Journals

[Ember]

I say we just drop the topic now and revisit at a later date, since everyone seems to be getting worked up over said topic. Agree to disagree and everyone work on their own side of things as stated pages previous.

I shouldn't have to say this, but I think it needs to be said in the most straightforward way it can be said:

***IF YOU CANNOT ACT/BEHAVE/GET ALONG LIKE ADULTS (and we're all supposed to be adults here, right?), THEN WHY ARE YOU HERE?

***this is not in response to this thread in particular but the community in general with all its "issues" player or otherwise.

[Alex Ayres]

You want your quotes? Okay.

So nitpicking means to look at small or unimportant problems to criticize someone unnecessarily.

None of the issues that I have brought up, in my opinion are "small" or "unimportant" and any criticism that I've made of the community was not done "unnecessarily."

If it is your opinion that the issues that I've presented are "small" or "unimportant" well then there isn't a way to find common ground on this. And if that's your opinion, I again, feel that that says a lot about how much you actually are considering the well being of members of this community.

Basically, twisting everything she just said into being about that one word, and the definition of it, like she doesn't know what the word means. Condescending. And basically saying she is not taking it seriously. Making it "small" and "unimportant", like what she's doing is brushing all of this off.

That was not what I was doing. Again, I will ask you to stop accusing me of doing something I wasn't. If you are confused about my intentions, please just ask.

I'm not commenting on this again.

The nitpicking is addressing every little solution she's giving you, and every little thing she says that you quote to take into this long winded, confusing mess.

This might be something I missed. And if I did, I'm sorry. But you say "every little solution" and I've only seen one solution, which, as I already said, doesn't sound like much of a solution to fixing the problem as a whole, but maybe stopping isolated cases of it.

I've literally had two points the entire time, and I've stated them in varying degrees of length and descriptiveness, but to summarize it again for you since you are confused:

1. There should be a rule that if someone is going to have one of their characters post something negative about another player's character, they should have to ask permission to do so, and even if the person says no, they should still be allowed to do it, but at least the courteous gesture was attempted. This would:

-Stop people who are using solo RPs and Journals in malicious ways from using these arenas to spread toxicity and vitriol throughout the community
-Show people that, as a community, we are trying to create a culture where people can feel comfortable coming forward with any issues
-Encourage collaboration between players, and maybe help mend some of the broken bridges that are so evident in our fractured community

2. The current state and culture of the community is not conducive to the (one) solution that was presented, which was "just come forward with any issues and we can deal with them" because:

-The behavior around these issues shows that the community generally feels that the problem of these events are that the targets are being too sensitive
-People feel they will be shamed, ridiculed, and ostracized for expressing that this is happening to them because of the point above this one
-And, this was brought up by someone else, people have come forward and nothing happened.

If you are still confused about what my message is, please let me know.

You specifically gave a reason as to why you didn't think it should be a rule: Because it was too hard for you to enforce.

It is to hard with a small admin team. This is once again twisting to make it look like she thinks it's too much work. She's explained why it is too much work and why it's a difficult rule to implement. Yet you persist.

You literally just said "this is once again twisting to make it look like she thinks it's too much work" and then followed that by "She explained why it is too much work". If she explained why it's too much work, then she clearly thinks it's too much work. What exactly am I twisting?

I was persisting. I was persisting because it seemed that her perspective was that I was asking that she go through and monitor and read every single journal and every single solo RP and make sure no one was saying anything negative about anyone. That wasn't what I was saying and I agree, doing that would be too much work, and what I was proposing be done (which I go into again for the third time below) was actually much easier, and would require no extra effort from the admins.

I explained, in detail, how you were mixing up enforcing with monitoring and how, in practice, enforcing the rule would be very easy.

What you're asking the small admin team to do is monitor everyone's work.

No. I am literally not asking that at all. I've literally not once even said "you need to monitor everyone's work". I've LITERALLY (I'm not using this the wrong way, or in a hyperbolic manner) said that what Church's player was suggesting she do was monitor everyone's work, and the rule, as I imagined it, was not that at all. I will, for the second time, quote where I said this:

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 be on the player whose character was talked about negatively to come forward and alert staff/admins that there was no conversation.

I am LITERALLY saying that admins and staff don't have to monitor ANYTHING at all in this rule that I am proposing. If you bring this up again I am going to assume that you are either blatantly and intentionally disregarding what I'm saying, or are on a plane of of intelligence that makes you unfit to participate in this conversation. No, I'm not being mean. No, I'm not being sarcastic. No, I'm not trying to be funny at your expense. I am just being honest.

If you're confused about what I mean by admins don't have to monitor anything and it would be on the player to let the admins know if this rule was broken concerning their character, just let me know, and I can clarify it for you.

Your response is just "Still think it would be easier for someone to just come forward."

You write to make yourself look good then break everything an admin writes down to "It's just be easier." Twisting. She's stated multiple times in this thread and everywhere on the forums what will help the community.

Don't bitch at her for people not listening.

If you think I'm bitching, what exactly is everything you're doing right now?

Honestly, I think that response is tone deaf to the reality of the community that this is and how people are treated in it.

You go on to flip flop your opinion about people coming forward and continually twist your meaning, hiding it in long posts.

This was just the start of when you started arguing. Solutions have been put forward, suggestions. They're there for people to read.

Drop it.

Let other people speak and don't take little words into a dictionary definition to spitfire your points.

A good point made?

I think what Tex is trying to get at is that they understand this is a problem and they want to help, but the issue has to be presented to Admin for them to be able to take action. There is too much writing and posting coming in each day for them to be able to read everything, and there's no way that the small Admin team would be able to know what's real or false if they're not involved in the lives of the characters being lied about.

This means that the moderation aspect that you're asking for is incredibly difficult to promise.

If multiple people are having an issue with one person, or a small group of people, they need to speak up. I say this as a manager. They cannot fix a problem that they have not been told is happening. If it's happening from specific individuals to multiple people, then action can be considered or taken. But if you just vaguely hint at it here in this thread- they still can't do anything. Tell them. Or tell a 3rd party you trust to have the conversation for you. There's a wealth of support for people OOC if only you use it.

I"m upset /for/ all of you that this is happening, but I also think you all need to sit down and explain it to someone who can take action so it can be addressed.

Already addressed this above.

So basically, Alessio? People care. But you're pressing in the most annoying way and making folk look bad by bolding your flip-floppy quotes all over the place.

You've raised a good issue. It's being talked about. Now let others speak.

Again, I don't think I've flip flopped once. I've been pretty on message the whole time, which I posted above. If you're confused, you can ask.

I don't know how my being vocal is stopping other people from being vocal? In fact, given your aggressive attacks and assumptions on what I am trying to do and say in my responses, it doesn't seem I've stopped anyone from raising their point of view, on this issue, or me.

[Addie]

All this.

I think Keo had some good points but I'm not going to pick her entire post apart, sorry.

All this as well.

Same with Lil. I think this 'All this' will do fine.

But I'm quote this bit, because it's bugging me;

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.”

You're wanting a solution that stops negative outcomes when it comes to journal posting, Solo rp posting. But saying "You can still post it even if you get a NO as long as you have proof that you had the conversation with that player." Is going to cause MORE damage, then just.. posting it without permission would???

That's like saying, "Hey. Can I borrow that book of yours?" "No man, sorry, I don't want to risk losing it, it's special to me." Then waiting till they aren't looking to shove it into your backpack and take it home.

No matter what, there is going to be issues.

If person A and person B, do not talk in any way shape or form, have each other blocked, etc, they may NEVER talk about, 'Hey, can I put your character in my journal; I'm not saying it'll be pretty but I just want permission first.' And if person A DOES send person B a message on this forum because they have no other way to do it, or they have someone get in touch with person B for them, there is NO PROMISE that they are going to get that conversation.

There's so many issues with that. So (in MY OPINION) one of the best things to do, is just.. Go to someone if there is a problem and report it to an Admin, not seek out a conversation that's going to lead to you posting what ever you want anyways.

Maybe I'm missing your entire point there, but. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Adding this in; People should not be afraid to report things to the Admins, they're here to help. I had an issue with someone posting something in their journal, and I reported it because they did not have a warning label and it was graphic. What happened? The Admin's helped.

They're here to help, but they never can if no one goes to them. Don't be afraid to, guys.

[Church]

Alright, how about we all just stop with the bitching? I'm just as guilty of it, I got wound up. I'm chill now.

Less of the insults under the guise of being honest.
It's just insulting.
Draw the line here, let's all speak civilly.

[ophelia]

Journals are great and annoying but they are what they are

[Alex Ayres]

I responded to this in a private message, in case you want my response to your questions and you have your PMs set to not receive any messages.

[Eli Hartley]

Journals (because this is what the original thread topic is about, not RPs, or other posts, so I'm focusing on the main thread topic, journals) are all fair game unless CROSSING is happening.
Any information written in them (IC) is all fair game. Whether the information is true, or not, made up, whatever. As long as there is no crossing.
Characters (IC) are going to write what they want, no matter what. People (OOC) are going to write what they want, no matter what. All that is fine as long as there is no crossing.

Journals (because this is what the orignal post was about):
A character (IC) does not need permission to write about someone else (IC). A person (OOC) does not need permission (OOC) for their character (IC) to write about another character (IC). Journals (IC) are what characters (IC) are writing (IC). You (OOC) should not be offended in any way over what's being written by a character (IC). You (OOC) should not blend your (OOC) perspective into your character (IC) ever, over anything.

You (Alessio) and your group sound like you're dealing with a lot of crossing and that sucks, but, to be blunt, saying that journals (because this is what the original post was about) should garner permissions (OOC) from other players (OOC) over an IC thing that an IC character is ICly writing, is crossing.
Not understanding?
You (OOC) are going to another person (OOC) and asking them (OOC) to bend their character's (IC) perspective (changing, cutting out, etc) for your (OOC) reasons.
We've all had our share of crossing drama, but that's encouraging it, too.

This boils down to Crossing and Reporting Crossing.
Help the Admin by reporting so they can, in turn, help you.
Plain and simple.

TL;DR
Just leave the Journals alone unless there's legitimate crossing.

[Alex Ayres]

You (OOC) are going to another person (OOC) and asking them (OOC) to bend their character's (IC) perspective (changing, cutting out, etc) for your (OOC) reasons.
We've all had our share of crossing drama, but that's encouraging it, too.

So I specifically say that no one should have to bend their character's perspective. I also specifically say that "asking for permission" may have been the wrong way to phrase it, and what I actually mean is "have a conversation." I've said and written a lot so I can understand that you may have missed that.

Having a conversatioin about a plot point, story line, is not crossing. It's role playing, in my opinion. It's not uncommon for two writers to sit down and discuss how their characters will meet, or interact. I personally am not a fan of this, I prefer to have characters meet organically, but I actually believe I'm in the minority in that. People regularly discuss plot points, be they positive or negative.

Making the rule of discussing negative plot points in your character's Solo RP and Journals will stop people from using the Solo RP and Journals in malicious ways because people who are using the Solo RPs and Journals in malicious ways aren't going to talk to their targets first and ask permission to be malicious to them.

The rule doesn't stop someone from posting something negative. It just puts the onus on them to reach out and have a conversation before they do. If you're posting something as a plot point or to further a storyline in your character's narrative, and aren't using the journal to hurt someone OOC, then this won't be an issue for you. And if you're not comfortable talking to a player before writing something negative about their character, then I would question what your intentions are in writing that negative thing, and maybe you are crossing without realizing and probably shouldn't post it, anyway.

But either way, after a discussion with the player, you are still free to post the negative thing, even if they'd rather you didn't. This is to make allowances for the things discussed earlier in the conversation. We are not our characters. Someone may not want someone else to post something because they are personally hurt by the thing the character is about to say about their character, even if it's a legitimate thing that happened. To me, that's on that specific player. "I don't want your character to say that because it hurts my feelings" isn't a valid reason to not have something posted. But, I still think the person who is doing the posting should know that before posting it.

The culture and mentality of the community generally encourages people to think that the person behind the character doesn't exist at all. And there is someone behind that character. And if your character is about to include them in their narrative, it is worth discussing the role play with the other player first, for all of the reasons listed above.

This boils down to Crossing and Reporting Crossing.
Help the Admin by reporting so they can, in turn, help you.
Plain and simple.

I think someone on here already talked about how they went to an admin about it and they weren't helped at all.

And while that is, in a perfect world, the perfect solution, this isn't a perfect world. In fact, this RP community is severely fractured. The current environment of the community discourages people from coming forward. We can all say "come forward" as much as we want, but if we are not acting like people who want people to come forward, then they aren't going to come forward.

In fact, someone talked to me yesterday and quoted where I said "In fact, I think this very thread proves them right" when talking about how the community doesn't make it easy for people to come forward and their response was "sure does".

I actually realized I have a real life example of this. I'm part of the EHS committee at work and we've discovered after looking at last year's incident reports that people aren't reporting minor injuries. Deep cuts, scrapes, even in some cases things that later required stitches. As difficult as it may be to believe, people at work like me, so I went over to where the technicians were and started a discussion with them to find out why people didn't report things like that. And the responses came down to things like "I didn't know I should" to "have you seen a manager's face when you go to them and tell them you got cut by a scalpel and now they have to fill out an incident report?" to "It's just a small cut and people will make fun of me for make fun of me for making a big deal out of it" to "people wil think I'm just trying to get out of doing my work" to "what if they make me take unpaid leave? I can't afford that."

This is the culture of the technicians at my workplace. They have these perceptions because of the community they are a part of. So the EHS committee has started thinking of ways to change these ways of thinking and that includes changes to the rules on how you report injury. Certain protections in place so that people will feel more comfortable coming forward. More posters and training for the first person who didn't know they should.

In order for people to report things to admins, they have to feel comfortable doing so. While I think some people are comfortable doing that, I think most aren't and suffer in silence, because that is the culture of this community.

I can't stress enough that just saying "come forward" is actually a detrimental solution when the community you are saying it to generally does not feel comfortable coming forward. If you want people to come forward, you have to create the open and receptive community that will make people comfortable with coming forward.

While the rule won't be implemented, I still think the above statement should be taken into consideration by not just admins/staff, but everyone who role plays here.

And, hopefully the admin staff has changed their way of doing things from two years ago. Because I was reported for crossing two years ago (even though I wasn't) by people who were presumably hurt by what Alex said, and I wasn't allowed to defend myself. I was told "do it again and you will be banned." So that stifled me from truly representing my character, which was in fact negatively at the time, because I was going to be banned for something that wasn't crossing that hurt someone's feeling out of character and that experience has, personally, made me lose some faith in the Ab staff. And made me hesitant to ever report things to them because the bias against me seemed very real.

Since then, another thing was reported as crossing, and the admin staff approached me and let me explain myself and they saw that I was in fact not crossing and I didn't even receive a warning for it. So things have clearly improved.

I share this story in case people dealt with a shitty admin experience in the past and have written off going to admins for that reason. So they know that things may be dealt with more fairly now than they were in the past, at least in my experience.

[Church]

"I think someone on here already talked about how they went to an admin about it and they weren't helped at all."

I didn't see that, but I can't remember something like this ever cropping up? We always try to sort out crossing claims. Like I said, sometimes it can't be proved so there's nothing that can be done about it. But that'd be exactly the same case with the thing you're trying to put out there.

[Vex]

This is likely going to be the shortest response to an excessively large thread, but I’m on vacation and idc to drag this out.

1. We will not be implementing a new rule because everything brought up is already covered by the no crossing rule. I’m not getting into semantics. It’s covered.

2. If this is occurring, bring it to one of the admins/mods. There are usually two. I’m on vacation. See Tex (Church) until I get home.

3. If a character’s journal upsets you - the player - that much, it’s probably time to take a step back. You are not your character. Other characters are welcome to lie, cheat, steal, and otherwise be dicks to and about another character. So long as it’s not crossing (which fabricating events is not), that’s fine.

4. There are a number of reasons a character might say something untrue in a journal post. Only one of them is crossing.