Emotional separation from fictional content
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+1 to @The-Tree-of-Woe.
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I disagree that MUing is in its twilight or whatever, because there's always a new stream of people. I have always said and will always say that the only thing that keeps us small is that no one bothers to advertise, because I know from personal experience that people go out of their way to try and approximate the MU RPing experience, because they have no idea that these things even freaking exist. There are tons of communities that would jump at the chance to not have to use their shit-tier medium anymore. Everyone is always saying "Oh, MMOs replaced us", if that was the case, there wouldn't be thousands of text-based RPs going on right now, even on freaking Twitter. People use what they can, because they don't know a better alternative, and when they find MUing they generally stay.
So yeah, MUing isn't dead or dying or full of dinosaurs or any of the other things that a lot of people believe, it's just not advertised and the result is a very slow trickle of new players who have to essentially stumble across the hobby or be recommended it. I guarantee that if I started a Dragon Ball Z MUSH and did an ad campaign, I could suck in all these people who are sick of RPing in backwater chatrooms full of pop up ads or shady IRC channels. You execute a hot theme that people like RPing, advertise it, and bam, players.
But I digress! Didn't mean to go so off topic there. Carry on!
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@Ghost I haven't seen anyone make the claim that poor behavior should be excused, regardless of the reason for that poor behavior. (Outside of the people you seem to have been thinking of before who are shrieking every time they don't get the shiny they want and claiming it's a trigger and thus you can't say boo to them, which is bullshit that no one should be tolerating. These people are also not participating in this conversation to be addressing directly.)
The answer, to me, is between #1 and #2. It's closer to #1 because #1 reflects the larger reality: there are folks with a lot of various issues (this and others) that come to the game environment. If there are steps we can take to improve their experience or make it less inconvenient, yes, I think it's reasonable to do.
I spent ages, for instance, tinkering up a color-coding setup mentioned in another thread to let players who prefer light to dark backgrounds in their MUX clients, or players with colorblindness concerns, set up their own highlight colors to remain consistent throughout the game. That's another real, basic human issue, and another example of how a few simple steps and some consideration shown can tangibly improve the quality of that player's experience on the game. Nothing about it impinges on anybody else's rights.
The way I see it, nothing about this does, either.
- Players are encouraged to share information that can be used in a positive way to make connections amongst themselves, to spot some potential problem areas they can then avoid accidentally tripping over. (Even if this will never avoid them all, being able to avoid some is an improvement over the status quo.)
- GMs and staff get a good idea of what the currently active players are looking for. GMs and staff have a tool to use to say 'warning, contains: X, Y, Z' that enables players that have sensitivities to X, Y, or Z to not show up to that event.
It explicitly does not give players permission to show up, and then stomp their feet until the event or plot is refashioned to their personal liking. If someone knows they have a sensitivity to rape plots and show up at something clearly labeled 'this is a rape plot!' they have no one to blame but themselves if it causes an issue for them; they were clearly warned, they were given the information to make a decision, and they apparently <OldTemplarKnight>choose poorly</OldTemplarKnight>. That is not the GMs fault, staff's fault, or the fault of the other players in the scene at that point.
Most folk with genuine PTSD-related concerns are aware of the broader subject matter to avoid. Some are still surprised once in a while, but most people know 'I should probably avoid things that will directly remind me of that horrible thing that happened that time', and will self-police if given the ability to effectively do so.
There is also no suggestion that somebody be given a pass on unacceptable behavior for this reason -- or any other reason. We are responsible for our own behavior on a game, full stop, even if there are reasons for it outside of our direct control. Unacceptable behavior is unacceptable behavior. It's not suddenly OK if it's your best friend doing it, or if it's because the person is drunk, or if it's because they're having a panic attack, or if it's because they had a shitty day at work, or if it's because <this list could go on to infinity>.
There's no free pass granted here, and no special rights; there is simply a warning sign to allow people to more effectively self-police in order to avoid problems for themselves or others from arising due to certain content that's commonly considered to be controversial or problematic.
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@HelloProject
I disagree. Just because people still text RP doesn't mean they want to MU, it's a whole different ecosystem/power balance/time commitment, etc. I'd be interested to see that DBZ MU experiment because I think you're making an interesting value judgement by assuming those players are "sick of" RPing in "backwater", "shady" channels -- in my experience, they don't care. As far a new trickle of players, well, when you look at MUDStats, almost every single place is on a decline, some of them drastically, so I'd question that belief, too.
But, again, a topic about how to try and revitalise the medium is for a different thread.
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I'd say that there are more things that distract people who would play before they go looking deep enough to find MUs. For instance, I found them when I was looking up stuff about Amber as a lad and found AmberMUSH. But Super-Hero MUs or WoD MU*s don't come up when you're looking for either of those genres, really, because there's a lot of things that have more weight.
If we did things to bring them closer to the surface of the murky, scummy internet pond sure we'd find more people. It's a free roleplaying hobby.
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@surreality I feel like this should all be a given. I don't really understand why all of these exceptional circumstances keep getting brought up. It makes me feel like the discussion is kind of missing the forest for the trees.
There are literally so many games that have worked like this for years, this is all super basic stuff. I don't know why people think this is controversial and untested territory that is a threat to our basic rights to do fun things. Like, giving people options and tools to communicate better in a hobby where people have so much trouble communicating does not seem even remotely like something that causes more problems.
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@Ganymede said in Emotional separation from fictional content:
I'm allergic to legumes: beans, peanuts, etc. Specifically, I'm allergic to proteins in the seeds. The proteins are mostly eliminated through brewing, and don't exist in the oil; soy sauce is fine and so is peanut oil. However, isolated soy protein is in a lot of things, especially store-bought, pre-packaged frozen meats.
I know this is about something else, but oh my god I feel you. Two kinds of abdominal pain have been the worst in my life: when my football sized tumor burst, and when I have anything with soy protein/tvp/soy protein isolate.
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@Gilette My game has been getting a steady influx of first-time MUSHers, either mudders who are bringing friends over, or forum rpers converting over, or people getting real life friends to learn. I have been pleasantly surprised because I was starting to worry that we'd end up just cannibalising from the same general playerbase. Out of about 80 players, I'd hazard a about a dozen or two have us as their first game.
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@HelloProject
According to the general thought at the time MUSHing was fading when I started playing on Dark Metal. This was in 1994.
There always has been and likely always will be a rather vocal segment of the population who are convinced that this thing will die any day now. -
Collected thoughts:
Tools are great, and if you can give people more tools, why not!
However, they will never solve social problems 100%. Never, ever.
Thus, as a player you have to reasonably watch yourself and this will mean probably avoiding some games merely due to their general rating/theme. The kidnapping vs. Changelings thing is a preeeetty good example, but also Vampires vs. autonomy issues and lots of other things.
STers should also do their reasonable best not to surprise people with extreme shit. Like I don't know where 'surprise, RAPE!' is ever really going to be a great plot inclusion, when it really is a surprise (vs. a possible consequence among others, for example).
Also someone made the point of general, open, whoever wants to hop in scenes vs. running longer plots for people you know. This is a good distinction and if anything, STs should trend more cautious the more shallow, wide-open, etc the plot is. If you have10 random people to show up and then declare 'baby murder funtime!' the chances of someone being upset are much higher.
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White Wolf had a quasi-joke line of splats from their hard-core-death-metal arm, Black Dog; Darkmetal Mush had this as their highest level Fate as a way to say that you opted out of fade-to-black and were willing to challenge yourself with any and all events of every kind. Kind of the WORA of RP choices,
A "Heavy Metal Comics" flag on events or games would be a good place to start while we look for the language that best suits our hobby for these issues we're talking about.
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Do you think something like an anti-vote system might help? A sort of "this person creeped me a bit OOC just now" anonymous, silent vote, if you will.
Essentially the idea was if someone did something weird - maybe they hahah-but-no-really got pushy, hit on you persistantly but not quite to the point where they could be reported, whatever... you could use that command. You don't need to explain anything on the spot, but it needs to be something you witnessed first-hand - not a "this guy did <X> to a friend of mine" kind of thing. It needs to be something they did to you.
You only get one of those per player per target, but staff shouldn't do anything less someone's "creep score" goes up. The intent is to try to differentiate between someone being a jerk under the radar because no one's reporting them, but also to try and eliminate false positives because one person tried to get someone they don't like into trouble.
It's not fool-proof (for example a clique might try to use it as a group effort) but that should be more transparent, and in either case an investigation would hopefully clear things up.
My hope is taking out the more undesired elements in our community, or at least painting a target on them, our overall trust for each other will increase. The Juerg-types are far and few in between, for all the press they get. Thoughts?
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I'd require something on the spot. A date, something about what it was "a RP scene" "a paged conversation" "a channel discussion". I'd like to not write anyone a blank check.
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@Arkandel said in Emotional separation from fictional content:
Do you think something like an anti-vote system might help? A sort of "this person creeped me a bit OOC just now" anonymous, silent vote, if you will.
I don't see how what you're proposing is any different that crafting a @mail to staff generally.
I am against the idea of anonymous complaints where the conduct complained of is a serious problem. It makes investigating the allegations very difficult.
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Set up a complaints system that each time you complain about someone it adds a bit of a delay to everything they do. And to everything you do.
If one person pisses off a lot of people, a lot of people have a short (imperceptible) delay on their command processing, but the person who pissed off so many will have lag that renders their ability to play unusable.
If one person goes around complaining about a dozen different people, a dozen people have an imperceptible delay on their commands but the whiny snowflake is lagged to perdition.
Have the lag rating fall off at a rate of, say, one complaint-equivalent per day.
Watch your game go up in smoke in the most entertaining of ways!
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@Ganymede said in Emotional separation from fictional content:
@Arkandel said in Emotional separation from fictional content:
Do you think something like an anti-vote system might help? A sort of "this person creeped me a bit OOC just now" anonymous, silent vote, if you will.
I don't see how what you're proposing is any different that crafting a @mail to staff generally.
I am against the idea of anonymous complaints where the conduct complained of is a serious problem. It makes investigating the allegations very difficult.
I misspoke, I didn't mean anonymous to staff, but silent to the target. I.e. if you complain about me I won't be informed of the fact (although I suppose the 'creep counter' might be visible to me if it starts climbing above minimal levels, to act a warning for me to smarten up - people are getting creeped out by my behavior).
As for the difference is that it's automated and it's not an actual complaint. This isn't "Bob started nagging me about TS and wouldn't leave it alone even after I said no", it's more "I don't even know Bob but sent me a page out of nowhere complimenting my PB and then randomly ranted about BDSM without any encouragement on my part". It's a counter. Staff shouldn't do anything based on a single individual... anti-vote (?) but they should look into it if someone's score starts to go up.
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@Arkandel said in Emotional separation from fictional content:
I misspoke, I didn't mean anonymous to staff, but silent to the target. I.e. if you complain about me I won't be informed of the fact (although I suppose the 'creep counter' might be visible to me if it starts climbing above minimal levels, to act a warning for me to smarten up - people are getting creeped out by my behavior).
I have a smaller issue with that, but it has to do with staff reaction. If staff immediately and actually investigates every incident, the issue is minimal (it conflicts with a personal moral). If staff allows these complaints to accumulate, then it is unfair for a target to have to fend off 6 complaints at the same time, all of which may have occurred at different times for different reasons (this is kitchen-sinking).
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@Ganymede Alright, that's fair enough. Do you think though that tracking down general misbehavior isn't worth/fair to track? What I'm attempting to eliminate here is people flying just under the radar; those somewhat minor things that might make playing a game unpleasant to someone, perhaps to the point where they stop logging on but where each trasgression isn't significant enough to report on its own, still take a toll.
For example it's debatably hard to justify reporting a guy to staff because he just paged out of the blue with a sex-related rant if he didn't actually cross the line, or stopped when asked to, or...whatever. But it still has an impact in making players uncomfortable.
I'm proposing trying to track the unreportable stuff down but in a way that's not punitive to random people who might have made a risque or off-color comment one time, or who might have just rubbed that one person the wrong way, by making only repeat offenders visible to staff. Is it worth doing? Would it have a positive effect?
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@Arkandel said in Emotional separation from fictional content:
it's debatably hard to justify reporting a guy to staff because he just paged out of the blue with a sex-related rant if he didn't actually cross the line, or stopped when asked to, or...whatever. But it still has an impact in making players uncomfortable.
Naw, it ain't. If someone pages you ot of the blue with a sex-related rant, then he already crossed the line and it's already entirely justified. Same if a person won't leave you alone when you told them 'no' or asked them to stop.
People need to stop giving others the benefit of the doubt. I don't care if you are having the worst day, it is absolutely not your prerogative whether or not I have to deal with you--it is mine.
If that person follows you from the game to Skype, you can block them on Skype; you can choose to report them for that follow-up harrassment or not, but if they leave you alone on the game, that becomes more of a "does staff want someone with this general attitude and behavior on the game", which is a separate issue.
But if you page me, I ask you to stop, and you keep going, I will tell staff if I can't handle you on my own.
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@Arkandel said in Emotional separation from fictional content:
Alright, that's fair enough. Do you think though that tracking down general misbehavior isn't worth/fair to track? What I'm attempting to eliminate here is people flying just under the radar; those somewhat minor things that might make playing a game unpleasant to someone, perhaps to the point where they stop logging on but where each trasgression isn't significant enough to report on its own, still take a toll.
The issue isn't whether a transgression is significant or not. That depends on the complainant. Failure to file a complaint means that staff may not notice what's going on. It's important to put in a complaint. I'd make this very clear. If something bugs you, report it. I don't give a shit how small it is.
Staff ought to look into each of these, seriously. It helps staff figure out the OOC dynamics they otherwise would not be able to track without a player-alt. People that complain a lot about tiny, miniscule things should get a sit-down; they should not be ignored because their frivolity saps staff of its available time. But those "under-the-radar" things? A quick chat with staff can make a player stop that shit real fast, if they want to remain on the game.
Sidenote: no one is fucking interested in your sex-related rant by page, and that to me is something I would report. Because that's how Rex/Sovereign and other "predators" get started. (I put that in quotations because he's the sort of stupid predator that gets shot apart real fast.)