01 Sep, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 121st comment:
Votes: 0
There wuld probably by necessity be a need to filter things which are not really important to have in a public feed out. What us and isnt considered important would probably be something to duscuss with the community of your MUD.

Maya/Rudha
01 Sep, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 122nd comment:
Votes: 0
I was once on a mud where the staff were fully logged - everything they typed was recorded. Should a player have a complaint about the behaviour of an imm, they could take it to the mud owner, who could check the logs and respond accordingly. I found this solution perfectly adequate.

But revealing the logs publically strikes me as a bad idea. If there's a problem with the behaviour of a member of staff then it should be resolved internally while maintaining a unified front. It looks very unprofessional when admin start washing their dirty laundry in public. Particularly when players start quoting the logs out of context.
01 Sep, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 123rd comment:
Votes: 0
I know from personal experience that a problematic admin being chastused privately is simply going to come off as sweeping things under the rug, and an administration that seems united is only going to exacerbate that notion.

If an admin has done something to injure another player or the community in a way thay generates negative dialogue, a closed approach is not really going to mitigate the community's hurt or distrust - and -that- is what is important to me here.


Maya/Rudha
01 Sep, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 124th comment:
Votes: 0
Rudha said:
I know from personal experience that a problematic admin being chastused privately is simply going to come off as sweeping things under the rug, and an administration that seems united is only going to exacerbate that notion.

And I know from experience that washing your laundry in public will reflect poorly on your mud. If a member of staff does something inappropriate, you deal with it privately. If it impacts the other players, you make an announcement after you've made your decision. Publishing logs of the admin flinging poo at each other will not make your game look more professional.
01 Sep, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 125th comment:
Votes: 0
Rudha said:
I find the statement that not making admin actions public is not the same as not giving people a say to he somewhat fallaciiuz; if I don't know what admins are doing then I cannot contribute to duscussion of their actions in an educated way.

You would know about what they're doing to you and can therefore seek redress; if you are to comment on what they do to others, they can provide an account of what happened in the "court" of redress. No matter how you look at it, you're trusting their account.


Rudha said:
Quite frankly though, if someone is so concerned about their perceived reputation that having you admin actions being made public is a negative then more likely than not you lack the maturity required for MUD administration anyways.

I find this language to be unnecessarily insulting.

That you prefer one thing over another isn't really reason enough to say that everybody who disagrees with your administrative preference is immature and otherwise most likely incapable of running a MUD.

Here's exactly how we can look at what other people don't do and conclude that your position is extreme. There are many MUDs out there that are successful (as far as MUDs go, at least) and run by mature, competent staff, and yet they don't have these systems. You have argued that it's really, really easy to implement these systems. So, are those all in fact a bunch of lazy, incompetent, immature developers not up to the task of running a MUD?

In practice, at least, your statement seems to be too strong, leaving aside its insulting undertone.

Rudha said:
Im not sure how "other people don't do this" is a valid arguement for or against anything unless you can provide reasoning as to why they dont.

Your position is that this is such an obviously positive thing to do, and yet clearly the big, successful games disagree. Were I in your shoes, that would make me question if it's truly such an obviously good idea, unless you know some secret that they don't.

Rudha said:
"Admins feelings might get hurt" comes off as frankly childish

I don't think that this argument was ever presented, so if this is how you have interpreted those disagreeing with you, you might want to double-check what they have been saying.

Rudha said:
I believe what Runter is trying to communicate is the question: if you don't have something to hide, then why hide it? Its a valid question.

Beyond Chris's response, your reasoning here suggests that you'd be perfectly ok with constant, total surveillance of all of your actions in the real world, unless of course you're a criminal or something and have stuff to hide, hmm? Oh, and this surveillance would not only be visible to law enforcement, but also to anybody who feels like watching you. Surely you agree that this conclusion is a little extreme, and that maybe Chris's response wasn't quite as silly as Oliver rapidly rejected it to be.

Oliver said:
Anyway, if I were going to implement this system, I would make it so that it reports only punitive commands used on players. I don't think there's a whole lot to be gained from displaying, as per the example above, modifications to mobiles.

And yet a large part of admins cheating is precisely messing with mobiles. It's funny that you would make player punishment visible through logs, because that is already the most visible part of admin actions: if you get banned, you can't connect, and can go ask why not on a forum or something (remember the distinction with ability to redress?). But if some mob got tweaked to disadvantage you by a tormenting admin, or if some player was given inappropriate bonuses, you'll never really know.

Oliver said:
If the reports are only punitive commands performed on players– well. How do you misinterpret "Oliver has banned Ima Troll"?

Because it has zero context, giving rise to questions such as "why did you ban him", "why'd he deserve it", "when's the ban going away", etc.

Rudha said:
If an admin has done something to injure another player or the community in a way thay generates negative dialogue, a closed approach is not really going to mitigate the community's hurt or distrust - and -that- is what is important to me here.

Nobody said that the whole approach would be closed. The staff can come to the decision that the staffer violated the rules, enact some punitive measure if necessary, and announce it one way or another to the players.

Furthermore, nobody is saying that the administration being united means that they have to say that nothing was done inappropriately. You're taking the positions you disagree with and pushing them beyond what people actually argued. The statement was that deliberation should occur in private, not that administrators should never admit to wrongdoing.

Surely you are not arguing that your personal experience covers all possible ways a situation could have been handled without logs being public?
01 Sep, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 126th comment:
Votes: 0
I communicated my thoughts on private admin deliberarions some posts back; I wont repeat myself, except to say that I was the one that conceeded that there are situations where a public log may not be entirely appropriate; privacy issueus was my concern.

Maya/Rudha
01 Sep, 2010, ATT_Turan wrote in the 127th comment:
Votes: 0
Rudha said:
Im not sure how "other people don't do this" is a valid arguement for or against anything unless you can provide reasoning as to why they dont.

Its worth noting that there -are- examples of GM actions being made public to all players. I cant speak to whether it has continued to do so or not, but certain actions in Ultima Online resulted in a message being broadcast to the whole game. Certain MUDs do this with zap commands that everyone knows its been done. Its a less extreme version of something done to the same end.


I was not providing an argument for or against anything, I was asking why anyone would think this was a very good or necessary thing, seeing as how highly developed games of the general genre don't use it (accepting your Ultima Online example as an exception). There isn't any place I, as a player, can go to to see all of the commands that another player has used while logged into the MUD, why should it be different for an immortal?
01 Sep, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 128th comment:
Votes: 0
I should think that would be an easy question to answer: admin actions can have pernament and sometimes irrevocable consequences for a player.

Maya/Rudha
01 Sep, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 129th comment:
Votes: 0
Rudha said:
I communicated my thoughts on private admin deliberarions some posts back; I wont repeat myself, except to say that I was the one that conceeded that there are situations where a public log may not be entirely appropriate; privacy issueus was my concern.

It was confusing to me that you were disagreeing with KaVir as he made this exact same point. It sounds like you agree with it yet you disagree with it. Surely you see that this makes unclear what you were saying. :smile:

Rudha said:
I should think that would be an easy question to answer: admin actions can have pernament and sometimes irrevocable consequences for a player.

What question are you answering? Are you answering why an immortal's actions should be logged? Isn't your answer above to a different question, namely perhaps why there should be logs in the first place as opposed to public logs?
01 Sep, 2010, Runter wrote in the 130th comment:
Votes: 0
For the record wowlike mmos do use a different security scheme than most muds. Comparing the two is poor unless you ae proposing using very weakly powered customer support on your live server. In their scheme they almost always require elevation of a problem to a higher power for open ended resolution.

In fact, we are often times in muds talking about giving area designers positions on muds that they'd never have on a mmo. And often times its seen a reward for their work. This isn't how mmos reward builders. They usually pay them. This generates a weird situation where you have a lot of chefs in the kitchen. Its a little ridiculous to claim muds need many empowered staff members on at all times.

Shifting gears a bit but I would actually consider a player-moderator system where trusted players themselves have very limited powers. This is, of course, if you think your game needs 24-7 moderation to prevent players abusing each other. I'd actually question the design of such a game in the first place.
01 Sep, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 131st comment:
Votes: 0
The security scheme has relatively little to do with players getting warm happy fuzzy feelings (or cold angry rage feelings) from seeing full admin action logs. The security scheme will affect who can take those actions, naturally.

Your general point that MUDs don't need that many staff members with full discipline powers is of course a good one, IMO, but it's answering a different question.

Quote
This is, of course, if you think your game needs 24-7 moderation to prevent players abusing each other. I'd actually question the design of such a game in the first place.

Griefers can exist even in a good game design and be pests in general.
01 Sep, 2010, Runter wrote in the 132nd comment:
Votes: 0
The security scheme has everything to do with it when trying to draw a comparison between World of Warcraft and joe blows mud.

We have already established folks assuming practically any staff member being able to doctor logs. This is partially because mud often do give the lowest bitter too much power.

You can argue about the merits but pointing at WoW and going ahah in this case is a loser. The only reason David Haley didn't point this out himself is because it happened to be on the same side of the argument he fell on. Yes, I am talking past you intentionally.
01 Sep, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 133rd comment:
Votes: 0
Turan seemed to be asking: Player actions aren't publicly logged, why should Immortal's actions be publicly logged? To which my answer is that a player can't IP ban you which would shut you out from the game without easy recourse - among other administrative commands.

David Haley said:
t was confusing to me that you were disagreeing with KaVir as he made this exact same point.


KaVir seemed to be saying that a public log should be shot down because of that concern, whereas I am of the opinion that its easy to sanitise personal information from logs without losing their usefulness. Ultimately, a player base isn't going to know you're doing that unless you tell them that you are. Granted: I'm of the opinion that you should - otherwise we just fall into the trap of looking like things are some big backroom dealing again. I've pointed to this as an example before and it's not a perfect one because it's rife with it's own drama, but I do think Wikipedia's revision control system is a good model - albeit a little over-complicated and over-powered for what a MUD would ever need, in my personal opinion.

Upon some reflection I think that the reason that I do not necessarily agree that the points raised are things which would defeat the utility or desirability of a transparent system is because they present exceptions to usual behaviour, rather than usual behaviour; it can be argued that people can be persnickety and conspiracy-mongering as their normal behaviour, but generally this tends to be indicative of people that you don't want on your MUD anyways, as I believe it was David said earlier - those kinds of peple are not the ones you want to cater to. It's the kinds of people that honestly want to have a say in decisions that affect them - and those good-intentioned people are the ones that ultimately this kind of idea would be catering to, whether it be a forum to discuss those issues, a live admin feed, or whatever. I've always believed that, generally speaking, if players don't feel that they can approach administration about that kind of thing in public quarters, then you are probably doing something wrong.

Maya/Rudha
01 Sep, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 134th comment:
Votes: 0
Rudha said:
KaVir seemed to be saying that a public log should be shot down because of that concern, whereas I am of the opinion that its easy to sanitise personal information from logs without losing their usefulness. Ultimately, a player base isn't going to know you're doing that unless you tell them that you are.

You're proposing doctoring the log files and not telling the players about it?

How long do you think it'll be until they find out? And what sort of reaction do you think you'll get?
01 Sep, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 135th comment:
Votes: 0
I'm not sure whether you didn't read the whole thing, or if you're being intentionally obtuse. Since you obviously had some difficulty finding it, let me take the liberty of quoting the relevant portion:

Rudha said:
[…] Granted: I'm of the opinion that you should - otherwise we just fall into the trap of looking like things are some big backroom dealing again. I've pointed to this as an example before and it's not a perfect one because it's rife with it's own drama, but I do think Wikipedia's revision control system is a good model […]


Maya/Rudha

[edit]: Let's go for some extra credit here! This is how Wikipedia handles sanitising sensitive information from Revisions or Revision summaries: Oversight (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Oversight...)
01 Sep, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 136th comment:
Votes: 0
Runter said:
We have already established folks assuming practically any staff member being able to doctor logs.

To my knowledge, nobody established or assumed any such thing, other than yourself just now. I certainly never made any assumption, so I'm not sure how this is supposed to reply to the comparisons I drew. If you have issues with other people's comparisons, go talk to them about it.

Runter said:
Yes, I am talking past you intentionally.

Your logic and reason have proved us all wrong.

Well, unless you have arguments to present rather than snippy sound bites, I'll move right along…

Rudha said:
Upon some reflection I think that the reason that I do not necessarily agree that the points raised are things which would defeat the utility or desirability of a transparent system is because they present exceptions to usual behaviour, rather than usual behaviour

But aren't the exceptions the interesting cases in the first place?

If the usual behavior is admins being irresponsible, then you have more troubles to begin with than a transparent log system. Presumably, you are interested in dealing with the exceptional case of an admin misbehaving, so exceptions are what we're talking about in the first place.

Rudha said:
It's the kinds of people that honestly want to have a say in decisions that affect them - and those good-intentioned people are the ones that ultimately this kind of idea would be catering to, whether it be a forum to discuss those issues, a live admin feed, or whatever.

I like the idea of a forum where people can bring grievances; my game has such a forum that is private to the person registering the complaint and staff members. If people want to air complaints publicly they can do so too, but this way they can safely ask questions about behavior that might be considered embarrassing, and as a result issues can be resolved without any dirty laundry being aired. Of course, if they feel like they're not being helped, they can choose to make the issue public.

Rudha said:
I've always believed that, generally speaking, if players don't feel that they can approach administration about that kind of thing in public quarters, then you are probably doing something wrong.

I agree. However, I have also found that players don't always want to do it publicly. Perhaps they were doing something embarrassing like harassing somebody with cyber-sex or whatever, got caught and want to talk about their punishment. Letting them do it privately avoids drawing out the issue and creating public drama.
01 Sep, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 137th comment:
Votes: 0
David Haley said:
I like the idea of a forum where people can bring grievances; my game has such a forum that is private to the person registering the complaint and staff members.


I just want to note that this, be it in a public or private forum, is the "normal" way that responsible MUDs provide that open resolution process to their players and I am by no means suggesting that it is bad; merely floating an idea which could run in tandem to it to help strengthen the openness and transparency of things. Ultimately, I suppose that I am saying that simply because there is a decent status quo does not preclude that there are opportunities for improvement, for adding openness and transparency to the administrative processes on a MUD. I do agree, as I've said a few times now, that there are instances where perhaps certain things should not be logged; that, I suppose, comes down to a judgment call on the implementors' side, ultimately - one that I would hope they would do after discussion with their community. A discussion like this one! I don't mean to come off as rude about it or not listening, I'm keeping in mind what people have to say about this in my own considerations how to make my system open and transparent.

It's worth noting that you, or I, or anyone here can argue our respective points till we are blue in the face - we cannot control how others implement and do things on their MUDs, only our own. I'm not trying to say that if you don't do things my way then clearly you're wrong and should burn in hell or something; I apologise if I come off that way.

David Haley said:
I agree. However, I have also found that players don't always want to do it publicly. Perhaps they were doing something embarrassing like harassing somebody with cyber-sex or whatever, got caught and want to talk about their punishment. Letting them do it privately avoids drawing out the issue and creating public drama.


Email still exists, private messages on the forums, and such - I don't think that we're in disagreement that there are situations where things should be dealt with a manner of discretion. However, even in these cases, I still think its good to get community consensus about how to deal with things, as this helps measure what the community thinks of the issue, and it makes them feel they were part of decisions that affect them. At a minimum: publicly make available that this person was banned for doing something bad, ie something like Rudha banned David Haley, duration: (indefinite), reason: Harassment. Obviously Im picking on you a bit in that example, but its just a name pulled out of the air for the point of illustration.

I think transparency is a good thing to have in most cases. Games - MMOs and MUDs in particular - are an interactive medium, and increasing the interactivity between administration and players is just another way of ensuring that people feel their needs are met. Certainly some cases merit some discretion such as in the case of private information being released or something.

I actually have had personal experience with that kind of thing whereby a girl on one MUD I can only call a stalker-type got a hold of my work number and not only circulated it to some other people on the MUD, but was also calling and giving harassing messages to my employer over things that occurred in the MUD. I know personally that I rather prefer that the administrator that dealt with that issue did so publicly - it made it very clear that that kind of behaviour was not tolerated - but at the same time I can understand that not everyone feels that.

The very first thing I did, before I got heady ideas about forums for dispute resolution in the forums, or a feed or something, was set a mailing list up for the different admins that deal with that kind of thing (myself, Chahiero, and Bikari) to be able to receive emails of a more private sort of dispute resolution, because I do believe that any community is built on and starts with the dialogues between individual members, and all the community involvement in the world only results in a whole other problem, if people don't feel that individual concerns or private concerns can also be addressed.

It's a much more complex problem than the single aspect we seem to have gotten ourselves focussed on (a feed idea) seems to suggest, and I'm not saying that such things are a cure-all or 100% necessary - but I do feel that open dispute resolution processes are a good thing to have available for the community, and when things are dealt with openly it garners better reactions then when they are dealt with behind closed doors, generally speaking. Furthermore in most cases where a closed resolution process is necessary - issues of harassment, or out-of-character "real life" information getting out, or other such things - the majority of people are going to understand why it occurred in private quarters so long as they are provided with the information as to why.

I think probably the important thing to remember as regards admin playing their own MUDs, and the issue of administration in general, is that both the player and the admin involved are both people. Both are going to make mistakes and both are going to do things that perhaps could be done better. I personally think that it can be a good and constructive thing to obtain community feedback even about these mistakes as it helps the MUD and the admin in question deal with things better in the future, provided that it is done in a moderated environment to prevent the sort of lynch mobs that seem to be the underpinning concern for you raising the issue of appropriate venue.

Maya/Rudha

edited for some spelling and grammar
01 Sep, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 138th comment:
Votes: 0
Rudha said:
we cannot control how others implement and do things on their MUDs, only our own.

Keep telling yourself that. :devil:

Rudha said:
However, even in these cases, I still think its good to get community consensus about how to deal with things, as this helps measure what the community thinks of the issue, and it makes them feel they were part of decisions that affect them.

I agree that this is good, but only in general terms. It's reasonable to get community feedback on the nature of punishment given the general nature of the crime. But I think you can do this while keeping specifics vague; you don't need to say that person so-and-so did such-and-such inappropriate thing to whoever-it-was. Doing that can turn it into a tomato-slinging fest, or a back-and-forth bickering about how the harassment wasn't actually sexual in nature or the person deserved it or whatever, which defeats the purpose of the general discussion of how to deal with harassment. However…
Rudha said:
At a minimum: publicly make available that this person was banned for doing something bad

…something like this is reasonable enough, although I'm still a little uneasy about having it be up there forever. I think it would be ok to have this notice posted and taken down a few weeks later, or when the punishment is lifted (if applicable).

Rudha said:
I actually have had personal experience with that kind of thing whereby a girl on one MUD I can only call a stalker-type got a hold of my work number and not only circulated it to some other people on the MUD, but was also calling and giving harassing messages to my employer over things that occurred in the MUD. I know personally that I rather prefer that the administrator that dealt with that issue did so publicly - it made it very clear that that kind of behaviour was not tolerated - but at the same time I can understand that not everyone feels that.

This is different, though. This involves real-world actions with potentially very real consequences, like getting somebody fired. I find it difficult to compare in-game actions with real-world actions, which could even involve the police depending on the specifics.

Rudha said:
but I do feel that open dispute resolution processes are a good thing to have available for the community

I completely agree. I think we can agree on this without bringing in the notion of a full feed of admin actions. I completely believe in open conflict resolution process; I'm less sure about preemptively laying everything on the table.

Rudha said:
provided that it is done in a moderated environment to prevent the sort of lynch mobs that seem to be the underpinning concern for you raising the issue of appropriate venue.

Hang around here long enough and you'll see that this isn't so implausible. :rolleyes: (Of course, some would argue that this is due to lessons not being learned etc., but I suppose that's a different issue.)
01 Sep, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 139th comment:
Votes: 0
David Haley said:
Keep telling yourself that. :devil:


I don't seem to be garnering any converts! Perhaps Im doing it wrong. Do thumbscrews work better?

(Obviously being a bit tongue-in-cheek there, in case anyone actually took that as a serious enquiry.)

David Haley said:
I agree that this is good, but only in general terms. It's reasonable to get community feedback on the nature of punishment given the general nature of the crime. But I think you can do this while keeping specifics vague; you don't need to say that person so-and-so did such-and-such inappropriate thing to whoever-it-was. Doing that can turn it into a tomato-slinging fest, or a back-and-forth bickering about how the harassment wasn't actually sexual in nature or the person deserved it or whatever, which defeats the purpose of the general discussion of how to deal with harassment. However…
Rudha said:
At a minimum: publicly make available that this person was banned for doing something bad

…something like this is reasonable enough, although I'm still a little uneasy about having it be up there forever. I think it would be ok to have this notice posted and taken down a few weeks later, or when the punishment is lifted (if applicable).


My muds internal (and currently private) auditing system keeps things for 30 days and then stuffs it into the archives. If I did make it public I'd probably have it so players could access the non-archived "current" audit files, but not the archived audit files.

David Haley said:
I completely agree. I think we can agree on this without bringing in the notion of a full feed of admin actions. I completely believe in open conflict resolution process; I'm less sure about preemptively laying everything on the table.


In the end I personally would think that would be a decision for the community - I suppose: Its not inconcievable that a community's general collective response to it would be indifference, however. But if the community wants it, and you have nothing to hide - it seems a very easy way to garner trust with the community.

David Haley said:
Hang around here long enough and you'll see that this isn't so implausible. :rolleyes: (Of course, some would argue that this is due to lessons not being learned etc., but I suppose that's a different issue.)


Finding that out already; I'm not saying it's implausible by any means, though I would note that this forum is much less dramatic than some I've been on, MudMagic in particular, but at the same time I do believe that a well-moderated forum would keep such things from getting out of hand.

Maya/Rudha
02 Sep, 2010, ATT_Turan wrote in the 140th comment:
Votes: 0
Runter said:
You can argue about the merits but pointing at WoW and going ahah in this case is a loser.


I could point at any other multiplayer game, including the vast majority of MUD's, and I did not "go ahah" - my point was that there are many successful games (both MUD and MUD-like) that do not do this, so why is it seen by its advocates as something that a game should do? You seem to be responding snarkily to me, and I'm not sure what I did to deserve that - I did not say that you should make your game like WoW, or anything indefensibly stupid.

Rudha said:
Turan seemed to be asking: Player actions aren't publicly logged, why should Immortal's actions be publicly logged? To which my answer is that a player can't IP ban you which would shut you out from the game without easy recourse - among other administrative commands.


I just don't get what having publicly viewable logs does about that. If you have irresponsible admins who are IP banning people from the game without due cause, there's a very good chance the player (and others) already know who did it. If you have responsible admins who are IP banning people from the game justly, why would any players particularly care who did it? If you have irresponsible admins who are IP banning people from the game without due cause…exactly what good does the public log do? I don't see how that gives you "easy recourse" or some additional material to argue your case that the head of the game wouldn't already have.

As I said before, I can understand the idea of being transparent for transparency's sake, but I don't see how this can add anything to the game.

Rudha said:
It's a much more complex problem than the single aspect we seem to have gotten ourselves focussed on (a feed idea) seems to suggest, and I'm not saying that such things are a cure-all or 100% necessary - but I do feel that open dispute resolution processes are a good thing to have available for the community, and when things are dealt with openly it garners better reactions then when they are dealt with behind closed doors, generally speaking.


This sufficiently answers my questions about your viewpoint.
120.0/145