Personal Agency for Personal Boundaries

[Pandora]

@Kanye-Qwest said in Personal Agency for Personal Boundaries:

No, it isn't, but it is doable and should be done.

It is doable and it is often done, but the degree to which it is successful varies between games and literally nowhere I've seen is it done perfectly or even to a degree to which I'd ever, say, want my child to experience. The culture of a game can only do so much to deter players that are not acting in good faith, the same way a constitution can only do so much to ensure law and order. There still need to be safeguards and systems in place to catch things that make it past the culture checkpoints, like harem-builders who smile nicely and offer newbie help and RP hooks but will ice you out of roleplay if you don't do X.

[Roz]

Someone mentioned earlier something along the lines of -- "games already have tools for this." But I'm pretty sure it was just in reference to a general culture of "it's okay to request a FTB or a general halt if stuff goes off the deep end and you're really uncomfortable," which I don't think counts as a tool. That's an overall policy. Making code for it would, IMO, count as a tool designed to help enact and engage with policy. It could only work in conjunction with continual effort to build the right game culture to support and complement the tool's usage.

[faraday]

@Roz said in Personal Agency for Personal Boundaries:

which I don't think counts as a tool.

+request is a tool. page is a tool. ooc is a tool.

What I'm saying is that we don't need a different tool to enable this.

You can contrast this with the anti-harassment tools I added to Ares because for those, the existing tools were IMHO inadequate. Client logs could easily be faked. Server-side suspect logging needed to be done in advance and felt like using a nuke to kill an ant hill.

If you think the existing tools are inadequate for saying "Hey I'm uncomfortable with this" then by all means make a tool for your game(s). I'm just saying that - for me - it's got no more weight than ooc Hey I'm uncomfortable with this. backed by a policy and enforcement of said policy that says it's okay to do that.

[Pandora]

@faraday Does your policy specify what comes after ooc Hey I'm uncomfortable with this. in any way? Does that mean they don't have to RP anything further in that scene? Is the culture expectation on your game that they negotiate what happened after the FTB, or is it that the scene is retconned? Are they expected to discuss it right that moment while possibly upset? Does your policy specify what staff member should be contacted, or what to do if the person in question is a staffer? Does it say what to do in the event there is no staffer available at the time of the incident?

If every single one of these questions on any game doesn't have a clear-cut, immediately identifiable answer, then I can see the benefit of a Stop Now & No Quibbling About What You Get Out Of This Until Staff Is Available option, whether it's a coded command or a line in a policy. Different strokes for different folks, but I really don't understand this sentiment of 'What we're doing is fine' when the point of the thread is that what we're doing isn't working for everyone.

I've no intention of putting words into anyone's mouth but it reads a lot like 'No further consideration will be taken for all of the people who, historically throughout our years of discussions of the Spiders and Custodiuses & the like out there, have not felt comfortable using ooc Hey I'm uncomfortable with this.'.

[surreality]

Generally: making +ftb <summary pose of fading to black> a command may help, set up as something like:

The scene fades to black as <summary>.

for output.

[Pandora]

@surreality This works when there's no conflict; I don't believe there needs to be a command for an amiable FTB when a page or two will do.

[faraday]

@Pandora My policy is simple: Work it out amongst yourselves. If you can't or aren't comfortable doing so, contact staff to help mediate.

This applies to FTB, to disagreements about skill rolls, to harassment issues, to whatever. It's simple, it's effective (*) and I don't see how having a coded command to say "Hey I'm not comfortable" will aid that in any way whatsoever.

You're obviously entitled to disagree - I'm not trying to convince you, merely to express my opinion since the topic opened with an open solicitation of feedback about the idea.

(*) I'm speaking of cases where people came to me about problems they were experiencing. If someone won't come to me, or will only come to me about second-hand complaints that I am unable to corroborate (I did try), then that's outside of my control. I genuinely don't see a coded command helping with those situations. YMMV.

[Pandora]

@faraday Hopefully you can appreciate that this thread is about the people that don't generally come to you or staff on other games with their problems though; as stated in the original post, this thread is about the people that are not finding the current way of doing things sufficient. I do appreciate your input though, I'd never expect 100% agreement on any issue on MSB but it's still interesting to hear where the line is drawn on different games.

[Kestrel]

Speaking for myself, I'm pretty rubbish at evaluating and respecting my own personal boundaries.

It's not something I'm proud of. I realise it's also no one's job to do it for me. But when I look back at nearly every single incident where someone I personally knew, who was active in my circle (as opposed to like a stranger grabbing me or something) was making me uncomfortable, there has always been a nagging voice of doubt in the back of my mind suggesting that maybe this isn't as big a deal as I'm making it out to be, maybe I should just brush it off, maybe I'm being paranoid, maybe this is really my fault because I led that person on or encouraged them or tried to be their friend or don't have sufficient evidence, etc.

While a fairly pathetic aspect of my personality that I'm suitably ashamed of, I don't think I'm alone in just having been badly socialised this way.

Furthermore even in cases where it's pretty clear-cut, I would often be hesitant to come forward out of fear of potential consequences/fallback on me, for example if I thought my harasser was on good terms with staff, and that comparatively my social standing/currency didn't give me sufficient leverage, if it's my word against theirs, etc.

So honestly, anything that simplifies the process for me of having a documented, simple, coded way of putting the breaks on something is of benefit for me.

Do I deserve/need to be coddled this way? Sure, no. Is it anyone's responsibility to make sure I'm comfortable but my own? Also no. But we live in an imperfect world and if it was just me out there being affected by this, I'd likely care less, except 99% of the time when someone's bothering me this way I end up finding out that I'm not the only person they're doing this to, which makes me care 10 times more.

Anything to facilitate and make it easier for people like me to come forward serves in protecting not just their fragile sensibilities, but the general wellbeing of the game at large.

EDIT: It also means I don't have to weather the anxiety inducing process of politely reaching out to someone who makes me uncomfortable, with an excess of smileys to assure them I mean no harm, to gently indicate that while I think the best of them and know they didn't mean to, they have made me uncomfortable. Which is always fucking exhausting especially if I'm already — and I will use that word — in a "triggered" state.

[Derp]

@Pandora

While I've already given the reasons why I don't think this is absolutely necessary, I think there is one more that we haven't quite covered yet --

There is such a thing as 'too many tools'.

If something is already available to do a thing, there is no reason to create a redundant system, complete with its own documentation, to clog up the systems. Even the default commands that games come with are often overwhelming for players to read. I've had an Ares server up for a month or so now and STILL haven't read all the help files, and I"m coding for this beast.

There are a LOT of them, before I add a single command to the game.

At some point, you have to draw a line and say 'no, this is not worth the additional effort and confusion and clutter when such things already exist'.

The problem isn't that the tools aren't there. The problem is that players aren't willing to even use the ones that already exist. Creating additional systems isn't likely to fix that, and can in fact be detrimental for organization and clarity.

If people really feel that there is so much of a problem that a special tool needs to be created, but are unwilling to use the ones already in place -- I'm not sure that's a tenable argument.

[surreality]

@Kestrel said in Personal Agency for Personal Boundaries:

I don't think I'm alone in just having been badly socialised this way.

You are not. The same happens often with me, and from the staff side, I have seen endless other people with the same concerns and anxiety.

It does not matter how nice or trustworthy or ethical staff is for a lot of folks in these circumstances -- they may never find out for one (being too afraid to approach) -- but staff being nice and open-minded and open-eared about these things may actually increase hesitation in some way, because the thought of 'taking advantage' or 'wasting that nice person's time with (generic) my (not actually) stupid situation' and similar feels somehow worse than approaching a generic 'hit a button' system in that moment in which there is an issue.

[faraday]

@Pandora said in Personal Agency for Personal Boundaries:

Hopefully you can appreciate that this thread is about the people that don't generally come to you or staff on other games with their problems though

If someone is not willing to take advantage of my open-door pledge and policy to help them resolve problems on my game, then I am not interested in expending my free time writing extra code to let them do things they can already do with existing tools.

If you are, and you genuinely feel that it will help, then go for it.

[Sunny]

@faraday

I think she's interested in discussing solutions to the problem; your contribution seems to boil down to, 'it's not a problem for me'. That's fine and dandy, but as she has reiterated several times now, she is interested in discussing potential solutions to the problem. That's hard to do without acknowledgment that there is a problem to begin with.

[surreality]

Seconding Sunny here. Plenty of folks wouldn't find this useful, and have stated their reasons for it. Hammering people who would find it useful because those solutions don't work for them isn't going to magically solve their problem.

All it takes is staff biting your head off once or twice -- especially if they get very personal -- to become very wary of approaching anyone.

[faraday]

@Sunny said in Personal Agency for Personal Boundaries:

I think she's interested in discussing solutions to the problem; your contribution seems to boil down to, 'it's not a problem for me'.

No, I'm discussing a solution to the problem of people establishing personal boundaries. It's just a solution that doesn't involve a new coded tool. But fine, folks don't want to discuss that avenue further. I'm done.

[Pandora]

@faraday If telling people to use OOC I'm uncomfortable with this was in any way a solution to the problem of people being able to establish their own personal boundaries, this thread wouldn't exist, the problem wouldn't exist. It's disheartening to have to keep saying that, because while I do agree (and have said so at least once) that it works for some people, it doesn't work for the people this one particular thread is trying to find actionable, meaningful solutions for, after the tried and true and fallible options already in place just have not been enough. I get it, you think my idea is useless. We absolutely don't have to keep discussing my idea! I am open to and actively seeking other new ideas.

[Staricide]

There is a downside to adding more tools for people to remember, but it's a very similar downside to adding more policies for people to remember.

To my mind the benefits of a tool as opposed to a policy here are:

• It will be interpreted as staff caring more. The fact that staff went and messed around with squiggly brackets and weird indentation will make it seem a lot more like they care than if they add a sentence to a policy file. It will seem a lot more like concern for personal boundaries in RP is a core feature of the game that staff cares about and is making central to their design. That might be an unfair interpretation but it is how it will read.

• It can simplify complicated social situations. If I page you 'Do you mind FTBing this?' and you reply 'Well I'd rather not because la la la.' is that arguing back about the FTB? I may have intended the question rhetorically but you interpreted it, or claimed to interpret it, literally. There are millions of edge cases like this where people squeak around rules or policies or things get complicated. Different communities might develop unofficial standards for how you're supposed to ask for an FTB or respond to one. Maybe some people start responding to FTB requests with not just an agreement but also with checking on the person's OOC welfare, you don't know this and don't do it and now you're a 'bad guy' There's a lot of potential value to coded tools in the simplicity of use, if you're in this situation, you type these letters, you hit the enter key, it's done.

• It can have additional bells and whistles. Like auto-generating tickets with relevant info, maybe a yellow flags to staff so they know there might be something coming up they need to deal with, maybe red is logged so if you have accusations against a particular player you can check the logs and see a bunch of people red-flagged them previously, maybe the command whisks you back to your +home and stops all pages between you and the other person for the rest of the day.

[Ghost]

10 points if the command is called:

+OhFuckNo

[Kanye Qwest]

@Pandora It's a good thread, and a good thing to have a discussion about. I wish we could get a group of people who are not comfortable telling others "please don't do this/contact me/whatever boundary" and see what they would feel comfortable doing, because that's my hurdle.

Isn't any coded tool you give them to use in the moment, in scene/conversation essentially the same as saying 'hey could we not'? If the aversion is fear or wariness of conflict or insulting the other party, would throwing a card on the scene not trigger the same anxiety?

[Ganymede]

@Kanye-Qwest said in Personal Agency for Personal Boundaries:

Isn't any coded tool you give them to use in the moment, in scene/conversation essentially the same as saying 'hey could we not'? If the aversion is fear or wariness of conflict or insulting the other party, would throwing a card on the scene not trigger the same anxiety?

Maybe if the script is flipped a little.

Back on Tartarus, there was a command called "+warn <target>" by which an OOC message was emitted to the target stating that there may be substantial IC consequences, including death, if the target continued proceeding as RP may imply. That usually prompted players to talk about what is going on in the scene, and to seek a resolution if desired, without admitting that they may be uncomfortable RL with what is happening.

The anxiety with using commands that might suggest an RL discomfort with proceeding may be connected with the fear that the target might sense a weakness of some kind. I'm not sure. But if the command displayed a neutral warning of some sort, maybe people would be more apt to use it?