Hi everyone,

let me introduce myself first, I’m Otrere’s partner in setting up the new Firefly Mush and my admin alt there is Londinium. While Otrere is at work, I want to try and adress the valid concerns here.

It’s basically like Derp says: Admin have always been able to lurk in the dark and watch whatever they wanted. We felt it would be better to say upfront that we MIGHT do this at some point if necessary.

But let me reassure you that it’s really a last resort kind of thing and we most definitely have no interest in watching/reading anyone’s TS scenes or otherwise private scenes.

An example for when we may have to take a look is, if we’ve received several complaints about Player X being a creep who doesn’t take no for an answer when flirting and crosses into stalking territory, constantly crosses other lines and/or doesn’t respect requests to FTB. So if we see Player X with another character in a private room, we may go and take a look to see if these complaints are justified and have to call him/her to order.

But we wouldn’t do it over a single complaint – we’ve both been mushing long enough to know how quickly people like to complain and that often two players have a personal axe to grind. It’s not our job to police THAT. But we also know from experience how one awful player can foul everything for others and we just want to be upfront about the measures we can possibly take.

So here’s an idea:

We could add to our policies, that we will warn Player X once that we’ve received complaints and his/her scenes could be subject to being monitored.
We could also adopt Auspice’s suggestion that this warning contains a note, that the player can request details of the complaint(s) filed against them (withholding names).

We have both played on mushes that created a really paranoid atmosphere because admin could be watching quietly and come down hard on you for any perceived imaginery offense against them.

We DON’T want that kind of atmosphere. We want people to enjoy the mush and feel comfortable. The “monitoring” thing is really just meant as a safeguard to prevent jerks and asshats from… well, being jerks and asshats.

I hope all of that makes sense?

@faraday said in Firefly - Still Flyin':

You just have to weigh whether the "last resort" kind of situation you're describing is worth establishing a policy that's going to chase good people away.

Thank you for your thoughtful response, @faraday and the thought occured to me as well that we'd also invade the other player's privacy in this case.

To be entirely honest here, I personally hadn't expected that this bit of policy would stir so much feeling, because it's been pretty much a given on every mush I've been on that staff might lurk "dark" in scenes. I've only ever RP'ed wth that thought in my mind and would only ever talk about staff in pages or through channels away from the mush. So when we wrote the policy, it just seemed... a normal staff thing to do (and say). But if people think that the line would make people uncomfortable and even chase good players away, I wouldn't mind removing it from the policy.

@Auspice said in Firefly - Still Flyin':

Speaking as someone who has Staffed, I think having some sort of system (even if it's just your own Google Spreadsheet) in place could be important. Because even though it's just the two of you right now...

Yes, it's a good idea. We'd probably have started discussing this when we did actually get a complaint, but it's good to have it ready.

But I feel I should be allowed to RP in private with the reasonable > expectation that it won't be observed.

Yes, I understand that, too and for me it went without saying that this is an entirely reasonable expectation. As a player I've been through some of the most (in-)famous mushes where staff made players' lives hell (not least SerenityMush, but also Firan and Blood of Dragons) with corruption, micro-managing, creating angst, etc. and that's the last thing I ever want to do. I know we can't be "universally loved" by everyone but I've also been on smaller mushes, where staff is greatly liked and respected and that's the kind of environment we want to achieve.

I'll have to run this by Osiris/Otrere to see if we can use the SUSPECT gallery.

Hi everyone,

another year has passed and Firefly is indeed still flying. We’ve had some exciting adventures and have been able to hold on to a small but very steady and active playerbase.

However we are always keen to see new faces, so we wanted to push up our ad again and let you know we’re around. Whether you want to be a smuggler and spacer, a Fed making people’s lives a misery or a regular citizen of Persephone (or beyond), we’re presently looking for all sorts of new players who want to have fun in the beloved and not forgotten Verse of Firefly & Serenity, so come join us!

Okay, how is this for a rewritten policy - would this put players' minds at ease?

(we reserve the right to) check on repeated complaints about a particular player by monitoring said player's RP by being invisibly present in the room for as short as possible. Before this happens we will send a written warning to that player that we've received complaints about him/her and he/she may be subject to monitoring. However, we will NOT watch any kind of scene that could be considered infringing on another player's privacy unless that player has been asked for permission, and we will NEVER watch any kind of intimate scene (TS) between players.

Thanks for all the useful thoughts.

I've now gone ahead and removed that line from the policy as I don't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable.

However, I've done this now without first checking back with Otrere, so it may return perhaps in some sort of altered form.

He is also the main coder (I've done all the descs and a big chunk of the wiki in the meantime) and my guess is that he hasn't been aware of the SUSPECT flag. This is our first rodeo with FS3.

@Auspice said in Firefly - Still Flyin':

Speaking as someone who has Staffed, I think having some sort of system (even if it's just your own Google Spreadsheet) in place could be important. Because even though it's just the two of you right now...

Yes, it's a good idea. We'd probably have started discussing this when we did actually get a complaint, but it's good to have it ready.

But I feel I should be allowed to RP in private with the reasonable > expectation that it won't be observed.

Yes, I understand that, too and for me it went without saying that this is an entirely reasonable expectation. As a player I've been through some of the most (in-)famous mushes where staff made players' lives hell (not least SerenityMush, but also Firan and Blood of Dragons) with corruption, micro-managing, creating angst, etc. and that's the last thing I ever want to do. I know we can't be "universally loved" by everyone but I've also been on smaller mushes, where staff is greatly liked and respected and that's the kind of environment we want to achieve.

I'll have to run this by Osiris/Otrere to see if we can use the SUSPECT gallery.

@faraday said in Firefly - Still Flyin':

You just have to weigh whether the "last resort" kind of situation you're describing is worth establishing a policy that's going to chase good people away.

Thank you for your thoughtful response, @faraday and the thought occured to me as well that we'd also invade the other player's privacy in this case.

To be entirely honest here, I personally hadn't expected that this bit of policy would stir so much feeling, because it's been pretty much a given on every mush I've been on that staff might lurk "dark" in scenes. I've only ever RP'ed wth that thought in my mind and would only ever talk about staff in pages or through channels away from the mush. So when we wrote the policy, it just seemed... a normal staff thing to do (and say). But if people think that the line would make people uncomfortable and even chase good players away, I wouldn't mind removing it from the policy.

@Auspice said in Firefly - Still Flyin':

are you using a system to track/log complaints?

Well, it's only Otrere/Osiris and me and we're in touch daily via various channels (email and instant messenger). We're just playing sort of tag, because I'm in Europe and he's in the US, so I'm now able to respond and chat in my evening while he's at work, then he'll take over later tonight when he gets home and I'm in bed Since the mush is still very new, we haven't received any complaints yet and at this stage I'm optimistic that we might not need an elaborate system, just discuss how we'll handle a complaint and take it from there. But in the case you describe, we would both know exactly what's going on and could answer questions what the other one is up to (there might just be a delay due to the time zone stuff). We don't plan to hire other staff for the time being and if we reach a point where it becomes too much for two people would try to recruit staffers only among people we've known for a long time and trust.

Hi everyone,

let me introduce myself first, I’m Otrere’s partner in setting up the new Firefly Mush and my admin alt there is Londinium. While Otrere is at work, I want to try and adress the valid concerns here.

It’s basically like Derp says: Admin have always been able to lurk in the dark and watch whatever they wanted. We felt it would be better to say upfront that we MIGHT do this at some point if necessary.

But let me reassure you that it’s really a last resort kind of thing and we most definitely have no interest in watching/reading anyone’s TS scenes or otherwise private scenes.

An example for when we may have to take a look is, if we’ve received several complaints about Player X being a creep who doesn’t take no for an answer when flirting and crosses into stalking territory, constantly crosses other lines and/or doesn’t respect requests to FTB. So if we see Player X with another character in a private room, we may go and take a look to see if these complaints are justified and have to call him/her to order.

But we wouldn’t do it over a single complaint – we’ve both been mushing long enough to know how quickly people like to complain and that often two players have a personal axe to grind. It’s not our job to police THAT. But we also know from experience how one awful player can foul everything for others and we just want to be upfront about the measures we can possibly take.

So here’s an idea:

We could add to our policies, that we will warn Player X once that we’ve received complaints and his/her scenes could be subject to being monitored.
We could also adopt Auspice’s suggestion that this warning contains a note, that the player can request details of the complaint(s) filed against them (withholding names).

We have both played on mushes that created a really paranoid atmosphere because admin could be watching quietly and come down hard on you for any perceived imaginery offense against them.

We DON’T want that kind of atmosphere. We want people to enjoy the mush and feel comfortable. The “monitoring” thing is really just meant as a safeguard to prevent jerks and asshats from… well, being jerks and asshats.

I hope all of that makes sense?

Thanks, Sunny. We are not averse to building a new game from scratch, but we have to be realistic in what we can achieve within the limited time we have between work, RL, mushing and other interests. If it were only a question of digging a few rooms and handing out a few weapons and ships, sure, I'd be happy to do it, but it will require so much more. That said, I wouldn't mind it, if we can get the few still active players who I consider friends of sorts to come along. But why not give things on SerenityMUSH a chance for now, so we can chat / RP there and we could still consider a fresh start somewhere else if old players return to mess up things?

As for opening up Companions, I wouldn't have a problem with that as such - the only problem I see down the line is that particular breed of mushers who only ever want to play the "pretty flirty princess" type, so we'd be up to our ears in companions soon. But perhaps we could implement a rule whereby the numbers of archetypes must be balanced, so we won't have 10 companions, 12 gunslingers and not much else.

Wouldn't it be the simplest to avoid the 50,000 XP-dinosaurs from returning by simply idle-nuking their chars? I mean most games idle-nuke chars anyway...

Due to a RL trip I wasn't around much for the last week or so, but I'll try to be online now daily. I'm River there and Zoe will be around more again, too.

@Thenomain said in SerenityMUSH - Discussion:

As a friendly warning: Don't take Soapbox too seriously. Listen and nod and stroke your chin, but if you give anyone here half a reason they will critique you to the ground if you so much as enjoy the same breakfast cereal as Inara's player.

Thanks. This is why I said we'd really like to see people come engage with us on the game. There are miles of difference between how things get discussed on a forum like this, and within the game itself.

-- Zoe

@WildBaboons said in SerenityMUSH - Discussion:

@SerenityMush

I am curious if a full reboot has been discussed at all/is on the table?

Hi all -

We (Zoe and River, the newest admins on Serenity) have been following this discussion with great interest. We've also been traveling, together, so we haven't been able to sit down and respond until now.

We've actually discussed the possibilities of starting fresh, and weighed our options. We certainly see the appeal and merit to the idea. Two cards against us: neither of us knows mush code, and we're both busy adults with full lives. For the moment, we think that using the existing verse - with its fully functional grid and systems - is better than trying to restart, and spend months struggling to get something up and running. We haven't discussed these ideas with the other admins on Serenity yet, as they're mostly idle (busy lives again).

Full disclosure - we don't have full admin powers on the game yet, so we're limited in what we can do. We've both played there for years, dropping away for a while. We weren't part of the in-groups, so we aren't aware of all of the issues there (like the issues with Fanty... we'd still like to know what the complaint is there), and we hope people won't hold that against us. We're just people who want to keep having fun playing in the Firefly 'Verse. We want to do what we can in the current landscape, to get things up and running again. Anyone who wants to join us - to play, or work through issues - we invite to come onto the game. Revive a character, start a character, connect with us. We can try to come up with solutions to thinks like how to pay people who aren't on a ship crew. We'll do what we can to help out.

No reset has been done on the game in recent years, and doing so would require a conversation with the other game admins. Some of the long-standing, overpowered players are gone, and some still exist but don't really play any more. This is really a good time to start something fresh on the game. None of the long-running plots are active. So come join us!

-- Zoe