professionalism (?)

• Date: Mon, 26 Feb 1996 07:29:10 PST
• From:
  paunovic@smart2.enet.dec.com

Mr. Boyken, you raise some good points. However, I must disagree with you
for several reasons:

The majority of MOO operators, IMHO, are quite ethical in their MOO behavior.
They have put up a MOO because of an interest they have, and one they hope
will attract people with the same interests. They do not get paid. They invest
huge amounts of time. If they are simply there to snoop on mail, the MOO
will not go far. So this discussion is really only about the few and far
between that are not ethical in their behavior. To characterize all MOO admin
as unprofessional, is unfair.

After all, I have heard about system administrators who have sniffed on their
users' data, sometimes for no reason at all. I am sure, given the chance in
public before being caught, they would have said that, of course, they fully
abide by the system administrator's code of conduct. (SAGE was it?) Does this
mean all system administrators are rotten? Of course not.

To have a law in place that means anything, there has to be a policing group.
And given the nature of much of this stuff we are discussing right now,
usually a policing group is not possible. And quite intrusive in any case.

Rather, I think the best policing group is MOO users (as well as system 
users), and MOO admin. Word gets around quickly when a MOO is shown to be
fraudulent. Same thing happens for a Internet provider. Then they get 
avoided.

Now, back to the question of rights of Admin, and policing. As far as I am 
concerned, as a MOO admin myself, my MOO is my property. I share it with 
my user base. I respect my user base, and in turn they respect me. But if I
snuck into someone's mail account, would they know? Probably not. And if you
snuck into someone's mail account, would they know, either? Again, no. What
stops us? That we have invested time in the system, and that we care about
it. Most MOO admin are like this. 

Although they may have disputes with users; they may be unfair to someone,
somewhere, usually they do what they do because they think that is best for
the system, and frankly, I think they *should* be the final judge. The system
is theirs.

But, as I said before, if a MOO admin does not care about his system, it
quickly shows. They'll lose.

I am sorry if I was somewhat incoherent in this message. I had to leave to a
meeting in the midst of it. But I also hope my general point got across.

Nick Paunovic, Advanced Product & Test Engineering Software Development
Digital Semiconductor. E-mail: paunovic@cntrol.enet.dec.com 
[disclaimer: my views are not necessarily those of my employer.]

• Re: professionalism (?)
• From: "Ivan R. Judson" <judson@mcs.anl.gov>

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