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Protesting, a good way to make IC change?


Mistery14

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does it matter? they're interesting and break up the general stale meta of the server

 

but the answer to your question is more it depends on what the goal is, most things on this server are oocly controlled so if you're protesting don't really expect much to change. tbh it really is a shame how political roleplay can be so meaningless and oocly constrained that people would actually ask this question lmao

Edited by books
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1 hour ago, Goonbag said:

There is a fully functioning (somewhat) Government. Make use of it. Lobby your issues to government and make them bring upon IC change as opposed to lobbying OOC.

 

or atleast do both. 

kinda

 

its very hard to ever make change with the state government being as disconnected as it currently is. Elections don’t exist, there’s no reason for Senators to be held accountable when they have no major constituents and I’ve never seen a successful protest.

 

The original protest/riot back in 2020 was the peak of what we’re going to get, every other attempt has mostly been an imitation unfortunately. 

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1 hour ago, books said:

does it matter? they're interesting and break up the general stale meta of the server

 

but the answer to your question is more it depends on what the goal is, most things on this server are oocly controlled so if you're protesting don't really expect much to change. tbh it really is a shame how political roleplay can be so meaningless and oocly constrained that people would actually ask this question lmao

 

I would agree with one point and disagree with others. Firstly, the riots that occur do not do the roleplay scene any good when they turn the way they do. Like others have mentioned, protests become an excuse for people to go crazy, which is unfortunate if there's a crowd of people wanting to form up ICly to protest something, because a peaceful protest (consistently) will apply pressure to the government. However, when it turns violent, you can bet that it would only push the government further away from any sympathy. I don't think it's a good break up of the 'general stale meta' of the server when it's unreasonably violent.

 

What I do agree with is topics like crime; the truth is that the IC government probably can't do much about crime. These matters are handled on an OOC basis by LFM and other admins who try to keep a balance of legal and illegal roleplay. Otherwise, the government would pass bills that allow for more efficient policing tactics and people would be getting locked up left and right for long sentences.

 

 

22 minutes ago, KinnyWynny said:

kinda

 

its very hard to ever make change with the state government being as disconnected as it currently is. Elections don’t exist, there’s no reason for Senators to be held accountable when they have no major constituents and I’ve never seen a successful protest.

 

The original protest/riot back in 2020 was the peak of what we’re going to get, every other attempt has mostly been an imitation unfortunately. 

 

Everyone tries to make this claim but then again my character's inbox is nearly empty from any constituents. Senators emails are public (join the discord) and so anyone can reach out for any issues, but no one does. We hear this a lot but people never make the effort to get involved. It's very wrong to say that the State government is disconnected as we have held innumerous sessions in-game for people to attend and possibly interact with. Most of the attendees come for fun, which is okay, but the majority of the population do not care about in-character politics.

Edited by Zani
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6 minutes ago, Zani said:

 

I would agree with one point and disagree with others. Firstly, the riots that occur do not do the roleplay scene any good when they turn the way they do. Like others have mentioned, protests become an excuse for people to go crazy, which is unfortunate if there's a crowd of people wanting to form up ICly to protest something, because a peaceful protest (consistently) will apply pressure to the government. However, when it turns violent, you can bet that it would only push the government further away from any sympathy. I don't think it's a good break up of the 'general stale meta' of the server when it's unreasonably violent.

 

What I do agree with is topics like crime; the truth is that the IC government probably can't do much about crime. These matters are handled on an OOC basis by LFM and other admins who try to keep a balance of legal and illegal roleplay. Otherwise, the government would pass bills that allow for more efficient policing tactics and people would be getting locked up left and right for long sentences.

 

 

 

Everyone tries to make this claim but then again my character's inbox is nearly empty from any constituents. Senators emails are public (join the discord) and so anyone can reach out for any issues, but no one does. We hear this a lot but people never make the effort to get involved. It's very wrong to say that the State government is disconnected as we have held innumerous sessions in-game for people to attend and possibly interact with. Most of the attendees come for fun, which is okay, but the majority of the population do not care about in-character politics.

While this is good, as long as I can’t vote for my senator, I have no actual influence on politics, and as such, do not really care what happens with it.

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Unfortunately, the fundamental problem with this lies with server management and they step in OOC and don't let RP flow it's natural cause when there is no good reason to do so.

Any attempt to make political change IC is taken OOC and then a handful of admins make a decision as to whether to 'allow' the RP to happen. There are far too many OOC discussions which are allowed to override / cancel and void perfectly good roleplay.

In short, the admin & management team does not let perfectly acceptable IC roleplay flow it's natural cause because they listen far too much to an OOC vocal minority who complain .

 

As an example, I had strong interest in politics on the server, sponsoring and hosting political events, but since OOC voices are allowed to silence, void and cancel IC actions, the entire process is pointless & now the entire political scene is disappointing because you know that OOC fiats are always going to trump any roleplay you do.

 

The results of this are outstandingly poor. How anyone can look at the fact that in the US, we now live in an Authoritarian state and think it's a good OOC decision, is incredible.

 

It's something we should honestly be somewhat embarrassed about. This isn't a knock on the current gov players, because they too have no say in the matter - all this is forced by the management team and the refusal to hold free and fair democratic elections. It also reduces our 'politicians' to pen pushers when some of the very best roleplay is to be had going out and meeting your voters and trying to persuade them to vote for you.

When should admins intervene?
I firmly believe that if a bill, law or protest goes ahead IC, then the only time the admin team should OOC Void / refuse or cancel such a movement is if such an action would be entirely unrealistic in the modern day USA.


i.e., if a bill was suggested to entirely remove alcohol laws, or drug laws, then of course admins should step in.

 

However, to cancel democratic elections and deny them is extremely poor decision because you are putting OOC decisions ahead of IC roleplay, and that should not happen.

 

If you do not want government to be run by players, then the admin team should assume full control and dismantle the senate as a player faction rather than have us live in an authoritarian state.

 

The USA is a democracy, why can't the admin team let democracy flow?

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To just add - what is the point of a faction or group of players arranging a 50 player led peaceful protest when you know OOC that admins won't allow the protest to have any impact and/or that the current government can just ignore you because they aren't held accountable?

 

In a free and fair democracy, if someone led a large group of players and wanted a certain law / action to take place, then realistically the government players have to at least consider this because if they ignore it, they could very well be voted out of power.

Instead there is no need too, because the senate is not accountable IC to their voters, they're instead accountable to the OOC approval of admins, which completely breaks how a democracy functions & thus makes protests entirely futile.

All of this reduces available political roleplay when allowing a democracy would actually enhance it.

 

Edited by Alyssa McCarthy
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Protests on the server are pretty much dumb and useless for a few reasons


1. People never take their in-character mistakes under their belt. Cops shoot rioters, rioters don't CK. Rioters shoot cops, cops don't CK. Cops shoot people by mistake in the commotion, usually gets voided because nobody can roleplay negative results of anything. It just ends up being a clusterfuck where nothing worthwhile happens and people just use it as an excuse to act like fucking idiots.

2. Nobody ever roleplays any sort of character development as a result of protests/riots. It's always protest, then back to normal the next day. I don't want to suck my own cock, but I was almost killed during the G6 riots last year and got some great long term character development out of it. Why am I in the minority? This is an RP server.

3. Any sort of political change is purely OOC and dictated by LFM and IFM with barely any in-character contribution past "It's been settled OOC, let's roleplay it out in-game now".

 

There's really no point at all.

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Almost never, because you barely have the government infrastructure to respond adequately to protests. There's hardly an executive to speak of, local or state. There have been legislative measures passed in response to IC pressure, but mostly because the politicians felt like it made sense, not that the IC pressure affected them in any real way, since they're constantly undermined.

 

On top of that, people are bad at politics and the demographics of the server are profoundly unrealistic, so it's really hard to have realistic elections or realistic protests anyway. When the overwhelming majority of people involved in a protest against police violence are actually violent gang members, it becomes a caricature, for example.

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