[Yui Unifex]

Originally Posted by (Xorith @ foo) From the control aspect, I don't see how any competent administrator could argue this even though some already have. To allow such a program would be to give up some of your control. Your control isn't earth-shaking, however it is what usually keeps a MUD glued together.

What is this, some sort of slippery slope? If you give up the ability to have intimate knowledge of the private conversations of your players, the glue that binds the MUD will come undone? Sorry, but that's just stupid.

Originally Posted by (Xorith @ bar) Not knowing what is being said could open you up to many unpleasant things, most of which have been discussed. The major one was pointed out by KaVir - that is your MUD being used as a means to discuss illegal activity.

OK, I'm calling BS on this. Nearly every IRC server has a disclaimer of legal liability for messages passing through their networks, and most are still around and kicking with no problems. What makes MUDs any different?

Originally Posted by (Xorith @ baz) Other things include the advantage this would give those special players who have the program over players who do not, especially in a PVP environment.

No. Those players that want the special advantage would just take it to IM, where it's far more conveniant to pass private messages than by copy/pasting text into a decryptor.

Originally Posted by (Xorith @ foo) Lets face it, if you're not in control of your game, then who is?

Here again with the slippery slope.

Originally Posted by (Xorith @ bar) I think those who spout off 'control-freak' in regard to this issue may also be the same who, as players, bitch and whine about how a game they are playing is run. They feel they have the right to control the game just because they login day after day, as if they have some greater knowledge than the person who's putting his or her hard work into it. Rather than taking the more obvious and logical route of NOT logging into this game, since they obviously can't stand how it's run, they continue to login every day and try to exert some false control.

I'm at a complete loss as to how this analogy applies to me, the only one who has been spouting off at the control-freakiness of the nanny admins. What in the world are you talking about?

[Xorith]

I've argued with you before, "Yui Unifex". It seems you still have problems reading the whole of a post, and only quoting that which you can most easily flame.

I covered private communications.

The actions the RIAA are taking against filesharing networks is evidence that sometimes a simple disclaimer isn't enough.

MUDs are *NOT* a private medium of communication.

If you're at a loss, then I'm afraid there is no hope for you. If you run a MUD, please let me know what it is. I'd hate to stumble upon a game where the administrator lacks control of his own online community.

Do yourself a favor and read the whole post before replying.

-- Xorith

Here's a hypothetical question for all you 12 year old mud admins to ponder from the dark depths of your parents' **** soaked basements: what if these ungodly industrious players (who, gasp, think on their own!) got the idea to go the next step, which is to funnel their private communications through a completely separate server, also running on telnet, and use some simple triggers in their mud client so it seems as if the "channel" is part of your mud?  this way not only can you not monitor it, but you cannot even know it exists; and it will transcend silent rooms, silenced flag, incapacitation, lag (both intended, ie spell lag, or unintended, ie router burps). What's more, all it would take is one person to set up such a server and distribute instructions for how to integrate it using zmud, and your entire playerbase will soon be able to speak amongst eachother and there's not a freakin thing you can do about it.

So, all that said, just tell them not to broadcast nonsense over a _public_ channel, and whatever they want to do in their own little group chats, let them. This is a case where you (the mud admin) really have no power at all, so merely trying to wield an imaginary power just makes you look like a moron.

Originally Posted by For the Valar may work many things with thought rather than with hands, and without voices in silence they may hold council with one another.

Few things are more annoying than control freak mud admins. I bet that as kids you tortured the family pets for fun.


Lord Xchantharus, Supreme Deity of
Mists of Faerieland MUD, gets ****ed
off when players communicate by less
orthodox means. REALLY ****ed off.
And someone is going to get shot!

[Yui Unifex]

Originally Posted by (Xorith @ foo) I've argued with you before, "Yui Unifex". It seems you still have problems reading the whole of a post, and only quoting that which you can most easily flame.

Sorry, I didn't take issue with your entire post. I only quote the parts that I care about. If you think I missed something essential to your argument, how about you quote it from the original post so I can show how full of it you are?

Originally Posted by (Xorith @ bar) I covered private communications.

Where? Please quote and show where I missed some essential information.

Originally Posted by (Xorith @ baz) The actions the RIAA are taking against filesharing networks is evidence that sometimes a simple disclaimer isn't enough.

The filesharing network fiasco is such a horrible analogy when it comes to MUDs that I don't even know where to begin in refuting you. I'll start with intent: The intent of a MUD is to provide a game, not a place where users can exchange copyrighted material. I'll next touch upon volume: Most communications within a MUD have nothing to do with copyrighted materials; the same can't be said for filesharing networks. See what the Supreme Court calls a "substantial noninfringing use". And third: Nowhere did I suggest that banning people that you know are engaging in illegal activity makes you a control freak. Finally: Most muds are free. They are not benefitting financialy from these activities.

All of these are major points of the RIAA's cases against filesharing networks (particularly Napster), but none of them apply to my argument. You're so wrong it's funny.

Originally Posted by (Xorith @ foo) If you're at a loss, then I'm afraid there is no hope for you. If you run a MUD, please let me know what it is.

My mud chat server can be found in my sig, and you're welcome to come by even if I don't agree with your opinion or I think you're a doofus.

Originally Posted by (Xorith @ bar) I'd hate to stumble upon a game where the administrator lacks control of his own online community.

We can see another facet of the control-freak here: The belief that control is an all or nothing affair. It's funny how you think that just because I do not have 'snoop', that I also do not have 'ban' or 'disconnect'.

EDIT: But the implications of this statement are disturbing. I don't want to control the community found on my server. They are intelligent people that can handle themselves. I am not their nanny. I am only there to stop unpleasantries that they can not stop themselves, like DoS spam attacks.

EDIT: And for once, I agree with erdos =).

[Xorith]

And the time has come to do two things:

1) Remind the trolls of this board that the original post asked for opinions, not childish bickering and berating.

2) Remember once again why I stay away from these forums (and others like it) until someone feels the need to send me a link to some debate they feel I might be interested in.

I'll let the rest of you have at your little trollings now. The opinions were shared. I value the opinions mentioned. I'm striving to ignore the trolls, though it IS difficult. Thank you, those who have made this discussion worthwhile.

-- Xorith

[Yui Unifex]

Originally Posted by (Xorith @ foo) And the time has come to do two things: 1) Remind the trolls of this board that the original post asked for opinions, not childish bickering and berating.

Might come as a news flash to you, but we (and you) are bickering over the opinions that were given. You think I'm going to sit back and let people like you make wildly incorrect, unsubstantiated claims pocked full of logical fallacies and get away without any sort of berating?

[shadowfyr]

Originally Posted by (erdos @ Mar. 17 2004,10:53) <snip> what if these ungodly industrious players (who, gasp, think on their own! got the idea to go the next step, which is to funnel their private communications through a completely separate server, also running on telnet, and use some simple triggers in their mud client so it seems as if the "channel" is part of your mud?  <snip>

Shhh!!! We don't want them finding out that programs like MudMaster, zMud, MUSHclient and others already provide such P2P server/client solutions. lol

----

In fact such programs even provide 'snoop' and 'remote command' type options that the mud can't tell isn't coming from the users client (since it is) or being sent to someone elese.

If you are really worried about this then, "get a clue". The only real solution is a custom client that you 'must' have to play, most of which don't provide scripting or any of the other *nasty* things that honest players use to help them keep track of things in the game more easilly, but which scare the admin, since they can't detect their use or stop it. However, no matter what bells and wistles get added to the custom client, it still royally sucks compared to one that let you code scripts to do real work. And some things you need this for.

For example, potions on my mud would require keeping a list of all ingredients needed to make them. I can do it on paper, but coding a plugin for Mushclient that *learned* made more sense to me and other people can use it too. Someone else made an external application that can be called from script and provides a detail map for a Mechwarrior based mud. Someone else recently made a external window to which you can feed colored text, for things like chats and stuff. Some of this could be made in a custom client (maybe all), but major changes to the mud would require a entirely new version of the client. We just patch our scripts.

Personally.. If someone has a client that can script such a encryption/decryption feature, then it probably can do a lot more. If it is one of the big three, MM, zMud or MUSHclient, then it has P2P chat built in, no need to encrypt. If they are doing it on the mud then a) you are right, they are out to get you!!, b) they are using it to be more unique (I considered a translator of sorts for the kitsune race on the mud I play) or c) they are trying to be annonamous, but are too bloody stupid to get a client that already lets you do so through MM Chat or zChat.

Best bet is to find out 'why' they are actually doing it and see if middle ground is possible, like implimenting the encoding/decoding on the mud itself and having the admin's view be always plain text. But to assume they are doing it to cheat or do an end run around you is imho more a case of fear than reality. Its your call if you want to nuke/ban them, but it doesn't really tell you 'why' they did it or if there may have been some useful purpose to it.

[karlan]

All other considerations aside, it is worth stopping it on a global channel just from the spam point of view, if you have global channels, for general communications, and they start filling up with reasonably meaningless gibberish, it's spam, if they feel they have to have a private method of communicating, with out using tell or whisper or any built in method, fine, do it, just do not spam everyone else with it.

EG: My friend and I are in a busy room/conference, rather than talk between ourselves privately, we decide to hold our conversation, at the top of our lungs, in a made up language.

In what way/world is this not...
a) really annoying
Or...
b) rude

and for that reason, I would not be surprised if we were asked/forced to leave

[visko]

My 3 cents....

The argument of spam and illegal activities discussions seems to have weight still; especially if someone ends up with a log of a conversation that was encrypted but was discussing putting a nuke in a building somewhere, you'd be in trouble no matter how many layers of disclaiming you put on your MUD. IANAL, but just because I have a sign on the front door of my house saying "discussions of illegal activity will not be initiated or condoned by the owner of this house" doesn't mean I don't get some fun in a few hot seats if people discussed shooting up a building in my house, then did it.

That being said, whoever created this program should probably get HIRED. Having no experience with encryption, I don't know what that would entail, but ####, they wrote a networked encryption communications program(or plugin, whichever)?! Who cares about beating them; I want to put them to work.

The philosophical question of whether you allow communication over a public channel to be intelligible to the rest of the players seems to be a choice issue; if communication is so relevant on your MUD that it should always be understandable to the player base, then you tell them to stop. If it's not, you tell them to give you the decryption algorithm and simply log it. Which method is BETTER seems to be subjective, and related less to presonal principle (control freaks vs whatever name-calling Yui received) and more towards the game's objectives.

-Visk