@Cobaltasaurus said:
That's when they learn to go to the farmer's market by themselves.
I get groceries on my own. I do errands on my own. I go to work on my own. And when the partner is in bed, and the kids are sleeping, I MU* on my own.
People need to learn to do shit on their own. Doing shit together is fun and all, but I hate people who can't do shit on their own.
In all parts of the forum, we have one rule: do not post any personal information regarding a person's real identity ("PI").
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I have always said that MUSHing is more like improv than tabletop gaming, and continue to believe so.
I don’t think games need a x-card; rather, it simply needs to remind players that they can always opt-out. Unlike tabletop games, there are seldom a single person telling the story for others; however, I think players need to be reminded that if another player mentions that they are uncomfortable with a line of RP, that you should stop, take stock, and figure out how to proceed collaboratively.
That’s how improv works. And that’s how MUSHes work.
Tuesday: Bought new house (to build).
Thursday: Became partner at firm; also, birthday.
Friday: Avengers
Is good week.
Not terribly important, I suppose, but I am heading on vacation with my family on June 19, 2021 and am slated to return on June 26, 2021. During this time, my availability will be limited.
I will return.
(I mean, I love my family, but --)
@ZombieGenesis said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
People cry about being inclusive but, in the end, I think most people in this hobby are happier just to sit back, mock, and feel generally superior to those around them.
This is how I feel every time I hear someone say that "the vast majority of lesbian PCs are being played by male sexpests." If people want to judge me, fine, but the fact that I enjoy playing female, not-heterosexual PCs is no one's business but my own.
If I am playing a caricature, call me out, but do not presume to tell me what my motivations are.
I'll make it simple.
If a member here tells you to stop contacting them, don't contact them. This includes dragging them into threads and posts. Lurk all the fuck you want, but do not force, compel, or coerce them into responding to you. Also, don't send a private message to them.
I don't care if you have mental illness; I have neither the time nor the inclination to make a full investigation. I don't care if you were drunk or high at the time; these are not excuses for actions.
So, organix has been banned.
Also, if you've been banned, stop coming back here. I was this close to lifting that registration queue, but now, FUCK Y'ALL IT'S STAYING THERE FOR NOW BECAUSE THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS.
You make me sound like such a fucking bitch.
Look, it's real simple. I actually take massive amounts of shit from people all the time, patiently and quietly. But when something happens that is abusive or wrong, or I simply don't agree with it, I follow a simple flow-chart of discussion:
1. "I need to talk to you about X. I'm not comfortable with it. Would you please stop doing X? I'd appreciate it."
Simple. Easy. It's at this point that shit should just stop. A simple "okay, I understand" is fine. I don't need an apology or explanation. Just acknowledge that you received the message and stop doing what you're doing. If you want to explain, I'll listen, but that does not mean I'll change my mind. Why? Because if I've addressed the problem, then there is a problem, and know that I don't knee-jerk when it comes to bringing up problems; I've better things to do with my time than make up some petty shit.
2. "Okay, let me rephrase that: stop doing X, or I will make you stop."
Again, simple and easy. This response means that I'm not open to further discussion, if you're debating the pros and cons as to why you are doing what you're doing. Just stop doing X. That's all I'm asking.
3. <insert action here>
If I'm a player, I complain to staff, and I keep on complaining until I get heard, and if the offender isn't shit-canned or disciplined to my satisfaction, I leave. If I'm a staff member, I will request that the game owner/operator permanently eject you, or, at the very least, forbid you from applying back into my sphere of responsibility. And if I'm the game owner/operator, expect a permanent banning.
I apply the same rules with my kids:
My advice: just be clear with your expectations, and hold firm. If other players don't get by that, screw them. People will push and push until they get what you want; when they realize they won't get what they want, they will leave you alone.
I think this is why my IC and OOC relationships with players tend to last for a long time.
Mietze recently banned another clone of our sometimes-mellow-than-WTF right-wing troll.
Later, we noticed an account with a similar "anonymous" e-mail address was registered.
Clearly, this motherfucker seems to think that we like playing games. I have no doubt we'll play this cat-and-mouse game like a sad simile of the Batman-Joker routine. And you know what? I'm fucking sick and tired of it because it is interfering with my raging alcoholism.
So, for the next little while, there's no automatic registration. We'll be approving them. And if some other shitbag wants to, oh I don't know, spam the fuck out of us with accounts, then we'll simply disable them and allow user-invite only for a while.
How long will this go on? I don't know. Hopefully long enough that people will take a fucking hint, but I'm smart and cynical enough to realize that some people are out to ruin shit for others.
Got issues getting online? PM me.
@kestrel said in Let's talk about TS.:
Put it this way: in real life, I don't walk around with a flashing neon sign on my forehead that says 'up for a shag'. It's not that I'm never up for it, it's that I'm never so desperate for it that I need to advertise the fact that I might be.
The problem isn't that people don't know I'm up for a shag. I'm always up for a shag.
What people don't understand is that I'm not up for a shag with them.
@rightmeow said in Review of Recent Bans:
In closing, I think this just needs to be done better.
I want to start here with a question: what needs to be done better?
Look at who you have posting. You now have the minority and you don't see this and worse, you don't see the problem with it; you see it as a win.
I don't know why you think that a "majority" of people have moved or why you think giving a "minority" of people the opportunity to post is a problem; rather, I think you need to examine this observation closely. I don't see what's wrong with having one board where a "majority" of people post and another where a "minority" of people post. Said another way, I see nothing wrong with having one board where people continue the practices that made WORA/SWOFA/MSB popular and another where people decline to follow the same.
Over the years? Most of these that have been banned have been overly supportive to those in the admin role. Did they react when they were already angry and told to stop? Yep. Same way as if I'm in a RL argument with you and you tell me I need to calm down, I'm probably not going to calm down.
I will admit that a number of people who remain banned assisted in a few ways. Because some are staff at or run other games, I have received notifications of players who have been banned for creepy / stalker behavior, so that I can keep an eye out for them. This is a good practice, and one I hope continues going forward. Roz helped coordinate the move here too.
But I will also say that none of them offered to help until this place was literally crashing down around us. Testament assisted Ark, mietze, and I with one potential plan that did not work out; then faraday, Derp, and Roz assisted in an actual move. In the wake of our successful move, I alone asked Derp and Roz to join us as admins. And that lasted for a week.
As for calming down, I think that's a personal matter, but when my partner or friends ask me to calm down, I do so. As you might imagine, I don't get upset very often.
Also, as a member of the community, I want to see the reasoning. I do not.. DO NOT.. like the cloak and dagger decisions that are going on. Even on games there is a level of transparency given to decisions.
To provide more transparency, here's what happened. Derp looked at the list of folks banned as a result of the events and posted his opinion on each as to whether the ban should remain or be lifted. I then examined the list and went through the evaluation I used here. Those who remain banned are those who I believed: (1) were intentionally trying to get banned; (2) asked to be banned; or (3) spouted profanity in response to what was going on after I asked them to cease discussing the same. So, the people who were unbanned were those that Derp and I agreed did not fall into these categories.
You mention elsewhere that this decision should have been made by the uninvolved. Unfortunately, we did not have any uninvolved moderators at the time we decided on who would be unbanned. I hope to change this; I asked for volunteers a week or so ago, and I have a couple right now. If they want to have their say after reviewing the situation, they will have their input, and that may result in other bans being lifted. And this is why I said that other bans may be lifted in the future.
Why were they not banned before that in the many, many years that some of them have been in the community?
Because they did not violate the rules or any moderator warnings prior -- at least, not clearly, directly, or blatantly.
I just know that I'm very very sad about how this has gone down in a community I cared about and with people I enjoy interacting with (Banned and Unbanned).
I don't mean to put thoughts in your head or words in your mouth, but perhaps you are very sad because you're seeing people on both sides who are worthy, valid, and smart at loggerheads. This puts you in a difficult position because you want to enjoy the company of all, but feel you can no longer do so because that might be seen as "taking sides." I'm not sure what makes you sad. I can only tell you what makes me sad.
I am sad because everyone immediately presumed the worst. I have read repeatedly about how I have tossed away nearly two decades of reputation to "defend a misogynist." The way I see it, if my reputation ever meant anything to anyone, then maybe they would have reached out via PM to discuss the matter. And while I recognize that people, as you put it, do not approve of "cloak and dagger" discussions, I really saw no other way to explain to anyone why I was asking for peace: because mietze needed time to read through everything, process, and discuss our path forward, and that continually adding fuel to the fire would not help the situation. What was going on in her life was not for me to explain or describe -- so I was silent.
I also am sad because it was clear to me that the goal of the protest was to compel me to fire Derp. This was one of the repeated demands, even after I explained that I would not be doing that and why. They demanded that farfalla be "freed"; farfalla is now "freed". I think they also asked me to step down -- I don't recall -- but if that's the case, I hope they can see that this would result in Derp having sole authority here. How that would "rebuild trust" is beyond me, and even if I had followed their will, nothing proposed would have ameliorated what was going on in mietze's life, which led to her resignation. Not to mention that such a "compromise" would have compromised my own sense of fair play with people who are willing to serve voluntarily.
Finally, I am sad that others seem to think that I have no sense of self-awareness. I understand that many people think that I am but a custodian of a public square, and like most custodians I get over-looked or thought of as a servant of some kind. The thing is that if my job is merely to be a caretaker, then I am an utter failure because I have to rely on others to do this; see, e.g., how long it took for us to get to a stable place. Despite this belief, I am called upon more often than not to be an enforcer of the forum's rules, which puts me in a "law enforcement" role more than anything else and therefore a servant to those who make the rules -- the community. Either way, people seem to think that I'm not entitled to agency and to be judged on the choices I've made, and that is disappointing.
I can deal with making the choices and being judged for it. If what follows is being criticized somewhere in the Internet, so be it, but I do not know why I should tolerate being pilloried on a place that I spent time, effort, and money to keep up and running. If people believe otherwise, then we have a difference of opinion.
Just be kind.
I will, RightMeow, and I am, I think.
Kindness isn't always forgiveness or the lowering of boundaries, and right now I think there needs to be boundaries. I don't plan to set foot on Brand MU Day, and I hope their endeavor goes well. If their admins want to talk about some of the creepy stalkers that have been banned here, and share info so that their forum doesn't have to deal with them, I'm happy to do that too. If they even want to "bear the mantle" of being "the successor" in the WORA/SWOFA/MSB tradition, then I would be the first to say that they can have it. But that does not mean I will reconsider the bans I put on prior accounts, or that I think they are unjustified, or that I think they have no purpose.
To bring this back to the question, I think we are doing things better. We have settled on our "identity" as being one that no longer permits the sort of toxic shit-flinging that once existed in the Hog Pit, which makes it easier to moderate. We have decided to follow this vision because we think something different needs to be offered. For the "minority" of people returning, knowing that we will be more vigilant and direct under this forum-wide policy is, I think, reassuring. And even if we are not doing things better now, we want to do better and to be kinder, and this is reflected in our new vision of what the hobby's community needs.
If we fade away like IGU, so be it. But I do not consider a lesson from almost 20 years ago to be instructive now. I think a substantial part of the community does not care for, and never cared for, the sort of public-shaming of the Hog Pit. And I now believe, after 20 years, that the idea that public shaming will cause a change in behavior is pretty vain, if not a pretext to simply being a shitty person.
So, we are going to be better and kinder, and have knitted this idea into the fabric of the forum.
I hope you can appreciate what we are trying here and how it falls in line with what you want to see, but right now I do not think lifting the bans will help anything.
@Cupcake said in When To Stop Listening To Those Voices:
Our game culture abhors attention-seekers and rightfully so. That kind of play style is selfish.
I don't think these are accurate statements.
I think our game culture abhors attention-seekers who hog the spotlight to the detriment of others. I think our game culture craves attention-seekers who use the attention to facilitate the RP of others.
Players tend to gravitate towards the players who can spontaneously-generate RP through their own characters because, for the most part, it's easier to be receptive than creative. But it's very hard for me not to see creative-scions, who are the hub of RP, as being anything but attention-seeking.
Our game culture hates assholes and degenerates. It venerates creatives and humorists. And, in my opinion, these are all "attention-seekers" in one way or another.
By saying this, I mean to encourage the sort of attention-grabbing creativity, rather than cause these creatives to stop and reconsider whether they are creating too much.
@Derp said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
Call it victim-blaming if you want. But if people are so invested that they can't see what long-term damage it's doing to them, and are unable to walk away in favor of something healthier? Yeah. That's a problem.
Sure.
You know what, though? It doesn't cost me much to listen to people.
I make a lot of friends that way on games. It's not that I actually care more than what might be in the moment, or as a human might be concerned about another human's suffering. It's part of the empathy chip that I had installed in me not too long ago, and have since brought under my control.
In my 20+ years of playing, staffing, and being in this hobby far more than I ever wanted to be, I have found it easy to separate the chronic problem-makers from the genuine problem-sufferers. Even so, I have found that the chronic problem-makers aren't bad people either; some of them just want someone to talk to. If one were to argue that there are actual very few reprehensible people in our hobby, then I would counter that by saying that there are very few people that actually practice the profession of victimhood. Some players are simply more sensitive or more anxious or more paranoid than others.
My concern as a lawyercatbot and a Scion of All Wisdom is that the very few reprehensible people can do considerably more damage to one or many people than professional victims. In my experience, professional victims sow discord and chaos, but do not stalk or threaten others. Comparing them to the people Surreality and Sunny have had to deal with? I'd gladly take 100 professional victims over 1 creepy stalker.
Professional victims grate the shit out of me, but I will gladly step on the necks of any stalkers that know another player's RL identity and are following them. That bullshit is fucking wrong and disturbing, and we need to stamp that shit out. Accusations of the same must also be taken very seriously: a false accusation can ruin someone's reputation in our hobby, and should be dealt with swiftly and unmercifully.
In my Mod Voice, loudly: if you feel threatened or stalked on this board, please bring it to our (Arkandel and I) attention immediately. Arkandel and I agree on few things, but we absolutely will not tolerate stalking. We may request that you help us understand what's going on, but we promise you -- I promise you -- we will take that shit very, very seriously.
I've been playing around for a long time, and what @faraday has built -- I've said this before -- is exemplary. Almost visionary.
The auto-combat? Brilliant. You can pound out a complex combat scene in a few hours.
Seriously, I've attracted a couple of folks from WoD, and this game is a welcome breath of fresh air. And the playerbase is welcoming, wonderful, and a gem in our hobby. The best part is that it caters to my hours -- daytime, EST, business -- and it is bloody amazing how such a simple theme and setting can attract bright and brilliant RPers.
That said, I hope poor @faraday isn't swamped with work. But this seems to be her labor of love, and all I can do is profess how lovely it really is.
I have been getting a rash of people attempting to register who have not provided an e-mail address. Unsurprisingly, some of such registrations have come from our banned friend(s) who just can't seem to get enough of us.
As a result, I am requiring that all new registrants provide an e-mail address.
I have neither the time nor the inclination to deal with people I don't have to or want to and, yes, what the requirements are to get an account here are completely based on my judgment.
You don’t need to explain your apology to anyone. The apology is just fine.
This is a gentle reminder that Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is the best Spider-Man movie, and possibly the best comic movie, of all time.
The decision to lift a few, but not all, of the bans was a simple one.
We elected to review the thread in which most of the "action" occurred to determine, in TNP's words, who were "specifically trying" to get banned. Some arguably tried to get banned by not following my request; some did so by spouting profanity; some asked to be banned; and others simply posted after I had made it clear that there was to be no further discussion. Of these four groups, those who fall in the first or fourth category were those we spent most of our time on.
Inferring intent is a difficult thing to do. Finding intent is almost always a matter of discretion. We could spend a lot of time discussing whether some or all remain unjustly banned under the circumstances; after all, the original controversy is more or less over, and we have adopted a new set of rules. We could also spend a lot of time discussing whether there's a point to lifting any of the bans, as another site has arisen, thus giving a place for anyone to criticize the administration of this site without reprisal.
For now, the decision to unban some and not others will stand.
A couple of things I would like to note in closing. First, we have opened up the section formerly known as the Hog Pit so that visitors can view its contents without needing to have an approved account. Second, as we have changed our tone around here, I would recommend that anyone looking to engage in the same style of debating as once was enjoyed or encouraged in the Hog Pit go elsewhere to do so.
If there is further reconsideration of some or all the bans in the future, we will notify the community.
I have a very strong opinion about staff NPCs that end up TSing PCs. This could be because of my profession.
I mentioned before that an ethical staffer shouldn't be limited in what they do; however, what constitutes an "ethical" staffer varies from person to person. We have tossed phrases like "ethical" and "abuse" without really giving much in the way of definition, but what I think everyone can agree with is that a staffer: (1) needs to have a set of ethics to constrain their inherent power on a game; and (2) a staffer can use their inherent power on a game that can hurt another player.
People that work professions that either require or often create strong emotional or personal ties are ethically constrained from engaging in sexual relations with their clients. It doesn't matter if that professional is kind, gentle, or ethical, as others would use that word: they are in a position which is of such power or connection that the profession binds the professional to avoid any potential abuse. And while it is a stretch to suggest that a staff member on a game is akin to a doctor or a lawyer in their relationship with any player, it is not as much of a stretch to point out that players are often dependent upon staffers for their engagement with a game.
I am of the opinion that a blanket ban, while constraining the otherwise-ethical staffers in how they may engage with players, provides a baseline of behavior -- an ethical rule -- that can inform or assuage players as to what sort of RP staff may press them into. Were I to run a game, I would probably insist on such a ban. While many good stories may be cut short or snipped by such a rule, I would point out that players can RP NPCs that can engage in TS in a PRP.
And, yes, while I recognize that staff are also players, I cannot overlook how staff have powers and duties beyond players.
