Posts made by faraday

@surreality said in Horror MUX:

Hello, sea change.

I'm genuinely happy that people are having fun and I applaud the staff for providing a different experience that's resonating with some folks. But... it only becomes a sea change if it catches on with the majority of MUSHers. I really don't see that happening. There are too many unique factors at play here with the setting - the revolving archetypes (so death isn't permanent), the short stories, etc.

People didn't care too much about their characters in TGG or Paranoia dying either, but neither of those really caught on for the majority of the MUSH/TTRPG population.

The change I hope this drives is more game-runners being willing to ignore the "that'll never work" / "we tried that once in 1999 and it failed" naysayers and be willing to take a chance on something different. Even if that "different" doesn't include everyone or lead to a massive WHO list.

@deadculture said in General Video Game Thread:

@thenomain Without going too much into that, she's the only person in the world who gets paid 20K dollars to make a (free) Discord channel. That should pretty much tell you the intent there.

Look, I'm not defending everything she's said or done, but that's just not factually accurate. They had a fundraiser for a registered 501(c) non-profit charity organization. One of the fundraiser "reward tiers" was a promise to set up and for the leaders to be available on a discord server. Equating that to them asking 20k to make a discord server is like saying Idris Elba charged thousands of dollars for a dinner date. That's just not how fundraising works.

@botulism That's totally fair. Nothing says you have to cater to everyone. It can help, though, to make that clear in the welcome files to set expectations and avoid people wandering off in disappointment.

@bored said in Horror MUX:

Like the plot speed stuff is mostly a matter of finding the happy medium.

Yeah it's tough to find a happy middle ground when you have some (usually the most involved/active) people trying to do stuff every other night and others who just pop on once a week. It's extremely easy for the once-a-week crew to feel completely left out - especially if their online night doesn't line up with a scheduled event. I don't really have a good answer for that. MUSHes are just not very casual-friendly in general.

@deadculture It's an example of an "episodic game that is enjoyable throughout limited runs", which is what you said, and people not being so attached to their characters they'd throw a tantrum when the episode is over. I'm not saying it's exactly equivalent. But even if it were, it still doesn't detract from this game being well put-together. ETA: I meant it as a good thing, that there's more of an audience for trying different things than many MUSHers think.

@deadculture said in Horror MUX:

I think HorrorMUX essentially proves that it's possible to make an episodic game that is enjoyable throughout limited runs.

TGG also proved it was possible over a decade ago. It's not everybody's cup of tea, but that's perfectly fine. As long as people are playing and having fun, that's what matters. Props to the game staff for trying something different though.

@deadculture said in The Churn: an Expanse game:

@cura So you guys are using standard FS3 instead of the Ares release? I think Ares would work great here. Especially since it has support for bigger ships, I think.

They're using Ares. I'm not on staff but I'm helping out with tech support. There's no real difference between FS3 2nd (Penn) and 3rd (Ares) editions in terms of big ship support, but like @Seraphim73 said - neither is really designed for that. I've used it for Basestar-on-Battlestar action on BSG games before, but usually it's better to just leave those to plot points/rolls instead of +combat.

As part of the AresMUSH mission of being more approachable to folks who are new to MUSHing, I created a MUSH 101 Tutorial. Other than the web portal section (which is obviously Ares-specific) I tried to keep it generic enough that it'll apply to other MU servers. Feel free to share it with your new players.

(The "Playing from the Web Portal" screencast is also a nice overview of what the portal can do, incidentally, for those who haven't really checked out Ares before.)

It's impossible to cover every aspect and variation of MU culture in a brief tutorial, but constructive suggestions of things that are missing/unclear are welcome.

@cura said in The Churn: an Expanse game:

Overhauling FS3's default BSG loadout to appropriately reflect this setting. I'm the first to admit that statbrain is not my strength. For that reason, this is probably going to take the longest of any task on the list.

I happen to know someone who's pretty good with FS3 stats if you want help with that. Y'know, just saying...

@bored said in MSB, SJW, and other acronyms:

@Tempest It's not a problem if the individual spaces are moderated per their own rules.

Yeah, the key there is consistent moderation. Everyone slips up or gets carried away now and again. That's just human nature. It's not as simple as "I want to flame you and not be flamed in return" as @Tempest seems to suggest. It's just that when you're in the midst of a heated discussion you don't always see the line. That's why we need moderators instead of just relying on "the community" to police things, because different members of the community will have different barometers for what's worthy of moderation. The moderators are the ones who are (theoretically) capable of enforcing a consistent line.

The other piece of it is community flagging. I confess I don't bother flagging often, because as @surreality pointed out - the only real consequence is that the whole thread gets shuffled into the hog pit and then I can't participate in the discussion any more. Until there are real consequences to breaking the rules that don't punish the rules-followers, there's not going to be a lot of buy-in. It's just going to be more slapfights.

@friendlybee said in MSB, SJW, and other acronyms:

If you don't want to provide evidence that's fine, but it doesn't make your arguments very compelling. I'm not trying to be rude, but I've asked two or three people for examples now, and they've been unable to provide them. It's starting to look like maybe this problem is imagined more than experienced.

I can't tell if you're trolling or not but I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt here. If you really care to research, you can find tons of discussion around the issues in this thread. I can't really go and look up the ones that got moved to the hog pit to cite them for you because, as mentioned, I don't participate in the hog pit. I can't see those posts any more. But anybody who's been here for any length of time has seen this happen repeatedly. The Arx thread, the UH thread, the OC thread... I could go on and on.

@friendlybee - I already do stay out of the hog pit, but thank you for the suggestion. And the moderators are already well aware of the types of threads I'm referring to, since they're the ones moving them to the hog pit. I really see no value in hunting them down so people can debate each one individually. If you haven't seen it? Great. But it definitely exists.

@friendlybee said in MSB, SJW, and other acronyms:

Sure it's happened in the past, but.. it didn't happen this time...There is a social cost with being an asshole (using sjw as a pejorative, saying the c-word, etc.). If you don't want to pay the social cost of being an asshole (being made fun of, ostracism, hyperbolically negative replies, etc.) then don't be an asshole.

I wasn't speaking of just this one instance though. As I've stated before - I thought this was a more general thread. And, as others have mentioned - at the moment there really isn't much (if any) social cost to being a jerk. All that happens is threads get turned into dumpster fires and then shuffled off to the hog pit.

There are many folks here who have no problem with that. To wit...

@haven said in MSB, SJW, and other acronyms:

I don't come here for useful information. I come for the GIFs, bad descs, and the shitposting. I can F5 for 10 hours in this place and never be disappointed.

But there are others that do have a problem with it. Hence the discussion thread.

@friendlybee said in MSB, SJW, and other acronyms:

the majority of my position has been 'Calm down about people disagreeing with you online everyone. It's not the end of the world.'

While I agree that it's not the end of the world, it's also not pleasant. I have better things to do with my time than to come to a place where I'm going to be treated disrespectfully. If we can have civil discussions, as the current forum rules dictate we should be able to have, then I'm all for that. If it's just going to be like Facebook comments where people shout obscenities to each other about how wrong they are? No thanks.

@friendlybee said in MSB, SJW, and other acronyms:

Like you said, it's kind of hard to avoid 'dogpiling' if your definition of dogpiling is 'multiple people disagree with me'. I don't feel that to be a useful definition.

For me it's more about the way multiple people are disagreeing.

If it's six people all making rational arguments like "Have you considered..." or "I see it differently because..." then you can push back against claims of dogpiling.

But when it's six people with variants of "OMG are you insane?" and "That idea is the worst thing ever!", mocking the idea or ripping it to shreds with malice, then it can absolutely feel like being set upon by a wolf-pack.

@arkandel said in MSB, SJW, and other acronyms:

In a forum that's largely about presenting ideas for others to comment in it would be counter-productive to discourage the concept of 'attacking' them. That's what peer reviews are about, after all; you invite conversation

Peer reviews are a central part of my job, and I can assure you that not making the other person feel attacked is an integral and essential part of a peer review. Read any of the million articles on effective peer reviews if you don't believe me.

There is a vital difference between a criticism and an attack.

ETA - again I think the civil discourse "rules" get it right here:

You may wish to respond to something by disagreeing with it. That’s fine. But, remember to criticize ideas, not people. Please avoid:

Name-calling.
Ad hominem attacks.
Responding to a post’s tone instead of its actual content.
Knee-jerk contradiction.

Instead, provide reasoned counter-arguments that improve the conversation.

Nobody's going to be perfect at this (including myself) but if we shared that central goal it'd be a lot easier to steer things in a positive direction. Right now, though, we don't.

@tinuviel said in MSB, SJW, and other acronyms:

In reality, though, I don't ever want to not be able to argue with someone simply because what I'm arguing against is a strongly held belief. The stronger the hold, the stronger one's ability to defend should be.

I agree. All I'm saying is that I'd prefer for people to argue respectfully.

ETA: You can disagree with my strongly-held beliefs all day long and not bother me until (generic)you start diving into "you're an idiot" or "that's the most insane thing I've ever heard" territory.

Alas, with strangers on the internet, that seems to be a bridge too far without pretty strenuous moderation.

@auspice said in MSB, SJW, and other acronyms:

The "ftfy" imo fell into attack on idea rather than person.
Which goes back to my: learn to tell the difference.

This is why I don't like the whole "attack the idea not the person" strategy.

Because the root of the concept is still attack. People don't respond well to attacks, and particularly when the idea is some deeply held belief, or the attack is "that's f-ing insane" then it's really really hard for even an even-keeled human being to respond to it rationally.

I prefer the The Universal Rules of Civilized Discourse mantra of Be Agreeable, Even When You Disagree.

We don't need to attack ideas (or people) with over-the-top baiting remarks or vulgar insults. We can be better, if we choose to be.

@surreality said in MSB, SJW, and other acronyms:

It doesn't even have to be a hot button issue.

Well I think the whole question about how much money to be spent on social services is a hot-button issue for a lot of people. But I agree with you that the comment you're referring to in this thread (and a couple others like it) is exactly the sort of hostile, dismissive thing I'm saying is a problem.

Count me among those who are confused that we have a 7-page thread spawned because someone used the c-word. Like... I'm not a big fan of it personally but I don't consider it any more of a "slur" than any of the other vulgar name-calling. "You're an <a--/b--/c--/d--/f--/m-f-->" -- they're all pretty horrible things to call each other and shouldn't be used in the constructive area regardless. In the hog pit? No comment.

I thought this was a more general topic spawned by some of the tangents we occasionally get into - like the "women in tech" discussion on the video game thread or someone posting something about healthcare in Less Gamey. There, I think there's a legitimate discussion to be had about moderation. Because as @Templari said - it's pretty easy for folks to be dogpiled just for expressing an unpopular opinion. (I'm not talking slurs or racism here; just general social hot-button issues.) I don't think that kind of dogpiling is constructive for the community any more than people trolling just to get a reaction.

@apos said in MSB, SJW, and other acronyms:

@templari But you're literally posting on a thread about slurs saying that pushback against saying slurs makes you feel uncomfortable as a moderate, when I'm a moderate and think that is dumb. So I mean, if you're not saying that, it's kind of off topic, no?

Is this topic specifically about slurs? It sounded like it was more about potentially-hot-button topics in general. That's how I read it anyway. I wasn't following the thread that originally spawned this one so maybe there's more context that isn't being provided.