We all have our share of blame, Samson. That includes you, me, Crat, etc. – "we all" should say enough. I said that before; I've also said that I am not trying to lay it all squarely on you. Nor did I ever claim to be an uninvolved party, contrary to what you said. I'm not sure what else to say at this point. I've tried repairing things but you've now made it clear twice just now that you're not interested in that. I'm not sure what exactly you think I have said you are wrong about because you haven't really said much here other than how you can't say anything so I'm not sure what I should apologize about or fix on that account.

That is actually a good thing, the more transparent and inclusive you make the process the less grief your going to receive when you unfortunately have to take action against users of the system.



With Samson not wishing to have any involvement other than say in a technical capacity, you may wish to consider drawing on the community and adding a couple of other members who help with disciplinary situations. There are some level headed people still in the mud community who may like to help out if approached.



I know i have said it a few times already but the clearer and more open the process the better it is for those whom have to make the decisions and also for those being disciplined. The rules should not only outline what is a punishable offense but also should outline clearly what the punishment schedule will be for first, second and third offense.

Also the procedures that are used should be clear and involve calm dialog driven approach where the offender is given as much information that is needed about what they have done and how things will proceed and that for most issues a number of days are taken before issuing the penalty.

Lends Kayle the whip


The only problem I see with that is that it still comes down to the notion of each game's admin watching and being responsible for their own players since even something like that is mainly only enforceable at the per mud level, particularly with players who aren't concerned, per se, with losing the IMC network for their mud or what have you other possible punitive actions or who could simply get around most punitive measures by creating a new character or switching to another game, etc.


While I really appreciate the sentiment, it really wasn't directed at you personally, more in general and I certainly understand that we all have slips from time to time, but when someone logs into a mud and their first public comment on pchat is "fuck man there's a lv5050 here holy" and they manage to use that sort of language several times every few minutes throughout the span of several days, it's more than a little excessive. (Just to give an example that's on the extreme side, there are far less extreme examples and in the past there have been times that Dragona or I have asked folks to ease up when it got too much and they usually were very reasonable about it.)


Now this one was directed at you… and some folks on a few other muds too. :wink:
Seriously, when you and Scoyn go at it with each other, it's not too bad while you're actually involving others off your mud, but when several imms (who are probably all in the same room within their mud so they could use any of their local imm channels or even "say" instead) have what amounts to a conversation that only involves them about local issues that others may not even be welcome to chime up about, why do the rest of us need/want to hear it?


Oy, can't we keep the poly tics in the woods? At least except during major election type fiascoes… :wink:


Can I get an "Amen, Brother!?!?" How about a "Hallelujah!?" …Sorry, but seriously, can we please drop this bickering? :cry:


Ok, this isn't what you'd presented initially. It had appeared that you were talking about a strictly universal democracy and that's simply not realistic in any aspect. What you've expanded with in your last few posts here sounds much more feasible, though we're still talking about a handful of those in power rather than even an electorate.


What?!? There are still such people around? :wink:
Should I be afraid to ask who you had in mind? :lol:


Actually, having a fairly standardized guideline for punishable crimes is a nice thing for all concerned, but some sorts of things might need a degree of casualness and others might not merit a third, if even a second, opportunity for offense.


Do you really delay handing out punishments to your players when they break rules on your mud for days of real time?
I think that, generally, the more swiftly a matter is dealt with the less problems it creates overall. Again, this is where having a general idea of what sorts of crimes fit what sorts of punishments already established helps significantly, especially when those admins who have the duty to mete out such punishments have leeway to adjust the scale according to the circumstances on a case by case basis. (Hmm, maybe that's why our judges in real life are generally given exactly that sort of sentencing guidelines and leeway… and while judges in real life generally are given much longer for some crimes to decide on a sentence, the accused is already determined guilty by then and has probably already been incarcerated while awaiting sentencing.)

You perhaps and others of your ilk. There are still some level headed people out there, as to others who are part of IMC i really dont know as i do not use any form of intermud communication myself. I am just a casual observer who may have some incite into this debate that others may have overlooked.



For somethings yes, take the swearing issue as an example, rather than jump on someone who swore and ban them for a day wielding my big stick, it can be much more productive to inform the person that complaints have been made about the language they have used and that over the next few days we will review the logs and come to a decision on the matter. If they change the way they speak then you would only issue a warning thanking them for making a change, and if they turned around and gave me a whole lot of expletives i would remove channel privileges immediately and still think things over for a day or so to see how they then act.

It is issues like the above where a little calm can be the best way forward. There will however always be those times when you have no option to act immediately to shut someone down who is there to intentionally cause grief to others. We have all seen the infamous log of someone instructing a newb that rm -rf will fix their coding issue. Someone who is intentionally causing grief would in my mind be given an immediate ban.

While I'm truly flattered, I don't really know if others within the community would fully embrace your sentiments towards me. On the other hand, either way, I'm not entirely certain that I have nearly enough envy for Kayle's current assumed mantle to want to embrace even his coattails that way. :wink:

I suppose if your idea were adopted and it were put to a vote amongst the imms on the muds that regularly participate in IMC (and have done so for awhile so we all know who the folks are that we're voting for), there are definitely a few folk that come right to mind who I wouldn't vote for, but who I would vote for is a good bit murkier at this point to me.


The cursing issue might be a poor example, on my mud I wouldn't normally ban someone for that, I would (for the first or minor offenses) point them to the profanity rules and ask them to watch their language, if it was a repeated problem or enough that other players were complaining, I'd consider silencing them for awhile. As you say, if they responded rudely I would certainly silence them and consider stronger measures as well. But even so, these are actions I would take as soon as the offense happened (or as close to it as possible) so that further unacceptable language use might be curtailed and so that why the person is being punished is not forgotten.

There are, certainly, some issues that can be deliberated a bit more (indeed some might require it for the punishment to fit the crime) but I would honestly think that for most matters, the sooner you address them after they happen the better as long as you're addressing them "fairly" and calmly (and rationally).

As you point out, in extreme cases such as someone telling a newbie to fix their code with rm -rf (fdisk /mbr or deltree in Dos/Windows) or what have you might require stronger and very immediate measures, though even then a full ban might not be in order if it was not done maliciously.. though it would probably have to be the local class clown for us to believe that it wasn't meant to be malicious if it was done in the fashion of the 'classic' version of that stunt. Personally, I remember only too well back in the BBS heyday when telling someone alt-h (or sometimes it was ctrl-alt-del or…) was the solution to _____ was a typical running joke too.

I agree with Conner here. PG-13 is fine, people slip now and then, but sometimes the chatter is just foul. Also,
please put something in place about spamming everyone with your games chatter to each other on imc channels. Billy going to do something on your mud, doesn't have any relevance to us.

Who are these people? Perhaps a better question: who decides who these people are?


When I read "extreme cases" I wasn't exactly thinking about situations like these… :wink:

I rather thought that I'd explained both of those answers pretty directly, at least half of it within the part you quoted in fact. Who they are (which I explained in the part you snipped) are those who were nominated for the role The_Fury was proposing exist and who decides who they are would be "the imms on the muds that regularly participate in IMC (and have done so for awhile so we all know who the folks are that we're voting for)" …hmm, look at all familiar? Really, it helps tremendously if you try to follow the thread as you go, especially the portions you intend to quote and respond to… :tongue:


Well, I'll agree that this sort of example isn't really an extreme case unless we're dealing with newbies who are naive enough to be likely to actually believe the 'offender' but I think we were operating under the assumption here that we are dealing with such conditions. :shrug:

I'm debating whether you think I'm stupid or you simply misunderstood the question… :wink: It was: who has been nominated, who nominates them, who decides who these imms are, and who decides how much participation is necessary? I didn't ask what role is being discussed, but who you are talking about. You still haven't answered any of those questions… "Really, it helps tremendously" if you don't assume I'm asking completely stupid questions without reading the thread. :rolleyes:

Alright, Alright, enough bickering.

I didn't realize anybody was bickering, but in any case, my question is pretty simple: if we're talking about a process to nominate admins, and we're talking about a committee to go through those nominations, who are all of these people and who decides it?

I'm not sure. I mean, Obviously Davion and I would have to be on the committee or whatever, we're the ones with direct control over the servers. So maybe the people actively on the channels nominate, and we pick? I dunno.

Well, if that is the extent of the process planning, maybe it would be better to not go through with it at all. If you're going to pick in the end anyhow, you may as well just pick and skip the nomination process.

For example, who is active on the channels? Does being active here count? What if you're active there, and aren't seeing this thread? What if you're active sometimes here, sometimes there? Who decides how much activity is enough? How many people can a given person nominate? etc. There are enough problems with the nomination process, and it's moot in the end anyhow because it comes down to an already-fixed group of people choosing, that I'm not sure there's much point in having nominations.

I don't think we're talking about a process to nominate admins as the network admins are established and not reasonably likely to turn over servers and such to someone by vote, I'm thinking that we're really talking about nominating members of the committee to advise the admins on punitive matters involving those using the network. Personally, I think it's already been established that the current admins would still ultimately have 'veto' rights over this committee and would still ultimately be the only ones who could actually carry out any punishments regardless of who decided they were appropriate punishments.

I really thought that it'd already been clear enough that, given this proposal of The_Fury's is still just a proposal, it's all only hypothetical at this point so no one's going to be able to directly answer who any of these people are (now that you've clarified the question).

If his proposal was officially adopted, I was speculating that Davion and Kayle would have to approve any nominations which would most likely be made by folks currently on IMC, either on behalf of themselves or in the name of one they felt was appropriate, and then I was suggesting that those of us who have been active imms on IMC for at least however long Kayle and Davion want to establish get to vote from among the nominations. It could be determined from Kiasyn's stats pages who qualified as having been active as long as the desired period went back at least to February.

But since this is all hypothetical at this point, it's all subject to change if it's even adopted by the current powers that be (Davion and Kayle at this point).

I didn't really come up with this nomination/committee thing. I was more or less letting everyone bounce ideas off each other and watching to see what kind of ideas came out.

Personally, if the committee thing is something people'd like to see, I wouldn't mind coming up with a solid plan to make it work. Or even just the culture shift seems to be working, (I've already started this, code/build talk are staying on icode and ibuild, I made an imusic channel so that people don't have to have their ears bleed… I mean.. Uh.. sing and those that don't want to hear it don't have to.)

I'd like to get an idea on how people think the player aspect should be handled. With the community in the state it's in, getting players is tough business. And keeping them once you get them is even tougher. Do we want to remove player access to the network? Keep it but put restrictions on it? What do we want to do?

Hmm, this was posted while I was posting.. I don't recall anyone having said that this was anywhere beyond an idea being considered so no worries there. Otherwise, I think I managed to address your concerns before I even knew you were going to ask them. Yay me! :wink:

The point I was trying to make is that I'm not sure that such a nomination plan is really workable. If you want people to help administer it, just ask them and be done with it. If any kind of nomination process has to go through you anyhow, and you have final veto power, then it seems pretty clear that it's an unnecessary step (although it might give the impression of being more democratic – but it would just be an impression, not a reality, so let's be more efficient). Yes, this is all hypothetical, but presumably the point of even talking about it is to make it a reality, so I think that if it's going to stay on the table these points should be addressed – otherwise, take it off the table.


It's good that this has been started and seems to work. The harder culture shift is to change much deeply-set issues, but that won't happen overnight…


Uh… I'm not sure I get it… :wink:


Removing player access is kind of an ineffective measure because they can always log on to Talon if they want to see the IMC stuff. Since I don't think Talon should be removed, I think that means it must be accepted that players can get to the network if they care to do so.

If everybody really is worried about keeping players, then it should be made clear that advertisement is not welcome on the intermud channels.

I think it would be sufficient to simply have IMC off by default for players, and to not make it obvious that they can sign on (as in, don't advertise its existence on your MUD if you don't want your players exposed to other MUDs). I think there is no reason at all to prevent player X from being on IMC just because admin Y doesn't want any of his players exposed to player X. That's kind of like preventing people from publishing books because some parent doesn't want their children to read some kind of material.

Um, understand, I was just responding to The_Fury's idea with my own thoughts of how it could be made to work (bouncing ideas, as it were), I wasn't specifically volunteering for anything nor offering a specific vote of support or of opposition either.

I'm rather pleased to see that within the last few days folks have started explicitly watching their language usage and they have been doing their parts to keep content to the appropriate channels for the most part. I like the addition of the new imusic channel, personally, as well and think it's one we could've stood to have had for some time now.


As for player aspects.. I can only speak for myself, but given those options, I vote for continuing to allow players to have read-only access to inews and full access with guidelines/rules in place to pchat and game (though gamebot still needs to be fixed (replaced?) for the game channel to have any purpose).

Dragona tells me that she agrees with this too but also that each mud should be 'policed' by it's own immortals for any channels they carry, especially when players are given access to it too. If there is adverse behavior going on an immortal should be removing that player's access to the channel, or worse if appropriate. If an immortal fails/refuses to intervene accordingly then one of our two network admins needs to present that mud's admin with the choice of resolving the situation themselves or losing access to the entire network for their mud.

Talon may be a special case unto itself that needs it's own rules as we frequently get people using it to access imc who don't even have a mud of their own and it's not exactly a full-fledged mud either…

This policy makes sense to me. If it's not already easy to do this with the IMC client on the MUD side, the IMC client code should be enhanced to make it easy for imms to locally ban players.


How often has Talon been a source of trouble? It might be easier to just leave it be.

Incidentally, I don't connect from my own MUD, but I would be a little miffed if connecting from Talon made me a second-class IMC citizen… :wink:

I find myself in agreement with both of you regarding the players. There are too many available options for them to get access then to just cut it off all together. If they really want it, they can just use Talon. So I think we need to come up with explicit guidelines for what is and is not appropriate for discussion on pchat. And in what order the policing should be done for that channel.

I'm going to poke and prod Kiasyn when I see him to get that gamebot back up, I miss playing the trivia games. :P

I think a ban on advertisement may very well be the best way to prevent it. If someone asks for connection information, you can give it to them privately via an imctell, but it should be kept off public channels, it's also plainly visible with rwho/imcwho and imcinfo.


I believe the imcdeny command can remove a players access to specific channels. There's supposed to be a server side version of it as well, but as was discovered last night, that causes the servers to go crazy, so I'll have to work on fixing that. :P