LambdaMOO is an online community of the variety called a MOO. It is the oldest active MOO.

LambdaMOO was founded in 1990 by Pavel Curtis at Xerox PARC. Now hosted in the state of Washington, it is operated and administered entirely on a volunteer basis. Guests are allowed, and membership is free to anyone with an e-mail address.

LambdaMOO gained some notoriety when Julian Dibbell wrote a book called My Tiny Life describing his experiences there. Over its history, LambdaMOO has been highly influential in the examination of virtual-world social issues. From there, the user can specify a direction to travel in the virtual world. Users may page one another for distance communication. Users also interact with the virtual environment; for example, in the presence of a cookie platter, the server will reply to <code>eat cookies</code> with a message indicating that the user has taken and eaten a cookie, including a description of what it tastes like. Other commands like <code>take</code> or <code>give</code> would also be applicable to objects like cookies.

Setting

LambdaMOO virtual world is centered on a digital recreation of Pavel Curtis's California home. A coat closet serves as the spawn point leading to the living room, an important social organ of the house.

The neighborhood immediately surrounding the house can also be explored, though the hazardous edge of the world is a short distance away. In addition, certain ornaments throughout the house can be entered to visit entirely different areas, such as an Alpine village in a snow globe The world is user-generated. Around 1987–1988, the expansion of the global Internet allowed more users to experience the MUD. Pavel Curtis at Xerox PARC noted that they were "almost exclusively for recreational purposes." Curtis determined to explore whether the MUD could be non-recreational. He developed LambdaMOO software to run on the LambdaMOO server, which implements the MOO programming language. This software was subsequently made available to the public. Several starter databases, known as cores, are available for MOOs; LambdaMOO itself uses the LambdaCore database. The "Lambda" name is from Curtis's own username on earlier MUD systems.

LambdaMOO can refer to the software, the server, or the community of users.

The Bungle affair

Responding to a March 1993 sexual misconduct incident was a crisis for the newly self-governing LambdaMOO community. Through a user-generated object, a user named "Mr. Bungle" was able to describe actions on behalf of others. In a public space, he used this capability to force two women to perform various sexual and masochistic acts with him and each other, distressing and humiliating them.

Community

The population of LambdaMOO numbered close to 10,000 around 1994, with over 300 actively connected at any time.

See also

  • FurryMUCK
  • The WELL

Notes

References

  • Home page
  • Status blog
  • LiveJournal community