Posts made by Ghost

@Derp said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

@Ghost said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

@Derp said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

Ultimately it probably won't change anything. But there are two distinct lines of thought in this particular thread, and that's probably at least worth discussing.

Or a spin-off thread about snooping on your kids.

This one really was supposed to be about online dangers to minors and not about the politics of monitoring your child's online behavior in a way that is healthy for them.

Well, yes, we could do that...
...but the entire tangent started because the OP posted a list of things and some of us went 'wait, what?' This is one of those things on that list. So ...

But is it really right to do that when their original point what that they basically reaching out to warn people about the danger to children?

HOW the data was gathered wasn't the OPs point. Let's let them have their thread (and let it keep as a future thread to gather info on) risks to children coming near the hobby.

I guess I'm saying that it's really easy to grab a few words out of a post and spiral it into something that wasn't their point, and that I'm sure the "parenting" side of the topic would be a great discussion; just not at the expense of piling onto the OP this who posted it as a result of a horrible RL experience.

It's a chance to support someone after a risk to their kid.

@Derp said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

Ultimately it probably won't change anything. But there are two distinct lines of thought in this particular thread, and that's probably at least worth discussing.

Or a spin-off thread about snooping on your kids.

This one really was supposed to be about online dangers to minors and not about the politics of monitoring your child's online behavior in a way that is healthy for them.

@tek said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

@Ghost You know someone is being fucking egregious when I'm agreeing with you.

Let's just call it: being glad you can identify who will back you up when seriously illegal stuff happens and call it a day.

I may not agree with everyone about specifics here and there, but at the end of the day I'll always prioritize their safety and their kids' safety, strangers or not.

@Roz Right.

It was a post about their special-needs child being exposed to potential online pedophiles that included useful "here's how to find support" advice for parents, turned quickly into a bizarre accusation about being an abusive evangelical-style parent who equates doing as they say with being loved.

Anyone who has ever been a parent knows a few key things...

1. It's best to be honest about where they don't have privacy rather than do it on the sly. If it's about contracting to safety when using the internet then it's not snooping. It's a family decision.
2. If you dont have a teen who doesn't sneak around or get into stuff they shouldn't? Congrats. You won the genetic lottery.
3. It's better to identify problems before things become criminal investigations and years of therapy

What I found neat about @buttercup 's post is that their child came to them about this stuff. God, I would have been so grateful for that because most teens dont have the experience, maturity, or legal knowledge to know how to handle this stuff. They usually get scared, hide it, get devoured by it. There have even been cases of pedophiles collecting sexually explicit content from the minor and using that as blackmail to keep them from going to their parents or the law.

The discussion about whether or not keeping an eye on your teen's online activity could inadvertently "out" them to their parents before they are ready to "out" themselves (and the topic of how parents abuse their children for choosing different sexualities than the parent would prefer) is another topic entirely.

Let THIS ONE be about protecting your kids from pedophiles in the MU/online community. Open up a SEPARATE one for the other topic, please.

Follow-up.

The JCVD picture in the bathroom is a hit. 2/3 people who visit my new house are like: "It is so weird but interesting peeing while Jean-Claude Van Damme is gazing romantically at you."

But even better?

My SO's "best bitch" came over yesterday came over yesterday and brought over her 18 year old daughter, who came out of the bathroom asking who that guy in the picture is.

So it became gif-time as we showed her the splits, split kick, split ballpunch, punch the snake in its face, the "JCVD dance", and regaled her about "The Muscles from Brussels" and his $10k/week cocaine habit.

Between last weekend's house party and this weekend, I've had to open up that JCVD OR JADEN SMITH thread a few times.

@Auspice said in RL things I love:

@Ghost said in RL things I love:

Yesterday my SO asked me to help her clean up a room and set it up as a craft room. A bunch of boxes got set in the hallway. We just moved, so we have a bunch of weird stuff in wrong packaging, like an Amazon box filled with hand towels.

I see a taped box for a computer monitor. A 24" computer monitor. I didn't remember packing that.

Me: "Hey, babe, what's packed in this computer monitor box? Do I need to unpack it?"

Her: "...shit. Merry Christmas. Guess I'm gonna have to find you another xmas present, now."

Moral #1 If you're hiding Christmas gifts, remember that when asking your SO to help move stuff around.

Moral #2: If you call it out, you might get an extra present out of it!

she shoulda told you it was her luchadore costumes and if you were a good boy she'd break it out next weekend

I KNOW she should have.

She could have also been "oh that's my old grandma's stuff, put it in the closet" and I wouldn't have known the wiser. Like a dopey dog I would have just gone "durrrr okay, that monitor looks sweet we should get one!"

Yesterday my SO asked me to help her clean up a room and set it up as a craft room. A bunch of boxes got set in the hallway. We just moved, so we have a bunch of weird stuff in wrong packaging, like an Amazon box filled with hand towels.

I see a taped box for a computer monitor. A 24" computer monitor. I didn't remember packing that.

Me: "Hey, babe, what's packed in this computer monitor box? Do I need to unpack it?"

Her: "...shit. Merry Christmas. Guess I'm gonna have to find you another xmas present, now."

Moral #1 If you're hiding Christmas gifts, remember that when asking your SO to help move stuff around.

Moral #2: If you call it out, you might get an extra present out of it!

@Dropbear said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

people on msb you have to accept no privacy when you log onto a mu on the internet

also people on msb a parent who is responsible for a human being in every way has no right to infring on privacy

The former is true. The latter is exactly what pedophiles want parents to believe.

Also:

A few points of note:

1. When you're a parent, you know it will eventually be important for your teen to explore their sexuality in whatever hormone-driven state that it takes shape. Due to their youth and inexperience it is still important to try to keep an eye out that this doesn't take the form of being used, involves sexual abuse, or other forms of dangerous behavior.

In short, if you choose to not guide your teen through understanding sexuality, this does not mean that it's wise to let a 45 year old (stranger, pedophile) do it for you. Because they will. Pedophiles actively lie in wait for curious, inexperienced youth seeking a outlet for their hormones. Some might say that it's an inevitability. Leaving your child exposed to this because you want to be "hands off" could also be considered "aiding pedophiles in doing their thing unchecked".

2. Many players have stories about being teens in this hobby, being groomed, and being sexually harassed. These stories persist to as recent to within the last few weeks, and involve both adults and teens. These teen stories often involve wandering onto sex-focused MU. Sex-focused MU attendance is easily 2-3 times the size of even WoD MU. Many players currently in this hobby were also playing 20+ years ago.

Extrapolate from that what you will.

Edit, because fuck ambiguity. I am outright saying that it is highly likely that the same people who groomed you as a teen (in this hobby) are likely still playing and able to groom your children.

@faraday I would kind of love an OOCly supportive environment with an IC-PK environment.

It would be like Rollerball.

• People placing side-bets on who wins which fight.
• That one son of a bitch who lucks out on RNG having this massive target on his back
• Cafepress store selling tee shirts, mugs, and underwear with slogans
• Records for longest consecutive combat scene "survives" before permadeath...

...jesus.

A parent posts that their autistic child was potentially groomed on the internet by an adult, and chose as a parent to report it to the authorities. Rather than care and concern for this person and their special needs child, some people are seriously instead directing this as an opportunity to critique how they choose to implement their duty as a parent to protect their children?

The fuck is wrong with you people?

I dont think it's ever been so clear to me that some people in this hobby are just probably safer being corralled into this text-based second life than they are trying to behave like real world human beings. Jesus wept.

@Arkandel Agreed. Very specialized. Very focused on following specific instructions, not very flexible or adaptive. Very "Give me the instructions."

Very nice, very professional, but I'd say about 7/10 need specific instructions for everything. The other 3/10 are fucking amazing, but want $100k+ and Visa support right out the gate.

@Arkandel Right, IT is very different.

I have interviewed people who, on paper, sound great: Bachelors degree, a long list of tech jargon (cloud, linux, shell scripting, Jenkins, automation, etc etc etc), and then you find out in the interview that they're right out of college, applied these tech skills in a training environment, or simply used preconfigured instructions. They don't really know the tech or how to admin it, but they touched it so I guess put it on the app, right?

Our IT hiring is the same way. The pecking order from my perspective is:

• Certs + Experience + College
• Certs + Experience
• College + Certs
• Experience/College

Tech training in India fucks everything up a bit, too. Their "colleges" include these internship programs where they don't really do a lot of out of the box thinking or creation of anything lasting. Not every person comes out of those internship programs with knowledge as to how to be an operator/admin of whatever process they own. No, instead these "internships" are listed as employment by some tech firm (included in the cost of the training) and the only thing I can see it is good for is to pad these resumes with employment history; despite the fact said employment was some cakewalk stuff.

So we get these Indian apps that are COLLEGE! SKILLS! EXPERIENCE! HALF THE SALARY! but then later find out that they were told to just shut up, follow instructions, and have lesser value.

This is why some firms are now regretting hardcore overnight Indian staffing or outsourcing their Ops to India.

@Tyche Well, truth is the problem with degrees in IT is that a 40 year old who got a BS in Computer Science right after high school got a whole lotta training on Windows NT/2000.

Certs answer the problem of maintaining education that is current. You can get your A+, Security+, etc, but if you got your Security+ 10 years ago, it was based on tech that was prevalent at the time. A lot of certs are "One and done."

So the question becomes "How can a cert guarantee a certain level of CURRENT competence?" as well as "How can I prove that my cert PROVES my current level of competence?"

ISC(2) and some other certification boards are starting to answer that with certs that are more expensive to obtain, include vetting for experience within the industry, yearly dues into a bonding-type organization that you can get kicked out of for misbehaving, and requirements on yearly training/study to upkeep your cert.

It's really no different than board certification for doctors, pharmacists, etc. I dont feel that it's a racket at all, because to POSSESS and MAINTAIN a cert with a reputable certification board is worth its weight, and will currently put you ahead of people with Bachelor degrees.

@Pandora said in Personal Agency for Personal Boundaries:

I am open to all opinions here, whether in favor or wildly against. I'm not trying to tell anyone what to do, I'm asking what can we do & offering my 2 cents toward a potential solution to a problem that is not going to go away by doing absolutely nothing different and continuing to say 'People, just be better.'

Took some time to think about this. Spoilers, I'm gonna dig a little here.

So, (rhetorical) why do people try to force others into scenes they're not comfortable with via IC justification? We RARELY hear of a player calling "FTB" or a hard stop in, say, a coffee scene. It's usually involving sex, relationship, torture, rape, or potential PK. No one asks to FTB a house painting scene...unless it turns to one of those topics.

So, my first thought is that this topic is about entitlement. Players feel entitled to certain scenes or the right to roleplay specific concepts, and the worst players feel that other players shouldn't "pussy out" of that stuff. However, there are so many players who falsely throw these flags like harassment, consent, etc around in non-emergency situations (or to get revenge) that players oddly rush to err on the side of caution to implement something to protect players.

"We want people to not be harassed, forced into sexual situations, or to be preyed upon but there's nothing we can do about it because people will misuse the reporting system for their loopy bullshit."

And maybe a bit of...

"I dont want to be made to feel uncomfortable and want the ability to opt out of anything I don't want, but I dont want anyone to opt out of things I want."

Fairness? The people who are cool, and truly cool, are always very okay with FTB on any front and don't blacklist a player for asking for it. In theory any system that supports this and has a "omg staff help" alarm button SHOULD be no issue whatsoever to the people who aren't assholes. Everyone knows that some(most?) players come to this hobby to fulfill fantasies related to sex, relationship, rape, power, being wanted, etc. Theres simply more at play here than "it's just a scene" due to the hardcore focus on OOC personas, "bad actors", etc but there's very little assumption of trust that so many people are constantly at DEFCON 2.

So, in short? I support an XCard/RedYellowGreen system and think if people you want it? FUCKING IMPLEMENT IT. It will likely protect more than it harms, and if players abuse it because they're unethical, then they can get bounced from games just like the players who try to coerce other players into partaking in their power scene. People are always going on about how X player is horrible and Y player "blows up on them OOCly for not doing what they want" that maybe the right answer is to not choose what the paranoid/drama-filled corner of the community thinks about it (because this has been the state of the hobby for over 20 years and it'll just be argued for 20 more; nothing changes until someone takes a step), and just follow your heart, your good intention, and make a commitment to being fair as staff when it's used.

Just do it. A tool to protect people from unethical behavior is better than most places have in place.

@buttercup Sharing that was very brave and I admire that you followed your ethical compass to post this. You are absolutely right that grooming happens in this hobby, and people should always remember that even someone you've known (in this hobby) for years could really just be presenting an idealized version of themselves to you that contradicts who they are in real life. These people could be sex offenders, convicted felons, or could even be simply lying, catfishing, or grooming by means of "friendship".

These people are strangers, and everyone should be mindful of how much exposure they provide these strangers. Sometimes just a little bit of information is all it takes to regret it.

Thank you for speaking up.

@Jeshin said in Armageddon MUD:

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/619345329619206173/652699205378506752/20191206_211900.jpg

Last one I promise. No need to worry even if complaint that necro'd this thread is fake here's a real one from a phone (harder to fake) and from a long time player with a history!

PS - Sorry for bringing the MUD stuff over here but... Woof this guy.

Is it weird that the first time I read that I thought "Duh, I'd be screaming with a knife in me, too"?

@Tinuviel said in The Work Thread:

@Ghost said in The Work Thread:

Average CISSP salary is 122,300.

If you're right in saying that more and more people will be going into security, will there be such a glut of people with this qualification that the salary will drop?

Not likely, no. The majority of people working in cybersecurity are either skilled/experienced people without degrees/certs or college grads who dont have further certs. Focused cybersecurity roles like the CISSP and CEH (certified ethical hacker) are the top certs, and the number of people who hold those isn't skyrocketing.

The salary, despite continued growth in numbers, remains in the $85,000-145,000/USD range.

I've been watching job postings for a few years now and the new trent seems to be listing a Bachelors degree as desired but InfoSec certs like CISSP and GSEC as highly desired. So despite being biased I tell most anyone I hear who is looking to get into IT work to focus on Cloud Engineering and Cybersecurity, because old school server farm Ops work is on the decline and extensive technical controls are on the rise.

@Tyche said in The Work Thread:

@Ghost said in The Work Thread:

You have to upkeep the certificate with study/conventions/seminars or you lose it. So it's like a kind of bonding.

And pay $700 to pass go. It's a good racket.

Average CISSP salary is 122,300.

$700 of that is 0.5723630417007358.

To upkeep it you need 120 study credits across 3 years or retake the exam. $125 a year for ISC(2) membership, which is less than one of my cell phone bills.

I mean, if paying 0.57% of a 122,300 salary or $125/year (0.10220768601798855% of a $122,300 average salary) is a racket, then I suppose you're the smart one for opting out!

@Admiral said in Armageddon MUD:

@Ghost If I was accused of impropriety I would not oppose having my responsibilities provoked. For a paid position I would expect to be compensated but until the allegations are addressed both the accuser -and- the accusee are safer with the alleged harasser suspended.

I wouldn't oppose it, either. Safety comes first.