Cormactopia Prime wrote:King HEM wrote:One thing we are experimenting with in Europeia is allowing individual users to prohibit another user to engage or mention them on our Discord property, understanding that the IC/OOC divide is much harder to parse in a non-threaded environment. This might be an option as well.
It's one thing to allow individual users to prohibit another user from
engaging them, that's probably okay provided you're also requiring the user in question not to engage the person they've prohibited from engaging them. So, for example, if Example Joe prohibits Example Becca from engaging him, Example Joe can't then spend time prodding Example Becca because Example Joe knows Example Becca can't respond. That would be an incredible abuse of such a system, so I can only assume Europeia has already accounted for it. As long as that's accounted for, a "no engagement" policy might be okay, though it seems like enforcement before things get out of hand would be a serious challenge particularly on a large platform like the NSGP server.
The much bigger issue for me is allowing individual users to prohibit another user from
mentioning them. That's the kind of thing that is wide open to abuse in a political game. Can you imagine if I prohibited you from mentioning me, or vice versa? That would probably seriously impede either of us from engaging in politics in the context of this game, given how deeply intertwined you are at times in Europeia's government and particularly in its foreign affairs, one of the areas you specialize in. So I don't think prohibiting mentions is at all a realistic option. Maybe it could work within regions, though I'm skeptical it can work even there, but not on larger platforms like the NSGP server. It would just be used as a political weapon.
In other news, I wonder how long before the nations Example Joe and Example Becca appear...
King HEM wrote:Otherwise, I think we are facing the same types of challenges Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and the like are. We are probably handling them even better, though, if that's any consolation—but the struggle is likely to continue.
I don't think the solution can just be "be nice", because when I'm arguing with Cormac over Europeian foreign policy, I'm not going to be nice. I'm going to be ruthless. Politics is going to be a part of political gameplay. If we take that out of this game, why are we even here?
I agree with this. Whatever solutions we impose to deal with toxicity, they shouldn't come at the expense of wiping out political gameplay.
I think Cormac already saw my own problem with the "no contact" situation but I'd be glad to hear of some of the results of that experiment. Some of my thoughts though are that if Joe and Becca are not, for example, running for positions or doing anything that could cause crossover or communication this may work. If Joe and Becca are running for office the "no contact" rule actually can be leveraged by those who don't want to face criticism or actual opposition. Still, trying something is better than just doing the same old and hoping for things to change. Generally, when I find someone I really dislike I engage in no contact through the block feature automatically.
I also bolded the second part of the statement because I think that's the key takeway here. Politics can be ruthless and that makes it politics. As someone who loves festivals and socializing and have been accused by some whiny individuals of being a socialite - I also have enjoyed ruthless politics which seem to be dying away. I think the idea of having channels for set topics\arenas for this kind of conversation is another intriguing possible way to deal with it. However, look at NSGP the defacto place to play politics - it's become a cemetery because of that "toxicity police full of bs player set" that will grab anything and everything and make it a "oh bullying" kind of situation out of it. What's to keep someone from turning the "political gameplay" channel into a place to collect logs in order to try to shun or push people out of the game.
Still I think trying new things and working towards improvements is important rather than rehashing the same cycle over and over again.
Posted: Sun Apr 28, 2019 12:37 pm