How to behave on a MUD

Each MUD you visit will have its own distinct character and set of social rules for moderating behaviour. Some places are very formal and others are anarchistic. The one thing all MUDs have in common is that REAL LIVE PEOPLE are connected to the players, and users you will meet. Here are some general guidelines for getting along with people when you visit a new MUD.

Be polite. Avoid being rude

The MUD is worth participating in because it is a pleasant place for people to be. When people are rude or nasty to one another, it stops being so pleasant.

Respect other player's sensibilities

The participants on the MUD come from a wide range of cultures and backgrounds. Your ideas about what constitutes offensive speech or descriptions are likely to differ from those of other players. Please keep the text that players can casually run across as free of potentially-offensive material as you can. If you want to build objects or areas that are likely to offend some segment of the community, please give sufficient warning to the casual explorer so that they can choose to avoid those objects or areas.

Don't spoof

Spoofing is loosely defined as `causing misleading output to be printed to other players.' For example, it would be spoofing for anyone but Munchkin to print out a message like `Munchkin sticks out his tongue at Potrzebie.' This makes it look like Munchkin is unhappy with Potrzebie even though that may not be the case at all. Please be aware that, while it is easy to write MUD programs that spoof, it is usually easy to detect such spoofing and correctly trace it to its source.

Don't shout

It is easy to write a MUD command that prints a message to every connected player in the MUD. Please don't. It is generally annoying to receive such messages; such shouting should be reserved for really important uses, like wizards telling everyone that the server is about to be shut down. Non-wizards never have a good enough reason to shout. Use `page' instead.

Only teleport your own things

By default, most objects (including other players) allow themselves to be moved freely from place to place within the MOO. This fact makes it easier to build useful objects like exits and magic rings that move things as a part of their normal role in the virtual reality. Unfortunately, it also makes it easy to move other players from place to place without their permission, or to move objects in and out of other players' possession. Please don't do this; it's annoying (at the least) to the poor victim and can only cause bad feelings.