Punishments in MU*

[Tinuviel]

@L-B-Heuschkel said in Privacy in gaming:

I don't need to know who screwed up where and how. All I need to know as a player is that complaints are addressed and attempted resolved, not the specifics.

And how would you make that work? You hear through the grapevine that there are problems with X-group or Y-team... how do you know when those problems are dealt with? The grapevine is amazing at spreading rumours about problems, but terrible at spreading information about resolutions.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@Tinuviel One game I played on handled it fairly well by letting players know that their complaints had been read and addressed, and in case of larger infractions, a publically available note in the style of, "We have received reports about this and that behaviour, please be adviced that this is against rules, and that some players have been disciplined." No names, no details, but as a complainer, you knew that your complaint hadn't just ended up in somebody's spam filter.

[surreality]

I believe someone mentioned -- I don't know if it was here or back in the last days of WORA -- that there's one of the 'all media' games that does something like this, with a mention of every person and infraction and what it was and all the rest. It sounded like a nightmare to me, but apparently it's something that's done out there, and some folks had some reasonable arguments for why they supported it. (I am still not on that page, but there were reasonable arguments for it.)

I think this is where we see the 'we've had a recent issue with <problem> and have had to speak with some players related to this, please try to not <things that would recreate issue>' sorts of posts crop up. It is also not a flawless approach, but if you know you've reported <issue>, and the issue post goes up, it shouldn't be difficult to do the mental math there.

[faraday]

@L-B-Heuschkel said in Privacy in gaming:

No names, no details, but as a complainer, you knew that your complaint hadn't just ended up in somebody's spam filter.

I personally am not in favor of that, as I still think it makes the person who was disciplined feel singled out even if they're not identified. Everyone knows that the immediate response to a post like that is more gossip about "OMG who was it? What's going on?"

Either people are going to trust you as staff or they're not. The ultimate way you build trust is by making the problematic behavior stop. Whether that takes some coaching, a warning, or a ban, that's the final barometer of whether staff is effectively acting on complaints.

@Tinuviel said in Privacy in gaming:

Unfortunately for every complainant, there's bound to be a few people that had a similar issue with a person but didn't do anything about it - for whatever reason.

If they don't complain, then they're not entitled to a status update about the complaint, IMHO.

[surreality]

@faraday said in Privacy in gaming:

If they don't complain, then they're not entitled to a status update about the complaint, IMHO.

^ This, x1000.

If staff does not know you're experiencing a problem, the means at their disposal to notify you that your problem is being addressed decreases dramatically.

[Arkandel]

There should absolutely be more options in disciplining people. Sometimes you need to go through the entire range.

Years ago when I staffed on Tyme there was this one Asha'man player (who were basically male sorcerers) who was getting quite out of line. He'd use invisibility to stalk people, especially the ladies, threaten them OOC if they ventured anywhere outside of their cities and 'he caught them' and using "IC consequences" as a very thin layer on top of what amounted to bullying.

It was actually harmful to the game on a macro scale, not just from a creeping point of view, and I tried to step in. I tried to reason with the guy, I adjusted the power of some of their spells (I still remember the cries) to balance them a little better, I jumped on their guild channel to ask them to tone it down... nothing worked. I still remember his ultimatum at the end of all that, too, all those years later. "I'll burn down this place if I want to". He seemed to think the numbers on the sheet and the time he played there were enough.

Well, I banned him instead.

Some people simply see gaming as a pissing contest or means to a much different end than what the game itself is about. I find that those need to be removed - but they are a very small minority. Most folks just want to have fun and just happen to step out of line a bit here or there.

[faraday]

@Ganymede said in Privacy in gaming:

And, let's face it, we're not talking about people who just "don't understand how to MUSH." The problem players we are talking about are legitimate problems on a game, and need removal rather than coddling.

I wasn't aware that we were talking about any specific kind problem players. I thought this was a discussion about discipline in general.

There are certainly players who are behaving so egregiously that they need to be removed.

But I would say MOST of the incidents I've dealt with as staff are otherwise-decent players who lose their temper, say something inappropriate, make a poor decision, cross a boundary, etc. As staff, you have to make the call as to whether they're worth the effort to try to help, or if you're better off without them. That decision is made considerably more difficult if 10 people are having issues with a person but only 1 of them will come to you to say there's a problem.

Either way, I don't think that "punishment" (short of banning) is particularly effective as a deterrent.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@faraday said in Privacy in gaming:

If they don't complain, then they're not entitled to a status update about the complaint, IMHO.

Mind reading class for admins now commencing.

[Ganymede]

@faraday

I concur that lapses in judgment may be dealt with through a page or two. In my experience, though, complaints by @mail or +request aren't made when someone says something pissy over a channel.

I also concur that there is a problem when only 1 of 10 people come to staff with the issue.

For that reason, I don't mind staff playing PCs or otherwise lingering around on channels. The reminder of a staff presence can temper people to cool it most of the time. It's harder, of course, when the bad behavior comes via page, but -- I think I've said this before -- it is difficult to find problems when no one's reporting them.

I don't mean to pick at history, but that one problem player ran off a lot of folks, and some people apparently did not believe you would take meaningful action in response. I was completely unaware of what was happening; all I know is that the people I was playing with were quietly leaving. And I'm usually that one person that pipes up.

What I've learned is that certain behavior must be addressed swiftly.

Thankfully, those problem players are often few and far between. It's the catty-gossipers that are the worst.

[surreality]

@L-B-Heuschkel Irony: even if all staffers did have that superpower, people would accuse staffers of spying via code/etc.

...and it would be so much worse.

"You're reading my mind! I know it!"

"...I was asleep, what?"

"You're reading my mind! You can't prove you weren't!"

"...I am going back to sleep now."

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@surreality Part of this whole issue is of course that no matter how well intentioned the staff may be, there's no pleasing everybody. And there's always someone who's either badly in need of a tinfoil hat, or badly prone to dramatics. I was accused once of setting up code to let me know when a player paged another in-game. I was a builder. I wouldn't have known where to -start-, tampering with MERC code like that.

[Arkandel]

@faraday said in Privacy in gaming:

There are certainly players who are behaving so egregiously that they need to be removed.

But I would say MOST of the incidents I've dealt with as staff are otherwise-decent players who lose their temper, say something inappropriate, make a poor decision, cross a boundary, etc.

I agree. It's easy to lose a bit of perspective while gaming in general, especially with the potential for miscommunications, the 'fog of war' in contentious IC circumstances, etc. Many people (I definitely count myself among them) screw up, get rubbed the wrong way, etc.

Another factor to be considered is how easily MUSHes allow bandwagons to form, leading to one person getting presented as the fucking devil if they don't get along with a group of popular, loud players. Then suddenly every word they type can be misinterpreted or presented in a contest they didn't intend - which influences staff. If you (General You) get a bunch of complaints by different people with comments captured out of context about the same one guy it's easy to think they're right without looking deeper into it. It happened before; it will again.

Generally speaking the number of folks who need to be banned is pretty small.

[Ganymede]

@Arkandel said in Privacy in gaming:

Another factor to be considered is how easily MUSHes allow bandwagons to form, leading to one person getting presented as the fucking devil if they don't get along with a group of popular, loud players. Then suddenly every word they type can be misinterpreted or presented in a contest they didn't intend - which influences staff. If you (General You) get a bunch of complaints by different people with comments captured out of context about the same one guy it's easy to think they're right without looking deeper into it.

In my opinion, these bullying tactics are pretty easy to detect.

In my practice, the more words you use to make an argument the less effective it becomes. Such is the case with these "misinterpret words to make someone out as a villain" complaints. Maybe it's because I live in Ye Olde World of Drama (Darkness) but you get a feel for who the Click-y Dicks are pretty fast.

(The Click-y Dicks got me fired as staff once because I wasn't doing things like they wanted, true story.)

In the past, I have dealt with these situations by convening a connected meeting to hash things out. Why? Because these sorts of bullies actually hate confrontation, and will find all sorts of excuses to not allow the accused their time. They just want staff to intervene without the dirty work of actually accusing in person and being questioned on rebuttal.

And I have no problem evicting popular people from a game, not at all.

[Derp]

@Ganymede said in Privacy in gaming:

For that reason, I don't mind staff playing PCs or otherwise lingering around on channels. The reminder of a staff presence can temper people to cool it most of the time. It's harder, of course, when the bad behavior comes via page, but -- I think I've said this before -- it is difficult to find problems when no one's reporting them.

Upvoting for this part, but also:

Gods bless @faraday for making a command that can flag pages and dump an entire history to a staffer.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@Ganymede said in Privacy in gaming:

For that reason, I don't mind staff playing PCs or otherwise lingering around on channels.

I'm a newcomer to MUSHing and Ares (though not to online gaming or MUs in general) and I have to ask: Is this not normally the case? Nothing would cause me to burn out faster as a staffer than knowing I was helping make an awesome game -- but I'm not allowed to play in it.

Obvious disclaimers that staff shouldn't have advantages for their characters, that staff should stay low key during official plots, etc.

[faraday]

@Ganymede said in Privacy in gaming:

I don't mean to pick at history, but that one problem player ran off a lot of folks, and some people apparently did not believe you would take meaningful action in response. I was completely unaware of what was happening; all I know is that the people I was playing with were quietly leaving. And I'm usually that one person that pipes up. What I've learned is that certain behavior must be addressed swiftly.

Absolutely. But which behavior?

Unsubstantiated rumours that Bob is driving off a players, but the players in question have gone and can't be reached for comment? Come on, that's not a bannable offense, that's gossip.

Accusations that Bob is harassing Suzy, but Suzy denies it? Really? You'd ban them for that?

Once I had a couple players come on record with specific complaints (about insensitive/inappropriate channel comments), the player received a stern warning to knock it off. To leave channels if they couldn't restrain themselves. When they didn't, they were banned. I personally don't think that should have been an instantly-bannable offense either, that a warning was appropriate, but I guess YMMV on that one.

If folks feel that makes me a bad staffer, that's their prerogative. I did my best to be fair and even in hindsight I don't feel that I did anything wrong.

But if even one of these alleged harassment victims had come forward with a specific allegation instead of just assuming I'd do nothing and bailing, things would have gone down very differently.

[Ganymede]

@faraday said in Privacy in gaming:

Unsubstantiated rumours that Bob is driving off a players, but the players in question can't be reached for comment? Come on, that's not a bannable offense, that's gossip.

Of course.

Accusations that Bob is harassing Suzy, but Suzy denies it? Really? You'd ban them for that?

Rhetorically, no. Because I think I was Suzy in this case, right? (I didn't have a problem with their behavior.)

Once I had a couple players come on record with specific complaints (about insensitive/inappropriate channel comments), the player received a stern warning to knock it off. To leave channels if they couldn't restrain themselves. When they didn't, they were banned. I personally don't think that should have been an instantly-bannable offense either, but I guess YMMV on that one.

Exactly. Right here is where we do not share the same opinion. And I'm just fine with that.

If folks feel that makes me a bad staffer, that's their prerogative. I did my best to be fair and even in hindsight I don't feel that I did anything wrong.

I don't think you're a bad staffer, and I don't think you did anything wrong. Let's just be clear about that. But I'll go back to one of my previous posts regarding how I simply do not see anything productive with stern warnings.

Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared.

I realize this puts me in a small minority of staffers, perhaps thankfully.

[krmbm]

@L-B-Heuschkel said in Privacy in gaming:

I'm a newcomer to MUSHing and Ares (though not to online gaming or MUs in general) and I have to ask: Is this not normally the case? Nothing would cause me to burn out faster as a staffer than knowing I was helping make an awesome game -- but I'm not allowed to play in it.

Obvious disclaimers that staff shouldn't have advantages for their characters, that staff should stay low key during official plots, etc.

I wouldn't say that it's not "not normally the case" so much as there have been and continue to be games that disallow staffers from having PCs. There's a whole thread about staff PCs/NPCs, how far their reach should be, etc., over here.

[Derp]

@krmbm

They are, thankfully, going the way of the dinosaur as players who consider volunteering as staff quickly catch on to the fact that that is a thankless scenario with little to no reward and nope out of that quickly.

[Rinel]

@Derp said in Privacy in gaming:

is a thankless scenario with little to no reward

You get to help people have fun!

ETA: I am the worst staff member ever