Earning stuff

Thenomain

@Thenomain I think you're making a lot of assumptions here.

And I don't think that I am.

Beyond that, I think you're forgetting the 'some people are new' problem.

Am I?

Hm, okay.

surreality

@Thenomain Bluntly, you're entitled to whatever opinion you like about how I'm overbearing by adhering to the belief that this hobby has too many unspoken conventions that should instead be made available to newcomers as clearly as possible as a resource. Ascribe any negative traits you like to that perspective; you're not going to change it.

I have seen too many people get nailed to the wall for not knowing things they had no way of knowing, and that are not at all intuitive, or may be the precise opposite of another type of text-based game community (IRC, MUD, RPI, etc.). These standards and cultural norms can be radically different amongst games in the same community and codebase.

Some of these people don't come back after this, and I don't blame them.

Some people will think they can do whatever they like unless something says they cannot. The reverse is also true and is what is relevant here: some people will think they cannot do something until someone says they are welcome to do so, and should feel comfortable doing so.

This is not creating a checklist of 'you may only speak to staff about X, Y, and Z, but never A, B, or Q' spoken down the nose with the use of the royal 'we' and the according imperious tone. This is assuring people that, yes, you can talk to us about these things, and if you have any sort of issue, please do.

The games I started out on? You didn't bring interpersonal problems -- harassment, stalking, creeping, etc. -- to staff. The only things staff would listen to and/or do anything about involved broken code, cheating via code, or questions about game mechanics/"what command do I use to... " If you had a personal issue with another player, your options were to handle it yourself or walk, because if you brought it to staff, you were the problem and you were wasting staff's time because 'that isn't what we're here for'.

Someone coming from that sort of environment -- read: someone new to the more common practices in this one -- is not necessarily going to know that if they're being harassed, or stalked, or having verbal abuse hurled at them by another player, they can approach staff for help, because the environment from which they've come did not offer that kind of support whatsoever.

faraday

@surreality I don't think anybody's saying that it's bad to make a brief mention that players should feel free to contact staff if somebody's being a creeper. Your initial post with five bullet points about what people need to know about contacting staff sounded a LOT more involved than that, which is what I think @Thenomain was responding to. You've openly stated your preference for verbosity in policy files on several threads before, so I don't think anyone's horribly off base or meaning offense in thinking that's what you meant here. At any rate, I think we're veering a bit far off of the original thread into policy discussion.

surreality

@faraday I agree that we are far afield of the point.

I am keen on bullet points with additional access to an explanation if someone wants one or doesn't understand what's being talked about or why it's a problem, but that's neither here nor there anyway, because it's not the direct example I provided that would suffice to prevent 'unspoken rules' from becoming an issue.

I was also posting fast before having to jump out the door with a quick list of examples because I had about thirty seconds to type. And, for that, I got insulted and told someone knows me better than I know myself, and that doing so somehow doesn't involve any assumptions whatsoever on their part.

Thenomain

@surreality said in Earning stuff:

@Thenomain Bluntly, you're entitled to whatever opinion you like

I don't need anybody's permission to have an opinion, but thank you for the acknowledgement.

I have seen too many people get nailed to the wall for not knowing things they had no way of knowing

And I have seen too many people get nailed to the wall for not following the letter of the law, with no help from players, with no help from staff to know what the spirit of the law entails. That is, getting into great detail does not mean that anything you're talking about is going to be avoided.

I don't know why I'm getting this negative focus from you, but I would appreciate you backing off a bit please. Thanks.

Apos

I think we might be veering away from something constructive, and I think we can talk about the positions in ways that don't come across as attacks. Let me see if I can restate a couple things so I understand them, and I apologize if I don't get them quiet right.

So we want to have extremely detailed documentation and rules so that don't let new players that aren't aware of the many unspoken rules of the hobby aren't misled, and don't fall into offputting new player traps that make them have a bad first experience with the hobby and alienate them.

And we also want to avoid having extremely excessive rules that make staff members feel restricted and unable to make common sense calls, and get overburdened with detail that could limit their ability to make sound decisions. The latter is more in the spirit of this thread, since if we're going to reward people, that kind of transparency can reduce headaches in people feeling treated fairly.

And the trick is reconciling those two, does that sound right?

faraday

@apos said in Earning stuff:

And the trick is reconciling those two, does that sound right?

I think some people are going to perceive themselves as being treated unfairly no matter how detailed your rules are. So for me it's more of a philosophical difference than a matter of goals to be reconciled IMHO. I don't mean this with any disrespect toward @surreality's approach. We just see the problem differently.

If your system does have clear-cut steps to earning something (1 XP per week, here's what it costs to raise things), then by all means spell it out. But if it all boils down to staff judgment calls, I think that trying to spell out how you make those judgment calls is just inviting people to become nitpicky rules-lawyers when a call doesn't go their way.

surreality

@thenomain said in Earning stuff:

@surreality said in Earning stuff:

@Thenomain Bluntly, you're entitled to whatever opinion you like

I don't need anybody's permission to have an opinion, but thank you for the acknowledgement.

I have seen too many people get nailed to the wall for not knowing things they had no way of knowing

And I have seen too many people get nailed to the wall for not following the letter of the law, with no help from players, with no help from staff to know what the spirit of the law entails. That is, getting into great detail does not mean that anything you're talking about is going to be avoided.

Here's what you may be missing, in that case. That's the entire point of providing examples and explanations for people who don't know or are unsure why something can be problematic.

We are not talking about something that would be written like the tax code. I don't, and never have, written like that.

The format I was leaning toward had a fairly simple list of one or two sentence policies, in general categories, each with a (?) sort of symbol to offer expanded explanations and examples if someone needed or wanted them. As in, people new to the community, or new to the style of game, who do not know the unspoken community 'rules' and norms and are frequently ostracized for not being aware of them.

This includes informing people of what rights they have as well as what is not permitted, and why in both cases.

I understand that plenty of people think 'don't be a dick' or 'behave like an adult' are enough to cover all of that ground, but I simply do not agree, as definitions of unacceptable behavior and adult behavior vary widely enough that I believe these guidelines are nigh useless.

I also think they have been tried and they haven't worked. In many cases, the reason they haven't worked is because the person doing the unacceptable thing didn't think that constituted 'being a dick', or the person not asking for assistance they should be able to have from staff thought that 'being an adult' meant handling all of their interpersonal conflicts entirely on their own, no matter how unreasonable the circumstance.

The vast majority of players who screw up are not intending to be assholes, and when they do something crappy, it's because they didn't realize: "That's a pretty crappy thing to do, and here's why." I think it's worth spending the words in advance to prevent as many instances of this sort of completely needless conflict among wholly well-intentioned players as possible. That means using words. As it stands, there's no psychic network someone can tune into to download these things into their brain like this is The Matrix; we have to use clunky, old-fashioned words to get these ideas across.

Assholes will still be assholes. Assholes who give none fucks about being assholes can be shown the door. It's the people who have no intention of being assholes, and the people who are not sure what they can do when someone is being an asshole to them, that are worth the effort. And I think they are, because they're there to have fun, and it is not at all fun when someone's an asshole to you, but it is also not fun to realize that you have -- without ever intending to -- been a total asshole to someone else. Most people feel pretty bad when they realize they've done that, actually, and those people are worth the time and effort, and their feelings matter, too.

I don't know why I'm getting this negative focus from you, but I would appreciate you backing off a bit please. Thanks.

Well, dude. You called me overbearing, and suggested I'd be assaulting you as a 'problem player' purely based on the amount of words I tend to use with no regard whatsoever to what those words are. With that opener, I can't really say this exchange began on something that wasn't a personal attack and an assumption of persecution from the jump.

That was enough to get me to stop considering dev as viable, not just for the time being, but probably for good, and odds are good I won't likely be around much going forward. It was a last straw. That's why you're getting negativity in return, and you're an intelligent enough person to comprehend that.

faraday

@surreality said in Earning stuff:

I understand that plenty of people think 'don't be a dick' or 'behave like an adult' are enough to cover all of that ground, but I simply do not agree, as definitions of unacceptable behavior and adult behavior vary widely enough that I believe these guidelines are nigh useless.

I respect your opinion and your right to be as detailed as you feel necessary on your games, but I disagree strongly that such guidelines are "nigh useless".

The "don't be a jerk" statement isn't trying to educate someone about what proper behavior looks like, it's setting expectations. It's just stating that if I think you're a jerk, you will be disciplined. It doesn't really matter whether you think you were a jerk, or whether Sally thought you were a jerk. What matters is whether I think you were a jerk.

"But that's not fair! How can we be expected to read your mind and know what you may or may not consider jerkish behavior?" someone might ask. But seriously, I think in 90% of the cases, people know. Acting like a decent human being isn't rocket science.

But because there is some gray area, it's important to enforce the policy as a decent human being yourself. You don't rake them over the coals over a first offense (unless it was particularly insane), you just set boundaries: "That wasn't acceptable, please don't do it again."

This the same way that house parties, restaurants and places of employment work. Nobody needs to tell you not to wreck the furniture or shout racial slurs at the other guests. On the flip side, you don't expect someone to jump down your throat for failing to realize that people take their shoes off at the door here. Common sense and courtesy go a long way on both sides.

So tying back to the topic at hand, I have zero problems with staff policies on "earning stuff" being vague if it boils down to a judgment call. The BSGU policy on earning IC medals was: "Staff decides all awards." The end. And sure, there were occasionally some grumblings like "How come Jane got a medal and I didn't?" but I don't think that would have been avoided even if I'd written a book on the awards guidelines. (Heck, it happens in RL and the army does have a book on the award guidelines.)

ThatGuyThere

@faraday said in Earning stuff:

The "don't be a jerk" statement isn't trying to educate someone about what proper behavior looks like

My issue with policies like this is not that those who are actually behaving badly don't know where the like are but that instead they get used as a cudgel to hammer at anyone who expresses anything less that glowing praise at all times.
Best example i can think of is from the Reach which had a policy of "Be Excellent to Each Other." Nothing wrong with that on the face but it was definitely used (by players more so than staff) as a club to silence any who said something negative be cause "That is not being excellent to each other." So if you are going to have a policy of don't be a jerk you should also police those who want to say everything is jerkiness as much as those who are legit deserving of the label.

faraday

@thatguythere I've really never seen that problem - even across lots of games with 'don't be a jerk' at their core. I'm not even sure how a non-staff player could use a policy as a cudgel, since they have no actual authority. All I can envision there is kids playing: "You're cheating!" "No I'm not!" "I'm getting mom!"

But sure, hypothetically, if somebody's being obnoxious about it, then that's deserving of a talking-to.

Thenomain

My problem with how this conversation has evolved is that it’s now an either/or consideration, when it is not either simplistic or complex. I think the the best rules are neither simplistic nor complex.

In my book ideally there is enough information to get the point across, and builds on that if necessary. But staff must understand and live these rules else now you have written rules with no meaning.

I cannot express how many times I have seen a game with some kind of “don’t be a jerk”rule, then a staffer is a complete jerk and nothing happens to them. Players see this, and they form their own set of rules for the game. Sometimes they talk about them on game and sometimes staff shut them down because they either don’t know or want the double standard to prefer them.

In the sense of players earning things, yeah, I think more information is better than less, as well as it’s organized.

surreality

@thenomain said in Earning stuff:

I cannot express how many times I have seen a game with some kind of “don’t be a jerk”rule, then a staffer is a complete jerk and nothing happens to them. Players see this, and they form their own set of rules for the game. Sometimes they talk about them on game and sometimes staff shut them down because they either don’t know or want the double standard to prefer them.

This right here, definitely. It's why I think something should be there, visible -- it doesn't have to be done any specific way, but I think it should be done -- about the 'unspoken staff rules'.

I don't think it's either/or, either. For folks familiar with the culture, 'Don't powerpose for others' will cover it, for example. They just need to see that one sentence and they know what's what, and they're likely used to that cultural norm from other existing games already, so it's a quick reminder and they move along without fuss. It's the person who has never played before that has reason to click the link for 'this is what that means, and why it isn't cool to do that', which helps them avoid that -- they might not even know what 'powerposing' is.

It's like the locks problem. Some games with lots of code, you can freely enter any place your character can enter according to the code. Others, this is a big no-no. They're both text games, but the expectations are complete opposites. Letting people know which kind of game it is and what the expectations are helps avoid that pitfall.

It's also worth noting that I don't see most policy as an exercise in 'dare not, lest you be smote from orbit'. It's about describing the culture you want to see exist on the game, and letting people know 'and as you interact with people and code and RPG systems and storylines on this game, this is how to handle it'.

@faraday I have seen this happen in the way @ThatGuyThere describes for over twenty years now. It's practically an epidemic on some games. Some of this comes from the genuine assholes who are trying to screw someone over hard in a way they can pretend is totally fine and dandy. (Again, the solution on people like this is easy and this type reveals themselves more quickly than I think they realize they do.) I've heard 'You're an adult, deal with the creeper yourself,' from staff -- multiple times -- even when it was a case of someone constantly pressing for RL information about me and sending very unwelcome pages/mail, and just showing up in the room literally every time I was on grid to just stand there and watch everything I was doing as an intimidation tactic, not just doing something creepy IC. I've heard 'deal with it yourself like an adult' when someone who knew me from another game years and years ago blurted out my real full name and asked if I still lived in <location> in the middle of a crowded OOC room (information they'd stalked off an old domain name registration decades ago before there were many options for privacy available). And from staff? "You're a grown up, deal with it yourself." In the latter case, I got lucky enough that a few other players in the room immediately bombarded the guy with 'NOT COOL, DUDE!' and he eventually stopped, but only after handing out the ancient and no longer valid email address from that old domain and getting ready to move on to my landline phone number.

It does happen. It is really not great when it happens.

Arkandel

Whether you have explicit rules or "don't be a jerk" policies it always has been and will continue to be up to staff to enforce them.

Nothing stops staff from intervening even if there's no explicit rule in place and someone's being a jerk. It's a universal principle; the people running the place are the ones the buck stops with. In MSB if someone steps out of line in some terrible way we haven't figured out it's not like we'd go "oh, shit, there's no rule about it - I guess they get away with it this time!".

There's nothing wrong with writing down specific policies per game. In fact as @surreality pointed out in some MU* that's necessary - the 'just walking around into private rooms' example was a good one.

But two thirds of the responsibility is on staff. The other third is on players who watch others get screwed over and tolerate it because it didn't happen to them.

Thenomain

@arkandel said in Earning stuff:

The other third is on players who watch others get screwed over and tolerate it because it didn't happen to them.

As long as staff is open, available, and willing, this will be minimized.

But so many people complain to staff that it's a challenge to determine which complaints need the most attention. And if staff doesn't give someone the attention that they think they deserve, they can be portrayed as shitty staff.

There is no right answer, only the best, most honest (and hopefully considerate) answer.

surreality

@thenomain This is actually part of why I'm keen on that approach, actually. There's some things -- using the lock example again -- that could be generating more staff work and complaints if someone, for instance, complains that someone told them to get the heck out of their bedroom and they'd assumed they could just wander in there because there's no coded lock, too.

@Arkandel You pretty much nailed one of the other things that I actually write down, because people will absolutely insist that because there wasn't a rule about their uniquely concocted asshattery, they can't be punished. (Generally, they will already have a reason this is not asshattery, whether they're playing innocent or are actually genuinely clueless, and that it's the other person who is not 'being an adult' because they're objecting to the behavior.) That's the 'if new policy has to go into place because of something you did, it was either horrible enough we never thought anyone would think it's OK to be that big an asshole without penalty, or it was a genuine blind spot no one realized would cause a problem before now'. The latter is massively rare, and it's usually easy to spot the difference.

Back on TR, the Firan flood brought in some folks totally unaccustomed to the different culture on the game. There was a player that, gods help me, she was the bane of my existence because she was genuinely clueless, and not deliberately obtuse, but she had no understanding of the cultural norms of the game and was very aggressive if they were pointed out to her by fellow players. This understandably caused immediate conflict and escalation that never needed to happen.

For instance, she believed that it was entirely kosher to wander into any of the occupied temp rooms without invitation, or a word at all OOC, and just plunk down and observe total strangers RPing as passive entertainment for herself. This actually is a thing in some places, and again. Some of it has to do with coded locks, but part of it has to do with the culture of passive observation being allowed. This sounds completely bonkers to a lot of people not familiar with it until you consider how many of us have run into an RP buddy 'just parking in the group hangout to watch the IC goings on of their RP circle and maybe chat a little OOC with buddies' while at work, or 'I'll pop in and if I'm able to pose in I will but I may just hang out and maybe chat today if things are busy', which, to the outside observer or new player, looks like 'sure, obviously, hanging out and just watching people play is allowed, that guy's doing it!' (without realizing there's any understanding amongst those players, or plans to pose in later, or that they had to leave unexpectedly, etc.).

Most of us would have little issue with a buddy popping into a room and saying, "Hey, can I hang out here while y'all RP and chat a little OOC about the group's plans today while I'm at work?" (And they get a yes or no and life goes on.)

I suspect plenty of people would take issue with a total stranger OOCly meandering into their bedroom and plunking their ass down with a bucket of popcorn, without a word, waiting to be entertained.

Culture and expectations are super relevant in these cases. Now, that this player would go on the attack if her behavior was questioned or she was asked to leave/etc.? Not OK. She still had, gods help us all, reason to be confused, and from her perspective, other people were the ones being assholes to her by telling her to get the heck out of the room. (She was not the brightest bulb, but she was not being deliberately obtuse, either. I think at least a few hundred sparkly white hairs from that year are owed to her alone.)

faraday

@arkandel said in Earning stuff:

Whether you have explicit rules or "don't be a jerk" policies it always has been and will continue to be up to staff to enforce them.

This, in a nutshell. All the policies in the world won't save a game from bad staffing. If the person enforcing "don't be a jerk" is a jerk, you're doomed from the get-go. But you'd be equally doomed if they had an entire library of policies to enforce because, well ... jerk.

@surreality said in Earning stuff:

It's practically an epidemic on some games.

And yet it doesn't exist at all on many other games with the exact same policy. I argue that the policy is not the cause of the problem.

Getting doxxed or stalked is horrible, but anybody who needs "don't do that" spelled out for them in policies is either willfully obtuse or beyond help.

On the flip side - sure there are some folks who will wander into unlocked rooms or private scenes because they don't know better. But if someone complains, you don't need to come down on them like a ton of bricks. You just make a gentle correction to clarify game expectations. Having a policy might stave off that step IF they bother to read it, but it's not automatically a huge deal if it happens.

If these things result in issues, I see that as staffer problems, not policy problems.

surreality

@faraday said in Earning stuff:

@surreality said in Earning stuff:

It's practically an epidemic on some games.

And yet it doesn't exist at all on many other games with the exact same policy. I argue that the policy is not the cause of the problem.

Most of the games where it happens are large games with a fairly diverse player base. It's not 'staff are just shitty there'.

Getting doxxed or stalked is horrible, but anybody who needs "don't do that" spelled out for them in policies is either willfully obtuse or beyond help.

And yet, how many people accidentally slip and use someone's real name when discussing a mutual friend? Reminders aren't bad.

On the flip side - sure there are some folks who will wander into unlocked rooms or private scenes because they don't know better. But if someone complains, you don't need to come down on them like a ton of bricks. You just make a gentle correction to clarify game expectations. Having a policy might stave off that step IF they bother to read it, but it's not automatically a huge deal if it happens.

If these things result in issues, I see that as staffer problems, not policy problems.

Nowhere is it suggested that anyone come down on them like a ton of bricks.

The game actually had a policy on this -- but it was named in such a way that someone unfamiliar with the terminology would never think it was relevant to that issue.

Policy should not be 'do not do this/you must do this or you will be horribly punished'. It should establish community standards and describe expectations. Barring a few 'zero tolerance' corner cases (stalking, harassment, knowingly cheating via code exploits), if you're presenting policy as 'thou shalt/thou shalt not or the hammer of the gods shall smite thee', you're already doing it completely wrong.

faraday

@surreality said in Earning stuff:

Most of the games where it happens are large games with a fairly diverse player base. It's not 'staff are just shitty there'.

I never said they were shitty. But if their policy is "don't be a jerk" and people are using that to club other players over the head and they're not doing anything about it to the point where it becomes a disruptive epidemic, then I call that a staffing mistake.

@surreality said in Earning stuff:

Reminders aren't bad.

I also never said they were bad. I said they weren't necessary to have a healthy game.

Though I would point out that there's a finite amount of attention most players are willing to spend reading stuff for a game. Finding the balance in what you choose to document and how deep you dive is a fundamental tension in all written communication.

Misadventure

@faraday

@thatguythere said in Earning stuff:

Best example i can think of is from the Reach which had a policy of "Be Excellent to Each Other." Nothing wrong with that on the face but it was definitely used (by players more so than staff) as a club to silence any who said something negative be cause "That is not being excellent to each other."

Definitely saw this at The Reach. However, the Reach was so big, and around more than long enough to give character players and staff players plenty of chances to show off their less than stellar behavior. it basically led to players not communicating on channels and finding other ways to complain, having already lost the chance to shape how play went.

A lot like MSB really. A lazy police state.