The Unfindable Flag

[Derp]

@Eerie said:

I want to absorb the pros and cons of this substantive debate, but I was unable to get past this part:

@Derp said:

@Coin is often more patient with that crap than I am. >

.... Whaaaaaaaaaat? Are you made of... what, Rage, Hatred and Caffeine?

At 7am? Yes.

Also, I should elaborate. I will deal with game issues all day long, with no problems. I will be patient and courteous and polite to a fault, because I've worked in customer service and that shit is burned into my brain that's just the way I operate. We can haggle on mechanics and rules and plot ideas and game policies and I will remain happily chipper about all of it.

What I don't like is players who feel absolutely entitled to things that are granted merely by dint of the culture having accepted that this thing is for the most part alright, like bringing something extremely petty that there is a ten second solution for up as the biggest ball of drama since OMG because these people are clearly stalkers. I don't mind intervening when there's a big problem, but when people page with stuff like 'Bob just paged me and I told him last tuesday not to page me because he brought me vanilla ice cream instead of strawberry and omg how dare he that jerkface'... that's when I can be something of a monster, because my response will be:

While I appreciate that you feel this is a serious issue, I don't feel that this is a serious enough issue for staff to intervene in. This is a game about communication though a text medium, involving multiple channels of communication through various means. If you would prefer not to engage in private conversations with Bob, might I direct your attention to pagelock? That seems like it would solve many of your issues, here.

See? I'm a monster.

[Shebakoby]

I always thought 'Unfindable' was for IC, not OOC reasons. On most of the MUs I have been on, "Unfindable" usually applied to characters who could become stealthed or outright invisible. Mostly characters whose job description was basically spying or infiltrating.

As for ooc use, I've noticed a lot of people are conflict-avoidant for whatever reason and while I can understand this sentiment, passive aggression is the plague in our time (because it fosters and perpetuates what might otherwise have been an honest, easily resolved misunderstanding).

[Silver]

@Shebakoby said:

I always thought 'Unfindable' was for IC, not OOC reasons. On most of the MUs I have been on, "Unfindable" usually applied to characters who could become stealthed or outright invisible. Mostly characters whose job description was basically spying or infiltrating.

That wouldn't make sense as your character has no good way of knowing where someone else is on the other side of the city unless they're using scrying magic or similar, or GPS bugs or whatever, and even then much RP happens in slightly disjointed timeframes to where "before next and after" matters much more than "3:45pm".

You may be thinking about dark instead of unfindable.

[Shebakoby]

@Silver said:

@Shebakoby said:

I always thought 'Unfindable' was for IC, not OOC reasons. On most of the MUs I have been on, "Unfindable" usually applied to characters who could become stealthed or outright invisible. Mostly characters whose job description was basically spying or infiltrating.

That wouldn't make sense as your character has no good way of knowing where someone else is on the other side of the city unless they're using scrying magic or similar, or GPS bugs or whatever, and even then much RP happens in slightly disjointed timeframes to where "before next and after" matters much more than "3:45pm".

You may be thinking about dark instead of unfindable.

No, because dark is like a staff only thing, and makes them completely invisible unless you do @sweep. I think the thing was, some people were having trouble keeping OOC and IC knowledge separate, so they were set "unfindable" so you couldn't immediately go to their location, and do something dumb like pose that you found them, because the reason they were Unfindable, is ICly they often didn't want CoC to find them for varied reasons. They were visible in the room OOCly, but if you wanted to find them, you'd have to actually talk to the player and OOCly coordinate a scene. There was IC code for "stealth", where you knew the person was in the room but ICly you didn't know unless you had E-senses or Radar.

(some people also were said to have set "unfindable" if they were TSing and didn't want to be caught, in MUs where TS is not allowed because it is not Themely).

[Gingerlily]

I don't think we disagree @Thenomain, not on the fundamentals. The only real issue I have with the unfindable flag is when people gather in public places to participate in private rp, and hide out with it. If a place is public, its public. There are conversational ways to work it out if you want to run a scene there for a limited group that don't involve the unfindable flag, and there are ways to abuse the unfindable flag -in public places- that for me, just make having players use it willy nilly in spaces that are open to all -not- really fostering genuine role-play experiences. BUT as I said, I say that from a different place from lots of games, one with -plenty- of private areas in which to be unfindable for whatever reasons one chooses. If I truly felt that organic rp experiences were ruined by people not being able to hide out from the +where list while rping in a public garden or a tavern or whatever, I'd reconsider. I just have not yet come across these scenarios. If I do, I'd reconsider.

[Silver]

@Shebakoby said:

No, because dark is like a staff only thing. I think the thing was, some people were having trouble keeping OOC and IC knowledge separate, so they were set "unfindable" so you couldn't immediately go to their location, and do something dumb like pose that you found them. They were visible in the room OOCly, but if you wanted to find them, you'd have to actually talk to the player and OOCly coordinate a scene. There was IC code for "stealth", where you knew the person was in the room but ICly you didn't know unless you had E-senses or Radar.

Well I have seen a few games that made dark available to everybody, but yeah for the most part that gets restricted to royal flags. Which is cool. I don't really see a good reason for general players to have it.

Still all unfindable does is make your location masked from +where, and since +where is an OOC command for OOC purposes, I don't see how that relates to IC anything.

[Thenomain]

ICly, everyone is 'unfindable' except when they're within visual range.

That hardly prevents stalkers.

[Misadventure]

Nothing in code is IC. It's information you, the player, may OOCly convert into IC knowledge.

Not even if you are a Virtual Adept or Neo.

[Shebakoby]

@Silver said:

@Shebakoby said:

No, because dark is like a staff only thing. I think the thing was, some people were having trouble keeping OOC and IC knowledge separate, so they were set "unfindable" so you couldn't immediately go to their location, and do something dumb like pose that you found them. They were visible in the room OOCly, but if you wanted to find them, you'd have to actually talk to the player and OOCly coordinate a scene. There was IC code for "stealth", where you knew the person was in the room but ICly you didn't know unless you had E-senses or Radar.

Well I have seen a few games that made dark available to everybody, but yeah for the most part that gets restricted to royal flags. Which is cool. I don't really see a good reason for general players to have it.

Still all unfindable does is make your location masked from +where, and since +where is an OOC command for OOC purposes, I don't see how that relates to IC anything.

the short answer is some people either can't or won't distinguish OOC info from IC info.

[surreality]

I've actually been on a MOO that tried to do the 'all code is IC' thing: Cybersphere, way back. No clue if it's still like that these days or not, but they didn't even have a page command for players, though they did have an IC com system.

Obviously enough, everybody used the com system with a ) in front of whatever they said to convey they were using it just like they'd use page anyway, but it's something that places have tried, with... the predictable amount of success, I suppose.

[HelloRaptor]

@Sunny

It is actually harassment, the pages y'all are talking about. It's not a MASSIVE case of harassment, and not something I'd kick someone off a game for without repeated offenses. It's still enough of one that I'd want to sit someone down and say 'hey, just so you know, this actually isn't okay'.

I love you, I understand why you think this is the case, but no.

To me, this speaks to the bigger social idea that everyone needs to just be nice to each other, and that not being nice should get you put in the naughty corner.

People aren't always nice. They talk shit, they make inappropriate jokes, sometimes they're offensive (sometimes without meaning it, sometimes because in that moment they're an asshole), etc. Pulling them aside to shake a finger at them for not being nice generally do shit. Sure, sometimes it'll ignite a lightbulb and they'll come to an epiphany, but sometimes it'll aggravate the situation and turn some snarky offhand bullshit into actual nastiness. Most of the time they'll just nod their heads and make gestures indicating agreement, and move on. Because what the fuck, really?

"Hey, we've heard you were having a private conversation with some friends and speculating about whether Bob is ICly screwing Tammy and we need you to... stop speculating about stuff in your private conversations, because we heard from Jeff who heard from Joe who hears from Tom who heard from Mindy who heard from Michaela that you said it. Well, no, not specifically what you said but the general... just stop that."

Sure, they'll get right on that.

People are flawed, imperfect creatures, and while staff can and should draw a line in the sand about unacceptable behaviors, try to manage that shit on that level ( a level I can avoid 90% of by setting myself Unfindable ) or try to classify it as 'harassment', and you're going to create a full time job for yourself handling it, and it still won't stop anyone from doing those things.

I find the idea of going to staff about that sort of thing pretty abhorrent, really, and I'm someone who's dealt with more than my fair share of exactly that sort of bullshit. And I'm totally aware that people like Spider use exactly that sort of back-channel muttering to create the whisper campaigns she uses to get at people she doesn't like. Recognizing when that shit is getting out of hand and crossing a line, banning assholes like Spider, sure. Arbitrary staff decision because reasons, do it. Doooo it. But trying to stop the high school style whispering that is pervasive across basically every social endeavor humans put together than involves more than two people? Hah, no.

Stupid, petty bullshit is called petty for a reason, and this illusion that we can or even should aspire to a life of sweetness and light where everybody is always nice to each other is both unrealistic and undesirable, at least to me.

[Shebakoby]

I think the other factor in this mess about niceness and punishing mean-ness is the fact that tone isn't always well-conveyed in text without such things as [/sarcasm] tags or smilies. You could be completely joking, and someone somewhere will take it absolutely seriously/at face value/literally, and don't even have the thought in their head that there's more interpretations to what was typed than the one that came to them in their head. Not to mention, sometimes the person that typed it in the first place doesn't always realize that the statement could be interpreted differently/literally/etc.

[Sunny]

@HelloRaptor said:

@Sunny

It is actually harassment, the pages y'all are talking about. It's not a MASSIVE case of harassment, and not something I'd kick someone off a game for without repeated offenses. It's still enough of one that I'd want to sit someone down and say 'hey, just so you know, this actually isn't okay'.

I love you, I understand why you think this is the case, but no.

To me, this speaks to the bigger social idea that everyone needs to just be nice to each other, and that not being nice should get you put in the naughty corner.

Okay. Yeah, you're right. I just think that the main symptom people are talking about using unfindable for (the paging directly to be snarky about who you're playing with) is something that would best be solved by dealing with the issue.

I'm also still of the 'can't we all just be adults and get along' opinion, and I'm playing on a game right now that's close enough to the ideal for me that it's totally skewed my perspective on what other games are like. None of what I'm saying would really apply on a game that wasn't small enough to not take any shit. I still maintain that in a perfect world, the way to address these issues is through communication and not avoidance, but you're right, we absolutely aren't in a perfect world. As much as I hate it. And you. I hate being wrong.

[ThatGuyThere]

@Sunny
When you put it like that i agree completely, I would much rather never use the damn flag and never start out with it on anyplace, but alas it is an imperfect world and the flag is a imperfect solution but to me the one that creates the least drama and lets me get back to the whole point of the endeavor having fun and providing fun for others.

[Luna]

@surreality I also played CS way way back! I forgot who I was but yeah, all the code. Finding someone who would rp was like finding a bit of treasure.

[Luna]

Can't we all be adults who sometimes don't get along? Being cordial and getting along I feel are not really the same. Isn't it ok to not like everyone yet not feel the need to stir up trouble? At what point do you draw the line and say 'ok, you two are not getting along, so person a is allowed to say what they want but you're making them sad and mad, you're not allowed to say shit'.

I have seen someone literally boil a conversation down to 'I'm right, you're wrong and I find your disagreeing with me to be abusive so stop'. It reeks of 'I'll tattle first and I win' and also a bit of 'I'm going to get the last word in no matter what' rather than just dropping it.

[Rook]

So, maybe something to think about is removing locations from any OOC commands. +finger, +where, etc. +hangouts and equivalent simply show numbers. Force people to communicate to find or arrange RP. Force people to use the hangouts to wait for happenstance scenes. Force people to be adults.
.

[Arkandel]

@Rook said:

So, maybe something to think about is removing locations from any OOC commands. +finger, +where, etc. +hangouts and equivalent simply show numbers. Force people to communicate to find or arrange RP. Force people to use the hangouts to wait for happenstance scenes. Force people to be adults.
.

I don't see how making RP harder to find is the more adult thing to do.

It occurs to me the adult thing to do is to make people resolve their own interpersonal problems.

[3543thrh67]

@Arkandel I think @Rook was being sarcastic. I might be wrong, though!

[Arkandel]

@icanbeyourmuse It's not even noon on a Friday. My sarcasm detector isn't ready for this.