Staff Alts - Transparency

[Kinaed]

I was surprised at the overwhelming majority of people who said they preferred their implementor play the game. During an OOC convo, however, there came up the question of transparency.

Please let me state that TI's Policy on Staff Alts is that it is completely up to the staffer to decide if they want to be incognito or if they want their alts known at this time, and my inquiries here aren't aimed directly at weighing this policy, but rather coming to know what's important to the pbase.

Generally, I prefer my alts absolutely not to be known, but my experience is that I'm as easy to catch as the lone red witchball on a christmas tree. Simply by login/out pattern alone, my timezone is obvious as is my style of play.

I prefer my alts not be known because I like to feel as if what's going on in the RP, whatever it may be, isn't skewed by people's fear of what it might do to our OOC relationship. Eg, if I earn a favor or a handout, I want to really earn it, not have people feel OOC pressure to side with me, etc. I've absolutely loved it when, for example, Jei gave my alt a hassle one day. It made me feel like I was a part of the pbase.

On the flip side, I wonder if people knew who my alts were, would they feel a bit more confident with saying "I think you're cheating because of X, Y, and Z" so I can just field it directly?

I'll say that I'm not convinced that we'd see less accusations of cheating - players think other players are cheating when they get into trouble, let alone with staff alts. I can confidentally say that every member of TI's staff is dedicated to playing the game fairly, and if I thought for one instant that they wouldn't do their absolute best to maturely and professionally divide their character's problems from their staff duties, I'd ask them to step down.

Anyway, what do you think? And more importantly, why do you think it?

Thanks again for your viewpoint!

[Geras]

I don't think should be widely broadcast, but I don't think there's anything wrong with people finding out or being told discretely. My concern with it being broadcast too widely as it may lead to more IC "sucking up" than we'd all like to see.

I do think though that if there's a policy question that involves an Imm's alt, that conflict of interest should be disclosed to the player(s) involved. Obviously the policy issue should be handled by a different Imm than the one involved too, but I think that goes without saying lol.

What I was taught in my engineering ethics class is that there's nothing wrong with someone having a conflict of interest; what's wrong is trying to conceal that conflict. So long as whenever a serious conflict arises that conflict is disclosed everything should be fine IMHO.

[Kinaed]

When we have policy that involves conflict of interest, we do hand it off to other staff members. However, it's hard b/c there's only 4 staff members and usually, we're all involved in one way or another.

I'm not sure I'd feel that my character being in RP that has a conflict of interest is enough for me to say staff should disclose their alt, though I agree it'd be appropriate to fess up to having a conflict of interest and passing it on.

[Jei]

I said no, but I'm kind of curious who I hassled now. haha.

[Empheba]

If I accidentally learn it, then so be it, but otherwise I don't really want to know.
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Empheba

[Kinaed]

It was Kieva, Jei. :)

It's interesting that people want staff to play (or me specifically), but don't want to know who.

Whelp, ladies and gents - if you ever figure out who one of my alts is, or another staff member's... please remember this poll and keep it to yourself! Apparently other people don't want to know. :)

[Another]

If I am honestly that curious, I will straight-up ask. And chances are very likely that I'll take the answer at face-value.

Otherwise, I simply just don't want to know.

[Eris]

I don't think it's necessary to know. Staff are people, too, and deserving of the same choice of privacy of they want.