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@Testament said in Concordia Thread:
@BloodAngel That’s fair enough.
At the same time, and as much you might not wholly agree with it, staff of any game aren’t obligated to give a reason. Since it’s their game, ethical questions aside.
It kind of reminds me when I was trying to apply for a different position in my company. I asked for feedback for how I could improve for future attempts. I was told there was no feedback to give. In either situation it doesn’t sit well.
Just because someone doesn’t have an obligation to do something doesn’t mean it’s not crticizable or that it doesn’t merit calling out.
I’m not concerned with obligation, I’m concerned with pointing out behavior that I think is detrimental. If you just ban people without any sort of explanation, you’re putting them back out there with no CHANCE of bettering their behavior. Sure, there are those who won’t change because they like being assholes, but there are plenty of others for whom cultural and even neurological differences make social integration and relations a tricky proposition and who, if their behavior is pointed out, will do their best to self-correct.
It seems to me no one even bothered to be like, “hey, @BloodAngel, can you stop doing [x, y], please? Thanks”. It was just ban, and no, you can’t know why!
That just seems myopic.
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@Testament said in Concordia Thread:
At the same time, and as much you might not wholly agree with it, staff of any game aren’t obligated to give a reason. Since it’s their game, ethical questions aside.
I mean, yes, games can do whatever they want, because they belong to whoever is running them. No one is legally obligated to even foster a generally good environment on a game. You can just as easily say that game-runners aren’t obligated to protect their players from creepy comments. Lack of obligation is kind of irrelevant in these sorts of conversation; they’re generally about what people to be find ethically appropriate.
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@Tez said in Concordia Thread:
@BloodAngel I can understand why you might want to know more details, but it can sometimes be hard to give details without it then becoming identifying information.
Exactly. If I’m staff and I say: “I received complaints that you were being inappropriately aggressive in pursuing female players for romantic RP” or “You wouldn’t stop stalking this one player’s RP scenes” - that’s going to single out who complained and we know from past experience that often doesn’t end well.
Note: These are not in any way accusations against BloodAngel. I don’t know them; I don’t play on the game; I have no information on this scenario; I am merely speaking in hypotheticals about the principle.
I still think the player should be notified personally, but they’re not entitled to specifics.
Side note - often workplaces can’t comment on dismissals for privacy reasons. I think those same principles apply on games, and ultimately staff doesn’t really need a reason.
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@Faraday said in Concordia Thread:
@Tez said in Concordia Thread:
@BloodAngel I can understand why you might want to know more details, but it can sometimes be hard to give details without it then becoming identifying information.
Exactly. If I’m staff and I say: “I received complaints that you were being inappropriately aggressive in pursuing female players for romantic RP” or “You wouldn’t stop stalking this one player’s RP scenes” - that’s going to single out who complained and we know from past experience that often doesn’t end well.
Note: These are not in any way accusations against BloodAngel. I don’t know them; I don’t play on the game; I have no information on this scenario; I am merely speaking in hypotheticals about the principle.
I still think the player should be notified personally, but they’re not entitled to specifics.
Side note - often workplaces can’t comment on dismissals for privacy reasons. I think those same principles apply on games, and ultimately staff doesn’t really need a reason.
By and large, predators who are actively stalking and pursuing people who get banned don’t need to be told who did it; they already know, because that person stopped replying to DMs on discord, or broke contact, or whatever.
The way we respond to these issues must be contextual, or the “protective” actions become increasingly detrimental to the community as a whole.
If people hadn’t taken me aside years ago and been like, “hey, that thing you said isn’t all right”, or “doing this thing is kinda creepy, you need to not because x, y”, I would possibly have had a lot harder of a time realizing some of my own behaviors weren’t healthy and weren’t friendly and weren’t acceptable.
We should’t, IMO, hold ourselves up to be the judges of what is acceptable or not in a space --which we do, on our games and in this forum, regularly-- and then be unwilling to present the bare minimum of effort in trying to inform misguided people as to how to better themselves.
I’m not talking about the raging incels or serial predators, but people who aren’t repeat offenders (which is why it needs to be contextual).
In Occam I trust.
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Without this being approval or criticism of the ban, I’m sad to see Percival go. I had some fun scenes with him, and having someone who likes to run events is always nice.
That said, sometimes things don’t click, or there are problems, or you make a mistake serious enough to warrant a ban. I hope that you can get as much feedback as is appropriate, @BloodAngel .
bird's still the word
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@Rinel Thank you. All I wanted to do was give rp and run plots, to help everyone feel connected to the game. If I offended or did something wrong, I can’t do better without knowing the type of thing I did. It’s hard to reflect on yourself without a mirror, which is what I’m lacking right now.
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@Roz Yeah, and I agree. Any player that is removed should be given some kind explanation, without those details risking anyone that might’ve made the initial complaint in doing so. That’s what I’d personally like to see happen.
And most games I see tend to at least try and uphold this. But, I’m also aware that going to a game’s staff and demanding justifications usually isn’t going to go anywhere, hence my initial point.
They should give a reason, but they don’t have to, as much as others may disagree with it.
I don't know what I'm doing. Poke at Seven Nations sevennations.aresmush.com port 2021
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@Testament said in Concordia Thread:
But, I’m also aware that going to a game’s staff and demanding justifications usually isn’t going to go anywhere,
I got no race for this horse, I am perfectly willing to go at a moderate trot.
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@Rinel said in Concordia Thread:
Without this being approval or criticism of the ban, I’m sad to see Percival go. I had some fun scenes with him, and having someone who likes to run events is always nice.
That said, sometimes things don’t click, or there are problems, or you make a mistake serious enough to warrant a ban. I hope that you can get as much feedback as is appropriate, @BloodAngel .
Yeah I am not in the org Percival started but I do hope that it lives and the next person to pick up that character can do it justice.
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@Rucket Me as well! I hope it goes well for the game to be honest.
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Interestingly, this was not criticised at all when Arx, an obvious point of comparison to this game, removed people for poor behavior. For example https://play.arxmush.org/comms/boards/19511/view/1455790
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@Coin said in Concordia Thread:
By and large, predators who are actively stalking and pursuing people who get banned don’t need to be told who did it; they already know, because that person stopped replying to DMs on discord, or broke contact, or whatever.
Disagree here. For actively predatory players, they usually have multiple victims, and they’ll try to get more details specifically so they can figure out everyone from that list who may have reported them. I’ve seen them actively fish for more details about their banning specifically to try and fish out more identities from staff and other players.
The way we respond to these issues must be contextual, or the “protective” actions become increasingly detrimental to the community as a whole.
Agree here. Everything’s contextual.
@Testament said in Concordia Thread:
@Roz Yeah, and I agree. Any player that is removed should be given some kind explanation, without those details risking anyone that might’ve made the initial complaint in doing so. That’s what I’d personally like to see happen.
I don’t necessarily agree. There is a brand of player who are absolutely owed nothing by my estimation. People who are aggressively and purposefully predatory, creepy, etc.
@Tchotchke said in Concordia Thread:
Interestingly, this was not criticised at all when Arx, an obvious point of comparison to this game, removed people for poor behavior. For example https://play.arxmush.org/comms/boards/19511/view/1455790
FWIW the vast majority of Arx ban posts have some reference to the type of inappropriate behavior that caused the ban.
Now in more general commentary that is not a specific reply to everyone: I actually think there is more value to the remaining playerbase to have a firmer idea of the general kind of behavior that got a player banned. It informs the playerbase what behavior is and isn’t acceptable, and it reassures them that X particular behavior will actually have consequences.
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I have been informed of what happened, thank you Spes.
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While I was never really a fan of this style of banning, 99% of the time bans given without explicit reasons on Arx were done in response to incredibly obvious infractions.
And if I recall correctly, the ban messages got more formal as time went on.
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@BloodAngel said in Concordia Thread:
I have been informed of what happened, thank you Spes.
Hope it helps you avoid future situations like this one.
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@Roz Alright, fair point. I should’ve said ‘most’ and not ‘all’.
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@BloodAngel said in Concordia Thread:
I have been informed of what happened, thank you Spes.
Glad to hear it. I know (from firsthand experience) leaving a game can be painful, but it really is an opportunity to learn something about yourself. I hope this ends up being a net positive for you, and I hope we get to play again somewhere once you’re in a better space.
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@Rinel Oh I have been debating quitting mushing for a bit now. I might run a game but I will never rp again.
I have not enjoyed roleplay a PC till this game in years to be real. Anyone that knows me, knows I run more than I play.
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@Rucket said in Concordia Thread:
@Rinel said in Concordia Thread:
Without this being approval or criticism of the ban, I’m sad to see Percival go. I had some fun scenes with him, and having someone who likes to run events is always nice.
That said, sometimes things don’t click, or there are problems, or you make a mistake serious enough to warrant a ban. I hope that you can get as much feedback as is appropriate, @BloodAngel .
Yeah I am not in the org Percival started but I do hope that it lives and the next person to pick up that character can do it justice.
Likewise without weighing any criticism or approval, I’m in the scholar org that Percival started. That and some other factors sort of cemented why I picked the character I did out of the two I’d been interested in. Thanks for running things and for kicking off the organized scholarly stuff. Concordia is the first L&L game I’ve played (largely for many of the reasons outlined here as problems of the genre) and I was pleasantly surprised to have the option for scholarly academia RP.
