@Pavel said in Macha Awareness (And Unappreciation) thread:
@shit-piss-love said in Macha Awareness (And Unappreciation) thread:
Is there a reason these call-out posts don’t include a list of the characters/games these people have played on?
There are two factors complicating this. First, we don’t necessarily know instances of this particular person being a player vs some random person who made someone uncomfortable that one time. Second, we have a memory for repeated behaviour far more robust than the transient names attached to said behaviour.
Nonetheless, it might be a good idea for someone to compile a list.
A counterpoint to consider (not saying this is a bad idea, just something to think about):
I think if you do that, you start getting into a situation of policing, and there are various factors to consider if you’re going to do that. Not that this is a bad practice to implement, but it’s one that probably needs to be well thought out.
There are definitely some reprehensible people in the MU* community. There are also people who get lumped into that category, fairly or unfairly, based on association or having done similar things to the reprehensible folks (but perhaps not to the same extent). Is that fair to them? I don’t know.
There is a tendency to witch hunt that I’ve seen on here and MSB, and I usually try to avoid participating in these forums as a result. I’ve been banned from a game in the past for what I would say is probably a debatable misunderstanding at best, but I could see the argument from the other side, and in my particular case, the other side was older and more known quantities, so it’s pretty understandable that that’s the narrative the staff went with. It happened, I got over it, no hard feelings, and I came away with an awareness of what tendencies I may have had that apparently had similarities to some bad actors of the past. Cool, a learning experience I could grow from.
What would not be cool IMO is if that circumstance and situation were to be perpetuated as a black mark for the entirety of my MUing career. While there are definitely some folks who are definitive bad actors and get identified resurfacing again and again with the same behaviors, there are also times where “that person I had an issue with that one time” is used to justify actions against a person again, at which point folks are given carte blanche to harass that person. To use a literary trope, it’s like that person is no longer a citizen and therefore has no rights, so you can pretty much do whatever you want to them and they can’t complain.
Because they did something once, somewhere, then clearly they are guilty again. I’ve seen that play out. I’ve seen people abuse the crap out of someone because they knew they could get away with it, because that person had a “reputation” (warranted or unwarranted). So clearly, if they were the ones complaining about BEING harassed, it must not be real.
There can be a lot of pitchforks and torches, and I think if we reach the point of “naming and shaming of every character ever”, there probably should be a bit more review of what actually even happened. While generally speaking the group think on here tends to be right when all is said and done, it’s not always, and I don’t think anyone is infallible. And the result could be perpetuating harassment against a victim. Particular since there are some members of this community (not many) who go after particular people like a dog with a bone, and WILL relentlessly harass someone who has caused them affront in the past. Not everyone on here is benevolent and nice.
Yes, we need to protect the community. I think that’s ultimately paramount. But are we ok with subjecting people to harassment (on here and IRL in some cases if there are personal details that get sniffed out) based around one side of the narrative? Because I can also tell you that someone who is accused of something nefarious or questionable on here has really strong incentive to NOT answer for or explain their side, and just to simply accept whatever fate befalls them on the game in question and not try to counter the narrative. I’ve seen what happens when people try to explain themselves, and it can be pretty vicious. So much so that when it happened to me, I didn’t even bother trying to come on and explain. And I’m much happier for having chosen that approach. (And no, I’m not going into it, I’m even leery of making this comment, but I feel it’s worth noting what the impact is on the other side.)
I don’t necessarily have a good answer, because there’s not really any court system here other than the court of public opinion. Just suggesting that we consider heavily whether we want to start nuking people from orbit.
Again, in cases like this it seems there is a pretty clear pattern. But where do you draw the line between a long clear pattern like this one, etc. That’s all.