Posts made by Roz

I think it would be fair to say that there are both people who don't think Auspice should be a mod who are nitpicking every action and also people who don't think Auspice should be a mod but who have stated so pretty civilly and respectfully.

Well, the mod team was asked to make it clearer when they're speaking as moderators and when they aren't. Glitch and ES just weren't prolific posters, which is a really relevant difference. That said, they were the ones to start the MOD VOICE trend, and they actually offered it as a suggestion when the board was handed over. But there was less confusion with Glitch and ES because they just didn't post as much. So, like. Idek.

@Tempest you just make it feel impossible to have a reasonable discussion about modding issues when you get into a melodramatic FRENZY every time someone puts a toe out of line. Why do you think anyone is going to listen to your opinion about board administration when you can never state it in a reasonable fashion?

I work in theatrical marketing, but we use a really stupid ticketing platform that doesn't allow me to place a tracking pixel on our ticketing pages. (Bit of code that helps track from when someone clicks on something online and follows through to eventually buy a ticket.) Super duper valuable for being able to say whether or not your online advertising is having a positive return on your investment. One of the BIGGEST BENEFITS of digital advertising is SUPPOSED to be that you can track EXACTLY how much money you're making off of it. The fact that I can't do this right now (without upgrading to the newest version of the ticketing platform for, you know, around $40k) is MADDENING. We're likely going to switch our ticketing platform after next season, at which point that issue will be FIXED, but for now I'm having to work around it.

Facebook has an option to let you basically upload purchase data and they do their best to match it to people who have seen or interacted with your ads. For the first couple weeks I started uploading data, it didn't match to any events on their end. But in recent weeks, it's finally starting to populate, and I can now give ACTUAL CONVERSION NUMBERS on some of these ads. It probably sounds dumb, but this is SUPER DUPER EXCITING for a marketer.

@surreality If you want to start a thread on it, by all means! But I feel like the best course of action -- when there's only been like two posts on the topic -- is to start a new thread and maybe quote those posts. Instead of just moving our posts that are part of the conversation here. I'd rather not feel like every brief digression is going to be up for immediate split, because I do think the points were relevant in response to the points other people were bringing up on this thread.

@saosmash said in Staff and ethics:

I mean ... I'm not approving anybody to play Ramsay Bolton on a game I run, because that character exists to be an edgelord rapist.

Double amen. Characters that work in a book -- and, I mean, Ramsay's value as a character is already debatable, but whatever, putting that aside -- don't necessarily equal characters that work on a MU*. Writing a book is not a collaborative*; RPing on a MU* is.

(*Yes, I mean, it is collaborative when it comes to working with an editor, critique groups, etc., all of that, but it's not the same type of collaboration. YOU ALL KNOW WHAT I MEAN.)

@arkandel said in Celebrities that are Dead To Us:

@kanye-qwest said in Celebrities that are Dead To Us:

Kevin Spacey, Ben Affleck, Casey Affleck, Louis CK....that last one hurts me. I was a HUGE fan for years.

You know what bugs me about Louis CK? For starters that he knew better - one of my favorite bits ever was one about rape, dammit.

But the other thing is... he's a really good writer, and his apology was pretty accurate and spot on, so I don't know how much of it is him and how much it's him trying to salvage his career. Other celebrities have PR teams, but the difference between some MBA drone and a top-notch writer is immense.

He could've used a better PR team to stop repeatedly talking about how much the women admired him.

@mietze said in Staff and ethics:

I think it’s better for all concerned to have a truthful, simple, short and clear explanation for the ban in all circumstances.

It prevents a lot of issues.

Bob was banned because of x incidents of inappropriately using ooc info IC. Please see our policy of x (if there is one). If you have questions or need a gut check about your own behavior in this regard please feel free to reach out to staff.

I think when I have seen silence or “face saving” explanations allowed to be given for someone being asked to leave, it tends to stir up more upset or in some cases allows that person to act as if nothing happened/no cause.

That’s not really good for anyone in that situation.

^^^^^^^^^

Ban posts/announcements are for the benefit of the rest of your game, not the banned party. And they serve a function and purpose. Obfuscating them eliminates that benefit and actually causes problems.

I don't think it's a violation of privacy to say "this person engaged in X behavior that we don't tolerate here." I also don't think that there's any game in which a public announcement/explanation of a ban is the wrong fit. I strongly, strongly think there are a whole host of reasons to be reasonably transparent about bans and I've yet to hear a reason otherwise that I find compelling. I think that making banning posts while not revealing the player identity is going to be actively detrimental to your atmosphere as everyone starts whisper campaigns.

There's no reasonable expectation of privacy as far as "staff won't reveal that I broke rules if they have to remove me from the game." Like, that's just not a thing.

@arkandel said in Staff and ethics:

@roz said in Staff and ethics:

I actually find your expansion on this a little odd. When I think of staff professionalism, I don't equate that with whether or not staff chats with their players.

Other than my pre-edit wording which... ugh, it's not that odd if you consider I've been on games (mind you, early in my MU* 'career') where we were warned to not 'fraternize with the players' a lot since it might paint us a certain way, and also to maintain the illusion of... I dunno, authority I guess.

I'm just saying, it's a thing for some MU* so I included it.

My opinion of that is that that sounds like a dumb thing of them. I mean, that's not even a good attitude to have in an actual workplace.

@kanye-qwest said in Staff and ethics:

@roz If your friendship can't survive one or the other of you saying "Hey, I think you are overreacting" or "can you please stop doing X because y?" then it's not much of a friendship, imo. And if they aren't really your friend, then why care about how they'll take it?! FREEEEEDOM! Ok the last part is silly but the first part, I mean.

Eh, it's not really about friendship surviving or not. It's about COI and also the appearance of COI. Which can be separate but related. If you're in a situation where you have enough staff that someone could reasonably recuse from a rough situation with a close friend, better to just do it. If you're on a small game with a small staff, that might not be an option, so you just try to be as above the board with it as possible.

But I think my feelings on the term "professionalism" are well documented. I don't like it for the sole reason that I think a lot of people take it to imply obsequiousness or being servile. I'm not about that life, and I'm definitely not down for the expectation that I will treat game obligations like a job.

I think that's just outright an incorrect understanding of the word (the obsequiousness aspect), so I kind of just refuse to treat it like it means that, because that's not what it means.

The playing on their own game bullet point is a tough one. I think it would definitely be better if most staffers didn't, but then no one would staff games. I like being in on the lore-writing. The creation of setting, and history, and plot. That's super fun for me. Lots of games don't even have that stuff. I think at the very least you should not be playing in any 'sphere' or 'faction' or whatever that you are staffing for. I don't care about staff alts being transparent or not. If you can't trust staffers enough to let them play quietly, idk. What are you doing there?

There are lots of games with only one or two factions and very little in the way of secret lore. I very much understand why staff Arx overall doesn't really play PCs. It's just a very, very different setting than plenty of other games. It's just very game-dependent. Most of my staffing has happened on one-faction, PVE games with a huge amount of transparency in terms of log posting, etc.

@arkandel said in Staff and ethics:

• 'Professional' behavior; this can include language, tone, spelling, etc. Is it better for staff to be aloof or to be chat with their players?

I actually find your expansion on this a little odd. When I think of staff professionalism, I don't equate that with whether or not staff chats with their players. For me, professionalism when it comes to MU* staffing is about a certain level of civility in terms of tone and communication. If a player calls you an asshole, you can firmly shut down the conversation, but you don't get to sling curse words back at them. This is not about "the customer is always right." It's about "we don't drop to an abusive or rude level of discourse with problem players, even if we're disciplining them." (And even if they may honestly end up deserving to be called an asshole.)

For me, this has little to do with how chatty you are on public channels or whatnot. Be chatty away! I'd rather be friendly and approachable than aloof.

• Communication, following up on promises. How much transparency is a good thing? In discipline cases how much should be revealed about what happened (or the reasons nothing did)?

More communication is better. IME players are much more comfortable being patient if you just respond to let them know that you're working on something. I think this is especially important in situations where a player has submitted a complaint about another player's behavior. Serious complaints take time to properly deal with, but if someone submits something awful like "this player is harassing/stalking me," please please please respond promptly just to say "we're taking this seriously and moving on this."

• Playing their own game; staff not playing alts or revealing their names, or not permitting those PCs to attain important positions.

I think the idea that staff can't play on their own games is dumb. I do understand that it's probably best on games with competitive spheres that maybe they should staff and play in different spheres, but my WoD experience is very limited.

• Protecting 'appearances' by not ruling on issues close to them (friends are involved, etc); what happens in small games, or if the staff is small and everyone is involved with everyone else? What are the limits?

I've staffed mostly on small games, and it would've been impossible for me to recuse myself from anything involving someone I considered a friend. I've had official "your tone is getting out of hand" staff conversations with friends -- who were also on staff. We had to staff for each other, because there wasn't really another option.

There were situations people did recuse themselves. Like a staffer recused from handling the app from her RL brother, or people would recuse from apps that were coming in with a strong connection to one of their PCs or if maybe there was a situation where they were directly involved in whatever events were going on.

To a certain extent when you have a small game and a small staff, you just have to try to do your best.

@downwithopp said in An Apology to BSO and BSU.:

I did not come here to start a fight. I did not come here to defend myself - though I ended up doing so - that was a backslide on my part. I came here to ask for forgiveness. To admit that I was wrong.

I mean this with every sincerity: don't come seeking forgiveness. That places the responsibility on the other person to absolve you. If you truly want to improve and move forward, put your feelings of remorse into the world -- and then let them go. Let people feel their feelings, whether they're to forgive you or not, and let yourself move on. If people want to contact you, they will. But don't apologize with the expectation of forgiveness. Apologize to acknowledge the harm of your actions and perhaps to give yourself some mental closure on that chapter of your life. But also accept that could very well be the end of that chapter. You may not find yourself back in the community -- and that will be okay, too. Sometimes when you're going through the painful process of change, you have to leave big parts behind. Let people have their feelings. Build something better.

@mietze The apology also seemed to ignore a whole lot of other creepy behavior the OP has engaged in, so it's really not surprising when people respond negatively to an apology that actually couches what creepiness the OP does admit to in "I just wanted to fit in." From what I understand, he wasn't just "joining in on in-jokes and suggestive comments," he was the one bringing up suggestive stuff. So his apology ignores some of his worst behavior (stalking people across social media/other games and the crazy amount of lies he's made up regarding his OOC identity) and also attempts to half-excuse what he does admit to.

The fact that people who experienced his behavior are responding negatively to this is really not surprising. I also don't think that any of the responses in this thread have made steps beyond passionate to abusive. I mean, yeah, it's an ad hominem situation because it's a situation about one person's behavior. But I don't think calling out bad behavior or the serious issues with the original post is immediate Hog Pit material.

@sunny said in Reporting Roadblocks: Denial, Fear, Shame, Guilt, Embarrassment, etc.:

@meg said in Reporting Roadblocks: Denial, Fear, Shame, Guilt, Embarrassment, etc.:

And honestly, if you don't want anything to happen to the person from your reporting, then you still aren't /reporting/ the behavior. The conversation is still 'how can a game make reporting more likely'. Your conversation is a different one. Your conversation is 'how can I be a supportive friend and just listen to someone's shitty experience', which doesn't require it being staff or not.

This. I don't think the question is 'how can we help victims come forward and talk about their experiences', it's 'how can we encourage reporting'. They're very different conversations. Frankly, in a staff capacity, someone telling me something while saying they want no action taken regarding it is less than useless. It does not help them. It does not help me. If all that's desired is someone to talk to about what happened, there are several chat-based services on the internet involving people with training as to specifically how to deal with this sort of conversation. If that's what somebody is after, that is what somebody should be doing.

If I am unable to act on what I am told, what is the purpose of telling me? I can't help make things safer for the person telling me. I can't help make things safer for anybody else. I'm not trained to be of actual assistance in these matters, and could actually end up doing real psychological harm by trying to do so. So, seriously: who does it benefit to encourage someone to come to me with things I cannot take action on? It does not even benefit the victim.

ETA: Also, survivor here. So yes, I am allowed to have an opinion on this topic before someone gets into "oh you just couldn't understand" because I do.

This. Like, probably at a glance it sounds like a heartless to say "I don't want to hear about your report unless I can act," but honestly it's true. If you're coming to staff, please help them help you -- and help them help others. Honestly, I would do a lot to help someone keep themselves safe off my game if they were worried about retaliation there, even if it's just trying to help them figure out laws and how to report things and all of that. But it's a little like going to HR with an issue in the workplace. It's generally HR's duty to do their best to protect the source of a complaint, but if it's something that falls within the purview of things they need to act on (for legal reasons), they have to do so. (Which may not involve naming the person who lodged the complaint, but often in situations like that it'll be fairly obvious to the person reported.)

Obviously MU*s aren't in the position of having legal responsibilities to, say, protect their workplace from sexual harassment, but I do think there's a certain level of similarity in that HR is there to protect the company, as staff is there to protect their game.

None of this is to say that it's an easy thing to tell someone "I have to act on this information" when they don't want you to. And honestly, I can't recall having ended up in that position as a staffer -- at least not for anything major. So I think it's a very difficult path to sensitively and empathetically handle these sorts of situations while still needing to move forward with acting on information that someone on your game is doing stuff that necessitates serious discipline to protect the game and the playerbase at large. I unfortunately don't have a magic set of words to easily figure out how to do that.

@dontpanda Usually I'm all aboard the METRIC TRAIN as far as thinking the US should convert, but honest to god, Fahrenheit is one that I cling to a bit. Because its standard is what feels hot to a HUMAN. 0 is REALLY COLD and 100 is REALLY HOT and that's the scale. WHO CARES ABOUT WHEN WATER FREEZES OR BOILS WHEN I'M TALKING ABOUT WHETHER I NEED A JACKET. FU WATER.

@thatguythere said in Regarding administration on MSB:

@roz said in Regarding administration on MSB:

@thatguythere So I think it's really about the fact that the community exists but you personally don't engage with

Isn't that pretty much the same as my initial statement of "to me this place is not a community". You all can have all the community you want just don't expect me to call it that or care about that aspect.

There's a difference between "there's a community but I'm not interested in engaging in it" and "there's not a community." Your posts have sounded a lot like the latter. If that's not what you meant, then it's just a miscommunication.

@thatguythere So I think it's really about the fact that the community exists but you personally don't engage with it beyond the surface level. Which is fine! But it's really inaccurate to say that the community aspect isn't already going on. You're just not personally interested in it.

If a bunch of people start going to the same coffee shop to talk to each other on a regular basis -- like every day -- then yeah, it's a community. If there's a guy who goes in and just stops by long enough to say hi and put a poster up on the bulletin board, maybe he's not engaging in the community, but he'll clearly be able to see that it's the same people chatting there every day, so denying that a community of sorts exists seems pretty blind.

@thatguythere I'm just gonna say that I think you're going to be in the minority on this one. I mean, your comparisons don't even make sense to me, but that's neither here nor there. I think that most of the regular posters on this board are going to say there's a community aspect to it. The classifieds are not about having an actual conversation. If we were nothing but ad posts with no replies, we'd be the classifieds.

IF THE GIFS GO, I GO </very serious threat>