Staff Bits Linking Handles
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@Yam I would play any damn thing @KarmaBum slapped her name on, like even if it was cardboard box: the mush
My two cents? If you don’t have a handle, you have something to hide, and my brows immediately raise. I feel that way about everyone, players or admin, but I give players way more grace because I know not everyone wants to slap their handle on right out of the gate and sometimes it’s nice to have a haven alt.
ETA: I would also play anything @tsar made so long as it’s Janitor: the MUSH. I’m still waiting @tsar
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@bear_necessities said in Staff Bits Linking Handles:
If you don’t have a handle, you have something to hide, and my brows immediately raise.
As the creator of the handle system, this kind of bothers me. The system was never intended to pressure people into identifying themselves across games. There has been enough stalking, creeping, and other shenanigans in the MU community (and the internet at large) that I don’t think anyone owes anyone else their OOC identity. Ever. Staff included.
That’s why even Ares games have a built-in alternative method for alt tracking that doesn’t require a player handle.
It’s meant to be a fun tool for those who choose to use it. I’m not a fan of it being held against those who don’t.
(Also in practical terms a creeper can just make a new handle, so I’m not sure what it gains you really.)
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I think people lean towards the concept of interacting with someone that has been… kind of vetted in some sense, at least within communities. For better or worse.
It’s true that you can make a new handle though. I think there might be intrinsic value in handles that people recognize.
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@Yam said in Staff Bits Linking Handles:
Out of curiosity I’m wondering if folk have ever had the opposite reaction of ‘ah him that motherfucker what a tool’, like maybe ‘ah him i love his themes/style/atmosphere i will check it out’.
For me it’s more a positive than a negative exactly because people can just make new handles if they’re actually trying to hide. There are staffers where I’m excited to see when they launch a new project even if I may not have time to play it.
I found the Neon Protocol people having no handles odd, I’ll admit, because just to make your life easier when you’re both staffing and playing, why not (reader, it turns out their reasons Why Not were pretty bad)? But I found a handful of things about that game odd, so it was not a part of my life.
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@bear_necessities said in Staff Bits Linking Handles:
My two cents? If you don’t have a handle, you have something to hide, and my brows immediately raise. I feel that way about everyone, players or admin, but I give players way more grace because I know not everyone wants to slap their handle on right out of the gate and sometimes it’s nice to have a haven alt.
okay while i think what’s going on specifically on NP with staffers apparently being super weird about their own alts and pretend-interacting with them and stuff is very weird and offputting.
but i think the idea that someone is immediately sus for simply preferring privacy is — not it. the “what do you have to hide” argument about people’s right to privacy is consistently a bad one.
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@Roz I definitely feel like everyone deserves a right to privacy and was being too overbroad. I don’t expect people to link their handles, I have played games where I don’t link my handle, and I don’t think it’s something that should be required.
I HAVE seen multiple cases of bad actors hide without handles or change their handle to hide, so that eyebrow twitch is mostly just a ugh, what if this is secretly someone I know is a bad actor?? But that generally works itself out, handle or none.
As far as staff having a handle, I prefer to play on games where I know the admin. I do think staff alts should be tagged.
Hopefully that clears things up.
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@Faraday said in Staff Bits Linking Handles:
@bear_necessities said in Staff Bits Linking Handles:
If you don’t have a handle, you have something to hide, and my brows immediately raise.
As the creator of the handle system, this kind of bothers me. The system was never intended to pressure people into identifying themselves across games. There has been enough stalking, creeping, and other shenanigans in the MU community (and the internet at large) that I don’t think anyone owes anyone else their OOC identity. Ever. Staff included.
That’s why even Ares games have a built-in alternative method for alt tracking that doesn’t require a player handle.
It’s meant to be a fun tool for those who choose to use it. I’m not a fan of it being held against those who don’t.
(Also in practical terms a creeper can just make a new handle, so I’m not sure what it gains you really.)
I never have a handle!
I don’t have anything to hide. It’s just a combination of a) I’m lazy and I don’t really like metaconnections between games, and b) I enjoy being able to have a little bit of a “fresh start” in a new game, where I can settle into a character without people bringing up previous characters.
Opinions may differ, but I don’t believe I’m a problem player–some people might avoid me, for sure, but I’m happy to tell anyone who I was in conversation or whatever, if I remember, but I do like it to be information I choose to share with people as opposed to information that is just automatically linked to me.
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@bear_necessities said in Staff Bits Linking Handles:
As far as staff having a handle, I prefer to play on games where I know the admin. I do think staff alts should be tagged.
I’m 100% on board with this as well.
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@Faraday said in Staff Bits Linking Handles:
@bear_necessities said in Staff Bits Linking Handles:
As far as staff having a handle, I prefer to play on games where I know the admin. I do think staff alts should be tagged.
I’m 100% on board with this as well.
I’m also in full agreement with this as well for staff. If a game is staffed by people I’ve played with before, there is a higher degree of trust given even before fully checking out the game. If I also see people I recognize and have enjoyed playing with in the past also on the game as well, that’s another point to the game as well. Like @bear_necessities mentioned, I also fully understand why some people don’t want to link themselves due to privacy and personal safety reasons. There are pros and cons to linking and not linking, each person will have to weigh them and decide for themselves.
That is also why I always tag my characters with my handle. One, it let’s people know who I am who have played with me before. If they enjoyed RPing with me in the past, chances are I always had a good time since fun RP is usually a two way street. If they didn’t like RPing with me, I don’t take it as a personal slight but it also prevents the other person from wasting their time and feeling disappointed after finding out who I am.
Lastly, it’s also fun to run into people that you haven’t interacted with in a long time who you wouldn’t recognize if they didn’t reach out to you because they recognize your handle or the history of games you’ve played on.
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@bear_necessities said in Staff Bits Linking Handles:
My two cents? If you don’t have a handle, you have something to hide, and my brows immediately raise. I feel that way about everyone, players or admin, but I give players way more grace because I know not everyone wants to slap their handle on right out of the gate and sometimes it’s nice to have a haven alt.
I also don’t link my handle, though I admittedly tend not to play on Ares games very often or very long.
If people want to know who I play, I’m generally willing to tell them – when asked directly. But I want it to be a conversation. I’ve had two different instances of two different men behaving in ways that are genuinely Not Okay that carried on over the course of actual real life years. After that, I’m just not comfortable having that sit out there publicly, oblivious to who may be accessing it. I want to know who’s asking and why. And if the answer is so they can avoid me, then that’s okay, too.
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I prefer Staff disclose their PC alts for a number of reasons.
- It’s a sign of trust. Staff is showing players who they play as, so players can hold those PCs to the same standards staff is expecting from the non-staff players.
- It can help me navigate the tricky social aspects that come up when I have an OOC issue with another PC bit. If that PC bit is a staff member, I would prefer that my request to resolve the issue be taken by a different member of staff to give the issue a third party perspective. If I have an issue with the PC of the headstaffer, then it lets me know that if I can’t resolve the issue, I need to find a new game to play.
- It gives people a good idea of how active the staffers actually are in the game.
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Staff shouldn’t necessarily have their ‘player’ Ares handle connected to a game they’re running. Maybe they don’t want their haters/creepers/etc. knowing that they’re running the Hello Kitty game. However, I do think if they create a new handle for their game, they link THAT handle to whatever PCs they are playing on their game.
People don’t necessarily need to know that Player Catzilla is running Hello Kitty Island but they should know that Staff Bit Dogzilla is linked to PCs Joe Bob and Susie Q.
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@catzilla I agree with the principle, but you don’t need a player handle to link alts on a game. You can do it with tags.
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@bear_necessities said in Staff Bits Linking Handles:
ETA: I would also play anything @tsar made so long as it’s Janitor: the MUSH. I’m still waiting @tsar
We were janitors once!! And you threw it all away!!!
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@Faraday This is good to know! I’ll definitely look into it next time I try build a game.
I do enjoy all the features of Ares but that COFD plug-in got me so confused and I eventually gave up lol.
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Player linking bits I think is a whole topic in and of itself with different ramifications than staff bits. Staff bits have an implied power aspect and control difference.
I don’t even think it’s done for ill will, but it can still be jarring. If you think person X is this cool person that you have been playing with, spawning ideas with, cracking jokes with, and maybe sharing RL information with – and then you find out they are someone else. It’s a trust issue. It doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world, but it can disillusion a person. If that happens, sadly every thing done on either alt becomes suspect. Then it starts the brain worm of what else weren’t they upfront about. These kind of small choices have large and lasting impressions.
As a player, you absolutely have a right to complete privacy for your comfort, protection, or preference. As an admin on a game, you have a bit less. You don’t have to disclose your personal information ever, however, you do have to disclose you are the CEO of the game that others are playing. Like stated before it’s the implied trust part of it.
That’s at least my thoughts, doesn’t mean it’s right, but it’s my opinion.
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I don’t mind on principle if admin don’t link to a prior Ares handle, but I do think they should always be up front about their PCs played in the game they are staffing. If they create a new Ares handle for the game so all the bits are linked, cool, but at the very least put the PCs on their admin page so everyone knows who they are playing. Especially when (in the case of NP) the policies say “our goal is to be fair, transparent, and consistent, which may not please everyone at all times.” – lol
Personally I admit that I get a little wary if I don’t know who a staffer is, that’s true, but I also get people wanting a clean slate or separating staffing from playing. Still… I have been to a game I didn’t know was staffed by a certain problematic player until I got there, and then the game was unsurprisingly terrible… so I get the reasoning behind it.
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There are definitely good reasons for not linking an AresMUSH handle to your account–there are creepers and assholes and rumormongers aplenty in our little hobby.
So I agree that no one is beholden to creating a last handle that goes beyond games, someone else’s safety is more important than my comfort.
But I will admit that I feel a great deal more comfortable when I recognize the handle of staff on a game and I know who I’m dealing with. It allows me to start out in a place of trust (or to avoid the game entirely if it’s someone I’ve had a bad run-in with in the past). If they have a handle that I don’t recognize, I will start out in a place of neither trust nor distrust. There should always be room for new folks to come into the hobby and start up a game, but for me at least, it always makes me feel a little better to recognize a handle that I know and trust on the staff list.
I also think that staff should always have their player bits linked to their staff bit. As others have pointed out, there’s a power imbalance there, and unless it’s recognized and called out, it can get treacherous. Sure, it can be nice to go “off duty” and pretend to not be a staffer for a while playing a “hidden alt,” but it’s also disingenuous, because you are a staffer, and you’re seeing things through staffer eyes the whole time, and can bring in the weight of staff whenever you want (either through yourself or one of your fellow staffers).
Formerly known as Seraphim73 (he/him)
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@Roadspike said in Staff Bits Linking Handles:
ut it’s also disingenuous, because you are a staffer, and you’re seeing things through staffer eyes the whole time, and can bring in the weight of staff whenever you want (either through yourself or one of your fellow staffers).
Yeah, it’s always felt icky to me to be “undercover staff”.
I think it’s better for a game when everyone knows who everyone’s alts are, staff included. It just avoids a bunch of particular kinds of drama, and it boosts trust.
And to clarify, when I say that folks don’t owe anyone their OOC identity, I meant across games. Forcing people to share alt info within the same game is different IMHO.
