Viewpoint Ethics and the Internet: a discussion on role-playing

[Bill Nye The Octopi]

I'm pretty strong in my resolve, so feel free to continue this discussion, but I've clocked out of it mentally. Also, I'll be a bit busy the next while so I wont have time to invest in the discussion.

But like I said, please feel free to continue discussing amongst yourselves.

 

[nerdy tangents]

Bill Nye The Octopi

So having read through your posts I think this has come down to a simple miscommunication.

Your issue is bullying. You don’t like it when people spread lies about other people to make them feel excluded.

I have been the victim of a mild form of that same bullying. It’s what I was trying to get at with the warning discussion. Both times it was basically one person reporting me because I had offended them. It wasn’t intentional on my part and if they had addressed me directly I would have apologized. But they didn’t address me they contacted the Staff instead.

So I do understand your frustration with “malicious” gossip and people not communicating their issues directly.


Fear was probably the wrong word for what I was trying to say.

My point is basically that your making an incorrect link between two different scenarios.

You want to make a thread about the types of bullying people face online. But because you linked it to a corrosion of morality within the roleplay community at large people are pushing back.

Because they are accurately pointing out that bullying isn’t really a big issue on this site specifically.

So I think that’s really the whole issue. It’s not that people are fundamentally disagreeing with you that bullying is wrong. They’re just saying it’s not a particularly big issue in their personal experience.

 

[GojiBean]

So, I'd like to start a deep conversation about this because I came across it as a topic. Someone was concerned they were being doxed, and I want to raise awareness of a growing problem among the role-playing community.

It's true. It happens. I have had people come to me across my role-play experience, "warning" me of a member. Generally, when I see this behaviour, I'll swing it on the other person and be very distrustful of them. I don't even invest in reading it. It's just a natural, ethical response for me. It crosses a boundary for me, and to think there are people on the internet who do this with malicious intent is just morally terrifying, but I combat this with the mentality that privacy is a growing luxury these days. However, even to be comforted by this is wrong.

What could be a growing solution to this growing problem within our community? ( gossip) I sincerely do worry about this ending ethical role-playing in general. I see this all over the internet, and I've had people warn me about members on RPN, too. It's just very unsettling

*edited because people were confused by the wording.*

Although I'm going to be rather busy the next little bit, so I will not be responding but feel free to talk among yourselves and I hope the small edit makes my point more clear. Either way, have a great day folks.

Hoyo!

I see it's already been addressed, but I will reiterate that this isn't a doxxing issue.

Doxxing is when someone publicly releases your IRL personal information (which is highly illegal and immoral). The issue at hand is more about gossip and people saying particular users are to be avoided for (insert reasons) and whether or not it will affect the community as a whole, correct?

In this respect, it's a normal part of any community for certain individuals to be problematic. Roleplaying attracts all types of people, after all. And I tend to believe that, more often than not, any negative interactions users have with one another is more due to mismatched personalities creating mountains out of mole hills than anything else. But, there are always some exceptions.

I'll use myself and someone I encountered on another RP site as an example of an exception.

I had created and was GM'ing a kind of Special Ops/Black Ops group RP. The premise was that they were formed rather quickly and at the last minute by the higher ups out of desperation to solve a problem, and literally air dropped into the zone of operation which served as their first meeting. As the GM, I made it clear that everyone was supposed to know about each other from pre-mission briefings, but have never met in person. But they were a team, and they knew it. And they were expected to treat each other as such.

However, one individual decided to take it upon themselves to not only try and God-Mod their character (more on this in a moment), but also straight up ignore what I said about everyone knowing they were part of a team ahead of time and their character treated other characters like untrustworthy antagonists from the get-go.

As for the God-Modding, here's an example. Every character had a specific role (i.e. sniper, explosives expert, tracker, counter-tracker, heavy guns, handguns, etc). This person's character was supposed to be the infiltration expert. But that specialty was completely ignored and instead they tracked the counter-tracking expert in near pitch-black darkness in the jungles of South America. Let that sink in. Near pitch-black darkness of night time in South American jungles, and they tracked the "counter-tracking" expert of the team who made it clear in their post that they covered their tracks and used whatever solid ground that wouldn't leave footprints as much as possible while they were moving about. That's about as good an example of God-Modding as you're going to get.

But it gets worse. When they found the counter-tracking expert, they had snuck up behind them. The counter-tracking expert's back had been to them the entire time, and they were made to drop their weapons. The counter-tracking expert was wearing a combat vest, so there's no outline of anything hidden under it which included a pistol for last-resort safety options. Again, their back was turned the entire time, but the God-Modder reached around and removed the pistol with dialogue saying, and this is a verbatim quote I remember to this day, "Thought I didn't see it? Nice try."

I'm sorry, what? So, you not only tracked the counter-tracking expert in near pitch-black darkness in the jungles of South America despite tracking not being your specialty. But you saw a gun under a combat vest despite their back being turned with no outline or other visible signs to you that it was ever there? No. That's God-Modding, through and through. And when I, the GM, confronted them about this and pointed out all the God-Modding issues they called me unreasonable and accused me of being the one to God-Mod even though my character(s) hadn't even interacted with any of the others at that time.

So, you can see how quickly this particular individual might build a negative reputation for themselves and find it difficult to get RP partners. The more people they interact with and behaved like this around, the more word would spread of such behavior. But, as I'm sure you could understand, nobody would really find this to be unhealthy for the community so much as a self-destructive behavior pattern for this individual.

Despite how problematic they may be in isolation, people like this pose no threat to a community. If anything, it will be the opposite. The community would rally against this kind of user and before long, and the offender would find it nearly impossible to get RP partners because everyone would be warned that they're a God-Modder and someone who doesn't respect the rules or lore of the RP they're in. Unless they change this behavior, they're basically the only ones who are out of the roleplaying experience.

However, in my 20+ years of roleplaying I've only encountered people who behave like this maybe three or four times. Most of the rest of the time I believe just mismatched personalities clashing and creating mountains out of mole hills, like I said earlier. In such cases it's not uncommon for a little bit of gossip. But it's usually not that harmful to anyone. Least of all the community at large.

And no roleplaying community will ever fall apart because of a few jerks like that.

Cheers!