@Arx: Anonymous Messengers (Answered)

[Sunny]

Just because it's IC doesn't mean it's fun OOC. For anyone.

OOC fun on Arx actually matters.

[Thenomain]

@roz said in @Arx: Anonymous Messengers (Answered):

multiple posters have already talked about why it wasn't really a situation where staff could start taking people aside

That doesn't mean staff could do nothing more than remove the tool.

Which I said. And clarified. They reportedly chose not to do anything more. Their motives were made very clear, and my opinion changes none of that.

So let's please not get into the "you missed the point of x". It's a game not much better than "he-said/she-said". I saw the "point of x" and I am questioning it, disagreeing with one aspect of it.

You don't have to agree with my point, or even disagree with it for both our points to be valid.

[Sunny]

@thenomain said in @Arx: Anonymous Messengers (Answered):

You don't have to agree with my point, or even disagree with it for both our points to be valid.

EDITED:

I got snarkier than I should have because I'm frustrated. I really think that if you're going to weigh in on this with such a firm opinion, you should probably take some more time to make yourself more familiar with the situation. It's hard to have a conversation with you about this.

[Roz]

@thenomain said in @Arx: Anonymous Messengers (Answered):

@roz said in @Arx: Anonymous Messengers (Answered):

multiple posters have already talked about why it wasn't really a situation where staff could start taking people aside

That doesn't mean staff could do nothing more than remove the tool.

Which I said. And clarified. They reportedly chose not to do anything more. Their motives were made very clear, and my opinion changes none of that.

So let's please not get into the "you missed the point of x". It's a game not much better than "he-said/she-said". I saw the "point of x" and I am questioning it, disagreeing with one aspect of it.

You don't have to agree with my point, or even disagree with it for both our points to be valid.

No, I'm disagreeing with your framing of events because I think they're inaccurate. Specifically this:

@thenomain said in @Arx: Anonymous Messengers (Answered):

edit: Let me put it this way: If one-fifth of the game's active population all individually decided that Dawn needed condemned, then maybe it wasn't a dog-piling. Maybe it was a real, if visceral, opinion of the game's population.

Staff decided that it wasn't, that one-fifth of the game's population was hatin'. That's...a huge chunk of the game's population, on any size game, to decide are abusive. Without comment to them about their actions.

It's not important if it was a purposeful dog-pile or just a bunch of people having the same opinion: it's not a fun experience either way. Staff didn't actually say that they thought 1/5th of the game's population was being abusive. They've said that if people were being abusive, they would have talked to them. But it doesn't have to have been actively abusive for it to have caused issues. The system caused issues. And yeah, I think there were people among those condemn piles who were probably active assholes about the situation, but that's not actually the point that was being made. Yes, it could have been a real opinion of the game's population. That doesn't change the fact that it was really easy for people to just toss negativity without cost or risk and for other parties to have to bear the weight of tons of people doing that without thinking. The system was unfun. It can be accurate IC, the individuals in question can not be abusive haters, and it can still cause situations that are OOCly unpleasant.

[Sunny]

Also, just because 1/5th of the PCs felt a certain way does not mean that all the NPCs felt that way, either.

[Thenomain]

@sunny said in @Arx: Anonymous Messengers (Answered):

@thenomain said in @Arx: Anonymous Messengers (Answered):

You don't have to agree with my point, or even disagree with it for both our points to be valid.

Or for your point to be invalid, either.

Yes, but so far nobody had offered a counter, just "other people disagree". Okay? Five people saying the same thing does give it some weight, but not as much as, for instance, what @Roz has done and given more information about them.

What you're doing is what a dog-pile looks like.

--

@Roz

I do want to know that I have repeatedly said that 'if x then y' and been clear that the only evidence I have is what has been posted here. Your reading of events may be more informed than mine, and I do appreciate it, but I've been trying to keep a civil and open-minded language and did feel that you were attacking it simply because you disagreed. With that? That's more than what was said before, and I can form a more informed opinion on it.

I have no horse in this race. (I have one jockey, but he lost his horse some time ago.) My point has always been: Based on what's been said here, there's been a bit of hyperbole. I do think a little hyperbole is justified, but the way code works and how people react to it is absolutely Number One on what I look at in code systems.

Again, thanks for adding more deets.

--

@Sunny's Edited Post:

I got snarkier than I should have because I'm frustrated. I really think that if you're going to weigh in on this with such a firm opinion, you should probably take some more time to make yourself more familiar with the situation. It's hard to have a conversation with you about this.

I'm resistant to people telling me off when I'm open about when and where I'm adding guesswork. If you want to talk, I'm down. If you want to tell me where and when I'm wrong when I said it first? Get in the line behind me; I have more right to abuse myself than you do, and do, openly, repeatedly.

[Sunny]

@thenomain

I apologize. I don't know how to explain with words other than those that have already been used, so I'm bowing out of the conversation.

[Roz]

@thenomain said in @Arx: Anonymous Messengers (Answered):

@Roz

I do want to know that I have repeatedly said that 'if x then y' and been clear that the only evidence I have is what has been posted here. Your reading of events may be more informed than mine, and I do appreciate it, but I've been trying to keep a civil and open-minded language and did feel that you were attacking it simply because you disagreed.

Can you say where in my language I was attacking you or being uncivil?

We're retreading a misreading that others did just go through and get resolved, so it does feel a bit like you haven't actually read the thread as closely as you seem to think.

[Bananerz]

The thread was on a suggestion for anonymous messengers and has been answered in the OP's mind.

All of this should probably be on a new thread or on the main Arx Boogaloo thread.

[ThatGuyThere]

@brent said in @Arx: Anonymous Messengers (Answered):

I think another contributing factor was that condemns were on the X per week system, which leads to the mindset (similar to other systems) that if you don't use X condemns per week you're "wasting" them, so use it or lose it right?

Yeah I can see that being a huge contributing factor. After all in most game play scenarios maximizing use of abilities is a common thing, I have not played on Arx but given what i have heard second hand about the systems maybe if condemns were brought back there should be an AP cost to them make it a high enough cost that people would be hesitant to use it unless it was something deeply important to the character.

[Thenomain]

@roz

I could, but I don't think that it's worthwhile at this point. Really, this tangent is about three posts longer than any use, and has broken down to questioning one another, a personal discussion that we really don't need to bore anyone with. You know where I chat if you want to.

Pax.

--

@Sunny : +1, I also apologize for the strongly worded retort.

[Sparks]

@thenomain said in @Arx: Anonymous Messengers (Answered):

Pax.

Yes?

[Pandora]

WIthout condemns, when someone does something wildly unpopular, what is the method by which The People can make that known? Angry mobs have always had an air of anonymity about them, same with protests and marches - they tend to be identified by their cause/crusade, and not the individuals in the teeming mass. It's more in-line with human thinking, ie: 'I want to voice my displeasure but I don't want to be singled out for retribution' to offer up a condemn (verbal angry mob) than to publish a scathing editorial. So I'm just curious as to how this is managed, or if it's gotten to a point where if you don't have something nice to say, you just don't have a voice to say it with.

[Doozer]

Vaguepost about it in the Journal.

Or they call call for a duel

[Crysta]

Yeah I think Arx Twitter does enough shaming for silly things.

Condemn doesn't work for the same reason no one likes downvoting on forum threads.

[Doozer]

@crysta said in @Arx: Anonymous Messengers (Answered):

no one likes downvoting on forum threads.

I do.

[Ominous]

@Thenomain Condemns only affected prestige which had no mechanical bearing on anything other than an e-peen score. If there was honestly a conspiracy to condemn Dawn that was a complete waste of effort and resources for one of the most pointless causes. Might as well work towards assassination or something.

[Darinelle]

@ominous said in @Arx: Anonymous Messengers (Answered):

@Thenomain Condemns only affected prestige which had no mechanical bearing on anything other than an e-peen score. If there was honestly a conspiracy to condemn Dawn that was a complete waste of effort and resources for one of the most pointless causes. Might as well work towards assassination or something.

Wow, are YOU underestimating the love some people have for (then) meaningless ranking systems.

@Pandora If enough people feel an angry mob is in order, they could in fact put in an @action to say "I want to be part of the angry mob forming." Also, if a leader DOES do something that the NPCs en masse would hate, then we open a crisis and everyone gets a chance to respond. See also the entire Kennex thralldom crisis, where many people were thrown into disarray by a single proclamation, and millions of silver and lots and LOTS of actions were taken by many people across the board, some of which conflicted, in order to figure out what happened.

There are plenty of ways to turn "I disagree with you" or "I think you made a boneheaded decision" into actual plot that people can respond to - whether the actor is anonymous or not.

In other news, just this week I resolved an @action that involved anonymous messengers (GMs can do this) and shenanigans. It can be done, and we're willing to do it - just not willy nilly based on past experiences.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@crysta said in @Arx: Anonymous Messengers (Answered):

Yeah I think Arx Twitter does enough shaming for silly things.

Condemn doesn't work for the same reason no one likes downvoting on forum threads.

It definitely doesn't work and I don't want it back.

What I dislike currently, though, is that serious thematic issues don't receive a blink a lot of the time (murder a dude with an heirloom weapon? Go about your life, nobody really cares) while people freak the fuck out over ultra-minor shit. It makes a lot of thematic things in an honor-bound society feel like they don't have any actual weight, while being paranoid about saying something 'wrong' in journals.

IDK, I honestly wouldn't mind seeing more stuff that impacted IC reputation (like, I REALLY appreciated the Vox posts on divorce and rep adjustments, because that's a huge thing IC, while also appreciating that it didn't call out any names) but I'd like there to be an OOC gate on it, which is probably too much work for staff, so whatevs I guess.

[Apos]

@three-eyed-crow said in @Arx: Anonymous Messengers (Answered):

@crysta said in @Arx: Anonymous Messengers (Answered):

Yeah I think Arx Twitter does enough shaming for silly things.

Condemn doesn't work for the same reason no one likes downvoting on forum threads.

It definitely doesn't work and I don't want it back.

What I dislike currently, though, is that serious thematic issues don't receive a blink a lot of the time (murder a dude with an heirloom weapon? Go about your life, nobody really cares) while people freak the fuck out over ultra-minor shit. It makes a lot of thematic things in an honor-bound society feel like they don't have any actual weight, while being paranoid about saying something 'wrong' in journals.

IDK, I honestly wouldn't mind seeing more stuff that impacted IC reputation but I'd like there to be an OOC gate on it, which is probably too much work for staff, so whatevs I guess.

Funny you should mention that.

So a long time ago I decided on a replacement, and how I thought I could implement a system that reduces toxicity while underscoring thematic disapproval of things, and I'll talk about the ones geared towards player control (with staff oversight), that I think will probably do it.

I'll ultimately implement Issues of the Day and Vox Populi that's far more player influenced, but how it works will be important. PCs will show their approval or disapproval based on a specific organization, like say that a Thrax Prince challenges a commoner to a duel, wants to fight as his own champion, over the commoner criticizing the Thrax Prince for being a crafter and selling his own wares in a shop. So the prince is breaking three different thematic taboos.

A vox update on the prince starts, and people link it to specific org principles (respect), in whether the person is taking actions that are contrary or supporting those principles, and that would (if successful) cause a gain or loss in respect to that org. Similarly, if they are causing harm or helping an org, that could cause a gain or loss in org affection. As I'm defining org reputation as actions that reflect on a core principle for an organization is the 'respect' score, while actions that help/harm the org members on a personal level is the 'affection' score.

These would run for an extremely long time (a month, probably), and it would not need to be about a single issue at all. So if during the time he admits to illegitimate children, fights in the street, scoffs publicly at the crown, steals a goat, that can just be added to the running count with different orgs who very deeply and passionately care about the growing scourge of goat theft.

So I'd manually define different principles of every single org in the game (Blackram will have to get goat theft as one of their principles now, I hope everyone realizes), and people would select from the list when they register approval or disapproval, and I'd just look over every vox at the end and delete any that aren't applicable before I do rolls.

ETA: By design, many core principles of orgs would be contradictory and create a web where gain in one would usually automatically cause a loss in another.