SANCTUARY MUD Periodic Informational Posting
ti...@tezcat.com
about SANCTUARY. Part two, which will be a follow-up, is a primer on how
to use MUDs, and specifically how to use SANCTUARY.
I will be periodically posting this to the following newsgroups:
alt.sexual.abuse.recovery
alt.abuse.recovery
alt.support.abuse-partners
alt.support.dissociation
alt.abuse.transcendence
SANCTUARY -- A MUD for survivors/victims of abuse, and other concerned
people.
Like irc and mchat, SANCTUARY can be used for real-time communications
with other survivors, victims of current abuse, and other people who might
have an interest in being there (such as SOs of survivors or other
friends). It can also be used to contact other people on the MUD via mail,
post notes, and the like.
The following are some of the help and faq files from SANCTUARY.
=== FAQ
What is The SANCTUARY?
The SANCTUARY (SAfe Network Community, The Underground Abuse
Refuge) is exactly what the name says. It is a friendly, open
place where victims of abuse both past and present can come to
find a place to relax, talk with and listen to other people. You can
use our bulletin boards to post in much the same way that you
might post on the 'groups.
What bulletin boards are there?
We have four bulletin boards in four seperate rooms.
The Babble Room: A general board to post questions on or just
any type of 'babble' you like.
The Spoiler Room: This board is for relating tales that might be
unwelcome to some eyes. Anyone entering this room is warned
that there may be 'hard-to-read' posts on the board.
The Personal Writings Room: This board is a great place to post
poetry (original or otherwise) that has meaning for you. You can
also post your own short stories here.
Places in Paradise (The Options Board) Room: This board is for giving
others an indication of what you do to relax, what you do when you are
lonely or depressed, or stressed.
What else can The SANCTUARY offer me?
The SANCTUARY is also here to help you find safe haven in Real Life, if you
have a need to "escape" a bad situation, or even if you just feel a need
to meet the people you talk to. There is no 'formal' way to do this, if
someone on the MUD has a 'safe haven' for you to go to, they will let
you know in their own way. We do not want to post something in the
open, to preserve these people's privacy.
What power do I have over the long-term development of the SANCTUARY?
You have quite a bit. Suggestions are always welcome! The SANCTUARY
is here for YOU, and YOU make it what you will.
This is a non-playing mud. The purpose of the mud is whatever you
need/want it to be. You can come here to find like-minded people
to talk to, listen to, relax with. You can scream and yell on special
bulletin boards that are meant to be used for spoiler posts. You can
share
your poetry and short stories on other special bulletin boards.
You can have conferences. You can find a RL safe place to go to if
you need to get out of a bad situation.
You can also create your own three room "house" here on The SANCTUARY if
you want privacy (you can lock the doors). The coders of the mud (called
Counselors) will not enter if they see you are in your "home", unless you
indicate to them that they are welcome.
(See the help on <describer> for more information on creating a house.)
NOTE: The describer is not working yet, but will be within the next few
days.
=== Rules of SANCTUARY, in part:
Because of the length of some of the explanations, we have split the
general help rules files up into seperate files, so as to make it easier
for you to find the topic you wish to read about. See the index below.
Please keep in mind that the enforcement of these rules will usually
follow the _spirit_ of the rules, and not necessarily the letter of
the rules.
help harassment - This explains sexual harassment, harassing wizards,
player disagreements, and abuse of wizard powers. It
also tells you how these problems will be solved.
help privacy - This explains privacy on a MUD (it does not truly exist)
for Counselors and Players. It also explains what could
happen to the Counselor taking advantage of his power to
snoop.
help ownership - This explains code ownership. It also explains what
'code privacy' is.
help conduct - This is pretty basic, explains to you that 'treat your
neighbour as you'd want to be treated' is a good policy.
==== The following is the Conduct help file, part of the rules files.
General Conduct
_______________
In general, keep in mind that, for many, MU*'s are not merely "games",
but are extensions of reality. If you treat MU* in this manner, you are
much less likely to run into problems. Don't do things that you would not
do in everyday life unless the genre is conducive to such behaviour.
If you abide by the "do unto others as you would wish done to you" rule
of thumb, you shouldn't have any problems.
NOTE that if you are caught harassing *anyone* on this mud, your character
_will_ be removed, and if it becomes necessary, your site will be banished.
Please see 'help harassment' for more information on harassing.
=== These are some general topics that you can, and should, read the help
files on:
---------------------------------------------------
Help for "topics" (General Information)
---------------------------------------------------
Some topics you can find more help on:
prompt
tzone
quit
variables
mail
mailer
commands
message
Survivor specific help:
rules
disclaimer
=== SANCTUARY's Disclaimer
The administration of The SANCTUARY are not liable for any
actions taken by the users of this MUD. The SANCTUARY is a
place for anyone to come and find like-minded people to talk
to and share experiences.
=== SANCTUARY and Multiple Characters
Persons who are multiple who are wondering if they might be allowed to have
different characters for different alters/groups of alters will be happy to
know that this is allowed. [Those of you with large numbers of alters might
want to only have characters for the frequent users, plus a group
character.]
For people who wonder...my characters are Discord (any or all of us),
Maelstrom (the subgroup most often out, comprising the shell person that
is the "main person"), Flower, Lilsbrigade (the littles), and Angst.
These may vary. I suspect that 'Maelstrom' will always exist, however.
ti...@tezcat.com
***** Part 2 Some things you'll want to know about MUDs
(or, "Hello? How do I talk? How do I move? How do I do ANYTHING?")
I tried to write this section so that even people who are unfamiliar or
uncomfortable with computers should be able to get around OK. If this is
way below your level, please bear in mind that not everyone has had the
chance or ability to learn such things...I did try to make it humorous so
no one would get bored...and seperated it into a fictional dialogue type
thing....
--MUDs are complicated. I'm not going to be able to use one.
If you've used irc, you should have very little problem adapting to the
commands of a MUD. But even if you know nothing about MUDs or irc, or even
if you can barely find your way around a computer, using a MUD should not
take long to learn.
Since SANCTUARY is not a playing MUD, there are very few commands you need
to understand. All you truly need to be able to do is talk, move around,
and look at your surroundings and people (oh, and emote).
But let's start from the beginning.
--Oh goody. I can hardly wait. ;)
The first thing you need to do is get there. To do that, you need to
telnet to 165.95.7.123 3333 (alpha address snipe.tamucc.edu 3333).
NOTE: currently the administrators of SANCTUARY are recommending you use
_only_ the numeric address, because it will remain steady, where the alpha
address may not. It is highly recommended that you only use the alpha address
if you cannot use numeric ones.
--Err...what? Speak English, wouldya?
Oh, ok. If you've used andromeda or khijol, this is no different. At your
Unix prompt (for most people, a right carat > or a percent sign %, often
with their name before it), where you would type any other command, type
telnet 165.95.7.123 3333
[If you are on a VAX system, you would instead do this:
telnet 165.95.7.123/port=3333
]
If for some reason you can't use numeric addresses, try
telnet snipe.tamucc.edu 3333 (telnet snipe.tamucc.edu/port=3333)
instead.
--OK. Now it says I'm connected...and I've gotten an introduction screen...
Once you are connected, it will ask you for your character's name. If
you are not yet sure you wish to use SANCTUARY, you can enter "guest".
Otherwise, enter the name you wish to use. (Probably your ASAR name,
or your normal irc nick, or something along those lines.) If the name
is taken already (unlikely, but theoretically possible), it will ask you
for a password, otherwise it will confirm that that is the name you want,
ask you for a password, a gender (male, female, or neuter), an email
address, and your real name.
--MY WHAT?????
E-mail address and real name...
ONLY the SANCTUARY administration can see your e-mail address and your
real name. Nobody else can find out.
However, see below---
---Err...ok, ok, ok. Is it ok if I put in my anon address?
It is ok for you to use an anon-address, an anon-name, or even no name at
all (for the address you could put, literally, user@host).
--Right, what next?
You will then be asked for your terminal type. If you don't know, just hit
return...you can find out later and, if you have to, change it.
--Are we done with logging in yet?
Yes, take a breath. At this point (unless there is news), you should be
logged into the MUD completely, and at a prompt. Like DOS, or Unix,
commands are typed in at the prompt, in this case, a right pointing
carat, like this: >
In the below examples, I put in the > to indicate a place where you are
supposed to type in a command. Just type whatever is after the > .
--OK, that's very nice. What do I do now?
Well, the VERY first thing you should do is read the help files. Everyone
needs to read the rules and the disclaimer, and read about what other
kinds of things you can (later) read about. So, type
> help rules
(for instance) at the prompt, and read away. This will direct you to some
other topics (help <whatever it is>). Remember, you want to do "help
disclaimer", "help rules", "help topics", and possibly some other things.
When in doubt, try help <something>. Oh, and to see the FAQ, simply type
"faq" at the prompt.
You can even do
> help help
--Do I have to read all this stuff now??
You should read the rules, the disclaimer, and do "help topics" to see
what other sorts of things you can get help on first, yes.
--Fine. You'll just have to wait for me to catch up.
No problem...
*twiddles thumbs for a while*
--OK, I'm done. Now what?
Ok, here's a short list of basic things you can do.
To talk, simply type
> say Hi, everyone.
Which would let people see: Name says "Hi, everyone"
Say can be abbreviated to ' (single quote)
> 'Hi everyone.
To emote (like /me on irc)
> emote trips over her own feet.
Which will let people see Name trips over her (or his, or its) own feet.
There are also some built-in emotes, also referred to as soul commands.
To get a list of them type "semote". An example is
> grin
which for YOU says: You grin. For others it says: Name grins.
Experiment a bit, some emotes likes this can be done in different ways, or
can be directed to a person, like so:
> grin Maelstrom
You grin at Maelstrom.
(Maelstrom would see: Name grins at you. Other people would see: Name grins
at Maelstrom.)
You might also be able to do something like
> grin widely
You grin widely.
[For more details on how the soul commands work, you can type "help soul".]
-- Ok, if you are done having me grin like an idiot, what else can I do?
Well, let's see....
To look around, use "look", which will show you a room description,
including which ways you can walk. To go somewhere, type the direction you
wish to go ("north", or just "n").
--Whoa, you are going too fast. What do you mean "go somewhere".
Well, one of the biggest differences between irc and MUDs is that the MUD
is a virtual place, interconnecting "rooms" (not always actual rooms,
sometimes forest or water or other such things). Some rooms have things
you can do (like the rooms with the bulletin boards in them), some are
part of someone's home (eventually you'll be able to build your own), and
some are just there to be looked at (not a bad thing in and of itself).
So, if you wish to look at them, you need to tell the MUD that.
--And I would do that how?
When you enter a location, you get either a one-line short description, or
a full description. (To change which one you are getting, type "brief").
But you might forget where the exits are, for instance...so you can type
"look" to get the full description at any time.
Some things you might want to look at:
> look Maelstrom
A maelstrom is a swirling massive storm. THIS Maelstrom is also a
collective of people, often changing rapidly.
She is empty handed.
Looking at a person shows their description (if they have one) and gives
you their gender as well.
> look board
Looking at the board will tell you how to post notes and read them. You
can also look at other objects.
--Movement. You said something about movement.
To go to a connecting room, you need to tell the MUD you want to. If there
is an exit leading north, typing "north" (or just "n") will get you there.
The regular directions (north, south, east, west, up, down, northwest,
southwest, southeast, northeast) can be abbreviated to one (or two)
letters (n,s,e,w,u,d,nw,sw,se,ne).
--Oh, I get it. OK, anything else I need to know?
The only other thing I can think of is that you can talk to people private
(like /msg on irc) by using: tell Name <whatever> like so:
> tell Maelstrom Your primer on MUDs really sucks.
You tell Maelstrom "Your primer on MUDs really sucks."
(Maelstrom sees: Name tells you, "Your primer on MUDs really sucks.")
Oh wait, and I forgot one other thing.
-- Figures.
You can mail people who also have signons on SANCTUARY. You just type
something like
> mail Maelstrom
and it puts you in an editor (with directions in the beginning), very
easy to use.
-- I'm going to forget half of this before I can sign on.
That's ok. The sign-on process is pretty much self-explanatory. All you
really need to remember is "help". Help by itself will give you a list of
things you can get help on, by the way.
********
For questions about SANCTUARY, you can e-mail Yavie (mud adminstrator) at:
squi...@snipe.tamucc.edu
or leave her mail on SANCTUARY ("mail yavie").
For general questions about MUDs feel free to mail to her, or to me (at
ti...@tezcat.com). My character name(s) are in the prior note.
There are two SANCTUARY gathers weekly: Tuesday at 6:00pm Central Time,
and Saturday at noon Central time. The purpose of these gathers is to
try to get as many people on at the same time as possible, so we might
all meet one another. Stop by and check things out! Everyone is welcome.