IC / OOC

Rivas · February 2013

Goddamnit what the hell is the language filter substituting with "unicorns"? That's driving me freakin' INSANE.

Ezalor · February 2013

A bundle of sticks.

Valenae · February 2013

I feel really annoyed by this conversation. I think there are far too many generalities being made and because of that, there will not be enough of a consensus to render a productive solution.

Rivas · February 2013

Ohhhhhhhhh. Well that's just derogatory to all the equine unicorns out there, now isn't it?

Carry on.

Claire · February 2013

Valenae said:

I feel really annoyed by this conversation. I think there are far too many generalities being made and because of that, there will not be enough of a consensus to render a productive solution.

Generalities are being used to protect people's names and keep it from turning personal or into a flame thread. The root of the problem is thus:
1) Respecting one another as players.
Every single person is not going to get along, there are such things a personality conflicts. Just like in real life though you can choose how you are going to respond to someone you don't care for. Avoiding them when at all possible is an excellent start. Being overly polite when you can't is also a good choice. Making sure you police yourself and make sure you are not stepping over any lines that really shouldn't be crossed- and if you do apologize and try not to do it again.

2) If you do insult someone make sure it does stay IC and doesn't cross the line, if the person feels like it is work it out like adults rather than allowing the problem to fester like a sore.

3) Insult someone's BEHAVIOUR not the person themself i.e the colour of their skin, what type of genitalia they possess, what ethnic origin they hail from, or their sexuality. There is a HUGE difference between disliking and commenting on someone's behaviour and denigrating the person them-self based on factors they can not control.

4) If it is crossing the line then keep at it with the administrators. I had some issues with Brynn when she was younger and I can honestly say the only thing I did wrong was -not- go to the admin sooner. As soon as I did the problems stopped.

Luna · February 2013

Thing is, -all- sexual harassment is theoretically banned, which would include IC behavior, according to HELP HARASSMENT. Throwing around slut and whore insults -is- sexual harassment, so you shouldn't do it, neither against female nor against male players or characters, assuming you even know their ooc gender. However, for some reason admin doesn't really seem very keen on enforcing the rules in this regard.

On another note, in my experience there's a very strong correlation between being a tendency to hurl insults and abuse ic and a tendency to hurl insults and abuse ooc.

Claire · February 2013

Veritas said:

Ezrax said:

Someone told me recently that she had quit playing because people were calling her a whore and a slut as OOC insults to her. She's a pretty tough girl, but got wore out from the constant slander and hate towards her for being a character.

I told her to issue them, but she's jaded to the point where she's of the opinion the admins don't care enough to act. What's everyone's thoughts on this (particularly the authorities)?

Without going into great detail, the innocence of the person you are referring to is questionable at best, considering that person's own past.

This is exactly the situation that sparked this thread. That said I am in no way endorsing her behaviour or her handling or lack there of with this. I am well aware that she has not been an exemplary example of good behaviour. I just think we are all old enough / mature enough to handle things like this is a much better manner.

The other part of that is if you are attacking someone's gender ect rather than their behaviour it makes it that much harder to reach any resolution because you aren't talking about the real problem- which would be their behaviour.

Claire · February 2013

This is the perfect example of what I am talking about. I was just forwarded this over IM.

[*********] You seriously went to cry to Brynn about being called names?
[*********] You are a dumb cunt aren't you?

There is no way that this can be construed as IC in any shape form or fashion. Or be construed as okay.

Valenae · February 2013

I appreciate a good hop on the soapbox but I think you're misinterpreting what I'm saying. I'm saying that I'm noticing a lot of situational generalizing in response to your answers and that's harmful for productive discourse. As I said, i'll write more when I get home.

Amara · February 2013

Veritas said:

Without going into great detail, the innocence of the person you are referring to is questionable at best, considering that person's own past.

I tried to stay out of this because it's a little slapdash and inconsistent on both sides, but, really?

I have an issue with this, especially coming from Veritas as an admin. I'm sorry but shouldn't the case at hand be judged based upon the merit of the facts and evidence as pertaining to the case itself? This kind of logic is what comes into play when police throw out rape charges against prostitutes or... dare I say it... sluts... in real life because 'look at how she's behaved in the past, her complaint has no merit now'.

Plain and simple if the admin isn't making decisions based on facts and logs of -the incident- but their past interactions with and anecdotal or passing knowledge of 'how this person is', then the decisions are -not- justice.

Aldric · February 2013

This thread has really pretty much outlived its purpose. The information's there for those that want to read, but this is just devolving into repetition way too quickly.

EDIT: Yikes, didn't realize this would get bombed so quickly with negative off-topics and all that stuff. By all means, continue the circular "This is bad" "No, this isn't bad" argument that seems to be creating such a productive debate.

Mariena · February 2013

My two cents:

In the course of playing Mariena, I have dealt with a lot of things that have personally upset -me- the player, but has no regard to Mariena, the character. In the early dark ages we do not speak about, I dealt with these situations -wrongly-.

If someone's conduct oocly OR icly upsets you, it is within your rights to shoot them a tell to ask them to knock it (politely!) the hell off. ICly, that might result in more harassment, or the character might back off, depending on the roleplay involved. OOCly, I have found people have backed up and apologized. Sometimes we've had to stop the roleplay that was going on for a while, but that served to give me the time to back up and sort through what was upsetting me. Was it truly offending me, the player, or was I reacting to the IC situation (too emotionally involved, in other words).

That is where the sticky gray area comes in at, in my mind. What offends -you- might not offend someone else. It is up to you to define those lines, make those you play with aware of those lines (through roleplay or a polite out of character tell), and then disengage when those lines are repeatedly and unabashedly stomped on.

While people shouldn't be dicks, some are. It is up to us to set those boundaries and utilize issues (when it is blatant harassment in whatever way and against IRE rules) and the like (ignoring, when it upset you, the player but it isn't against IRE rules and only after you the player has tried to resolve said issues ICly and OOCly) to make sure those boundaries are kept.

Ezalor · February 2013

Aldric said:

This thread has really pretty much outlived its purpose. The information's there for those that want to read, but this is just devolving into repetition way too quickly.

That's what forums are for. For discussing and talking. You can't say a thread's outlived its purpose just because you finished making your point. C'mon now. It might be over for you but clearly there are people in here who are still interested in talking about it. Everyone's handling it properly, it's not devolving into flaming or trolling, there's no sign at all that this thread has outlived its purpose.

Illikaal · February 2013

Claire said:

This is the perfect example of what I am talking about. I was just forwarded this over IM.

[*********] You seriously went to cry to Brynn about being called names?
[*********] You are a dumb cunt aren't you?

There is no way that this can be construed as IC in any shape form or fashion. Or be construed as okay.

It seems like you've been missing what I said.

IC interactions need to be kept IC. If people don't want to listen to another person, the ignore command has functioned properly in the past 5 years I've been playing. What YOU posted just now is blatant OOC abuse to another player over an external source other than Aetolia. I don't know if the Aetolian administration will claim jurisdiction over such an incident (because they'd have no way of proving it, obviously), and even if they did, I don't think Aetolia's ToS state anything about abuse of players via external methods of communication. The best the person could have and should have done is block and or remove the person leaving them rude messages so they don't have to hear from them.

I do it on facebook all the time ^_^

Edit: @Ezalor It's both, actually. Saying something about one character to another is one thing. Taking it to an OOC level is a whole 'nother ballgame. People shouldn't say rude and derogatory things towards one another, at least, for absolutely no reason at all. However, I stand firm on my belief that people should have much tougher skin. I was 16 when I first started playing Aetolia and got called an insert anagram for ginger here MORE times than I could count in the first year or so that I started playing. Yeah, it made me feel bad, but I didn't let other people's stupidity get to me. I'm sure the majority of the players that are still playing Aetolia have been insulted at some point across the years by other Aetolians, your self included. There's SOME degree of having tough skin there. Like I said, that doesn't make it okay for players to abuse other players, but there's always going to be the idiot out there that just feels like they need to toss unnecessary insults at other people for no reason. If -everyone- in Aetolia quit playing because of people like this, nobody would be playing Aetolia today. I'm sure everyone has their story about how X player said Y thing to them in an OOC medium that was incredibly rude and or uncalled for. But they didn't stop playing. They said "Lolokay." and moved on. I don't know who the person is in question, or why they let one little word allow someone so much power over them. By quitting BECAUSE of what was said to you, you're giving the person who insulted you the power over you to do whatever they please. If you don't have tougher skin, how will you ever be able to stand up for yourself? Your friends won't be there for you all the time to fight your battles for you.

That's the way I see it, because that's what I went through. I'm not about to let some internet douchenozzle make me stop playing because I can't handle someone calling me a n*gger once or twice (an hour). It's the internet. People should COME prepared for the language that other people use.

Veritas · February 2013

Amara said:

Veritas said:
Without going into great detail, the innocence of the person you are referring to is questionable at best, considering that person's own past.

I tried to stay out of this because it's a little slapdash and inconsistent on both sides, but, really?

I have an issue with this, especially coming from Veritas as an admin. I'm sorry but shouldn't the case at hand be judged based upon the merit of the facts and evidence as pertaining to the case itself? This kind of logic is what comes into play when police throw out rape charges against prostitutes or... dare I say it... sluts... in real life because 'look at how she's behaved in the past, her complaint has no merit now'.

Plain and simple if the admin isn't making decisions based on facts and logs of -the incident- but their past interactions with and anecdotal or passing knowledge of 'how this person is', then the decisions are -not- justice.

Perhaps I wasn't clear in which case I am more than happy to clarify for you.

Person A told Person B that they had massively inappropriate language thrown their way in ISSUES and that WE(me) the Administrators turned a blind eye to it. Person B relayed this to US(The administration). Therefore I contacted Person B since Person A was already gone, and asked if I could get the Issues/Persons file from(by) so I could see what the resolutions were.

Not a SINGLE instance of what Person B relayed to me from Person A had any evidence in our Issue database(a database that spans a decade just about).

"Without going into great detail, the innocence of the person you are referring to is questionable at best, considering that person's own past."

This comment is directly aimed in response to the false information Person A provided to Person B in regards to not giving the greatest account for what actually happened. I am unsure how you can make such a drastic leap in understanding of what was said.

I'm sorry but shouldn't the case at hand be judged based upon the merit of the facts and evidence as pertaining to the case itself?

If you will check back on just what my post said, you will see that the COMPLAINT in question was in regards to ISSUES filed with inappropriate language used, in which case said language was ignored(as I just reiterated). And as you have pointed out, the judgement was 100% based upon the 'facts and evidence as pertaining to the case itself'

Case: A player made a false account of Issue resolutions.

SubCase: A concerned player sought understanding and voiced concern to Administration.

Fact: No such Issue(s) were found to be filed, responded to, or dismissed in the manner that was brought up to us.

Rivas · February 2013

tl;dr for the above:

PersonB got lied to by PersonA, and that's not Administration's fault.

Aldric · February 2013

Ezalor said:

Aldric said:

This thread has really pretty much outlived its purpose. The information's there for those that want to read, but this is just devolving into repetition way too quickly.

That's what forums are for. For discussing and talking. You can't say a thread's outlived its purpose just because you finished making your point. C'mon now. It might be over for you but clearly there are people in here who are still interested in talking about it. Everyone's handling it properly, it's not devolving into flaming or trolling, there's no sign at all that this thread has outlived its purpose.

I wasn't saying it because I finished making my point; Veritas actually did a pretty good job of making a post from the administrative perspective of things. I personally just don't see (and maybe this is why I got bombed with the off-topics, others obviously disagree) the point in continuing a discussion on something people feel so passionately about that's bound to devolve. The mechanical ways to deal with this have been listed, and awareness has been raised over certain words that are offensive to others.

If what they say to you in-character is considered offensive to you as a player, you have four options:

1) Ask them to stop OOCly, issue/ignore if they don't

2) Use the mechanically-supported IGNORE feature

3) Issue them

4) Ignore it yourself/respond in-character back

If what they say to you OOCly is considered offensive to you as a player, you have two options:

1) Issue them. It's direct harassment and, as Veritas said, will be handled more severely since it's directly at the player.

2) Ignore it yourself

That's.. pretty much it.

Myself and a few others don't see the difference in some of the examples here. Maybe it's because I'm a guy that I don't understand why it's okay to call a woman a b**** but not a whore. Both are offensive and derogatory, and if the intention is to draw awareness to the fact that people are offended by different things, I think that neither should be allowed.

I'm a little on edge, as somebody that's passionate about animals, about having an entire skillset that has gruesomely-detailed messages about people beating and pulverizing their dogs in horrible ways. ..But that's a contributing factor to Aetolia's grim, more dark atmosphere. What do I do when I don't want to deal with those messages? I don't actively use the class, or any of the abilities in it. There are alternatives to deal with this.

This situation is no different. If you've got a problem with something somebody's doing, there are the above options to deal with it.

Call me trolling, off-topic, whatever you like, I just don't see what the end goal of this thread is, or if it's at all anything realistic in the scope of our game.

Amara · February 2013

Veritas, I suppose it would've come across as more professional if you didn't see the need to make a jab at an honest player with a completely legitimate concern, but it is what it is. This is why I don't like to issue even when I have legitimate grounds, like harassment or languagerules or whatever. All too often the people trying to be decent are left feeling like they've taken the rough end in things, and the attitudes used in dealing with things leave quite a bit to be desired. Your point is made even if you're rather muddled in your retelling.

Rivas, thank you for clarifying, you did a much better job than the above.

Aldric, people don't have to be validated by you to have their discussions and you're not admin or a mod. If a mod thinks the thread needs to be closed, or somebody feels abused and complains about it, then it will be dealt with. Until then, regardless of your feelings, it's quite clear people will continue to discuss it even if you think it redundant, resolved, or don't see the point. End of story.

Dhar · February 2013

The general rule to follow is to never deliberately make people feel uncomfortable through your roleplay or 'OOC interaction'. Be mature, make certain that when you act your actions/words are appropriate or otherwise received by a consenting party who is capable of absorbing what you have done without being offended and you should be fine.

If you've got questions about the specifics of our harassment policies or any related problems you couldn't find answers for here it's best to contact the administration (Veritas, Razmael) in-game. I personally don't see anything more worthwhile coming from this thread aside from what has already been stated.

Closed.

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