Frances

A great majority of the recent lengthy complaint threads I've witnessed are mostly comprised of back and forth between the administration and the complainants. It'd be really difficult to qualify any of it of "irrelevant salt". Pretty much the only "shitstorms" (a.k.a. very long threads in which a large group of people debate) I can recall are those involving Cassie's ban, and that was a forum announcement followed by general threads. I just don't know. If I had to sum this up I'd say it's a choice between long threads that are at a higher chance of reaching a satisfying compromise, or short threads in which the users are at a higher risk of feeling muzzled or ignored.

Also, to address the actual thing, from my point of view. Why do we need to have a blanket rule for this? What does that rule do that simply looking at posts and saying "okay, this is relevant and can stay" or "this is derailing and can be deleted" cannot do?

Welcome back, Delta.

Thanks for pointing it out. Well, huh. I guess if all the other RP is done and there's nobody left but ghosts to complain about this I actually don't really see why anyone should give a damn. It's not like it has any effect on anyone besides these two players. Ignore me, then.

they ignored the evac of their destroyed workplace to flirt tho like in full honesty they would legit die, your space station gets evacuated by a fire it'll probably be a few days before anyone comes to check in again

Should we be removing any possibility for third party contributions (and thus risk making complaints very one-sided), when posts could also be dealt with on a case-by-case basis?

Casual bump, but do we wanna do anything about this? Or are people mostly content/unconcerned with the current state of the complaint section?

Why does this need 'counterplay'? It's already a (slight) reward someone gets for going through a lengthy and difficult process, so it doesn't seem terribly broken (you have to be left alone and immobile for the entire duration of the resist action, and if you're in cuffs your opponent probably has several other advantages over you as well). If there was a way to actually tell by shift+clicking at close range, I think people would go crazy over it and check cuffs whenever they could (unless they were just being inattentive). Much in the same way certain officers make a point to keep a tile's distance from confirmed changelings, even without knowledge of their abilities.

behold the HK-XLVII, model MMCDLVII!

I don't think anyone will get offended at the mention of ERP rape. But comparing something you don't like to it is hilarious in a cringe-inducing way, and honestly bound to derail whatever conversation you're having, because to be frank, seeing someone compare their dislike of paperwork to rape makes for a far more interesting show than whatever initial debate there was going on (especially if it's one few people will be siding with you on). Just a friendly tip.

In an effort to relaunch the discussion on a new avenue, here's something I've been mulling over: Assuming the person/people antagging can come up with a fair and interesting rationale for staging a mass murder, the most evident reason I can see for one to oppose said mass murder would be that it would inconvenience a great amount of people killed. After all, being rolled up on in a hallway and killed by a gankcult isn't fun... or is it? People spend a lot of time waiting and/or making compromises in this game. You might want to play as an operator during a nuke round, but if you don't get picked, that's a round you have to play as something you didn't wanna play as (or wanted to play less as). If you don't like a round type and choose not to play, then it's also an entire round you're sitting out on. Don't get a one-slot job you wanted? Again, another compromise. Yet these don't bother people nearly as much as death seems to. Why is that? Let's throw two examples, which might help get a better understanding of the situation. You are a xenobiologist at work during a regular day. You spend a bit of time chatting with your colleagues, developing new slime-based technologies, and generally seeing to your duties as on any other normal day. Suddenly, an ax-crazed murderer barges into your lab, pulls you out of a locker you're trying to hide in, and chops off your head. You are a xenobiologist at work during a regular day. You spend a bit of time chatting with your colleagues, developing new slime-based technologies, and generally seeing to your duties as on any other normal day, when suddenly, zombies attack. You and your colleagues do your best to barricade yourselves into the xenobio lab, before mounting an expedition to regroup with the remaining survivors of the station. In a hallway, you run into a group of zombies - they overpower you and eat you and your colleagues. These situations have a fair bit in common, namely the fact that in both cases, interaction between antags and the player can be summed up to a simple fight. The antags don't interact with the player directly at all otherwise. Obviously, the first situation is kinda lame. What about the second, however? Is it better? If so, what makes it different, and could this example be used to draw a more general guideline on what makes some murder rampages fun or not?

I dunno how relevant that is but I like how the admin in the OP's PM doesn't give a clear answer to OP's question and then acts condescendingly to him when asked to clarify edit: annnd all good, context is important

I believe Sue is trying to say that both parties are equally at fault. I personally don't see the shitposting presented in this complaint as being terribly offensive - if you're foolish or sensitive enough to take it seriously, it's kinda on you. Like, would anyone actually get genuinely upset because someone jokingly called the fictional cat race they're roleplaying as "rats"? As for the same kind of behavior IC, I do agree that it needs to be looked at, because that does affect the ability of Tajaran players to roleplay (people constantly insulting you in a childish manner is probably not a very constructive depiction of "fantasy racism".)

nope, you made a terrible analogy. I don't really see why ERP-rape has to be involved with discussing paperwork.

Might be nice as a multipurpose remote signaler for antags. Alternatively, what about a signaling implant? Sends out a signal either on a code word (like the explosive implant) or the user's death. But given that signaling devices are mostly used for bombs I don't know if that'd be OP or not.

Just dropping by to say that this kind of stuff should get sent to either character or IC complaints. Not used to justify retaliation at which point everyone on the server is being an idiot. It's just childish and not even that entertaining. As far as roleplay is concerned, I'm not really sure what it brings. But ideally it's the kind of stuff that shouldn't happen - I don't really want to hold it against Tajaran characters if they react to it (acting super pissy at minor stuff is a different problem altogether), but in the end these are not situations we should even be seeing. Like, if you wanna be racist there's cooler ways. If you wanna troll people there's probably cooler ways too.

i don't think that analogy is really relevant because nobody's irl tajarans are being discriminated against so there's that

today, I got to deal with someone who compared enforcing paperwork to raping people with erp and then, somebody else, on the same fucking forums, on the same fucking day, is comparing joking about tajarans to the holocaust what the fuck is it with you people

These are both joke posts (yes, I can 100% assure you on my life that they are). Storyteller's is actually well-written, whereas I think spacevoidagent's has a bit too much cursing and could definitely benefit from a bit more subtlety. While they'll most likely get removed by admins in efforts to "make the forums a nicer place", I want to express I'd be equally amused and horrified if any Tajaran players actually took offense to this. A few weeks/months ago, I would've said I weren't particularly worried, but now, who knows what might happen? Because we can't make fun of fictional species the slightest. The feelings of Tajarans are very srs. edit: yes I'm admitting space's racist jokes are shitty and somebody should probably tell him to step up his game

Well, see, I believe the problem is that Tajarans and Unathis are supposed to occupy an entirely different place in the lore. They're not really comparable to 21st century racism, which is what I assume you're comparing it to. Previously, there was supposed to be an entire undercurrent of anti-Tajaran and Unathi discrimination. Like, I'm pretty sure it was originally intended to be worse than in the deep south. We're speaking 1950s anti-black racism, maybe. Perhaps less "colored bathrooms" but it might be flat out impossible to get a "good" job as a Tajaran or Unathi even if you're above and beyond qualifications (not to mention Tajarans and Unathis would have restricted access to human-level education.) Then, what happened is lore became more progressive, animal aliens started to pop up in pretty much every job slot they originally weren't expected to pop up in (mostly research/medical, but also heads), and conjointly very few people decided they actually wanted their characters to discriminate against those races. There's sort of a mismatch between the current lore and the current players' expectations. For Tajarans, for example, I feel like there's a clear implication that they're pretty much the equivalent of post-9/11 Muslims (with a small extremist group of the larger Tajaran species engaging in terrorist attacks on human assets to promote Tajaran nationalism) if humans were all highly prejudicial and biased. Hell, NanoTrasen is very clearly exploiting Tajarans and considering them as tools to further human interests - they staged a false Tajaran attack on their own assets just so they could have a pretext to do whatever they want with them. Yet you don't see any of this in-game. Tajarans are pretty much treated at large like regular humans, save for some occasional name-calling and very focused hate which tends to come out of the blue and not bring very much depth to the whole discrimination aspect. To sum it up, it feels kinda weird that your corporation's official modus is to remorselessly exploit an alien species yet everyone working for said corporation vehemently disagrees with it.

this just in: being forced to do paperwork is literally rape

I'd suggest that the reason this is happening is because it's the kind of behaviors people are the most willing to engage in. It's fun to be friendly and accepting of alien races, especially if in the lore they're races that are discriminated against (mostly without reason as lore paints humans as the bad invaders). It's fun (for some) to call Tajarans ridiculous names and have them freak out. Other people simply don't really give a damn, or want to avoid the hassle of dealing with the ire of indignant Tajaran players. However, few people seem to actively want to be "slightly racist/discriminatory". Can we force them to act in a certain way? Probably not. Should we? Probably not either, considering that the fantasy racism against our fantasy races pretty much stems from an arbitrary lore decision that's been upheld ever since the races were created. I think there's two solutions here. Either acknowledge that displays of reasonable and believable racism simply won't take on the server, and write the Tajaran/Unathi racism out of the lore so Aurora stops being an amazingly liberal and progressive college of intellectuals in comparison with the rest of the universe, or rework the races altogether to give players a reason to be racist against them.

Discrimination as it should be: a general distrust of Unathis/Tajarans, and reluctance to associate with them Discrimination as it is: people either not giving a shit/openly making buddies with Unathis/Tajarans for the sake of being progressive or because some Unathis and Tajarans are actually cool characters (maybe nothing wrong with that, but it seems to be the default stance by an overwhelming majority) people calling Tajarans "furballs" and "catbeasts" Unathis = ???

For reference, here is the current level of protection security armor provides: melee = 50, bullet = 15, laser = 50, energy = 10, bomb = 25, bio = 0, rad = 0 These numbers are based on a percentage ratio, meaning a melee or laser attack has a 50% chance to "miss" the user when wearing sec armor. This protection applies to the torso and groin, meaning the head and limbs are exposed to full damage values.