Concordia Thread

[somasatori]

@mietze All I want to do in the scholar group is soliloquy about the price of linen in Eldervale, blink owlishly, eat hot chip, and be an awkward bookworm.

[Rucket]

@somasatori Sir, there’s a trade org in the works for discussing the price of linen and such.

But no, I get it and I do like they are limiting people to 2. Since I recall seeing quite a few people respond to every post that went up.

[bored]

@Rucket I don’t know what happened to Levente. I logged in to 10+ notifications about all my messages with him deleted/purged and Percival banned. Someone mentioned a post by Percival but maybe it’s been deleted by now? So maybe he quit as part of the banning incident, but it feels not-coincidental.

Also re: group ‘founders’ I think that’s part of t he rub, and why I would prefer a more thematically-coherent approach. What if someone takes a 50 year old scholar off the roster 6 months from now? ‘Sorry, bud, you weren’t really involved in the scholar world like those plucky 18 year old pillars of wisdom who founded our community!’ It’s just weird.

[Tez]

@bored said in Concordia Thread:

‘Sorry, bud, you weren’t really involved in the scholar world like those plucky 18 year old pillars of wisdom who founded our community!’ It’s just weird.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from L&L games, it’s that plucky 18 year olds can do anything.

[hellfrog]

@Tez said in Concordia Thread:

@Faraday said in Concordia Thread:

That said, I disagree that on top of game-runners’ already overwhelming duties we need to add “help misguided people to better themselves”. If they wish to do that, great. I applaud them. But they should not be expected to do so. Some of the most toxic people in this community will cry “I’m just misunderstood / I did nothing wrong” till the cows come home, so telling the difference between a serial predator and someone who doesn’t know better can be super tough. I don’t fault anyone for just drawing the line at “you’re not a good fit for this game.”

Big this. The last time I banned someone, it was probably something that they could have worked on and corrected, but damn if I have the bandwidth for that. I’m sorry, buddy. I just do not. I hope you grow and learn. Elsewhere.

man every time, Apos said this. But like, when you are staff there are six billion things awaiting your time and energy that are to the benefit of the people playing your game who are NOT being troublesome. Choosing to spend that time and energy ‘training’ someone is not the best use of it

[Rinel]

@Polk said in Concordia Thread:

I have no idea if that is or was happening on Concordia, but “Let’s work together, friends!” is a MUSH player impulse.

well

it’s called Concordia

“let’s work together, friends” is actually one of the more sensible actions to be taken given the setting (not unlike Arx, which generally did a pretty fantastic job of having people put aside important differences in the face of existential threats)

[Pavel]

@Rinel said in Concordia Thread:

not unlike Arx, which generally did a pretty fantastic job of having people put aside important differences in the face of existential threats

Which is not at all unlike real life. All the railing against ‘superfriends’ seems to conveniently forget that all kinds of disparate groups of people unite against a common/existential threat all the time.

[somasatori]

@hellfrog said in Concordia Thread:

@Tez said in Concordia Thread:

@Faraday said in Concordia Thread:

That said, I disagree that on top of game-runners’ already overwhelming duties we need to add “help misguided people to better themselves”. If they wish to do that, great. I applaud them. But they should not be expected to do so. Some of the most toxic people in this community will cry “I’m just misunderstood / I did nothing wrong” till the cows come home, so telling the difference between a serial predator and someone who doesn’t know better can be super tough. I don’t fault anyone for just drawing the line at “you’re not a good fit for this game.”

Big this. The last time I banned someone, it was probably something that they could have worked on and corrected, but damn if I have the bandwidth for that. I’m sorry, buddy. I just do not. I hope you grow and learn. Elsewhere.

man every time, Apos said this. But like, when you are staff there are six billion things awaiting your time and energy that are to the benefit of the people playing your game who are NOT being troublesome. Choosing to spend that time and energy ‘training’ someone is not the best use of it

sounds like it’s time to

KILL SIX BILLION THINGS AWAITING YOUR TIME AND ENERGY

But yeah, hellfrog has good advice here. Training rarely works. Take it from me, I thought I trained people on a game I ran (or at least I talked them through how to be good and ethical to players). I thought I could trust some people. I was very misguided in some people in whom I placed trust. People will usually tell you exactly what you need to know about them. Often it is best to just see people where they are and let them go. You’re not their therapist; you can’t make them see the consequences of their actions in a meaningful way if they choose not to engage with that themselves. Maybe they’ll grow from the experience, maybe they won’t. You present the facts of why they are no longer allowed there and then it’s up to them to internalize it or rail against it.

[Faraday]

@hellfrog said in Concordia Thread:

But like, when you are staff there are six billion things awaiting your time and energy that are to the benefit of the people playing your game who are NOT being troublesome. Choosing to spend that time and energy ‘training’ someone is not the best use of it

Yeah. And also - if the person is being that much of a disruption, what happens to the rest of the game if your ‘training’ doesn’t work? (Spoken from the bitter experience of a person who thought that a player could be guided, but ultimately had to ban them anyway.)

@Coin said in Concordia Thread:

I’m saying it’s best practices, and it’s worth striving towards those.

I don’t disagree that in most cases it’s good practice. I was responding to what I saw as absolutism in various posts (not necessarily yours - I’m too lazy to look them up now) about players being “entitled” to that information or staff having some kind of moral imperative to try to rehabilitate people before banning them.

[Pavel]

@Faraday said in Concordia Thread:

staff having some kind of moral imperative to try to rehabilitate people before banning them

From what I understand of the original utterance of this point, it wasn’t so much that staff had to rehabilitate or train people, but that supplying some information during the ban (like a reason, or general gist of complaints) would better enable good-faith players to correct behaviour they hadn’t otherwise realised that a) they were doing, or b) was wrong.

ETA: And I’d say, personally (since morality can only ever be personal) it would be a moral imperative to communicate that information if it can be done with the safety of others in mind, where it would be reasonable to assume that the behaviour was inadvertent or from a good-faith player.

[STD]

Rather than a moral imperative, could not informing people of the reasons behind their banning be a practical one?

I mean, MU*ing is a social activity. Having more people in the hobby is good as long as they are good actors. Good actors will naturally wish to improve or at least understand mistakes.

It seems counterproductive from a self-interest standpoint to just throw up your hands and declare that all people who get banned are not worth your time to even put out a “this is what you did wrong” message.

It’s a small effort that could have large dividends in the future.

[Rinel]

@somasatori

Well

reach heaven through banning, then

ETA: I’d give my thoughts on the matter, but honestly it’s not really relevant at this point. Can we talk about the game? I like this game. I’ve had good scenes in this game. I like that the staff is responsive to people bringing up issues that are problematic.

[Faraday]

@Rinel said in Concordia Thread:

Can we talk about the game?

Conversations wander. Moderators can always split off the thread, since the last few pages really have very little to do with the game.

[Rinel]

@Faraday

Yeah, sorry, I wasn’t trying to scold as much as redirect

[Coin]

@Pavel said in Concordia Thread:

@Faraday said in Concordia Thread:

staff having some kind of moral imperative to try to rehabilitate people before banning them

From what I understand of the original utterance of this point, it wasn’t so much that staff had to rehabilitate or train people, but that supplying some information during the ban (like a reason, or general gist of complaints) would better enable good-faith players to correct behaviour they hadn’t otherwise realised that a) they were doing, or b) was wrong.

ETA: And I’d say, personally (since morality can only ever be personal) it would be a moral imperative to communicate that information if it can be done with the safety of others in mind, where it would be reasonable to assume that the behaviour was inadvertent or from a good-faith player.

Right.

There is a big, big difference between “telling people why you’re banning them” and “training people to be better”. My stance during the entire thread has focused on the former.

[BloodAngel]

@Coin As the person that started this I wanted to be informed. Not trained, I can do better now and I have my information. So, thank you for being open and honest Spes!

[Rucket]

@bored Okay, looks like Aequitas posted last night that Levente was indeed banned. I don’t know who they were, but I can understand the reasoning and am glad they communicated it.

[Roz]

So like — I know that AI detectors are far from perfect. But when a ton of text READS like AI-generated content, and then multiple AI detectors find high percentages of probability on items ranging from rosters, theme files, to GM poses, I am left with a lot of strange feelings about it. Like — idk, you do you, but if it IS the case, I think it the game should be transparent about it.

[Rinel]

@Roz

Ooh. Yeah, agreed. I know MJ is used for character images, but I think most everyone knows about that. I’d definitely like to know if textual descriptions are being done via some AI output.

ETA: I noticed repetitive language, but I just assumed copy-pasting was being done. ^^;

[Tez]

@Roz I’ve been wrestling with my feelings around this. I’ve used AI myself, obviously. I think most of us have fucked with it, from text to pics. The game makes clear and obvious use of MJ to the point that they provide documentation for and assistance with it – which I find perfectly fine and reasonable. We can have that AI discussion elsewhere.

The ChatGPT – or other AI, IDK what is out there – generated-content though is a stickier thicket. I’ve used ChatGPT myself, especially for room descs: summarizing key pieces of different types of architectural styles; features that you might find in a movie theater that is time-stopped in the 1960s; what you would find in a small Midwestern town square. I think it absolutely has uses.

But using raw output for theme files and characters without citing it as clearly as they do MJ does feel – weird.