Snooping

Immortals have the ability to snoop others. This means they can see events that happen to you *just as they are happening to you*. This is a very powerful and easily abused power, so it is restricted in the following ways:

1. A player must grant a non-admin immortal permission to be snooped. This is because one legitimate use of snoop is to allow an immortal to see exactly what a problem is when you encounter it (since it is a lot easier to see the problem than hear it described). But secrecy is not needed for this use, so immortals do not need unlimited snoop. You grant and restrict snooping ability with the command 'snoopable'.
2. People with the position senator or moff may snoop any player at any time if that Admin deems it in the best interests of the MUD. An admin does not need that player's permission for this to happen, and the player need not be made aware that this is or ever was occurring. Player's playing this MUD have to trust that the SWmud wizards are generally ethical people who will not abuse this power.
3. We guarantee that the sole purposes considered the best interests of the MUD involve insurance of compliance with MUD rules, MUD security, and debugging. This power will never be used for personal entertainment or anything of the sort.
4. Any events snooped, so long as they are legal and do not compromise MUD security, will be kept 100% confidential and not shared with anyone else. Illegal events or acts which compromise MUD security may in fact be made public in any way if deemed necessary by the admins.

Again, we realize that the power that exists is easily abused. Keep in mind that most MUDs allow unlimited snooping powers to any wizard. On this MUD, everyone except admins are physically prevented from snooping without your permission. But there does exist a legitimate need for the power for the people responsible for maintaining the game. If this makes you uncomfortable, understand that our policy is restrictive as far as most MUDs go.

In addition, a MUD is not a democratic institution, and we straightforwardly admit that we will act in ways not generally considered democratic if acts occur which we feel are bad for the MUD. Hopefully you can put enough trust in the admins to accept that we will be just even though, in this environment, we cannot be democratic.