Being More Specific About Disabilities

[TrickingTrapster]

I think I've waited long enough. Since it's me posting the suggestion, people will think I'm biased (I'm Yumi Yotin's player.) and I might be, but I've always thought that the disability rule is hampering RP instead of enabling it. It feels like a blanket rule thrown out over most if not all disabilities, which simply isn't fair and makes no sense. Things like security officers with one arm or engineers in wheelchairs won't make much sense, sure. But I have played Yumi in the past, as an engineering apprentice, mute, for longer than a year, with no substantial major issues arising from it. I will admit, quite a bit of salt still remains in that wound, ever since mutes are no longer allowed in any department but civilian. But what I seriously want here, is to take more of a closer look at the available disabilities or perhaps even create some sort of disability whitelist that will allow some of the more minor physical disabilities, like being mute or having asthma, be allowed outside of civilian areas and in select other departments. Yes, there's extreme things that should not be allowed - We're not getting deaf command or colorblind medical (mixing up chemicals is that dangerous I guess.) But a mute engineer, a deaf scientist or a chemist with asthma are things that I don't see issue with? I believe the rule came about as a mostly 'muh realism' thing, even back when I was on staff I never got more reasoning than 'it would not be realistic' despite it having been fine for longer than a year by then. But yeah, TLDR: Re-evaluate what disabilities are viable in each department instead of banning them everywhere but civilian since it just hampers RP by limiting it to one area, in my opinion.

[Crozarius]

We've been over this before: Mute characters in an Engineering role are a safety hazard to both themselves and others. What's more, if you have a disability which significantly impacts your ability to be productive in that role, guess what: NanoTrasen would not hire you.

[ThelonTV]

I mean our characters are all not perfect, so in my non-engineer opinion: Wouldn't an oopsie be even more lethal to someone that can't call for help over the comms?

[MattAtlas]

Where did you get "they're banned everywhere but civilian" from?

[Scheveningen]

Likely from the talks from back when Aboshehab was staff, but none of that stuff was fully realized as policy. The only thing that exists is "rules-as-written" unofficial policy in which staff may or may not enforce whatever constitutes as a believable character, i.e. a paraplegic security officer (most severe case) or a mute EMT (least severe but still pretty bad).

Edited August 10, 2020 by Scheveningen

[TrickingTrapster]

"Impacts your ability to be productive in a role." That is complete bullshit for muteness in engineering, since it doesn't impact your ability to actually do physical things. I've literally played Yumi like that for over a year and guess what, she was more productive than most engineers at that time. So much so that at one point, back on the Exodus, a CE at that time had to leave and appointed her, a mute engineering apprentice, to interim CE to take over instead of any other engineer present at that time.

Yes, mute characters cannot call for help, but that is exactly why you're extra careful as a mute person. You make sure your sensors are up, you don't head into unneccesary danger like into firefights as an engineer where you don't belong. You don't go fixing dangerous areas without supervision unless your CE tells you you're good enough to do it by yourself.

Where I got the banned everywhere but civilian from, literally from the headmins at the time. The policy completely destroyed playing Yumi for me when it happened. So I asked the headmins where she would be allowed to be played, and the answer was 'civilian roles only'.

I think people need to re-evaluate the balance of realism vs. fun because I think in this case fun is sacrificed for realism which is never a good thing.

[Pratepresidenten]

6 hours ago, Crozarius said:

We've been over this before: Mute characters in an Engineering role are a safety hazard to both themselves and others.

I dont know why you chose to just ignore this and focus solely on being able to be productive with disabilities. Being productive wont help when something goes horribly wrong and you need to evacuate an entire section of the station.

As it stands right now, common sense is kinda what dictates where a character can realistically work. Could a character with X disability feasibly work in Y department as Z job, in SPACE?

It is simply too much work to write out a disability "can and cannot's" spreadsheet for every single disability in all jobs. It is better if you just ask if you can do X or Y and get an answer from staff.

Being mute or deaf are two of the more detrimental disabilities we have, so its common sense that characters with these disabilities would be more limited to where they could work.

There is no current ruling that ALL disabilities cannot play anywhere but the civilian sector.

[Cnaym]

That was the last thingy about it, knew I saw it somewhere.

During my time as staff we pretty much told mute people outside of civilian and cargo that it's no bueno.

After my time as staff I still see a lot of people using looc to tell the few remaining mutes that they are not even allowed to work on station at all.

I always used and pointed at the wiki when unsure. Something not in the rules is almost always explained on the wiki.

Our wiki has the following:

(https://wiki.aurorastation.org/index.php?title=NanoTrasen_Occupation_Qualifications)

As such I suggest handling a mute officer, miner, engineer as what it is -> IC issue

Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

Spoiler

For engineers:

Qualifications: At least 25 years of age, applicable Bachelors degree or 7 years experience in engineering-related field.

Does anyone really think the drunken idiot, not knowing basic EVA or how inflateables work should be anywhere near engineering in "muh realistic setting"?

The people screaming for the realistic character rule often have some of the strangest characters, myself included.

Would be great if having to roleplay with a mute person would be accepted for it's roleplay and not shunned for the effort it entails. If your character does not like it just be an asshole to them ICly, it's almost like some concepts such as Zhan, Guwan, IPCs or disabilities could cause a little conflict now and then.

First thing I learned as my mute mining character was to rescue everyone else falling off a cliff after being yelled at for "mute cannot mine" at shift start. It was great

Feel free to ignore my spoiler ?

[TrickingTrapster]

I didn't address it because I thought I did in the opening post. Might have been something else, my bad. It's honestly very easy to say that social policies like 'it's too dangerous for mutes' can have changed since this takes place in the future, social policies can change over time. Plus, it's also easy to say that people with disabilities need to keep to more rules. There's plenty of solutions that don't have to include banning disabilities from certain jobs. And honestly, from my experience with engineering, people don't communicate much even if they can talk. Though that can have changed since then. I'd rather have disabilities that still leave characters physically able to fill out jobs like engineering with extra rules rather than 'you have a fun gimmick so no fun jobs for you.'

[niennab]

I haven't been following the larger arguments related to deafness and muteness however, would the easiest solution be to make it that if you select either disability, you automatically spawn with hearing aids or a text to speech box that you are required to have while on duty? A text to speech box that can preferably interact with the radio channels as well. While visitors aren't required to use these devices.

[Zundy]

The reality is that deaf and mute people irl do mostly the same jobs as anyone else. Realism aside, the only issue with a mute character is that they can't talk over comms. They can still talk over PDA however so this is a moot point. Mechanically OOC, it's the same. We're typing out messages on the keyboard. ICly what's the difference between a radio request and a PDA request? 

A lot of these are non issues like a color blind chemist. They'd just label their stuff (like they're supposed to anyway). 

It would be nice to be abit more lenient for the sake of fun roleplay and character development towards disabilities. 

I imagine deaf characters would be contentious what with is relying so heavily on audio comms.

[Faris]

I'm going to stick to facts here as there's a lot of misinformation going on here, a history lesson and clarification all in one. First, I'm going to quote two relevant things from the rules. 

Quote

Note that these rules cannot cover the myriad of situations that will arise during gameplay. As such, the word of Moderators and Administrators ingame is final, and not up for debate past a certain point. If you take issue with an ingame ruling, you are expected to submit a staff complaint about it, or to contact a Head Administrator about it after the round has concluded.

Quote

Characters must be believable, and well-rounded. No insane or psychotic characters. No Mary Sues. (Over the top characters, characters who know too much, have no weaknesses, etcetera.)

The disability rulings have always been under the believable character rules, they were merely reviewed and discussed by staff back in 2017. This is no different that reviewing the decision on how to handle players that SSD to absurd degrees without justifiable reasons, which was also discussed in the same staff meeting.

And to save you time, here is the quote. 

Quote

3. We are pretty much all in agreement here. Non-civillian departments are not permitted any disabilities that could seriously affect their job. No crippled EMTs, no mute security officers and no blind engineers. You can always ask for specifics or ask a staff member if X would be ok but please keep in mind nanotrasen is really not going to give a fuck about whatever ethical issues you might have over getting a prosthetic limb or organ. This goes doubly so if you are a head of staff.

It was never a blanket ban, you just are not supposed to play a character with disabilities and obstacles that can seriously affect their job. I want to emphasize that this was a meeting you attended and had 14 days to prepare for it, those that could not attend meetings are given the option to prepare something written which would be read out in their absence. 

 

On 10/08/2020 at 08:25, TrickingTrapster said:

even back when I was on staff I never got more reasoning than 'it would not be realistic' despite it having been fine for longer than a year by then.

So I'm positive the way this was described was never the case, though I will attribute this to forgetfulness as it has been a few years since the meeting, which if I'll repeat you both attended and had a two weeks notice to prepare something towards this topic and others.

So my take on the matter? Things are fine as is. 

[TrickingTrapster]

I'm going to add that I was never told I could prepare something for the meeting, and after the meeting I immediately asked if Yumi was fine in engineering like this, to several staff members, and got a 'yes' answer from them. Then, out of the blue a bit later, I got reprimanded for Yumi being a mute engineer, and I'm still pretty pissed about it.

[Arrow768]

Going to move that to policy suggestions since that's related to administrative rulings and not the code itself.

[Pratepresidenten]

As already laid out, where someone can work is already dictated by the believable character rule.

If there is any doubts or questions where your character can work, the moderation staff is here to give a definitive answer if something is good or not.

Voting for dismissal.

[TrickingTrapster]

Then we should at least get some official documentation the staff would follow that we can use for character creation as well. That or simply restrict jobs on character select with certain disabilities, like we do now with age. That would at least prevent a lot of confusion over the subject. I received one in the past but apparently it was outdated and unofficial.

[furrycactus]

Given that hearing aids already exist in the loadout for deaf characters (and they work with intercoms, stationbounced radios, etc., just not headsets (literally just take a stationbounced with you and you're golden)) they could more feasibly work in just about any role now.

[Alberyk]

Whatever restriction there is, should be probably added to the job pages. I will attempt to do that next week.