looking for a blog post 'users are the problem'

August 9, 2012 2:17 AM

I remember a blog post somewhere advocating for strong moderation, with the theme 'users are the problem.' But now I can't find it.

It was from several years ago, and I think I saw it on Metafilter. Many rounds of googling and mefi-searching have been fruitless. The example story was a MUD, in which the players had no oversight, and eventually demanded that the developers step in as moderators and administrators to deal with resultant problems. Does anyone else remember this?

posted by the man of twists and turns to MetaFilter-Related at 2:17 AM (6 comments total)

It sounds like shades of The Web Is a Customer Service Medium (MeTa) or If your website is full of assholes, it's your fault (FPP), but neither of those feature anecdotes about a MUD, so maybe not.
posted by Rhomboid at 4:07 AM on August 9, 2012

Those are both in the same vein, but they seem too recent, and it definitely wasn't by Anil Dash. I want to say 2003 timeframe?
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:14 AM on August 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Could it be possible you're thinking of A Rape in Cyberspace by Julian Dibbell? (Here's the wikipedia link.) It was definitely linked on MeFi back then (a search on the term only brings it up in comments but they're in the right timeframe you're thinking of - although the piece itself was written back in 1993.
posted by flex at 7:01 AM on August 9, 2012

No, flex, that's much more detailed than I remember, and somewhat too far back. Close, though.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:34 AM on August 9, 2012

Perhaps Clay Shirky's A group is its own worst enemy?
posted by dws at 1:48 PM on August 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

The wizards come back, extremely cranky. And they say: "What we have learned from you whining users is that we can't do what we said we would do. We cannot separate the technological aspects from the social aspects of running a virtual world.

"So we're back, and we're taking wizardly fiat back, and we're going to do things to run the system. We are effectively setting ourselves up as a government, because this place needs a government, because without us, the place was falling apart."

THAT IS IT!

Thank you, dws! Great reading.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:11 PM on August 9, 2012