The Unfindable Flag

[Luna]

Frankly, if I want to avoid someone and they show up I can pose out. If I show up, I can just nope out. It may not be the best thing to just be like 'I don't care to play with you' but it cuts down on all that 'yo I heard that she doesn't like you, what a bitchface'.

[ThatGuyThere]

@Derp said:

Alright, here's an example: Player A and Player B are hanging out at the Waffle House. Player A and Player B are both set unfindable. A couple of people decide to get together for a scene at the waffle house, because the +where shows that there's nobody there that they'll be disturbing, or because they want a quiet scene. So Players C and D show up, only to find that, lo and behold, A and B are there already. So they made a plan, got together, and then had to change that plan because A and B are using commands to bypass the code that specifically tells them if there are people at a place. This is why I would require players in public, non-private build areas to remain findable at all times. An unfindable room will hide you if you have a private build going, you don't need to set yourself unfindable when in a public grid space.

This is why you could have a +hangouts code that says 2 folks in Waffle House and not give names, literally every MUSH I am on currently has that even the one with like ten players total.

As I said I the other thread I never start out unfindable at a place but will go to it if I get hassled. One page is not harassment nor something that would cause me to page lock but it will get me to start using the flag.
Also true story from my MUSH past. I had a male pc that was in a relationship, I was not set unfindable, I was running a solo plot for a character of opposite gender, my PC was not present in any way, there was nothing sexy about the plot it was pretty combat heavy about the government trying to kidnap a psychic. Said plot went about three session. As i was wrapping up the plot I start to get pages from the player of my chars IC GF because she keeps getting pages from other people about how my character is ICly cheating on her. She had done no who stalking or what ever but other "helpful" folks chummed the waters. Everything was settled after a way too long conversation but still that experience proved to me the benefit of the unfindable flag.

[Gingerlily]

Hey, the first thing I have felt compelled to actually write a post about. Nifty.

I am with @Derp 100% on this one. Unfindables in your home/private space, so people don't know who are coming over to meet secretly with/plot the end of the world with/have the sexy times with....all good. But out in say 'the waffle house' the flags stay off. People need to know who is there so they can join rp, or plan there own rp in a different place, or whatever. Usually players are pretty reasonable I like to think (hope?) and if they enter a scene and do the standard 'mind if we join' but PC A and PC B are having an intense conversation they don't want overheard, or round 2 of one they started the other day, they can say "Actually we're sort of doing a thing that isn't easy to join now, do you mind leaving us to it?" And while it is POSSIBLE that player C could scream PUBLIC PLACE YOU ARE SO MEANNN, I've just never seen it happen.

Harassment is something else altogether, but all the more reason for it ON in public places. If Player D is someone you want to avoid, you want to know where he is if you are considering joining a group scene so you don't have to play with him. If Player D is stalking -you-, that's something the staff can handle.

[surreality]

@Ganymede said:

It doesn't prevent harassment on channel, page, @mail, or otherwise. If you want a quick fix, there are other commands to prevent being communicated at without consent. If you want to address harassment, go to staff; that's their fucking job.

Setting yourself unfindable can, absolutely, avoid triggering the negative behaviors people have described.

Nothing excuses the behavior, and once it has happened, it has happened.

Preventing it from happening again, or involving staff -- which may or may not backfire on you, depending on the staffers in question/any given policy at the game/etc. -- is not going to undo whatever drama has already been dealt in the same way.

[Coin]

In the end, while I don't begrudge people the use of unfindable that way, I feel that it only really helps to further the harrassing attitude that made them set the flag on themselves in the first place.

As staff, I would rather know that a player has been doing this to someone, than have the "fix" be another player setting themselves unfindable. This is because being unfindable, at best, fixes your problem, but not the problem. They're just going to find someone else, who's going to do the same thing, and so on and so forth.

I'd rather sit the offending player down and be like, 'Look, this attitude is not cool.'

[Thenomain]

@Coin said:

To be fair, I think the solution here is to conflate systems and see where it leads, which is partly what we're doing on Eldritch. The +dir and +hangouts code is essentially the same code.

The point of Where is to find where people are.
The point of Hangouts is to find the hot spots.
The point of Directory is to show what's available.

This is why on Eldritch, the same "also 4 people are unfindable here" code is in place for Where as well as Hangouts. (n.b., I just discovered that Eldritch's Where is not respecting Unfindable. Well shit.)

Ignoring that oops, protecting or ignoring the Unfindable flag is a code consideration no matter how you want to address it. The location commands must account for it if you're using it, which is par for the course.

--

I prefer having the Unfindable flag as a way to help enforce theme and setting.

[surreality]

@Coin said:

I'd rather sit the offending player down and be like, 'Look, this attitude is not cool.'

This is the cultural change we need in the hobby -- not just in staff, but also people internalizing that message.

Too few staff are willing to do this, thinking it inconsequential, or just not wanting to get involved in any potential drama themselves.

Seriously, more people need to do this and be willing to do this.

[Coin]

The other day, someone came to me and asked me if something another staffer had told them was accurate or not. I answered them, after conferring with said staffer, but I also informed them that I didn't really appreciate the Mommy/Daddy attitude.

If you have a doubt about something a staffer tells you, tell that staffer to please get a second opinion, or to bring in a second opinion, and do it politely. Because your, "quick question" is not a quick question when it involves second-guessing my staffers. It doesn't matter if you're right or wrong; put the ability to rectify their mistake in their hands. Especially since this is a game we all play to have fun, not an academic environment where you can take your paper to another professor to stick it to yours because "see? someone else says I'm right!"

And this was a really mild case. It's been worse in the past.

[Gingerlily]

@Thenomain

I accept and respect that it is possible that some themes and settings require it or are enhanced by it. I haven't played on any such games so I don't know the hows or the whys, but people do what is best for their theme and their story and that is fine by me.

On the game I play/staff, it just isn't necessary very often. In a private place in order to try to keep people from figuring out who you are having secret political meetings with, yes. If people want to keep their 'romantic' relationships secret, sure. My stance is really about public places where anyone could be. If you are there, don't go unfindable with your three besties or your romantic partner to avoid others joining. Flag is off, public is public and there are SO MANY varieties of private places that you can make those kinds of scenes work somewhere else.

[Thenomain]

@Gingerlily said:

In a private place in order to try to keep people from figuring out who you are having secret political meetings with, yes.

I would rather let everyone hide out than ruin one genuine role-play experience. Staff (and code) is meant to facilitate role-play, and having to run around on-grid to obfuscate the OOC abuses of being able to locate all people all the time is, in my book, not worth it. Then again, if you read my book you can see that I don't entirely disagree with you either.

My book is in another castle thread, the one this thread came from.

[Sunny]

(This is copied over from the other thread, so it's a little disjointed)

@Arkandel said:

@Rook said:

I never understood why a simple +IGNORE-like command made you unfindable to people whom you don't want stalking you. Maybe another level could hide you from simple WHO, +WHO, +WHERE, +HANGOUTS when they run them.

<logs on an unknown alt>
<types "WHO", "WHERE", etc>
<profits>

The command would, sensibly, be based on an IP or some sort of +alts system. So it would be a little more involved than just logging an alt in. Doing it based on the login means (for the precise reason quoted here) that it'd be ineffective. Anybody capable of putting such a command together is probably going to see the facepalm-worthy way before they set out to actually put functions and commands for it on an object.

But I'm with @Thenomain here. We don't want a command like this because if someone is stalking one person, staff needs to get involved -- if they lose that target, they probably aren't suddenly going to behave. Get it?

I'm sorry; gone are the days when we can all afford to just say 'screw everyone else, it's only my fun that's important'. We're all responsible for looking after any game that we're on; that means that if we're not staff on these games, we need to be reporting issues to staff, not hiding them. It's a hassle and a headache and these idiots have been preying on people for WAY too many years, now.

We're all grownups playing around the same shared table, even if it's a huge table at a convention that people come and go from as the weekend wears on. We really, really need to start acting like it. I am saying that it's everyone's responsibility, if they enjoy the game they are playing on, to report issues to staff. Period, end of story. You don't know if the issue in question is going to be the one that kills the game. You don't know if the mayonnaise salad that's been out for two days is going to give people food poisoning, but maaaaaybe you should mention to the GM that the ice is melted, yeah?

--

(Okay, this part is new.)

The thing is, there is a cultural force at work here. That cultural force is that it's easier to ignore most misbehavior, allowing the misbehavior to continue. 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 like to approach game design topics this way:

What problems does having the unfindable flag address?
What problems does having the unfindable flag cause?
How can the problems with allowing the unfindable flag be addressed?
How can the problems with not allowing the unfindable flag be addressed?
Do these problems / solutions differ for the flag being used on rooms vs players?

Answering these questions thoroughly should lead to the appropriate solution for any given game.

ETA: Holy shit, you can tell I'm on a game right now where I thoroughly trust staff. I will say coming at this from the angle of a game where I'm not feeling secure? Fuck, I want the damn flag.

[Arkandel]

@Sunny said:

<logs on an unknown alt>
<types "WHO", "WHERE", etc>
<profits>

The command would, sensibly, be based on an IP or some sort of +alts system. So it would be a little more involved than just logging an alt in.

Here's the thing... what we are conceivably trying to do here is have code to protect people from stalkers. And these are folks who, if nothing else, tend to be extremely capable and spare no effort when it comes to stalking - they'll go through great lengths, reroll alts, create alternative online identities and they will absolutely use proxies to log on the MUSH. Hell, they can simply run to the Starbucks at the corner to log on from its wifi. To people like this that's not at all too much trouble, it's exactly the right amount of trouble.

And as this is supposed to be code specifically protecting players from stalkers, it wouldn't work.

[ThatGuyThere]

I have to disagree with Sunny here. As a player my responsibility is to not break the rules and provide fun for those I RP with.
Just like at a table top as a player it is my job to show up participate and not cheat.
It is not even about staff trust to me, it is about the most expedient way to deal with the situation. Lets look at the situation I am rping with Person X and person Y decides to page about. The way I look at it ,I have three options,
Option A I report it to staff, at best staff tells this person to behave, since no one myself included think this is ban worthy. Said person being human then likely complains to friends, drama level in general increases. Not seeing how this is good for the game in fact as drama increased it is likely worse for the game.
Option B I page back telling the Person Y to go fuck themselves, not in those exact words but the polite version of, person y most likely gets offended I could easily be on the receiving in of a complaint and wither way drama in general increases. Again not good but bad option.
Option C I ignore it and next time I log on i set myself unfindable. No increase on drama I go have fun, person Y lives in ignorance and has fun. It might not make the game better but it does not make the game worse, to me this is the best of the three options

I would play on a game where I could not set myself unfindable, I have in the past but then that leaves me with option D. Finish the scene compose a mail to the folks whose me leaving would effect and leave the game. Never telling staff or others the reason why.

[Misadventure]

And I don't use Unfindable to avoid stalkers at all.

I use it for my own reasons.

Then again I also pagelock people so** I **won't forget I don't want to page them. Code solves my social problems.

[Thenomain]

@Misadventure said:

Code solves my social problems.

You're using the tool of code in a way that aids you. This is why it's there.

@Arkandel said:

Here's the thing... what we are conceivably trying to do here is have code to protect people from stalkers.

We are?

Oh, then Unfindable is a bullshit nonsense solution. I concede HR's use of it, mind, but it is, again, a tool in your arsenal, not a solution. There is only one solution for stalkers: Banning them from the game.

Man, I was having an entirely different conversation. My face is red.

[Arkandel]

@Thenomain said:

@Arkandel said:

Here's the thing... what we are conceivably trying to do here is have code to protect people from stalkers.

We are?

The part I was responding to, @Sunny's initial pitch, was about that. I wasn't referring to the entire thread.

[Gingerlily]

I think if your GAME cannot protect you from stalkers, if the people running it don't care if people are harassing you...then man, there have to be other games that don't have this issue. I know WORA (which this isn't) was a place that was often for complaining about egregious staff behaviors, but if that is still a problem on -every possible game- then woah. I'm not a WoD player much, I've dabbled here and there but never got sucked in, so some of the people that others are continuously nervous about (as players, as staff) I have zero experience with. But as a staffer who has had the rare, occasional issue of player to player harassment, I can say that I have never found it hard in the least to just shut that shit down.

Maybe because my games are smaller? I don't know. But it isn't hard to nip that in the bud in my experience (I'm also not headwiz, and headwiz often does the actual bud-nipping after we discuss what to do.) Play where you feel safe.

[Thenomain]

@Arkandel
I knew this, and played straight-man to draw out the different uses the Unfindable flag has. It has its uses, stalkers and otherwise, and therefore there will be no throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

[Thenomain]

I want to expand a little:

@Thenomain said:

[The Unfindable flag] is, again, a tool in your arsenal, not a solution.

So the other side of this argument is that Unfindable reduces the chances for role-play to happen. I don't entirely agree that this is so, and I don't entirely agree that the lack of the Unfindable flag will be a panacea for role-playing. Code on a game should be focused mainly on facilitating the role-play, so this is an interesting situation for me to ponder.

What we can do is have it both ways. Hotspots can be drawn out without revealing who is there, or even though softcode allow a 'findable lock' to allow your friends constant access to where you be at, or even everyone if you want. The popular friends code '+watch' does something like this already.

The Unfindable flag is not going anywhere, and nor should it. It does its job and it does it very well, but it's a hammer when more finesse from code is being requested.

It's kind of amazing that we've been doing this long enough that more finesse from server obfuscation code is in hot demand.

[Eerie]

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?