unforum

[MageSteff]

Opt-in Lists

[NashCarey]

Please don't Assume

[Varin]

[StercusMaximus]

Personally, I'd gladly allow my info to be shared with other PM's.....

[imbri]

Well, like Nash sort of said, you can't just go handing over people's info without their permission. Well, you could, but not if you had any sort of privacy policies that said otherwise.

It's an interesting idea, but there are a lot of considerations beyond the initial privacy. For example, is it just grassroots or would it also be used for commercial or promotional purposes? How would the initial PMs know that the contact info would be used just for a game? How much info does the initial PM give (just email? addresses? ph #s? names? ip and other computer info? etc etc) and do they allow players to select which info to give? Can the new owner do whatever they so choose with my info as the list was given or sold and I've not agreed to any sort of privacy policy?

It seems to me that it's opening a whole big can o' worms. That doesn't mean that I'm opposed to the idea, but I can't imagine that I'd give my permission for people to randomly hand out my info to someone without my knowing who that someone is or exactly what info they're giving away and what will be done with it.

-imbri

[Varin]

[konamouse]

I loved finding the "Push, NV" websites from the tv show.
Like finding Easter Eggs.

Newspaper articles or webzine articles are another way to suggest a rabbit hole. How many hits did that one site get after it was mentioned on "24" (and boy did those producers blow a wonderful opportunity to perpeptuate something through the upcoming long hiatus since the show won't restart until Jan 2005).

We could tell you how much time Dia & I spent going over the marquee poster and watching the end credits for "Paycheck", but then we'd have to shoot you.

[LazarusLong]

Opt-in lists are good, but the way I've had to set my spam filters has unfortunately increased the possibility that any blind mailing will be shuffled off into the bit bucket. I think the PM's have to get a little more creative in how they promote their initial contacts.

I'd prefer to receive information from one of the ARG sites when a game goes live. That way I know what I'm getting into with no false alarms. Whether the game has a meta site, like CTW, or is closed curtain, like MU, the discovery of the rabbit hole is the key. From there, as Sherlock Holmes said, "The game's afoot!"

And I also wish I had a lot more time on my hands to get fully involved in the games, but RL has a nasty tendency to interfere.

[catherwood]

Ideally, I would stumble upon the rabbit hole or easter egg myself, but I usually hear about such things from other people. Word of mouth is great, and if we're all in chat at the moment one of us discovers a trail, then we all share in the excitement. I voted for "website" because seeing a fellow player post what they've found is in the same grass roots vein.

Reading about a trail -- and I do mean the discovery of a hidden trail, not a pre-game announcement -- needs to happen very quickly. If an ARGN newsletter wanted to issue a special edition email blast, that's fine. But having a regularly scheduled monthly newsletter try to report on an emerging game would either be too early (shameless advertising to generate buzz) or too late (since we'd already be disecting the game in chat).

An opt-in for future games cannot happen at the initial sign-up for a current game, for a few reasons. How do I know at the start of a game whether or not I will enjoy it enough to want more of the same? Perhaps my email address will change -- or I will want a separate email box for each game I play. And bottom line for me, any in-game sign-up just blows the illusion of the world by acknowledging itself as a game at all. If i'm signing up for the Paranormal Journal newsletter (an in-game site from MU) then that is all I expect to receive at that email address, so giving me any check box at that point is a jarring non-sequitor.

[i'm thinking of making my sig say "Don't build a game; build a world."]

[BrianEnigma]

I rather like "a combination of the above." Being a privacy zealot, I tend to cringe at handing out personal information, even moreso when it gets shared/pooled/aggregated. To keep the illusion real--blur the lines between real-reality and alternate-reality--I am a big, big, big fan of simply stumbling down a rabbit hole. As Catherwood stated, signup/promotion websites for an ARG are a bit of a reality/curtain breaker for me, too. There are plenty of ways to collect information and keep it themed as an in-game site (newsletters, beta signups, donation pages, etc).

That being said, there are plenty of people out there who are not in chat all the time (or even once a week) and not constantly checking the Unforums for new messages. Stumbling down a rabbit hole does not work for this segment of the community. That's where something like a special issue of the ARGN newsletter can come into play. The people stumbling into the rabbit hole catch all the initial excitement in realtime. Older ARG players who may have stepped away from the scene for whatever reason (maybe there was a lull between games or the current ones do not hold their interest) can get informed and still hop in pretty early. All of the opt-in/opt-out legal stuff is covered by the fact that the newsletter is official. All of the reality-buster stuff is covered because ARGN is out-of-game and simply reports facts ("Hey, this unusual website was found. Maybe it's a new ARG?")

I tend to cringe at the whole PM-run opt-in list thing, unless it can be done in a new and interesting way. For instance, what if the list had email and snail mail addresses, and thirty people were randomly (...or not so randomly...) selected to receive something interesting and unusual in the mail (a CD, a coded message, a puzzle piece, a smooth skipping stone...I don't know...something, anything, out of the ordinary that would catch their attention and lead in to the game). Still, it seems to me that such a list would need to be kept by a central authority (Unfiction or CD, for instance) instead of passed from PM to PM to PM. While this might solve certain privacy issues (like being able to switch from opt'ed-in to opt'ed-out quickly and easily) as well as allowing you to change your contact information, it unfortunately leads to logistic questions including: how does a PM go about requesting the list and what makes a PM worthy of receiving the information (I would hate for a spammer to pose as a newbe PM and harvest the list, for instance, or have an ARG community member with a grudge obtain private info about everyone).

[vpisteve]

See my post here, rather than repeating myself.

[addlepated]

Didn't Collective Detective try something along these lines with player permission slips, which they would then provide (maybe for a fee?) to PMs wishing to start up a new game?

Personally, if someone arbitrarily handed out my information to another person without my express consent, I would be pretty peeved. With the recent situation of the unstable BTS player, doubly peeved. When I have control over who gets my information and who doesn't, I can see where my details are going and who gets them. Further on down the road, if that person hands off my info to someone who ends up turning psycho, it could put me and my family (and likely the psycho, should he or she show up at my door) at risk.

To take it a notch further: when I buy items via mail order, I use a name that includes the business name of where I'm ordering from. I placed an order from Plow and Hearth about a year ago, and had them send it to "PH Smith". It's interesting to see how many catalogs I now receive in that name, and that fact makes me less likely to want to purchase anything from Plow and Hearth again.

I am not a commodity, I am a free man!

[Caterpillar]

[Varin]

[Gupfee]

How come there isn't a "None of the above" option in the poll?