Amberyl's Wizard Lecture

This is an expansion of the section of the MUSH manual called
"The Fundamental Laws of Wizarding". Questions and comments
should go to lwl@digex.net. The content of the lecture has been
unmodified since 10/23/94.


Administrators on a MUSH have a considerable amount of power. With that
power comes the responsibility to use it wisely, for the actions of
an administrator reflect not only on himself, but on the MUSH as a whole.
Because an admin is in a position of power, he should attempt to set a
positive example in all dealings, whether in-character or out-of-character,
Common sense will usually suggest a decent solution to a given problem;
there are, however, some situations where the ethical and "correct" thing
to do is not immediately obvious.


Players are frequently paranoid about privacy. This is one "right" that
you should _always_ attempt to respect; thus, this lecture begins with
a discussion of the DARK flag. When you are DARK in a room, players who
do a 'look' cannot see you, and you do not appear on the WHO list, but
a @sweep of the room _does_ show that you are listening and connected.
Therefore, there is a chance that you will be noticed, and, if you are
"illegally" in the room DARK, it is almost certain that the players in
the room will be quite upset.

The reason why players don't like DARK wizards wandering around should
be obvious -- they're afraid of private conversations being snooped on.
Therefore, whenever you go _anyplace_ DARK, the first thing you should
type upon entering the room is a "hello" or similar announcement of your
presence. Make this a habit! If you do it regularly, even when the players
in the room know you'll be entering DARK, there's less of a chance you
will forget at some crucial moment. If you plan to be DARK, and wandering
around, for an extended period of time, in order to arbitrate an RPG
conflict or similar event, the players involved should, if possible,
know of your presence, and if a private conversation begins, it is your
ethical responsibility to inform the players of your presence immediately,
_even if_ this lets players know that they are being judged. Your personal
responsibility to promote privacy overrides any RPG mechanics.

Some MUSH gods may allow their wizards to go DARK in order to observe
players whom are suspected of trying to harm the game, either by harming
the database or crashing the server; some other gods may also allow
wizards to go DARK to observe the actions of a player harassing other
players. In the latter case, the wizard should indicate his presence to
the players in the room who are not "under suspicion".

I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to obey the protocols
for using the DARK flag. This is one of the greatest sources of
player distrust in wizards, because it is so _easy_ to abuse. Players
should be able to have private conversations without doing a @sweep
all the time. While privacy on a MUD is never, ever, guaranteed, you
should do your best to contribute towards it.


The second of the frequently-abused wizard powers is @teleport. There
are a number of rules that should be observed when @teleporting. First
of all, never teleport a player without warning him first. If possible,
the player should page you with an acknowledgement before you do the
actual @tel. This prevents, for example, an untimely @teleport wrecking
someone's set of a @desc on a room. No one enjoys suddenly being yanked
to another room, and it doesn't hurt you to page the player first.

Never teleport to a room with players without asking the permission of
the players there first. The exception to this are public hangouts.
A room which is merely JUMP_OK is not necessarily a public hangout; use
some judgement when determining whether or not rooms are public. Unless
the room is clearly public, ask first; it doesn't hurt you to be polite.

If permission is not likely to be granted, then notify all players in
the room (@remit works well for this) that you are going to be coming
in, before entering the room. You should wait a moment between the of
the announcement and the teleport; this should prevent you from hearing
something that you shouldn't.

Never make assumptions about whether or not it's okay to teleport into
a situation. For example, just because a player is paging you for help
with coding some complex object _doesn't_ mean that he wants you to
teleport into his room and help him out. I know this from experience --
as a new wizard, I once struggled to help someone, remotely, with a
complex MUSHcoded object, and, finally, after fifteen minutes of
fruitless pages, I finally decided to teleport in and see what errors
the object was outputting. Unfortunately, I bamf'ed myself straight
into the middle of a hot 'n steamy tinysex session. Since then, I've
made it a rule to _always_ ask before teleporting.


Don't abuse "examine" or the power to see private information like sites.
The rules for examining private objects will vary from God to God. On a
MUSH where a strict theme is enforced, wizards will probably be permitted
to examine anything in order to check for theme consistency. You should
never share or show any object, or part of an object, that is not yours
to another player, without getting the permission of the owner. Also,
don't steal code. "Stealing code" includes @decompiling/logging/cloning
without permission, even if you're just using the code for your own
personal edification or enjoyment. If it's that important to you, ask
permission.

Sitenames should never be given out. If a player is Unfindable, you
shouldn't give out his location. Some people MUD to escape people they
know in Real Life; some players carry vendettas cross-MUD. Other people
simply prefer not to let others know where they are, VR or RL. You
should respect this desire.


You should generally avoid modifying other people's objects, even if
you're fixing code problems or typos. The only exception to this is
publicly owned building owned by a wizard-played builder character
(the core landscape for the MUSH, the downtown area, etc.) If you
encounter an object which is inefficiently programmed or looping,
and thus slowing down the game for everyone else, simply set it HALT
and mail the owner; don't fix the problem.

Also, don't @destroy anything of anyone else's unless they explicitly
ask you to. If it's an item which is illegal in some way, send the
owner a warning, and give him a certain period of time (a few days,
usually, depending on how often the player logs in) in which to get
rid of it. If it's not gone by the end of the period, then you can
destruct it. If the illegal item is sitting in a public place, you
should feel free to teleport it back to its owner.


Never, ever, @force a player, unless it is _absolutely_ necessary.
For the same reasons, don't use @trigger and similar commands to make
a player do something against his will. Also, don't change the attributes
on a player; for example, it is generally considered unethical to change
a player's description to something humiliating. Wizards might occassional
get into practical joke wars, but mortals shouldn't become involved.
If you need to change an attribute on a player, make sure you copy the
old attribute to a backup attribute on the player, so that they can
recover it later, if need be.


Wizards can pile huge numbers of things on the queue, and make use of
computationally expensive commands like @find and @search with impunity.
If you need to do something that will severely lag the game, do it when
there aren't many players on. Also, note that very large @dolists cause
the MUSH process size to grow, and should be avoided whenever possible.


Wizards should be uselocked at all times. Private wiztoys should also
be uselocked. Any item with wizard powers MUST be checked for security;
if you are not a competent enough MUSH programmer to be able to do this
yourself, you should show the item to a wizard who is. In addition,
administrators and objects owned by administrators should never be zoned
to a Zone to which mortals have access.

Never give a wiz-power item to a mortal. If a mortal absolutely MUST have
a wizard-power item to do what he wants, consider @chown'ing that particular
system to a wizard. If this isn't possible, then make absolutely certain
that the mortal is trustworthy. Every administrator on the game should be
aware of all wiz-power items in the hands of mortals.


Avoid annoying players with shouts. @wall cannot be blocked, and, therefore,
you should make sure that everything you shout is informative and necessary.
On a very small, friendly MUSH, it might be considered acceptable to @wall
hello and goodbye; on most MUSHes, though, especially RPG ones where "mood"
and "atmosphere" are important, @walls of that sort should be avoided.
Shouting to announce a @shutdown in five minutes is acceptable; shouting
to announce game problems is acceptable. Shouting to announce that you've
had a bad day and shouldn't be paged should probably be avoided. First of
all, it makes you sound like a twit; second, it accomplishes nothing useful
and implies, "stay out of my way or something bad will happen to you."
If you really want to avoid player pages, go DARK and set a pagelock.
Players shouldn't be afraid of you on a "professional" wizard level, and
you should try to avoid actions which cause players to fear you.


Wizards should be thoroughly familiar with MUSH. While "psychocoder" status
is not necessary, a good understanding of MUSH mechanics is necessary. Never
type a command as a wizard without understanding what it does. You should
have read the MUSH manual; even if you don't understand all of it, you should
read and understand the wizard section.

Every object in the Master Room should have a specific purpose. ONLY
objects used for global commands should be in the Master Room. As few
total attributes should be on Master Room objects as possible; any
data objects should be contained on separate objects NOT in the master
room, and the Master Room objects should NOT be parented to the data
objects. Every attribute in the Master Room represents another attribute
that must be checked for $commands when a player types something; thus,
having unnecessary objects and attributes in the room will slow the
game down. If you need a place to store objects used as global parents
and whatnot, use a room _other_ than the Master Room. Master Room code
should, obviously, be as efficient as possible.


There should be at least one wizard on the game who is familiar with the
technical aspects of the server. Also, backups should be done on a weekly
basis, or more often, if possible. This will save you a lot of grief should
your database get eaten by a bug or other problem. If your currently-running
game begins to show signs of database corruption, it is probably a good idea
NOT to @shutdown; instead, log into the game account and 'kill -9' the MUSH
process. It's also a good idea for wizards to know the phone number of the
God / codehack / site admin, for emergencies.

If you have the necessary technical background, you are highly encourage
to at least take a glance at the server code. Knowledge of the server
workings helps your MUSH programming ability, and enables you to make
intelligent decisions that involve disk, memory, and CPU usage. Also,
get to know wizards on other MUSHes; this gives you people to go to for
help should something unfortunate befall your MUSH.


Never MUSH while intoxicated or otherwise not fully in control of your
actions. If you observe another wizard who is MUSHing drunk, @boot them.
The other wizard will probably be annoyed, but this is better than having
damage inadvertently caused by someone who isn't thinking clearly.

Know when to log off or back out of a situation. If you feel like you're
about to explode, get up, walk around for a bit, get a drink of water,
and come back when you feel like you're ready to cope rationally with
the situation. If possible, call in another administrator to handle the
situation. Never, ever, perform wizard actions out of anger; it is likely
that you will regret them later.


A wizard's ability to deal with players is usually the final test of his
skills. Troublemaking players are quick to find wizards who are easily
provoked, and frequently enjoy pushing all the buttons they can. When you
page a player, no matter how annoyed you might be, you should try to
remain calm and polite. Don't swear at players, or behave in a manner
that would allow the player to focus a discussion away from his wrongdoing
to a mistake _you_ made.

Players who are spamming or exhibiting behavior detrimental to the server
or database should be @booted; if it's a one-time-deal character like
"You_Suck", a @destroy is also in order. Other players should receive
warnings before any direct action is taken.

If a player is being obnoxious or breaking MUSH rules, page them and politely
let them know that their behavior is unacceptable. If the player is not idle,
and does not respond to your page within a few minutes, repeat your page. If
the player simply ignores you, or refuses to change his behavior, page with
a stronger warning, but continue to remain polite. If this doesn't work,
tell them, "If you don't stop that, I'm going to @boot you."

This will normally at least open a dialogue between yourself and the player
in question. If the player isn't willing to discuss it, and continues the
obnoxious behavior, set them GAG. Most players will quit voluntarily. For
really stubborn players, @boot will work. If they come back and continue to
be annoying, then @newpassword them. You should NOT @destroy a player who
isn't a one-shot annoyance. @destroy is not reversible, but a player can
be re-@newpassworded should he decide to come back and play by the rules.

When talking to a player, you should attempt to remain calm and polite,
no matter how much the player is trying to provoke you. Ignore personal
insults, obscenities, and the like, if some useful discussion is occurring.
If the player is just continuing to be annoying, end the discussion and
simply tell them, "Do this again and I'll @boot you." You're not required
to be a saint or martyr.

Whenever you enter a major conflict with a player, you should log the
situation, if possible. You should send the other wizards, via email,
a summary of the situation, and, if necessary, the log. This will prevent
the player from accusing you of saying or doing things that you did not,
and will give you a "record" of the player's behavior, in case the player
claims that he didn't do what you claimed he did. The SUSPECT flag and
@comment attribute are also good for letting other wizards know about
suspicious players.


These guidelines aren't here to make the task of wizarding more difficult
for you. They exist to provide some basic guidelines of ethical behavior;
in general, if you follow these guidelines, players will find it quite
difficult to accuse you of abusing your wizpowers. They thus work for
_your_ protection, as well as the players'. Players frequently take
wizard mistakes personally and seriously, and may decide, "because
wizard X did this, all other wizards probably do, too." Players who are
paranoid tend to be more difficult to deal with; thus, for the sake of
your sanity and that of every other wizard who ever has to deal with
that player, try to avoid giving the a reason to be paranoid. If you
consistently have personal problems with a player, you should also avoid
wizard dealings with that player; have another wizard handle the situation
instead.

In all things, use common sense, and try to remain calm and impartial.
When all else fails, log off.


[ Based on a lecture first given on TinyKrynn, 2/92, by Amberyl. ]