Question about the role of IMMs

[germs]

Date:    2009 May 31 09:50
From:    dentin
Subject: player admin stuff and pkilling
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Recently, Cow decided to go apeshit and illegally pkill a bunch of people.
He did this while bragging to reasonably high level gods about how they
couldn't stop him, and from the logs it was quite clearly pre-meditated.
He has been frozen for three months, though I may decide to extend this
based on other information I uncover.

The real damage he has done though is to the reputation of all of you, as a
playerbase.  Clearly, I can't trust all of you not to be jackasses.  As a
result, I'm devolving more admin power to the lowadmin gods.

As of this next reboot, all 104 and higher will have boot and freeze.
Given that freeze wears off automatically now and it's not as big a deal as
it used to be I don't expect this to cause a lot of problems, and hopefully
it will solve more than it creates should another Cow appear.

I've also put some time into fixing up the PK bugs Cow used to bring about
the deaths, but there are plenty of other ways to be a griefer.

-dentin


One of the positive features of this mud is that after much trial and error
we have come to a point to where the game code can pretty much take care
of enforcing rules by itself. It ought to be a tradition that we can take pride in
and continue to build on. Many of us are concerned that this new change is being
made in haste and overly reactionary. I personally think that the mud community
has overall been running very smoothly and has far less drama since we have made
the switch from humans dictating rules to our automated system. The ignore, asshole,
and player channel systems have all worked brilliantly in facilitating our new creative
form of governance. After all that work in creating it why step back into the dark ages?

In addition to that we are also a little bit confused as to why the actions of
one player has tarnished the reputation of the entire playerbase. We have like what,
200 people total who play here?

Having multiple IMMs with the ability(and duty as some of them see it ) to get involed
in the affairs of mortals often creates MUD-wide negativity and much like PPK, it affects
everyone, even those not directly involved.

To be honest, I don't trust the most of the IMMs to make rational or just decisions. And with
the possibility of some of your newbie builders becoming gods, I am all the more concerned. No...
terrified. In my opinion of the newbie builders, some of them(all of them) are idiots. These people
contribute code or areas to the MUD and then suddenly they're qualified to be judge, jury and
executioner in the private matters of other mudders?

[Dentin]

I've posted pretty strict rules regarding freeze and boot on the god board.  I intend to keep their use to a minimum, reserved only for situations like Cows.

What the playerbase has shown me is that no matter what rules and constructs are in place, someone somewhere will pay whatever price is necessary to grief others.  In situations like that, when they occur, it's best if there are 'last resort' kinds of measures available.

The hard part from my side is making sure 'last resort' means what it says.

[boa]

And with the possibility of some of your newbie builders becoming gods, I am all the more concerned. No...terrified. In my opinion of the newbie builders, some of them(all of them) are idiots.

Thanks.

[Fehlan]

Newbie Builders is an oxymoron...... Newbies arent made builders, for one, and for two, not all builders are gods either (me for instance). Any single persons judgement is suspect, which is why even the gods have levels. A lvl 104 gods judgement is automatically reviewed as soon as the action is made, by elder gods. We call them admin for a reason, ya know. All Dentin has done is make it possible for all the 104s, who are around by a far margin more often than admins, the ability to handle these divergant emergencies. I would imagine Gamlin/etc wouldnt have been such an issue or even remembered if lower level gods couldve dealt with him.

[ariella]

I'm new to this mud..I just found it this week and started playing. I've mudded on a few different mud bases and all had certain different charm and character that made it appealing. EVERY one of those mud had one fatal flaw and it is refreshing and impressive to see a mud that stepped outside of that flaw.

Too many times have I seen immortals be rude, derogatory, and bias to not only the player base but to other lesser immortals as well. I've been an immortal on muds and while I always tried to remain unbias...I would have higher immortals chastise me for getting after their "star" mudders who were really just bullies that got away with everything.

I really like that instead of putting in place a bunch of whining babysitters to sit around and play "king of the hill" you've elected to think outside the box and put in place a completely unbias judge. I like the idea of having immortals that make sure the system is running instead of spending their time running around and spying/pranking/killing/and what not to the player base.

kudos and I really like what I've seen of your mud so far. Thank you for the great experience I've had so far...and it's only been a week lol.



Rachael/Ariella

[Dentin]

Thanks Ariella.

I've also had bad experiences with immortals of the kind you describe on other games.  I've also seen the damage it can do here, on AA - we've been around for 15 years, and in the early days immortals interfered in gameplay far more than was healthy.  I saw players leave because of it, and each time it happened I tried to find ways to limit immortal power so it didn't happen again.

Over the years, I've managed to reduce the admin staff and get people out of administrative positions.  I'm the last remaining active admin, and I'm perfectly happy to keep it that way.  The builder gods have a small number of commands that they can use temporarily for extreme cases, but I check pretty much all of their decisions to make sure the players aren't being unfairly treated.

Pushing administration and control of things like clans and channels to the players has helped tremendously.  I've also recently added code to prevent gods from joining clans, and I'm trying to figure out ways to rework the ignore system to help give players more control over what affects them.  Because players have so much control, and because the system works to limit abuse, I'm barely even needed.  I like it that way.

In a lot of ways, it strikes me as similar to the separation of church and state in the US government, or perhaps the separation of the three branches of government.  Gods should build and players should play, with very little crossover.  When there is a crossover, it should be limited because the conflict of interest is so high.

I'm glad you like the game!