Marlon Phoenix Deputy Loremaster Application

[Marlon P.]

Ckey/BYOND Username:
marlonphoenix
Position Being Applied For:
Deputy Loremaster.
Have you read the Lore Team Rules and Regulations wiki page?
Yes.
Past Experiences/Knowledge:
I was the previous Loremaster and unathi lore developer for six years. I've spent years researching the meta of RP communities for the purpose of making Aurora better. I'm a lot smarter than I was six years ago, too.
Examples of Past Work
Please see attached. It's a long list.

I set up the rules asked about in the above, too.

I also invented the New Kingdom of Adhomai when i rebooted them post-hive.

Criticism of the current state of lore:
After a year long haitus I returned and reminisced about old lore, and asked questions about what has changed. This was met with hostility and contempt. Two lore developers posted on my previous app saying I was a bad pick that would drag us back into the dark ages of the old lore. I've also seen old lore called "dogshit", "bad", "terrible", and the writers who under me wrote with passion and creativity having their work belittled. However, right after the burst of creativity from the KoTW arc the wider lore apparatus has gotten really messy, so I have no idea where this rude sense of superiority manifests from.

I asked a lore question in the lore questions subforum on if ATLAS, a previous major party integral to the KOTW arc, was still canon. I got insulted and told the answer was obvious. Then people started disagreeing about the answer. Then a human developer said he'd have to think about it, and a little bit later said it was canon "for now".

Other lore questions get inconsistent answers.

The basics of the setting are both canon and non-canon depending on who you ask.

Entire arcs that set the foundation of what we have now are called non-canon blithefully by players and lore developers but there's no indication that steps were taken to make them so. There are rules about retconning and a process to it but i've seen lore developers tell players to "ignore" stuff that developer doesn't like.

This is the exact same state of affairs we had just before my tenure as loremaster, and I'm getting flashbacks to 2013. It's going to get worse.

This makes me sound like the biggest negative nancy in the world. There's a whole lot of great content, but nothing's perfect. But I'd like to keep working towards perfection.

Consider this application a wishlist of what I want to see. Because of the threat that I'd get the position to implement these, this thread should no doubt garner a lot of discussions about the problems I've outlined.

That said, here are my personal solutions:

A brief note (such as a roadmap with additional descriptions) identifying the course and creative direction that you'd hopefully like to pursue:

Here is the plan of action I will take as the deputy loremaster.

1. Catalogue, index, and review all news articles to put on the wiki in coherent timelines. This was already done in my capacity as a regular player for the unathi team, who are now going over it. The Tajara team as well has diligently done this for the Tajara news and arcs. All others will be gone over and elements retconned just archived. We need a fresh slate and a fresh news subforum without throwing things into disarray with errant retcons based on personal feelings.
2. Handle retcons in the way they were meant to be. Retcons when possible should be done IC'ly to serve a triad of purposes.
   • Making the world feel lived-in and dynamic.
   • Bringing attention to the change.
   • Making the change feel natural so players don't feel a forced abruptness and disarray, and gives them time to adjust to the change.
     • Where this isn't possible, loudly and transparently explain the change to the entire playerbase. No more "ignore it". No more arguing. 
3. Lock down the foundations of the setting and take it out of developer's and Loremaster's hands.
   • The number of FTL methods. The nature of phoron. How FTL works. Anything immediate and viscerally necessary for the basic logic of our universe. If a developer wants to change those they should convince the Head Developer. The number of retcons and rewrites on our universes' basic internal logic is unacceptable and needs the input of a Head Developer.
     • Players having to ask basic questions sparks arguments. Individual desires and goals from lore developers about a lore disagreement leads to confusion for players. This is technically sustainable but it's a pain in the ass for everyone involved.
4. Encourage player initiative and engagement.
   • Most immediately: encourage a player-ran newspaper with basic oversight. Something small scale.
   • Despite being gone for an entire year, the forum and in a lesser sense public discord's lore channels remain dominated by the same handful of names from a year ago. We need to find out what interests the new generation of players and sucker them into feeling validated and invested enough to start applying themselves to our lore development.
   • The lackluster number of responses to open applications this time around is terrible and in my personal opinion a disaster. Each position should be hotly contested when it opens up.
     • I want to see a million unfamiliar usernames flooding this forum and the discord. I will not be satisfied until there's 10 forum posts a day from accounts less than a week old.
   • Identify and encourage every iota of interest shown by new or otherwise uninvolved players. Encourage and uplift them. NOW!
     • Ban the phrase "Do it yourself". Engage with them and encourage them. Don't make us feel like unwanted pests.
5. Slow down the proliferation of human planets and factions.
   • The growth of the human factions and factions has become exponential. If the warlord factions of the wildlands are included the number of human factions outnumbers all the alien species' combined. Two of our races (Tajara and Unathi) each have less than three primary planets and they have more content than entire DnD campaign modules. We have a huge blank space in the canvas and it's humanity. Fill that stuff in before going hog-wild.
6. Enforce civility and respect.
   • I've witnessed abrasive behavior from some lore staff towards players. Lore developers carry authority and how they treat players has a disproportionate impact on our server's culture. Nothing anyone does here is worth investing enough of our identities into that it makes us berate someone else. Everyone deserves to feel respected.

What you believe you can bring to the team as Deputy Loremaster:

Over half a decade of experience in administration. Eight cumulative years of observing Aurora and other roleplaying communities for the purpose of researching how to make Aurora better. 

Additional comments:

My last application for a simple and no-authority position as unathi deputy where I said I didn't want to do anything except write articles and wiki pages for the race caused a lot of fearmongering about my sweeping authority and power if I were to take the position. So here is the worst case scenario: Everything I will do with the power of lore administration. I said in my deputy unathi thread that I'm not interested in the wider lore direction. This is still kinda true. I don't care what direction the lore goes in from a narrative standpoint, but I did change my mind in the other sense: if I have a chance to fix the systemic problems present here then I'd love the shot. Worst thing that happens is I'm rejected and return to pointing out the problems without the authority to fix them.

Even if rejected, I will also keep asking questions about the lore whenever I please. Because it interests me, and I want it to interest others. A critical eye and open mind is the best tool for creativity and collaboration. If a creator isn't being challenged in a respectful way then that creator isn't benefitting from the best they can be.

Also, stop talking like I'm an old man when talking about my contributions! I felt like an old man being put out to pasture in my last application!

Edited December 21, 2021 by Marlon P.

[Garnascus]

Easy +1. I have never worked closely with lore but had more than a couple conversations on lore topics in DMs. In my capacity as head admin and yours as loremaster back in the day. I have always appreciated your methodology and I see it emboldened in this application. 

[Desven]

The concerns I voiced on your past app just grow with this one. i don't want to repeat myself, so I'll just talk about what's here.

Your wishlist reads like that, a wishlist and not really a plan, especially without the knowledge of what goes behind the scenes. I can't blame you for that, because you're not part of the lore team currently to know about our direction, but it does feel you're ignoring at best, and outright antagoinizing at worst, what we've been doing for a while.

Retcons can not always be done ICly, for example, but many happen like that. The problem I see with “oldlore”, mainly, is a bunch of topics that were never relevant or properly maintained when added to the wiki, but middle, ignored and forgotten because they never built up to much. Yes, there are foundational things that set the tone for today, as wacky as the details of such arcs can be. However, while you were lore master this was never promoted to be added to the wiki, and while you talk about old faces, truth is most players of today weren't here 8 years ago, writers included, and have no idea about these events because they were forgotten. The division does exist, even if it is mostly a buzzword, because there was no sense of continuity ever with that. 

I bring up the Biesel political parties again: they were irrelevant, they were given a brief mention on the wiki and at some point that got wiped, mostly due to irrelevancy and simplistic ideologies.

Now we come up with new ones and when you ask about what happened to the old ones, it seems you try to corner us into “but that wasn't never properly retconned!”. Frankly, I had no idea they existed until I saw you mention them over different channels and the forums, and it wouldn't surprise me if other collaborators didn't know they existed either because how long ago it happened. I already spend too much of my time when writing lore hunting down oldlore that was never properly referenced. I've worked with scraps of incomplete Discord discussions, prototype documents and one-time comments on the forums burried long ago. Sometimes, these even become central to understanding why some wiki articles felt so incomplete or weird. I'm mentioning this because it's exhausting, and for a team like the human one, digging up all of that must be even worse.

Frankly, if anything, I would like retcons to have less rules, at least when it comes to news articles. There are plenty that are outdated and we should do tabula rasa in many of them. I don't want to be cornered trying to fix lore that 1) was never mentioned elsewhere or 2) has a different tone that clashes with the current setting or direction. It has happened already. The lorewriter job shouldn't be fixing the problems of the past, but maintaining (i.e., tweaking, updating, etc) that lore and making additions with hope for the future. Frankly I don't believe this would be promoted with you as a deputy.

[Marlon P.]

 

55 minutes ago, Desven said:

Frankly, I had no idea they existed until I saw you mention them over different channels and the forums, and it wouldn't surprise me if other collaborators didn't know they existed either because how long ago it happened. I already spend too much of my time when writing lore hunting down oldlore that was never properly referenced. I've worked with scraps of incomplete Discord discussions, prototype documents and one-time comments on the forums burried long ago. Sometimes, these even become central to understanding why some wiki articles felt so incomplete or weird. I'm mentioning this because it's exhausting, and for a team like the human one, digging up all of that must be even worse.

This is terrible! An absolute disaster. It needs to be addressed immediately. I do wish I had been more firm with developers in the past about this. Bear in mind I was doing things that were entirely new, and no one really knew the best way to do it until we got into the groove. I have and will always push for experimentation and new experiences because complacency and stagnation bore me.

But worrying about what could have been is a waste of time - I've identified the issues and know the solutions now, which means they can be implemented immediately.

I've already done a big chunk of that as a regular player. You can see in the general forum I've indexed every single news article for several of the news stations, with hyperlinks. For Unathi I've written an entire chronology for their entire history from their first article to their last and submitted it to the unathi lore team to go over and decide what to do with. I've been doing it in my spare time as volunteer work. If it was my actual hobby responsibility every single news article would be indexed, catalogued, reviewed, and submitted to the wiki in a timeline or put in the retcon subforum within 7 days of my acceptance. A year ago I'd say 3 days, but I've got other hobbies now.

My plan -

55 minutes ago, Desven said:

Your wishlist reads like that, a wishlist and not really a plan,

- is to do as I said in my list of plans:

Quote

Catalogue, index, and review all news articles to put on the wiki in coherent timelines [...] All others will be gone over and elements retconned just archived. We need a fresh slate and a fresh news subforum without throwing things into disarray [...]

Because:

55 minutes ago, Desven said:

The lorewriter job shouldn't be fixing the problems of the past, but maintaining (i.e., tweaking, updating, etc) that lore and making additions with hope for the future.

I agree!

This circles back around to preventing the internal logic of the setting from being retconned every year. I don't care if narrative changes sees a new political order sweep into power every year, but geeze, bluespace and phoron haven't had stable canon for more than a year in our entire server's development. That's bad.

It sounds like we agree on pretty much all the meat, but that you believe I'm obsessed with preserving the old order. That's not true; I'm only interested in internal consistency that players veteran and new can follow.

This however, is our only point of disagreement:

55 minutes ago, Desven said:

as wacky as the details of such arcs can be.

I cannot help that mankind was set adrift in an absurd world, and that a realistic setting has to portray some element of that absurdity in order to feel grounded. 

But even in that case if it really does draw people out then I'm fine with not bringing attention to that stuff. I'd rather talk about plans for the future and not dwell on the past. We're here arguing about stuff that's like, three or four years old at this point. The legend of these articles have really, astronomically outpaced their actual impact.

Edited December 21, 2021 by Marlon P.

[Chada1]

Absolute +1, and hostility towards Marlon is Incredibly unjustified, if you're going to be hostile and condescending towards Marlon when they try to take a friendly and cooperative hands-off assisting role with the newer Staff, 'Because they used to be Loremaster and their lore is omnipresent and changed all over Aurora', you shouldn't be surprised when they apply for a Loremaster position again.

Marlon has CREATED the framework for Aurora Lore. There is no Aurora Lore in its current state without Marlon.

There is a framework in place for Retconning already, it just isn't properly used, and the fact that Lore developers are outright ignoring those frameworks as Desven just said is **COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE**, as it doesn't give players any way to tell what is retconned and what isn't. <= This isn't true -- Many articles have been retconned it seems, these changes just aren't present on the forum outside of the articles being hidden.

 

5 hours ago, Desven said:

Your wishlist reads like that, a wishlist and not really a plan, especially without the knowledge of what goes behind the scenes. I can't blame you for that, because you're not part of the lore team currently to know about our direction, but it does feel you're ignoring at best, and outright antagoinizing at worst, what we've been doing for a while.

Retcons can not always be done ICly, for example, but many happen like that. The problem I see with “oldlore”, mainly, is a bunch of topics that were never relevant or properly maintained when added to the wiki, but middle, ignored and forgotten because they never built up to much. Yes, there are foundational things that set the tone for today, as wacky as the details of such arcs can be. However, while you were lore master this was never promoted to be added to the wiki, and while you talk about old faces, truth is most players of today weren't here 8 years ago, writers included, and have no idea about these events because they were forgotten. The division does exist, even if it is mostly a buzzword, because there was no sense of continuity ever with that. 

Now we come up with new ones and when you ask about what happened to the old ones, it seems you try to corner us into “but that wasn't never properly retconned!”. Frankly, I had no idea they existed until I saw you mention them over different channels and the forums, and it wouldn't surprise me if other collaborators didn't know they existed either because how long ago it happened. I already spend too much of my time when writing lore hunting down oldlore that was never properly referenced. I've worked with scraps of incomplete Discord discussions, prototype documents and one-time comments on the forums burried long ago. Sometimes, these even become central to understanding why some wiki articles felt so incomplete or weird. I'm mentioning this because it's exhausting, and for a team like the human one, digging up all of that must be even worse.

Frankly, if anything, I would like retcons to have less rules, at least when it comes to news articles. There are plenty that are outdated and we should do tabula rasa in many of them. I don't want to be cornered trying to fix lore that 1) was never mentioned elsewhere or 2) has a different tone that clashes with the current setting or direction. It has happened already. The lorewriter job shouldn't be fixing the problems of the past, but maintaining (i.e., tweaking, updating, etc) that lore and making additions with hope for the future. Frankly I don't believe this would be promoted with you as a deputy.

Afew things, not everything, is still a bit misguided, maybe my mind will be changed with further responses.

Let's start with block 1.

Block 1; You don't seem to recognize that when Marlon was first selected as Loremaster, he was building Aurora Lore from the ground up. Nothing that exists right now existed in near any form when they began their tenure as Loremaster, there wasn't any such thing as 'ingame lore' vs 'out of game lore' outside of Crew species. The entire existence of ingame lore representation vs wiki/non-ingame lore representation was a movement created by Marlon to address the problems you're speaking of.

If you think that Old Lore had no 'Sense of continuity' you should see the disconnect between Lore and Gameplay when Marlon first started, and Aurora was using a form of ancient bastardized Baystation that nothing in Lore was represented ingame. Marlon has actually drastically reduced the amount of Lore items that don't have some impact of representation ingame in that time period, and actively created events that would bring Lore outside of the Station to it. The entire event system we have today was put into place by Marlon.

TLDR on Block 1, all of these problems existed before Marlons tenure, and he enacted basic fixes that continue to bring Lore to the Station today, with what little information he had available at the time, his fixes were the first implemented by anyone, foresight is 20/20.

Let's move to Block 2.

If you want all new Political parties and don't want to reference the old ones at all, retcon them. When someone comes along and asks 'Does this even exist anymore?' don't be hostile to them for asking, since many peoples characters, especially for the older players, have long time ties to those parties, and of course they'll ask as a player (Marlon was a player at the time asking about Lore for one of their characters....? What's the problem there at all?) if there's been any changes to them when they come back from a hiatus. This is a non-problem you're speaking about, everyone does this. If you came from from a hiatus from the server, you'd do this too. Coming up with new political parties isn't the problem, but the old ones can't just be swept away when so many characters are based on them, they have to be addressed in some manner, retconned or merged into the new ones, that kind of stuff, otherwise, expect people to ask about them if one of their characters are somehow related to them.

Spoiler

Let's now move to the final block, block 3.

Desven, slow down here, No lore developer has properly retconned a single article, and you're saying you want retconning to have less rules? That's jumping the gun. The non-canon articles subforum is literally EMPTY. https://forums.aurorastation.org/forum/97-retconned-news-articles/ See for yourself.

DO you know what the purpose of that archive is? It's to let people who used those articles in their character development know what they need to change.

Retconning articles is as simple as ASKING the Lore Dev of the species about them, and then telling the Lore Master your reason for retconning and how it negatively impacts the server. Not archiving them is absolutely insane, as it gives players NO WAY to tell they're retconned. TRY using the system, if you want old articles to be retconned, be the first to retcon a single article instead of head-canoning that it's retconned in a way that noone but the Lore team or people who reach out to you directly on a chat platform would have any clue whatsoever.

TLDR on Block 3; THE RETCON SYSTEM FOR ARTICLES HASN'T BEEN USED A SINGLE TIME, NOONE HAS TRIED. What do you mean you want retconning to have fewer rules? What rules? it can't be any rules currently well understood, since the retcon system hasn't been used, not a single time.

Removed Block 3 after Caelphons response.

Edited December 21, 2021 by Chada1
Removed Block 3, as the Loremaster has explained why Block 3's response isn't actually true.

[Caelphon]

Hi there. I know I'm meant to be on vacation but I feel I need to outline this: Please be respectful, both to Marlon and those that provide feedback on this thread. 

Additionally, there has been several retconned articles that have been done properly, it is just that the perms regarding moving articles is broken. It is logged in the Lore Staff Forums, which a Loremaster will evaluate and then provide their response (accepted /denied). The latest one is regarding the Empire of Dominia, and Schwann (along with the rest of the Human team) requested to retcon some articles, which I approved. Players were pinged on the lore discord, and the articles in question were hidden. 

Please keep your interactions kind, or brief if you cannot adhere to that simple request. Thank you.

[Chada1]

25 minutes ago, Caelphon said:

Hi there. I know I'm meant to be on vacation but I feel I need to outline this: Please be respectful, both to Marlon and those that provide feedback on this thread. 

Additionally, there has been several retconned articles that have been done properly, it is just that the perms regarding moving articles is broken. It is logged in the Lore Staff Forums, which a Loremaster will evaluate and then provide their response (accepted /denied). The latest one is regarding the Empire of Dominia, and Schwann (along with the rest of the Human team) requested to retcon some articles, which I approved. Players were pinged on the lore discord, and the articles in question were hidden. 

Please keep your interactions kind, or brief if you cannot adhere to that simple request. Thank you.

I see, thank you for posting, this needs to be fixed then, as it gives the impression that no article has been de-canonized at all.

I also edited my post to reflect this information, the whole half about de-canonization etc has been removed. It's still there, but in a way that it is clearly separated.

Edited December 21, 2021 by Chada1

[Desven]

Just to clarify on the retcons, there will be articles that will be seldomly referenced and at odds with current lore. I think these, more than “technically being canon”, are in a limbo where the de-canonization process has to be done. There are a fair share of Vaurca articles that don't fit the current lore, I just haven't sat down to list my de-canonization request.

But for example, there's an article in Sol News Network that says a man was actually a shell with the brain of a dog. This is completely at odds with synthetic lore and, frankly, too silly. I don't think any player would take that as a fact anymore, even if it's still technically public.

As for past events being too wacky, it's bound to happen. Not only has the server changed, you both state that at its beginnings it was a novel project and with younger writers. There are some events like the Lii'dra invasion to Elyra, for example, that many players know about, but I'd say most new active players haven't read the articles, which have some events that are, again, at odds (and not only with our current vision, but even Bygone's Lii'dra, for example) or happening in a weird fashion. This has been internally discussed, but it's not really priority, as hiding many old articles, because again they are rarely read, if ever.

As for Chada's points, I disagree with some of what you say, but that would deviate the discussion further.

[OffRoad99]

From all the interactions I've witnessed of Marlon, as well as his innovative suggestions that concerns the Research department, I'd say he's WAY overqualified

+1 from me. Can't wait to see your work being canonized.

[Marlon P.]

3 hours ago, Desven said:

But for example, there's an article in Sol News Network that says a man was actually a shell with the brain of a dog. This is completely at odds with synthetic lore and, frankly, too silly

I remember that Lordfowl article. I was wondering if i dreamed the entire thing. @Arrow768 should look into that subforum issue. Thanks in advance!

3 hours ago, OffRoad99 said:

+1 from me.

Thanks king!

Edit

Also i like the new biesel parties. I only asked at the time if it was an ic change or a retcon cuz i play a reporter who would talk about it. I did give constructive criticism on how it can be I improved imo. 

This ties into my plan of action about territorialism/pushback against criticism.

Edited December 21, 2021 by Marlon P.

[Chada1]

3 hours ago, Desven said:

As for Chada's points, I disagree with some of what you say, but that would deviate the discussion further.

I am sorry if I came off as mean or anything, thank you for reading, and I'd love to talk on Discord or some such about what I'm saying and help you see a picture of how Aurora was at the start if you'd like, and I agree there are a lot of articles that could stand to be retconned.

[Marlon P.]

Edit: posting from my phone cut out half my list. Heres most of my reconstructed plan of action for my first 4 months.

• I want to create aggressive polling efforts to as many players as possible in a way that emulates our old surveys for events, using google documents, so we can get some pie graphs.
  • This survey will poll on how players view lore and end with open ended written response questions on how we can improve and how they would want to contribute as players.
• While thats running i will finish indexing all news articles in all threads not done already. Lore developers will be given time to go over them. I might streamline the process by letting them check off articles in a checklist so they can flag them as sus for a review.
• After this i will run an in-service on proper behavior when approaching a conversation with disagreements. Loredevs will sign off on these. Inservices will then be ran as-needed.
• When that's over i will announce the player ran news initiative and push on that front.
• When the above are done i will circle back around to the survey and host public discussions on the responses provided and publically publish all the results. The primary goal is facilitating a mammoth shift in server culture to get bottom-up involvement. I want so many people volunteering and contributing that we get overwhelmed and the problem is too MUCH rather than too little.
• While thats going on I will work on what i and Cael determine to be The Basics of the lore, lock them down, and forbid them from being changed without head developer approval.
• After this is all settled (eta 2 or 3 months) i will work with human development to repair the inconsistencies and empty spaces. The trend of adding factions that are then abandoned within a year ends in 2022.

When these major projects wrap up i will indefinitely continue evaluating and directing lore efforts as needed.

Edited December 21, 2021 by Marlon P.

[Marlon P.]

Oh also through only my own personal interests not as-yet coinciding with their development i cant say much on the other three races of vaurca, skrell, and synthetics. If accepted it will take me about a week and a half to go over all of them, engage with the developers, and make any evaluations.

[Kintsugi]

The post I made in your Unathi deputy loremaster thread is exponentially more important here than it was there. - 

It would be utterly unacceptable to have you as a deputy loremaster. I can think of fewer people I trust less with the position. For the sake of Auroralore as a whole and Aurora's community, I hope that you do not receive this position. You are out of touch with the community (You only recently came back from a many-months long absence and to my knowledge do not play on the game server), have a vision of the lore that is far different from what we currently aim to achieve, and I also strongly feel you have personal biases that would impact the lore you produce. Your writing style and the content you produce is very different from what Auroralore consists of these days. For someone who is talking about engaging with the playerbase regarding the lore, allow me to point out that you once called a new player a neo-nazi for saying that it should be alright to write scarab ships of certain nationalities. I do not believe you have changed. I do not believe you are the right pick for this job. 

People credit you for what you've written in the past - but that is in the past. The fact of the matter is that now, you have little involvement in the community besides, apparently, these attempts to get back on the lore team. As such, I find it highly ironic (and downright hypocritical) that you claim to want to make a newer generation of players' voices heard - despite yourself being an individual who hasn't participated in the community in a substantial manner since more than a year ago.

Edited December 21, 2021 by DanseMacabre

[Garnascus]

15 minutes ago, DanseMacabre said:

People credit you for what you've written in the past - but that is in the past.

If marlon's lore is "In the past" why do you keep bringing up the same personal slight against him every chance you get? He influenced nearly every major part of our lore. Thats fine if you dislike his lore but you cannot just handwave that as "being in the past"

[Kintsugi]

3 minutes ago, Garnascus said:

If marlon's lore is "In the past" why do you keep bringing up the same personal slight against him every chance you get? 

Because that's about the content of his character, and it is hardly a personal slight. The fact of the matter is that it's unacceptable conduct for a loremaster and unlike the quality of the lore someone produces, behavior is consistent, as are personalities.

[Marlon P.]

What would you like me to do, Danse?

Edited December 21, 2021 by Marlon P.

[Garnascus]

5 minutes ago, DanseMacabre said:

Because that's about the content of his character, and it is hardly a personal slight. The fact of the matter is that it's unacceptable conduct for a loremaster and unlike the quality of the lore someone produces, behavior is consistent, as are personalities.

Our community is made up of people who have done really dumb shit once or twice over the years. I am guilty of this and so are you. If you marlon's crimes are so egregious as to keep him from a staff position thats fine but i know most of our lore-heads pretty well and i am willing to bet they will judge Marlon based on all aspects of his character. 

[Chada1]

11 minutes ago, Marlon P. said:

What would you like me to do, Danse?

I guess one thing that might help Danse move past this would be to say how you feel about what you said, do you stand behind what you said to him, or do you agree with him that you shouldn't have said that, and will try to avoid making such inflammatory accusations in the future?

[Kintsugi]

9 minutes ago, Garnascus said:

i am willing to bet they will judge Marlon based on all aspects of his character. 

I certainly hope so.

14 minutes ago, Marlon P. said:

What would you like me to do, Danse?

1 minute ago, Chada1 said:

I guess one thing that might help Danse move past this would be to say how you feel about what you said, do you stand behind what you said to him, or do you agree with him that you shouldn't have said that, and will try to avoid making such inflammatory accusations in the future?

 

This thread is not about my and Jackboot's relationship, nor am I seeking any re-evaluation of it. As such, I would like to dissuade any discussion regarding this subject matter for the sake of not clogging up the thread, and would like to keep things focused on the subject matter at hand.

[CampinKiller]

I'm not going to speak for danse, but I echo his concerns regarding Marlon's conduct, and I can't say there's really been much proof of that having changed. I get your point @Garnascus, but with Marlon having been gone for so long, only to come back, hardly play the server (if at all), and make a few forum posts, and claim that their past character/behavior is changed, I don't really buy it. It's one thing if someone has shown that they have changed with an extended period of good conduct, but Marlon has been around (sparingly) for a couple months and wants that claim to be taken at face value. I can't take it, personally.

I have had many negative experiences with Marlon due to their conduct, and I think conduct plays a role in allowing someone onto the staff team, especially into a position as powerful as this one. The conduct exhibited by Marlon over the years has been atrocious, bringing OOC grudges into IC and vice versa, as well as taking exception to people that disagree with them, in a very abrasive manner. This is not conduct that the deputy loremaster of the server should have (nor anyone, to be fair). I'm all for forgiveness, but I don't see that the behavior has really changed. The fact that they haven't played much (if at all) also concerns me not just from the conduct perspective, but the fact that they're out of touch with the current state of affairs in game.

[Chada1]

1 minute ago, DanseMacabre said:

I certainly hope so.

This thread is not about my and Jackboot's relationship, nor am I seeking any re-evaluation of it. As such, I would like to dissuade any discussion regarding this subject matter for the sake of not clogging up the thread, and would like to keep things focused on the subject matter at hand.

That's not how this works -- You just made an accusation about Marlons character. He gets to respond to your accusation and apologize/stand by what he said to you.

[Chada1]

2 minutes ago, CampinKiller said:

I'm not going to speak for danse, but I echo his concerns regarding Marlon's conduct, and I can't say there's really been much proof of that having changed. I get your point @Garnascus, but with Marlon having been gone for so long, only to come back, hardly play the server (if at all), and make a few forum posts, and claim that their past character/behavior is changed, I don't really buy it. It's one thing if someone has shown that they have changed with an extended period of good conduct, but Marlon has been around (sparingly) for a couple months and wants that claim to be taken at face value. I can't take it, personally.

I have had many negative experiences with Marlon due to their conduct, and I think conduct plays a role in allowing someone onto the staff team, especially into a position as powerful as this one. The conduct exhibited by Marlon over the years has been atrocious, bringing OOC grudges into IC and vice versa, as well as taking exception to people that disagree with them, in a very abrasive manner. This is not conduct that the deputy loremaster of the server should have (nor anyone, to be fair). I'm all for forgiveness, but I don't see that the behavior has really changed. The fact that they haven't played much (if at all) also concerns me not just from the conduct perspective, but the fact that they're out of touch with the current state of affairs in game.

Please post examples, because a lot of the people here haven't experienced anything like what you're implying, including me.

[Marlon P.]

I looked into the conversation. It was in 2019. 

It was in the main lore_channel.

The conversation involved me publically talking about strong backlash I received from some lore developers accusing me of "erasing western european identity" because I told the scarab developers to have them hail from regions that do not already have origin locations. That means not western europe or "The west" which is well represented in lore. It was an attempt to create a more diverse setting. I remember now the 11/10 bare knuckle brawl from some lore developers who adamantly insisted I was planning on eliminating western european cultures from the canon.

Quote

Marlon Phoenix — 11/18/2019
Two of our most common factions are western european passing
When adding NEW FACTIONS
Why not look at
THE OTHER 75% OF THE PLANET

Quote

Other people ---11/18/2019
[Paraphrased] Everyone plays skin tones 1- 30

Quote

Marlon Phoenix — 11/18/2019

Lore should follow mechanics??

we should influence demographics from the lore???

Then this comment annoyed me:

Quote

Person A — 11/18/2019

you can no longer select skintones lower than 30

[...]

but 30 is still very much white if you select Cold skin it's fucking pale

So I sassed back,

Quote

Marlon Phoenix — 11/18/2019

LOL
YEAH
THAT'S WHAT I SAID!

[...]

Are you an identitarian by any chance

[...]
 

The decision to provide factions that have distinct personalities was all part of a plot to advance the agenda of white genocide
Mask off
You got me brother

Quote

Person of Interest A — 11/18/2019

white genocide is such a meme

Lore Developer B — 11/18/2019

foiled again

While Person A is the only available expert on the feelings of person A, it seems like they didn't take the comment deeply personally. But this wasn't a one sided bullying session;

Quote

Lore Developer B— 11/18/2019

[I submitted Argentina for Scarabs] which was denied so then I submitted Falklands which I made distinctly British just to spite you and Argentinians and that was let in no problemo so it wasn't really about the ethnicity it was more about the sematics.

I agree with Lore Developer B's criticism mostly. Trying to make an inclusive setting is difficult and you have to set up the arbitrary lines somewhere. I at the time just decided to mandate inclusion from non-western sources to try and break down the cultural monolith of our setting. 

Was I rude? Probably; that's for person A to tell me. That Person A is not DanseMacabre, but I understand that you can still find behavior problematic even when not the recipient of it - see me complaining in the OP about the same thing. I personally think I was rude. If I could go back in time with my current state of mind I'd sit the developers in revolt down and tell them how to express their criticisms, and if it kept up just fire them.

I made a map showing origin locations, deleting regions that already have a lot of cultural presence, for scarabs to choose from. I think at the time Eridani wasn't still really a big thing. I think it was though. I can't remember. But I denied an origin from Argentina because I found it to be a troll app. So why did I even include it if I didn't want the chance to see it? God I must have been so annoying to deal with the night this map dropped. This was probably after that angry arguing about my vendetta against the West in the staff lore channel.

Spoiler

EDIT:
The person who raged against me for my vendetta against the West was later removed from staff and banned for bad behavior.

Edited December 22, 2021 by Marlon P.

[CampinKiller]

4 minutes ago, Chada1 said:

Please post examples, because a lot of the people here haven't experienced anything like what you're implying, including me.

Perhaps the most severe IC example is during a canon event round where they threatened, multiple times, to field execute my character, the HoS, for disobeying an order from the Captain. Their behavior was so outrageous during that round that they were either temporarily banned or whitelist stripped, I don't recall which. Following that incident and during the subsequent IR investigation/admin actions, they made a throwaway character and harassed my character ICly during a round with it, attempting to bait me into an IC or OOC response.

As for a strictly OOC example, they once flew off at the handle at a fellow member of CCIA for "ruining" their non-canon event by making some sort of mistake during the playing of the round. Some of my memory around some of this stuff is fuzzy because it has been so long, but their behavior is pretty well documented by multiple people, and as I said in my post, given their relative lack of interaction, I do not believe it's changed.