Subject:
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Re: [CW] Mutual stories question and offer
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.castle
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Date:
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Thu, 2 Mar 2000 21:23:21 GMT
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Viewed:
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1313 times
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In lugnet.castle, David Eaton writes:
> 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 :)
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.
> > 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!
I like this idea of specifying, when you submit a creation, whether that
creation will be placed in an existing area you own, a new area, or (with the
owner's permission) someone else's area.
> 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.
If realm/map space is unlimited, what does it matter if a realm with a defined
purpose currently doesn't have any structures? I'm thinking of people with
continent-spanning maps, and eventual plans to fill them with structures. Why,
if space is unlimited, prevent them from having that space in the meantime?
> 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.
Since realm size is fixed, this leads to tremendous headaches for people with a
real plan for many many realms. They're constantly going to be hoping that no
little one-realm occupant puts a realm in the path of their already-mapped
plan. If someone does, they're going to have to relocate and change the world
map yet again.
I think it makes a lot more sense, if someone has a continent planned out up
front, to just give them as much space as they say they need, and say that
other people have to have realms outside the area that's been reserved. Since
map space is not limited, this shouldn't be a resource problem.
> 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.
Why not? Map space is not limited, so there's no reason anyone else will ever
need to use the space that's been reserved. The reason people might need to
reserve realms that are unused for a while is that people have limits to their
time and number of bricks, and the size of a realm has been fixed. (Make each
realm have an arbitrary size upon creation, or no fixed size at all, and most
of my objections here disappear).
> 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?
Again, since map space is unlimited, I don't see why people can't be given
realms that they have a plan for. If you have a map, and you intend to fill it
eventually, and you need 100 fixed size realms to model the map, then why not?
It doesn't hurt anyone to have a temporarily empty realm, since another member
will never have a need to use that space.
That said, I think that having a plan is different from someone who says "I
need 100 realms, but I have no idea what I'd do with them." People with a plan
should be allocated the space, people with no plan should be politely asked to
come up with one before the map is drawn for them.
> 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.
How is having claimed, unused realms a problem? If it's apparent after two
years that someone just isn't a contributor, then perhaps the space they've
been allocated can be recycled. But I don't think that someone who actually
has a plan should be denied the space they need in the first place. Again,
we have all the space we could ever ask for on the map, so I don't see why
we need to be stingy with it.
> 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.
I think that if someone completely new comes to Castle World with a map and a
plan and is refused the space they need on the map, they're just not going to
contribute to Castle World at all. You've said below that the better way to
admin is to be reactive, so why not clean up eventually those realms that
obviously are never going to be used, rather than prevent a hopeful with good
intentions from getting what they believe they need?
> > 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 trust admins to implement policy, correct abuses of the system, and enforce
the rules. I do not trust admins to create policy in the first place, and I
don't trust them to determine the overall direction of a cooperative system.
I think we should have a split system, where policy is determined by the
whole membership, and implemented and enforced by the admins (this models a
legislative vs. executive/judicial branch split).
That said, if policy is made that cannot or will not be enforced, I think
that should be discussed, rather than any kind of veto power assigned.
Members are not going to find an admin's veto on policy to be cooperative,
and admins are not going to feel that members who ignore the admins'
limitations are being courteous.
> > 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:
[snip example]
>
> 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.
If policy is made that cannot or will not be enforced, I think that that
should be discussed, rather than any kind of veto power assigned. Members
are not going to find an admin's veto on policy to be cooperative, and
admins are not going to feel that members who ignore the admins' limitations
are being courteous.
> > 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.
As you've said, a truly democratic system may not be the most effective at
enforcing the rules, but I feel it's the only real way to go with making
policy decisions.
> 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.
I basically agree with you here. (I assume you mean 50 of the same picture,
or of the same structure. If someone has pictures of 50 different custom
structures, I don't see why they can't fairly claim 50 realms under this
allocation system.)
> 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.
I agree with you here. (I assume the rule that "porn pictures are bad" would
be in a terms of service somewhere, not an immediately created, new rule).
> 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.
I think an admin who acts outside the bounds of the rules that have already
been decided on by the membership should be censured. I disagree vehemently
with a Castle World admin who will "reserve the right to do whatsoever he
chooses," because that admin is ignoring the role of the membership in
deciding for itself what policies it wants to adopt. Even Todd follows his
Terms of Service in justifying his actions, so people are violating rules
that they've agreed to, not an arbitrary objection that Todd decided to make
up that day.
> 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.
I do not think that admins should have the right to create policy without
the direct involvement of the members. I don't think admins should have free
license to determine policy, or decide that a policy isn't something they
want to enforce.
Admins should have the role of enforcing the rules, not creating rules by
themselves. Otherwise, you remove the cooperation from the creed, and people
will just leave because they don't have a voice, and 'Cooperation, Courtesy,
Creativity" is just a bunch of words.
> 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.
I'd like to say again how much I appreciate your involvement in this project,
Dave! The better we set up Castle World to be automated, with little long-term
maintenance, the more it will thrive like LUGNET.
[snip schedule]
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: [CW] Mutual stories question and offer
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| (...) 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 :) (...) I certainly don't see it as very limiting-- also, I imagine that when someone comes in, they've (...) (25 years ago, 2-Mar-00, to lugnet.castle)
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