Dealing with Staff
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@Misadventure The burden isn't technical, it's the mindset that's anti-fun. The idea of 'gathering evidence' which leads to every interaction you have with someone having an agenda; you're no longer talking to them, you're trying to expose them, leading to paranoia and wooden talk on both ends. And all of it for what? So you can sift through what could be several MB of unedited text accumulated over weeks or even months to cherry-pick the most incriminating segments and put them in a complaint +job? All of it to try and change someone's mind about one of their associates?
I'm not saying pasting a few lines of "OMFG, did they just say that?" into a +job doesn't have its place, mind you. It's just a procedure like that is the opposite of what I find remotely worth it for a MU*. I'd leave ten times before I had to do it, I just can't possibly see how it's worth it - and definitely not so evil doesn't prevail.
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Like I said automatic.
Its for review. It's for scene logging. Its for not scrolling back through 200 comments on a +job while you compose a response.
The point being the attitude doesn't have to be there at all. Since you are always logging, there is no specific purpose at all. You don't need to care one whit about how it may be used.
Or maybe I am more sociopathic than most.
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Constantly taking steps -- even easy ones -- to defend yourself against potential prejudice is fucking exhausting.
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Like I said, don't take that attitude is the best solution I can offer.
Unlike life, where yeah you have to take steps and make decisions constantly for every threat you deal with, this is fire and forget, and has many other uses.
I set up auto logging at the same time I set up background colors and text size, font, spawn windows etc for a new place.
So it's not a preventative measure. It just happens to help when this stuff rolls around. In the time I have used the auto loggers, and \just logging before that, its been mainly useful to review conversations and cgen, or a policy or rules discussion.
Anyway, if it's too costly, don't do it. I am neither saying you are dumb if you don't, nor am I in any sort of position or situation where I can affect anyone, or be affected by anyone, on a game. No one has to listen to me.
Besides, I know you have perfect recall and ethics too strong to present an altered record as true.
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It's not about the logging.
It's not about the ease.
About the exhaustion.
That's why I don't take any such steps to record my conversations with staff. Why the fuck should I have to do any of that shit?
I shouldn't. So, I don't.
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It's not about the nail.
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@Ganymede said in Dealing with Staff:
I shouldn't. So, I don't.
It's about treating staff like they're adults, and expecting them to act like adults.
It's also about knowing your options and their consequences. If a staffer is yelling at you or jerking you around, you need to know what you can do about this. Is there escalation possible? Do you need to learn how play in spite of that staffer? Do you want to play the martyr; on the game or on Soapbox?
You can't change the staffer; you might not even be able to change your situation. You can do the same negotiation that goes on in social circles daily.
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@Thenomain said in Dealing with Staff:
It's also about knowing your options and their consequences. If a staffer is yelling at you or jerking you around, you need to know what you can do about this. Is there escalation possible? Do you need to learn how play in spite of that staffer? Do you want to play the martyr; on the game or on Soapbox?
It might just be observational bias but I've noticed a shift of staff behavior over the years which I attribute to places like MSB. At least I remember a lot more despots in the nineties doing their thing, silencing any voices of dissent overnight without much argument (although you can argue there were also more games at the time as well), but under what I perceive is the threat of having their dirty laundry aired in public where their staff-y commands hold no sway that's not as big a factor any more. At least I can't remember the kind of openly malevolent shitheads favoring themselves and their friends nearly as much as they used to.
So perhaps there are more ways for players to react now despite the fact fewer MU* are being ran in general and more consequences for bad staff. That's probably a good thing.
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I would like to claim some credit with Soapbox and Wora, et al., as well, but the pattern I'm seeing is that this kind of staffer has never been to Soapbox. Your typical Wora dino has stopped playing and moved on, perhaps for the best. I think we're seeing a newer generation meshed with a generation of older players who are returning out of idle interest.
I see Soapbox showing some but not all of this, mostly in how it's no longer All World/Chronicles of Darkness Talk All The Time, which I also see as thank god. We now have a bit of L&L, a hint of Star Wars, occasional mention of Pern, and a healthy dose of Evennia and resurgence of Rhost as apparently Ashen has become utterly insane and entirely off his meds.
But in a good way.
... Honest.
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@Thenomain said in Dealing with Staff:
... resurgence of Rhost as apparently Ashen has become utterly insane and entirely off his meds.
But in a good way.
... Honest.
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I think the main difference between wora and soapbox is that the average age and life experience skews much higher now than then, so people have a little more perspective than they did as teens/twentysomethings.
Also in regard to games, the people on them who are not balancing family and other commitments vs people with a ton of time to burn (except around midterms and finals) are the exception rather than the rule. Tolerance for certain behaviors has gone down. It's easier than ever to find other social outlets.
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@mietze We also appear, at least many of us, to be more incapable of giving a fuck. X place is bad? Eh. Quitting is easier these days, far more things competing for our attention.