MSB: The meta-discussion

[lordbelh]

@Ghost said in MSB: The meta-discussion:

...And then by 2000 A.D. people started drawing penises on everything.

Please! The ancients were doing it, too. I've seen 2000 year old grafitti!

Eta: Drawing dicks is timeless.

[Shlappy]

@Ghost True. I guess the point I'm trying to make, from my perspective at least, is that observed behavior gives me serious doubt as to whether or not I would actually want to be an active part of this community (or WORA, etc etc). So far, I would have to say 'no'. It could be because I value different things or that it's just a few very loud voices that make it impossibly to find any sort of comfort here. It could be that I'm shy.

Likely, it's a combination of 'all of the above'. Still - if there is a hate mob in the MUSH community, you will find it here. And that's...disconcerting.

[ThatGuyThere]

@Ghost said in MSB: The meta-discussion:

...And then by 2000 A.D. people started drawing penises on everything.

To echo Lord Belh you could likely change the A.D. to a BC there and be very accurate.
The excavation of Pompei has shown us a bunch of ancient graffiti most of it is porn and dirty jokes, and don't even get me started on Mesopotamian fertility idols, true they were designed to attempt to produce a result not for art but here you go.they certainly did not lack graphic depiction of the human body.

[Ganymede]

@Shlappy said in MSB: The meta-discussion:

Likely, it's a combination of 'all of the above'. Still - if there is a hate mob in the MUSH community, you will find it here. And that's...disconcerting.

You sure about that?

From what I'm hearing, the hate mobs are being encouraged to go to some other server or program or something.

[Catsmeow]

I'm not one of the 'cool kids' (OMG - stop posting so I can be a top poster it's all I want in life) and I'm not super close with anyone here. I have only RPed with a few of them in fact. I'm not saying this as woe to me. WOE. I'm saying it because I don't see a hate mentality or an us against them. In fact, when someone jumped on me here, people backed me up and not the top poster. It was because factually I was right and the other was reactive. It happens to the best of us.

I don't find a lot of hate mentality. I find if there is a hate train going on, there is probably a legitimate reason for it. On WORA - no reason needed.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@Ganymede said in MSB: The meta-discussion:

You sure about that?

From what I'm hearing, the hate mobs are being encouraged to go to some other server or program or something.

Yeah, that's the thing. If anything, it's far easier to create 'hate mobs' on specific games than it ever was before, in private chats/skype sessions/whatever. At least MSB is a court of public opinion to some degree (if not a fair or fully-informed one, but that's just life). Shit-talking goes on everywhere and it's most insidious when it happens where no one can see until it blows up or people are frozen out with no explanation.

Also, you know what? I think games like Firan, and Serenity, and Game of Kings and the like deserved to have what was deeply, grossly wrong with those games brought into the public square. Even if people want to continue to play there, forewarned is forearmed. I think I'm a pretty cynical reader of every horror story I skim here, as everyone should be. There are plenty of idiots who pop off over nothing or over pretty grudges from three games ago in which they were actually the asshole. But, I think I've said before, I appreciate the muckraking side of what these boards provide.

[Derp]

MSB is not the place where most shit-talking and cliquish hate happen.

That's Skype and Discord.

Every post made here is public, rather than private. And there is a reasonable chance that if it'still full of BS, it will backfire. Like, a lot.

[lordbelh]

@Shlappy said in MSB: The meta-discussion:

Still - if there is a hate mob in the MUSH community, you will find it here. And that's...disconcerting.

Perhaps I just don't see it (I don't), but if you could be specific then that'd be useful. I'm not saying that there isn't petty and bitter shit thrown around on MSB (there certainly is), but generally people who just spew hate tend to be called on it. They're checked and challenged more than supported.

There in lies much of its strength. Because these things are said anyway, they are thought, are whispered and bandied around. They're screamed and spewed out across skype and other private arenas.

There are some loud voices here, and there are some very unkind voices here, but I don't think there is a whole lot of communal hate.

[Meg]

@lordbelh

Actually. I will call out a hate mob thing I've seen before: A lot of the hate that was thrown at @Kanye-Qwest in the Arx advertising thread about just, the stupidest shit. She definitely got more than she deserved for unwarranted things. (Someone coming onto her ad thread and insulting her players, and then her facing others shouting at her for it.) I guess we could put that off on loud voices and unkind voices, but it does feel like a hate mob, sometimes.

I do wish we were more willing to check each other. Because even when it is pointed out as it happens or called out (as I was trying to point out as it happens), sometimes it still doesn't help.

Which, I think, boils down to different feelings of warranted or deserving or etc etc.

That said, if Arkandel was asking if MSB is /always/ helpful, the answer would be pretty clear. But I think that the people that are strictly looking at 'well people are mean and sometimes unwarrantedly a bitch to others' aren't looking at the big picture.

[lordbelh]

@Meg If you could find the parts you felt were hateful, I'd like to reread them. I vaguely recall the passage, but I remember in a different light. Perhaps my memory is wrong and colored by more recent interactions with her, though.

[Misadventure]

How do you present it when many people, for many reasons disagree with how someone treats others, and not have it look like a hate mob?

[Roz]

@Misadventure said in MSB: The meta-discussion:

How do you present it when many people, for many reasons disagree with how someone treats others, and not have it look like a hate mob?

That's actually a pretty good question. I'd say that avoiding the appearance of it probably comes down to the sort of language used. Even if someone is right in their assessment, people getting together and using really over-the-top kinds of language about how much of a monster someone is rarely looks reasonable. I think you can condemn someone pretty emphatically without using a certain kind of inflammatory language. That said, there are also people very capable of condemning in a firm but calm manner -- but also being full of shit. So YMMV there.

[Ghost]

@Three-Eyed-Crow said in MSB: The meta-discussion:

I think games like Firan, and Serenity, and Game of Kings and the like deserved to have what was deeply, grossly wrong with those games brought into the public square.

I agree. In those cases there were ethical concerns where the community turned into a support group. People found out that they weren't the only ones. Hell, even I have more than a few Serenity stories.

However, I also feel strongly that getting involved in that drama, or other people's drama, is fun for some people. It's titillating. When there is no current Firan or Serenity to rally around, the desire for that titillation doesn't go away. The answer, per the Hog Pit (which was also the Hog Pit on the more widely believed to be more negative WORA, which makes me wonder if, by association, the Hog Pit on MSB is doomed to be no better), is to turn on each other. There's a sense of always being on the lookout for Serenity2, Firan2, Mal2, Inara2, VASpider2. From what I've seen, the hate/flame delivery requirements shift to allow for that titillation, and people guilty of far lesser shit than Firan, Spider, etc get the Spider treatment because, hey, titillation.

Titillation.

A lot of people enjoy being socially allowed to throw rocks and not be seen as ugly for doing so, even if it's just jumping in on someone else's rock throwing ceremony. The Schadenfreude is in play.

@Misadventure I'm conflicted on this. MSB should be a good place to find refuge/defense from fucked up players. There are truly unethical, fucked up people in the hobby. The problem is that since some people on these boards have used it as a weapon against innocent people over various stages of butthurt, it's so hard for me to get a read on whether or not I'm reading an honest whistleblowing or a situation where someone has struck first on some kind of one-sided public flaming to gain closure through wrath.

For the most part, unless I see a log, I'm hesitant, and even then, I'm not all that interested in throwing rocks for titillation's sake.

Titillation.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

I think perception here does often get skewed. There are players/staffers I like whose persona here irritates me. And people I think come off far better (or at least pithier) here than they do on-game. If you don't actually know another player/staffer on-game (and I'd say I don't know very many of the other posters here, despite the incestuous nature of the MU community), all you have to go on is whatever they put forward in their board persona. And if they pop off like an asshat, welp, that's all I have to go on. I also think certain posters get far more latitude than others, but that's message board culture and it's certainly not unique to MSB.

@Ghost
Oh, yes, bonfires over petty shit are common and usually silly.

I think you were often guilty of this in The 100 thread, actually, seemingly over stuff that happened on another game entirely...I think Fifth World? It's one of my text book - Why Bitching Threads Should Be Separate from Ad Threads examples. But, again, that's kind of the nature of message board culture. I read those posts, found them dumb, and judged the game on its merits (it wasn't for me and I didn't stick, but I'm not a hater. I think some of the complaints about it were overblown while others were entirely legit.

For the petty shit, I trust other readers to do that, too. I'm often wrong about this. I think most people are overly incredulous about things they shouldn't be, and not nearly cynical enough about stuff they should. But, again, that's people, and you get that wherever people outside a friend circle interact.

[Ghost]

@Three-Eyed-Crow said in MSB: The meta-discussion:

I think you were often guilty of this in The 100 thread, actually, seemingly over stuff that happened on another game entirely...I think Fifth World?

I was. Absolutely. And while I've said apologies to the people involved, moved on with myself having learned a little about myself in the process ("Why did I care?" "Was I trying to achieve anything at all by that?" "In the grand scheme of things, does it really fucking matter what I feel about a FREE game?" "Was I just being a dick?"), it's up to them to decide if they want to associate with me at all since then, and thus, if they ever start a new game and I wanted to play, I'd reach out to them first and ask if my presence was welcome. I figure that's the mature way to handle it.

Edit: Yeaaaah, I was being a troll and petty little fuck about it, too. I jumped a bandwagon and missed an opportunity to be more constructive.

I'm not saying that I was never a part of the bullshit, I'm just saying I had a mental click a while back and realized the negative feedback loop on Hog Pit that I was participating in was adding to a large, more communal problem, that was circling back and making the hobby a polluted environment for me. It's like a systemic infection. Just because I was being negative on MSB(the lungs) didn't mean that negativity wasn't following me to Fallcoast (the heart).

I think that when it comes to the negative aspects of MSB people have to ask themselves how much venom they're willing to put into the community knowing the risks that it'll pollute their server-side RP refuge. I don't think some people think holistically enough to be willing to give up their super current right now issue hate this person so much to lay down the sword.

[WhatInTheSun]

@Misadventure I think there's a couple things. One is objective criticism. Certainly, some behavior is objectively fucked up. (I just read the Batshit Crazy Sightings thread today.) But more often, I think that someone gets upset at a perceived slight, rants, and the responses are subjective. Ideally, calling out behavior could be objectively discussed, and something constructive can come out of it.

Idealism, and 'boring.' I get it, well, I get that will be the majority reaction.

The other... if more people realized their shit stank too. The overall sense is that people are quick to shit on things, and not remember the times they were the problem. There's little empathy. But, see my mid point note. I get that's not the point.

Now, I haven't read much outside of the Hog Pit, though I'm starting to. And the more I see, the more I see the potential of what others have already said - A place for real talk, a place where people can't face retribution (well, not in game in theory) for their opinion, a way to see and discuss different perspectives. I will say it's fairly intimidating as a new poster.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@Ghost
I'm not even bringing it up to bitch at you, really. Those posts annoyed me because they were off-topic and I felt like they were derailing a formerly useful thread into nonsensicalness, not because I thought you were too mean. It's far from the only time that's happened and lots of us are guilty of it. I even kinda agreed with some of your criticisms to those staffers, even while I found the way you phrased them hyperbolic.

I bring it up because it's a really good example of a reason to change how ad threads are treated, even while the commentary in them would still be legit enough in the Hog Pit or elsewhere.

[Ghost]

@Three-Eyed-Crow Oh I gotcha. I wasn't feeling accused or backed up into a corner. I think you've made a great point. I just threw in some details about that whole situation because that 100/5W discussion is a larger part of the reason when I, personally, feel I started identifying where I wanted to step away from the larger problem.

Long and short? I think the negativity issue on MSB is a lot like when you've got a friend who says bad things about everyone they know. You hear all kinds of dirt on everyone: Your friends, strangers, their friends, everyone but you. So...Does that mean that when they talk to others, they're not talking about you? Probably not.

It was after that 100 thread, maybe a bit before, but definitely after it I gave it enough thought to alter my approach, that I realized I was surrounded by people who had a lot to say about a lot of people. I don't really wanna be a part of that anymore.

[Shlappy]

@lordbelh Not communal hate as a whole, but rather groups of people who are quick to grab for the pitchforks. That changes and fluctuates, but it gets far, far away from criticizing the behavior and goes into the territory of criticizing a complete stranger as a person. That just seems silly to me.

But it gets downright hateful. It will keep some people, like me, as outliers that never really get involved in this community much. There are always going to be pluses and minuses. If it suits your purposes, then great. I wish you no ill.

[Ghost]

@Shlappy I get ya. We see it with celebrities every day. You're one misspelled word or accidental implication away from having a mob on your doorstep demanding you be doxxed, fired, excoriated from society, chased to everywhere you rp, and boycotting MSB all because you have a difference of opinion as to what constitutes as an apology in what you thought was a simple, casual discussion.

It's smarter for you to moderate the forum, not participate much, and enjoy your rp without fear of a difference of opinion stamping you as persona non grata and having it infiltrate the main reason you're in the community in the first place: To seek roleplay and creativity with relatively small amounts of harassment.

I can't remember who said it earlier, but they were right. Discord and Skype? Oh, cut and pastes would get people banned from games and reveal the shady underbelly of PVP harassment and shit talking that permeates this hobby. I wish I'd kept logs. I'm very well aware of some people right now, or in the past, involved in untrue accusations about myself floating around just to arm cliques against me and lock me out of RP over petty stuff.

It happens. It's real. There's some fucked up, behind the curtain shit going on, and when I witness it (per my earlier comment about how when someone talks shit about everyone but you, that it means when you're not around, you're being bad-mouthed, too), nothing makes me want to keep distance more.