http://boingboing.net/2017/03/14/grandson-of-rheingold.html
Interesting, for sure. Though I do not think online communities like our own should be considered "Safe-spaces" for the emotionally or psychologically fragile; so the burden is not on staff to make it such a space. Free speech is always better than censorship, even if the speech is really shitty.
Quote from: Melkor on March 15, 2017, 11:34:28 AM
Interesting, for sure. Though I do not think online communities like our own should be considered "Safe-spaces" for the emotionally or psychologically fragile; so the burden is not on staff to make it such a space. Free speech is always better than censorship, even if the speech is really shitty.
Trolling and flaming is against the rules though, just to say. (Which I agree with)
I didn't watch the speech, but it seems like he is not saying "people in online communities are echo-chamber safe-spacers" as much as he's saying that people tend to participate in game forums for some sort of therapy. Whether it be finding friends, collaborating against "the big guy", or railing hard against changes they realistically have no power or say over.
Communities make or break games, or at least seem to, in the Multiplayer Online world now. We're talking the communities that are built within a game. A game can be absolutely terrible, but if you have a few friends willing to take that terrible journey with you, the game can be a little bit better.
But when the community is full of shitposting and brazen attacks, and the only thing the ones running it can do is blanket-ban, clearly there's a larger issue at hand. Related to Arm, I feel like any "issues" people have, have been aired out and talked about for years now, and the fact that "nothing I want changed, changes" eventually eats away at them. But as it was said, we have divisions in the player community as well, as there should be. Those of us who post on the GDB, if the Unique Players numbers on the website are accurate (and I suspect they are not), are a decent chunk but still the minority who play this game. If 200+ people are actually playing this game a week, and I see MAYBE 50 of us posting, 15 of which on one thread, we're nowhere near a majority of players, but expect to be taken as seriously.
I'm not envious, but I'm still angry!
I can see this talk spawning a LOT of reactionary anti-SJW youtube videos. I'm kinda nervous
Quote from: ExtraPlanar on March 15, 2017, 11:59:02 AM
Quote from: Melkor on March 15, 2017, 11:34:28 AM
Interesting, for sure. Though I do not think online communities like our own should be considered "Safe-spaces" for the emotionally or psychologically fragile; so the burden is not on staff to make it such a space. Free speech is always better than censorship, even if the speech is really shitty.
Trolling and flaming is against the rules though, just to say. (Which I agree with)
My opinion stands. Though I will always respect my fellow players, and obey the rules of the game/community, honest behavior is better than behavior compelled by force.
Regarding Koster's speech... I can't tell you how many times I cringed. Are people really as fragile as he repeatedly purports?
Quote from: Melkor on March 15, 2017, 12:21:05 PM
Regarding Koster's speech... I can't tell you how many times I cringed. Are people really as fragile as he repeatedly purports?
Yes.
And.
I would use the term sensitive rather than fragile. And for many of the quite justifiable reasons he outlines.
Quote from: Riev on March 15, 2017, 11:59:28 AM
I didn't watch the speech, but...
Please watch the speech before drawing conclusions.
Extremely sensitive people with or without psychological issues all hang out in the internet, and tend to spend more time there than the average person does.
The so-called gaming addiction / internet addiction is often just a side-effect of not being comfortable in the real world.
Quote from: nessalin on March 15, 2017, 01:07:38 PM
Quote from: Melkor on March 15, 2017, 12:21:05 PM
Regarding Koster's speech... I can't tell you how many times I cringed. Are people really as fragile as he repeatedly purports?
Yes.
And.
I would use the term sensitive rather than fragile. And for many of the quite justifiable reasons he outlines.
I didn't think the staff encouraged language policing when it did not violate rules or regulations.
Personally, I think the issue is not that online/gaming communities are mean and need to be brought to heel under the yoke of staunch moderating; I think the real issue is that people are way too soft for their own good, and they are using their emotional weakness as an excuse to control people around them.
This is like having a ban on peanuts because some people are allergic to them.
I am not policing, I am stating which term I think is more accurate for what the presenter in the video was relating.
I also feel you're focusing a bit too narrowing on a single point the presenter was making about online communities as societies.
Fair enough, though that single point was over 2/3 of his speech.
Like I said, it was interesting, but censorship does not sit well with me.
I was taking some notes while he was talking:
Games are:
- connecting strangers
- fairness
- being smart
- for everyone
You are going to create virtual worlds, and you will probably make the mistakes that have been made in the past!
- Worst offenders of a game chase away thousands of people.
- That's not just the troll's fault - it's on the admins. Every feature is actually a weapon of abuse.
- Game Masters were trading sexual favours for in game items in Ultima Online
- In game virtual items have real life currency attached to it, and players will do anything to get those items
- Games are moving to a "No in-game avatars to remove in-game relationships between gods and players" "Because corruption happens."
- The people who use virtual spaces very often use them for self-therapy
- Call Police
- Suicide Hotlines
- To Track Runaways
- VR is forgetting the promise of "be someone you aren't!"
- People need to feel like they can be who they want to be, and give more character options
- New players in the game have no community ties, to they need to create an identity quickly
A good way is to create personal investment into the players themselves. Don't just drop them in!
- MMOs started as the Wild West and ended up being the 'single safest genre of gaming for women'
- Pokemon Go -is- racist and classist
- There's nothing to prevent a virtual world operator to take advantage of it's world
- to make money (by advertising certain real life shops over others)
- to make its players act politically (by showing up at certain political places)
Reading list -
My Tiny Life - Julian Dibbell
"A Declaration of the Rights of Players," - Raph Koster
Designing Virtual Worlds - Richard Bartle
The Lessons of LucasFilm's Habitat - Chip Morningstar & Randy Farmer
The Proteus Effect - Nick Yee
Rainbows End - Vernor Vinge
For the Win - Cory Doctorow
Halting State - Charles Stross
http://www.metaverseroadmap.org
As I was watching and listening, I remember when our community made some changes to how players interact with each other, and a lot of the changes are to prevent abuse to the players themselves. It was a good hour investment, and now I have some books to read and think about more.
I think the overall message he has is that people who design gaming communities are creating and managing a COMMUNITY of people that needs to have, essentially, a "social contract," similar to the one we ascribe to in the real-world societies we all live in. We live in society, (i.e., our RL community) under sets of assumptions of fair practice, and call them "law," and feel so strongly that these laws should be followed that we punish offenders who break the law with massive consequences to their lives, i.e. jailtime or a criminal record or both. If major game/VR developers aren't even aware of the risks of putting a bunch of people online in a powerful virtual platform, then there is a major lack of understanding out there in the game development world and I am glad he is addressing it.
Interesting talk. I disagree with him when he says game designers "aren't creating an archery simulator," though. They certainly are. That they are also creating a community is a second order effect, and not one that prevents the first order.
I don't want to put you on the spot, Ness, but being that this is something that drew your attention, are you considering codifying a statement of players' rights for Armageddon? In some respects, they certainly already exist, like the right to visceral bodily integrity (consent rules), right to equal representation, right to petition for redress of grievances (report buttons and complaint requests). It seems clear that this is something that has been a priority for this community. I'm just curious if it is your intent to formalize it.
Some of the questions at the end made me wonder about bans, though. I wonder if the greater punishment for banned players (notably those who are active on the GDB) is that they are unable to play the game, or that they are exiled from the community? If the latter, I wonder if that factor informs the longevity of the counter-culture. Not that they still have grievances to air regarding a game they no longer play, but that they are replacing the game community they lost with an ersatz version? (I don't know that a definitive answer to that question would beg a change to the handling of bans, it just seems like it may be a better paradigm to explain the phenomenon.)