[prof1515]

I hear a lot of complaints about different MUDs and myself have experienced instances where the sheer arrogance and callousness of a MUD's staff were intolerable. Sometimes it almost seems that disrepectful, arrogant, deceitful, bastardly administrators are more common in the community than not (I do retain hope that this isn't the case though!) and that players are viewed as nothing more than a disposable resource to be (ab)used and discarded when they cease to be of use or grow tired of the abuse or neglect they're subjected to.

So, I started coming up with the thought of a Players' Bill of Rights that I shall hold myself and my staff accountable to. While players are also subject to expectations, those may vary from game to game (though some are probably standard and are often just as applicable in real life). I thought I'd post this here, not just for feedback but as a reminder to some in the community that their actions toward their playerbase are not only unacceptable but that they have wider-reaching effects upon the entire community. Abuse one player and you hurt every MUD, not just your own.

So, here is a tentative MUD Players' Bill of Rights. Feel free to offer suggestions for expansion (I know that I'm likely forgetting some important considerations).

1. Players should be able to search for a game without having to sift through exaggerated and outright dishonest claims regarding features, player-base size, etc.

2. Players should be secure in knowing that their personal information, such as email addresses, will not be used or released without their consent unless so specified in the terms of its gathering.

3. Players should be able to expect fairness from a game’s staff and secure in the knowledge that favoritism is not employed to give some players benefits over others.

4. Players should be able to expect that respect and courtesy to a game’s staff will be met with equal respect and courtesy.

5. Players should be able to expect that a game’s staff will be honest about changes to the game that may affect the players’ experience.

6. Players should be able to expect that staff will acknowledge mistakes and take immediate action to correct them when they occur.

7. Players should be able to expect that staff will enforce their own game's policies and not waive them when convenient or desireable.

[Mabus]

While I agree with everything you have there, I think it all comes down to 1 "Right":

1) Players can choose to play another game if they do not like the game they are playing.

Simple, easy to understand and doesn't take a lawyer, or lengthy discussion, to figure it out.

[shasarak]

Originally Posted by Mabus While I agree with everything you have there, I think it all comes down to 1 "Right": 1) Players can choose to play another game if they do not like the game they are playing. Simple, easy to understand and doesn't take a lawyer, or lengthy discussion, to figure it out.

If the attitude of the police in your country were "if you don't like being regularly beaten up and imprisoned without due process you can always emigrate" do you think that the police would be fully discharging their responsibilities by saying that?

[Mabus]

Originally Posted by shasarak If the attitude of the police in your country were "if you don't like being regularly beaten up and imprisoned without due process you can always emigrate" do you think that the police would be fully discharging their responsibilities by saying that?

Apples and elephants...

A game world is not the same as the real world.

In the real world things can happen to you based on choices. One of the number of choices you can make is where/how to get your entertainment. If you choose to get it from a place that you feel does not represent your interests, or you feel is unfair, you can attempt to address the issue, accept the issue or move on.

To address the issue it is best to take it privately to whoever runs the customer service division of the entertainment medium. Calmly and politely state your concerns. If that does not work (and the CSR person is not the top person) you can attempt to go to the top of the administration of the medium.

If bringing the concern to the attention of the entertainment service does not result in decisions and actions that meet with your requirements you can either accept things the way they are and stay, don't accept things they way they are and stay (and possibly cause grief for others), or move on.

Of those options I think the third, moving on, is best if all respectful avenues have been tried and the game does not fit with your entertainment standards.

[Ide]

Originally Posted by Mabus To address the issue it is best to take it privately to whoever runs the customer service division of the entertainment medium. Calmly and politely state your concerns. If that does not work (and the CSR person is not the top person) you can attempt to go to the top of the administration of the medium. If bringing the concern to the attention of the entertainment service does not result in decisions and actions that meet with your requirements you can either accept things the way they are and stay, don't accept things they way they are and stay (and possibly cause grief for others), or move on.

Yes, but a bill of rights isn't about addressing concerns after the fact. It is about addressing concerns before you have a problem.

It's analogous to running a forum, for example...Top Mud Sites. You can either say, "if you don't like this forum, take a hike", or you can say, "we have agreed to a basic bill of rights that includes respect, honesty, maturity, and the occasional flamewar, but this is what we as a community have agreed to. We as a community are not here to enter the Thunderdome."

[the_logos]

8 or 9 years ago, I and a number of other people helped Raph Koster put together a document called "A Declaration of the Rights of Avatars". I had problems with it at the time (quite a few of those comments on the right side of the post criticizing parts of it are from me), and now I think the document is a little silly, not the least because avatar's don't have rights - people do. Raph Koster's Home Page

Beyond that semantic quibble though, the problem is that what set of rights should exist in every world is going to be different by every world. It's not a great analogy as there's little comparison between a country and a game world, but no country in the world grants its citizens the same rights as every other country.

It's not that I necessarily disagree with any particular right listed in the document (most of them seem pretty reasonable). It's more that I dislike and disagree with the idea that there's one "right way" to run virtual worlds.

--matt

[Xerihae]

8 - You have the right to remain silent.

Sorry, someone had to say it!

[Mabus]

Originally Posted by Ide Yes, but a bill of rights isn't about addressing concerns after the fact. It is about addressing concerns before you have a problem.

No matter how many rules, bills of rights or outright promises you have there will always be concerns and problems. No matter how hard you work, how good of established policies you have, and no matter how hard you try there will always be those that will complain. Players and staff are humans.

I said in my initial post in this thread, "While I agree with everything you have there...". I am not in disagreement with the OP, and it is entirely fine for a game to use whatever it wants to try to ease player concerns.

If those "rights" are good for a specific game, then they can post them up and deal with people stating they are breaking them as it happens.

[Galleus]

Beyond the question of whether it's appropriate to specifically define how all games are run, which I don't think is even possible, who is actually meant to enforce these rights? In general I agree that most of the "rights" you list are good guidelines for most administrative and CSR staff to operate by, but #1 is more of a meta-guideline and its enforcement is entirely subjective.

[nass]

I always thought myself that this player's bill of rights was quite good, although it clearly answers different questions

[shasarak]

Originally Posted by Galleus Beyond the question of whether it's appropriate to specifically define how all games are run, which I don't think is even possible, who is actually meant to enforce these rights? In general I agree that most of the "rights" you list are good guidelines for most administrative and CSR staff to operate by, but #1 is more of a meta-guideline and its enforcement is entirely subjective.

There is no such thing as a "right" that exists in a vacuum; people only have the rights that their society chooses to confer on itself. Strictly speaking, talking about "human rights violations" is (usually) a misnomer; what you mean is not "these people's rights are being violated" but "these people don't have rights that I think they ought to have".

Obviously any given MUD therefore has its own unique set of rights, and no one outside that MUD can enforce them (unless there is a conflict with a higher authority such as a nation's legal system). So what is being debated here is not "what rights do players have?" but "what sort of rights might it be a good idea for MUDs to choose to give players?" Whether or not any given MUD decides to sign up to such a Bill is entirely up to the MUD in question, just as it's up to a country whether or not to sign up to an international treaty, and just as it was a matter of choice for each state to sign up to the Declaration of Independence (or not).

It's perfectly reasonable to say "I think people would be a lot more comfortable playing on a MUD where they have a right to X" or "I think it is unreasonable for a player to expect to have the right to Y"; that's simply a matter of opinion, not enforcement.

[Kleothera]

Well. It is always better to lay down a set of principles on which you based your interaction with players. This charter of rights is one way of establishing it. Having them as non negotiable make it something that is expected to be followed by all players and immortals like.

However, these are also basically commonsense guidelines for not losing your playerbase. Immortals who powertrip and chase players away arent doing so because there is no vague set of principles, but because MUDs are a chaotic unregulated buisness where anyone can set up their own mud. Consequently, many simply lack the maturity to become good leaders/immortals.

In short, yes, it would be nice to have a set of rights for a game. Would it stop player abuse?- not unless there are any clear consequences for the admins who ignore the basic well being of their own games. Unfortunately, players cannot elect new admins through democratic elections, removing non performers and powetrippers. Therefore, the only realistic solution in such settings would be to walk away or try to convince the imps to change their ways.

IRL if you live in a dictatorship (even a benovelent one) and you want to change the system, you either defect and loudly complain about human rights abuses in your country or join the administration and try to bring about change from the inside.

[Zivilyn]

4.5 Players should be able to expect that disrespect and discourtesy to a game’s staff will be met with equal disrespect and discourtesy.

Now I'm not saying, sink to their level and be a chump. Simply put, it's a two-way street on respect and courtesy. I've ran a game for a long time now and seen good and bad players and imms. I think the big thing that does bug me is when players feel they're entitled to something just 'because'. Now I don't mean that they shouldn't have a fair and honest world/staff etc, that's a given. But when they feel that they should say jump, and the staff should answer... 'how high?' Then I have a problem with that player, it shows a lack of respect or courtesy on their part.

The people that run games, or help run the games, do so (at least in my game) for no money, often little to no thanks, simply because they enjoy the genre and the game itself.

But yes, an additional one could be.
# The right to play elsewhere if the game, it's players or it's staff, do not meet my approval.
(Of course... every game has this right, you simply don't reconnect.)

[Kleothera]

Thing is, when we apply to be builders or other species of immortals- no matter that we are all unpaid and volunteers and etc etc, we take on a responsibility to do certain actions that take the game forward. The players have a right to expect timely and reasonable action for the improvement of the world. Players also have something of a right to expect the staff to take into some sort of cognizance their opinions on how the game should be run. Of course different people may consider what is timely may differ from person to person. The trick is to explain our limitations slowly and patiently and be ready to accept that you would never satisfy everyone.

Having said that, I think we are talking about different issues here. Your issue is about instance when the staff member IS trying to do his/her/its best and still gets yelled at. My issue (and that of the original poster) is that some games the staff MAY actually powetrip and act nuts. I guess that is more likely to happen in startup muds with 14 year old imps experiencing power for the first time. Your MUD and mine are definitely not one of them. But in this time of easy to establish almost stock muds, there ARE a lot of such games and such admins.

[chaosprime]

It all seems a bit like running in circles. If a MUD's administration is mature enough to adopt something like that bill of rights, they already don't need it. And an administration that does need it almost certainly doesn't want it. What's the value add?

[Zivilyn]

Great points Kleo (Yours too Chaos) I think both of you hit the proverbial nail on the head.

[chaosprime]

Note that I'm not trying to say that I know there is no value add; I'm asking for an eludication of what it might be. If the bill of rights is ineffective as an admonishment to administrators (and maybe it is, maybe it isn't), are there other functions it can serve?

[Fern]

I'm glad to see this thread resurface. Let's not fall into the 'safe drivers do not need to worry about seatbelts' trap. There are drunks on the road (games that aren't run by mature, objective individuals). The more community members, players and staff who come to expect ethical treatment as a rule, not as an exception, the better.

[Ide]

Originally Posted by chaosprime Note that I'm not trying to say that I know there is no value add; I'm asking for an eludication of what it might be. If the bill of rights is ineffective as an admonishment to administrators (and maybe it is, maybe it isn't), are there other functions it can serve?

Here is the value add. But first a slight digression.

Muds have been around now for about 30 years. That's a long time on the Internets. Long enough for the first developers of muds to now be grandparents. However what I don't see in the face of this impressive mudding history is much institutional memory of what has gone before, been done, and might be lessons for the future. This memory exists more like digital rock art, things we might come upon randomly out on a hike somewhere and interpret. But it's largely transitory, and we reinvent these concepts over and over.

One of the concepts this memory could include is a cultural quality of how we treat one another. There are communities that build a culture and pass it on from one to the next. In time the concept is almost set in stone. This is never entirely good or entirely bad, but I think there are things that are more negative (a culture of hate) and more positive (a culture of respect). At a certain point no one may even remember there was a bill of rights. But its effects will be inscribed in the values of the community that grow from it.

Someone needs to plant the seed.

OK, time to clean out my bong.

[Fern]

Hey. Watch it, whippersnappers. *whaps people with her cane* I'm a grandma... *grin*

For the record, I agree. So what's it going to be, a centralized place we link to, or a version of the PBOR on our own sites?
Show of hands?

[Valg]

Originally Posted by Kleothera Thing is, when we apply to be builders or other species of immortals- no matter that we are all unpaid and volunteers and etc etc, we take on a responsibility to do certain actions that take the game forward.

That's an assumption on your part, however. Some staff may feel that their duty is merely to maintain an existing game-- handle the server payments, fix things that break, etc. If the staff hasn't promised to move the game "forward", it should not be an expectation/right of the players.

"Forward" is a subjective assertion, in any event. The staff may be moving the game in a different direction than one particular player wants, or even in a direction that all of their current players oppose at the time. It's arbitrary to claim that's a "violation"-- the staff may be interested in pleasing other players on the same game, or even drawing in a certain crowd who hasn't started playing yet.

Take examples of formerly free games that started selling perks or charging monthly fees. Were the players' "rights" violated there?

[Kleothera]

In the example you cited, "taking forward" would as a minimum paying for the server regularly and being around to fix them. The new staff member who is hired as a bug fixer is expected to well... fix bugs. Server maintainance has to be done. If the MUD goes down and stays down for a few weeks because X,Y, X say forgot to pay the hosting company (after promising the rest of the staff that he would make payments herceforth), players have a reason to be peeved and expect their imms to do what they DID promise. In a game with a lot of players there is much that needs to be done to just keep standing at the same place!

About the second part of the note, that once again falls into the territory of creative disagreement between players and imms about the direction that the game has to go. Of COURSE players and admins can disagree over how the game has to be run, but if what you are doing goes against the majority of public opinion, you do need to explain to the parties affected why its being done. Its just politeness to make sure people know that an action is taken for a logical reason. They might disagree with the reason, but they know why. If its something that they passionately disagree with, you might have to even roll back a decision taken. Again, however, I am talking about extreme cases of high handedness or inaction and just pleading for courtesy to the playerbase (not obeying everyone's whim and fancy).

About the purpose that such a code would have, hell, is good PR with players. Even if MUDs that do try to treat people fairly, its essential to set a standard of behaviour. Some MUDs opt for something like Do onto others like you would want them to do onto you. But this is a little more specific. A game that clearly spells out a standard of how players are treated would attract players sick of high handed behaviourtdrfyut elsewhere. It also serves as something newbie imms can be pointed towards to say- THIS is how you should behave.

[Threshold]

Originally Posted by Valg "Forward" is a subjective assertion, in any event. The staff may be moving the game in a different direction than one particular player wants, or even in a direction that all of their current players oppose at the time. It's arbitrary to claim that's a "violation"-- the staff may be interested in pleasing other players on the same game, or even drawing in a certain crowd who hasn't started playing yet.

Good point. You are spot on Valg, and I agree completely.

Another example: Imagine someone was playing a free game for years, and loved it. Then the admins started selling merchandise, and strangely enough the people who bought a lot of merchandise got more attention from the admins and other favorable treatment.

The people who don't like this would feel like the game was not moving forward. They may prefer the game stay pure hobbyist. But the people who were buying the merchandise would think that this was an improvement to the game, as it was making it more commercialized and thus more stable. Some people would rather their favorite game be more of a commercial operation, and since selling merchandise makes a game a commercial operation (just like commercial, professional web comics - many of which get ALL their very significant revenue from merchandise sales), they would be very excited by this development.

It all comes down to opinion, really.

[Ide]

Naturally this thread is going where it will, but I just wanted to point out the concept of moving a mud 'forward' is nowhere included in the OP.

[Kleothera]

Re-Ide, yes, its not in the original post. It is from one of my replies to Zivilyn who suggested an additional-

# The right to play elsewhere if the game, it's players or it's staff, do not meet my approval.
(Of course... every game has this right, you simply don't reconnect.)

I was suggesting that courtesy demands that staff performs the actions for which they were hired and if the staff takes actions that affect the players, they are entitled to be consulted and their opinions taken. The staff may not agree, but if you are "messing up" (yes, a subjective term too) the game play of people who have spent hours getting their characters up to level, I strongly feel that they are atleast entitled to know WHY. In the previous example, the staff is entitled to make the MUD commercial, however, it should ideally be done in consultation with the existing playerbase and what are the new ground rules need to be made clear to everyone so that any favourable treatment to people buying merchandise isnt seen as something as "strangely enough" (to use the words in the post), but something that players are entitled to by investing funds in the game. Put the new suggested terms upfront. Get peoples' opinions on it. Change the terms based on good ideas from the playerbase (atleast the smartest cookies out there). Ask yourself how much opposition is there and whether the tradeoff of loss of n% of existing players is worth the chance of getting some new ones. Then decide whether you want to implement the change. If you do it in a transparent manner, the amount of grumbling is going to be less. It wont stop, but there would be less of it.

[Jazuela]

The only "rights" I can fathom of a mud player, is whatever "right" a particular game owner chooses to give that player. These games aren't owned collectively by the playerbase, it isn't a democracy, and in fact some of these games are owned by people who don't even live in a democratic country.

The only thing I feel a mud player "should" be entitled to, is whatever treatment the staff claims they will provide. In other words, if the staff says "we will treat our players like crap" then the mud player should be entitled to expect to be treated like crap. If the staff says, "we will not play favorites among our personal friends who play, and all players will be treated on the merits of their own gaming skills" then the players are entitled to that treatment by staff.

Game owners aren't obligated to do ANYTHING for the players. They aren't even obligated to make their game available. Nor should they be. When people who have no financial interest in my property, starts telling me what they expect me to do with my property, I start feeling like I should stop allowing those people permission to come onto my property. We are visitors to these games. We are there because the owners have given us permission to visit. We do not have the "right" to tell these owners what they can, cannot, should, or should not do within the confines of their own personal property. The only thing we as players should feel comfortable expecting, is whatever the owners have claimed they will do. Nothing more, and nothing less.

[Zivilyn]

Originally Posted by Jazuela ...When people who have no financial interest in my property, starts telling me what they expect me to do with my property, I start feeling like I should stop allowing those people permission to come onto my property....

Quoted for truth .
I honestly love most of the suggestions, I just get a thought similar to this when I end up with that one player who thinks I owe _him_ for him allowing me to be graced with his presence in the game. While I DO feel glad that I have certain players contributing to the whole picture that is 'the game', it's never 'that' character (the one who doesn't build, doesn't help further the world, doesn't (insert something useful).. etc).

But, at the same point, I do agree with people voicing their concerns and opinions if they find something 'out of wack'.

[Kleothera]

Well. I suppose we simply have different ideas of what a MUD is about. Maybe it boils down to the difference between large semi-MMPROG MUDs and small online inde muds, albeit long standing ones. I dont know.

Lets get back to what was said earlier-

Jazuela said- "These games aren't owned collectively by the playerbase, it isn't a democracy, and in fact some of these games are owned by people who don't even live in a democratic country".

In my view, MUDS are an online community which a group of volunteers prepare for the enjoyment of others. While the "staff" contributes code and area design, the players contribute their time and effort to build a community. The social climate of the MUD and (if applicable) RP is what makes the game for me in the end. When it comes down to it for me, all the fancy bells and whistles that a game has, would fail without a loyal and steady playerbase. In that sense, ANY successful community is collectively created and owned. This is especially so in a RP mud where the story of the game evolves through player contributions.

Yes, its no MUD is a complete democracy- I think years ago Bartle experimented with a truly democratic system and it got bogged down in the mechanics of getting everyone's opinions in in a timely manner. However, a consultative, fair and transparent system SHOULD by definition lead to a closer knit community. Of course, you are free to disagree.

The last para of the original notes seems to suggest that the only contribution that counts is the financial contribution involved in paying the server fees and associated MUD cash expenses. I had started playing the game I am admin over a decade ago. I was eventually hired to be a builder. Then I started handing the new player related issues and rewriting all the helpfiles. Then I became head of RP. Then I got bumped up to Imp/Admin. I am also now handing the game's webforum. In this ENTIRE time of being a staff member for a decade, I haven't spent a single penny directly to the game. However, I have spent 1000s of hours improving every aspect of the MUD. I would personally take deep offense to any suggestion that all that would not matter _at all_ compared to who pays the server.

You may argue that my case is atypical since I am obviously not just a player any more. However, the same goes for the players. There are people who spent over a decade playing here. They help new players. They develop fansites. They keep the forum updated. They keep the clans run smoothly. They report bugs and typos in text. They contribute some of the best ideas for the game. Eventually they are the ones who are hired as staff like I was. Saying that their opinion is totally irrelevant goes against my sense of what an online community is.

[Kleothera]

Well. I spent a few hours thinking about it, and went back to ponder at the original post about Player Rights.

I think part of the reason behind the lack of agreement is the classical problem with the concept of Rights when taken without the concept of Responsibilities. This is from what I know of legal jurisprudence also a major problem with the concept in RL law. At the same time, the situation in which we are situating rights is markedly different from RL. The rights a player has is situated in the overall socio-political (I am really talking geek speak now), context of how the particular game has evolved to deal with players. Seeing the amount of disagreement we are having (and going by the passion with which some of the replies were written) the discussion is moving towards an understanding of the role that players vs imms have and should have in MUDs. At the same time, even if we agree on a certain minimum ethical standard on treating players (if the word rights is too strong for people), some people have asked how this standard would be implemented.

Some articles I have seen on this today (and I havent read completely yet, largely because its past midnight and I am beginning to ramble while writing) are below.

An interesting paper I found on the issue of the powers of Gods in the context of online games, esp MUDS (by Richard Bartle) which gives an interesting classification of how different MUD systems have evolved to govern their players-
Why Governments aren’t Gods and Gods aren’t Governments

A classical case study of the experiment with (and effectively failure of) a democratic online community is that of Pavel Curtis' LambdaMoo. I havent read the full link below, however, it appears to give an overall history. The book I had read earlier was about this game.

Virtual(ly) Law: The Emergence of Law in LambdaMOO: Mnookin

Customary Law & Power in Internet Communities: Maltz
How customary law in MUDs emerge in situations where relations between imms and citizens are unequal.

Gamasutra - Features - "Constructive Politics in a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game; [03.09.00]
Really interesting and to be fair, off topic Handling player run political systems in a MUD

Anyway, my point here is that perhaps we may want to look at the OP and ask ourselves a set of questions-

1. Do you think we as a community should perhaps expect a minimum voluntary code of ethics to deal with players in games?Y/N
2. What is the shortest possible list of the things that a God should not do to his players on a MUD in terms of the treatment given. (until a better word is found, rights) Are there any things that staff shouldn't do to their players- no matter what?
3. Perhaps what is a minimum list of things you would expect from players in return in terms of the above civil behaviour? (responsibilities)
4. Assuming we agree on something on some of the above issues, perhaps the next question would be on how would we make this wishlist into a customary law in the MUD community- or atleast as a beginning among the readers of this forum.

[the_logos]

Originally Posted by Kleothera Gamasutra - Features - "Constructive Politics in a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game; [03.09.00] Really interesting and to be fair, off topic Handling player run political systems in a MUD

Just a note: I wrote that, but I wrote that 8.5 years ago. I haven't re-read it in a long time but I have little doubt that I'd probably take issue with some of what's in the article. I'd only been involved in MUDs for 8 or 9 years at that point, compared to double that now.

--matt