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Old 08-18-2008, 10:55 AM   #22
Kleothera
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Join Date: Apr 2007
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Re: MUD Players' Bill of Rights

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.
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