@Sonder and @Wretched for Fallcoast.
@Seraphim73, @GirlCalledBlu, and @Auspice for The 8th Sea.
@Taika for DescentMUX.
@Coin for Eldritch.
@tragedyjones for Reno1 and BITN.
Annapurna (not sure of her forum name or if she has one) for Fate's Harvest.
@PuppyBreath This isn't just you. 
There is a group that's 'no one gives a fuck' and another of 'no one is going to actually read this, they'll read something else completely into it instead because apparently we're the hot take nation these days'.
@arkandel said in Let's talk about TS.:
@surreality said in Let's talk about TS.:
It never failed to stun me how many people would try anyway if told this, up to and including using dice to attempt to force the issue, regardless of the reason. It similarly never failed to stun me that they'd be stunned I would want nothing to do with them after that.
Yeah, there are assholes everywhere and also in the hobby. I think in that light it's a good thing we continue to beat the ol' dead horse of "state your limits and stick to them" since clearly someone, somewhere is still getting away with it or they wouldn't still be trying the 'ICA=ICC' gambit of throwing the dice then forcing others to TS-or-else-they-are-bad-players.
The sad fact is that we aren't wholly there yet. We still have arguments on the forum from time to time about how having limits of any kind is a sign of a bad player among otherwise reasonable people.
Almost universally, the very first post on this viewpoint will go right to the extreme caricature of someone who 'just isn't willing to ever let anything bad happen to their character ever and always has to win'.
Yes, the collective we know this sort of player described above exists in the hobby. They are far more rare than the person who says, "Hey, I don't want to write TS <about specific act or kink>." Conflating the two is not appropriate as they are not the same thing at all*, but it tends to happen from step #1/post #1/etc.
This has a real chilling effect on issue reporting; if you think you're going to get a staffer who slings that argument in your face and labels you the bad player, yes, you should probably leave that game, but you leave that game knowing other people are going to be left to deal with the same thing. Plenty of players have found themselves faced with that attitude -- which demonizes them for things they aren't guilty of -- when they are seeking assistance in an uncomfortable position.
Think about this realistically for a moment and you'll likely begin to see the real scope of the problem: "I am feeling gross and pressured, I went to staff to ask for help, and instead of helping, they called me a bad player and enabled the creeper who has no respect for my player-side limits."
How likely are you to approach staff again, even on another game, after this happens? In many cases: much less, if at all. This is a fairly common scenario to encounter as a player, and we talk a lot here about being willing to approach staff with these things, and people needing to speak up to staff after an attempt to handle it themselves in a mature and responsible way doesn't work. We also talk about how many people just 'put up and shut up' and put up with bad behaviors far longer than they should and don't report an issue until it is a morass of indecipherable chaos that has gone on for weeks or months, and I think this is a glowing neon sign as to one of the reasons why.
We (the collective) need to work on that.
@faraday said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:
I can understand the thinking that it's better to air the toxicity in public than private (even if I disagree with that). But let's stop pretending that this is some kind of unsolvable problem.
It isn't even just that. I'll use myself as an example here, because there's a recent one that's relevant to the point about what I consider to be an important distinction worth making.
Look at the shit Nemesis pulled the other week. He's all over the forum, in Pit and notably in various places outside the Pit calling me a liar, claiming he knows these dozens of games and forums I've been on and banned from, and so on. Not one word of this is true. I've been asked -- based on discussions here -- to not show up on two games I had no intention of ever playing on in the first place, and that's the closest I've come to getting banned from anything, anywhere, ever; I've never even had staff 'have to pull me aside' on a game I've played on about something. (I also respected that, because 1. duh; 2. wasn't planning to anyway.) While I've modded on several forums, I've neither been banned from any of forum nor banned someone from one. So this shit is just blatantly and objectively untrue.
That's not airing toxicity. That's making a bunch of shit up in an attempt at character assassination of someone who you dislike for whatever reason. And while he's gone, and he's not a credible source to the average reader, there are plenty of people around the forums who behave in the same way who are still here and aren't so obviously 'WTF'.
This is not and should never be OK.
This is different from 'this horrible thing happened on a game, can you believe this shit?' and a story is told about the event and the people involved, usually with direct examples involved. It's also different from 'this interaction I had with staff was so toxic and abusive I couldn't believe it!' -- and people with the same experience or logs or something else pops up and actual wrong-doing is exposed because of it, which can be a greater good, though it isn't flattering to the target, it's based on actual events and happened in reality and it's good that people know about it (to get better at the thing they did badly, to avoid that place, etc.).
eyetic This was the dude who got hyper-possessive (after being told there would be no relationship or TS, full stop) of a character of mine on TR.
Then asked me if maybe could she please just be pregnant? He was told hell no, not ever.
Then he went on to try to force-feed her a dinner he made until she had a mock-pregnancy belly from overeating to satisfy the above fetish he'd been told NO to in a different fashion.
He was very clingy OOC, was pretty invasive, and kept pushing for things long after being told it was never going to happen, IC and OOC.
He always had endless disasters because his life was so traumatic, for which he was obviously trolling for pity and attention.
He always had a list of increasingly improbable accomplishments -- from working in porn (god, why would anyone even care?!) to random crazy ninja shit -- for which he was obviously trolling for admiration and attention.
@arkandel said in Earning stuff:
It used to be staff were beyond criticism but that's no longer the case, which is a significant cultural shift in the right direction. Even when they protest they don't care (and they do, a lot) staff are seeing their players having expectations from them other than paying the bills.
The idea of staff being immune to criticism pretty much went out the door with the first WORA, which was a fair bit longer ago.
I'd be more inclined to say it's a pendulum issue. Pre-WORA, staff being shady were shady in the shadows, and there was nowhere this really came out. There might be some small exodus of a group of players from a game, but rarely did people from multiple games communicate extensively for that to have much impact on who came to play there later, and so on.
So much shady nonsense went on in the shadows and came to light that even now, most staff are considered untrustworthy by default, particularly on WoD games. In plenty of cases, all it took was one player being told 'no' to get someone's reputation completely destroyed, and telling people 'no' sometimes is absolutely part of staff's job, and staff has to be able to tell people 'no' when 'no' is the appropriate answer. It could produce calls for that staffer's head on a plate or a mass exodus of the game, or new players refusing to go there.
Essentially, it went from staff being immune to criticism or being told 'no' to players being immune to criticism or being told 'no'. Neither of those scenarios are good things. That seems to be starting to change only over the past 2-3 years toward something more balanced.
@WTFE In fairness, when the best thing you think your game has to offer is literally a dumpster fire, you might need some therapeutic ribbing. Just sayin'.
On the sex positive front, I think there's also another factor people run into a lot.
People engaging in a public spectacle (not my thing personally) tend to get judged, and hard, even when in a place where this could reasonably be expected to be happening, and there are very likely NPCs doing the same thing. They tend to get called all manner of horrible things that stray into the rape territory of unwelcome sexual advances, including 'forcing the participation of others' who are simply present and in no other way engaged with the activity.
That actually isn't sex positive. There's nothing 'live and let live' about that attitude at all. That's 'keep your shit I'm not into behind closed doors', regardless of the appropriateness (or lack thereof) for the play space in question.
People consensually flirting, groping, or grinding lewdly all over each other on a dance floor are 'a public spectacle'. It's also an entirely acceptable one for that RP environment, and someone claiming they're bad and should feel bad for 'forcing expectations on someone else' is simply bullshit. If it was a city council meeting? Sure, objections are absolutely reasonable.
'I don't like just seeing that, even if it's entirely expected and predictable in this grid space' is also forcing expectations in the form of unreasonable limitations on someone else, and is not cool.
@ganymede said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:
And frankly -- and this is aimed at surreality -- please don't presume that I don't appreciate, understand, or notice that a few people here get treated like garbage on the regular whereas I can pretty much act like Uncle Ruckus, and folks just look the other way. It does not always come out in my responses, but let me state, for the record, that I understand some people are treated differently.
Here's the thing with that. You have at least four people talking specifically about how they feel they are piled on here or attacked beyond the bounds of what would be tolerated would it happen to someone else, and those four people have an abundance of spine; there are definitely going to be more than four who share that view. Some of them are people I have clashed with personally or don't get along with over the aeons, but I give a shit when hearing they feel like they are no longer welcome to speak or engage here. I can't not empathize with that, and I can't not give a damn.
I know you joke about being a robot. You're not.
I pay attention to it, and, if you don't believe me, talk to Arkandel and Auspice. (Some of y'all may, in fact, remember that I jumped into a thread to point this out in the Hog Pit, and the general consensus was that I "get away" with behaviors that others get shit on for.)
Then point it out when it happens. People out here see it, too. The ones engaging in this behavior clearly don't (or just don't give a fuck while liking to pretend they're somehow righteous or fair or enlightened or whatever else), but they are clearly the ones who need to.
Arkandel asked us as forum participants to call this behavior out when we see it. And mod or not, you are also a forum participant. The old 'with great power comes great responsibility' quote comes to mind here; you are in a unique position to take action by speaking up about these things when you see them occur, which is a responsibility everyone on the forum purportedly shares.
I see a lot of silence on that point.
One post pointing it out -- and I remember the post and heartily agreed with it -- doesn't stop the problem.
Pointing out the instances is what solves the problem. This is the only thing that will spread that awareness.
Months-ago posts don't turn the lightbulb on. "This is an example of what I mean," when it occurs over a short period of time sure as hell does a better job of it, and the concerns you're describing below don't even enter into that at all.
I have seen people scream and rail about sexist comments and insist that internalized sexism is being thrust on them and then turn around and make sexist remarks. I have seen people scream about how inappropriate rape jokes are for pages on end, then make one themselves, and no one dares say boo to them.
This doesn't require mod action.
This requires a voice.
Some of us are not listened to or are further abused if we are that voice. You're not.
So speak up when you see it. Say something. This would make more of an impact than any rule or ban or warning, and I think you know it.
If you are aware of a wrong going down and shrug it off, your silence offers tacit approval of that wrong, and there's a point at which you become complicit.
On the other stuff, I do think something like a temporary cooldown block is not a bad call.
Plenty of otherwise perfectly reasonable people, while heated, go too far. Blocking folks for a day or two to allow them to calm the hell down and recall who they normally are and be themselves when they seem unable to do it for themselves is a step I'm surprised hasn't come into play here yet. This has happened to a number of folks, and I don't exclude myself from this in the least -- it's not a bad idea to consider. This isn't uncommon on games, and it does tend to work to defuse uncharacteristic explosions.
...so this is very not current, and I know I'm missing a pile of alts from over the years.
Former
Ghostwheel MOO: Spiral (builder), Jasper, a handful of characters whose names I don't recall after 20 years...
Cybersphere MOO: Michael Kalir (aka 'Mayor Mike'), Regret
Darkmetal: Lethe/Amarante, a pile of others I have long since forgotten
Castle D'Image: ...I remember none of them, but I was there?
Nightscape: Skarlett, Daedalan/Callah/Belladonna/Apolline
Manifestation: Hong Kong: Poe's Angel (kami/mutant staff), Vervaine
Shangrila: (lots of names that will never be repeated in public)
Denver: some random human chick I played all of four times, with a name I forget
Akashat: Ziavyth
Seradus: Creator/HS (though I forget the bit name at this point), Elena, Jasper, probably others
TR: Baia (mortal admin), Edge, Tavi, Ophelie, Dalya, Katryna, Zillah, others that mostly never made it to the grid
Reno1.0: Tarocchi (werestaff), Nora, Zoe, Lethe, Raven
BITN: surreality (wiki-ONLY staff), Zillah, Nim, Tribulation
Reno 2.0: Taisce and Anais (Yes I finally made a vamp, she has history holes so feel free to link up with her however, y'all. 
)
HorrorMU: The Visionary, The Costumer (wiki staff)
Current
...zilch...
Updated. I'm out, y'all. Once people openly admit to ongoing intentional harassment, and that doing you as much harm as possible is ethical, moral, and just, it'd be foolish to stick around, so I'm not doing that.
re: Special: most tv, book, and tabletop games do focus on a smaller circle, so that smaller circle gets to do all the things.
The things need to be spread out more with a larger player base, even if it's a case of 'we all took down the satellites!' but group 1 took down satellite 1 with their group of 5 players in their way, group 2 took down satellite 2 with another five in their way, etc. Or maybe there's 'hacking team' blocking the satellites from seeing the ships coming in to blow them up, 'flying team' is dodging baddies and getting the demolitions crew to the satellites, and 'blowing shit up team' rigs the things to blow once they arrive.
The problem happens when someone has to be doing ALL THE THINGS, and cannot and will not be happy unless they're hacking and flying and blowing up at the same time in the latter example, or are in groups 1-5 of 5 in the former. (This is one of the reasons a lot of people can't stand Mage in WoD -- this type of player is drawn so often to Mage in ways that are desperately tedious.)
I went outside today! We saw a really pretty giant moth and everything. And then every single old lady on the beach wearing so much perfume I could smell them from twenty paces with the wind against them had to stop to ask me what I was looking for amongst all the little pebbles -- clearly, the answer here is 'little pebbles I like', right? -- had to chat for twenty minutes, so we fled back home, and the peace and quiet of having my house to myself for a week is like heaven.
Hermit powers, go. I choose GrumpyCat to be my avatar.
I think this idea has merit, but I'm going to wait and see on execution to see if it's ultimately a good idea or not.
A suggestion? If you have to address something that is hostile and remove it and subsequent commentary, do so. I would rather see this done as a series of 'this post is deleted's with a followup of 'If y'all want to have a discussion in this tone, start a new thread in the Pit'.
Not move the existing posts, but leave a record (even with the text blanked) with who was going there and crossing the line, even it's all blanked out.
We talk a lot about patterns of behavior here, and being blunt? More or less everyone understands that patterns are relevant. If the collective group sees the same names blanked out on the regular, that's not nothing.
@ganymede said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:
An alternative, I suppose, is to put out the general warning post that things are, or have been, out of hand, and any posts thereafter get deleted. But I'm not sure if that addresses the problem, or if that would, for whatever reason, encourage to be as shitty as they can as quickly as possible.
I don't agree with this idea at all. It goes precisely how you fear it will and we've seen it already. There are people who have been banned at this point for ignoring all the rules and making completely unfounded attacks and accusations all over the forum, and while the posters in question are gone (for now, since none of the problem children ever seem to stay that way), their attacks on others remain.
That's really not OK. That's not 'speaking truth to power in a neutral space when the powers that be are corrupt and something needs to be said for great justice'. That's intentional personal character assassination of a poster based on absolutely nothing but a desire to do harm by another with zero facts or evidence, only an excess of bile and hate.
So long as all of that bile and hate gets to stay? No, all that's going to do is make the place look awful. For those of us who have become punching bags -- and there are quite a few of us -- I think I can safely say we're sick of being treated like canaries in the coal mine on this front, and having all of the attacks on us grandfathered in to remain forever in perpetuity, while all other posters will be safe from this going forward.
Yes, that's going to require some house cleaning. No, that's not any fun. It doesn't mean it isn't a real issue that creates not just an appearance of unfairness, but actual unfairness unless it's tended to.
@Kireek: @Rucket is actually actually dead on, and you should seriously consider their advice.
You can be seriously off-putting sometimes, dude. The whole 'eh' 'hmmmmmm' 'peeeeeeeeers' stuff all over the channels from out of nowhere comes off creepy and/or condescending and/or like pointless, directionless negativity to some people, even if you may not intend it that way. (And I'm pretty sure you don't intend it that way, so it's probably worth mentioning if you weren't aware of this.)
Having been one of the staffers elsem* who had to hear complaints about it, it isn't just one person who has made them, and it hasn't just occurred on one game.
@faraday said in Earning stuff:
If you apply that ratio to a MUSH though, assuming somebody plays 3 nights a week (which is pretty typical for an active player), you're talking about one action-oriented hero plot per month. That doesn't seem like a terribly unreasonable expectation for an individual player, and it's eminently do-able if you have a setting/character/player-staff-ratio that supports it. It's not practical everywhere, though, which is a problem if people expect it.
I don't think this is an unreasonable expectation, either, and it's one that a game of even moderate size could probably maintain fairly well. Probably even double that.
There are unfortunately a lot of loud voices that will insist that if each of those three nights of the week, there's not a chance to go be John McClane, staff is lazy, the game is dying, and "nobody does anything good". As much as I may want to dangle these people off of something really high by an ankle until all the entitlement drains out of them -- fate has cruelly denied me this magical power -- they are very loud and very insistent and their persistent loud insistence about this can do bad things to game morale over time.
@sockmonkey said in @Arx: Anonymous Messengers:
If you ever consider bringing it back, perhaps instead of having a direct effect -- all these condemns = immediate social loss -- there can just be a threshold that needs to be attained. If someone reaches X amount of condemns, it gets put on staff radar. And then they can make the call whether or not it's worth a prestige adjustment.
I'd suggest something in addition to that: Someone using the command X number of times ends up taking a hit, too. Ex: if all John Doe does is talk shit about everyone around him, after a while, people are going to start taking a less positive view of John Doe as well, even if people generally share the same negative view of whoever he's talking about.
@arkandel I think this depends a lot on how one defines 'undesirables'.
People like Sovereign, Spider, Elsa, or Nemesis, who are egregiously abusive across the board and have no intention whatsoever of changing their behaviors, are definitely undesirables and I think the community would be better off without them, full stop.
If this forum is keeping these people away from games, good.
If we are defining 'undesirables' as 'anyone who doesn't agree with me about everything, gets snippy once in a while, and fucked something up once in 2002', on the other hand? Bluntly: the people defining 'undesirables' this way need to grow up and recognize that their personal dislikes are not indicative of broadly abusive and toxic behavior that is detrimental to the community on the whole.
There's a difference. It's valid, and it's relevant.
@Miss-Demeanor I like both of you. Genuinely. I'm not trying to defend him. I'm not trying to attack you. I know just enough about the situation (I think) you're upset about to think that both of the people I like just fine probably owe each other an apology for their respective parts in the conflict, but also that that wasn't the situation he was posting about. Neither of you thinks you're wrong about any of that, and you're both stubborn enough (I empathize, not criticize here, 'cause I'm the same goddamn way) that I don't think either of you will ever budge about it, or change perspective on it. Which sucks, because neither of you suck.
This is the snarkiest thing I'm going to say in this thread, and then I'm going to leave it there: When nitpicking someone else's wording, be more careful of your own.
@faraday I'd personally toss a character under those circumstances. If I designed a thing that could no longer do what they specialized in again, and they could not be reshaped into something else -- even if it's over some reasonable period of time -- there would be no worthwhile story to be had on that character any longer entirely aside from it being the doubled blow of 'not what I intended to play'; their story would be 'is miserable their life was wasted' barring the most exceptional circumstances, and I think we all get more than enough of that RL much of the time.
I'd make something else, probably after hoofing it off that game faster than the roadrunner.
@botulism said in Horror MUX:
This looks like something I've wanted to try for a long time. I may... dip a toe out of retirement land to try this out, though can't peek around until Thursday. (The husband's home today and tomorrow and I need Strong Back Tall Man to help with moving some heavy things and things on high shelves while I can.) The setup alone seems like there are good times to 'step out' for a story cycle if/as needed, which would be helpful right now.
(And the wiki looks seriously gorgeous, btw. Very nice design, images, and color scheme! Pretty and easily readable is double extra )