A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like

[Rook]

Well, I've been on the receiving end of the WORA ire when I myself booted a player from our game a decade ago, for repeated offenses. I was roasted on here for being overbearing and not following our own 3-strike policies, because I just decided that enough was enough. Trying to raise up a group of players against the game was enough, in my opinion, to show someone the door.

So be careful. WORA didn't like when players were the first to come on and start roasting a game for mistreatment by staff. Once roasted, I couldn't seem to defend myself. So there is definitely a culture of CYA in MU*dom, as a Staffer. People don't want to earn their game the reputation of having knee-jerk reactionists as staffers, people who overreact, jump the gun, or any number of other cliche phrases you want to toss out there.

With that said, I'd do it again today and not give a shit what this board thought, if I truly felt that I was protecting my MU*.

[Arkandel]

@Rook Little known secret: WORA (and MSB) plays favorites.

Okay, that's not exactly a secret.

[surreality]

@Arkandel We also tend to have zero qualms about eating our own young, though, so. Kinda cuts both ways.

[Rook]

All I'm trying to say is that on the one hand, MSB encourages stricter, tighter staffing... but then is quick (I should say 'was quick', in the WORA days) to roast a staff for doing just that. Let's just take that into account in the conversation here, as I feel it is relevant.

[Coin]

@Ataru said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

She can deal with the repercussions of that, including this thread which she might never see.

Lulz. Knowing her she's got it on automatic refresh every thirty seconds.

[Thenomain]

@Rook said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

All I'm trying to say is that on the one hand, MSB encourages stricter, tighter staffing... but then is quick (I should say 'was quick', in the WORA days) to roast a staff for doing just that. Let's just take that into account in the conversation here, as I feel it is relevant.

Mind you, the court of popular opinion is not a recognized legal system.

[Auspice]

@Rook said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

All I'm trying to say is that on the one hand, MSB encourages stricter, tighter staffing... but then is quick (I should say 'was quick', in the WORA days) to roast a staff for doing just that. Let's just take that into account in the conversation here, as I feel it is relevant.

MSB != WORA

WORA was much more... pack of wolves vs. the vultures of MSB. People here tend to wait longer, watch for more, before going in for the strike. On WORA it was immediate and for any scrap or reason they could get.

I think your ex may have been part of why they went for the kill in that case? as they often went for any reason they could (deserved and not) to go after her. So there was association there also.

[Rook]

@Thenomain
Wait, what? In MUdom? Oh yes it is. It is how we operate. It is what most MU*s are all about, outside of theme!

@Auspice
I think that MSB is much the same crowd as WORA, we've all just aged and grown wiser with the scars and limping of experience. And yes, the ex was entirely the reason it all happened in the first place. Live and learn.

[Arkandel]

@Rook The difference between MSB and WORA is huge. I didn't like WORA, I found it too rude.

[Derp]

@Thenomain said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

Mind you, the court of popular opinion is not a recognized legal system.

@Rook said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

Wait, what? In MUdom? Oh yes it is. It is how we operate. It is what most MUs are all about, outside of theme!

Yeah. Pretty much this. This entire thread exists because there is a consensus in the court of popular opinion about how problem players should be dealt with, or even who constitutes problem players. I mean, nevermind the fact that some games have rules written in, meant to enforce ethical staffing, that prevents anyone from receiving a scarlet letter based on reputation. The fact that some games haven't taken immediate action against a player who hasn't done anything to earn it on that game is enough to spark an outcry. Look at the last 24 hours on this forum and the no-less-than-3 threads that this topic is being talked about currently.

And that's what I mean by 'it is unwinnable'. If you try and use your own rules, you run up against the Court of Popular Opinion, and if you cave to peer pressure, the idea of using blanket rules becomes pretty meaningless because you're already singling out players from the getgo.

[SparklesTheClown]

I've played multiple games where a player was just a disruptive ass and then bitched and moaned on WORA and got immediate sympathy and people believing everything such a player said, because they said it angrily enough. Like back on WORA there was this dude who got banned from X-Men Movieverse for what I can only describe as racist metaposing, and literally spamming the RP channel with a bot asking for RP, because no one wanted to RP with him.

So he came to WORA and lied out of his ass with no evidence, and everyone was like "That seems legit and we support you".

While MSB is definitely different from WORA in many ways, I think it's good to keep in mind that this is not exactly an isolated incident. I came to generally perceive WORA as a place where problem players go to bitch and drag a game's reputation through the mud, and get sympathy, because that's been the case so many freaking times. So I'd honestly keep that in mind for MSB, for the purposes of not ruining games or players' reputations without hard evidence of whatever bad shit is being spoken about.

[Coin]

@Derp said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

So, my two cents here, trying to move away from specific people to a more generalized thing:

I think that it's a double edged sword in how we go about this. Either way, there's no real way to 'win' when it comes to 'people that other people don't like'.

Personally, I try and avoid Scarlet Letters. Each game is a unique space. They might share players, themes, hell, even code, but ultimately, each game is a thing unto itself. No two games have been perfect copies of each other. Even The Reach and Fallcoast are different beasts, for a variety of reasons, and that's the closest thing I've seen to a copy of one from another.

That goes for players too. I think that if we get into the habit of treating players differently based on past experiences or whatever, it's gonna lead us down a bad road. Players can have difficulties on one game, given that game's atmosphere and environment, that they'd never have on another. I've seen it happen before. While I don't buy into a lot of the 'hivemind' stuff, there is definitely a flow that you fall into based on a game's players, stories, environment, rules, etc, and like all social creatures we'll in some way conform to that, for good or ill.

This makes some people unhappy, sure. People who have been around for awhile and dealt with the same people can be wary, and with good cause. If you don't do what they expect, then you can catch a lot of heat.

But you can also catch a lot of heat singling out players for different treatment for any reason, and not treating all players as if they were playing on a level playing field.

There is no middle ground there. You either do treat them all the same, or you don't treat them all the same. No matter how you try and nuance it, it comes down to one of those two things. And either way, one side is going to be unhappy that you chose that path.

There is no right or wrong way to do it. It all depends on what you want from your game. Me, I choose to lean toward the 'all players starting on a new game have a clean slate, and will be treated as equals under the same set of rules'. Partly because I feel like that's the better option, and partly because it makes it less complicated. i don't have the time, energy, or desire to track the complete MU histories of the dozens of people that have A Reputation in this hobby. I staff on two games right now, and there are literally hundreds of players that I have to manage and work with. The ones with the Reputation are a small fraction of those.

So ultimately, I think that it just comes down to preference. And as I've said before, as much as we like to make it sound like MUers are a cohesive lot when it comes to certain things, it's just really not true. We're incredibly diverse, and we see it pop up all the time. We're just never gonna agree on certain things. And that's okay.

So that's my constructive two cents on People We Might Not Like.

I was going to go point-by-point to answer this but I find that I disagree with the core premise of your post, so that's pointless.

Character is what you are in the dark. Sure, an Evangelist said it, so we can't really be so sure what he considered 'the dark', since I'm sure he believed God was always watching, but the concept behind the quote is solid: who you really are is what you do when nobody's looking, when you're alone, when you know you'll get away with it.

In MU terms, we can transpose it to "character is what you do when nobody knows it's you". Me? I typically play cat-and-mouse with @Quibbler or @ILuvGrumpyCat until they figure it out, I slip, or I get bored. But other people use it to manipulate, hurt, and twist others.

This doesn't CHANGE because you go to a new game. My morality, my attitude, my conscience, my personality, my respect for myself and others, and all the things that influence how I behave and what I think, do not change just because I switch servers. Saying that the surrounding environment influences how we behave isn't wrong, you're just massively overstating its importance in this context.

The environment of any given game is similar enough to any other game that your attitudes towards and respect for your fellow players shouldn't change. If it does, you're an opportunist at best.

Spider has proven to be the same person time after time after time after time on game after game after game after game; at what point does your philosophy of "start from scratch" start feeling like you're being naive?

After what Sovereign did on Reno, I banned him when he came to Eldritch. I didn't wait for him to do something bad on Eldritch, because he's a shitty person I don't want on my game. Spider was pre-banned. These are people, not usernames, and changing their PC, going to a different game won't change that. Only a consistent, protracted, sincere change in attitude will, and even there, no one is under any obligation to give them that chance, especially when it's been given more than often enough, and always ended in calamity.

Your entire point is flawed, because you choose to grant a clean slate to people based on an arbitrary notion like "it's a new game". The action isn't justified by the reason. It's like saying, 'this man is a thief in Illinois, but in Michigan he's not'. No, dude, the guy's a thief, period--he may not have committed theft in Michigan, but that doesn't make him any less of a thief.

[surreality]

@Coin I feel, like, obligated to mention here in the visible space that she has her own thread in the locked-down hog pit for just that reason.

(Because I am a bitch this week especially. I'll totally own that.)

(I would also absolutely start a betting pool re: register a lurk account vs. beg flunkies for screen shots; 'doesn't look' not a a horse in this race at all.)

[Rook]

@Derp
But public opinion of your Own Rule is entirely a valid thing. If you put a rule on your game that allows the staff to sell that mandatory staff-only email to marketers, just because you want to use that to pay for your hosting, your playerbase gets the right to have an outcry over it. It is how games that have crazy rules and cultures are made to die. The MU community will not let bad behavior thrive, in most cases, and it teaches the rest of us NOT to do that.

If you want to give someone a second or third or even a fourth chance on your game, I don't think this would be an issue. Several people have voiced that they would be forgiving, would give that same opportunity. I think @Ganymede is right that ignoring that sheer bulk of evidence is a irresponsible thing to do as a staff. The evidence is overwhelming if it spans a decade plus.

This thread was started to level the conversation into greyness, so as to allow for abstract discussion. I think it can be agreed that the case in which we are specifically referring to is an extreme outlier to this conversation, yes? Just because this discussion is warranted (this is one of those exercises in learning from things), doesn't mean that you have to like it. This seems to be more a discussion about how MSB wants to set expectation on behavior from MSB members when this shit happens.

[SparklesTheClown]

I admit that I'm somewhat surprised that I've never been prebanned or had my own thread (we're ignoring the H!P Thread on WORA from when I went on a childish trolling campaign in 2013). But most of the bad shit I ever did was just suddenly blowing up because stress, anxiety, and general maturity issues I've had to work on. Well, I think I'm at least good on the maturity stuff now, the stress and anxiety are just kind of always an ongoing battle.

Still, it's legitimately surprising regardless.

[Ganymede]

@Rook said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

This thread was started to level the conversation into greyness, so as to allow for abstract discussion. I think it can be agreed that the case in which we are specifically referring to is an extreme outlier to this conversation, yes?

I've been saying this for a while, actually, and in response to your concern regarding the Court of Public Opinion and blacklisting.

I don't remember which game you defended, Rook, but I've always advised staffers not to defend their policies or decisions. More often than not, you are shouting into a cacophony of ignorant noise. It is advisable to correct people who state blatantly false statements or premises regarding a decision, but unless a policy is so bizarre and indefensible so as to warrant an echo chamber of mockery, you will likely find one, two, or three people that will take up the mantle and vociferously defend your decision without you saying a word.

In the past decade or so, I think that players have generally adopted the policy that: (1) staff are responsible for their own games and have the authority to make whatever decisions they want; and (2) policies can be ignored where circumstances demand attention.

That said, I have been a proponent of the benevolent dictatorship.

[surreality]

@Ganymede said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

In the past decade or so, I think that players have generally adopted the policy that: (1) staff are responsible for their own games and have the authority to make whatever decisions they want; and (2) policies can be ignored where circumstances demand attention.

I think we still need work on the bolded bits, really. It's better than it was, but the bolded bit really needs work. The level of shrieking that erupts -- I do not exclude myself as a source of it as much as anybody -- over anything new, or anything people can't see past their preconceptions about, is still a pretty major issue. The race to start trying to tag people with the worst of all possible traits over fairly trivial shit is also grossly problematic, especially when paired with behavior blindness.

There's been... more of that than usual this month thus far, and it is really getting to be a concern, in the sense that it makes me wonder if it's worth sticking around or not. Not something I ever thought I'd be saying, either.

[Arkandel]

@Derp said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

And that's what I mean by 'it is unwinnable'.

Nothing we do here, A->Z, is winnable.

[Z-01]

@HelloProject said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

I admit that I'm somewhat surprised that I've never been prebanned or had my own thread (we're ignoring the H!P Thread on WORA from when I went on a childish trolling campaign in 2013). But most of the bad shit I ever did was just suddenly blowing up because stress, anxiety, and general maturity issues I've had to work on. Well, I think I'm at least good on the maturity stuff now, the stress and anxiety are just kind of always an ongoing battle.

Still, it's legitimately surprising regardless.

You're not really what people think of in terms of a "real" problem player. You kind of get hit by things from an odd angle and self-detonate after a while historically, but you don't try to take the ship or anybody else down with you. So there's not much for anybody to try to talk about here, because some young new MU*er with some social quirks that are on the whole minor just really isn't a problem or all that strange.

You don't get infamous for being slightly off in this community, we're pretty much all slightly off. The kind of people who tend to get personal threads are usually -- I think -- manipulative sociopaths who have been operating for many years.

[Paris]

@Derp said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

But you can also catch a lot of heat singling out players for different treatment for any reason, and not treating all players as if they were playing on a level playing field.

There is no middle ground there. You either do treat them all the same, or you don't treat them all the same.

There is a lot of nuance in the conduct of a player. Unrepentant long-term repetition of certain behaviors, vs a one-time incident (like you said, games have their own culture and sometimes shit just happens), is a good tell.

As much as I've said here about VAS, I've been really impressed by many players actively learning from their fuckups (especially new mushers) and becoming genuine assets to a game.

Thst's why I won't give everyone the same chance, and that is also why most games have some kibd of three-strikes policy. Many people fuck up, for many reasons. Most of them try to do better. A very few, despite many chances, don't.

IMO, I think that one-size-fits-all policies, adhered to in all cases without allowance for circumstance, preserves the illusion of fairness. While you should, in good faith, (in most cases) treat everyone the same, and create policies that reflect that, there are some cases where people are not the same.

Willfully choosing to ignore that in service to an unrealistic ideal is why folks like VASpider, Custodius, Elsa, etc, have caused so much damage for years.

They know precisely how important it is for folks to project to their players that they are completely impartial to all players in all circumstances. They know precisely how hard to bend the letter of each rule in order to be excused from culpability.

Sometimes, in the face of all of that, I think it's okay to say 'no'. Even if that might make some folks uncomfortable.