Though technically your legal rights on a mud are very limited, the administration of Accursed Lands tries its best to treat you as human beings, and respect your privacy. The most destructive invasion of privacy on MUDs is the ability for creators to snoop. Accursed Lands' policy on snooping is hard coded:
- There is a player command called "snoopable." Turning it on allows a creator to snoop you. Default is off. If you want to show a creator a bug, or have them watch what you are doing for some reason, turn it on, but otherwise it's a good idea to leave it off to protect your privacy.
- Administrators of the mud will always be able to snoop you. They have been hand-picked so that they are EXTREMELY trustable individuals with excellent and final judgment. They will only make use of this power when cheating or other illegal behavior is STRONGLY suspected.
- All creators have the ability to override your "snoopable" flag. The only valid excuse for doing this is if they have an EXTREMELY good reason for doing this without your consent. If they STRONGLY suspect illegal behavior, and there is no Administrator around to handle the problem, they may override.
- ANY use of this override command will be carefully scrutinized by the administration of the MUD. The creator MUST provide a reason before the command will work, and they are required to turn in a report about the snoop afterwards.
- Creators using the override command without excuse, or whose excuse is deemed inadequate by an Admin will be publicly reprimanded once, then dismissed if such an event happens again.
- The creators are physically incapable of superseding these rules. However, there is no protection from a creator eavesdropping by being invisible in a room in which a conversation is occurring.
- Whenever someone starts to snoop you, you will be informed of it by an automatic message. When the person ceases the snooping, you will also be informed. Administrators, however, can override this and snoop you without your knowledge. This ability is very rarely used, however, and only for catching cheaters 'in the act'.
- Creators are not allowed to use listening devices to listen into player conversations for entertainment. Monitoring of players should only be conducted by higher level creators (level 3 and above) and only for just cause. Creators should respect the privacy of players and other creators.
See also: snoopable