I owe a lot of people some apologies.

[mietze]

@juke if there are enforced boundaries of good behavior, people may not ever see the tendencies, unless they have previous experience with that person. That's a good thing, if someone decides that being an asshole is not worth the consequences of getting removed from play.

I would much rather play on a place that very stringently enforced positive behavior standards than on a place that had no such boundaries but banned a shitload or people who were problematic elsewhere.

[Paris]

@juke said in I owe a lot of people some apologies.:

@mietze said in I owe a lot of people some apologies.:

With boundaries people who have tendencies towards behaving badly can actually be enjoyable to RP with. [...] The problem is that few people want to set up or enforce those boundaries because it's a lot of unpleasant work with an uncertain payoff.

I wanna make it clear I'm just responding to this post and not as a broad commentary on the whole thread, but:

I know this happens, but I think it's the craziest shit ever. There are a lot of people out there who are fun to play with who aren't also crazy assholes who would abuse people if they were given the inch to do so.

get rid of them

Seriously, it's not like there's a dearth of good roleplayers who don't leave a trail of carnage behind them.

[juke]

@mietze said in I owe a lot of people some apologies.:

I would much rather play on a place that very stringently enforced positive behavior standards than on a place that had no such boundaries but banned a shitload or people who were problematic elsewhere.

I mean, yeah, of course, a game where people enforce standards of behavior well is a good thing.

But this is a weird post. Anywhere that enforces stringent standards of behavior is likely to ban people who have been assholes elsewhere because they have certain standards of behavior and those people are known to fail at upholding them. Pretending prior behavior isn't relevant is weird.

And if nobody knows about the prior behavior, and the person behaves, then...the point is moot, anyway.

Anywho I didn't mean to derail, just. I think people are weirdly determined to allow people privileges under x, y, or z justification when really the question should probably always be, 'what is even gained by doing that?' If the answer is just 'stuff you could get from other people, with less involved baggage' then...I just don't see the point.

ETA: To use a hamfisted analogy, as far as building and running a mush goes, to me it's like: you're trying to build a machine. The parts are sort of delicate and it's important they all work well together, because when one part breaks it tends to not just break itself but also some of the other parts in occasionally unrecoverable ways. So you're building this thing, and there's this part that's known, proven, to have broken in the past in other machines. You know this, but you choose to add it because this one isn't broken yet, and you've built the rest of the machine solidly enough that there's a chance it won't break. But, if it does, it could definitely break other parts of this machine that you've been so carefully constructing, and if that happens, there's a good chance other parts will break and fall out, too.

Just...why, you know? And yet, it happens allllll the time.

[Caryatid]

@tyche

[Thenomain]

@paris said in I owe a lot of people some apologies.:

@thenomain The general action taken in these circumstances is usually no action at all, since most folks tend to like to pat themselves on the back about how 'fair' they are, instead of ejecting toxic people from their games and forums. Criticising the mob for actually calling for someone's ouster seems disingenuous to me.

I was responding to the truth of "do something" usually means "do the thing that I want". I found its lack of existence, as you say, disingenuous and needing clarified.

Or to further clarify: I'm not criticizing the mob, I'm criticizing you.

We, as MUSHers, tend to be an empathetic lot, and thus often shy away from cracking down on serial abusers.

Hello, my name is Thenomain. You might know me from such posts as "VA Spider is toxic forever and ever" and "it's always okay to punch a Nazi".

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to grab some popcorn to watch Tyche troll.

[Paris]

@juke said in I owe a lot of people some apologies.:

@mietze said in I owe a lot of people some apologies.:

I would much rather play on a place that very stringently enforced positive behavior standards than on a place that had no such boundaries but banned a shitload or people who were problematic elsewhere.

I mean, yeah, of course, a game where people enforce standards of behavior well is a good thing.

But this is a weird post. Anywhere that enforces stringent standards of behavior is likely to ban people who have been assholes elsewhere because they have certain standards of behavior and those people are known to fail at upholding them. Pretending prior behavior isn't relevant is weird.

And if nobody knows about the prior behavior, and the person behaves, then...the point is moot, anyway.

In the present case, it was current behavior elsewhere that currently impacted and was about and toward people in-game. I think that if there was questionable behavior in the past but if, in the present, the person is behaving, then it might be worth holding off for the moment. Every case has its own quirks.

[Paris]

@thenomain shrugs
Re: VASpider, I see a lot of similarities in this case.

Edit: one word sufficed when I used ten.

[surreality]

Y'all, I have Tyche on block, so I'm not seeing anything he posts. I trust Ark and Gany to handle whatever arises if he is trolling here.

I think it probably goes without saying that if I felt any obligation to apologize to him for anything on these grounds, he wouldn't be still blocked.

(Hey, at least I did something right this thread. )

[bored]

@botulism said in I owe a lot of people some apologies.:

@arkandel I felt the same way recently, that in order to ask someone to leave I had to catch them breaking an actual rule.

Then I realized it's perfectly valid to do it because someone is a shitty person who bullies and hurts others, even if they don't do it right in front of me on my game. This hobby is toxic for a reason - we tolerate toxic behavior from toxic people out of a misguided sense of fairness. No one has a right to play on a game.

Yeah, this.

If @arkandel doesn't want to fire his buddy in this particular instance, whatever. But the idea that there's ever going to be some kind of 'clear' violation in situations like this (in the general sense) is asinine. The obvious and egregious problem cases in our community are, comparatively, very easy to solve. They do shit and get banned. Then they come on here to whine and scream about getting banned, and get banned again. But behavior like this? It goes on and on. And on. For years.

The VASpider comparison is useful, even if not precise in magnitude (maybe). She doesn't tend to break obvious, actionable rules either. So... what level of 'toxic, manipulative, serial problem player' does someone have to be before we actually acknowledge it and "yeah but they're my friend and I'm sure they're cool and were just acting out of stress" stops being the assumed, default excuse? And, in terms of administration, what the fuck actually counts as 'misconduct'? Do things on games even count, or does someone basically have to rageban a poster to get the axe?

[Tinuviel]

@bored said in I owe a lot of people some apologies.:

And, in terms of administration, what the fuck actually counts as 'misconduct'?

Using their official powers in a way contrary to established codes of conduct and rules. That's the baseline I work with, though naturally no situation is guaranteed to fit. I'd also extend it to include any behaviour, official or not, that has resulted in warnings or bannings for people before.

Being a dick in the hog pit is one thing; a not insignificant portion of this community does so, thus I don't expect administrators to be above such things. Being a dick elsewhere and spreading such alleged rumours and so forth would probably get an ordinary user warned, at the very least.

[surreality]

@bored FWIW, while I don't agree with some actions Ark has taken in this case, I think it's fair to say he's not taking the action he's taking to protect a buddy. He has very strong feelings on fairness to the accused, which is in itself a laudable thing -- I think the assessment here is right, though, on the whole, otherwise.

I have not asked him to ban her or remove her bit, which he's mentioned himself.

I cannot say I am comfortable with her having access to player IPs on the forum, knowing how often and widely she is staff and thus has access to IPs on games as well. I am really trying to not comment on this aspect of the discussion, but this in particular has me notably uneasy.

I'm pretty sure that if a poll went up asking how comfortable other posters are with that notion, this would not be a tiny minority opinion. (Not suggesting that be done, either, but my inner Miss Cleo has a hunch here. Or I could be completely full of shit delusional on this front. Either is entirely possible.)

[GangOfDolls]

I dunno I guess generally speaking, an admin level position on a game would imply a level of trust being placed in their ability to keep something going and functional. When they stop doing so, they're asked to leave. Breaking written rules is important but so is being able to conduct yourself with a certain amount of integrity.

It seems like a lot of viciously spread rumors isn't really checking boxes where integrity is concerned? That seems to be what's alleged here?

This board half exists in order to internally communicate about badly behaving members of staff and games that create conditions for badly behaving members of staff to bless or excuse their behavior. I guess I'm seeing the contradiction of a staff member not being excused from their position here for the behaviors we sort of commonly find problematic or offensive on games...

I feel like there's a blind spot here.

[Tinuviel]

@gangofdolls said in I owe a lot of people some apologies.:

It seems like a lot of viciously spread rumors isn't really checking boxes where integrity is concerned?

It's also a matter of proving it, and determining the best course of action in the face of unproven allegations. Overreacting to simple accusations and allegations can be as dangerous as not reacting at all.

[GangOfDolls]

I agree but there seems to be a number of people who are confirming that some amount of behavior happened here? I'm not really sure what the benchmark needs to be if several people who have been targets of these rumors provide credible confirmations that they were targets of this behavior.

[Tinuviel]

@gangofdolls The problem may well come from not believing in the credibility of some 'testimony.' Especially from people who have, in the past, displayed any sort of similar behaviour or indeed prior animosity towards the accused.

I'm not saying this is what's happening, as I'm not privy to Arkandel's brain, but it is what I'd be thinking in his place.

[Rucket]

@gangofdolls said in I owe a lot of people some apologies.:

I agree but there seems to be a number of people who are confirming that some amount of behavior happened here? I'm not really sure what the benchmark needs to be if several people who have been targets of these rumors provide credible confirmations that they were targets of this behavior.

I don't even know. At this point I feel like we should air everything out. Throw all the logs of all the conversations out there so we can see what the truth is and what's not. Otherwise all we're going on is people "saying" things. Like, I'm glad @Arkandel is trying to handle this in a way that's diligent, but now we have accusations being made that people have access to IPs. Well yeah. Forum admins do, and I assume all the admins here check peoples IPs when they start shit posting to make sure it's not one of the troublemakers who have to be repeatedly banned, or people who have done some vile stuff in the past.

[Tinuviel]

@rucket While I'm a fan of not-me drama... is airing things out to the court of public opinion a wise decision? When we are the complainants, are we fit to be the jury and judge as well?

[surreality]

@rucket If you want to call me a liar for not being willing to publicly post screenshots of the private, real life business that was shared with me, I invite you to call me a liar until my dying day, because there is not a snowball's chance in hell I'm going to violate the privacy of third parties as regards details of their real lives in order to satisfy you or any other member of the peanut gallery.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

Forewarned is forearmed, as they say.

I don't have a dog in this fight, but none of this surprises me. It certainly explains a lot of seemingly out-of-nowhere hostility, which I'm glad is resolved. I've always seen the perp in question as seeking a lot of validation from this hobby, which is never a good sign, and that's certainly coming to a middle. Maybe we'll all be more critical now, where we should have always been critical.

[Tinuviel]

@three-eyed-crow Hindsight is twenty-twenty, as they also say.

I doubt anything will seriously change over this except regarding the specific individuals involved.