Blackballing

[Starstarfish]

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.

My caution with this, is that it can become a rather slippery slope which would mean that playing TI would essentially give permission to staff to monitor you as a player outside of your direct involvement of game controlled spaces. And where would the line get drawn? There are RPIs with that reputation and frankly, having been on the receiving end of doxxing threats in other communities that would make me really uncomfortable.

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.

The difficulty here is that by which standards will you identify people? We have two players/former players on TI for example, wherein one had a user name on the game portal that another utilized on Discord. For completely innocent reasons. You as a player have no control if someone else creates a profile in some other place with your screen name, or utilize details about you to try and paint you as the guilty party. How would you prove your innocence in that case?

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).

IMHO "blackballing" occurs when people do not feel they have a legitimate way to express their concerns or feelings and will be listened to or have their opinion respected. In recent times, there have been for example major decisions wherein staff have said they did not want to open discussion prior to making the decision, because they knew it would be unpopular. That leads to the feeling, right or wrong that player opinions do not hold weight.

[AlwaysShunny]

IMHO "blackballing" occurs when people do not feel they have a legitimate way to express their concerns or feelings and will be listened to or have their opinion respected. In recent times, there have been for example major decisions wherein staff have said they did not want to open discussion prior to making the decision, because they knew it would be unpopular. That leads to the feeling, right or wrong that player opinions do not hold weight.

+1 this. While I am generally content with staff and appreciate the work they all put into the game, there have been some recent times where choices were made that caused me some discontent, simply because they weren't communicated in a way that was imo efficient and transparent with the playerbase. But I am still very happy with staff, and I think that it is very sad that the posts which were made about Kinaed were made.

Feeling discontent and jaded should not justify treating someone terribly or defaming them. There are ways that you can deal with a dispute without resorting to base tactics. Feel like staff won't listen to you in one-on-one discussions? Bring the topic up in an OOC Meeting so that more people can see your side and potentially vest interest. And do it respectfully, without passive aggressiveness or call outs that put people on the spot.

[Voxumo]

I'm of a similar mindset as Zeita. If a person who plays TI is bringing TI problems outside of the game and onto other venues, then they should frankly be held responsible for such behavior. I would not say an outright permaban, but a ban of some sort, but only if staff are 100% certain it is infact that player.

TI is a small game, and really don't need people making it look bad to those who haven't even logged into the game before.


Also reading through other comments, as I did not see there was a second page, I find it appalling that anyone would try to justify blackballing. If you do not agree with decisions made by staff, or feel like you don't have a voice, there are ways to handle that which doesn't involve blackballing your fellow players. Write a forum post about it on here, where fellow players can see it and thus it makes it a bit harder for your concerns to be swept under the rug, but do it respectfully.

There is no justification for Blackballing, aside from that person or persons just being scummy.

[Helena]

(I'm posting links because I had a hard time finding them)

I'm not on discord, and did not feel any bad atmosphear in the game, so I'm not sure of the extent of that problem, and can't comment about that.

The review on mudconnect is, in my opinion, more detrimental to its author than to the game. And the comment on the review on reddit is obviously misplaced. As a result, there's no reason to worry about them.

Yet, the review raise a concern I've heard not only once: the frustration of very powerful characters not having enough power on the great history of Urth. That's not a personal concern (on the contrary), but it might worth asking if that's a thing the player base is concerned about, and/or depicting more clearly staff's opinion on that matter. Maybe that on other RPI muds, the guild leaders are also gamemasters, which may be why some player feel frustrated.

On a more general note, I'd say that the game can be really harsh and frustrating for me, and that I need, to balance that, to feel friendship at an OOC level. I also know that it would have helped me to may voice my frustrations at an OOC level, but it's nearly impossible, because of IC/OOC crossover. What I mean is that while I don't agree with the way those persons voice their frustrations, I understand frustration exists. And if I were willing to do something to avoid as much as possible those excesses, I'd attempt to channel the player frustration somehow.

One idea I have for this (though it might not help in that particular case), is an afterlife (or after liquidation) access to events having affected a character's life, as a way to help them understand what happened in the background. Maybe could they use the plot system to ask their questions, and be granted sincere answer. That would add more OOC knowledge than is generally done on TI:L, but I'm confident that will not be detrimental to the game.

[Rothgar]

I cannot believe that this thread is still up and getting earnest replies. I'm drunk and I wholly intend to stay that way for the next 12 hours, so I'll make this one relatively short.

- You're playing directly into the hands of those who have made these reviews.
This is exactly what they were talking about in those reviews, and nearly exactly what they said you'd do via said reviews. You're playing directly into their hands having a thread like this after having OOC meetings where you say, "I don't care, and it's just sad to me." You do care. Otherwise you wouldn't be making these comments and these threads, and you'd just let it ride. As someone who spent his formative years trolling the Arien out of people IRL, I'll be completely frank : this is exactly the rise I'd love to see out of someone if I was badgering them online. This plays into my second point :

- You've read very little of these posts other than the bits demonizing you.
From the Reddit posts, and especially the TMC reviews, which I see seem to bother you the most, it's increasingly clear that you've either not read them or someone linked the specific Kinaed-mentioning bits to you via email or something. Like I said above, if you'd read them all the way through, you'd probably note that they're absolutely not trying to get a rise out of you, specifically, because they wanted you to make a thread and and OOC stink like this. I say this because the reviews are pretty universally otherwise glowing. I don't think I've seen a single review condemning the code or the base theme, and I've only ever seen a handful of reviews that say a single bad thing about the pbase. A vast, vast majority of the reviews are pro-TI, and it demonstrates pretty well that you're playing directly into their hands by dismissing these posts as "trolling," or "nonsense."

- You're advocating for punishing someone over an anonymous Reddit post.
First and foremost, how do you even intend to start this semi-literal witch-hunt. They're anonymous, throwaway accounts, specifically meant to get a rise out of you. That you - and others in this thread - are practically demanding some form of punishment for them tells me that this bothers you on a personal level, rather than a professional one. And again, as someone who's spent a vast amount of time trolling others IRL, I can safely say that this is "Trolling 101," to get a personal rise out of someone. I'm absolutely blown away that you and others in this thread are treating these reviews and comments not only VERY seriously, but SUPER personally. Unless you, personally, ask the moderators of r/MUD to reveal to you the emails and shit behind these accounts, nothing will get done, you're going to injure and demean the playerbase with this bullshit witch-hunt, and you'll drive people away trying to nurse your injured online reputation.

TL;DR
Stop responding, get a grip, see that this is all playing into the hands of those who'd seek to hurt you on a professional level. Be the better (wo)man, stop replying, have a sandwich, and realize that you're well and truly being trolled, and you've all stepped straight into it.
It's a game, lads. A game that can drive the whole of us into Arien frothing madmen from time to time, but a game nonetheless. You all need to take a breather, step back, and look at this for what it is : frustrated anonymous people taking out frustrations on the internet. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Voxumo]

- You're advocating for punishing someone over an anonymous Reddit post.
First and foremost, how do you even intend to start this semi-literal witch-hunt. They're anonymous, throwaway accounts, specifically meant to get a rise out of you. That you - and others in this thread - are practically demanding some form of punishment for them tells me that this bothers you on a personal level, rather than a professional one. And again, as someone who's spent a vast amount of time trolling others IRL, I can safely say that this is "Trolling 101," to get a personal rise out of someone. I'm absolutely blown away that you and others in this thread are treating these reviews and comments not only VERY seriously, but SUPER personally. Unless you, personally, ask the moderators of r/MUD to reveal to you the emails and shit behind these accounts, nothing will get done, you're going to injure and demean the playerbase with this bullshit witch-hunt, and you'll drive people away trying to nurse your injured online reputation.

The supposed anonymity is debatable. I know exactly who the top reply to the reddit post is, given their choice in wording and posts in the actual game, and we can at least assume one of the other posters is the same person who wrote the mudconnect review given their choice of phrasing.

However Rothgar, the situation is a catch 22, as if staff don't respond you get people who complain about lack of action, and if they do respond you get the "Trolls" getting what they want.

[Rothgar]

However Rothgar, the situation is a catch 22, as if staff don't respond you get people who complain about lack of action, and if they do respond you get the "Trolls" getting what they want.

It's not a catch-22. It's a Reddit post. It's a goddamn Reddit post. I have no idea why the Lunare you people are acting like this is some bomb threat or someone said over Reddit, "Heh you're cool, stay out of Mass tomorrow."
There's no hyper-secret agenda to ruin Kinaed's career. There's not even an agenda to ruin the MUD. You'd be lashing out at something that doesn't even rate as a goddamn shadow. It's a Reddit post. I understand that everyone's super-sleuth RL Inquisitor skillz can out who it is in a heartbeat and that you lot are backtracing the IP and that consequences will never be the same, but it doesn't change the underlying point.

You're getting absolutely fanny-flustered over an Arien Reddit post. It's Reddit.

[Evrald]

Just throwing this out there. recognizing someone's wording and posts in game vs on the internet is still an educated 'guess' at best. Unless you have definitive evidence behind it, actually accusing someone of something and punishing them can lead to a lot more negativity when you accidentally accuse the wrong person. If Person Z writes negative stuff and Person A has a similar writing style. Person A gets blamed for it when you don't have definitive evidence. This leads to Person A getting in trouble for nothing and being punished over something they didn't do. While Person Z sees it and writes even more negative things that could be blamed on other people. That's an incredibly slippery slope and I believe the best course of action is like Rothgar said. Don't feed the trolls.

[chronodbu]

I proposed this to one of the staff members just recently because it's something that's come up in the past as an idea but hasn't ever been done. I feel that it would resolve some of the issues we've had currently with this as well.

The advent of Discord on this game was the beginning of a major source of the toxic behavior we've been experiencing. Players were essentially given an echo chamber where the few who feel upset over something can stew and make it into something more than it is. More often than not this is without having all the pieces of the puzzle because how could they? They can't possibly know what other players have done or said on their characters, which tends to lead them to believe staff are pulling one over on them.

I'll personally use the Baronial Council as an example - I've worked hard for Roland because I genuinely like him and my characters have had legit reasons to like him over Celeste. I know others have supported him as well, but the vocal side of our pbase who want to make it an OOC issue have poisoned the well so harshly that we're seeing this explosion.

Through Discord and the pulling of people into that OOC atmosphere where they can echo off of each other, it's only a recipe for brewing disaster. We have community building things already in the form of the OOC channel, the forums, and personal boards. We don't need Discord and we don't need Tells. We should do away with them.

Edit:

As for whoever would be wiling to write a review or posts specifically cyber bullying the administrator of a game who puts their time, money, and care into its running - up to and including literally wishing physical harm on them - this isn't something that can be helped. This type of person is human garbage who needs to be checked psychologically.

[Evrald]

I am whole heartily against the idea of removing Tells. Because if you remove Tells it will lead to removing the OOC channel. That is a method of trying to arrange for a scene, "Whenever you get the chance, we can show up somewhere." "Sure! Lets meet at the Park." both players meet at the park, whererp shows multiple people at the park and draws a few more people in. This scene would not be possible to arrange for RP to happen if Tells weren't a thing. Discord is a method of communication, as are Tells. Saying you don't want either is about as damning as saying "I don't want communication." there's commands for that in game and you can mute people on Discord if you don't want to see/hear them. But trying to fix the problem in the way you're suggesting will stagnate a lot of RP and will end up causing a lot of stuff to fall apart.

I play the game to enjoy myself and speak to people. If I can't talk to people to set up scenes to go enjoy, why play a game I am no longer enjoying or communicating with people on?

This discussion has come up before and was shut down before. I believe last time was because both Staff and Players agreed that removing everything would be damning to RP, lets not try to do it again please.