[MUD-Dev] Re: Laws of Online World Design

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad <olag#ifi,uio.no>]

I think I might have been unfair to Raph and his list of "laws". I'm
somewhat weary of hard thinking about virtual worlds.  Implementation is a
"hard" process and do/don't, yes/no, bad/good lists can be reassuring, but
also a bit seductive.  I view the field of virtual worlds as a diffuse and
foggy field by nature, and believe that the engineering approach will be
less useful to the field than the artist with empathy for the user. I'm not
saying that engineering can't produce successful MUDs, but I'm not sure how
beneficial those will be to the users or the advancement of the field.  I
believe I misinterpreted Raph's intentions, which actually seems to be to
generate discussion and give those new to the field something to think about
rather than to fixate laws.

I also want to apologize for sounding somewhat aggressive at times. One
intent is to provoke a response, but I think there is also an element of
"acting out" (roleplaying like).  This doesn't always lead to a healthy
discussion, and can end up in a pathological communication situation, so
I'll try to keep a more mellow profile in future posts...

Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:
> This is probably shocking news, but... Quite a few of the laws could be
> dismissed by counterexamples, more of them could be dismissed as a

My intent was to write "This is probably shocking news, but... I'm no big
fan of hard laws!". I was in a sarcastic mood all right, but didn't intend
to be insulting. (Freud would probably have said... :-) Well, one never
knows... If I intended to be insulting then I certainly regret it!!

> I am personally more in favour of slogans than laws. Here are some slogans
> (from memory):

I'm still in favour of slogans though (perhaps because they are not to be
taken as true or false, but as philosophies and visions).

--
Ola, Devils Advocate

Warning:
This person is not speaking English as his native tongue.  He is less
sensitive to the "colours" of the language than a native would be.  Actually
he is sometimes just happy to find the words which he believes express what
he wants to say.