[OOC] Clearer Rules on Mute Characters

[Conspiir]

Alright. So uh. Back in the day, there was a rule put in place where mute characters could not be in fields other than service or civ. It shuffled some characters out of their job, and it has since also forced some characters to not be mute anymore. The Rule was put... somewhere (?) and seems to be forgotten, wherever it is. It was an understanding of people around at the time.

 

We've gotten new players since then.

 

There was an argument on the shuttle today in looc about mute miners, of which there are now two, without admin interjection on the topic. Which seems to imply that the Rule, mentioned above, is not so much in effect anymore, because mute miners were among those not allowed (you could be a cargo tech, but not a miner in civ. It was deemed too dangerous).

 

Basically, is the Rule still in effect, and in what capacity? If it is not, I'd like to know. If it is, can it be put down somewhere for people, new and old, to view? Maybe when you select the Mute disability (though I know it's often better to NOT select the mute disability so you can still do headset emotes), or in the rules proper under Creating Characters? I'd just like some clarity, something to give some kind of confirmed yes or no.

[UnknownMurder]

@Conspiir

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1uMsY_loNKF1tAoIzWS5Y0xcKpBb5c2x7SeYdvvoJIYA/edit#slide=id.p

I've found it for you. This was announced a long time ago as a solution to a major crisis and the whoever decided this solution are ableism. As you can see, I've hated this solution very much. Why include deaf/mute/blind functionality to a game if you're just going to place a heavy limit on it. But yeah, I suppose you can argue that if there's nothing relating to disabilities on Aurora Station rules, it's not an actual rule but again we have unwritten rules that are not in Aurora Station rules. It's a lousy argument but disabilities just happens to be one of these unwritten rules and you have to go searching around it to find a precedent ruling.

[Scheveningen]

Oh god the notorious power point. It was enough that Abo enjoyed using Excel documents. Joking aside, I recall this was never released to the common public though and the standards specified in that power point were never applied as actual policy.

 

Quote

 

Head of Security

Communication - Minor speech impediments are permitted. No deafness, of good hearing.

 

oh god i would've hated this too. H-h-heww-w-w-wo. t-t-t-t-this i-i-i-is t-t-t-the h-h-head of s-s-s-security.

Edited June 24, 2019 by Scheveningen

[ben10083]

I agree with limitations, there are some jobs that straight up need communication (A mute Captain or FT would be extremely annoying). Honestly I must admit I am biased however, as I dislike any interaction with mute characters as it is annoying to get anything done with them, but thats just me. 

TLDR: Some jobs should have disability restrictions, namely those where communication or other functions impacted by a disability is paramount. 

[Conspiir]

Bump.

[Alberyk]

At this point, I think it is better to just limited mute and deaf people to service positions, what do you all think?

[stev]

I'd be fine with mute Cargo people, it's a similarly low requirement job and I've seen mute miners do fine - the better ones often establish a signal for "help needed" like blowing into the mic loudly and stuff like that. Many Science roles + Biochemist also aren't really impacted too badly by muteness, though I'd hesitate to say anything outside of those roles would be viable for mute people. Certainly Engineering, Security and actively healing Medical roles all require speech.

Edited June 30, 2019 by stev

[Butterrobber202]

Works for me

[Ornias]

53 minutes ago, Alberyk said:

limited mute and deaf people to service positions

to me these seem like the positions least suited for deaf or mute people.

do you mean supply?

[Butterrobber202]

Apparently I posted twice? Idk delete this

Edited June 30, 2019 by Butterrobber202

[Conspiir]

2 hours ago, stev said:

I'd be fine with mute Cargo people, it's a similarly low requirement job and I've seen mute miners do fine - the better ones often establish a signal for "help needed" like blowing into the mic loudly and stuff like that. Many Science roles + Biochemist also aren't really impacted too badly by muteness, though I'd hesitate to say anything outside of those roles would be viable for mute people. Certainly Engineering, Security and actively healing Medical roles all require speech.

Technically, any job can do fine as a mute person if you make signals and use a PDA. But there's a difference between "Urist blows into the mic." and "Urist says, 'Hey, there's a nest of carp DIRECTLY above the mining airlock, so, uh. Watch out, and also come help me.'" It should not be a requirement to know sign language to be able to talk to your coworker safely while EVA (much like checking your phone while walking, it isn't exactly safe to check your PDA while EVA. Funny thing, a miner has actually fallen and died while doing so in the past and it was pretty hilarious, especially since the trauma he got was muteness.) which is why I think EVA jobs should not be mute.

 

I also believe that mute scientists/roboticists (not xenobios or xenoarchs or plasma researcherbombpeople) could also work, but the more exceptions made, the more difficult the rule becomes to wrangle and remember.

 

1 hour ago, Ornias said:

to me these seem like the positions least suited for deaf or mute people.

do you mean supply?

 

They're safe in the station and, when they need to talk to people, can PDA without putting themselves or others at risk, because the only people they are communicating with are right in front of them. And that, really, is where the bar is in my mind. You have to be able to do your job to a satisfactory standard AND not put yourself or others in danger. Service covers that, and so does cargo tech so long as they aren't PDAing their miners to distract them.

Edited June 30, 2019 by Conspiir

[LorenLuke]

2 hours ago, Ornias said:

to me these seem like the positions least suited for deaf or mute people.

do you mean supply?

I agree with the above, as otherwise it's being said that the jobs mutes are most qualified for say 'What'll it be?', 'Can I take your order?', and 'Would you like fries with that?' which seems to be quite the opposite of a qualification.

 

I think everyone agrees that botanists, janitors, cargo techs, and that ilk would be fine, and that heads, security, and medical personnel wouldn't. The thing that may be overlooked are those that fall in-between. Engineering primarily responds to calls (which mute people can do), rarely has need to broadly communicate to more than one person (which PDAs do) and are qualified to communicate in space without radio by any type of sign language. Research personnel after much the same way. A xenobotanist doesn't need to say too much, an engineer can easily send a PDA message to their boss, another head, or even just a random crew member or two to have them announce what may be needed over radio.

So where do people think these 'middling amounts of talking' requiring jobs fall, in terms of necessary qualification?

[VTCobaltblood]

4 hours ago, stev said:

like blowing into the mic loudly and stuff like that

As far as I am aware, the muteness disability completely prevents you from using the say verb, including audio emotes. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[stev]

2 minutes ago, VTCobaltblood said:

As far as I am aware, the muteness disability completely prevents you from using the say verb, including audio emotes. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Consider yourself corrected, audio emotes work fine over radio*.

 

EDIT: *As far as I've seen from mute characters in roleplay. Could be that they didn't take muteness mechanically and are merely roleplaying it? I couldn't say for certain.

Edited June 30, 2019 by stev

[VTCobaltblood]

1 hour ago, stev said:

Could be that they didn't take muteness mechanically and are merely roleplaying it?

Honestly, I would advocate removing muteness mechanics and only leaving them for roleplay, but that's a topic for another thread.

[TrickingTrapster]

Hello, primary mute character player here. (Yumi Yotin). I'm probably super biased on this, and I did get hit hard by the rule coming in place. I was going to make a suggestion on a topic like this, then saw this and found the discussion being about that anyway. I personally think the rule is too blanketed. It should be handled on a case by case basis, not just 'you have a disability so you can't be interesting in this department'. When I played Yumi as an engineering apprentice, there were absolutely 0 issues just because of her muteness. Sure, when power went out, she couldn't PDA people, but there's many workarounds for it. And while I get that someone with no legs shouldn't work in security, someone that merely uses a walking cane could be one if they do a good enough job despite the cane.

 

Basically, unless it's an extreme disability that will literally prevent you from doing work in a department, you should be given a chance in any department, in my opinion.

[ben10083]

14 hours ago, TrickingTrapster said:

Basically, unless it's an extreme disability that will literally prevent you from doing work in a department, you should be given a chance in any department, in my opinion.

Yet being mute is a extreme disability that will literally prevent you from doing work, as being mute makes quick, concise communication and teamwork almost impossible, as people sometimes don't have the time to play charades to find out where a injured person is (as an example). This also can't be case by case as admins do not really have a effective enforcement tool for this short of "go cryo now"

[MattAtlas]

15 hours ago, TrickingTrapster said:

Basically, unless it's an extreme disability that will literally prevent you from doing work in a department, you should be given a chance in any department, in my opinion.

You should know more than anyone the precedent that this sets. Communication is extremely important, especially in places as prone to pressure loss as a space station. You can argue that you "can just use a PDA" mechanically all you want, but you're the first that should know this makes no sense at all. It restricts you from using comms which already rules out several departments - head of staff, security, medical, engineering and so on. Yes, you were a mute engineer beforehand, there's no way a mute person would even be allowed in because of EVA communication being key in EVA repairs - and using your PDA EVA? Everyone knowing sign language? Sorry, but that ain't happening.

This is why a blanket ban was put in place. It's easier to list what you CAN'T do as a mute person than what you CAN do - because that's what being mute does. It IS an extreme disability because it changes your entire life.

15 hours ago, TrickingTrapster said:

When I played Yumi as an engineering apprentice, there were absolutely 0 issues just because of her muteness.

There were zero mechanical* issues, is what you mean.

[TrickingTrapster]

Actually, no, not just no mechanical issues. There were no RP issues either. In fact, Yumi was called upon to do tasks over other engineers by a lot of regular CEs. (There was even one time a CE promoted her instead of actual engineers to interim CE just because they had to cryo, back on exodus where things were more lax.) And don't worry, I know a mute command member is ridiculous, but I seriously don't see the issues that you're coming up with. Using your PDA in EVA works fine, and remember that it's muteness, not deafness, so others can just talk to you by headset if they want. What I meant by extreme disability would be having no arms as an engineer, for example. Literally being unable to do any task given to you because of your disability. And yes, I still hate this rule a lot, not only because it's too blanketed, but also on a personal level because it forced me to either change Yumi in such a way that it was no longer fun for me to play her or retcon 1.5 years worth of RP.

[GreenBoi]

This is old and I'm bumping this with this because this ruling is important for clarification.

 

I honestly don't see why mute engineers would be accepted in space. Perhaps planetary, but not in space. It's quite easy to lose your PDA if you accidentally drop it (unless you're 99% of players and don't hold the PDA in your hand when clicking reply) and in times of crisis, you realistically wouldn't be able to easily ask for help or anything like that quickly. Of course, mechanically, because we have to actually type things out- radio'ing, PDA'ing and all that takes roughly the same time.

 

Passing off muteness as a minor disability seems like a simplification of something that will affect a character so much in different ways. You literally cannot speak up for yourself and have to go out of your way to physically do things slower than speaking, like a TTS or Sign Language. If we want muteness to be plausible for any job, then we need a TTS device added to Loadout or something of the sort.

[Crozarius]

From my personal experience, playing alongside mute Engineering characters is an exercise in frustration. I never know what they're doing, where they are, or what their situation is because they don't/can't tell everyone what they're doing; they can only PDA one person at a time, and frequently only PDA one person. It's a great loss in team cohesion to have a member who doesn't co-ordinate with others. What's more it forces other players to go through a big song and dance of charades and annoying PDA ping spam to have a simple conversation which is inconvenient, slow and annoying. It makes me wish for the sweet release of cryo rather than deal with them.

 

But more to the point it doesn't make any sense ICly. The way that mute characters communicate using PDAs is a powergaming solution in which they abuse the fact that mechanically the PDA doesn't have to be in your hands to use it, people telepathically know what the PDA message says when you get it even if you're not holding your PDA, and using a PDA is just as fast as talking. None of these things are congruent with reality. You can't expect people to telepathically know what your messages are instantly, and you can't expect them ICly to drop everything they're doing in an emergency situation to whip out their PDA and read it. I miss text messages all the time IRL; I don't think that PDA messages are an acceptable alternative for a dangerous profession. Imagine dying because you didn't hear your PDA beep! With that in context you should understand why such an individual wouldn't be hired to a high risk field like Engineering or Security.

 

And here's some more IC problems with using a PDA (Assuming that ICly you can't just telepathically control it while it's in your ID slot: You have to hold it on your hands.) You can't use a PDA in a voidsuit because you'll fatfinger the buttons, you're prone to drop it, you have no pockets to put it in on your voidsuit, etc. Having your PDA on you isn't a requirement to work. Having your PDA in your backpack suppresses the beep and telepathic link. 

Edited November 25, 2019 by Crozarius

[Flamingo]

Currently the rule is technically unwritten in that it is enforced under the "believable characters" rule. That said, I am fine restricting them to service (and supply?) roles. Generally speaking, mute characters are more of a hindrance than a help. This is not always true, but realistically speaking, they wouldn't even be considered for these positions where communication in potentially life-threatening emergencies is key, when a perfectly able person could be hired instead. 

 

I would also personally be fine seeing them in research roles, but I am not dead set on that. I could go either way.