Blackballing

[Kinaed]

Rothgar, that is clearly your opinion, and you're welcome to it, but it's not the only opinion worth listening to here.

I'd like to ask everyone kindly back off centering this discussion on me. It's distracting from the topic at hand.

[Rothgar]

Rothgar, that is clearly your opinion, and you're welcome to it, but it's not the only opinion worth listening to here.

I posted the actual definition of blackballing, and explained that what we're all experiencing with these reviews isn't, indeed, blackballing. It's not an opinion. By the very definition of the system, we're not being blackballed.

[REDACTED for personal attacks]

[Kinaed]

The definition of blackballing according to TI's help files, for those who require clarity, is currently:

help blackballing
Blackballing is the practice of ostracizing someone through social
intercourse with the affect of convincing others to do the same.
Literally, the term comes from ancient Roman times when people would vote
yes or no via a white or black stone. In essence, when you talk about
someone behind their back or tell people about how someone has done
something wrong to you, you are spreading your negativity regarding that
person amongst the populace. On TI, this behavior is viewed very dimly if
done OOC.

If someone is a <insert negative pejorative>, others will know. Commentary
regarding it is unnecessary. Please do not discuss how much of a
<pejorative> said person is. It is immature, lacks basic courtesy, and
those who do it actively demonstrate that they are more of a <pejorative>
than the <pejorative> they're talking about.

NOTE: Please feel free to blackball one another ICly as much as the RP warrants

EDIT: Just noting that the last update of that help file is August 2015.
FURTHER EDIT: I think from the discussion today that the above needs an edit, either to include examples or to narrow the definition, because it is quite broad.

[Voxumo]

I'd honestly say there is little that can be added to that definition/interpretation of blackballing without making it too wide of scope. Though perhaps organizing oocly with others to affect someone icly should be included?

For example:
Person A does something Icly to negatively impact person B icly
Person B takes this action personally and conspires with others oocly to make Person A's time icly more difficult.

[Evrald]

So I ask you, pbase - what do you think, if anything, should staff do? Is this worth addressing? Why or why not? If it is, how would you go about it?

I do not believe it should be addressed.

Why? I don't believe that things that happen outside of TI should affect how you are dealt with in TI.

Example: This is like someone who complains about their work on Facebook. So their work fires them for their negative views. These are never good things that happen and end up with lawsuits over it. While we won't have lawsuits in this case though the fact it causes such issues like that, it can still be very terrible in public view.

[Kinaed]

Well, without examples, I think it's currently too wide for scope. I think it could use some examples, like:

Example:
- Person A does something Icly to negatively impact person B icly
- Person B takes this action personally and conspires with others oocly to make Person A's time icly more difficult.
- Person A sends a tell to Person B telling them not to RP with Person C.
- Public attacks whenever a disliked person speaks or expresses their opinion

II think it's a good idea to put a series of examples in there, then put in something like, these are NOT examples of blackballing:
- Writing a post that disagrees with someone's stance

I'd like suggestions on what people would like to see.

Also, some of the query is around whether things happening on other sites that we know about - where would they end up in the list?
And if current detection methods leave us dealing with the aftermath instead of the up front behavior, is there more we can or should consider doing?

[Voxumo]

I do think providing more examples of and of not would be good.

And honestly I would limit things occuring outside of the game to just officially "affiliated" locations, such as TI's discord channel, or TI's facebook group. While I hate to see some of the nonsense on the reddit post go unchallenged, several people make a fair point that it's hard to truly know who it is posting such.

As for detection, I can't really say there is anyway to improve such. You'd have to know such is even occurring, which would rely on someone involved being the better person and informing staff, or the victim raising it, at which point it is already likely in the aftermath stage.

Of course perhaps if the victim does raise it, and brings their case forward with solid reasoning for why they believe such, and a list of whom they believe might be committing such, staff could do a rudimentary search of cnotes to see if such actions against the "Victim" are supported via noted, valid reasoning. Of course this really only works for ooc vs ic and not so much ooc vs ooc blackballing. The latter is a bit harder to deal with without, as mentioned above, someone opting to be the better person and informing staff of such before it's gone into aftermath stage.

[Geras]

I'm confused here. What do the Reddit post and the review have to do with blackballing? What does any of this have to do with blackballing?

[Voxumo]

I'm confused here. What do the Reddit post and the review have to do with blackballing? What does any of this have to do with blackballing?

I think they correlate to blackballing given how so many of the replies focus on one particular staff member so negatively, and with such choice words or phrases. Yes the replies do have a host of valid criticism, but it is the sprinkling of such hateful conduct that one could construe as blackballing. The comment insinuating Giles was Kinaed could also be construed as such, as why would such a comment even be made if there was not something more going on behind the scenes. But as pointed out in the initial post, the last ooc chat also had some concerning moments that could lead one to believe blackballing is occuring... So essentially right now a discussion on how to improve policy surrounding blackballing is being discussed.

Hopefully that makes sense as I feel like I worded it weirdly.

[Spoops]

So people sharing negative experiences that relate to one Staff member is blackballing? What you're saying is that all of these negative reviews, which have valid criticism (your words), are suddenly no longer valid when it mentions the same person? And not only that, that it breaks a policy in the game they're writing a review of on an external website?