MU Peeves Thread

[MisterBoring]

@Pavel said in MU Peeves Thread:

Then people in authority need to grow up and communicate, or fuck off.

Let me fix that for you:

Then people in authority need to grow up and communicate, or fuck off.

I’ve seen plenty of examples of people who have developed a bad reputation in our hobby that have been told they have a bad reputation, with receipts, and they just dismiss any argument in that regard. Sure, there are plenty of staffers who are non-confrontational, so they just ignore the people that have a bad rep, which is a problem in its own right, but largely it feels, to me at least, that the people with the bad reputation are just as guilty of bad communication skills as the staff.

I guess after watching other staffers on other games attempt to communicate and get shut down, staff on the games these people are currently on give up on attempting to talk it out. Communication is a two way street, and what it seems like we have is problem staffers who aren’t willing to talk it out, and problem players who aren’t willing to accept constructive feedback.

[Pavel]

@MisterBoring In general? I absolutely agree.

@MisterBoring said in MU Peeves Thread:

Sure, there are plenty of staffers who are non-confrontational, so they just ignore the people that have a bad rep, which is a problem in its own right

But this is the point we’re talking about.

If staff have a problem with me or concerns about my reputation, and their reaction is to do nothing rather than pass me on to someone else or get rid of me entirely, just… ignore me? That’s 100% a them issue. If staff don’t want me there, they need to say so. There’s nothing to “talk out”; there’s a message that needs to be communicated that isn’t. It’s that simple.

[Juniper]

All of this hinges on whether the person actually is guilty of poor behaviour or not.

Without that crucial context, all this reads as a bunch of people vagueposting past each other and probably not even imagining the same people as they do so.

乁⁠(⁠ ⁠⁰͡⁠ ⁠Ĺ̯⁠ ⁠⁰͡⁠ ⁠)⁠ ⁠ㄏ

[MisterBoring]

@Juniper said in MU Peeves Thread:

Without that crucial context, all this reads as a bunch of people vagueposting past each other and probably not even imagining the same people as they do so.

I don’t think we’re actually talking about specific cases. Just the general “Staff that ignore problem players is bad” + “Players that refuse to believe they’re an issue when they really are is bad” concepts.

[Pavel]

@MisterBoring Don’t forget the age-old “staff being held to a higher standard of conduct” argument, too. We’ll do all the classics while we’re here; we’re about due.

[hellfrog]

@MisterBoring it’s always about specific incidents. People just don’t own up to them because they don’t want the scrutiny - for a variety of reasons, I’m sure.

[Pavel]

@hellfrog said in MU Peeves Thread:

@MisterBoring it’s always about specific incidents. People just don’t own up to them because they don’t want the scrutiny - for a variety of reasons, I’m sure.

The conversation started about a specific incident, sure. But we do veer into talking about vague generalities pretty quick around here. Informed by years of actual situations, sure, but that’s literally the same as every other conversation.

[Gashlycrumb]

@hellfrog said in MU Peeves Thread:

@MisterBoring it’s always about specific incidents. People just don’t own up to them because they don’t want the scrutiny - for a variety of reasons, I’m sure.

All patterns are made up of specific incidents, but we can still talk about patterns.

[Pavel]

@Gashlycrumb said in MU Peeves Thread:

@hellfrog said in MU Peeves Thread:

@MisterBoring it’s always about specific incidents. People just don’t own up to them because they don’t want the scrutiny - for a variety of reasons, I’m sure.

All patterns are made up of specific incidents, but we can still talk about patterns.

I’m just a pile of patterns and anticipatory statistics in a waistcoat pretending to be a human.

[hellfrog]

@Gashlycrumb we sure could

[Noraaa]

MUSH Staffing in current year

[xCroaker]

Real question: What is staff overworked with in most games?

[MisterBoring]

@xCroaker From my personal experience both as a staffer and as a player witnessing things:

1. Answering questions that are already covered in the game’s documentation. I have been on plenty of games that have excellent documentation both on their wiki and in the game, yet people will still constantly ask questions that have already been answered elsewhere.
2. The subgroup of players that exist across all MUs that I refer to as “The Job Mill”. These players will generate more jobs than the entire rest of a game’s players combined, in some extreme cases multiple jobs a day. They are few, and usually just very invested in the game they are playing, but holy cow can some of them clog up a job queue. The frustrating thing is they’re almost always not malicious about this. It’s just what they do to show love to a game. And holy crap is it frustrating. Even more so when large amounts of these jobs require scenes and NPC support. (And now that I think about it, this could almost be it’s own topic.)
3. Continuing to work on build / code stuff. A lot of games start allowing players onto them well before their grid & coded elements are actually ready to go, and this will generate a lot of extra work where staff is trying to finish their baseline game and people are breaking things already.
4. Dealing with OOC drama. (This one probably feels like the worst even though it’s mathematically not.) Having people get into an OOC argument, or finding out that a player is a sex pest, or is exploiting the game code to their advantage, is rough on staff. It’s 100% guaranteed to require some level of confrontation about it, and that shit is draining.

[sao]

@Pavel I wanna hear more about your waistcoat though

[Noraaa]

@xCroaker I really was just posting the meme to be a little silly, but I can do my best to give you an earnest answer. Though I doubt it will really be a satisfying one, and it’s really just one person’s perspective. I can’t speak for every staffer on every game.

I think “overworked” is kind of not the right word to describe it. Fatigue is probably the closest I can find. Everything MisterBoring said is true, but I personally find that a lot of players think that the fatigue happens due to administrative tasks. Things like build jobs, xp requests, character apps, etc. But for me, I think the fatigue mostly comes from what I’d call a “creative tax.” When you tell stories for folks, you put your love and energy into it. But you are not drawing from an endless well. Creativity comes in bursts and windfalls, and there are droughts. The ask is that you basically draw from an endless well, though.

I’d also say that point #4 of MisterBoring’s message is very true. OOC drama is probably mathematically rare, but these interactions feel the most weighted because they’re the most stressful. And to continue the metaphor, it draws from the same well as creativity, but uses much more of the water.