Posts made by mietze

@AmishRakeFight has captured my general opinions on the matter.

If you are in a public grid space, I think you are choosing to give up a degree of control over who comes in/out of it. This seems intuitive to me, but obviously isn't to everyone, given how many people freak the fuck out at someone "crashing" into their scenes in public places. (And before it starts, I'm not talking about the people who don't bother to wait or read for context of what, if anything, of note is happening in the area--that's annoying, and those people tend to be those who don't even bother to read for context even in scenes that are +Events or to which they have been invited, in my experience). There is a not-insignificant number of people who believe that they can declare any public area off limits to others once they start playing there. If that's the culture of the game, then it makes sense that staff involvement or viewing would be problematic, because there's the expectation that all areas of the game are essentially private space, first come, first served.

I am old fashioned and still ask all people in a scene if I can post a non-event log. Even for scheduled +events, I prefer to give people a link to the live log (for my own sanity I prefer to keep up with things in real time as much as possible) partially so that those who are coming late or need to wander away for a bit can still have the info at their fingertips and partially as a disclosure that the scene will be logged. I didn't care about my own scenes being posted for a long time--until I unfortunately experienced a bit of alt-stalking that was very unpleasant, and the running commentary on personal scenes with others made me feel very uncomfortable, especially since it was done in an accusatory way. So I have a bit of empathy there for folks that don't necessarily want all their RP all the time logged and /displayed/ publically.

I never autolog. But I am pretty much the only person I know that MUSHes that doesn't. To me there's a difference between private logging and public display. For some people the threshold is probably "anyone I don't know about/didn't consent to being involved is turning my private RP public" for others it may be anything goes but auto-log posting, with everything in between. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer to this, but I do think it's probably very important to be very clear about where that line is on /your/ game if you have one.

I believe there have been pay to play MUSHes. @Shayd, IIRC weren't you involved in a project that was kind of close, or am I misremembering? For some reason I thought I'd read you discussing something like that maybe on the old WORA?

I will say that as someone who's been heavily involved in several non-profits...this has a number of complications. Yes, even the nonprofit is not directly tied to the organization that puts on the MUSH (and if someone were to do this, one would hope they'd have the brains to at least set up some kind of separation between their business of the MUSH and personal finances). The general mismanagement and inability to do even the baseline level of competance of volunteer management and boundary setting that I have witnessed on most MUSHes is forgivable for a free service run by someone for fun. Turn that into a business and my god that catapults most people into the stratosphere of stupid. Not because they're a dumbass but most people just don't know their elbows from their ass on how to run a biz OR a non-profit, it does take some training, there are free resources, but sadly many people don't take advantage of them.

I own my own business. It's not complicated, but the reason why I am still in business 2 years and running now is not because I'm so smart, but because I got training largely from being involved in those non-profits organizations as an executive--PTA and a local educational program itself--and took advantage of the free or low-cost training involved. As an aside, if you think you might want to be an entrepreneur or similar someday, get involved in your PTA if you have kids. Even if it's just to go to their law courses and the convention courses. It was better, more thorough, and dirt cheap compared to the small business classes I had to take in trade school. Just sayin'.

Just because someone is a brilliant storyteller/world builder does not mean they're competent to run a business. And if someone thinks they're going to take other people's money "for charity" and not run it like a biz or get it set up like a biz? Probably they're not very competent. Some things are intuitive, some aren't. And talent doesn't mean jack shit if you don't know how to manage the finances and service. (This is also why I'm still in business 2+ years and still going--I am not the most talented massage therapist by a long shot, I went to school with people who I think had more talent than me, though I do believe I'm professional and very good at what I do--but unfortunately talent and knowing how to manage the books and build the biz and deal with clients, don't always go hand in hand, and to be successful running your own thing you need the whole deal.)

Eh, might just be a culture thing. Perhaps I am showing my age, but it used to be that doubleposting on a forum was seen as rude or something you're not supposed to do. Like the board equivalent of someone who were to keep posing without waiting for anyone else to and/or who had to after every single pose by someone else. It's weird.

I do agree that editing a post once there have been other published comments behind it, when it occurs, is weird to me without a ETA: comment. Though sometimes it's hard to see if/when other comments have been added, especially when folks are on their phone or whatever. If this is a peeve of yours it does explain your fussing at me earlier though. Good to know!

It's been many many years since we had a "toddler" Christmas tree (just the top third decorated) but I have to admit I forgot how much fun it is to have a little around during the holidays. And even better, seeing the bigs excited about sharing our traditions from when they were little with him. Not sure the teens would have been that interested in cookie decorating and ornament making and going out to the sights we used to when they were small if it wasn't for him, but I will take it.

If you have never done any kind of post-secondary education, I would say relax, be smarter than most 17-18 year olds and take advantage of the student services offered (study help, office hours, career prep, IF you have the time even getting involved in student groups, especially if you go the community college route, it can be an awesome way to network/make connections). You will have a couple of years of "core curriculum" if you want to work towards a bachelors so you do NOT need to have every damn thing plotted out in advance right away. If you have a long term goal in mind then that is awesome, but even if you decide to shift away from it, you won't have wasted your time. As long as you're going to an accredited school, many places will allow you transfer credits even 8 years old, and sometimes (like in the case of my prior degree) the current college accepted those transfer credits even though they were 18+ years old. I would take some time to look at several programs before you decide where you want to go. Even if you're looking at a 4 year degree, it may be a lot more cost effective to do your core curriuculum at a community college (and frankly the instruction may be better in a 20 person 101 class vs. a 300 person one at a major university.) but make sure that it's at a place that will transfer to the other institutions you're looking at.

And there is a lot of $$ out there for scholarships, even for older students and /especially/ for first time college students. It may be in bits in and pieces ($500 here and there) but it's worth filling out forms and doing the bullshit essays, ect, because they can really add up. I had to do a lot of that to pay for school my first time around, and my oldest is looking into it now (we will be able to fund at least half of every child's education at a state school, but they can make those dollars we can contribute go further with scholarships/going to CC, ect). And once you have a semester or year under your belt with good grades you'll have access to more.

I'm not sure why people have said that older students don't do well in college. Most of the time the opposite is true. The older students tend to be the curve wreckers, because mommy/daddy aren't paying their bills, they tend to have some more life experience, know a little more about what they want to be doing/what is realistic for them at 30 than they did when they were 17, ect.

There are exceptions. When I went back to school I did meet some "nontraditional" students who were bombing out, but frankly, the reason why they hadn't been to school was because they were struggling with addiction/major mental health issues and there was still a struggle.

I started college at 15. It ended up being a good thing because I had a rather radical shift in major, so I still graduated with my dual major BS at 20, so just a little late. I did have jobs in my field (social services) but I got on the mommy track early, by 25, and spent my latter 20s and most of my 30s being a "stay at home" mom. Once 1-3 were launched into upper elementary/middle school grades, I decided that I'd really kind of like to be doing something with my life other than volunteering and hanging out with kids. (not that it isn't important and I did't like it, I did.) So I went back to school for massage, since I'd always been interested in it. (I was glad I had an excellent background in A&P and other biological science--massage school, at least in my state, DOES have plenty of the woo woo frou frou shit, but these days it's pretty medical oriented, and LMPs are considered part of medical care provider network here, so it's also deceptively academic than the stereotype). I was the 4th oldest in my class group, the youngest was 18, the oldest 57. And there were 4 people who were in their mid to late 30s, like me. So I got my trade certificate (the college awarded me the AA because they counted my other degree as eliminating the need for the core curriculum. I started my own business (which I still have), but promptly got knocked up by surprise. I worked my ass off until I was 9 months pregnant to be able to take significant time off. Still working to build up my clientele again.

And I am thinking of also going back to school for an esthetician's cert/license (which is hilarious, for anyone who knows me RL, I am so NOT the type of person who goes to cosmetology school) so that I can get further training in skincare since I've already got a nice setup for it in my office. That will have to wait though, since with 4 kids getting ready to launch into college in less than 5 years, I cannot justify the expense and I don't have time to jump through the paperwork for scholarships presently. Or I might go back for my MSW, because my volunteer interests through the years have maintained connections with the social service community and I dearly love it. Because of the expense, though, I don't think going for the MSW is really going to be realistic until I hit my mid-40s. However, I'm confident that I will whip the asses of the younger students.

Not to be all Old Lady at you, but at 25 it may not feel like your life is still way open and before you, but it probably is. I'm not even sure than 25 consitutes a "non-traditional" (meaning old) student these days, unless you are going to a 4 year state institution. But even in the 90s at my alma mater (VA Tech) there were always people a couple of years older than the "normal" immediately post-high school people--because they took a year off to travel, because they were in a co-op program (so they were interning every other semester), ect. I would imagine it's even more common now. I went back to school at a community college/technology institute so it's probably no surprise that ratio of "typical aged" vs elder students was closer to 50/50 if not tipped in the older people's favor.

I think a lot of places have had pressure to open early/prior to being truly ready because they are afraid of losing people being super excited, and there's the stir of having a bunch of logins of people waiting and constantly asking when things are going to open. Though I also think that people open things up to "hang out time" prior to a MUSH opening these days way way waaaaaaaaay too early. It is on players logging in to bother to pay attention when a developer says "We won't be open for 4 months, ect." but also I think you can't fight human nature towards antsiness when they've got a concept.

Though I dunno. Maybe this comes with the territory of the entitlement/immediate gratification stuff that's been discussed across multiple threads now? Not sure.

At any rate, I really respect and applaud teams that do not open "early" due to login pressure. I'd rather a game open late with all parts of the team ready than to open early or on time with one or more staff teams/other stuff not ready.

Depends on who's running the vampire game. I realize that there are people who hate any positive mention of RfK, but if someone were to run a vampire game with accessible political mechanics in addition to the usual D/s motif and all that jazz that there would be a lot of interest. Whether that's the kind of game that TJ and collaborators want to run is a different story.

Vampire is my first love in the WoD world and I prefer single sphere supernatural places (so one sphere plus associated +S and mortals). However there's a wide spectrum of philosophy in regards to vamp theme and setup, so I'd need to know more before getting excited about it, if that makes sense. I'd also want to see staff prepped to deal with some of the inevitable stuff that comes with vampire people.

It seems to me that hunter could really be awesome because you can have staff involvement but easily hook people into running, well, runs or missions for each other. I don't know how cohesive/antagonistic in theme HtV is. I think a hunter game could probably limp along more with staff inattention than a vamp place.

I guess on reflection maybe it's sad that I tend to gauge my own investment somewhere now in how likely it is that I can still have a reasonable amount of fun even when staff is not very active beyond the basics.

I think you should run what you're excited and passionate about. I agree hunter is intriguing because it hasn't to my knowledge been a single sphere focus before (and I love m/m+). It's not that I don't love vamp too because I do, but I'd need more info.

Too bad you can't combine them. I'd combine Good with Animals, Beautiful Voice, and Caretaker so that when she sang the nearby woodland creatures would come and help her out with her daily chores.

I think someone can not be a good fit for a role on a game, staff or power PC spot, without being "shitty". Some of the hardest conversations I've had to have revolved around someone who was not a bad person, but they were a horrific fit for the job once in place, and it compounded over time as people didn't want to deal with it. Because that person was not a bad person, they just could not carry what they needed to carry and the whole was starting to suffer as a result.

That conversation is hard enough to have with a nice acquaintance. I have very rarely met people who are willing to have it with friends, until the destruction reaches a huge level. What tends to happen is that when concerns are raised, they are ignored or the concern raiser is penalized (especially if they are the acquaintance alerting the staff to ab problem with the friend). And it's an understandable reaction from staff, IMO, because not only is the staff's judgement being challenged, it's a friend that's being talked about as well. Many people don't handle that real well, at first blush.

Again, that is why for me I prefer to have 3rd party gut checks when placing friends. I am lucky nearly all the places that I have staffed, to have at least one person who I know will tell me about pitfalls they see and will tell me if they think I have my head up my ass. That's been super valuable for when I have given someone a chance (friends or not) and it doesn't work out.

Just because someone is a good person/excellent rper, ect does not mean they'll be a good fit for a position. Even if they've done something similar elsewhere. You make the best choice you can, sometimes you have to walk it back. Since that is harder most of the time with friends, to me it's common sense to be a little more careful...and to always have an exit plan, friend or acquaintance.

I might choose a friend, I might choose a stranger. What I look for is someone willing and able to do the job, and someone who fits in with the atmosphere/culture. Being a friend doesn't put anyone on my short list. It allows me to know their skill set, but it also presents a problem of blinders (which is why I ask for a second opinion or other staffers' experiences of them).

I have had too many instances of seeing someone primarily in one context, and not listening to others saying "yes, they are nice, but are they good for /this/?"

We are not going to see eye to eye on this, Derp. I think that even a good friend can fuck up and fuck up bad, so no matter what there should be expectations/removal procedures and one should never, ever hire someone they'd be reluctant to fire. Friend to friend and staffer to staffer and situation to situation that may mean that it's not a good idea--without it being the case that the friend is a shit. (Or the staffer for that matter).

I know many people I love that I wouldn't hand keys to, and there are relative strangers that I have (the cleaning service people, repair people, a pet sitter). The only person that has ever attacked me or stolen from me, the only person I've ever had to call the cops on, that was someone intimately trusted.

But that's real life, not a game. It's easier to remove people in game. It's (let's hope) less complicated to choose folks that really seem to get what it is that you're seeking for your game. I have a circle of people I enjoy in the hobby, that I'll always make time for, because I adore them. However, I think it improves things to get new blood in there too. Player or staffer.

This isn't a case of me thinking the only way is my way--I would choose something different than you. So? I can see why a friend could be a good choice, I just think one risks the echo chamber if that's made the rule with no external gutchecks. I'm sorry you don't see my point of view, but perhaps it's just a you get it or you don't sort of thing.

Yeah, I do think that a game staff that purposefully always will choose personal friends over new-to-them talent that meets the same qualifications for the position probably should be explicit about that.

I don't find that to be common sense or good policy, but as I've said before, I can respect a lot of game setups as long as they're up front and honest. It's why I like Gany and get along even as staff or player with people who are up front and honest even if I don't always agree with their choices.

I think that putting expectations into place and having the ovaries to enforce them actually does far more to reduce risk and mitigate bad outcomes than relying on just giving out things to your friends. Just my observation, though.

It all falls under the category of "pick what you feel is most conducive to the environment that you want," to me. So yes, it is rather headscratching to me to see the same people celebrating one and denouncing the other. They may not /like/ either one. But they're both methods/policies of narrowing down candidates. I would say both have potential to be very bad policies. Or they might accomplish the intent (which is usually not bad, unless the person is nuts). And both policies should be very overtly disclosed, IMO. If someone has no intentions of allowing a player new or unknown to them a chance at a major position, then probably that's something that they should also have the balls to say up front. Which is why I would probably choose to play at a place that said that up front, even if I was an unknown, vs on a wishy washy place, and would have more impatience for a place that operated like that, but for whatever reason wasn't honest about it.

The knee jerk nepotism haters seem to come from places where that policy was not clear (and I'm betting probably was denied or pussyfooted around), and thus had a pretty bad experience with it. Working towards earning something that you later discover would have never been possible for you anyway, because you didn't know the right people or hadn't been around for X amount of time) would be very infuriating, I'd think.

It is a little head scratching to me that it's to be celebrated and commended to state up front that you'll only pick people you know and like for the most important roles on your game, but you are a horrible awful excuse for a game runner if you pick staff for your game who are willing to cede those roles to people who aren't staff.

I think the main concern is not that everyone should have an equal chance to try so much as the pitfalls of staff considering primarily people they know in RL/their circle.

I am 90 percent sure we all agree that has been problematic at times, within our witnessing (if WORA is any indication).

I think it's human nature to have some blinders on in regard to friends. It's why I generally prefer to ask another person for a gutcheck if I have a close association with them. I've relieved valuable input enough times that I think it's an easy thing to do that has no drawbacks.

And I have often asked others for their input on who /they/ think might be capable, ect--because while as staff the buck ultimately stops with staff, different people see different things, and I'd have missed out on a great many people just because they weren't in my circles.

My experience in and around This Is Not A Clique has honestly meant that I always seek an outside opinion or defer when it comes to placing RL friends into positions.

And I also can't agree enough with the idea that for coveted limited "spots" either in position or in type, clear guidelines for activity and behavior expectations and removal procedures (doesn't have to be complicated) really need to be in place.

I've said no and ruled against friends many times. Some accepted that with better grace than others. But it's true I personally scrutinize them more and seek more feedback from others before I place them, because I also know I'm human and know that I will trend to give them the benefit of the doubt or they have more opportunities than other people might to explain falling down on the job. Having a trusted 3rd party take a look and give me feedback on it is invaluable.

Given the amount of work faction heading can be even more intense and time consuming than some staffing positions I guess my answer would be that I think it's okay for there to be a decision that you need to pick one or the other.

I had to make that choice at RfK as well. It did not feel encumbering to me, I understood why. (but then again, as noted, I was personally comfortable with staff alts not being allowed to be political PCs, and the reason why even though I didn't have one, that policy would really need to be applied to me as well because of the nature of my support position).

I have seen what happens when a great player organizer gets poached for staff. Sometimes it works, but that's very rare to keep up both ends. Usually one or the other suffers, especially if they are aged/have a real life. And you can have someone super talented at player organizing in all of its nearly complete freedom really become a terrible staffer. (I bet you can name times where this has happened too). You can't live your life with what if, of course. But for the same reason I would consider limiting a player to a single faction head position on a multisphere game, I could see limiting staff in the same way. Especially if one wanted to avoid the awkward conversation of "you're falling down on both jobs, pick one".

Of course many places don't have really defined staffer roles or faction head roles, which cna lead to some mismatched expectations and other problems that influence whether people think that's a good idea or not.

I did not need rules to tell me how to behave, it's true, but if I ran a game now, I would want to hire staffers that share being on the same page about policies and philosophies at a certain level. The best way to do that would be to have very clear boundaries (probably significantly altered from my own personal "best likes" to something that I feel is more realistic to maintain) so that they could decide if /they/ would like to staff for me. When I have helped out on other games, I often send in a blurb about my ethics/preferences (always prefaced by the fact that I do not think that my way is the only way), and ask about points of concern/conflict, so that the hirer can then decide if they want to work with /me/. Of course I am willing to adapt my practices when I'm staffing for someone else, unless it crosses certain lines--and then I don't need to create a fuss, I just call it for what it is, a difference of opinion that I want to respect, and so I'd like to support the game in other ways than staffing.

There have been many wonderful games run by wonderful people that I would not be a good fit for staffing wise. Or player-wise. It has nothing to do with trust. Just because I am not a good fit for a staffing model doesn't make the headstaff implementing it (or me) untrustworthy. It just means that our philosophies are just different enough that seeing the sausage making would be stressful (perhaps for us both). Sometimes that can be overcome (because of the model of TR I was able to staff there despite a lot of philosophical disagreements with practices; but every game isn't TR, and eventually it did get to the point that I couldn't support via staffing any longer, not because anyone was horribad or whatever but just I felt very stressed about the clashes, and so I felt it was best to support via PrP running and playing rather than staffing, so I did.

I am just a lot more comfortable with staff alts being highly restricted than the majority of people are. I am not evil, and neither are people who disagree with me. I am far, far more personally conservative about CoI than most people I know. That's just me. I do think that there are significant benefits that come with it that are often overlooked, but I know that most of the time I will need to bow to the decision about that going the other way.

And you would be one of a very limited pool that my cranky-old-lady self would be willing to staff for, despite our difference of opinion on whether staff should have restrictions placed on their alts or not.

I really don't understand why you are going so nuclear either/or, Surr. I really don't.

And nobody has talked about immunizing anything. As I have said, repeatedly, I think the absolute most important thing are clear, defined, enforced boundaries. There is no One True Way of staffing or running a MUSH. It has been my experience that wishy washy boundaries make for trouble though. And frankly, I thought you'd agree with that, as we've talked about it at length before.

However, for that particular group of vampire players, given the cultures of the surrounding games and what Shava appeared to me to be attempting to establish on her own game, I do think that it was uniquely successful in promoting staff-player and player-staff trust...until the clear boundaries began to slip.

Dunno why you feel you need to shift into this "This policy is always evil ALWAYS." I think this extremism is detrimental to the hobby/culture. I don't think it's kind or rational or smart.

Staffing models on massively multisphere games are probably going to have to be by definition very different from small single sphere. And even from MUSH to MUSH in the same "class" of size or breadth, there's lots of room for different styles. I don't know why this is such a hard concept to get across, but apparently it is and I'm certainly failing in this regard. I do wish that people would stop viewing preferences as attacks, on all sides. It's not okay to come onto a game and then scream about how much it sucks that it's not like this other game one once new. All that does is create animosity, and it's /rude/ and unkind. So is making a game's rules and then sneering at anything else that doesn't do things the same way.

Again, I don't think it has anything to do with trust. RfK staff were certainly entrusted with a hell of a lot more than I've seen on anything but full concent/open sheet games. But for whatever reason, folks seem to be absolutely lockjaw fixated on OMG STAFF PCs COULD NOT HOLD ANY POSITION THEY WANTED TO OMG. I am mystified as to why, as I have played on very VERY few mushes that were not sandboxes were there were not some restrictions on position holders or certain classes of PCs or what staff could/couldn't do.