User:LuluDivine

Answers to the DP debate!

Q1. For those who have never had the opportunity to interact with you before can you share a little about yourself, what you enjoy about ATITD as well as how long you have been playing?

I started Tale near the beginning of T4 - my brother, Sigil, convinced me to give it a try. During the course of T4 I helped run the very large newbie/mentor/public works guild Oasis, in downtown Meroe. In T5, my primary guild was a smaller group of good friends, but I kept myself plugged in to the broader community by helping manage and arrange the many tentacled behemoth that is the Test of Festivals for a number of months. In T6 I turned my focus more towards research - both the University kind and the 'let's experiment' kind, as well as dedicating myself to a number of public access projects, such as the T6 public raeli project. I've continued my interests in these aspects of the game this tale. For university research- my primary guild dedicates the vast majority of their collective energy to opening tech for Egypt. For 'let's experiment' type research, I ran thousands of cooking tests in the fall to determine the stat profiles of all reasonably testable ingredients. And the T7 Public Raeli Project was opened just a few weeks ago - 60 publicly available ovens covering 180 raeli tile colors!

The answer is trite, but the thing I find most interesting about this game is the community. I don't simply mean how supportive or friendly it is - what I find truly fascinating is the conflict resolution, the wild differences in playstyles, priorities, and perspectives. There were never any rules laid out for how we were meant to work out our differences - in fact, Teppy's original purpose was arguably to see what we would all do without any such rules or expectations. This is, in so many ways, the most interesting science experiment I've ever seen - and we are both the observers and the subjects of the experiment.

Also, I write really long answers to these kinds of questions. >.<

Q2. As some specific examples, would you consider any of the following playstyles as worthy of DP intervention? Obelisk queue violation, bonfiring of a clay patches to prevent others from building, using large quantities of alts to rig elections, mentorship advancement, or other test passes?

The ban is always the option of last resort. The first question to ask is 'is this an action that reasonable minds would nearly all agree is inappropriate'. For instance, bonfiring a clay patch far from your own camp is something I find inappropriate. But it seems to me that reasonable people could disagree on it. Therefore, the appropriate way to deal with it is to propose a legislative solution - majority rules. The ban should never be involved - that would simply be substituting my personal opinion on a controversial issue for some sort of majority consensus.

But even for actions that most people might agree are inappropriate (perhaps calling another player nasty names in public), social consequences for the behavior would likely be the more appropriate reaction. Bans are only appropriate when 1) the behavior is so egregious that there's little chance of reasonable disagreement, 2) social consequences are inadequate to reduce or control the inappropriate behavior and 3) the damage from the behavior is substantial. None of the above examples qualify.

(It's worth pointing out that purchasing alts to rig an election would be so insanely expensive as to be unlikely, but I'm not sure how a DP would have any way to prove that this was taking place - for elections or for other test passes.)

Q3. If the general consensus of the rest of the DPs were that that person should not be banned, but you felt strongly that they should, what would you do?

It is difficult to imagine this situation, as my view of appropriate bans is extremely narrow. But, in this whacky world where, say, GeoDude returns and resumes egregious behavior, and none of the DPs want to ban him/her....I would make my case the best that I was able to, but if I was still unable to convince *any* of the other DPs to my viewpoint, I would take a break to seriously analyze my own position - if every DP disagreed, perhaps it's a signal that I'm reacting emotionally, or illogically. If after such a break, I was still convinced, I would take the matter to the public of Egypt. If it seemed there was substantial public support for a ban, despite the position of the remaining DPs, I would put the ban to a general vote.

Q4. How's your progress in other Leadership tests?

I have nearly passed Bureaucrat, and am about to push through Plantation and Pirates. I intend to continue working on the remaining Leadership, Arch, and Body tests as the Tale goes on.

Q5. How are you providing leadership in the game and amongst the player base?

While I try to make myself generally available to newer players with questions, I think the most significant way that I provide leadership is in fostering increased dialogue surrounding the questions of self-governance. Specifically, through the fall I hosted a series of "Spoke'n Smoked" events to discuss proposed laws and petition ideas, brainstorm about improvements that could be made, exactly how far legislation can and should go, and unintended consequences that could result from various law ideas. I will be restarting these events later this month.

Q6. What specifically have you done to further the growth of the community?

While I contribute a high proportion of my time toward research, I firmly believe that fostering true growth in the community requires something more - grappling with, and encouraging other people to confront, the difficult questions of self-governance.

In T5, I spearheaded a successful campaign (and wrote the law involved) to have a DP stripped of his power for what the community considered to be an abuse of his power (banning his former guildmates over a personal conflict he had with them). In T6, I wrote the Anti-Griefer Act in response to GeoDude's antics - at the time it was the only available way to ensure we would be physically capable of banning him (click to ban has its disadvantages) and that his detritus would be effectively removed. That law passed with an overwhelming 88% of the vote. That same law was resurrected this tale, and re-passed (albeit with a bit less fervor :p ). I was elected DP in both T5 and T6, and mediated a number of conflicts during those times.

In addition, I have hosted a number of 'Spoke'n Smoked' events during the fall (and intend to host more this spring) to encourage players to debate the merits of petitions, petition-ideas, and to foster more active participation in self-governance issues.

Q7. How many Egypt-wide events e.g Acro, Digs or others have you organized in T7?

The series of "Spoke'n Smoked" events referred to above. :)

Q8. Spouselog allows access to ban powers. Do you know who have access to your spouse account?

First, my in game spouse is my RL husband, so rest assured - if there were any funny business via spouselog, there would be some serious RL consequences. :p While both of us have in the past allowed a close personal (RL) friend to log on as us to take care of a camp chore or otherwise, our passwords have been changed since then. No one besides myself or my (RL) husband would have access to my account.

Q9. As DP do you think you should share your password? Do you think a DP should have access to other DP accounts?

I think that as a general matter DPs should not share passwords with anyone other than their game-spouse. There is entirely too much at stake with the potential for someone to take advantage of not only the banstick, but to speak in your name, under the apparent position of DP.

I don't really see why a DP would need to give their password to another DP - while that removes some of the potential danger of inappropriate use of the bans, it doesn't remove it all. DPs, while voted into power, are not automatically immune from behaving badly - a DP in T5 abused his power to ban former guildmates with whom he had a personal conflict. While I hope it would never happen, it's entirely possible that a DP would log in as another DP to use *their* bans, then claim to know nothing about it. (Bans, according to Teppy in the T5 incident, cannot be 'undone' even by another DP or a majority vote of Egypt.)

Q10. What other powers would you like to see DPs hold, in the interests of improving game play?

I can't think of something I would really call a 'power' that I think DPs should have. However, the ability to put events easily on the calendar would be nice (though this isn't strictly necessary now that we have megas). A DP microphone, though, would be fabulous - a channel dedicated to discussing the issues of the day, upcoming legislation and elections, a place entirely devoted to working out the questions of public goods vs private ones, competition vs cooperation, etc. I would just *love* that.

I've also Sabuli's petition to give banned persons a right of appeal. I think this is a brilliant idea, and would have prevented the unfortunate debacle in T5. As long as the appealing player is in jail for the duration of the process, and appeals aren't used on general population vote bans, I think it's a great idea.

Q11. What question would you like to be asked, and why?

"How do you choose a DP?" - it's easy to let DP morph into simply a popularity contest, or a reward bestowed upon someone for being a public servant, or for having a list of cool accomplishments. So, I think the question is one that we could all spend more time thinking about for ourselves.

The role of DP, if we get down to the pure technical coding of the role, is nothing more than control of 7 bansticks. As a result of that, the first question is one of bias: can the potential DP be trusted to either set aside their own bias/preconceptions, or recuse themselves from a situation where there might be even the reasonable appearance of bias. I have no reason to think that any of those of us up for DP would fail in this regard.

So, then, how else are we to choose? While nothing else is hard coded into the role, I have come to see the role of DP as a role that is integrally tied to the original experiment that Teppy endeavored to create. This game wasn't built simply as a 'cool world builder system', though it certainly is that. This was Teppy's social experiment - what will a community do with scarce resources, conflicting priorities, and externally amplified conflict? How will they choose to govern themselves and one another? Do negative actions garner merely social consequences? Are there legislative solutions? The ban? How will a community ultimately balance freedom vs order? Private vs public? Cooperation vs competition? Teppy had his own predictions for how that would all turn out - sometimes we fulfill those expectations, sometimes we defy them.

Since the entire project was ultimately an experiment in self-governance, and the DP role is the closest/only thing we have to government, I've come to think of the DP role as a critical symbol of that experiment. I am always more likely to vote for DPs who are willing to be an active participant in the ongoing dialogue surrounding all those complex questions of self-governance.

Q12. Closing Statement

I'd just like to say that all my fellow DP candidates are dead sexy. I've enjoyed knowing each and every one of them, although some I've known longer than others. I have no reason to think that any one of them would be a poor choice for DP, and I am proud to stand among them.