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[Discussion] Darkspawn and Hagfish Term

PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 9:31 am
by Moneyness
Recently in a report that was made for a tag raid there was a term that was used for an in character report with the word being hagfish that shouldn't be used here while the term darkspawn was ruled okay because it had been seen as accepted and used by people being used here. However with that being brought to light that not been seen to be the case. In addition Gibraltarica disproved the claim of darkspawn by being used by those labled with and majority being no longer welcome on the site as well as the breakdown and his disapproval of allowing one and not the other here.

Numerous people being labled as darkspawn have since stated that it is not the case of accepting it. Several others have also stated it is unfair to allow darkspawn but not hagfish giving darspawn no questioning and a free pass based on tradition here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

In a addition some on the defending side have said they were okay with the term hagfish here.

Due to this broader context it would be appreciated that moderation look into this more to understand the players feelings about this. Darkspawn has been used for a while and we have been forced to accept however the decision to not allow hagfish in the IC report portion is not seen as an equal and fair ruling to allowing darkspawn completely. It seems most people would be okay based off the posts if they were treated equally going forward with them leaning towards allowing both.

(Edit 1 fixed grammar)

PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 9:51 am
by RiderSyl
Either allow both terms to be used, or disallow both terms to be used.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 11:02 am
by Deadeye Jack
Darkspawn is not picked to be some kind of unflattering commentary on raiding. It's directly from lore from the source material our region is built around. Furthermore when it comes to the gameplay forum, Darkspawn has pretty much exclusively been used in a battle report IC context. Although there are about 5 pages of Solorni using a puppet to use Darkspawn in annoying ways that TGW has not done so.

I can't speak to the intent for hagfish but it seemed like a random attempt at finding some kind of new label for defenders.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 11:39 am
by USS Monitor
As with most things, it depends on context.

This specific use of hagfish was too explicit that it was comparing people to hagfish rather than talking about actual hagfish, and it went on at some length about why being called "hagfish" is a bad thing because hagfish are gross.

As a general comment on recent interactions between Moderation and the GP community, there has been far too much focus on specific terms like "salty" or "hagfish," rather than how they are used and what else is being said.

However, I would advise against adopting "hagfish" as a term for defenders, or at least tread VERY carefully for the near future, because it could be seen as a reference back to this tag raid report and the surrounding discussion. That context would make it more likely to be seen as bait.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 11:43 am
by Siniarus XVII
Deadeye Jack wrote:Darkspawn is not picked to be some kind of unflattering commentary on raiding. It's directly from lore from the source material our region is built around.

Honestly, I think I speak for a lot of raiders when I say that I'd prefer not to have your lore pushed on me when it involves us being labeled as vile, animalistic, subhuman creatures and not being able to respond in kind.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 11:53 am
by Deadeye Jack
Siniarus XVII wrote:
Deadeye Jack wrote:Darkspawn is not picked to be some kind of unflattering commentary on raiding. It's directly from lore from the source material our region is built around.

Honestly, I think I speak for a lot of raiders when I say that I'd prefer not to have your lore pushed on me when it involves us being labeled as vile, animalistic, subhuman creatures and not being able to respond in kind.


You're reading way too into it. You're looking for something to get mad about. If we were an LoTR region and referred to you as Orcs in our report would you be saying this same stuff? The primary antagonists for Grey Wardens are darkspawn, it's as simple as that. If the primary antagonist were Hawks we'd call you that.

Also how are hagfish connected to defending or hawks in any way? At least if TBH were referring to us as mice or something, something that Hawks prey on, it would make some sense in character.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 1:55 pm
by Kollin
Siniarus XVII wrote:
Deadeye Jack wrote:Darkspawn is not picked to be some kind of unflattering commentary on raiding. It's directly from lore from the source material our region is built around.

Honestly, I think I speak for a lot of raiders when I say that I'd prefer not to have your lore pushed on me when it involves us being labeled as vile, animalistic, subhuman creatures and not being able to respond in kind.

Perhaps a solution then would be not to bother such people and leave them alone? Or does that make too much sense?

PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 2:07 pm
by Siniarus XVII
Kollin wrote:Perhaps a solution then would be not to bother such people and leave them alone? Or does that make too much sense?

Um, I'm sorry? Do you mean for every raider to quit raiding and abandon a major part of NS Gameplay, or what? Because I legitimately can't tell what you're talking about with "such people".

PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 2:16 pm
by Reploid Productions
Just again noting that I have not handed out any actual warnings or made any notes on anyone's profiles in the chilly-down campaign. The end goal is mainly to get people really thinking about how they treat one another and their opposition, because GP has a long history of very poor sportsmanship, which does nobody any favors. It doesn't help attract new participants to that slice of the game, because they see the unpleasantness and decide "Yeah, I don't need that in my NS life." It doesn't help the existing participants since it just fosters more OOC ill will, leading to "these guys are the ENEMY and must be beaten by any means possible." (And if we want to go down that rabbit hole all the way, that's in part how we ended up with the Predator debacle.)

The hagfish analogy was flat out attacking OOC with a window-dressing of IC fluff. If I didn't similarly scold for "darkspawn" as well, especially after so many targets of that phrasing started complaining, we'd be seeing "Mods have anti-raider bias! Why do defenders get to call us <loaded term> but we can't call them <other loaded term>?!" instead. Maybe once we can the poor sportsmanship flushed out and get people back to remembering that this is all just a game, then we can back things off. Even the most bitter of rivals can treat one another with a modicum of decent sportsmanship over the myriad different flavors of "get the delegacy" that they all play.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 3:33 pm
by North East Somerset
Reploid Productions wrote:It doesn't help the existing participants since it just fosters more OOC ill will, leading to "these guys are the ENEMY and must be beaten by any means possible." (And if we want to go down that rabbit hole all the way, that's in part how we ended up with the Predator debacle.


I think that argument is nonsense, personally. Regions, Organisations and Players in Gameplay have had Enemies ever since this Region based style of playing NS developed. Long before Predator.

Predator didn't happen because of "enemies" or "ill will" - it happened because a tiny group of players thought they could break the rules and get away with it, and others were carried along without realising they too were even breaking the rules. Breaking the rules I would note on the rate of non-API requests and user agent identification, ie. essentially technicalities.

Regardless, in the grand scheme of things, Predator had little effect because similarly effective tools which were legal existed anyway - so trying to make out we ALL need to hang our heads in shame over Predator is ludicrous, and I've had enough of it. No one within Regions I was involved with ever even used Predator in a military capacity.

Reploid Productions wrote:Even the most bitter of rivals can treat one another with a modicum of decent sportsmanship over the myriad different flavors of "get the delegacy" that they all play.


I think Gameplay is a bit more than "get the delegacy". That kind of patronising attitude makes one wonder whether you really have any real understanding of Gameplay?

Gameplay is a complex political platform of interregional relationships, as well as community building - based around the structure of the "Region" and including the "Delegacy" functions in its mechanics, but its much more than "get the delegacy" - and the many MILLIONS of posts on offsite forums, as well as constant activity on chat channels - are a testament to that.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 3:45 pm
by Deadeye Jack
Related to the post here: viewtopic.php?p=32319464#p32319464

Are we being asked to remove the term "darkspawn" from all recruitment telegrams and dispatches as well? We want to make sure we are not opening ourselves up to any moderator punishment on this front.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 4:04 pm
by Roavin
Reploid Productions wrote:The hagfish analogy was flat out attacking OOC with a window-dressing of IC fluff. If I didn't similarly scold for "darkspawn" as well, especially after so many targets of that phrasing started complaining, we'd be seeing "Mods have anti-raider bias! Why do defenders get to call us <loaded term> but we can't call them <other loaded term>?!" instead. Maybe once we can the poor sportsmanship flushed out and get people back to remembering that this is all just a game, then we can back things off. Even the most bitter of rivals can treat one another with a modicum of decent sportsmanship over the myriad different flavors of "get the delegacy" that they all play.


I didn't see "hagfish" as an OOC attack whatsoever.

Call me hagfish, bottom-feeder, ditch digger, I don't care. Call me hallway monitor for chasing raiders, or janitor for detagging, and that's fine. You can call me a turtle, or a sloth, or a slug, or an old Ford Fiesta when I'm slow, and that's fair. Call me an evil GCR subverter, an agent of Defenderism, a crony for the Wardens, the politician that sold TSP to TGW, and hey, that's the political game. Call me defender, fenda, fendascum, anti-raider, anti-invader, raid-enabler, stopper of foreign policy objectives, or any such thing, and I can't be bothered to find fucks to give. Gloat at me for losing, gloat at me for not being quick enough, gloat at me for not having enough people, gloat at me for failing to trigger, gloat at me for jumping late, gloat at me for jumping early, gloat at me for jumping wrong, and I'm cool because it's the competitive nature of the game - get gloated at so you can get better and gloat back next time.

What bothered me was being labeled toxic, being told numerous times over months that we're OOC shit, the (sometimes tacit, sometimes direct) implication that we're all basically using scripts that are either illegal or basically "morally cheating" (ironically by the very OP of this thread), etc.; those were all not deemed actionable and perfectly fine, but a silly animal comparison makes y'all go ixnay on things that were fine for literally years?

Come on. You can't be serious.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 4:12 pm
by Reploid Productions
Deadeye Jack wrote:Related to the post here: viewtopic.php?p=32319464#p32319464

Are we being asked to remove the term "darkspawn" from all recruitment telegrams and dispatches as well? We want to make sure we are not opening ourselves up to any moderator punishment on this front.

Internal communications aren't something that we're likely to see. What people call their opponents in private is really beyond our scope unless we get people reporting TGs or something. (We can't just go snooping TGs without a valid reason.) Dispatches are kinda murky because although public, generally you have to specifically be looking for them in contrast to the forum just being right there in everyone's face. Maybe reduce how frequently the term is used there?

I mean, Gameplay is basically the PvP of Nationstates, making it pure happy hippy huggy fluff just ain't gonna happen. But we can address how it looks to the wider community and try to make the discourse at least marginally healthier. Or at least more in line with the rest of the boards so we don't periodically get people who see GP behavior and mistakenly assume that it's okay across all the boards.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 4:17 pm
by Roavin
Reploid Productions wrote:I mean, Gameplay is basically the PvP of Nationstates, making it pure happy hippy huggy fluff just ain't gonna happen.


.... but ostensibly, that's literally what you're trying to do!

You're going after terms, some of which were in use for quite a while, and not going after actual crap. It's not even throwing the baby out with the bathwater, it's throwing out the baby and putting the bathwater in the cradle and reading it a bedtime story.

EDIT: I know your job isn't easy, sorry that I'm yet another person being a pain today, but it's gotta be said.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 4:20 pm
by North East Somerset
Reploid Productions wrote:But we can address how it looks to the wider community and try to make the discourse at least marginally healthier. Or at least more in line with the rest of the boards so we don't periodically get people who see GP behavior and mistakenly assume that it's okay across all the boards.


But Gameplay has always been like this... why do we all of a sudden need to make GP "more in line with the rest of the boards".

To me, without being melodramatic - it looks like you are trying to wipe out our 'way of life' because you don't understand it.

How come it's only now that you are apparently observing people are "mistakenly" copying GP behaviour. Are you sure this is actually happening? To me it just seems like you're looking for an excuse to extrapolate your Generalite/RP rules and values to our community, without understanding how it all really works.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 4:28 pm
by Pergamon
Not that it would matter anymore. The game was more fun when people not only could dish out hard hits but were also able to take em'. Instead we bother the moderation with regular GP banter that nowadays seems to be "mod worthy"? (The hell.) And GP dissolved into one giant pile of whiny kids. Over the increasing tensions in GP, many of the major gameplayers of this age were in a state of constant whine and complaint, I'd spare you the detail of what whiny logs I got to read, for yes, actual IC GP stuff. If this game would share the stern culture of some other major polsims, many of you would've been devoured alive (metaphorically speaking).

IMO, Gameplay is not for everyone. If you cannot stand to take hits, then don't join the battle. I get the idea of civility in GP and the constant fear it dissolves into toxicity and flame al etc. but I honestly think we are going to far with the civility matter. Not the tension of conflict should end, the whining: the whining should end.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 4:32 pm
by G-Tech Corporation
Pergamon wrote:Not that it would matter anymore. The game was more fun when people not only could dish out hard hits but were also able to take em'. Instead we bother the moderation with regular GP banter that nowadays seems to be "mod worthy"? (The hell.) And GP dissolved into one giant pile of whiny kids. Over the increasing tensions in GP, many of the major gameplayers of this age were in a state of constant whine and complaint, I'd spare you the detail of what whiny logs I got to read, for yes, actual IC GP stuff. If this game would share the stern culture of some other major polsims, many of you would've been devoured alive (metaphorically speaking).

IMO, Gameplay is not for everyone. If you cannot stand to take hits, then don't join the battle. I get the idea of civility in GP and the constant fear it dissolves into toxicity and flame al etc. but I honestly think we are going to far with the civility matter. Not the tension of conflict should end, the whining: the whining should end.


Alternative take: R/D should conform to site rules.

Alternative alternative take: R/D should cease to exist if it can't be conducted without falling afoul of the rules ;)

PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 4:34 pm
by Reploid Productions
North East Somerset wrote:But Gameplay has always been like this...

"It's always been like this" is not a good argument. Just because "it's always been like this" doesn't mean that it's okay or acceptable or that one section gets special treatment because "this is how it's always been." When folks in NSG get nasty with one another over differences of opinion, they get smacked. When folks in one of the RP boards get nasty with one another over differences in how they want to RP, they get smacked. When Gameplayers get nasty with one another over differences in how they play the game ... it's just the culture and we should give them a pass?

"It's always been like this" is why things are going with the softly-softly and warnings NOT being handed out, instead pointing out where things are going too far. You don't course-correct a long-ingrained community behavior by throwing bans around like confetti. (Well... you can, if you don't mind littering the place with tons of DEATs/DOSes in the process. Given reactions to the gentle approach, I shudder to think what the outcry would be to the not-so-gentle one.)

PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 4:43 pm
by Deadeye Jack
Reploid Productions wrote:
Deadeye Jack wrote:Related to the post here: viewtopic.php?p=32319464#p32319464

Are we being asked to remove the term "darkspawn" from all recruitment telegrams and dispatches as well? We want to make sure we are not opening ourselves up to any moderator punishment on this front.

Internal communications aren't something that we're likely to see. What people call their opponents in private is really beyond our scope unless we get people reporting TGs or something. (We can't just go snooping TGs without a valid reason.) Dispatches are kinda murky because although public, generally you have to specifically be looking for them in contrast to the forum just being right there in everyone's face. Maybe reduce how frequently the term is used there?

I mean, Gameplay is basically the PvP of Nationstates, making it pure happy hippy huggy fluff just ain't gonna happen. But we can address how it looks to the wider community and try to make the discourse at least marginally healthier. Or at least more in line with the rest of the boards so we don't periodically get people who see GP behavior and mistakenly assume that it's okay across all the boards.


Thanks for taking the time to answer, but I haven't found this response to have the clarity I was hoping for. All I want to know is if someone were to report a recruit TG (the chances of a raider puppet nation getting such a TG are quite high) or a dispatch that contained the word "darkspawn" in it is if we would be punished by the game. I'm not looking for a line to toe up against I just want to know if we have to go in and edit our stuff.

Given that any given dispatch or TG might have only one reference to Darkspawn, if any, the only way to reduce our use is to go to 0.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 4:44 pm
by Roavin
Reploid Productions wrote:When Gameplayers get nasty with one another over differences in how they play the game ... it's just the culture and we should give them a pass?


It's not the culture - it's the point. Cormac should yell at me for being an evil GCR subversion defenderist. I should yell at Cormac for willfully ignoring law and evidence to back Funk. Meanwhile, Cormac and I are in Discord DM saying "dude nice", because we realize we're playing a game and appreciate each other's skillful use of rhetoric, even if it makes our in-game harder. This is gameplay, and it's being killed for ... what, exactly?

PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 4:47 pm
by Solorni
I think I speak for many people on both sides when one of the has been a central perceived issue has been with consistency. There is this uncertainty about when things fall over the line and when they do not. On a recent discussion on the word "Salt", I came away less sure than I was when I first started it and it seems we are again having similar issues with the words "darkspawn" and now "hagfish". People naturally do not like uncertainty.

I would like to see clear cut rules that are applied frequently, evenly and fairly. I also think that the moderation right now in gameplay tends to be touch and go. Gameplay was not, prior to increased moderator attention, getting looked at enough... so people were pushing the boundaries and then the moderation appears uneven. Things like "darkspawn" probably should not have been allowed from the start, yet it has been used for a long time now.

I'm actually probably more on Reploid's side in terms of Gameplay needing to be brought more in line with other forums. I think it would help a lot if moderators spent more time there to set the tone and let us know immediately when we are crossing the line. This could avoid official warnings and help improve the culture of it.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 5:02 pm
by Pergamon
G-Tech Corporation wrote:
Pergamon wrote:Not that it would matter anymore. The game was more fun when people not only could dish out hard hits but were also able to take em'. Instead we bother the moderation with regular GP banter that nowadays seems to be "mod worthy"? (The hell.) And GP dissolved into one giant pile of whiny kids. Over the increasing tensions in GP, many of the major gameplayers of this age were in a state of constant whine and complaint, I'd spare you the detail of what whiny logs I got to read, for yes, actual IC GP stuff. If this game would share the stern culture of some other major polsims, many of you would've been devoured alive (metaphorically speaking).

IMO, Gameplay is not for everyone. If you cannot stand to take hits, then don't join the battle. I get the idea of civility in GP and the constant fear it dissolves into toxicity and flame al etc. but I honestly think we are going to far with the civility matter. Not the tension of conflict should end, the whining: the whining should end.


Alternative take: R/D should conform to site rules.

Alternative alternative take: R/D should cease to exist if it can't be conducted without falling afoul of the rules ;)


Agreed on both. My input is from a standpoint that prefers neither side. While I might argue that a regional theme made specifically to insult players (which could be considered flaming), what we are seeing here is rather just regions having a regional theme and stay true to the fiction they are based on (so here specifically, Dragon Age and Darkspawn, or the other example being Lord of the Rings and Orcs).

And I think that none would even have taken offense in that specific scenario if the Hawks would have labeled the other side "Prey" as it fits just the theme. I personally don't see where "hagfish" is objectionable either. It is just another animal that can be reaped by Hawks, clearly there can be made some connections to actual disgust made into words (as they are not the nicest animals), but this too, is nothing else but an embodiment of the stance they are taking. They are disgusted by the other side. No big news. The rather disturbing thing is, that we have a big fuss because of this. And this was the initial point of my first statement, R/D is dissolving into a Kindergarden.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 5:06 pm
by Reploid Productions
Roavin wrote:Meanwhile, Cormac and I are in Discord DM saying "dude nice", because we realize we're playing a game and appreciate each other's skillful use of rhetoric, even if it makes our in-game harder.

Meanwhile, the appearance to everyone else on-site remains, "Wow, these people are being awful to one another and the mods are letting them get away with it", because the actual sportsmanship and indication that it is just a game and not pure vitriol is not in evidence. Random Joe Nation popping by isn't going to know about the off-sites, the Discords, the behind-the-scenes where folks may be thumping one another on the back saying "GG everybody." They just see the namecalling, the unpleasantness, the factions slinging mud and seemingly at one anothers' throats for serious, and they have no real way to tell that there's a lot more going on backstage. With that as a first impression of the whole, they aren't likely to have any interest in digging deeper to find that knowledge out.

This is really good discussion, we're getting at the real heart of the matter, which isn't simply the specific terminology- that's more a symptom of the bigger sportsmanship (lacking a better shorthand term for the complex not-exactly-IC/not-exactly-OOC system of rivalries and politics that is GP) issue.

EDIT TO ADD: I know for years it's been declared on our end that "Gameplay is OOC", but looking at things, that seems a very colorblind description, given that people do often play a sort of "character", that their GP persona is not really indicative of their offstage behavior. That's another angle of attack to look at- dropping the "Gameplay is OOC" and admitting/opening it up to the fact that there is a sort of roleplay going on, albeit a rather different form what we see in the other RP boards, and encourage folks to more clearly delineate between their onstage Gameplay personas and their offstage actual selves?

PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 5:25 pm
by Pergamon
Reploid Productions wrote:
Roavin wrote:Meanwhile, Cormac and I are in Discord DM saying "dude nice", because we realize we're playing a game and appreciate each other's skillful use of rhetoric, even if it makes our in-game harder.

Meanwhile, the appearance to everyone else on-site remains, "Wow, these people are being awful to one another and the mods are letting them get away with it", because the actual sportsmanship and indication that it is just a game and not pure vitriol is not in evidence. Random Joe Nation popping by isn't going to know about the off-sites, the Discords, the behind-the-scenes where folks may be thumping one another on the back saying "GG everybody." They just see the namecalling, the unpleasantness, the factions slinging mud and seemingly at one anothers' throats for serious, and they have no real way to tell that there's a lot more going on backstage. With that as a first impression of the whole, they aren't likely to have any interest in digging deeper to find that knowledge out.

This is really good discussion, we're getting at the real heart of the matter, which isn't simply the specific terminology- that's more a symptom of the bigger sportsmanship (lacking a better shorthand term for the complex not-exactly-IC/not-exactly-OOC system of rivalries and politics that is GP) issue.


Based upon in-depth ideologies, the R/D dichotomy does in most cases howsoever not resolve around sportsmanship but a war that lasted for over a decade between two sides that want to see the other being kicked into a state of utter irrelevance, while the victor claims hegemony over the game. If R/D just would be a petty hobby, this could work, but this isn't the case. (I would love to see R/D being reduced to a petty hobby btw.) This is an IC war, that has been going since the dawn of time. IF we truly want to discuss this topic, than rather about what is allowed in war and whatnot by acknowledging the reality that most R/D entities are ideological and not interested in hobby R/D and "sportsmanship".

PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 6:35 pm
by Intelligeneria
I think that stating that Gameplay is In Character would be a solution. If Moderation's issue with GP is the fact that a random new nation may look in the forum and see people saying potentially nasty things without knowing the context, surely simply declaring GP IC would solve all of it. Despite what Moderation appears to think, for the most part, there is no OOC war going on. It is simply IC. If we weren't raiders and defenders, we wouldn't post things saying we are enemies. In the same way you're not clamping down on RP'ers for having their nations declare war with each other and bombing each other, you would only come down on GP when there has been an actual offence, which breaks the site-rules.

This would also allow people to differentiate between IC insults, like Hagfish and Darkspawn, which are perfectly fine, and OOC ones, like the ones Roavin was mentioning towards the end of his earlier post. If people can't handle Hagfish and Darkspawn, it's like RP'ers can't handle their nation getting bombed. It's IC, and it's all about what GP is about. A Conflict.

But it's an IC conflict, and so I feel that naming GP IC would solve any suspected issues arising from a new nation looking in to GP and seeing bad stuff.