Community Respect

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Hostility in OOC is a very common issue in both this community and in the greater SS13 community, but also in rp communities, gaming communities, and online communities in general. For the last year or so I've been passively researching trends themes of community management and online communities, but I'm in no way an authority here.

There's usually very little to be done about it. Each avenue of managing the community's hostility towards each other and towards IC game conduct have different pros and cons, and eventually one side of the disagreement packs up and leaves. Interestingly though, even the side of cooperation and friendliness can utilize snark and hostility in their methods of promoting a more friendly OOC environment. But any argument goes as far as staff wants it to go - free speech does not apply on this server or on these forums because they are owned by a private entity: Skull. The Government can't come in and tell you to shut your mouth or they'll have a drone sent your way, but Skull can tell you to stop or he'll ban you, as we've seen with Bokaza.

In the end there's very little that you, yourself, can do about OOC hostility. These threads come and go in a cycle, and I've seen the same trends on other community forums. Personally I play with OOC disabled at all times unless I have something specific I want to get a reaction from in OOC, usually a forum link to something I've made. I also disable LOOC the moment anyone says anything with a ":/" attitude to it. You have the tools at your disposal to mute the hostility on the server and simply play the game.

On the forums, there is no one forcing you to read posts. I for one skipped all but like 5 posts in this thread. I skim down, see the length of a post, and keep right on skimming.

In the futility of unilaterally fighting community hostility, your avenues are like I said - ignore it or lobby for firmer rules.

Personally I agree with you. There is a lot of negativity with no good intentions to it. I judge hostility by its intentions - even shitposting can be valid if there's a point and some justified intention behind it. The last 3 people I appointed to the lore team were chosen after we had lengthy arguments about why my writing sucks and they could do it better, and I agreed with them.

And that's, in my view, the foundation of the issue. Criticism and feedback are necessary for creative growth and it's, to me, a huge sign of respect to have someone invested in your character or piece of creative fiction enough that they understand it enough to tell you how to make it better. However there are certain members of the community that turn criticism into a personal attack, and a lot of what they say they know will be taken personally but they dance around justifications or how it's directed to the character and not the person.

For OOC criticism of your IC character, the best avenue to take is to embrace it where the intentions are good and toss it out when the person is vitriolic.

[Skull132]

Thinking.

Here's point one. Each game, each community has stereotypes attached to it. Specially roleplaying games. For SS13, it's lesbay, and whatever else. Literally 99% of the time, the stereotypes are used as a joke. Granted, there are folks who get a bit more zealous with things like that (more on that shortly), but in general, I cannot, in good conscious, request that people stop using these terms because they might offend someone. Being offended is a 50/50 split between taking offence, and someone being offensive.

As I said, 99% of the times, people use these stereotypes without the intent of being offensive. Specially considering that these stereotypes almost always refer to characters, and not the players behind them. (I'm still surprised that people get offended at lesbay, as opposed to the attached stereotype of all players of lesbian characters being neckbearded straight men? Which is very specifically a stereotype about the player, and not the character?)

Beyond that. Some people could use an education in how to actually manage situations like this. Or take example from Zundy, Garbage, and Nikov. Because fighting fire with fire, or in this case, disgruntlement with shitposting specifically on the subject at hand, doesn't really help anyone ever. It only really serves to fan the flame and burn out all sides involved.

As it was preached to me for roughly 3 years, and very justly so: respect is a two way road.

On the one hand, a person cannot demand that a playerbase drop all the culture, shall we say, around the game they're playing. Let's be frank, the stigmas and stereotypes around certain characters (lesbay) and modes of play (greentexting, validhunting, chair-RP) are apart of SS13 culture, and will seep in one way or another. You should understand that they are very rarely used with actually hostile intent (in the case that they are, please contact a member of staff), and are more often than not used for other purposes.

On the other hand, a person needs to know when to stop memeing and actually start speaking sense. Or, more specifically, know when to properly and eloquently explain their point of view and their side of the story. Describing your hatred for X stereotype, memetext or not, doesn't really help the other person in understanding the culture clash.

Also. All communities are a mixed (duffel)bag (of dicks) because people are involved. No matter how professional they appear on the outside. If you're willing to listen, I can tell you amazing stories about the internal drama and powerstruggles over virtual MILSIM games where players with the average age of 30-something participated in.

[Snakebittenn]

shy people and lesbay are character cliches though

[Lucychan42]

My point wasn't that lesbay was offensive. Shout it for all it matters, I use chucklefuck regularly in conversations with online friends now. The issue isn't that these slang terms exist, and that was lost in the firestorm that was those past four pages which is why I stopped posting entirely.

The entire point was the hostility behind the people who perpetuated these slang terms. That lesbay became a personal, cheap, simple way to criticize someone, like much of our language today. Instead of "heh, there's no way you would" some say "bet!" Lesbay has become something similar for a few people. I won't assume the exact meaning but it's become something that isn't a joke anymore. It's become this annoying gag that some people take to fairly constant means and it becomes grating.

And that isn't even all of the issue. People not contributing, not helping, I felt sorry for Nanako but I appreciated the people who helped and have advice for her to get better and I'm positive she'll improve and get better. That isn't what worried me. What made it bothersome was people who just interjected with "frankly this is just snowflake material and you're not ready for CMO/CE". And it's a tiring thing watching it persist in the sense that respect degrades until everything is a joke or just a direct insult. Senpai put it exactly how I wish I had.

"However, there are certain members of the community that turn criticism into a personal attack, and a lot of what they say they know will be taken personally but they dance around justifications or how it's directed to the character and not the person."

It's become so much of that it's become aggravating. It happens so often that the line between a jest, true cruelty, anger, it all melts away because it just becomes a mess. It seems hard to differentiate and hell I'll go ahead and lay out yeah. I have a hard time with that. I have psych shit going on that I won't go into but it's hard to tell the difference at times when people pretend they aren't being rude but they are or if they're just joking or if it's actually a mean joke. And that's a mess typing out and it's worse in my head trying to pick it all out. By all means I didn't mean it to flare up like that, but perhaps I should've seen it coming.

"In the futility of unilaterally fighting community hostility, your avenues are like I said - ignore it or lobby for firmer rules."

As for that, that's sort of what I was trying. I ignored it for a while but it genuinely started to bother me, so I wanted to just lay out "hey this isn't cool" and yeah, I got more involved than that. But my desire was for action or change and some of that did happen. But in the end, it made a mess, so I do apologize to everyone involved. Just didn't want to keep it to myself when it was something I felt was genuinely bothersome. In the future, I'll just vent to pals or something if it's just gonna be like that. Just had a bit of optimism blinded by frustration and faith that it would've resolved differently than that.

[Brightdawn]

Tbh, the bottom line is you take the bad with the good in communities centered around games like SS13. Even OOCly, because shitposters are sadly a vocal minority here. Find a group of constructive people who will provide legit criticism and also support you all the same when you need it, and report to the staff anyone that breaks the rules. But for real, if anything anyone else says online personally offends you, deeply, and to the core, you should probably visit your local mage, buy a spell tome of oakflesh, and get some thicker skin.

 

This might be all jumbled up and messy I can't think and get the words right ya' know!

So I just had a bath and I thought about this point because it is a good point, is there some mistaking of valid criticism going on and why would that be happening.

I honestly think its the wording people use, its so needlessly aggressive that people will feel that its a personal attack, I'll be honest I don't really mind tooo much what you say about me I feel I have a very strong sense of self worth and personal identity buuuut I see a lot of that stuff targeted to others and that just sorta' rubs me the wrong way.

I guess the best way to counter this would maybe on one side if people ask you to stop or tone it down, tone in down they're uncomfortable for a reason and adding more onto it just makes the situation worse ( Also breaks rule 1 "Don't be a dick" but that's such an objective rule that everything and nothing could break it at the same time )

Annnnd on the other side, Criticism is good it helps us grow and become better, I constantly ask for it on my sprites and other such things I do, even if someone just says:

 

Its terrible

 

Ask what about it is terrible ask whats wrong with it.

The whole Stuttering Medbay Lesbian argument really could of been avoided if we all took those two points.

I had this whooooooole thing about the OOC aggresiveness and everything like that but I'm sure it'll be bogged down by:

 

We're not changing the rules for two people

 

I don't really want to change the rules I just think it would be nice if people could just treat each other with a little bit of respect, maybe not everyone likes having the same joke targeted at them, if they're offended say sorry, and on the other side maybe thats just who they are avoid them if its something you're really not a big fan of and it keeps happening I know I have some people I avoid because of this.

Juuuust some thoughts I had to wrap this all up I hope!

[DatBerry]

I honestly think its the wording people use, its so needlessly aggressive that people will feel that its a personal attack, I'll be honest I don't really mind tooo much what you say about me I feel I have a very strong sense of self worth and personal identity buuuut I see a lot of that stuff targeted to others and that just sorta' rubs me the wrong way.

 

this is basically it, it gets even more aggressive when the other side ignores your points and focuses on your aggressiveness, its kind of a fallacy, responding to tone instead of responding to the contents of the post

[Guest]

Quite frankly, any point brought on by personal misgivings or any level of emotion is bound to lead to disagreement and further trouble.

It's basically like, for instance, if you get banned for no good reason and you feel wronged. You're not so much thinking about why you got banned, your thoughts and emotions are both focused on the fact you were banned. So you post a ban appeal, you're salty and upset. And then comes people who view said appeal, they see you're angry and address that you're angry and likely not thinking straight. You might get even madder, say things you wouldn't normally say if you weren't pissed. Everything rinses and repeats and snowballs from there, nothing gets done and absolutely nothing changes.

Basically, what I'm saying is that while it's okay to voice frustrations, please do not be in the mindset of "The ends justify the means", as that leads to disaster almost every single time. Do not ignite fires unnecessarily, otherwise people will panic, yell at you for attempting to start the fire and while everyone is stalling and getting angry at each other, the fire will grow both in size and in searing heat. In a time where co-operation is important, we can't afford to distract and lose focus of our purpose here. To play a vidya game together.

This never changes, every situation thus far with the exact same circumstances has gone the same way in this manner. We need to start learning there are better ways to bring up issues without setting everything alight.

Nobody is perfect, I understand this, we all make mistakes. As humans, though, we gain the ability to think on what we did wrong and try to do better in those respects for the future. Let's just not repeat this again, okay?

It may sound wrong to hear, but respect is earned, not given. You don't automatically receive a person's respect for being X person or having Y character traits. Your actions measure your worth as a person and as a player, so try to be good to people and try to be a good player as well. I'll eat my own words in this respect, if I ever get snarky or rude it's because being polite and quiet doesn't work to dispel unnecessary and poorly executed strife. We are required to tolerate each other and try to be nice to a certain degree, but I do recommend we show our best to each other if any of us really aspire to be respected in any capacity.

[Guest Menown]

I haven't read this whole thing, but could somebody TL:DR this for me? Is this thing really about lesbay and shit again?

[Guest]

I haven't read this whole thing, but could somebody TL:DR this for me? Is this thing really about lesbay and shit again?

 

Long story short, OP mentions community hostility. Brings up the issue with meme aggression against the lesbay meme. They misunderstand thinking lesbay is serious and is a bit offended because they apparently ID as lesbian or homosexual. That part doesn't really matter so I won't highlight it.

Borna shitposts. Hive kinda shitposts. I shitpost telling people to please stop shitposting about lesbay and intentionally making people mad. OP shitposts about everyone else shitposting. Now everyone is shitposting. Borna is forumbanned for shitposting. Hive got close to it but then got back on track.

Now we're full circle and hugging everybody. This is the Aurora community. Remember, you're here forever.

[Nanako]

Hi, my name came up a bit, i suppose i should post.

I didn't know anyone here before i came to aurora, there's nobody here that i've met in real life, and only a handful that i talk to much outside of the server. Lucychan/crazytoast is a person i play with a lot though and i guess we're sorta good friends. she's been a great companion in medical

RE: My head application. It was startling, a lot of names there of people i don't interact with much, but who apparently had a lot to say about me. And a lot of the people I DO interact with regularly and considered close friends, didn't bother to post there.

The whole affair was/is kind of depressing, i tried to be mature about it and deal with my butthurt privately. i've been drunk for three days straight, but it is my birthday now.

Most of the replies there seemed to have some good intentions behind them, there were a couple that just seemed flat out vindictive, but i won't name names

I guess it was startling because, aside from that thread, i've not felt disliked here. My loredev application got accepted a little while before, and the staff have been very welcoming, and quite full of praise for some of the stuff i've been doing.

RE Skull: I pretty quickly came to realise what he's like, and accomodated for his personality. I've known a couple of other people like him - People who can be blunt, and who you can hold an argument with, without taking it personally. We occasionally have intense discussions about stuff and he seems to not be building up resentment towards me, so that's good. I don't mind anything from him, skull is a cool guy.

There are a couple of people in the aurora community i intensely dislike, and would rather they weren't here, but discretion is the better part of valour. And its not my place to try to pursue vendettas against established people just because we don't get along.

RE Lesbay, i heard that word a lot before, and i immediately decided the best choice was to just not let it affect me, i've just consciously ignored that cliche, and not actively tries to either conform or avoid it. Maybe my characters fit it or don't, i don't know or care.

Most of the people here are pretty cool, i like aurora, hopefully another application in future will go better and we can forget the mess that the previous one ended up in. Some of the mess was literal and my fault. Did you know lore devs have forum moderator powers in a couple of places? I accidentally edited two posts in that thread with my mod powers, when i meant to quote them, destroying the original in both cases, one still hasn't been fixed, not sure if can.

In any case, i've got lots to learn and do, just gotta keep soldiering on

[Skull132]

Nanako literally uses my own tactics in forum conversations against me. It's awful, because the tactics are awful. ;-;

[pickled_tomato]

Play whatever you want to play as long as it's within the rules. People will find things to whine about regardless of how vanilla anything is. If your character you decided to make has become a target of criticism so what?

As long as the criticism doesn't affect how much fun you're having it's a pretty done deal. If the criticism gets to you and it's an overused meme then I suppose action would have to be taken. Really, that's the hard part.

[Nikov]

I think the best thing we could do is, in a thread about the extent of shitposting, baiting and trolling there is...

Stop shitposting, baiting and trolling.

[Rusty Shackleford]

The fuck were you guys on about for six pages?

[Zundy]

The fuck were you guys on about for six pages?

 

Crack.

[DatBerry]

I play a bald assistant, the oppression i get from these damn bigotted cargo techs and QMs is triggering to the extreme, even asking for large beakers from cargo so the chemist could have an easier life would have me running to the CMO, RD and HoS and take a psych eval before getting the request denied.

Now i dont get angry when people call me bald in LOOC or OOC, i instead show them competence, just like how nanako axeojiro did in medical, im always sure they can fix me up without putting me in room temperture cryo.

You can earn the community's respect by doing your job, you have to earn it, respect isnt given.

[Guest]

Seems Skull applied a 1 week ban rather than a perma one. Is it too late to stoke the fire?

I mean, this may kinda be derailing it, but I've kinda noticed stance on powergame was kinda lessened. I'm sure it has nothing to with some of the worst powergamers around being in the admin staff, but it's a possibility. People can get seriously triggered if it's true.

[UnknownMurder]

I'm not usually the person who rants but...

Question Lucy:

Is your question of the playerbase is like whenever any person (you know one person will) say "Did I do good?" Everyone will respond, "Idgaf, kill yourself lol."

[Lucychan42]

I sent you a PM cause I really don't wanna start this up again, cause last time this went into discussion mode three people died and five were hospitalized from the ensuing flame war.

I would actually invite a mod to lock this thread if they would like to; the discussion here has been had.

[UnknownMurder]

Message Received. Thanks! I understand completely now with what others cannot understand.

After looking at old posts, it must have been a nasty war. My Internet Prayers goes to them!