30 Aug, 2010, Oliver wrote in the 41st comment:
Votes: 0
Runter said:
Commands like that are dangerously misguided.


We agree there, 'least. :D

David Haley said:
I believe that the attitude you are displaying is inappropriate for a MUD administrator and that I (and apparently others) would feel it unwise to run a MUD this way.


^ QFT.

No matter what MUD you are running, in my opinion, if you exercise immortal authority to "bother people who are breaking the rules," you're doing a bad job of running your game.

You either need to ban them or you need to try to work with them. Deliberately antagonizing someone is a marked characteristic of a childish administrator– it's not about you, it's about the game. So why are you doing something for the sole purpose of being vindictive and making yourself feel better?
30 Aug, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 42nd comment:
Votes: 0
Mudder, I think that Oliver basically answered your question. The only thing I have to add is that there is a difference between punishment and ridicule/humiliation. The former can be necessary; the latter is, as Oliver said, very close to being vindictive and childish. If you want to ban somebody, just ban them; there's no need to put them in the stocks to laugh at them. It doesn't have to do with the permanence of the punishment but its nature.
31 Aug, 2010, Oliver wrote in the 43rd comment:
Votes: 0
David Haley said:
Mudder, I think that Oliver basically answered your question. The only thing I have to add is that there is a difference between punishment and ridicule/humiliation. The former can be necessary; the latter is, as Oliver said, very close to being vindictive and childish. If you want to ban somebody, just ban them; there's no need to put them in the stocks to laugh at them. It doesn't have to do with the permanence of the punishment but its nature.


Sure. I don't really like punishing players on a conceptual level, but I'll agree there's a difference. I find, for the most part, that it breaks down to two cases:

1) The player doesn't understand what they're doing wrong, or they think it's not a problem; a conversation is in order to let them know. If they keep doing it (and actually understand what they're doing), advance to case two.
2) The player knows full well what they're doing wrong, and they keep doing it. If doing so is damaging the game in some way, they probably need to be denied or banned for the sake of the game.

Personally, I'm a fan of just trying to develop games where players can't really cause problems, but that doesn't work for a lot of games' styles (including mine). From what I have seen/heard, I think KaVir has done a good job with that. I recall him mentioning that very rarely does he ever feel the need to take disciplinary action.
31 Aug, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 44th comment:
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Oh, yes, I completely agree that punishment should be a last resort after all attempts at friendly resolution are exhausted.
31 Aug, 2010, Runter wrote in the 45th comment:
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I'm of the opinion that the only people on the live server who are staff should be customer service or support. I really don't like the playstation mentality that some admins have regarding their duties. Having commands like this really illustrate that very mentality. I'd prefer playing on a game where administering it is a thankless chore than one where staff 'play' as limitless authorities. RP or not.

I'm going to meander here but I also think issues with cheating or distrust are settled when your job description doesn't include the fruits of live server power tripping. Rather I would keep development staff on a dev server. Good games need not offer these 'perks' to attract quality staff.

And for the record tastefully ran games don't have lower level staff running around dealing frontier justice with the chance of appeal to someone higher. They use protocols and discreetly handle matters once the person with reviewal power reviews it in the first place. Most good administrators simply lock out accounts rather than grandiose public deletions.
31 Aug, 2010, Oliver wrote in the 46th comment:
Votes: 0
Runter said:
I'm of the opinion that the only people on the live server who are staff should be customer service or support. I really don't like the playstation mentality that some admins have regarding their duties. Having commands like this really illustrate that very mentality. I'd prefer playing on a game where administering it is a thankless chore than one where staff 'play' as limitless authorities. RP or not.


I think you definitely need someone there moderating. If players cause trouble, someone needs to deal with it.

That said, I think commands that cause permanent harm to a player or their data ought to be restricted specifically to administrators (or people that administrators grant them to specifically). It's really bad news if just any staffer on a game can delete pfiles.
31 Aug, 2010, Scandum wrote in the 47th comment:
Votes: 0
The biggest problem with the conventional system is that admins create a moral code for themselves, this code being that they cannot influence the game with their powers. What happens next is that a dude comes along who has the desire, creativity, and intelligence to make things go his way (typically an early twenties male). The admins, while firmly in denial, will instinctively dislike the dude because the dude, unhindered by moral restrictions not to influence the game, is far more powerful than they are.

Admins will either ban the dude, do combat with him (change rules/code), or make him a staff member (which can backfire). The dude can also be a female, who invariably seduces the owner and becomes known as the bitch. Several muds have one.

Now on the subject of the cheating admin, I haven't seen conclusive evidence or argumentation that it's a bad thing. If I cheat and favor 'good players' and disfavor 'bad players', wouldn't that be a good thing? It may very well make the difference between a prospering 100+ playerbase and a dwindling 5-10 playerbase.

Not to mention it might feel good to nuke someone nobody likes, or harass them till they quit.
31 Aug, 2010, Runter wrote in the 48th comment:
Votes: 0
Yes. Because without all men on deck those 5 players most muds have would just turn it inside out before anything could be done. Note when I said support staff I was talking about the people whose duty it is to handle live issues.
31 Aug, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 49th comment:
Votes: 0
Scandum said:
The dude can also be a female, who invariably seduces the owner and becomes known as the bitch.

Sigh… not only are creative and intelligent people typically male, but women must also be invariably interested in seducing owners to become "bitches"? Why must you take potentially interesting points and insert such blatantly sexist, and furthermore useless and irrelevant, remarks?



Leaving that aside, I don't think it's necessary to make being a staffer a "thankless chore". If people aren't enjoying themselves at least somewhat on a free game, they probably won't stick around. That said, there are other venues for enjoyment than tormenting players, which I think we all (well, almost all) agree is not really a good idea.
31 Aug, 2010, Ssolvarain wrote in the 50th comment:
Votes: 0
Scandum said:
this code being that they cannot influence the game with their powers


Silly code to adhere to. I'd rather use the power I have to entertain, be it by making enjoyable content or randomly slaying 5 people and blaming it on the Taliban.

Quote
Not to mention it might feel good to nuke someone nobody likes, or harass them till they quit.


I mean, it was either amusing, or to punish people who coulda got far worse.
Hell, has anyone ever even stolen someones loot following that?
I always thought of it as amusing, or a momentary inconvenience–certainly much less then the BANHAMMER "
-Emm, player

He went on to also say, in mockery of the super serious people:
HEY IMM, LETS CHILLAX
IMM. NAY, MORTALS
I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY TO YOU…UNLESS I AM BANNING YOU.
31 Aug, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 51st comment:
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Sexist crap like what Scandum posted is why I let people believe I was male for a long time.

Maya/Rudha
31 Aug, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 52nd comment:
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Unfortunately such remarks are not really new from him… for some reason, people put up with it. You'd think it'd fall under the "no sexism" rule, but oh well…
31 Aug, 2010, Scandum wrote in the 53rd comment:
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Sexism is defined as discrimination based on gender, esp the oppression of women by men. I've done no such thing.

Men are about 7 times more criminal than women, and 18-22 is the most criminal age group, which is why I stated that intelligent and creative young males are the biggest trouble makers, not because young males are more intelligent and creative (I'll leave that answer to the statistics) but because they have the strongest drive.

My observation that women who hook up with the mud owner tend to be a bit of a menace might be biased, sorry for sharing my life experience without filtering it for political correctness. I reckon the boyfriends of female mud owners are equally annoying, but the typical mud owner is male.
31 Aug, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 54th comment:
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I hope you realise how hypocritical that post is.

Maya/Rudha
31 Aug, 2010, Koron wrote in the 55th comment:
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Oh, Scandum. You know, sometimes I can't tell if you're deliberately baiting or if it's accidental.

This whole thing reminds me how glad I am that I leave the vast majority of rules to the code. If you can't implement a guarantee that players can't do something, they're going to try it. Disallowing (or at least severely penalizing) unwanted behavior is so much easier than risking getting into an argument with someone who just wants to put on a show. Plus you don't have to hire as many staff members, automatically reducing your risk of unethical behavior. Yay for proactive thinking!
31 Aug, 2010, Runter wrote in the 56th comment:
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We put up with it because we need token european trouble makers.
31 Aug, 2010, ATT_Turan wrote in the 57th comment:
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Much like we need token Mexican patent lawyers?
31 Aug, 2010, Scandum wrote in the 58th comment:
Votes: 0
Koron said:
Oh, Scandum. You know, sometimes I can't tell if you're deliberately baiting or if it's accidental.

It's more so sexist toward men as it implies that it's easy for a woman to seduce a male mud owner and do whatever she wants.

Some people will read what they want to read however, and it's typically the academic sounding folks who get their panties in a bunch, what's up with that?

On topic, I assume that freedom of speech is non existent on their muds, so not only should morally weak admins not play their own games, but it's for the better if they don't login at all.
31 Aug, 2010, Oliver wrote in the 59th comment:
Votes: 0
Scandum said:
It's more so sexist toward men…


Don't be silly. Sexism doesn't exist toward men; it's called Independence or Female Strength or something.
31 Aug, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 60th comment:
Votes: 0
Scandum said:
Koron said:
Oh, Scandum. You know, sometimes I can't tell if you're deliberately baiting or if it's accidental.

It's more so sexist toward men as it implies that it's easy for a woman to seduce a male mud owner and do whatever she wants.

Some people will read what they want to read however, and it's typically the academic sounding folks who get their panties in a bunch, what's up with that?

On topic, I assume that freedom of speech is non existent on their muds, so not only should morally weak admins not play their own games, but it's for the better if they don't login at all.


Sexism towards men is still sexism, and I think you're intelligent enough to realise that, so I'm not sure what you're getting at here short of simply trolling.

Maya/Rudha
40.0/145