I really wish you had started a new thread as this is a good topic and fascinating discussion point. I fear though that this thread has gone on far longer than necessary and will be hard for most people to put aside their personal bias.
Kraftwerk
For the fact that the majority of posts in this thread discuss the definition of choices as right/wrong based upon subjective morality, I am surprised that only traditional morality is being discussed. Nobody has explicitly mentioned or gone into greater detail regarding rational morality. Since Yendor has been the largest proponent of subjectivity when it comes to the individual's actions, let me posit this to you:
For use of the term morality in describing actions as right(moral) or wrong (immoral) that ensure evolutionary survival; our species and most species that exhibit group tendencies also exhibit actions which are defined as moral based upon the fact that the individual makes sacrifices and/or acts in a selfless manner in order to become a proponent of group life and thus improve odds of survival.
You are defining the terms of Rational Morality as opposed to Religious Morality, Lawful Morality or Subjective Morality. Even though each has a different standard of determining what is Moral, they all can be quantified by the term Harm.
Religious Morality – Harm against Belief
Lawful Morality – Harm against Rules
Subjective Morality – Harm against Majority opinion
Rational Morality – Harm against Community Survival
Good or Bad morality or behavior is then defined by what you are going to do when the Harm is Perceived, whether to act and try to remove or alleviate the Harm or to turn your head and ignore it.
The perception comes from what view you take. If we look at this from Rational Morality we have to consider which group or community we want to look at each case be it Sever wide, Guild community, friendship community, or as individuals and each of its continued survival.
Let me provide an example - Some groups of vampire bats have exhibited actions as eating a surplus of food while others eat none, the bats that enjoyed an excess amount have been seen regurgitating their food to prevent the starvation of others. This behavior and selfless act is accepted because the bats accept a morality that survival is essential, and sharing one night will guarantee the returned favor another night.
If one accepts this train of thought for defining morality through rationality and survival it becomes much easier to remove the subjectivity from the situations presented earlier throughout the thread. For these situations view the continued existence of a server where there is a large playerbase as the evolutionary goal for survival, and the slow abandonment due to recurring unejoyable situations as the threats to the group's existence. There are two points that seem to be unanimous in this thread and that makes the previous assumptions valid - a) Having a camp stolen under similar circumstances is not enjoyable and b) playing Everquest with many other people on this server is fun.
I am having a hard time with argument A – Using the word Stolen here implies a Lawful term of Harm. I haven’t seen unanimous agreement on that point. (I have no objections to including this as any community that wishes to prosper must have a set of Rules of conduct, to do otherwise invites anarchy) However the loss of said camp under similar circumstance is indeed un-enjoyable and I agree with that. Part B is to me self evident.
Example 1 - Rilen dies, returns 10 minutes later and explains that he has been camping AC for the entirety of the day. Several un-related players in the same zone support this claim. The choice then falls upon the VD members to make a decision with the information presented to either act in the right (morally) - return the camp and make Rilen's time on the server enjoyable, with that expectation that at a future date Rilen would reciprocate and thus ensuring the survival (continued enjoyment of the server) for both parties - or act in the wrong (immorally) - deny Rilen the camp and cause a dissatisfaction with group life thus strengthening the threat to evolutionary survival.
You provided an example of Vampire Bats earlier so I will answer this with one of my own. If you are waiting in line for tickets to the Superbowl for 12 hours and all of a sudden you have to go to the bathroom and leave your spot in line, no one really notices you leave, when you come back you explain to the person who was behind you that you are coming back for your place in line. I think most people would say you lost your chance you now need to go to the end of the line. If you argue then you involve everyone else in line wether they support that you were there or not. This has very little influence on the global society but does impact local society..
But back to your Example 1 Why is it incumbent on the VD members to make this morality choice. Did not Rilen have any responsibility for making the sound choice of not putting anyone in this position in the first place? How about the Druid who ported Rilen back to reclaim his camp? He was paid 125 PP to make this happen. I bet he enjoyed that. Would it not have been wiser to have said Druid hold the camp for you?
But this part is pointless really because you wish to talk about the evolutionary survival of the community as it pertains to loss of interest due to a lack of the ability to enjoy the game, or my definition of Harm. Top that of with the limited scope of this one incident. There are too many other instances of goodwill and sacrifice to make this matter. Take a look at the post for Players you would like to thank. 390 Posts which is nice, now look at views – almost 38,000 at this posting. A lot of people are doing great things. By the views number I surmise that the number of people who do favors is astronomically higher than that. (I am assuming people look to see if their name has been mentioned.)
If we use the enjoyment as a factor as to Community evolution then this event has soared beyond measure and all parties have done Good. To prove this point I point to this thread – 210 posts, 21 pages and almost 7,000 views. People have been enjoying themselves immensely. I know people in this thread who have made personal attacks on friends of theirs just for the fun of it.
If we use Harm then, Harm was done by the server for killing Rilen. That is all. All of the rest of it is perceived unless you apply another morality standard of Religious, Lawful or otherwise.
Example 2 - Yendor's group in Fearplane rez's several members of a guild to assist them, thus exhibiting the right (moral) action due to it strengthening the value of group life for the people who were rezzed. The guild of the rezzed players proceeds to camp upon the entirety of Mob_Type_A in order to gain all of the loot possible for themselves. In this scenario the guilds can be seen as individuals for the discussion. The Guild monopolizing Mob_Type_A is acting selfishly, preventing the enjoyment of the server and group life for the other members in Fearplane. The guild's selfless actions are thus threatening the survival of the server by preventing the desire for other members on the server to continue existing on the server. The guild's actions are thus wrong (immoral).
This is by far a greater argument for community progression only in the fact that you are involving a greater number of people. However from a global perspective there is no threat to the at large Community only the Guild Community. If they can’t come to an agreement then one guild will probably lose out after a period of time. But others will replace it or absorb it or the members will move to a guild that will be more accommodating. By applying this reasoning Guild A while at the time may seem to be a threat to the community is actually Right (moral) as the perpetrators of said action (Raid leader) will be taken to task and will leave the Community thereby removing the influence that Harms the Global Community.
So guild A is immoral to the guild community and moral to the global Community.
If you really want to talk about Community progression, why are not all the guilds coming together and organizing a rotating Raid schedule? Would this not provide more enjoyment for everyone? (I doubt you will ever get this to work)
It is entirely up to the individual to choose an action. Judgement does not have to play a role in deciding the morality of someone's actions, which then removes the subjectivity that has been championed throughout this thread. If you view the morality of actions more rationally and in terms of each individual's expectations for group life (Which have been widely agreed upon in this thread as a) Losing a camp within a 5-10 min period due to unforseeable circumstances is not enjoyable and b) The continuted existence of this server with a large playerbase is fun) as they relate to the server's evolutionary survival, then objectivity is much easier to determine. And through this the actions of many players can be seen as immoral or wrong.
“Judgment does not have to play a role in deciding the morality of someone's actions”. Of course it does, you make Judgments all the time even when trying to analyze with a neutral objective. What is community? How does that relate to X? How to define the scale on which to make determinations. A good scientist will tell you that there is no way to remove all influence of the researcher no matter how much you isolate the study.
Even while typing this I realize that I have also only brought up another question of subjectivity that I am sure will get jumped upon - who decides what is or is not enjoyable for the individual and thus perpetuates the survival of the server by each member's continuted existence on the server. What one may see as no fun, having a camp "acquired" by new parties within 5-10 minutes of "losing" said camp, another may enjoy wholeheartedly. But any argument in this thread is only going to raise more questions. This was more or less something for Yendor to ponder since he has been firm behind the idea that morality is subjective, and I wanted to show him that this is not entirely true.
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Kraftwerk Computerwelt Dark Elf Magician
Leading Neriak into a new era of prosperity
I still see this as an exercise in Harm no matter what brand of morality you wish to apply. Maybe I am Naïve in thinking that taking responsibility for my contributions to the Community start with taking responsibility for my own actions. In applying that brush I have to ask myself. Where is the Harm?
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