Democratic MUSH
From AdamWiki
Contents |
Introduction
Every MUSH needs a policy for governance. Players, left to themselves, will not necessarily cooperate. If the staff gives the players any kind of guidance in the form of rules, there will be disputes over application of the rules and someone will need to resolve the disputes.
Prior governance models have leaned towards the autocratic. A self-selected staff makes the rules and enforces them. Disputes between players are resolved by staff. Staff interprets rules for the players when the rules are not clear. Autocratic staff models tend to create a stark divide between player and staff. This often leads to the distrust and resentment between the two groups.
A more democratic model of governance would empower the players to fix what they do not like. Eliminating the autocracy of staff would ameliorate the distrust between the two groups.
Autocracy of the Wizard
The technical implementation of a MUSH includes one or more players having the WIZARD flag, and the majority of the players not having the WIZARD flag. This flag grants a number of important powers to its holder. Further, the "Wizard" character (#1, often renamed to something other than "Wizard") has the WIZARD flag plus other special "god" powers. The ROYALTY flag, a lesser version of the WIZARD flag, exists on many MUSH servers. This article groups all of the powers granted by the ROYALTY flag, WIZARD flag, and #1 character collectively as wizard powers.
"Wizard" is more or less synonymous with "staff." This is an artifact of the MUSH security model more than a conscious decision by the designers of individual games. A new database, when created, has two objects in it: an empty room (#0) and a wizard-powered character (#1). Characters created later with the @pcreate command have no special powers by default. The WIZARD flag must be granted to characters explicitly and only #1 can do this (by default). If the staff wish to accomplish many kinds of programming, they need wizard powers. Further, they may need access to the host server to modify text files, help and news files, and configuration parameters. A non-wizard character can do a certain amount of building and coding but will eventually need a wizard to attach their building to the main world or to install their code for global availability.
Wizard Powers
The taxonomy of wizard powers includes server access, god powers, and control.
Server access is the strongest wizard power. Server access includes physical or network access to the machine on which the MUSH runs and knowing the login name and password for the shell account that hosts the game. With this access, a person can alter configuration files, text files, help and news files, the game databases, the game source code, and the game executable itself. Essentially, there is nothing that a person with this access (an Administrator) — with the appropriate technical knowledge — cannot do, including shutting down and deleting the game. Most operating systems offer group access control to allow certain users to be able to access and modify some files without being able to access or modify other files. This allows Administrators to share some (but not all) of their powers with others.
God access is the next strongest wizard power. This is controlled through access to the #1 character, requiring the password to that character and a connection to the game. God access is weaker than Administrator access because it requires a connection to the game to use; an Administrator could lock out connections to the God account in a variety of ways. A God character can do anything a Wizard can do, and more. #1 can set and clear WIZARD flags on objects (usually other characters) and can use any MUSH command on any object (with a few notable exceptions). There is only one God character and there is only one password for that character. This forces administrators to share access and it allows any one of the sharers to lock out the others on a whim.
Wizard access is weaker than God access. A Wizard is a character with the WIZARD flag. Technically, any object owned by a Wizard and set INHERIT is also a Wizard. Wizards by definition control everything but #1. "Control" is a specific term that will be analyzed later, but it essentially means ability to examine, alter, and move the object at will. Depending on a game's configuration, Wizards will not have access to all game-configuration commands (e.g. @addcommand and @function), these being reserved to God access only, but many games reconfigure these commands so Wizards can use them. Still, any Wizard can change the password of any character other than #1, including those of other wizards, and thus lock another Wizard out of the game.
Royalty access is weaker than Wizard access. A Royal is a character with the ROYALTY flag. Technically, any object owned by a Royal and set INHERIT is also a Royal. Royals generally can examine any object but do not have the ability to alter or move any object as a Wizard does.
The @power command gives the ability to grant specific abilities to specific characters. For example, with the right powers a character might be able to teleport himself anywhere, teleport any other object, examine any object, and so on. There is even a "control anything" power that essentially grants to the holder the signature power of a Wizard. There is no power that can make a character a God.
Player access includes all other types of non-privileged access. That is, a normal Player has no @powers, no ROYALTY flag, no WIZARD flag, and no Administrator access.
Use of Power
The previous section discusses the types of power that privileged players have.
A Democratic Model
A democratic model of MUSH governance takes administrative powers away from an "elite" few and puts them into the hands of elected players.
