A Cynic Looks at a MOOFrom: steffen@mbcr.bcm.tmc.edu (David Steffen)Newsgroups: bionet.general Subject: A Cynic Looks at a MOO Message-ID: <1kc240INNkp7@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu> Date: 29 Jan 93 19:55:44 GMT Organization: Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Tx Lines: 365 ************************************************************************ EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Recently, Rob Harper posted a description of a great new concept in computer communication - something called a MOO. It was about a year and a half ago when Rob introduced us to another new technology; WAIS. When I reviewed WAIS back then, I found a system of considerable promise still a little ragged around the edges. In the case of the MOO, I have found a concept of enormous promise which, again, is not quite developed enough to be useful. However, like, WAIS, development on the MOO concept is proceeding rapidly and although the average, working biologist will probably not derive full benefit from this system yet, it is time for all interested biologists to begin experimenting with MOOs, so that we can guide its development into the most useful form. In my opinion, those of you in the business of providing computer resources to fellow biologists definitely want to learn about this concept as soon as possible. ************************************************************************ Disclaimer: Everything in this article is my opinion only; Baylor College of Medicine has nothing to do with any of it. I am not an expert on MOOs; this is a user's review. If this review makes you mad enough to flame, flame yourself. If you flame me and as a result I do something rash, my wife and kids will sue you. ============================== INTRODUCTION ============================ More years ago than I like to remember, David Kristofferson poineered the introduction of the USENET technology to biologists under the name of BIONET. At the time he began this effort, the newsgroup technology was mature, having been developed and polished by the computer science community. Over the years, David has succeeded in introducing a significant subset of the biological research community to this technology and thus has provided a new means of communication between biologists. Although BIONET doesn't correspond exactly to any traditional (non-computer) mode of communication, one can think of it like a journal consisting entirely of letters to the editor - it is timely but asyncronous (e.g. people read and post information at times convenient to themselves without regard to the times that other users posted the message to which they might be responding or which others will read their message.) and is disseminated to a large list of subscribers in the same way that a journal is. The obvious contrast is to email, which corresponds fairly closely to mail or to FAX which are also asyncronous forms of communication, but ones which normally occur between only two users. (Electronic mailing lists are more like USENET than they are like email, of course.) About a year and a half ago, Rob Harper introduced us to an emerging new technology - WAIS. If BIONET is like a journal, then WAIS servers are like libraries, which maintain archives of data. (Consistent with this metaphor is the fact that the back issues of the Bionet "journal" are available in a "WAIS" library.) A year and a half ago, I argued that the WAIS concept was not quite ready for the average biologist. Things have changed rapidly since then. Many more WAIS databases have appeared, making WAIS access no longer an indulgence, but practically a necessity. In addition, WAIS clients have been installed in many institutions (including on the Molecular Biology Computing Resource computer at my home institution of Baylor) making the use WAIS not a test of ones computer prowess, but rather an easy task for the computer indifferent biologist. Further, a new standard has appeared; the "gopher", and has similarly become widespread and readily available. Like WAIS, gopher provides access to "libraries" of data on the NET. One of the powers of gopher is its flexibility; it is now possible to access both native gopher databases as well as WAIS databases through the same gopher client. A couple of weeks ago, Rob Harper again alerted us to a new development in computer communication; something called a MOO. MOO is not a bovine vocalization but yet another development in informatics. If Bionet is a Journal, and WAIS and gopher are libraries, then a MOO is an electronic version of a scientific meeting. Like WAIS a year and a half ago, the MOOs are not quite ready for working biologists. Like WAIS, MOO development is progressing rapidly and soon will represent another powerful tool for scientific communication. [A measure of how rapidly things are developing is that this represents version 2 of this review, version 1 having been overtaken by events before having seen the light of day.] ============================ WHAT IS A MOO? ============================ First, a confession. A MOO is a game, descendant of a long line of games. Our current interest in the MOO is as a tool for scientific communication, but if this bastard lineage is too distressing to your puritanical soul, read no further! The acronym MOO stands for MUD, Object Oriented, with MUD being itself and acronym for Multi User Dungeon. A MOO is a text only game in which players move around an imaginary environment, described to them in words, by issuing commands such as "go north" "take sword" or "examine scroll". Because it is multi-user, you can interact with other people using the same dungeon. It is the possibility of interpersonal interaction which makes the MUD concept such a powerful force for good. The MOO concept adds the capability of easy customizability, greatly facilitating the conversion of a game into a scientific communication tool. 1) Why should biologists care about a bovine-sounding computer game? Athough the MUD/MOO environment was created for games, a number of computer scientists have noticed that the same human interaction that made them so attractive as games could be harnessed for work. Furthermore, the customizability of the MOO lends itself to the modification of the game environment for practical ends. When such modifications are worked out, MOOs promise to provide yet another efficient, low cost way for scientific communication. MOOs could replace scientific meetings! 2) What happened to make the MOO environment of interest NOW? The computer science community has been interested in MOOs as a serious tool for some time. If you read Rob Harpers original message, he describes hearing serious computer scientists talking about this at meetings. What got those of us biologists who are now interested involved was Rob's post. I cannot speak for Rob, but it is my impression that it was the introduction of gopher servers into one particular MOO, JaysHouseMOO, that got Rob involved. Given the immense popularity of gopher for biological information retrieval combined the long standing interest of the computer science community in MOOs, the urge to explore this technology could no longer be resisted. 3) What advantages does a MOO have over other gopher servers? For the lone scientist using gopher to retrieve information, there are *NO* advantages to using a MOO - it just adds another layer on top of the gopher server, degrading performance and reliability. Furthermore, the MOO environment requires that the command syntax be different for a gopher in a MOO environment compared to a traditional gopher client, leading to confusion. After experimenting with JaysHouseMoo for but a few days, however, I have already noticed one advantage to the gopher in the MOO environment; it is an excellent environment in which an experienced gopher user can show a novice the ropes. I must admit, however, that despite the fact that the integrated gopher server was the device which seduced biologists into MOOs, I do not personally consider them the most important part of the MOO. I believe is the real time multi-person interaction which will turn out to be what makes MOOs useful. One of David Kristofferson's chronic frustrations with Bionet is the paucity of "real scientific discussions" which occur here. Even in my limited experience on Jay's MOO, it is clear to me that this "conversation" environment is more conducive to such discussions than is the "journal" environment of Bionet. After all, aren't the discussions you have at meetings more free wheeling and frank than what you read in journals? ==================== I'M GOING FOR IT; ANY TIPS? =================== FIRST: The MOO we are using, JaysHouseMOO, belongs to Jay. We are guests in his "house" and we should act like guests. This means being very sensitive to any requests the primary users and developers of this MOO make of us. Furthermore, we should try to learn and abide by the conventions of the MOO. Compared to USENET, a MOO is a very polite place; friendly greetings are expected and flames unheard of. We are setting up a "Biosciences Electronic Conference Center" (ECC for short) in one part of this MOO. Jay has asked us to more or less restrict our modification of his MOO to this part of his MOO, although we are welcome to explore the rest of the MOO. Mark Adams, a graduate student at Baylor College of Medicine, and Rob Harper, have been the prime players so far in setting up this ECC. SECOND: Don't expect too much - we are still working on this. With luck, you will run into some fellow biologists and have some interesting conversations. At worst, you will learn about how a MOO works and get in some practice. I suspect that real action will require some advanced scheduling, but we are all learning about this together. For the MOO to become really useful, we are going to have to start organizing meetings there. As a 'test of concept' and to identify areas that need work, Mark Adams and I will be organizing a meta-meeting on the topic of "Use of MOOs in Biology". Stay tuned to Bionet for further details. In the mean time, send me email if you would like to 'attend' this 'meeting', register yourself as a character on the MOO, and become a little familiar with how it works (see below for instructions). As we start having meetings, we will identify aspects of the MOO that need to be modified. At present, we are at least thinking about implementation of white boards, how poster sessions could be accomplished, the implementation of a graphics protocols so that talks and posters could include figures. INSTRUCTIONS: In order to use the MOO, you must have TELNET access to Internet. (There are better hosts than TELNET for accessing the MOO, but they require the same facilities as TELNET.) To access the MOO, you have to TELNET to an address AND a port. The command is typed as follows: telnet theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu 1709 If you omit the port number (1709), you will connect to the right computer, but not to the MOO, and will be unable to log on. You will be greeted with a full screen logon message (quoted in Rob's description) which gives you a bunch of helpful hints. Initially, you want to log on as "guest", and to do so you type the command as follows: connect guest Success is greeted by a description of the first "room" of the "dungeon". There may or may not be people or objects in the room. If there are, they will be mentioned after the description, one line per person or object. For example: rMark is here Be aware, however, that people listed as 'here' might not actually be logged in. If they don't respond, that is probably why. Rob, for example, spends lots of time sleeping, unresponsive, in his office. BASIC COMMANDS: (Note, many commands begin with the "at" symbol, @. This is a necessary part of the command.) @quit - to log off when you are finished. You can do this any time, any where. However, if you have been 'conversing' with people, it is polite to type the usual good byes. help - gets you LOTS more information about the dungeon. This is the best way to learn about the dungeon. " - beginning a line with a quote sends a message to everyone in the room with you. If you type: "Hello! what happens is that everyone in the room will see the message: Guest says "Hello!" ======================== From MOO to bioMOO ======================== (enough with the games, lets get to work!): To get to the ECC, issue the following commands, each terminated by a carriage return. u w w s s s This should get you to the 'lobby' of the ECC. If not, just wander around until you find it. It is at the south end of the woods, just west of the highway. Now would be a good time to see who else is around, and where they are. Issue the command: @who and you will see a display like: Player name Connected Idle time Location ----------- --------- --------- -------- Steffen (#774) an hour 0 seconds Woods Clearing Biosciences Center L Moedonna (#512) an hour 3 minutes BiosciencesECC Library Larry (#76) 24 minutes 4 minutes BiosciencesECC Library (Characters who are not logged on will not show up. This is one good way to distinguish the zombies from the living.) If you were in the Lobby, you would see me (Steffen). I am a sociable sort, so I probably already would have buttonholed you. To talk to someone else, you need to go where they are. Because there is no good map of the MOO, and because the topology of parts of the MOO can change, this can be more of a game than we would like. Right now, the ECC has 6 rooms. From the Lobby, you go upstairs to the Reception Area. To the west of the Reception Area is the Student Advisory Office (aka Rob Harper's Office) and to the east is the Faculty Lounge (a sick joke of rMark's -more about that later.) To the South of the lobby is the quadrangle, and to the south of that the is Library. In the above example, going to the library will allow you to talk to Moedonna and Larry. Also, in the library is where we try to keep to gopher servers (when they haven't been stolen!) This is a a good place as any to experiment with use of gophers in the MOO environment. (There are several other gopher servers in the MOO.) ======================= I'm hooked; what now? ======================= The MOO environment is exceptionally flexible. To maximize its usefulness, we are creating some guidelines for MOOing biologists. All of these are just suggestions, of course; we are just trying to figure out conventions to maximize usefulness. FIRST: Stop with the Guest stuff; make yourself a character. This is an opportunity to identify yourself. When people use a MOO as a game, they create fanciful, imaginary characters for themselves. We suggest you create a character who people can identify as you. We think this will facilitate scientific communication. I am "Steffen". Rob Harper is "Rob". "rMark" is R. Mark Adams, a Grad Student at Baylor. That way, when I see Rob, I know who he is, he knows who I am, and we can quickly initiate a useful conversation. You create a character as follows; suppose your name is David Kristofferson, and you email address is kristoff@genbank.bio.net, you would type: @register Kristofferson for kristoff@genbank.bio.net You will be sent email with your password. Thus, the above will only be useful to you if you ARE Dave Kristofferson. The next time you log on, you type: connect Kristofferson Next, you need to give yourself a description. I am trying to get everyone to include one of those dopy plastic name tags in their descriptions. For example, my description is as follows: Middle aged, balding, and friendly looking. He is wearing a plastic name tag: David Steffen, Associate Professor of Cell Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston TX. Interests: Retroviruses, Oncogenes, Gene Therapy You would see this description by typing: look Steffen That way, you would know who I am and what I do, and thus, if I am someone you would like to talk to. Once you have logged in as your character, you give yourself a description by typing: @describe me as force line breaks, you have to insert spaces -ug!> Finally, if you want to go right to the ECC every time you log in, go to the Faculty Lounge and type: @sethome If this doesn't work, try again later. We are still working on this. The Sick Joke: Once you create a character, you stay in the MOO even when you are not logged in. Most people have as their 'home' the underground hole under the highway. That room has been programmed so that 'sleeping' people (e.g. characters not logged in) are invisible. rMark and I decided it would be useful to keep 'sleeping' biologists visible, so that others could see the list of participants. To keep the confusion down, we decided to make an out of the way room in which people could sleep. I suggested the dormitory. rMark made it the Faculty Lounge. I think rMark is going to find his next Thesis Advisory Committee Meeting difficult. As you play with with MOO, note what you like and what you don't like. Send complements, suggestions, questions, or money to: steffen@bcm.tmc.edu See you at the MOO! -- David Steffen Department of Cell Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston TX 77030 Telephone = (713) 798-6655, FAX = (713) 790-0545 Internet = steffen@bcm.tmc.edu |