Bannings
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The reason I mentioned the channel behavior was specifically because it’s something generally innocuous and inoffensive (talking on channel) turned into a weapon of exclusion that’s part of a long term problem that typically does not get dealt with, but absolutely chases people off games. I find it interesting that this, being a KNOWN tactic of one of the worst people in the hobby, that the validity of it even being a problem is debated.
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@Testament in my experiences dealing with people like that they’re very aware of what they’re doing, which is trying to pressure someone into crossing boundaries they don’t want to.
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This kind of microaggression is definitely frustrating and it sucks to be its subject. However what about it is sanctionable? How much of it is reportable?
In other words what would a proper escalation to staff look like? And more specifically what is staff’s role here, as it seems there would be a line - somewhere - that separates administrating a game from having to micromanage personal peeves?
Staff has no role in micromanaging personal peeves.
They DO have a role in dealing with microagressions.
I agree with your first statement - this IS a microagression, and staff sure can handle it. I wouldn’t or ban someone over this. What I’d do is have a conversation with them about the behavior, without ascribing intent. This is happening, it needs to not happen. It doesn’t actually matter what they intend, and that way you can short circuit a lot of defensiveness. Just ‘great, I’m glad you’re not doing it on purpose. Now I just need you to be aware and not let it happen on accident, either.’
If they change their behavior, great. If they don’t, then I’d ban them for continuing to behave in a way that they were asked not to, because it was harmful. That, to me, says something clear about actual intent.
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This kind of microaggression is definitely frustrating and it sucks to be its subject. However what about it is sanctionable? How much of it is reportable?
In other words what would a proper escalation to staff look like? And more specifically what is staff’s role here, as it seems there would be a line - somewhere - that separates administrating a game from having to micromanage personal peeves?
At some point, it has to become a vibes-based decision. I mean, we could sit down and try to create a formula by which to determine how many instances changing the subject over what period of time constitute an actionable pattern, but at that point we’re trying to moderate by algorithm, deflecting staff responsibility onto The System. It has to be okay to turn around and say to the kids in the back seat, “Yes, I know you’re not actually touching your sister, but you know the purpose of the rule isn’t that touching her is the one and only forbidden action.”
I think this mindset comes from a belief that rules should be about negative enforcement rather than positive; i.e., forbidding certain behaviors rather than creating expectations of what you should do. There’s a subtle difference between telling someone “Don’t be a jerk” and “Be respectful of others.”
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If they change their behavior, great. If they don’t, then I’d ban them for continuing to behave in a way that they were asked not to, because it was harmful.
This is the #1 reason we ban people from the library. Not because of the initial thing they were doing that we had to ask them to stop doing (no mask, playing music without headphones, drinking alcohol, yelling, whatever) but because they don’t do what we ask. The vast majority of ban violations are “Failing to comply with the reasonable direction of a staff member.” Idk what my point is, here, but it seemed relevant when I started writing.
There’s a subtle difference between telling someone “Don’t be a jerk” and “Be respectful of others.”
Very true. Humans (and dogs, tbh) are much better at following positive instructions. That’s why you tell kids “walk please” instead of “don’t run”.
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At some point, it has to become a vibes-based decision.
Honestly? At every point. Even looking down the barrel of logs and screenshots, you’re still gonna have to make a decision based on your instincts.
I’m not sure people grasp how much even the most flippant of us wind up agonizing over these decisions sometimes. “I don’t want to make a big deal out of this” is probably the most common phrase people say to me when they want to put someone on my radar, and that’s sort of a sad state of affairs. Even on GH, which was a hot mess, we only ever got a handful of actual complaints about behavior from people; most people who are getting harassed just leave rather than go through the whole process of reporting someone.
The only false report I’ve ever gotten on any game, to my knowledge, was from Ruiz. Who went right for the throat with a job to complain about the person it turned out she was harassing. Neither player got banned over it, though the other player eventually quit.
^ See above re: wrong way on a decision before. I should’ve banned Ruiz right then (or at least shortly afterward when her creepiness started to twig @bear_necessities), but no one had receipts and it felt somehow wrong to ban someone just because my co-admin thought they were creepy.
Which is just the dumbest rationale I’ve ever used, and it embarrasses me to this day.
tl;dr - be a good admin and swing the ban-hammer freely till you achieve the desired PEACE & QUIET
On Dragon Wings · https://pern.gaslightswitch.com · pern.gaslightswitch.com port 4201
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tl;dr - be a good admin and swing the ban-hammer freely till you achieve the desired PEACE & QUIET
lol lmao
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Which is just the dumbest rationale I’ve ever used, and it embarrasses me to this day.
Idk if this any consolation or not, but as a person very picky about where I’ll play certain characters because I’m deeply neurotic, I’m comfortable playing them in a space you organize.
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Idk if this any consolation or not
It is more than consolation. It means a lot and thank you for saying it.
If you ever make a game, I will also feel safe to play there.
(please get to work on this, Ruben the Rolex-wearing janitor is burning a hole in my mental pocket)
On Dragon Wings · https://pern.gaslightswitch.com · pern.gaslightswitch.com port 4201
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Idk if this any consolation or not
It is more than consolation. It means a lot and thank you for saying it.
If you ever make a game, I will also feel safe to play there.
(please get to work on this, Ruben the Rolex-wearing janitor is burning a hole in my mental pocket)
I got like halfway through the lore/setting stuff and then gestures
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And lest people think I am a hypocrite that is upset because I got banned yet as staff of a game, I am not shy about using my own banhammer:
I’m not here because I am horrified about Ganymede having gone on a banning rampage (except when she banned @farfalla because Macha was being manipulative, that was super fucked up). I am not upset over being banned and I completely deserved mine. You do not call people clowns living in clown town and not expect to very soon lose access.
I am here because I think Derp and his current team are bad for the hobby. Victim shaming and whatever authoritarian power grab happened over there are some of the WORST aspects of this hobby and watching this happen in real time after hearing about it happening on various games is wild. I’m not mad over the bans. I’m mad that the worst the hobby has to offer has been given a safe space to continue to spread toxicity and ‘hide’ from the well-deserved consequences of their fucked up actions. (Looking right at you, Hella)
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@Herja While I realistically wouldn’t expect it, I however would not be surprised if they somehow did the mental gymnastics to allow either Cullen or Dropkick to start posting there(I’m pointedly not including DWOPP in that because I can’t imagine any MSB staff being so oblivious to be okay with that). I would rate the things that Cullen did and what Hella/VK did to pretty near each other. So if they let one of them there…
Like I said, I’m not expecting but, also my expectations are exceedingly low at this point.
I don't know what I'm doing. Poke at Seven Nations sevennations.aresmush.com port 2021
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@Arkandel If someone sent me an Ares log of that happening on channel, or reported it to me as staff and I watched it happen a couple of times, I would absolutely give the offending player a virtual Gibbs-smack (phrasing it as my having observed the phenomenon, not as anyone having reported it) and tell them that if they did anything like that again, they’d be gone.
It’s definitely a bullying/silencing tactic, often used to isolate people from those around them, and suggests that it’s the tip of the iceberg of that player’s actions.
To @Arkandel’s point that reports like that can be weaponized, that’s why I would want to see an Ares log or see it happen myself, to make sure it wasn’t “just” someone feeling like this was happening, or to make sure it wasn’t being weaponized.
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@Roadspike Is an Ares log a specific thing, or do you just mean a regular log?
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@farfalla Ares logs are system-created and (to my knowledge) can’t be edited. I would probably take a regular log too, but that would mean I was playing on a non-Ares game, and ain’t nobody got time to go technologically backwards.
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@Roadspike said in Bannings:
@farfalla Ares logs are system-created and (to my knowledge) can’t be edited. I would probably take a regular log too, but that would mean I was playing on a non-Ares game, and ain’t nobody got time to go technologically backwards.
Yeah, they can’t be edited unless you’re a coder, because they come straight from the database and not a player’s computer.
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@Roadspike said in Bannings:
@farfalla Ares logs are system-created and (to my knowledge) can’t be edited. I would probably take a regular log too, but that would mean I was playing on a non-Ares game, and ain’t nobody got time to go technologically backwards.
Yeah, they can’t be edited unless you’re a coder, because they come straight from the database and not a player’s computer.
THAT JUST PROVES THE CODER IS IN ON THE CHEMTRAIL FLOURIDE CONSPIRACY TO MAKE PEOPLE LOOK BAD BECAUSE THEY ARE AN ENEMY OF THE CLIQUE!!!111!!1!ONE!!!111ELEVEN!
Mummy Pun? MUMMY PUN!
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@Jennkryst said in Bannings:
@Roadspike said in Bannings:
@farfalla Ares logs are system-created and (to my knowledge) can’t be edited. I would probably take a regular log too, but that would mean I was playing on a non-Ares game, and ain’t nobody got time to go technologically backwards.
Yeah, they can’t be edited unless you’re a coder, because they come straight from the database and not a player’s computer.
THAT JUST PROVES THE CODER IS IN ON THE CHEMTRAIL FLOURIDE CONSPIRACY TO MAKE PEOPLE LOOK BAD BECAUSE THEY ARE AN ENEMY OF THE CLIQUE!!!111!!1!ONE!!!111ELEVEN!
…I may have alarmed a fellow coworker by actually laughing out loud at this post while I was hiding in the office locker room.
It’s fine. Everything is fine. Pay no attention to the sounds of random laughter filtering through the doors to the ladies’ room.
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The thing about microaggressions like that example is that they are rarely, if ever, isolated. People who do that tend to either target more than one person, or escalate their behavior toward the person they’re already targeting (if they haven’t already). It’s good to know as staff because there are players that are extraordinarily good about not quite doing any one thing enough to get banned, but that, when you can have a look at their range of behaviors, it becomes clear they really should be.
And lest people think I am a hypocrite that is upset because I got banned yet as staff of a game, I am not shy about using my own banhammer:
I’m not here because I am horrified about Ganymede having gone on a banning rampage (except when she banned @farfalla because Macha was being manipulative, that was super fucked up). I am not upset over being banned and I completely deserved mine. You do not call people clowns living in clown town and not expect to very soon lose access.
I am here because I think Derp and his current team are bad for the hobby. Victim shaming and whatever authoritarian power grab happened over there are some of the WORST aspects of this hobby and watching this happen in real time after hearing about it happening on various games is wild. I’m not mad over the bans. I’m mad that the worst the hobby has to offer has been given a safe space to continue to spread toxicity and ‘hide’ from the well-deserved consequences of their fucked up actions. (Looking right at you, Hella)
I, on the other hand, am mad about the bans. Less that they happened, as that was shitty and enough reason that Gany should not be admin anymore, but I recognize it was heat of the moment panic and anger, and more because they were upheld. There was a lot of noise about mistakes being made, accepting responsibility, etc, etc, but barely even a token effort, if that, to do anything to rectify the situation.
Hot take, every single ban should have been reversed. Yes, every single damn one, even the ones that probably deserved it, even the ones that asked for it. Even Tempest, who should have caught a ban fucking years ago. That situation was sparked by two abysmally bad decisions, and spiraled out of control entirely because Gany refused to listen to anyone and then panicked. Did some people deserve to get banned from how they responded to that? Probably. Don’t care. If you say it’s on your head, then it’s on your head, and taking responsibility means accepting that you actually did do something wrong, which means you should make an effort to right said wrong, or at the very least mitigate the fallout from your actions.
It’s actually worse that a handful of bans were reversed instead of all of them, because they were so few, and so unevenly decided, that it’s blatantly obvious this was used, after the fact, to scoot a bunch of people off the site they (particularly derp) didn’t like. Going on and on and on about The Clique
only proves this is the case, because none of the bans handed down were because of that. There wasn’t some weird sweep of the userbase that determined whether or not someone was too mean girl for a non-Hogpit MSB, that wasn’t why the bans happened. It was pure opportunism. It annoys me that they’re constantly misrepresenting it, but I guess it’s a bit awkward to claim you’re the voice of the community and against people being mean and exclusive when you’ve just conducted an after-the-fact purge of people you don’t like.In any case, I figured I was probably leaving once I woke up and saw all of that (I said as much over there), but my final decision came when I realized just how fucking unpleasant and unwelcoming it was going to be - and was already becoming - for anyone remotely friendly with anyone who was gone, for (ironically) anyone not in their new in-group, and for anyone who was going to be critical of decisions made in the past or going forward. People were already violating the new rules in order to tell people they weren’t wanted, and to shut up and gtfo, so I did indeed shut up and gtfo. No regrets on that. It’s so fucking joyless over there now.
