Wolfery has a problem - what you can do about it

79

They literally tried that in the thread I linked as an example, and said poster turned it down.

And yes, the way you go about things and the tone you take with others is important, at least if you want them and others to be receptive to your ideas. It’s not good enough to be right… let alone to assume the worst and not be right, or castigate people who agree with you, just because they didn’t do it fast enough.

If you want to discuss this further with me personally, the forum seems to be suggesting a private message, which is probably a good idea (though honestly I don’t have much to add).

81

I feel seen. :smiley:

As the owner of Blackhoof Stables, that particular character spends a solid ~80% of his time in that area, just idling there for people to stop by and RP with. Green is one of the ones that does this almost religiously - Even if it’s just for a minute or two, I really appreciate it the activity.

I’m… A bit (Understatement much?) of an introvert. Social anxiety and various mental demons I fight with don’t make it easy for me to go out and meet other players, and so I tend to stick to my comfort zones, where have a list of ‘this is what I’m doing’ designed to elicit responses from other people.

I do, kind of, agree with the idea of urban sprawl being an issue - Sort of. I think in many cases… Take a street, for example - A long road could be built into 4 rooms… But why? There’s no need for it. What the builder is doing could be accomplished just by RPing. All it takes is the description to state “This road goes on for a mile. It’s very possible you might not see anyone else here.” and then for RPers to take that and run with it. Now, granted, that relies on the RPers to cooperate - Which is not always easy, people being people.

Take the labryinth for example, from @Shinyuu 's example - I can appreciate having 20 rooms (or whatever it is) and the whole… labyrinthine experience from an RP perspective, but OOCly? That same experience could be had with ~~5 rooms, and then RPers building the story that they’re lost someplace, moving from room to room without the need to move within an actual space.

This same concept is how I feel about navigating through the world as whole, and it’s somethign that big video game developers have to fight with on open world games. When you’re navigating from point A to point B for no other reason then to get to point B, you have to ask if the travel is worth it. This is why videogames implement fast travel for a major points - So you don’t have someone wasting 30 minutes running across a map for no reason to get to the otherside. IF they’re not taking in any of the content along the way, it’s pointless. This is just my plug for more public teleport pads - I firmly believe they’ll help people find and exist within currently unused spaces more, despite what previous data shows. Even if they don’t help, they absolutely will not hurt.

The teleports don’t even have to be to each specific sub-area - Just… Get people even semi-remotely close, and then give them a map that actually means something to tell them how to get where they want to go. Like teleporting to the forest, so you can pop over a couple of rooms to the Pokemon center or deep forest, or whathaveyou.

tldr for that bit; When building, builders should consider whether the need for multiple rooms can be solved via descriptions and RP, or if it’s an actual /need/ for multiple rooms.

tldr-tldr; I went back and added stuff to the middle of the post before posting. Sorry if this seems disjointed - That’s because it is.

82

Honestly I’d considered backing off on this as I got the feeling I was bugging you dropping by every day since you re-opened (and you’d said the equivalent of “I’ll call you” for a follow-up to an earlier scene). Of course, the last few days I ended up either busy with scripting, burnt out on RP or asleep when you were around anyway, so… :smile_cat:

If I were to highlight one place meeting your sprawl example, it might be (parts of) Umber Point, where side roads go on for multiple blocks, some slightly brighter than others. I’ve had meaningful interactions in the section of the road between the tent and the homeless shelter, but it’s hard to say that I couldn’t have had it in a combined road outside the tent.

Some of the “fun” of the Labyrinth is physically going around rooms while trying to keep the mental model in your head. On the OOC version saying “you traipsed around X and found yourself back where you started” wouldn’t have quite the same impact as doing it with real rooms, although it could probably be replaced with a script when inactive exits lands.

As for the area I’m working on, the game it’s based on ironically had teleporters to cut down on travel time, but by using them you miss out on some of the best parts scenery-wise. Which is why I like the idea of traveling somewhere once, even if you don’t take that journey every time. (Of course, the counterpoint is you may then not go at all.)

83

@Suki_Ari I have personally written dozens of pages of text going into our processes, systems, motivations, and methods over the past few months, in conference with those dissenters in this forum post. About half of this was in private messages, and half of it in public. One person has additionally made a good portion of the private and detailed, point by point addresses public. None of their points have been left unaddressed, but holding us to account for an unwillingness to respond to criticism because we have not done so in direct response to every copy of the criticism, is bad faith.

The original poster has thus been suspended because they are acting in bad faith. They asked us for point by point rebuttals, which we have given them, and they then reply asking for another lengthy rehash. They have requested absolute proof of private actions and sensitive personal data which would compromise our principles, which is unreasonable. They have been informed that many of their requests are not in line with the vision for the site, and are unavailable for compromise.

Our process is incredibly thorough and, to be entirely upfront, frustratingly restrained. If we were willing to do two thirds of the things accused of us, this post chain would look very different. The core complaint is that this thorough process is not open for vetting by anyone who is a user of the site. We have stated our position on this matter.

My personal opinion is that the discussion shifted to area management because it is indeed a legitimate problem which we are working to solve. By natural process of discussion spurious complaints, lodged and addressed elsewhere and repeatedly, understood to be in bad faith by the community at large, fell aside and left a genuine issue from the original post intact and open for debate.

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Speaking, again, personally and not as staff:

Is it not allowed to discuss points of improvement in other threads where they are contextually relevant?

Allowed, of course. Accepted as being in good faith? Not when the primary aim of the rhetoric is to frame the conversation as though the remainder of context has been settled on your last word, and when an ongoing complaint is an accusation of a refusal to engage with each point of comprehensive criticism.

I feel like this point mixes up providing a response and addressing an issue.

My personal expectation at this point is that the distinction will only be acceptably crossed under the condition that we capitulate to demands. We will not, and at this juncture my sole recourse is, again, to simply state that we are at an impasse.

One reason for the topic coming up like this is the lack of visibility into anything that happens, though. And to tackle the area where this would go in response, I believe, no I don’t mean full visibility into everything. The community doesn’t really get to see anything in this case.

The community gets to see the results. I myself encouraged you, in the extensive reply you quote above, to know a tree by its fruits. Wolfery is a place people care about, it is a place people enjoy, and it is a place people are invested in. This is the evidence. The community sees the results, they see our public statements, they know they enjoy being on the site.

We have expounded at length on our process- in detail. To use a very dorky metaphor, you have the equation we use, you have the result we get. We will not provide you the input variables. If that is not enough, then we are at an impasse- part of the equation is that the variables are hidden.

I will say again: there are many suggestions made about what we should do. With the exception of accepting an additional, external oversight body, we already do everything that has been suggested, and several others which the community has not yet proposed, but we already figured out.

There are several cases being re-litigated. With the reminder that I am speaking personally here: There are factors which are not public, and should not be which are known only to the involved parties, and dramatically change the nature of some of these cases. For some, there were certainly legitimate mistakes, which have been addressed internally. We will not be releasing Corrective and Preventive Action plan reports on these issues.

Regarding the other areas where claimed mistakes are seen as such because of a lack of information present to outside parties, it’s very hard for me at this juncture to avoid as direct and crass a reply as it’s not your business. A fair portion of what we do is, honestly, supportive. Mental health factors in. Personal grievances. Interpersonal relations. Honest but embarrassing mistakes. Would you want a doctor to have to take videos of your checkups and submit them to board review?

Can we just keep those interactions private, and release the others? Absolutely not- because then everyone knows that the people who had interactions which weren’t publicized have a particular kind of sensitive problem. Consider how you would express compassion towards someone with a stigmatized problem, and if the answer is not inclusive of ‘offering them dignified privacy’, then again, we are at an impasse.

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87

I fail to see how naming the moderators helps in any way in regards to the issues raised. It’s been told numerous times in this thread alone that they review the tickets at a team. Why do you need the names of the individuals on that team?

There’s zero evidence in this thread that the suggestions to the OP’s issues that the moderators offered don’t work.

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I don’t think you’d been to the labyrinth~ even though the room descriptions are the same, their contents are not. Dumbing it down to a single corridor wouldn’t serve its purpose of a place where you aren’t sure you saw everything there’s to it (you didn’t).

While I totally agree with you on the streets that are there only for the streets, there are cases when you need more rooms.

Go visit the labyrinth!

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We absolutely do that during the review.

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Suki, I do hope that one with your experience in dealing with disagreements between parties would know better than to just read a few posts and make a judgement on what you can find there. Especially in something with as many hidden and private pieces such as moderation where outside parties are literally able to only get one side of the story because the other side is morally and ethically prevented from sharing the cause for the reasoning behind their statements.

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91

RL me once had a coworker that was… Very derelicting of their job. They were not at their computer for more than half the working hours in spite of having a data entry job which, you know, REQUIRES your computer to do the tasks. Boss would come in to assign work and coworker wasn’t there. Often boss would return hours later to find coworker gone again or in some cases, STILL gone. Boss eventually assigned the work via email, and said coworker would then give it to me instead of doing it themselves. When my coworker was reprimanded for these absences, they filed a complaint with HR alleging racism and sexual harassment. Months of investigation resulted in the coworker being fired for dereliction of duties. Several friends my coworker that worked in offices in other parts of the building were upset at the dismissal, claiming the coworker was wronged! Even when provided the facts that I, personally, experienced, they still felt Boss was wrong to reprimand my coworker for not being at the desk their job required them to be at.

I provide this story to explain why I don’t care at all what people SAY happened, because surprise, surprise, people lie. A LOT. There’s a reason it’s cliche to say ‘but they were so nice’ when somebody unexpected is arrested for horrible crimes. Family and friends still declare the innocence of someone, even though the positive ID of DNA evidence of sexual assault was found on the dead victim that’s stashed in the accused’s basement, along with the murder weapon covered in the accused’s fingerprints. (No, Klemi, this is hyperbole and not a real case. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t in line with reality.) Just because somebody ELSE says someone is innocent, doesn’t make it true. The same holds for guilt. Some might remember an lacrosse team who were dragged through court for months, only to have it revealed that the accuser was lying about the charges.

I understand the concerns that some feel like the OP points were dismissed, but as is pointed out elsewhere when asked for concrete examples of misbehavior so they could be investigated, very few in the thread have been inclined to do so and thus they demonstrate that they don’t have real issues they want addressed, just perceived problems. You can see evidence above that when one such complaint was provided concretely, action was taken and the matter was resolved.

And I know somebody pointed out that nonsense about students not wanting to go to other teachers and and have their concerns dismissed… Has any of them tried to talk to other moderators? Have they tried consulting Acci about it? We are NOT students here. Nobody is mandating we ‘attend’ Wolfery and interact with those here. There ARE other options and unlike school you are not restricted by things such as money or geography. If you feel the moderators will not listen to you, moderators Acci has directly said he watches influences frequently, perhaps you might want to consider transferring to a ‘school’ whose administration you feel more comfortable with.

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92

Kelmi, you say you want more transparency. Fine. To avoid your favorite accusation of Straw Man Arguments, we will start with this hypothetical: The moderators (collectively me) have received a report that Klemi has broken the rules and included log files from the server which are signed by the server itself and thus proved true. What information from this report should be made public? What do you want everyone to know about the claim against you? What tidbits from the investigation into your behavior do you want divulged to the public?

-Edit to fix Kelmi’s name

95

Kelmi, let me be a bit straight here. I really don’t see how this is contributing to something that wasn’t already discussed.

I’m not a moderator here, and for a good reason. I’ve been involved in moderating some larger communities over the years, and it’s a very stressful job that you’re not paid for. There are two primary reasons why you might want to do it: you either care for the community as a whole, or you like the feeling of power.

I’ve been here for long enough, and I never caught even a slightest waft that anyone on the mod team is in there for the sake of abusing power.

Why do I single you out, though? Because, if this was a thread on my subreddit, I’d have wrapped up your arguments a while ago. You seem to be inclined, laser focused even, on some very specific and very narrow moderation issues. I don’t think you are inherently malicious in acting that way, but i think you have tunnel vision in regards to something.

The only thing you are managing to do, though, is stirring shit in a barrel to the point that other people drop by the thread and are very much curious as to why do we have a barrel, why it’s full of shit, and why someone keeps stirring it. People don’t do that for no reason, so surely there’s something to it they don’t see (I’m really sorry. I had to do a jab at a figurative metaphor there).

This isn’t a free-for-all place. This isn’t a democracy. This is a passion thingy of one person and I think they did a great job. When it comes to considering wolfery as an social service, the moderation team is miles ahead of what is considered to be a norm across the social services. Try getting any feedback from twitter when they act or don’t act on your reports!

Of course, larger companies just involve automation in their reviews. Wolfery is better, because it’s small enough and you can rely on a council of moderators to do this job. You always get the humane treatment. What you miss is how much work, how much stress, and how much tension it might involve. An easy case might be handled by a single moderator alone, but for anything tricky they all have to be involved.

Can you please, for a minute, stop and think how your comments affect people around you? How your obsession with moderation subjects affects people who voluntarily decided to make sure Accipiter has enough time to work on the room scripts without being drowned in reports and without Wolfery turning into anarchy? You are not a whistleblower. You don’t raise some secret subjects that were hid under the wraps. Please accept that the moderation team isn’t inherently vile. They are all humans, dragons, or foxes and they all make mistakes. They work on correcting those mistakes. And they clearly are doing their best to keep Wolfery functional.

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97

Now I will close this off just in case anyone would ever think reviving it would in any way be a good idea.

I am also working on writing forum rules to prevent anything similar in the future.

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