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Spoof Spam Lurk and Lag - the Aesthetics of Text based Virtual Realities

   Spoof, Spam, Lurk and Lag: the Aesthetics of Text-based Virtual
   Realities 
   
   Lee-Ellen Marvin
   Department of Folklore and Folklife
   University of Pennsylvania
   
   
   
     _________________________________________________________________
   
TABLE OF CONTENTS

     * ABSTRACT
       
     * INTRODUCTION
          + Worlds made with Words
          + Virtual Conversation
   
     * Lagging in Digital Communication
     * Spoofing
     * Lurking
     * Spamming
       
     * PLAYING
     * CONCLUSION
          + (with thanks to...) 
     * Bibliography 
       
   
     _________________________________________________________________
   
ABSTRACT

   This paper explores communication in six text-based virtual realities
   through four items of jargon: spoof, spam, lurk, and lag. Research was
   conducted using the ethnographic tools of participant-observation and
   close analysis of actual interactions of MOOs (Multiple-user Object
   Oriented environments). Examples of how these terms are used in
   real-time interaction were analyzed for what they communicate about
   the aesthetics of interaction. Close examination suggests that these
   articulated aesthetics serve as rules for proper behavior, markers of
   experience and belonging, metaphor for poetic expression and resources
   for play and challenge within the community.
   
   
     _________________________________________________________________
   
Introduction

   Ethnography, encompassing both anthropology and folkloristics, is the
   writing of culture. It is the process of translating the symbolic
   system of one culture into that of another. As a folklorist, I define
   "culture" as a set of expressive and interpretive resources, and I
   study the ways in which individual performances and artistic
   expressions are constructed from these resources. From this
   perspective, a "cultural group" is made of those people who recognize
   and make use of a set of expressive resources. While a cultural group
   is thus defined by its common expressive resources, a society is
   defined by geographic, political, and economic boundaries, and may
   incorporate several cultural groups. It is my work is to write about
   the expressive resources shared by members of particular cultural
   groups, to understand how these resources are used, extended, revised,
   and negotiated, and to make them comprehensible to others.
   
   In this paper, I examine what I believe are aesthetic values governing
   the use of expressive resources in six text-based virtual realities,
   known as MOOs, which are a particular type of MUD (explained below).
   Four items from the jargon of MOOs -- spoof, spam, lurk, and lag --
   are examined here as expressions, on the smallest and most basic
   level, for what they say about how to and how not to communicate
   within the MOOs. By smallest and most basic, I mean that these
   aesthetics are applied to virtual "conversation" or real-time
   interaction in dialogue form which takes place everyday in the MOOs.
   These items of jargon were selected because they are regularly used by
   participants in MOOs to identify distruptions to ideal communications.
   
   
   Briefly, "spoof" is unattributed communication, "spam" is an excess of
   communication, "lurk" is a refusal to communicate, and "lag" is a
   mechanical delay of communication. These expressions are used as verbs
   ("He spoofed! And then I was lagging.") or as nouns ("I was hit with
   lots of spam and there was a lurker in our midst.") There are no
   positive expressions in the jargon which correlate with these negative
   terms. The observed use of these expressions shows that they are not
   only used to describe technical problems but are regularly used to
   metaphorically describe social, cognitive, and emotional experiences.
   
   Following Bakhtin's theories on the impact of primary speech genres on
   secondary ones (Bakhtin 1986 (1952): 61), I find that these aesthetic
   values as expressed in the jargon collectively shape all other levels
   of communication by the experienced participants of MOOs, from the
   simplest exchanges in everyday communication to the most prominent
   official documents. At the same time, these elements function as rules
   and limitations, which are then exploited, distorted and negotiated as
   expressive resources in themselves, and become symbolic tools for
   plurality within the group. Many scholarly studies and non-scholarly
   commentaries have pondered the possibility of "virtual community" and
   a few papers have studied the unique features of language and
   communication within MOOs. This paper examines the aesthetics of
   expression within the MOOs as a resource for the construction of
   community by its participants. The research was conducted through the
   ethnographic tools of participant observation and close analysis of
   actual interactions, saved in screen logs .
   
Worlds made with Words

   MUDs (standing for "Multiple-User Domain") are both synchronous and
   hypertext forms of communication. The synchronous component allows
   users to interact in "real-time", somewhat like holding a conversation
   in a room. Synchronous communication forms such as the MUDs, "Talk",
   and Internet Relay Chat differ from asynchronous forms such as Usenet
   newsgroups, mailing lists and electronic bulletin boards, in which
   messages have a kind of permanance, somewhat like posters pasted on
   walls. The hypertext component of MUDs consists of written
   descriptions of imaginary rooms, objects, and people. Participants can
   selectively view the objects and people, and virtually move from one
   "room" to another, much as a reader of a hypertext follows links in a
   document, from one passage to another.
   
   MOOs are a particular type of MUD -- "Mud, Object-Oriented" -- based
   on software developed by Pavel Curtis of Xerox Corporation. Each MOO
   presents a particular kind of world -- a selected slice of reality
   presented through words. The participants are provided with electronic
   programming tools to extend this reality in numerous directions
   through the creation of virtual spaces, objects, and characters.
   LambdaMOO, the oldest and largest of the MOOs, uses the theme of a
   "house", and was originally modeled after the Palo Alto home of its
   developer, Pavel Curtis. The heart of this house is a living room
   linked to a kitchen, dining room, deck, and hallway. Each textually
   represented room, object, and character has a description, and any
   participant can selectively read these descriptions, just as the
   reader of a hypertext document can choose to read a linked passage.
   Participants enter this world in the form of self-described characters
   who can interact with each other. For those who have never
   participated in a MUD or a MOO, reading a sample of interactions in
   the living room and linked spaces at LambdaMOO, or making a visit to a
   MOO is recommended.
   
   The fixed descriptions of objects, rooms, and characters provide a
   sense of depth and permanence to the world of the MOOs, while the
   synchronous interactions of the participants animates the world. There
   are a number of different ways to communicate and interact.
   Participants may "say" things to each other, or direct their
   statements to particular characters. They also have the ability to
   "emote" or gesture to each other. Participants can use preprogrammed
   scripts to quickly offer a series of gestures. With a little technical
   skill, participants can also privately whisper to each other. These
   simple and very basic commands allow for rich interactions.
   
   Aside from talking and gesturing to other participants in the same
   virtual room, participants can privately "page" participants from room
   to room, sometimes conducting completely private conversations with
   one person while simultaneously taking part in a public conversation.
   There is also a MOOmail system which replicates the Internet email
   system, mailing lists for posting statements to groups of people,
   analogous to Usenet newsgroups or Listserv mailing lists on the
   Internet, and "gopher slate" objects which allow participants to
   access gopher files anywhere on the Internet from within the MOO. In
   addition, there are multiple-person channels for talking to several
   characters at once, designed to represent a virtual citizen's band
   radio or the Internet's IRC. Some MOOs have developed virtual
   "television systems" which allow participants to selectively view a
   textually described "video". Clearly, what the MOOs recreate most
   completely is the Internet itself and telecommunications in general,
   and the accuracy of this replication leads to the necessity to
   distinguish between "real life" and "MOO life" with special MOOwords .
   
   
   MOOs have social systems with varying degrees of official and
   unofficial dynamics. Some of these dynamics reflect the history of MUD
   development by retaining names for participants and administrators
   which reflect the gaming origins of MUDs. Some are ruled exclusively
   by an "arch-wizard," who is the individual responsible for creating
   the MOO, selecting its theme and building its most public areas. This
   person often has control of the actual Internet server which runs the
   MOO software. In many MOOs, it is the arch-wizard who takes
   responsibility for the society by issuing guidelines for acceptable
   behavior, punishing transgressors, and judging disputes between
   participants. LambdaMOO has created a system of ballots, petitions and
   disputes, for decision making and the establishment of standards of
   behavior and negotiation of conflicts. Some of the MOOs oriented
   toward professional and educational use have established non-profit
   corporations to oversee the social and technical issues.
   
   This paper is based on 18 months of participant-observation at six
   different MOOs. Though each of these MOO communities have different
   purposes and histories, I have found that they all share this jargon,
   and thus these aesthetic values. These resources are shared because
   they are reactions to the limitations and demands of the MOO
   technology, and because many of the most active participants have
   memberships in several MOOs.
   
Virtual Conversation

   The text that may be communicated within the MOOs is limited, as it is
   in most Internet forms, to the range of characters on a typical
   computer keyboard: all lower and upper case letters of the Roman
   alphabet, numbers 0-9, and the symbols !@#$%^*(){}[]+=.,;:'"~`. As in
   other Internet forms, participants of MOOs write in a way which is
   most accurately described as "written speech". (Elmer-Dewitt, 1994) An
   informal, everyday quality is created through the use of smileys,
   non-standard spelling reflective of vernacular pronunciation,
   punctuation to indicate pauses rather than speech clauses, special
   symbols borrowed from programming languages and an extensive special
   vocabulary. These are the most prevalent "expressive resources" of
   synchronous MOO interaction. Here is a brief sample of a typical
   exchange on LambdaMOO between three participants. Their names have
   been changed, but the exchange is reproduced here as captured on my
   screen log .
   
   SAMPLE ONE

     a     Tempi says to Tofu, "Yep. Have you read the
               petition?"
     b     Rice aiiiee petitions and politics, and bitterness
               abounding.
     c     Tofu [to Tempi]: Yeah, it's um...um...well,
               interesting!
     d     Tempi says to Rice, "Sorry 'bout that. I forgot you're
               !political."
     e     Rice [to Tempi]: Sokay. :) At least you remember.

   In line e of the sample above, Rice used a two-character smiley to
   indicate to Tempi that he is forgiven for a transgression. Some
   attention, mostly in the popular press, has been lately put on the
   emergence of "smileys" as a special feature of writing on the Internet
   (Elmer-Dewitt, 1994; Sanderson, 1993). These popular books and
   articles list the different expressions used by Internet typists to
   add another dimension to the severely limited tools of the typed text.
   Smileys such as :-) or 8-( are appended to typed statements that are
   ironic or subtly humorous, to alert the reader that the statement is
   not to be read literally. These symbols are the paralanguage of the
   Internet (Dery, 1993), the winks which signal the playfulness of a
   statement over the seriousness it might denote, such as Bateson
   observed in animal and human play (Bateson, 1972).
   
   The use of a smiley by Rice suggested something of the status between
   the participants as well as the intent of the statement. Many smileys,
   and the spelled out gestures of "smile" or "grin" (emotes) are
   appended to statements which are not ironic or ambiguous. They are
   friendly gestures, indications of approval or appreciation, much as
   smiles are often intended in face-to-face interaction. However, smiles
   in face-to-face contexts can be strategic or spontaneous and
   unintentional. In the context of the MOO, whether expressed with the
   iconic :-) or the symbolic "smile", every smile must be consciously
   indicated. In private something flowing across the computer screen
   might cause a participant to spontaneously smile, but a conscious
   choice must be made to type it out; a participant might frown at the
   keyboard and but strategically decide to type a strategic smile.
   
   The interaction between Tempi, Rice and Tofu included some interesting
   spellings, and all of them are conventional within the MOOs. Rice used
   "aaiiiee" and "Sokay", Tempi used "'bout'. "Aaiiiee" (spelled with any
   number of a, i, and e letters) is often used to express horror, shock
   or dismay, along with other utterances such as "um, hmmm, mmm, er",
   "yep, yup, yeah, yay, hey", "ack, ugh", "yikes", and "euugh". "Sokay",
   "'kay" and "OK" are all used. "'Bout" is not very common, but
   suggested a number of other contractions such as "y'all" for "you"
   plural, "'cause" for "because", "gonna" for "going to". These
   spellings all suggest the sounds of informal spoken American-English.
   
   In a manner which parallels the aurality of spelling in MOOs,
   participants use punctuation marks unconventionally. Sentences are
   often ended without periods, commas are positioned to indicate pauses
   rather than clauses. Tofu said, in line c, "Yeah, it's um...um...well,
   interesting!" is typical of how ellipses are used to suggest pauses.
   
   Participants use symbols and variations in lower/upper case letters
   for emphasis. As in other Internet genres, the use of upper-case
   letters in MOO interactions is understood to mean SHOUTING, but at
   times, MOO participants will for emphasis, capitalize one word or
   bracket a word with asterisks, as in, "I DROVE to the store," or "I
   *walked* to school today". This agreed conventionalized use of
   typography increases the sense of spoken conversation.
   
   (Review Sample One) 
   
   Symbols are sometimes used in MOO interactions, as demonstrated in
   line d. Tempi's use of "!political" is a borrowing from programming
   code. Many participants of the MOOs know some programming, and the
   skilled programmers are praised and admired, as well as frequently
   consulted, for their knowledge. Some programming conventions are used
   by participants in conversation. By using "!political", Tempi has said
   "not political" with the convention of an exclamation point as a
   prefix. Other examples of symbols or programming code used in
   conversational interactions are "=" for "means, is same as",
   "s/werd/word" to indicate corrections to a mistyped statement.
   Sometimes the syntax of lines of code is used, as in "Have you
   asked(players)?" which means, "Have you asked any of the players?" A
   less technical symbol is an arrow pointed to a participant's name as
   in, "lmarvin Like occupational groups (McCarl, 1986: 76) and
   closely-knit families (Zeitlin, 1982:146-161), the participants in
   MUDs have a specialized vocabulary based on their unique environment.
   Newcomers are frequently confronted and confounded by a lexicon which
   includes symbols and unusual words such as brb, bots, call-wasted, e,
   em and eir, idling, lag, lurk, morph, mav, pokes, rofl, rl/vr
   slippage, spam, spivaks and splatts, spoof, tinysex and moo-rape,
   teleporting, threads, @toading and @newting, ttyl, wizzes and waveys
   (see the Glossary for definitions). Furthermore, conversational topics
   such as the "hacking verbs", or the "rl @genders of the typists of
   certain players" are confusing to beginners. Some of these words
   (lurking, rofl, and spam for instance) will be recognizable to
   participants in other Internet genres. Some words may have came from
   other MUDs (call-wasted, tinysex) and from the Dungeon and Dragon
   games which inspired the first TinyMud (wizards, wizzes, wielding),
   but many come from the MOO programming language itself, others from
   experiences unique to the MOOs. These specialized > have primary
   meanings, but are also used metaphorically, as is the occupational
   languages of specialized work groups. Ironically, the use of these
   specialized symbols disrupts the illusion of virtual speech created by
   conventionalized misspellings and paralingual smileys. They are the
   marks of "inside status" because they demonstrate knowledge and skill
   which are the requirements of belonging for a group with no kinship,
   geography or occupational ties.
   
   The programming of the MOO is the source of the attributions of each
   speaker (Tofu says, ""), as well as the quotation punctuation. In MOO
   interactions, there are also automated messages such as announcements
   of participants' movements in and out of rooms. The distinction
   between a statement typed by an active participant and an automated
   message is not always easy to perceive in the MOO, especially for
   newcomers. Automated messages are usually programmed to conform to
   rules of written American English, with proper punctuation and
   spelling. The formal quality of these statements helps participants to
   recognize the "live" from the pre-programmed because the live elements
   are written like speech. At the same time, grossly inaccurate
   spellings and syntax are not tolerated without some teasing or, more
   likely, a self-critical remark, often humorous. Two of the
   conventionalized self-critical gestures about typing errors is "Zoo
   looks at her hands," and "Park shoots his typist."
   
   (Review Sample One)
   
   In summing up the examples which have been drawn from the first sample
   of exchange, it is clear that every communication is a typed message,
   whether framed as vocal utterance (Jane says, "Hello"), gesture (Jane
   waves to you), or as a preprogrammed message ("You can't go that
   way."). The typed utterances made by participants consistently include
   conventionalized, non-standard English usage. These conventions fall
   into two large categories: first, there are the "written speech"
   conventions which represent spoken vernacular language, and therefore
   contribute to the "virtual reality" of a conversation; and second,
   there are "insider" conventions which exploit the specialized lexicon
   of the MOO. This use of a highly specialized term, with the
   expectation that it will be understood by others, is an example of
   what folklorist Jansen called "esoteric knowledge," knowledge or
   practices which are particular to a group, and stem from a sense of
   belonging. (Jansen, 1957: 46)
   
   In addition to this set of expressive resources for communication, I
   perceived a set of aesthetic values , symbolically encoded in the
   daily language of the MOO participants. These values are both
   commentary on and intrinsic to its expressive resources. They are the
   ideals held in common by most of its members about expression,
   language and interaction, and are learned early by its newcomers.
   These aesthetic values are also easy targets for poetic metaphor and
   creative parody because they are so well known by the community.
   
Lagging in Digital Communication

   Conversations in a MOO environment are synchronous (real-time, like
   the telephone) but digitized on a very large sampling rate. This gives
   them a temporal quality entirely different from the timing of
   telephone or face-to-face interaction. There is a waiting period
   between lines, as each participant types a contribution to the
   emerging exchange. Once a message is typed and sent, the entire text
   appears on the screen. For the recipient of a message, there is no
   period of time during which the message is *being* communicated. There
   is only a wait during a time of "no message" followed by "message".
   This digitized, on-off/yes-no process has an impact on the
   communicative structure of "virtual conversations".
   
   In digitized, synchronous, text-based interaction, the participants
   are forced to type quickly, with less concern for spelling errors and
   typos, using as few words as possible. There is a curious reversal of
   turn-taking management when a participant makes a long speech. In
   face-to-face conversations, a listener waits for an ending to a
   speaker's long statement, and stays alert for opportunities to speak,
   perhaps inwardly thinking, "When will this person stop?" In typed
   conversations of the MOOs, a long statement requires a long wait on
   the part of the reader, during which the reader wonders, "When will
   this person start?" Very long pauses of a minute or two can lead the
   reader to wonder whether the typist is still participating.
   
   To speed up this slow pace, experienced participants in synchronous
   modes such as MUDs and IRC often create multi-layered and
   multi-dimensional conversations. Two people can and do discuss two
   topics at once: while one is composing a statement to one topic, the
   other is writing about a second topic. In conversations with more than
   two, the exchanges might be briefer, centered around one topic but
   responding to sub-themes within the topic in a round-robin fashion, so
   that everyone is typing at the same time. These topics are called
   "threads", the same term used in other Internet genres such as Usenet
   newsgroups and Listserv mailing lists. In large groups, there can be
   several very different threads underway at once, as happens in
   asynchronous media. At such times, the conversation moves quite
   quickly, and the pace becomes a visible stream of words on the screen.
   As each line of the dialogue is added, the lines on the screen scroll
   or jump upwards, and the words seem to rush by. Some people will then
   withdraw from such interactions because, "the screen is moving too
   fast."
   
   Digitized conversation is perverted by "lag". Lag is a mechanical
   delay of communication in addition to the inherent delay of the
   medium. Lag can take place within the computer running a MOO, or
   between the connections on the Internet, or in the equipment an
   individual uses. Lag becomes a source of trouble and annoyance, not
   unlike the weather in the "real world." For example:
   
   Sample Two

     a     beets hugs and waves accordingly.
               (several seconds pause)
     b     beets asks, "is anyone having the horrid lag that I am?"
               (pause)
     c     Carrot nods to beets
     d     Radish nods to beets
               (pause)
     e     Eggplant nods. "Welcome to LagLand.

   Participants measure lag by the delay between sending and seeing
   statements on the screen. Because lag comes from several different
   sources, it might effect some participants and be unobserved by
   others, which is why "beets" asked for confirmation of his/her
   experience of lag. Lag longer than 2 or 3 seconds often triggers
   comments. Lag is a rupture to the communicative process in the MOOs
   and other MUDs. Ironically, it has become one of the most prominent
   features of LambdaMOO, often nicknamed "Lagda".
   
   When lag is longer than 5 seconds, conversations lose any sense of
   realism, the turn taking falls out of order, and, like bad weather,
   lag becomes a topic of conversation:
   
   Sample Three

     a     Grape sends a prayer
     b     Okra* notes the lag monster must be killing the guests
     c     Peas says, "the all powerful LAG"

   In a campaign statement for election to an important committee, one
   long-time LambdaMOO member reminded the voters that he was a "veteran
   of many lag-wars", evoking the trope of countless political campaigns
   and transforming the lag "monster" into a shared adversity or opposing
   force, and thus reifying the sense of "community" between MOO
   participants.
   
Spoofing 

   The remainder of this paper will be a close examination of one lengthy
   exchange which happened to include samples of spoofing, lurking, and
   spamming. This complex interaction took place in the "Living Room" of
   LambdaMOO, woven around two other conversational threads which have
   been edited out (the removed lines marked with asterisks):
   
   Sample Four, part one

     a     Cockatoo squawks, "I think they removed the Spoof FO."
     b     spoon nods in greeting...
     c     Fork says, "Ack.. Now I just found a server that offers
               real-time traffic reports of certain highways in San
               Diego, Los angeles, and "Orange country""
     *
     d     Spoof FO.. what Spoof FO..?
     *
     e     lmarvin blinks..."hey, who spoofed?!"
     f     A thundering voice rumbles through the room and says:
               "God did!"
     g     lmarvin looks up.
     h     ya.. god..
     *

   (to review full sample) 
   
   This sequence began with a line which originated from a pre-programmed
   object known as "the Cockatoo". This virtual bird randomly records and
   replays statements made by participants in the room. In this case, the
   replay was about "spoofing". Spoofs are unattributed communications.
   Normally, every line in the stream of communications is attributed to
   someone or something. In this interaction, the (automated) reference
   to spoofing inspired a new spoof.
   
   Spoofs are problematical within the MOO communities because they
   defeat the usual pattern of attribution. Attribution, in this case,
   relates to Erving Goffman's ideas about "connectives" in normal human
   conversation:
   
     " ... a fundamental feature of experience is that deeds and words
     come to us connected to their source, and that ordinarily this
     connection is something we can take for granted, something that the
     context of action will always provide, something that ensures the
     anchoring of activity." (Goffman, 1974, 479)
     
   A person who interacts in a MOO has only one physical source for the
   words flowing across the screen and that is the computer itself.
   Participants must exercise a certain faith in computers and
   telecommunications technology, trusting that the words in synchronous
   conversations really do come from people in other cities, states or
   even countries. In support of that faith, there are efforts in the
   MOO-code to attribute a source for every line which appears in the
   flow of real-time interactions. Spoofing disrupts this pattern of
   attribution and for that reason is a breach of good conduct. As an
   unattributed line, spoofing attracts attention, is often used for
   humorous effect, but can be threatening, confusing, or frustrating in
   normal conversational patterns.
   
   Spoofs are strongly discouraged in official texts on MOO manners, and
   between friends. Participants of MOO communities are not provided with
   the means for spoofing. Spoofing commands are newly programmed or the
   code copied from other programmers. An aura of the criminal surrounds
   spoofing. For example, at LambdaMOO, the on-line help manual has this
   to say about spoofs in its "help manners" section:
   
     Do not harass or abuse other players, using any tactic including: *
     Spoofing (causing messages to appear that are not attributed to your
     character) Spoofs can be funny and expressive when used with
     forethought. If you spoof, use a polite version than announces
     itself as a spoof promptly, and use it sparingly. See `help
     spoofing' for more information on determining the source of spoofs.
     
   (Review Sample Four, part one) 
   
   The spoofing demonstrated here was commentary on the politics of
   spoofing. Line d was a pretence of innocence, rather like a child
   saying "What ice cream?" while licking the last drops off sticky
   fingers. The spoofs on lines f and h toyed with the omnipresent
   quality of unattributed speech by claiming to be from "God".
   
Lurking

   In the next ten next lines there was one spoof, and two references to
   lurking:
   
   Sample Four, part two

     i     spoon smacks himself hard and often.
     j     lmarvin looks at spoon.
     k     spoon . o O ( what the hell am i doing up .. this is
               sunday... or is it? )
     l     spoon lurks...
     m     Cockatoo squawks, "Neuro is spoofing, I think."
     n     lmarvin says, "not only spoofing..but lurking too, spoon?"
     o     Spoofing?
     p     spoon lurks innocently...
     q     Plate teleports in.
     r     Guest comes out of the closet (so to speak...).

   Spoon claims to be "lurking innocently", again, thereby suggesting
   that there is something problematical about this behavior. Lurking is
   an expression used in asynchronous Internet communications to describe
   users who read but don't contribute to public discussions. A "lurker"
   in the synchronous forms is equivalent to a spy: someone who listens
   to discussions within a room but doesn't make his or her presence
   known. This can easily be accomplished by a skilled programmer, and is
   forbidden in the official texts:
   
     Spying -- Don't create or use spying devices. If you reset your
     teleport message, make sure it is set to something, so that you
     don't teleport silently. Besides having a disorienting effect on
     people, silent teleportation is a form of spying.
     
   Many virtual rooms in MOOs are considered private rooms. They have the
   capacity to be "locked", or to allow only certain players to enter.
   Maintaining privacy is valued because many participants hold intimate
   conversations or practice "MOOsex" within these rooms. Participants
   who erase the announcement of their entrances are considered lurkers,
   subject to censure or lose of membership. "Lurking" is also used to
   describe those who watch the screen but refrain from participating,
   becoming invisible, as it were, by have no presence.
   
   On the other hand, there is another practice similar to lurking with a
   positive connotation. "Idling" is a term for being connected to a MOO
   without actively participating. Participants who idle may be away from
   their computer or are working on another project on the same computer.
   Unlike lurking, idling involves no active attempt to hide one's
   presence. Idling carries the connotation of being involved, of
   participating in the community in spite of a busy life.
   
Spamming

   This exchange in the Living Room changed when two new participants
   entered the room in time to witness lmarvin's expression of interest
   in spooking. Without knowing what had just occured in the virtual
   room, Plate provided an elaborate demonstration of spoofing with a
   preprogrammed script:
   
   Sample Four, part three

     s     lmarvin says, "actually...i am right at this moment,
               doing a study on 'spoofing' in the moo..."
     t     lmarvin asks, "how come spoofing is illegal?"
     u     Guest says, "whats spoofing?""
               *
     v     Plate says, "this is spoofing""
     w     A can of Spam tromps into the room.
     x     The can of Spam locates it's target.
     y     The can begins making noises like it's gonna hack up a
               spitwad.
              *
     a2     The can of Spam suddenly spews a stream of unwanted text
               at Guest, tattoos a knockwurst on its forehead, then
               floors it out of the room as fast as it can go.
     b2     Plate [to Guest]: Thats spoofing :)
     c2     Guest gasps

   The expression "spam" is used throughout the Internet, on both
   synchronous and asynchronous forms, for any "excess of words". In the
   MOOs, "spam" also means words which enter the stream of scrolling
   conversation too fast to be read. Charles Stivale explored spam as a
   form of harassment covering a "spectrum of intentions." He grouped the
   range of intentions into three major categories: playful, ambiguous
   and pernicious (Stivale, 1994). The example above (Stivale might place
   it in the ambiguously harassing category) could be interpreted as a
   demonstration of both spam and spoof. In addition to being harassing,
   some programs which generate spam also generate lag.
   
   The expression is used in negative terms. However, what constitutes
   spam is often a matter of personal taste. Spam was once used as the
   principal argument for the expulsion of a long-time LambdaMOO
   character. The proposal put up for popular vote summarized, "Many of
   us are exasperated with this player on account of a long history of
   vindictiveness, paranoia, slander, harassment, lying, and cheating;
   but especially compulsive spam." The ballot for expulsion did not
   pass, however, suggesting that one participant's spam is another's
   entertainment.
   
Play

   In response to the "can of spam" routine, several more genuine spoofs
   were made, at a faster pace and with greater variety. The entire scene
   took on an atmosphere of a rather carnivalesque dream. Furthermore,
   lines of spoof appeared which were falsely attributed to participants:
   
   
   Sample Four, part four

     d2     A blast of noise and light rips through the fabric of
               time and space, leaving a wake of damage in its path.
               Knife is crawling from the wreckage.
     e2     lmarvin says, "its kinda bad cause you can get people
               into trouble by impersonating them...
     f2     Haakon appears in a puff of magic.
     g2     Knife is on the scene.
     h2     Haakon say, "Ok, who is spoofing?"
     i2     A roll of toilet paper flies through the room and says:
               "This is spoofing, some silly thing and you don't know
               who is doing it..."
     j2     Plate [to lmarvin]: Oh that spoofing I can't even
               begin to do that...
               *
     k2      Fork says, "Haakon says, "Someone better answer up! And
               quick!""
               *

   Line e2, attributed to lmarvin, was not typed by me: it was a
   fabrication of the spoofer, equivalent to forging a signature. This
   spoof constituted more serious rule-breaking than the spoofs in lines
   d, f, h, and o which were unattributed to any active participants.
   However, the spoof of line e2 explained the wrongdoing it committed.
   The appearance of Haakon (the arch-wizard of LambdaMOO) in line f2 was
   likewise faked, creating an illusion of Haakon's participation. Again,
   the line identified its own trickery by presenting Haakon in a "puff
   of magic". Line i2 was attributed to a flying roll of toilet paper
   which spoke of spoofing as "some silly thing." This series of spoofs
   was simultaneous demonstration and commentary on spoofing, showing the
   range of interpretations possible, from "some silly thing" to "kinda
   bad" to grounds for an angry appearance by the arch-wizard. In line
   k2, Fork showed, perhaps by mistake, that he was the source of the
   spoofs (although it is certainly possible there was another
   contributor!). Once oriented, the most recent participant to arrive,
   Knife, assumed an ironic heroic stance with a virtual
   spoofer-detection device:
   
   Sample Four, part Five

     l2     Knife [to spoon]: We gotta a spoofer around here?
     m2     Fork grins.
               *
     n2     Plate raises his hand and shouts "ME! Me! ME! ME!"
     o2     Fork sighs loudly.
     p2     lmarvin asks, "hey...does anybody object if i save
               these last lines about spoofing...for my paper?"
     q2     spoon [to Knife]: a couple.. none dangerous...
     r2     Plate says, "Nope"
     s2     Guest is totally lost
     t2     Knife whips out his spoofer-detecter

   Though a serious crime had been committed, according to official MOO
   policy, the result was a spontaneous and playful drama, created by and
   for those in the room. My response, as an observer , was to ask
   permission of those involved to save a log of the performance.
   
   I found Fork's playful performance to be an example of vernacular art
   because he pushed the rule against spoofing to the furthest extreme,
   as he articulated it and thus, brought it into the foreground. A
   speech community's articulation of its own aesthetics and ideals can
   be at one and the same time: a) rules for proper behavior; b) markers
   of experience and belonging; c) metaphor for poetic expression; d) and
   targets for play and challenge within the community. The ability to
   play with community rules calls for a keen understanding of the
   underlying aesthetics to those rules. Similarly, those of us who study
   the new electronic communities of cyberspace must be able to practice
   the prevailing aesthetics and ideals of communication if we hope to
   fully understand their creative expressions.
   
Conclusion

   Four items from the MOO lexicon were examined in this paper: "spoof"
   (unattributed communication), "spam" (excess of communication), "lurk"
   (refusal to communicate), and "lag" (mechanical impedance of
   communication). These terms are all expressions of negative
   experiences and, as such, describe the most common disruptions to
   normal communications within the MOO. They have exact technical
   definitions which are understood by the experienced members of the
   MOOs, and they are also all potential metaphors for social, cognitive
   and emotional experiences.
   
   There are no MOO terms for the reverse of each expression, but the
   positives can be inferred: Ideal behavior in the MOOs is attributed,
   brief, participatory and speedy communication. Attribution allows
   others to respond to the appropriate source, brevity provides
   opportunity to respond, participation is necessary for interaction to
   occur, and speed increases the volume of what is communicated and thus
   created. So we see that the special lexicon of the MOOs is an integral
   part of its "virtual reality" and provides pointers to a newbie on how
   best to behave.
   
        If the following does not appear to you as a table, please click here.
        
   Table 1. Lexicon meanings
   
  TERMMEANING(NEGATIVE)OPPOSITE(POSITIVE)
  
   spoofunattributed attributed spam excessive brief lurk
   non-participatory participatory lag slow speedy
   
   Terminology such as spoofing, spamming, lurking, and lagging are
   insider's expressions for community ideals and taboos. When such
   social concerns are articulated, either in positive or negative terms,
   the terms and the concepts they represent become expressive resources
   for those members of the community who fully understand their
   implications. The character named "Fork" challenged the rules against
   spoofing, but at the same time showed that he understood the reasons
   for the rules, and turned those rules into creative resources for a
   unique and impressive performance.
   
   
     _________________________________________________________________
   
   With thanks and appreciation to Roger Abrahams, Regina Bendix, Cati
   Coe, Brenda Danet, David Jacobson, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Beth
   Kolko, Diane Maluso, and my many MOO-buddies at MediaMOO and LambdaMOO
   for support, encouragement, and intellectual challenges.