Anonymous Clan Boards

[LoD]

I'd like to see an in-game OOC boards for coordinating play times, so that GDB names remain unknown even intra-clan.

I was responding to the above quote, but felt that this was a completely different topic and wanted to bring this up for public consumption.

Currently, members of organized clans (i.e. Merchant Houses, Tribes, Noble Houses, etc...) are able to subscribe to a clan forum for OOC communication relating to lockers, availability, RPT event coordination, and other such conveniences that are better handled outside of the game to avoid disruption in-game.

However, the one thing that I've never really agreed with or understood is keeping the player's handles active within these clan forums.  People make a big deal about not discussing IC information with the rest of the playerbase on the GDB, one of the main reasons being that it demonstrates to others which character you might be playing.  This can sometimes cause issues related to accurate play, similar to the recent thread about having the person's GDB handle appearing next to their character name.

If our community is not kosher with players revealing who they play on the public forums, I see no advantages and several disadvantages to making an exception for the clan forums. 

• What if a clan member assassinates you -- you now know the player behind it.
• What if you like or dislike the player of a character -- you might allow that to influence the choices you make about promoting someone, killing someone, punishing someone, etc...
• What if you have a romantic clan involvement ICly -- you might recognize the player is same sex and could develop an issue.
• What if you don't care to chat about IC events -- now everyone in the clan now knows your player handle and perhaps your messenger/email contacts.
• What if you simply want to retain the sense of mystery between the players and characters, but don't want to be left out of the loop in terms of OOC coordination of clan events?

Over the many years, I've found that the game is immensely more enjoyable when you don't know who is playing the characters around you.  I would much prefer to see all of the OOC communication forums for each individual clan on the GDB switch to an Anonymous or a randomized made-up handle (i.e. Sharp Sword).

Thoughts?

-LoD

[FuSoYa]

If it this this automatically and I didn't have to make a new account and switch between them I could see myself getting behind it.  Though I've made some really good OOC friends to chat with (and -gasp- without sharing IC information) through playing in clans without switching contact info IG.

Brandon

[LoD]

If it this this automatically and I didn't have to make a new account and switch between them I could see myself getting behind it.  Though I've made some really good OOC friends to chat with (and -gasp- without sharing IC information) through playing in clans without switching contact info IG.

Brandon

If it were possible, I'd want it to be completely automated so that it simply masks your regular GDB handle with Anonymous when posting in the Clan Forum rather than having to switch between two completely separate accounts.  I think if this required people to switch accounts, it'd be a no-go.

-LoD

[flurry]

I completely agree that it's needed.

But if it changed people to 'Anonymous' on clan boards, wouldn't that make the flow of the threads confusing?  I'd rather see it be some alternative nickname (randomized or player selected) or, if the GDB accounts were linked to game accounts, something like Amos' Player.

[jcljules]

Yeah, there would have to be some way to have a 'nickname' perhaps the name of your character...

Otherwise you could even have people impersonating other people, since everyone was named Anonymous

[a strange shadow]

Problem with linking it to player accounts is that the name of the PC is not always the name they use.

Otherwise I think this is a fantastic idea. Using a nickname set when you join the clan board would be great.

[Shoka Windrunner]

Just make it anonymous.

Then you can open your post with:

Meat Shield Leroy Jenkins here...just had a question on the vase in the hallway...how many times do you think you can pee in it before it fills up?

[FuSoYa]

No, I prefer having it so it's somehow connected with your account and knows your character's name.  On the flip side I realize this would be INSANELY tough to do if even possible.

Brandon

[Marauder Moe]

Not that I mind my clan mates knowing who I play, and not that I don't get excited when a familiar player's character joins, but yes, this is probably a good idea.

[jcljules]

Yeah, I do PHP programming and I think its nearly.... well for me at least, impossible to connect these generic bulletin boards to other sorts of databases. I mean, its do-able, but its extremely hard.

I would rather see in-game OOC boards.

[Gimfalisette]

I think it's probably desirable to provide anonymity on the clan forums as well as the public forums. Yes, it's currently possible to set up a secondary username for oneself, but it's somewhat prohibitive to do so--you can't link your primary email to that secondary account, you have to remember which account you're currently using so you don't mess up your postings, etc.

In-game OOC boards aren't necessarily the right solution, because they are not discussion mediums. In some clans, it's important to be able to have detailed discussions about issues as they arise--sometimes pages and pages worth of questions and clarification and decision-making between minions, leaders, and imms. Also, sometimes recruits of particular clans do not have access to the full clan area where the in-game clan boards are, and so they would by design be left out of the use of the boards.

[mansa]

so pro

thumbs up!

[jhunter]

Absolutely. I'm all for your account handle being masked with an alternate while posting on clan boards.

[Agent_137]

Not that I mind my clan mates knowing who I play, and not that I don't get excited when a familiar player's character joins, but yes, this is probably a good idea.

I feel the same.

[brytta.leofa]

Not that I mind my clan mates knowing who I play, and not that I don't get excited when a familiar player's character joins, but yes, this is probably a good idea.

I hate this idea but it's probably good.

[spawnloser]

I like the 'simply change all names to Anonymous, strip all signatures, suppress avatars sort of solution.

[Lizzie]

I've seen enough confusion with people posting in clans, not using their character names in their posts as it is. I can only imagine how much MORE confusing it would be if they were all anonymous.

Example of what I mean is when there's a planning thread for RPTs:

"I can be around on Tuesday."

think Who is that...

emote goes through the clan folder on the "Introduce yourself" thread to find out who that guy was who just said he can be around on Tuesday.

emote doesn't find it, because that guy never bothered to tell people he was there.

emote posts on the RPT thread, "Uh, hey JohnJones: who do you play?"

emote doesn't see a response until three days after the RPT was supposed to be scheduled.

emote bangs her head against the wall.

Happens ALL the time, not just for RPTs but for just about everything. "I have the green locker." "Well who are you?" "I'm the guy who has the green locker." "Oh." <facepalm> "I'll be moving in 2 weeks so I won't be around for 4 days." "Well who are you?" "...no answer".. <facepalm>

Now imagine all of that, posts by anonymous players, about anonymous characters. It makes it pretty pointless to even have a clan GDB, then. At least now we have a -chance- of actually finding out who JohnJones's character is, that he feels the need to tell everyone he has the green locker, or the blue inix, or is _NOT_ dead but simply off line for a week and should be RPed as being on a mission or whatever.

[Marauder Moe]

Or they could post their character name at the end of each message...

[Gimfalisette]

Or they could post their character name at the end of each message...

Yeah, but Lizzie's point is that players very often forget to do this. And she's right. Trying to run a clan full of people and arrange RPTs when players never give enough detail (even now, without anonymity)...it would be a nightmare if all posters just showed as "Anonymous" in their handle.

[spawnloser]

So?  Seriously, if this suggested change went in, there'd be a LOT more remembering to do that... and requests and reminders to do that.

[flurry]

Surely we can do better than everyone becoming 'Anonymous', though? That almost seems designed for maximum confusion.

[Marauder Moe]

I think they forget to do it because currently they don't have to.  Most clan's I've been in had some sort of clan roster thread.

If all clan posts were anonymous, though, I think people would get into the habit pretty quickly.

[Gimfalisette]

From a data-management perspective, any time you can get the machine to do the work of entering repetitive data for you, that's preferable to putting the burden on the users. Because users will not remember (generally even after training and reminders, users are very poor at data maintenance), this will frustrate system administrators and those who need to use the data, tension is caused between admins / managers / users, and it just ends up being a very much less than ideal system.

In this case, since we're talking about a proposed system, then there's no reason to not request that users receive some non-anonymous, customizable moniker which will identify them as "Player of Amos."

[Marauder Moe]

In this case, since we're talking about a proposed system, then there's no reason to not request that users receive some non-anonymous, customizable moniker which will identify them as "Player of Amos."

No reason except that it may be beyond the reasonable limits of what this forum software is capable of.  An immortal (or someone very familiar with SMF) would probably have to weigh in on that one to settle it.

If it's possible to automatically/easily let people choose an alternate handle, or tie the boards into the game (more likely for Arm 2, I suppose), or whatever, then great.  Let's do that.

However, making posts on clan boards anonymous, to me, sounds like it'd likely be the simplest solution.  For all I know even that isn't practical, though.

[Gimfalisette]

However, making posts on clan boards anonymous, to me, sounds like it'd likely be the simplest solution.  For all I know even that isn't practical, though.

Probably not simple or practical.

The very simplest solution of all would be for the imms to make a new rule that players are required to set up a separate character GDB account for posting on clan forums. This would mask all player-character connections coming from the forums, but would probably result in slightly lower clan forum participation. (Because some players will just be too lazy / too forgetful to make a new account and get on the clan forum.)