Appendix: Tools for recording conversations in MOO environments

Logging functions and conversational log types

Three main types of logging devices available for conversational and other kinds of research purposes in distributed virtual environments of the MOO variety. These devices, which in themselves are specially designed objects, allow for the on-going registration of conversations and interactions between participants at various levels of detail, and from different points of view. These three main types of device allow variously logging of:

1. conversations and public actions only

2. everything done by one or more participants

3. everything done or percieved by one participant

Let us look more in detail at these three types of logs in turn, together with some examples of how they may turn out to be in practice.

Conversation and public action logs

The simplest, and probably most common type of logging device used for making records of conversations in distributed virtual anvironments is a recorder object which is programmed to be `visible' in any room in which it is placed, and which visibly informs participants entering the room that conversations there are being recorded when it is turned on. Some devices also emit regular messages while they are recording, informing everyone in that particular room that interactions are being recorded. Recorders of this type may generally be operated, ie. turned on and off, by more than one person, but they may also in certain cases be restricted to use by one person only. They will record to a separate $note object which is generally accessible for reading by for anyone entering the room where it is located, as in the example below:

Hall

You are standing in the entrance hall at Arisbe. It is still being restored at the moment, so all you notice are the elegant high ceiling and the white plastered walls. There are a number of doors leading to various other rooms, but they all seem to be locked at the moment. At the end of the hall is a stairway leading to the second floor. Lying on a small table is a blueprint for the reconstruction work.

You can add your own Web page or other URL to the blueprint. Look blueprint to see how.

You can also write a message on the bulletin board. Type look blackboard to find out how.

 

Exits include: [Exit] to Arisbe [Library] to Library

You see Bulletin Board and Small Table.

You see PatrickC (asleep) standing about.

You see Blueprint, Sony (recording), and Guestbook

In this case, the `Sony' object is the recording device, and `Guestbook' is the $note object to which interactions in the room are at present being logged. Issuing the command:

read Guestbook

while in the room above will display the contents of the current log, which for a two-participant conversation may look something like this[44]:

PatrickC says[45], "one thing... I guess starting a MOO needs a lot of people and funding. I see DU is "old" (started back in '93). Do you know how it all came about?"

PatrickC says, "I see also that Anneberg (industry) is in the picture.."

Ulf says, "yes, i'm one of the founders."

Ulf says, "it started with Jeanne, who discovered MOOs sometime in very early 93..."

PatrickC says, "Jeanne is the chief wiz at du, right?"

PatrickC says, "She has what background?"

Ulf says, "she had previous experience with BBS' and was a grad student of social work in houston at the time...she was trying to create a therapy/SW environment in lambda MOO but soon got sucked into a community of people that run their own MOOs and wanted to mold them to their own likings and ideas.."

PatrickC nods

PatrickC says, "and then...?"

Ulf says, "yes, she's what it all roots back to, pretty much. anyway, sometime in the summer of 93 she met this fellow that had just opened a blank MOO on his own acount, mostly to meet privately with friends. she visited and dreamed about some things aloud...she had just recently started to ponder MOOs as educational environments..."

Ulf says, "she had looked at other MUDs that claimed affinity to educational goals..beyond some of the MUSE's for K8 students and WriteMUSH there wasn't much."

Conversations with more than two participants become, as one would expect, more complicated, often with several parallell threads of conversation developing, and where one or more participants may be active in several such threads all at the same time, as can be seen in the example below[46]:

Patrick says, "some say also that gender becomes less prevalent in a MOO (i.e. as a "problem")"

Janet [to Patrick]: "This was not meant as a criticism of you: I think it's fine that you give response to what everyone says

Karen pats Alison on the head and says there there

Karen [to Patrick]: "why as a problem?

Susan says, "isn't it good that gender does not appear so obvious? I mean, men are known to dominate discussions"

Patrick [to Karen]: in connection with the fact that women are implicitly discriminated in certain situations because they are women (cf. gender research on this)"

Patrick [to Susan,]: yes sure, this should be mentioned as one of the strengths of MOO's

Margaret says, "I think it is fine that you give response to everyone, Patrick. Here

we work a lot to produce our opinions and meanings, and it is boring if no one comments on what you say.(this came a bit late...)"

Patricia [to Patrick]: "I don't see it as a problem that we are gender neutral in the Moo. It is more of an advantage. Then we do not have to posistion ourselves in this way, due to our background knowledge of these things.

Karen [to Patrick]: "the way you put it, it seems as if you mean that gender must be too prevalent

Alison [to Karen]: "you ask if you frighten me... no, but it frightens me what serious consequences banter/ sharp comments can have in a MOO...: I agree with Patricia

Susan says, "when men unconsciously tend to pay less attention to what a woman says it can be an advantage with gender-neutral names"

Patrick says, "in my research I have an hypothesis that MOO-ing makes it easier to counterract negative attitudes to such things as gender, race and handicap.."

Karen [to Patrick]: ":::as you put it originally, I mean

Patrick [to Karen]: that was probably a formulation error on my side, but you probably understand what I mean now?

Patricia [to Patrick]: "Yes, this makes me thing of that article by Sandy Stone inthe Dig.Field of Cult.."

Karen [to Susan]: "I talked a bit with frankie one day, but I don't know the gender and that's a bit weird, I couldn't guess it either, seemed maybe like a woman ....

Patrick [to Patricia]: yes exactly, she/he is concerned about this

Margaret says, "It's probably a woman..."

Alison [to Karen]: "how did she seem like a woman?

Karen [to Patrick]: "well she is a she now(??)

Patrick [to Karen]: when I operate in the MOO with patcop it is not immediately apparent which gender I have. But I wonder if men and women's different forms of interaction and writing/ speaking styles do not emerge anyway as time goes on..?

Patrick [to Karen]: yes she's a she

Patrick smiles to Karen

Karen [to Alison]: "kind of warm and human, it didn't matter if I interrupted, asked about the weather...Or am I just being completely conventional in my way of thinking now???

Patrick [to Karen]: and then we ought to show her respect for this by referring to her as her, you mean?

Alison says, "I wonder a bit about what it is that makes us infer that it is a woman or a man...I think it has a lot to do with the name ans the associations that gives us, correct or not"

Janet says, " It's nice from time to time to have the chance to be gender-neutral. Such a large part of one's identity is tied up in just being a woman or a man, or what dou you all think?"

 

Conversation and private action logs

A second type of recording device will register both conversations and certain kinds of normally `private' actions taking place in a room. These private actions are mainly paging and whispering[47], manipulation of objects that do not publicly announce that they are being handled, access to MOO-mail folders and messages, and other system commands that do not generally show up for other participants. The example below is a log of a paged conversation made a few years ago between myself in Conference Room (North) at Diversity University MOO and Ulf who is in his office in another zone. The log is seen entirely from my own point of view, so the description of room which comes up on the screen as I enter it at the beginning of the strip is visible. So too, is my `action' of closing the door into the Conference Room, an action which more generally speaking is designed to restrict entry into some particular room to ratified persons who are invited to enter by another ratified participant who is already in there. The philosophy_guest objects visible at the foot of the room description are characters belonging to participants in a philosophy seminar which during that particular periodwas being held in the room in question. The seminar was not however actually in session as I entered the room. If it had been, and the door had been closed then it would have been necessary for me to request an invitation to join the session from its moderator in order to enter . Without this any attempt on my part to `intrude' would automatically result in a rejection message from the system.

You head for the northern conference room.

Conference Room (North) [in session]

 

A large, oval shaped room. From the ceiling many fair sized spotlights illuminate the entire room and dip it in warm, bright light. There's a podium at one of the narrower ends of the room. Long rows of chairs, all facing the podium, occupy the rest of the floorspace.

 

From here you can go: [south] to DU Conference Center Foyer

philosophy_guest6 (asleep), philosophy_guest (asleep), philosophy_guest2 (asleep), philosophy_guest4 (asleep), philosophy_guest5 (asleep), philosophy_guest3 (asleep), and Sakana (asleep) are sitting amidst the rows of chairs. You are standing here.

The doors to the foyer are open.

close door

You close the doors.

[from Ulf's Office [working]] Ulf waves. good evening.

page ulf hello ulf, just checking something for a thing I am writing at the moment. Hey, maybe you can answer...

Somewhere in Ulf's Office [working], Ulf listens up as you talk to him.

Ulf pages, "yes?"

page ulf I am trying to describe the use of the session function. One thing I wondered was, is it a generic function in all rooms, or only in the conf center?

Somewhere in Ulf's Office [working], Ulf listens up as you talk to him.

Ulf pages, "the session functionality you'll only find in descendants of the generic classrooms available. at this point that'd be: the generic classroom by ken (#142), the generic MSET classroom by kossick (don't remember the #, but it's pretty much a copy of #142 with some extensions) and the generic improved classroom (#980)."

page ulf OK, the other thing is the relationship between the to-command and the whisper command when session is "on". Does the "to" automatically convert to a whisper with the session on?

Somewhere in Ulf's Office [working], Ulf listens up as you talk to him.

[from Ulf's Office [working]] Ulf nods and refers to `help to' (that help works when you're inside a classroom)

Conversation, action and point-of-view logs

A third group of devices records everything that is said, done and perceived by one participant. In effect they give a log which is a record of all and any kind of activities in the virtual environment carried out by that person and seen only from that one particular point of view only.

The example below is taken from a log of this kind. This particular section of log contains not only my conversation with bjornb[48], but also my own commands as they were directed to the MOO environment as well as the results of these commands as they were subsequently generated by the MOO.

bjornb says, "maybe you need an office???"

You [to bjornb]: why not?

bjornb says, "of course it should be in the street with your name..."

bjornb goes north.

The Coppock Avenue

You see nothing special.

bjornb is here.

Obvious exits: south to Longyearbyen

You [to bjornb]: shall I build it myself, or you?

bjornb says, "type look"

The Coppock Avenue

This is the towns main street. At your left you see a grandious house made of

wood and painted green, where Patrick Coppock resides when visiting

Longyearbyen.

bjornb is here.

Obvious exits: south to Longyearbyen

patcop smiles

bjornb says, "I think you should build the "room" or you won't own it an that can be problemmatic..."

You [to bjornb]: my god, rather pretentious...

You [to bjornb]: OK, it'll do for now...

bjornb says, "...but I have to build an entrance into the room from here I think..."

You [to bjornb]: shall I try digging first and see if it works?

bjornb says, "yes..."

bjornb says, "OK just @dig then..."

 

@dig Front Door to The Coppock Residence

 

The Coppock Residence (#393) created.

Exit to The Coppock Residence (#393) via {"Front Door"} created with id #394.

However, I couldn't add #394 as a legal exit from Coppock Avenue. Get its

owner, bjornb to add it for you.

 

You [to bjornb]: OK all you have to do is to as #394 as a legal exit. You knoww how?

bjornb says, "have you made a passage from C avenue to the room???"

You [to bjornb]: yes, to The Coppock Residence (#393) via Front Door (#394)

You [to bjornb]: but you have to ratify this exit, obviously, since Avenue is yours

 

help add

-----

`HELP ADD' AMBIGUOUS

====================

Sorry, the topic `add' is ambiguous. I don't know which of the following topics

you mean:

 

`help @add-entrance'[1] `help @add-exit'[2]

`help @add-feature'[3] `help @add-owned'[4] `help @addalias'[5]

 

bjornb says, "nope I am not quite sure, but I can find out..."

You [to bjornb]: I think it's @add-exit

You [to bjornb]: I checked "help add"

bjornb says, "me too"

You [to bjornb]: d'you manage?

bjornb says, "ok, let's try"

 

help @add-owned

-----

@ADD-OWNED

==========

Syntax: @add-owned <object>

 

Adds an object to your .owned_objects property in case it managed not to get

updated properly upon creation of that object. Checks to ensure that the object

is really owned by you and otherwise belongs in your .owned_objects property.

See `help @audit'[1] for more information.

 

@audit me

 

Objects owned by patcop (from #0 to #394):

<4K #258 patcop *[Coppock Avenue]

<1K #393 The Coppock Residence

<1K #394 Front Door *Coppock Avenue->The Coppock Residen

-- 3 objects. Total bytes: 5,978 --------------------------------------------

You [to bjornb]: how goes?

 

look

 

The Coppock Avenue

This is the towns main street. At your left you see a grandious house made of

wood and painted green, where Patrick Coppock resides when visiting Longyearbyen.

bjornb is here.

Obvious exits: south to Longyearbyen and Front Door to The Coppock Residence

Advanced MOO systems allow for such highly detailed logs from one particular participant's point of view to be made (after necessary permissions have been obtained) also by other participants than the one being logged. Candidates for making such logs could for example be ethnographers, teachers and educational diagnosticians for respectively research, pedagogical and/ or therapeutic purposes. Obviously the possibility of maintaining such a high degree of surveillance of individual participant behaviour, even though this is only concerns behaviour in a virtual environment where real-world consequences of actions are presumably, but not necessarily, less than otherwise, raises many important issues related to privacy and research ethics in general. Indeed, a so-called Privacy Policy and Guide to Human Subject Research has already been developed and implemented (during the Fall of 1997) by the Review Board for Human Subject Research at Diversity University MOO[49], which is one of the largest and longest-running distributed virtual environments developed specifically for distance educational research purposes.