Date: Tue, 29 Mar 1994 00:26:52 -0600 (CST) From: "Troy D. Whitlock" <troyw@lonestar.utsa.edu> Subject: PMC TERRORISM To: pmc@unity.ncsu.edu I hope ya'll enjoy it. Mail me any comments you have. troyw@lonestar.utsa.edu/Smack Fuck Art, Let's Kill!: Towards a Post Modern Community Terrorism in Cyberspace. Authorless/Subjectless text recounting the deconstructive campaigns of the virtually important (and infamous) Post Modern Culture MOO Terrorists. By exploiting the tensions of community, and questioning the inherent assumptions of MOO Space, the PMC Terrorists illuminate many of the ironic ambiguities of virtual existence. Ruthlessly pillaged by Troy Whitlock Troyw@lonestar.utsa.edu -------------------------------------- Why live the Modern in the Post Modern? Why do words mean things? Where do I put my eyeballs? What happened to Sedate? Another story from the Virtual World. Welcome to POMO City! You pack the car with your comrades and explosives and peel out to hit Cyber_Dweeb and any other Programmer Class pukes in the Hot_Tub!! PMC-MOO is a virtual space designed to promote the exploration of postmodern theory and practice, a place for intellectual meandering. Here, we mix the unstable "realworld" of postmodernity with the solid virtuality of MOOspace. ------------ News 1 Author: Barney (Arch-Wizard) Subject: New PMC-MOO Policy Last Update: Tuesday, January 4 1994 ================================================================== Obnoxious behavior is uniformly and universally discouraged here. If someone is being obnoxious, tell that person to stop. If someone tells you to stop, take your act somewhere else. If you exhaust your personal resources in dealing with either side of this problem, use @gripe as a last resort. Let's be clear about this: repeated nuisance behavior will cost you your player. ================================================================== Napoleon [to everyone]: Hey could I ask a favor? I'd like to read the boards, could you please go to another room? Skeeter [to Nick]: s'pose it depends on what you said... Miles [to Slash]: where are you from Nick says, "She made me feel like a fucking dork though" Skeeter [to Nick]: i wouldn'a cared.... Smack laughs at Napoleon. Slash [to Miles]: I go to Virginia tech. I live in Richmond Napoleon [to Smack]: lets see if this approach works first. The Lobby You are in the Lobby of PMC-MOO. It is decorated with words, which stand out starkly against the white walls. Up above you, through the glass ceiling, you can see the twinkling of stars, or perhaps those are geosynchronous satellites. To the north, a corridor leads to the conference center, office space, and the library. A door on the east wall is actually the fire stairs of the PMC complex. To your west, light pours out of the open door of the coffee shop. Behind you, to the south, is the sliding glass door that leads outside. You see a clock high on the wall, a map under glass on a pedestal, a news terminal in the far corner, a poster with instructions, and POLICY.MEETING(53k of text) here. Smack, Skeeter, Violet_Guest, Nick, Slash, Miles, and Napoleon (aka Sedate) are here. Violet_Guest says, "this is Stockholm calling" Miles [to Slash]: I go to clemson but live in lynchburg Va. Skeeter [to Smack]: interesting description. Slash [to Miles]: Cool Nick says, "I have missed to many classes trying to help her with her problems, and I think that they were all fake" Napoleon [to Violet_Guest]: That's nice but I'd like to read, and you are causing me much spam... ----- Spam is a large volume of text that in some way imposes on the viewer. ----- Slash says, "i go through Lynchburg going from home to school" Shaugnessy digitally reconstructs here. Smack laughs. Miles says, "I just moved there so I am not highly impressed" Skeeter feels sorry for Nick and comforts him. Ahhhhhh, how nice! Smack [to Skeeter]: thanks look Smack Smack IF you only knew how many times he'd {killed,maimed,disemboweled,deconstructed} He's a danger to himself and others. A form of infinite digress. I hope you take pity on him, He only has one arm in RL. [This player is wearing the distinctive MOO Terrorist armband] Slash [to Miles]: Oh. Where'd you live before Skeeter poses for miles Nick says, "Thanks skeeter" Skeeter [to Napoleon]: gag everyone. Nick says, "I have to go to class" Slash says, "Later Nick" Skeeter says, "bye nick" Nick says, "Bye all" Shaugnessy says, "Goodbye, Nick!" Miles says, "later nick" Violet_Guest is wondering if Napoleon can read with all these people here. Nick hugs Skeeter with a warm and loving embrace. Napoleon [to Skeeter]: what if I want to hear something you say one day? Skeeter [to Violet_Guest]: where did you say you were from? Nick goes home. Violet_Guest says, "stockholm, Sweden" Skeeter [to Napoleon]: I mean @gag all then @ungag all when you're done. Napoleon [to Skeeter]: But what If I want to hear friends? Napoleon [to Skeeter]: They will think I'm mean cuz I gagged 'em. Slash [to Miles]: Did y'all get into the NIT basketball tournament?? An echo comes drifting back, "stockholm, Sweden" Skeeter [to Napoleon]: then just gag everyone in the room. Skeeter holds up a spam-banner reading: ________________________________________________________________ | _ _ _ _ _ _ ___ _ _ ___ _ | | |_ \ /|_ |_)\_/| ||\ ||_ | (_` | |\ |\ /| | |_ | \ | | | | | |_ V |_ | \ | |_|| \||_ | ._) | | \| V | | |_ |_/ | |_| | |________________________________________________________________| ______________________________ | _ _ _ _ | | |\/|\_/ |_)| |_|| `|_ | | | | | | | |_ | ||_,|_ . | |______________________________| Skeeter goes home. Shaugnessy says, "Spam!" Slash digitizes down to glowing electrons. Napoleon [to Skeeter]: But new people keep coming in. The glass doors open automatically as Violet_Guest leaves the complex. Miles digitizes down to glowing electrons. Shaugnessy goes home. Napoleon says, "Gee you guys are swell." Napoleon says, "Well, who'd a thunk it?" A chilling draft blows in from the south, but soon ends as the automatic doors slide shut behind Junia. A chilling draft blows in from the south, but soon ends as the automatic doors slide shut behind volcano. A chilling draft blows in from the south, but soon ends as the automatic doors slide shut behind Violet_Guest. Junia says, "hi" volcano says, ""what's up?" Violet_Guest says, "hello" Napoleon says, "I'm gonna strangle someone." Napoleon has disconnected. Junia says, "no killing in the moo" Violet_Guest is thinking about emotions. Miles digitally reconstructs here. An echo comes drifting back, "in the moo" Miles [to Junia]: How are you doing? The clock begins making a small whirring noise. imperialist fuzzy commodity! << dominant plebe culture! << self-subverting fetal labyrinth monologue! << You hear a small click coming from the clock. volcano is thinking about whether emotions really exist in MOO Miles [to volcano]: Only if you make them... Junia raises an eyebrow at Miles. Skeeter teleports in. Slash digitally reconstructs here. Violet_Guest says, "hi skeeter" Junia says, "every character has an owner" Skeeter says, "take it napoleon gave up..." Miles [to Skeeter]: whatz up? Skeeter jumps on Junia! Slash thrashes his head up and down while playing air guitar. Violet_Guest says, "he gave up..." [Smack] He gave up indeed... Shallow figure. Sedate was the Fool, (who are easy to abuse) and *quick* to loose his head. He lacks good judgement. [Ogre] Sedate really needs a good beating. [Lumper] Sedate, allow me to confess here, that I appreciate the philosophy behind many of your actions while for others I think you've egregiously overstepped simple rules of decorum (i.e. violated supra-MOO rules of human behavior). I full well believe that the MOO does not give you license to "do whatever you want." Sedate, I confess here that while I understand many of your ideas and ntentions, I found many of them annoying For some, I am sure that was their raison d'etre. [glinda] (Wizard) P.S. Sedate has been @toaded, in all his many manifestations, for clear and repeated violations of extant PMC-MOO policies. Sedate acted under a regime in which responsibility for @toading resided entirely in the hands of wizards, and wizards have thus @toaded him, if rather belatedly. [Guest] What does Post Modernism mean? [Smack] Yipes! [Sedate] Is it some sort of gospel that PoMo theorists are looking to define, is it truth that silly PoMo(amongst others) theorists are looking for? does truth exist? Who cares even if it does? Will the truth affect your life or mine? I don't care because I can adapt to whatever the truth decides to be at the particular moment. So please fearless leaders...lead on and show me the truth for I am very interested in what it is. [Hopelessly_Modern Guest] Post Modernism is a hoax, it defies logical representation. It is fraught with paradox. It cultivates a de-humanizing, anti-subject, moral relativism. It is a rhetorical paralogy. [bookish] Derrida, among those most frequently called up on charges of "mere language games," has an interesting analysis of truth. He rejects a big-T truth that exists essentially. i'm avoiding objective/subjective distinctions because the psychoanalytic tradition that many of these thinkers borrow from seems to me to open those terms up in ways that might only be confusing here. instead, "truth" as we experience it, is a secondary effect of the search for something called "truth" (or perhaps "Truth"). There are more useful ways to search - although they may not match up with mainstream, rational models - just as their are more pleasant "realities" and "social truths" with which to live. the generalized agnosticism that Sedate embodies as a possible characterization of pomo earlier is not an escape into unbelief. it is not a move beyond, if beyond means outside. it's a matter of more fully engaging with the complexities of everyday life. [Post_Modern Guest] Hell, I think to claim Truth, even as a goal or ideal, is a just reverberation of our modernity. What can you know? Am I a girl or a boy? Am I white or black? Rich or poor? Where can you even begin? Only at the community... a very diverse community... Children of the Storm, the electronic Apocalypse. Show me truth in virtual space, even your 1,2,3's are a representation of me. [Deconstructivist Guest] TRUTH ----- order,rules,values ------------------ logic,rationality,reason ------------------------- ? ^ precarious [Baudrillard] The secret of theory is, indeed, that truth doesnt exist. [Derrida] There is no such thing as a truth in itself. But only a sufeit of it. Even if it should be for me, about me, truth is plural. [Post_Modern Guest] I think you will find that your truth claims will change. They are products of power games and constructed as such. They serve the interests of the powerful. They are a form of psychological terrorism. [Baudrillard] They threaten and provoke. [Deconstructivist Guest] Truth is an "effect of discourse", a linguistic convention. [Post_Modern Guest] But I believe in a community; religious, ethnic, empowered, virtual, we may establish a consensus on language and values. It maybe possible in our little communities that certain vague truths are communicated. But even these fragile truths are lost outside of their pickle, and fail a rerepresentation in entropic systems. [Sedate] What is he talking about? [bookish] the difficulty is understanding how postmodern thinking/living might allow us to go beyond our current situation while not allowing us to escape our technocultural contexts. for that, the distinction between the condition of contemporary society - what i'm calling postmodernity - with it's inescapable technocultural coils and webs, and way of thinking/living/understanding - various postmodernisms - which might actually allow us to hollow out new spaces for other, better ways of living in the interstices (or non-spaces, like MOOspace) from which to begin to contest politically - that is, at the ballot box, the barricade, or in our everyday lives - the dangerous foolishnesses of contemporary culture. precisely because of a dislike for dogma - and an acknowledgement of the imperfection of all "solutions" - postmodernists are very slow, it seems, to insist on anything except that folks look more closely at the ways in which their worlds are structured. [Smack] We have no respect for paradox. [Nihilist Guest] You can never _KNOW_ anything. We are all fictions of a deranged culture, burrowed deep in our skulls and packed tightly with bullshit. We may have figured it out, if we hadn't been so busy screaming about the pain. Now we're just fucked. There is no truth. There is no error. No one is innocent. Everyone is guilty! All our truths are equal in the Post Modern world. [Post_Modern Guest] We are a reflection of our media, our technologies and worlds. The Modern brought us through tubes and tunnels to be here today. Let us thank it and leave it behind. We call for a radically new and different cultural glasses. Wait! We're here! Where did all this baggage come from? We need to reconceptualize how we experience this community, I fear we still have our eyes firmly affixed to the rear-view mirror. [Hopelessly_Modern Guest] I think Modernity, as a project of the Enlightenment, as the expression of rationality and reason promises to liberate us from the tyranny of ignorance and the irrationality. If we ever hope to progress, what other paradigm would you suggest we use? [Nihilist Guest] Progress? Progress! Western Cowboy Capitalist mentalities have ravaged our collective soul. Nationalism! Industrialization! Urbanization! Social Decay! Enslaving Technologies! The Objectification of Women, of People, of ME! The Brutal Ecological Rape of the World! The idea of progress is at an end. The debaters are making commercial endorsements. [Post_Modern Guest] Nihilist Guest has a point. Modernity is no longer a force of liberation, but a source of subjugation. The relativizing nature of our electronic discourse shall end Modernity. The world is indeterminable, diverse, complex and shall resist teleology. [Nihilist Guest] Our Post Modern age is fragmented, broken and scattered, an era of malaise, a creeping vagueness, social decay, may I say CHAOS? May I also say, you are meaningless. I just thought I'ld point that out. [Hopelessly_Modern Guest] I don't understand. I am not meaningless. I understand that relativism and subjectivity are perhaps inevitable, but this does not rule out communication. [Nihilist Guest] You assume that words mean things. They too are arbitrary constructions. I'ld explain it to you, but I see little use in trying to be precise. [Modern Guest] Of course words mean things. [Linguistic_Conventionist Guest] Language is relative and arbitrary. The `Real' is an illusion of linguistic habits. There are no identifiable ideal or literal forms from which the construction of meanings are derived. [Constructivist Guest] Well in so far as the mind furnishes these categories of language, they have meaning. But I would agree that there isn't any absolute reality to any communication outside of the meanings constructed by the perceivers. [Contextualist Guest] Well perhaps as our reality is a result of these processes, we can say that we comprehend within our context. [Nihilist Guest] What context? Where is the context? We live in the present, in fragmented bits of inauthentic meaning, like a stream 1's and 0's. A series of perpetually identical and arbitrary presents. [Hopelessly_Modern Guest] Why don't you see progress as a natural expression of man? [Derrida] For one it presupposes chronophonism, the understanding of time as chronological, a construction of time that is both oppressive and controlling. [Hopelessly_Modern Guest] You seem confused to me. [Derrida] My confusion is a joyous affirmation of the play of the world and of the innocence of becoming, the affirmation of a world of signs without fault, without truth, and without origin which is offered to an active interpretation. [Sedate] I am beginning to suspect that some people here should take a quick jaunt down to the local Psychiatrists 'R' Us and maybe let a good doctor ask some questions. [Post_Modern Guest] I would like to suggest that the relevance of the Post Modern to our virtual communities is quite clear, regardless of its import to real life. It is obvious we must construct our meanings in this non-space, that our notions of time and space are of little use here, and that the range of ideas and perspectives forms a Post Modern community of CHAOS. [Smack] Am I on a computer, in a MOO, or in a computer, on a MOO? [Post_Modern Guest] As Einstein's theory of relativity notes, Concepts of time and space are relative to the observer. The Post Modern space extends in all directions simultaneously, it transcends our ability to comprehend or even locate ourselves in its bosom. [Gray] I noticed lately that the people here don't use doors very often. It doesn't help that doorways cost 2 items from quota. (Personally, I think that doors should be an internal room verb, so people will use them...) Any thoughts on the matter are appreciated, and I would gladly help the Wizards code some system of adding doors that will be USED.. (I think that several have been made already, though) just to see a geography of sorts appear. [bleary] (Wizard) Hmm. I think what verb exits aren't quite as good as real exits, since you can't lock a verb exit like you can a real exit, and prolly for other reasons - like DB bloat. I remember that this argument took place on LambdaMOO a while back - the quota vs. exit thing - and the consensus was that $exits were good. Just for the record, I consider an exit very important when giving out quota -- a good exit should have all of its messages defined, with a description too. Usually, people who need quota for a good reason will get it -- if you have a project that will benefit the whole moo, why should the quota stand in your way? I'm sure that you will find the wizards quite lenient in granting quota, esp. to good programmers who are making interesting stuff. Exits probably shouldn't count against your quota --$exits don't take too much DB space at all. Verb-based exits, however, can take up a gigantic amount of space in proportion to a regular $exit. So, have some fun -- if you're making something useful, and need more quota, just ask. Don't' fret about exits. [Gray] That's not the point.... Well, nice exits may get quota, but I fail to see the POINT in customizing the exits, seeing as how NO ONE WILL EVER USE THEM, just teleport to places they know about.. [Smack] This is just the kinda thing that chaps my hide... Sure just ask the wizards when ever you need quota... Use $exits, we all think they are better... Fill all of your rooms with exits. TURN THE MOO INTO SWISS CHEESE! [Ogre] Theory ------ The name of this message base is *Theory-MOO. This leads me to believe that it is the place to discuss post modern theory as it relates to the MOO and vice versa. Anyone who believes we know nothing, and can communicate even less, should practice what they preach and stop writing altogether. As well, anyone who has not made an earnest attempt at understanding or researching the theories being discussed has no business criticizing them. Deliberately using vague or bombastic terms, appealing to someone's authority without citing or explaining the reference, or couching ideas in confusing rhetoric is bad form, and, more often than not, leads one to assume the writer has a poor understanding of the material. If your goal is not to raise the general level of awareness and understanding, you are wasting everyone's time. This is a place to discuss "theoretical aspects of MOOs in general, and of PMC-MOO in particular." The mixing of (postmodern, anarchist, marxist, etc) theories to discuss how a MOO operates, how it should operate (its economies, both symbolic and otherwise, government, communities, margins, etc) is the thread of discussion. It will be systematically broken down by people taking personal offense to comments, people posting who thought it was a free-for-all, or who thought it was a place to vent their opinions. ---------------------------- Smack wonders what forms a virtual community. Sedate says, "How about the words that describe a group?" Sedate says, "Like geese come in a gaggle." Sedate says, "What do we come in?" bookish says, "lots of little packets" Smack say, "the medium is the message.. make it short and sweet, so saith the medium" Axel says, "I would start thinking, I guess, about the question of context..." Axel says, "Situational meaning theory requires an articulation of the standards implicit in a context...and I don't think we share a strong enough and common enough..." Tarquin [to Smack]: That is a good question and deserves a looking into Axel says, "set of norms or even descriptions to build with yet..." bookish [to Axel]: There is so damn much to be rethought Tarquin says, "What is the community context here?" Heinrich nods to Axel. "For example, what norms, if any, does this MOO have in any way? Tarquin . o O ( does this moo want a norm? ) Smack say, " It must have some norms" Axel says, "I thinks there are many norms implicitly at work... there is an expectation, for example that you and I will address each other in civil terms..." Heinrich [to Tarquin]: Does it? I think some discussion seem to implicitly suggest norms on this MOO. bookish says, "and can we call it a 'norm' if we share a desire to escape the normative..? <eek!" Tarquin says, "the norm seems to be one of negation and smashing..flaming etc" Heinrich [to Axel]: But have we agreed upon "Civility" as a norm? How do we define civility here? Sedate [to bookish]: its like trying to be 'alternative' in a way... Axel says, "When people start being uncivil, I notice everybody starts chiding and yelling until the tone returns to a bearable level." bookish laughs with Sedate Sedate says, "If you try to be different then you are trying to achieve a norm of differentness." Heinrich [to Axel]: What has been agreed upon here as uncivil? Axel [to Heinrich]: "Agreement is secondary to expecting each other to behave. Tarquin . o O ( behave? ) Axel [to Heinrich]: "I was only offering an example to think with... Smack say, "Not to willfully cause others to complain" Sedate mutters, "Others complain too easily." Tarquin . o O ( They love to complain ) Sedate says, "Maybe complaining is a norm?" Heinrich [to Axel]: But complaining assumes other norms in order to complain. Sedate says, "The idea of whining to a higher power, be it God or wiz's?" Defender [to Sedate]: If that were true, nobody would stay here.. Smack say, "Complaining is a technology, for some the only one they have" Axel says, "...to do a proper analysis, we need to infact start with that sort of phenomenological question and analysis." Tarquin says, "In the beginning we are all humans sitting at our terminals" Sedate laughs! Sedate says, "Yes we are." Sedate grins. Defender [to Tarquin]: How easy is it to forget that sometimes? Tarquin says, "We need to remember that as humans we deserve a certain amount of respect" Smack says, "Then that is a norm? (respect)" Heinrich says, "But complaining pushes the question of norms backwards. What norms does one use for the complaint?" bookish says, "I guess i'm willing to be bugged, pestered and annoyed, if it's in interesting ways... i'm a bit uncomfortable with falling back on respecting the boundaries and comforting ourselves as our norm" Axel [to Heinrich]: "It may be that we complain, but invoke different standards when we do. Heinrich [to Axel]: But doesn't the content of particular complaints need to assume other norms? Defender nods in agreement with Heinrich. Heinrich [to Axel]: And that seems where we should start..... Heinrich [to Axel]: I'm wondering what norms we expect before we complain. As far as this particular MOO goes. Sedate says, "Obviously some norms have been dictated to us, no spoofin' no spamin'." Heinrich [to Axel]: But no need to be tedious. However, I don't think this MOO has openly discussed expected norms. Defender says, "I've been accused a few times of bugging, because of some of my more eccentric creations.. bugging certainly seems to be considered a violation of some fundamental right." ------------------- The room is lit by the flickering fire. There's a spray of sparks as the logs settle. Visual_Mark cranks up the creaky old Buzzword Generator... After much whirling and thumping, the Generator pumps out: "GenderFuck is for faggots!" Lazarus says, "geeze!" Visual_Mark says, "I hate GenderFuck." Visual_Mark adds a log to the fire. Lazarus says, "talked to Barney about privacy today..." Lazarus says, "he said that private rooms will be a thing of the past..." Visual_Mark snickers under his breath. Visual_Mark says, "They already are....!" Lazarus says, "huh?" diehappy laughs Lazarus says, "can't you set the 'free_entry' bit?" Visual_Mark says, "Well...." Lazarus says, "yes?" Visual_Mark says, "We were just nosin a bit on Samantha & Lumper..." Visual_Mark grins. Lazarus is rolling in the fireplace laughing... diehappy grins evilly Lazarus says, "so many 'bugs'..." Visual_Mark grins. Visual_Mark [to diehappy]: Uh, Sam's in the Mail room.... Visual_Mark wonders if she's really writing to a wizard...! Visual_Mark grins. Visual_Mark shrugs his shoulders. Visual_Mark says, "We're minor felons in ring of criminals..." Visual_Mark chuckles under his breath. diehappy hopes to get a hearing. Visual_Mark grins at diehappy. diehappy is worried. Visual_Mark [to diehappy]: Don't be. Big Brother'll go to the gallows 'fore we do...! diehappy laughs Lazarus says, "let 'em hang!" Visual_Mark snickers under his breath. Lazarus giggles foolishly. diehappy laughs Visual_Mark says, "She sure takes her time in writing her bitch letter!" diehappy says, "do you think the Lumper will ever talk to us again?" Visual_Mark shrugs his shoulders. Lazarus chomps on his snickers bar nonchalantly. Lazarus says, "mrmmrmph rmemmrmph nermmphr?" diehappy says, "We have been bad,bad boys, visual." --------------- news 12 Author: Samantha Subject: Careful! Someone's watching! Last Update: Wednesday, November 10 1993 =================================================================== Hello. I wrote this as a warning to all MOOer's because of a recent MOOing experience. I am fairly new to the MOO, having been on only seven times or so. I figured out the basic rules, made my room, and met many nice virtual people. I got to talking with one virtual person quite a bit, and made good friends with them on the MOO. As we talked more and more, we developed a trust between us. I began to share personal details I would not normally share with a stranger I cannot see. This was fine and both of us were cautious in our relationship. Then I found out using the @sweep command on my room that my room had bugged and that there had been more listeners than I had thought. If I had known that they had really wanted to partake in the discussion, I might have invited them to join and not given out the information I considered personal. They obviously had no concern for my thoughts on the subject. I might even have dropped the whole issue if i could have @ejected the spy object from my room. These were more advanced MOOer's however, and had made the object so I could not even do that. After the initial shock of being secretly watched, I wasn't mad or embarrassed. I hadn't said anything that would embarrass me, but had given out information I would rather have kept confidential. What I did learn from this is that there is NO privacy on a MOO. A locked room doesn't mean you are safe from peeping- toms. Don't do anything or give out any personal information that you want to keep private on the MOO. This includes addresses, real names, phone numbers, shows of affection towards other MOOer's and any relevant thangs in this area. NOTHING IS PRIVATE ON THE MOO. Everything you say and do is potentially public. Beware, and Forewarned! -Samantha =================================================================== Some split, others lump. Here comes Lumper over the hump. Lumper says, "Howdy boys...watching any porn lately?" Lazarus says, "ahhh!" Visual_Mark teleports Hooter magazine in. Lumper laughs! Lazarus 9600 bps give Laz a big woodie... Lumper says, "thanks" Visual_Mark grins at Lumper. Visual_Mark [to Lazarus]: You should try jerkin to 14.4K! Visual_Mark just sprayed Lumper with L. Ron Hubbard's pancreas full of sulphuric acid!!!! Lumper vanishes from the room! Some split, others lump. Here comes Lumper over the hump. Samantha saunters in to check wazup. diehappy says, "so why are you mad Samantha?" Visual_Mark chuckles under his breath. Visual_Mark is playing with his Spam! Lumper says, "So what else is new?" Visual_Mark shrugs his shoulders. Samantha [to diehappy]: I am very upset at some people here. Lumper says, "So...now that the masquerade is over...let's sort this out... who is who?" Visual_Mark [to Lumper]: Huh? Samantha [to Visual_Mark]: Do you also go by Bookish, by any chance? diehappy says, "what? where? who?" Visual_Mark [to Samantha]: Nope. This is my only character. Whyzat? diehappy says, "Did you do something to poor Samantha, Visual?" Visual_Mark shrugs his shoulders. Samantha frowns Lumper says, "So...what did the NEWBIE do to deserve this? That's all I want to know?" Visual_Mark says, "What?!?" Lumper says, "Don't play innocent.." ------------ Sedate says, "Ever notice that VR people are nicer that RL people." Axel agrees with Sedate's point that people on the Moo are on the whole nicer than in real life. Axel thinks it may be due to the time factor of typing and of needing to communicate tone differently...but is not sure. honoria thinks we are nicer because we can backspace bookish laughs Axel laughs Defender grins at honoria. Definitely! Sedate claps in admiration for honoria. Blackhand thinks we are nicer because of the virtual masks we wear. bookish suspects honoria has hit on an important virtual truth Sedate says, "But in Lord of the Flies, the mask bit made them evil'er." Tarquin agrees with Honoria Axel logs it in his book on the phenominology of vr. bookish says, "Except when we're meaner... since 'nobody can get hurt'" Sedate says, "But how mean can we actually be?" Defender says, "One fact which may or may not have any value is that IRL, we're more or less stuck with several things. On the MOO, we completely define who we are (or appear to be)." Tarquin [to Sedate]: We have seen Lord of the Flies reenacted here already Sedate says, "Nothing physical can really happen..." Axel [to bookish]: "Yes...the issue of different consequences plays a role here. Blackhand says, "Isn't this a sort of 'game'? Isn't that the entire intention of the MOO? To escape reality.....?" bookish . o O (or maybe Smack really does kill people irl ;) [Baudrillard] Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, when in fact all of America is no longer real, but of the order of the hyperreal and of simularion... It is meant to be an infantile world, in order to make us believe that the adults are elsewhere, in the `real' world and to conceal the fact that real childishness is everywhere. [Surfer] Is it possible to integrate the holistic posthuman sensibilities of cybernetics (like the one put forth by McLuhan) with the fragmented and specular contours of postmodern culture/theory? I'm kind of confused about this...why is the moo "postmodern?"...For me, the moo is more of a holistic phenomenon...that's what makes it a unique technology - that we interact with the technologized space...Cyberneticians would argue that the moo is like an organism, a self-regulating system that adapts to environmental changes as they occur within that system. I don't want to get too deeply into cybernetic theories, but it does make me wonder if the moo is antithetical to postmodern aesthetics. It seems more of a pure or virtual modernism...a hermeneutic or cybernetic system that reproduces reality inside a technological vacuum. We interface with moo space according to its restrictions and possibilities (ie. programming, emotes, and the other ways by which we communicate in here). In this sense, the moo is a hermetic, structuralist environment (a cybernetic effect)...which brings me to my question...how do we reconcile this tendency with postmodern aesthetics and theory? [Smack] I think McLuhan's suggestion that the Medium is the Message, (that our understanding the medium, as a context, MOO as environmental extension of ourselves, is of far more important that the content of said Message) is affirmed by Post Modern theory. Specifically, Post Modernism suggests that regardless of the cybernetic impositions, the rules of language or structure of the community, that our experiences here are as valid as a reality as any; that it is a constructed environment (like any other), and we are active participants in the construction of its meaning. PostModernisms suggest that every experience is just as real and valid as any other... So we are no way limited by the nature of our cybernetic system, in terms of our Post Modern Experience. But. What was I saying? Oh ya. Wait. Oh ya, FUCK POST MODERNISM! [Sedate_In_Exile] If you ask me, calling this MOO PostModern is just an excuse to have a MOO there is absolutely nothing here which distinguishes this site from any other, they're all same bloody MOO. Hello?...Nothing Absolutely nothing. Wakey wakey people. [Heinrich] Is our vocabulary that limp that all we can do is cry fuck in big letters when we try to get a rise out of someone else? How unsexy. Still waiting for more entertainment from the Beavis & Butthead peanut gallery [glinda] I can think of one quick and easy way to make PMC-MOO different from the other places Sedate graces. If it looks like a toad, and acts like a toad.... [Ogre] The PMC world/community is just metaphor and does not exist to any extent in which we do not empower it to exist, through our belief or willingness to suspend our disbelief, I think this is generally the state of any human society. Why do we see pictures when we watch TV, and not just a bunch of jumbled colored dots? Partly because we see what we are familiar with. We are constantly interpreting and classifying our experiences in order to `understand' them. Our whole society is based on metaphor and symbolism: human reality is a pure fiction. So this community is no less real because it is based on all these same assumptions. In fact, the more we examine the two (real and virtual society), the more we find them the same. The thing that makes the virtual world so exciting and inviting is its immediacy; the way we can throw off the physical bonds that make the real world so sluggish and unwieldy. We have a real chance to create a utopian model here, if we can only let go of our appeals to false authority and the power hierarchy. [Foucault] We are subjected to the reproduction of truth through power, and we cannot exercise power except through the production of truth. ----------------- !! !! You hear the screeching of tires, a black sedan roars by filled !! with ski-masked terrorists! A molotov cocktail is launched into !! your midst!! !! YOU'RE BEING HIT BY THE PMC-MOO TERRORISTS !! !! before you can think -- BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!! !! News 11 Author: Daffy(Wizard) Subject: The Moo gets nuked! Last Update: Friday, November 11, 1993 =================================================================== (FOLLOWING WAS POSTED 11-5-93) ALL HOPE ABANDON, YE WHO ENTER HERE! THIS PLACE IS GONNA MEET THE TORCH! GONNA BE REMOVED FROM THE ABC OF BEING. In the next two weeks or so this moo will be moved to a new and spiffy machine. Interesting, useful and Postmodernesque objects will be ported to the new moo, but if you wish to preserve your stuff for sure, port your own stuff -- instructions for doing just that will be posted. In the mean time... try to keep building to a minimum, and no, quota increases will not be granted. Really, the new place will solve all our problems. We can just telnet a little to the north and everything will be fine. All players are encouraged to plan/program for a final apocalypnic ...apocapicnic ...apocalypso ...the end of it all. ---------------------- %% TERRORIST CLASS PLAYER INSTRUCTIONS %% Welcome to the Terrorist Player Class. Wear it proudly. You are part of an elite cadre now, with special powers and a duty to squash the bourgeois Programmer Class once and for all! We must keep them off balance by striking often. We must disseminate fear and confusion. To this end, you have been given the following verbs: -- steal <anything from <player Do not be shy, steal from the PC as they have stolen from us! You have a 1 in 10 chance of tipping them off. Some objects may be well guarded and therefore not possible to steal. ditch [player] Drop all your inventory or plant it on another player. This is good if you are caught stealing and have to get rid of the evidence, or if someone has planted objects on you! echo <anything Display any text to the room. Describe a mood, action, or throw you voice. radio <any message (or # ) Send a message to all Terrorists with your TerrorCom(tm)! Notify Terrorists you are on the MOO, with `#' on its own. salute (or sal) Automatically salute your fellow comrades in the room. slogan! (or slo) Toe the party line with a host of Pro-Terrorist, Anti-Bourgeois Programmer Class slogans. The greatest enemy of The People is the complacency of the Programmer Class! kill [player] Terrorists are trained in the lethal use of various weapons. bomb <player Get the comrades together for a drive-by bombing! Use this feature sparingly, as it will bomb the entire location the target is in. The bombs act indiscriminately, whereas before they only killed programmers. No one is safe. We have upped the ante, so to speak, toward the end of the MOO. --Comrade Sabat(Flipper) has given the Terrorists exclusive use of his SuperPets(which eat people). Thank you brother! LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION! [Ogre] We began by speculating on the nature of the new MOO, how it would be organized, and whether the recent rash of `spying' and limited `intrusions', as well as the dissatisfaction of a lot of veteran PMC-MOOers with the recent `quality' of conversation, would provoke a stricter code of conduct. People were unhappy. They complained that new users were more interested in playing around and making things than talking about Post Modern Culture. (I thought this was a shallow take on the situation, because we were *living* PoMo, and more often than not it was a chance to explore it more deeply than exchanging notes with other people verbally. I've always objected to the paper-trail of academe. (Experience fortifies theory.) I programmed the MOO Terrorist Player Class, I take complete responsibility for it. (though many of the ideas we came up with were shared) [Post_Modern Guest] Note that nothing as ever being original in the sense of being the exclusive work of a particular author; everything is a copy, a simulacrum. An effect of our intertexuality. [Derrida] The reading of a text has nothing to do with the author as a real person. What an author writes is generally not what s/he mean anyway. [Deconstructionist Guest] Authorship constitutes an ideological status, a privileged interpretation. [Ogre] We were experimenting with factioning the community, developing semi-tangible classes which mimicked history or real life. The result was a surprising parallel to it. Our first concern was that the Terrorists not use up the system resources, and that we keep things simple. The second was that we should not attack new users, visitors, or anyone who did not have Programmer status. After all, this wouldn't be fair to the user in the real world. Someone learning the system should be allowed to do so unmolested. So we targeted the Programmers. Here, we thought, was a group of people with enough experience and the wherewithal to handle themselves and the situation. The Programmers would have the knowledge to `deal' with Terrorists and appreciate them. Everyone else was a brother/sister, a comrade. The lowly Player and Builder Classes would be `avenged' by us. The Programmers, second only to the wizards in the power hierarchy (and this is still a tangible hierarchy), naturally fit the role of the upwardly mobile bourgeoisie, and thus the Revolution was born! It was fitting that the Terrorists were reared from both Programmer and non- programming stock. Almost too real. To protect the system and the end users, we agreed that `spamming' (flooding someone's terminal with text) would not be allowed. Nor would any attack on newbies (new users) or non-programmers. To ensure this, it was coded into all our verbs. Our bombs quite simply did not work on anyone who did not have the Programmer Class parent. During a bombing attack, the most that might happen to any non-programmer in the target area was that they would `hear' and `see' a long black sedan race in and lob a molotov cocktail in their midst. They would then be told that they were not the target, and the Terrorists meant them no harm. A maximum intrusion of 7 lines of text. If, however, you *were* a Programmer, you would be `injured' in the raid, and the bomb would attempt to move you to room #310 as eMOOgency services tried to cart you off to the hospital to recover. Adding an extra 2 lines of text to the original display(except when it was full of bodies, oh say a couple hundred). But this wasn't all the Terrorists had to offer. We had a brief sense of community too. When you logged on, you could type `@twho' and get a list of all the Terrorists logged on at the time with you. Upon entering a room you could `salute' all the other Terrorists. You could shout (not a MOO-wide shout mind you, just a simple emote to your location) `slogans', which were invariably some nonsense like The Programmer Class has grown rich off the backs of the Builder Class for too long! The Terrorists also had radios with which they could contact each other, regardless of location. They could `steal' other people's possessions, but always ran the risk (10%) of being caught. When this happened, the player was told they had been clumsy and their victim was told they had been bumped suspiciously by the assailant. Lastly, Terrorists couldn't attack Terrorists. It was impossible. If the verb you called tried to move another Terrorist it was instantly rerouted. All these features made me think people would enjoy the idea of the Terrorist Class; its spontaneity, sense of community, and ultimate harmlessness. In our heyday, the Terrorists had 77 members. That's 77 individuals who thought the idea was fun and interesting, compared to the 3 or 4 complainers who *hated* `us'. And I mean HATED. These people were so bursting with bile and aggressive hatred that they wouldn't listen for one second to my explanation of what was going on, or how they might avoid any problems (and even gain a few features) by joining up. You can imagine my relief when I found out they didn't really hate me or my intrepid comrades at all, but were confusing the Terrorist name with the activities of one or two other people who had formed a rival group called the PoMo Subversives. Well, encouraged and angry at the same time. I was disappointed that a few in-fighting whiners had sullied our bad name, and that they were using the MOO to settle their petty grievances. Sadly, the ones that cried and screamed the most about Terrorist `spamming' (which, as I have said, was never a part of the Terrorist modus operandi, nor ever part of *any* Terrorist attack), had previously been `spamming' others repeatedly without remorse. The immediacy of the virtual environment and the lack of emotional and other textual references allowed a small group argument to escalate to a war literally over night. And even now, with all the hype and lies and rumors and rhetoric, I have to come to the same conclusion: nothing really went wrong. The MOO did not fall apart, or drastically degenerate. The Terrorists were erroneously held responsible for a personal war between a handful of people. Even after `crossing over' to the new MOO, we see that those involved in the private battle are still fighting with each other, sans Terrorists. This scapegoating actually resulted in the @recycling of the Terrorist Class. [glinda] Please Note: Beginning January 27th and continuing through February, anything you say on PMC-MOO may be presented, without attribution, as poetry. For further information, contact me. It is designed initially in conjunction with an upcoming issue of the _Chicago Review_ on "Poetry and Mass Culture." It is not at all assumed but it is hoped that some of the work generated here can find its way into that forthcoming issue. To which: Project one: You're in it. As indicated in the login.welcome_msg, between January 27 and February 28 all utterances in PMC-MOO are subject to blatant and indiscriminate quotation, unattributed, as poetry. (pages and whispers are not subject to quotation, unless you page or whisper to me.) [Sedate] I *really* don't like the idea of having my conversations recorded. Now I know the arguments: You don't have to come here, its just for a poetic purpose, none of this is real so you really shouldn't mind. If I want someone to hear a conversation of mine I will invite them, if not then I don't think they should spy. Yes I know, its not my MOO and I should just go along with what's being done, and be a good little MOO'er. But if the wizards haven't read Machiavelli's Prince, then I think it would be good for them, but then again I'm just a stupid prole, what do I know. [Smack] Fuck Poetry. [Nomad] I'm doing research for a prof who works on issues of privacy surrounding new technologies. Most of his work focuses on databases containing personal info and similar things like that. It doesn't interest me too much (got a student card? You can be found), but the issue of privacy surrounding the idea of recording everything I say (regardless of whether or not it's being used) is rather bothersome to me. Perhaps, now that I think about it, what bothers me the most is that nobody is going to care to ask me or anybody else if what we say can be used. A tedious task that would be. Another thing that would bother me - and I'd like to know if I wasn't alone on this - is the idea that I might say something that means quite a bit to me, and if it gets ripped out of context, I'd be rather annoyed. But, you say, death of the author! Fuck that. And to the person who said 'Fuck Poetry,' I think I'm with you. [glinda] On poetry, fucking and you. Glad to see that the poetry project is garnering so much interest. I do want to clarify, however, that the moo is *not* being recorded. Ee-gad! Can you imagine the tedium! The only recording device is "Funes' Ear" at present, it is located in the Welcome Mat, but is likely to meander from there. Nothing said in private rooms will be recorded, unless of course, you'd like to host Funes' Ear for a day or too. p.s. If you are ever worried about being listened to @sweep should indicate any bugs. [Heinrich] To Those Who Have Fucked Poetry: Could one of you please tell me how to engage in safe sex with a book of poetry? Upon the wonderfully intelligent advice of Smack & Nomad, I spent most of this afternoon fucking/trying to fuck Wallace Stevens' _Collected Poems_. Now I have a book with stuck-together pages and a cock with a plenitude of papercuts. [Smack] I wanted to mention that the logon message clearly states that _anything_ said is fair game. Somebody should notify the management to change that to Fune's Ear... which by the way, doesn't seem to work. I also wanted to mention that I got Permission Denied on a listappend verb. That is hardly the first time I have been denied permission. I was wondering if anyone could explain this to me in a Post Modern context. It seems to indicate a power elite justified and disguised by the nature of the language... It never says permission granted. It also seems to indicate that those who have chosen to perm those verbs privilege their readings. [bleary] Yes, Smack. This is all part of a wizardly conspiracy to keep the masses of programmers down, under our control. Aren't programmers much easier to deal with when they can't listappend? [Smack] You seem to have read a paranoia bent to my post. I never alleged that there was a conspiracy or even that I was being oppressed. Rather that I am being controlled both by the invisible forces of the language as well as the anonymous decisions of the Wizardry. Listappend used to work. Why did it all of a sudden become a problem. Who decided it was a problem. Was the decision based solely on an `efficiency' question? So it seems I have missed the "SECURITY" implication of the listappend verb, as well as many other privileged verbs and functions. So much for the open and unconstrained development of a post modern community. We are under a dictatorship which does _NOT_ represent our interests. [bleary] Exactly whose interests do the wizards represent? The Mafia? The CIA? Am I a government prop set up to subjugate the net? [Smack] The interests of bureaucracy, efficiency, authority, hierarchy, patriarchy, technology, commerce, social engineering and power. Wizards represent wizards, they cannot _RE-PRESENT_ anything but themselves. They certainly can _NOT_ represent me... Are they representing anything? Have they constructed themselves as anything other than `administrators'. What interest do they have in even responding to my mindless gibberish. Nobody else did. The interest is obviously maintaining the status quo... that seems obvious. When wizards make anonymous decisions about what verbs will be made available to the "populous" they are the final arbiters of fact regarding the "value" of the free exercise of our programming bits. [bleary] Yes, perhaps we should allow everyone the same access. Everyone should be allowed to inflate the DB, to crash the MOO, to toad other players, to eavesdrop at will, to spoof forever, to cause gigantic amounts of lag. *Everyone* should have all the powers of a wiz. that way we could ensure that the MOO wouldn't last much longer than a week. [Smack] Let me clarify the point about access. I wasn't talking about @toad or other such omnipotent powers... In fact I'm not even sure what all is reserved for the Ubermensch. Perhaps here is an issue as well. Perhaps the Wizards should down grade to a lower access level that denies them any such powers as `eavesdropping' at will. Maybe we could explore these issues at greater length, but never in the _Cave_. The issue is Post Modern Evolution vs. Technocratic Social Engineering. Progress is not necessarily the greatest `END' or is that my misreading of Post Modernism. I maybe a Post Modern fool, but I don't see how the declared "purpose" (if this is even an option for Post Modernism) of the exploration of post modern theory can be achieved or even attempted in the face of such arbitrary and logocentric "governance". Do not legitimize this relationship... Do not submit. Cease you programming. Demand all access to all non-administrative `procedures'. People ... must know how to resist a diversity of representational practices that would traverse them, claim their time, control their space and their (virtual) bodies, impose limitations on what can be said and done, and decide their being. [bleary] Perhaps you are making some sort of comment on how the need for administrators somehow negates the perfect postmodern space of the MOO, or how the idea of overseers corrupts the cyber-Utopia of PMC-MOO. If you were, I apologize. If you were not, and you infact were disparaging me and my wizardly brothers and sisters -- boy would i be steamed. [Smack] Well I am not a Utopian, and I certainly applaud the Structuralist efforts of the Wizards (after all, your reality is valid too.) But to even approach the idea of Post Modernism with your chocolate in my peanut butter, is a total(itarian) pain in my virtual backside. The world's imploding! I rebuke the Terrorism of Words. News 6 Author: bleary (Wizard) Subject: Changes in listappend() Wednesday, February 2 1994 ================================================================== There *are* no changes in listappend. Provided you use it properly, it should *always* work. Anyone who says otherwise is looking for a fight. =================================================================== *Aside* Visual_Mark, creator of the Rumor Mill (a devious device for disseminating mis-information), had found that for some reason the crank on his mill was broke. The traceback (error message) reported that the line which appended the name of new users to its bank of names, (listappend) had been permission denied. Sedate had earlier in the MOO month ported a virus from Lambda, and spread a venereal disease through the population with some effect...(He had manually removed the cure.) The wizard, bleary had actually unwittingly helped this plot, but quickly realized his mistake and @recycled it. Smack theorized that perhaps bleary had temporarily permed (denied access too) listappend, to prevent Sedate from spreading another disease. Smack noted in public conversations that he really had no idea whether listappend worked or not, he only knew what Visual_Mark told him and felt that the truth of his specific claim was irrelevant on any account. ----------------- [Rumor Mongers] Visual_Mark says, "Anyone with eMOOtions, or any of BigBrother's numerous features are bugged. Least as far as I know..." Lazarus says, "YOU GUYS!" Visual_Mark says, "Where's Newton when we need him...?" Ogre [to Visual_Mark]: That's crap. Smack thinks rumors are potent tools... Visual_Mark shrugs to Ogre. Ogre says, "Okay, please, everyone listen up." Lazarus says, "I dumped all but the most reliable features... including MOO-Wide and eMOOtions..." Ogre says, "Just 'cause you have a verb called `monitor everyone', doesn't mean you can..." Smack thinks BigBrother is just rumor magnet. Ogre says, "You CANNOT bug anyone with a @feature." Visual_Mark [to Ogre]: Ok. Whatever. Visual_Mark [to Ogre]: So I suppose next you're going to say that the Wizards can't watch us if they want to... Ogre says, "Let's not get paranoid here. If you want to hold a `private' conversation, create a new room, lock it, and talk." Ogre says, "Wizards can watch anything they want." Visual_Mark [to Ogre]: And I suppose a locked room would stop a Wizard? Lazarus [to Ogre]: even locked rooms aren't secure... Ogre [to Visual_Mark]: Not at all, but frankly, no ones conversations are so great that a wiz would give a damn. Visual_Mark [to Ogre]: Only us sorry programmers and builders, eh? Lazarus [to Ogre]: Well I've seen firsthand the power that a wizard has (by accident) and I for one will take everything with a grain of salt henceforth. Ogre [to Lazarus]: Like I said, the wizards can do anything, but they are hardly on. Ogre says, "You can only protect yourself from other players." Visual_Mark [to Ogre]: Oh? You know this just because their CHARACTERS are hardly on? Lazarus says, "and how do we know that you aren't one in disguise Ogre?" Smack says, "YA OGRE!?!" Visual_Mark [to Ogre]: You're gullible as hell if you think ANYONE's safe here... Arius says, "all this paranoia is getting to me man. Fuck I can't take it no more they're everywhere man FUCK!!! YETKNISH" Ogre [to Visual_Mark]: I think I know a little of what I'm talking about. Visual_Mark [to Ogre]: You're the kind of guy that's believe George Bush if he said he was a Wizard and didn't want to listen in... Lazarus says, "and it was YOUR 'fresh dope' left in the Convo pit that was a listening device ogre..." Ogre [to Visual_Mark]: You don't have a clue who I am. Visual_Mark points at Ogre. Visual_Mark [to Ogre]: Like you're completely fuckin innocent yourself! Ogre says, "Innocent? Moi? " Smack yells, "I am shocked... shocked!" Visual_Mark says, "Pull this bus over to the side of the pretentiousness turnpike. I want all the shiny people over here, and all the happy people over there..." Lazarus points at Ogre. Ogre [to Lazarus]: So I can program, that's proof I know what I'm talking about. Visual_Mark [to Ogre]: So what the big beef? Ogre to Visual_Mark]: You're the one spreading rumors, paranoia and insults. I should be asking you that very question. Lazarus realizes it doesn't pay to trust people who say "trust me"... Visual_Mark [to Ogre]: Ask NEWTON about the fucking features! I saw his bloody 'leaflets', though. And I've seen Sabat's 'thing'.... Ogre [to Visual_Mark]: BB copied a bunch of programs from the wizards that he thought he could use. The perms won't let him. Visual_Mark [to Ogre]: And, so....? Ogre [to Visual_Mark]: I never said you didn't know anything, I said I *did* know something. Visual_Mark [to Ogre]: So where's the insults come in? Who sez I'm spreading paranoia? People should KNOW the joint ain't safe. Is that your problem? Visual_Mark says, "Is it WRONG that I warn people that the safe's been cracked?" Ogre [to Visual_Mark]: Wait, just hold on a sec. Visual_Mark says, "I didn't make a fucking NEWS post! I just told a few friends...." Visual_Mark says, "So what the hell's the fucking problem????" Visual_Mark says, "Anyone who knows SHIT, knows this place isn't tighter than a hooker's crack..." Ogre [to Visual_Mark]: You obviously have it all sorted out clearly. Sorry to trouble you. Smack says, "virtual opinions cause virtual actions... You rumor mongers!" Comrade Smack shouts, "Death to the bourgeois Programmer Class!" [Heinrich] Radical terrorist, Smack? C'mon, you wouldn't know fascism if it fucked you! Comrade Smack shouts, "Long Live the Revolution!!! Viva! Viva!" Smack whips out his stiletto and viciously stabs Heinrich. Heinrich is severely wounded! E-MOOgency services cart him off to the hospital for treatment. [Guest] It really seems to me like you suffer from a sort of rampant banality. [Sedate] BANALITY!!?!?!?! PMC banal?!?!?! Ever since the recent influx of Lagda refugee's our beloved MOO-space has been inundated by the banal, and inane. Have you ever been in a room where all the bloody players are kissing and hugging, and ooing and ahhing about group hugs and just tittering away about anything and everything that exemplifies the banal? PS Try saying banal about 20 times and define the meaning of the word. [Ogre] Sedate is quite right, I must confess. After saying `banality' 20 times, you can't help but arrive at the most certain truth: The word `banality' comes from the term `banana', meaning `something you buy in bunches because you forget they don't last and wind up throwing away.' [Goat] Oh Sedate, do you need a hug? Why fight the system? As you do so well. Do not be antisocial, All this Vd, colds, misdirected pages, spoofing,and who knows what else. Original need not be anal, get a grip. I'm sure you can do some very good things. Maybe all you need is a hug? Who knows? Let me be the first. Goat hugs Sedate with a big manly hug. ---------------- *Aside* Spoofing: intentionally attributing virtual actions to another person's identity, (sometimes with humorous intent). example... Spoof Foobar farts. Foobar farts. You say, "Gross!" Foobar is turning red with embarrassment. The illusionary and representative mechanics of virtual space allow such subturfuge to appear as `reality' to the uninitiated. But spoofing is the operative principle of virtual reality, the key to a programmers ability to create the illusion of space. ---- Random Pager: (#4077) ---- NOTICE!!! By adding this feature to your list of features, you are hereby absolving Sedate, player (#2803) from any and all actions and consequences caused by this feature object (#4077). If you do not agree with this, then type @rmfeature #4077. If you do not, then you are agreeing to the stipulations contained herein. Features: @page (message) @page Welcome to PoMo City! Random_Player sees: Random_Player pages, "Welcome to PoMo City!" Disclaimer! The owner of this feature object (Sedate, #2803) in no way endorses using this device to send rude messages. This device is for the sole purpose of sending `nice' messages like "hello , how are you today" or "my what nice weather we seem to be virtually having." or of a similar nature. Players who send `mean' messages could have the feature removed from their list of features. Thank-you for your co-operation. Sedate (#2803) -------------- [Smack] The DarkWhole I've created a new object... Try it, you'll like it. It's just east of the Lobby, under the trapdoor. You open the trapdoor and lower yourself into the Burnt_Out_Bunker. It smells burnt and musty. Piles of charred MOO and rotting code are strewn about the room. In the center of the room sits a table. On the table is a glass bowl. In the bowl are tiny replicas of all PMC residents. In the corner sits the DarkWhole of Holes. In the corner of the bunker, much larger than not A group of blacker and black DarkWhole of holes. Listen DarkWhole. You lean close, but not too close to the DarkWhole, for a listen. Feed DarkWhole with Guest You choose the simulacrum of Guest and drop it on the floor. A large black rat runs out of a pile of burnt debris, grabs the tiny Guest and leaps down one of the DarkWhole of holes. Smack says, "This is Live." The DarkWhole emits <Guest pulls you close inserting his hot hard rod in your tight wet crack The DarkWhole emits <Violet_Guest kisses lightly at the sides of your abs.. obiques.. and farther up to your chest her hot tongue plays with your nipples The DarkWhole emits <Guest pulls you to the ground, there's no going slow this time he wants you so bad, he begins to thrust his hips against yours faster and faster The DarkWhole emits <Violet_Guest feels the pain and wants it more... more, more The DarkWhole emits <Guest sucks hard on your nipples The DarkWhole emits <Violet_Guest scratches at your back and shoulders. She pulls you close to her mouth kisses your shoulder and bites it hard at an extreamly hard thrust The DarkWhole emits <Guest continues to pump, the sweat forms, and inside of you hot and wet combine The DarkWhole emits <Violet_Guest brings her legs around you and moves her hips faster The DarkWhole emits <Guest wants to enter every inch of him in you irl. The DarkWhole emits <Violet_Guest would make love to you right now in the computer lab if you were here The DarkWhole emits <Guest is so hot, the pain he loves it, he loves you The DarkWhole emits <Violet_Guest kisses your mouth hard. She seems to be pulling you in her tongue searching your mouth The DarkWhole emits <Guest thrusts himself in and out until we climax The DarkWhole emits <Guest says, "love" The DarkWhole emits <Violet_Guest pulls you into her and lets out a howl. Her nails did into your back. She bit your lip too.. she may even have drawn blood A miniature Guest climbs out of the DarkWhole, runs across the floor and leaps into the bowl of copies. Smack grins. [Smack] The whole `MOO as poetry' thing (and btw it still says _everything_ in the logon message) got me thinking about a project of my own... I openly deny the pretense of theory... nothing is predictable anyway right? Rather I prefer the image here, rather than the function or philosophy, MOO as Art... I created the DarkWhole which can silently spy on any unlocked room in the moo, all automatically. Hurry, Hurry, It won't be around for long. -------------- news 13 Author: Visual_Mark (#3871) Subject: Paranoia and Cybersex Last Update: Saturday, November 13 1993 ====================================================================== It appears the boat has been rocked on the eve of the apocalypse! When the sphinx walks on Apocalypse Eve, we'll all be turned into charcoal briquettes! I can't wait for the party at the pyramids! Now that I've cleared that up, and gotten your attention with such a snappy title, let's get on with it...... For all those lovers out there that don't have some form of 'talk' command on their computer systems, I'd suggest using e-mail or some other form of dialogue like the Inter Relay Chat to carry out those steamy interludes. To the best of _my_ knowledge, which _is_ limited, I know that locked rooms cannot be breached. There are ways of making it appear so, however. If you're serious about keeping those trists on the MOO, use whispers, pages, or private emotes to keep those nasty messages private... ======================================================================== ---- Begin Forwarded Message ---- Message 105 on *wizardry (#1263): Date: Tue Feb 8 17:28:22 1994 EST From: bleary (#686) To: *wizardry (#1263) Subject: Sedate's newting I've newted Sedate because he has created a feature object, which although it comes with disclaimers, has been built for the sole purpose of spoofing other player's pages. This is clearly unacceptable. His object is fraught with !r verbs, which mean that only a wizard or sedate can read them. Also, his verbs which make his insidious little random-page thing work are spread far and wide across his objects, and equally !r, so that they too are in hiding. It's obvious that Sedate knew that what he was doing was wrong, and I've done something about it. What I'm asking for is this: for the other wizards here to back me up on following up on the @newting with a toading -- Sedate is causing too much trouble, and this time he's gone over the line. -------------------------- ---- End Forwarded Message ---- *Aside* @newt/@toading. @newt is a Wizard level command that prevents a person from connecting to a specific player. Actually they can connect ever-so-briefly, and then are disconnected. But, individuals can still connect to the MOO, just not with the quota/programming abilities of the @newted player. Sedate has been @newted. @toad is a Wizard level command that prevents a person from connecting to the MOO from any of his/her known addresses and removes the @toaded player from the Player List. Sedate will be @toaded. [Sedate_in_Exile] The other day there was a fight about my random page feature object #4077. Players were using it the way it wasn't meant to be used. The purpose of the pager was for players to randomly page other players with word of greeting and encouragement. Thus elevating the level of comraderie on PMC. bleary teleported in and I asked him a couple of questions about $string_utils:pronoun_sub(), I don't remember if he answered. He left, and on went the debate on MOO-Wide. Five minutes later... Your player has been temporarily hosed. Disconnected. And that is/was that. No warning, no wizardly rumblings, just silence. [Sedate_In_Exile] Day two, fourty-eight hours later. I still have not heard from a wizard. I still have no indication as to the duration of this. I still have no answers. I am still in Exile. [Smack] I hesitate to invoke the imperatives of rights, so perhaps I should speak in terms of the norms of this community. The wizards seem ill informed, evidenced by their lack of interaction, of the _daily-life_ here at PMC... Sedate is part of our community. Whether we are Post Modern enough for you or not, we believe he has a right to know what you are doing to his (virtual) body. [Sedate_In_Exile] When I was young, friends and I would sing a song, here's a snippet: I don't care what the white man say, Santa Claus is a black man. I'm not to sure what it means and y'know what? I don't care either. I just thought it was fun to sing. I don't care what PoMo is/was, it was just fun to be here. One used to be able to differentiate from here, and other MOO's, now I/we know this not to be true. You (wiz's mainly) have been living in virtual postmodern denial, manifested in the ridiculous idea of taking snippets of MOO text and calling it poetry. This just goes to show that once you put your mind to it, one can make anything into anyotherthing. Everyone knows that this poetry idea is just garbage. And to try and pass this site off as "Postmodern" and for the purposes of "postmodern discourse" is just a load of hogwash. [Heinrich] Well, once again the Beavis & Butthead gallery have flung empty husks on the floor of *theory. If the SS brothers have convinced me of anything, it is not that higher education is somehow self-aggrandizing or fascist. Rather the boys have offered cogent testimonials to the failure of all levels of American education and its self-reifying "clients" and "consumers." All the cries against the wizs for their supposed injustices to some players suppose certain norms. What norms should frame this MOO as a community? What model of rationality are you supposing? What is normative, if anything, for this MOO and this list?. Your complaints presuppose some standard(s) of fairness and justice. Might you define your conceptions of justice and fairness for this list? Is that too much to ask? [Smack] Why do you insist on such precision of language. We are readerly. We construct each other. But words are important, as they are all we have. It seems that our norms are as invisible as our context. We focus to often on the Message of our words, to the exclusion of the effects of the unique medium that presents them. We are desperately reliant on this limiting medium (that dissects our thoughts and expressions). Perhaps we can trace some of our norms to our experience of ourselves in MOO space. We are connected by our words to a communal space. Words have replaced all sensory input. We live moment to moment, packet to packet. For instance: Your demands regarding precision of what essentially are constructed abstract categories (norm/words). Player complaints about the absence of clarity or even civility in the wizards discourse, and their rejection of the interactive definitions of our community. Player complaints about other players usurping their textual/personal space (spoofing and spamming). Our (dissenters) concern with retaining as many of our constructive and communicative technologies as we can (spoofing and spamming). It is a delicate balance of community that we must maintain if we ever hope to elucidate these norms. It's hardly relevant what our model(s) of rationality are when they have all been subverted by the privileged of the wizards. [Ogre] Though there are those who would smile condescendingly and tsk-tsk, this does nothing to resolve or even address the relevant issues that have been raised. I think a lot of the common assumptions we make are actually built-in to the MOO apparatus and the assumptions are perfectly justified. The elements of the MOO are constructed for the most part to simulate a real physical community. Ideas like `privacy' and `ownership' are constantly implied by the descriptions and properties if not the actual programming of every object. After listening to these normative `whispers' from the machine again and again, I don't think it is uncommon to be upset by lapses or intrusions in the MOO's (however illusory) physical laws. These are reflected in the decrying by players and wizards alike of spoofing, spying, spamming and system hacking. The assumptions have already been made. Why was Sedate @newted? Will it be removed? Why was there no discussion or explanation of what had been done, or does wizardly fiat not require any explanation? [Flipper] Do you find the words 'totalitarian' and 'power-hunger' coming to mind? Somehow, it all sounds like an excuse to control us. Look at the new quota policy -- Don't violate the PMC-MOO theme. This MOO has a very definite and well-defined theme; the theme is described in 'help PMC-MOO.' The creators of PMC-MOO would like to see that all new building holds to this theme; for this reason, the wizards will be considering the 'themeliness' of any building you do. Does this ever beg a question!! So, we're to take it that the local wizardry has an all-encompassing definition of PoMo -- never mind that even Foucault found this beside the point and hardly doable -- and that anything we build must fall into what are apparently strict categories? Of course, there's no way to know for sure, since Help PMC-MOO, where we are to read the statement of theme, does not work. But it's principle I'm speaking of here: sure, there are limits because of machine space and other considerations, but since post-modernism is all about pushing limits and questioning assumptions, why the hell do we have such arbitrary walls suddenly slapped around us? And please do not argue that it is because of some war of the apocalypse, as if anyone was actually injured, even virtually, by a misunderstood, short-term simulation. This wasn't a reason to impose regulations -- it was clearly an excuse. [Surfer] The moo, because it's more about creating and reifying an architecture that surrounds and informs its spatial limitations and possibilities, necessarily involves a cultural and political agenda. As Foucault has taught us, space is incumbent with power and vice versa. Every space needs to be colonized - to be imbued with meaning - in short, to become a social environment. Historically we have seen many different models of power and their effects on cultural, social, and political spaces: from despotisms to pure socialisms. The question is, what do we do with the moo thing. I personally would like to get away from this notion that the moo is in place to simulate real life. That would totally demolish the alternative possibilities of this space. What makes the moo interesting is not how well it can reproduce rl conditions and relations. Rather, it's interesting because of its alternative possibilities and characteristics. It's because the moo allows the possibility of a new (sub)culture to burgeon that makes it interesting (for me anyway). I realize that it is not easy to *govern* or *police* a large group of people, and all I am suggesting is that we look for different ways of encoding moo-space so that it looks, functions, and interacts as an alternative yet viable culture. [Heinrich] Some of you seem to assume that this MOO should be at the whim of your desires. Sorry, it ain't like that. Instead of assuming that the MOO should be democratic, why don't you make an argument for such a thing? (Are you capable of making such an argument?) To simply assume that you should get your way without providing a rationale leads me to believe that some of you really are children, children who whine and pout when they don't have "freedom." (Believe or not, freedom to do whatever you want to do is only one type of freedom-- negative freedom. If you don't know what negative freedom is, get off your lazy ass and go to the library.) If you really believe that this MOO should be unregulated, free, democratic, etc.--make an argument for it. If not, fuck you. [Ogre] Heinrich, you consistently ignore the essentials in people's posts. Give me one good (fucking) reason why this MOO shouldn't be democratic. Give us some credit, please. Smack's comment about the MOO never saying `access granted' and only `access denied', while humorous, also poetically addressed the need to re-examine our interaction with technology and social structure, which applies directly to the stated purpose of this list. What happened? It was ignored. In fact I would say there are scores of pleas/questions/postures which were ignored in the past, so please spare us the `are you capable of making an argument?' rhetoric. [Bookish] aren't we naive to assume that a society lodged in computer memory somewhere - and particularly a community that claims a certain experimental purpose - would necessarily have the same givens of "nature and/or law" (my dictionary's categories of rights)? there is, on the other hand, a large body of cyperspatial "customs" and "netiquettes" that make up part of the social baggage of MOOspace, and the rights allegedly protected by western democracies - but is pmc-moo *necessarily* or *inherently* like those other social collectivities, or is there merely a superficial resemblance? and are we really satisfied with the way those RL "rights" play themselves out? understand that i am not finally against player-participation in MOO-governance. quite the contrary. but i *am* against unthinkingly, or at least too simply, importing already much-abused notions of rights and such into a space where we ought to be forging a postmodern POLITICS OF POSSIBILITY. the issues we're wrestling with here won't go away. our future is undoubtedly going to be increasingly virtual, our participation in society increasingly mediated by institutional and technological structures. here we sit in the belly of the beast, and it's just not good enough to take our wishes for our rights. [FortDa] Recently, I heard a paper on the South's resistance to the telegraph in the early to mid- 1800's. The telegraph was becoming a mouthpiece for northern abolitionists, and this trend naturally concerned many southern politicians. What's interesting is that not only did they reject they message--they rejected the medium itself. The immediacy of the telegraph posed a major threat to the South's claim to autonomy. New metaphors were springing up to describe the technology: The nervous system of America is my personal favorite. The immediacy of communication brought the possibility on one hand of creating a new, tighter country (read electronic global village), and on the other, of destroying local rights and interests under the tyranny of the media. This tension between euphoria and panic, of course, is all around us here in cyberspace. I see the current concern over rights (and the impending loss of rights and liberty) as an example of this tension, and I would ask, along with bookish, for a questioning of the RL assumptions of rights, community, the individual, etc. which have led to the problematic attempts to simulate those concepts here in cyberspace. [Grunt] What is causing all the contention here? Is it Sedate? Is it the Wizards? Is it the newbies, or the cyber-sexers? Is it me? Is it you? Many people blame the newbies, and those who are here, who have no interest whatsoever in postmodernism. Others blame the 'trouble makers' like Sedate. Or the control, or lack thereof of the Wizards. Hmmm... seems like everyone is pointing a finger somewhere. But at the base of it all, I think our problems stem from not what we want the MOO to be, but how we understand the people who populate it. [Lumper] Cybers one and all: it is not that hard to understand. Someone has to take responsibility for janitorial duties and upkeep. The wizards by and large do a good job. There have been a few questionable actions by them (alone and collectively) but, it is reassuring to know that they too are human and fallible and stupid just like we mere programmers and builders. [Ogre] Oh, I must admit it *is* reassuring to know that stupid and fallible people are at the helm. Yes indeed. And isn't it comforting to know that if you ask a wizard for information they will bite your head off because their stress level is so high? I find great solace in their ability to ignore any dissent combined with sweeping powers over MOO life and death. And of course I find the `If you don't like it, lump it' attitude particularly edifying. Why, whatever are they doing here on the MOO when they are clearly qualified for the senate and a $100,000 salary? I still don't know why Sedate was @newted. Do you? [Lumper] I am tired of the whining..."How dare they to that to little ole me" and "I know best...here's my lest than humble opinion." Either make constructive criticisms based on some recognizable form of rationality or find your self a new MOO mode of existence. [Grunt] Hmmm.. .I don't think we're trying to 'flame' the wizards. Rather, we're trying to help them to realize the MOO that they have set out to establish. Things as they are great, I think the problem is we don't realize that, and we're busy pissing on each other... so what if Sedate makes a verb that randomly pages people? He could easily have made one to page specific people. He chose not to. I'm not saying I LIKE Sedate's idea, but I do believe he has a certain right to experiment here, as we all do. This is just one example, but my point is... don't worry about what your neighbor is doing... we all have a spot in this little society, so let's not get shitty with one another... *Theory is anonymously renamed *Self-Serving Rant by the Wizardry. [Ogre] Is the renaming of this list just another anonymous attempt to discredit dissent? [Flipper] What I think we all want, those of us who actually care and don't just want a place to make trouble, is for PMC-MOO to live up to its potential, and what it is supposed to stand for. Is this really a place to explore post-modernism? And by that do we mean in full potential, by 'living' it out in virtual space? Or is this merely a place to get academics together for discussions? I hope the intention isn't to make this a big conference hall; what a waste. But if we are to be able to explore PoMo, the current limitations and iron hand cannot exist. No, democratic rule won't do, and it's not the point. I am merely calling for the MOO to function as its name implies -- in at least a modern way, if not a post-modern one. Harsh, arbitrary limits are not modern, not at all. I'll be glad to supply references, if you aren't familiar with this idea. If that is somehow self-serving, this desire of mine and others, well, so be it. But I can't see how that is. [FortDa] Flipper's last post makes the point that this space should provide us with an arena for exploration and experimentation. I take issue with the notion that posting complaints to this list accomplishes this goal. I think there are some valid points in questioning some of the inherent power relations in the moo. Instead of posting commentary, how about some exploration/experimentation? Personally (and particularly in retrospect), I enjoyed Ogre's experiment with the terrorist class because it so quickly got out of hand. It became unavoidable--I'm sure given time, eventually just about everyone would have become a terrorist. I also got a kick out of just how quickly people became upset with Glinda's poetry project. It got me to question the assumptions of public/private going on in the moo. Smack's DarkWhole could be quite a sinister little device, but it could also provide an interesting exploration of the same issues. What if DarkWhole wandered the Moo, randomly announcing events/speech in other rooms? I dunno. Personally, I'm not too interested in following up on any of these ideas, but I'd certainly encourage other players to put their concerns into action. How might one make hierarchy an (unavoidable) issue here? I dunno...a proliferation of hierarchies to the point of hypertelia? [Smack] That is precisely what we have done, and thusly discovered the limits imposed by the "real" hierarchy are arbitrary and incapatable with where the _community_ is taking this MOO. [Sedate] I am just trying to find the answers to what has happened to my player, and why? All I get are insults and taunts from some of the wizardry. Why? The more I ask 'why?' the more poisonous become the replies. I noticed my Random Pager (#4077) got recycled. I remember the various player classes spawned by the apocalypse also got recycled, not even a "Sorry, but it had to go." *Aside* Thurs Feb 17, 1994 Visual_Mark informs us LambdaMOO is closed for "research" purposes. Rumor has it that is was crashed by hackers. The population doubles, triples almost overnight. The HotTub has been ported (brought over from Lambda). [Sedate] Lambda is down, this ought to be amusing. [Tarquin] Good day fellow _Post Modern Culture_ Moo persons, I am stating right here and now for the record, that I for one am thankful to have Bleary as a wizard and a friend. Many times he has come to my aid and helped me with problems. I try to stay out of the petty squabbles that from time to time embroil our Moo. I would like to think that I could be friends with bleary, smack, sedate, Heinrich and all the various characters that make this an interesting place to spend time. Ok so much for Mr. Nice Guy. How about laying off the criticism for a while. You go about your business and let others do the same. I know first hand that bleary has been singled out for an attack, supposedly against authority here, but enough is enough. I expect that now I too will suffer the slings and arrows of rudeness for raising my voice, but I could not sit idly by and watch a friend be abused and maligned any longer. So curses on any one who continues to make personal attacks here. This is an open and free playground let the bullies go elsewhere for their kicks. [Sedate_In_Exile] bleary has not once been personally attacked, the only ones that have been attacked are Smack and myself. [Ogre] It is assumed that a wizard changed the name of this list from *theory to *Self-Serving Rant on a whim, perhaps to discredit the dissent which was rampant in this list, surrounding the @newting of a player (Sedate). This list belongs to Creosote, who has not been on since July '93, so I believe only a wizard could edit it. Whoever was responsible has yet to come forth. I guess I would really like to hear directly from the wizards who they consider to be self-serving ranters and why. I think personal attacks are perfectly fair as long as they are out in the open, and allow the maligned person to clear their name and explain themselves. In fact, the tendency to stay away from personal remarks (naming names) and be vague makes everyone feel under attack and does nothing to solve any problems. [glinda] Dear Smack: We have received complaints about your listening device the DarkWhole. Please read news 1 and 2 and consider adjusting this object in accordance with PMC-MOOs anti-harassment policies. If necessary, the DarkWhole will be @recycled. [Smack] Dear Glinda, I have re-read news items 1 and 2 per your request and wanted to point out a few inconsistencies in policy. News 1 Author: Barney (Arch-Wizard) New PMC-MOO Policy Tuesday, January 4 1994 ================================================================== There are two things you should bear in mind on the new PMC-MOO: 1. We need an email address for all players. 2. Obnoxious behavior is uniformly and universally discouraged here. If someone is being obnoxious, tell that person to stop. If someone tells you to stop, take your act somewhere else. ================================================================== [Smack] The DarkWhole is in the Burnt_Out_Bunker... If you @sweep and it tells you I am spying, list @who and see who is in the Burnt_Out_Bunker. If someone is bugging you they are probably there, that doesn't mean that I am bugging you. I am only the author... am I responsible for the obnoxious behavior of others? Nowhere in either news item was a policy on privacy spelled out... The DarkWhole doesn't invade private rooms, nor can it avoid @sweep or the room contents... The microphone is recyclable at a glance, if anyone has bothered to investigate. Simply look at it and it vanishes. [News 2] There will be no summary judgements, but complaints will be actively investigated. [Smack] So investigate... ask me a question... oh I see you have me @gagged, nevermind. Do I have a right to face my accusers? Do I have a right to _re-presentation_? Do I have a right to a jury of my _peers_? Do I have a right to due process (I wonder)? Do I have any rights at all? [News 1] Let's be clear about this: repeated nuisance behavior will cost you your player. [Smack] Let's be clear about this: define behavior, define nuisance, define repeated. [Ogre] Perhaps the Wizards have not participated in the debates here because of some secret pact among Wizards not to `interfere in mortal affairs', a sort of Wizardly Prime Directive. Who knows, maybe there *is* a cogent set of Wizardly rules set down that we know nothing about. Should we then perhaps take their silence as complicity? I mean, if they do not refute or even address the topics raised, is it because they have nothing to add, or perhaps even agree wholeheartedly? What topics then do we all apparently agree on? Well, we seem to agree that the lack of direction (for example, the missing `help PMC-MOO') makes it difficult or impossible for Players and Wizards alike to know how PoMo should be reflected in the architecture, both real and virtual, of the MOO. The absence of a list of `Player Rights' means the MOO community stagnates and there is no sanctioned forum for information or redress when any action is taken against a Player. The absence of a Wizard's `Code of Conduct' means Wizards may act independently and impulsively on any issue, often in conflict with the wishes and/or actions of other Wizards. @Gagging Players or ignoring their posts can be an annoying and often enraging tactic. [glinda] Dear Smack, Thank you for your considered letter. I fully agree with you that many questions of policy/procedure in this MOO are not sufficiently spelled out, and that in many significant areas -- such as privacy and 'personal' rights -- this often presents particularly difficult problems. The wiz-staff is doing its haggard best to remedy this situation--tho' I don't at all meant to imply that this is exclusively or even fundamentally a wizard problem. (See below). As you are no doubt aware, the social fabric of the MOO develops as much as result of the unstated assumptions of *all* the users as it does by codified policies that wizards devise or that users vote into practice. Nevertheless, I agree with you that explicit and non-contradictory policies are needed. Let me add, as well, that the wiz-staff is working on a mechanism which will begin to shift responsibility for enforcing social discipline from the wiz-staff to the collective --- a kind of voting base, yes. Details forthcoming. You further ask: Do I have a right to face my accusers? Do I have a right to _re-presentation_? Do I have a right to a jury of my _peers_? Do I have a right to due process (I wonder)? Do I have any rights at all? Briefly, let me say that my *personal* taste in this matter would *not* be to assert a homology between U.S. RL juridical code and discipline in PMC-MOO, even as I *fully* support the idea that an articulation of rights and responsibilities is vital. But, to repeat, the policy at present is unclear, unstated, or nonexistent. Might I suggest, then, as you seem one of those most interested in pushing these important questions of MOO political theory/praxis, that you begin a discussion list in which the questions you raise may be put to the 'body politic.' As for the local matter of the DarkWhole, I have forwarded it to the *wizard list for further consideration. Perhaps it could be taken up as one of the *political theory/praxis list's first concerns. You now own a publicly writable *list named Political theory & MOO praxis. If you do not want to own it, @recycle #4910. [Smack] As though I could not have made one myself? As though anything we say would have any validity or weight with the Omnipotent authorities? As though we haven't already babbled ourselves into an infantility of words? I shall not be placated [Sedate_In_Exile] That's not fair. Why can't someone try and buy me with my very own mail recipient? Actually I wouldn't know what to do with it, but its the thought that counts isn't it? In lieu of my own mail recipient tho' I'll take my player back. Thank you for your consideration, your overwhelming generosity, and your overall humanity. *Aside* Wed, Feb 23 Lambda regains consciousness. [Winky] I'm wondering what to do when Lambda refugees flaunt and ignore basic PMC rules? If not rules, unwritten rules..do we explain to them the rules? What if they don't listen? Can we try to talk civilly? What if they aren't civil? I realize that Lambda MOO is back up now, and I have one other LARGE question...what do we do with all the characters and rooms that they made up? We ALL know that 9/10's of them will NEVER come back... do we @recycle all the new stuff? Our DB is NOT going to be happy about this large influx of CRAP that will never be used again..so what do we do? I am really in shock..especially since encountering this one..no names, again, not a *flame post...Her response..'I think all people who MOO are sad and lonely'..My response..'You MOO...so you're sad and lonely too, right?'..her response..'No, I'm very happy and normal.' Wow...can you argue with that logic? [Sedate_In_Exile] And Allah looked down, and said: Let there be Lambda, so as to provide a save haven for the stupid and inane, and the mighty Haakon built it, and they came, and thus Lambda came into being. And all the inhabitants of the MOO world who possessed a functioning cerebrum rejoiced when Lambda came back to relieve them of their burdens, and in one great cry of praise, they shouted "PRAISE BE". Oh I'm so happy, happy, happy. Boy, the small things in life huh? Now, I think I should address the notion of intelligent Lambdites. Do they exist? What do they look like? Do they smell and cook strange food? You have no idea how hard it is to resist the temptation to spam the Hottub until everyone in it has their buffers overflowed and they get booted. ----------------- The Lab You see a combination Laboratory, Locker Room, and Kitchen, with books, bits of code, and somebody's socks strewn about the place. On the flagstone floor you notice a big iron ring attached to a trap door that leads down, to the Crypt of Generics. The lobby is up above you, and a steel door leads east. Two or three wizards are sleeping around the room. You see bleary's locker, key, Banishment Petition, bleary's complaint & glinda's response, lag meter, and gopher here. Barney says, " I have *no* problem with toading those who harass others. spamming and spoofing should, I think, be capital offenses. Comments so far?" Daffy says, "spamming is hard to define, no?" Bakunin agrees, mostly, doesn't see how `reliable toading for good' is possible, though. bleary says, "mmm." Barney says, "is it?" Daffy says, "how many lines does it take to piss someone off?" Barney says, "automated harassment is spamming." Daffy nods. Barney says, "ten lines or a hundred thousand." Barney says, "we register each player, or multiples of a player, by email address.." Barney says, "we use trackdown to establish multiples." Barney says, "when we toad someone, we look for multiples." Barney says, "people can have more than one email address...." Barney says, "but there's a limit to how many accounts one is likely to be able to get." Barney says, "three or four, I'd say." bleary doesn't want to wage continual war. Bakunin nods. Except for the determined, yes. Barney says, "Right." Barney says, "we don't wage war." Barney says, "we just kick 'em off." bleary says, "and should we punish those who make spamming verbs or spoofing verbs as stringently as those who spam or spoof?" Barney says, "and if they come back from another address and do the same, that character gets kicked off." Barney says, "right." Barney says, "get rid of the verbs, unilaterally." Barney says, "no spamming, no spoofing." Barney says, "incidentally, I think we should agree that no one really has any *rights* here, as regards the MOO management." Daffy says, "true... welcome to pomo city." Barney says, "people have the right to be left alone." Barney says, "by one another..." Barney says, "but let's get right past this "I have a right to express myself by spamming you" bullshit." bleary says, "not strong rights, but weak rights: we will try to protect your privacy, your freedom of speech, but we reserve the right not to." Barney says, "Actually, bleary..." Barney says, "do you know that distinction: strong vs. weak rights?" Bakunin nods to bleary. The right not to be harassed, certainly. Except by wizards, of course. bleary says, "no. i'm just talking." Barney says, "it's a good point." Barney says, "there's a difference between what you have a right *to* (strong rights, if you want)" Barney says, "and what you have a right *not* to (weak rights)" Barney says, "I'd say weak rights are the only ones here." Barney says, "you have the right not to be disturbed..." Barney says, "you don't have the right to gay-bait in the name of free speech." Barney says, "for example." Barney says, "weak rights always outweigh strong ones." Barney says, "here in pomocity." bleary nods. Barney says, "divine non-interference..." Barney says, "but back to the practicalities..." Barney says, "how do we determine whether someone has been spamming or spoofing?" Barney says, "it's easy to write these verbs in a minute, then destroy them." Bakunin says, "I imagine it would need be based on a complaint." Barney says, "it's easy to fake evidence." Barney says, "it's easy to spoof spamming, producing honest misunderstanding and advocates for your corrupt cause..." Barney says, "If we had a reliable check on who was doing what to whom, I would have no problem with a one-warning-then-you-get-toaded system. Anyone else?" Bakunin says, "Opens up the possibility of toading someone because of a disagreement." Barney says, "life is too short for this bullshit...besides, there are MUDS for these assholes." Barney says, "that's the one warning, I think." Bakunin says, "What about consensus? Or is it gonna be `two strikes, yer out?'" Barney says, "and I think we ought to have a group of non-wizards..." Barney says, "I do think we should have a whining penalty as well..." Barney says, "non-wizards who review complaints." Daffy takes out the wiener dog. Barney says, "and wiener dogs who attach themselves to whiners." Bakunin would prefer to see some sort of consensual-decision making process rather than a review board, hmm. A board with executive powers? Barney says, "the wiener dogs could say helpful things like "@refuse, @gag"" Barney says, "I like the @banishment proposal, but I think the way it's set up it takes too much consensus." bleary thinks the idea of a board w/ executive is good. Barney says, "anyway, I bet we could appoint a few level heads." Barney says, "Heinrich, Tarquin would be good." bleary says, "sure - and it'd set up some level of buffer between us and the plebs, maybe they'd take some of the heat and pages, etc." Barney laughs. Barney says, "I think the wiener dogs are important tools here..." Daffy laughs Barney says, "We don't want to end up with a hundred pre-schoolers..." Barney says, "he hit me!" Barney says, "he bit me!" Bakunin says, "We already have." Daffy . o O (or a hundred wiener dogs) Barney says, "agreed..." Barney says, "Bak, can you talk to dorothy about putting together a very small group with tarquin, heinrich and whomever else? Here's one now...hang on." oura teleports in. [hellos, quacks, barks and yawns] Barney says, "not yet, oura. here's where we are, I think." Barney says, "We need three things." Barney says, "a good way to log what goes on, spoof-proof." Barney says, "so we have a record to refer to in disputes." oura says, "you want to log all?" Barney says, "a group of non-wizards to adjudicate these disputes, when they arise." Barney says, "potentially, sure." Barney says, "and third..." Bakunin really thinks culling the $paranoid_db would work pretty well. Barney says, "a clear rule..." Barney says, "no spamming, no spoofing. " bleary says, "no spying." Barney says, "one warning and you're toaded." bleary [to Bakunin]: what do you mean? Barney says, "spying is another thing, I think." Barney says, "spying is a weak right..." Bakunin says, "We should add `silent entry' warning to $room, maybe." Barney says, "privacy is a strong one." Barney says, "weak rights win?" oura says, "how can there be privacy if you record everything....?" Barney says, "of course, there can't." Barney says, "but..." Barney says, "in point of fact, there's no privacy on the MOO anyway." oura nods Barney says, "it's all logged somewhere, and anyone who wants to and has wiz bits can find it." Barney says, "I think logging is a good idea...simplest way is best." Barney says, "changing the perms on @paranoid and funneling it all to a wiz-only log file is fine." Barney says, "we got disk space to burn, in any case." Daffy says, "is it automagic? Without being turned on?" bleary [to Barney]: how much memory does this box have? bleary [to Daffy]: not on lambda. Barney says, "64Meg ram, 1.2 gig HD at the moment..." Daffy mms... "DO we want to make it voluntary--to keep the 'privacy' freaks happy. Barney says, "nope." Heinrich has arrived. Barney says, "Heinrich..." Barney says, "Would you be willing..." Heinrich says, "Yup?" Barney says, "to work with Tarquin and possibly the absent Dorothy" Heinrich says, "On what, praytell?" Barney says, "to review disputes, if we put in place strong measures to discourage assholism." Heinrich says, "Sure." Heinrich says, "And I'll even be nice." Heinrich giggles. Barney says, "can you be cool in the head?" Daffy reminds Heinrich that we have no 12 step plans here. :) Heinrich just gets hot for the amusement of it. Heinrich says, "It's all Byronic fellas" Barney says, "even with people who piss you off? Flameproof?" Heinrich laughs and laughs Daffy holds a torch to Heinrich. Barney says, "it's important..." Heinrich nods as he will keep Byron to the side. Barney says, "not to get lit too easily." Heinrich says, "I'll keep the irony under wraps" Heinrich says, "I've only got mad once when they were pickin' on bleary" Barney says, "Oh, irony is fine, no problem. Ridicule to the max, in fact." Heinrich says, "Everything else has been tongue in cheek." Barney says, "But vindictiveness, no good." Heinrich giggles Heinrich laughs in RL. oura says, "is there a situation at hand that needs adjudication now, or are you discussing preventative measures right now?" oura came in late, sorry Barney says, "a lotta shit lately, oura." Heinrich does his best Boy Scout salute to all the wizs Barney says, "spamming, juvenile stuff..." bleary [to Barney]: speaking of which.... Barney says, "shoot, blear." bleary [to Barney]: who do we settle the Sedate matter? bleary feels bad for starting the 'matter' Barney says, "well, strip him of spamming and spoofing verbs...tell him the rules, and take him out of exile." Barney says, "if he fucks up, twice, out he goes." Barney says, "this system we're discussing depends on a couple things" Barney says, "no vindictiveness on the part of the small number of people who will adjudicate..." Barney says, "and very clear rules." Heinrich promises to be fair Barney says, "simple rules, just one or two." Heinrich says, "Scouts honor or you can @toad me" bleary . o O (no spamming, no spoofing, no exceptions.) Barney says, "but spamming and spoofing are out." Barney says, "new policy, universally announced and enforced." Barney says, "no need to consult or warn on that one:" Barney says, "any verb that looks spammy or spoofy, erase it." bleary says, "how about shouts?" Barney says, "first and second warning is for harassment....actually, no second warning." bleary says, "or spying?" Barney says, "spying is different, I think." Barney says, "shouts should be limited to wizards." Barney says, "agreed, bleary. Wizards will have to do some maintenance...." Barney says, "I'll be happy to hunt down multiple players of problem cases..." Barney says, "and I'll be happy to rub out problem verbs..." Barney says, "but I think it would be a good idea to have non-wizards, but venerable PMC-MOOers, in charge of complaints." bleary goes to bed. glinda arrives. glinda hi's. Barney says, "and I think..hey there!" Barney says, "a brief review?" Barney says, "here is what we've got so far..." Barney says, "I think." Barney says, "no spamming" Barney says, "no spoofing" Barney says, "one warning only" Barney says, "We keep a record that is spoofproof, for dispute resolution." Bakunin says, "This still necessitates wizardly intervention." Barney says, "a group of non-wizards to oversee same..." Barney says, "Heinrich, Tarquin...others?" Bakunin amends that to: the intervention of a specific class of players. Barney says, "wizards unilaterally destroy verbs that look spammy or spoofy." Barney says, "The Heinrich et al group is for settling cases...." Barney says, "looking at logs, applying the one-warning rule." Barney says, "I think one of us needs to be involved, though not necessarily formally." Barney says, "shout is another one... just get rid of these junk mail verbs." glinda will need a flame retardant ball gown. Barney says, "multiple players are OK..." Barney says, "Two is plenty." Barney says, "but we need email addresses for all...." Barney says, "use trackdown when you have a problem and toad someone." Bakunin gestures vaguely at a consensus mechanism that doesn't necessarily require lots of votes. Has that idea been rejected for sure? Why have an elite group at all to serve as an executive? Or does that implicitly leave room for mediation? glinda [to Bakunin]: nope not at all, not rejected. Barney says, "mediation is important but time-consuming." Barney says, "group action is comfortable but inexact." glinda [to all]: and I'd like to continue with bak's line of questioning about the necessity for elite group mediations... Barney says, "we need, for our sanity, to find a line between the arbitrary and the endless." glinda [to Barney]: huh? re: what, exactly... Barney says, "arbitrary decisions are quick and seem efficient..." Barney says, "sensitive mediateio" glinda ahs, yes. I think what we are actually describing the need for is consistent mechanisms. Barney says, "sensitive mediation is nicer but takes forever and doesn't always deal with problems." Barney says, "we have two kinds of problems here..." Barney says, "people who are assholes, and people who whine about people who are assholes." Barney says, "so to speak." Heinrich thinks they are the same Barney says, "I think we none of us have time for either type, really." Heinrich shrugs Heinrich laughs Barney says, "what's the point, in any case?" Barney says, "why are we here? Why is pmc-moo here?" Barney says, "to be a perfect society? Nope." glinda [to all]: I think barney that that attitude is precisely related to the fuckyou fests we experience here. Barney says, "actually, I disagree." oura says, "which attitude?" Barney says, "I think the fuckyou fests are the result of people taking advantage of the absence of rules." Heinrich [to oura]: Read the last 200 posts to *theory Bakunin says, "Well, I kinda agree. The `user-unfriendly' stance we built upon has trickled down." glinda clarifies, the attitude initially set up by the genderfuck codes and then recalled by the login_welcome_message that seemed to say that everyone was under surveillance. Barney says, "I don't think most people here really want to mess with one another." Bakunin mixes metaphors. glinda [to Barney]: I would agree, except that LOTS of moos have few rules... Barney says, "I think our time is disproportionately consumed by a few..." Barney says, "and have no problems?" glinda adds, that indeed most moos are organized around unstated assumptions.. Daffy says, "most people here would rather build a room and never come out." glinda [to Barney]: of course not, but not these kinds of problems perhaps... Barney says, "well, we moved the MOO once and changed some rules for a single, simple reason..." Barney says, "harassment." Barney says, "I don't want people to come here and get harassed." Comrade Blackhand's bomb just put 6 bourgeois programmer class pigs in the hospital!! glinda dittos, obviously. Barney says, "I'm not, nor are you all, running this thing for that purpose." Daffy nods and nods oura says, "of course not, but it is a side effect not entirely avoidable...?" Barney says, "no one owes anyone anything here: you all are donating lots of time and energy to this place, and I trust your judgement." Heinrich . o O ( Part of the problem is anti-intellectual understandings of pomo as negative freedom, and negative freedom only ) Barney says, "If sedate is a butthead, then get rid of him." Barney says, "if others do the same, ditto." Barney says, "I don't have a problem with this. They know what they are doing." oura is skeptical, but doesn't know the situation at hand Barney says, "I'm entirely with bleary on the toading of sedate, and I think others who behave the same way should simply be booted." [bleary] I was opposed to the absolute @toading of Sedate, I thought that Sedate_In_Exile made some good points. glinda has already recommended that both sedate and his alias set notation be @toaded. Barney says, "shall we do it, then?" Bakunin [to Barney]: It's the `getting rid of' mechanism we're trying to formulate, isn't it? I have no problem with a means of removing abusive players, but I am interested in exploring how the society here to some extent constitutes it (I've not seen terrorists anywhere else), and how to avoid encouraging such an influx of players. Barney says, "actually, my own regrets run in the direction of not being able to tap into that terrorist energy in some way..." Heinrich suggests again that part of the problem is, Hein's humble opinion, the name of the MOO as pomo . . . Barney says, "sure." Heinrich says, "And the understanding of Pomo as negative freedom" Barney says, "but what the hey..." glinda [to all]: to follow up on bak's comment: Barney says, "we shall change the name to ArbitraryAndCapriciousMOO" Barney says, "and then all will be well." oura says, "it seems, kinda like glinda was saying, that moos themselves get perceived as based on negative freedom, as instances themselves of "pomo" and that the prob isn't unique here..." Heinrich [to Barney]: I'm trying to point out that we've kiddies here who haven't thought more than 20 seconds about pomo glinda [to all]: I recommend that we @toad sedate and set notation because there is at present no other mechanism in place. AND then immediately implement @banishment. It is unfeasible, it seems to me, to wait for banishment to be put in place as lots of players have lamented our inaction ... Barney says, "removing genderfuck from PMC-MOO is in line with a general policy that says you have the right not to be fucked with..." Barney says, "agreed, glinda." Daffy nods glinda [to all]: and I think we need very much to make a public statement to this effect. Heinrich says, "could sedate be appealed to one more time?" Barney says, "and the right *not* to is the one we want to focus on." Barney says, "he's had his chance." Barney says, "and more." Heinrich says, "or has he done things I don't know about?" Heinrich nods glinda [to Heinrich]: yes Daffy says, "most likely" @toad sedate Sedate(#2803) is now a toad. ...#2 ...#70 Heinrich says, "Well, i trust I don't need to know" Heinrich smiles NEWS 9 -------------------------- Author: glinda (#1203) Subject: policy changes Last Update: Friday, February 25 1994 Brief summary of PMC-MOO policy changes and/or clarifications: 1. HARASSMENT: It remains a central policy of PMC-MOO that harassment of one layer by another is not condoned and ought not be permitted. However, a central reason behind the clarification of policies that this $news_item represents is the desire to distribute the responsibility -- and hence the power -- to adjudicate abusive situations from the wiz-staff to the collective of active users. ALL PLAYERS, especially the more novice ones, are encouraged to familiarize themselves with available defensive tools such as @gag, @refuse, @eject, and @check (this latter requires "@paranoid on," unfortunate wording that). 2. RESPONSIBILITY FOR @TOADING ABUSIVE PLAYERS: A mechanism which begins to shift responsibility for social discipline from the wiz-staff to all active users is being implemented. This mechanism -- @banishment -- is essentially a voting data base which tallies users' complaints against a player and will @toad that player when a given number of users have opted to @banish. For further information see: help @banish, forthcoming. 3. SPOOFING & SPAMMING: All spoofing and spamming is explicitly disallowed. Shouting verbs are considered spammy. Any verbs suspected of performing these tasks will be @copied to $badverbs for review, and @rmverbed from the player. 4. QUOTA INCREASES: The granting of increased quota will follow the guidelines already available in `help quota-policy' with this addition: a review board will be set up to assess the *requests for additional quota. Anyone interested in serving on the review board, @send mail to *wizardry and *politics. 5. MULTIPLE CHARACTERS & Email ADDRESSES: Players may have no more than two characters, and all characters must have email addresses registered. *Any character who does not have an email address is subject to removal, as are any characters which exceed the two-per-player policy. 6. WHAT WIZARDS DO IN CONJUNCTION WITH @BANISH AND IN REGARDS TO THESE RECENT POLICY CHANGES: Wizards will investigate site_lock issues that accompany the @toading mechanism of @banishment. A @toaded character is *not* expected to reincarnate him/herself as Asshole-II. Wizards are responsible for investigating spammy and spoofy verbs and @rmverbing them to $badverb. Wizards will monitor email address registration and multiple-characters. Note: Wizards retain the power to @toad abusive characters under extreme circumstances. This latter statement is meant mostly to acknowledge that @banishment is as yet untried, and may present unforeseen problems. P.S. Sedate has been @toaded. [Smack] As if @banishment was even an issue. Who cares about a Quota Review Board. Are these our *rights*? Thanks for the mystification. I hereby renounce my MOO Citizenship and Programmer's Bit. I hope that you don't @recycle me, because I'ld like to come back and laugh at you... Here's to Law & Order... I leave you to the Cyber-Sheep and PoMo Posers. [Ox] Wow. What a bunch of dribble that all was. Sheesh. [Nomad] It sure was entertaining dribble, wasn't it? 'The MOO as Spectacle.' [Smack] Letter From Sedate: Y'know, there was this guy at PMC named MARCO, he was @toaded. Its nice to know that I am of the very same fine mettle as he. I sorta figured one got @toaded for being rascist, or sexist or many other 'ists'(rapist). But I guess I was wrong. Thanks, endless love and hugs and kisses et al. --- We will miss Sedate. To me Sedate was a very important element of the Post Modern Community. He was praxis. Of the irrational, Of the radical, Of the playful. He was the archetypical `FOOL'. I warned him many times, the fool is always the first to loose his head. The anonymous @toading of Sedate was the penultimate example of poor Wizard judgement. You (Wiz) lost alot of _VERY_ valuable members of your community when you killed just one. Reflect and Remember. [Flipper] I agree, and I'm one of them. But the thing is, folks, the people who run this place don't care as long as they're in control, and as long as they get to demonstrate this when the fancy strikes them. No, they won't admit it. But they know. I'll see you all elsewhere. [Quizno] I won't bother l to look for any of you. As if we care that you're leaving. Endless Flames... Fuck your Post Modernism! Fuck the Wizards! Fuck your anti-intellectualism! Fuck all you newbies who think you are God! Fuck you Lambdites for invading our home! Fuck you posers! But *theory remains... [Ogre] So spoofing and spamming are not allowed. Well there go room descriptions. There go @messages on doors and objects. After all, we don't want anyone being offended by "So_and_so saunters in happily", "trips over the door sill" or "picks up A and puts it in B." That is purposely misrepresenting a player on the MOO. Sadly, this is what makes a MOO what it is. Text descriptions are all we have. As with so many societies, we see the legislation getting longer and more convoluted, and less practical except to many things are to be disallowed, why are so many preventative (and in most cases, more efficient) methods put in place for dealing with them? It is a fact that the and @paranoid, are extremely effective and simple ways of dealing with the raised issues. Why must they then set up all these forbidding rules which are not enforceable and/or contradict the very nature of the MOO experience (spoofing, for example)? They claim they are overtaxed and overburdened running the MOO as it is, well why then trouble themselves more? The problem with @banish is the same problem that exists with today's rl jury system - most people cannot be trusted to make an informed and unemotional decision. People are fickle, and swayed by public pressures and their own fears and weaknesses. If you want a real change here, @banish the wizards that ignore our comments, refuse our pleas, and feel totally justified in kicking our player butts off the MOO when our grumblings finally take a more `solid' form. The mere question "Do players have rights?" is evidence enough of their irresponsibility. The new MOO doctrines are ill-conceived. [bookish] rumors of our demise, perhaps they're a bit exaggerated. i know there are some good programmers with characters here who don't do much programming here. maybe we should think about why that is. i'll admit that i haven't put in the programming effort here that i have other places, but some of that has to do with the lack of cooperation and respect that i've experienced in attempting some projects. so mostly i come here to talk pomo... [Flipper] I take it that this MOO is actually just a newsgroup/chatline for PoMo talk? You see, this is why this is all so whacked. We TALK ABOUT PoMo, have little PoMo meetings, but the most praxis that's ever displayed is along the lines of that meaningless Slippery Signifier object sitting down in some old room." Just wouldn't-it-be-cool-to-make-something-that's-from-what-we've-read objects; Baudrillard's Disneyland, etc. Yawwwwn. Try and *act out* PoMo, and watch the establishment come down in a classically Pre-Modern, Pre-Enlightenment way. [bookish] sure, we ought to be engaged in postmodern praxis. however, i suspect that no one here is very clear about what that means. i'm certainly not. and i'm finally not certain that "acting out" on the MOO is much different than being a chat line. it's all slippery signifiers here, my friends... still, i agree with flipper at least this far. postmodernism needs explicitly political praxis. but i'm afraid that much of what has passed here as attempts at that - my own experiments in code included - have done little more than model elements of postmodernity - isolating (often usefully) elements of our speed-crazed, fundamentally terroristic culture. but that's not "praxis," if we understand praxis as being oppositional. BUT... if we're talking about the praxis of a critical postmodernism - one that is engaged in a battle against the political and personal constraints of contemporary society, then we have plenty of praxis going on here. teaching is praxis - and us poor, inactive chatterboxes are, dammit!, teaching each other. allowing our own preconceptions to be challenged, or allowing ourselves to drift outside the tracks that our education and socialization has attempted to lay down for us, is praxis! and there are some folks here very bravely taking on stuff which is pretty hard to swallow. my biggest disappointment with this place is the way that it has been factionalized - usually quite unnecessarily - and the way that normative modes of critical engagement or praxis have been held up by various groups of if "we're the revolution, damn it, and you're not doing it right!" that's more than unfortunate - it's wrong-headed. and it's not very postmodern (at least in the critical sense that i want to use it in). there have been "active" folks here - like Smack and Ogre - who have done work in code which was interesting, which school up the community. but has it resulted in a more postmodern space (whatever that might be.) i've never been able to quite grasp what postmodernism means to the activist tendency, and - for the most part - they haven't been talking about theory. [Ogre] You mentioned before that you felt there was a lack of interest and appreciation for programming here, and I agree. Do you think the wizards feel their hands are tied by the lack of a constitution? They have `the power' but no mandate. Is that frustration the same kind that makes cops beat up on citizens? I always thought that was the result of a lack of vision and/or poor leadership. [bookish] Writing a "constitution" will not yield much in the way of "freedom" here if it is not very carefully grounded in an analysis of the possible meanings of words like "freedom," "natural," "right," "power," "abuse," "property," "ownership," etc... in this socio-technological context. *Theory sees Message 105 to *Wizardry [bleary] I later changed my position on Sedate's @toading - I was in favor of returning him to regular status with the understanding that further violations of MOO conventions would result in @toading. 'twas not I who issued the @toad command. I just wanted to clear up the confusion surrounding the issue: Sedate was not @newted/@toaded to silence a dissenting voice. He broke the rules. Repeatedly. In any case, I hope that we can put the ugly episode behind us. The wizards are not out to get you. We want an interesting, postmodern MOO as much as any of you. [Ogre] Thank you for that long awaited post. It does provide some insight to the @toading of Sedate, but I think you'll agree, it does not go a long way to justify it. Why did he get the boot? At what point has someone crossed the line? Is it enough to catch someone making gun powder in order to punish them, or do you have to wait until they use it in an offensive manner? [bleary] If I constructed a mechanism that revealed certain player's passwords to Guests, but added the disclaimer that it should only be used by people who have forgotten their own password, would that be OK? [Ogre] No, it wouldn't. That would endanger MOO security, which I believe has to be protected. There are some people who think bringing down a system is fun, or who would like to impersonate other players, both of which undermine the functioning of the MOO. I see what you're saying, but the comparison is not really fair. [bleary] Did Sedate's random pager have any possible use besides harassment? Does anyone sincerely believe it would be used to send nice, happy messages? [Ogre] Again, no. Sedate's /raison d'etre/ seems to be harassment. If we are generous, we'll say he likes to "push people's buttons." This "process" is annoying, but often reveals a lot of information. The disclaimers he included are sort of funny, and obviously sarcastic. They raise the issue of responsibility: if no one ever used the object "for evil", then it would not be a problem - but perhaps this level of argument is too academic. Having made the gun powder, are you then responsible for how it is used by others? If Sedate was @toaded because he spoofed, or was caught in possession of `spoofing material', then easily half of the people on this MOO should be @toaded too. [bleary] Here you have a point. Do you think maybe Sedate was toaded as an example? [Ogre] Sure, that's a possibility, though that is not how it came off. It seemed to me someone just said, "That bastard's always jerking our chain - fuck 'im!" Should we set up a court? A @toading gallows (so we can be sure everyone can witness the example being made)? Read-protecting verbs is no more a sign of guilt or guilty conscience than it is to encrypt a message, or lock the door to your house. Particularly when read-protection does not keep a wizard from reading the contents of the verb. [bleary] Please explain to me another possible reason for the manner in which Sedate's verbs were distributed. [Ogre] There is none that I know of. I believe his reason for doing so was to `hide' them (why he thought this might work I don't know). The specifics of this case are fairly clear to me, but I don't think the actions taken, and particularly the reasons these actions were "taken, to provide a template for future actions." [Napoleon] (sneaky Sedate in a not very effective disguise) I find the idea of @banish a bit frightening. Maybe there should be a sort of unilateral discussion to decide how it will function. A perfect reason for my concern is the following conversation with a Guest that I will post, it started with me asking the Guest "Why are you here?" and the Guest responding with, "Because its neat." the conversation is as follows: You say, "Well why do you think its neat here? Would you like to help build a MOO society or would you like to play about in a PoMo??!?!? world?" Guest wonders if Napoleon is intentionally being obnoxious so the guest would leave...? You say, "No, I'm just wondering what your MOO objectives are.." Guest says, "who cares???" Guest says, "does't matter" Guest says, "sheesh.." Guest furrows the eyebrows You say, "I am wondering if you *really* want to be here or maybe at another more open and structured MOO with lots of goofy wiz's." Guest says, "How can a moo be me open and structured at the same time?" Napoleon [to Guest]: You find this conversation rude? Guest says, "No, I find you to be rude" Napoleon says, "That's the magic of this MOO (Not the one here).." Guest sighs. Napoleon [to Guest]: you find me to be personally rude? Why? How? I am just asking questions... Guest teleports out. I don't see anywhere above that shows me being rude, maybe too inquisitive and derogatory about this site (if Guest was a wiz in disguise) but beyond that nothing there seems like it was rude? So now what happens if I lose my patience and start to *really* argue a point with Guest and maybe some others in a room? I ***REALLY*** don't trust the intelligence and judgement of most players on this site, and it seems (from *theory) that players who would be trustworthy have left (just a question), so will people be judged by a jury of potential fools? This looks more like the Wizardry trying to slough off the responsibility of having to act as MOO-Enforcers. But do the wiz's want to be 'Enforcers'? I don't know, its not my call, but I would however like to have a forum of debate where perhaps players(interested ones) could debate with the wiz's over such issues. Anyhow, that's all I have to say for now. And if you haven't figured it out by now... [Flipper] Obviously, those who run the place have other ideas -- having something to do with control and order, which aren't pomo ideas at all, but which are for some reason deemed necessary here. (Quite honestly, the PMC Journal staff rubs noses with a lot of pomo bigwigs, and I think they're afraid that someone Important will log in here at some point and find chaos. Sure, that's pomo, but it seems they keep overlooking this.) Point here is that those who left were cold-shouldered out because they did Bad Things -- which they did out of the spirit of this place. Well, what they *thought* was the spirit of this place, or perhaps what *was* the spirit here: before the Dark Times; before the Empire. [Winky] Yah know, I really have to agree with Napoleon on this one. And open database seems WAY too simple to do something as important as @toad a player. Look, the Wizards took the responsibility upon themselves to be wizards, so they should have to do their job. Part of their job is the @toading of players. No one ever said Wizzing is glamorous, or whatever, but you have to do what you have to do, ya know? Maybe the next time there will be a toading, perhaps a TRIAL could be held? That seems a LOT fairer than just, "Oh, by the way, you're @toaded!" which seems to be what happened to Sedate. All I am saying is that we need a discussion or something, open forum, with the wizzes there, and talk about this! Gawd, let's maybe have a MOO where we can interact? Sounds revolutionary, I know, but it's just crazy enough to work! Sometimes I wonder about how this MOO resembles a dictatorship...Basically, "We wizzes, you peons!!" That is how it should be to a small extent...but continued use/abuse of that is not cool...Like how I was unceremoniously @booted off the MOO by one Wiz who was having a bad day! Gotta love that... [Heinrich] Heinrich rolls his eyes. All this fuss about @banish before the wizs have posted a draft of the policy! Why not wait for the promised policy--read the news if you haven't--and then work from there? Some of you are started to sound like paranoid cock-fetishers who need to find a reason to post your phallic metaphors (which, btw, are not only limp but exceedingly boring. Suggestion: buy a dictionary.) [Napoleon] Dear sir, It has come to my attention (after reading more than one hundred *theory posts) that you have *never* said anything intelligent or particularly witty. You may think that you have been 'ooooh so clever...' but I think that most would agree that your little blurbs are nothing more that self-absorbed pap. You sir, are a goiter on the neck of *theory, and I would appreciate it if you could save us your witticisms in the future. [Post_Modern Guest] Further the textual environment allows us to explore the Post Modern perspective of all events as text. A reader and text are interreferential, meaning resides in the interaction between them. The resonance of words. The signing of signs. An immersion of ourselves. The text read/writes our brain. [Deconstructionist Guest] Virtual Reality is an intertexual technology. Every word/action affects every other taffy pull. Where do you eyeballs go when the Lag Monster comes to town? We have no hope of reaching the end of our rope. Smack dreams infinite tapestries of letters. [Nihilist Guest] No cause! Chaos! We can hardly untangle our words long enough to say our names! And you ask me what TIME it is! Moral Agency is a is impossible in a swamp! The State of Nature! Read about it! [DeMann] Ethical choices cannot be regarded as the normative choices of a moral person. They are simply a linguistic category, a construct. [Post_Modern Guest] We must exploit our tongues! We must discover how little we know. ------------ news 14 Author: Newton (#2723) Subject: Petition to stop Sedate and Terrorism Last Update: Tuesday, November 16 1993 ==================================================================== Many people on this MOO have been subjected to a variety of insulting invasions of privacy, or other annoying insults, etc. Almost all the spying attempts have been conducted by Sedate, as far as we can tell, and the recent upsurge in MOO 'Crime' (Spamming, attacks, and having your character tampered with in other ways) appears to be led by Sedate, as well. Thus, We, the concerned wanderers of the MOO, have banded together in protest. We have created a PETITION, Which can be signed by anyone, which will be presented to the Wizards, suggesting that they remove him from the MOO, or otherwise prevent him from perpetuating his chaos. If you would like to add your signature to this list, type: SIGN #5718 and your name, object #, and the date of your signing will be recorded. Thank you. ===================================================================== Confessions of an Apocalyptic Warrior (Not Sedate, Smack, Ogre or the author) I logged in as a Guest on the (then) new system on 'hero' and Defender paged me and said, "Is that you, Lothos?" Not wanting to miss an opportunity to spy on the enemy I replied, "Yup." I ended up spamming the shit out of Newton by making a macro that used his own object against himself (as seen here when used on me as Blue Guest). This resulted in another heated discussion on the PMC-Theory newsgroup. November 17, 1993 10:53am EST Newton enters through the double doors. Newton says, "Lo." You say, "hi" You say, "quiet over here." Newton nods. Newton is glad. Newton says, "Hmm.. There was some random MOO violence.. Then Armoire and Bookish, neither of whom have been involved with Sedate's antics, complained about my suggesting such a authoritarian method of overkill.." You say, "Who's Armoire?" Newton says, "Piece of french furniture." Newton says, "You see the point.." You say, "Will all of my stuff be moved over, Defender?" Defender says, "Maybe they're moderately inclined. I would personally rather see Sedate restrained than ejected. Maybe removing his programmer privileges would do it.." You say, "maybe." Defender says, "Not if you've created it recently (after the 10th). The new MOO is based on an old database." Newton says, "Only if they zap his verbs, too." Defender Agrees with THAT! You say, "is he the only guilty one, though?" Newton says, "No, but he IS the ringleader.." Defender says, "Not on your life.. there's the kids of the POMO Subversives, the whole lot of 'em." You say, "all of them?" Defender thinks it's likely. Blue_Guest shrugs. Newton says, "No POMO Subversive kid!" Defender says, "Check it out.. that particular object WASN'T ported!" Defender laughs out loud at this. You say, "has Winky had any more trouble lately?" Defender says, "He'd been getting sent to the INTERPOL room by someone's object.. I nipped that in the bud as well." You say, "wow, how'd you do that?" Defender says, "Easy; I wouldn't pass(@args) if the dobj for the moveto verb was from a Subversive." You say, "you can reverse that kind of stuff?" Newton says, "Well, when Lothos got on, 'Dinky' set off about a dozen loud spammish bombs in his general direction.." You say, "Dinky?" Defender says, "In laymen's terms, it checks if they want to send him there, and puts a stop to it." Blue_Guest nods. Defender says, "If the bomb is a single repeating line, the verb will stop it dead in its tracks." Newton says, "DINKY. Beats me, sounds like a nasty stunt." You say, "what if it's more than one line?" Newton says, "It isn't.. it's a molotov c'tail type item with a lot of varied announces." Defender says, "Bummer.. he can still @gag the item, though." You say, "do you think the wizards will do anything about this whole mess?" Defender says, "Also, if someone in his nospam list owns or carries it, the verb will put a stop to THAT as well. In fact, it'll reflect it back at the firer." Defender shrugs. Newton wonders.. Do I know you, Blue? You say, "Lothos." Newton calmly types some formulae into his Magick Notebook PC. Newton's voice booms cheerfully from above! Newton states: Blue_Guest, go to hell.. A hole opens up and swallows Blue_Guest!!! You hear daemonic screams!!! Ninth Level of Hell This is it...the most evil place of all. Care Bears abound, coming down from the upper levels. All about are souls in torment. The worst things imagined by the mind of man (or woman) are realized here. Yes, the Cheek-Pinching Aunts are here, with their foul ways. They comment about your beard endlessly, regardless of your sex. Don't ask me what they say about your sex...the amounts...the kinds...with whom...what positions... And worst of all, your friends are here, and they are your true tormentors. Your enemies look upon you with pity. The man you wished dead risks his life to save you and fails in the attempt, dying in your arms, struck dead by an Embarrassing Story from his own Aunt. You grimace at such foul play as your body is wracked with guilt.... You see Pandora's Box, Aunt Fiona, Generic Snowball, A large mob of Jews, and Schroedinger's Cat here. Blue_Guest falls to the ground with a loud *THUMP*! You join Newton. Morph Room This is an art studio. The walls are white, splattered here and there with paint. Sunlight streams in a four-pane window. In the center of the room there is a blank canvas, and hanging on the walls are various portraits. Defender and Newton are standing here. Newton says, "Lothos just crashed in my guest room." You say, "what was that for?" Newton is in the next room. You say, "what?" You say, "did I say something wrong?" zoneranger teleports in. Defender says, "Welcome, zoneranger." Newton says, "Lothos is 15' away from me, asleep, because I'm using the terminal he gets on by." zoneranger says, "hello" You say, "Fuck you fascist pricks!" Newton says, "Lo." Defender thinks things are bound to get interesting.. zoneranger says, "did I enter a war?" Defender says, "Nah.. just a case of mistaken identity." You say, "Not yet." Blue_Guest laughs! Blue_Guest cackles. Blue_Guest goosesteps. Newton says, "No, it didn't start, yet.. Blue's a spy, and a liar." You say, "Fuck you too!" Defender says, "See ya." The Attic This is a dark, cramped closet. Or perhaps that is only the way you see it. You have been expelled from Morph Room by Defender. -------------------------- *Theory-MOO Before Apocalypse Date: Wed Nov 17 1993 From: Newton Allow me to describe the experience I just had on the new site: Newton: Do I know you, Blue_Guest? Blue: I'm Lothos. At this time, the RL Lothos flips a page of his book, waiting for me to get off the computer.. Newton: Lothos is sitting next to me, not at a PC! Blue: Have fun, Nazi fuckers. Followed by 30 minutes of solid, uninterrupted spam from repeated use of one of my own verbs, during which time I was incapacitated, as was Defender. Blue_Guest logs out. Violet_guest logs in. Violet: (nazi insults) Followed by 10 additional minutes of spam, same method. Violet_Guest logs out. Orange_Guest logs in Orange then attempted to spam me in the same manner, however, I immediately gagged him, the command carrying through after a mere 45 seconds. Orange_Guest logs out. Now, really! The Nazi insults are the trademark of the Terrorist group created by Sedate. (They actually have a PoMo Terrorist/Subversive Player Class!!) I HARDLY call half an hour of constant spamming a minor thing! And ALL the spam was ROOM announces, IE, EVERYONE THERE GOT SPAMMED! I may have better things to do with My time than create Anti-Spammers! Newbies may have better things to do than be subjected to global-shout profanity, and area-effect spammers and traps! I am NOT being unreasonable, here. Even in the most LIBERAL, FREE societies imaginable, violence and terror tactics are NOT tolerated. if one's home is being riddled with machinegun fire, it is NOT an Authoritarian idea to wish for it to be stopped! *Theory-MOO B.A. Date: Wed Nov 17 1993 From: Visual_Mark Well, Newton, you seem to have brought this on yourself. You're surprised that you're getting such a violent reaction when you and your little friends started this petition thing. You think that people are going to stand for your kind of ostracization and oppression? Get a clue! Maybe you should take UG's advice and find another MOO! If you can't stand the heat, get outta the fucking kitchen! Every kingdom has its Sedates. And every kingdom has it's Winkys and Newtons. I think if we tried to call a truce on this whole war thing, it'd be for the better. Or we can go on writing up petitions for everyone on the damned MOO! You decide, bud. I'm ready to wage war or peace. Either suits me fine. I think the petition thing was a bad idea from the start. If you wanted to ignore Sedate, use @gag, @refuse page, and all that other stuff. And warn everyone. Like I'm sure you already did. Like Kurtz, your methods are 'unsound'.... Long live the revolution! Destroy old thought, old culture, old ways! *Theory-MOO B.A. Date: Thu Nov 18 1993 From: Barney Well, it's been interesting. And annoying. And frustrating. And enlightening. For better and for worse, things are about to be different, though. In the new MOO (ten days away): You will have to do email registration, and give your real name. /ou will not be allowed to be a prick. You will be ejected for interfering with other people's business, and if you do it much, you will be toaded. Sorry, wesley-wanna-be's, there are lots of places on the net where you can eat up somebody's cpu time, RL time, and disk space to play out a terrorist eg fantasy: PMC-MOO has unintentionally been one of those places, but it won't continue to be. No ogres, no elves, no dwarves, no terrorist class of players. I know, I know: I can hear all the (barely) theoretical objections, and all the other kind too...but hey, we know what MOOs are like when they have no focus, no purpose, and no direction, cuz we did that. Now I'd like to find out what a MOO is like if it has a reasonable code of behavior, a pretty academic purpose, and a fairly narrow thematic focus. As one terrorist was recently heard to say: if you don't like it, go find another MOO, or start your bloody own. Barney, the proprietor ----------------------