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Subject: 
Re: [CW] Mutual stories question and offer
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.castle
Date: 
Thu, 2 Mar 2000 20:03:59 GMT
Viewed: 
1015 times
  
In lugnet.castle, Jason Catena writes:
I really wish we could set what the rules are down on a web page somewhere, so
we could all look them over and comment, and be able to plan our realm(s)
within a predictable context.

Well... the problem with that being that I don't think the rules are very
clearly defined to begin with-- hence the need for discussion :)

Dave's post contradicts earlier posts from Pawel and/or Craig (for example,
only having one initial realm instead of three, when I've personally planned
already for three), and I for one am getting the feeling that these rules are
changing on me with only the involvement of a couple of the year 0 people.

I certainly don't see it as very limiting-- also, I imagine that when someone
comes in, they've probably already got SOMETHING to post. In your case, if
you're planning for 3 realms, assuming you have 3 different things to submit,
you've instantly got 3 realms, as soon as you post them!

If instead you're planning on "reserving" 3 realms for "somewhere down the
line" maybe that needs to be worked out-- after all, if "somewhere down the
line" translates to 2 years or something, I don't think I want 3 claimed, empty
realms sitting there for 2 years. But also, I don't think that should be a
problem. I don't see space as an issue. Realm/Map space is unlimited. I think
that's been established.

But let's say your concern is with placement. Let's say your concern is you
have realm A, B, and C. Realm A is already ready to go, but structures/etc for
B and C are in the works, and won't be ready for another 2 years. Your worry is
that you place realm A, and have spaces for realms B and C planned out; then
your planned realms for B and C are taken in the interrum. Well-- there's two
solutions, assuming my previously established 'rules'. You could either switch
the location of realm A to a new unexplored area, wherein you could put realms
B and C, OR decide to wait to insert A until B and C are ready.

Another issue is that realm ownership isn't necessarily fixed... If you'd like
to use a spot that someone else is using, you can ask them to transfer their
things to a different map location; not that I expect many people will want to
do that, but it's a possibility.

OTHERWISE, we could say that members can 'reserve' realms that they're not
using at present. That'd certainly work, too. My only potential issue with that
is that I wouldn't want realms sitting there empty for long periods of time.
And in such a sense, I don't want each new member to be assigned 3 realms when
they'll only use 1.  Perhaps we should say that members may claim up to 3
unused realms at any given time?

But that brings me back to the 'courtesy' level. I don't want people coming in,
reserving 3 realms at the start that are close to each other, thinking "Wow, I
have a great plan, it's gonna be HUGE, and I want LOTS of space close
together", and then never completing their project. That would leave
lots of claimed, unused realms. The question becomes how likely are members to
use the spots they've reserved, and how courteous will they be when planning
their placement. That may be an issue that gets specified during
implimentation-- it's likely to be something that we'll see as it develops. If
everyone is using the land they reserve, then no problem! But if we get lots of
people with unused realms, we may want to restrict reservations further.

Also, this idea of a committee that rules on limitations: why elevate a few of
the non-creator castle world members above others? That doesn't seem very
courteuos, to forclose cooperation in determining creatively the direction of
castle world, and to disallow a democratic ratification and voting system.

The question here is responsibility and control. Someone needs to admin the
system, and that's the real issue. If a user comes in and posts porn pictures
or something, someone needs to deal with that right away-- an admin. Someone
needs to terminate their membership, and delete their info from CW. Giving that
level of responsibility to members is a problem-- I don't want people going in
and terminating/modifying other member's info. Only select "trusted" members
will be allowed-- the admins. And the democracy plan isn't easy to maintain.
Let's say some user comes in, and posts the same structure 38 times to 38
different realms to obtain them. Organizing a 'vote' is tough-- what if some
members of CW are no longer active? What constitutes a majority vote? What if
members of CW are lax in replying to "voting messages", and it takes 3 weeks to
discuss and decide on what to do? Or worse, suppose no decision is reached? It
proves to be very time consuming. It's the same deal with Pawel's idea of a
committee... committees need to be organized, maintained, and if ruling on
issues like these, they need to react quickly. Hence-- the ususal, most
feasible, and IMHO best solution is having trusted admins.

I would rather see a charter, a constitution, a declaration of principles
drawn up, posted for comment, and then ratified by the membership of Castle
World as a whole. Amendments and ostracizing members should be done with a
vote of the membership, not an arbitrarily chosen subset. I have great respect
for Craig, Pawel, and Dave as the creators and primary implementors of Castle
World, but if we're going to be an autonomous collective we can't have an
ogliarchy dictating arbitrarily how things are supposed to be.

I don't really disagree for the most part. I want to see a set of rules that is
accepted as close to unanimously as can be by the members of CW before creating
it. After all, if the rules are unjust or unfair, people who view them as such
won't join, or won't participate. In that respect, rules aren't arbitrary. As a
potential joint creator of CW, though, I want to be open to suggestions, yet
also be able to have veto power. For example:

For the moment, there's an issue with how users will submit ballads in an
automated manner. Do we allow users to submit HTML and associated files? Should
it just be a link to the user's site? Or should we make the users submit
individual pictures from the ballad along with individual descriptions for each
one? Or perhaps a combination of these? From my standpoint as a potential CW
admin, verifying the security of HTML, potential java applets, javascript, midi
files, etc, etc, etc, may turn out to be incredibly difficult, and also
potentially insecure for CW. Even if every other member other than the admins
WANTS to be able to do it this way (submitting HTML, etc. for ballads), I, as
an admin, may object to it [at present I don't, but that may change when it
comes time to code it]. And as an admin, I expect veto power on issues like
that.

I guess my point is that if we lay down the ground rules, and get everyone to
agree to them, then we can enforce them without assigning power to just a few
people.

Here's my feeling on the matter-- admins generally won't act at all. That's
part of the problem with the existing system of CW. If someone wants to submit
something to CW, Pawel has to update all the HTML pages himself, according to
the new info, which is sent via email. It's done on the basis of how much time
he has free, etc. Automating the system means this is done away with. The
admins (only Pawel in the existing system) are free to sit back and relax, as
CW takes care of itself. The only time admins act will be to enforce laws that
either *can't* be automatically enforced, or that *aren't* automatically
enforced (like submitting 50 pictures to claim 50 realms). This way, the admins
don't have to worry about checking the quality of someone's existing realms
before assinging them a new one, etc. The system will do that for them,
according to the rules we designate.

Hence, usually, the system will function according to the pre-set,
member-agreed-upon rules 99% of the time. Admins only act when something goes
wrong. And chances are, the admin's actions will generally be agreed upon by
members-- like in the little "submitting porn pictures" example. I don't think
any member (except perhaps the offending member) would disagree with an admin
suspending the offending member in that case.  But I don't think admins are
going to be constantly be restricting members, etc.-- after all that's the
point of having an automated system to begin with.

BUT... there MAY be actions that the admins are fuzzy on taking-- like
restricting a user who has had empty realms for 2 years and hasn't ever done
anything with them, or maybe suspending a member's account who hasn't
contributed or even logged on for X amount of time. In these cases, I would
expect [any potential other admins out there, *pay attention*!] that the admins
would consult the other admins AND the other members *BEFORE* committing that
action. Admins in general are [or SHOULD be] very tolerant on fuzzy issues--
just look at Todd. When was the last time he suspended a LUGNET member? How
many times has it happened? Could we count that number on 2 hands? How many
times would the community of LUGNET have disagreed with his action? But
nevertheless, Todd still needs to reserve the right to do whatsoever he chooses
with LUGNET.

Anyway, in my view, it's not terribly unfair, and I wouldn't worry about it.
The admins may have more power than the typical member, but they probably won't
be excersizing that power a whole heck of a lot to restrict members, etc. And
if the members have problems with that, they can contact and discuss it with
the admins. If enough members disagree with an action or insist that action is
taken, the admins will [should] decide to act accordingly.

That's my take on things at present. But as stated, I am open to suggestion,
and assuming that I AM an admin (this is assuming I'm writing the code for an
automated, CGI based site), we still have plenty of time to iron out issues
beforehand.

Assuming my participation in adminning as far as coding, implimenting, and
setting up the CGI, here's my planned schedule (this too may be subject to
change):

April 2000: Finalize rules, guidelines, and setup of CW.
May 2000:   Impliment the proposed site
June 2000:  A limited version of the site may be available to everyone, there
            will probably be a set of beta-test 'members' (aka the current
            members, most likely), while more minor [hopefully] problems are
            ironed out.
July 2000:  New members (non-beta-testers) will be allowed to sign on, and the
            site will become "officially" open.

Note- that's MY schedule. I have volunteered my service for this time frame,
but considering that it's probably really up to Pawel and Craig, if they find
someone else to do the CGI, etc., or if they'd like to undertake it themselves,
that's perfectly fine by me! (Less work for me! Hooray!) Actually, to be fair,
I AM looking forward to implimenting CW... It seems like it could be a lot of
fun :)

Let the continuing flood of CW questions/comments continue to flow!

DaveE



Message has 2 Replies:
  Re: [CW] Mutual stories question and offer
 
(...) Sure, but we haven't posted a public summary of what the current ideas are. I don't expect it to be graven in stone, but I do want to see what the latest consensus is. (...) I like this idea of specifying, when you submit a creation, whether (...) (24 years ago, 2-Mar-00, to lugnet.castle)
  Re: [CW] Mutual stories question and offer
 
(...) Well, speaking as someone who makes castle stuff, writes castle stories about his stuff, and gives his minifigs personality, I have to confess I've become kind of apathetic about Castle World. No offense to anyone intended, it's just happened. (...) (24 years ago, 2-Mar-00, to lugnet.castle)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: [CW] Mutual stories question and offer
 
I really wish we could set what the rules are down on a web page somewhere, so we could all look them over and comment, and be able to plan our realm(s) within a predictable context. Dave's post contradicts earlier posts from Pawel and/or Craig (for (...) (24 years ago, 2-Mar-00, to lugnet.castle)

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