Toxicity in Gameplay, and Its Implications for Gameplayers

[Glen-Rhodes]

Regions suffer the same issues as any other defined community, including have in- and out-groups, fighting, and sometimes devolving into terribleness. That's kind of my point. The reason Gameplay as a whole has become this bad is because it's now a single community, rather than a forum that's utilized by a bunch of disparate regions and R/D groups to act out the game. But Gameplay as a community is leaderless and anarchic, at least in the sense that there isn't a forum administration or a court or a cabinet that can kick people out. But the reason Gameplay became a single community is because of IRC and then Discord, and Discord certainly does have administrators.

When regions find their community is growing toxic, they get together and kick the problematic ones out, and don't let them back in. (Whether the punished players find that fair is immaterial, and there has been and always will be ongoing fights about who should be kicked out. So whatever.) That didn't used to be possible in Gameplay, because there wasn't a single Gameplay. But now there is, except the community still behaves as if there isn't and everything is still anarchy. There's definitely a higher level of responsibility that the community leaders can take, even if it's not possible to permanently exile someone from the whole Gameplay community, unless they get DOS'd by mods.

You clearly have an axe to grind about the NSGP Discord, and apparently with me, but you're being oddly evasive about the specifics. Would you prefer that I instruct my admin team to treat Gameplay as if it was a region, and cut out the "toxic elements" by our subjective opinion? Because I imagine that that would do more harm than good, on a platform that I actually agree is already suboptimal. Fuck, you think I like the fact that the NSGP Discord server exists at all? If I shut it down today, it would pop up tomorrow under new leadership that has a chance of being worse off than it is now, because it's an established institution at this point and people in this game naturally try to fill power vacuums, most often with themselves.

If you would like to have a civil conversation about how I run my server, you can absolutely feel free to do so there. However, I suspect from the way you're posturing that you only wish to target me and my team and vaguely imply that we foster toxicity. Figure out which avenue you're taking and stick to it.

I'm not sure what part of my posts haven't been civil, but I think it's certainly possible to have a calm discussion about all this. I'm not scoring any political points here-- I'd be better off keeping my mouth shut, and I don't exactly have anybody to score points for about this issue. I had a chat about this on Discord, and I'm just going to post that to expand on what I said above:

Yeah I know it’s hard. Because of what I said— people don’t think GP is a single community when it actually is. So there’s a lot of belief that it can’t or shouldn’t be moderated like one.

The hard truth is that if we’re going to have a “Gameplay community” then we have to actually treat it as such, instead of thinking that something like the GP Discord is just a venue and not a community in itself.
Like there are people more active in GP then they are in their actual regions. So GP is basically like a region itself.

Koth thinks I’m trying to score political points (somehow? I don’t know how). But if his preferred way of moderating a community is to be more hands off than he would be in, say, Osiris then that’s the community that we’ll get. And it’s the one we have. He doesn’t have to take on the mantle of leadership, but he did. I certainly wouldn’t want it. But if the GP community continues on doing things the same way, then we’re just going to keep having the same fruitless discussions about toxicity.

I wasn’t singling him out. He could be literally anybody. The point of my posts is that GP = a community like a region. GP has its own natives at this point. And if we blame the leadership of TNP or TEP or Osiris or TSP when their communities go downhill, then the leadership of the GP community has some responsibility as well.

And about the difficulties of what I'm suggesting:

I mean, I get where they're coming from. Because if the GP admins do start exercising power, they'll basically get to decide who does and doesn't get to be part of the GP community (given that the server is like 90% of the definition of it at this point). And the admins are unelected and unaccountable, and nobody ever signed on to let them exercise that power when they implicitly agreed to let them be the leaders.

[Reventus Koth]

I'm not sure what part of my posts haven't been civil, but I think it's certainly possible to have a calm discussion about all this. I'm not scoring any political points here-- I'd be better off keeping my mouth shut, and I don't exactly have anybody to score points for about this issue. I had a chat about this on Discord, and I'm just going to post that to expand on what I said above:

Yeah I know it’s hard. Because of what I said— people don’t think GP is a single community when it actually is. So there’s a lot of belief that it can’t or shouldn’t be moderated like one.

The hard truth is that if we’re going to have a “Gameplay community” then we have to actually treat it as such, instead of thinking that something like the GP Discord is just a venue and not a community in itself.
Like there are people more active in GP then they are in their actual regions. So GP is basically like a region itself.

Koth thinks I’m trying to score political points (somehow? I don’t know how). But if his preferred way of moderating a community is to be more hands off than he would be in, say, Osiris then that’s the community that we’ll get. And it’s the one we have. He doesn’t have to take on the mantle of leadership, but he did. I certainly wouldn’t want it. But if the GP community continues on doing things the same way, then we’re just going to keep having the same fruitless discussions about toxicity.

I wasn’t singling him out. He could be literally anybody. The point of my posts is that GP = a community like a region. GP has its own natives at this point. And if we blame the leadership of TNP or TEP or Osiris or TSP when their communities go downhill, then the leadership of the GP community has some responsibility as well.

And about the difficulties of what I'm suggesting:

I mean, I get where they're coming from. Because if the GP admins do start exercising power, they'll basically get to decide who does and doesn't get to be part of the GP community (given that the server is like 90% of the definition of it at this point). And the admins are unelected and unaccountable, and nobody ever signed on to let them exercise that power when they implicitly agreed to let them be the leaders.

I wasn't trying to imply you weren't civil about it here, rather I meant that we could have a discussion that is also civil in a more appropriate place...the server itself. When you bring it here, to this thread about toxicity, it sends a message to the admin team of the server that you're not interested in a solution. That's all I meant when I mentioned civil discussions and political points. Hard to know your intentions when you're being vague in a thread like this.

I don't want to foster this idea of the NSGP server having the same feel as a regional server, and I as well as the other admins are open to suggestions about possible solutions. I have no interest in your definition of a "Gameplay community" in the same sense that a region has a community dynamic. Perhaps one avenue of attack would be to get rid of the OOC mainstays; channels like #sportsball, #music, or #gaming that would be commonplace in a region. I've denied things like VC music bots for the same reason, it wouldn't be unprecedented. Point is, this phenomenon is not my design.

However, we're at an impasse for the very solid reasoning you concluded your post with. I have no interest in acting as King of GP like one may crown themselves in a region. Nobody elected or appointed me, I assumed the role to keep peace and a semblance of order in a subculture that has a very hard time holding itself to decent standards. I would hate to lord power like that over all of Gameplay, that's not the type of player I am and it's exactly why I feel I need to be more hands off with the server than I am with Osiris. Yes, it would be nice for consistency of rules and enforcement if NS Staff could hop in and make an off-site equivalent of the Gameplay forum. That isn't happening. It would also be nice if the concept of an off-site GP were to not exist. The institution is already in place, it can't be undone now. So we need to work with what we have, and the admin team is doing its best.

[Glen-Rhodes]

I wasn't trying to imply you weren't civil about it here, rather I meant that we could have a discussion that is also civil in a more appropriate place...the server itself. When you bring it here, to this thread about toxicity, it sends a message to the admin team of the server that you're not interested in a solution. That's all I meant when I mentioned civil discussions and political points. Hard to know your intentions when you're being vague in a thread like this.

Unfortunately, I'm actually not able to have a civil and calm discussion on the GP Discord, for all the various reasons that I'm saying the way the community is moderated is a big part of the problem (and the solution). I barely participate in the server, and yet I'm talked about in it all the time. I purposefully avoid engaging in any kind of serious discussion there, exactly because every time I ever have, it's been disrupted and turns into a bashing session.

I don't want to foster this idea of the NSGP server having the same feel as a regional server, and I as well as the other admins are open to suggestions about possible solutions. I have no interest in your definition of a "Gameplay community" in the same sense that a region has a community dynamic. Perhaps one avenue of attack would be to get rid of the OOC mainstays; channels like #sportsball, #music, or #gaming that would be commonplace in a region. I've denied things like VC music bots for the same reason, it wouldn't be unprecedented. Point is, this phenomenon is not my design.

However, we're at an impasse for the very solid reasoning you concluded your post with. I have no interest in acting as King of GP like one may crown themselves in a region. Nobody elected or appointed me, I assumed the role to keep peace and a semblance of order in a subculture that has a very hard time holding itself to decent standards. I would hate to lord power like that over all of Gameplay, that's not the type of player I am and it's exactly why I feel I need to be more hands off with the server than I am with Osiris. Yes, it would be nice for consistency of rules and enforcement if NS Staff could hop in and make an off-site equivalent of the Gameplay forum. That isn't happening. It would also be nice if the concept of an off-site GP were to not exist. The institution is already in place, it can't be undone now. So we need to work with what we have, and the admin team is doing its best.

It doesn't really matter if you have an 'interest' in what I'm saying or not, to be curt. I personally don't expect anything I say about the Gameplay community to result in any real change, because, well... I'm Glen-Rhodes. If there's anyone that can unite GP into an in-group, it's apparently me. But nonetheless, Gameplay behaves indistinguishably from any other region-based community. Gameplay has natives. The fact that we're talking about the "toxicity problem in the Gameplay community" is proof of the point. We're not talking about the problems of TSPers and Osirans and TNPers and Raiders and Defenders posting on the GP forum. We're talking about the problems of Gameplayers and "the community." And this community has leaders, like every community does. It has formal leaders who are in charge of the community's platforms, and then it has social leaders. At the end of the day, leaders bear a certain amount of responsibility for the shape of the community they lead.

The only alternative suggestion to moderating Gameplay like the singular community it is has been to make a thread on these forums talking about toxicity, and then imploring people to be nice to each other. This thread has existed many times over many years. We're asking the problems to become the solutions, and that's nonsensical and will never work. I mean, we know exactly what needs to be done, because we all know exactly how it's done everywhere else on the internet and in real life. There's a reason forums and chats have ban buttons. There's a reason you send the disruptive kid to the principal's office. There's a reason you separate two people who are fighting each other all the time. If instead we treated classrooms as public squares, and said that we can't do this or that because it has to be available for everyone, that would obviously be a bad way to go about things. So while I understand the difficulties, the reluctance, and the cognitive resistance for those of us who have been playing this game for 5-10+ years to see Gameplay as a singular community... I'm not exactly sure there's any alternative. Because self-policing isn't real.

[Cormactopia Prime]

I mean, we know exactly what needs to be done, because we all know exactly how it's done everywhere else on the internet and in real life. There's a reason forums and chats have ban buttons. There's a reason you send the disruptive kid to the principal's office. There's a reason you separate two people who are fighting each other all the time. If instead we treated classrooms as public squares, and said that we can't do this or that because it has to be available for everyone, that would obviously be a bad way to go about things. So while I understand the difficulties, the reluctance, and the cognitive resistance for those of us who have been playing this game for 5-10+ years to see Gameplay as a singular community... I'm not exactly sure there's any alternative. Because self-policing isn't real.

I don't even understand what you're asking them to do. They do impose punishments for violation of the rules. They have warned and temporarily banned people. So what exactly are you looking for them to do that they don't already do? They can't ban anyone who criticizes or disagrees with you.

[Escade]

When regions find their community is growing toxic, they get together and kick the problematic ones out, and don't let them back in.

Hearing this from you of all people is just...disgusting.

Isn't the irony just terrible?

[Wabbitslayah]

Regions suffer the same issues as any other defined community, including have in- and out-groups, fighting, and sometimes devolving into terribleness. That's kind of my point. The reason Gameplay as a whole has become this bad is because it's now a single community, rather than a forum that's utilized by a bunch of disparate regions and R/D groups to act out the game. But Gameplay as a community is leaderless and anarchic, at least in the sense that there isn't a forum administration or a court or a cabinet that can kick people out. But the reason Gameplay became a single community is because of IRC and then Discord, and Discord certainly does have administrators.

When regions find their community is growing toxic, they get together and kick the problematic ones out, and don't let them back in. (Whether the punished players find that fair is immaterial, and there has been and always will be ongoing fights about who should be kicked out. So whatever.) That didn't used to be possible in Gameplay, because there wasn't a single Gameplay. But now there is, except the community still behaves as if there isn't and everything is still anarchy. There's definitely a higher level of responsibility that the community leaders can take, even if it's not possible to permanently exile someone from the whole Gameplay community, unless they get DOS'd by mods.

You clearly have an axe to grind about the NSGP Discord, and apparently with me, but you're being oddly evasive about the specifics. Would you prefer that I instruct my admin team to treat Gameplay as if it was a region, and cut out the "toxic elements" by our subjective opinion? Because I imagine that that would do more harm than good, on a platform that I actually agree is already suboptimal. Fuck, you think I like the fact that the NSGP Discord server exists at all? If I shut it down today, it would pop up tomorrow under new leadership that has a chance of being worse off than it is now, because it's an established institution at this point and people in this game naturally try to fill power vacuums, most often with themselves.

If you would like to have a civil conversation about how I run my server, you can absolutely feel free to do so there. However, I suspect from the way you're posturing that you only wish to target me and my team and vaguely imply that we foster toxicity. Figure out which avenue you're taking and stick to it.

But he's not wrong in the meta, not the server. Problems used to be isolated in a region or a few. Usually when another region took action it was because of cross membership or region A went public with the problem. Though on the other hand it was easier to sweep things under the rug or things to get lost in the ether with other communities never knowing.

[Greater Moldavi]

To me it seems that the conversations here are problematic because they are approaching the issue from different ‘sides’ and ideas of what toxicity actually means.

For myself, I see toxicity as something different than a player getting upset in the heat of an argument and crossing the IC/OOC line on a one off and then addressing it directly. To me, toxicity implies a pattern. If a player has a pattern of taking OOC offence at obviously IC statements and does so multiple times towards multiple players in the hopes of casting irl aspersions onto another player in order to push an IC agenda, that person is toxic. Some players have made that their standard method of play over the last few years and I think some offsite communities are (finally) beginning to recognise that sort of behaviour for what it is and deciding they choose not to allow it as part of their construct. The problem that Glen-Rhodes speaks to regarding the Discord server in my experience is that some on the admin team there enable this sort of behaviour and when it is called out silence those that speak up about it.

This isn’t the same as someone who sexually harasses other players or violates ToS in some way. There are other means of addressing those sorts of players outside NSGP.

[Consular]

Potentially unpopular opinion: I don't think NationStates is very toxic at all.

[Greater Moldavi]

Potentially unpopular opinion: I don't think NationStates is very toxic at all.

In general, I agree. I have unfortunately noticed in this last iteration of my return to the game that some players are, including players that I used to disagree with IC-wise but still respected as players. It is a shame in my opinion.

[Cormactopia Prime]

For myself, I see toxicity as something different than a player getting upset in the heat of an argument and crossing the IC/OOC line on a one off and then addressing it directly. To me, toxicity implies a pattern. If a player has a pattern of taking OOC offence at obviously IC statements and does so multiple times towards multiple players in the hopes of casting irl aspersions onto another player in order to push an IC agenda, that person is toxic. Some players have made that their standard method of play over the last few years and I think some offsite communities are (finally) beginning to recognise that sort of behaviour for what it is and deciding they choose not to allow it as part of their construct. The problem that Glen-Rhodes speaks to regarding the Discord server in my experience is that some on the admin team there enable this sort of behaviour and when it is called out silence those that speak up about it.

The problem with what you're saying here is that it's a work of fiction. When you question someone's reading comprehension, Ivan, that isn't "obviously IC statements" -- because it's a remark about the player behind the screen. If you said it on this forum you'd most likely get warned for baiting. No one is trying to cast RL aspersions on you by calling that out for baiting, because baiting is a minor thing that sometimes happens in the heat of an argument, and it certainly doesn't mean you're a bad person or should be blacklisted. Literally no one is saying that. But it also doesn't mean it should be left unaddressed. The problem you have is that you never recognize anything you do as an OOC issue, even a minor one. You never apologize for it. You always complain that people are weaponizing OOC issues and NSGP moderators are treating you unfairly. So that's why people tend to get on your case about it, not to score political points or try to blacklist you, but because you're being consistently rude to people in an OOC way and you don't even acknowledge it.

Now, if you want to talk about casting aspersions on someone's RL character, let's talk about the constant insinuations that I deliberately weaponize OOC issues for IC political gain. Let's talk about the whisper campaigns about this that go on in people's DMs in an effort to get me blacklisted -- something I don't think you've done, to be clear, but others have. I would never deliberately weaponize OOC issues for IC reasons. If I say something about OOC issues it's because I think it's a problem. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but I don't appreciate the totally unfounded accusations that I'm deliberately weaponizing OOC issues for IC political gain. You complain about people calling you out for simple baiting and then turn around and toss an accusation like that in my direction. And then complain about people casting aspersions on you? Give me a break. Cry me a river. At least no one is waging a quiet campaign to blacklist you. At least when someone makes false OOC accusations against you and your friends stand up for you and suggest maybe there's a problem with gameplay culture, the peanut gallery doesn't come to Gameplay to attack you for three days straight, tell bald-faced lies about you, and label you as the source of all toxicity.

[Greater Moldavi]

For myself, I see toxicity as something different than a player getting upset in the heat of an argument and crossing the IC/OOC line on a one off and then addressing it directly. To me, toxicity implies a pattern. If a player has a pattern of taking OOC offence at obviously IC statements and does so multiple times towards multiple players in the hopes of casting irl aspersions onto another player in order to push an IC agenda, that person is toxic. Some players have made that their standard method of play over the last few years and I think some offsite communities are (finally) beginning to recognise that sort of behaviour for what it is and deciding they choose not to allow it as part of their construct. The problem that Glen-Rhodes speaks to regarding the Discord server in my experience is that some on the admin team there enable this sort of behaviour and when it is called out silence those that speak up about it.

The problem with what you're saying here is that it's a work of fiction. When you question someone's reading comprehension, Ivan, that isn't "obviously IC statements" -- because it's a remark about the player behind the screen. If you said it on this forum you'd most likely get warned for baiting. No one is trying to cast RL aspersions on you by calling that out for baiting, because baiting is a minor thing that sometimes happens in the heat of an argument, and it certainly doesn't mean you're a bad person or should be blacklisted. Literally no one is saying that. But it also doesn't mean it should be left unaddressed. The problem you have is that you never recognize anything you do as an OOC issue, even a minor one. You never apologize for it. You always complain that people are weaponizing OOC issues and NSGP moderators are treating you unfairly. So that's why people tend to get on your case about it, not to score political points or try to blacklist you, but because you're being consistently rude to people in an OOC way and you don't even acknowledge it.

Now, if you want to talk about casting aspersions on someone's RL character, let's talk about the constant insinuations that I deliberately weaponize OOC issues for IC political gain. Let's talk about the whisper campaigns about this that go on in people's DMs in an effort to get me blacklisted -- something I don't think you've done, to be clear, but others have. I would never deliberately weaponize OOC issues for IC reasons. If I say something about OOC issues it's because I think it's a problem. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but I don't appreciate the totally unfounded accusations that I'm deliberately weaponizing OOC issues for IC political gain. You complain about people calling you out for simple baiting and then turn around and toss an accusation like that in my direction. And then complain about people casting aspersions on you? Give me a break. Cry me a river. At least no one is waging a quiet campaign to blacklist you. At least when someone makes false OOC accusations against you and your friends stand up for you and suggest maybe there's a problem with gameplay culture, the peanut gallery doesn't come to Gameplay to attack you for three days straight, tell bald-faced lies about you, and label you as the source of all toxicity.

Actually, you are incorrect. This is a common occurrence so I won't belabor the point with you over it, but the fact is that the phrase 'reading comprehension is your friend' is something that has been said in different forms here for years, dozens of times, without it being an issue because it is a common phrase that players will say when it appears someone is misreading their statement. It has been stated by moderators, players that have come to your defense, and the owner of the Discord server on this very forum - all without incident.

So when I say it to you in the same context within the chat and your immediate response is to label me as ableist against people with IRL learning disabilities I call that a toxic response. It is an intentional conflation of IC and OOC that you honestly know better than to pretend is a real thing. And then when I defend myself against you making a blatant and unwarranted OOC accusation against me I get a warning for being 'disruptive'. Although I do note that your pet admin said he had no problem with you defending yourself against OOC accusations just the other day. But that was to be expected. The enabling attitude of the administration on the Discord saddens me.

But yeah, I'm disruptive when people make OOC accusations against me without cause. I will be disruptive in those situations 100% of the time and I think if more people were disruptive and/or the admin actually stood up for the players that don't bring OOC bullshit into every IC conversation this topic wouldn't even be needed.

You used to be a better player than this. I don't give praise lightly, and I don't expect you to listen to me, but even though we have disagreed IC-wise over things here for years, I always had respect for you as a player until the last six months. Over the last six months you have tried to pin OOC labels on me multiple times and I'm sorry to everyone else if me sticking up for myself and calling bullshit on your victim mentality is a problem.

Glad you threw in a bit of whataboutism that is completely unrelated to me or this conversation at the end. That's always a plus.

And I have not complained once about NSGP moderation, only the NSGP Discord moderation, which is a very different thing. The mods here understand the difference between IC and OOC and are generally impartial regardless of their ingame leanings. That can't be said for everyone.

[Entendre Cordial]

What's clear to less-involveds is that some o' y'all been playing this game for too damn long. You know each other like siblings - the history of gameplay actions, but also how to push each other's buttons - but because you're still focused on the power and politics thing, you keep coming back for more interactions with the same people. You can't walk away, because the political game is what brought you, but it's also the source of some of your biggest frustrations. You're more or less living I, Claudius or King Lear. When you're constantly making intrigues against the same small group of people for years on end, toxicity follows like floods follow a hurricane.

Nah, I don't have any suggestions for y'all - this whole dynamic looks pretty much inevitable to me. In real politics of the kind you subject yourselves to, half of you would have long since had the other half assassinated, and the living half would have proxies and lackeys and adjutants to handle all but the most personal communications and liaisons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io43ak_Vias

I know this sounds awfully bleak, but you can always hope I'm full of shit. I sometimes find it nice to be wrong.

[Greater Moldavi]

What's clear to less-involveds is that some o' y'all been playing this game for too damn long. You know each other like siblings - the history of gameplay actions, but also how to push each other's buttons - but because you're still focused on the power and politics thing, you keep coming back for more interactions with the same people. You can't walk away, because the political game is what brought you, but it's also the source of some of your biggest frustrations. You're more or less living I, Claudius or King Lear. When you're constantly making intrigues against the same small group of people for years on end, toxicity follows like floods follow a hurricane.

Nah, I don't have any suggestions for y'all - this whole dynamic looks pretty much inevitable to me. In real politics of the kind you subject yourselves to, half of you would have long since had the other half assassinated, and the living half would have proxies and lackeys and adjutants to handle all but the most personal communications and liaisons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io43ak_Vias

I know this sounds awfully bleak, but you can always hope I'm full of shit. I sometimes find it nice to be wrong.

I disagree. I am happy to debate or argue or whatever with other players in this game over ingame topics ad nauseam (and I often do) but since my return this time the atmosphere is noticeably different than any of the other times. Players are so quick to get OOC offended at comments that 2-3 years ago I could not imagine someone getting upset about beyond the gameplay aspects and it just seems wrong to me. It is wrong to label people with OOC accusations within the context of a game. You don't like someone's method of play or how they respond, then argue with them about it within the issues of the game, don't insult them OOC and try to paint them as an IRL horrible person just to win some weird ingame points.

I know my playing style is abrasive to a lot of people. But I also know that I am welcome in a number of different communities here because the vast majority of players I interact with know that I am here to just play a damn game. I'm not here to make them feel bad about themselves, to spread rumours about other players, to force myself into their OOC interactions, or any of that stuff. There is a difference between why I can have such a checkered history with a region like TNP, disappear for a year and a half, and come back and not have a problem joining the region. Because I've put in the work and developed a character that people recognize as an upfront, honest individual. You might not like me, but you know I'm not going to be a creep, or push OOC labels on people, or respond to IC events in an OOC manner. That isn't how I've ever played the game in over 16 years and I am not going to start doing it now.

But I've never cowered either. So I'm not going to meekly accept it when others do act that way towards me.

[Cormactopia Prime]

Actually, you are incorrect. This is a common occurrence so I won't belabor the point with you over it, but the fact is that the phrase 'reading comprehension is your friend' is something that has been said in different forms here for years, dozens of times, without it being an issue because it is a common phrase that players will say when it appears someone is misreading their statement. It has been stated by moderators, players that have come to your defense, and the owner of the Discord server on this very forum - all without incident.

So when I say it to you in the same context within the chat and your immediate response is to label me as ableist against people with IRL learning disabilities I call that a toxic response. It is an intentional conflation of IC and OOC that you honestly know better than to pretend is a real thing. And then when I defend myself against you making a blatant and unwarranted OOC accusation against me I get a warning for being 'disruptive'. Although I do note that your pet admin said he had no problem with you defending yourself against OOC accusations just the other day. But that was to be expected. The enabling attitude of the administration on the Discord saddens me.

This is what you said:

Moldavi 03/20/2019
That doesn’t even make any sense. That just illustrates a lack of reading comprehension on your part (completely IC of course) - likely deliberately because you are a liar.

I'll let people judge for themselves whether saying I lack reading comprehension is IC just because you threw in "(completely IC of course)" to cover your ass. I will add though that I never labeled you an albeist or even used the word ableist at all. I didn't even imply it. I never once said anything that resembled saying you were discriminating against people with RL disabilities -- I simply said you were baiting me. So that is a straight up lie you're telling there, and anyone on the NSGP server can search "reading comprehension" and see for themselves if they'd like.

We were both warned for this incident on the server and I've never brought it up again since then, by the way. You're the one who keeps bringing it up to insist that I make false OOC accusations for IC reasons, and to say I called you an ableist when I never did that. You're the one who keeps bringing it up to insist that NSGP server moderation is unfair to you even though we were both given warnings for the same incident. You're the reason this keeps coming up.

You used to be a better player than this. I don't give praise lightly, and I don't expect you to listen to me, but even though we have disagreed IC-wise over things here for years, I always had respect for you as a player until the last six months. Over the last six months you have tried to pin OOC labels on me multiple times and I'm sorry to everyone else if me sticking up for myself and calling bullshit on your victim mentality is a problem.

The only OOC label I've tried to "pin on you" at any point is that you flame and bait people in the NSGP Discord server, because guess what? You do. It doesn't make you a bad person, because that stuff happens in this game all the time. I've done it, I've been called out for it, I've been warned for it. It happens. The only reason I belabor the point is because it would sure be nice if you'd knock it off and not do it constantly. But I'll tell you what, from now on I'll just leave it to NSGP server moderation to decide what to do without a peep from me about it. But for the record, I don't think you're ableist, or a bad person, or that you should be blacklisted, or anything like that. I just wish you'd cut out the constant baiting, and that really is all there is to it. But I'll leave it to the NSGP server moderation to deal with since you seem to think I'm targeting you for political reasons. I really do wish you would understand that I'm not though.

And I have not complained once about NSGP moderation, only the NSGP Discord moderation, which is a very different thing. The mods here understand the difference between IC and OOC and are generally impartial regardless of their ingame leanings. That can't be said for everyone.

I only meant the server. It's commonly abbreviated "NSGP" whereas this forum is usually just abbreviated "GP." I apologize for the lack of clarity.

[Greater Moldavi]

snip

Yes, I said you lack reading comprehension (IC-wise) in that conversation and your response was to claim I was attacking you OOC about learning disabilities. I am sure that anyone reading that conversation that reads the entire conversation and not one out of context quotation can see that for what it is. I called you on it then and you defended that position. So whatever. You also called me a compulsive liar in that conversation.

The fact that you feel the need to respond beyond just the idea of baiting (which would be a legitimate point of argumentation) is the problem. It isn't just 'Ivan is baiting me', it is 'Ivan is baiting me and also....' which is just unnecessary. And is toxic.

The immediate part of the conversation. There is more but as I have been banned from the Discord server for sticking up for myself against your OOC accusations I don't have the rest handy.

Moldavi03/20/2019
That doesn’t even make any sense. That just illustrates a lack of reading comprehension on your part (completely IC of course) - likely deliberately because you are a liar.
[controversial thing] :umbrella:03/20/2019
lol
"completely IC"
See, you can lie completely IC, Ivan.
But you can't lack reading comprehension completely IC.
Moldavi03/20/2019
Yeah, keep moving those goalposts
[controversial thing] :umbrella:03/20/2019
When you say someone lacks reading comprehension you are saying that about the player, not the character.
[controversial thing] :umbrella:03/20/2019
Because that's what you do.
Moldavi03/20/2019
No, I’m saying you are deliberately misreading what I stated because you are a liar.
[controversial thing] :umbrella:03/20/2019
You troll and bait. Daily in this server.
No, you said I lack reading comprehension.
Moldavi03/20/2019
I didn’t call you a liar
You started this as usual
[controversial thing] :umbrella:03/20/2019
I called you a liar IC. I'm sure you're fine in RL.
Moldavi03/20/2019
Calling someone a compulsive liar is not an IC trait
[controversial thing] :umbrella:03/20/2019
You said I lack reading comprehension. I can only lack reading comprehension in RL.

The part in bold is the generally understood meaning of that phrase and has been used as such in an IC capacity in this game for its entire existence. I do understand that idioms change over time and cultures shift, but you have been around long enough and played against me long enough to know what I meant and that I was not making an OOC statement in this instance. Unless I'm giving you far too much credit?

For reference, the uses of 'reading comprehension' in Gameplay: search.php?keywords=reading+comprehension&terms=all&author=&fid%5B%5D=12&sc=1&sf=all&sr=posts&sk=t&sd=d&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search

An interesting list of players that have used it to be sure. Perhaps it isn't the best means of conveying the point, but no intentional IRL aspersion in such usage has ever been intended by me.

[Cormactopia Prime]

<snip>

I did not say anything about or even allude to learning disabilities. Stop lying. Again, it's all there in black and white.

What I said was that you were baiting me, the player behind the screen, after you insisted that an insult about reading comprehension was IC. I accused you of absolutely nothing besides baiting. You had also accused me of baiting you for calling you a compulsive liar, and I was transparent in my previous post that I had also been warned during that dispute, so it's not like I was concealing that to make myself look good. Both of us disagreed that we were baiting each other, but NSGP server moderation agreed with both of us that we were baiting each other, and we were both warned for baiting by Altino. And here's where our stories radically depart from each other. I accepted that I had been wrong and was in fact baiting, I accepted Altino's warning, and I moved on. You decided to argue I had been making false OOC accusations against you, even though you had also accused me of baiting, the exact same thing I accused you of doing. You decided to accuse NSGP server moderation of treating you unfairly, even though we were both warned for the same thing. You decided to begin referring to Koth as my "pet admin," even though you'd been warned by Altino in that instance, and have been warned by other admins and moderators far less friendly with me in other instances. You're the one who decided to blow this incident way out of proportion from what it was.

No one thinks you're an ableist. No one thinks you're a bad person. No one thinks you should be blacklisted. No one has ever said or implied any of those things. The issue here is that you can't accept being warned for baiting, so you lash out in ridiculous ways, making wild accusations against me, against Koth, against NSGP server moderation as a whole. No one thinks and no one has ever said nor implied you're a bad person, but you're the one making me out to be a monster who levels false OOC accusations against people, and making NSGP server moderation out to be corrupt and abusing their power. So tell me again how I'm the one who takes things and blows them out of proportion with false accusations. Seriously? Get over yourself and accept that sometimes you bait people, and sometimes you get warned for it. Most of us do, but most of us don't act like this afterward.

[Greater Moldavi]

<snip>

I did not say anything about or even allude to learning disabilities. Stop lying. Again, it's all there in black and white.

What I said was that you were baiting me, the player behind the screen, after you insisted that an insult about reading comprehension was IC. I accused you of absolutely nothing besides baiting. You had also accused me of baiting you for calling you a compulsive liar, and I was transparent in my previous post that I had also been warned during that dispute, so it's not like I was concealing that to make myself look good. Both of us disagreed that we were baiting each other, but NSGP server moderation agreed with both of us that we were baiting each other, and we were both warned for baiting by Altino. And here's where our stories radically depart from each other. I accepted that I had been wrong and was in fact baiting, I accepted Altino's warning, and I moved on. You decided to argue I had been making false OOC accusations against you, even though you had also accused me of baiting, the exact same thing I accused you of doing. You decided to accuse NSGP server moderation of treating you unfairly, even though we were both warned for the same thing. You decided to begin referring to Koth as my "pet admin," even though you'd been warned by Altino in that instance, and have been warned by other admins and moderators far less friendly with me in other instances. You're the one who decided to blow this incident way out of proportion from what it was.

No one thinks you're an ableist. No one thinks you're a bad person. No one thinks you should be blacklisted. No one has ever said or implied any of those things. The issue here is that you can't accept being warned for baiting, so you lash out in ridiculous ways, making wild accusations against me, against Koth, against NSGP server moderation as a whole. No one thinks and no one has ever said nor implied you're a bad person, but you're the one making me out to be a monster who levels false OOC accusations against people, and making NSGP server moderation out to be corrupt and abusing their power. So tell me again how I'm the one who takes things and blows them out of proportion with false accusations. Seriously? Get over yourself and accept that sometimes you bait people, and sometimes you get warned for it. Most of us do, but most of us don't act like this afterward.

I have been warned three times on the Discord server. In each instance it was because I was replying to OOC accusations from either you or one other player. In no other instance have I been warned. So no, you are incorrect, again.

You claimed I was attacking you the player OOC and saying you had RL reading comprehension issues. Altino then stated in my warn publicly that it was for attacking you over IRL learning disabilities. There is a very real and evident difference in how our two warns were handled. And a real and evident difference in how Altino chose to act in that circumstance and the offense she took recently at the exact same thing.

So no, I don't accept that there is parity in how the admin team on the Discord operates. I think enough players have witnessed it to know it to be true. Many just accept it for what it is and don't push buttons or confront or disagree. I'm not that guy.

I have disagreed and argued with literally hundreds of people in this game and not been warned or had an issue with moderation. The reason for that is because most of those players kept it IC. They didn't conflate like you do. And it doesn't matter how you spin it right now, it is in black and white as you say, you took an IC statement, that most reasonable people would see as such, and made it an OOC issue. You later in that conversation acknowledged it was an OOC attack and expressed satisfaction that it was 'successful'. That is the problem. In that way, you are the problem.

My being abrasive and trolling and baiting are separate ingame issues that I am indeed aware of. I know I push too hard on occasion. But I don't cross the line and I don't make it a habit of trying to call someone out for OOC offense when none is obviously intended.

[Cormactopia Prime]

You claimed I was attacking you the player OOC and saying you had RL reading comprehension issues. Altino then stated in my warn publicly that it was for attacking you over IRL learning disabilities. There is a very real and evident difference in how our two warns were handled. And a real and evident difference in how Altino chose to act in that circumstance and the offense she took recently at the exact same thing.

So no, I don't accept that there is parity in how the admin team on the Discord operates. I think enough players have witnessed it to know it to be true. Many just accept it for what it is and don't push buttons or confront or disagree. I'm not that guy.

So you're conceding I didn't say a word about learning disabilities, and you've actually been attacking me for something someone else said?

I said you were baiting me, the player behind the screen. I did not say anything about learning disabilities. Let's get that straight, because you've been saying for weeks that I accused you of being an ableist and being insensitive to RL learning disabilities, when in fact I never said anything like that. So you've basically been telling lies about me for weeks and falsely accusing me of making accusations I never once made. And you still have the audacity to say I'm the one who falsely accused you of something? I accused you of baiting. Full stop. And you were baiting, you've admitted that. The only difference is that you're insisting that an insult about reading comprehension isn't about me, the player behind the screen, when it really obviously is. My switching alignments, my leaking logs, my ragequitting regions, etc., those are all IC things. My reading comprehension isn't. That's what makes it baiting. You can't be engaged in baiting if it's IC, because baiting by its nature is OOC. Just because it's OOC doesn't mean you're a bad person. It just means you're baiting.

In regard to NSGP server moderation, the idea that they're deliberately biased is absurd, and I don't think you should presume to speak for "many." Most people who play this game aren't shy about their opinions, so if the gameplay masses think NSGP server moderation are corrupt and abusing their power, I'm fairly sure they would say something and not just leave poor, brave, beleaguered Ivan Quixote to go into battle all by his lonesome.

[Greater Moldavi]

You claimed I was attacking you the player OOC and saying you had RL reading comprehension issues. Altino then stated in my warn publicly that it was for attacking you over IRL learning disabilities. There is a very real and evident difference in how our two warns were handled. And a real and evident difference in how Altino chose to act in that circumstance and the offense she took recently at the exact same thing.

So no, I don't accept that there is parity in how the admin team on the Discord operates. I think enough players have witnessed it to know it to be true. Many just accept it for what it is and don't push buttons or confront or disagree. I'm not that guy.

So you're conceding I didn't say a word about learning disabilities, and you've actually been attacking me for something someone else said?

I said you were baiting me, the player behind the screen. I did not say anything about learning disabilities. Let's get that straight, because you've been saying for weeks that I accused you of being an ableist and being insensitive to RL learning disabilities, when in fact I never said anything like that. So you've basically been telling lies about me for weeks and falsely accusing me of making accusations I never once made. And you still have the audacity to say I'm the one who falsely accused you of something? I accused you of baiting. Full stop. And you were baiting, you've admitted that. The only difference is that you're insisting that an insult about reading comprehension isn't about me, the player behind the screen, when it really obviously is. My switching alignments, my leaking logs, my ragequitting regions, etc., those are all IC things. My reading comprehension isn't. That's what makes it baiting. You can't be engaged in baiting if it's IC, because baiting by its nature is OOC. Just because it's OOC doesn't mean you're a bad person. It just means you're baiting.

In regard to NSGP server moderation, the idea that they're deliberately biased is absurd, and I don't think you should presume to speak for "many." Most people who play this game aren't shy about their opinions, so if the gameplay masses think NSGP server moderation are corrupt and abusing their power, I'm fairly sure they would say something and not just leave poor, brave, beleaguered Ivan to go into battle all by his lonesome.

No, I'm saying you took an obviously IC comment and made it OOC, which is the entire point I've been making. You do that often and it is toxic. You can't apparently differentiate between the two and that is a problem when you are playing a simulation game in my opinion.

No one said 'the player behind the character of Cormac can't read'. You decided to make it about that for some bizarre reason that I honestly can't really fathom. It just makes no sense. Saying that a player has reading comprehension issues in response to their misreading an ingame statement is not an OOC attack on the individual playing. It hasn't ever been treated as such here (see the many examples above) and shouldn't be treated that way on the Discord. It is a figure of speech.

You taking personal and 'real' offense at such a thing is childish and should be beneath you. You defending it now is just as bad. You know you did it, just stop doing it. That is all it takes.

Regardless, I have other things to do. Every region I have ever been a part of in this game has had individuals that I disagreed with on an IC level. We have argued, we have debated, and some of those people don't like my ingame persona to this day. And I am fine with that. What you won't find if you go to any of those regions are people that say I am toxic or that I make OOC mountains out of IC molehills or that I can't differentiate between IC and OOC in the context of the game. Those people don't exist for a very clear reason. I know I am abrasive. I know I am combative. But I keep it to the game. My record in how I treat people in this game speaks for itself.

So does yours.

[Cormactopia Prime]

No, I'm saying you took an obviously IC comment and made it OOC, which is the entire point I've been making. You do that often and it is toxic. You can't apparently differentiate between the two and that is a problem when you are playing a simulation game in my opinion.

No one said 'the player behind the character of Cormac can't read'. You decided to make it about that for some bizarre reason that I honestly can't really fathom. It just makes no sense. Saying that a player has reading comprehension issues in response to their misreading an ingame statement is not an OOC attack on the individual playing. It hasn't ever been treated as such here (see the many examples above) and shouldn't be treated that way on the Discord. It is a figure of speech.

You taking personal and 'real' offense at such a thing is childish and should be beneath you. You defending it now is just as bad. You know you did it, just stop doing it. That is all it takes.

Maybe the issue is that we're coming at this with a different definition of what IC and OOC mean. I interpret IC to mean anything that goes on in the game, and OOC to be anything that is not part of the game. So if you say I'm a liar based on something I did in the game, that's IC. If you say I can't be trusted because I leak logs like a faucet in need of repair, that's IC. If you say I have no allegiance to anyone or anything because I've been everywhere, man, that's IC. But I can't for the life of me figure out how a comment about reading comprehension is IC. It just simply isn't. Reading comprehension is a RL trait and has nothing to do with the game at all, and can only be a comment about the player behind the screen. Where am I wrong in that?

Now, to be clear though, just because I think it's OOC doesn't mean I think you're a bad person for it. It was immature baiting, a rude joke about me not reading what you said right, not some kind of harassment. I have always only said it was baiting and have never made a bigger deal than that. The issue seems to be that we have very different definitions of what IC and OOC mean, and you seemed to think I was making you out to be a bad person in RL just because I said it was OOC. I wasn't. I'm truly sorry if it came across that way, but that wasn't how I intended it. Common baiting isn't this big a deal.

In any event, I'm just going to leave it to NSGP server moderation to deal with in the future, but I truly did not intend to disparage you in RL.

[Big Bad Badger]

In regard to NSGP server moderation, the idea that they're deliberately biased is absurd

I disagree with you Cormac on this point; while I have never expressed my concern, nor do I think that they have been unfair to me. They have allowed people to attack Ivan and others that side with the NPO. One player in particular has been given grace after grace while being especially ugly at times.

[Cormactopia Prime]

In regard to NSGP server moderation, the idea that they're deliberately biased is absurd

I disagree with you Cormac on this point; while I have never expressed my concern, nor do I think that they have been unfair to me. They have allowed people to attack Ivan and others that side with the NPO. One player in particular has been given grace after grace while being especially ugly at times.

Attack them how though? If you're talking about IC attacks, it's a gameplay server. That happens. I've never seen them let anyone get away with flaming, baiting, etc. anyone from the NPO anymore nor less than they let anyone get away with flaming, baiting, etc. anyone else.

This is a list of NSGP server administrators and moderators:

Owner: Koth

Administrators:

Altino
Roavin
Vincent Drake

Moderators:

Devi
HEM
Rigel
Sev

Of the four administrators, two have never shown any significant IC biases against the NPO (Roavin has shown quite the opposite). Of the four moderators, I'll grant you that three are anti-NPO, or in HEM's case he was at least until Europeia ended its war. But Sev has been associated with the NPO and remains on friendly terms as far as I know. So given this, I'm not sure why the several administrators and moderators who have nothing to do with the NPO war would be so biased they'd let actionable attacks against NPO members on the server slide. It just doesn't make any sense at all.

This is not to mention that I also trust Koth, Altino, Devi, HEM, and Rigel to put their IC biases aside when it comes to OOC moderation of a server.

[Maante]

Drama breaks out in the toxicity thread, meanwhile I'm like:

[Elegarth]

Potentially unpopular opinion: I don't think NationStates is very toxic at all.

In general, I agree. I have unfortunately noticed in this last iteration of my return to the game that some players are, including players that I used to disagree with IC-wise but still respected as players. It is a shame in my opinion.

It is like if yelling "toxicity" and "OOC Attack" are tools used by players to avoid having to rationally and argumentatively having to defend their positions, or calling on emotional aspects for support.

I had a conversation about it the other day: is not that GP has become more toxic, but actually, that we seem to have "softer" players that can't really draw a firm line between IC and OOC and that use the blur that THEMSELVES have created to strike them the opposition.

I think of myself as a generally decent person, in game, and I believe I have rarely been rough or "mean" to anyone. And yet I've had to deal with people as "hard-edged" as Pierconium and others my entire lifetime in the game and not ONE TIME I've felt the need to feel personally offended by any of them...

So I dunno... Is there a certain level of toxicity, or has the community become more immature about the IC/OOC lines?

[Southern Bellz]

Hello Nations. Welcome to NationStates. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, nations, you've got a hundred billion years here. There's only one rule that I know of, nations "God damn it, you've got to be kind.