Blackballing

[Kinaed]

Greetings Everyone,

There's a few things on my mind I want to go over, and I'm looking for player opinions in general. Firstly, if you haven't read HELP RULES recently, please do.

Some people may have heard that someone posted a juvenile review on TMC recently saying I should have a stroke and fingerpaint for the rest of my life to make TI a better game. It also made condemning comments towards an active player (as well as misinformation about what happened regarding their policy case and half a dozen other things).

Following this, a new player posted a review on Reddit saying they didn't find the staff so bad, then was harassed there (accused of being me and shamed) for having an opinion contrary to theirs.

Today, I saw some poor behavior in today's OOC Chat with players being OOCly rude to one another. Adjunct to that, some players from another popular RPI popped on our Discord and started insulting one of our players.

This is toxic. I hate to use the term toxic, but it is. It brings down our game for everyone. It's a low level buzzkill that damages TI's environment on the whole.

Obviously, some of the people acting are outside of our jurisdiction completely until they step foot on our systems - and I don't think people should get in trouble for sharing their thoughts and opinions, even when they're negative. But there's a difference between disagreeing with someone and actively seeking to damage people you dislike, whether it be talking crap about them to third parties, or crossing the line of professional disagreement to personal attacks, harassment, misrepresentation, intimidation, and bullying.

Unfortunately, some of the people involved in this behavior are playing TI right now, enjoying access to the game and staff's services, yet are willing and able to bully other players.

As one of the main targets of the recent blackballing, I am between a rock and a hard place. If I do something, I'll be accused of power tripping and acting out of self defense. If I do nothing, I'll be accused of letting some players ruin the game for everyone. I think I'd personally side with the people who believe I should do something... but it's difficult when it's not clear precisely who is involved, what degree of impact it's having, or how big the stick we should wield in dealing with it.

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?

Warm regards,
Kinaed

[Rothgar]

Why respond? It's like challenge pissing. No one wins if you wind up getting into it.

[Taunya]

It's tough to say. On the one hand, I've got a pretty good idea who the poster of the review is and can understand their frustrations, but on the other hand I don't at all condone how they decided to vent them (though it wasn't all bad things, and they did have some good to say too). I also don't know that they're who is responsible for the MUD-slinging (see what I did there?) on other platforms-There's any numbers of people upset for one thing or another. We've quite a few justifiably banned that could have a grudge for example.

For now, I'd just lean towards proving them wrong. Not with words, but with how we do things.

[Kinaed]

Why respond? It's like challenge pissing. No one wins if you wind up getting into it.

Whether it's worth responding is something I'm trying to ascertain, which is part of the player advice I've sought. In a way, posting this note in and of itself is a response, however, shedding light on the behavior and asking people to be mindful. Previously, we have been criticized for not acting sooner regarding "problematic players" because of how it felt to players on the whole. However, just because one or two people complain to me doesn't actually mean there's a systemic problem. Further, I'm not unbiased, having been personally targetted.

I do take the point, however, that these things are messy, and everyone gets dirty when you play in the mud.

[Rothgar]

Whether it's worth responding is something I'm trying to ascertain,

It's not. I can assure you this. I'd be frankly amazed if there was a response on Urth that could solve the thread you're taking about.

[Kinaed]

Hehe, I imagine you're correct in terms of responding to that (I think) Reddit thread (which I haven't read). I don't think anyone would advocate responding there as a wise course of action. That was only an example to set context.

All of the examples that I raised in my initial post were brought to me by members of our community in various stages of upset. They are either uncomfortable about having been harassed themselves or concerned for the affect on their peers and the environment at large.

The question is about whether the behavior of TI players off TI should be grounds for intervention , and if so, to what degree and when. What are the guiding principles we should consider? I'm ruminating on this and hoping that TI players are happy to share their thoughts before I crystalize my thoughts and take a full on stance. That said, given the lack of activity on a thread I thought people would have strong opinions on, please do feel free to contact me privately on the game Personal Board or via Kinaed.TI@gmail.com if anyone is uncomfortable posting here.

Thus far where I'm at is that I don't personally think it's too much to expect players who continue to enjoy playing TI to at least refrain from harassment, slander, etc, of other members of our pbase, whether they do it on TI or off TI. I am also ruminating on the question how valid it is to act when people just act poorly when it reflects on us - for example, whereas I think it's unlikely that the other RPI whose members logged into our Discord to harass our players today actually endorsed the behavior, I don't think any better of that game for it. I'd also like to think if an admin from that RPI logged onto TI and spoke to staff about our Joe logged into their Discord to harass their Jane, I'd be supported by the pbase in doing something about Joe's behavior. But also, what exactly? Talk to Joe and tell them to cut it out? Punish them with in-game restrictions? Ban them and be done?

Anyway, thank you both for the responses thus far.

Kind regard,
Kinaed

[Starstarfish]

http://www.ti-legacy.com/forums/viewtop ... ling#p8657

This is the thread the last time this seemed to come to loggerheads in the community (though as this was before I began to play the impetus for this original post is a tad beyond me.) I think a healthier thing to do for the community at large is that rather than seek what to -do- about a situation it's as Taunya says, to overall work on rebuilding a good sense of community. And I'd argue having seen each of these behaviors and having felt harassed by some of them, it might be the time to re-examine this list of behaviors. The one review or the Reddit post I believe are a symptom of a larger issue, and not the starting point.

[Kinaed]

http://www.ti-legacy.com/forums/viewtop ... ling#p8657

This is the thread the last time this seemed to come to loggerheads in the community (though as this was before I began to play the impetus for this original post is a tad beyond me.) I think a healthier thing to do for the community at large is that rather than seek what to -do- about a situation it's as Taunya says, to overall work on rebuilding a good sense of community. And I'd argue having seen each of these behaviors and having felt harassed by some of them, it might be the time to re-examine this list of behaviors. The one review or the Reddit post I believe are a symptom of a larger issue, and not the starting point.

I think that's a good reminder and excellent point - it's also relieving to see that the post was so long ago that it's clear that this situation is not common for TI. That said, actions like I'm speaking of are actually against policy and the rules, as opposed to just accusations of 'general toxicity' - it does beg the question of whether we misjudged toxicity in terms of chicken and the egg. IE, does game toxicity cause blackballing or does blackballing result in toxicity? If the former then that post is spot on. If the latter, then I'd say staff should intervene to prevent it.

I think the answer is a bit of inbetween though - yes, I think blackballing causes a toxic environment, but I also think blackballing is the result of unrest. On that, I'm kosher with trying to make the game better for people on the whole and build community - so long as no one thinks that I or my staff are solely responsible for Their Personal Happiness (TM).

[DeadHandsome]

In truth, I have been reading this thread for awhile now and I can honestly say that I don't have a clue what you should do about it. On one hand, you have the nuclear option. Ultimately, it's YOUR sandbox. If you want to kick people out who play in it but tell other people not to because you're mean... or whatever that's up to you. Ordinarily, I would say definitely not. I do think that badgering new players in any venue while still playing the game does not encourage... any sort of positivity or contribute anything meaningful to the game. As a new player myself if I had seen that kind of stuff happening with the sort of nerves I had coming in I would have never tried to come here and do anything. It's BIG and it's DAUNTING and there's so much stuff you have to get into lorewise and gameplay wise that you really have a hard emotional and kind of visceral reaction to a lot of things that go on IC. Adding it to the OOC pressure is, not good. It reflects poorly the game, people playing it, and the community that I have to this point found to be an extremely enjoyable and fun group of people to tell stories with.

That being said, on the other hand you have the option where you do nothing. Now obviously I understand that you don't want to make things bigger than they already are, unfortunately for all of us, you don't have any control over how any of that goes. It sucks that someone wanted to attack you personally. Unfortunately I'm not surprised by it at any rate. You're not going to be the one who makes it a huge blow out by stepping in and laying down the law on people who affect your game negatively with their dumb stuff.

SO to boil down these choices for you and trim all the detritus off...

1. Hit them with the hammer and maybe make it blow up into a big thing. Preserve the integrity of the community at all costs.

2. Don't hit them with the hammer and maybe make it blow up into a big thing. Preserve the right of people to say what they like.

Bonus round: We aren't in the business of free speech here. If someone talked a whole lot of mess about how Bob runs his D&D campaign in real life they wouldn't be allowed in Bob's D&D campaign. I don't know why on the internet people lose their minds and stop acting like people have feelings and should be respected but... whatever. Not my problem or yours.

[Zeita]

I'm of the opinion that the actions of a player off the game, but in -relation- to TI should be held to the standards of policy of TI. This would most especially apply in situations such as this, where the immature are harassing others off of the game. Thus, in my opinion, if a player can be identified for their policy-breaking activities in another forum, that they should be disciplined for it as if it were to occur on TI.

On a more general note, in many cases there will be no way to link the source of troublesome activity with a player's TI identity. In situations like that, then threads such as this one that that call out and highlight the behaviour may be the best response. I think that the vast majority of TI's players would readily acknowledge that 'blackballing' activities are unacceptable and unwanted.

Some of the recent behaviours such as the TMC review and Reddit thread mentioned above are utterly abhorrent.