RE: Community & Mutual Respect

[Trupiano]

3 hours ago, Smilesville said:

Harassment reports. My earnest belief is that this is a realm in which we have to tread very carefully. Not only do I worry about the inevitable over-extension of a small group of people handling such reports for a server with so many players daily, I believe this is a misdiagnosis of the core issue. Fabricated evidence is also a potential concern - firsthand, I know how easy it is to bring down a severe punishment on someone without affording them the chance to defend themselves on the basis of an altered screenshot. We should definitely not tolerate harassment in the community, but I fear a hardline approach coupled with the volume of reports will mean that investigative nuance is lost - and when people are wrongly punished, toxicity naturally follows.

My issue with this is it overcomplicates the issue. Harassment takes place on the forums and discord, the simple solution is to start handing out warning points for inappropriate behavior. I can be an asshole (Or so I've been told 🙂) and I can admit I've crossed the line into toxicity every once and awhile but I'm not a raging lunatic. When I see the line, I don't intentionally try to step over it but that line needs to be clear and it needs to be enforced.

 

That being said, this all kinda seems like lip service considering Nervous has actively participates in shitting on his own staff team with IFC in the past 🤡.

[Illusory]

Every single argument in the past couple weeks on the forums has essentially boiled down to:

 

 

 

[DasFroggy]

Quote

We ended up having some niche roleplayers targeted for what they like doing, and while many of us do not necessarely understand all niche of roleplays, nothing forces us to participate in that roleplay so we don't need to spread hate or insult them.

Last I checked, someone can point a gun and force me to fully participate in events of their choosing regardless of whether I want to participate or not. The bolded is quite far from the truth.

 

As someone else pointed out, addressing the toxicity is addressing only a symptom. Banning rape does nothing to address the circumstances that made it possible, and uninformed parties will still be at risk of rape roleplay regardless of the ban.

[EffPee]

6 minutes ago, DasFroggy said:

Last I checked, someone can point a gun and force me to fully participate in events of their choosing regardless of whether I want to participate or not. The bolded is quite far from the truth.

 

As someone else pointed out, addressing the toxicity is addressing only a symptom. Banning rape does nothing to address the circumstances that made it possible, and uninformed parties will still be at risk of rape roleplay regardless of the ban.

He’s talking about erp bro

[DasFroggy]

3 minutes ago, EffPee said:

He’s talking about erp bro

Certainly, though banning the symptom does not address the cause.

[EffPee]

Just now, DasFroggy said:

Certainly, though banning the symptom does not address the cause.

That’s the point.

[Paenymion]

I think part of the problem is that a sizeable portion of the playerbase here are simply grizzled, grumpy, burnt-out veterans from old SAMP communities. While for some, GTAW is new and fresh, for these people it is not.  It's a continuation of the OOC rivalries (faction and personal) that have grown and festered in other communities, over many years.  Some "zero tolerance" would help root out the toxic people and stop it spreading.  Nobody should be above a ban, even if they are highly respected and have run faction X, Y and Z since 2008 or whatever.

[Smilesville]

4 hours ago, Henning said:

My issue with this is it overcomplicates the issue. Harassment takes place on the forums and discord, the simple solution is to start handing out warning points for inappropriate behavior. I can be an asshole (Or so I've been told 🙂) and I can admit I've crossed the line into toxicity every once and awhile but I'm not a raging lunatic. When I see the line, I don't intentionally try to step over it but that line needs to be clear and it needs to be enforced.

 

That being said, this all kinda seems like lip service considering Nervous has actively participates in shitting on his own staff team with IFC in the past 🤡.

I prefer overcomplication to oversimplification, frankly. If we're able to root out instances of harassment for which we have logs to verify them (the forums and GTAW discord are two such mediums) that's well and good - but that's not what I'm talking about here. There have been instances in the past where individuals have been banned over private discord messages - and that's entirely inappropriate for the reasons I mentioned.

 

One such reason is: you didn't write this. But there it is. I made this in the span of two minutes. You absolutely cannot trust screenshots relying on data you cannot independently verify - especially without offering the accused a chance to rebut the accusation. If it sounds like I'm mentioning a specific incident, it's because I am.

 

I'm glad we agree that we need clearly defined lines, though - because I certainly believe you've crossed that line several times. You probably think the same of me. And that's precisely why we need objective definitions and standards - if only to have a clear point at which we can affirm we need to reign ourselves and our strong opinions in.

 

Whether the post is consistent with Nervous' personal behavior or not, I won't pass up an opportunity to applaud and emphasize a good point when I see it (or call out a bad point when I see it, such as the inappropriate leniency with regards to the latest massive cheating outbreak.) I think it's important for everyone to take a step back and recognize we're not at 100% all the time. Managing a team is stressful, a team of volunteers more so - I can certainly understand those stressors momentarily getting the better of someone and prompting a rant.

Edited June 15, 2021 by Smilesville

[Beholder]

Spoiler

 

Listen here, Longboy.

 

The harassment report system isn't bullet proof, Nervous is one person and his time and patience is definitely limited but it's really a measure of how far he is willing to go to combat the toxicity in this city. There's legitimate concern for forged reports of harassment but harassment usually means that it's consistent and recurring, rather than just a few random, troll messages. I'm sure Nervous is trying to set up a direct path between players and him so players feel like if another player is crossing the line, that staff can and will do something about it. This solution probably isn't long term or even permanent by any means, but it's almost like a symbol of Nervous' hope for this community. 

 

The thread locking issue is... I don't even know. Different staff will lock different threads for different reasons. It can be annoying but I think having some sort hierarchy for forum moderators can help players reach out to staff and get their threads re-opened, it's happened before.

 

The biggest thing I wanted to touch up on his the "zero tolerance for toxicity". Naturally people view what's "Toxic" differently but I feel most people can point out when somebody has gone too far. As long as we can recognize that and call people out on that, we as a community should be fine. That's how we can combat toxicity, standing up for others, calling out other's crap when they go too far, etc. From what I've seen, when certain community members are toxic they're often supported, encouraged, or reassured that their toxic attitude is justified and acceptable. So we can break that that calling people out and telling them that how they treat somebody else isn't cool, to let it go, and remind them that it's just a game. Illegal and Legal Roleplayers will never gather in perfect harmony, it's just against the rules honestly. Not to say that we can't at least improve the current relations between these two spectrums of the community, but you know. Currently, Legal Roleplayers see Illegal Roleplayers as just underdeveloped, GTA-Online deathmatchers while Illegal Roleplayers see Legal Roleplayers as NPCs and Sims enthusiasts.

 

I don't think there's a real way to "bridge the divide" here. Yeah it'd be cool but that's honestly just not gonna happen. The way we have to approach this is just making sure people carry themselves better. You can dislike whatever spectrum you want, illegal or legal, but that doesn't give you the right to discredit them and harass them. I don't ever see them getting along but I at least see people keeping their toxic bullshit to themselves and not publicly shaming, embarrassing, or targeting people.

 

TL;DR Legal/Illegal will never live in harmony. But I've always said it and I'll keep saying it, hold people accountable when they're toxic, awful community members and hold them to the standard you want to see in the community. Don't strive for a perfect community, just do what you can to improve it personally.

[Smilesville]

1 hour ago, Beholder said:

Listen here, Longboy.

 

The harassment report system isn't bullet proof, Nervous is one person and his time and patience is definitely limited but it's really a measure of how far he is willing to go to combat the toxicity in this city.

[...]

I don't think there's a real way to "bridge the divide" here. Yeah it'd be cool but that's honestly just not gonna happen. The way we have to approach this is just making sure people carry themselves better. [...] I don't ever see them getting along but I at least see people keeping their toxic bullshit to themselves and not publicly shaming, embarrassing, or targeting people.

[...]

Don't strive for a perfect community, just do what you can to improve it personally.

Such a bully. 😔

 

My hope with the first post was to bring to light the trouble that could come along with excessive zeal in this regard - even putting aside the matter of falsified reports, a lack of a meticulously outlined standard has the potential to stir up more toxicity than a zero tolerance policy would solve. I'm not opposed to the idea that we can approach him to resolve issues with harassment, but I've witnessed initiatives like this breed toxicity on this server before. It can be immensely helpful if done correctly, it's true - and if my criticism helps refine that system even a little, I'll be happy.

 

Bridging the divide between players would involve making changes to the server and its rules that some people would undoubtedly be very unhappy with at first, in my opinion. I do believe it's possible, it's just a matter of aligning everyone's OOC incentives in the same direction - but I'd prefer to leave that discussion to another thread or seventy.

 

Striving for perfection is fine, but we have to temper that desire with the knowledge that we'll never achieve it. If we're capable of something close to it, however (and we are,) I think it'd be worth the effort of creating.

Edited June 15, 2021 by Smilesville