CLOK BBS

We've actually been at some pretty high numbers of connected clients lately. We're maintaining our position in TopMudSites top 20 with the recent reset, and we've got a few new faces aboard. Some that are new to MUDs entirely!

One concern of mine is the impression that CHAT could make on all these potential new player looking for a new MUD to to make a long-term commitment to. I realize it's disabled by default, but the tutorial tells you how to turn it on, so some of these newer folks could be listening in. Personally, if I was checking out a new MUD and I saw people talking about killing babies, making jokes about bending over to get poked with something, or blaspheming, I would probably log out and look for a different MUD to play.

I feel overall, the GMs and Mentors have been a little lenient on what we're letting go by on chat without karma-ing people. While I agree it's not really our role to police chat, and in a perfect world we wouldn't have to, I'd like to see a bit more consideration and restraint used by the players so we wouldn't have to.

I go through this phase every month or two, telling the other GMs "We need to be more strict with chat" and "we shouldn't hesitate to just disable it". We usually do get more strict for a week or two, things die down, and then a couple months later it starts getting out of hand again. This time, I'm making this post publicly, in hopes that you all will be a bit more mindful about it.

I'll second this. We haven't lost a ton of players due to being put off to the game by some of the stuff that goes on in chat, but we've lost a deal more than one, and even just one is too many.

Be respectful, think before you speak, don't get all gross. I very much do not want to police chat (I very rarely tune into it) but if it becomes a wretched hive of scum and villainy, I just might think about appointing a moderator of some kind.

Like Jirato said, if I came into a new mud and saw a bunch of players getting at each others' throats, throwing sexual inuendo around, or being generally rude and/or childish, I'd leave, too. How people act OOC says something about who they are, and if you can't respect a community's OOC scene, it can be hard to have any faith in the IC community being any better.

(P.S. Please don't volunteer to be a moderator upon reading this - we'll approach someone we think would do a good job, if we decide this is needed.)