Liberation Drama!?

[Roz]

@Evilgrayson said:

Ah, yes, another active player who was running things for others removed.

AddisonPlayer could be annoying. We butted heads on a few things, a few times. But he did a lot for the game, and a lot for other people.

I mean, idk the specifics of this game and this player, but. That is the story for plenty of banned folks who definitely deserved banning. I really don’t think “they do a lot for the game” should be a variable in this sort of equation at all; it implies that a certain level of wrong-doing can just be made up for if you’re active and productive enough. That’s how you end up with the classic “coder we ‘can’t’ get rid of.”

And “players show different faces to different people” ought to go without saying.

The game may still be a trashfire being run into the ground or whatnot! I don’t know. But whenever people react to a ban with “but they do a lot for the game” or “they weren’t that bad to me” it makes me sigh a bit.

[Gashlycrumb]

@Evilgrayson

Yeah, I didn’t say it was a good standard.

My mental translation of the bbpost is: Addison bitched about the game, criticised the current gamerunners. (I know this to be true.) He bitched to somebody who, instead of telling him that they didn’t want to hear it, squealed to staff (presumably in the hopes of getting the brownie points). Offended, they banned him and made this post implying that it was to protect players.

@Muscle-Car said:

Also wild to see folks feeling like someone has found out how to do a worse job than the previous wiz.

It really is impressive.

[Wyrmsign]

@MisterBoring I would say on my personal experience that mine vastly differs from @evilgrayson. On more than one character I have had him tell me how to play, go on rants on channel about how something was wrong only to be corrected with facts including references that backed them up, only for him to continue the argument and change the avenue of attack to something that is utterly his personal point of view. Is this high on the list of grievous sins one can commit on its own? No. But being that he’s been doing it since the game was in Beta, I can see a tally getting rather large to a point where staff just feels this isn’t the game for someone.

[Gashlycrumb]

@Wyrmsign But I can think of seven, no, eight others who do/have done the very same and have remained treasured and protected. Right down to players getting yelled at for typing things like, “p staffer=Hey, Special Guy is yelling obscenities at me and won’t stop, please help.”

[Wyrmsign]

@Gashlycrumb I have no control over who they choose to ban or not. I had bad experiences with the named player, I shared them.

[voiceinthevoid]

Addison writes beautifully, is deeply intelligent and was a huge part of Liberation for a long time. He knows a massive amount about game theme and has very strong opinions on how things should go. He is a passionate and talented role player.

He also pages people too often ooc, complains too much ooc, can be bossy and controlling ooc towards other players.

Staff probably didn’t enjoy banning him and I don’t envy their position.

While Addison had a lot to offer, he didn’t always know when to back down and chill.

I’m not familiar with the details and events leading up his banning, so my insight is limited. That being said as much as I admire Addison’s writing and passion for the game, I can absolutely believe he crossed a line and deserved the ban.

I feel bad for staff being in this position and despite very much believing he truly earned the ban, I feel a little bad for Addison. The game meant a lot to him. He isn’t a bad person imo. That being said sometimes for good of the community hard choices need to be made and sometimes someone is a bad fit for a community or needs a break from mushing,

I hope he is doing well and finds other outlets for his creative talents.

[junipersky]

@voiceinthevoid

Geeze, we are all supposed to be petty and not nuanced.

Well said.

[Gashlycrumb]

@voiceinthevoid I feel bad for him too. And I think his complaints deserved to be addressed, not just used against him. But I can see why some, or even a lot, of people, might have had a really crappy time with him.

[MisterBoring]

I think this is one of those cases where a person’s inability to communicate in a healthy fashion has shot them in the foot.

[voiceinthevoid]

I believe it was implied above that someone used Addison’s ooc complaints against him rather than listening to him.

I don’t know who complained or the contents of their complaint so I really can’t be sure what happened.

There are a few things I do know though.

Siren is well intentioned, intelligent and has good social understanding. I don’t believe she would ban anyone without a good reason. In addition I don’t think she enjoys giving out punishments and I don’t believe she wanted to ban him. I am not her ooc friend just a player who has witnessed her consistently acting right.

It is of course still possible she made an error in judgement, but I don’t think that is the most likely scenario.

I know that Addison is extremely intelligent, creative, energetic, well educated and forgiving.

I am not really his friend either.

Addison in my understanding has a history of jumping into ooc page conversations pretty quickly. In these conversations he has been known to give a generous amount of unsolicited advice and information on game them. He doesn’t take hints well imo and I don’t think always realized when it was time to stop.

People who are used to Addison often shrug it off and people who know him better will sometimes say he is well intentioned and just trying to help.

A good deal of his complaints are valid imo, but they are not all valid. In addition the theme of WOD is complex and nuanced. It changes from book to book. There isn’t always one definitive answer when it comes to theme and not everyone always agreed with Addison.

Liberation has changed the theme with house interpretations and for the better, but that only further complicates theme.

Not everyone plays the game with the same intensity. Some people are part time occasional players chilling for a few hours after work and spending that time in paged tense ooc conversations may not be ideal.

I think the most probable explanation is that Addison paged some players with complaints, didn’t pick up on the social cues to back off and then argued with staff when approached.

I don’t think anyone complained in malice. If I see receipts that show otherwise I might change my mind.

Sometimes a ban is from a back breaking straw and not the whole haystack.

As to comment about people should Listen to his complaints, I would argue nobody is obligated to listen to ooc paged complaining and the decision to go staff for help is a fair choice if one feels things are crossing the line.

Unless you come with receipts, I’m not buying the nefarious complaining to staff angle.

That being said Addison is a wonderful role player. If he is given a second chance or finds another mush I will be happy for him.

[Pacha]

A few years ago, when the game was still fairly fresh, a friend and I made characters in the werewolf sphere who were childhood friends and had a shared history.

Shortly after we entered the game, Addison took an interest in my friend’s character, and decidedly not in mine. I don’t think there was any sexual element to it at all, but he very much decided to involve my friend’s character heavily in his RP while decidedly not involving me.

Which is fine. People are allowed to do that.

What I will say, from sitting on the outside, is that it became very clear that Addison’s player could be fucking exhausting when his attention was turned on you, and he did not seem to pick up on hints that it was getting to be too much. So I can absolutely see how this has come about, even if he doesn’t realise he’s doing it and is well-intentioned.

At least partially as a result of his behaviour, my friend very quickly lost interest in the game. The attention was never creepy or sexual, but it was constant, intense and ultimately exhausting.

[gremlinsarevil]

When I first tried player werewolf on lib way back before they even did the Sept Siege, I tried making a Uktena kinfolk. Met a few cool players but during the first tribe meeting I attended, addison ranted and raved so much about how his cliath ragabash self should be master of rites over a glasswalker adren lupus theurge because that walker happened to be a cyber dog. Now a little cross tribe tension is fine and dandy, but this scene was excessive and he wasn’t listening to anybody else but rather talking at everybody. It made me nope out of playing my kinfolk because if I wanted that level of pc on pc drama, I could just play vampire. Eventually I did end up playing a garou later, but my experience with addison was always more he’d talk at people, ICly and OOCly, than ever having a real conversation.

[Gashlycrumb]

My character had a crush on Bartok, who appeared to distinctly not want to RP with me and was only very rarely around me, so it was minimal. When he bitched to me about the game we agreed to have a mutual bitch-session before we started. He annoyed me a couple of times but nothing serious. But my view is a really narrow one.Y’all got stronger tea.

[Taika]

@Gashlycrumb That opener sure reads like he was swerving you trying to bang a gargoyle.

[Pavel]

[Evilgrayson]

@voiceinthevoid said:

Siren is well intentioned, intelligent and has good social understanding. I don’t believe she would ban anyone without a good reason. In addition I don’t think she enjoys giving out punishments and I don’t believe she wanted to ban him. I am not her ooc friend just a player who has witnessed her consistently acting right.

It is of course still possible she made an error in judgement, but I don’t think that is the most likely scenario.

We’re going to have to disagree on Siren.

She’s one of the least ethical and least capable people I’ve seen trying to staff a game, never mind run one. Abusers go ignored and unpunished while the abused are unprotected. She’ll shower you in adoration and run scenes and plots for you if you’re one of her special friends or sucking up to her characters in the right way, but if you don’t react as she thinks you should she’ll drop you like a hot potato. Where she had responsibility for a sphere, it went almost completely ignored and was allowed to trail away into nothing - like all the jobs that anyone bothered to put in.

I’ve watched Siren make a lot of errors in judgement, but I’ve also watched her ignore abusive players and steal a whole fucking game.

Yes, we’re going to have to disagree on Siren.

[Pavel]

@Evilgrayson said:

steal a whole fucking game.

You’ve said that a couple of times now, though @somasatori previously said that Sundance previously announced she was going on hiatus.

Do you have any evidence to back up your assertion?

[voiceinthevoid]

@Evilgrayson

I will try to break this down and analyze it.

Disclosure on my bias: I am not Siren’s ooc friend and I’m not in discord off game communication with her. I’m not and never have been very involved in her plots and am not a frequent role play partner of hers. That being said I like her and get along with her. In addition I tend to favor staff in these sorts of debates as I feel like staffing is easier said than done and there is always going to be someone who isn’t happy. I also weigh in that staff are unpaid volunteers with their own real life responsibilities.

I believe Siren is being accused of stealing the game, showing favoritism, not answering jobs, not keeping the game active, dropping role players who don’t role play to her preference and keeping abusive players around.

Stealing the Game: Sundance has been inactive for a very long time and was less and less active before she fully left. I have no hard feelings as real life first and hope she is well. Siren I am pretty confident had and still has Sundance’s blessing and somebody needed to step up or Liberation won’t be staffed. I don’t think she stole, I think she was given.

Showing Favoritism: I don’t know, I’m not deep enough into things there to know. Most staffers are eventually accused of this. It’s a bit subjective. Also at the end of the day staff are people who will role play with those they enjoy and staff who try to tough it out and role play with those who irk them usually burn out.

Not Answering Jobs: yes this did happen, but I don’t judge harshly as staffing is tons of work and Siren was doing it mostly on her own for a while and likely started with a huge back log. This is also my answer for not keeping the game active. She also has a family irl.

Dropping role play partners: I would need receipts on this. What role play choices did she cut people off over? Sometimes there is a valid reason.

Keeping Abusive players around: There is a couple abusive players around. I have faith that when they act abusive under her watch she will act as she did with Addison. I don’t think Addison was the most problematic player there and I have concerns about a player there who has been banned on most other games. Because of this one player I do kind of agree with this complaint against Siren. This player is in best behavior mode right now as Liberation is really the only WOD that will have him. He can be charming and likable when he tries and has been laying it on thick to Siren. Still I think when he goes back to his bad ways Siren will take the ethical action. Time will tell how this will go. I suppose there is also a small unlikely chance he sincerely changed.

[MidnightCreature]

So originally I wasn’t going to say anything here at all, despite knowing about the existence of this board for awhile now. For a guy who(reportedly) famously likes to complain, I generally am not the sort of person to come post it here on Complain Zone Dot Com.

What changed my mind was finding out that are still some unpleasant things are still happening on Liberation specifically regarding work that I created for the project. I want to highlight that this was a pretty persistent and thorny issue long before my removal for at least but not limited to a year, and it bothers me that it continues to be an issue after my ban.

The two things that brought me here are as follows: Firstly I was informed that Siren had picked up a very specific plot I designed and decided to run it herself after keeping it in an administrative bottleneck for well over a year that prevented me from bringing it to a conclusive end. Secondly I got a ping notice to the gmail account I have tied to the game that the email that Siren used for Liberation MU adjacent activities was trying to access my Google Doc files where I had a huge amount of game related information stored.

I would really rather that she didn’t do either of those things and I would prefer the plot notice be taken down. To me that would be the simplest and most respectful course of action.

Will she? Probably not.

I’m also here with the bias that I have been working in the same space as Siren for a long time. I was a long time contributor to the game and someone that Siren frequently tried to minimize the contributions of, despite knowing about those contributions.

So in the scope of typical MUSH operations I was not just some random player she had infrequent contact with.

With that bias I have to express that while she has a pleasant “customer service” approach to how she speaks/types to people but that presentation doesn’t always reflect or translate to a genuine commitment to treat people with a respectable amount of dignity or provide actual support to people when it is most needed.

I think if there’s any credibility behind that the staff was earnest in how difficult banning me was the right choice should be fairly easy. But these are also the same staffers that rammed one of my game lore write-ups through an LLM and posted the sloppified version of that document up on the game boards so… ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Whatever anyone thinks of me personally or of the decision to ban me from the game, I do think the current staff should be capable of creating their own material going forward without immediately resorting to the cannibalization of a full storyline written by someone they have just removed.

The plot in question is currently this one, but I wouldn’t be surprised the other ones had also been seized upon as well…

[Third Eye]

@MidnightCreature said:

I think if there’s any credibility behind that the staff was earnest in how difficult banning me was the right choice should be fairly easy. But these are also the same staffers that rammed one of my game lore write-ups through an LLM and posted the sloppified version of that document up on the game boards so… ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Mostly I’m quoting to highlight. Would love a Liberation staffer to respond to this because this hits me as pretty deeply Not OK if this is an accurate account of wtf happened.