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Author Topic: First: Simmer down Second: slavery Discussion  (Read 27473 times)

Silas Vitalia

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Re: First: Simmer down Second: slavery Discussion
« Reply #15 on: 12 Nov 2012, 16:07 »

I don't think that the rule is a matter of imposing a certain set of morals. I think it has more to do witht he fact that slaves showing up makes the rest of the channel freak out. To be fair, they could ban Minmatar characters from showing themselves fondling Khumaaks on screen.

That goes back to what I was saying, maybe everyone in the channel freaking out is not a bad thing. Silas is bad, she kills people, lots of people.... maybe she wants others to occasionally be uncomfortable.

I'm just much more of an asshole / no nonsense when it comes to rules discussions like this. I appreciate the summit trying to be a 'welcoming' place but in my little pea brain its just easier to say 'this is my channel' and I will kick anyone who i want for whatever I determine is asshattery'  People will know when they've crossed the line pretty fast and RP accordingly if they want to be a part of that group of chatters.   

The more specific rules we make the more people try to troll around them, essentially.  Its always 90% people are fine and 10% need the banhammer in any group.





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Silver Night

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Re: First: Simmer down Second: slavery Discussion
« Reply #16 on: 12 Nov 2012, 16:15 »

I suppose it depends on what the purpose and mission of the channel is.

Silas Vitalia

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Re: First: Simmer down Second: slavery Discussion
« Reply #17 on: 12 Nov 2012, 16:21 »

I suppose it depends on what the purpose and mission of the channel is.
Quite right, and this is more of a devil's advocate position.

But I can reasonably see why a pro-slaver and otherwise reasonable RPer would be right annoyed that other culture's beliefs are quite protected in the summit and theirs aren't. 

I don't know what a 'fair' solution is but I'm generally not of the opinion that player channels need be fair at all.
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Silver Night

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Re: First: Simmer down Second: slavery Discussion
« Reply #18 on: 12 Nov 2012, 16:43 »

I would suggest that it isn't a 'cultural' issue. It is a practical issue of eliminating things that are disruptive to the channel. Slaves on screen have a track record of being disruptive.

Ava Starfire

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Re: First: Simmer down Second: slavery Discussion
« Reply #19 on: 12 Nov 2012, 17:25 »

For what its worth, I was all for overturning "no slaves in Summit" SPECIFICALLY SO people could not do what Lyn is doing; accusing Moderators of allowing "cultural bias" to sully our moderation or being too subjective. (Not throwing aboot at lyn, just using an example cause lyn did just say it)

People will scream about moderation no matter how they do their job. Do people ONLY bring slaves on screen to cause drama? Of course, why else would you feel the need to emote "LOOK AT MY SLAVE MUAHAHAA". I'm sick of it, I fucking hate it, and it is one more example of the consequenceless trash that is RP in eve that makes it lose what little appeal it had left for me. But, I will tolerate it.

This "Moderators are subjective and use their own bias" shit gets old, fast.
« Last Edit: 12 Nov 2012, 17:33 by Ava Starfire »
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Esna Pitoojee

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Re: First: Simmer down Second: slavery Discussion
« Reply #20 on: 12 Nov 2012, 19:07 »

I don't think that the rule is a matter of imposing a certain set of morals. I think it has more to do witht he fact that slaves showing up makes the rest of the channel freak out. To be fair, they could ban Minmatar characters from showing themselves fondling Khumaaks on screen.

Admittedly, I've only seen this once or twice. When it did happen, however, it was not taken up as a major issue - I think because it is a different scale of issue (a Khumaak is a symbol, not a direct act. Someone bringing a slave on camera is a direct act; if we ever encountered an anti-slaver character beating up a slaver on camera or something we'd modhammer that just as hard).

Virtually every time a slave has been thrown on camera, it has instantly disrupted the flow of chat. As Tibs has said, we'd love to target the people who do this to make trouble - I would personally much prefer it that way rather than a 'no slaves' rule - but in an environment where people are prone to taking moderator actions as personal grudges, making the moderation even more subjective would only cause further rabble.



Silas, I understand where you are coming from with regard to the idea of "my character is a nasty person, I want to have her be mean and make people upset". I will personally say that I often tend to err towards the side of caution and peacefulness in the Summit for two reasons, the first being that it is where people first go to try out their characters when they start, and the second being that when I was brought on, it was specifically to clamp down on the Summit after a long, long period of unmoderated operation in which we were subject to (both IC and OOC) trolling, baiting, and other such pervasive issues.
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I like the implications of Gallentians being punched in the face by walking up to a Minmatar as they so freely use another person's culture as a fad.

Khloe

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Re: First: Simmer down Second: slavery Discussion
« Reply #21 on: 12 Nov 2012, 23:05 »

Personally, my opinion on the matter of npc 'props', in this case slaves, being utilized by members of the channel is the same argument one might make about nudity, strong language, harassment, or morbid scenarios involving torture and death. In the right hands, these tools can be utilized well to relate a particular idea to a character.

For example, a shady Angel Cartel supporting pilot like Leopold being fed grapes tells the audience exactly what we need to know about his position on human exploitation in general. This individual clearly has no regard for his fellow men and isn't afraid to take advantage of his fellow men to get ahead in life. A minmatar murdering Amarrian children in revenge for the wrongs done to him, a Caldari burning a Gallente orphanage just for kicks, or maybe just a liberated Gallente female walking around in transparent clothing, can all tell an audience a great deal about the character behind the act.

The problem is twofold, involving reactions from both the audience and the players.

The audience of characters response to any of these situations could range from 'agreement' of their values, disinterest, disgust/repulsion, to violent verbal response involving the rapid disintegration of civil conversation with hurled insults and wild racist generalizations. In what is essentially an open public channel where various cultures attempt to co-exist any introduction of differences, particularly to the extremes that the EVE lore has engineered to create conflict, will result in a breakdown of order and politeness. As in-character moderators, tasked with maintaining order, this cannot be allowed to happen. It means that essentially conflict, which is the heart of EVE, is not allowed in this format. And while I have no doubt the moderators maintain an excellent record of conflict control, I do feel that much is lost in stifling half of what makes this game great.

And yet this is the most popular Roleplay channel to date, so clearly they aren't screwing everything up, because people continue to participate at a regular pace. I think it maintains its dominance, in large part to this forum and a strong, active central group who promote this site to each new generation of interested role players. However, it does beg the question in whether there is room for improvement in accommodating both civility and conflict in the same channel. Is this possible?

And secondly, our player reaction to these public displays of controversial behavior are just as important. Anyone who has interacted with the community for at least a year or more will start to see common themes, like slavers using slave props to rile up the minmatar, slutty gallente females making conservatives uncomfortable, or greedy caldari hoarding gold coins like a dragon.  It's tired, it's boring, and its two dimensional behavior induces eye-rolling responses in OOC with everyone flapping their penguin arms in concert.

By drawing a line in the sand stating clearly that any use of these common tropes is outlawed because most people (or no one) can do it properly, why not draw a more substantial line in the sand and start removing people who you feel are too two-dimensional, or simply do not enhance your channel in any substantial way? Where does one draw the line at artistic license and value judgement when it comes to the characters created by others?

Personally, I'm content with letting individual players and characters make up their own minds in how they react to others in the same channel. Muting people for OOC reasons may be necessary if they continually persist in crossing your personal boundaries, and letting characters react as naturally as possible when the extremes rear their ugly heads. As a socially liberal and rather unorthodox miscreant, I am rather content to let people dictate their own destiny and let the cards fall where they may.

There, I gave my opinion, just like you asked. ;)
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Inara Subaka

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Re: First: Simmer down Second: slavery Discussion
« Reply #22 on: 12 Nov 2012, 23:22 »

Also new to the mod team of The Summit, so I'll toss my opinions around and you can all like it.

I find the "no slaves" rule to be silly, the reason I say that is there's been times that Inara has been served while in the channel. But you know what? Nobody got pissed, because I wasn't a douchemonkey about pointing it out.

The problem isn't slaves, it isn't being served a drink or food. The problem is the terminology and presence used to display slaves. Compare the following two statements.

Quote
*Inara Subaka chuckles at the antics of this discussion, a light cough causes her to wave off-screen. A glass of water is handed to her to help her clear the cough away. > You're all acting like slaves are the end-all-be-all of evil incarnate.

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*Inara Subaka laughs at the foolishness being displayed in this thread, the laughter causes her to cough a bit. With a mere wave of her hand, a slave-boy kneels at her feet to hand her a glass of water; he doesn't move till she pushes him away with her toe. > You're all being complete morons about this issue.

Both say the same thing, but one is much better in presentation and likely won't even raise an eyebrow from the extreme anti-slavery group in the channel. The other is intentionally inciting people's ire for no other reason than to incite people's ire.

ON THE OTHER HAND...

The Summit needs some level of disagreement and discussion about issues like that, or it'll become dry/stale/homogeneous. And that will be the death of the channel. And by denying any forms of conflicting scenarios from appearing is stifling and... well, dumb as dumb gets.

As much as I hate using "subjective moderation"... I'm going to stick with my guns on this: Banning anything (including slaves) simply because some people get offended by it will solve nothing (IC, Inara is highly offended by anyone suggesting that CONCORD is anything except incompetent and evil). Banning based on intentionally pissing people off... well, that's a bit hairy; are we talking IC intentionally pissing people off or OOC doing things IC to piss people off OOC? (note: either way it's a grey area; and impossible to prove).

I suggest that as long as behavior isn't being disruptive, you leave things be. And by disruptive, I do mean the channel is unable to carry on a civil conversation. here's a checklist:
  • Is someone offended (IC and IC only)?
  • If yes, are they remaining civil (Both sides)?
  • If no, is the uncivil AND offensive party willing to adjust their behavior?
  • If no, strongly suggest they change their behavior with a single verbal warning.
  • If still no, take appropriate moderator action (Being unwilling to remain civil even when provoked means you need a moment to cool off; being unwilling to adjust your behavior so the channel remains undisrupted means you need a time-out).

If at any point in that checklist you get a different answer... there's no need to moderate.

There, you have my two cents. Take what you want from it.
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Esna Pitoojee

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Re: First: Simmer down Second: slavery Discussion
« Reply #23 on: 13 Nov 2012, 00:44 »

Worth noting the rule was put in place after a clear pattern of slaves being used to disrupt the channel (I can remember clear instances where discussions not even touching on slavery were instantly derailed by the appearance of a slave in channel).

Looking over the logs of the Summit I have, though, I've noticed another dynamic which I think follows nearly all (if not all) slave-appearances in the Summit, and which Inara talks about in the post above: On very rare occasions, slaves will appear without making a huge amount of rabble in the channel. On other occasions - which form the vast majority of slave appearances in Summit - the rabble ensues primarily because the slave is being hurt, humiliated, or degraded on camera.


Thus, at this point, I suggest we have two alternative options to go with:

1: Remove this specific rule, and instead moderate people only based on their apparent reasoning for putting a slave in channel. So, instead of moderating someone for putting a slave in channel, we'd be moderating someone for trying to create rabble - the use of a slave being incidental.

Advantages: Does away with the hard rule, allowing flexible dynamics for various characters.
Disadvantages: I can practically guarantee that every single moderation action under this dynamic will result in even louder cries of moderator bias and such - and it'll be a lot harder to definitively prove that claim wrong, since there are no hard rules involved.

2: Remove the rule on slaves, instead placing increased focus on a rule against on-camera humiliation, hurting, or degradation. Slave or not, it doesn't matter - if you're doing the humiliation thing on camera, you're getting hammered.

Advantages: Preserves the clarity of a rule-based system while removing this particular rule in question, allowing a wider variety of characters to function.
Disadvantages: There's still some inflexibility in the new rule.


tl;dr - 3 options:

1, remove the hard rule altogether, moderate based on apparent intent. Maximum flexibility, minimum clarity.
2, focus the rule on preventing humiliation or degradation on camera, instead of slaves generally. Moderate flexibility, moderate clarity.
3, keep it as is - parading of slaves is generally banned. Less flexibility, very damn clear.

I kind of like option 2. Your thoughts?
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I like the implications of Gallentians being punched in the face by walking up to a Minmatar as they so freely use another person's culture as a fad.

Laerise [PIE]

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Re: First: Simmer down Second: slavery Discussion
« Reply #24 on: 13 Nov 2012, 02:02 »

The Summit has long had a very strong bias against true and faithfull amarrians. This bias is not limited to the summit either, but has spread to most other channels that are in the "bubble" of frequent summit users. The problem is mainly that non-amarrians get to do their thing while amarrians are frequently discriminated against.
I have yet to see concerted moderator action against people who ,veiled or openly, make statements that cause significant offense to amarrian characters. On the other hand behaviour that is normal and accepted in amarrian society is "outlawed" on the grounds that it upsets characters from other backgrounds.

TL;DR The Summit is biased against Amarr.

This is the reason why new PIE's are told, by Lae', not to bother too much about The Summit, and also the reason why almost no true amarrians are in the channel anymore.
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lallara zhuul

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Re: First: Simmer down Second: slavery Discussion
« Reply #25 on: 13 Nov 2012, 03:07 »

As far as I can tell The Summit has always been a 'diplomatic' venue.

You put on your good shoes, good clothes and your good behaviour when you enter a venue like that.

Mainly for the reason that in a diplomatic venue one of the unwritten rules is that everything your do is deliberate and done for the purpose of creating a reaction.

A positive or a negative one.

The success of The Summit pretty much reflects this, you can make or break the public face of your character there.

Getting upset about peeing in your own cereal and complaining that it tastes like piss, to me, is silly.

The 'bias' against certain cultures, mainly xenophobic aspects of them, on The Summit comes from the fact that it is an open channel, open for every kind of culture to put their good foot forward and reach out to other individuals across cultural limits and find common ground for interaction.

Notice that I left out the word 'social' from in front of the interaction there.

The way I see it, The Summit has always been the extension of PvP in the public arena, that is why I have always found it hilarious when someone has 'mistaken' it for a social venue.
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Ava Starfire

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Re: First: Simmer down Second: slavery Discussion
« Reply #26 on: 13 Nov 2012, 06:57 »

The Summit has long had a very strong bias against true and faithfull amarrians. This bias is not limited to the summit either, but has spread to most other channels that are in the "bubble" of frequent summit users. The problem is mainly that non-amarrians get to do their thing while amarrians are frequently discriminated against.
I have yet to see concerted moderator action against people who ,veiled or openly, make statements that cause significant offense to amarrian characters. On the other hand behaviour that is normal and accepted in amarrian society is "outlawed" on the grounds that it upsets characters from other backgrounds.

TL;DR The Summit is biased against Amarr.

This is the reason why new PIE's are told, by Lae', not to bother too much about The Summit, and also the reason why almost no true amarrians are in the channel anymore.

Wow.

I have been on the recieving end of moderation for making just the sort of statements you say are just peachy, due to bias, at the hands of other moderators who have commented in this very thread.

It is also worth noting that for the past several MONTHS, I have been the only Minmatar RPer in the summit who was actively involved in "fight against slavery"

You should probably make sure the bias actually exists before accusing people of it. Thank you for yet again pointing out the claims of "waaah bias!" that all of us are so incredibly sick of.

Also, "No true Amarrians"? What a way to insult your corpmates, Graelyn, and a host of other pro slavery Amarrian RPers (Most who do a rather awesome job).

Well done
« Last Edit: 13 Nov 2012, 06:58 by Ava Starfire »
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Laerise [PIE]

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Re: First: Simmer down Second: slavery Discussion
« Reply #27 on: 13 Nov 2012, 07:08 »

Meh, I guess if you view The Summit the way Lallara does it all makes a lot more sense. +1 Lall'  :D

To Ava. I'll not get dragged into an angry argument here, especially not about my corp mates. I guess the "waaah bias!", as you put it, is a hold over from times long gone. The issue of "true amarrians" is, in my experience, not one that can be raised on this particular forum. If you really do want to discuss this, feel free to contact me through our usual channels  :)
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Ava Starfire

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Re: First: Simmer down Second: slavery Discussion
« Reply #28 on: 13 Nov 2012, 07:19 »

Meh, I guess if you view The Summit the way Lallara does it all makes a lot more sense. +1 Lall'  :D

To Ava. I'll not get dragged into an angry argument here, especially not about my corp mates. I guess the "waaah bias!", as you put it, is a hold over from times long gone. The issue of "true amarrians" is, in my experience, not one that can be raised on this particular forum. If you really do want to discuss this, feel free to contact me through our usual channels  :)

I dont.
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Norrin Ellis

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Re: First: Simmer down Second: slavery Discussion
« Reply #29 on: 13 Nov 2012, 08:02 »

After a quick jaunt through another thread, it seems this entire discussion has been sparked by the following:

Quote
[12:40:38] Leopold Caine > /emote flickers on, seated at his usual spot, plucking a grape from the tray of the slavegirl kneeling nearby.

I can't help but wonder what the response would be if he simply used "girl" instead of "slavegirl."  We can argue until we're blue in the face over whether Leo is trolling the mods or not, but had he simply used a different choice of words--not changing the substantive content of the RP act at all--the mods would have no leg to stand on.  The entire audience would know she's a slave, but Leo could say that she was hired to perform such a service if any objections arose, at which point booting him would be an obvious indication of certain mods' desire to simply lord their authority over the folks they don't like.

What we actually have here is not a rule to protect the poor, sensitive Matari characters from being offended, but rather a rule of pure semantics.  Phrase the text one way and it's just peachy.  Phrase it differently and it's boot-worthy.  How Orwellian.
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