Forgiveness in Mushing

[Ghost]

@ganymede Agreed. I think that reputation keeps people involved in games, RP, etc. Everyone likes being liked and it feels good to be wanted.

However, when certain people of certain mindsets get angry over differences in expectations, rules, or direction, it's usually the reputation that gets attacked for that very reason. Salt the fields. A lot of time is spent on MSB trying to determine whether or not a complaint is valid or if it's just vindictiveness because it happens so much and no one wants it to happen to them.

So, I think on an adult level it's responsible for mushers to really get an idea as to what they're willing to allow others to hurt them on through these games. Set a level of expectation of personal emotional investment, don't go over that line, etc.

Now, if someone stalked me, doxxed me, SWATted me? That's fucked up. No forgiveness. Someone once sent a LinkedIn request to their entire playerbase and that incident taught me to use separate email addresses for RL/Mu. A difference of opinion, though? Disagreements and miscommunication are daily life on the internet, and a lot of it in MU is based on OOC interaction.

Forgiveness is what it is, but I think a number of these "never forgive" instances, unless they involve actual fucked up OOC behavior, is often tied to something that isn't truly unforgivable with a cup of coffee and a heart to heart.

[surreality]

@ganymede I think it's a little more complicated than that for many of us. Specifically, I'm referring to 'the ability to guard one's reputation' -- and social currency is a factor there.

If you don't really know many people very well, or haven't interacted with piles of people on games when they know, 'oh, hey, that was so-and-so', people don't necessarily know you well enough to discern the reality from the bullshit. This can be a real issue.

One dedicated whisper-gamer with half a dozen buddies can effectively cut off all avenues of RP for the player who has no one or only one or two players who actually know(s) them and would know the whispers are bullshit vs. the folks who don't know them and only know their buddy is claiming such-and-such is true.

This kind of thing happens all the time in the hobby, and it's incredibly corrosive. The best case outcome here is that person just plays with their one or two friends, or leaves without ever knowing about the toxic nonsense -- and then has to deal with going to other games wondering why people freeze up and freeze them out the moment they dare speak their name.

Anonymity and invisibility bites us in the ass here: you can see the wary look RL and inquire about it and address it and know the sources -- you are not oblivious to all but 'what's with the crickets?' that seems to come from out of the blue.

Not many people, in my experience, want or are willing to stand up to their friends about this kind of thing to even find out for themselves, let alone say, 'I haven't seen the problem with <person> you're describing,'[1] even when they do have personal experience that is contrary to the nastiness being expressed to them. People generally don't want to risk creating that conflict; we're not just risk-averse in RP sometimes re: death/loss/etc., as a group.

1. Mercy knows I've pissed off plenty of people with the latter over the years, and I'm still always incredibly hesitant for just that reason -- even though that's what has to happen broadly for this kind of situation to stop being the kind of problem it is for us as a hobby.

[Sunny]

@ghost

I don't care how much I am not physically being actually, genuinely harmed IRL: people refusing to respect my boundaries is a massive problem when it happens, and it happens all the time. I have had to block no less than 5 people over the last OOC year from communication with me due to their inability to respect that I do not want to be asked for nudes, that I do not want to TS, that I do not want to have someone pester me about who I am playing with instead of them. These ARE problems, and they are NOT just minor differences of opinion, and they happen ALL THE TIME. Just having a "heart to heart" with these people absolutely does not begin to solve the problem, and in many cases is literally what these jackoffs are LOOKING to force.

[Ghost]

@sunny Absolutely. Unwanted sexual advances and harassment is a pretty decent grounds for not forgiving and wanting to distance yourself from someone. You're absolutely right. That is abusive OOC behavior and I'd steer clear of that, too.

That particular instance, no, isn't coffee and bro-chat fixed. That's fucked up.

[Sunny]

@ghost

It happens way way way way way way way more than any other sort of problems I ever encounter. There is one issue I have had in that time period in which I fervently believe that if we could actually manage to sit down in good faith to work it out, we could probably get it worked out. But honestly, situations like that -- the minor miscommunications and so on -- these aren't the things that long term develop into these grudges. These grudges develop in most cases around boundary issues. I think you're preaching to the choir on your premise: everyone here agrees with you that the minor things should be water off a duck's back. We're not actually talking about those things, though.

[Ghost]

@sunny

Women (or anyone) should be able to enjoy themselves without being the unwitting recipient of unrequested sexual pestering and/or guilting, shaming, etc.

Trust me. I know. I've been the recipient of OOC-level forcefulness in regards to OOC communication and threats when it comes to TS, IC relationships, etc. It happened a lot less when I was playing male characters, but I've also been the target of some of the usual suspects when it comes to harassment/unwanted page advances when I was playing a female character and the person didn't know my gender Oocly.

I'm quite aware of what some of you people have had to go through. When that happened to me it was very eye opening and gave me a lot more perspective as to what some people, predominantly women, have had to put up with.

When you're a male playing a female character, and are asking yourself "maybe I need to avoid being alone IC with this person because he doesn't take no for an answer", then it becomes more clear.

[Sunny]

@ghost

I think what bothers me about what you said is this:

Forgiveness is what it is, but I think a number of these "never forgive" instances, unless they involve actual fucked up OOC behavior, is often tied to something that isn't truly unforgivable with a cup of coffee and a heart to heart.

I can't think of a single genuine issue I have with someone that does not involve a severe violation of a boundary (mine or someone else's), severe (not minor, but severe) 'mean girl' behavior (guys do it just as bad, mind), and/or sexual harassment. Otherwise, I get irritated with somebody, and I move on. @surreality and I have fought like cats and dogs on a number of occasions both publicly and privately, and I do not even BEGIN to say: I have an issue with her. I don't. I don't think she has an issue with me. Not actual issues. She and I are a really good example, because I suspect most people would point and say there's a big thing there. There's not. That is the case all the way around here with most people. Actual, genuine, significant issues on the scale that actual forgiveness is involved?

We're talking things like Spider, man. Somebody forgetting to page me back gets FORGOTTEN, not FORGIVEN, because it is stupid and minor and doesn't need forgiveness in the first place.

ETA: Here's the thing:

Not wanting to spend my free fun time with people who irritated me in X or Y way?
This is not an issue, this is a preference as to who I spend my time with.

Not wanting to hook my PC up with a particular player's characters ever again?
This is not an issue, this is a preference as to who I spend my time with.

Not wanting to be in an org or faction run by a particular person?
This is not an issue, this is a preference as to who I spend my time with.

Me choosing to be choosy about my (very limited, even if it doesn't look that way on the surface) free time does not indicate an issue or a problem.

Could all of these things be easily resolved with discussion? Yeah, I guess, but just like IRL, I don't have to like and/or spend time with everybody. I don't have to be anyone's friend just because they exist. None of these things rise to the level of forgiveness even needing to be involved, because nobody did anything wrong. These are the minor/petty miscommunications and nonsense that are being referenced -- these are not the things referenced as needing to be FORGIVEN.

ETA2: Anyone needing a big dog and pony show about bestowing forgiveness related to minor, petty disagreements is the actual problem, not the bigger person and/or the solution. See: 'Mean Girl' behavior.

[Misadventure]

I do not forgive nor forget anything I believe arises directly from the person.

I may allow another opportunity to show change.

[Ghost]

@sunny I honestly think we're on the same side on this one; I just didn't clarify actual fucked up OOC behavior

What I meant was is basically this:

Fucked up OOC behavior crosses a line. Harassment, attacking someone's RL (physically or through the web), Unwanted repeatable sexual advances, not taking no for an answer, blackmail, attacking one's reputation for personal gain, hacking a code system, siphoning contact information, stalking, abusive language such as threats or directed language intended to cause emotional harm...these are all very fucked up and clearly are in the realm of red card. If the targeted recipient of these chooses to never forgive or associate with that person again? Totally understandable. Totally reasonable. In fact, I think the people that do this stuff are a constant danger to anyone in any semi-anonymous hobby.

However, I think sometimes the offense is something not far from something that could be argued like a sports call: "He was IN!" "He was OUT!" This is stuff like: Differences in rules opinions, differences in what someone intended versus what someone meant to convey, various personal disagreements, headbutting personalities, accidental trigger-trippings, etc. I've seen and been party to miscommunications construed as something nefarious, resulting in people refusing to communicate over theories about why the miscommunications happened to begin with.

So... I think there's fucked up behavior and there's also this very gray realm of drama that goes on in this community where some people simply don't care, others try to work things out, some people agree to disagree and play nice, and then some others take things like disagreement and disappointment as an attack that cannot be forgiven.

Not everyone is fair, so the best you can do when it comes to forgiveness, try to be subjective, and (if the ball might have been on the line) try to suss it out.

My own personal approach that worked for me may not be the same as what works for others. I learned long ago that OOC can cause more problems than IC and to be very careful who I communicated with on an OOC level. For me? Reporting fucked up behavior, keeping pages and personal information to people I knew to trust, and stepping away from situations that bothered me on an OOC level worked for me. For me? It's online ether. Unless any of you were breaking the law or fucking with my RL there wasn't a damn thing happening in game that I couldn't walk away from to find enjoyment in Destiny 2 or hanging with friends.

But that is just me, not everyone, so I think the more people try to genuinely separate intentionally fucked up from disagreement, the better off your community will be.

[Sunny]

@ghost

I genuinely believe that the things you're referring to as minor that lead to long-term problems are much, much less frequent than you think they are. People having a tussle and going their separate ways, it's done and over. It's normal, reasonable human behavior. I don't think 'be kinder' or 'try not to sweat the small stuff' is BAD ADVICE, it's just not related to forgiveness, because minor/petty things don't NEED forgiveness.

ETA: Like, we're over here talking about the person who's done $10k+ worth of damage to somebody's house, and you're reminding people that someone not paging you back isn't worth getting ruffled feathers over.

[Arkandel]

@ghost said in Forgiveness in Mushing:

A lot of time is spent on MSB trying to determine whether or not a complaint is valid or if it's just vindictiveness because it happens so much and no one wants it to happen to them.

For me it's not so hard - usually - to catch an issue when someone has done something truly bad. A few logs of someone openly creeping, being at the center of repeated issues etc is enough to flag them as walking problems and they will always carry that flag for me. If they figure their shit out in the future I can consider playing with them but never closely again.

No, what's hard is knowing when someone has had an one-time incident, or felt particularly triggered that one time, and distinguishing between that and a player who'll always have a thin skin who will need too much patience to deal with. That's really tricky.

Look, anyone can feel bad. It doesn't matter if it's for a valid reason because, well, we don't control our emotions. It also doesn't matter whether that reason can easily translate to someone else - it's possible the same Mean Thing can infuriate one person and only make another facepalm. That's not something to be forgiven or forgotten, it's just... human nature.

A history of fuckups. That's the smoking gun I look for.

[Ghost]

@sunny Hey, and what works for you works for you. I'm not saying you're wrong to feel the way that you do, but I do disagree that minor incidents aren't escalated into unforgivable drama. There's been plenty of that on MSB.

[Sunny]

@ghost

Where?

Legit, where? Where has there been unforgivable drama rather than petty bickering and minor tussles? I have seen a lot of DRAMA, but I have not seen UNFORGIVABLE drama.

[Tempest]

I don't forgive anybody for anything.

Where're @Lithium and @Vorpal. I'll bury them again.

[mietze]

I agree. The only times I have never been able to work things out with someone it has been about boundary issues, ooc. That's a pretty broad field though. I would never tell anyone to not play with someone. Neither do I feel obligated to obey when someone tells me I shouldn't play with someone. Eventually behavior outs itself, especially when someone has difficulty maintaining respect for other people in general, so the problem eventually corrects itself after awhile.

[Ganymede]

@surreality said in Forgiveness in Mushing:

If you don't really know many people very well, or haven't interacted with piles of people on games when they know, 'oh, hey, that was so-and-so', people don't necessarily know you well enough to discern the reality from the bullshit. This can be a real issue.

If you say so. I guess my experience differs.

Granted, I don't think I know a lot of people very well. This is probably due to the fact that I don't care to know people very well. As such, I often get surprised when I find out who the players of some of my very favorite PCs are. That happened very recently, which led to much of this:

But I have to concede that what you are saying is probably truer for more people than my experience.

One dedicated whisper-gamer with half a dozen buddies can effectively cut off all avenues of RP for the player who has no one or only one or two players who actually know(s) them and would know the whispers are bullshit vs. the folks who don't know them and only know their buddy is claiming such-and-such is true.

This is probably true as well. My coping mechanism, if it can be said to be a mechanism, is moving on. I don't consider moving on as a coping mechanism because "coping" implies "me giving two shits." Which often isn't the case.

That said, I don't engage in whisper-campaigns. Never have, never will. I may say that I don't trust or care for someone as far as I can throw them, but that's about it. I don't judge folks that I know or like by who they play with, even if I think who they are playing with will eventually show themselves.

Everyone's allowed to make up their own minds on things.

[surreality]

@ganymede The best example I can think of is actually one from RL.

When I was... nine or so? Before boys (or girls) were even a second thought ever and the very idea of kissing was still super duper gross, the folks sent me to a snobby all girls school. The older sister of a friend of mine went there, and her parents spoke of it highly. She thought it would be the funniest joke ever to write a note to another girl in my class, telling her I wanted to see her naked, and sign my name to it, during the first week I was there.

You can guess how many people wanted to talk to me -- ever -- in the two years I attended that school. This included the teachers, and the counselors I was sent to to 'fix my unholy deviance'.

This kind of mean girl bullshit is pretty commonplace on games to this day -- which isn't even high school drama, it's gradeschool drama. It's not as troublesome as it is RL, obviously! But it's pretty commonplace, and we need to do a much better job, as a community, of standing up to it.

[Paris]

@surreality I have been dragged into that kind of nonsense on MU*s, but I suspect that's because I've run some and people get salty and make stuff up to get back at folks for staff calls, etc. The average player's less at risk unless they run afoul of a queen bee.

[Ganymede]

@surreality said in Forgiveness in Mushing:

This kind of mean girl bullshit is pretty commonplace on games to this day -- which isn't even high school drama, it's gradeschool drama. It's not as troublesome as it is RL, obviously! But it's pretty commonplace, and we need to do a much better job, as a community, of standing up to it.

I guess this might speak to how detached I am to certain parts of this hobby, but if this stuff is actually commonplace, then I wonder aloud the fuck is going on and what magical power do I possess that keeps me out of these reindeer games.

[Paris]

@ganymede You're probably not involved with whoever that person decides is theirs, or in the plot they've decided is theirs, etc.