Real life versus online behaviors
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@auspice Sarcastic statement: The solution is obvious. We all start talking like hk-47.
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@arkandel said in Real life versus online behaviors:
On a MUSH or even MSB the pool is so much smaller, and possessing a recognizable identity is super important - your reputation matters, which is one of the reasons being an oldbie often conveys advantages either formally or otherwise.
I don’t think it matters as much as you think in some respects. I mean, how long did people play on Serenity? Or that crazy pants supers game that had a gazillion flamey posts here? Have hog pit posts really cost anyone RP?
MU players are shockingly tolerant to bad behavior. There’s also the illusion at least of being able to start fresh because we have no global screennames or other player identity. (And it may in part account for why so many MU players are resistant to such identity tracking.)
The reaction in most cases is just to be more insular, rather than actually confronting the bad behavior. So even when there are consequences, you don’t get the “you’re a jerk so I’m not going to play with you” feedback.
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@faraday said in Real life versus online behaviors:
Have hog pit posts really cost anyone RP?
Yes, they have.
Hello! Long time listener, first time caller...
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@lithium said in Real life versus online behaviors:
@faraday said in Real life versus online behaviors:
Have hog pit posts really cost anyone RP?
Yes, they have.
It was more a rhetorical question than a "has this ever happened in the history of MSB" question. Obviously the impact to RP is not big enough to keep people from posting there, or the place wouldn't still exist.
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@arkandel
Man, no matter how well bahaved, is little more than an ape well shaved. -
@faraday said in Real life versus online behaviors:
@surreality said in Real life versus online behaviors:
@mr-johnson That, IMHO, is just a matter of adhering to the rules of a space. Which I'd call a good sign, not a bad one, really.
We should all be trying to do that.I would disagree with that. Just because Facebook draws its line at "as long as it's not hate speech, you can be as cruel to each other as you want on this platform", does that make it okay to be cruel to strangers on the internet? IMHO no. Being a decent human being is a more-or-less consistent bar to clear no matter what rules a given online space may or may not have.
I don't disagree here at all -- but I also think that there are spaces where people will act differently in a manner that isn't negative based on the rules and expectations of that space.
If someone can be an ass sometimes, but has the self-awareness to not be an asshole in spaces where it isn't permitted, and respects that it isn't permitted in those spaces, that is a positive thing.
It doesn't mean they aren't still an ass sometimes as a person, but it does mean they're someone who is an ass sometimes who is able to show respect for the rules and tone of the place they're interacting, which is something I consider a good thing.
We've seen plenty examples of people who are an ass sometimes and don't care where they're doing it or whether this is considered acceptable or not, which I think is objectively worse.
I think of this as the 'don't rip a fart at in the middle of someone's wedding vows' rule in my head.
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I'll be honest: I don't care if people are the same on-line as off. I care how they act.
I do find that very few people act the same on-line as off because of how we interface with one another.
The medium is the message.
Everything else is conscious effort. This is why I will forgive anyone who shows a willingness to change, or an awareness of their actions. Slapping someone down who is trying to do good is a good way to get them to stop trying, and then you're a part of the problem.
Mind you, a lot of people will say it's not their problem. These people aren't wrong, but it doesn't absolve these people of participating in this person's change or lack thereof. No man is an island. Everything you do or don't do affects the world around you. It's part of the pain of being a sentient being, and something we have to live with of ourselves.
Those people I know who are the same on-line as off- are aware of the medium in a way that most people don't. They take that upon themselves in a way that most people don't bother considering.
It's a pessimistic outlook, but it's why I think talking from a position of understanding is the only way to fly. If everything is a matter of perspective, then starting from a different perspective means bringing people with you.
I just have a hard time maintaining it because so many people are assholes and I don't have the patience for them.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
- I'm very outspoken, to a fault - one I have no interest in changing, online.
- I'm shy (around strangers) offline.
- I give most everyone the benefit of the doubt upon first meeting online.
- I cannot help subconsciously assuming people are possibly racist before I get to know them offline, this is the direct cause of point 2, alas.
In my opinion, who you are online is pretty much who you'd be in real life if you didn't have to deal with real-life people on a day to day basis. If you piss off people on a game or website or forum, you can always find another. Piss off the people at the local farmer's market, and who knows how far the next-closest co-op might be. Hassle.
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“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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@ganymede said in Real life versus online behaviors:
@thenomain said in Real life versus online behaviors:
The medium is the message.
Shut up, Marshall.
Only when you can prove it's not true.
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@faraday said in Real life versus online behaviors:
@arkandel said in Real life versus online behaviors:
On a MUSH or even MSB the pool is so much smaller, and possessing a recognizable identity is super important - your reputation matters, which is one of the reasons being an oldbie often conveys advantages either formally or otherwise.
I don’t think it matters as much as you think in some respects. I mean, how long did people play on Serenity? Or that crazy pants supers game that had a gazillion flamey posts here? Have hog pit posts really cost anyone RP?
MU players are shockingly tolerant to bad behavior. There’s also the illusion at least of being able to start fresh because we have no global screennames or other player identity. (And it may in part account for why so many MU players are resistant to such identity tracking.)
The reaction in most cases is just to be more insular, rather than actually confronting the bad behavior. So even when there are consequences, you don’t get the “you’re a jerk so I’m not going to play with you” feedback.
Yeah I think most MU players are really tolerant of it happening around them and extremely intolerant of it happening directly to them or close friends. I don't personally think Spider or Custodius are particularly bad comparatively to a lot of people, but they are so omnipresent that they are unavoidable in ways most people just normally ignore from everyone else.
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@apos
Spider counts as a bad person even ignoring anything she has ever done on a game for the @surreality house episode alone, causing a ton of damage and never paying for it is one of those things that makes you a bad person. I can understand not being able to pay all at once but never a dime after years is really not acceptable behavior. -
@arkandel said in Real life versus online behaviors:
online just... isn't real
Your friend is largely correct. Also, people can be mean, very mean, IRL as well. The world can be cruel.
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I don't think there's any difference between people online and offline. I really don't. If you don't like me online, you probably wouldn't like me IRL, either.
Contrary to popular beliefs about how online you can be anyone, and you can't trust people on teh interwebs, what differs is not the inherent character, but presentation: people's true selves come out more readily online. I trust people online way more than I do offline; anonymity means there's nothing holding people back here if they want to be arseholes. You can be racist, sexist, homophobic — in my case, I'm an obnoxious vegan — and it isn't going to cost you your job or the respect of your new girlfriend, etc. You can stalk and harass people online with virtually no consequences, you can even send people death threats. IRL you have to be polite to save face.
While it may be true that online you can be anyone, I think that the person people most want to be, and tend to become online, is their truest self. They can lie about their gender, their physical appearance, their marital status, their history, but these things are surface-trappings. If IRL you're in the closet because you live in hicksville, OL you can be a flamboyant diva. If IRL you're a psychopath who has to keep their violent tendencies in check, OL you can cyberbully and play FPS games. People might seem different online and offline, but they're really not. You just might not have known them as well as you thought you did, when all you were seeing was their public restraint.
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@kestrel I don't know how much I agree with that. What we choose to do with how we feel--the public restraint we choose to exercise--is part of who we are. And it's not just a lack of consequences that influences our actions online; empathy is much harder to come by when you can't see or hear a person. And that's not an intentional issue--just think how many fights start on this forum because people misunderstood something written they'd never have misunderstood in a face-to-face environment.
It doesn't excuse consciously acting like a jerk, but I think it explains why people sometimes do. It's not that they don't care that people are upset; it's that they don't see it.
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@kestrel said in Real life versus online behaviors:
in my case, I'm an obnoxious vegan
Holy crap. @Auspice, @Ganymede why isn't this already against policy?
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@rinel said in Real life versus online behaviors:
@kestrel I don't know how much I agree with that. What we choose to do with how we feel--the public restraint we choose to exercise--is part of who we are.
Fair point.
And it's not just a lack of consequences that influences our actions online; empathy is much harder to come by when you can't see or hear a person. And that's not an intentional issue--just think how many fights start on this forum because people misunderstood something written they'd never have misunderstood in a face-to-face environment.
It doesn't excuse consciously acting like a jerk, but I think it explains why people sometimes do. It's not that they don't care that people are upset; it's that they don't see it.
I think that empathy can be measured in the radius of a sphere.
Everyone cares about themselves. Almost everyone also cares about their inner circle: family, friends, significant others.
A little further out people care about people like them: their gender, their race, their political party, their country. Much further out people might/sometimes care about the wellbeing of their entire species, e.g. people from other countries, other backgrounds, other beliefs, social outcasts such as prison inmates, and so on.
Even further out people might care about sentient beings who are very different from them, starting with the family dog and expanding outwards towards endangered species on the other side of the planet.
Caring or not caring about people on the internet, who are theoretically on the other side of the world, and whom you can't see, would rank a little higher on the empathy scale, but I don't think that's any less a measure of the person in question. It might just be that they never even think about what the person on the other side of the screen is going through, but again, that's a lack of empathy.
It's similar to how some people are deeply moved by the horrors they see on the news, and become inspired to action, while some people shrug and move on with their day — or will even continue actively contributing to these horrors somehow — but would perhaps feel differently if they were transported into the communities and came face to face with the victims, whom they don't otherwise think about harming with their day-to-day choices.
I don't necessarily think that the latter category are 'bad people', but they're definitely less empathetic compared to the former. It isn't a binary measure.
