Subject: A proposition... For redirecting IML to new Media..
Date: Wed, 25 May 1994 23:28:10 -0600 (MDT)
From: kholland@polaris.unm.edu (Kiernan Holland)

I know many here don't have telnet access still, but I'm proposing 
something that probably hasn't been though about.. 
Somebody talked about getting users up on the IRC's, some  suggested 
USENET, some mentioned Mosaic, now I have an Idea, 
MUD's!! 

"Your crazy!"

Why?
I read a story on a MUD that a group at Xerox PARC was working on called
LambdaMOO, and how NASA was developing a system using it to 
bring professional astronomers together into a cyber-community 
that could remain on a high level of tech-speak without 
having to resort to explaining to a newbie the fundamentals 
of thier discussion. Although what NASA was doing was providing 
more than just textual communication (read the paper it is fascinating)
it expressed an idea that is not often considered nor obvious..

In the spirit of this, someone could set up a Imagine MUD.. Not for game 
playing, but for discussions between Imagine users, active discussions,
that are more productive and resuire less text. Face it, when you send 
Email to someone they are required to either reply to your letter completely,
spending time writing between paragraph quotes, reply to a part 
(rendering most of that time you spent writing, a waste), or completely 
ignoring you because there is 30 other posts that from the looks 
of the "To:" description seem to talk about nothing much of interest..
In this case a real-time conversation is helpful.. Although, by using 
a MUD, you are not giving up the Email approach, because MUD's 
have Mail-Rooms within them where you can send long letters to whoever 
you want. 

Having an Imagine MUD would also be useful for those helping others to use 
Imagine. Imagine this, rather than giving a full-blown tutorial covering 
everything that happens, you could give somebody or a whole group 
a tutorial in real-time and if any problems occur, they'll be resolved in
descussion rather than through a weeks worth of posts.. You could open 
your terminal software, get on the modem, get on the Imagine mud, ask a 
question, get an instant response, try it out on Imagine, come back 
with a result, work on it, until you get the problem solved, then 
a logg of the discussion you had could probably be captured by an online 
program written in the MUD's language and saved to a file for others 
to read. It would be more productive! 

That is another thing, most MUD's have thier own programming language, 
designed for game use but not for game use only.. The programming 
language allows one to create his/her own things.. rooms, universes..
Kinda like the universes we create in Imagine. When someone 
wants to describe an object, they could describe the details 
in textual form as a program, or just as a general description of a 
plain object, then others could pick it up, examine it and learn 
from it.. For instance, say you want to make a cup in Imagine, 
you make your brush, lathe it, and figure out how to perfect it. 
You get on the Imagine MUD and make a similar object for examination
that contains a description of its parts, handling it would casue an
action to occur and a description of how it was made to be given.. 
Then somewhere in the details you may want to provide a FTP address
where the object is stored or any additional information including the 
author who created it. You could carry it around the rooms with you..
If someone asked youhow you made it, you could give them the object
and they'd be informed on how to make the object and where to get a 
copy of it..

A MUD would also let users talk about things other than Imagine without 
disrupting others. The Imagine MUD could be runned in parallel to 
the listserv with all memberships granted through the listserv 
moderator to make sure that only Imagine users would have access and 
not non-Imagine-users.. I really think that a MUD for Imagine users 
would lead to greater IMAGINations as well as a more productive 
environment.

Thanks for considering it,

Kiernan

PS- I learned that abermud began its life on Amiga's.. I've 
been trying to learn (at least while I can get access to the sites) 
LPC when I can, it is the programming language that is 
interpreted within LPmud, it is like a combination of C++, LISP and
Smalltalk and is pretty amazing considering LPmud was designed for 
gamers. 




                           -=> RETURN TO CONTENTS!<=-