Spying on players

[BigDaddyAmin]

I guess more people nowadays prefer to play Keith Sweat, have a glass of champagne, and fuck their shemales in private.

[BigDaddyAmin]

Here's something for yo' Shang. Old school.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ssa4Z6-TC04

[The Tree of Woe]

Pretty sure Shang staffers do make the invisible rounds, to see if their ageplay policies are being followed. How else would you catch people at it?

[Arkandel]

@The-Tree-of-Woe said:

Pretty sure Shang staffers do make the invisible rounds, to see if their ageplay policies are being followed. How else would you catch people at it?

It'd be a very inefficient way to do it. Unless they're right on it from the start it'd be very difficult to determine the exact age.

But man... staffing and trying to enforce policies on Shang, that must be a nightmare. The things they must have seen.

[Hella]

I don't get spying for "secret" feels. If you're really that curious, ask people how they feel about you. I, for one, am happy to tell people if I think they're a bag of dicks. Just ask!

[Three-Eyed Crow]

I've played on games with public +watch code on "hang-out" type locations and nobody cared. Players could use it, not just staff, and it was useful for watching events if you could be online at the time but not actually RP in them. I kind of liked the theater-y atmosphere it fostered. People did occasionally TS or do embarrassing things in those locations when somebody'd left the +watch on, oops, but oh well. If you are having hot sex in the park, people can probably see you anyway.

This is way different than staff secretly spying on players and wandering around DARK, of course, which is creepy.

[AmishRakeFight]

I'll start by saying this: I don't fundamentally approach games as a private space. They're taking place online, where no reasonable expectation of privacy really can exist. So, by extension, if its online anywhere, its not going to be private because by its fundamental nature, it just can't be.

What you are doing by logging into games is taking part in a sort of calculated risk. You're essentially acknowledging that in order to participate you're giving up your claim to true privacy in this matter and that the benefits of a good story and some fun times outweigh your need to keep it all beyond the notice and evaluation of other people.

And that's just kind of life, y'know? You give to get something, no matter what it is. And if you don't want something to be shared online, in any online medium, don't do that thing or say that thing or share that thing.

This is not justifying spying, persay but I do think its important to define what we mean by spying and privacy on games. Dark staff in a private room on grid watching two players typesex at each other? Yeah, that's fuckin' creepy and inappropriate and a violation of a certain fundamental trust that players assign to staff to demonstrate that they have good judgement and not do shit like that. And that to me is really what we're talking about when we negatively talk about privacy and spying on games:

We're basically saying that the staff on this game doesn't have good judgment, which is to me a much bigger problem than just dark watching people typediddle each other.

Watching actions as they take place in IC areas, either as a visible staff member or a dark staff member? I'm less bothered by this. You're in a public grid space on a game and much the same way backgrounded NPCs who are assumed to just be in public ICly with you; it seems odd to me that you draw the line at staff not being allowed to be there and be a bystanding witness to shooting fireballs out your eyes or whatever it is you're doing in a public space.

Years ago, I was staff on a game where NPCs could be used to watch goings on in game. The reasons for that were related solely to this game. It was a RP-enforced MUD and players had a relatively frequent habit of attacking NPCs for their trash drops. It got to be a big problem because while it was a MUD; it was consciously and explicitly designed not to function that way. And that wasn't some unspoken thing. It was written into game policy, so players knew what they were and weren't getting into.

So, when the NPCs were modified to allow for 'spying', it was to monitor people abusing them. The NPCs also were written to defend themselves if they were attacked, but never instigate an attack. (Well except one but the NPC was actually nuts, all its environmental messages made it clear that it was nuts, and that if you molested it, it was going to attack you.) If we were feeling up for it, staff could also control the NPC to RP with people. The players actually liked this because you never knew what you were getting: a dark NPC or a staff piloted NPC who might do more than deliver a few repetitive action messages or muttered character phrases at you before they sold you something or whatever their basic function.

Occasionally, you'd forget to turn off the ability to watch through the NPCs. I never kept it on all the time because many of the NPCs had an IC grid circuit that they wandered and it was spammy as fuck. I'd also like to note that these NPCs never went anywhere private unless a PC player grappled and dragged them into that grid space. And we'd basically have to tell players not to do that and port the NPC back on to a public grid square to resume its wandering around on a limited route.

And occasionally, I'd see things that I didn't want to see: people boning each other ICly in public cafes or bars or stores was usually the thing no one wanted to watch. Places where anyone can walk in at any time for any reason and see this thing going down. So to me, if you're going to get up to something that you shouldn't probably be doing in a public grid space, then... you can't really get weird about being watched.

YMMV.

[Thenomain]

@Three-Eyed-Crow said:

I've played on games with public +watch code on "hang-out" type locations and nobody cared.

Because watch code is done transparently. I've seen more people get upset about the friendlist/watch-for-login (aka The Other +Watch) than remote-room viewing, because you don't know who's stalking your logins.

[Apos]

@AmishRakeFight You largely captured exactly how I feel about a debate I've been having. For example, I've been debating whether we want to allow staff to go dark at all. For any reason. And it's pretty simple, if we did go dark, it would be entirely to create the kind of spontaneous surprise RP you described with events happening suddenly and unpredictably with GMs present. But even for that, which I think very few players already playing a non-consent game would object to in principle, you have players who say spying is bad period (@sunny made that post above), and just the possibility of it being abused is enough and its existence could serve to undermine trust in staff.

Another example, automatic logging of all events. I've had some testers tell me they just aren't okay with it, even if it's entirely voluntary. They just dislike the -potential- of some of their RP being captured without their consent automatically. Some players are way more prickly about their privacy or anything that feels invasive than others. I personally do not care if everything I do publicly on the grid was captured for posterity but others REALLY disagree.

[Lithium]

@Apos It's public RP, therefor it should be public for consumption. Anyone who gets their panties in a bind about stuff done in public being logged is, in my opinion, a twit. It's a public room, there is nothing stopping anyone from coming in and invading the RP to begin with. If it's private RP keep it in private (and off public logs).

I am seriously considering public RP to be fully open. Staff can and should just drop events down on the grid on public people. Boom, event. Make things exciting. Stuff happens when you're out in the real world and no public RP should be considered sacred or private.

Ahh this coffee bar rp is awesome OMFG IT'S A PACK OF FLYING MONKETS WITH TASERS KIDNAPPING PEOPLE!! That Dastardly Dr. Hominoidea is gathering up subjects for his terrible experiments! What do you do?

And so on.

[Apos]

@Lithium Yeah, I agree, and I thought that was pretty much the default and popular viewpoint of (OH YAY GM EVENT WOO) but no, it's really not universal at all. It's very much of a sandbox vs non-sandbox mentality that some people deeply resent GM intrusion in any scene they perceive as potentially controlled, was eye opening for me, and I don't know if you can please both groups at all. Some people like surprises, and some see it as an attack.

[Thenomain]

@Apos said:

Another example, automatic logging of all events. I've had some testers tell me they just aren't okay with it, even if it's entirely voluntary. They just dislike the -potential- of some of their RP being captured without their consent automatically. Some players are way more prickly about their privacy or anything that feels invasive than others. I personally do not care if everything I do publicly on the grid was captured for posterity but others REALLY disagree.

This is interesting, because a lot of people are logging the RP without consent, on a person-by-person basis. If you feel like you can get a candid response to this, I'd be interested to hear what the justification for this double-standard is. That is, they're okay with people doing it without notification, but not the game itself.

What I'd like to try is a scene logger. People log scenes. People post logged scenes. It happens so much in WoD games that people stopped asking me, and so I assume they stopped asking others; does that mean this is no longer an invasion of privacy? I don't know. There really is no difference, here, except that we'd be offering a service to simplify what people are doing anyway.

[Lithium]

@Thenomain said:

@Apos said:

Another example, automatic logging of all events. I've had some testers tell me they just aren't okay with it, even if it's entirely voluntary. They just dislike the -potential- of some of their RP being captured without their consent automatically. Some players are way more prickly about their privacy or anything that feels invasive than others. I personally do not care if everything I do publicly on the grid was captured for posterity but others REALLY disagree.

This is interesting, because a lot of people are logging the RP without consent, on a person-by-person basis. If you feel like you can get a candid response to this, I'd be interested to hear what the justification for this double-standard is. That is, they're okay with people doing it without notification, but not the game itself.

What I'd like to try is a scene logger. People log scenes. People post logged scenes. It happens so much in WoD games that people stopped asking me, and so I assume they stopped asking others; does that mean this is no longer an invasion of privacy? I don't know. There really is no difference, here, except that we'd be offering a service to simplify what people are doing anyway.

I think an automatic scene logger that stripped out rolls and ooc's would be awesome. Especially if it was tied into the SQL and thus uploaded to wiki easily as well, where it could be modified if need be.

[Apos]

@Thenomain Yeah I was honestly shocked when I got pushback on it because I was like, 'Well shit, we have everything coded in Python and are using django, it's not hard to just have everything auto logged and save people the trouble, so why not. No more cleaning logs, people will love us.'

But I got nebulous, "It makes me feel uncomfortable. Dunno." "What if I make it so you have to specifically toggle it on from the start of an event?" "Yeah. Maybe. I dunno." So imo it's very much a gut feeling thing of anything automated seeming impartial and potentially submitting something they are embarrassed of, even if it's coded in a way that might make that effectively impossible. I think it's just an implied trust of other players versus something automated they have no reason to trust yet, but I think (hope?) it would go away after they try it.

[Thenomain]

@Apos

So what you do is: You do it anyway. If people use it, great. If not, you depreciate it. Find out how to make it work, not try to find out first if people want it to work. Unless you do a more formal survey of usage, you won't know until you try, then keep tweaking it until people use it by second nature or until the experiment is declared a failure.

Be respectful of the concerns; this is what your survey tells you. Make sure the room informs them non-threateningly. Maybe something like: This is currently a logged scene titled 'blah blah'.

[ThatGuyThere]

@Apos
For me it would depend on the mood sometimes you have had a really hectic day and just want a nice slow social scene to relax those times I would very much object to random plot showing up.
Most times I would be yay plot but sometimes the answer would be, hey I am just trying to chill here.

[Alzie]

The problem isn't with staff knowing what players are doing, the problem is that players attribute past experiences universally.

[Thenomain]

@Alzie said:

The problem isn't with staff knowing what players are doing, the problem is that players attribute past experiences universally.

The problem is that sometimes people define "players" as a universal group, as much as visa-versa.

The problem is that coded systems (code or systems) do not survive the first encounter with the end-user.

The problem is that perception is not invalid.

The problem is that people are not emotionless robots.

The problem is that people are social.

The problem is that Mu*ing is social.

The problem is everything.

[Apos]

I'm not emotionally invested in any feature at all, so when someone says it makes them feel uncomfortable even if I think it's just about inapplicable past experiences, I don't want to come off as condescending by saying, 'Yeah but I'm not a terrible human being so this time will be different'. I think with the amount of baggage a lot of long term players have regarding staff, it's hard not to swing to an extreme to put them at ease.

[Deleted]

I've played on games with varying degrees of player spying. I hate it. I mean, I love it when you're wandering the grid on a MUD/MOO and a random NPC replies to you because a staffer is paying attention.

I hate it when I'm TSing and I get 'bow chicka wow wow!' paged to me by a staffer.

It goes both ways.