper etc completely removed from the game for a few years, but found that some people just get vicious and downright attacking other players. I do consider the game a kind of 'my house' rather than 'on the street'.

Anyway, I was curious what your take was on it. If there's zero censorship etc, do you have issues with players going postal on channels? If not, do you still have players? I found that some players can literally drive away the rest of the playerbase by simply being that much of an aggressive ass to everyone etc.

PM me if you'd rather avoid the rest of the shouting, I'd really like to hear your thoughts and experiences as a developer/game runner.

My mud has a block command that takes a player name and blocks all communications from that player. The first two digits of each player's IP address are visible and a block on someone's partial IP is possible as well. This also makes it harder for people to be an ass because there is no true anonymity.

There is however the problem that there is a decent percentage of players, often women, who enjoy strict regulations, it gives them a sense of safety and security. So it makes sense to put in some harsh words about harassment and stuff like that if you want to attract domesticated humans.

Right on, I have a similar command 'ignore' but we don't show any part of IP addys.

The staff also warns then smites (1/hp/mana/mov etc, sent to home) if the person persists in going postal. Usually it's a 'hey, chill out dude' and that's enough. We can resort to a 'no channels' command if someone's about to burst a blood vessel heh, but it's usually for only a day or so for them to cool out.

I do hear you about what seems to be those who wish to have 'thought police' though, I've had players in the past want me to do things simply because the other person doesn't like them etc. That cracks me up. But we seem to be on the same page with rules about harassment etc.

(Emphasis mine.) I don't care if you're trolling or not, but you are utterly crass with comments like the above. This kind of statement is disgusting.

I think it's Jong.

-Crat

Right. Out on a limb I go…..

There's a certain delicious irony in agreeing with Scandum and then in the same breath calling for the thread to get locked, isn't there?



Correct.

I'll go out on a limb of my own and say that I don't think Sandi was agreeing with Scandum, but saying that he defeated his own argument.