Lee-Ellen Marvin
Department of Folklore and Folklife
University of Pennsylvania
In this paper, I examine what I believe are aesthetic values governing the use of expressive resources in six text-based virtual realities, known as MOOs, which are a particular type of MUD (explained below). Four items from the jargon of MOOs -- spoof, spam, lurk, and lag -- are examined here as expressions, on the smallest and most basic level, for what they say about how to and how not to communicate within the MOOs. By smallest and most basic, I mean that these aesthetics are applied to virtual "conversation" or real-time interaction in dialogue form which takes place everyday in the MOOs. These items of jargon were selected because they are regularly used by participants in MOOs to identify distruptions to ideal communications.
Briefly, "spoof" is unattributed communication, "spam" is an excess of communication, "lurk" is a refusal to communicate, and "lag" is a mechanical delay of communication. These expressions are used as verbs ("He spoofed! And then I was lagging.") or as nouns ("I was hit with lots of spam and there was a lurker in our midst.") There are no positive expressions in the jargon which correlate with these negative terms. The observed use of these expressions shows that they are not only used to describe technical problems but are regularly used to metaphorically describe social, cognitive, and emotional experiences.
Following Bakhtin's theories on the impact of primary speech genres on secondary ones (Bakhtin 1986 (1952): 61), I find that these aesthetic values as expressed in the jargon collectively shape all other levels of communication by the experienced participants of MOOs, from the simplest exchanges in everyday communication to the most prominent official documents. At the same time, these elements function as rules and limitations, which are then exploited, distorted and negotiated as expressive resources in themselves, and become symbolic tools for plurality within the group. Many scholarly studies and non-scholarly commentaries have pondered the possibility of "virtual community" and a few papers have studied the unique features of language and communication within MOOs. This paper examines the aesthetics of expression within the MOOs as a resource for the construction of community by its participants. The research was conducted through the ethnographic tools of participant observation and close analysis of actual interactions, saved in screen logs .
MOOs are a particular type of MUD -- "Mud, Object-Oriented" -- based on software developed by Pavel Curtis of Xerox Corporation. Each MOO presents a particular kind of world -- a selected slice of reality presented through words. The participants are provided with electronic programming tools to extend this reality in numerous directions through the creation of virtual spaces, objects, and characters. LambdaMOO, the oldest and largest of the MOOs, uses the theme of a "house", and was originally modeled after the Palo Alto home of its developer, Pavel Curtis. The heart of this house is a living room linked to a kitchen, dining room, deck, and hallway. Each textually represented room, object, and character has a description, and any participant can selectively read these descriptions, just as the reader of a hypertext document can choose to read a linked passage. Participants enter this world in the form of self-described characters who can interact with each other. For those who have never participated in a MUD or a MOO, reading a sample of interactions in the living room and linked spaces at LambdaMOO, or making a visit to a MOO is recommended.
The fixed descriptions of objects, rooms, and characters provide a sense of depth and permanence to the world of the MOOs, while the synchronous interactions of the participants animates the world. There are a number of different ways to communicate and interact. Participants may "say" things to each other, or direct their statements to particular characters. They also have the ability to "emote" or gesture to each other. Participants can use preprogrammed scripts to quickly offer a series of gestures. With a little technical skill, participants can also privately whisper to each other. These simple and very basic commands allow for rich interactions.
Aside from talking and gesturing to other participants in the same virtual room, participants can privately "page" participants from room to room, sometimes conducting completely private conversations with one person while simultaneously taking part in a public conversation. There is also a MOOmail system which replicates the Internet email system, mailing lists for posting statements to groups of people, analogous to Usenet newsgroups or Listserv mailing lists on the Internet, and "gopher slate" objects which allow participants to access gopher files anywhere on the Internet from within the MOO. In addition, there are multiple-person channels for talking to several characters at once, designed to represent a virtual citizen's band radio or the Internet's IRC. Some MOOs have developed virtual "television systems" which allow participants to selectively view a textually described "video". Clearly, what the MOOs recreate most completely is the Internet itself and telecommunications in general, and the accuracy of this replication leads to the necessity to distinguish between "real life" and "MOO life" with special MOOwords .
MOOs have social systems with varying degrees of official and unofficial dynamics. Some of these dynamics reflect the history of MUD development by retaining names for participants and administrators which reflect the gaming origins of MUDs. Some are ruled exclusively by an "arch-wizard," who is the individual responsible for creating the MOO, selecting its theme and building its most public areas. This person often has control of the actual Internet server which runs the MOO software. In many MOOs, it is the arch-wizard who takes responsibility for the society by issuing guidelines for acceptable behavior, punishing transgressors, and judging disputes between participants. LambdaMOO has created a system of ballots, petitions and disputes, for decision making and the establishment of standards of behavior and negotiation of conflicts. Some of the MOOs oriented toward professional and educational use have established non-profit corporations to oversee the social and technical issues.
This paper is based on 18 months of participant-observation at six different MOOs. Though each of these MOO communities have different purposes and histories, I have found that they all share this jargon, and thus these aesthetic values. These resources are shared because they are reactions to the limitations and demands of the MOO technology, and because many of the most active participants have memberships in several MOOs.
a Tempi says to Tofu, "Yep. Have you read the
petition?"
b Rice aiiiee petitions and politics, and bitterness
abounding.
c Tofu [to Tempi]: Yeah, it's um...um...well,
interesting!
d Tempi says to Rice, "Sorry 'bout that. I forgot you're
!political."
e Rice [to Tempi]: Sokay. :) At least you remember.
In line e of the sample above, Rice used a two-character smiley to
indicate to Tempi that he is forgiven for a transgression. Some
attention, mostly in the popular press, has been lately put on the
emergence of "smileys" as a special feature of writing on the Internet
(Elmer-Dewitt, 1994; Sanderson, 1993). These popular books and articles
list the different expressions used by Internet typists to add another
dimension to the severely limited tools of the typed text. Smileys such
as :-) or 8-( are appended to typed statements that are ironic or
subtly humorous, to alert the reader that the statement is not to be
read literally. These symbols are the paralanguage of the Internet
(Dery, 1993), the winks which signal the playfulness of a statement
over the seriousness it might denote, such as Bateson observed in
animal and human play (Bateson, 1972).
The use of a smiley by Rice suggested something of the status between the participants as well as the intent of the statement. Many smileys, and the spelled out gestures of "smile" or "grin" (emotes) are appended to statements which are not ironic or ambiguous. They are friendly gestures, indications of approval or appreciation, much as smiles are often intended in face-to-face interaction. However, smiles in face-to-face contexts can be strategic or spontaneous and unintentional. In the context of the MOO, whether expressed with the iconic :-) or the symbolic "smile", every smile must be consciously indicated. In private something flowing across the computer screen might cause a participant to spontaneously smile, but a conscious choice must be made to type it out; a participant might frown at the keyboard and but strategically decide to type a strategic smile.
The interaction between Tempi, Rice and Tofu included some interesting spellings, and all of them are conventional within the MOOs. Rice used "aaiiiee" and "Sokay", Tempi used "'bout'. "Aaiiiee" (spelled with any number of a, i, and e letters) is often used to express horror, shock or dismay, along with other utterances such as "um, hmmm, mmm, er", "yep, yup, yeah, yay, hey", "ack, ugh", "yikes", and "euugh". "Sokay", "'kay" and "OK" are all used. "'Bout" is not very common, but suggested a number of other contractions such as "y'all" for "you" plural, "'cause" for "because", "gonna" for "going to". These spellings all suggest the sounds of informal spoken American-English.
In a manner which parallels the aurality of spelling in MOOs, participants use punctuation marks unconventionally. Sentences are often ended without periods, commas are positioned to indicate pauses rather than clauses. Tofu said, in line c, "Yeah, it's um...um...well, interesting!" is typical of how ellipses are used to suggest pauses.
Participants use symbols and variations in lower/upper case letters for emphasis. As in other Internet genres, the use of upper-case letters in MOO interactions is understood to mean SHOUTING, but at times, MOO participants will for emphasis, capitalize one word or bracket a word with asterisks, as in, "I DROVE to the store," or "I *walked* to school today". This agreed conventionalized use of typography increases the sense of spoken conversation.
Symbols are sometimes used in MOO interactions, as demonstrated in line d. Tempi's use of "!political" is a borrowing from programming code. Many participants of the MOOs know some programming, and the skilled programmers are praised and admired, as well as frequently consulted, for their knowledge. Some programming conventions are used by participants in conversation. By using "!political", Tempi has said "not political" with the convention of an exclamation point as a prefix. Other examples of symbols or programming code used in conversational interactions are "=" for "means, is same as", "s/werd/word" to indicate corrections to a mistyped statement. Sometimes the syntax of lines of code is used, as in "Have you asked(players)?" which means, "Have you asked any of the players?" A less technical symbol is an arrow pointed to a participant's name as in, "lmarvin <-- Philadelphia," to indicate "lmarvin lives in Philadelphia."
Like occupational groups (McCarl, 1986: 76) and closely-knit families
(Zeitlin, 1982:146-161), the participants in MUDs have a specialized
vocabulary based on their unique environment. Newcomers are frequently
confronted and confounded by a lexicon which includes symbols and
unusual words such as brb, bots, call-wasted, e, em and eir, idling,
lag, lurk, morph, mav, pokes, rofl, rl/vr slippage, spam, spivaks and
splatts, spoof, tinysex and moo-rape, teleporting, threads, @toading
and @newting, ttyl, wizzes and waveys (see the Glossary for definitions).
Furthermore, conversational topics such as the "hacking verbs", or the
"rl @genders of the typists of certain players" are confusing to
beginners. Some of these words (lurking, rofl, and spam for instance)
will be recognizable to participants in other Internet genres. Some
words may have came from other MUDs (call-wasted, tinysex) and from the
Dungeon and Dragon games which inspired the first TinyMud (wizards,
wizzes, wielding), but many come from the MOO programming language
itself, others from experiences unique to the MOOs. These specialized
<
The programming of the MOO is the source of the attributions of each
speaker (Tofu says, ""), as well as the quotation punctuation. In MOO
interactions, there are also automated messages such as announcements
of participants' movements in and out of rooms. The distinction between
a statement typed by an active participant and an automated message is
not always easy to perceive in the MOO, especially for newcomers.
Automated messages are usually programmed to conform to rules of
written American
English, with proper punctuation and spelling. The formal quality of
these statements helps participants to recognize the "live" from the
pre-programmed because the live elements are written like speech. At
the same time, grossly inaccurate spellings and syntax are not
tolerated without some teasing or, more likely, a self-critical remark,
often humorous. Two of the conventionalized self-critical gestures
about typing errors is "Zoo looks at her hands," and "Park shoots his
typist."
In summing up the examples which have been drawn from the first sample
of exchange, it is clear that every communication is a typed message,
whether framed as vocal utterance (Jane says, "Hello"), gesture (Jane
waves to you), or as a preprogrammed message ("You can't go that
way."). The typed utterances made by participants consistently include
conventionalized, non-standard English usage. These conventions fall
into two large categories: first, there are the "written speech"
conventions which represent spoken vernacular language, and therefore
contribute to the "virtual reality" of a conversation; and second,
there are "insider" conventions which exploit the specialized lexicon
of the MOO. This use of a highly specialized term, with the expectation
that it will be understood by others, is an example of what folklorist
Jansen called "esoteric knowledge," knowledge or practices which are
particular to a group, and stem from a sense of belonging. (Jansen,
1957: 46)
In addition to this set of expressive resources for
communication, I perceived a set of aesthetic values ,
symbolically encoded in the daily language of the MOO participants.
These values are both commentary on and intrinsic to its expressive
resources. They are the ideals held in common by most of its members
about expression, language and interaction, and are learned early by
its newcomers. These aesthetic values are also easy targets for poetic
metaphor and creative parody because they are so well known by the
community.
In digitized, synchronous, text-based interaction, the participants are
forced to type quickly, with less concern for spelling errors and
typos, using as few words as possible. There is a curious reversal of
turn-taking management when a participant makes a long speech. In
face-to-face conversations, a listener waits for an ending to a
speaker's long statement, and stays alert for opportunities to speak,
perhaps inwardly thinking, "When will this person stop?" In
typed conversations of the MOOs, a long statement requires a long wait
on the part of the reader, during which the reader wonders, "When will
this person start?" Very long pauses of a minute or two can
lead the reader to wonder whether the typist is still participating.
To speed up this slow pace, experienced participants in synchronous
modes such as MUDs and IRC often create multi-layered and
multi-dimensional conversations. Two people can and do discuss two
topics at once: while one is composing a statement to one topic, the
other is writing about a second topic. In conversations with more than
two, the exchanges might be briefer, centered around one topic but
responding to sub-themes within the topic in a round-robin fashion, so
that everyone is typing at the same time. These topics are called
"threads", the same term used in other Internet genres such as Usenet
newsgroups and Listserv mailing lists. In large groups, there can be
several very different threads underway at once, as happens in
asynchronous media. At such times, the conversation moves quite
quickly, and the pace becomes a visible stream of words on the screen.
As each line of the dialogue is added, the lines on the screen scroll
or jump upwards, and the words seem to rush by. Some people will then
withdraw from such interactions because, "the screen is moving too
fast."
Digitized conversation is perverted by "lag". Lag is a mechanical delay
of communication in addition to the inherent delay of the medium. Lag
can take place within the computer running a MOO, or between the
connections on the Internet, or in the equipment an individual uses.
Lag becomes a source of trouble and annoyance, not unlike the weather
in the "real world." For example:
When lag is longer than 5 seconds, conversations lose any sense of
realism, the turn taking falls out of order, and, like bad weather, lag
becomes a topic of conversation:
This sequence began with a line which originated from a pre-programmed
object known as "the Cockatoo". This virtual bird randomly records and
replays statements made by participants in the room. In this case, the
replay was about "spoofing". Spoofs are unattributed communications.
Normally, every line in the stream of communications is attributed to
someone or something. In this interaction, the (automated) reference to
spoofing inspired a new spoof.
Spoofs are problematical within the MOO communities because they defeat
the usual pattern of attribution. Attribution, in this case, relates to
Erving Goffman's ideas about "connectives" in normal human
conversation:
Spoofs are strongly discouraged in official texts on MOO manners, and
between friends. Participants of MOO communities are not provided with
the means for spoofing. Spoofing commands are newly programmed or the code copied from
other programmers. An aura of the criminal surrounds spoofing. For
example, at LambdaMOO, the on-line help manual has this to say about
spoofs in its "help manners"
section:
The spoofing demonstrated here was commentary on the politics of
spoofing. Line d was a pretence of innocence, rather like a child
saying "What ice cream?" while licking the last drops off sticky
fingers. The spoofs on lines f and h toyed with the omnipresent quality
of unattributed
speech by claiming to be from "God".
On the other hand, there is another practice similar to lurking with a
positive connotation. "Idling" is a term for being connected to a MOO
without actively participating. Participants who idle may be away from
their computer or are working on another project on the same computer.
Unlike lurking, idling involves no active attempt to hide one's
presence. Idling carries the connotation of being involved, of
participating in the community in spite of a busy life.
The expression is used in negative terms. However, what constitutes
spam is often a matter of personal taste. Spam was once used as the
principal argument for the expulsion of a long-time LambdaMOO
character. The proposal put up for popular vote summarized, "Many of us
are exasperated with this player on account of a long history of
vindictiveness, paranoia, slander, harassment, lying, and cheating; but
especially compulsive spam." The ballot for expulsion did not pass,
however, suggesting that one participant's spam is another's
entertainment.
I found Fork's playful performance to be an example of vernacular art
because he pushed the rule against spoofing to the furthest extreme, as
he articulated it and thus, brought it into the foreground. A speech
community's articulation of its own aesthetics and ideals can be at one
and the same time: a) rules for proper behavior; b) markers of
experience and belonging; c) metaphor for poetic expression; d) and
targets for play and challenge within the community. The ability to
play with community rules calls for a keen understanding of the
underlying aesthetics to those rules. Similarly, those of us who study
the new electronic communities of cyberspace must be able to practice
the
prevailing aesthetics and ideals of communication if we hope to fully
understand their creative expressions.
There are no MOO terms for the reverse of each expression, but the
positives can be inferred: Ideal behavior in the MOOs is attributed,
brief, participatory and speedy communication. Attribution allows
others
to respond to the appropriate source, brevity provides opportunity to
respond, participation is necessary for interaction to occur, and speed
increases the volume of what is communicated and thus created. So we
see that the special lexicon of the MOOs is an integral part of its
"virtual
reality" and provides pointers to a newbie on how best to behave.
Lagging in Digital Communication
Conversations in a MOO environment are synchronous (real-time, like the
telephone) but digitized on a very large sampling rate. This gives them
a temporal quality entirely different from the timing of telephone or
face-to-face interaction. There is a waiting period between lines, as
each participant types a contribution to the emerging exchange. Once a
message is typed and sent, the entire text appears on the screen. For
the recipient of a message, there is no period of time during which the
message is *being* communicated. There is only a wait during a time of
"no message" followed by "message". This digitized, on-off/yes-no
process has an impact on the communicative structure of "virtual
conversations".
a beets hugs and waves accordingly.
(several seconds pause)
b beets asks, "is anyone having the horrid lag that I am?"
(pause)
c Carrot nods to beets
d Radish nods to beets
(pause)
e Eggplant nods. "Welcome to LagLand.
Participants measure lag by the delay between sending and seeing
statements on the screen. Because lag comes from several different
sources, it might affect some participants and be unobserved by others,
which is why "beets" asked for confirmation of his/her experience of
lag.
Lag longer than 2 or 3 seconds often triggers comments. Lag is a
rupture
to the communicative process in the MOOs and other MUDs. Ironically, it
has become one of the most prominent features of LambdaMOO, often
nicknamed "Lagda".
a Grape sends a prayer
b Okra* notes the lag monster must be killing the guests
c Peas says, "the all powerful LAG"
In a campaign statement for election to an important committee, one
long-time LambdaMOO member reminded the voters that he was a "veteran
of many lag-wars", evoking the trope of countless political campaigns
and transforming the lag "monster" into a shared adversity or opposing
force, and thus reifying the sense of "community" between MOO
participants.
Spoofing
The remainder of this paper will be a close examination of one lengthy
exchange which happened to include samples of spoofing, lurking, and
spamming. This complex interaction took place in the "Living Room" of
LambdaMOO, woven around two other conversational threads which have
been edited out (the removed lines marked with asterisks):
a Cockatoo squawks, "I think they removed the Spoof FO."
b spoon nods in greeting...
c Fork says, "Ack.. Now I just found a server that offers
real-time traffic reports of certain highways in San
Diego, Los angeles, and "Orange country""
*
d Spoof FO.. what Spoof FO..?
*
e lmarvin blinks..."hey, who spoofed?!"
f A thundering voice rumbles through the room and says:
"God did!"
g lmarvin looks up.
h ya.. god..
*
(to review full sample)
" ... a fundamental feature of experience is that deeds and
words come to us connected to their source, and that ordinarily this
connection is something we can take for granted, something that the
context of action will always provide, something that ensures the
anchoring of activity." (Goffman, 1974, 479)
A person who interacts in a MOO has only one physical source for the
words flowing across the screen and that is the computer itself.
Participants must exercise a certain faith in computers and
telecommunications technology, trusting that the words in synchronous
conversations really do come from people in other cities, states or
even countries. In support of that faith, there are efforts in the
MOO-code to attribute a source for every line which appears in the flow
of real-time interactions. Spoofing disrupts this pattern of
attribution and for that reason is a breach of good conduct. As an
unattributed line, spoofing attracts attention, is often used for
humorous effect, but can be threatening, confusing, or frustrating in
normal conversational patterns.
Do not harass or abuse other players, using any tactic
including: * Spoofing (causing messages to appear that are not
attributed
to your character) Spoofs can be funny and expressive when used with
forethought. If you spoof, use a polite version than announces itself
as
a spoof promptly, and use it sparingly. See `help spoofing' for more
information on determining the source of spoofs.
(Review Sample Four, part one)
Lurking
In the next ten next lines there was one spoof, and two references to
lurking:
i spoon smacks himself hard and often.
j lmarvin looks at spoon.
k spoon . o O ( what the hell am i doing up .. this is
sunday... or is it? )
l spoon lurks...
m Cockatoo squawks, "Neuro is spoofing, I think."
n lmarvin says, "not only spoofing..but lurking too, spoon?"
o Spoofing?
p spoon lurks innocently...
q Plate teleports in.
r Guest comes out of the closet (so to speak...).
Spoon claims to be "lurking innocently", again, thereby suggesting that
there is something problematical about this behavior. Lurking is an
expression used in asynchronous Internet communications to describe
users who read but don't contribute to public discussions. A "lurker"
in the synchronous forms is equivalent to a spy: someone who listens to
discussions within a room but doesn't make his or her presence known.
This can easily be accomplished by a skilled programmer, and is
forbidden
in the official texts:
Spying -- Don't create or use spying devices. If you reset
your teleport message, make sure it is set to something, so that you
don't teleport silently. Besides having a disorienting effect on
people,
silent teleportation is a form of spying.
Many virtual rooms in MOOs are considered private rooms. They have the
capacity to be "locked", or to allow only certain players to enter.
Maintaining privacy is valued because many participants hold intimate
conversations or practice "MOOsex" within these rooms. Participants who
erase the announcement of their entrances are considered lurkers,
subject to censure or loss of membership. "Lurking" is also used to
describe those who watch the screen but refrain from participating,
becoming invisible, as it were, by having no presence.
Spamming
This exchange in the Living Room changed when two new participants
entered the room in time to witness lmarvin's expression of interest in
spooking. Without knowing what had just occured in the virtual room,
Plate provided an elaborate demonstration of spoofing with a
preprogrammed script:
s lmarvin says, "actually...i am right at this moment,
doing a study on 'spoofing' in the moo..."
t lmarvin asks, "how come spoofing is illegal?"
u Guest says, "whats spoofing?""
*
v Plate says, "this is spoofing""
w A can of Spam tromps into the room.
x The can of Spam locates it's target.
y The can begins making noises like it's gonna hack up a
spitwad.
*
a2 The can of Spam suddenly spews a stream of unwanted text
at Guest, tattoos a knockwurst on its forehead, then
floors it out of the room as fast as it can go.
b2 Plate [to Guest]: Thats spoofing :)
c2 Guest gasps
The expression "spam" is used throughout the Internet, on both
synchronous and asynchronous forms, for any "excess of words". In the
MOOs, "spam" also means words which enter the stream of scrolling
conversation too fast to be read. Charles Stivale explored spam as a
form of harassment covering a "spectrum of intentions." He grouped the
range of intentions into three major categories: playful, ambiguous and
pernicious (Stivale, 1994). The example above (Stivale might place it
in the ambiguously harassing category) could be interpreted as a
demonstration of both spam and spoof. In addition to being harassing,
some programs which generate spam also generate lag.
Play
In response to the "can of spam" routine, several more genuine spoofs
were made, at a faster pace and with greater variety. The entire scene
took on an atmosphere of a rather carnivalesque dream. Furthermore,
lines of spoof appeared which were falsely attributed to participants:
d2 A blast of noise and light rips through the fabric of
time and space, leaving a wake of damage in its path.
Knife is crawling from the wreckage.
e2 lmarvin says, "its kinda bad cause you can get people
into trouble by impersonating them...
f2 Haakon appears in a puff of magic.
g2 Knife is on the scene.
h2 Haakon say, "Ok, who is spoofing?"
i2 A roll of toilet paper flies through the room and says:
"This is spoofing, some silly thing and you don't know
who is doing it..."
j2 Plate [to lmarvin]: Oh that spoofing I can't even
begin to do that...
*
k2 Fork says, "Haakon says, "Someone better answer up! And
quick!""
*
Line e2, attributed to lmarvin, was not typed by me: it was a
fabrication of the spoofer, equivalent to forging a signature. This
spoof constituted more serious rule-breaking than the spoofs in lines
d, f, h, and o which were unattributed to any active participants.
However, the spoof of line e2 explained the wrongdoing it committed.
The appearance of Haakon (the arch-wizard of LambdaMOO) in line f2 was
likewise faked, creating an illusion of Haakon's participation. Again,
the line identified its own trickery by presenting Haakon in a "puff of
magic". Line i2 was attributed to a flying roll of toilet paper which
spoke of spoofing as "some silly thing." This series of spoofs was
simultaneous demonstration and commentary on spoofing, showing the
range of interpretations possible, from "some silly thing" to "kinda
bad" to grounds for an angry appearance by the arch-wizard. In line k2,
Fork showed, perhaps by mistake, that he was the source of the spoofs
(although it is certainly possible there was another contributor!).
Once oriented, the most recent participant to arrive, Knife, assumed an
ironic heroic stance with a virtual spoofer-detection device:
l2 Knife [to spoon]: We gotta a spoofer around here?
m2 Fork grins.
*
n2 Plate raises his hand and shouts "ME! Me! ME! ME!"
o2 Fork sighs loudly.
p2 lmarvin asks, "hey...does anybody object if i save
these last lines about spoofing...for my paper?"
q2 spoon [to Knife]: a couple.. none dangerous...
r2 Plate says, "Nope"
s2 Guest is totally lost
t2 Knife whips out his spoofer-detecter
Though a serious crime had been committed, according to official MOO
policy, the result was a spontaneous and playful drama, created by and
for those in the room. My response, as an observer , was to ask
permission
of those involved to save a log of
the performance.
Conclusion
Four items from the MOO lexicon were examined in this paper: "spoof"
(unattributed communication), "spam" (excess of communication), "lurk"
(refusal to communicate), and "lag" (mechanical impedance of
communication). These terms are all expressions of negative experiences
and, as such, describe the most common disruptions to normal
communications within the MOO. They have exact technical definitions
which are understood by the experienced members of the MOOs, and they
are
also all potential metaphors for social, cognitive and emotional
experiences.
If the following does not appear to you as a table, please
click here.
TERM MEANING(NEGATIVE) OPPOSITE(POSITIVE)
spoof unattributed attributed
spam excessive brief
lurk non-participatory
participatory
lag slow speedy
With thanks and appreciation to Roger Abrahams,
Regina Bendix, Cati Coe, Brenda Danet, David Jacobson, Barbara
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Beth Kolko, Diane Maluso, and my many
MOO-buddies
at MediaMOO and LambdaMOO for support, encouragement, and intellectual
challenges.