The No-nonsense
("Just the
Facts, Ma'm")
NeoWizard's Guide
MAIL ORDER
Sam
Siam Manuals
SAM ONLINE
Muck Wizarding
FurryMuck History
TINYGAMES
1. Introduction
2. Characters
3.
Locations
4.
Preparation
SCENARIOS
Scenario 1
Short
Scenes
Basic Wizard Stuff:
Ethics
"Need to
Know" commands
Types of wizards
FurryMuck Specific Wizard Stuff:
Rules
and guidelines for FurryMuck wizards
Typical
Problems we handle
This page is a reference guide for the few, the proud, the nutcases who want to be Muck wizards. It's a very brief (some commands and all examples have been deleted) version of the material found in the SAM SIAM NEOWIZARD'S GUIDE; part of the SAM SIAM IN FURRYMUCK LAND fanzine guides to Mucking.
There are three major duties of a Muck wizard -- to act as a helpstaff member, to act as a system administrator, and to act as law enforcement for the Muck. While there isn't a set of "Rules Every Wizard Should Follow", there are some things that you need to keep in mind when you become a wizard:
1) You'll be asked to make decisions that are UNfavorable to your friends. You can't make decisions that are based on love or friendship. It's your responsibility to treat the person who's complaining as YOU would want to be treated -- and if you had a valid complaint you wouldn't want them to ignore it simply because they didn't like you.
2) Every action, every word of yours is going to be under public scrutiny for people to criticize, make fun of, and attack you with (most of them won't -- but some of them will.) This means it's not a good idea to respond to messages on public boards unless you've taken time to carefully write, review, and edit the message.
3) Keep your temper, even when the other person is calling you names and making some very stupid accusations about you. You must be polite at all times, even to folks who are rude towards you.
4) Be firm -- but fair and try to be consistent. Having a set of guidelines that the Muck follows in disciplinary actions helps keep the results somewhat consistent.
5) Be professional. Don't gossip about the players, even to your mate (UNLESS your mate is a wizard). Don't say things about other players (even the twits) to other players. Don't discuss disciplinary cases with anyone but the persons directly involved. NEVER BACKSTAB YOUR FELLOW WIZARDS. You may not like what they do -- but don't give others ammunition against them.
6) If you don't agree with the Muck's policies or find you can't support them or have personality problems with some of the other wizards, resign quietly and professionally, not with screaming and code-shredding and howls of outrage. Take your cookies and go.
7) Let the rest of the wizcorps know about any global coding changes or any disciplinary actions that others may have to answer questions about.
8) If you're going to do something drastic, run the policy by another wizard.
9) In disciplinary cases, repassword first, pull logs, talk to another wizard, THEN toad. Disciplinary toadings are something you get asked about frequently. Cover Thy Tail with good documentation and chats with other wizards to make sure you're not overreacting.
10) Be concerned for the players of the Muck, even the ones you don't know. Kindness and compassion are the greatest power a wizard can have.
Basic "Need to Know" commands
@set me=Q - sets your powers temporarily equal to that of a player. Used to check programs and debug problems.
@boot - kicks someone off the system (when the person is locked with multiple logins, boots off the oldest copy.) example: @boot McKrishna
@exits - shows all exits on an object or room, including hidden ones.
ex - Examines something or someone, showing the basic properties. example: @ex McKrishna, ex McKrishna=/, ex McKrishna=_/
@find - find anything, anywhere, with a matching string. example: @find Frump WARNING!! WARNING!!! DANGER WILL ROBINSON!!! DO NOT TYPE '@FIND' WITHOUT ADDING SOMETHING AFTER IT!! (otherwise, you'll @find EVERYTHING on the Muck. It's no fun on most mucks. On Furry, with 35,000 rooms and 10,000 characters and 16,000 or so objects it's... it's... it's a long vacation even at T1 speeds.
MOTD - Stands for "Message of the day". example: "MOTD The Quick Brown Fox jumped over the Lazy Dog and won first prize" appends that message in the Muck's MOTD. MOTD CLEAR clears out the MOTD log.
@newpassword - changes someone's password to allow them to log in or prevent them from logging in. example: @newpassword McKrishna=welcome
@owned - shows what a player owns. example: @owned McKrishna
@set - sets player properties. example: @set McKrishna=B
@stats - gives you the basic statistics about the Muck... what it's doing, how many objects are on it, etc.
@toad - permanently removes a character from the Muck. example: @toad McKrishna
@wall - wizard shout that everyone hears (on FurryMuck it's @wshout -- a rewritten version because @walling to over 250 people at a time can cause older Mucks to crash.)
Many Mucks have the wizard jobs divided into categories. It's a rather big job to run a Muck and much easier if you've got a handy-dandy expert to call on.
Coder Wizards act as programming experts. They should be experienced programmers RL and really need to have worked as programmers for paying clients. It's one thing to hand a program to someone and say "here. Love it." It's quite another to design and code something for a picky client who won't pay you unless it's usable. Coder wizards have to know what makes something usable. They need to be competent in MUF and MPI and should have written or repaired a global.
Builder Wizards are usually found on Mucks where there's a zoning code and they enforce building standards. They grant builder bits and give approval to new areas and will ride herd on builders who want to try and build spaceports in the middle of a low-tech Muck. They need to be competent with look traps, efficient building, and special effects (like lighting) in rooms.
Player Relations Wizards are the ones who enforce the Muck's policies. A good PR wizard will be a gentle, mild-mannered person (a wizard who behaves like they've got permanent PMS is a drain on the morale of the Muck. This is NOT someone you need to have as a PR wizard). They need to be good listeners, patient with hearing the same question six times in one hour, able to handle fairly high levels of stress, knowledgeable about counseling and about the laws of the region where the Muck's server sits. They should know at least one of the Muck clients (telnet or another) well and be able to do nameserver lookups and traceroutes.
FurryMuck Specific Information
Rules and guidelines for FurryMuck wizards (in no particular order)
- When in doubt, ask another wizard. (respond with "Thank you. Let me bring it to the attention of (pick a name... any name...) and we'll investigate this."
- If a tricky issue comes up, poll the other wizards online (or wait till at least one other wizard shows up). Go with the advice of the majority.
- Appeals: We get a number of "I learned my lesson, really. Can I come back?" messages. We do lighten punishments (let people back on probation). They should send a note to wizzes@furry.org about the situation and you (as the wizard who received the request) should make sure that the rest of the wizcorps has read the request and then call for a reinstatement vote (yes, more voting). A simple majority approval lets them back on under probation.
- Don't discuss disciplinary actions or wizard business with players. Discuss with other wizards -- and talking to a friend who's a wizard on another system is also okay.
- In difficult situations, the "good cop-bad cop" approach is useful. Ask a senior wizard to play "bad cop" for you. Confront the player with two wizards; not one. Request a log of the session and save it for 6 months (it'll save your bacon a time or two).
- DO NOT lose your temper -- or seem to lose your temper. It can be used against you in public forums to make you look very bad and very stupid. If you start to lose your temper, turn the incident over to someone else.
- If an issue involves someone you like very much (or dislike very much), hand it over to another wizard to deal with.
- If a player approaches you with a complaint against another wizard, treat it as a serious matter. Ask for supporting details. If you think you've uncovered a problem with another wizard, then ask a senior wizard to help.
- You can't merrily go GREPping through the Muck logs even if you have access. If you think you need to do a search, mention it to at least one other wizard (basically, get approval for a "search warrant".) If you need to do a further search based on those results, wait till a group of wizards is online (more than one wizard), explain the situation, and ask for approval for a further search. Yes, this is cumbersome. It's designed to protect players from casual searches.
- If a player appeals to you to overturn a judgement made by another wizard, talk to the other wizard first. Don't simply assume that the wizard was wrong (even if the one doing the griping is your absolutly best friend in the whole world.) This situation occurrs frequently.
- You'll probably end up with some of the more time-consuming duties. You aren't expected to be "on duty" all the time, but if you're a PR wizard, you should be "on duty" MOST of the time you're logged in. Coder/server wizards frequently set themselves "off duty" so that they can handle our requests (lag fixes, program fixes, log grabs) without having to deal with player requests as well.
- Make notes in the logs (WL) about disciplinary actions. I also use them to note other situations that wizards may need to take into account in dealing with them (family death, medication reactions, connection problems, military duty.)
- Remember, you're not going to sail in and make huge changes to the Muck and its policies. You have to get at least 10 other people to agree with you.
- Issues involving changes to the AUP and other Muck policies are voted on. It can take up to a year to get some things passed (or voted down). The typical process is to open a discussion with other wizards and if there's some interest in the policy (and most of us would rather spend a night in the Iron Maiden than put in Yet Another Policy), then a policy statement is made and debate is opened. You track modifications until you come up with something that at least 2/3 of the existing wizcorps can agree to. Then you put out a call for a vote in the wizcorps. Because of work schedules and other demands, it can take up to 2 weeks for the others to get back to you (you'll have to remind them.) Once a policy is decided, a plan for implementation is next (announcing the policy, setting up a "grace time," setting punishments/warnings for those who don't comply (if this applies). Doesn't this sound a lot like a government legislative session? Yeah, it's awkward and painful and drags like the devil at times but it's the ONLY way you can get changes done.
- In disciplinary cases get all the details you can. Ask the coder/server wizards to pull logs for you (you will need to know the time, date, and people involved). Interpretation of words can depend on the mood you're in -- when in doubt, ask another wizard to look over the logs, too and see if they come to the same conclusion.
- The process of selecting a new wizard is similar to the process needed to get a change to the AUP (a word to the wise, here...).
- When in doubt, I try to NOT use my gut reaction to decide any issue. For legal matters, I check with the U.S. laws (I have friends who are cops, court officials, and lawyers.) Wizcorps stuff is loosely based on a democracy -- majority rules on minor stuff, 2/3 majority is needed for the big stuff.
- Multiple players requesting characters from the same account. Usually we catch this one when the adult registration birthdates don't agree (in which case, we unset all the birthdates and deny adult status) OR when someone gets into trouble and a guest logs on and says that they played on that account and their character didn't do anything -- so why are they banned? We explain (and point to the rules) that if one character from an account gets banned, the whole bunch get banned. We can release that character to the guest IF they can show they're coming in from a different ISP and IF they can show us that they have a valid email account. Otherwise, they'll have to accept the same punishment that their brother/sister/cousin/etc had placed on them.
- Faked deaths/suicides/suicide threats//illnesses. There's a few who enjoy "chain jerking" people around to try and get sympathy for themselves. Those who fake their own deaths or suicides get quickly removed from the Muck -- and I do place a note on the Park board explaining this to the Muck population (the only time I make a public announcement about a disciplinary action.)
