CLOK BBS

This has likely been suggested before and/or discussed. However, I feel strongly that karma should be removed, or should be restricted to, say, mentors only. Lately a lot of players have been dekarmaed when they said nothing offensive in particular, leading to an hour to several of silence for nothing done wrong. Since we never really have spambots or advertisers, there's little reason for players to be able to tempmute other players.

Karma has had an adverse effect on any adult, mature discussions we've had lately. Someone decides to contribute a slightly unpopular opinion, and gets karmaed. They're unable to contribute at all, and cannot be unkarmaed.

And before anyone comments below saying "We should add upvoting (positive karma) back again!" the GMs have stated previously that this leads to a ridiculous karma war between people and is bad. Somewhere on the BBS, anyway.

I couldn't have said it better myself.
I was karmaed earlier in the midst of a discussion. YOu can argue about what I said being wrong or anything all you want, but that's hardly the point. The point is that karma can and has been and will be abused. It needs to be removed. I believe admin and mentors, or others specifically given the role should be able to monitor players and discipline accordingly. We should not have one player karmaing another because they feel like being obnoxious and rude to someone else. It's one thing if a person deserves it, but the act of deserving is so relative that I honestly feel it's unfair and unwise to allow players to just karma whenever they feel like it. It leads to nothing but trouble.

See the post above mine for words I am incapable of writing as clearly, and consider this my loud second of his words.

Honestly if it were up to me I would have turned chat off for the entire weekend. There hasn't been more than ten minutes of chat that I could listen to that didn't make me just want to hang my hat up and say "seeya."

It is not possible for one person to use karma enough to silence another player. Even if you think that one person is abusing karma and using it to be annoying or whatever, this won't do anything. If you feel like a group of people are trolling somebody by using karma, that is another matter entirely, but will be dealt with appropriately.

Please see the other discussion of karma (viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3423&p=18343&hilit=karma#p18336) which addresses some of the same questions as this one.

As an alternative to in-game discussion if you have been karmaed and would like to carry on the conversation, there is always the BBS. Generally, as people have time to reflect on what they're saying and cannot immediately hit enter, things become more civil and better stated. I don't mean that the conversation that brought this post up was uncivil - I wasn't even around - but there are a number of alternatives that may be a better choice for communication if people are getting very worked up.

Losing access to chat does not make the game unplayable. In fact, it doesn't affect gameplay at all (except perhaps in a positive way regarding immersion). As Zoiya said in the other post, "... so just take the time out, RP and before you know it, you'll be able to chat again."

Hi.
I'll look at the other thread. Just wanted to clarify something. And my writing in this thread has nothing to do with RP being ruined because I can't talk on chat. I actually like when chat is turned off sometimes. It does help with both emersion and lack of potential problems.

I believe very strongly that everyone deserves a voice, regardless of who they are, or whether their opinion is a popular one.
The fact that people can get snarky on chat and karma someone into silence because they feel like it not only looks a lot like bullying, but it sends a very loud signal that the snarky ones can talk, and the rest of the people cannot. I am vehemently against this. It brings nothing to the game, and should be handled by people object and mature enough to know when to step in and say, hey, that's enough, or, no, this person really isn't in the wrong, let it go.

I'm not suggesting we're kids and need policing. I'd much prefer that we be adults and treat each other like so. But if a system truly needs to be in place, as one of the players, I'd like to express my concern with this one. There are too many potential loopholes and chances for upset.

Forgive me if I'm out of line for making this suggestion, but II'd like to see a system where specific people work together to help smooth things over if something comes up and admin aren't around. Even if they are, this could provide another avenue, similar to mentors, who help objectively determine whether someone is misusing a channel--ESP, question, chat, or not roleplaying appropriately.

In the case of the earlier discussion, I felt the entire thing, except for one example of snarkiness, went over well. Yes, it was somewhat more heated than it needed to be, but it was also wrought, in some cases, with confusion that was being dismissed. Nothing awful was said. Nothing like name-calling or flaming the admins was said. Questions were asked about continuity of IC time versus OOC time. I've seen people get far more bitchy than ever happened earlier. There have been times when chat has honestly seemed out of control, by comparison.

I'm not just mad because I was the one who was karmaed, though I know that my writing here after the fact looks like I am, and that I'm just wanting to tantrum after the fact.
I'm angry because it looks unfair and imbalanced and like a system that could easily become abused. I would be just as frustrated, even more so, if someone was karmaed in what I believed to be an unfair manner. And you can take that to the bank.

Trust me guys, I've been karma minus-ed out of chat and out of discussions before. No, it isn't fun or pleasant. Yes, it feels wrong. Hell, I'll admit that I believe I never said anything that deserved a karma - when I was, and other times I wasn't when I thought I would be. Everyone has their own opinion of what deserves a karma minus. Sometimes, it takes someone being annoying or rude or otherwise unpleasant. Sometimes it can be used in a case of trolling. Sometimes it can be used to simply stamp someone's unpopular input out of a discussion. While some of these might seem right and others wrong, none are an abuse of karma unless a group of people are agreeing to karma someone silent multiple times so that they do not get to discuss anything on chat.

This seems like it will soon become the next controversy, just as PK was not too long ago. The fact of the matter is, karma can not be abused as easily as everyone seems to think. It doesn't take just one person to silent, probably not even two. I suspect it takes at least three karma - commands to silence you, or likely some kind of percentage of the current online community. So no, karma isn't being abused. A few players are simply thinking that they don't want to hear what you are saying on CHAT anymore and using that command roughly around the same time.

And honestly, I think karma works fine. In fact, you can get one person using karma - against you every chance they get, and they will never get you silenced on their own. In fact, as long as just one person less than the requirement use karma, you can keep on talking, and your karma will reset after a time, with you being none the wiser.

I suggest that if you don't want to be silenced, avoid causing too many rubbed nerves. And if you truly believe karma was abused, ask a GM to look it over.

As posted in my previous thread, I also requested that abuse of Karma be addressed.

Several more suggestions I would make in the context of the existing rules would be:


(1) To shorten the duration of time a person is silenced by - karma. I think 20 or 30 minutes would be long enough for that person to get the same message as one hour of silence. Perhaps 20 minutes for the first silencing per calendar day, then 30 minutes for each subsequent silencing that calendar day. It's easy enough for the game community to re-silence them if necessary.


(2) To have the game code automatically put you in ignore mode for that person (which you probably should have done yourself) when you ignore them.
Example : you type
karma - fredegar

game would respond with
You have lowered Fredegar's karma.
You are now ignoring OOC chats from Fredegar.


(3) As an added touch to (2), I would also like to have the codebase keep Ignore on for the person using - karma for the same time that a karma time-out lasts (I think it's currently an hour). Not necessary to have (3) in addition to (2), but overall I think that the game is being spoiled for some, because certain others should be using Ignore when they are too quickly defaulting to the - Karma command to solve their chat problems.


(4) for a person using Karma - to have to type in a reason along with the - karma command. If the person really does deserve to be shut out of the conversation, then it's not too much trouble for the silencer to type in four or five words with a civil reason why. Things like 'Fredegar talks too much' should be ruled as not a good enough reason...use Ignore, folks. It would help Fredegar improve his manners to see the reason why he was - karma'd as well...the current system just generates bitterness in Fredegar unless others in Chat tell Fredagar why (which seldom happens). Overall, I believe it is unethical to punish someone without providing them with the truthful reason why - one of the IRL things that separates the Free World from dictatorships.


(5) So we can no longer raise someone's Karma. Could we at least cancel our own - karma command if we regret doing so?


(6) To have, when someone is silenced, a game-generated message informing the community to the effect that "Fredegar is in a chat time-out" so the game community can see why Fredegar has suddenly dropped out of the conversation and he doesn't have to bother all his friends with tells to that effect. Also, if Fredegar says something that others don't like, and then stops talking for a while, he doesn't currently know he is in a time-out until he actually tries another chat. Theoretically, Fredegar could offend, then go afk for a while, then go fight mobs for a while, then after the sentence has elapsed try chatting again and succeed, without ever knowing he offended and was silenced.


(7) It was elsewhere stated that raising someone's karma was eliminated because it results in too many Tells to other players to the effect of, "I was silenced, please raise my karma". Could we also rule that is equally inappropriate and unethical to send a tell to another player asking them to lower a third player's Karma, even moreso to new players who don't really understand what karma is all about?

My belief is that if Joe doesn't see anything in Fredegar's chat that is worthy of silencing Fredegar for, then he should not be told by a third player to lower Fredegar's karma ... if the need to use - karma is not self-evident, then don't try to persuade someone else to use it on someone you don't like.

(8) The fairest all around solution would be, when you minus karma someone, your own karma is also minused. This will really make players usually choose the better solutions over the minus karma command. If you've said nothing wrong, and someone else needs to be minus karma'd, then you can go ahead and do it to lower their karma; you won't have to worry about the several other players needed to also minus karma you, it will be only the one minus karma that you made against yourself. If you feel the compelling need to minus karma several other players, then it's time for you to turn chat off, anyways.


These are eight independent suggestions, some good, some not as good, and they don't all have to be implemented as one package. If anyone else particularly agrees with one or more of these, I would appreciate you saying so.

Not as a GM but my personal opinion would be to just permanently get rid of CHAT. It's half random over sharing, a quarter metagaming discussion, and a quarter bickering. It has absolutely no place in-game. If people want to chat, use Skype, Google Hangouts, IRC, etc.

Which is why I think all the arguments/complains about Karma are kind of pointless as well.

I agree that there is a lot of random and unnecessary conversation that goes on in chat but I also see a lot of good deliberation and positive encouragement of RP. From a player perspective, if it gets to be too overwhelming I just turn it off. But I think it's responsible for the actual game to support a place where players can socialize as players as well. That kind of opportunity to relate to individuals on a personal level helps develop friendships and supports a thriving community.

My thoughts are similar to those of Jirato. Additionally, the last thing I want to do is be a moderator of OOC behavior. In fact, it's not even the last thing. I have zero interest or intent to be a babysitter of players' OOC behavior. The most I'm willing to do is glance over alert logs and make sure nobody is constantly/consistently silencing someone, which I haven't seen happen.

The in-game OOC chat system is what it is, and I've kept it in despite having a great dislike for it because players say they love it. If players are unhappy with its implementation, there are several free and easily-available alternatives for OOC communication; I'm not spending any time and effort on updating, changing, or moderating in-game chat aside from disabling it when I've got an event or something going.

I don't intend to assign chat mods amongst players. That causes all sorts of issues with favoritism, power trips, abuse of power, people rioting over an "unfair mod", and just gives the GMs more unnecessary work an drama. That, and more likely than not, the mods will soon become hated and crucified for silencing people because you're never going to please everyone.

A plea: If something unusual happens to your character, please don't go straight to chat about it. If you're wondering what other people think, or if it's unusual or not, ask in an IC way over the pendant, or talk IC to a friend or trusted acquaintance. Nothing destroys the moment more than instantly going OOC and saying "lol did anyone else feel that" or "oh crap I think I just got infested" or whatever.

We should rename this thread to "Removal of Chat" and leave socialization to one-on-one tells if need be. The chat channel promotes laziness in the realm of in game interaction as seen with the countless times even veteran players have discussed in character things on it. They don't care to stop and the behavior is mirrored by newer players as a result. Pretty sure the roleplay in general would be a lot better (not saying it's bad!) if chat didn't exist at all by virtue of pigeonholing players who would have otherwise used chat from afar to interact to instead go out and play the game and their character. Jirato is right when you say you can use messengers to keep in touch and Rias nailed it for me in the way of saying that it ruins immersion to hear some asinine comment on chat about what's happening in game.

Laroremas wrote:We should rename this thread to "Removal of Chat" and leave socialization to one-on-one tells if need be. The chat channel promotes laziness in the realm of in game interaction as seen with the countless times even veteran players have discussed in character things on it .

Did you forget you can type in Option 5, Laroremas, and remove chat from your playing experience, without having to bugger it up for the rest of us? If you truly feel about chat as you have stated, please go ahead and do this.

Also, I can and do sometimes tell a player that their chat belongs in either a Question or an ESP / IC interaction. Under the current system, the player involved may minus karma me, without stating a reason why, may send tells to their friends to also get them to minus karma me, rather than choosing to use Ignore on me if they feel my comments are inappropriate. This may also happen to other proper players who try to direct the proper use of the Chat channel as well. Some third party may decide that they can't take the drama and default to using minus Karma as a solution instead of using the oh-so-easy solutions of either Ignore on me or of turning chat off. In these cases, it is the person who uses the minus karma who deserves to be silenced, but that is not what happens.

I see the question being: What is the priority for CLOK?

If you are looking for the maximum RP environment, a sort of Lost Lands simulator, then get rid of chat. You might even get rid of tells, log-in notifiers, and the who list. We have a way to let people know when you're online and looking to play (ESP pulse) and people do metagame the who list. I'm being serious here; it'd be interesting. Keep question for immediate "How do I play?" questions, direct people to the boards for other stuff, and maybe add a message of the day to log-in. Fortunately, this is also easy to test. Just shut chat and other things off for a week or two.

If you are looking for a more social experience, then keep things as they are. At its best, I see chat as analogous to the banter you get around the table when you play tabletop RPGs. The banter can encourage comraderies and add to the entertainment value, though RP suffers. I'll admit I get far better RP online than I do at tabletop sessions, but a good tabletop session is still a lot of fun partly because all of us can have a good OOC laugh about the crazy stuff our characters are doing. On the other hand, I'm usually not playing tabletop with someone unless we're friends. Chat is open to all and sundry and that means there's a lot more potential for aggravation, irritation, bickering, and fighting. There's been a couple of times I've wished for the old DR ability to 'thump' characters to shut them up or shatter their pendants.

I'm open to either, but I've been shutting chat off more and more lately. And I think it is telling that at least three GMs disdain chat and come from RP-enforced MUDs that had no chat function. It makes me wonder why it was implemented in the first place.

Kent wrote:Did you forget you can type in Option 5, Laroremas, and remove chat from your playing experience, without having to bugger it up for the rest of us? If you truly feel about chat as you have stated, please go ahead and do this.

I regularly have it off. If you're going to spend your time quoting me on something, I might recommend addressing the actual issue as opposed to simply focusing on what you did. Namely, the fact that I see things that should be discussed on in character channels regularly discussed on chat in an unrepentant way when I do tune in (not always, of course), and the fact that the chat channel itself is detrimental in every single way to game-side immersion. It's good that you do tell them to not do it, though we may be playing two different games because I've never seen you do it. Granted, I'm not on all the time.

Kent wrote:Under the current system, the player involved may minus karma me, without stating a reason why, may send tells to their friends to also get them to minus karma me, rather than choosing to use Ignore on me if they feel my comments are inappropriate.

Maybe you haven't been reading, but, here you go.

Rias wrote:I have zero interest or intent to be a babysitter of players' OOC behavior. The most I'm willing to do is glance over alert logs and make sure nobody is constantly/consistently silencing someone, which I haven't seen happen.

Have you stopped to consider, perhaps, that the reason you are being repeatedly karma silenced is because you deserve it? That maybe the people doing it (not myself, as an aside) WANT your chat privileges revoked and could care less to settle for simply removing themselves from chat or ignoring you? Is that so wrong? That whining here about it instead of endeavoring to NOT say things that would have said privilege revoked is a rather fruitless endeavor when you could instead be working on not doing the things that you do to get silenced?

Jirato wrote:It's half random over sharing, a quarter metagaming discussion, and a quarter bickering. It has absolutely no place in-game.

This sums it up perfectly.

Let's be rid of chat and be on our merry way. The immersion-ruining one-liners and the nonsense said there are not worth the effort spent reading the complaints voiced in this thread by people who are merely upset that they themselves have been karma silenced. It will keep happening, people will keep complaining, and it will all come full circle.

Having played games where there are NO global channels, in character or out of character (though with personal avenues for discussion available) they have been, simply put, the best. I don't know why I even bother listening in on chat the times that I do; it is akin to a child touching a hot stove for a second, third and fourth time in my case. I keep wondering if it has cooled down, but of course, it hasn't.

I can almost guarantee if you give the absence of chat a shot, you won't regret it, Kent. Or anyone that might be against having the channel removed as a whole.

All of my PC's have chat disabled, and tells usually as well. It makes the game a whole different place. Not in a bad way either.

Laroremas wrote:

Kent wrote:Did you forget you can type in Option 5, Laroremas, and remove chat from your playing experience, without having to bugger it up for the rest of us? If you truly feel about chat as you have stated, please go ahead and do this.

I regularly have it off. If you're going to spend your time quoting me on something, I might recommend addressing the actual issue as opposed to simply focusing on what you did. Namely, the fact that I see things that should be discussed on in character channels regularly discussed on chat in an unrepentant way when I do tune in (not always, of course), and the fact that the chat channel itself is detrimental in every single way to game-side immersion. It's good that you do tell them to not do it, though we may be playing two different games because I've never seen you do it. Granted, I'm not on all the time.

Have you stopped to consider, perhaps, that the reason you are being repeatedly karma silenced is because you deserve it? That maybe the people doing it (not myself, as an aside) WANT your chat privileges revoked and could care less to settle for simply removing themselves from chat or ignoring you? Is that so wrong? That whining here about it instead of endeavoring to NOT say things that would have said privilege revoked is a rather fruitless endeavor when you could instead be working on not doing the things that you do to get silenced?

If you had read what I said, a person can be karma silenced for merely asking players who are busting the ooc rules to comply. Or for having a conversation with a GM who requested opinions to be stated on the chat channel. Have you stopped to consider that the persons using the karma command may in fact be the bad persons in the equation? These people,as you say, are unrepentant in their misuse of the chat channel, and it's no stretch for them to be unrepentent in their mis-use of the karma channel.

Laroremas wrote:Let's be rid of chat and be on our merry way. The immersion-ruining one-liners and the nonsense said there are not worth the effort spent reading the complaints voiced in this thread by people who are merely upset that they themselves have been karma silenced. It will keep happening, people will keep complaining, and it will all come full circle.

Having played games where there are NO global channels, in character or out of character (though with personal avenues for discussion available) they have been, simply put, the best. I don't know why I even bother listening in on chat the times that I do; it is akin to a child touching a hot stove for a second, third and fourth time in my case. I keep wondering if it has cooled down, but of course, it hasn't.

I can almost guarantee if you give the absence of chat a shot, you won't regret it, Kent. Or anyone that might be against having the channel removed as a whole.

I can guarantee you that I have given it a shot, and that during the weekend chat was taken from us, the game crossed the line from being fun to play to being not fun enough to play, thank you very much.

Lararomas, you have be granted the courtesy of choosing whether or not you want chat in your game (and it's no one else's fault if you tune back in). You have been granted this liberty to tune out or in, the same liberty the rest of us have. Why do you want to rob some of us of this freedom that you enjoy?

Even though I've stopped playing, I'd like to add in my thoughts to all of this. Feel free to disregard, and assume it's outdated as you please.


One of the biggest reasons I stopped playing Clok was because while there was great roleplay to be had at times, there always seemed to be this toxicity stemming from the OOC environment, as well as leaks between IC and OOC. Some of the best roleplaying I experienced was the first time that the Devs were trying out a "chat-free" period.

The game I've been playing lately has no (easily accessible) OOC channel, and most players rely on the forums or tells for communications. As far as I can tell it's so much more helpful than hindering to community building, if you want your game to be based primarily around storytelling and roleplaying.

That being said, I understand that there's always options to turn off OOC channels, and put people in ignore, that sort of thing. But my overall experiences over the past couple of years have led me to believe that OOC chatter going on in the middle of a story or roleplaying scene is ultimately distracting, and immersion breaking.

Just some food for thought.

Kent wrote:If you had read what I said, a person can be karma silenced for merely asking players who are busting the ooc rules to comply. Or for having a conversation with a GM who requested opinions to be stated on the chat channel. Have you stopped to consider that the persons using the karma command may in fact be the bad persons in the equation? These people,as you say, are unrepentant in their misuse of the chat channel, and it's no stretch for them to be unrepentent in their mis-use of the karma channel.

1. Having shouted IC on chat numerous times, I've never been karma silenced.

2.

Rias wrote:I have zero interest or intent to be a babysitter of players' OOC behavior. The most I'm willing to do is glance over alert logs and make sure nobody is constantly/consistently silencing someone, which I haven't seen happen.

3.

Rias wrote:The most I'm willing to do is glance over alert logs and make sure nobody is constantly/consistently silencing someone, which I haven't seen happen.

4.

Rias wrote:and make sure nobody is constantly/consistently silencing someone, which I haven't seen happen.

5.

Rias wrote:which I haven't seen happen.

Just for posterity. So stop saying the command was abused in your situation, because it wasn't.

Kent wrote:I can guarantee you that I have given it a shot, and that during the weekend chat was taken from us, the game crossed the line from being fun to play to being not fun enough to play, thank you very much.

It is clear to me that you would have had a difficult time ever enjoying it, because you view it as some manner of necessity for your gameplay. Which is strange to me. The way you phrase it, "the weekend chat was taken from us" tells me that much.

If you could take a moment to stop victimizing yourself, you might be able to understand where I and many others are coming from. Allow me to pose a few questions to you:

How does chat enhance your game play experience on CLOK, a roleplaying-enforced, fantasy-themed game?

Would you STOP playing if there was no global OOC channel like chat?

How did you spend your time during that chat-free weekend, when chat was so cruelly taken away from you?

Okay, I am a supporter of CHAT, because I personally like to build friendships with the people I am playing with on an OOC level, and that is just much more simple to do with something like CHAT. That being said, I also think the game would greatly benefit from the removal of CHAT, especially in the case of people with multiple alts. Roleplay can be interfered with by CHAT, to be sure, but getting to know people on CHAT and easily recognizing who their alts are can alter the way characters react with one person's multiple alts. Your view of them becomes tainted by the OOC interactions. The same works the other way as well. If you have multiple alts, but have a OOC channel to communicate on and never have to change the way you act on, then your alts can start to become copy/pastes on their personalities, and can be hard to really take control of fully. So I have to say, while I would prefer to see CHAT stay and not lose the OOC communication I have come to enjoy (and sometimes hate), I would have to put my weight behind it being removed, if not fully then to some great extent. Again, I am someone who loves CHAT and would like to see it stay, and have never been on a MUD other than this one, so I don't really know what it is like to play without any form of OOC contact. But ultimately, I cannot continue to support the existence of CHAT as things stand at the moment.

Just while we're on the subject of chat in general: Please don't eschew the BBS in favor of chat. As has been stated multiple times here and elsewhere, none of the GMs ever really pay attention to chat. We can't stand it, for the most part. So, those complaints, questions, suggestions, super awesome ideas ... none of them are going to be heard by the GMs if you just talk about them on chat.

Please, use the BBS.

Now, back to your regularly-scheduled chat/karma dicussion.

Oh, and great points in your last post, Drayla. I get some ridicule for it by the other GMs, but I hate knowing who someone's alts are. I'd really rather not know. Knowing person-who-I-thought-was-new is actually the 17th alt of Stan Altsalot ruins it for me, and makes me totally view them with a bias instead of as a fresh, new, individual character. I know, that's my own fault, right? But it still happens, it's difficult for me to not do.