"Does not play well with others..."
Jan. 29th, 2003 01:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tugrikThere's an hour of my life I wish I could get back and do something productive with. I just spent a little while reading the overabundance of screaming-pissed threads over on the ADV-Rider forum. Evidently the place is imploding, and all it took was a tiny little external reality check.
The board has become dominated over the last year by one of the sub-forums, called "JoMomma". It's the screw-around-and-rant spillover area. It's run the gamut of everything from smutty to political to racially insensitive to sexist and then back around again for more. For the most part I avoid it and live on the other, more interesting subfourms -- the ones about trip reports, equipment, ride planning, etc. Even with all the good stuff in the other forums, the critical mass of JoMomma has finally started to spill over everywhere and the board was waaaay beyond the healthy point of Content vs. Noise. The board-owner let this go on far too long because he's actually got a Real Life to lead; I can totally appreciate his position, having been in it myself on various forums and/or Mucks that have had this same class of problem.
Most folks like me just kind of ignored it and stuck to the good bits... so those entrenched in the JoMomma forum revved up to new levels of depravity while we weren't watching (or caring). Then one of our members, a rather stern but honorable fellow I got to meet on more than one good ride, was up at the local biker's hangout named Alice's when he got the reality check. He met two GS1150 riders he'd never met before, and as usual asked them if they'd heard of ADV-Rider, and if they wanted to come drop by.
They both said they had -- and in fact, were lurkers there. They both said, however, that they'd pretty much pegged the site as a hate-board full of petty, thuggish "Look At Us We're Studly Jerks" biking idiots, and they were more than glad to stop visiting it and go on to the other GS-rider places like Micapeak. The impression was given in a short amount of time that the site was pretty much full of intolerant,inconfident males who were lashing out at folks since they were unhappy with themselves.
They rode off to go enjoy their ride without worrying about it... but the ADVRider fellow came back and reported what he just heard on the forum. That post was a test-tap against status-quo of the board... which was apparently fragile enough that it immediately cracked, and within 48 hours is showing a possibility of completely shattering. Already two moderators have resigned, one long-term "Regular" did a full net-removal (deleted all his posts, threads, and his account), and the remaining troublemakers are lashing out at each other trying to staple the blame on anybody but themselves. The whole time the site admin, back from a 90 hour workweek, just takes one look at it and sighs and shakes his head, making vague grumbles about nuking big gobs of the place if it's not died down when he comes back after a good nap.
I like the folks I've met via the board. It's led me to do some incredible things, biker-wise. But, at the same time, I realize it's mostly a testosterone playground that's got way too many folks that could use a good boot to the head. Like a group of afterschool bullies they've driven off many people, including a few locals I know like Timberwoof... but now that they got a good look in the mirror they're lashing out 'cause they don't like what they see. I think I'll just move that URL to the bottom of my 'to visit' page for a few weeks and come back after all the dust settles. I hope something's there when I return.
Why don't I stick around and try to help fix and save it? Well, I've already got enough administrative hassles with exactly the same thing over on FM.
In FM's case, it's known as the West Corner of the Park... in specific, when the gamer-geeks and Night Crew take it over. Much like ADVRider and it's way-too-busy board owner letting the JoMomma forum swell up until it threatened to topple his board, the behaviors going on in WCotP, especially at night, have gotten far too annoying for far too long, and the admins (of which I'm one) really haven't done enough about it. I'm probably more guilty than most, as I made a big effort to help it a while ago, but just let it lax as I started having less and less time to get on the muck in the late-evenings.
To generalize the problem, it's that the WCotP is considered the 'foyer' of the muck. It's the center of the virtual topology, where new characters and guests are first released into the world. It's also the center of two major cross streets and a main destination on most teleport and taxi lists. Consider it a 'town center'. Many diverse people end up in this space. Some are new (guests and new characters). Some are just out to be seen (it's a good public meeting spot) and want to roleplay. Others, and here's the problem, are the 'regulars'. The regulars are usually gamer types ranting on about the kind of things you see in Penny Arcade or pick the videogame-forum-of-your-choice. They've developed a bit of a loose friend-group and a heirarchy of social interaction. They're not quite as cohesive as an actual gang of bullies or anything, but they definately have put together some social-norms that are anything but newbie friendly.
In specific, they tend to stomp on anything they don't care for. It's a *anthropomorphic fandom muck* for fark's-sake, and it's perfectly normal for people to roleplay. However, if someone comes out and tries to do it, all the regulars pounce on them. Many of them think they're helping stamp out smut, as unforunately too many people confuse online sexual interaction for roleplay... something we don't allow in the public PG13 areas like WCotP. Others just hate the noise of someone trying to be playful and fanciful in the middle of their BEST GAME EVAR!1!! chat. Most of them, while they won't admit it, are out to impress each other with just how 'in' they can be. One or more of the social leaders will start a trend (such as the TALK IN ALL BADLY TYPED L33T CAPS, jeffK style) or spread a meme (such as 'all roleplayers are stupid oversexed idiots, ghey, and must be bashed') and the rest of the sheep will follow along. Sometimes it takes weeks, other times months.
As a result, whenever a wiz isn't around the WCotP is usually staked-and-claimed as turf by this nebulous group. Most of the time they're just passing the hours rattling on about games, which is harmless... but the moment someone not in their cluster shows up, it's like throwing meat to dogs. PG13 is regularly broken (yay, swearing), guests abused, and even the harmless and fully-PG roleplay sorts get driven off by attitude or spam-drowning. Each individual action by each individual person usually isn't all that bad -- but as a group they get a seriously in-control vibe going. They know it, feel it... and love it. It's addictive, like being on any 'in' crowd is. It's easy to see why this becomes self-reinforcing. If you show up and help them bash on the newbies... hey, you're part of the 'cool people' now. Much better than being one of those new people getting bashed.
This really sucks because the WCotP is what most newbies see first... and therefore, this behavior is seen as the norm for the whole of the muck.
This problem has been here off and on for years, literally. It's so entrenched that there is no easy solution. Mix in the fact that FM is run by volunteers who pretty much want to stay out of the players' ways and Just Let them Play, and it's again easy to see how this problem can escalate. For the most part we don't enjoy whapping down players, and the 'easy fix' of simply nuking everybody involved (for a while or permanently) just isn't palatable within our developed administrative style. When lines are crossed we do throw people offline, but it's few and far between. There's a lot of hope with each individual whapping that folks will get a clue and clean up their act... but we never really whap enough of them at the same time to break up the feeling of self-empowerment that group bullying/baiting brings.
There are times I fear FM crumbling from things like this, if they're let go way too long. Sure, the WCotP isn't that big of a deal in comparison to the huge size of the rest of the muck and the playerbase. But at the same time -- we're no longer #1, and haven't been for a while. Tapestries and other sites now have huge playerbases... and from what I've been told, far less rules/restrictions. What gets me, however, is a situation much like got my fellow ADVRider when he was up at Alice's.
I've met people on other servers (HLM, There, etc) and in RL (at conventions) that I've asked, "Hey, are you on FurryMUCK?" More than once I've gotten an answer that whapped me good, right across the muzzle. Sometimes it's "ugh, no, it's full of jerks. I showed up as a guest and got treated like crap.". Other times it's "oh, that place? They've got too many rules and they want my damn RL info before I can play. Noooo way.". What used to be the most open-format, open-acceptance place, muckwise, is now seen by some as a bit of a nazi-box with a spiked-pit for a welcome mat. That makes me a bit upset, as it means there's a lot of new players out there that might have done wonderful things in FM's world if they'd not been driven off before they even got started.
Sure, if you're already a long-time player and you spend your time with buddies off in your own areas -- this isn't a problem. You know the good parts and enjoy them. It just sucks in that it makes a place stagnant. FM was far more interesting in its first 4 or 5 years, as the crowds increased and changed. Nowadays it's really hard for a newbie to get into the swing of things without being turned away, or at least turned bitter.
There's no easy solution. Our vast mass of rules and character-creation restrictions have been built up over time like a thousand little scars from a thousand tiny pinpricks. Do we get harsh and start smiting folks until clues are gained, at the expense of possibly wrecking most of a decade of built up rule and precedent? (well, we DO have the 'right to refuse service...' clause, but we've never used it so unilaterally.) Do we start losing RL free time and assign shifts to wizards to simply sit there in the park and glower at people until they freakin' get the clue they can't misbehave -- they're being watched? Or do we just let it keep going, only firing at the rare misbehaving player that actually sticks their head up far enough past the line to give us a clear shot, doing nothing about the big gang of toe-the-line park-denizens that consider the place "theirs"?
Eh. It's probably not all that bad. It just seems like it some nights. It also sucks that I know and like most of the folks involved. I just wish they'd go get clues on their own instead of pushing us admins until we force 'em to.
The board has become dominated over the last year by one of the sub-forums, called "JoMomma". It's the screw-around-and-rant spillover area. It's run the gamut of everything from smutty to political to racially insensitive to sexist and then back around again for more. For the most part I avoid it and live on the other, more interesting subfourms -- the ones about trip reports, equipment, ride planning, etc. Even with all the good stuff in the other forums, the critical mass of JoMomma has finally started to spill over everywhere and the board was waaaay beyond the healthy point of Content vs. Noise. The board-owner let this go on far too long because he's actually got a Real Life to lead; I can totally appreciate his position, having been in it myself on various forums and/or Mucks that have had this same class of problem.
Most folks like me just kind of ignored it and stuck to the good bits... so those entrenched in the JoMomma forum revved up to new levels of depravity while we weren't watching (or caring). Then one of our members, a rather stern but honorable fellow I got to meet on more than one good ride, was up at the local biker's hangout named Alice's when he got the reality check. He met two GS1150 riders he'd never met before, and as usual asked them if they'd heard of ADV-Rider, and if they wanted to come drop by.
They both said they had -- and in fact, were lurkers there. They both said, however, that they'd pretty much pegged the site as a hate-board full of petty, thuggish "Look At Us We're Studly Jerks" biking idiots, and they were more than glad to stop visiting it and go on to the other GS-rider places like Micapeak. The impression was given in a short amount of time that the site was pretty much full of intolerant,inconfident males who were lashing out at folks since they were unhappy with themselves.
They rode off to go enjoy their ride without worrying about it... but the ADVRider fellow came back and reported what he just heard on the forum. That post was a test-tap against status-quo of the board... which was apparently fragile enough that it immediately cracked, and within 48 hours is showing a possibility of completely shattering. Already two moderators have resigned, one long-term "Regular" did a full net-removal (deleted all his posts, threads, and his account), and the remaining troublemakers are lashing out at each other trying to staple the blame on anybody but themselves. The whole time the site admin, back from a 90 hour workweek, just takes one look at it and sighs and shakes his head, making vague grumbles about nuking big gobs of the place if it's not died down when he comes back after a good nap.
I like the folks I've met via the board. It's led me to do some incredible things, biker-wise. But, at the same time, I realize it's mostly a testosterone playground that's got way too many folks that could use a good boot to the head. Like a group of afterschool bullies they've driven off many people, including a few locals I know like Timberwoof... but now that they got a good look in the mirror they're lashing out 'cause they don't like what they see. I think I'll just move that URL to the bottom of my 'to visit' page for a few weeks and come back after all the dust settles. I hope something's there when I return.
Why don't I stick around and try to help fix and save it? Well, I've already got enough administrative hassles with exactly the same thing over on FM.
In FM's case, it's known as the West Corner of the Park... in specific, when the gamer-geeks and Night Crew take it over. Much like ADVRider and it's way-too-busy board owner letting the JoMomma forum swell up until it threatened to topple his board, the behaviors going on in WCotP, especially at night, have gotten far too annoying for far too long, and the admins (of which I'm one) really haven't done enough about it. I'm probably more guilty than most, as I made a big effort to help it a while ago, but just let it lax as I started having less and less time to get on the muck in the late-evenings.
To generalize the problem, it's that the WCotP is considered the 'foyer' of the muck. It's the center of the virtual topology, where new characters and guests are first released into the world. It's also the center of two major cross streets and a main destination on most teleport and taxi lists. Consider it a 'town center'. Many diverse people end up in this space. Some are new (guests and new characters). Some are just out to be seen (it's a good public meeting spot) and want to roleplay. Others, and here's the problem, are the 'regulars'. The regulars are usually gamer types ranting on about the kind of things you see in Penny Arcade or pick the videogame-forum-of-your-choice. They've developed a bit of a loose friend-group and a heirarchy of social interaction. They're not quite as cohesive as an actual gang of bullies or anything, but they definately have put together some social-norms that are anything but newbie friendly.
In specific, they tend to stomp on anything they don't care for. It's a *anthropomorphic fandom muck* for fark's-sake, and it's perfectly normal for people to roleplay. However, if someone comes out and tries to do it, all the regulars pounce on them. Many of them think they're helping stamp out smut, as unforunately too many people confuse online sexual interaction for roleplay... something we don't allow in the public PG13 areas like WCotP. Others just hate the noise of someone trying to be playful and fanciful in the middle of their BEST GAME EVAR!1!! chat. Most of them, while they won't admit it, are out to impress each other with just how 'in' they can be. One or more of the social leaders will start a trend (such as the TALK IN ALL BADLY TYPED L33T CAPS, jeffK style) or spread a meme (such as 'all roleplayers are stupid oversexed idiots, ghey, and must be bashed') and the rest of the sheep will follow along. Sometimes it takes weeks, other times months.
As a result, whenever a wiz isn't around the WCotP is usually staked-and-claimed as turf by this nebulous group. Most of the time they're just passing the hours rattling on about games, which is harmless... but the moment someone not in their cluster shows up, it's like throwing meat to dogs. PG13 is regularly broken (yay, swearing), guests abused, and even the harmless and fully-PG roleplay sorts get driven off by attitude or spam-drowning. Each individual action by each individual person usually isn't all that bad -- but as a group they get a seriously in-control vibe going. They know it, feel it... and love it. It's addictive, like being on any 'in' crowd is. It's easy to see why this becomes self-reinforcing. If you show up and help them bash on the newbies... hey, you're part of the 'cool people' now. Much better than being one of those new people getting bashed.
This really sucks because the WCotP is what most newbies see first... and therefore, this behavior is seen as the norm for the whole of the muck.
This problem has been here off and on for years, literally. It's so entrenched that there is no easy solution. Mix in the fact that FM is run by volunteers who pretty much want to stay out of the players' ways and Just Let them Play, and it's again easy to see how this problem can escalate. For the most part we don't enjoy whapping down players, and the 'easy fix' of simply nuking everybody involved (for a while or permanently) just isn't palatable within our developed administrative style. When lines are crossed we do throw people offline, but it's few and far between. There's a lot of hope with each individual whapping that folks will get a clue and clean up their act... but we never really whap enough of them at the same time to break up the feeling of self-empowerment that group bullying/baiting brings.
There are times I fear FM crumbling from things like this, if they're let go way too long. Sure, the WCotP isn't that big of a deal in comparison to the huge size of the rest of the muck and the playerbase. But at the same time -- we're no longer #1, and haven't been for a while. Tapestries and other sites now have huge playerbases... and from what I've been told, far less rules/restrictions. What gets me, however, is a situation much like got my fellow ADVRider when he was up at Alice's.
I've met people on other servers (HLM, There, etc) and in RL (at conventions) that I've asked, "Hey, are you on FurryMUCK?" More than once I've gotten an answer that whapped me good, right across the muzzle. Sometimes it's "ugh, no, it's full of jerks. I showed up as a guest and got treated like crap.". Other times it's "oh, that place? They've got too many rules and they want my damn RL info before I can play. Noooo way.". What used to be the most open-format, open-acceptance place, muckwise, is now seen by some as a bit of a nazi-box with a spiked-pit for a welcome mat. That makes me a bit upset, as it means there's a lot of new players out there that might have done wonderful things in FM's world if they'd not been driven off before they even got started.
Sure, if you're already a long-time player and you spend your time with buddies off in your own areas -- this isn't a problem. You know the good parts and enjoy them. It just sucks in that it makes a place stagnant. FM was far more interesting in its first 4 or 5 years, as the crowds increased and changed. Nowadays it's really hard for a newbie to get into the swing of things without being turned away, or at least turned bitter.
There's no easy solution. Our vast mass of rules and character-creation restrictions have been built up over time like a thousand little scars from a thousand tiny pinpricks. Do we get harsh and start smiting folks until clues are gained, at the expense of possibly wrecking most of a decade of built up rule and precedent? (well, we DO have the 'right to refuse service...' clause, but we've never used it so unilaterally.) Do we start losing RL free time and assign shifts to wizards to simply sit there in the park and glower at people until they freakin' get the clue they can't misbehave -- they're being watched? Or do we just let it keep going, only firing at the rare misbehaving player that actually sticks their head up far enough past the line to give us a clear shot, doing nothing about the big gang of toe-the-line park-denizens that consider the place "theirs"?
Eh. It's probably not all that bad. It just seems like it some nights. It also sucks that I know and like most of the folks involved. I just wish they'd go get clues on their own instead of pushing us admins until we force 'em to.
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no subject
Date: 2003-01-29 01:41 am (UTC)I suppose one solution would be to move some stuff around, so that the WCoTP is not the nexus that it is now, or make it RP only, and chase the non-RP folks to a place just off the WCoTP. I don't mind Rl talk, in fact it's usually what I engage in, but it's probably better that the RL talk is relegated to a specific spot apart from a main gathering point. The Tavern on Tapestries is a specific RL chat spot, but it's not the welcome mat that the Park is. That would likely keep the acidicy to a dull roar, as the 'too-cool-for-you' crowd isn't big into the RP.
Can you log park conversations? Maybe a posting in the park that dissing roleplayers is not to be tolerated, and punishments escalate from a slap on the rist to being banned from a certain period of time.
no subject
Date: 2003-01-29 02:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-01-29 02:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-01-29 06:54 am (UTC)As for me, I refuse to let them bother me. I'm going to hang out. I'm going to roleplay, I'm going to be affectionate and have fun with my friends, well within the rules, and if they don't like it, they can kiss my shapeshifting little Drow butt.
no subject
Date: 2003-01-29 07:04 am (UTC)I've been on FM for about 6 years now. Not much compared to some, but during that time I've been lucky enough to have made some friends and a huge list of regular acquaintances. Some of which have become good friends in real life as well. The work you and the other wizzes have put in behind the scenes is defiantly appreciated.
Again, thanks. You're work has allowed more than one good community to grow.
no subject
Date: 2003-01-29 07:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-01-29 07:22 am (UTC)One command I had requested was a 'votesweep' command; on a majority vote, a disruptive fur could be swept out of a room for a period of time. But then the Night Crew would votesweep all non-Night Crew members. You can't win.
-- Shanya Almafeta, still mucking despite them.
Fire and sword.
Date: 2003-01-29 07:26 am (UTC)The same principle applies to cases like Random or (to a lesser extent) Dragonoix (and, presumably, Lumpy). Following conservative guidelines prolongs whatever problem exists.
Or just give Points and Slipstream wizbits again and a license to LART as they see fit };>. That'll solve at least some of the problem =^.^=.
I'd suggest implementing something like the vote-to-sweep program I proposed, but that's too easily subverted.
Regards,
-Deuce
no subject
Date: 2003-01-29 07:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-01-29 07:28 am (UTC)As I'm sure you're aware, this is a big problem. I know FM has to require an email address as part of age verification and making sure that the person creating the account doesn't have 6 or 7 alts laying around taking up db space. But.. the admin has gone a bit far, I think, on the rules for email addresses. I cannot use my legitimate ISP's email address to create a character. I cannot use my actual email address (we run our own web and email servers) to create a character. If I wanted to create a character, and I didn't have a work email, I'd be screwed. Or I'd have to borrow an address on a "legitimate" domain and use that person's registration information, which kind of defeats the purpose there.
It's not an easy solution, but I know of three people that gave up on creating characters on FurryMuck because they got rejections for 'non-valid' email address for every email account they had.
There's a lot more I could say, but.. I don't know the whole situation. I'm sure you guys are doing the best you can.. Sometimes it's easy to overlook small solutions.
My 2 bits on the Night Crew and thier behavior.
Date: 2003-01-29 07:53 am (UTC)individually, they aren't that much to fear. But
then again, so is the individual wandering dog.
Get a few together and that pack mentality kicks
in and they become very dangerous. I have seen
them savage individuals who just happened to be
in the wrong place at the wrong time, and even
those who were not even there to even try to
defend themselves. Even driving some of thier
victims almost to the point of leaving FM
entirely.
I have seen two of their number crash another
MUCK, because they didn't like it, while the
rest cheered them on like conquering heroes.
They publically state that they are not even
fans of the furry genre, and don't even like
furries or the fandom and its various elements.
The y have stated that they would go elsewhere
but they don't know where, or how to make
thier own area on the MUCK. So they stake
out the park as thier own.
They appear to be at thier worst when there are
no wizzes about to counter them when they do
thes e things. Perhaps that is why they do these
things at these hrs, maybe they figure that
they will never be caught, or reported then.
IMHO, the best course of action would be to give
them enough rope and watch them hang themselves.
One day someone is go ing to get savaged by them,
and this person is going to report them and
have a log of the whole thing. Then you will
have all the evidence needed to act against the
group and make and an example of all of them in
one swift blow. Videotaped rioters get caught,
the same thing applies with these people and
logs of thier actions.
--Dancougar.
“““{
Part of the solution...
Date: 2003-01-29 08:57 am (UTC)I'm hoping I can get the place going again and keep it on the WA for most of each day by having round-the-clock moderation (or as much of the clock as can be covered). We'll see what comes of it. :)
no subject
Date: 2003-01-29 09:30 am (UTC)Then I either slip off to the artist hangout - which has its own share of stoopids, but at least they're not such a loud pack of aggressive stupids - or home, or something.
I think this sort of thing happens to every wide forum after a while. I'm a moderator on the VCL forum, and while we try to keep it mostly useful, dedicated mostly to issues relating to making art or to the archive, there's one part that's just a festering canker of idiocy: the 'Introductions' forum, which Ch'marr had created out of frustration with newbs having the urge to do a 'Hi there' post.
Role-playing is banned on the forum, because, well, it ends up just being utterly stupid, and causes a lot of reloading that wastes even more bandwidth. Except for the Introductions forum. Because none of the mods want to look at the damn thing.
Next time we're in the Park, poke me and I'll take my larger form; we can start eating Night Crew.
Re: Part of the solution...
Date: 2003-01-29 09:34 am (UTC)We already have several such areas. The problem is not that they don't exist, but that the Park isn't one of them. Because it's central to many of the transport systems and because it's where guests and newly-created furs appear, it's going to remain the welcoming ground.
I've already outlined my favourite solution in a previous post =^.^=. A less drastic alternative would simply be to @banish anyone who destroys whatever the desired atmosphere is semi-permanently. That would force the night crew or the hostile-entity-du-jour to lurk elsewhere.
Regards,
-Deuce
no subject
Date: 2003-01-29 09:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-01-29 10:02 am (UTC)Re: Fire and sword.
Date: 2003-01-29 10:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-01-29 10:10 am (UTC)I guess my biggest gripe is that I am paying for my DSL service. I am paying for the bandwidth my server uses. I pay domain fees, I spend a lot of money to have my email address be tagged 'cheekitty.com'. And that's not legitimate for FurryMuck registration.
I can see not allowing hotmail, yahoo, or whatever. But I fail to see the reasoning behind the policies that make you jump through hoops of fire to get an account.
no subject
Date: 2003-01-29 10:12 am (UTC)If I had to mail in a copy of my driver's liscense, my ISP bill, whatever.. to use a free online service...?
No thank you. You can keep your muck.
no subject
Date: 2003-01-29 10:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-01-29 10:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-01-29 10:22 am (UTC)Re: Fire and sword.
Date: 2003-01-29 10:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-01-29 10:32 am (UTC)Re: Fire and sword.
Date: 2003-01-29 10:34 am (UTC)