How to Escape the OOC Game
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@Ganymede said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
My concern as a lawyercatbot and a Scion of All Wisdom is that the very few reprehensible people can do considerably more damage to one or many people than professional victims. In my experience, professional victims sow discord and chaos, but do not stalk or threaten others. Comparing them to the people Surreality and Sunny have had to deal with? I'd gladly take 100 professional victims over 1 creepy stalker.
Agreed. "If it's that bad, leave" is certainly the final solution for your own well-being, but it shouldn't have to be the first or only solution. Nobody wants the good people to run away while the bad actors remain unchecked.
@Ganymede said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
If you feel threatened or stalked on this board, please bring it to our attention immediately... I promise you -- we will take that shit very, very seriously.
I feel the same about players on any game I run. Folks deserve to play in peace. Just please come to me directly. Whisper-down-the-lane blame games are awkward. Ares has tools to help you report harassment.
@Derp said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
Someone else said that they think emotional distance is one of the problems with the hobby. I concur with the thought, but not the conclusion. You need emotional distance. You need to not be so invested in this stuff that a setback or a loss is an emotional devastation.
I agree with you that too many MU players get waaaaaay too invested in their characters and things that happen on games. But that wasn't the kind of emotional distance I was talking about. I am just encouraging basic human empathy. Treating other players with dignity and respect and not just as avatars or adversaries. I believe that this behavior is fostered when you acknowledge the players as much as you focus on the characters.
I compete in martial arts tournaments. In the ring, of course, you're doing your best to win. But as soon as the match is over, you shake hands, thank each other, and go back to being -- if not friends, at least respected competitors. Often we chit-chat in-between matches about shared interests or random pop culture.
This type of basic respect and good sportsmanship doesn't indicate a lack of detachment. Quite the opposite, it illustrates an acknowledgement that we're humans first, and that it's just a game.
(And nothing I'm saying requires you to tell your whole life's story or RL info. I know next to nothing about Gany's personal details beyond their profession, but we can still chat about Robotech and Mass Effect and maintain a connection across MUSHes.)
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@Derp said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
Yes, there are some bad actors out there, but ultimately, in almost every instance, they cannot actually hurt you. It's words, on a screen, on a game.
I really think that you're underselling the degree to which a stalker can make people feel unsafe and uncomfortable in real life.
It's possible, sure, to treat online interaction as an espionage game; maintain discrete, disconnected identities, ensure they don't overlap, be ready to burn any given identity at a moment's notice. It's even easier than it is in real life. But it's exhausting, and it's unnatural, and it's awkward, and it's a lot to expect from people interacting in a social environment.
Which ties into another thing, actually: this whole idea that "online" is different from "real life." We're living in the two thousand and nineteenth year of the common era. There are voting citizens whose parents began their relationships over the internet. The President of the United States sets government policy over twitter. Online interaction is just interaction, only with some more anonymity than in the meatspace.
"Your stalker probably isn't going to find you IRL" isn't as reassuring as you seem to think it is.
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@insomniac7809 I would add, also, that the idea that words cannot cause injury is fundamentally incorrect.
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@Tinuviel Seconded. There are still lines that you don't cross without becoming a bad actor. You don't mock or attack someone's serious health (including mental health) issues, their (uninvolved) family, etc., and you do not make threats without legitimately behaving as a bad actor, full stop.
You may not intend to go that far at the time. You may feel provoked for some reason. Your temper may get away with you. That does not matter: you have absolutely become a bad actor at this point.
Typically, in circumstances like this, it can be made right again, but it involves openly admitting your wrong-doing and sincere attempts to make amends. Also one hell of an apology -- which, frankly, the other party need not accept, and making it doesn't absolve you from the fact that you have, yep, absolutely, become a bad actor.
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@insomniac7809 said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
"Your stalker probably isn't going to find you IRL" isn't as reassuring as you seem to think it is.
I was going to comment on how easy it is with some details, but it's probably just better to say that data aggregation is a thing. No need to chicken little.
@Tinuviel said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
@insomniac7809 I would add, also, that the idea that words cannot cause injury is fundamentally incorrect.
Respectfully, I disagree, but I'm not going to chase this point down.
I wrote a thing but backspaced over it, though. I know good places and bad places to discuss my opinions on mental and emotional states. People take this particular topic a little too close to heart for my tastes. I'm not callous by any means, but this particular topic is a minefield.
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@Ghost said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
Respectfully, I disagree
Then you would be rather incorrect. The fact that words on a screen can elicit positive emotional responses would indicate that they could do the opposite. We wouldn't have a Hog Pit if words on a screen couldn't cause some nature of harm.
I agree that some of us are hardier than others, and what would offend you might not offend me. But at the very base level, words have power and therefore one cannot use the "they're just words" excuse when confronted with something that is, rather aptly, confronting.
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If words did not have the power to harm, the very concept of a slur would be so alien that we would not be able to comprehend it.
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@surreality said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
If words did not have the power to harm, the very concept of a slur would be so alien that we would not be able to comprehend it.
There are those who argue that exact point, unfortunately.
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@Tinuviel said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
@Ghost said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
Respectfully, I disagree
Then you would be rather incorrect. The fact that words on a screen can elicit positive emotional responses would indicate that they could do the opposite. We wouldn't have a Hog Pit if words on a screen couldn't cause some nature of harm.
I agree that some of us are hardier than others, and what would offend you might not offend me. But at the very base level, words have power and therefore one cannot use the "they're just words" excuse when confronted with something that is, rather aptly, confronting.
Oh, I wholly believe words can affect people, but words simply affecting people isn't the issue. My views are more related to the subjectivity of injury and the reasonable level of responsibility any given person should have towards ownership for social injuries and/or emotional states of others in social situations.
Which is a minefield I ain't walking into at 23:31 local time.
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@Tinuviel Well, those people are dumber than a sack of hair, and if that assessment offends them, yay.
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@Ghost said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
@Tinuviel said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
@Ghost said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
Respectfully, I disagree
Then you would be rather incorrect. The fact that words on a screen can elicit positive emotional responses would indicate that they could do the opposite. We wouldn't have a Hog Pit if words on a screen couldn't cause some nature of harm.
I agree that some of us are hardier than others, and what would offend you might not offend me. But at the very base level, words have power and therefore one cannot use the "they're just words" excuse when confronted with something that is, rather aptly, confronting.
Oh, I wholly believe words can affect people, but words simply affecting people isn't the issue. My views are more related to the subjectivity of injury and the reasonable level of responsibility any given person should have towards ownership for social injuries and/or emotional states of others in social situations.
Which is a minefield I ain't walking into at 23:31 local time.
True, it's a complicated topic.
The best we can do when or if someone states that our words have injured them, is acknowledge that our words caused injury and do better to avoid it in the future. We don't need to understand why our words caused pain so long as we do understand that, for whatever reason, that person was injured by our words.
It is the responsibility of the injured, I would argue, to inform others of the injury rather than to simply assume that the injuror was attacking them. What is harmless to one person can be harmful to another, and the only way we can properly adjust our behaviour is to know when we've caused harm.
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Double (may not be by the time I'm done, but whatever) because it's relevant:
If words and text-based communications could not cause actual harm, things like cyber-bullying would not exist. We know too well that they do. The term 'verbal abuse' would not exist, and unfortunately, it not only does, but it describes an occurrence that also exists.
And so on.
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@Tinuviel said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
It is the responsibility of the injured, I would argue, to inform others of the injury rather than to simply assume that the injuror was attacking them. What is harmless to one person can be harmful to another, and the only way we can properly adjust our behaviour is to know when we've caused harm.
Calls to mind the quote, which is apt, "When someone tells you you hurt them, you don't get to decide you didn't."
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@Ghost said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
Oh, I wholly believe words can affect people, but words simply affecting people isn't the issue. My views are more related to the subjectivity of injury and the reasonable level of responsibility any given person should have towards ownership for social injuries and/or emotional states of others in social situations.
The subjectivity of injury is an interesting topic in jurisprudence.
As you may be compensated for emotional injury, I recognize its existence. After all, what is "pain" and "suffering" but subjective mental or emotional injuries?
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"Words only have the power you give them to hurt you" is a lot like "oh, you're depressed? You need to spend more time outside!"
Yes, but that's not actually the problem, here.
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@Sunny said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
"Words only have the power you give them to hurt you" is a lot like "oh, you're depressed? You need to spend more time outside!"
Yeah, I dont necessarily agree with that approach because the hurt generated from doxxing, SWATing, revealing to someone that their spouse is having an affair, or purposefully attacking health and/or body issues isn't in any way a factor of the recipient simply not "keeping themselves in check".
Like... "LOL I GAVE WORDS TO THE COPS THAT YOU WERE HOLDING A HOSTAGE, NOW SWAT HAS U AT GUNPOINT. IF THIS BOTHERS YOU LOL THAT'S YOUR OWN FAULT" No. Nope. When I was a kid I made fun of a former best friend's sibling's terminal disease (because I was devastated that he started bullying me alongside the clique of kids who used to bully US). It was wrong. Also: totally not his fault for any hurt for me going there.
But if someone's losing their shit because their dice are sucking or they lost an election? Sure, it's disappointing, but upkeep your reaction buffer, bruh.
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@Ghost said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
But if someone's losing their shit because their dice are sucking or they lost an election? Sure, it's disappointing, but upkeep your reaction buffer, bruh.
You're really shifting the goal-posts here, man.
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@Ganymede said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
@Ghost said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
But if someone's losing their shit because their dice are sucking or they lost an election? Sure, it's disappointing, but upkeep your reaction buffer, bruh.
You're really shifting the goal-posts here, man.
Oh no, I didn't mean it that way. I was trying to paint the lightest boundary to SWATing/doxxing being super extreme. There's plenty of room (and cases) in between, but the further away you get from those extreme polar boundaries I think the more subjective or negotiable some of that stuff may be.
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It is actually super easy to be tracked down by someone who wants to, even if they have very minimal information. I had a man that I met at a bible camp when we were teens, knew for 1 week and then had no contact with (and I had moved 4 times after that before I left my parents' house!), track me down in a new state 20+ years later, harass me at my business and show up at my business when I was not there and then show up at a public meeting of the organization I was a board member of and sit near me until he finally introduced himself after the meeting. It was the first time I had seen him since bible camp. He wanted to apologize to me for thinking lustful thoughts and committing adultery in his heart.
Did he wave a gun at me no, but I will tell you that was fucking terrifying (a judge agreed and granted me an anti harassment order a few weeks later, not that it would have protected me if this guy escalated).
It is not hard that if a sick fuck gets it in their head to track you down they can. It can and does happen on mushes as well. Not always by showing up in person, but people starting to contact you on other media platforms and emails (I'm not sure how people sleuth that but we do have a lot of sleuths in the hobby. Whether that is stalking people or trying to find out who is who).
Leaving a game/just looking at it as words really doesnt do justice to how it feels when it happens to you. There are some genuinely ill people out there or those who get off on doing gross stuff like that if they feel slighted.
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@Ghost said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
But if someone's losing their shit because their dice are sucking or they lost an election? Sure, it's disappointing, but upkeep your reaction buffer, bruh.
That's really not what anyone here was talking about, though. Sure, people get upset to silly degrees about TV shows, sporting events, etc. That's a separate issue. The discussion was specifically around stalking/harassment/threats/etc. online. That's a whole other level of emotional pressure/stress/injury/damage/whatever-you-want-to-call-it, and the fact that it's happening with text instead of words doesn't diminish its impact. An assailant could punch you in the face, break your kneecap or stab you 10 times, but it's still an assault any way you slice it.