What Do Star Army's Rules Need?

[Wes]

Due to feedback and learning from experience I am working on an updated set of site rules that is supposed to be more clear and easy to understand. I am always listening to what the community wants so I figure I'd ask you all what you'd like to see in the new rules. So if you could write the site's rules what is something you'd include?

 

[FrostJaeger]

I was thinking about this the other day when Wes floated this to me one on one and thought that if the person feels they need to comment on the submission, they can set up a DM with the reviewer and staff. That way the voices can be heard and if their concerns hold water, the reviewer can require that changes be made.

This is not a good idea in my opinion, because it would allow a submitter to silence any criticism of their submission, regardless of how legitimate and valid those criticisms are. It’d be easy, too, because all the submitter would have to do is claim that a commenter is “harassing” them - even if no harassment actually exists - and poof! That commenter’s ability to comment on the submission is gone.

I also don’t think that any sort of “backroom deal” - which is what a DM between a member with concerns about a submission, the reviewer, and a member of staff is - should be permitted in the review process, as, well, that makes the review process more opaque and prone to corruption and bias (as opposed to transparency, which is what the NTSE should always be striving for).

Otherwise, the NTSE would become a loophole for harassers to neg.

Why can’t the submitter just place the harasser on ignore? Doing so would let the harasser say their piece without troubling the submitter - and if the harasser’s posts are in bad faith, the staff and/or the reviewer can deal with the harasser as need be.

Remember we're dealing with problematic people in someone's online life. The harassed is more likely to never submit anything after bad experiences than be a contributing member of setting submissions.

Then the person being harassed needs to talk to Wes and get the issue resolved, probably by having the harasser be banned from commenting in the thread. Censoring anyone and everyone who disagrees with the submitter - which I can practically guarantee will happen should this rule be implemented - is not the answer to a problem that in my opinion doesn’t even exist, as in my nine years here I’ve never seen anyone say they were harassed into not submitting anything to the NTSE. All of the complaints I’ve seen have instead been related to the NTSE’s bureaucratic nature and sluggishness.

We should be uplifting members and supporting them to create, not making them fear the process of such.

I agree, which is why I simply can’t support this - someone who doesn’t receive constructive feedback from their peers during the submission process will in my opinion inevitably craft submissions of a lesser quality then someone who received the aforementioned feedback.

Edit: TL;DR: Censorship is not the answer to a problem that, if it exists, can be solved by the tools members and staff already have at their disposal.

 

[Rizzo]

I did not originally consider Frost’s point here. This could be exploited too, and by removing the “harasser's” point from public view that would be suppressing their argument. As a free speech absolutist I feel it’d be better to have a frustrating conversation with an annoying person than to silence them. They are members of our community and our rights mustn’t trample those of fellow members.

 

[Soban]

So I want to respond to everything here, but I don't have the time right now. However, the following point is important enough that I feel like it needs to be said.

I don't typically reach for the block button, however I do remember one of the few times that I have. I wasn't able to block the person that was harassing me because they were on 'staff' of the site I was RPing on. That wasn't a fun experience, so I think the only person who should be unblockable here is Wes.

 

[Ametheliana]

even if no harassment actually exists

Wes and/or staff have always made this call with justification from the other party. I understand the concern but it shouldn't be something thrown around willy nilly, nor has it been.

 

[Rizzo]

Wes and/or staff have always made this call with justification from the other party. I understand the concern but it shouldn't be something thrown around willy nilly, nor has it been.

Also a good point. The problem I see arising from this is that “harassment” is not a well defined thing. Merriam-Webster seems to cover it well and yet it is still loosely defined. One constant is that harassment annoys the person experiencing it so I’ll base my argument around that.

Suppose I submit my submission, we’ll call it Boondoggle, and Miko really doesn’t like it(picking on you, bro). So he voices his argument against my Boondoggle for REASONS(doesn’t matter what). What determines if his argument is valid? Surely it would be based on the content of his argument alone.

Suppose Miko and I had just the night before gotten into a heated argument about whether Hanako or Yui is hotter and we found a way to throw fists over the internet and EVERYONE ON THE SITE knows we hate each other’s guts now…
As long as his argument about my boondoggle is about the boondoggle it’s still valid.

We are adults here. We have all worked with people we don’t like. We have all seen friends go through rough patches and adversaries become friends. If a person’s argument is based on what the argument is about it will stand on its own merit regardless of their relationship. As an adult the submitter is also expected to have adult levels of self control, and as adults we suffer consequences when we fail to keep our composure. I’ve personally had to answer for my actions on this very site, and Wes has been fair and balanced every time.

In conclusion, NTSE’s mission is not simply to be approachable. It must be completely fair and an open forum to serve the ENTIRE community. It’s bad enough that submissions have had their forums closed when controversy arises. Having to answer for the changes, you want to make to the ENTIRE setting is not “being harassed” and I feel that that is what this rule would be used for.

We’re only human and it is a known fact that a multitude of diverse opinions yield the most educated results. Sometimes those diverse opinions clash, and that is something all societies have needed to cope with throughout history. Anything that compromises NTSE’s fair application of the rules we’ve all submitted to and the openness in which it operates is inherently bad for the community as a whole. Odds are if somebody is genuinely harassing another member, they are probably about to get banned. However, if it is such a big problem, it might be better to have somebody more comfortable with criticism submit the article on their behalf and manage the process. In this way, we can have the best of both worlds. The submitter is not harassed, “harassed”, or otherwise made uncomfortable.

 

[Wes]

Harassment is dealt with as an OOC safety issue and OOC safety issues always override concerns about the RP. That's just the way it's got to be. It is more important for a member to be safe than it is for someone to be able to comment on a setting submission.

 

[Rizzo]

Not to be argumentative, but could you define ‘safe’? I’ve seen it used.. loosely on occasion and want to make sure I’m understanding correctly.

 

[Wes]

Conduct is considered unsafe when it is severe or pervasive enough that it has the effect of:

• Unreasonably interfering with another's players ability to enjoy or access Star Army
• Creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive environment on Star Army
• Makes a member concerned for their personal safety or health

Here's the WIP rules page:

• Revised Rules for Star Army on Star Army Space Roleplay

IMPORTANT: I haven't added the suggestions from this thread or your related DMs yet, but should be able to do it soon.

Presented as-is for feedback but I need to get some rest.

 

[raz]

Saw my name in the OOC credits and realized this includes stuff from the last thread on this topic. Linked for perspective because this is essentially a continued discussion.

That's cool. It's a cleaner page and seems more digestible than the current iteration based on a first readthrough.

 

[Rizzo]

Conduct is considered unsafe when it is severe or pervasive enough that it has the effect of:

• Unreasonably interfering with another's players ability to enjoy or access Star Army
• Creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive environment on Star Army
• Makes a member concerned for their personal safety or health

I appreciate having this definition to work with, though it worries me still because this could still be just anything that the other member finds frustrating or annoying. THIS is what I was going through in the past and I got no protection, so I can see you wanting that fixed. I gave this a lot of thought so if you read it all, I genuinely appreciate that. I feel like I’m kind of in the middle on this topic, but I’d rather be the one to point out the potential abuses rather than us find them in the wild.

The Example:
Miko pointing out the issues in my article is interfering with my ability to enjoy or access Star Army! It upsets me to have negative feedback and I find it intimidating, hostile, and offensive!
Oh my anxiety, I’m stressing so much I’m concerned for my health! Miko scares me so much I’m concerned for my safety!

Obviously this is exaggerated but you can see the way these arguments can be made. I know that feeling of having members treat me with hostility, it sucks, but I’m one in a group of 200 and it’s uncommon on SARP to see that happen we need the rules to apply evenly and using outlier cases is dicey. Further, sometimes we have members loose their minds because they don’t like particular feedback on their Boondoggle, but the submitter IS the one proposing the setting wide change that might affect the supposed harasser!

Harassment is dealt with as an OOC safety issue and OOC safety issues always override concerns about the RP. That's just the way it's got to be. It is more important for a member to be safe than it is for someone to be able to comment on a setting submission.

I wanted to address this only with the concept of safety in mind. We live in a world where certain people use certain words as a veil for two-faced agendas, a nice way to say that people lie all the time. You can’t change human nature. The health and safety of people isn’t something we can really control and I had a guy claim a ‘panic attack’ to bully me off a discord thread before, as if the concept of walking away from his screen wasn’t an option. He wanted to make a fighter to surpass mine and I pointed out some things his would need to have to do that. Helping him build a submission better than mine caused a panic attack?.. yeah, sure, my wife is prone to panic attacks so I know what those actually look like. Even so I was the bad guy because he claimed HEALTH.

These are some potential abuses I foresee. I only ask you consider them so that when you make the changes you choose they are not made a mockery of by some idiot with an agenda. I agree with a lot of what both Ame and Frost say, and there’s probably a happy compromise to be had. As long as the NTSE remains of place open to the public and fair for all I will be happy as a clam with whatever you choose.

 

[Arbitrated]

This is less related to new rules, and more focused on setting development: I think that we should try to minimize "grandfathering" with rules whenever possible. If something is being left in violation of restrictions to the setting (weapon counts for starships, speed restrictions, restrictions on certain technologies, et cetera), that can cause confusion if somebody wanted to make a similar addition to SARP that is, for lack of a better term, "worse" due to be compliant to rules.

If nothing else, it would also make sure that older or "backwater" setting articles could get some TLC - I've seen several old starship weapon articles that rely on DRv2! That's like, ten years ago OOC! Plus the relevant articles tend to be stub-ish due to the era they were made in.

 

[Soban]

Ok, so like I said, I have thoughts about the rules that we need. Or at least on what other people have said.

In terms of my original thoughts other than what I've already posted, I really have one. I was discussing a banning with someone and they pointed something out to me. This isn't an exact quote, but it gets the gist across. "Listen, I know you were JerkPlayer's friend. Your on their side, that's understandable. However, you have to understand what it looks like to someone, like me who is on the outside. It looked like they were harassing OtherPlayer. You don't see that because you only see their good side." Here on SARP, we have basically a policy that we don't make any sort of official statement on why players have been banned. They are gone and we don't talk about them. That's a completely understandable policy. However, I think that policy has... turned rotten on us.

Over my time here, I've seen my fair share of people get banned from SARP. Some permanently, some not so permanently. Almost every time, I've either gotten one side or the other on it. An undercurrent of it has been that the process seems unfair and opaque. I have to confess that I don't really always understand the reasoning. I feel that this has led, fairly or not, to a distrust of such decisions. I'm also not sure it's helped by the fact that we put off conflict until there will be a resolution that will result in bad feelings on all sides. To quote Dr. King, "Peace Is Not Merely the Absence of Tension; It Is the Presence of Justice." The continued conflicts and tension here has perhaps been fueled by the perceved lack of justice.

On one hand, I think I understand why we have the policy we do. Not talking about why people have been banned means that the immediate and obvious conflicts are avoided. On the other, I've seen how the current policy fosters festering resentment. Therefore, I think we should have more clarity with what evidence and why people are banned in the future.

There should be a part of the rules that encourages people to block each other if they cannot maintain civil conduct with each other over the long term.

We're not in real life where someone can just leave the room if they don't like another person. We have to share this space together and I think it's perfectly alright for the people that just don't get along to not have a thing to do with one another.

I like the idea that we can block people who we can't be civil with. If we implemented robust blocking, I think that it would have helped with the situations that Ame brings up. I agree with this idea and it should extend to anyone on the site, except for Wes.

Otherwise, the NTSE would become a loophole for harassers to neg.

Why can’t the submitter just place the harasser on ignore?

A good argument for robust ignoring.

Additionally, I think we should reinstate to requirement for new members to have some form of roleplay within the site before they can start developing "independent" things on the wiki (full species, factions, technologies, etc.).

I'm in favor of keeping the 3 month restriction on major setting additions from newbies.

I agree, and I think 3 months is fair.

Char's massive list of things.

Too many things. I generally agree, but I'll hit on a couple of highlights below.

There shouldn't be rules for thee and not for me and should be equal across the board regardless of faction or submitter.

I agree, while there might be factions who use a lower tech aesthetic and perhaps a few 'signature' technologies. In general, the top tech level of the setting should be available across the board. Blame it on the Kuvexians loosing hold of their technology or something.

We should be encouraging setting-creators to create things in a faction without 10-pages of arguments derailing it and need to revise the rules to protect topics instead of them always getting locked.

I agree, unless the technology is a hard no, then we should focus on constructive comments. I know that I avoid the NTSE unless I feel I absolutely have to because whatever I do never seems good enough.

We need to revise rules towards encouraging sub-factions again and if people want to make new factions have them temporarily be a sub-faction of an existing faction.

I agree completely, sub-factions are the future I think. Every new faction should be a part of a existing faction for a while before spinning off to be its own thing.

If a player puts their PC in a situation where violence is obviously an inevitability or has a jousting of words with a dangerous PC that turns violent they should not be able to just leave!

I disagree, we are writing fiction not simulating a gritty reality. Our PCs are for the most part heroic character who should have plot armor. If someone wants to take that off, it's fine, but they should never be forced to.

1. Clear guidelines for child, childlike or characters appearing to be childlike. This includes behavior, physical appearance, mannerisms, and who's allowed or should be allowed to play them in this adult setting. 2. Guidelines for discord on childish behavior, such as actions indicative or appearing to be indicative of someone potentially underage.

I agree here, even if someone is 'really 800 years old trust me bro' but looks/acts like a child should be treated like one.

Guidelines on when role-playing in a non roleplay area should be permissible, IE: the Discord server. Ideally it shouldn't be utilized unless a roleplay channel is created. If enough people do wish to partake in or view this type of activity I would suggest the addition of an in character/roleplay section of the discord.

I'm not sure if this is a problem. However, I do understand Wes wanting to put all of our roleplay on a place where it is persistent and in our control.

...or make a unique "Random Alien" character from an unspecified and unnamed alien species. Introducing a new species is done only through the Setting Submissions process.

Making a "Random Alien" is kinda creating a new species.

I was thinking about this the other day when Wes floated this to me one on one and thought that if the person feels they need to comment on the submission, they can set up a DM with the reviewer and staff. That way the voices can be heard and if their concerns hold water, the reviewer can require that changes be made.

I feel like that this would make it needlessly opaque and not allow a submitter to respond to criticism. I think our current relatively clear submission process is better than a opaque one.

“harassment” is not a well defined thing.

it worries me still because this could still be just anything that the other member finds frustrating or annoying.

I wanted to address this only with the concept of safety in mind. We live in a world where certain people use certain words as a veil for two-faced agendas, a nice way to say that people lie all the time. You can’t change human nature. The health and safety of people isn’t something we can really control and I had a guy claim a ‘panic attack’ to bully me off a discord thread before, as if the concept of walking away from his screen wasn’t an option. He wanted to make a fighter to surpass mine and I pointed out some things his would need to have to do that. Helping him build a submission better than mine caused a panic attack?.. yeah, sure, my wife is prone to panic attacks so I know what those actually look like. Even so I was the bad guy because he claimed HEALTH.

This is a problem. it being so loose allows people to use a wounded gazelle gambit to get their way. We should strive to be clear, transparent, and impartial about how our rules are enforced.

This is less related to new rules, and more focused on setting development: I think that we should try to minimize "grandfathering" with rules whenever possible. If something is being left in violation of restrictions to the setting (weapon counts for starships, speed restrictions, restrictions on certain technologies, et cetera), that can cause confusion if somebody wanted to make a similar addition to SARP that is, for lack of a better term, "worse" due to be compliant to rules.

I agree here. I think if something old is out of line, we should put some TLC into it to bring it into compliance with current standards or reconsider our current standards.

 

[Rizzo]

You make some good points, but one I think requires an argument.

I disagree, we are writing fiction not simulating a gritty reality. Our PCs are for the most part heroic character who should have plot armor. If someone wants to take that off, it's fine, but they should never be forced to.

Kaiyo Simulation Cup 2022
Resurgence Simulation Cup 2022
Countless more Sim Cups from Eucharis to Astral Reverie.

Sorry, what did you say? I can’t hear you over the sound of our award-winning RP website. Some thing about not simulating?

Our community is on another level, we don’t really need plot armor here. We are just naturally THAT GOOD. Also, there’s a very good reason why characters should be committed to the fallout of their actions. A common RP situation that I have seen is a disruptive jousting of words between characters, each writer, genuinely believing that their character is better, tougher, stronger. Having Metta rules that do not allow the other character to just punch him in the face creates the opportunity for players to be weenies towards each other without having to consider whether the dangerous person they are pissing off might try to punch them in the face for hurting their feelings!

Additionally, SARP is a gritty setting. Don’t believe me? Just read the NMX and Nepleslian articles. Even Yamatai has done a lot of very harsh and gritty things. Surely no one thinks that the Rikugun are a bunch of cheerleaders. Some might say that this setting isn’t post apocalyptic and therefore is not gritty. Just ask that to the people who are on Glimmergold or the freespacers!
Nah, SARP is better off without meta rules. I know common sense is the least common of all senses, but there’s only one way to get it and that’s by experience. Charging a machine gun is bad for your health, hugging a Mishu shouldn’t require a surgeon general warning to know it’s a bad idea.
I have confidence in my community to know what it is and isn’t a bad idea in the setting we built together.

EDIT: can’t believe anyone would downvote a decade of SARP excellence but I guess that’s democracy for you. I’ll quote this when I win us a simulation award.

 

[Alex Hart]

Kaiyo Simulation Cup 2022
Resurgence Simulation Cup 2022
Countless more Sim Cups from Eucharis to Astral Reverie.

Sorry, what did you say? I can’t hear you over the sound of our award-winning RP website. Some thing about not simulating?

Our community is on another level, we don’t really need plot armor here. We are just naturally THAT GOOD. Also, there’s a very good reason why characters should be committed to the fallout of their actions. A common RP situation that I have seen is a disruptive jousting of words between characters, each writer, genuinely believing that their character is better, tougher, stronger. Having Metta rules that do not allow the other character to just punch him in the face creates the opportunity for players to be weenies towards each other without having to consider whether the dangerous person they are pissing off might try to punch them in the face for hurting their feelings!

Additionally, SARP is a gritty setting. Don’t believe me? Just read the NMX and Nepleslian articles. Even Yamatai has done a lot of very harsh and gritty things. Surely no one thinks that the Rikugun are a bunch of cheerleaders. Some might say that this setting isn’t post apocalyptic and therefore is not gritty. Just ask that to the people who are on Glimmergold or the freespacers!
Nah, SARP is better off without meta rules. I know common sense is the least common of all senses, but there’s only one way to get it and that’s by experience. Charging a machine gun is bad for your health, hugging a Mishu shouldn’t require a surgeon general warning to know it’s a bad idea.
I have confidence in my community to know what it is and isn’t a bad idea in the setting we built together.

EDIT: can’t believe anyone would downvote a decade of SARP excellence but I guess that’s democracy for you. I’ll quote this when I win us a simulation award.

Fundamentally, I disagree that SARP is a particularly simulationist community. "Simming" is a term from Star Trek RPs, whereas simulationist is a term to describe game systems that attempt maximum verisimilitude/detail. An example of a game like this might be Battletech or Attack Vector: Tactical. An RPG example would perhaps be Mekton. SARP, with perhaps the standout example of @Charmaylarg Dufrain's plots, tends to tell stories about heroic individuals overcoming all odds and being amazing, because they're just that good, just that lucky, or some other factor. It isn't a particularly gritty setting, regardless of whether or not distasteful actions are taken.

SARP has moved further and further away from simulationism and wargamey-ness since moving from DRv2 to DRv3 years ago, and I think it's for the best since it gives GMs much more flexibility in how they want to handle combat in their plots. Further, there's been little to no desire amongst the community to run PVP type things, which is what this combat system seems to be for.

So on a basic level, SARP's moved away from simulationism and PVP, I don't see the real need for for anything beyond a neutral adjudicator (The GM) for any kind of PVP scenario. However, were we to want one, I think that the system that you've put together definitely needs some more time in the oven. The mechanics are somewhat interesting, but I think that the system could probably use some work (I have a basic blueprint for dicepool systems that I can share with you in DMs some time so as to not clog up the thread)

 

[Ametheliana]

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You chose perhaps the best and worst examples for your point. In the first, two girls talk. In the second, an NPC grabs a gun and shoots herself. It's one of the grittiest representations on the site as a whole, bar none.

But imagine if someone had opted into PvP to take that gun. Imagine if a PC had pulled it away from her because of dice rolls and Mia hadn't done what she did. It would have taken the power of that story out of Wes' hands, too, and would have been up in the air in a way nobody could control or handle. It would be a lot less compelling story.

I prefer the story that Wes told, not the one up to the dice. You keep trying to convince the site to use PvP combat rules when most GMs either don't opt for that or, when they do, they have an affixed outcome in mind. I know you had a bad experience you want to avoid, but you're in the minority as having had one of those so I think people just don't want to adopt it into their plot. What they DO want is a GM that will make their plot center on this. I can't wait for you to do so. Have a parasite infect an ally and start the PvP combat rules you made. Have two allies need to fight one another as part of an alien culture's initation rite before you can talk to them. Have one ally mind boggled thinking the other person isn't actually who they are but an enemy. The limits are endless within your own plot and people will flock to it for its uniqueness and for your passion behind the project. But I do think if you're still trying to convince every person here it's something they should take up, you're wasting your energy (I say this respectfully—put your energy where it matters, IC!)

 

[Rizzo]

A good point @Ametheliana, though I think some confusion is going on with my quote:
“If a player puts their PC in a situation where violence is obviously an inevitability or has a jousting of words with a dangerous PC that turns violent they should not be able to just leave!”

This was not specifically meant to be a call to the Optional Combat System but rather a clarification to Rule 7. The OCS is meant to be a tool for the GM, not to replace the GM outright!

The point I intended to make regarding Rule 7 is that it can abused by players AGAINST the GM or fellow players when the problem player commits to a foolish action, realizes the bad situation they are in, then tries to get out Scott-free by claiming they are “uncomfortable” with the situation.

Clarification to Rule 7 is meant to preserve the original intention of the rule and restore power to the GM in a bad situation where this happens by maintaining his / her the right to refuse a retcon and allowing them to treat that PC(who was present in the plot) as an NPC to the next dropping off point.

My combat system on the other hand is if the players wanna rumble and seek glory in battle! I’m sorry I let the two points get conflated and mixed together. Those who choose the OCS most likely are not going to be people abusing Rule 7. We go hard