On the utility of Logs, Receipts, and Proof

[Pyrephox]

@Pavel said in On the utility of Logs, Receipts, and Proof:

@Adora said in On the utility of Logs, Receipts, and Proof:

That is because abusers can sense it. I’m not sure exactly what it is they’re picking up on, but it’s like catnip to them.

It’s the same way that scam emails work. They present themselves in a specific way that only a specific kind of person reacts to.

In my experience, an abusive person will start fine, and weasel their way in sociably, perhaps even affably. They’ll then start to drop hints at their abusiveness occasionally. A less targetable person will rebuff those hints, and the abuser will adjust and act like an average person around them. Someone who regularly fights land wars in their own brain will react differently, and that’s what the abuser picks up on.

Boundary-breaking.

IME, and I think the literature agrees, many (not all) abusers start by testing potential targets’ boundaries. First in small ways, like saying something that’s just a bit mean or control-ish, and following it up with, “I only let you know because I care.” They see who shuts them down, and who seems vulnerable, and target the people who are the most vulnerable with increasingly large boundary violations.

(Please note: this does not put any culpability on the part of the targets - abusers target pain and kindness in equal measure, and it’s never the target’s fault for not ‘shutting them down’ early on, because the opening gambits are designed to look as much like normal awkwardness or enthusiasm as possible.)

And, of course, this is usually paired with isolation - in MU*s, an abuser will often develop a coterie of people who reaffirm that This Is Fine. Most of them are also targets, and some are hangers-on. But they tend to viciously isolate each other from getting an outside perspective on what’s happening by encouraging people to break ties with other players based on rumor, innuendo, or outright lies.

EDIT: I will also say that this is one of the things that makes “logs as proof” difficult. Because a lot of the work of an abuser does not look, in an isolated incident, like the work of an abuser. It looks like “oh, that’s a little pushy, but look, the other player was fine with it” or “well, they didn’t outright tell Player A to stop playing with Player B, they just said that it made them uncomfortable, and they’re allowed to share what makes them uncomfortable”. There are patterns of abuse that can really on be seen AS A PATTERN, because each individual incident is small and easily dismissed.

[Meg]

@Pyrephox I think it’s also something to mention that it’s very easy to brush off because in the end, not a lot of abusers actually think they are abusive. They do actually interpret their own actions as misunderstandings! If only the other person had said something! Oh, they said something? Well, if only they had been more firm about it, been more clear how serious they were.

Like, to this day, I bet the person who kept stepping all over my boundaries does not see himself as doing anything wrong. That I just sprang sudden upset on him, and I should have been more clear, told him more often, gave him more chances. Lying to me OOCly was just him playing the game. Pushing at my character choices OOCly? He was just talking to a friend. Etc etc.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@Meg This. Every predator I’ve met online – that’s three by now – genuinely believes themselves to be a victim of other people’s conspiracies and witch hunts. Sure, they’re a little socially awkward but you should help them out, not paint a target on their back!

ETA: Obvious sarcasm. Paint all the targets.

[Roadspike]

@Pyrephox said in On the utility of Logs, Receipts, and Proof:

There are patterns of abuse that can really on be seen AS A PATTERN, because each individual incident is small and easily dismissed.

This is why reporting even just “a creepy feeling” is so important. More than once, I have gotten reports from multiple players (and noticed myself) that a player was giving off a creepy vibe, testing those boundaries with people. When confronted, the creep revealed themselves via their responses and were removed – after they were removed, several additional people came forward to say that they had been targeted.

If you are being victimized by someone, chances are that you are not alone in this. If I (as Staff) get one report of someone being generally creepy, I’ll watch them more closely, but if I get four reports from people in three different playgroups? Yeah, that person’s probably gone, even if each of the reports is just “felt like they were pushing boundaries.” Unless it’s obvious, I’ll talk with the prospective creep, but it’s definitely going to be easier a) to be direct with them about the problem, and b) to obfuscate those reporting the problem, if I have multiple reports.

[farfalla]

@GF Yes. I was asked if I happened to have any logs, but assured it wasn’t necessary. I didn’t have them. The person was banned within the hour.

[Arkandel]

To me logs are part of documenting a pattern. It’s not evidence per se but they can help staff get an understanding of the issue.

Sometimes a single incident will be bad enough to prompt immediate action. Sometimes it will showcase a persistent series of milder incidents, which should still prompt action.

And now and then the log will be the start of reconciliation. Not every complaint comes down to sexual or other types of harassment! Some people just… don’t get along, or choose to interpret what the other person said in the worst possible way. Having the actual verbiage at hand allows staff to make the right call and try to mend some fences or, at least, encourage folks to just stay away from each other for everyone’s sake.

[Polk]

@Arkandel Agreed. Logs help. They illustrate precisely what happened, and inform decision makers.

But demanding them as some burden of proof? Makes no sense.

[Coin]

As a staffer, I would ask for logs, but not require them (for a plethora of reasons, all stated in this thread). What logs can do, though, is expediate a process, too. Like Roadspike said, if I don’t have logs, I have to investigated, do my due diligence, talk to other people, etc. But if I have a log of the creep being a creep? That’s an easy resolution.

Also, and this may be a bit shifty on my part but I saw it happen recently (not to me, but), asking for logs is sometimes not about getting the logs, but seeing how the person being asked for them responds. It’s one thing if they say, ‘I don’t have them’ or ‘I have them, but I’m not comfortable sharing them because [insert any number of valid reasons]’ –

– but it’s another if they say ‘I have logs that absolve me but I won’t share them in order to respect this other person’s privacy who is actively accusing me of things’.

Yes. This happened.

My sibling in Christ, if a person is accusing you of shit and you have logs that prove you’re not the problem, maybe that person’s privacy goes out the window, and if you refuse to share those, I get squinty-eyed, ya know?

[Testament]

@Coin This is basically my policy as a head staff of my own game. Logs help, but by no means are required. And that just means I have to investigate on my own.

And yes to that last point, if someone comes to me and says they have logs but won’t share, then don’t tell me you have logs. Also, don’t get upset when my own investigations comes to the conclusion that you were being a shithead and I kicked you off my game for shithead behavior.

[Gashlycrumb]

Never asked for logs. This is because I didn’t make any kind of functional distinction between harassing somebody by paging them with graphic descriptions of blow jobs and harassing somebody by telling them you’re bored and depressed. The moment the person asks you to stop contacting them or to stop bringing up a certain topic, it turns into harassment if you do.

I never had anybody deny continuing the behavior after the line was drawn. So it was easy.

@Pavel said in On the utility of Logs, Receipts, and Proof:

In my experience, an abusive person will start fine, and weasel their way in sociably, perhaps even affably. They’ll then start to drop hints at their abusiveness occasionally. A less targetable person will rebuff those hints, and the abuser will adjust and act like an average person around them. Someone who regularly fights land wars in their own brain will react differently, and that’s what the abuser picks up on.

I think this misleading.

As I understand it, the #1 selling brand of abuser is pretty much grooming everybody all the time. They may target the most vulnerable person, but they don’t stop just because there’s no easy target. If you are not being targeted they’re often a delight, an attentive friend and a fun player. They abuse specific individuals while giving everyone else the impression of being very nice and reasonable.

In the context of gaming groups and friends groups it tends to start out looking like you’ve got a nice mutual-admiration society going on. It’s maybe kinda weird that your marvelous pal and RP buddy Camille has such contempt for a seemingly innocuous player who never really seems like the asshole she says he is. But Camille’s your friend, you trust and believe her. And one day she talks about how Abelard, another member of your group, has turned on her and become a dick, and all the mean things he’s doing, and Abelard is such a liar saying he doesn’t know why the fuck she’s suddenly being so vicious to him, and he’s obviously come unhinged, so you and all your friends tell Abelard he’s an asshole and to fuck off. And he does, and then a month or so later you mention that you thought Camille’s PRP was a little too Camille-centric and suddenly she’s telling the rest of the group about all the mean shit you do and the rest of your playgroup is saying you’re a liar when you say WTF, and your former friends are all trying to defend Camille from you or punish you for being mean to her, and the game isn’t a game for you any more, just a venue to receive abuse from Camille and OOC hostility from everyone else. So you try to seek out Abelard and apologize to him for playing the Flying Monkey back when it was his turn to wear Camille’s Bad Guy Suit.

[KarmaBum]

@Gashlycrumb goddamn it’s like you were there

[Pavel]

@Gashlycrumb said in On the utility of Logs, Receipts, and Proof:

I think this misleading.
As I understand it, the #1 selling brand of abuser is pretty much grooming everybody all the time. They may target the most vulnerable person, but they don’t stop just because there’s no easy target. If you are not being targeted they’re often a delight, an attentive friend and a fun player. They abuse specific individuals while giving everyone else the impression of being very nice and reasonable.

That’s pretty much exactly what I said.

[Gashlycrumb]

Except for the bit where your post seems to be saying that those who do not regularly ‘fight land wars in their own brain’ are never going to get targeted. On a long enough time scale, they will.

[MisterBoring]

Is it possible to have a game log everything input by every bit on the game everywhere?

I would think that having full logs of the entire game in some organized format would help staff combat bad actors as they would be able to immediately review the logs to see what happened. Full transparency across all accounts.

I feel like server hardware is strong enough now to handle that without any detriment to a game.

At least then staff has immediate access to all of the information regarding the situation in game. I understand there are lots of concerns with that, including metagaming, staff abuse, staff seeing conversations that are unrelated to the game and meant to be private, but open logs aren’t going to drive up the first two (as metagaming and staff abuse happen even without open logs) and the third potential issue can be avoided by just having those private conversations almost anywhere else off game (Discord, email, Skype, wherever. There’s a lot of communications options these days.

I guess my point is that full logging would be a boon to staff who are actually working to keep bad actors and broken stairs off of games we love so much.

And my stream of consciousness is over now. I hope I made sense.

[bear_necessities]

@MisterBoring No thanks. That Star Wars game thread just talked about how staff were reading logs of people’s pages and using it against them, I don’t want to be on a game where staff can read everything. But also on the flip side, if I’m staffing a game, I’m not the police - I don’t want to spend time combing through logs searching for creepers on the off chance I catch them in the act or something.

And even if its’ like “oh well you could just use the logs when someone complains” <-- again, not the police, I’m not here to prove your innocence or guilt. If someone comes to me and complains that you’re a creeper and my gut says you’re a creeper than you are a creeper. Sorry not sorry, goodbye to you sort of situation.

[hellfrog]

@MisterBoring I mean this is highly possible, storage depending, but also very weird. As staff i do not WANT access to every input entered in the game. Pls no

[GF]

A lot of the suggestions in this thread seems to presuppose that people use evidence to reach a conclusion, rather than reaching a conclusion and searching for evidence to support it. It’s not necessarily wrong to make that assumption, but I think a discussion of utility of proof is incomplete if we leave out the bad actors.

[Jennkryst]

@bear_necessities I once, in the long-long ago, loosely considered the idea of this, and then part of the +policy was ‘everybody log everything yourself’… then if issues arose, I go ‘hey… +policy says to log shit. Both of you send me your logs.’ And then compare. If they are the same, I don’t need to pull the master log to find out which person is lying.

You know, the principle behind police wearing body cams. Document everything. But better, because there is a way to tell if people are doctoring things. So I have no reason to go into the master log unless someone forces my hand, and then the person who submitted the fake log might also just get banned, themselves.

But that’s like… still too much work, and doesn’t feel like it solves any issues.

[IoleRae]

“Monitor everything” is not a good response to the possibility of rule breaking. “Monitor everything” — just, put it in ANY other context and it suddenly becomes clear why it’s such a problem.

I hope

Dear god I hope

[Jennkryst]

@IoleRae Yup. It was the long-long ago, so I was young(er) and dumb(er) and thought a panopticon could maybe work, before I even knew there was a word for it. No privacy gets violated unless somebody lies about a log and I have to go comb through shit to find out what the truth is, and woe unto anyone who made me do work.

But. Turns out it’s easier to scare most of the problem people away by having all the cool bullies there. Who knew?