paradisaooc | (no subject)

Important Post and Discussion Opportunity
re: HMD, hostility and anonymous

At first this was going to be another mod post written from the sometimes-distant "we" that makes up the mod team, but I had a change of heart when I began to write it. Instead, I am posting this as a personal appeal, written as a mun, as a mod, and most importantly, as someone who loves this game through good or bad. Both Fudgey and Kayla have given their blessings and support on this, and we all feel it needs to be said like this, not sugar-coated, with complete honesty. I think it should be read by everyone, regardless of whether or not you feel you have contributed to either issue or not.

This is not about blaming anyone, or pointing fingers. It is just something that I think we all need to consider. I want everyone to evaluate their own behaviour, and their own behaviour alone.

So, before I digress too much:

On Monday, two things happened.

First, some discussion broke out on

rpanoncomm about how welcoming Paradisa is to new players. As I understand it, we had new players and old players on both sides of the issue. Many feel that the game is increasingly unwelcome to new players, while others believe that Paradisa is very welcoming. I will preface my writing on this subject with the note that I do not feel it is my job, or any mod's job, to police or enact consequences on anything said on non-Paradisa communities. Any time any of us spend on

rpanoncomm ,

roleplaysecrets or any similar communities remove us from our position as moderator: once you leave the sandbox, we are not responsible for you.

However, I am addressing this for two very specific reasons:

a) What could have been a productive and interesting discussion was ruined by hostility.
b) Despite being a game full of sensible and friendly muns, Paradisa now looks like the watering hole for name-slinging, drama-mongering jerks.

Think back to the last time you had a discussion. Maybe you were anxious. Maybe you were excited. Maybe you were optimistic, but worried about what would come of it. If your last discussion went well and everyone was happy in the end, it was probably a very good experience.

If it didn't go well, I promise the presence of one (if not both) things: hostility and incivility.

In a discussion about friendliness and welcoming new muns, being hostile or uncivil is basically the best way to make absolutely everyone feel justified in believing Paradisa to be unfriendly and unwelcoming. It confirms people's worries about us, and worse yet, it gives them grounds to perpetuate a stereotype Paradisa has fumbled under for four years. The worst of all? No one benefits from it. People might get a place to vent, but ultimately, we are no closer to a solution.

In the three-plus years I have been in this game, despite our occasional squabbles, I have never once considered this game to be overall an unfriendly or unwelcoming place. But I also know that we're all human, lines get crossed, and that miscommunication runs rampant at times: just because we do not intend to be unwelcoming or unfriendly, does not mean that we aren't coming across as unwelcoming or unfriendly to some people. Nobody in this game is psychic –– we don't know what anyone else's intentions are until it's too late.

I am choosing to look at it this way: if someone comes to me and tells me that they feel I have been ostracizing them and making them feel unwelcome, it really doesn't matter my excuses are. It may be true that I am busy, or that I didn't notice their post, or that I didn't intend to do it, but because they feel that they have been hurt by my neglect, it would be inappropriate of me to ignore them, or brush off their feelings with excuses. With both feet in the community, a good relationship with other players, and never hurting for CR, I cannot be justified in blaming people who don't have that position for feeling the way they do.

Looking at new muns and saying things like "I am tired of doing introduction posts" and expecting other people to be the welcome wagon all the time is exactly that. It may be true that you are tired of the same intros over and over again, but a little extra effort means a lot to the person on the other end. Even if the character is tired of doing intros, give them a sympathetic moment where they're in the mood to. The turnover rate would be quickly fixed if the effort to include and welcome new players was immediately redoubled. If every new player felt welcome, then maybe we'd have more lasting characters and more muns, and thus more friends both IC and OOC.

I cannot make any of you play with anyone else, but I do want everyone (whether they feel they have contributed to this "unfriendliness" or not) to at least consider what it's like to feel ignored and then have those feelings brushed off and directly ignored. It sucks. It really sucks. Extend a hand out to someone who needs it, or someone who wants it.

The second issue concerned non-constructive criticism on a mun that carried over from HMD to

rpanoncomm and then back to HMD and then back, again, to

rpanoncomm . While the details are irrelevant now, I would like to address HMD and the proper conduct for it, because what happened was both incredibly rude and horribly unproductive.

Take a look at this hierarchy:

courtesy Wikipedia :)

When giving critique, ask yourself this: where do you think your critique falls on the hierarchy? Where does the other person think your critique falls? Again, there is an element of intention vs perception, but have you let emotion colour your point?

HMD is meant to be productive. In the past six months, productive discussion has degraded to personal attacks and unnecessary exchange between unrelated parties three times. It is stressful to be a victim of, it is stressful to moderate, and sometimes it is even stressful to watch. As I said above: the worst of all is that no one benefits from it. People might get a place to vent, but ultimately, we are no closer to a solution.

We're all here to play and have fun. We run HMDs to help smooth out and improve our writing, characterization, and storytelling abilities. Sometimes, we may disagree on what requires work and what doesn't, but we are not in the business of driving people out because of differing opinions, or creating an environment of hostility and defensiveness for any party. We aren't in the business of shaming or intimidating people to do things a particular way, either –– we want to come to a consensus on something.

In all cases, it is better to take the high road. It may feel good to vent and let loose, but it is very important to step away and cool down when we feel that we might be emotionally compromised. Approaching any situation with a level head often changes our perspectives of a situation drastically. If you feel tense, angry, stressed, sick, upset, etc, over a situation, take a break. Wind down for a bit. While anonymity may seem like an excellent opportunity to vent without having to take responsibility for the words we post, others are hurt in the process... and we often feel like jerks in hindsight.

Remember what the Disney rabbit said: "If you can't say anything nice, don't say it at all." And Thumper's mama didn't mean "nice" as in "all positive all the time." She meant you had to speak nicely. You can make a point and still be civil and polite. Want another popular saying? "You get more flies with honey than with vinegar." How about another? "Treat others as you wish to be treated." May I go on? "Respect begets respect." I think I've made my point.

Think about this, too: anonymous doesn't win by majority, because anonymous cannot be fairly counted. It doesn't matter if ten thousand anonymous on multiple communities all agree on something; what matters is how convincing and valid the point is. And if the point is convincing and valid, it doesn't need ANYONE chiming in with "I agree with this." It can stand on its own two legs as-is.

As a community, we are only as strong as our ability to work together, whether we're playing out a plot, running an HMD, or simply threading out a scene. We owe each other good etiquette if we want to maintain and improve our environment.

We will not be turning off the Anonymous feature yet –– to continue the rabbits analogy, this Good Fairy considers next HMD Little Bunny Foo-Foo's very last chance, and then ~~you're all getting turned into goons~~ anonymous will be turned off for a while. How long? Who knows. But we do know that if things get out of hand again, the privilege of using anonymous will be taken away, and the HMD will be friends-locked to members of the community.

Thank you very much for reading; it is very appreciated.

This post is open to discussion on both issues, however, the standard rule applies:

a) This is not about any specific individual. Any comment speaking about or on the behalf of another will be summarily screened and frozen. Everyone speaks for themselves here.

b) Common courtesy applies. Hostility, name-calling and accusations will not be tolerated. Remember the rabbits.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Unfortunately, it's difficult to come by something more convenient than a group chat, because it's a place where a lot of people can be instantaneously chatting with each other. I sincerely doubt anyone was intending to make you feel like you should have been there -- but regardless, I'll try to think of some other solutions in terms of out of chat communication like maybe ... an open chat post on the OOC/YYPL? Like I said, it's a bit difficult to beat an AIM chat in terms of a place for several muns to hang out and plot together ... :|a Maybe more frequent CR/plot memes?

I have to agree that an AIM chat of several muns hanging out and plotting together is an awesome thing. It would be great if that is what chat was usually used for, but that's...idk...never been my experience with it. I've never had any success with talking about plot-related things in chat, back when I used to try. The best I could get was about thirty seconds of attention from a couple muns before the conversation was completely taken over by whatever chat's trend is at the time. It's always been a frustrating and largely fruitless experience, so I've lost any will to try anymore. (again, this goes for other game chats too! Not just para)

And I cant say that I wish that there was a separate chat for actual game-related things, because I think it would end up being neglected.

Maybe a designated time during a certain night or two of the week or something, where people are specially invited to come in and chat, with game-related topics being highly encouraged? idk...
Something to make chat not seem as much of a daunting and unproductive thing, at least some of the time, without ruining the 'fun' of chat for the rest of the week?
I've seen such designated game chat times used in non-lj-rp settings with at least some success, but no idea if something like it would take here.

Yeah, that's true, there ends up being a lot more messing around than plotting, and it's definitely not fair to tell you to wait around until those moments happen. That one night a week designated plotting thing sounds like an interesting idea that I wouldn't be averse to trying, though! Or maybe an entirely separate chat for plotting? HMM ...

Well, I voiced my prediction on the separate chat for plotting thing. I see the usual people hanging around in regular chat all day, with hardly attention given to a plotting one, when the whole point of a plotting one is to throw ideas around to, or look for volunteers among, a substantial group of players.

The one night a week one would at least get everyone in one spot, all at least aware of the message that 'hey, keep your ears open to new (or rarely-seen players) looking to talk about the game

Aaaah my bad, I'm in the middle of making dinner and didn't read as closely as I should have /face in hands

Anyways, we've had a pretty good turnout for chats made for big plots, but if it was open regularly, you're right, it might be a bit slow/empty a lot :( But yeah, I'm not opposed to trying that one night/day a week. The only problem I foresee is, yeah, everyone is in different time zones, like Pan said. Even if we have that option open all day and night, a lot of people will be busy when others aren't, etc. etc.

Yeah, don't want another thing to make people feel excluded, but still feel like something like this might benefit some people who already feel excluded or would want something to more easily talk/plot game-related things?

Mentioned possible solutions to Pan below--

The biggest problem I can see with designated chat times is that we've got people all over the world, so in addition to wacky schedules there can be huge variations in timezones that would likely keep some muns from being able to participate no matter how much they want.

Ideally, I'd like to see it be a whole day/evening. And it also hopefully wouldn't be one of those 'be there or be square!' things either.

For example, the place I saw this implemented had Thursday designated as 'chat day'. Everyone knew that even if chat scares you or normally ignores you, come on in on Thursday! Almost like a big continual game meeting/hang-out/plotting/welcoming newbies session that day.

Edited 2011-01-20 22:01 (UTC)

It sounds like a good idea, but I've seen muns who, due to work or classes or what-have-you, are away from their computer for the entirety of a certain day or couple of days.... And if that wasn't the case, there's still the issue of say, more plotting happening in the evening when most of the North American players are on, leaving out the European/Asian/Australian/etc players. :\

Edited 2011-01-20 22:06 (UTC)

We could switch up which day it was held on every month or so, and still run it all-day?

That might help, but it also might be complicating things. On top of that I just remembered people like Stick, whose computer can't do aim chats at all (I think?).

Yeah, I'd like it to be as non-exclusive as possible, and like I said-- would want it to be a 'if you're not here, you're missing out on something awesome' thing. Hmm.

Maybe that's when an ooc plotting post could follow, maybe summarizing any ideas that were talked about in (any) chat?

I think an ooc post could help a lot. I'm still worried having a lot of plotting happen in chats will exclude people, but some kind of ooc post along with it might lessen that.

I love the idea of an OOC plotting post ... and people could be encouraged to say "So this is stuff that I saw mentioned in chat, anyone who wasn't there interested, too?"

Sort of an OOC version of a certain weekly broadcast. Not that I'm trying to fluff my ego or anything. I ... kinda try not to have one to begin with. :P

I can definitely understand your feelings on chat, as I'm rarely in there myself. No worries about that. I do assure you that most major plot discussion does take place here in the OOC :)

I think instead of a separate plot chat, we could just have plot posts, like we do from time to time in yuuyuupandaland. It would be a lot easier for people with different schedules and time zones to get in on the action, too.

I agree with the plot posts idea, but the chat thing still stands there as kind of daunting, and part of the 'cliquey' stigma.

And yeah, as I said, not for the separate plot chat exactly, just a sort of... invitation for a special 'non-scary and maybe even productive' chat time/day?

Edited 2011-01-20 22:07 (UTC)

I can put up the CR meme more frequently, if people want it more |D or whoever... honestly, I wasn't sure at first that every two months was too much or not. Para is fast enough that maybe we should make it monthly.