Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo

[CuriousGamer]

So char logins are down to 36, that’s the lowest I’ve seen them on this game - so looks like the word of mouth (and silent bannings) may be having an affect!

But wait, before you hit the abandoned ship button, there’s a post about making player complaints! (Does it matter if you make a player complaint if noone is around to do something about it? Like if a tree falls in a forest and noone is there, does it make a sound?)

[IoleRae]

@CuriousGamer

“staff is dedicated to mediating and helping seek resolutions”

Do they think people don’t understand what this means?

Everything else aside, YOU CANNOT FUCKING MEDIATE BETWEEN A SEXUAL HARASSOR AND THEIR VICTIM. There is no appropriate resolution to be sought beyond GET RID OF THE PREDATOR.

that’s not how this works. that’s not how ANY of this works.

“have staff and the predator badger you until you either withdraw your complaint or go away” is what this post invites people to do.

I’m sure people are totally going to line up to be told they’re too sensitive, that Hadrix was joking, that he didn’t KNOW they were uncomfortable, and also it’s just a game why are you taking it so seriously/personally, and how he has a wife and she likes being talked to like that so it can’t be sexual harassment, and it was just his CHARACTER he’s a nice guy, and anyway he invested so much OOC time and so many IC resources in your character and it’s pretty ungrateful/scummy for you to have been leading him on if this is how you’re gonna be. seems like you led him on to get the stuff, and then once you got the stuff you put in a complaint so you get to keep it, no consequences. that’s cheating! So from now on, you’re not allowed to be in any scenes with him, and if you’re somewhere and he shows up, you need to excuse yourself, because you’re the one with the problem. fucking hysterical women.

$1 says that if any apology is offered, it includes the words “I’m sorry that you”

[Duke Whisky]

Mediating also requires, at minimum, training in and for it to be a neutral party. Based on this thread, I’m not sure a single staff member of AoA could be a neutral party.

Additionally for mediation to work both sides need to agree to it, actively seek it as an issue and want to see resolution to it. So often it gets offered as a method to resolve issues in the workplace when the other person doesn’t see an issue with their behaviour and what caused the issue.

Anyway. I’m not sure what resolution a sexual predator would see to their behaviour as they are so far beyond help and need yeeting rather than a sit down chat with their victims.

[Polk]

@IoleRae I know nobody believes me but you’re spot on, because this is just them wishing that if only everyone could get along the game would be big and successful.

They think that if only they could moderate and get everyone to get along, things would be peachy keen.

[Pavel]

@Whisky said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

Mediating also requires, at minimum, training in

I wouldn’t go quite that far. Neutrality, absolutely, but specialist training? Nah. The average person can often mediate conflicts just fine.

Not this lot, though, they couldn’t mediate a divorce between corpses.

[IoleRae]

@Polk said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

They think that if only they could moderate and get everyone to get along, things would be peachy keen.

that only has the possibility of working when there are no bad actors, and even then, people in large groups don’t ever all get along. it’s a straight up stupid and INCREDIBLY immature perspective.

[BloodAngel]

This just fucking get worse and worse, how the fuck!

[Duke Whisky]

@Pavel - I dunno, I’ve seen enough workplace managers go “I can sort this out” and end up making things worse that I wouldn’t trust them anywhere near a sexual predator case.

Let alone a he said/she said/they said case.

[Pavel]

@Whisky Well yeah, but you don’t mediate a sexual predator case.

ETA: Also I said average person, nowhere did I stoop so low as to talk about management.

[Polk]

@IoleRae Absolutely right. And that’s precisely my read on Cujo. Just not emotionally mature about this stuff, even if he’s been at it however many years.

[DarthSmegma]

@Polk The problem with calling someone like Cujo ‘just emotionally immature’ is that it lets him off the hook for some objectively shitty behavior.

He’s not ‘just immature.’ This is a fifty-ish year old man we’re talking about. He knows it’s not okay to set his staff bit dark and spy on someone. He knows it’s not okay to constantly change the rules for his buddies. He knows it’s not okay to ignore complaints of sexual harassment and general bullying. He knows it’s not okay to purge players and staff who have spoken up.

He’s not emotionally immature. He’s a predator, an enabler, and a poor speller.

[GF]

@DarthSmegma said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

The problem with calling someone like Cujo ‘just emotionally immature’ is that it lets him off the hook for some objectively shitty behavior.

I agree with everything you say about there being more going on here than immaturity, but I did want to interrogate this a little bit. Does calling someone immature let them off the hook? I’ve never used or interpreted the word that way; in my eyes, everyone is responsible for their own maturity, and after a certain point the character flaw becomes willful rather than something inflicted on the person.

[mietze]

Emotionally immature people aren’t harmless.

I agree, we need to stop using that term like it excuses anything.

I do think it is useful in the sense that there are certain characteristics of emotionally immature adults who wield power/influence over other people that are useful to know, so that you can decide what if any boundaries to put into place, or just being informed in how much you want to invest in a place when there are going to be predictable and inevitable blowups/blowouts. But maybe those are things you should always be going in with at the back of your mind anyway.

[IoleRae]

I used it as a descriptor/observation, not an excuse. I did not even begin to imply that let him off the hook.

I’m really not sure how “it’s a straight up stupid and INCREDIBLY immature perspective” is being taken like that, frankly.

It is my personal experience that people who abuse other people are emotionally immature. They are lots of other things too, but that’s been the commonality between them in my life.

These are not mutually exclusive concepts.

[mietze]

@GF I think there are a lot of people who have had the experience of other people urging them to let something go because that other person is immature/awkward. I don’t think anyone is doing that in this thread. However, that kind of deflection is definitely something I’ve seen used as leverage to get someone to shut up about a complaint. (and while the term wasn’t used exactly, by this particular staff, with the “he just tells poorly thought out jokes” in regards to Hadrix is of a similar vein).

[GF]

@mietze Huh. Alright. Thanks.

(I phrased that so weird because I want to acknowledge your effort in saying it, but I’m also gonna need some time to sit with it and figure it out.)

EDIT: Never mind, I get it, it’s a variant on the “girls mature faster than boys so you have to make allowances for boys” thing.

[Polk]

@DarthSmegma I don’t think it lets him off the hook for anything.

He’s a fully grown adult (We can tell since he’s been at this long enough that, even if he were a teenager at the start, he’s an adult now).

He’s responsible for his own actions.

I find it useful to understand a person’s pattern of behavior, because then you know where the threat lies.

In the case of Cujo and his game, the threat is that he’s dehumanizing every player on his game, for the sake of the game itself.

He believes keeping the game running smoothly, and growing, is more important than the well being of any player on it.

That’s immature. That’s dangerous. And it’s important to realize that.

[mietze]

@GF i don’t know that it necessarily is an age/gender related thing when it comes to being used as an excuse to bat aside a complaint. But maybe it is. I do think that women are on general asked to be more tolerant of immaturity if its from a man. Big time however though, I also don’t know if male-presenting players are given that as a reason they should tolerate bad behavior from other male-presenting players. I always figured they were told to buck up and not be so sensitive.

[Ashen-Shugar]

@Polk said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

@DarthSmegma I don’t think it lets him off the hook for anything.

He’s a fully grown adult (We can tell since he’s been at this long enough that, even if he were a teenager at the start, he’s an adult now).

He’s responsible for his own actions.

I find it useful to understand a person’s pattern of behavior, because then you know where the threat lies.

In the case of Cujo and his game, the threat is that he’s dehumanizing every player on his game, for the sake of the game itself.

He believes keeping the game running smoothly, and growing, is more important than the well being of any player on it.

That’s immature. That’s dangerous. And it’s important to realize that.

At this point I would call his behavior as ‘All in’.

It won’t matter if the decision is right or wrong, on his or other’s viewpoints. The line has been long crossed, and the point of no return has been wiped in nuclear fire.

It’s a train wreck, but short of a restart from scratch, I think it’s a done deal.

[CuriousGamer]

@Ashen-Shugar I agree with this. I think he’s ‘all in’ and his behavior - dismissing people and shooing them along - I’m sure he’s calling them disgruntled, etc. Anyone that is of a different thought or opinion (and raises any voice to it) is sent with their bags packing. Or technically no bags, since it’s sudden.

If we’re looking for him to admit fault? That’s not going to happen. Hadrix apparently has zero F’s in his box it seems like too. I don’t know him at all, but from what I’ve seen of him, his behavior, and his char page - he’s probably laughing that he’s the center of attention.

It’s easy to throw around immature, or some might use the word manchild, etc. But his behavior really isn’t immature if you think about it. He’s not throwing a fit. He’s making very specific things happen. Bannings, deletions, cover ups, posts. He’s being as methodical as he can. I personally think that’s signs of intent, malice, and forethought instead of immauturity. But. That’s just my opinion on it anyway.