Daenerys Targaryen Wrote:Personally, I'm not sure anyone else would agree. Maybe they do. I don't. We aren't the United States of America, we're the Omniverse. A roleplaying website.
So because the site isn't America, freedom suddenly doesn't matter? That's really not an attractive stance to hold, I'm sorry to say, and I'm glad that Omni's final decision reflects an outlook that seems to better appreciate the ability of its members to say/do what they please at least a little bit more than this incredibly Orwellian little ditty you're whistling.
And while I'm at it, making it seem like "shitty bitchy announcement" and "silly jokey implementation" are the only possible options is a massive black-and-white fallacy. As far as nobody agreeing with the words you stuck in her mouth: you don't speak for me or anybody else, and I'd appreciate it if you would avoid presuming otherwise in the future, because while I'm content with what I currently assume the final word on all this to be (more on that later), I definitely agree with Des, Guu, et al that the initial attempt wasn't handled as well as it probably could have been. But that's over now so w/e, water under the bridge.
Furthermore, I realize that there's a chance your responses are emotionally charged since Desco made some remarks that involve you, but it's not going to get either of you anything (except maybe some more butthurt) if either of you continues on with this. My advice to both of you would thus be to let the dispute over what you and Enel said die gracefully. Follow it or don't; not my life, not my choice.
And with that I think it's high time for a good old fashioned filibuster.
#TUMBLR-TRIGGER WARNING: LARGE VOLUME OF PHILOSOPHICAL WAX AHEAD.
SECOND DISCLAIMER: DUE TO THE DIFFICULTY OF CONVEYING TONE VIA TEXT I SOMETIMES COME OFF AS MORE HARSH THAN INTENDED. DON'T MAKE THIS MISTAKE. I'M NOT TRYING TO MAKE ANYBODY MAD, I'M TRYING TO SPREAD A WRY GRIN OVER YOUR FACE. IF I WANTED TO MAKE ANYBODY MAD, I'D CALL THEM MEAN NAMES AND/OR IMPLY THEIR MOTHER WAS A HAMSTER & THEIR FATHER SMELLED OF ELDERBERRIES.
This is indeed Omni's site, and he can indeed do what he likes with it (and, actually, I'd go as far as to say that he's within his own rights to be as snotty as he likes while doing it,) but personally, I think that if one would like to restrict somebody else's freedom in any way, then one should base this decision on cold hard reason rather than one's own feelings, and especially not base any such calls on the feelings of other people--because, (in addition to the simple fact that our feelings often change as part of our natural growth as humans,) as we have seen, everybody perceives events differently. The range of things that upset you could be much wider (or even much more narrow) than the things that upset me (my personal list of online discussion taboos being "literally not a thing", if you are curious). Similarly, just to name some random users (who, I dearly hope, were not actually involved, so that I can preserve a neutral tone here): the topics of discussion that would upset Fortis/Rin Okumura, Thaal, Belle, etc are also probably somewhat different. Banning actions based on such highly subjective criteria brings naught but ruin to any existing sense of community, in my experience.
This is the internet, just as it has been said. Everyone is here, on this site, because we like it here, and we more or less like the way that it is run. However, to say "this is the internet" as if that is meant to scare users into toeing the line, stopping conversation, and shutting them up is counter-intuitive. Consider: if a large number of users stopped liking it here--if they stopped liking the way that things are run--nothing extraneous forces any of these users to continue being here, except maybe stories and characters which, ultimately, could be moved elsewhere with a scant few hours' effort. Heck, we live in the Skype age. All the regs have multiple ways to get in touch with each other, and new members don't have any pre-existing attachments to people or anything. A group of users, big or small, could easily use the tools freely available on "this internet" to migrate elsewhere, or someone could even literally make their own Not!Omniverse spinoff on Proboards in about five minutes, and then invite everyone from their proverbial tribe over to the new site that better reflected what the majority of that aggregate wants--and they do, in fact, have sufficient freedom to do such a thing even over something so small as a choice of words. The default level of freedom for the internet is "absolute" until people start applying rules to their own sites--not that I'm saying there's any intrinsic problem with having rules. So ultimately, that's what I have to say to your "this is the internet" argument: that it is, indeed, the internet.
What ultimately must be understood (and we've seen some good evidence of this fact here in this very thread) is that, even though "this is the internet", just like there can be no country without citizens, there can be no Omniverse without good, happy, and committed users. It is therefore in the best interest of not just Omni, but all admins on all sites to be even more careful than the lay user regarding their own actions--lest the members become disenfranchised and ultimately dwindle due to executive meddling. One of the reasons I'm always against stuff like this is that I've personally witnessed more than one forum's active user count sink to the single digits due to that sort of thing in the past, and this place seems like it has a pretty casual and relaxed atmosphere for the time being. If I come across as an extremist for wanting to preserve the rules as they are, that's fine, but it is only because, well, I just got here, and after finally finding a place with a nice atmosphere and seemingly pretty decent folk, it's a bit too early for this forum to start giving the death knells on me for my tastes.
One can't simply put one's foot down towards a decently sized aggregate of the most active users and then act surprised that people are suddenly upset about it. However, for Omni to be surprised that the more light-hearted, joking implementation was taken the wrong way is actually quite understandable--although to those users who held their "glomps" near and dear, one must also consider the way that such a thing must seem to them: as they put it, a word they liked to use--that did not violate the existing OOC rules at the time--was replaced with, as Guu put it, "gross out humor"--which did violate the OOC rules in place at the time. And we see how this small group of internet-affection enthusiasts has, by and large, taken it all: with more than a little bit of hurt feelings and generally upset reactions, rather than the mutual knee slappin's all around and utterances of "Oh Greg, you silly rascal!" that Omni was presumably going for. Instead, the same thing that the existing rules were designed to avoid happened.
You also mentioned that it was a bit silly that all this even happened over something like the word "huggle", and in this aspect we are actually 100% in agreement. Personally, I am not a glomper. I've never glomped a day in my life. I don't even like being glomped, but it happens sometimes, much like how in real life I get hugs I don't really want sometimes. These things happen and all.
However, back on topic, I absolutely agree: it's positively absurd that, apparently, text implying two people were engaging in consensual and innocuous affection upset enough users--that is,
enough adult or nearly-adult human beings were upset by something so outrageously and undeniably "not a big deal"--that the site's admin was made to feel as though there was a need to step in over it.
I mean really, if you don't want them to hug you in the chat, you could have just asked them to not do it to you. Plus, as a few of my fellow rocket scientists have pointed out, one could always simply go to another tab on the rare occasions that their evanescent e-cuddling sessions stayed for a few moments longer than usual. There's a lot more to do on the internet than simply sitting around on the cbox, as evidenced by the frequent posting of links from offsite. Hell, go read Wikipedia or something if you're desperate for something to do for the five minutes or less that Guu & Des e-cuddled with each other. And while I'm on this little tangent: even if they
did hug somebody anyway,
it's text on a screen and
you'll have forgotten it even happened in ten minutes, and don't you even dare try to tell me otherwise.
Rape, gore, etc. make sense to hold an embargo over because they go beyond mere annoyance or 'polite vs impolite' chatter: they're very sensitive topics that, in certain individuals who have had certain experiences, can cause unpleasant flashbacks or memories--in extreme cases, even nightmares. If two people "huggling" in the chatbox is enough to hit you with an episode of PTSD or give you nightmares or some wack shit like that, then really, honestly? I don't think someone like that is actually meant to survive for this long in the kind of world that we live in. If that's what any of these people would like to try to tell me then I don't even feel obligated to
pretend that I believe them.
Reining in my digression: one in such a position as admin can't simply base a judgment like whether or not to ban certain words on whether or not "it upsets people". Well, they can. It'd be more appropriate to say that one cannot do such a thing without facing a perfectly natural amount of backlash from the parts of the site's community who either do enjoy using these words, or do not care but object on philosophical grounds--as we've seen. The point, as far as I've been made aware, of all the rules so far imposed was to make things generally a bit "safer" feeling for people who might be triggered (as in actually triggered, not "tumblr-triggered"), and in so doing also broaden the site's potential userbase. Understandable goals. However, as mentioned above, this recent action seems, to me at least, a bit counter-intuitive in that regard.
To summarize the "satisfaction" theme: This isn't the late 90s/early 00s era, where everyone only knows each other from forum posts. We add each other on Skype. We talk to each other. There's a much stronger sense of community. Remove the incentive for the community to keep playing together here (incentive being, as mentioned, friendly staff and nice atmosphere) and everyone has very little reason to stay when they could just convince their friends to make an account elsewhere--or, to paraphrase a humorous statement made earlier in chatbox, to make their own Omniverse, only with blackjack, and hookers.
If the cuddleboxers were discussing something that violated federal law, that'd be one thing. If there was graphic and overtly sexual stuff, we have some minors among our ranks, so that should also be taken elsewhere. These things were already against site OOC rules, though. They also weren't happening.
Really, this all seems quite odd to me. The fact that anyone even complained, the way it was handled, the seemingly endless chain of overreactions from basically everyone who was concerned with the events. I've never seen so much backlash over so little.
(This next bit's just for Omni, really, but any would-be/prospective admin is welcome to it)
It's gonna be okay. You've made a choice, and while I still don't quite like it being in the OOC rules at all, for the same reasons we touched on earlier in the cbox, I guess I'm not gonna throw a hissy fit over it lol. Still, you worded it in the OOC rules thread as forbidding "excessive" babytalk, implying that small amounts of such chatter is still perfectly fine, and you unblocked the words that were nothing
but so-called babytalk. This is a pretty commendable decision. A lot of people think that consistency is important for people in admin roles, and that is very true... but a willingness to arrive at some manner of compromise is even more important. So kudos for that.
During my own tenure over the years as admins for various facebook groups, IRC channels, and at one point even my own cozy little forum, I followed these rules. I'm not saying that you have to use these, Omni, neither do I presume to tell you how you should run your site, and I'm also not implying that you don't know how--if I thought you were a shitty admin I'd just say so straight-up, lol. But I am saying that, personally, they served me very well, that I never experienced a really big hiccup once I developed this set of rules, and that it is for these two reasons I offer them to you, as an abstract form of well-intentioned advice. They were formed from years of adminning across different sites, playing with different styles during my younger years.
They have been modified slightly from their original form to better fit in with this site's existing rules.
My rules I lived by when I was an admin:
1. Are you caused real, physical pain by [thing] or being threatened with something that would hurt you? (answer is usually "no" lol)
2. If so, your and everyone else's natural right to self-preservation is a logical justification to make [thing] and threats of using [thing] against the rules (this obviously rarely sees play)
3. If no danger is present, really the best thing to do would be to kick back and allow the world to keep spinning, unless it falls under one of the exceptions below: (because, as we've seen here, trying to make these kinds of things against the rules--even in a silly, joking manner--isn't likely to produce results that satisfy anybody. Not during this experience, and not in the grand sum of my own experience. :/ )
3a. Exceptions to this philosophy should be made in cases where a real threat to mental health is present, ie topics of rape, acts of deliberate harassment, extreme violence/gore, etc should either be handled delicately by users, or not at all, in the interests of preserving peoples' health, and by extension ensuring their continued happiness (note that
creating happiness does not factor into these rules; that comes naturally from hanging out with your mates online--and if your house already has a water heater, you don't need to go buy a new one unless something breaks and it can't be fixed, which really doesn't often happen in these types of environments, thankfully)
3b. I tried to remember always that "it mildly annoys or upsets me/them" is not a real threat to my or anybody else's mental health and thus should not be grounds for making something against the rules. I actually really 'get' the decision to make it against the rules, though I still disagree with it. I know just how tempting it can be sometimes to bring the hammer down, especially on admittedly aggravating things like people
doing nothing but spamming the goddamn /me emote for five minutes straight every other day (sound familiar? lol) but in general it really never turned out well to curtail such behaviors in cases where they weren't already against site/channel rules. A gentle "no" to the complainers, on the grounds that "what they're doing is annoying, but isn't actually against the rules, so I can't help you" would generally net me less negative feedback overall than coming up with new rules just to please a vocal minority.
Plus, when you create new rules, that's more work for everyone on the staff to keep up with, not to mention it sends an unspoken message that "if I don't like your shit you do to have fun, I'll make a rule so you can't do your stupid 'fun shit' anymore" (and whether this is actually your intention or not this is always how they will interpret it, I swear to you up and down), and one must admit that users having this perception of the site's admin(s) simply isn't very conducive to a warm and welcoming atmosphere.
In general, I've found that a "set in stone" model for etiquette rules works a lot better than a "living document" list of rules--which, incidentally, are the best way to handle mechanical/RPG system rules in my experience. If you make it clear that the rules for behavior won't be changing unless there is a dire, dire, "somebody-almost-died-because-I-fucked-up-so-hard-at-writing-these-rules" level of need, then the users tend to act a bit less like, well.. like this (like you shot their fuckin puppy or something amirite) when you tell them you "just can't help them" when a certain group calls for another group's blood like this.
I feel like you might think I was always the way that I am now (all "V for Vendetta, for snuggling" as you put it), but the truth is that I grew into being who I am, and a big part of that was realizing, through countless forum experiences and a couple adminships over the years, that for the most part, any given community will run itself. But, again, it's all just like, my opinion, man. Ultimately, I can't force you to do things my way. So just do whatever you think will be best for everybody. frogc00l
So with this post, I too bow out of the discussion... unless something really wicked sweet happens in which case I'll be back :c00l:
And as a final note to everyone who made it this far: I realize that it's a Charles Dickens novel, so thank you for the time it took to read all this.
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