Neitherlands

[Polk]

@Roz Obviously someone who owns the game could look into the database or sniff your connection to the game.

Ultimately playing on a game requires you to have some degree of trust that the player running it isn’t insane.

[Roz]

@Polk said in Neitherlands:

@Roz Obviously someone who owns the game could look into the database or sniff your connection to the game.

Yes, sure, but Pavel was pretty clearly talking about built-in tools accessible to your standard staffer running Ares. Someone with code know-how can absolutely go into the database to see all the things, but Ares doesn’t build tools to make that sort of thing easy/accessible when it comes to private scenes, DMs, etc.

[MisterBoring]

@Polk said in Neitherlands:

Ultimately playing on a game requires you to have some degree of trust that the player running it isn’t insane.

I’m convinced that everybody in this hobby is insane on some level, and you have to look out for the people with the right kind of insanity rather than people who are sane.

[somasatori]

@MisterBoring said in Neitherlands:

@Polk said in Neitherlands:

Ultimately playing on a game requires you to have some degree of trust that the player running it isn’t insane.

I’m convinced that everybody in this hobby is insane on some level, and you have to look out for the people with the right kind of insanity rather than people who are sane.

This is why I jumped into the MU* staff-to-psychologist pipeline.

[Pavel]

@somasatori said in Neitherlands:

@MisterBoring said in Neitherlands:

@Polk said in Neitherlands:

Ultimately playing on a game requires you to have some degree of trust that the player running it isn’t insane.

I’m convinced that everybody in this hobby is insane on some level, and you have to look out for the people with the right kind of insanity rather than people who are sane.

This is why I jumped into the MU* staff-to-psychologist pipeline.

Same.

Though I’d rather everyone take a big ol’ step away from the “mental illness=bad behaviour” idea.

[somasatori]

@Pavel said in Neitherlands:

Same.

Though I’d rather everyone take a big ol’ step away from the “mental illness=bad behaviour” idea.

Yep, same. People can be assholes without having mental illness, as living in Silicon Valley frequently reminds me. At least no one here is telling people they’re “being bipolar/borderline” yet.

[Polk]

@Roz Fair. So a random ‘staffer’ on an Ares game can’t. Just the owner and host.

[Roz]

@Polk said in Neitherlands:

@Roz Fair. So a random ‘staffer’ on an Ares game can’t. Just the owner and host.

That’s not the differentiation I meant so much. I mean that plenty of these game owners wouldn’t know how to dig into the database like this. A lot of them are just doing the very basics needed to get the game up and running, maybe upgrade the game, etc. So I was speaking more to the breakdown between gamerunners who are very savvy with the code and database stuff, versus those who wouldn’t know where to even start.

[Pavel]

Yeah, I very specifically said “in Ares” not “with full access to the database, the ability to fuck around in it without breaking everything, and the brain power to breathe and think at the same time.”

[Testament]

If a staffer wanted to be absolutely nefarious, there’s little stopping them from @newpassing a player’s character after that player had left the game(or hadn’t left if you wanted to be an even bigger shitheel), log in with said newpass and start looking at all their logs as that character.

This is what I’m assuming what happened here. And no matter how you slice it, it’s still disgusting.

[Roz]

@Testament said in Neitherlands:

If a staffer wanted to be absolutely nefarious, there’s little stopping them from @newpassing a player’s character after that player had left the game(or hadn’t left if you wanted to be an even bigger shitheel), log in with said newpass and start looking at all their logs as that character.

This is what I’m assuming what happened here. And no matter how you slice it, it’s still disgusting.

Yeah I assume that too. I was responding specifically to Pavel’s query wondering if the built-in Ares tools meant a staffer would even have to take that step in order to do what happened, which – from my knowledge – I think that they would. (Versus staffing having a tool to just post other player’s logs.)

[Testament]

@Roz Ah. Yeah, my bad. I was just noting that you don’t have to go digging around in the game’s database to find logs.

Mind, both of these actions are pretty terrible and are a pretty egregious invasion of privacy it might be. Though I do think there is something far more heinous about willfully resetting a character’s password just in order to look at their logs. Now, I might be assuming that’s the reason for such an action in this case, but I can’t think of any other reason that might need to happen.

I know as a game runner, I’ve had to @newpass people, but that was largely due to just people forgetting their password. Which really, is the usual functionality of that command. Not for a staffer that’s gone AWOL.

[BloodAngel]

[KarmaBum]

This post is deleted!

[Pavel]

@Testament said in Neitherlands:

a pretty egregious invasion of privacy it might be

Of course boilerplate no expectation of privacy using someone else’s system etc, etc, etc…

It’s not only deeply unethical, at least with my particular code of ethics; it’s mindbendingly fuckin’ stupid. What is even the point? If you wanna read 'em because you’re creepy, why post them?

Normally I can figure out the reasoning behind heinous crappy decisions, but I’m honestly at a loss here. What’s the point?

[Roz]

@Pavel said in Neitherlands:

@Testament said in Neitherlands:

a pretty egregious invasion of privacy it might be

Of course boilerplate no expectation of privacy using someone else’s system etc, etc, etc…

It’s not only deeply unethical, at least with my particular code of ethics; it’s mindbendingly fuckin’ stupid. What is even the point? If you wanna read 'em because you’re creepy, why post them?

Normally I can figure out the reasoning behind heinous crappy decisions, but I’m honestly at a loss here. What’s the point?

Expression of power. Potential humiliation of a person you don’t like.

[Pavel]

@Roz said in Neitherlands:

@Pavel said in Neitherlands:

@Testament said in Neitherlands:

a pretty egregious invasion of privacy it might be

Of course boilerplate no expectation of privacy using someone else’s system etc, etc, etc…

It’s not only deeply unethical, at least with my particular code of ethics; it’s mindbendingly fuckin’ stupid. What is even the point? If you wanna read 'em because you’re creepy, why post them?

Normally I can figure out the reasoning behind heinous crappy decisions, but I’m honestly at a loss here. What’s the point?

Expression of power. Potential humiliation of a person you don’t like.

I suppose. I was hoping for something more tantalising than bog standard “is a fuckstick.”

[Testament]

@Pavel said in Neitherlands:

@Testament said in Neitherlands:

a pretty egregious invasion of privacy it might be

Of course boilerplate no expectation of privacy using someone else’s system etc, etc, etc…

I was going to originally point this out, but I also didn’t want my eyes to roll out of my head. An yeah it should go without saying that we technically play on other people’s digital playground and the game runner owns said playground. But we as players also should have the expectation of game runners being decent human beings. An exceedingly high bar, I know.

It’s not only deeply unethical, at least with my particular code of ethics; it’s mindbendingly fuckin’ stupid. What is even the point? If you wanna read 'em because you’re creepy, why post them?

Likely I’d say some kind of personal satisfaction that they got to read all stuff that wasn’t supposed to be seen by the GM. It’s like those people like that hate-watch content creators on YouTube. And will claim they were trying to find some evidence in order to create some kind of ‘gotcha’ moment.

Normally I can figure out the reasoning behind heinous crappy decisions, but I’m honestly at a loss here. What’s the point?

I could suggest from everything I’ve seen and read so far, it’s because this particular game runner apparently hates all female characters and wants to hoard all the men to herself, but that’d be mean.

See, now I’m being petty. But at least I’m aware of it.

[helvetica]

@Pavel said in Neitherlands:

If you wanna read 'em because you’re creepy, why post them?

As another provocation? To communicate that you still hold power over an individual? Maybe to pretend there’s still rp happening on the game? It’s difficult to attribute motivation to somebody who acts so far outside the bounds. I’m not super convinced there was even any forethought at all.

[Pavel]

Apparently, I’m not as jaded as I used to be. What is the world coming to?