Journals

[Alex Ayres]

No one is slandering your name, here, and I think some people still have problems separating how their character would feel from how they feel.

I think general bitching and moaning in journal posts isn't bad enough to warrant it in the rules, but there are more serious things mentioned in some posts that perhaps should be deterred because not everyone is able to seperate themselves from it so easily as others can, but then, that is why we've requested trigger warnings.

I think there is the other side of this, that dw's player alluded to, that is more what I am talking about. I agree, that some people read things written about their characters and get upset, thinking that the thing written is actually about them. But I think these people are in the minority, and probably the least harmful of the sect of people here that are frequently crossing. And their fears are probably fueled by the type of person that is, from what I have seen, the majority of the sect of people here who frequently cross.

That type of crosser I am talking about is the person who, for whatever reason, has an OOC problem with another player, and takes to being rude to that player OOC. And then those actions bleed IC. Because of the beef they feel towards that player, they take to using solo RPs and journals to talk about that player's character negatively, to make them feel miserable. They may even write about events that did not occur with said character (this has happened to Alex), quote them as saying something they never said (this has happened to Alex), or writing in events that did not happen, or even editing conversations to appear as if they happened a different way (this has happened to people I have talked to).

Unfortunately, this is a reality of the community we are a part of. And this is where my original gripe with people being able to abuse and eviscerate someone else's creation without having a conversation with them about it first comes into play. This is happening, frequently, with ill intentions by the players.

And I believe if it was a rule that you just needed to touch base with someone before writing something about their character, it would greatly reduce this type of behavior.

Each event has 3 truths to it. Yours, theirs, and the unbiased version.

This is addressed above. My problem is not with the negativity that is perspective based. My problem is with the negativity that is wholly fabricated conversations, words being attributed to characters that did not say them, and events that were said to have taken place that didn't.

Now I don't share those views, but I also don't expect anyone to read his journal. I put it there as a way to log and document what he's writing because Discord doesn't feel like the appropriate place to.

I personally think if I was writing something I didn't expect people to read, I would keep it in a private Google Doc. This is an RP website where people who are presumably fond of both writing and reading come to both write and read. Seeing as you're one of the more exceptional writers here, I find it astonishing that you don't expect people to read his journal.

Are you suggesting instead that a forum journal can only have what you consider appropriate in it, Alessio? And where do you draw that line? How do you think it should be policed?

I'm suggesting that if you (general you), as a player, are writing your character write a journal, or go through a solo RP with your character, where they are saying/thinking shitty, mean, cruel, things, true or untrue, about another character, and your intention, as the player, is not to go out of the way to hurt the player of that character, then having a conversation with the player of that character about what you're going to say shouldn't be a problem.

I'm suggesting that by having that discussion with other players before writing about characters that aren't yours, we greatly decrease the opportunity for toxic journals and solo RPs.

I'm suggesting that even if this isn't a written rule, it should be one of those unspoken ones. Something to consider going forward as a common courtesy. It also seems like common sense.

And while I personally believe that this should be a rule, because it would reduce the toxic journals and solo RPs to a much lower percentage, I don't think it needs to be a rule for people to extend the common courtesy and kindness to other players on their own.

If this was an RP community where everyone was friends or at least everyone respected each other as human beings, then we probably wouldn't even be having this conversation.

Unfortunately, that isn't the case, and there is a lot of animosity OOC that runs pretty much in line with the animosity IC.

So here we are.

[darkwolf]

I mean... I guess you(general you) could go into the thread and write an OOC post that the information is false, and provide OOC information proving it false. Nothing in the rules about that. lol

[Ember]

I mean... I guess you(general you) could go into the thread and write an OOC post that the information is false, and provide OOC information proving it false. Nothing in the rules about that. lol

I was just about to say this. If you got the proof, should have no problem sharing it. Though, it does start unnecessary threads that shouldn't have to be started in the first place just because people don't know how to act like adults on an OOC level.

Just saying.

If you don't like other people, don't interact with them. It's pretty simple. We do that in real life, whether it's at home or work or school, so why not here? It takes way too much energy anymore to be petty and to nitpick. Who has time for that?

[Ezra]

Ezra (and various other characters) have been shit on many times in many journals. Sure, it stings, as I love my character because I put a lot of work into her. And yeah, sometimes it's lies or blatantly misunderstanding her character. But despite those things, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if character X dislikes character Y and lies about what they do. Sure, it may create drama, but as long as you have a healthy disconnect between IC and OOC, that shouldn't be viewed as more than a hiccup, or at best, a plot point to go off of. There are plenty of people I dislike OOC for OOC reasons, and their characters may dislike my characters for (what I hope to be) IC reasons,, but those things should be separate. At the end of the day, it's a game. You can love your character, but it's still a character. And Ab won't be policing what people can and cannot say in journals (at least insofar as it's not overtly offensive in the sexist/racist/etc sense, as far as I can tell from the rules we've laid out). I know it's hard, but that's just writing, bud.

[Grim]

I personally think if I was writing something I didn't expect people to read, I would keep it in a private Google Doc. This is an RP website where people who are presumably fond of both writing and reading come to both write and read. Seeing as you're one of the more exceptional writers here, I find it astonishing that you don't expect people to read his journal.

Except that's just nit picking. There's no need to hide away the journals like some tween afraid their parents will read it. Yes, this is a RP website, and journals are there because of it. If you read everything strictly to find out what shit people are talking about your characters, you're too focused on that characters opinion about your work than theirs. Not everyone is going to love your characters. There will be lies, slander and just petty ass shit because what do you think journals are for? Keeping track of your daily lives, venting, all the dark shit you don't say outwardly. It's not meant to be nice. But crossing happens and people somehow know.

That's a problem. Not what's being written.

Look, journals aren't something to be policed. Do people get mean? Yeah. Do they get petty? Yep. That's how messy people are, and especially in journals. If you read a characters journal and let it dictate how you view a character you don't actually know, then that's on the writer for listening to gossip of someone elses biased. This community is FULL of lies about other folk, all written into their characters disagreements. But it's not difficult to be an adult, and if you know you have problems OOC with a writer and think it'll bleed IC, just avoid reading their work.

There's pros and cons to the journals and for the most part people tag their shit if it's upsetting. I.e, the real upsetting stuff, not just writing lies. Lies can be proven wrong IC by actions, or you can do the adult thing and just ignore it. Does it still hurt? Absolutely. But it's how life goes. Catering to every hurt feeling is impossible.

I think here the only rule that should be implemented is if there's upsetting content to just tag the top part with a warning. Because you can't dictate what characters write about yours. That's like yelling at everyone around you in real life who even remotely look like they don't like you.

[Alex Ayres]

I mean... I guess you(general you) could go into the thread and write an OOC post that the information is false, and provide OOC information proving it false. Nothing in the rules about that. lol

How do you offer the proof when most of the RPing is happening on Discord and someone can go back and edit or delete their posts?

How does one prove an event didn't happen? Share every single conversation between two characters? What if they have been interacting for *years* and the OOC relationship just went sour and the lies just started?

If you don't like other people, don't interact with them. It's pretty simple. We do that in real life, whether it's at home or work or school, so why not here? It takes way too much energy anymore to be petty and to nitpick. Who has time for that?

What if you aren't interacting with them, you've never once had a problem with them OOC, but because of something that your character did to theirs, they start telling people lies about you OOC? They start inventing things about your character, attributing things to your character that you did so you know that it's about you? Telling people secrets that you've told them in confidence, and making those secrets your character's secrets and writing about them in journals, even though they have nothing to do with your character and are about you? So that you know they know? So you dig in deeper and ignore them harder just hoping if you don't acknowledge them, it stops, meanwhile you're suffering through this torment? What do you do, then?

Ezra (and various other characters) have been shit on many times in many journals. Sure, it stings, as I love my character because I put a lot of work into her. And yeah, sometimes it's lies or blatantly misunderstanding her character. But despite those things, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if character X dislikes character Y and lies about what they do. Sure, it may create drama, but as long as you have a healthy disconnect between IC and OOC, that shouldn't be viewed as more than a hiccup, or at best, a plot point to go off of. There are plenty of people I dislike OOC for OOC reasons, and their characters may dislike my characters for (what I hope to be) IC reasons,, but those things should be separate. At the end of the day, it's a game. You can love your character, but it's still a character. And Ab won't be policing what people can and cannot say in journals (at least insofar as it's not overtly offensive in the sexist/racist/etc sense, as far as I can tell from the rules we've laid out). I know it's hard, but that's just writing, bud.

This is all great. But you aren't the type of person that the original post is about. You are kind, there's a disconnect between you and your character, and you wouldn't use information OOC to hurt a character IC, or OOC information to hurt someone OOC (at least, that's my perception of you). You are in the minority.

Except that's just nit picking. There's no need to hide away the journals like some tween afraid their parents will read it.

What I said to Lily wasn't "Well if you don't expect anyone to read it, you should keep your shit private." What I said to Lily was "This is what I would do with writing I expect no one to read. I'm surprised you don't expect people to read your stuff. People here love to read, and your writing is great."

Yes, this is a RP website, and journals are there because of it. If you read everything strictly to find out what shit people are talking about your characters, you're too focused on that characters opinion about your work than theirs. Not everyone is going to love your characters. There will be lies, slander and just petty ass shit because what do you think journals are for? Keeping track of your daily lives, venting, all the dark shit you don't say outwardly. It's not meant to be nice. But crossing happens and people somehow know.

That's a problem. Not what's being written.

Look, journals aren't something to be policed. Do people get mean? Yeah. Do they get petty? Yep. That's how messy people are, and especially in journals. If you read a characters journal and let it dictate how you view a character you don't actually know, then that's on the writer for listening to gossip of someone elses biased. This community is FULL of lies about other folk, all written into their characters disagreements. But it's not difficult to be an adult, and if you know you have problems OOC with a writer and think it'll bleed IC, just avoid reading their work.

There's pros and cons to the journals and for the most part people tag their shit if it's upsetting. I.e, the real upsetting stuff, not just writing lies. Lies can be proven wrong IC by actions, or you can do the adult thing and just ignore it. Does it still hurt? Absolutely. But it's how life goes. Catering to every hurt feeling is impossible.

I think here the only rule that should be implemented is if there's upsetting content to just tag the top part with a warning. Because you can't dictate what characters write about yours. That's like yelling at everyone around you in real life who even remotely look like they don't like you.

First of all, I want to make it clear that this isn't about me. I think most people who know me know that the thing that hurts me the most is when I've shown someone nothing but kindness OOC, something happens between our characters, and they turn around and say that I was mean, behaved in some way atrociously, etc. etc. I have cried at work over this. Not because the person was saying mean things about me to friends, but because I sit there and feel all of the pain X person must be going through to say those things.

Likewise, since I made my original posts which turned out, according to a third party, to be emotionally distressing on someone, I've heard more than enough stories, seen more than enough evidence, of people using solo RPs and journals not as the sole method, but as a supplemental method, to hurt people OOC.

I've watched it hurt these people, I've heard their voices as they told me the strain it's putting on some of their friendships, on their own self confidence, etc.

I don't bring this up because it only happened to me and I'm upset about it and I want it to change for me. I bring it up because it's not something that happens once in a blue moon. It's commonplace.

In fact, it’s happened to me multiple times and it doesn’t hurt me, doesn’t bother me in any way that it happened to me. In my opinion, it says more about the lying scumbag who is attempting to use OOC information or IC information to hurt me than it says about Alex or me. But not everyone is like me, or the people who are posting in this thread who read that stuff and brush it off. And, in all of the cases I am aware of, the people were targeted way harder than I was.

And again, I am not suggesting anyone dictate what another character say about another character. I am saying that the rule should be that you ask for permission. I’m not even saying that they have to give it to you. Maybe it’s better worded as you have to have a conversation with the person first. As I stated before, if the intention behind your RP is purely driven by IC events and plot, and there is no malicious intent OOC, this shouldn’t be a problem. I’m saying even if the person says “no, you can’t post that” you can still post it as long as you have proof that you had the conversation with the player.

People aren’t going to have a conversation with someone they hate and want to make miserable about OOC by using IC means, and if it’s a rule and someone tries to do it and the person whose character was written about can go and say “hey, they never asked me about writing that”, it would greatly reduce the possibility of the toxic OOC negativity, and leave only the IC, plot driven “negativity.”

I also don’t understand the perceptions we here have of rules and this community. Rules, laws, regulations, etc. aren’t a one size fits all thing. All of the nations of the free world have different laws. Different regions of some countries have different laws from other regions. Rules are put in place to cater to the needs of the community they serve.

An analogy would be if someone told me they’d give me 500,000 dollars to make sure that not a single thing was broken in their house for 6 months, and I have one set of people that come over for dinner every night for three months and then I have a different set of people come over for dinner every night for another three months. Their groups are comprised of completely different individuals. No one can be kicked out, but they’ll listen to anything I say, if I think it’s absolutely necessary to say something for the safety of the house.

The first group comes over for dinner for the three months and they’re well mannered individuals who aren’t rambunctious in any way, eat their dinner and leave. Perfect. Everything goes off without a hitch.


The second group of individuals come over, and after a month and a half, they decide it would be fun to play a game where they toss the champagne glasses across the table at each other and see how many times they can toss them before they hit the table.

New rule. No throwing things inside the house.

The people in Group A didn't need the rule, but the people in Group B did.

The difference between this scenario and ours is that I’m not talking about 500,000 dollars, I’m talking about the well being of the humans behind these characters. You can decide what’s more valuable.


The discussions and arguments made against this rule I personally think should be a rule seem to work under the assumption that we write in a community where crossing, lying, and manipulation are isolated events and there’s no need to be worried about it. It isn’t. It’s common place. It’s probably more commonplace than people not crossing, and there are steps we can take to stop that from happening.

At the very least, the discussions and arguments against the rules are made by saying “well people shouldn’t cross, so since they shouldn’t cross, there’s no need for a rule that stops them from crossing. If they shouldn’t do it in the first place, there’s no reason to set a rule to discourage it.” Again, crossing does happen, it’s frequently used to hurt people OOC, and it should be taken more seriously.

Rules aren’t set in stone. They can be changed to fit the community as it evolves.


Either way, hopefully people are reading this thread and are now more aware of the problem, and other people are reading this thread and are discouraged from behaving in the numerous ways I have listed that are not subjective truths, or disagreements, or miscommunications, but targeted attempts at hurting the humans behind the character with their own malicious actions and the perceived IC actions of their characters.

[Meta]

I personally don't feel it should be a rule, because enforcing that rule would be difficult. I - Church's writer, I just don't want to keep changing accounts right now - know I personally don't read every single journal post that's made. I don't read through everything on this forum that people post because it's a lot, and I work for a living, I don't have time to go through all of that if I even thought it should be done that way - I don't. Because it'd be a lot easier for me, as an admin, to help others if they came forward with these posts that have upset them. If they feel it's an attack made against them on an OOC level, if they feel the writer of those posts is crossing in any way. Come forward. Message an admin or a member of staff who can bring it to one of us. That means we then don't have to read through every post ever written in the roleplay threads, and we can better help those that have come forward. Not everyone has an issue with it. Not everyone is upset by it, as you've said, so weeding out the ones at are upset by it from the ones that aren't by having to read every single post is just all around time consuming.

This doesn't mean I don't have time to care about the community, it means I have a life outside of this community that involves keeping a roof over my head so I can be a part of this community.
If crossing happens - message an admin.
If something has been posted that has upset you on a personal level - message an admin and we'll look into it.
We don't judge and we try to be as fair as possible.

That to me is the easiest solution I have for this.

[ladypeacek]

There's no way to prove one way or the other if people are telling lies or not in someone's journal post. It's literally all a matter of perspective. There will never be an unbiased middle-ground when it comes to journaling.

You can't censor people's art and you can't police a character's private thoughts unless you just remove the journal section in its entirety.

And that's not fair to a community of writers, especially ones who perhaps use solos and journals to build up their public writing confidence in order to get to a point they feel comfortable writing with other people in other threads.

Actually not true. I have a very specific example of someone saying Pea did something, that just plain never happened at all. There's no way you could read it as "perspective" if they say "I watched as Pea did (insert action here) and it made me feel xyz" when...pea never actually did that thing. I never wrote it, in public, private or any rp. To me, it was an outright god mod of my character.

I am not trying to call anyone out but this did happen and it did upset me quite a bit.

[Alex Ayres]

I personally don't feel it should be a rule, because enforcing that rule would be difficult. I - Church's writer, I just don't want to keep changing accounts right now - know I personally don't read every single journal post that's made. I don't read through everything on this forum that people post because it's a lot, and I work for a living, I don't have time to go through all of that if I even thought it should be done that way - I don't. Because it'd be a lot easier for me, as an admin, to help others if they came forward with these posts that have upset them. If they feel it's an attack made against them on an OOC level, if they feel the writer of those posts is crossing in any way. Come forward. Message an admin or a member of staff who can bring it to one of us. That means we then don't have to read through every post ever written in the roleplay threads, and we can better help those that have come forward. Not everyone has an issue with it. Not everyone is upset by it, as you've said, so weeding out the ones at are upset by it from the ones that aren't by having to read every single post is just all around time consuming.

This doesn't mean I don't have time to care about the community, it means I have a life outside of this community that involves keeping a roof over my head so I can be a part of this community.
If crossing happens - message an admin.
If something has been posted that has upset you on a personal level - message an admin and we'll look into it.
We don't judge and we try to be as fair as possible.

That to me is the easiest solution I have for this.

Enforcement isn't monitoring.

Even in the "policing" analogy, that isn't how enforcement works in real life. If the law is "marijuana is illegal" police officers aren't knocking on everyone's door and monitoring that no one has marijuana. If they see someone in possession of marijuana, or are notified that someone is smoking marijuana, they then inspect, and enforce the rule.

If it's a rule, then someone who is being victimized by this has something to stand on.

And frankly, if it's not a rule, and someone who is being victimized reads some of the comments in this thread, they are probably less likely to come forward then they already are, seeing as I'm the one coming forward, not them, even though I know for a fact that it happens, and the general attitude towards this issue is "these people need to be less sensitive" "these things happen" and "there's no way to stop this." And also frankly, over the past two years, I've witnessed first hand that some members of the Ab Antiquo staff are not unbiased in the way they treat members of this community, on this forum or otherwise, and I don't think I'm the only person who has noticed it, and that could also be a reason people don't feel comfortable coming forward, the people targeting them could be friends with people on the staff (I'm not saying this is the case, I'm just saying in cases I don't know about, this might be what's happening and why people aren't).


Just to be clear on what I mean by this rule:

-The rule would be something like "If you are going to be writing something negative about a character in an arena (solo RP, journals) where they can not defend themselves, alert and have a conversation with the writer of said character and be able to provide proof that the conversation took place (i.e., screen shots)."

-If someone posts something negative about another character in an arena where the character cannot defend themselves, it would be assumed that the player had the conversation with the other player. If the conversation did not happen, the onus would b eon the player whose character was talked about negatively to come forward and alert staff/admins that there was no conversation.


I think this also gets around the issue of the fact that some people have that relationship where they could talk shit about another player's character and there's already a mutual understanding between those players.

If I wrote a solo RP about Alex suddenly hating Ember for some reason, I know and trust that Flower would know and trust the fact that it was a plot driven thing and it wasn't meant to target her. I would still ask her permission, but I know that I wouldn't have to.


And enforcing this rule isn't very difficult at all, I don't think. Enforcing the rule is receiving a message from Player A: "Hey, Player B had Character X say some shitty things (I am oversimplifying it as saying "shitty things", I've already discussed what I actually mean by "shitty things") about Character Y and didn't discuss it with me first."

You go to player B: "Hey, did you discuss that stuff Character X said about Character Y with Player A first?"
Player B: "No."
You: "Okay, edit it or it will be deleted."

Presumably if it were a rule, you wouldn't get very many of these messages. Because people would either A. Be following the rule B. Already have good enough relationships with the people they write with that they don't need to ask and that's fine or C. Are doing the things they're doing maliciously, have no intentions of asking people if they can have their characters talk shit (again, a simplification) about their characters, and will stop because they have no intentions of engaging another player in a meaningful, adult conversation and now there's a rule stopping them from being a scumbag, at least in one area of their life.

You obviously can't force people to not be scum bags. If people are scum bags, they're going to be scum bags. But even in other games and other parts of life, there are rules in place to help minimize the scum baggery. Whereas here, the rule seems to be "get over it or leave or pay 100 dollars so they can't engage with you on the grid anymore" And some people have chosen to leave, and others have chosen to not RP with the wider community anymore because of this mentality and the behavior that it breeds. And it's also a reason why the community sees decline and not growth.

Anyway, among the people willing to speak openly about this problem, my perspective on it is clearly in the minority. I still hope that people have read this and it maybe changed their perspective on how they interact with others, as I think even in the things that were said that I disagree with, there were good points that were made, like if you're reading a journal and using that information, or letting it influence your perception of a character that's being talked about, you are crossing and are part of the problem, for example.

And maybe people will be more open to talking to someone before writing something about a character, even if it isn't a rule, just as a common courtesy.

[Aziza]

Actually not true. I have a very specific example of someone saying Pea did something, that just plain never happened at all. There's no way you could read it as "perspective" if they say "I watched as Pea did (insert action here) and it made me feel xyz" when...pea never actually did that thing. I never wrote it, in public, private or any rp. To me, it was an outright god mod of my character.

I am not trying to call anyone out but this did happen and it did upset me quite a bit.

But there's no way to prove that pea didn't do whatever was said. You're the only person who knows what you've written privately and not every single person knows what pea's done publically because not everyone pays attention or is around when she is.

And that's my point. You can say it was a lie and that pea never did it, and that may be true, but there's no way to prove whether it did or didn't happen. It may or may not have happened.

It's all just an argument of heresay, really.

I'm not saying it wasn't a lie that was written about pea, whatever it was, but there's literally no proof either way because the admins can't go through every single persons RPs both public -and- private [and they shouldn't] to figure out who telling the truth.

But Tex is right. If anyone has that much problem with someone slandering their character in a private roleplay because they think that person is using it as a means of crossing to turn people who are prone to crossing against a character they don't like, then they should come forward. I honestly don't think there's any way to prove that, either, but at the very least the admins could watch it and open up discussions to see if there's a bigger issue there.