A conversation that needs to be had

[Shellhound]

With this newest war the subject of OOC/IC has been brought up, with the other threads it's usually brought up in a way to blame others, spread propaganda, or talked about in the context of the situation. With this thread I'd like to step away from all of that and have an actual discussion on OOC/IC and how we as a community should treat it. I believe this is something that needs to be talked about, anyone who's played (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways) or eRepublik knows what it's like when the lines between the game and RL get blurred. For clarification on that, personally speaking I've made several RL friends from the game, this is not what I'm talking about however, I'm specifically talking about when someone takes their IC issues with someone and bring in their RL problems as a means to insult, discredit, or harass them. There are levels to this just like with anything else, sometimes RL gets brought in as a joke, jokes about age, sexual preferences, the sexual activity of their mothers, etc. Now this, while sometimes annoying, is not inherently bad in my opinion. This is normally the type of behavior you'd find among friends, it's not one that I find to be particularly troubling, when it gets to be a problem is when it turns from a few jokes here and there to actual harassment. Players repeatedly or viciously insulting others on the OWF, IRC, skype, whatever.

 

Now, an in-game context this is pretty much expected to happen. While it can be annoying, you can't really stop people from doing this and I personally wouldn't want to. When it gets into OOC though, that's when it becomes not only hurtful, but dangerous as well. When this sort of OOC trolling becomes tolerated and accepted by the community it starts to open the door for terrible things to happen. In a conversation last night with Oblige we talked about OOC trolling in some of the other games we've played, he mentioned that someone in eRep had to go so far as to get a restraining order, in (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways) there were issues such as biodad and things that I personally just don't want to get into here due to how dark they are. I don't want this community to have to go through issues like that, while our community is routinely criticized (generally by our own community) for trollishness I'd like for us to be above OOC attacks on each other, because I have seen how nasty it can get. If you think this issue with Mensa or even Ashlands post was bad, that was nothing. It does get worse. I think we as a community need to have a discussion on this and bring it out into the light, do people see OOC attacks as an issue, is it something that we can do something about, what's an acceptable response from alliances when another alliance starts going OOC, etc.

[Oblige]

Full support. I am not sure on the appropriate levels of response, but I do know that if the community wants to elevate itself beyond what was de rigueur in those other games it needs to self police. 

[Kim Jong-Il]

You had me at

 

 

 

"the sexual activity of their mothers"

[Saruman]

I agree

[Buorhann]

Like I stated before, with the individuals involved - I expected better. It was all fun and games with the back and forth ad war leading up to this conflict, but going OOC with the personal attack ad was stepping over the line.

 

We may not like each other in the game, but it needs to stay in game.

[Shellhound]

I'd prefer if we tried to stay away from the current events, while theyre certainly relevant I think by bringing them up the thread will only devolve unto a multi page monstrosity of people insulting each other.

[Buorhann]

Fair enough.

[Magicboyd25]

I agree with this. I don't want to see it and I bet a lot of others don't either. People can get heated but there definitely should be a line drawn morally and physically. 

[Obongo the Paultifex]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=urcqQC02YbY

[Spite]

What can you say, some people are just like that. In any game you get people who will stoop to personal attacks at any opportunity, because that's how they roll. Mensa has a fair share of people who are dicks, as does any group. What you need is for alliance leaders to actually punish members who break the convention- instead of just apologising or ignoring it. Unfortunately I can't see that happening. Once someone (no names mentioned) is already thought of by 90% of the game as a bit of a tool, they've got nothing to lose from continuing to behave that way in terms of "damage to their rep".

[Shellhound]

That's the thing, I believe that members who do go into ooc should be kicked from their alliance, maybe not the first time around but if it's a repeated problem then certainly. And if an alliance does condone that sort of behavior it should have political repurcussions. It should be known that that kind of behavior is unacceptable and we will self police if nessecary.

[James II]

I think an equally important question is what is an OOC attack? Was someones mother discussed? Was someone threatened? Was someone hacked? Was someone blackmailed or coerced?

Or is an OOC attack anything OOC? This latter seems to be what people are leaning towards. 

If you make resources available, they are going to get used. If there is nothing threatening or abusive done to a person who makes OOC information available there is no "OOC offense" done.

 

[Shellhound]

It's something me and a few others are talking about in private atm, when I get off work tonight I'll expand on some of the things we've discussed and also bring up a few suggestions.

[James II]

It's something me and a few others are talking about in private atm, when I get off work tonight I'll expand on some of the things we've discussed and also bring up a few suggestions.

Sound like Donald Trump "We have some fantastic people work on a fantastic plan."

[Speaker Faris Wheeler]

Sound like Donald Trump "We have some fantastic people work on a fantastic plan."

Hallehlua

[Jodo]

Nerd.

[Shellhound]

Sound like Donald Trump "We have some fantastic people work on a fantastic plan."

I am pretty fantastic, I know.

[Speaker Faris Wheeler]

nvm

Edited August 22, 2015 by Donald Trump

[Tenages]

Ultimately, the community is not going to be capable of policing this shit itself. OOC/IC should absolutely be kept separate, but frankly the burden of making sure it's kept that way is on the shoulders of administration and staff. As long as it's tolerated by game staff, you're going to have players, or even whole alliances are going to flame, to troll, and to use OOC shit in an IC way.

 

Either there's strict enforcement of rules against flaming, baiting, trolling, etc., and a strict policing of the IC/OOC line by the staff, or there isn't and that sort of behavior will continue to spread. It's that simple.

[Wayne]

Ultimately, the community is not going to be capable of policing this !@#$ itself. OOC/IC should absolutely be kept separate, but frankly the burden of making sure it's kept that way is on the shoulders of administration and staff. As long as it's tolerated by game staff, you're going to have players, or even whole alliances are going to flame, to troll, and to use OOC !@#$ in an IC way.

 

Either there's strict enforcement of rules against flaming, baiting, trolling, etc., and a strict policing of the IC/OOC line by the staff, or there isn't and that sort of behavior will continue to spread. It's that simple.

 

Unless it's posted on these forums, in game or on the PnW IRC channel, there isn't a great deal Admin can do.  If the 'ad' been sent to print in either of those formats I assume Sheepy would have took appropriate action to restrict it.

 

It's pie in the sky thinking to assume that the community is able to police itself.  Internet communities are not known for their level headedness and maturity!

[James II]

Ultimately, the community is not going to be capable of policing this !@#$ itself. OOC/IC should absolutely be kept separate, but frankly the burden of making sure it's kept that way is on the shoulders of administration and staff. As long as it's tolerated by game staff, you're going to have players, or even whole alliances are going to flame, to troll, and to use OOC !@#$ in an IC way.

 

Either there's strict enforcement of rules against flaming, baiting, trolling, etc., and a strict policing of the IC/OOC line by the staff, or there isn't and that sort of behavior will continue to spread. It's that simple.

Anyone can interpret just about anything as flaming, baiting, and trolling. On a certain level, flaming, trolling, and baiting is a part of the game. We goad each other, and antagonize each other between wars because it keeps us entertained. Aside from banning all posting, there's nothing you can do about it.

 

There is a HUGE difference however, between actually threatening, bad mouthing, and harassing versus goading "haha we're coming for you so and so" "So and So alliance sucks at fighting haha" "Look at this battle report."

 

The argument that keeps resonating is "OOC has no place IC blurred lines blah blah blah." If no privacy was invaded, no one was bad mouthed, and no one was threatened, no abuse has been done. 

 

 

Unless it's posted on these forums, in game or on the PnW IRC channel, there isn't a great deal Admin can do.  If the 'ad' been sent to print in either of those formats I assume Sheepy would have took appropriate action to restrict it.

 

It's pie in the sky thinking to assume that the community is able to police itself.  Internet communities are not known for their level headedness and maturity!

"Self-Policing" wouldn't work. What was right or wrong would be entirely up to the dominant sphere. Any police action taken by the membership is a matter of convenience to their self.

[Ayayay]

I'd prefer if we tried to stay away from the current events, while theyre certainly relevant I think by bringing them up the thread will only devolve unto a multi page monstrosity of people insulting each other.

Bring it.

 

Someone please post the ad everyone is !@#$ing about so I can make fun of you all for being pathetic !@#$ who need to grow a pair.

[Crowley]

Self-policing will not do anything. 

 

Self-policing does not stop people from stealing, from hacking, from running exploits, etc... If self-policing actually worked this thread would not exist because nothing would have happened for this thread to need to be created. 

[Shellhound]

People say self policing doesn't work but I fail to see how it wouldn't for the most part, the mods hands are basically tied outside of forums and pw irc (which they really don't even moderate from what I can tell) thus the only remaining options are to set a community standard that we expect alliances to uphold or just throw our hands in the air, say it can't be done and let that level of trolling take place.

 

The idea that I've had is similar in regards to a Geneva like treaty, whether it be on paper or just a general understanding that alliances have between each other. We would need to work out a scale on the various degrees of ooc attacks and also suitable actions for them. I would say that something like ashlands post in the mensa thread would be about a 5 on a scale of 1-10, at that level the most that should be done imo is that the alliance that the member is in talks to them and let's them know that the sort of behavior isn't one that's condoned both by them and the community at large. 1-3 would be fairly innocent things that don't nessecarily require any sort of repercussions, this would be mild jokes though they are technically ooc, 4-6 would be like I mentioned above, 7-8 would be the same sort of behavior as 4-6 but would be repeated offenses by the same player. This is where both alliances would need to talk and try to sort out the differences and also where removing said member should be considered an option. 9-10 is where things start to get serious, either it's an individual or multiple people within the alliance comitting ooc attacks/insults and the alliance refuses to do anything about it, or its an attack by a player so awful that it seriously hurts someone else, this is where things like biodad and what not would be. At this level an alliance would be considering war, and I'd also encourage the allies of the offending alliance to not intervene. Its going to be hard to convince alliances not to come to an ally aid but I think it's worth talking about at least.

[Shellhound]

Self-policing will not do anything.

 

Self-policing does not stop people from stealing, from hacking, from running exploits, etc... If self-policing actually worked this thread would not exist because nothing would have happened for this thread to need to be created.

Exploiting the game is far different than what we're talking about, we're talking about ooc insults/threats. Not site security. The reason why were having this discussion is because we haven't really tried self policing and it's not an issue moderation is really equipped to handle.