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[Lasairiona]

This has been brought up a couple times now IC and I'm slightly getting annoyed. What's wrong with having an open invitation event? I feel it's a welcoming way to get more people involved in RP without being completely exclusive. It's not like I won't be there to ban/mute anyone causing shit.

[Saede Riordan]

Now, I don't know the specifics of the event you're trying to run Lasa, but generalistically, this is the issue with a completely open event

When you let anyone in regardless of allegiances or loyalties, you end up having an event where a good portion of the people there don't like each other. To give an example, my character hates Leopold Caine, and will avoid events with him in attendance. Conversely, say you invite the Sansha? All the anti-Sansha people will either not want to come, or if they do go, it will make for a very tense and awkward event. If you invite both the Minmatar and Amarr, either neither of them will go, or they'll go, fight with each other, and produce hurt feelings all around, or more of one will go then of the other, and push the other out.

I hate to say it, but in EVE, you just can't be friends with everyone. Characters (and players) have very strong opinions about each other, and those rivalries and conflicts won't just vanish inside a neutral venue. If you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one.

[Katrina Oniseki]

I know exactly what you're going through, as I want to throw a party for everyone. It's even more of a problem for me because I'm actually anti-somebody (pirates), and can't be seen inviting them. As long as you're on the ball and can ban trolls, you're okay. There's the obvious threat of a party-crash, where tons of unaffiliated alts descend upon your channel and spam ASCII dicks into it faster than you can ban them, though. But that's rare.

However, in character it gets to be an issue for safety reasons. While it's easy to just dismiss the OOC trolling thing, IC there is a real and present danger from just inviting anyone who wants to show up. For example, my character doesn't see you ready to ban trolls. She sees your character inviting the likes of dangerous folk. Illegal slavers, rapists, murderers, Sansha, etc. She sees very real threats to her well being, and she's also aware that she is not allowed to bring her own protection.

Without any way to defend themselves, and without any assurance that dangerous people won't be allowed in - my character takes issue with Lasa's events, because they aren't something she can feel safe in. It would be negligent of Katrina to show up to an event like that, as it would be putting herself in a severely disadvantageous situation.

It's not a personal attack on you or your events. It's just my character being paranoid.

I suggest, strongly, that you have holograph projectors and such installed at your events and ADVERTISE that you do. Those who are paranoid can attend your event via holographic virtual reality, and those who are more gutsy can show up in person. That way, no harm no foul.

[Lasairiona]

In the L'Amore MOTD, it does state that there are holoprojectors in the venue.

[Saede Riordan]

I think it goes past just safety considerations, and into the realms of what the characters actually enjoy or dislike. Even with holoprojectors, it won't fix the issue. Characters, just like players, are going to avoid events that have lots of people they don't like, because there's no reason to subject themselves to that. You wouldn't go to a bar IRL with a bunch of people you hated or disliked or distrusted. Why would your character do so in EVE?

[Lasairiona]

*shrug* That's someone's personal choice. How several people feel won't change Lasa's open door policy.

[Katrina Oniseki]

*shrug* That's someone's personal choice. How several people feel won't change Lasa's open door policy.

Well it's as good an answer as you're probably going to get on the topic. If Lasa is not going to change her policy, and you can't answer those concerns IC, then perhaps you should not be getting "slightly annoyed".

[Jace]

It often seems to be people taking advantage of another opportunity to bring up their own IC conflicts. Begging the question "who wouldn't you want to be around," then they get to explain, etc.

As for myself, I work on every Friday and Saturday - so I never get to go to virtually any event. 

[Karmilla Strife]

Open invitation events can work. Steffanie Saissore ran one a few months ago. It was actually refreshing to see characters interact outside of their factional bubbles without degenerating into the usual conflicts (for the most part.) Anslo, Ava, and Pieter ran an extremely entertaining event (the green jello incident) where not only did characters interact positively across faction lines, but weeks of RP was generated. Silas' events generally appeal to multiple factions and people talk about what happened at those for years.

My advice would be not to worry about the players/characters who won't come to an open event. In general, they run closed events that cater to their style of RP. It's your party, run it how you (and Lasa) want.

[Saede Riordan]

Open invitation events can work. Steffanie Saissore ran one a few months ago. It was actually refreshing to see characters interact outside of their factional bubbles without degenerating into the usual conflicts (for the most part.) Anslo, Ava, and Pieter ran an extremely entertaining event (the green jello incident) where not only did characters interact positively across faction lines, but weeks of RP was generated. Silas' events generally appeal to multiple factions and people talk about what happened at those for years.

My advice would be not to worry about the players/characters who won't come to an open event. In general, they run closed events that cater to their style of RP. It's your party, run it how you (and Lasa) want.

This essentially. There are downsides and upsides to open events. It just depends on what you want. My corp runs open events, I'm not saying its impossible to have them and have them be sucessful, I'm just pointing out some of the problems that arise from them, and why you might not be getting the attendance you expect.

[Silas Vitalia]

It's more about the attitude and perception of the host/event than anything else.

If people feel IC/OOC that you will be on top of things and remove / prevent troublemaking with an immediacy, cautious characters will feel reassured to step out of their bubbles a bit more.

If people don't have that sort of confidence they won't put their valuable characters in a potentially dangerous or embarrassing situation.

You will also be amazed how quickly people IC get over political/factional antagonism in order to find a way to go to a party a lot of other people will be at that sounds to be a good IC event!  Having an 'observer' alt policy or holo-attendance is also helpful if you prefer.

As for 'open door policy', a good way to avoid issues is to have a 'waiting' or 'staging' chat channel that you give out, and then privately move channel members to the next private channel 'room' from there. This gives you a chance to screen who is coming in advance.

Good luck!

[Vic Van Meter]

Because EVE is a lot like high school.  If you put out an open invitation to your entire high school, no matter how inclusive you want to be, you'll still get a certain kind of people.  EVE plays up the PVP end of the game so hard that you don't even have to be around a year to have an axe to grind.  Anything that's actually interesting in the game has to do with PVP.  So events tend to go one of two ways, and it's hard to tell whether it's worse to be in boring, tea-party purgatory or dramatic, whiny Hell.  Open events lean towards the Hellish end of the spectrum, though, if that's your thing.

[Morwen Lagann]

If people feel IC/OOC that you will be on top of things and remove / prevent troublemaking with an immediacy, cautious characters will feel reassured to step out of their bubbles a bit more.

If people don't have that sort of confidence they won't put their valuable characters in a potentially dangerous or embarrassing situation.

In addition to what other people have said, this bit needs to be emphasized. It's not just whether the event is open or not, it's also about whether people would feel comfortable/safe in the environment. Lots of people don't use softcloning or backups in their RP, so they are reluctant to put their characters (or the characters themselves are reluctant) into situations where their safety might be at serious risk: not everyone can be trusted to refrain from godmoding, and at the end of the day, the 'security policies' that prevent godmoding outright tend to be better received by those characters and their players than the ones that react to it after the fact. It doesn't mean the event organizer is doing anything wrong, just that they are operating outside the comfort zone of a certain demographic.

I recall we had a similar discussion in OOC a while back when you (Lasa) were hosting an opening event in a new channel (the casino, iirc, I know that this is not the case with L'Amore); you'd stated that the security policy was that weapons were allowed inside. I don't remember if you'd asked me specifically if I was going to come or not, but I remember the security policy coming up in discussion in OOC and I'd said, after noting it, that Morwen wouldn't come to the channel because she would not feel comfortable with such a system. That I was unavailable that day due to RL commitments and couldn't make the event that day anyway was beside the point (not to mention other factors like that she doesn't really care for gambling and would've felt out of place there); it still sparked off what to me felt like a really silly argument because you seemed to take it personally when it wasn't anything you'd done 'wrong' let alone even an attack on you - if anything it was an attack on everyone else who I felt I could expect to see at the venue and explicitly did not trust.

Kat and Saede more or less summed up my other thoughts on the issue. There is absolutely nothing wrong with an 'open invite' event - they work fairly well, as evidenced by the events put on in the past, including some hosted by you - and they can be lots of fun, it's just that by allowing anyone to attend, one generally runs the risk of having attendees whose presence will cause other potential attendees to avoid the event due to concerns over personal safety or politics.

[Elmund Egivand]

If people feel IC/OOC that you will be on top of things and remove / prevent troublemaking with an immediacy, cautious characters will feel reassured to step out of their bubbles a bit more.

If people don't have that sort of confidence they won't put their valuable characters in a potentially dangerous or embarrassing situation.

In addition to what other people have said, this bit needs to be emphasized. It's not just whether the event is open or not, it's also about whether people would feel comfortable/safe in the environment. Lots of people don't use softcloning or backups in their RP, so they are reluctant to put their characters (or the characters themselves are reluctant) into situations where their safety might be at serious risk: not everyone can be trusted to refrain from godmoding, and at the end of the day, the 'security policies' that prevent godmoding outright tend to be better received by those characters and their players than the ones that react to it after the fact. It doesn't mean the event organizer is doing anything wrong, just that they are operating outside the comfort zone of a certain demographic.

I recall we had a similar discussion in OOC a while back when you (Lasa) were hosting an opening event in a new channel (the casino, iirc, I know that this is not the case with L'Amore); you'd stated that the security policy was that weapons were allowed inside. I don't remember if you'd asked me specifically if I was going to come or not, but I remember the security policy coming up in discussion in OOC and I'd said, after noting it, that Morwen wouldn't come to the channel because she would not feel comfortable with such a system. That I was unavailable that day due to RL commitments and couldn't make the event that day anyway was beside the point (not to mention other factors like that she doesn't really care for gambling and would've felt out of place there); it still sparked off what to me felt like a really silly argument because you seemed to take it personally when it wasn't anything you'd done 'wrong' let alone even an attack on you - if anything it was an attack on everyone else who I felt I could expect to see at the venue and explicitly did not trust.

Kat and Saede more or less summed up my other thoughts on the issue. There is absolutely nothing wrong with an 'open invite' event - they work fairly well, as evidenced by the events put on in the past, including some hosted by you - and they can be lots of fun, it's just that by allowing anyone to attend, one generally runs the risk of having attendees whose presence will cause other potential attendees to avoid the event due to concerns over personal safety or politics.

So it's kinda like a medieval high society party?

[Louella Dougans]

You'll also get people who'd turn up, with the primary or possibly even sole intent of dissuading various other people from turning up.

They wouldn't be disruptive, oh no, that's not how it works. They'd abide by all the rules of the place, and be polite and all that, but because of who/what they are, their simple presence at the event would make various other people decide against going. "Oh, if they're there, then I'm not going. I don't want to be in the same room as them!" and all that.

And because they're polite and not disruptive, they then get to use that as a stick to beat the people who didn't turn up with. "Such a shame how certain people can't put their petty political differences aside for one evening" and so on.