I ask the Immortals to consider changing the policy to giving a warning first, before docking IMMXP in the case of no compliance.

A policy of reliable warnings generally creates an atmosphere of "cheat until caught". I've certainly busted a number of people who lobbied for a warning ... until I dug a little bit and figured out that it wasn't their first time for that problem.

Similarly, we've had a number of people claim the stolen desc was "from their other character" at odds with all evidence. Yeah, sure, maybe you've since moved halfway around the world and this other current player moved into your old house.

Most of the Immortals checking descriptions don't have the tools to figure out who is playing who, especially who was playing who a couple years back. They're just seeing a stolen desc and handing out a uniform, small punishment. And it's not one or two stolen descs-- it was common, so we're taking steps to remove the incentive to do it.

For example a lot of people do permas, or "soft permas", with little to no punishment. Others behave horribly towards their fellow players, and actively seek to destroy their fun. These things ruin the MUD more than a few errant descriptions.

These things aren't exclusive. We want to boost the level of RP, and one approach to that is building up a system that gets people to invest a little effort into their RP early on. Several Immortals have gone out of their way recently to provide XP bumps to people for having especially good descriptions.

We've delivered (much harsher) punishments for the type of behavior you're describing recently, and there's probably some more hammers falling in the future.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com