The VSPO System enables teachers to provide their students with a temporary character on the MOO. The VSPOs are divided into different groups, each with its own administrator, description, and expiration date. DU suggests that instructors use this system in order to bring regular classes or groups of users for special events onto the MOO.
Before you can have your own VSPO group, you must type @addfeature #1939. This is the VS Teacher feature object that prepares your character to receive the VSPO group. You must ask an available wizard to assign a VSPO group to you. Jeanne is one wizard who is usually available on DU, although any of the wizards can answer your request. Type help wizards for a list of current DU wizards. You need to provide the wizard with the number of students who are going to be in your group. The wizard will then assign you a group number. This number is needed to execute most of the commands you will use when working with your group.
For a complete list of commands for using the VSPO Feature Object, you can type help #1939. That more extensive help document can be used to supplement the following group of the most frequently used commands and their purposes.
The command @groups provides a list of the groups that you are able to access. To use it, merely type
@groups
After first receiving your group, it is necessary to enter the members of the group. You can do this by using the @init-group command. This command is used to name each of the VSPOs in your group and provide them with passwords. To begin the process, type @init-group <group number>. If your group number is 22, for example, your entry would look like this:
@init-group 22
You can now enter the names of the students in the group. It is best to use the last name of the student so that there will be no duplicate characters on the MOO. The wizards also suggest that you add a suffix to the name with your own initials, so that it's easy to recognize that the character is a VSPO under your authority. When the computer asks you to enter the name for the object, type in the name of the student followed by your initials, and hit enter. For example, to initialize an object for Charles Somes, you (as John Paul Smith) might type
csomes-jps
If this is a duplicate name, you will be asked for a new entry. Once the name is accepted, you will be asked for an email address. If the address is unknown, merely hit enter. You will then be provided with the object number which corresponds to the name of the student, and his or her password:
Be sure to keep track of the passwords for the various characters you have initialized.Object #455439 is now csomes-jps with password raleny.
The command @listgroup can be used to check on the status of a group. By typing @listgroup <group number>, you will receive a list of all VSPOs in that group, their names, and corresponding object numbers. Using group number 22, this command would be
@listgroup 22
This command also provides the group's name, owner, storage-space collectively used, managers, and expiration date. You are able to list only those groups that you own or manage.
If you find that you need to change the expiration date on a VSPO group that you either own or manage, just type
@expiration <group number> is <date>
When entering the date, the program will recognize almost any form. One way of entering the date is to type @expiration 22 is 11/25/97. This would change the expiration date to 25 November 1997. You can consult the help section by typing help #1939 for further examples on how to enter the date.
To end this process at any time, just type @abort. You can resume from where you left off by typing @init-group <group number> once again, as in: @init-group 22.
Written by Chelsea Kuzma. Revised by Leslie Harris. Please send comments and corrections to leslie.harris@plattsburgh.edu.