Posts made by Paris

@Arkandel It was really crazy. We've still got crazy in the hobby, but the general reaction to it is, "That's screwed up!"

This was in the early to mid 90s, and folks were still getting used to the idea of the internet. Most people in America were on AoL; the rest were often paying by the hour on inix/linux based internet services, and monochrome monitors were still a thing.

People LIVED online at a time where that was an incredible, heady experience, and just being internet- and especially telnet-savvy was a badge of pride and pretty unusual. A lot of nerds (and I consider myself one) had never really held social power before. Most of us were college-age with a few in their early 30s. No forum RP, no MMOs, livejournal wasn't a thing. Facebook wasn't a thing.

People were still sometimes resisting graphical browsers, and many computers could not run the web and telnet at the same time unless it was a linux machine running x-windows, which made you switch desktops. Ordinary people didn't do that.

There was no real decades-long everyman internet culture. There was no everyday standard of 'that's fucked up'. People had their little fiefs and got away with so much shit; it also encouraged, when web boards became a thing, places like soapbox's predecessors, where that excess was normal to a lot of people.

That intensity was a rush to so many people.

It's no surprise to me that as a lot of us oldbies have matured, a lot of the forum arglebargle has started to drain out. You've got some resultant 'but what if this goes bad, everything goes bad' kneejerking still (more lately I noticed but stuff goes in cycles), but nowadays every other game is not run by an Elsa or a Spider and their mush-wide posses.

IE it was the wild west back then. I am kind of surprised we made it to where games like SYE are considered toxic. These were the popular folks back then.

Sorry if this comes off as patronising, anyway.

@Pandora said in RL Anger:

@Paris I have no dog in the 'defining microaggressions' fight but this post has made my morning bleak and my coffee bitter. Sorry that some people suck.

Don't let it. For all that these things happen regularly and I let some of my anger slip in that post, I am also shown a lot of kindness by random strangers that I didn't used to get so much back when I was able-bodied, too.

I think it just pushes some people to either extreme. For me, I just sit around a lot. Normal people sit down, too, but sitting all the time weirds people out on some visceral level. And so they act out.

@Derp I don't think we ran into each other. :<

@Derp said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

@Paris said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

@HelloProject said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

I also like to think that there's no fucking way these people wouldn't get dragged for doing that shit in the modern era.

Having had a really unpleasant run-in with an extremely homophobic staffer in the last year or so, which resulted in several other staff becoming pretty unpleasant, and the resulting OOC retaliation and ostracism, I can assure you that people still get away with that kind of shit.

You and I don't always agree on things, but in this case, that is a super shitty thing to have happen. I refuse to accept homophobic OOC bullshit at any level, and that is one of the things that I will absolutely make sure stops, one way or another. It's 2017, that sort of attitude is bullshit in the highest.

I'm glad to hear it. I don't mind disagreeing, either; even if our differences might be very sharp, you don't strike me as a bad person.

I'm not sure who you were on Fallcoast, so I figure our differences are mostly just here.

@HelloProject A few is a few too many. :<

@HelloProject said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

I also like to think that there's no fucking way these people wouldn't get dragged for doing that shit in the modern era.

Having had a really unpleasant run-in with an extremely homophobic staffer in the last year or so, which resulted in several other staff becoming pretty unpleasant, and the resulting OOC retaliation and ostracism, I can assure you that people still get away with that kind of shit.

@ghost Thinking about it, I feel I owe a reason for saying 'no' instead of just saying it.

I don't like it because sometimes things go bad on games, or people make stupid mistakes, or people have that bad day/month/year, etc; it makes folks look lousy, and winding up on that kind of list starts outing people who can use a new game to start clean and learn from their fuckups, and/or evade toxic staff elsewhere, or vindictive cliques (which have come up quite a few times over the last few days).

Full disclosure, and probably TMI, I've had some bad run-ins on games. Granted this is over about 24 years of MU*ing, but how long would that kind of thing stick on that kind of document?

I was blacklisted from a set of games back in the 90s, in the SYE era, by a particular clique that brought up game after game over several years, and if they weren't running them, they were staffing on them. My great sin was that I was playing an opposite-sex character, and a staffer who'd crushed hard on that character was told by my jealous RLSO (at the time) that the player was of a different sex. I'd never pretended OOC to be anything other than who I was and I did not lead them on (I was already in a relationship and was trying to make that work!) but they, a virulent homophobe, decided that I had tried to 'trap' them because our PCs had expressed interest in each other (though they had not TSed).

After I left my SO (and that game), they, their friends, and this person especially, tracked my IP and kept a list of known sightings and updated IPs, and either got me banned, or hunted my PCs with their alts while using their staffbits to track me while I was unfindable-- even if we'd never interacted before. They were allowed to do this until I took a long break, and then on my return changed my writing style and the type of character I played. I was able to avoid them for years after that, but about ten years later, my ex found out who I was, and started right back up.

They, to this day, 20 years later, try to sabotage my IC and OOC relationships on games if they find out, which is why I rarely share RL details (and was part of why I did not share my cancer fundraiser with the MU* community). I'm only comfortable admitting to all of this on this account because a) AFAIK most of them are not around anymore, don't run or staff anywhere, and b) I only play on my own game right now, so I can't be hunted by staffalts.

So my first reaction to a multi-game DB of 'problem players' elicits a visceral 'NO!' from me. Those folks got plenty of nice people to believe all sorts of nasty crap about me because I a) cross-played and b) left the wrong very controlling ex, who is very good at assembling their own little posse. When they thought someone ELSE was me, they poisoned just about every relationship that person ever had on that game, and when it became clear that person wasn't me, the damage was done.

So, I don't even remotely want to make things harder for unjustly ostracised OR genuinely repentant players to start with a clean slate. On my own game, we've had a few who, new to MU*ing, had a rough start, but we gave them more chances and they absolutely became better players. We've had folks from other games whom staff openly mocked as terrible, but they also became, after more experience, active, friendly, and helpful assets to the game.

We are pretty good at tracking the most toxic players here, and we know that they are consistently and genuinely toxic because of patterns of behavior that haven't changed over years (and years). Those are the players we need to look out for; most genuinely troublesome players are rarely that dedicated and either get better or get sick of backlash and leave.

@Ghost I don't like that at all. Too easy to abuse.

@Z-01 said in MU and Alternate Channels:

@surreality said in MU and Alternate Channels:

@Meg I think in the case you had specifically, I'd call it too few staffers available rather than laziness, but there are some times I've seen lazy as the cause. Sadly, sometimes 'too many' staff creates the same problem, since no one is sure who has the responsibility to do this, so you have lower tier staffers afraid to say anything without approval from on high, and upper tier ones thinking the lower tier staff will handle it.

Sometimes, things really are so black and white there's no conversation to be had. ('Is VASpider/Rex/Jeurg', for instance, at least to me. <cough>)

This can be a pretty complex issue in my experience. One of the biggest reasons I've personally seen that an investigative or preventative conversation might just not happen, or not happen in a timely manner, is that the person who needs to be talked to will inevitably emotionally exhaust you in the course of the conversation. Sometimes deliberately, sometimes not, and people just aren't very understanding of it when you try to draw boundaries with these people because it's easy to portray it as just clubbing whoever you're trying to handle.

You deal with that enough times and you stop wanting to try to engage people like this if you can avoid it.

You just kind of do it anyway, and make sure there's at least a second person on staff to handle it if it's either on a day that you can't, or it involves you, so you shouldn't. It's just an inevitable part of staffing anything, from a shop to a mush to whatever.

@surreality said in The Thread of Positivity and Sparkles!:

@Ganymede In all seriousness, Best Cat (as mentioned elsethread) once mimicked me, while I was helping my husband deal with a sudden 'omg I got twin charlie horses in my thighs!' incident. She apparently stepped and leaned on the exact spot where he needed pressure, and yowled at him, while I had the other side.

For bonus amusement, my husband is a massage therapist. (He has gotten much mileage out of this story.)

When my cancer pain was really bad, my cat was unerringly good about finding the owie spot in my abdomen and kneading it. It was really sweet but really weird. She'd drop everything and come running, too. Cats are great. :3

@WTFE The only people who can stop her are the staff who allow or disallow her to play on their games. I think we're all aware of that.

@mietze You are absolutely correct.

@Miss-Demeanor said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

There's a reason that people have left the hobby after run-ins with her.

Or the posse she likes to assemble. Someone I know quit MUSHing entirely because of how that bunch harassed and hounded them off a game, OOC and IC, and then harangued them on offsite sites (including personal journals, which they had to make private) for close to a year afterward. Staff, of course, looked the other way.

I quit for a few years over that, came back when I was bored of being in bed from chemo. I was told I had a few months to live, so my give a fuck meter got recalibrated.

@Admiral said in RL Anger:

He politely informed her that the building has a policy stating only licensed service dogs are allowed. She called him a fascist and had a flip out.

From someone with a real service dog:

While she was abusing the policy, the law is clear that he can't ask her that, because of repeated violations of the ADA by private and public property owners. You can't decide whether it's a service dog.

Also, licensed service dogs are not a thing- all 'certified' organisations are private, whether it's canine companions or a backyard trainer. What is necessary is that the dog must be able to
perform a task for you. No, you can't demand that the dog perform it.

No, however, a pet does not qualify as a stress-reduction service animal: there is specific training that they have to undergo, and you need a diagnosis IIRC. So you might be able to say, "Is that your pet?"
"No, she's my stress dog."
"Those require specialised training, ma'am."

For example, ptsd dogs must, to be prescribed to a patient, undergo training in how to assist a person having a panic attack, either by leading them away, leaning on them to provide physical comfort, alerting others who might help, etc. 'She just makes me feel better' does not qualify, but you CAN train a pet to do these things and have them qualify.

In ANY case of a service animal or a pet, even if you have no idea OR know it's a service animal, the MOMENT the animal becomes a disruption, you have every legal right to tell them to leave. I see 'service dogs' making a fuss in restaurants all the time. Mine? You won't even know she's there. She's well-loved by all our local restaurants because her behavior is impeccable.

@Derp said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

So, as constructively as possible: We know. We hear you. We'll take action if it even starts to look like a problem. But so far, it doesn't look anything like that. If that changes, we'll be on it.

Respectfully, it's not about you. We have seen and heard everything you have said come out of many other games' staffers, most of them idealistic and with the best of intentions. We believe that you are well-intentioned.

Trust.

That must be earned.

As a paraplegic who is very active and engaged in his community, I encounter microaggressions most days. Oh, not the 'you called me a cripple, boohoo' kind, but the 'cops give me shit for my wheelchair' shit if I am in a crowded place, or the 'if I am having a diabetic episode, I am at risk for being tased for noncompliance' way. The 'refusal to allow me to board a bus because the driver doesn't want to strap me down' way. The 'talking to my aide instead of me' way if I am speaking at a thing. The 'yelling at me in the bus because my wheelchair tiedowns are where you like to sit' way. The 'screaming at me on the bus because my service dog offends you' way, or the 'why don't you people use dial a ride instead of slowing us down' way, or the 'yelling about how their tax dollars pay for me to be in a home so why am I in line at the deli asking the counter guy to slice my chicken breast because my extreme neuropathy makes it dangerous to hold a knife' way-- though I don't get disability and never have, I am solidly middle-class, paid $30k out of my own pocket for my cancer treatment, and live in my own house?

The way that I, dressed well for an evening out at a fancy restaurant, am treated like either I am a) homeless (and thus randos try to give me money, which is kind of cool and kind of argh), the way that I am b) usually seated behind a barrier/behind a corner/at the shit table and c) given shit service because they think I am too poor to tip.

How randos will grab my wheelchair and manhandle me out of the way if they din't like where I am, often very roughly, in ways that they would NEVER touch an able-bodied man (without expecting a fight).

The way landlords assume that a disabled couple isn't worth renting to because all they must make is social security and thus can't be expected to pay rent on time.

The term microaggression was devised to describe all those relentlessly aggravating and bullshit interactions that are not on the level of outright bigotry but ARE due to unconscious bias against a minority group. They are frequent, inescapable, and omnipresent whenever you try to interact in public society. They are exhausting and draining.

It's annoying as hell that overzealous students have co-opted the term, but it is really useful when correctly used to describe a very real set of interactions.

Pretty much the above post verbatim, yeah.

@Ganymede I would not act on that. (Especially if the warnee wanted to avoid Rex.)

If you know that a player is, er,
dogging a lot of players behind their back, especially if they are in ic conflict or the rumor-monger is staff, that is itself a big flag about their believability.

@surreality said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

I don't really think it's entirely fair to dogpile @Derp here, though, and he's kinnnnnnnda taking all the lumps for this forum-side.

He's not the game owner, and the game owner is the one who has apparently made the call, at least according to Spider's post.

I know I wouldn't feel it quite fair if I was taken to task for decisions made by headstaff that I don't really have a say in, but have to enforce or relate to others, so, y'know. Something to keep in mind here.

I don't hold him responsible for the policies, but he's defending them, so we're responding to that.

I don't think anyone expects FH to change their minds, the only voice we've heard from there so far has doubled down.

Edit: so far, while we are addressing his posts directly, we've been pretty good about criticising the policy and not the player. Derp himself seems to have the best of intentions.