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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: Ephemeral » ARG: Eldritch Errors
[META] In-game forums and UF
Moderators: aliendial, celina63, konamouse, rose, thebruce
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Xestrix
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Joined: 09 Jun 2005
Posts: 101
Location: Salem, Oregon, USA
rose wrote:
I think that moderators need to understand that what they post as suggestions or opinions are taken seriously by the players.

This is true, but that does not mean that becoming a mod forfeits you're right to opinion.

I agree with Phaedra and others in this thread, that it is beneficial for all of us to maintain TINAG while on IG forums, or other IG places. Regardless of the PM's ability to ignore the talk, it may confused newer players, and it simply feels uncomfortable for the rest of us.
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 8:59 pm
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WolfHawk
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Joined: 15 Nov 2006
Posts: 1247
Location: St. Louis
Phaedra wrote:
In any case, things have changed up a bit over there, and the game is very much afoot. Wink


What game?

PostPosted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 9:35 pm
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Xestrix
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WolfHawk wrote:
Phaedra wrote:
In any case, things have changed up a bit over there, and the game is very much afoot. Wink


What game?


Wink
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 9:36 pm
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roseModerator
...and then Magic happens


Joined: 26 Nov 2003
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Quote:
that it is beneficial for all of us to maintain TINAG while on IG forums, or other IG places. Regardless of the PM's ability to ignore the talk, it may confused newer players, and it simply feels uncomfortable for the rest of us.


I understand that people mentioning unfiction in an in-game forum might be uncomfortable for unfiction players. My point is that because something feels uncomfortable for us is not a sufficient reason to control, whether by rules, voluntary etiquette, polite forum posts here pointing out the infraction, or however you want to phrase it, what people post on another forum. At most, I think anyone concerned by what a player posts on another forum should politely message them on that forum and talk to them about it. I don't want unfiction players to turn into the ARG police. (I'm not too worried about that happening because I have great confidence in the player community here.)

We can't, and I think shouldn't want to, police what players do on other forums. The ARG community needs as many diverse outlooks as possible, everyone playing the same way just isn't going to benefit the community in the long run.

I always thought that unfiction being out-of-game was to prevent the characters (read puppetmasters) from posting here or talking in the game about what was being posted here. For purposes of the story from the storytellers' perspective, unfiction simply doesn't exist.

I didn't think the "unfiction is out-of-game rule" was meant to keep players from linking to unfiction, or even discussing unfiction, on in-game sites. On the contrary, the reality is that unfiction has been mentioned or linked to on in-game sites in many games. As mentioned, even the character "Dana" posted it her on blog. I think the reality is that unfiction will continue to be linked to, or even discussed, on in-game sites. I don't think that we can prevent this.

If you really want to keep unfiction off of in-game sites, I think it will be a time consuming job. I wonder too what the standard would be: never mention unfiction; Unfiction links are ok if embedded; Unfiction can be linked by characters if the game is huge and people need to find references? Who will decide what is acceptable for players to post about unfiction on other forums? Who will enforce this decision?

Players are really good at creating the boundary of the play-space for a game. I don't think that we should presume to set it for a group of players of which we may only be a part, even more so because it is most likely newer players or players not from unfiction who are likely to link to or discuss these forums on in-game sites. Players will always do stuff that we don't like or agree with, that is just part of playing a game with a group of people.

As for TINAG, well, that is basically the game not recognizing that it is a game. Most games do in fact now recognize in some overt way that they are a game, or at least a fictional world. Player discussions about whether the story is "real" or not have happened on in-game forums in both Art of the Heist and Who is Benjamin Stove. (It may have happened in other games as well, I'm just not aware of them.) Those discussions didn't ruin the game. I don't think that TINAG demands that player forums not be mentioned on in-game forums.

I'm not suggesting that it is fine for people to be trolls and intentionally interfere with the game in a way that disturbs other players. All I'm saying is that we shouldn't try to control how other people play a game. It isn't necessary and it won't benefit us.

Quote:
This is true, but that does not mean that becoming a mod forfeits you're right to opinion.


heh, I agree with this of course, I'm an unfiction moderator too, as are many of the people posting in this thread. Wink
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 10:18 pm
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Eggnog
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Joined: 15 Mar 2007
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rose wrote:
We can't, and I think shouldn't want to, police what players do on other forums. The ARG community needs as many diverse outlooks as possible, everyone playing the same way just isn't going to benefit the community in the long run.

...

I'm not suggesting that it is fine for people to be trolls and intentionally interfere with the game in a way that disturbs other players. All I'm saying is that we shouldn't try to control how other people play a game. It isn't necessary and it won't benefit us.


It still seems to me like Phaedra and the others in this thread aren't trying to police or control anything. They're offering a suggestion that others might choose to adhere to in the future or they might not. No matter which they choose, there is no punishment or deterrent of any kind, so there's really no control at all. I understand that each player has the right to play the game how they want, but I think that they also have the right to voice their opinion on how the game ought to be played. That's really all Phaedra and others are doing. No policing going on at all.

PostPosted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 10:58 pm
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Bluefire
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Location: University of Florida

 		Sigh.... Sad
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 27, 2007 10:17 am
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thebruceModerator
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Joined: 16 Aug 2004
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Location: Kitchener, Ontario

 		also note though, the Ocular Effect in-game forums were much the same... the PMs just had to deal with meta-talk, usually by being ignorant and letting the rest of the community encouraged in-game posting, rather than referring to games or args. The problem's been around before, and it can be dealt with well Smile
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 27, 2007 10:44 am
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mapmaker
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Joined: 26 Sep 2005
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Location: Providence, RI, USA

 		Or the PMs could take a different route - while it would be difficult to explain away in-game, they could use a woot-like filter for "ARG" and replace it with other acronyms/phrases. Wink

PostPosted: Fri Apr 27, 2007 12:36 pm
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aninterloper
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Joined: 20 Feb 2007
Posts: 182
rose wrote:
I understand that people mentioning unfiction in an in-game forum might be uncomfortable for unfiction players. My point is that because something feels uncomfortable for us is not a sufficient reason to control, whether by rules, voluntary etiquette, polite forum posts here pointing out the infraction, or however you want to phrase it, what people post on another forum. At most, I think anyone concerned by what a player posts on another forum should politely message them on that forum and talk to them about it. I don't want unfiction players to turn into the ARG police. (I'm not too worried about that happening because I have great confidence in the player community here.)

So how would you suggest the ingame characters cope with a situation where players blatantly refer them to things that they aren't allowed to acknowledge? As has been said, if the character asks "where are you from?" and a player says "We're from unfiction", the natural response would be "I'll go check it out", and it would be a major breakdown in the suspension of disbelief if that were not to happen. (Not that this has happened; we're arguing principles, now, not an actual event.)

Every game has rules; they provide the structure to allow the fun stuff to go on. Some rules are automatic: we can't know the answer to one of the puzzles without solving them first. Some are explicit: we can't hack anyone's servers. Some are just etiquette. In order to play the game, we have to actually play. We can't try to bring things into the game that don't exist in it. It's rude, and when someone does something rude it's appropriate to call them on it. That's not "policing", that's just getting rid of a distraction so you can keep playing.

PostPosted: Fri Apr 27, 2007 1:35 pm
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roseModerator
...and then Magic happens


Joined: 26 Nov 2003
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 		I think that the problem of dealing with someone mentioning unfiction to characters can be handled by the PMs of the game. As I said, I am sure that it has happened before, in several games, and will happen again. I'm sure PPC characters got emails of links to unfiction, I don't recall any being posted but out of 15,000 emails I'm sure it happened. As mentioned repeatedly, ilovebees was full of unfiction references.

None of these mentions ruined any game. The PMs can handle this in whatever way works best for a character. Even if a character says "oh interesting" or "I'll check it out" it doesn't mean that they will all of a sudden start talking about unfiction in an in-game context. And when a character in ilovebees did link to unfiction, no one blinked an eye...well, not too noticably.

Trying to tell people what to post on other forums is never going to work. And, I think is completely inappropriate. As I mentioned, we barely tell people what to post here. Smile
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 27, 2007 1:43 pm
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djsampson
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aninterloper wrote:

So how would you suggest the ingame characters cope with a situation where players blatantly refer them to things that they aren't allowed to acknowledge? As has been said, if the character asks "where are you from?" and a player says "We're from unfiction", the natural response would be "I'll go check it out", and it would be a major breakdown in the suspension of disbelief if that were not to happen. (Not that this has happened; we're arguing principles, now, not an actual event.)



Character: Where are you from?
Player: UNforums
Character: Never heard of it!

Its as simple as that. There doesn't have to be a big deal made up about something of that sort. Plus a good set of PMs wouldn't set themselves up for such a thing anyway. Why would a player reply UF and not there home town? Not to mention why would a PM ask such a question in the first place?
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 27, 2007 1:51 pm
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