It seems like people try all sorts of things to get 'hired' on MUDs these days. Maybe there are some reasonable people who log on random MUDs and are both genuine and useful. But I'm yet to see one in 6 years of being an imm.

One newbie recently asked, "yall need any imms or enforcers?". Now, I've heard this 'enforcer' term twice recently - either it's the same guy foolishly trying us again, or it's a common term I've been mercifully spared from hearing up until now. Translation: "I have no talent or experience that will allow me to convince you that I can be a builder. But I'd sure like to be able to push people around. Gimme the SILENCE and DESTROY commands, please?" Next?

The previous person with the 'enforcer' line had said, "i am an experienced builder and enforcer i wish to expand my knowledge and was wondering if you had room for a female builder or enforcer who can build on your immortal team?" Translation: "Although I want to build, attempting to use proper capitalisation or punctuation in my opening pitch is too much effort. Therefore I graciously offer to be an Enforcer instead. Oh, and I'm female, and I know you can't turn down females. *flutters eyelashes*" Er, yes. If you're experienced, then obviously you have skills to show us without having to use the text equivalent of showing a lot of cleavage. Of course, I doubt this person actually was female, as no female mudder I've ever met who was genuinely interested in helping the MUD would flaunt her gender so blatantly.

Another newbie came on and said, "I hear you guys are hiring builders.". Well, I hear that newbies are lying in the hope that they'll get put through to a higher-ranking imm or something, as we certainly haven't advertised for builders or any other imm position in years. Sadly for this newbie, there was no higher-ranking imm than me and I quickly corrected him.

Note that all these people failed our first aptitude test; a note in the newbie message of the day when they log in that we don't recruit new players as imms. They've had maybe 5 screens of text to read so far; if they came here to be an imm and couldn't manage to read the paragraph that talks about being an imm, then what hope is there for them? They could at least acknowledge it and tell us that they're good enough for us to make an exception. Instead, they convince me that they're desperate for power and that they're only on our MUD because we're near the top of the alphabetical listings.

Some hints to those of you who are reading this and don't see what these people are doing wrong:

- Know something about the MUD you're applying for. If you don't know anything about my MUD, why on earth would I want you building areas (that won't fit the theme) or enforcing laws (that you're not familiar with)? It usually only takes me a second to see that you're just after a position anywhere, and I don't want people like that.

- Have something to show me. "I'm an experienced builder" means nothing. Just because somebody less discerning than myself allowed you to build once, doesn't make you a builder, never mind experienced. If you can't give me a great room description (or an even better example of your abilities) as soon as I ask for one, don't expect to even be considered.

- Read. I'm not one of these people who advocates 20-line room descriptions and says that players who config +brief deserve to die, but if you're coming to my game for a staff position, you should make the effort to read the information we provide when you login.

I'm afraid I might be responsible for that term. When creating God Wars, the players all had godlike titles, and so I needed to find administrative titles for the imm staff to help distinguish them from the players - these were (in order of level, which was necessary in order to determine available commands): Builder (all you can do is build), Quest Maker (you gain some additional commands to help run quests), Enforcer (you are now trusted with enough commands to start enforcing in-game rules), Judge (gain access to the majority of the in-game commands), High Judge (gain access to almost all the commands, including the ones that affect out-of-game stuff such as sitebans) and Implementor (full command set).

Some very true observations. When you look at it through the eyes of a real builder or coder, it is even more frustrating. These scum flood the MUD community until we arrive at the current point, where MUDs are split neatly into the following typology:

1. They will hire you, but your coworkers will be the abovementioned wastes of flesh and, obviously, the MUD will never get anywhere anyway

2. They are a good MUD with potential, but your chances of getting hired- despite being a master builder/coder- are nil.

How to solve the problem? Simple -- do away with the whole concept of builders and coders being gods. Let them build and code on another port, but they're just normal mortals on the play port. This is how I coded for a couple years over at Aethar when it was open, and it worked pretty well.

The simple qualification we've used is that you can only apply as a top-level mortal. By that time, we've had a chance to assess your roleplaying ability (and if we haven't, we'll defer and watch), verify that you stay within the rules, etc. Also, the act of reaching our highest mortal level demonstrates at least some familiarity with our world, and we probably have a read on if you have a handle on the mechanics. You can then apply, and we will interview and get a decision to you when we have one.

If anyone else asks, we point them to a document which explains the above. Solves the request very quickly. Not exactly a big problem to deal with.

Heh. Our intro screen for a long time read "Do not bother asking to become an immortal until you have completed all 200 mortal levels." Did that stop them asking? No. Mainly because they never read it, in their haste to get on the game and start asking. It's not so much that it's a problem for us to deal with than it is a symptom of the warped expectations that some people have.