To no one’s surprise I presume, I concur with bored’s distinction.
NPCs are calculated to drive plot. If a staff member is languishing in 4 hour TS scenes with an NPC when that NPC could be driving a plot, that staff member is wasting time. That NPC could and should be used in a better manner, and for that I see a meaningful distinction.
@Auspice said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
Telling you I enjoyed a movie isn't a fucking spoiler.
Exactly.
I mean, I enjoyed Glass. If that ruins the movie, trust me: it was M. Night Shyamalan's fault.
@Ghost said in Stranger Danger?:
Do you have issues finding/maintaining RP with players once they find out you're not open to IC-relationship stuff? That was always kind of my issue: I was able to find a lot of available RP, but people would suddenly have "electrical storm" or "rl emergency" or "sorry gotta go" when it was established I wasn't into TS/relationship RP with the person.
I don't have this issue either. Frankly, I prefer RPing with folks who take a similar position. I'm not against romance or sexual RP, but I RP from work a lot, and that's not the sort of RP I'd like when I'm trying to negotiate a seven-figure deal by email.
There's so much I want to say in response. I'll try to be brief.
Telling people to stay out of the Hog Pit to avoid dogpiling is akin to telling black people to obey the law when they have been killed by law enforcement time and time again for doing nothing illegal. The problem is the dogpiling, which can understandably have a chilling effect on any kind of speech here. And let's not pretend that the dogpiling occurs only within the Hog Pit; it clearly and demonstrably has happened elsewhere, which is why we have to haul threads out of other areas into the Hog Pit.
But let's also not pretend that there are easy fixes, because, if there were, we probably would have already implemented them.
That said, any maybe to surreality's consternation, but I stand by every word I said before. The number of regular, frequent posters in the Hog Pit pales to the actual number of people that read or post here. I'm well-aware that I have a great deal of privilege because, for whatever reason, I'm not usually a target when I make comments, no matter how wrong or controversial my opinion might be. And I'm not going to pretend that I can walk in anyone's shoes and process experiences as they might, because I think that belittles their experience.
@derp said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:
Simple: You set clear boundaries, and you enforce them. If the purpose of the Hog Pit is to be an unmoderated free for all, then everywhere else needs to be moderated. The administration cannot be afraid of 'oh god what about censorship and free speech' in the rest of the board.
There's a difference between fear and balancing interests.
We live in a society of laws away from this place. These laws are boundaries. They are the boundaries of conduct, and we charge law enforcement officers to enforce these laws to the best of their ability. Our expectations are reasonable because, in society, the people have given law enforcement officers this duty and authority because we the people are neither empowered nor permitted to do the same by the law. We observe and experience, and, at a trial, we judge and determine.
In this scenario, the admins are law enforcement, and the members are the people.
There are problems when law enforcement is asked to create the law. It's easy to see why. Yet when we are asked to do so, we contend with the multiple forces that exists within the membership here, which is to be expected. And we listen as best we can, but, at the end of the day, can find very few clear lines of conduct to censor unanimously. Every other boundary is discretionary, in some way -- and therefore unclear.
The solution isn't so simple. It's not supposed to be simple, and, if it were, the admin would be heavier-handed. There has been push-back about that, which we've tried to respect. Naturally, we expect that our current more laissez-faire approach has also created push-back.
What's important is the discussion, and here it is. And I can tell you that we're talking about changes, but haven't made up our collective minds.
You can really avoid this sort of theme drift by creating a setting that you want and forbidding players from fucking with it.
It’s not too hard, but you have to be willing to say “no” and too few staff are willing to do this.
@Arkandel said in TS - Danger zone:
How much do your TS habits change based on the MU*'s themes?
Entirely. A WoD game allows for different play than a BSG game, for example.
@Tinuviel said in TS - Danger zone:
@Ghost said in TS - Danger zone:
What is the definition of a SAFE TS partner, and if TS is just creative writing why is safety an important factor?
A person that sees TS in the same light as you do. The fact that we've had several reasonably reliable reports of stalkers, crossing games and crossing into RL, indicates that just because X-person believes that TS is only creative writing, Y-person isn't guaranteed to share the same opinion.
I concur.
Deadwood was where I fell in love with Ian McShane.
Here's where I fell in love with McShane:
@derp said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:
I don't mind the Hog Pit. There are times when gloves off can be beneficial. I more mind the fact that, even with a designated gloves off area, people can't seem to keep it there and it ends up spilling everywhere because things get dragged into the mud if they get too dirty, instead of someone turning on the hose, like should happen.
If we get rid of the Hog Pit, then those lines become, well, muddier. I think that would ultimately have the opposite of the intended effect. At least with it there, there are moderate boundaries between 'pit material' and 'non pit material'. Even if some people still fail to grasp that.
Here's why I don't approve of this line of thinking.
Some people don't want to play in the mud, like Faraday. I know this, so I could hop into the Hog Pit and defecate a whole ton of false, defamatory offal there accusing her of everything from kidnapping the Lindbergh Baby to being the reason why kids are getting shot in schools. And I could attempt to do so in a witty, rhetorical fashion that both amuses and persuades people to my line of thinking. And if Faraday wanted to denounce all of that bullshit, she would have to come into the Hog Pit to do it. Otherwise, she has to sit back and take it or hope that someone steps into the ring for her.
How is that fair? This is what bullying boils down to: I take the fight to a place where my victim can't or won't go, or won't have a fair shot in.
I cannot say from personal experience that I have been the target of a whisper-campaign, but I can damn well understand it is some shady peak-at-high-school bullshit that I have neither the time nor the inclination to properly express my anger over. I have seen and heard enough in my 20+ years of lingering in virtual space to know that, at one point, the WORA community was about two steps away of heading down the road of 8-bit and 4chan. And I'm too old to think there is anything hip, edgy, or valuable of having a website that has a section that condones and even encourages people to be shitty to one another.
Maybe back in the day when some of us were neophytes still masturbating to our purple TS prose, we thought that it would be cool and cathartic to take potshots at people who had difficulty communicating over the internet. Where we could nitpick about grammar and spelling, and pass judgment on who or what was acceptable in our community of misfits. But in retrospect, I've come to the conclusion that my belief in a "free internet" where people could express what they felt in whatever way they wished is the same sort of mentality that shields hate groups as they organize, intimidate, and sometimes kill the easily-oppressed.
If we can comprehend that there is a good behavior and bad behavior, then we can recognize that bad behavior is bad. In order for a person to conclude that there is value to the Hog Pit, they must also conclude that the bad behavior is desirable, and should be considered acceptable. But if conduct were acceptable, then there is no reason why it should have been separated in the first place from the other forms of acceptable conduct -- the good conduct, if you will. And that doesn't make sense to me.
But, more fundamentally, I do not see why we have to accept bad behavior here. What value is there in giving members of the community a place to accuse one another of things in egregious ways that are sometimes lauded and praised? Why is it that we seem to be incapable of airing grievances as we'd expect our friends to do, namely civilly and without childish name-calling? (I suppose it depends on the kinds of friends you have.)
If WORA was a place where people could complain about what was happening in the hobby, then make a "Complaints" forum and attach the same rules as we have for "Mildly Constructive." Complain all you want, but stick to what happened rather just accuse someone vaguely as a psycho hosebeast.
I don't think it's difficult, but I file complaints for a living.
@surreality said in Mass Effect MU*?:
Paging @Ganymede (hopefully)...
@Thenomain has flogged me back into working on this. We're on Version 3.0.
Stripped down the system again. Die rolling / resolution will be simple: Blood Bowl simple. If he can get the roller working with the stats, that'd be great.
Planned features:
This seems to seriously be on the move. No kidding. We may be looking for play-testers soon. Like, in six months -- but hopefully much sooner.
@Arkandel said in Privacy in gaming:
Another factor to be considered is how easily MUSHes allow bandwagons to form, leading to one person getting presented as the fucking devil if they don't get along with a group of popular, loud players. Then suddenly every word they type can be misinterpreted or presented in a contest they didn't intend - which influences staff. If you (General You) get a bunch of complaints by different people with comments captured out of context about the same one guy it's easy to think they're right without looking deeper into it.
In my opinion, these bullying tactics are pretty easy to detect.
In my practice, the more words you use to make an argument the less effective it becomes. Such is the case with these "misinterpret words to make someone out as a villain" complaints. Maybe it's because I live in Ye Olde World of Drama (Darkness) but you get a feel for who the Click-y Dicks are pretty fast.
(The Click-y Dicks got me fired as staff once because I wasn't doing things like they wanted, true story.)
In the past, I have dealt with these situations by convening a connected meeting to hash things out. Why? Because these sorts of bullies actually hate confrontation, and will find all sorts of excuses to not allow the accused their time. They just want staff to intervene without the dirty work of actually accusing in person and being questioned on rebuttal.
And I have no problem evicting popular people from a game, not at all.
@Sparks said in Accounting for gender imbalances:
Do you know how many times I've seen a conversation about ...
Do you know how many times I have seen ...
I'm going to step in and take some flak because I want to.
I don't see anything in what Ghost said speaking to your experience or contradicting your frustration. To the contrary, it appears to me that Ghost understands the constant battle being warred in the boardrooms and hiring halls. Yet nothing Ghost has said is, to me, incorrect.
But you did ask him to step away. And then comes the dogpile.
How many times does a person have to say the following for everyone to put down the firebrands and pitchforks?
"Choose the right people/good team."
This is what Ghost has said from his first post. Actually, what he said was:
"Build a team who can do the job."
And I have to defend this because I said the exact same thing.
"Hire the best people for the job, regardless of gender."
@Ghost said in Accounting for gender imbalances:
At the end of the day, IT is about skills and experience. It's a Catch-22 because if you take a female candidate who isn't as skilled as another male candidate, your team will suffer. If you give a woman a bump out of bias, then you're not hiring her solely for her skills, which isn't right either. At the end of the day, all you can do is build your team with the best people you can get, and if that ends up being a diverse team? Great. If not? It was the applications you had available at the time.
That's the advice. And I concur with it. That's why I responded with my post about intangibles. We had a male candidate that, on paper, looked better, but a female candidate that, in reality, was better. I stood there and advocated for the hire because I saw the intangibles, and, lo, I was right.
If Arkandel is going to do the hiring, he's going to need to do the defending. He's going to need to advocate for whoever he hires, regardless of gender. And if that's the case, as Ghost said, focus on the skills and experience when taking a position, and, as I said, don't forget about raising the intangibles.
Dave Chapelle was right, and I remain concerned.
Thank you, Ark, for inviting me here and having confidence in my ability to take over EmmahSue's brainchild. I hope I can instill the same sort of confidence members have had in your sense of fairness.
As mentioned elsewhere, I will be posting a policy on RL information shortly. I'm still supposed to be working.
For the membership, with Arkandel stepping away, our council is down to two admins: myself and Mietze. I would like to pull on a third admin, as it has been our tradition to have three folks monitoring this forum and consulting on matters related to its management. As may be inferred from a previous post of mine, we are hoping that someone here with experience in IT or using/managing nodeBB is willing to serve.
We offer nothing but our collective love as compensation, for whatever that is worth.
@Derp said in Privacy in gaming:
They are, thankfully, going the way of the dinosaur as players who consider volunteering as staff quickly catch on to the fact that that is a thankless scenario with little to no reward and nope out of that quickly.
As a caveat, I can see and believe that there should be some limits to play in certain cases where a game is calculated to be political and deadly, but that limit is not in actual play but what scenarios may be played out.
When vying for an IC throne, a staff PC is going to have some obvious advantages over non-staff PCs.
@Kanye-Qwest said in Accounting for gender imbalances:
yeah and he also entirely neglected to acknowledge or mention the mountains of bias that have absolutely, 100% resulted in these types of jobs being almost entirely staffed by men, so let's not act like that omission means nothing.
The responses infer this neglect or ignorance. Is there any evidence? I don't see any. I see no denial of experience; I see no denial of the very fact that you are presenting here; and I certainly don't deny it. And, more to my point, has anyone jumped down my throat about my thought processes, neglect of acknowledgment, or mention of what I already know and believe?
Apparently not.
@Apos said in Accounting for gender imbalances:
Saying, "hire the best candidate" is one of those things that makes me raise my eyebrows because... I mean, of course they will. ... It's one of those things that's already well understood, and saying so says a little bit more about the person saying it than the person being told.
Emphasis added. Since I believe that Ghost and I have said the exact same thing, why is it that my advice elicited no accusation of neglect or ignorance, but Ghost's did?
Folks.
We are all on the same side. Why are we responding to one another as if were not?
Maybe we should all take a step back.
I want to add that holyshitballs pressing and pushing for equitable treatment is annoying and exhausting as fuck, and I acknowledge -- and I want everyone to know this -- that I am 100% fine with people venting about this topic right here. Like, I can only imagine what Sparks, Auspice, Faraday, or any other woman in the IT industry has to go through. I don't even want to think about it. Don't step back from the anger and rage. Don't take your foot off the pedal.
I just don't think Ghost deserves to get run over for saying everything I did, unless you all intend to run me over too.
Here's the explanation, paraphrased from something Ghost posted long ago in the thread about Tyche's banning:
"[Shangdi] didnt really seem to have interest in interfacing with anyone constructively on the forum. He mostly just haunted political threads to ruffle feathers using superskeeeery alt-rightisms to watch people's reactions. Not surprised to see this, but ultimately I question why he wasted his time to begin with."
If you want to go on about the pros and cons of a lawsuit, by all means. If you want to win an argument, by all means, within reason. But condescension and the worst kind of mansplaining is shit I'm not going to tolerate in the Politics forum.
We all saw what happened with the Tyche matter and, frankly, I wasn't going to allow that shit happen again.
Also, if you invite me to ban you, I will take that invitation.
@Tinuviel said in Punishments in MU*:
Oh, so they're fighting in the Hog Pit?
No.
That would be this:
Liars.
You have no place in the practice of law. Stop doing it.
I recall the conference in chambers and what the judge ordered. Your proposed entry isn't even a football field within what he ordered, jackass. Now I have to get the Court back on the phone because of you.
You were suspended for two and a half years for lying to a client. I was willing to overlook that, but no more.
I will have your blood.
I did make errors.
I made an error banning Coin. I completely misconstrued what he had to say. I sent a message to his account and asked Cobalt to reach out to him to let him know about the reversal.
I made an error regarding farfalla. I think it was MisterBoring who put up a post about making sure consequences matched offenses. I have historically not done this out of expediency. This is not good leadership or stewardship.
I made an error regarding Meg. Meg was always just trying to advocate for farfalla. She did this when the initial ban came down. On review, she fell into the fourth category, so I apologize for that.
And with Scar, the comment that I seem unhinged was probably a fair observation under the circumstances, and I don't think there was any intent to get banned doing so.
No member petitioned me to change my mind on the bans. Derp did most of the arguing in our discussions as to whose bans should be lifted. We didn't agree on everyone, but those we did agree on have had their bans lifted. We're still talking, but we have other concerns to deal with right now.
Accountability is one such concern.
@Kanye-Qwest said in Personal Agency for Personal Boundaries:
Isn't any coded tool you give them to use in the moment, in scene/conversation essentially the same as saying 'hey could we not'? If the aversion is fear or wariness of conflict or insulting the other party, would throwing a card on the scene not trigger the same anxiety?
Maybe if the script is flipped a little.
Back on Tartarus, there was a command called "+warn <target>" by which an OOC message was emitted to the target stating that there may be substantial IC consequences, including death, if the target continued proceeding as RP may imply. That usually prompted players to talk about what is going on in the scene, and to seek a resolution if desired, without admitting that they may be uncomfortable RL with what is happening.
The anxiety with using commands that might suggest an RL discomfort with proceeding may be connected with the fear that the target might sense a weakness of some kind. I'm not sure. But if the command displayed a neutral warning of some sort, maybe people would be more apt to use it?
Stranger Things Season 3 is a revitalization of the franchise, and definitely worth binge-watching.
